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EPISODE 102: PATRIOTISM IS TERRIFYING
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EPISODE 102: PATRIOTISM IS TERRIFYING
When blind patriotism means bigotry, hatred, violence, and fear, there’s no two ways about it: patriotism is terrifying. Join Matty and Andrew as they skewer nationalism in America and beyond.
HORROR IN THE MOVIES
THE PURGE: ANARCHY and THE PURGE: ELECTION YEAR in one episode will mean you won’t need to revisit this franchise for a good long while.
WHATCHA BEEN WATCHIN’, BITCH?!
Listen in to hear what we’ve been watchin’... bitch!
SLAVE OWNER or FOUNDING FATHER?
Can Andrew guess if these quotes came from a slave owner or a founding father in America? Tune in to find out!
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Support FRIGAY THE 13TH: www.frigay13.com/support
Follow on Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok: @FriGay13
#horrorpodcasts #lgbtqpodcasts #gaypodcast #queerpodcast #horrorpodcast #horrormovies #horrorfilms #horrorcommunity #horrorjunkie #horrorfanatic #horrorobsessed #getslayed #patriot #patriotism #nationalism #godblessamerica #purge #thepurgeelectionyear #thepurgeanarchy #thepurge
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Transcript
Introduction to the Dread Podcast Network
00:00:02
Speaker
Don't touch that dial. You're tuned in to the Dread Podcast Network. And now, a dramatic reading.
Expressions of American Pride
00:00:11
Speaker
I chose Mount Rushmore because to live in a country where you can take an ugly old mountain and put faces on it, faces of great Americans who did so much to make our country super great, well, that makes me Rebecca Lehman, proud to be an American.
00:00:28
Speaker
I'm Lisa Swinson and I am proud to be an American because in a country where Lady Liberty keeps her torch burning bright makes me proud to be an American. The Washington Monument makes me, Leslie Miller, proud to be an American.
00:00:45
Speaker
Living in a country where no matter who you are or where you come from, you can grow up to be something, you can grow up to become whatever you dreamed of makes me, Amber Atkins, proud to be an American. Atomic Power makes me, Maldi Howard, proud to be an Asian American. My Uncle Bill's world's largest ball of twine in Bundy, Minnesota makes me proud I'm American.
00:01:13
Speaker
I kind of misunderstood the assignment. It's episode 102.
Episode 102 and Patriotic Terror
00:01:18
Speaker
Patriotism is terrifying. I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. I'm Marjorie Greene and I approve this message to save America, stop socialism, and stop China.
00:01:41
Speaker
Doubters the doomsters the gloomsters they are going to get it wrong we're
00:02:08
Speaker
I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. Sometimes that is better. This July, have your voice be heard. I purged. I purged. Show your support. I purged because it's my civic duty.
00:02:33
Speaker
for the purge. I purge because staying in is an American organ.
00:02:37
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Friday the 13th Horror Podcast. My name is Matty. And my name is Andrew.
Hosts' Introduction and Humorous Patriotism
00:02:45
Speaker
And if this is your first time with us on Friday the 13th Horror Podcast, we are the podcast that talks about horror. Horror in real life and in the movies from an LGBTQ perspective. And this is the 102nd episode of Friday the 13th Horror Podcast and very happy to be coming back to you.
00:03:04
Speaker
in July of 2023, to talk about something near and dear to the hearts of these two Americans, Patriotism. And if any two people were in the dictionary of photo next to Patriot,
00:03:21
Speaker
It would be us, wouldn't it? It would just be us. Oh, so proud. Andrew and I have taken up a new name, actually, for what we call ourselves. We are the new founding fathers of America. No, no, no, no, I'm joking. You'll hear more about that in our talk later about the Purge films.
The 'Certified Terrifying Corner' Segment
00:03:42
Speaker
Listen, folks, we love you so much, listeners, that we watched not one
00:03:48
Speaker
But two purge films in a row. And we care. We care deep down inside in some countries. That's considered torture. But that's how much we love you. We'll get to that later. Andrew, it's going to be a good show today, tonight or whatever time listening to the show.
00:04:06
Speaker
But first we'll start with the certified Terrifying Corner. So Andrew, I've got two items for you today. The first one, I'll go in reverse order chronologically. The first one is really interesting stuff. It's not really terrifying. It's actually just more fun.
Meta's Threads and Social Media Rivalries
00:04:22
Speaker
Meta, which used to be Facebook, launched a new social media network called Threads. Listen, this is my own personal opinion. It's the only direct competitor of Twitter that is actually solid. This thing is actually taking off. It's a near carbon copy of Twitter if we're really being honest about it. It follows the same sort of formatting.
00:04:47
Speaker
But already it has, I mean, it came out on what, Thursday? We're recording on Sunday, July 9th right now. In the first 24 hours, 30 million people signed up. Within 48 hours, 70 million people signed up. From what I understand, the fastest growing social media network ever, well, no, no, fastest growing app ever was Chat GPT, which came out not that long ago. It had 100 million users in the first month, I believe.
00:05:16
Speaker
Threads will beat that in a weekend, which is wild, absolutely wild. And so, of course, you've got Elon Musk. He's going crazy. He's threatening to sue Meta, all the rest of the shit. And he's doing it because he knows that he has ruined Twitter. He's run it into the fucking ground. And there's a whole new network where people are going to be a lot happier because this one, I don't know, I think this one's going to stick around.
00:05:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because I did see like a I don't know if they're an Elon Musk supporter or like whatever, but they were out there being like, well, he has to charge because he has to make his money back. And I was like, he's the richest person in the entire world. If he suffers a little bit, it's going to be OK. So I don't understand this whole like support of Elon of like, well, he has to do something with it. Well, Twitter was a very viable social media platform for a decade. So not really sure.
00:06:10
Speaker
what you're talking about. Happy to see that something is sticking around because we've seen some other ones kind of like come up and then maybe just fizz law because they didn't have like the manpower behind them or like a big company like and listen, I'm not saying that fucking what's his face over at Facebook is any better. I'm just like
00:06:31
Speaker
There's a good meme going around that's like, I don't want Zook to win. I just want Elon Musk to lose. And that kind of explains a sentiment of, I think, the good majority of people on social media right now. Everyone is just fucking tired of Elon Musk being a fucking weirdo. I mean, think about, and we won't spend too long on this, I promise, but think about the random edict that came out from Twitter just a week and a half ago.
00:06:59
Speaker
where suddenly there were rate limits on how many tweets you could look at. That had literally never been a thing in Twitter's history. And suddenly, for literally no reason at all, it comes out that I think if you're unverified, you could only look at 600 tweets a day. And if you were verified, it might have only been 4,000. They were little amounts for each of them.
00:07:24
Speaker
And think about how you scroll on Twitter. You could look at 600 tweets in seriously three minutes just by scrolling. And it sounds silly, but then you got to think about the businesses that use Twitter to advertise. And I'm not talking about McDonald's. I'm talking about small businesses. Or think about activists that use it to get information out or whatever. What a shitty thing to do. It's another chapter.
00:07:52
Speaker
in how awful he is. And that's, I think, I can speak for myself, that's primarily why I am rooting for threads because we do, I love the idea of a public square, as Elon Musk himself would say, as Jack before him said, but like Twitter can't be that square anymore. It's so angry, it's so awful. No one feels good doing it any longer. So let's try something new, you know?
00:08:20
Speaker
Yeah, it is funny, though, because he put all these like rate limits and everything and put it out there, but none of it worked like it like it would made me so that I could see the Freige like Twitter stream, but we couldn't but we couldn't see our own profile tweets.
00:08:37
Speaker
It didn't work. And then, of course, what does he say to all the critics? He says, oh, I did this so that people would go outside so they would spend time with their families. Like, listen, go fuck yourself, dude. You're a fucking weirdo. Anyways, that's enough of that.
00:08:52
Speaker
On to the next one. Oh, I should say though that Friday, Friday the 13th is on threads. So if you haven't followed us there yet, go do that. It's Friday 13, the same as everything else. So come on along. We've got, we've got like about 700 followers right now, which is cool. So come join us. We're going to be doing the same shit there that you've seen everywhere else. It's just going to be, I don't know, maybe more positive or happier.
Supreme Court Rulings and LGBTQ Rights
00:09:16
Speaker
I don't really know, we'll see. The next one here, much more serious, is the Supreme Court of the United States, SCOTUS, not only rolled back affirmative action, they also ruled for 303 creative in the case of 303 creative versus Alanis.
00:09:34
Speaker
That case is the one about a woman. I forget her name right now, which is fine with me. She runs like a graphic design business in Colorado. She got behind, she got supported by a group called Alliance Defending Freedom and sued the state of Colorado saying that the
00:09:59
Speaker
The rules of anti-discrimination for LGBT people went against her religious rights and that she was being compelled to create websites for gay marriages. It is the most ridiculous legal argument that maybe has ever occurred in the history of American jurisprudence. And here's the main reason why, Andrew.
00:10:23
Speaker
The person that she cites in it, there's an actual guy and he was looking for services for graphic design, he's not even gay. He's not even gay. And there was never any business happening between them. So the case that went through circuit courts, appellate courts, and then all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court justices wasted their time adjudicating, it wasn't even a real case.
00:10:50
Speaker
The big problem here, if you've been living under a rock, let me just tell you what the big problem here is. This ruling now sets up state by state, every single anti-discrimination law that we have worked so hard to get passed in these states is going to get rolled back. And discrimination against LGBT people in terms of public accommodations, right? So going to a movie theater,
00:11:12
Speaker
going to a diner, going to a restaurant, going to a bar. Getting a hotel room. Getting a hotel room. Literally any sort of business that is open to the public, they will be able to say, nope, no gays allowed here. Sorry. It's against my religious beliefs. That is what is about to happen across America. And that's just, it's heinous. It's absolutely heinous. Yeah. Just like something that I've seen going around social media and
00:11:40
Speaker
that I really just like identified with is a quote from Trixie Mattel, drag superstar, essentially, that was like she along the lines of like, do we have separation of church and state or not? Because we coddle Christians so much in this country that I just can't take it anymore. And like, yeah, I get it. Like I listen, if I thought
00:12:07
Speaker
I don't even know. It's really, it's just really difficult to think about because I just know it's just this religion thing needs to stop. Like if you're not going to use it for community and you're not going to use it for getting people to accept and be nice, then don't use it at all because it's not, that's not what God or Jesus or whoever, my hobbit, whoever that you fucking worship.
00:12:32
Speaker
That's not what they meant. Well, you know, it's actually, you know what, this is actually a great way to segue into what we're talking about today because I do think that in America, in America in particular, America does a great job of exporting this to countries around the world. And I'm, you know, we're gonna be careful how we talk about, well, not too careful. I'm just gonna be, I'm actually gonna be pretty blunt about it.
00:12:54
Speaker
I have to be honest. I don't know what else to do. You should be honest. There's no reason why you shouldn't be. What I'm about to say is this, and this goes right along with what you're saying, is that there are real Christians in America. Of course. And this isn't against what you're saying at all. Don't get me wrong. No, no, no.
