Episode 13: "Live in the Discomfort" (w/ Jen Moorman!)

''This week, the queers are joined by horror academic Jen Moorman (When Animals Attack Podcast, Eli Roth’s History of Horror) to talk the much disaparaged David Fincher debut ALIEN 3. Jen really opens up with the group, sharing her deep personal connection with the material and potentially changing everyone’s perspectives forever. We talk fragility, strength, our relationship to being an ally, and also Mark has a third act meltdown. Plus, in Tea Time we sip on TEEN WITCH, THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA, and a whole lot of stuff that brings the mood down but in, like, a constructive way.''

Trivia
Notes: Everyone is silly and punchy this episode. Brennan is so scared of alligators

Nay: By now you know who we are, you know that Michael wants to be me and it all makes sense

Michael: And she wants to be Jennifer Tilly

Nay: I want to be with Jennifer Tilly

Michael: Different

Nay: Yeah, different

Topics brought up during the episode: Kill by Kill podcast, Bound Blu-ray, Jen appearing on Eli Roth's History of Horror, alligator episode of When Animals Attack podcast, Heathers (the TV series) being postponed because of school shootings, Brendan Scannell, Melanie Field, kid shot at school but school kept open, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_Star_(Glee)#:~:text=Shooting%20Star%20%28%20Glee%29%20%22%20Shooting%20Star%20%22,in%20the%20United%20States%20on%20April%2011%2C%202013. school shooting episode of Glee], Shoah (1985), Miranda Otto, (Sabrina's cousin from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) Chance Perdomo, Kiernan Shipka, The Blackcoat's Daughter, multiple cuts of Alien 3, Sigourney Weaver's anti-gun position

Tea Time
Mark: (aside from Suspiria, the greatest movie of the year) Heathers the TV show (the uncut version, not the aired version)

Michael: South Park season premiere [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Kids_(South_Park)#:~:text=%22Dead%20Kids%22%20is%20the%20first%20episode%20in%20the,in%20the%20United%20States%20on%20September%2026%2C%202018. "Dead Kids" (students learning through a school shooting)]

Nay: Deep dive into the diversity of Jewish folks and how white supremacy has erased from a lot of people's narratives how diverse the community of Jewish people are

Jen: just read "Understanding Antisemitism" as well, Castle Rock season one, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season one, Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House

Brennan: The Curse of the Fly, Teen Witch

Shady Summaries
Jen: Ripley goes butch and never looks back

Nay: My worst nightmare. Which is a planet of just men

Mark: Pollution. Rape. And corporations that want to kill you. It's not 2018, it's Alien 3!

Michael: I don't really have one. It's just Ripley cubed. Thank you. Actually, thinking about what you said, Nay, it's like, ugh, being trapped on a ship with all your bullies. Like the people that treated me the worst in life, so. Ripley kicks ass, she's me

Jen: She's all of us

Michael: She is all of us

Pride Float
Mark: Does Alien 3 get a Pride Float?

Michael: Hell yeah. That shade gets it one

Mark: You know what, I want to say I think it gets a Pride Float. I want it to be because, and you can see the David Fincher and the way he shoots some of the super industrial sets, I think that the music would be "Express Yourself" because he did the video for "Express Yourself" and some of the cinematography, that sort of maximalist kind of like, Fritz Lang Metropolis, you know, both terrifying and industrial stuff...

Nay: Absolutely

Mark: Is present, alive and well in Alien 3 and I think that that's...

Michael: Alien 3 kind of has um, it's like an early peek into his look for Seven and Fight Club, and stuff, so that's pretty cool.

Nay: That's true

Michael: The float is just Sigourney's shaved head, right? We're all just sitting on it?

Jen: What about like, I bet that there are chestburster dildos out there though

Mark and Michael: Ohhhhhhh

Michael: Girl

Jen: What if there are people wearing strap-ons, people, androgynous people, people of all genders

Nay: That's so bomb

Michael: Pegging with Xenomorphs

Nay: The chest strap that looks like the burster

Jen: Oh, I wasn't even thinking on the chest

Nay: Yeah, you have a harness on and bomb

Jen: Yes!

Michael: On top of Sigourney's shaved head

Nay: That too. Head straps? Yeah

Mark: But also Sigourney just yells at people watching the parade, going, "Oh, you're Mister Ridiculous! Oh look, it's Mister Sublime!"

