Mommie Dearest with Izzy Custodio from Be Kind Rewind

This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans, so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of tontons and wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bec Delcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bec Delcast. Jamie, dearest. Caitlin, dearest. Thank you. I just wanted to show you my cool new wire hangers I got. Oh, yes, yes. Was this a known thing about wire hangers where people tie or was this specifically a movie thing? Is it like low rent to have wire hangers? I don't know. I would say we were a heavily wire hanger household. So was mine. I think. And the hangers in question, which are like those plushie hangers, I think are like kind of stinky and smell like mothballs. But what do I know? Sure. Yeah, I don't know. Like I have a few wooden clothes hangers that I like hang my heavier coats on and stuff. And I feel so classy when I'm like, you know, putting my wood hanger on the rack. And really with the with hangers, there's always the floor, which is where most of it is going to end up anyways. It's the hangers that I buy or is like it's a performance piece that I do every time I move. It's a choir. Okay. Well, that was a that was a classy opening to the mommy dearest episode. To the back to the cast. My name is Jamie Laftes. My name is Caitlin Durante. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens using the back to test as a jumping off point. But Jamie, what on Jamie dearest? Yes, what on earth is that? Well, it is a media metric created by Allison Bechtel, friend of the show, originally, and actually it is like pretty relevant to talk about the context today. Originally was made as a one off joke in her comic collection, Dikes to Watch Out For, back in the 80s has since been adapted to a sort of mainstream metric. A lot of versions of it, the version we use requires that two characters of a marginalized gender with names speak to each other about something other than a man. And that conversation can really be about anything narratively relevant. And so the movie mommy dearest, you know, it doesn't have to be a positive conversation. That's what I'll say. It does not. It can be abuse. Yes. So you can, you know, know that it passes the back to test and we would probably call the podcast something else if we started it today. But today we have kind of a behemoth of a movie because it's a request we've been getting since this show has existed, I'd say. So for nearly a decade, we have been avoiding covering this movie because it seemed difficult to prepare for. And that that is in fact true. But we have the perfect guest to come and talk about mommy dearest with us. Let's get her in here. She is the creator behind the YouTube channel Be Kind Rewind. It's Izzy Custodio. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you guys for having me. I'm very excited. It is a daunting task to talk about this movie. Thank you so much for being, I mean, just to get the fangirl moment out of the way, I guess, like we cite your work truly like every other episode. You are so present on this show. Oh, thank you. No, I'm so excited to be here. I love this podcast. Thank you. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, we're so excited to have you. Yeah, so much of what I've learned about this movie specifically and also just Joan Crawford as a cultural figure is from your work. I mean, we I think we were talking about we recently covered whatever happened to baby Jane. And so that I mean, I just I still have the I bought the shirt with the the cease and desist from Olivia de Havilland that you put out like six years ago. Just so much so much lower. But to get people up to speed, what is your history with I guess Joan Crawford as a cultural figure and mommy dearest? I would say, I mean, whatever happened to baby Jane was my introduction into Joan Crawford. I remember renting that at the library as a child. I don't think I knew anything about it. Amazing. But I was captivated by it. It's just one of those things that kind of hits to a core part of your personality that you haven't recognized yet. And so for the longest time, I just remembered it as like, what's what is that movie with those two crazy ladies who have a doll? I couldn't remember what it was called. And then I kept trying to find it again at the library, but it just became such an integral part of my pop cultural consumption. And then from there, as I sort of developed my interest in Hollywood history and stuff, I mean, Joan was a really natural way for me to get into that through Joan Crawford and Betty Davis. So I guess I have like a strong relationship with Joan Crawford from from my early days as a cinephile. And then I don't know exactly how mommy dearest got into my life. I'm pretty sure my mom introduced it to me, actually. I think she had seen it at some point and sort of understood it as this sort of important camp classic. And we would watch it together and we would quote it together. And she would always jokingly say, aren't you glad I'm not this bad? Great yardstick to pull out as a parent. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You're like, you should be grateful. Yeah. So we just have little, I guess, inside jokes about that. But yeah. And then, you know, I made that video about it. And so I've just kind of dug into it later on in life as well. But but yeah, it's just it's been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Wow. Amazing. Incredible. Jamie, how about you? I had not seen this movie all the way through before, which I was kind of surprised for I was it's one of those movies. A huge movie, very different movie, but two movies that I was like hoping to like wait to see in theaters for the first time were Mommy Dearest and 2001 A Space Odyssey. I saw very similar. Perfect double feature. Yeah. I still haven't seen 2001 A Space Odyssey because I really want to see it in the theater. And every time it's in theaters here, I magically get the flu or whatever. So a similar deal where I wanted to like experience this like I think of this movie in the same vein as like Rocky Horror, where I wanted the experience. But this was my time. And so I watched Mommy Dearest and holy shit. I mean, I don't it is like a full experience. I still would love to see it in an audience. Very brief history. I went and read the first hundred pages of the book. I didn't have time to read the whole thing, but I was just trying to get a feel of like what the, you know, tone of the book was versus the movie. And it is very different, even though a lot of the set pieces are the same. I don't know. I'm kind of surprised that this book wasn't brought up in conversation more with I'm glad my mom died because I think of this movie or if this book came out 30 or whatever, 40 years later, it would have been treated quite differently. But yeah, I don't know. I really enjoyed learning about how I don't know. I'm interested in how like abusive dynamics, especially with kids are like portrayed in movies. And this is like such a huge example of it. And yeah, I don't know. There's so much to talk about. I'm interested to get into it. Caitlin, what's your history with Mommy Dearest? Had you seen it before? I had. Okay. I watched it during the Great Caitlyn Movie Binge of 2005. Huge. Thank you so much. And at that point, I don't think I had much of a handle on who Joan Crawford was because I was only starting to make my way through classic Hollywood cinema. I remember it being a difficult watch. I am sure I perceived it as being like very over the top and campy, but I more remember being like oh my God, this is hard to watch. But since then, I forgot most of it, except for I remembered the wire hanger scene. I mean, yeah, I feel like that's like almost a cultural osmosis thing. Yeah, definitely. I get a lot of TCM memes in my algorithm, which is great. But they like recently, I don't know on what grounds, but I learned from via a TCM meme that there was briefly like an Ajax, like the bathroom bleacher that was a mommy dearest tie-in Ajax. Wow. Just, which we'll talk about, but that was the most recent time I was thinking about mommy dearest before we settled on this episode. When was that marketing thing? I think it would have been for the original run of the movie. Yeah. I think there was kind of a pivot in the advertising where they sort of lean into the grotesqueness with wire hangers and things like that. Which I was part of it. I was really surprised. I mean, we could talk about it later as well, but I was really surprised how instantly the pivot was in being like, oh, this is a camp movie. Okay, I assumed that that happened over a period of years, but it seems to have happened like inside of the first week or so of release. Yeah. Kind of like how cats was just immediately. Yes, I did compare mommy dearest to cats. But I don't know which production is catching a stray in that. I don't know. But yeah, I'm excited to talk about it. I feel like I'm, I said this off mic too, but I feel like I'm mostly here to learn from the two of you. So I'm ready to learn a lot that I think I don't already know. But yeah, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. Hell yeah. Hey, this is Robert from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans. So we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun, thought-provoking Star Wars related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Tontons and Wampas on the ice planet hot, or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to Stuff to Blow Your Mind on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What a scream. We installed telephone wires across rural Britain over a century ago, and you're still paying to use them for your broadband today. If it ain't broke, what? Stop! Your days of selling phone age broadband are over. Blast! I've spilled the beans. Upgrade to 100% full fiber. Gigaclear, faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds a month. T-Sensees, apply. Check availability at gigaclear.com. And we're back. Okay, so obvious trigger warning at the top. Really? For child abuse? Just from beat one. Yeah. Yeah, so beware of that. Also, this movie was rated, I mean, this movie was rated PG, which just isn't that crazy. Is it because it was before they implemented PG-13? Oh, that's a good question. I honestly don't know. But I mean, she drops an F-bomb too, which I was like, that's a little surprising. Like, I don't think you'd be allowed in PG, right? I don't know. Oh my gosh. You were definitely not. Yeah, the F-word. I think you're allowed one F-word in a PG-13 movie, and if it's more than that, it becomes an R rating. So PG-13 ratings were introduced in 84. So this is a few years. That's why. Shy, but also just like really great indicator of, because I think the reason it got PG is because there's no like sex proper in it. Parental guidance needed indeed. I think we can say. Yes. If anyone needs some solid parental guidance, everyone in this movie. Yeah. Yes. Okay. So