00:13:15
Speaker
I don't want to be misconstrued. No, you're not. I'm making a point that goes right into what we're talking about today, which is this, American kooky Christians, right? And what I mean by, and I said this phrase for years, because it just makes sense to me, kooky Christians are the evangelicals in America, mainstream evangelicals and non-mainstream evangelicals. So I'm talking about Pentecostals, I'm talking about Baptists, I'm talking about
00:13:42
Speaker
fucking people that speak in tongues and all the other crazy shit. I will say it to anybody. To anybody, you're fucking crazy. You're crazy. Because you conflate patriotism with religion. And for those people, they really do think that God has a special place for America and for America alone.
00:14:04
Speaker
And that is the reason why we have cases like this. It's the reason why we have such shitty laws in America. And it's because of these people. They really do believe that America is a city on a hill and they are patriotic because they conflate the religious part of their lives with living in America.
00:14:22
Speaker
And that is fucked up. From somebody who is a quasi-Christian, like me, who identifies as an Episcopalian, and sort of like a red wine Episcopalian, I've got a really crazy theology that would take a very long time to explain. I don't believe in probably the shit that you're thinking I do by saying that stuff.
00:14:39
Speaker
Like, for me, that's entirely anathema to what I do, right? I would never think about my religious practice, or even if you're not religious, right? Let's say you're spiritual. Let's say you do yoga. Let's say, which is a religious practice, might I add, people? Or if you meditate, or if you do this, or whatever. Like, I would never conflate, and probably, you know, you out there would never conflate,
00:15:03
Speaker
Let's do this yoga pose for America right now. Do you know what I mean? I never say the words God bless America. I would never sing God bless America. If you gave me a million bucks, I wouldn't sing it right now because I think it's honestly, it's insulting to people to do that kind of thing. Because if you say that, then what? It's like God bless no other country.
00:15:26
Speaker
Like, like what is going on with people when they think these things, you know? But because they've just been allowed to run rampant for literally the entire history of America, this is where we end up right now. Yeah. All right. Let's get into it, then. Let's get into it. We're talking about patriotism today. And by patriotism, I'm going by the Merriam Webster definition of patriotism, which is and I want you to I want you to hear these words and I want you to take them in because it's slow and true.
00:15:54
Speaker
Because the first word is love. So the definition of patriotism is love for or devotion to one's country. Nowhere in there are we talking about America. Nowhere in there are, you know, where you live, where we're talking about Ireland. Nowhere in there are we talking about China. Nowhere in there are we talking about Australia. Nowhere like literally you should be proud of where you come from.
00:16:17
Speaker
You should be proud of where you live and where you set up house and where you eat and where you do all these things that you love. But patriotism to me.
00:16:30
Speaker
in my heart of hearts is wanting to welcome people into that world, not keep them out. And I think that's where I struggle with patriotism, is that patriotism, the way that it's been used and weaponized in specifically America, but really kind of all over if you really think about it.
00:16:51
Speaker
is keeping people out, is keeping people being like, oh, we got to protect this thing. It's really special. And it's only ours. And we just, I don't want to, I don't want to give it to anybody else. Yeah. To me, I want to show everyone how great a place can be or how great a place is. That's why we travel. That's why we do things. And to be
00:17:13
Speaker
I don't know. I'm getting off on a little bit of a tangent, but it's really struggling. And this is why I struggle with government and I struggle with a lot of things. It's just trying to understand of like, what do you mean by that? You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, listen, how about this? I was doing a little research and I found a really great essay
00:17:32
Speaker
That is very long. So I'm not going to read the whole thing to you. Trust me, it's like nine pages long. But this is from Emma Goldman. And this is from 1908. And Emma Goldman was a fairly famous anarchist activist in America. And that's when, I mean, you got to think it was 1908. It was before World War I. A lot of things were very different. And there were real anarchists back then. I'm not really sure that there's any right now, although the right would love you to believe
Critiquing Patriotism with Emma Goldman
00:18:01
Speaker
that
00:18:01
Speaker
Antifa is a bunch of anarchists, but they're really not. Anyways, she wrote a little essay called Patriotism, A Menace to Liberty. So I'll read you just a few parts of it to give you an idea of what she was thinking.
00:18:17
Speaker
So she says, what is patriotism? Is it love of one's birthplace, the place of childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly?
00:18:36
Speaker
The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one and eye should be, piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands?
00:18:56
Speaker
or the place where we would sit at mother's knee enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests. In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?
00:19:15
Speaker
If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.
00:19:39
Speaker
What then is patriotism? Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels, said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesome murderers, a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses.
00:20:05
Speaker
a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average working man.
00:20:11
Speaker
Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world, a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of interests between the working man of America and his brothers abroad than between the American minor and his exploiting compatriot.
00:20:39
Speaker
A solidarity which fears not foreign invasion because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, go and do your own killing. We have done it long enough for you. And I'll skip ahead forward here. The American working man has suffered so much at the hands of the soldier, state, and federal that he is quite justified in his disgust with and his opposition to the uniformed parasite.
00:21:06
Speaker
However, mere denunciation will not solve this great problem. What we need is a propaganda of education for the soldier, anti-patriotic literature that will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his trade, and that will awaken his consciousness to his true relation to the man to whose labor he owes his very existence.
00:21:24
Speaker
It is precisely this that the authorities fear most. It is already high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting. No doubt they will also stamp at high treason for a soldier to read a radical pamphlet. But then, has not authority from time immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable? Those, however, who earnestly strive for social reconstruction, can well afford to face all that. For it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the barracks than into the factory.
00:21:54
Speaker
When we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for the great structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal brotherhood, a truly free society." Now, like I said, in between there, there's about eight pages more of screed from Emma Goldman.
00:22:13
Speaker
That's really, really good shit. And if you're interested, you should go read it. Because I mean, it's fascinating to see what somebody back then was thinking in her essay, Patriotism, A Menace to Liberty. But I think some things to pull out from there are this. A lot of it is what you were talking about, Andrew, right? Yeah. It's the place where you live. It's the place where you have memories. It's the place of this. It's the place of that.
00:22:39
Speaker
But it gets conformed into things that then, as you said earlier, sort of become weaponized. So it becomes the method by which we tell people to go and kill, right? You know, we go and do these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were worthless because of patriotism.
00:22:59
Speaker
We still have a law in America called the Patriot Act. It's literally called the Patriot Act for God's sake. And all that it really is, is a way of surveilling Americans. And we're supposed to think that that's patriotic. Like even by its fucking name, we're supposed to think that. So I just think the notion that patriotism in America
00:23:22
Speaker
is so ungodly skewed. It's so skewed, I don't know if it can really ever come back unless it really became rooted in some form of new, glorious revolution. Some sort of revolution of class, some sort of revolution of something, but something that actually brought people together instead of pulling them apart.
00:23:46
Speaker
Yeah, and I don't know if that's possible, if I'm being totally honest. I don't think that it is. And honestly, I don't think it's possible anywhere. It's really easy to conflate this to America, but this literally happens everywhere. Think about right now with everything going on with Russia and Ukraine. Russia is doing this because they demand that Ukraine comes back to Russia.
00:24:14
Speaker
It's it's it's all about control and and and just like keeping everybody out I don't know it's so weird I don't know it's so hard for me to like it's great it honestly is my brain
00:24:31
Speaker
It's, and that's why I'm stumbling on one of my words is it's just like, I, it's so hard for me to retrain my brain to think in a different way. You know what I mean? Than what you've been taught. I do. Yeah. I mean, like it was a, uh, I mean, look, I, I, I'm not a patriotic person really at all. Um, you know, maybe there, there are some new pangs of, of what's the word I'm looking for? Some new pangs of devotion.
00:24:57
Speaker
that I have to my new home where I'll be a citizen in two and a half years. I'm really proud to live in Ireland. I'm proud to live in a country where it's very progressive.
00:25:08
Speaker
This country has come so far in a very short amount of time. I've done nothing to help it. Don't get me wrong here. But now that I live here, I'm looking to do the best that I can to help it go even further. For example, Ireland needs hate crimes legislation. I want to be part of that. Ireland needs better public education. I want to be a part of that. There's a random smattering of issues that are important to me that I'm looking forward to working on.
00:25:36
Speaker
But can I ask you like a personal just like a personal question? So when you first moved there and, you know, obviously you don't have an accent or you have and you have an you have an American accent. Let me rephrase. And people obviously know that you're you know, weren't born there or like whatever. Did you ever feel that and maybe this is just traveling in Europe in general.
00:26:02
Speaker
because I know you've done more traveling since you've lived there because it's way easier. But have you ever felt like the other, like the person trying to be kept out? Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, granted, it hasn't happened very often, thank God, because that's just not really a thing here, which is good. I should say it's not a big thing.
00:26:23
Speaker
Um, and like when it's happened, it's happened from like fucking idiots. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Like it's happened from like, I mean, like one problem that we have in Dublin is like, there's just fucking like random gangs of teenagers all over the place. Like that's just what's the worst. There's a number of reasons why we'll go into on another time. Um, but like, I, like once there were some kids like doing some, some, they were doing, I can't remember what they were doing. They were doing something shitty. And I, I was like, Hey, could you stop doing that basically?
00:26:52
Speaker
And the rule with teenagers here is just walk on by because it's not going to be good for you. And they started throwing candy at me and told me to go back to my own country. But literally, do you think I even care about them? Do you know what I mean? That's what I mean. And I'm only saying that as a lever because other worse stuff does happen, right? Yeah.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, you know, they're saying like those kids didn't learn that on their own. No, they're they're their parents taught them that. And like, you know, there's the antsy. It's funny to be in places where anti-American like sentiment like actually really does exist because I mean, like, look, I mean, Ireland loves us here because like, frankly, we bring a lot of fucking tax money. Like my salary, 40 percent of it goes straight to the Republic of Ireland. That's a lot of money.
00:27:44
Speaker
right? And it's not just me, it's a lot of other Americans over here working in tech. So we literally like we are worth a lot of money here to this country. And like, frankly, that's something that I'm kind of proud of right there. Like, you know, I'm helping to build infrastructure here. I'm helping to
00:28:00
Speaker
Build housing and do this and my taxes go to good things and I'm I'm happy with that That's a I'm not mad that 40% of my paycheck is gone. It's a good thing. That's a great thing It's a it's it's part of part of the deal and I'm happy to shake hands on that But you know, the other side of that is that people look at me and they go well You took my job or you took my house or you took my whatever and like I didn't do any of those things Just want to point that out
00:28:25
Speaker
But that's the sentiment in a place where there's a housing crisis and where people are like, I don't know, they didn't get a good job. I don't fucking know. And it's the same thing in America. You've got people coming in from whatever country and you've got Joe Blow on the fucking street who he decided not to go to college or he decided not to have a plan or he decided not to go to trade school. It doesn't matter which one you do, but
00:28:48
Speaker
Either you have a plan or you go to trade school or you go to college. Those are your fucking choices. And so if that guy chose to do nothing and he sees somebody from India show up in Chicago and get a good job and get a house next to him and whatever, the chances for him to be upset about that person doing those things or getting those things goes up exponentially. And so those are the problems with all of this because
00:29:14
Speaker
just because you live somewhere doesn't mean that you have a claim on everything. Do you know what I mean? That's the problem with patriotism is that you're patriotic. You don't get to own it. You don't get to own everything.