Nay: Yes! 'Coz when you were talking about how terrifying it would be for her to be mad at you...

Mark: Terrifying

Nay: I'm like, "That sounds hot."

Jen: Her being mad?

Nay: Yeah, be mad at me

Michael: I'm like, "Wave your finger in my face."

Jen: I hear that

Mark: "Slap me."

Nay: My float would be...

Michael: "Throw your shaved pieces at me."

Nay: You're a slut. My float for this movie would definitely, it would have to be Sigourney of course. I would just like to bring some, you know when you wanna bring some attention to an issue, some, uh...

Brennan: Like spotlight it?

Nay: Yeah, I would just like to spotlight pregnant butches

Michael and Jen: Ohhhhhhh

Nay: Who don't get the representation that they...

Michael: Really ever

Nay: Especially because it's beautiful of course, and yeah, something to just…

Michael: I love that

Nay: Why don't I have that word?

Michael: Attention?

Nay: Let's go with attention

Jen: Awareness?

Nay: Awareness! Oh my God. My lack of awareness right now is stunning. But yeah, some awareness to butch pregnancies

Jen: I love it. Actually, you know what that makes me think of? One of you mentioned it, I can't remember who, mentioned a film, My Ass is Haunted?

Michael: Mark

Brennan: It was Mark

Mark: It was me

Michael: It was Ernie (the sound guy)

Jen: Okay, I have been flipped out because, okay, my dissertation and like, current book project...

Michael: Was on The Exorcist

Jen: Well, sort of. It was actually about women who direct porn. And so, I did a lot of interviews with people in the industry and Belladonna, who directed My Ass is Haunted, um, is one of the people I got to interview and she was the only one where I was like almost unable to ask questions because I think she's so hot

Nay: Oh my God, she's amazing

Jen: She's like amazing. And speaking of that, she was, I wouldn't normally describe her as butch, but she was pregnant with a shaved head in one of her films, so it actually is kind of like Ripley's pregnant

Nay: That's bomb

Jen: Yeah

Nay: You just brought it full circle

Brennan: Yeah, this is the last episode of Queerwolf. We've come full circle, we did it

Mark: We did it, we covered everything

Michael: My Ass is Haunted

Quotes
Michael: The twirling? The Suspiria dance that an alligator does, does that get you, Mark?

Mark: Listen. If you bring up Suspiria...

Michael: That's why I brought it up

Mark: I won't stop talking about it. You have to know that.

Nay: Well that's fine

Mark: You have to not do that unless you're prepared for me to re-enact the entire film

Michael: I enjoy your talking Suspiria

Nay: Honestly, Mark, once I heard you talk about Carrie and it brought me to tears. I would literally listen to you talk about any movie you enjoy

Mark: (faux modesty) Stop

Michael: On playback of that episode of Mark talking about it...

Nay: Yeah, same

Michael: Yeah. I, I was there and I was listening to it in my car, like, mouth agape just like, what a deep motherfucker

Nay: Yeah. Do I know this person personally?

Mark: Like, so deep

Michael: How am I on a show with this person?

Mark: Too beautiful to live. Okay, what's everyone been watching?

Michael: Mark hates compliments

Nay: Mark hates compliments, I know. But that, thank you. Everyone's been doing things for me

Nay: It was a lot of stuff that I didn't know, so I felt like a big dumbass, which is what happens when you don't know and you are living in ignorance and you find out more

Mark: Did you have a specific site or book to point us to?

Nay: Yeah, someone sent me to… Jews for Racial and Economic Justice have a document called 'Understanding Antisemitism' and it's really, I really; that's the way white supremacy works. I didn't even know that that was contributing to this erasure. And I would, I mean, real talk: I would consider myself a very "woke" person; I'm like, "Who is least likely to offend or like take care of someone's emotional state, like not microagress them," I would be like, "It's me!" I have worked for years, like trying to be kind to people. It didn't matter. I didn't know, and it was super eye-opening and fascinating and also and in light of what's going on right now, there was a shooting at a synagogue and I think a lot of people are talking about it in terms of gun control; which of course we should talk about gun control, but also, like, these people were shot because they were Jewish. And so, to read that right now, I just felt very moved to read all kinds of things. Because I was like, "What else do I not know? What else is white supremacy contributing to right now and has me thinking or not thinking about it," so yeah, it was really good documents I read that was given to me by a Jewish person who was like, "You should read this, because you need to know this information."