we meet Joan Crawford, played by Faye Dunaway, who of course was a famous star during the classic Hollywood era. We see Joan doing a very elaborate morning beauty routine. We also see her. Which is something you could see a 14 year old do on TikTok today. Also, the fact that this was received so poorly, they're like, what a vain woman. And now it's like everyone on earth is doing that. Yeah. It's like a challenge to put your face in ice. You know. The straw. It reminded me. Oh yeah. She has so many like elastic bands on her head. And I'm like, what are you normalizing? Yeah. The like taping the mouth shut of it all. I mean, you could say she's a pioneer. Trailblazer. God forbid a woman have a morning routine. God forbid a woman looks maxes. Geez. This sequence reminded me of the like grooming sequence in American Psycho. And I was like, wow, if you have like a beauty routine in a movie, it's to indicate that that character is crazy. Like a vain freak nightmare person. Which is the logic that this movie abides by. I do think, yeah, there's some sort of connection here, not just with whatever happened to Baby Jane, but like the substance even, you know, just kind of like the desperation we cast on these women to remain young and pressure from the industry and all of these things. Totally. Right. And then like use it as a shorthand for mockery and all this other stuff where I don't know, like there's, as we'll discuss, there's so many reasons to criticize Joan Crawford. Having a facial routine that was intense for an aging woman in Hollywood, I wouldn't say crocs the top like 500. Right. Exactly. But it is a shorthand for like this woman is unhinged. Yeah. Look at this ridiculous woman for trying to adhere to rigid beauty standards that society enforces upon her. I've done worse than everything in the opening sequence. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And will. And plan to. Yeah. Okay. So we see her doing that. We also see her scrubbing her floors and berating her house. I think it's her housekeeper, Carol Ann, and her cleaner, Helga, for not doing a thorough enough job. So we start to realize that she has very intense standards for hygiene and cleanliness. And she's just a very intense person overall. A male suitor of hers comes over. This is an entertainment lawyer named Greg Savit. She tells him that she plans to adopt a baby. And Greg tells her that she will likely be denied by adoption agencies since she's a working woman. She's currently unmarried and she's twice divorced, which this and it's, I understand why the movie doesn't get into like the business of this, but I just think it's interesting is was definitely true because in California at that time, a single woman could not legally adopt a child at all. Like she had to go to per Christina Crawford. Joan Crawford had to go to Nevada to adopt Christina, which is definitely true. But per Christina, she had to do it through a mafia guy, like through the Jewish mafia in Miami. Yeah. There's like a legal baby markets basically for adoption. It's human trafficking. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, to the point where, and another thing that got again, understandably cut from the movie, but the Christopher, her brother is not even the first Christopher. They, she adopted a baby named Christopher that the birth mother returned for. Unclear what the situation was, but she was very upset. It seemed like the baby had definitely been trafficked to Joan Crawford. So Christopher one point, I was taken back by his birth mother. Another kid shows up that not shows up is trafficked to Joan Crawford that she names after her husband at the time, Phillip. And then Joan Crawford and Phillip break up and Joan Crawford changes baby Phillips name to Christopher. Whoa. And so there is a Christopher Crawford, but it's the second one. Second Christopher. Yeah. Oh my gosh. I did not know that. And then there are twins who are adopted in 1947 who aren't even in the movie. Completely erased from the movie. Well, and I think that's kind of intentional because they both very much believe that Christina is full of it. They have a very different experience of growing up. And so I think not to get into the details of that, but I think, you know, that would have complicated the directness of the movie, shall we say? Sure. Yeah. To have a, to have an opposing view. Definitely. And so for like all of those things to be sort of like compressed into the line, you're too vain to be a mother, Joan. Yeah. That's that's how this movie works. Mm-hmm. So as we were hinting at, she is denied by an adoption agency. The movie does not make it clear exactly what happens, but it seems like Greg pulls some strings, quote unquote, and arranges this adoption. And so this is baby Christina. We cut to a few years later. Joan has also adopted Christopher by this point and Christopher too. We skipped over Christopher 1.0. Yeah. We did. And then I'm also like, okay, we have a child named Christina and another child named Christopher. That's too many. Those names are too alike. Well, Christina was originally named Joan, Jr. And then Joan was like, no, I don't know what the logic was for switching it. I think she had sent something along the lines of like, it would just be confusing if she also wanted to be an actor because she had been married to Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. Whose father was Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. And that caused some confusion. And so I think she was just like, well, maybe I was wrong about that and changed it to Christina. Yeah. So when the baby gets to Nevada, never mind. It's Christina now. So she's just changing her kid's names right and left. That is very bizarre. Okay. Christina at this point, I'm not sure how old she's supposed to be because the movie keeps jumping ahead in time, but they use the same child actor, Mara Hobel, for that whole time, even though she's supposed to advance in age. So I think she's probably around like five years old at this big birthday party that Joan throws for her. And Joan seems like a loving, doting mother, but maybe that's just because there are a lot of photographers and publicity people around because things are very different when they're out of the public eye. Not all of the time, but sometimes Joan is very controlling. She is hypercritical of Christina. There's a scene by their swimming pool where Joan makes her daughter overexert herself in the pool and then berates her for losing their swimming race. My grandma had, not to put my dead grandma on blast, but my grandma had a, I don't know, an undiagnosed personality disorder because she didn't believe in treatment. Mental health. That was, it was such a weird scene to like, I hadn't been in that exact situation, but my grandma was frequently challenging the kids to rigged contests that only adults could win. More mind contests, like I was losing trivia to my grandma constantly, which is so, get a life, rest in peace to my grandma. I do think that is one of my favorite line deliveries in the movie though, is when she goes, you lost again. I'm just like, damn it. She's like, I'll always be bigger and faster than you and I'll always win. It's crazy. I love it. It's hard. Like I, I get why people are obsessed with Faye Dunnway's performance in this. Totally. There was no, they, they must have used every unhinged because I read there was a lot of coverage of this movie. There was like a ton of footage shot and maybe they just used the most unhinged take of every single angle. Like she'd, it's relentless. It's intense. Very much so. This, in this moment of the film, Joan becomes very physically abusive toward Christina. She's pushing and striking her. There's another scene where Joan finds Christina playing with some of Joan's things and like hair products and things like that. And she's furious and cuts off Christina's hair. Meanwhile, Joan desperately wants a part in a film that she has not yet been offered. And it seems like Greg once again pulls some strings and Joan thinks she's gotten the part but, and I'm not totally clear what happens here, but there's a dinner with MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer and some bankers. Louis B. Mayer gets off so easy in this movie. It was like genuinely shocking. Yeah. Yeah. But whatever their interaction is, Joan is humiliated by and she and Greg get in a huge fight about it and he basically says like, you're a washed up actor. You're getting old and your career isn't what it used to be. And she's devastated. They break up. Some time passes. Little Christopher is now several years older, but Christina has somehow not aged. I think it reminds me of Matt Men. The brother could be any age. Nobody really ages in this movie. It's like, I think they only put old people makeup like on them, on Carol Ann. Yes. Yeah. And that's it. Carol Ann ages 20 years in like, I think six story days. Oh, in a jump cut. Yeah. Yeah. It's wild. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I'm excited to, at Retania Alda who played Carol Ann, she really had to deal with a lot. It sounds like on that shoot where Faye Dunaway just kept being like make her uglier. To me, part of the camp is the fact that Christina, until she's played by a different, much older actor, does not age, but her younger brother like becomes taller than her at some point. And I'm just like, how, how is this, how is this happening? The wig too. The wig is, is a lot that they put on that child. Oh, yes. Some brutal wigs in this movie, I will say. Definitely. So the children are a little older, but Joan continues to be incredibly vindictive and abusive toward them, especially toward Christina, berating her, taking away her baby dolls. We find out at some point that Joan straps, I think maybe both children, but definitely Christopher to his bed at night, which is, yeah, which is true. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Then Joan has a meeting with Louis B. Mayer who fires her from MGM because her last few movies have lost money. And he's such a nice guy about it. He's doing her a favor by firing her. Just the Louis B. Mayer edit on this is really something else. Although I do, my impression of her leaving is that it is pretty much like a mutual. My understanding of it. I could be misremembering, but I don't. Sure. Recall it being like a brutal firing in the same way that it's kind of portrayed here, although I don't think she was happy about it, obviously, because she was kind of, she understood what was happening to her basically. Right. Well, in the movie version of it, it's like she just has to be the most unhinged person in every scene. And so it's like, Yes. Yeah. She lashes out, she destroys her garden in the middle of the night and makes her children get out of bed and help her. And this is the like, Tina, bring me the axe scene. Yes. Great read. Great read. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I've been taking improv classes. So my performing abilities are really through the roof. We cut to some time later. Joan has signed with another studio and I lost track, which one that? It's Warner Brothers. Warner Brothers. Okay. And she is preparing for her role in Mildred Pierce. Then there's a scene where Christina does not want to eat her lunch because it's a steak that's cooked very rare. And we're seeing Christina becoming more defiant toward her mother as she gets older, although again, she is visibly not aging. So it's impossible to tell how old she's supposed to be. In any case, Joan refuses to feed Christina anything until she has finished this steak. And this goes on for like a day or two. Cut to Joan and her children listening to, because also like the moments this movie cuts away from and the time jumps. Yeah. We're giving you such bad whiplash. I was like, oh, okay. Now it's two years later, I guess. I don't know. Anyway, this is why I was wondering how you were going to do the segment because I was like, I feel like it's very hard to even, there's no real plot either. So it's just like, uh, it's hard to follow. It's just a series of scenes. Yeah. It's a series of unfortunate. Literally. Yes. Yes. Okay. So we cut to Joan and her children listening to a radio broadcast of the Academy Awards. I think Joan has faked having pneumonia to avoid going to the ceremony. She wins the Oscar for Mildred Pierce and there are paparazzi outside taking pictures of Joan when she opens the door and Christina seems to enjoy some of this limelight. And so maybe that will inform her career choices later on. Following that, we get the very famous scene of the movie. Joan comes into Christina's room. There's cream on her face that makes her look very scary. She's Joker mode. Yeah. Well, there's seen a shot like a horror film. Totally. I think. And Joan finds an article of clothing, I think a dress of Christina's on a wire hanger and she loses it. She starts screaming and ripping all of Christina's clothes from her closet. Joan then beats her, forces her to scrub the bathroom floor, forces Christina to call her mommy dearest, which we've seen prior, but we weren't sure. I think up until this point, if this was just what Christina happened to be calling her mom, or if this was an enforced thing. Anyway, it's absolutely horrible to watch and obviously this child is completely traumatized. Yeah. And like you're saying, is he fully shot like a slasher movie kind of? Yeah. Mm-hmm. She's kind of like backlit by the closet light. Yeah. It's pretty haunting in a way. Yeah. Definitely. It's I mean, there's a reason I remembered it. Everyone remembers that like. It's not subtle. It's not subtle. It is not subtle. It is not subtle. Nope. And then contrast that scene with the next scene, which is Joan and her children calmly sitting for a televised interview at their home at Christmas time, where they appear to be a happy loving family. Then we meet a new suitor of Jones, Ted Gilbert. And we barely see him on screen except for Christina is responsible for serving him drinks as a child. And Christina interrupts Joan and Ted conuddling by bringing her mother a beverage. And this apparently infuriates Joan so much that she sends Christina to boarding school. For this was the wildest ever. Both times Christina goes to school a wild time jump. Yes. Happens. Yeah. Where it's either a new person or a confusing wig. New wig. Swap. Well, the crazy one for me is when she leaves the convent school later and she's in her new wig and she's like, thank you for like sticking with me through this trying time. And we haven't seen her at all since the. Skip. I'm like what was happening to you. Which you have no idea. Well, it's like among other things that's totally understandable why Christina Crawford hated this movie because it's not about her. Like it's no. Exactly. Yeah. It's just like the gnarliest abuse scenes adapted in the broadest possible way. I wonder if there was ever any. I don't know. Do you remember Izzy from like, I know that there was like a bajillion versions of this script. If there was ever more of a focus on Christina's life away from Joan or. Well, I know Christina had wanted to write the script originally. I don't know if she ever actually turned in a draft. Okay. But that would be my guess if there ever were one because I think the other versions that I'm aware of did more to contextualize Joan or at least give more showtime to to Joan's life than is already in the film because even that I feel like doesn't even do justice. So like what was happening with Joan either. So I think it just sort of ends up doing a disservice to both of them as you're as you're saying like Christina is not benefiting from this at all. I think. No, no. It's certainly not. At both schools, there is like one woman teacher and or none who clearly sees that something bad is afoot, but we never find out. We never find out if they ever talk about it or what happens. It seems like Christina definitely likes being away at school better than she likes being at home, which matches with her story. But. Right. Although when Joan sends her away initially, Christina is crying and begging her mother not to send her away to no avail. And then this is a big time jump. We cut to many years later. Christina is now a teenager played by Diana Scarwood. She's still at boarding school studying acting. Then we see a scene where she and her mother go out for lunch. Their relationship is still very contentious where Christopher is. We have no idea. He disappears. Oh, yeah. And I kind of forgot that we don't know where Christopher goes. Yeah. He's gone. And then Joan reveals that she's having financial difficulties. She has lost her contract at Warner Brothers. So Christina will need to do a work scholarship program to be able to stay in school. But sometime later, her mother is humiliated and pulls Christina out of school after she is caught making out with a boy. But she tells everyone that Christina was expelled. Followed by Joan being similarly humiliated when a reporter comes from Redbook to do a cover story on Joan and she's trying very hard to impress. This is Barbara. Barbara, please. Yeah. Okay. One of the five lines from this movie. Yes, exactly. Barbara, please. Who is played by Marlon Brando's sister, which is I thought was kind of a fun fact. It's a little easter egg. Yeah. Because I saw Jocelyn Brando. It's like surely not of the Marlon Brando's, but it is. Interesting. Joan is trying to impress this reporter, but she absolutely blows it and then lashes out at Christina. Things become incredibly violent with Joan strangling and nearly killing Christina. We then cut to Christina at a con a convent. I wrote covenant, but that is not right. A convent where she has been sent to finish out her schooling, where she will have no privileges or contact with the outside world. We skip over more years and cut to Christina has finished school and returned home. She has new wig. New wig. Most importantly. Yes. I don't even know how. Like we're not even, yeah, like I have no idea how old she's supposed to be at this point. I think by the time she's in the soap opera, in reality, she was 28. Yeah. And Joan was like 63, but fade down away. It looks the same the whole movie. So it's just unclear. It's really tough. Yeah. I mean, this is one of the things that I think is really interesting about this film is like, I think when we're talking about biopics kind of of this nature now, what we're so used to seeing is these references that are kind of winks to the audience to be like, remember this. And this film, it's not even trying to give you those little touchstone moments to be like, oh, the film that she is desperately trying to get is this film. Like they'll just not mention what it is. I think Mildred Pierce is one of the only movies they actually name in the film. And it's like, you never see, it's like, you don't see her like hanging out with Barbara Stanwyck or like any of her friends or like directors or anything and these kinds of like world building things that we're so used to seeing in modern biopics just like doesn't exist here in a way that makes this story feel so like isolated and prison like totally and very bizarre. Like it's just kind of it's hard to keep track of is I think one thing that it happens. Yeah, it like just happens out of time. And like it's you never know how old anyone is, what year it's supposed to be. I don't know. I mean, like part of the reason that this movie is as you illustrated in your video, like the definition of camp is because it doesn't seem like this is necessarily intentional. Like they really thought they were doing something with this movie, but it is. I mean, it like it's a weird disservice to everyone too, because it's like showing that Joan had friends doesn't only like give you a better idea of who Joan Crawford was, which I'm imagining young audiences in the early 80s may have needed. But it also like I don't think does a very good job of like explaining how someone might be getting away with such abuse the entire time. It's not like she was a like unhinged person locked up in her house. Like part of the reason that abusive parents can thrive is because they are perceived as a good person by the people around them and all this. I don't know. It's very complicated, but just every choice in this movie is so weird. The scene where she nearly strangles Christina in front of a reporter seemingly has no consequences. Like I don't know if that happened in real life, but like you would think that Barbara would have written about that or I don't I don't know. But I don't know about I don't think that happened. Well, it's like that also like really makes it seem that like Hollywood columnists have such feel to him like no, that's a that's a story you would definitely print that totally. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so Christina has returned home from her schooling. She meets her mother's new husband Alfred, who is a big wig at Pepsi. Oh, yeah, the late stage Pepsi. Every letterbox review of this movie is like, wow, didn't know Pepsi was going to feature so heavily in that. Forgot about that. And Christina has gotten into acting. She's financially struggling and her mother refuses to lend her any money. But Joan is frivolously spending money on other things like a New York City apartment. And then off screen, Alfred dies and leaves Joan with a bunch of debt. Pepsi tries to fire her from the board of directors, but she refuses to leave. She threatens them. This is the don't fuck with me fellows, which I'm also pretty sure is not how that went down. But yeah, I would say like 90% of this movie is not accurate. Yeah. But like another great example of like she always has to be the loudest, most unhinged person in the world at every second of every day. Right. For however long this movie goes on unclear. Yeah. Yeah. 20 years question mark. More. Basically, she bullies them into letting her stay on the board. Meanwhile, it seems like Joan and Christina are maybe getting along a little better. Christina lands apart in a soap opera, but then has to take time off after being hospitalized for an ovarian tumor. And while Christina is in the hospital, Joan swoops in and steals Christina's role on the soap opera, even though her character is 28 years old and Joan is this in her 60s or 50s. This did happen. Yeah. This did happen. Yeah. That is wild. Yeah. If that happens, you of course have to include it in mommy dearest. I wish you saw more of the fallout. I guess the Christina in the hospital reaction shot is pretty good. Yeah. Turn it off. That is it. That's nuts. That was, I had never heard about that before. Yeah. It's wild that she really thought she could get away with it. But yeah. And that she was like, no, I just didn't want Christina to lose the part. I'm like, no, you wanted this. I'm not buying it, Joan. I'm not buying it. But yeah, like you said, Jamie, there's not really aftermath of that because the next scene is Joan receiving, I guess like a lifetime achievement type award and Christina accepts it on her mother's behalf because Joan is ill. And at the end of Christina's speech, she says, I love you, mommy dearest. And she's crying and Joan watching at home is crying. And it seems like a very tender moment. I don't really know what the takeaway is meant to be there. Then we cut to Joan has passed away. All of a sudden. Yeah. Just like cut to corpse dead. The jump cuts in this film are brutal. Such whiplash. It's wild. It's like literally straight from like her taking her firing on the chin to being like, you know, like the most insane person you've ever seen. There's like no, no rhyme or reason. I'm like, I have to imagine a lot of stuff that was shot isn't included, but like there's just no gentleness to any transition. No, but she's dead and Christopher's back. Welcome back Christopher to the first back played by I didn't look up this actor's name, but I was like, I recognize him from something. What do I recognize him from? And he plays the foster dad of John Connor in Terminator two. Wow. And that's the only other thing that's such a pull that you remember that. That's crazy. I mean, I've seen that movie 100 times. I love that. Xander Berkeley. Good name. Xander. True. Anyway, that's Christopher. He and Christina are at the Wake or funeral or something, but there but Christina is like next to the casket. And she's crying and she's saying the pain is finally over. And then Carol Ann comes in saying Carol Ann suddenly a hundred. Yes. She's like, your mother always loved you. And Christina is like, I need so much to believe that. Joan is snatched in her coffin. Oh, yeah. Never looked better. Yeah. Then a lawyer reads Jones will to Christina and Christopher saying that Joan left them nothing. The quote is from Joan. It is my intention to make no provisions here in for my son, Christopher and my daughter, Christina, for reasons which are well known to them. It is a gut punch and Christopher remarks as usual, she has the last word and Christina is like, Oh, does she because I'm about to write a book about what a horrible mother she was. The end. So let's take another quick break and we'll come right back to discuss. Hey, this is Robert from the stuff to blow your mind podcast. Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans. So we're celebrating May the fourth with a brand new week of fun, thought provoking Star Wars related episodes. Join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far, far away, such as the biology of Tontons and Wampas on the ice planet hot or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two. Listen to stuff to blow your mind on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. 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I mean, could really be anywhere. I mean, I guess what I would say about it, just like having made that video about it and just observed the response to it, I do think this is such a complicated, like deceptively complicated film to talk about because there's so many ways that people react to it and all of them I think are valid in a way. Sure. Like my experience throughout my primary, the way that I react to it is through the camp lens where I see it is very over the top it does make me laugh. I can't help it. But there are other people who see it as like legitimately terrifying abuse. There are other people who can't even stand the mention of this film because they feel it besmirches Joan Crawford's memory. There are people who believe word for word what Christina claims happened to her. And it just becomes this really strange Rorschach test, I guess, of like where people are landing and thinking about like abuse and legacy and all of these things coming together at once. And I think like that is very difficult territory to tread in because on the like you want to give people grace, but I think it devolves very quickly into like a morality competition is just like, who are we believing and why and all of these things that are just so difficult that we can never really answer. So I guess like I would just acknowledge that off the bat, which is like, if anyone hears my take or like our take and is just appalled by it, like that's fine. I think there's a lot of ways to react to this. Right. Absolutely. And it gets into such tricky territory when it comes to who do we believe and what is to be believed because it's this is based on a book which is based on a real life account of someone experiencing abuse, which you should believe if someone says I was abused. Yeah. But especially with a film adaptation where some things are likely embellished, some things are likely sensationalized, because that's what like Hollywood studio movies tend to do. It just it gets into such murky territory. Very tricky. Yeah, I totally agree that it's like there's no it's like not a productive discussion to like break down like, well, what do we believe and what do we because we'll just never know. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. But what is interesting is like tracking their reaction and like, and I guess like where this movie's priorities ultimately like lie and how that sort of seems to have changed over time. Yeah, I was thinking about because it I don't know it was interesting like I was just like digging around on Reddit at 2am last night, because people still talk about this movie a lot. Yeah. And just seeing like you're saying is he such a wide like it's because it's a movie about first being abused as a child, second about having a mother, like, yeah, of course, and that you can't not have a personal reaction to it. But you know, here like reading accounts of kids that were like, I really connected with this movie because my, you know, it's super over the top, but I experienced something similar and whatever it's not perfect, but I didn't see it anywhere else. And then there's the, you know, huge camp following and the queer embrace of this movie. And I still really want to go to a screening of it. Like you got to come at New York City, head of lettuce does talk back screenings or she'll like talk during the screening and like point things out with laser pointer. It's really funny. I highly recommend if you're ever around for that. I would love to like, I don't I don't know if I've ever seen an LA proper screening of it. Like it's just yeah, like every every reading of this is is valid. I was also reminded of there's a recent video essay from Sarah Zed about sort of trauma memoirs and like their sort of history. And this is an example of that. And I don't mean to sound dismissive in saying that, but just in how those works are marketed and monetized, like follows a very specific pattern. And that like, I think part of the reason it's like almost impossible to talk about is because of the time it was written and released to where like the way that abuse was discussed and received in the public, specifically like maternal abuse, like it was just a completely different landscape. And I feel like there was just like a far lower cultural understanding or tolerance for understanding what maternal abuse could look like. It sounds it I didn't go super deep on it. But like this book was both very successful and widely dismissed as exploited it like exploiting her mother's memory as being like trashy as being even like as far as as far as like saying that she is ungrateful, like all of these really blamey narratives that like don't don't serve anything. And I think would be really unusual to see in a similar book published now. Yeah, I mean, if you think about it too, like, Joan Crawford, speaking of the timing, Joan Crawford died in 1977. So she died. This is a very freshly made film, like after her death, when there would presumably still be a lot of affection for her. If we think about like when Joan Crawford was peaking, this was in the 1940s, let's say, like early 1940s. So imagine like somebody who was really big in the 90s died and the next year, we find out like they were actually very different than we presumed. Like, of course, you would see some, I think defensiveness, I think as part of the reception to this film as well, trying to understand and reconcile how your kind of parasocial relationship with this movie star is challenged by like what we're discovering. And I think you do have to take that kind of sentiment into account when I certainly feel that myself, like I have to check myself and be like, how much of how much of my beliefs or like dismissals of Christina, you know, have to do with the fact that Joan Crawford is an important actress to me, you know what I mean? Like, I think that's you have to take that into account when you're thinking about this kind of stuff. Totally. I mean, I'm, you know, it's extremely complicated. I'm generally inclined to, I mean, Christina Crawford appears to have been pretty consistent on what she's said. Not everyone likes the way she said it or the amount of time she said it. But it seems like Christina and Christopher have been pretty consistent. And I guess that's the last I'll say about it. But it does. I mean, like, the fact that this book was written so soon after her mother's death, like it's like a really raw book, I can't imagine having to promote this book while you're still like kind of processing the fact that she's got like, I whatever, I don't know how many people have had an experience like that. But I think also about like the power dynamic of it, right, where it's like she is, Christina Crawford is essentially an unknown, like she was on a couple of soaps. Like you're saying, is he like really challenging this carefully, this image that was carefully constructed over the course of like 50 years? And then, yeah, and like how she's sort of starting at a, it's a difficult hill to climb to, you know, even if she's being 100% honest, because I don't know, like your average reader, you're not going to be inclined to sympathize with her because you don't know who she is. Yeah, which is like not a pleasant thing. But that's just like sort of how people work. Like you don't want to believe