00:29:29
Speaker
You know what I mean? In the end, it's one fucking Earth that was never created from the ancient cosmos millions of years ago, or billions of years ago, whatever. It was never created so that one day we could chop it up into America and Canada and Mexico and this. I mean, what a kooky idea in the first place. Humans could have had whatever they wanted. We could have done anything.
00:29:53
Speaker
And instead, we chose ourselves to separate ourselves into tribes and then into weird borders and then into states that hate each other. And it's all a pile of bullshit, every single part of it. And so if we can recreate what patriotism actually means,
00:30:14
Speaker
to be something more what Andrew said earlier of welcome to my community. Everyone is welcome here. If there are more people, we'll figure it out. If there are less people, we will reserve resources for more people to come later. You get where I'm going with this. That's where we should be going with things. And then one more thing I'll say too about the European stuff is
00:30:38
Speaker
There's so many countries here where people aren't patriotic at all. They're proud of their culture. Do you know what I mean? For example, Germans. Germans, especially after World War II, you're going to be pretty hard pressed to find a German who's like, ah, yes, fly the German flag.
00:31:04
Speaker
They don't care about that. They wouldn't sing an anthem. They wouldn't do any of it. But are they proud of their German soccer team? Are they proud of the little village where they come from? Are they proud of German culture with food and music?
00:31:19
Speaker
Like, yeah, those things they're proud of. But like the country itself? No, because in the end, the only reason why you are from there is because of a genetic fucking like accident. Like it's a lottery. Yeah. There happened to be a sperm and an egg in a place and you got born in that place. It is not because you were destined to be there. There is no destiny. There's nothing like that. It doesn't exist.
00:31:45
Speaker
So like any idea that you should be like grateful or this or that or whatever to be from that place is fucking absurd.
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we might get a little bit hate on this episode. I don't really care because like I'm just I'm just really sick. I don't think we will, Andrew. It's just it's really tough to be gay and go through the last, you know, let's hear the last eight. What? Since I came out 18 years and just have like one little fucking
00:32:17
Speaker
Awful person say I don't want to create your website even though I'm really bad at creating websites because I've seen your work and it's awful but for her to just do this and and and walk back so much progress and Then it be kind of amplified because everyone wants to hear about it and everyone wants to talk about it We're even talking about it right now. We're amplifying it for fucks sake, but then it becomes
00:32:44
Speaker
just like patriotism, the modern definition, this rhetoric that just keeps getting repeated and repeated and repeated, and then it repeats to the next person and the next person and the next person. And then soon enough, you're hearing it on the street or your relatives are talking about it and you're like, fuck, we did so much. And now it's just like,
00:33:03
Speaker
I'm of two minds, like fuck this lady and I'm glad that I know that you're a bigot so I don't accidentally give you any money, but at the same time, you don't get to do this. You're one fucking person. I don't know what to tell you. Well, I think that speaks directly to the issue. I used to really love Fourth of July and we used to have really fun parties every year and all the rest of it.
00:33:28
Speaker
And towards the end, we stopped doing that. And this year especially, I was like, granted I'm not even in America anymore, but this year especially, I was like, I don't care about 4th of July for a country where it's literally legal now to discriminate against people like me. Why would I...
00:33:49
Speaker
Why would I be proud of it? And fly a flag and sing an anthem and go watch fireworks and blah, blah, blah, blah. What a pile of shit. I mean, if that is what you're proud of, I don't know what to tell you. Good luck with that. But that sucks. It's not going to work out well for you because eventually the tide will turn on you, too. They came. They come for me in the morning. They're going to come for you at night, baby. Angela Davis said that. And that is the fucking truth.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's tough. It's tough to be weird right now and be alive and actually a thinking person. The thing about it is that you just got to focus on the good stuff and you got to do the good stuff and you got to... The other part of it too that we have learned over and over again is we got to... It's not even...
00:34:40
Speaker
like engaging with these people, it doesn't even work anymore. It never worked in the first place. And that's, that's a big lesson that I've learned over the past few years is like, actually, I'm just, I'm walking away from your ass because I'm not going to be alive long enough to deal with being miserable about you. Do you know what I mean? Right. Well, no, I think that there are,
00:35:00
Speaker
Listen, if I know anything in my life, I don't think that I've changed anyone's mind if I'm being honest, but by me just existing around those people, did I give them something to think about? Yes. Exactly. So I think that that's how I have to kind of just live in this modern day and age is just, you know what? I'm going to do me
00:35:23
Speaker
I'm gonna exist the way I think that humans should exist and the way that humans should interact and the way that humans just should get along. And if that upsets you, you need to go home and just think about that.
00:35:38
Speaker
It's so dumb. Before the show, you were saying, is there any perspective from Ireland? The only thing that I will say is there actually was a recent story this weekend in Northern Ireland, which is officially, I put that in quotes, another country. But they do big bonfires for the bonfire nights, and it celebrates the Orange Order, which are the people who still want to be a part of the UK.
00:36:07
Speaker
You know, I'll reserve comment on those people, but there's there's some interesting perspectives there. Anyways, there was this one. I mean, these bonfires are gigantic. They're like it's like a fucking like 10 story building high. Right. And it's just like pallets and shit. And they just burn it. And I don't know. They fucking dance around it or whatever the fuck they do.
00:36:25
Speaker
And so there's this one bonfire that got put up and there's pictures of it all over Twitter right now. Like at the top of it, they put this big photo of the Taoiseach from the Republic. And Taoiseach here is like the prime minister, right? And the prime minister here, we don't really like him. He's kind of whatever. But he is an openly gay person, which is pretty cool also in this country, to be honest.
00:36:50
Speaker
So they put a big, huge portrait of him at the top of this bonfire, and they put the tricolor up there, too, which is the Irish flag. And then they burned it, which is pretty big here. Like, you don't... Like, while people aren't like... Like, people are never gonna be like, I'm gonna die for Ireland. Like, that's not a thing anymore. But, like, you don't do that to the tricolor. And also, like, it's just... It's...
00:37:16
Speaker
Here, it's just like, why would you be so rude as to do that, if that makes sense? So the differences in the patriotic nature of the North and the South here are really interesting dynamics to sort of observe right now as I keep delving deeper into culture.
00:37:33
Speaker
Um, but it's just, it's weird. Like I would, I would just never think of like, even like Donald, like even like Donald Trump, I would never think about like building a bonfire and putting his, putting his photo on it. Do you know what I mean? Like it's just, that's just dumb. Like what's the point of even doing that? Like how was it going to make me feel better?
00:37:50
Speaker
It's taken me a really long time in my life to get to this way of thinking because of the way that we're brought up and the way that we're trained, basically. But at the end of the day, the way that I think now, and maybe this isn't even how I thought 10, 15 years ago,
00:38:07
Speaker
But the way that I've been able to grow up in my and I'm putting that in quotes for my own personal life is that if you celebrate life with destruction, that says something about you that I don't know how to help that. You need to figure out if that makes any sense. You need to go find Jesus, motherfucker. You know what I mean? Like, go find him and let him take the wheel. Andrew, I don't think we can say anything more about patriotism. Do you know?
00:38:37
Speaker
OK, good. So listen, folks, I hope you enjoyed that stirring and uplifting.
Media Reviews: Movies and Shows
00:38:45
Speaker
And we're going to we're going to take our break here. You should go. I don't know. You should probably go take a shot of whiskey or something. And then we'll come back with a very beloved segment. What you've been watching, bitch.
00:38:59
Speaker
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.
00:39:10
Speaker
And we're back with what you've been watching, bitch. What you've been watching, you patriotic bitch. And if it's your first time listening, this is the segment of the show where we talk about what we've been watching, bitch. It could be anything. It could even sometimes be books or podcasts or music, but it's just the stuff that we've been consuming that might be horror, might not be horror, but we wanted to talk about it some more. So Andrew will give us his first what you've been watching right now.
00:39:40
Speaker
Yes, my first one is Pearl. I know that this is old news to most people, but for the longest time, this movie was not very easily accessible, which is really weird because X, the movie that it spawned off of, was like so widely available. Yeah, for real that like I saw X. I don't know. It was that two years ago already like like Pearl. It was on like a weird subscription that you had to have like Paramount Plus Plus.
00:40:09
Speaker
Showtime in order to watch it. And I was like, thank God. And so we just waited it out, waited it out and it finally became available on Showtime on demand. And it's Pearl. It's the prequel to X. I forget. Had you seen X, Maddie?
00:40:25
Speaker
No, I haven't seen either of these. OK. Well, this is the prequel and it's all about Pearl, who is the main antagonist in X. OK. And it's kind of all about her upbringing and where she comes from and kind of like why she becomes the person she is in X. OK. It's really fun. It's really interesting because X is filmed very much like a Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
00:40:51
Speaker
ask some of these type of vibe and feel. Whereas Pearl is more like 1920s technicolor dream type of a film. And to have Ty West to, you know, we haven't had any of this. That's right. Yeah.
00:41:10
Speaker
We haven't had any of his movies on our podcast yet. We should probably fix that at some point. But the way that his mind and the way that he could kind of create X in such a way and then go back and do Pearl
00:41:25
Speaker
in another completely different way, but there's the same story. I just think it's incredible. That's awesome. And I really liked the movie. I'm not usually one for this highly stylized technicolor.
00:41:41
Speaker
Let's make it look like it's in the 20s. Like, you know what I mean? Like, that's usually not my thing. But this time it just worked. And I think that it's because of the actors and I think it's because of the director. And I really think that it's just it's a triumph of a movie. So if you haven't, I know this probably 95 percent of our audience has already seen this movie and I'm talking to the wall. But if you haven't seen it yet, so I will.
00:42:03
Speaker
That's awesome. That's really good to hear My first one is one that I was very excited to see and I am so glad that it delivered Everything that I wanted and more and it is asteroid city the newest film from Wes Anderson I love this movie. I thought it was great and I I think I think that it's just it has a lot of goodness and
00:42:28
Speaker
And I think that it is by far, I've seen all of Wes Anderson's movies. This is his most heartfelt and authentic movie to date.
00:42:36
Speaker
And don't get me wrong, it's still in the Wes Anderson style, so it's going to be a little kooky and a little bit stylized, whatever. But you can feel it in it. And he manages to create, for me, these landscapes that are just astounding. And I just want to walk through the screen and just live there and just stay there for a long time.
00:43:00
Speaker
I think that this particular film, while it's about this sort of mythical city in the middle of the desert called Asteroid City, it's a film about grief. It's about how we learn to live with it. It's about how we continue to live. And it's about how extraordinary it really is that we ever figure that out, right? And how we manage to have relationships together. And that's all the underpinnings of the movie.
00:43:30
Speaker
The movie itself, as usual, when it comes to a Wes Anderson film, has a fucking all-star cast. So it's Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks, Jeffrey Wright, Tilda Swinton, Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Adrian Brody, Liev Schreiber. It just goes on and on and on. Hong Chow, Willem Dafoe, all of it. Jeff Goldblum, of course.