Michael: It's a sobering reminder that we all have work we have to do, regardless of how much we think we do or don't

Nay: I do microaggression trainings and I tell people, "If it makes you uncomfortable, that's fine. Sit in the discomfort." But I had to do it. I was like, "Yeah, bitch. Sit in the discomfort. Like, sit in the discomfort, then. Practice what you preach."

Michael: I think it's hard to publicly say, too, "I have shit to do."

Nay: It's mortifying

Michael: But we all do

Nay: But it's just so necessary, and I know when black folks are killed with no abandon and I just hear about gun control, I think about race obviously. And to hear Jewish folks saying, "No, these people were killed because they were Jewish. It's not just a gun control thing. This is a hate crime. There's stuff going on." I was just so moved by that, like it's really easy for me to be empathetic towards that line of sentiment, you know? And I was like, "Oh. Well then, let me do my work and like, what I can, which still isn't enough, by myself, of course." I was just very touched

Mark: But you're enough Nay, we love you

Michael: Very much

Nay: Thank you, love you, too

Jen: I think that (document) is a great reminder of the fact that alllyship is fluid and imperfect by design. Part of being a good ally is always recognizing that we all have different amounts of privilege and laugh, learn, love

Mark: You can't stop learning, right?

Jen: Yeah, you've gotta be willing to make mistakes, you know? And yeah...

Michael: You can't just get allyship, you need to give it, too

Nay: You need to be an accomplice. Like, it's more than being an ally

Michael: It's action over tweeting. It's action over… tweeting, it's action over tweeting. Yeah.

Jen: (Harvey from Chilling Adventures of Sabrina) is like the boyfriend from Orange is the New Black, where it's just like he's ugh

Nay: Oh my God. That is hilarious

Jen: It's just like a flaccid penis, you know? It's just...

Mark: "You guys, this is my boyfriend, Flaccid Penis."

Michael: Oh my God. I feel like that's an ultimate slam. To call someone a "flaccid penis"? It's really great

Mark: It really is. "Here's this tube of skin."

Jen: I feel like I'm body-shaming weirdly, but I dunno, you know what I mean?

Nay: It is a little body-shamey

Jen: Which I don't wanna be, but...

Michael: I guess it is, yeah

Brennan: To be fair, I don't think you specifically said "penis". He's a flaccid character, he's not potent

Nay: Mark took it there. Mark said, "flaccid."

Mark: I took that...

Michael: "And I ran to the end zone"?

Mark: in my hand...

Michael: and ran with it?

Mark: Yeah, all the way to the end zone

Brennan: Yeah, you took that flaccid penis and you made a just sort of whole dick thing

Mark: I spiked it and did a little dance

Michael: (fey voice) "I hit a homerun with it and then I kicked it in the goal"

Brennan: But the weird thing is, was super weird, nobody turns into a fly in this one. Not a single human-fly creature in (The Curse of the Fly). It's kind of...

Mark: Bold

Michael: That's a brave choice

Mark: Really brave of them

Brennan: I only noticed this because of our recent episode, but it's kind of a twisted remake of Rebecca.

Everyone else: Oh!

Michael: Do say!

Mark: You mean the episode that's gonna get us all fired

Nay: Yes! That's for real

Mark: We basically covered Rebecca a couple of weeks ago...

Michael: It'll come out before this

Mark: It turned into phone sex. Like it literally turned into the filthiest pod we've ever done

Michael: Like the phone sex line you see advertised on USA Up All Night

Mark: Yeah. Like [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premium-rate_telephone_number#:~:text=Earlier%2C%20976%20numbers%20used%20976%20as%20a%20local,result%20in%20a%20high%20per-minute%20or%20per-call%20charge. 976]-GO-TO-BED

Nay: All night

Brennan: (Friend of the pod Josh Miller as the little brother in Teen Witch) is the nuttiest character I've ever seen

Mark: It is an insane movie. It truly is.

Brennan: Yes

Michael: So great

Mark: The entire movie feels like an accident. Like, it's just this insane collection of things that add up to a movie, and yet you're like, "movie?"

Jen: I kind of love it

Mark: Oh, it's fabulous!