the worst in this person that you grew up with. But, but I think it's also really easy on the other side of that. It's really easy to like quickly demonize a bad mother. Yes, totally. Like culture kind of giddily wants to blame every woman. It's like, are you doing formula or like breastfed? Like that'll get you demonized. Like then that's the least of it. It's like, so to find out that this perfect woman was apparently some hysterical monster. It's like just ripe for kind of dismissing or just completely reshaping her as a cultural figure and her cultural legacy as well. Right. In a way that like you're saying like does it disservice to definitely Christina, but also Joan and and what the movie seems like it wants to do. But ultimately doesn't because in the chunk of the original book that I read because this movie takes place in this like weird contextless void kind of of like what Joan Crawford's life was actually like prior to the movie starting. Christina is like acknowledging pretty consistently in the book and like including those I think like necessary benchmarks of like this is where she was at in her career. This is the way that she felt about it. And, and also that and I don't remember if it's like maybe sort of mentioned offhand once or twice in the movie, but that like Joan Crawford was the product of a very broken home as well and like grew up in extreme poverty and had all of these traumatic experiences growing up. So there's like a cycle of abuse narrative that Christina doesn't seem to be shying away from in her book, but the movie like doesn't even really attempt to get into because it's more fun if Joan is just evil. Right. There's one or two lines where Joan will say like I had to do a work scholarship program too, but we don't know the extent. Like what do you mean by her backstory? Well, it just it sounds like that thing where like your grandpa is like I walked three miles to school and you like just don't really it's like okay grandpa, you know, and it's not like that's not the reality of what she was going through, you know, and so it's sort of exactly like you said it's not it's not a serious exploration of the way that trauma cycles. And ultimately like the thesis of this film is isn't she a crazy bitch? Yeah. And that's that's like sad to me because it doesn't say anything really about like what abuse is or what it means or how it comes about. It doesn't do Christina any favors because it's not from her perspective, but then it also just completely tears down Joan not to say that there's a way to excuse abuse, but to understand how it arises is I think valuable and maybe like at least giving a little sympathy to this person. Right. I feel like two of the truths and there are I'm sure more you can hold for this movie, but at least two of them are that there's an abusive parent situation happening and movies and society love to demonize women and make them seem nuts because I feel like this movie is in conversation with movies like Sunset Boulevard and whatever happened to baby Jane in the sense that it's like look at these washed up aging actors that have gone hysterical and you know some of the like hagsploitation movies of this nature do a better job of contextualizing well why would an aging woman especially in an industry like Hollywood be so concerned about her appearance or her legacy or how she's perceived as a mother too. For sure, but with this movie it mostly just seems hell bent on like look how fucking nuts this woman is. Yes, a mess. I mean yeah the ways that we were talking about this from like moment one of the movie where like the ice whatever drugcropper taking the ice bucket challenge but like her complicated morning routine like there's it's not again nothing in this movie is subtle but like the ways that it's telegraphed that she is unwell is so all over the place because it can be as extreme as overt physical extreme abuse and this is sort of presented on the same plane as like being very conscious of what she looks like which we understand is because that is like what her living hinges on. The way they when she's jogging oh yeah first of all the way Faye Dunway jogs makes me laugh so hard she's like punching the air her form is wild hilarious yes but it's like she kind of snaps yes sweating through sweats is in LA that's crazy yeah the way she kind of snaps and like starts off in a sprint like she's like I'm the biggest star he's ever had god damn it but she just starts like sprinting as yeah what is she repeating to herself she's like I don't know if it's something like I'm a winner I'm a winner I will yeah I forget what it is but I wrote it down yeah it's she's she's doing she's doing a very like cursed affirmation right and it's just I I have such trouble imagining even a person as extreme in personality and Joan as Joan Crawford doing something like that right in the way that it does become it leads into that camp territory of being you know quote unquote Joan you know yeah yeah totally well it's it's really interesting reading there's another there's a book about this that came out a couple years ago called with love mommy dearest by a Ashley Hoff which I did some some rapid Libby scanning in preparation for this but just like pulling from how and you talk about this in your video as well Izzy of like how you know John Waters said that this was the first drag performance of a woman by a woman and that this is you know I think that it weirdly feels like and again we can't know if it's intentional or not but the fact that she looks physically the same the whole movie that covers 20 years where it's like this isn't this is like that's a clear indication that that is like not supposed to be actual Joan Crawford it's like the idea like the salacious idea of these you know secretly evil Joan Crawford yeah yeah and you touch on this in your video as well but the Faye Dunaway wanted to be involved and play Joan Crawford because she wanted to humanize her partly because she felt so much kinship with Joan Crawford and you know after all these drafts of the script and it finally went into production and the filmmakers thought they were making this serious film about child abuse but it was but it becomes more about Joan than Christina very quickly it seems for sure because that's what sells like no one knows who Christina is so she's always going to be at a disadvantage and I feel like I mean also speaking to sorry to just regurgitate your video back at you but um but I learned so much it seems like critics of both the film and the book were like well there's kind of no attempt to contextualize why Joan Crawford was behaving the way she was there's no attempt to sort of understand what was going on which I kind of disagree with based on even the short section of the book I read I thought that she that Christina was like I don't know I mean especially if we're grading on a curve for mother very recently died I thought that she was going out of her way to contextualize the story of Joan's life as Joan told it to her like I don't know I think I get kind of like antsy around criticisms like that too or it's like she that it's the responsibility of one person to completely give full context for someone they are alleging was extremely abusive to them but even with that in mind I think that she does do like I wonder what would have constituted enough like if not complete forgiveness yeah or something I don't know yeah it's so tough because I agree with you it's like why is it my responsibility to give context to my abusers humanize my abuser yeah like I think it goes back to kind of what I was talking about before where we're dealing with a very personal relationship that is being told in the context of like a societally parasocial relationship yeah so it's sort of like you're coming to us with this information about someone that we feel like we know and so what do we need as an audience to make sense of this and so like no it isn't her responsibility but I also think it probably would have been a better told story if that world building did exist to kind of understand who either of these people are because we don't really like yeah as we kind of keep saying is like I don't really know anything about Christina either tell me one thing other than that she wanted to act and we don't know why other than like that her mother did it maybe that's all she knew maybe she was never interested in anything else like there's a lot of conjecture I mean she had a pretty interesting life yeah it's like it's it doesn't really do very much to I mean both whatever she goes on to have like an interesting life after this and like works as an entertainment lawyer she worked on the Clinton campaign in 92 yeah not that they could have known that then but whatever went to have on went to have a whole life but I mean all love to Diana Scarwood but I feel like there's like I don't know Christina doesn't seem to have a lot of like personality or there's just not much for you to like hold on to in a movie that's like allegedly she's supposed to be the co-lead of but she's not even credited as the co-lead it seems like Greg is second built which is wild yeah which is so weird yeah I don't know I was it's impossible to unpack in the space of a single Bactyl cast episode but I it does like the way that abuse and like specifically maternal abuse is like talked about and shown to us like over time is so interesting and does still fall into like I think your sympathies are always going to you're going to be encouraged to sympathize with whoever was the more well-known or powerful person culturally in that relationship and having read Jeanette McCurdy's memoir which is wonderful and also a very like personal story of maternal abuse first of all it's coming out over 40 years after mommy dearest and is extremely and like rightfully well received and I think is being adapted into movie or TV show and I think that you know Jeanette McCurdy is the narrator and the well-known person which I think for readers it's easier to say I believe her based on how we're like trained to believe people and Kristina so in that way it's like I it's not surprising to know that like Kristina was having a hard time from the jump regardless of the veracity of the allegations because she's not the known person and like Joan I don't know it's interesting seeing how she talks about it now too she's also still alive she's in her 80s in like 2019 she was trying to stage a musical of mommy dearest question mark oh don't know how I feel about that no I would up the camp factor even more I would imagine for sure yeah it seems like she came around to accepting that it was camp but but someone asked her if she thought like what she thought Joan would think about mommy dearest is like the phenomenon in general and I just thought her answer was very interesting she basically says that she thinks that like whatever Joan was like shrewd and understood how to play into cultural narratives and like she didn't she thinks that Joan would be showing up at mommy dearest