00:43:51
Speaker
And it's just, it's a remarkable movie. I cried in it near the end, which is what I expected would happen. And the moment where I started to cry is from what I understand from people, it's kind of like where a lot of people get the little emotional, you know, real hit there. And it's pretty breathtaking. So this is one that I think everyone should see, you know, go into it with an open mind. It's just, it's a lovely movie. It really is.
00:44:17
Speaker
Cool. Oh, gosh, sorry. Yeah, I will give this a chance like I've given many Wes Anderson movies. It's not I don't think that his style is necessarily for me. But if you're giving it such a glowing opinion, I would I would gladly give it give it a go. Yeah, yeah. Give it a try.
00:44:37
Speaker
All right, my next one is on Hulu. It's literally never heard anybody talk about this movie, but it was on my recommended list. So I watched it. It's called Alone at Night. It's on Hulu. And it's basically the primary story going on here is this girl has just been broken up with by her boyfriend because he found out that she was doing cam girl stuff. And he was like, not for that.
00:45:05
Speaker
And so she ends up moving back home to kind of be around friends and stuff. But it's during COVID, so she has to isolate for a week before she can go be with all of her friends and stuff. And so while she's isolating at this cabin, there are many people that stop by, like a pizza guy, a phone repair guy, the neighbor next door.
00:45:32
Speaker
And you start to understand that maybe one of them is this cam person that is obsessed with her. And then the remainder of the movie is just trying to figure out which one of these guys is the one that's actually like stalking and trying to basically kill her.
00:45:49
Speaker
um or make her make her their wife or whatever their their end goal is with you know being obsessed with a cam girl um it was an interesting movie i won't say that it's like the best movie i've ever seen or it's kind of just like in middle of the road for me but i still found the premise pretty interesting just in the day and age of like only fans and like all this stuff and just like obsession with people you don't really know i think that that's just like a very
00:46:16
Speaker
A very interesting topic to handle. Do I think this movie did it perfectly? No. But I do think that that's a topic that could be further explored of just like obsession with these people you don't know. You know what I mean? Yeah. No, sure. Only fans. You know, remember when we can just, we just like sent dirty photos to each other for free? Yeah.
00:46:37
Speaker
Not anymore. Five dollars, please. Everything has to be fucking like, you know, on sale anymore. It's fucking weird. My second film is I Am Divine. This is a documentary by Jeffrey Schwartz. It's all about the one and only divine, the true story of the most beautiful woman in the world.
00:46:57
Speaker
divine is that the tagline that is a tagline well that's how divine used to use to describe themselves that's amazing divine of course was not born divine divine was born harris glenn milstead and if you don't know who divine is which i kind of couldn't believe that but maybe you don't
00:47:15
Speaker
Divine is the alter ego of Harris Glen Millstead, who came to popularity through John Waters. So the first big movie was Pink Flamingos. But before Pink Flamingos, John Waters had brought together people from all around the Baltimore area to create these little films that were all crazy and kooky and completely the beginnings of that John Waters that we all know.
00:47:44
Speaker
Um, so I, you know, I love divine and for whatever reason, I just, I hadn't seen this before and it's been out since 2013. So I'm really glad that I took the chance to, to watch it 10 years later. Um, it's on movie MEBI, which I talk about all the time. And, uh, it's wonderful.
00:48:00
Speaker
If you're into drag, if you're into being the alternative, if you're into being an outsider, which a lot of us are, you should watch this movie. If you've ever seen a John Waters film, you should watch this movie. It's a really important look.
00:48:16
Speaker
at someone who was really incredible. Like Harris Glenn Milstead was a pretty amazing person who worked so incredibly hard and who didn't always want to be divine. And that's one of the things about the documentary that's so incredible is I didn't really know that part of his history. That like divine really was like his work. And when he wasn't divine, he kind of didn't want to talk about it.
00:48:43
Speaker
He was like, actually, I can do a lot of other things, and I love to act, and I love to perform, and I love to do this, and I love to do that. Can anybody ever see me for anything but this? And that's where the power of this documentary really, really lies. So I highly recommend it. Go watch it. I am divine. Cool. I didn't even know this existed, so I'm definitely going to look it up. That's wonderful.
00:49:09
Speaker
My next one is currently on Netflix. If you're listening to this in the far future, I don't know if it'll still be there, but you'll find it. It's called Missing. I don't know if you saw the movie a couple of years ago with John Cho called Searching. No, I did not. OK, so the premise of these movies is that there is like a mystery that's happening. But the way that you're absorbing the media is all through like computer screens. So kind of like
00:49:37
Speaker
Oh, gosh, what was that one movie that we unfriended or whatever? Well, we saw everything like through like the computer or like cam or like, you know, surveillance videos or you know, I mean, it's all like that kind of thing. And the missing is the new one from this team that did searching a couple of years ago. I thought searching was just OK if I'm being honest. So I went into missing. You have to be in the right mood because it is kind of like through computer screens and, you know, chatting and like you got to pay attention. There's a lot going on.
00:50:05
Speaker
Sure. But missing is all about this girl who her mom goes on vacation with her new boyfriend and they literally disappear.
00:50:16
Speaker
on vacation and the cops are being typical cops. They're like, oh, you have to wait 48 hours and you got to file this paperwork. Couldn't you get it? You know what I mean? Like very official. And she's like, they didn't, they weren't kidnapped. They just ran away. Probably. Yeah, exactly. And so this girl who's probably, I think she's like 18, probably 18 or 19 takes it into her own hands to like figure out what happened to her mom and the new boyfriend.
00:50:41
Speaker
And I got to tell you, this movie was so twisty turny. I didn't know which my neck was by the end of it. You became the bet neck lady. I'm sorry. Yeah, exactly. But I really enjoyed it. It was a really stressful movie. I'll give you that much because of the way that it's like always like, OK, now we're on Facebook. Now we're on the video cameras. Now we're talking to this guy. Now we're making this phone call to this hotel and like we're trying to figure it all out. But like.
00:51:09
Speaker
The way that someone's brain has to work to put this kind of movie together, I mean, applause to you because it's a really good movie. I don't know how they made it, being honest, but I really enjoyed it. If you like that kind of movie, definitely give it a chance because the mystery was really good. And I thought that by the end of it, I was like, okay, all right. Like golf clap, you know what I mean? Okay, all right. Okay, fair enough, fair enough.
00:51:37
Speaker
My next one is called Georgetown. This is on Netflix. It's on Netflix here. It's probably on Netflix for you too, I would imagine. Georgetown is 2019 directed by Christoph Waltz. Yes, Christoph Waltz. All-star cast. Christoph Waltz, Annette Benning, Vanessa Redgrave. That's not fucking around, right? This is based on a true story.
00:52:02
Speaker
And it is a wacky fucking story. So the story is this. Christoph Waltz plays Ulrich Motz. And Ulrich Motz is an eccentric and versatile social climber with grandiose plans to affect United States foreign policy. Encouraged in his attempts by his strategically chosen and much older wife, the well-connected journalist Elza Brecht, who's played by Vanessa Redgrave, Motz has a knack for making himself indispensable and impossible to ignore.
00:52:29
Speaker
The only one seemingly immune to his charms is Elsa's daughter amanda played by an appening who might simply disapprove of her mother marrying a much younger man or perhaps she senses something more sinister beneath the smooth talking surface so that's a little bit from letterbox right there but the sinister part is this.
00:52:48
Speaker
eventually Elsa Brecht winds up dead in her house. And the only real suspect is Ulrich Mott, right? And like by then they had been married for a long time and like, I don't know, there's a whole lot of shit happens in this movie. Don't get me wrong. And I was, I was compelled by the trailer because I was like, Oh, that sounds like a wild fucking story. And it definitely is. Now here's the problem.
00:53:12
Speaker
It is an interesting story for sure. The actors are good. I should say that they're good beyond this movie. They're okay in this movie. The film is just mediocre as hell. In fact, I rated it out of five on letterboxes two and a half. It's just not very well done. And I don't know what it is. I think part of it's the writing.
00:53:41
Speaker
Part of it is the filming, it feels kind of like a, what do you call it, movie? What's that network? Like a Lifetime movie, do you know what I mean? And it's just like, would you ever think of a Lifetime movie starring Vanessa Redgrave, Christoph Waltz, and Annette Benning? You know, like that. It's called Georgetown. Yeah, that just, it just feels fucking weird. So I really wish this movie would have been like what it was supposed to have been, which was really good and crazy, but it just ended up
00:54:08
Speaker
not being that. So I can't really recommend this one. All right. Um, my next one is a recommend, and I would honestly recommend a lot of our, a lot of our listeners to go watch this show called glamorous. Uh, glamorous is on Netflix. It is the, uh, miss Betty and Kim control vehicle. Um, yes, Kim controls back everybody.
00:54:30
Speaker
OK, let's go. So this is about a gay younger person who is a like they call themselves an influencer, but they have like 300 subscribers. It's kind of like us, you know what I mean? But they also work at the makeup counter at like a Macy's or something. And what happens is Kim Cattrall, who is the mogul of this huge makeup company, comes to the store to like observe
00:55:00
Speaker
just like the regular people, you know what I mean? And she gets a consultation from them and then she gets inspired and she hires this little gay kid to come work for her as a second assistant. The setup is very much like
00:55:22
Speaker
Uh, devil wears Prada type thing. Okay. Sure. Um, and then like, there's this, but that's only the first episode. And honestly, little gay kid, you're coming to work with me, little gay kid. Yeah. Um, and by little, I mean like 20, I don't know, 23, whatever, but like, um,
00:55:37
Speaker
I was not sold on this show from episode one. Honestly, because of the whole influencer thing, I was kind of like, do I have to watch another thing about fucking an influencer or getting what they get? You know what I mean? I hate influencers. I hate them.
00:55:56
Speaker
And so I wasn't sold, but then I watched like two more episodes. And honestly, then I watched the whole show. I watched all kind of episodes. It was really, really good. And honestly, I don't want to give anything away, but there's a really good message at the end that I think our listeners will not maybe not identify with, but will get a better understanding of LGBTQ.
00:56:22
Speaker
and what it means for people today. And I think that that's really important. And I know that the actress who plays our little gay kid, and I only say this because I don't know, I didn't know much about Miss Betty, who is the actress. She's transitioned to be a woman. But in the show, she's playing a man.
00:56:44
Speaker
And so it's a little bit it's a it's complicated. I think that that's something that we should all struggle to understand a little bit more about. And I think it's a really good message. Is the is the show kind of vapid? Yes. But like there is a really good message hidden underneath there that I think that everyone will really appreciate. And honestly, Kim controls in it. So watch it. Yeah.
00:57:07
Speaker
Definitely give glamorous a chance. Good. My final one is one that I'm very happy to report on, and it is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Now look, I am a lifelong fan. I am obsessed with Indiana Jones when I was a child. I wanted to rename myself as Henry, because that's his real name. I just love Indiana Jones. It's been a part of my life as far back as I can remember, and I love all the movies. And this one, I also love.