Michael: And that was the final cut

Brennan: Any time it's a half-assed musical, it is gold. Like, seriously, the weird, the "I Like Boys" sequence in the locker room?

Mark: It's the horniest teen movie ever. Ever.

Brennan: They do this crazy choreography with towels that's like Three Stooges-esque, like, "Oh, we're pulling her arms apart!"

Nay: Okay, I can't

Mark: No, I remember that. My favorite bit is when they take Robyn Lively to an abandoned...

Michael: The horniest

Mark: An abandoned shack in the woods to like, go to third base. It's filthy. Like, it's totally filthy.

Brennan: It definitely was probably responsible for a lot of sexual awakenings

Mark: I just know a lot of young women who had some serious Disney Channel sexual awakenings some Saturday mornings in the '90s. It was seminal for a lot of young women apparently

Brennan: But I will say, does (Mark's partner) Josh listen to the show? He doesn't have to

Mark: He listens to, I think certain ones. I think he doesn't check in on every single one.

Michael: He's listened to it, he's told me

Brennan: No, that's totally fine

Nay: Does Brian listen to every single one? Does your mom listen to every one, Mark?

Mark: I don't know

Brennan: I think she fell off

Nay: Oh my God

Mark: I'm not sure. I feel like maybe, Mom, if you're hearing this… but I feel like maybe she listened to the first couple and she just like moved here...

Michael: Brian is welcome to come(?)

Mark: And she moved to this community where she's getting invited to dances a lot...

Michael: Oh my God, really?

Nay: Oh, she busy

Mark: She's got a lesbian cabal.

Michael: She's got a bigger social calendar than me

Mark: And these friends and these like, men of a certain age are like, (as an older man) ''Oh, Mary Ann, hello." (normal voice) And they ask her to dance. And the last time I visited her, she was, I was like, "Oh, hi Mom, what are we gonna do?" And she was like, (as his mom) "Hey, so, don' t be mad, but…"

Michael: Oh my God, she totally blew you off

Mark: (normal voice) She teen girled me. She blew me off and she was like, (as his mom) "Are you mad?" (normal voice) I was like, "No." And she was like, (as his mom) "Okay! I won't be that late. Okay, bye!"

Michael: (as Mark's mom) ";Cause I was gonna go anyway!"

Mark: She totally ditched me

Michael: I wanna meet your mom

Nay: I live for this

Michael: I have a question for (Mark): Is your sister still listening or is she too amped up on mister logo-man over there?

Mark: Oh shit, that's right. My sister confessed that she was, um, like physically drawn to the queerwolf

Michael: In your sister's defense, I got like four or five text messages that day from people being like, "Mark's sister is not wrong."

Jen: I commented on your Instagram about that. Because I agree. You need to make an enamel pin

Nay: I got a text about the jawline

Michael: He's a babe

Brennan: Wrapping up Teen Witch, I just wanna say, I'm pulling a quote from another podcast, called The Flop House, that covered it like eight years ago, but they did discover that Josh's character...

Michael: Is this one gonna land?

Brennan: What?

Michael: Nothing

Brennan: They did describe Josh's character as an "omnisexual glutton"...

Nay: Same

Brennan: I just really want him to hear that, so

Mark: I can deliver that message

Mark: He once described, because he loved classic movies as a kid, and he described his inspiration for his performance as Bette Davis

Brennan: That's the coolest guy

Michael: (whispers) Josh I love you

Mark: Well, that is the delivery, is like (As Josh's Teen Witch character) "No one's coming to your sweet sixteen, Louise." It's so insane. That movie is so insane.

Michael: He's brilliant

Ripley in the trailer: Was there an alien on board?

Mark: Yes

Michael: The end

Mark: It really is a movie for our time.

Jen: It really is

Mark: I say that really depressed about that, but I was watching it and I was like, wow it really feels...

Michael: That's beginning to become a common theme here, is realizing when we rewatch some of these old faves is like, ugh, "God, why do they hold up more now than they did then?"

Jen: I listened to your episode where you all were sharing your three gay films

Michael: You did?

Nay: Oh God

Jen: No, I was just listening to it the other day and I loved it...