screenings and being like haha I get it totally yeah and then like freaking out about it behind the scenes I mean that would have been my personal hypothesis as well yeah because yeah she was incredibly smart and that's what I think is so um I don't know interesting about this too and the way it kind of frames Joan I think you're right like I think it's really interesting too what you're saying about how we're kind of more primed to be sympathetic toward the person we know more because I think like this narrative of abuse is also competing against a very well known narrative of abuse of abuse which is like the abuse of the studio system specifically sure yeah so it's like we know just kind of anecdotally from like every actress that went through that was being you know drugged or like not given food or you know sexually assaulted like all of these things that they would have experienced on a day-to-day basis and so it's like we have already done a lot of work to gin up a lot of sympathy and like understanding of that kind of abuse that kind of systemic abuse that Joan would have been suffering and so now to have like a competing narrative that shows her like in a kind of monstrous light but also I think as part of that conversation about the way that abuse cycles right is really interesting to me um and how those kind of compete with each other especially from someone like Joan who you know a lot of these women who were famous during that time were not they didn't come from good places like they were working up from extreme poverty in many cases and in the cases of someone like Joan like they weren't parented so they were kind of the first generation of these like ultra famous career women who had no experience of what f- that kind of fame would look like put on a you know pedestal that like they were terrified to fall off of so I think like the whole context is like you're just not being set up to succeed at all in your personal life um and then you have society breathing down your neck to have children when like by rights many of them like probably didn't actually want to like we know that story that story is very familiar and so it's hard to kind of like further complicate that as you're saying yeah and it's like so much is left on the table when you because I mean even you describing those two competing narratives of abuse it's like in a very different movie it's like oh there's it's like they're so close yeah to being able to connect how whatever in conversation those cycles of abuse are where I again this is from mommy dearest and I did not do any sort of further background on this but I guess per Joan telling Christina in mommy dearest that there's like another bizarre layer to like why Joan did not have children in earlier marriages um her first husband was Douglas Fairbanks Jr as you mentioned Izzy whose mother was Mary Pickford and there was a narrative that Joan shared that she did get pregnant but was told to have abortions because Mary Pickford didn't want to be perceived as a grandmother yeah so it's another like agist Hollywood narrative that like the cycle of abuse is like trickling down so that she wanted children earlier but wasn't allowed to have them because it would make a different I mean the an older actress experience the same anxieties that Joan eventually experiences of like appearing old absolutely I mean the politics of motherhood for that generation of women is extremely complex and like scary to think about because the studio was like in many cases for example Judy Garland was mandated to have an abortion by the studio many of them experienced abortions at young ages that rendered them barren basically or unable to have children two of Joan Crawford's best friends were like that but Barbara Sanwa couldn't have children because of an abortion Myrna Loy couldn't have children because of an abortion these are all of course back alley performances of abortion um and then the studio is like you can't have children at this age or with this person so you have to have these procedures or once you have one you'll look too old so that changes the things we can give you like it's all so timed out and bizarre and you have no choice at all and it's terrifying to think about yeah and then the flip side of that or just a different branch of that misogyny is because Joan cannot have children of her own and chooses to adopt but as we touched on a little bit already can't because of these incredibly misogynistic standards for oh you're a woman with a job oh you're not married and there's no father so you can't have a nuclear family unit like all these like legally either like yeah you cannot win yeah I had no idea because again the movie does not make it clear that there was like a mafia component to her adopting these children yeah I mean the American the American adoption system and most adoption systems are like disturbingly broken which yes it's like almost an entirely different another one of the many things that this movie doesn't have much interest in touching but I mean specifically like the Hollywood it it feels one of I guess well I don't know let me know what you think getting rid of the studio abuse component is one of the few things that does feel kind of intentionally left out because if you include it then Joan is less scary and I think also Hollywood at that time might have been a little reluctant to tell on itself in that way it's like well tell on her but us is different we absolve all responsibility we never exploit people or right use them I mean that like that I think you mentioned in your video that there was an earlier version of the script that began with Joan Crawford as a young actor being physically like assaulted by Louis B. Mer and his office which was like his whole thing if you can call it that and that that is like foregone in favor of the Louis B. Mer scene we get is just like oh this movie has no interest in they're not going to touch any of it like it's not even implied right yeah and then it just like brings you back to like that that same kind of circular argument which is like do we need it to tell Christina's story you know what I mean right like you just it's like you just get caught setting traps for yourself I guess along the way of like trying to make sense of this story in a way that feels fair totally in a situation that isn't fair to anybody right no I know like I yeah I don't know where to land on this because I mean and maybe the solution is was to just center the survivor of the abuse far more than the abuser because by centering the abuser it's doing that thing of like women are horrible see yeah and kind of not undermining the abuse but I mean as this movie does like campifies it in a way that abuse shouldn't be campified and that wasn't the intention of the filmmakers but you know it was directed by a man it was written the many many drafts were either mostly or entirely written by men and you just can't really trust them to handle something like this subject matter please not these ones well and one thing that I do kind of regret about this is like Frank Perry I think has a really great subtle films like you know Diarrhea of a Madhousewife is incredible like one of his films that I recently became obsessed with is called Last Summer which is like one of the most fucked up movies I've ever seen it's a coming of age story about how this yes it's like it's kind of I guess obscure because it's been available unavailable for so long but they just restored it and so I'm hoping a lot of theaters are gonna get access to it in the coming months so look out for that it's called Last Summer but it's just a really fucked up like coming of age story about these teenagers who are kind of like abusive toward each other but in a way that I think is really mature actually and I'm just like I know he has that story in him you know what I mean I'm like I've seen you tackle similar things really beautifully and really subtly it makes me wonder what this film could have been like if his ex-wife had also been a collaborator on this one as as she had in his previous works because maybe like a female sensitivity or something like that could have aided in telling this story it's it's hard to say but um yeah I don't know it's like he's not a bad filmmaker and that's what sucks it's very unclear who to point the finger at for this I think Faye also should take some of that responsibility sure because I think like she obviously is a great actress but I think in some ways I don't know I think people are also really torn on this performance as well like I don't think of camp as a derogatory term so to me like the the commitment of this is extraordinary but it undeniably is not a humanistic portrayal like she is not trying to make her anything other than the cartoon in the screenplay right so I'm sort of like I don't know that that was your choice and I kind of find it an entertaining choice but it seems counterproductive to her goals for the role yeah that's what I was thinking too because again her her intention was to humanize Joan Crawford but all of the most memorable moments of this movie are Faye Dunway playing Joan Crawford as the most unhinged person imaginable so I'm like well Faye then which is why did you do that my operating theory that does take some of the heat off of Faye Dunway because that's my agenda but also she does deserve some smoke for this is that they did 10 takes of everything and on the last take Frank Perry said go big go big go big let's do a silly one yes he said just do a silly one go full joker mode on this yeah and then he just used all of those takes I don't know because it's like she won't she hasn't really at least that I was seeing she like she's definitely she went on that like press tour years later to sort of illustrate that she felt that it had hurt her career and that like the part had stuck to her in a way that she felt was like not fair or reflective of who she is or her abilities but it seems like most anecdotes I've found about her being asked about this are met with a fair amount of hostility which is a common Faye Dunway reaction but I am curious I'm like I would I know she's like also method so which is like a shorthand for like annoying and so being hard to work with right I feel like she's the one female actor who gets pinned with the negative connotation of method yeah kind of right because when men do it people are wow he's so awesome unless the performance is bad and then you know right depends or it's like it's like oh Daniel Day Lewis lived as a penny to like prepare for Abraham Lincoln you know it's like it's like all these crazy stuff that they're trying to like make these actors seem like they're really extreme and then often what they'll say they'll use like examples of them being assholes to say like this is method isn't that wild yeah as a positive yeah but I feel like you know nobody's talking about Sally Sally Field is method nobody says anything about it because she's behaving like a person because she's not abusing people