00:57:35
Speaker
No, I am disappointed to see as always. It's not anything new. I'm even disappointed. I am disappointed to see that people are treating it so harshly and so weird. Because I just think like, you know what, you're probably not a real fan. Like, I don't know, or someone just ate your ass that morning in the wrong way.
00:57:55
Speaker
But look, this is a good movie and it's Harrison Ford's last one. It is probably the last Indiana Jones unless they find some new way into the franchise, who knows. But there's something really about that. He's been playing this role for decades and as somebody who really cares about Indiana Jones and
00:58:16
Speaker
who's always looked up to him and like you know even for some of the bad shit that indiana jones as a character is done like he's a force for good in the fake world do you know what i mean and like and i love that about him it's it's he just always really inspired me as a kid and even as an adult and um this one is wonderful so um
00:58:34
Speaker
The Dial of Destiny is all about time. And I think that that's I'm not going to give you spoilers if you haven't seen it yet. But it's I think that's really appropriate for, you know, an aging Indiana Jones. And in this movie, like he's really old.
00:58:50
Speaker
And this isn't really a spoiler, but I'll give you this. The first part of it, there is some de-aging going on. I think it's done really well. I really do. I mean, you can tell it's de-aging, but who gives a fuck? It's part of the story. Do you know what I mean? And so then it goes into more like today or whatever. And then he's old. And they don't shy away from it. I mean, the motherfucker is old now, because Harrison Ford's old.
00:59:16
Speaker
And like there's something about that when you've been watching this nearly all your life and you watch the movies over and over and over again, man, it like hit my heart. Do you know? Because like this is somebody that you love and like my dad and I loved watching Indiana Jones and my brother and I love watching Indiana Jones and my friends and me level, you know, it's just, it's part of your life, you know? And, um, and it's, it's fun to watch him be really vulnerable in this movie. And once again, I won't tell you the things that happened, but like,
00:59:44
Speaker
There's some vulnerable parts in here that have they've never been in any other Indiana Jones like this before. And if those don't sort of tug on your heart a little bit, I don't know. You know, what I would say is, you know, the other reason beyond the emotional parts, like this film has the reunions that true fans likely want to see. It has the insane chase sequences that you love about Indiana Jones movies. And it also has Nazis fucking getting beaten the fuck out of, which everyone loves.
01:00:12
Speaker
And so like those things alone right there make a solid Indiana Jones movie. But the fact that it is the last one and it's Harrison Ford's last just made it even better. So if you can see this in the cinema, go see it in the cinema. It's a big old movie. They've spent a lot of fucking money on this. It's big and beautiful. Go check it out if you can in the theater. I loved it.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, I got to see it. Um, I just was reminded how much I was. I had the biggest crush on River Phoenix when he played young Indian. Oh, same. Same thing. He was so cute as young indie. Anyone, anyone with like long floppy hair. I brought him on whatever. So cute.
01:00:53
Speaker
All right, well, that does it for what you've been watching, bitch. Maddie brought us Asteroid City, which is currently in the movie theaters. I am Divine, currently on movie. Georgetown on Netflix and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which is currently in cinemas. And Andrew brought us Pearl, which you can watch on Showtime. Alone at Night, which is on Hulu. Missing, which is on Netflix. And Glamorous, which is also on Netflix.
01:01:21
Speaker
So that does it for what you've been watching, bitch. We'll be right back with our first film of the episode, The Purge. Anarchy. Can you step on it? It's getting late. I'm sorry. I'm so anxious. It's just tonight. You're gonna be okay. Just like always. No, no. This can't be happening.
01:01:49
Speaker
No one's gonna help us tonight. This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the annual purge. At the siren, all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 hours. All emergency services will be suspended. Your government thanks you for your participation.
01:02:49
Speaker
I just remember all the good the Purge does. I just had so much chili last night. I think I might need to Purge. Andrew, tell us all about Purge Anarchy. Sorry. I'm so bad at those. That one came out of my head and I just said, you know what? Let's go
Analyzing 'The Purge: Anarchy'
01:03:09
Speaker
with it. Let's go.
01:03:10
Speaker
An American tradition. One night per year, the government sanctions a 12-hour period in which its citizens can commit any crime they wish, including murder, without fear of punishment or imprisonment. Leo, a sergeant who lost his son, plans a vigilante mission on revenge during the mayhem.
01:03:32
Speaker
However, instead of a death-dealing Avenger, he becomes an unexpected protector of four innocent strangers who desperately need his help if they are going to survive the night. This is written and directed by James DeMonaco. The production was handled by Blumhouse in distribution by Universal Pictures. Sargent and Leo is played by Frank Grillo. Eva is played by Carmen Ejogo. Yeah, that's probably right.
01:04:00
Speaker
Shane is played by Zach Guilford, Liz by Keely Sanchez, Callie by Zoey Soul, Papa by John Beasley, and Carmelo by Michael K. Williams. This is rated R, comes in at 103 minutes. It was filmed in and around Los Angeles, and it came out on July 18th of 2014 with a budget of $9 million and grossed $112 million.
01:04:27
Speaker
Jesus Christ, I'm clearly in the wrong business. I can tell you that. Cementing the Purge to go on for many more years. All right, so the Purge Anarchy. We've since, in our past episodes, only talked about one other Purge movie, and that was the first Purge, which comes after all of these, but it takes place before any of these. We must have talked about that in 2018, I'm guessing. Or 2019, maybe.
01:04:53
Speaker
And so we couldn't think of a better way to celebrate patriotism with the Purge movies. And I think that we could have done the first Purge movie, but I think that that one doesn't really fit the patriotism angle as much. So we did number two and number three, and this is the Purge anarchy. Purge anarchy. Maddie, have you seen this before? And what were your initial thoughts?
01:05:17
Speaker
You know, honestly, I was struggling to remember if I saw either of these films and look, maybe I did. That is possible. It's possible that I did watch at some point, but it is so forgettable. Both of these that I probably forgot them. I will say that, you know, I know we're not talking about the next film yet, but if we're talking about both of these in context, this one is far better than election year for sure.
01:05:41
Speaker
Um, it's interesting that you mentioned the first purge movie. Um, that one had Ethan Hawkenett, right? Yeah. Yeah. And what year did that come out? Must've been like, I think it came out like the year before this one. So 2013. Okay. Yeah. You know, I almost wish that they had just kept with that motif, right? What, what I think goes wrong in these movies is that they over index on the patriotism part.
01:06:06
Speaker
Right. And so it becomes this weird religion thing and they don't really know how to balance that out well in the script because the writing is just not good. Any way you want to slice it, it ain't good. Now in this one, it's better because you just you have some better people that are working on it. Right.
01:06:24
Speaker
so i mean you have you have zet gilford who is awful in the movie but at least he's cute i still love him um you've got uh michael k williams rest in peace um of of of the wire fame he's an incredible actor recently died very sad um but he plays carmelo so like just seeing him in this alone is pretty is you know it's actually wonderful and amazing
01:06:46
Speaker
Um, but the rest of it just doesn't, it just doesn't play out very well. You know, one of the things that I had in my notes for this movie is it's called the purge anarchy.
01:06:57
Speaker
There's not really any anarchy in this movie. Like there's not if you think about it. So if we just set out like the basic premise of the movie, everyone knows we all know what the purge is. So we got that down. Right. And Andrew even described it in the the synopsis of the film. So the government does this thing. You can go do whatever you want for 12 hours. There you go. It's done.
01:07:19
Speaker
Now, the anarchy part of this is supposed to be that there are people working against the purge, right? So Carmelo runs like a vigilante group, and I can't remember what it's called right now, but like he runs a different group than like the founding fathers, the new founding fathers of America, and they're trying to like go beat them and do whatever, basically.
01:07:41
Speaker
The reason why that's not anarchy is because it's during the purge. And you can literally do whatever you want. So it's not anarchy. It's just going out and killing people during the purge. Whether it's to stop them or not, it doesn't really matter. And it's cool that that's part of the plot. I get it. But it's not anarchy. And so the film from the very title doesn't make a lot of sense. And that really bugs me because that's not what it is.
01:08:08
Speaker
And when it comes down to it, James DeMonaco wrote and directed this one. He wrote and directed election year. Did he do the first one too? I'm unsure. I can look it up while you talk. Yeah. So what I'm getting at with this is, because I'm not trying to be picky, I'm just trying to say that if they had put some more thought into this instead of just trying to crank out some shit, then this might have been something interesting. One of the things that I really did try to do with this film
01:08:35
Speaker
He's like, by the way, he did. OK, I knew that I that I'm not a big fan of these. Right. And so I didn't want to go into it with a negative mindset. I didn't want to go into it thinking, oh, this is going to suck. I really did sit down and like try to take it seriously and like thought about like, OK, what's the message here? What is it getting at? You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like there are some interesting messages in the purge films in general. And I think that like, you know, if if we are to take anything seriously from the purge, from any of the purge movies, it doesn't matter which one.
01:09:05
Speaker
really in the end is that, you know, this is something that, you know, look, it's, you know, kind of kind of kooky, kind of crazy, but it's something that could happen. Who knows? Right. And like, you know, especially for for this one, this one takes place in 2023. Right. So it was it was interesting to be in 2023 and like think about the things that have happened and how maybe this could happen.
01:09:27
Speaker
one day in America or even somewhere else. But beyond that though, it's hard to take the film seriously because all they end up being is just sort of like plateau after plateau after plateau of like people in crazy masks with a lot of blood. Does that make sense what I'm trying to say?
01:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, that's kind of where it left it for me. Now, in this one, I mean, I guess, you know, some of the interesting things, you know, knowing that Sargent or Leo comes back in election years, you know, something interesting to kind of think about. It is interesting, you know,
01:10:07
Speaker
And you're the end of this one where he goes to kill the guy that that killed his son in a drunk driving accident, but he doesn't he doesn't end up killing him. You know, there's there's some interesting dynamics there and then that guy ends up saving his life and whatever. You know, there are parts of it that are OK, but it's just it's overwhelmed, unfortunately, by the parts that are just sort of a bit cheesy.
01:10:29
Speaker
Yeah, so Purge Anarchy, I definitely had seen before. And this is the one I think I remember the most about, like when I think about like the Purge movies. And I think that where your sentiment comes from is, you know, the not the first Purge, the movie, but the first one in the film lineup of the Purge. It's a very complicated. I know it really does.
01:10:52
Speaker
But the Ethan Hawke movie is that the sentiment coming out of that movie is that everyone wanted to see, OK, well, that that movie is kind of isolated in like one family and like one house. We want to see what's going on in the larger world.
01:11:08
Speaker
And I think that James DeMonaco just basically said like, okay, well, we'll do that next. You know what I mean? And he kind of rushed this to film. I think it literally came out the next year because there was a time in this world where every July 4th, we had a new Purge film. So. Yeah, right, right, right. Listen, I actually think that this one is probably
01:11:30
Speaker
either the best or close to the top for me when it comes to like these ones. And I would not disagree with you on this at all. I would agree with you on that. I do think that there's some interesting dynamics about kind of how the new founding fathers. This is a time in the purge where like not enough people are purging, so they're sending out like squadrons of people to like kill people to like eat the more chilly, Andrew. That's how that's how it could happen.