Mark: (quietly) Oh God

Jen: And I was actually inspired to open up a little bit and share as a result

Michael: Yay

Jen: So, I have a personal connection

Michael: Take as long as you want

Jen: When (Alien 3) first came out, I was in middle school or something, so I didn't have that relationship to it. I honestly just remember thinking it was so funny how often they say the word "fuck". Do you notice that? I actually did a drinking game. I used to host these Alien quadrilogy parties with grad school friends. Everyone would come over and we would have like, drinking games for each of the movies and it would vary according to the film. And the third one, it was "Every time they say the word 'fuck'," you start to notice. It's like oh my God, so egregious

Mark: You're hammered by the minute forty

Michael: You get drunk by the 25-minute mark. I did that once with Shaun of the Dead, but it was the word "Shaun".

Mark: Oh God

Michael: I was fucked up by act two

Nay: We should do that with me with the word "fuck"

Jen: At the time I don't know why I really connected with it, but as an adult, I kind of reconnected with it a decade ago. So, I am a cancer survivor. And I was diagnosed with cancer twice while I was working towards my PhD and the first time, I, yeah. Crazy side story: It was actually like the diagnosis was delivered over the phone by the RN, who worked at the student health center at UCLA, and she literally said, "So you have cancer. Um, I was looking at the pathology report and I don't really understand what it means, but I Googled some of the terms and I'm pretty sure it's aggressive." That's literally how I was diagnosed.

Mark: Jesus fucking Christ

Michael: What did you do?

Jen: Well, an hour later I went and taught the first class of the semester, because I had to. And so I feel like I relate to Ripley because I've been through hell, and I am, like, as over it as she is in this particular installment

Michael: And you've been through hell twice, right? And she's been through hell twice at this point

Jen: Exactly, so it's kind of like, you know, the first time I did chemo, I lost my hair and it was right before Halloween, so I actually… I decided to take advantage and I dressed as Ripley in Alien 3 with my bald head

Michael: Oh my God, that's awesome

Jen: And so there's something about it. (Alien 3) has been read as an AIDS metaphor, which I think is one of the reasons why I would describe it as queer. But for me, it's been a cancer metaphor ever since that experience

Michael: I read two articles today where one person discussed the AIDS metaphor and another person did actually discuss that it was a metaphor for cancer

Jen: Yeah, I think it makes sense both ways because they're both diseases that...

Michael: The disease in general, yeah

Jen: Where it's like the body attacks itself, almost, and like the treatment for cancer is worse than the disease

Michael: Poison, essentially

Jen: So there's a lot about that. So any of the movies with Ripley could have worked, but I actually love how depressing this one is. How dark and elegiac it is. I love a survivor. I am one, but survival's not a virtue. And I've watched friends die of the disease I've survived and I'm not better than them, I didn't deserve to live any more than they did. And so there's something about having the person you're rooting for always survive, that can maybe help to reinforce some toxic ideas about the world being fair in a way that it's not, which can lead to a lot of bootstrap mentality, where the people with wealth and power have it because they deserve it and the people who survive deserve it. And it's like, no. Great people die all the time, shitty people can get to be President

Mark: (feigning innocence) What do you mean, Jennifer?

Michael: There's that speech by Charles S. Dutton that kind of--

Jen: Yes!

Michael: That goes along those lines; because I have to be honest with you, the first time I saw this movie, I was like, "I can't believe they fucking killed Newt off-screen." You know what I mean? And when you realize it; I was actually reading about that motivation. Someone wrote an article about why it needed to happen off-screen [Editor's Note: This essay was written by Devin Faraci, who has been accused of sexual assault.]

Jen: Oh, I haven't seen this

Michael: And it went into that, what you were just saying, sometimes shit just happens to good people and there's really no reason for it, and you wake up one day and you're healthy and the next day you're sick. So, it was kind of like the movie, in a way they felt the movie was course correcting the franchise, too, to get back to the horror roots of it, even though Cameron's movie, Aliens is awesome, it wanted to get back to the darker horror side that the first movie represented. So I'm glad you brought that up, I thought it was super interesting

Mark: I agree, I think that killing off Newt and Hicks is one of the more admirable things about Alien 3. I fucking hate fan service so fucking much

Michael: Same

Mark: I think fan service is a fucking pox on...

Michael: The thing in the long run is that it ends up hurting the franchise

Mark: I mean, I dunno. The fact that people turned on this movie solely for that, like right off the bat, I think was really craven and embarrassing. And one of the things that I loved about Alien that, one of the reasons why I never responded that much to Star Wars movies was because the Alien franchise was so unsentimental. And especially in light of this. I had the poster for this movie over my bed

Jen: Really?