around her right yeah there's there's upper limits to what right she's not mailing what was the Jared let other thing like mailing dead rats to people or whatever oh god yeah and I think especially when it's like not a well-received performance it just it's people catch a lot of smoke but it's I mean I'm just be I'm just objectively so like what was going through her head because she had like very successfully played real life people before with a lot of like sensitivity like she played Bonnie Parker do we think am I remembering this correctly you might have come across this in your research but I feel like I remember her saying she felt like she was haunted by Joan or something like that she said in a clip that I think was in your video she said that she felt like it took her months to get Joan out of her yeah body and like use the word possession which is like great method talk totally but I just I don't know I can see that I mean I feel like that sometimes when I'm writing about a person where I'm just so focused on that person's life or their filmography where it just feels like you're so in it they can't they can't get out of your head right and like I could see something when you're pushing it to that extreme when you have to live that life and inhabit that body in such like night marriage scenes as that I can't imagine pushing that out quickly that that would seem like it'd be really hard to get rid of mentally totally I mean it's like in technically it is like the job of her director to like guide this performance to something I don't know I don't know it's like hard to say like I was going to be mean and say something like more coherent but like so many people love this performance I don't know maybe it was just made too soon maybe all this happened too soon yeah I don't know I mean oddly enough I'm like this is something that would actually be a good mini series I don't want to put that idea in the world I don't want to see it but I think the scale of the story is big enough right and Murphy just like his eyes just I know he's like well let's do it again let's do it again no oh my god that's just like the most cursed thing I've ever imagined in my life wow he is just he needs to be stopped it would be really I mean I it would be interesting to see how like an adaptation of this would work or how it would reflect the way that we've talked about abuses like change or I don't know I feel like it would be hard to get this version of the movie again but we're really progressing as a society pretty quickly so maybe we would get this I don't know it's true I think AI could write this I for sure but AI could not do what fate doesn't know he does absolutely you're right that's it's a hollow argument for humans but it's true well what what is what is for sure and we've like referenced this earlier in the episode is that you know whether this movie intended to be a more like thoughtful portrayal of the people and themes involved Paramount Studios did not care they were going to change courses to whatever was going to get people in seats and this was I mean you talked about this in your video it's also expanded on kind of like moment by moment in with love mommy dearest of how like there's a series of test screenings for this movie that like an anonymous executive said that as they were screening it more the first time they screened it people started laughing about three quarters of the way through the second time they screened it was halfway this third time it was like a quarter of the way and they realized very quickly that they should be marketing it as a comedy god that's so sad which is wild really brutal for for all parties but yeah Mel Brooks went to an early screening of this which I guess makes sense because and bankraft almost starred in it but there there's just like all of these and I was talking about him earlier Harvey who was I talking about Bruce Bruce Blanche yeah Bruce Blanche yeah Bruce Blanche was at an early screening of that like everyone saw an early cut of this and was like this is funny unfortunately and so the studio pivoted basically right away it was allegedly given the green light by Barry Diller to start marketing this like the competing taglines it's marketed as a serious biopic that centers Faye Dunaway's performance and then quickly changes to no more wire hangers ever they call her the biggest mother of them all they've got the Ajax spawn like right Paramount was very very very down to trivialize all of the themes that the filmmakers and I guess to Frank Perry or no I think Frank Yablons is credit yeah he was really upset about this and tried to I was kind of unclear in how it shook out but like tried to sue the studio for pivoting on the marketing so quickly but another thing I was surprised about is that this movie was financially successful it made 25 million on a 10 million dollar budget so regardless of the intention it was marketed as sort of how we think about it now right yeah but it is it is fascinating to see a movie that almost instantly becomes a camp classic because I feel like it usually takes a little while but it's this and again cats yeah yeah I do think it helps I think just the the presence of Joan Crawford as a cultural figure you could imagine a lot of she just would have been in like a cultural vocabulary that maybe like smooths the route toward camp classic because everybody kind of has these touch points with her in their memory you know or which is interesting I do think it's it's interesting I always think about this movie when I think about films like Wuthering Heights or something where it's like there's sort of a narrative going around on the internet I guess about a film that people then enter the film with sure that means like like you hear about what people are saying about it first and then you go see it and your interpretation is kind of informed by that general consensus you know totally so I could I could imagine or what's like another example of that or the one that Harry Styles was in kind of recently that everyone was like he's the worst actor ever oh don't worry darling yeah yeah yeah you know it's it's these kinds of things where you're kind of responding to the response and I wonder if mommy dearest was kind of like that if people just kind of heard it as you know a can't be funny movie and then you go in expecting to laugh you're gonna see a different movie than you would have if you weren't told that yeah for sure nothing illustrated that that for me like last year I don't know what anniversary it was but AMC released Rocky Horror Picture Show into a theater for like one night at AMC's but with none of the Rocky Horror Frills so I just saw and and my fiance had never seen it so we went together and I was expecting the Rocky Horror experience yeah and if you're not watching it with the experience he was like what he's like that was all right I don't know yeah yeah it's really not as fun without all the other stuff it's weird yeah I and that's I just like and I still want to go to a mommy dearest's grading I mean the one of the one of the rituals that you cited in addition to this like I mean Joan Crawford's connection to drag performers but also like Faye Dunaway's Joan Crawford's connection to drag performers but the like dragging effigies of Christina in the street was something that was you're like well if we need further proof this movie missed the mark yeah the thing is I could see if that movie came out today and someone did that I could see myself at that performance laughing it's so hard and you know and I'm just like am I a horrible person maybe no though I I mean maybe it's that like we I mean we don't know but it would appear on the surface that Christina Crawford like turned out okay like she went on like again we don't know well she's like an ultra christian like isolated on a farm so there is also that much of much of her whole build now involves living in Florida I see I see but yeah I don't know it's impossible to because like we were talking about Carrie Fisher recently about how like some of her writing about mental health was like it not necessarily well received by everyone who's like suffering from the same mental health diagnoses that she was especially when she was like fictionalizing that work which is like another thing that you discussed in a recent video of yours in her screenwriting career but that doesn't I don't know I mean like that doesn't mean that whatever I did people can receive work however feels right to them and also yeah if Christina Crawford is upset about that that is also completely valid and couldn't make more sense totally I mean the way the reason I think it's funny is because like I take it so seriously yeah that to see it portrayed in this way is almost like oh I I recognize this as minimizing something very serious and that's so off base to me that I cannot help but laugh you know right like it's like this is like if a if like horrific child abuse had been like explained to like an alien I don't know there are parts that are genuinely funny and we have to live with that yeah it's it's it's true it's bizarre but true I do think one thing that does interest me about Fay Dunway's performance is like I think that Joan maybe got some caught some strays for was that I think people think Joan Crawford acts like that in her films now but she doesn't I would I would she's a much subtler actor than that so I would say if this movie hasn't completely thrown you off of the idea of watching or engaging with Jen Crawford's work you will find a better actress than you might assume yeah based on this performance yeah go back and watch Mildred Pierce for example or or even I I think that baby Jane I mean I think that she's showing a lot of her straightened baby Jane yes a lot bigger yeah I mean she's letting Betty Davis steal the show I think yeah and I think that's that's a good performer yeah um yeah is there anything else that you all wanted to touch on not especially no I think I'm good yeah we covered it we did it yeah my my last thing was this was a quote from Christina Crawford I found in with Love Mommy Darius um that sort of touches on what you were just saying Izzy about like ultimately how much did this movie affect how we think of and talk about Joan Crawford as a cultural figure and how much does that matter and like people's mileage is are going to vary there I think Christina's perspective on it is interesting but also I agree with you that like undeniably this is like effect I think that you know if you're not like well versed in Joan Crawford's work and you're like there are probably people who picture Faye Dunaway before they picture her but she so Christina Crawford was asked about this specifically which again it's like if you're being asked this about your abuser it's a very frustrating question oh sure yeah but she takes it in stride when asked about how Mommy Dearest and having published it affected Joan's legacy or if it did and she said that's not true her public image is preserved on film nothing