01:11:57
Speaker
and encourage them to kill. I do think it's interesting when they read the monitor, the voice comes on and she's like, it's one hour until the commencement of the purge. It's funny because even in that little readout, she says, all crime is legal.
01:12:16
Speaker
uh, including murder. So it's almost like a subliminal message of like saying like, go out and murder. And it was funny because I was thinking about it and I was like, Hmm, what would I do? Like, what would I do if there was a, if there was really a purge and like, honestly, mine is so stupid. Like the first thing I thought about, I was like, you know, the first thing I would do is I would steal from my 401k without penalty.
01:12:42
Speaker
You know what I mean? I do. I would do the same fucking thing. Trust me. It's like those kind of stupid things that like my brain goes to where it's like in this world, in this purge world, like literally the only crime that people want to do is fucking blow shit up and kill. And that is so crazy to me that like I almost need like a purge movie where they're like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to go try on all the shoes that without footy socks like.
01:13:12
Speaker
It's like, yeah, totally. I mean, like if the only event that they're going to show is murder and in, I mean, how many of these films are there now? Five, I think it's five. So if the only thing that that's going to happen ever is just murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, murder, I honestly, after a while, it gets old.
01:13:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, I agree. This one, though, I do think a lot of the characters are really good. I also I think that Callie is a really good character because she's the one that is kind of like, you know, showing the Carmelo videos to people. And yeah, there's a different way to think about this. And she's kind of one that really does compel Leo to not commit his murder at the end of the day.
01:13:52
Speaker
and so I appreciate that they had a character like that in in this movie because like a lot of times and we'll get to the next one when we get to it but like a lot of times we don't have that kind of like um alter ulterior thinking in these movies it's kind of all about just like survive the night get get to where you need to go blah blah blah
01:14:10
Speaker
And that's kind of what our straight couple in this are kind of, that's their role in the movie is to just survive. And listen, I'm going to be honest, I think that their storyline is by far the weakest. It's so weak. It barely even makes any sense if I'm being honest.
01:14:31
Speaker
It says at the beginning of the movie, there's two hours and 26 minutes until the commencement of the. What are these fucking people doing grocery shopping? So that is just the thing, too. And I was thinking this throughout both of these films while I was watching them nearly back to back yesterday. And it is this. So everyone knows that the purge is happening. Everyone knows about it. It's been going on for years.
01:14:54
Speaker
How on earth is everybody not locked and loaded, stocked with everything, steel shutters on the windows, everything that they could possibly do? I mean, you would basically, because your chances of living and dying, no matter who you are, no matter where you live, are basically 50-50 on that night, no matter where you are in America, how could you not spend the entire year getting ready for it? Right.
01:15:20
Speaker
That's what I like. These fucking people are out just like driving around. I mean, girl, it was 2014. Do you know what we had then? Instacart, bitch. So like you were not without options of grocery delivery. And also like, look, I'm not saying that you need to own a gun or that I even want you to own one, but in Purge land.
01:15:37
Speaker
Maybe it's a good idea if you do. I'm just saying like just maybe you should buy one because chances of some freak in like a fucking mask coming at you with a I don't know machete or a fucking machine gun. The chances are pretty good.
01:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's it. I will say, though, the part where he where they're in the grocery store parking lot and that guy kind of like comes up to them. Yeah, I did jump really big at that part. It did scare me, but their storyline is just so pathetic, if I'm being honest. And, you know, we talk about how they're and I'm not talking about the actors. I think the actors do a fine job. I just think that that storyline is like, oh, we're separating and I'm going to tell your sister and this is your whole story.
01:16:20
Speaker
And there's other things about them that drive me nuts, too. Like, for example, when finally Leo or Sargent agrees to take them all to the friend's house where he's supposed to get the car. Spoiler, that doesn't happen. But they're walking down the street and he's got a gun, of course, because he's literally fucking protecting them. And like, Zach Guilford's character is like, do you guys think we should trust him right now? And I'm like,
01:16:44
Speaker
Like what world do you, number one, you can't trust anybody in Purge land, but number two, like if he was going to shoot you, he'd probably just have done that by now when you were in his back seats trying to get in his car. It goes back and forth with this. And I'm just like, Oh man, we already covered this earlier in class, baby. You know what I mean? Yeah.
01:17:05
Speaker
Yeah, so they annoy me. I think that I think that the actors do a fine job of especially I think her name is Keely, if that's how you pronounce it. I think so. Yeah, like I think that they do a fine job. I just think that the writing for them is just like so under par when it comes to all the other characters in the movie, even like the like the big bad big daddy, like even he has like a better storyline than like them.
01:17:30
Speaker
For them, I can take them or leave them. I think that the mother and daughter do a great job of establishing that they're lower to middle class. They're just trying to survive the night. I think that when Papa, when you find out what his fate is, I was just like, oh, that is rough stuff because
01:17:51
Speaker
He is literally, he has some sort of debilitating disease where he needs medication. They're struggling to pay for the medication. So what does he do? He sacrifices himself to a upper class family so that they can purge protected, I guess. I guess. But in retribution for that, he gets $100,000 to give to his kids, which is like,
01:18:15
Speaker
which is in and of itself why this purge does not make sense or it's not good for whatever they're trying to accomplish as far as they try to sell it to you. Unemployment is below 5% and literally everyone has a house and everyone's doing so great. If there's a fucking purge going on every year and unemployment is only at 5% and not lower than that, there's a fucking problem.
01:18:41
Speaker
I think it's below five percent right now. I mean, that's that's actually not that great, everybody. So like get with the program.
01:18:49
Speaker
The other thing that I have in my notes is I was like, so if this purge is literally just like all about destruction, because that's all we see. We don't see any of the white collar crimes. We don't see any of the crazy other stuff that could be going on. Like, oh, you know what I'm going to do on purge night? Insider trading. You know what I mean? Yeah. Right. So so after the purge, does it literally take is this the new currency in America? Is the purge because it would literally take
01:19:16
Speaker
millions upon millions of dollars to just clean up after the purge. And that's the thing. You know me, I don't have to have every answer in a movie. I really am okay with that. But this one leaves such glaring things unanswered that it doesn't make a lot of sense. And then the other part of it too is
01:19:37
Speaker
Like what would be what we don't so okay you said before like you know when he was making this movie it was like okay well we'll show you the rest of the world then let's see what that's like but all we know about is the purge so like if the purge is happening.
01:19:52
Speaker
And literally, once a year, people go out and massacre each other. Like, okay, America is bad right now, I get it, but that's pretty fucking bad. So why wouldn't people just leave? And it can't be just because they don't have money, right? This is movie land, so anything could happen. So like, if you wanna show me more of the world, why don't you show me more of the world? Don't explain it away with a card at the top of the movie saying unemployment's at 5% and whatever else the fucking thing was.
01:20:22
Speaker
Like, it doesn't, it just doesn't, it doesn't play in Peoria, man. I mean, like, would you, Andrew, would you stay in America if once a year it was Massacre Night where you could go kill whoever you wanted to?
01:20:34
Speaker
I mean, I certainly wouldn't stay in the city. I think you get what I'm trying to say. You would probably try to go to somewhere else because that's not a country that you would want to live in. So this film doesn't do a good job of explaining anything. And then when it when it does try to explain stuff, it's always in such like just a stereotypical way. Like the poor people are usually what? Guess what? They're not white. They're usually either brown or black.
01:21:02
Speaker
And then it they have this this contrapuntal thing of then having like most of the people that are going crazy killing people They're usually black people in these movies. So yeah, it's just like what is going on with these films and it's a shame because at the end of the day it's a if you if you if you reduce everything that I just said and take that away and
01:21:24
Speaker
It is a compelling idea, especially for a horror movie. There's something really interesting about this. But, you know, you said earlier, it's like he just rushed to get this one out the door. And that that reads this reads as a rushed movie, although it is probably the best one of them. It's still rushed. And he could have taken the time to really explore what this world was instead of just sort of like dealing out stereotypes and going, yeah, let's play that.
01:21:50
Speaker
Well, for instance, there's a time early on in the movie where one of our main protagonists, the mom, Eva, she's set up to have this really engaging conversation with her boss about why she needs a pay raise. And then it never happens. And it's just kind of like wrote off in a side conversation with her daughter just about, well, I didn't get it. And I'm like, well, you should have shown us that. I don't know.
01:22:20
Speaker
It's such a big part of what your character is. We'll talk about bad dialogue when we get to the next movie, but there is a couple of things in this movie where no one would say this. When the newscaster says, and if you plan on releasing The Beast tonight, be careful.
01:22:41
Speaker
What newscaster is literally going to look at the camera and say release the B and if I if I hear one more person in a purge movie going, it's my right. I just I'm going to jump out a window. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to think. Let's see here.
01:22:59
Speaker
Um, she, so Shane is the only one that actually gets killed. Uh, we're left to believe that Liz joins kind of the, uh, yeah, the anti people. And also we didn't talk about this enough. Carmelo is great. Like, I mean, it's Michael K. Williams. He's good in everything. And if you don't know Michael K. Williams, he was Omar in the wire, right? Who was just one of the best roles of all time.
01:23:21
Speaker
And like when this dude comes in, he is just straight up Michael K. Williams. He does. Yeah, just he just plays himself basically and goes for it. And that's wonderful. So thank you, Michael K. Williams. And I do think that our main character, you know, in this movie, Sergeant or whatever, I do think that his arc is interesting because you have to take him.
01:23:42
Speaker
You have to take into account that his son was killed. We don't know how old his son was, but he was killed by a drunk driver. There's a really, really awful like side comment that he just said that he got off on a technicality, which I was like, if you hit a kid while drunk driving, I don't. What is the what's the technicality? Yeah, that doesn't really make any sense, does it? But at the end of the day, he's got for revenge. We can't we understand the revenge like I'm sorry, but if someone hit my kid,
01:24:09
Speaker
while drunk driving and they didn't get any like thing put against them like I don't blame the guy but like you know throughout the movie kind of Cali is the one that really like kind of wants to be like don't do this like you're not gonna feel any better and at the end of the day what happens is that that guy ends up saving his life like you said earlier and I think that that little arc is really well done if I'm if I'm talking about like the the main points of kind of the purge anarchy movie it's a little cheesy but I would agree with you
01:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they play. I did. I did have it in my notes. I did see one error in this movie, and I'm not one for usually trying to call out continuity errors, but I did see it is where at the very end, when he's pulling up to take Frank Grillo's character in the car to the hospital because he's been shot, there's a shot and they and they do it because they need to see the Eva. They need to see her face where there's no headrest.
01:25:04
Speaker
And then in the next shot, the headrest is back because they don't need that shot anymore. And I was like, Ooh, I don't usually catch those things. So I wanted to call it out. Cause I kind of congratulate myself sometimes for catching those stupid things. They're there screaming. Do you have a car? Do you have a car? I'm like motherfucker. There's a car that you were just in like, I know.
01:25:20
Speaker
You all got cars. Cars all over the place. It's true. I didn't even think about that. Actually, it was a nice car. You're in a Cadillac. You're in a big old fucking whatever Cadillac SUV thing. Just take that. That you stole from people that were charging $200,000 a person for an entry fee into the murder purge or whatever. That is another little point that I'll make here. God, I'm going way deeper on this than I thought I would today.
01:25:44
Speaker
But the other part of it that drives me a little nuts is the moralizing against it, right? So when people won't do the things to help themselves because they're morally opposed to the purge. And somewhere in there, I don't know if it was like, whoa, we stole that car, we can't keep it. I'm like, what world do you fucking live in? You live in a country where people can kill each other one day of the year. What does it even matter? Morals don't even matter anymore. Steal whatever you want.
01:26:12
Speaker
Yeah, it does. It does. There is something about and it's it's highlighted in this movie, too. But it does crack me up that like so big daddy who's like, I guess like some sort of figure of authority. He's like a guy or whatever. Yeah. He gets shot and then like his minions come up to like take out these people that just shot their boss or whatever. But then like they're saved by the bell. And I just think it's so funny in these movies. Then they just stop. I mean, come on.
01:26:40
Speaker
that it's like that they're so controlled by the purge that like as soon as they hear the siren, they're like, well, God darn it, we didn't get to kill. Oh, man, we're a minute late. Oh, no. I just think I just think that that is like really funny to me. And I understand that this is like purge world and I don't live in it. And it's not for me to like criticize. I just think it's really funny.
01:27:01
Speaker
Andrew, did you know that during the montage of clips during the end credits, one shot is of assorted bladed weapons and one of the blades is vampire slayer Faith Lahain's signature blade from the series. Oh, vampire slayer. My God, I need to go back. I thought you would like to hear that. I love it. Well, Andrew, listen, I think we've we've given this film a lot more time than I thought we would. What did you rate this movie?
01:27:27
Speaker
I said, yes, some of the character choices are pretty silly, but overall, I still think this is an effective vehicle for this kind of story. And out of seven stripes, because we rate every film here at Fraggate the 13th on the seven stripe scale, because of the seven stripes of the gay old rainbow, I gave the Purge Anarchy a 4.5.
01:27:48
Speaker
And I said that Purge films
Political Themes in 'The Purge: Election Year'
01:27:50
Speaker
often end up as tableau after tableau, a venue for filmmakers to create mise-en-scene with masks, blood, slogans, and violence. Much of it makes no sense, but what if we endeavored to take the franchise seriously as a warning? Perhaps that's where the only virtue of Purge films lies. Also, there's no anarchy in this movie. I gave it a three and a half.
01:28:12
Speaker
Alright, well that will do it for the purge anarchy. We'll take a quick break and be right back with the purge election year. We played a lot of purge games this evening. We have just one more. It's called mommy's choice. Which one of you will survive this year's purge?
01:28:34
Speaker
The soul of our country is at stake. The Purge targets the poor and the innocent. The senator's going to win. She's going to make real changes too. It is a night that is defining our country. It's time to do something about that senator. The Purge has to come to an end. You take a lot of risks, senator. I have to. I was the only one in my family to survive. What do you do to apply for this position? I almost did something on Purge nights and years back. I want this night gone.
01:29:03
Speaker
I want men in all these rooms. We got eyes and ears on everything. All right, let's begin. This is your emergency broadcast system announcing the commencement of the annual purge. At the siren, all crime, including murder, will be legal for 12 hours. Your government thanks you for your participation.
01:29:33
Speaker
Someone betrayed us. This is not a drill. We are on our own. We have one goal right now. Survival. Senator, come with us.
01:30:04
Speaker
The gentlemen understand what's at stake here. It is our duty to help protect her. Here they come. Hold on!
01:30:27
Speaker
Blessed be America for letting us purge and cleanse our souls. Join me as we eliminate evil. Purge and cure our love. Purge and cure our love. I pledge to the number of a good the Purge does.
01:30:48
Speaker
I hope you had time to vote because it's election year and it's also The Purge. Mattie, talk us all about The Purge election year. Keep America Great. Two years after choosing not to kill the man who killed his son, former police sergeant Leo Barnes has become head of security for Senator Charlene Rohn.
01:31:08
Speaker
the front runner in the next presidential election due to her vow to eliminate the purge. Oh my God. On the night of what should be the final purge, a betrayal from within the government forces Barnes and Rowan out onto the street where they must fight to survive the night. This film was also written and directed by James DeMonaco. It was also produced by Blumhouse and distributed by Universal Pictures. Leo Barnes once again plays Frank Grillo.
01:31:36
Speaker
Senator Charlie Rowan is played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Joe played by Mikelte Williamson. Marcos played by JJ Soria. Laney by Betty Gabriel. Earl by Terry Serpico. Dante by Edwin Hodge. And Minister Owens by Kyle Secor. It is rated R. It's 108 minutes long.
01:31:56
Speaker
How, I don't know, made in the USA, released July 1st of 2016, filmed in Providence and Woonsocket, Rhode Island. How about that, Andrew? We were just there. The budget was $16 million, brought in $32 million, far less than Purge Anarchy. So that is election year. Andrew, tell us all about it.
01:32:20
Speaker
So election year, I thought I had seen this before. I don't think I watched the whole thing when I saw it before because there was a lot of stuff that I didn't remember towards the end. Listen.
01:32:34
Speaker
I think that the setup of this movie is very interesting. I think the first 30 minutes is pretty interesting with the whole setting up of a new senator coming in and trying to get rid of the purge and being a left person trying to steer the course differently. I think that that's all really interesting.
01:32:57
Speaker
However, after things start to go down, so like when her head of security, whatever, but not had one of her security betrays, betrays her and they kind of go into the night and are forced out into the purge. This movie gets super boring and really repetitive.
01:33:19
Speaker
Honestly, I'm telling you, there is some great actors in this movie. Elizabeth Mitchell was on Lost for years and was great on Lost. Frank Grillo, we've time and time again seen him do really great things. Betty Gabriel, who's on The Walking Dead for many years as Sasha, we've seen these people do really good things.
01:33:41
Speaker
This is not one of them. I'm just going to be totally honest with you. There are so many parts to this where, especially one of our characters, Joe, he has some of the worst lines that I've maybe ever heard in a movie, if I'm being honest. His catchphrase is, good night, blue cheese. What does that mean? It doesn't mean anything.
01:34:05
Speaker
And then he says things like, what in the Mississippi fuck? What does that mean? I don't know where these lines come from. We got to ask James DeMonaco. You wrote it. I think that there are some good ideas in here. Do I think that our Lord and Savior of the Purge America is going to be this blonde white lady? No, I don't. So I don't know why everyone's like,
01:34:29
Speaker
If anyone can do it, she can do it. Yeah, it's just it's a very weird concept. And I don't even buy that like they're trying to like protect her because she's going to turn it all around. Like there's got to be an uprising of people that are behind her that if she died, there would be another person that would like stand that platform up. You know what I mean? Like if half of America
01:34:57
Speaker
is behind her and behind her ideals, that one person doesn't matter, if I'm being honest. But that's the movie and that's what we're led to believe. And then we have this whole side quest of people
01:35:12
Speaker
that include like Laney and Marcos and Joe. And I'm going to be honest, I don't really get what they're doing. Like so Laney and her mysterious driver, because this woman drives the vehicle and literally has like one line, but we never learn her name. We never learn why she's out there risking her life on purge night. Um, but Laney is supposedly some
01:35:35
Speaker
I don't know, like neighborhood fixture of like, she did something really bad ass that we don't ever learn if I'm in, you know, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't understand what she actually did to earn this like bad ass role. And now on purge night, she goes out and like basically bandages people, gives them health care, like that, that, that. Um,
01:35:55
Speaker
And then they get wrapped up into this because Joe has to protect his deli and then his insurance goes. There's so many layers of messaging. The deli thing is so stupid. There's so many layers of messaging that you get so mixed up that I couldn't even follow the plot if I'm being honest. But I don't know. What did you think? Well, I mean, look, it's like it's it's just like once again, why do we care about anything in this world? Like this world is is a is a completely fucked
01:36:24
Speaker
Stupid world. Nothing makes sense here. So why should I even try to make it make sense? Why should I care about it? Why do I care about this dude that all we can think about on Purge night as I got back to my deli? Come on. This is ridiculous. Why does he even have a deli here in the first place? Once again, if it's Purge night, why you live in Purge world,
01:36:47
Speaker
And you know, it's coming every year. Why do you even live in a city? Why wouldn't you fucking go off to a hill somewhere or whatever? None of this makes any sense. It doesn't make any humans would not act this way. They just wouldn't. I think that Betty Gabriel is wasted in this movie. Betty Gabriel is fantastic.
01:37:06
Speaker
And I mean, like, listen, if if she didn't knock you out and get out, then I don't know who the fuck you are. But Betty Gabriel is great. She gets wasted in this movie becoming like a chum. It's it's it's very, very odd to me. Did you notice that at the beginning of the movie, when she's walking down the street, it's very clearly raining in the movie, but she's not getting wet.
01:37:26
Speaker
Oh, God, that's so great. Great work, Truman Show. I will say I am on I'm on letterbox right now and there are some there are some funny reviews. I'll read for you really quick. This one is from Kate and Kate gave it five stars and she just said Frank Grillo should purge this pussy. That's it.
01:37:50
Speaker
Which I just think is really, really funny. Another person, Jewish vampire on Letterboxx, said, why didn't anyone tell me these movies were fun? Another person, Tara, gave it two and a half stars and said, America has a problem. Now, there's a serious one that I will read to you, though, because I think this is actually a really pointed review, and this is it. This is from Nathaxon or whatever. So Nathaxon, thank you for this review.
01:38:16
Speaker
I thought the Purge Anarchy was a huge step forward for this franchise over the slack-pacing and confused politics of the initial Purge, so I had high hopes for this entry as a like, as I liked both Frank Grillo and Elizabeth Mitchell, who was one of my favorite people on Lost.
01:38:32
Speaker
I had such high hopes when I saw this in the theater. I paid money to see this money. I almost asked for back in this movie. White elites decide everything. There are the bad white elite capitalist Christians who wish to sustain a kill the poor human sacrifice regime with the aid of white power, flunky assassins and the good white elite who represent incrementalist electoral politics.
01:38:57
Speaker
People of color are all inherently violent, whether revolutionaries, gang members, or super predator sociopaths. Their role is to help or hinder the white savior who is allowed to lecture them on the proper ethics of how to run their grassroots revolution. The best that people of color can hope for through adherence to respectability politics and helping the good white people is a shot at small business ownership, like a deli.
01:39:27
Speaker
I like Mad Max, The Warriors, Urban Malay as much as anyone, but don't ask me to engage in a sexualized gaze of a teenage girl gang who are then mowed down by older, responsible, reformed gang members and cheer for that because I won't. Don't even get me started on the dialogue. This movie made me angry and not in the way it might want me to be.