will ever change that the work she did as a professional the image she created on screen will live forever Mommy Dearest is not about that and doesn't in any way touch that in fact I deal very briefly with her career and in each and every case I think generously but it is not about Joan Crawford's career as a public person as far as her behavior as my mother and my life with her that belongs to me that is my right and it is not my responsibility nor was it possible for me to change how she behaved during the time she was alive so not only do I have an absolutely clear conscience about the information in the book but I believe I have the right to my own life and that's all I took the right to my own life which I think is completely fair but and I feel like we've sort of circled around this that's the book the movie is able to do things that the book kind of can't and it chooses not to for you know all these different reasons yeah I mean I think the way that I sort of experience it like going off of what she said her legacy is preserved in these films but I think what's kind of sad about what this film did is that so much of you know if you're participating in classic film communities online or whatever like like it's ever present sort of this like defensiveness of Joan Crawford in that way people who are like very aggressively against this film for reasons of their own you know but like it sucks that that that will always be attached to it like it is it is you cannot enjoy the films without interacting with that in some way right and it's not it's like I don't think you should enjoy the films and not reckon with it I mean that's kind of like one of the main quandaries of like all of classic film is there you encounter situations like this all the time so it's not burying it but I do think like this strain is so predominant with her because of this movie when there are so many parents who are just as bad or worse right so it is sort of like it dominates in a in an outsized way I think with her I mean there's also this matter of any biopic or any movie that's about a real person because it's a movie it's going to be like cinematic-ified in some way they're gonna alter details embellish things just make it more cinematic or they'll leave things out or like any number of things that won't do justice to what the real story is I would say in most cases almost every biopic gets some kind of backlash about well they didn't do this or they didn't talk about this or they left this out or they added this or you know so it's just it's really tricky yeah and no one wants a biopic that's like a wikipedia page that's like the worst kind of biopic which is like all of them you know mostly these days yeah yeah it's it's just very it's very tricky it's tough yeah because it's like they you know there's not to like diminish any of Christina's account but it's like money exchanges hands with this too it's like that's unavoidable where it's like they're you know the timing of this matters do you get as big a kickback if you sell this 10 years after no you don't I don't know the selling of like life rights and stuff like that I I think about it it's a it's a it's a dirty little business um yeah but and she sold the rights to her book for $500,000 in the late 70s and I don't say that as a judgment I just say that as a I think more as a statement it's more than that it's a part of it yeah I think like in total she earned from selling the rights to these books like more than Joan had when she died oh wow or around that number so yeah which is like I don't know that's better than the will like well the willhair gave her nothing it's all yeah yeah dealing with this vivi requires what so few so few in like online communities are capable of which is like holding many truths at once right the elastic that I mean even including with the dispute between uh Christina and Christopher and the younger siblings too of just the concept that um every especially with like age gaps and siblings every kid grows up with a different parent basically yes um which is definitely not a conversation that was happening in the 70s it's just revisiting how black and white the conversations were at that time like you think it would go differently now but I don't know well it also makes me wonder what Christopher's experience was because this movie like really skims over it but because he's left out of the will at the end I'm just like what was that experience like for him and based on the movie we have no idea but also like are we owed that too is like that's the tricky like I don't know because it doesn't it doesn't seem like well it seems like is he correct me if you have conflicting information from what I was able to gather like Christopher has backed Christina on her account but has never wanted to get more specific or like be a public figure yeah because he he didn't have an easy life either right I mean because he um I believe he went to Vietnam oh okay and then had like several arrests for kind of like petty crimes and things like that which of course I mean Joan's a perfectionist so that immediately puts a rift in their relationship but it's all kind of stuff like you know I'm reading the new Joan Crawford biography actually that just came out which is extremely antagonistic toward this film it it describes this film in one paragraph and it's like the only good thing about this movie is that it ruined everyone who's involves reputation that's all he wants to say about it written by a Joan head I see yes um but I think like one of the things that I've found kind of disappointing is like it spends a lot of time kind of correcting the the record on mommy dearest I guess and the claims in the book which I think are valid like these are quotes from like the twins and all these things which we should take seriously but it also doesn't want to make it doesn't want to take the analytical view for example why would a kid who was chained to his bed as a child perhaps get arrested for stealing a car right you know what I mean like he like doesn't want to go there and he doesn't want to think like think about maybe the consequences like happened through these kids lives and how it affected them even if it wasn't as extreme as mommy dearest portrays it if it's like just very strict parenting like that is something to reckon with yeah but like again it's like this is a biography you know what I mean like these are coming out as like factual accounts and they're conflicting like I've read this is probably my third Joan biography and they're all slightly different on this topic and that's what's so tough you know and then like having written a nonfiction book they don't fact check books like you can really like you get a legal pass so that the publisher doesn't get sued but like if you're paying for fact checking that's out of your pocket not the publishers and so the way that like certain information is canonized you know it's not surprising there's so many different interpretations of it because you can kind of just let loose at some point as long as the publisher doesn't think they're going to get sued over it that's yeah that's so frustrating and it's like that is like why this movie and so many other movies and pieces of media obviously like I think about Lolita a lot but like that they're unable to have a productive cultural conversation around abuse and like child abuse specifically because there's like this unwillingness to deal with how like you're describing is like how messy and how how frequently these like cycles of abuse overlap and that a product of abuse can become an abuser and that like if you can't accept that or talk about that then there's like never going to be a productive conversation about it if someone has to be the bad guy or even just to see people that you admire as flawed is like very difficult for a lot of people absolutely which I get but it's like you just kind of have to live with it and I think that's being an adult yeah most traumatized adults came by it honestly yeah well well the movie does pass the Bechtel test technically yeah in all manner of ways and as we alluded to earlier famously genderless wire hangers and now our nipple scale where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens boy I I know this is a fun I under I'm like understanding why we avoided this one for so long yeah I'm so sorry guys it had to happen no I think I might forego the nipple scale I don't because I I don't know right it's it's both off the charts and not and below the charts yeah exactly it does not fall within the spectrum yeah of the nipple scale this movie okay I'm I'm happy to forego yeah yeah and if you want to know what we think about it listen to the past hour and 45 minutes that we spent talking about it yeah so Izzy thank you so much for joining us oh my gosh of course truly we're such huge fans come back anytime truly yes yeah I'd love to I'm always I'm always available I love talking to you guys about this so this was this was fun I hope we don't totally get canceled for abuse not abuse people will love this you are gonna love it I can't wait send it fire off an email see what happens yeah we just won't respond where can people follow your work check you out online etc yeah you can find me I mean the the bulk of my work goes on YouTube just the channel be kind rewind and then I'm also on Instagram at bk underscore rewind nice we are also on Instagram at Bechtelcast and you can also find us on our patreon aka matrion where Jamie and I do two bonus episodes every single month for five dollars a month you get access to the back catalog of around 200 bonus episodes and we always do a fun little theme we're just wrapping up Catherine O'Hara Buerri yes month Buerri yes yes yes yes yes so check us out over there patreon.com slash Bechtelcast and with that should we um let's let's swap wigs let's swap wigs okay and go to Bob's funeral uh-huh uh-huh bye the Bechtelcast is a production of iHeartMedia hosted and produced by me Jamie Loftus and me Caitlin Durante the podcast is also produced by Sophie Lichterman and edited by Caitlin Durante ever heard of them that's me and our logo and merch and all of our artwork in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus ever heard of her oh my god and our theme song by the way was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrasinski iconic and a special thanks to the one and only Aristotle Acevedo for more information about the podcast please visit linktree slash Bechtelcast hey this is Robert from the stuff to blow your mind podcast Joe and I are both lifelong Star Wars fans so we're celebrating May the 4th with a brand new week of fun thought-provoking Star Wars related episodes join us as we tackle science and culture topics from a galaxy far far away such as the biology of tontons and wampas on the ice planet hot or the practicality and corporate business sense of the Sith rule of two listen to stuff to blow your mind on the iHeart radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human