01:39:50
Speaker
That's interesting. I was never more satisfied when that girl got hit by the car. Fair enough. They make a really great point here. The whole Elizabeth Mitchell thing and her telling people how this should be done or whatever is like
01:40:06
Speaker
Once again, you live in Purge World. Who gives a fuck? Like, you don't know shit. And if you haven't gotten it done by now, politician, then you're probably not gonna get it done. And actually, there is no guarantee that you're going to win the election, and you can't guarantee that. And frankly, in Purge World, why would you win the election? If they're doing everything, once again, to kill people whenever they want, basically, do you really think they're going to let you win?
01:40:33
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's true. I mean, they sent out a murder squadron after her or so. Oh, but it can only happen in those 12 hours, though. Yeah. A couple of things in my notes, I was like, OK, we know that it's purge night and we're still just going to go out with plated weapons and tasers. Exactly. Yeah. The I'm sorry. Where's your rocket launcher? Where grenades? Where is like your your fucking I don't know. You're like your Gatling gun or whatever.
01:41:02
Speaker
I'm sure that the actresses that play the teenage girls have gone on to do much better things. But in this movie, I was very angry that Joe and Marcos have the upper hand. They're on the roof and they don't just fucking kill these bitches. I'm sorry, but like.
01:41:23
Speaker
They're holding automatic weapons and, and, and, and literally are the only threat to your precious deli that you are staying behind to protect. Why don't you just kill them? If that's, I agree. Like, I don't, I didn't, it made me so mad. And then that's why I was so satisfied when they just got hit by the car. Andrew, you can't do that. If you do that, you become one of them. Don't you get it?
01:41:49
Speaker
But that's but he's the whole story that he's saying to protect his deli. So, yeah, exactly. I don't know what to tell you. That's just I mean, and this is why these movies just drive me nuts because it's like an ouroboros of fucking like like absurdity. It really is. Yeah, there is one like I actually found it almost comical. There's a moment where Frank Grillo or sorry, Frank, not Frank. I don't know. I said Frank Leo.
01:42:17
Speaker
And Leo and Charlie are running down like an alley. And there's a moment where like a guillotine like comes out and it's like a trap. And they're supposed to be like, you know, almost doing like like jump rope where you're like, like, hold on. Yeah. And then they like. But if you look at where the guillotine is, literally, you just have to duck under it. I know. I was thinking the same. I was like, you could literally just crawl if you wanted to and you'd be fine.
01:42:44
Speaker
Yeah. OK. The other thing that I put in here is that when they are wheeling out the chronic drug addict to basically let the. Yeah, sure. Purge. I put in my notes, I was like, the bishop looks like he's the one that's on on on heroin because that I don't know if they made that actor look like that or what, but he looked like gaunt and sick. And I was like, what is wrong with that guy? Very, very strange looking.
01:43:12
Speaker
And then the other thing, so during this midnight mass where they're going to let the new founding fathers elite kind of purge on their own enemies or whatever you want to call it, there's a moment where they say, OK, all new founding fathers come up and we're going to do this whole like ceremony thing and, you know, kill Charlie and get rid of our enemy.
01:43:38
Speaker
And then the next moment, Frank Grillo and his group and his posse come in and literally shoot all of those people. So therefore they have now killed the new founding fathers. But we still have to get her out of there. And I'm just like, what is going on? And it just keeps going. It just keeps going. You know, how long was this again? 108 minutes.
01:44:02
Speaker
I paused it and there were like 54 minutes left and I was like, are you joking me? I think, you know, look, I will say this because look, I know that there are people out here out there who are listening who probably like these films.
01:44:19
Speaker
Yeah. Just as always, you know that we think that you are totally fine and cool. Like everyone has an opinion about me. Of course. Yeah. And I would also say that, you know, maybe for you and me when it comes to these, because we watch them essentially back to back. I mean, look, maybe that we have a little purge fatigue. Maybe if I had watched this on another day, I might find it a scintilla better that I will grant you that.
01:44:46
Speaker
I just don't think it's very good. No, yeah, but probably not. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Because like even like I could find a lot of enjoyment in the first anarchy. Like we said, like I actually did like that movie as just like a fun romp. Unfortunately, unfortunately, what we do here is we are analyzing these movies from a more critical perspective.
01:45:09
Speaker
Yeah. So you sometimes can't just have fun, especially when it's talking about an alternate America that we could potentially live in. Like, I mean, look, if all if all of these films were we're just fun, then none of this would matter. Like, yeah.
01:45:24
Speaker
The point of listening to this is that we do analyze it. And look, what that person said in the letterbox review is really important. I mean, that is an analysis that America needs to understand. This ended up being a movie where black people are helping a white savior. That's what this movie is. And that's fucked up. That's not a good narrative. That's a bad narrative to have. And fucking James DeMonaco once, I don't know what he's, I don't know this guy at all or anything else that he's done besides these. I really don't.
01:45:53
Speaker
But clearly he is the kind of person who doesn't think things through very well. And maybe he should ask for feedback. Maybe you should get, I don't know, a black writer. That might be a way to help here. But all of it, it's not working, Doug. It's a no from me. I mean, even like the quality of the filmmaking takes a huge step down in this. Like this, in comparison to Anarchy, this feels like a B movie or like I would agree with you. Totally. I mean,
01:46:19
Speaker
Even the blood is cgi red like it doesn't yeah, I didn't even think about that. You're right It's so easy to do practical blood and listen cgi or whatever whatever you're trying to do the purge anarchy made hand over fist Profit so why would you?
01:46:36
Speaker
why would you make a step down i know it's it's and then finally i just have to say this because it really bugged me please. The whole thing is about election year and about this woman getting elected so she can get rid of the purge because her family was killed on purge night when she was like much younger like blah blah blah blah blah i get it.
01:46:54
Speaker
We don't vote in May. I don't know why. Because we know that the purge takes place in March, and then they say two months later, and they're having the election. And of course, of course, we're relying on Florida to get us the win. This movie is going to test my every
01:47:15
Speaker
bone in my body. It really bugged me. So Andrew Edwin Hodges character is in all three of the purge movies. I didn't even understand this. Oh, really? In the first two he was credited as bloody stranger in this one. His name is revealed to be Dante Bishop. There you go.
01:47:35
Speaker
This was the first Purge film to be a direct story sequel as it continues exploring the life of Frank Grillo's Sergeant Leo Barnes. And originally, part three was intended to be a prequel, telling the story of the very first Purge. The idea was scrapped though when Frank Grillo accepted James DeMonaco's offer to reprise the character of Sergeant Leo Barnes. Prequel idea was used for the next film in the series, The First Purge.
01:48:01
Speaker
Cool. I did like that they brought back a character, and I think that Frank Rill is a great actor, but it's really weird because nothing that happened in Anarchy really plays into his character in this movie. Not really, no.
01:48:21
Speaker
So, I don't know. This is just not it. This is not for me. I understand if you like this movie, congratulations. It just was, it hit me real wrong. I don't know. It's a missed opportunity yet again. And like I said, I do think that there is something really compelling about the idea of The Purge. I think that it's, that could be a really important story, especially in America to tell.
01:48:44
Speaker
It's a shame that James DeMonaco and whoever else is on his team have chosen time and again to create something that is rushed and slapdash and not very well thought out because it ends up reading that way too.
01:48:57
Speaker
Yeah, I just in the greater purge universe, this is probably my least favorite out of out of all of them by far. And so, OK, my main takeaway from this, I said the drop in quality is so drastic. The message is so heavy handed that it almost starts to feel like a parody of itself. And I gave this a two.
01:49:19
Speaker
I gave it a one and a half, which I'm pretty sure is my lowest rating ever. Um, and I said very
Conclusion and Promotional Content
01:49:26
Speaker
simply, this is not a good movie.
01:49:29
Speaker
Listen, I had expectations that I was hoping that these would be, and honestly with Anarchy, I did think it was good. This one, I tried. I tried everybody. I really did. I hope we're not offending anybody, but this one is just... I try to take these seriously, but in the end, I can't take seriously what is not serious. That's just how it is.
01:49:51
Speaker
Alright, well that will do it for our horror in the movies section. We'll be right back to play a game and close out the show.
01:50:12
Speaker
All right, and we are back to close out Episode 102. And Andrew, I've got a little game for you. Fun. This is a game that I made this morning, and it's got a really clever title. It's called, it's all about patriotism and honoring the people that started America. It's called Slave Owner or Founding Father. Oh, that title just like it just glides off the tongue. I know. And what I'm going to read you some quotes and
01:50:42
Speaker
So you'll get a point if you guess, if they were a slave owner or a founding father, and I'll give you a bonus point if you know who said it. Okay. Okay. Okay. So you've got four that I'm going to read you. Um, the first one, not that hard. I will see if you can get this one. The first one is all men are created equal.
01:51:05
Speaker
Was that is that just George Washington? So this is in this is in the Declaration of Independence. And this is Thomas Jefferson, who was a slave owner, slave owner, girl and founding father. A bit of a trick question there, right? OK, the next one, are you ready?
01:51:27
Speaker
I advanced it, therefore, as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race or made distinct by time or circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind." Oh God, I don't know who said it, but they're awful. Well, do you think they're a slave owner or a founding father? Slave owner. Okay, so trick question again. Guess what? It's Thomas Jefferson again, a slave owner and founding father. How about that, huh? Crazy.
01:51:57
Speaker
Um, the next one is this. I will say then that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I'm just going to go with the theme here and say it's both. So kind of close. Now you're never going to guess who this is. It's Thomas Jefferson, Abraham, Abraham Lincoln. How about that, right?
01:52:24
Speaker
So this is a little bit before Abraham Lincoln evolved a little bit more, right? Abraham Lincoln, not a slave owner, but a founding father in most respects. I wanted to kind of toss that one in. You tricked me. I know, right? Now, the final one is this.
01:52:40
Speaker
Why increase the sons of Africa by planting them in America where we have so fair an opportunity by excluding all blacks and tawnies of increasing the lovely white and red? I vey. I know, right?
01:52:59
Speaker
Um, that's a slave owner, I'm assuming. So I'll give you a point for that. It was a slave owner and a founding father. That was the big trick of this game. They're all kind of founding fathers and slave owners. Um, and it was Benjamin Franklin who said that. How about now? Yeah. So look, Andrew, I think you did a great job on that quiz and, um, you know, look, look happy late fourth of July. Everybody hear your founding fathers. Congratulations.
01:53:23
Speaker
Well, that will do it for episode one or two. As always, you can support Friday, the 13th. If you enjoyed this last two hours of may stifling conversation. But we can do that by going to Friday, 13 dot com slash support or searching for us on places like Tea Public and Patreon. And look, folks, if if that's not up your alley or your budget right now, that's totally fine. One of the things that you can do to support us is you can leave a review.
01:53:51
Speaker
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01:54:08
Speaker
And I just want to announce that we have one new Patreon this episode. Steven McNally, thank you so much for joining the Patreon. We will get to one of your picks for what you've been watching, bitch, in an episode upcoming. But just wanted to say thank you so much for your patronage. It really means a lot to us. And we know that you get this for free. So the fact that you would take some time to support our little, our little mess is really nice. Very, very sweet. Thank you.
01:54:37
Speaker
And as always, we encourage you to do one thing and one thing only, and that is to Get Slayed.
01:55:51
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Dread Podcast Network.