Mark: Yes I did. It was like a puffy poster from a Blockbuster that I stole.

Nay: 'cause you worked at Blockbuster

Mark: I did. I did work at many Blockbusters.

Michael: We need to do a book on Mark

Nay: Yes

Mark: And over my bed, I just loved Sigourney so much. And I loved this movie, too. And I loved, I loved the dark pitch to this movie. I loved, I love that it's so jagged and messy and really...

Jen: Me too

Mark: And it's not lovable. It is like the creature itself, kind of in its own way

Jen: Grimy and relentless

Mark: (It) is beautiful and difficult and like, I admire it, but I'm like, bleuch, I don't wanna be in it, like that's, it's, I dunno, it's fascinating for a lot of reasons and God knows; where do we begin?

Jen: Rewatching it again, I watched it today and I, this time I was particularly struck, I think I had forgotten how sick (Ripley) is in this one. So it's not, you know, in the first Alien, she's almost an incidental survivor, and I like that. She's also very gender neutral. But in the second one, it's like, again, it's super fun, I love it. But, yeah, it's like an action, she's an action hero you know? She's larger than life and...

Michael: She's essentially Sarah Connor before Sarah Connor

Jen: Exactly, exactly. And I love that in this one, she's sick and she's frail and it's so beautiful. How often do you get to see that? People with chronic illness and disability never get to see images of strength that are also frail and vulnerable. You know, the fact that she is sick and she is still strong as hell. Like she is dying and is still strong as hell. Like, you don't have to be an action hero to be strong

Mark: The cancer metaphor is at its strongest in a way for me, when I think of it through the lens that you're talking about that, you know, by the end of Aliens, that Ripley has her surrogate family and she's found Newt, as a result of, if you watch the sort of, the original Cameron cut, that Ripley had a daughter, Amanda, who died while she was in cryosleep and in Newt she finds a second chance at motherhood. And then those hopes are completely dashed, of course, in the opening credits of Alien 3

Jen: It's so perverse, I love it

Mark: And what's so perverse is the bitterness of Alien 3 is that she is a mother, she is going to get a chance to be a mother, it's just to the...

Jen: It's the Alien

Mark: Yeah, to a, I mean, it's such a nasty, nasty trick that this movie is playing on its lead character, and it's fucking brave

Michael: To me in a sense, too, that like it's a studio film

Jen: I know!

Michael: That would never fucking happen now

Jen: It would never happen again

Michael: Ever. And it's super-bold and I love this description here that I'm reading that it's a "dark, nihilistic arthouse SF film with a complex, challenging female lead".

Jen: Yeah

Michael: And she is challenging, because you're right. In (Alien) Two, she's kind of just, Miss Badass. There's really nothing else going on there

Mark: Well, she's a trauma; I mean, I think one of my favorite things about Aliens is the, I mean, there's a lot of talk...

Michael: True, that's a good point

Mark: There's a lot of talk about representations of trauma and survivors and revisiting trauma in particular around certain movies today and I'm not really impressed by certain portrayals and certainly when you compare them to Sigourney in Aliens, now that is a great pop representation of a survivor facing down trauma and like, and talk about the ultimate fantasy of laying waste to whatever traumatized you. That is, I dunno

Michael: Yeah, no, yeah. I getcha. It's just, looking at Alien 3 and the aspect of kind of what we were discussing before, just like the ebbs and flows of the franchise, just on style and just genre. The cool thing about this franchise is, it's clearly each film is clearly represented via the director. It's very Ridley Scott movie. It's very much a James Cameron film. Even like the theatrical cut which I watched in preparation for this, you can still see David Fincher

Mark: Oh, very much so

Jen: Yeah

Michael: You can see the auteurs behind the film and like, I can't think of another franchise that has that. Where like each film is very much represented by their director

Mark: So, would you say that; was this movie for you, as a survivor, as someone who battled cancer and thank God that you're here, was this movie a solace, was it a warning, was it a kind of, or was it a little of everything? I'm just stabbing in the dark here, but I'm really fascinated to hear how you came to have this relationship to this movie specifically, as a result of that

Jen: Yeah, I found it a solace. I mean, that moment when (Ripley) says, "You've been in my life for so long I can't remember anything else," that is exactly how I felt when I got diagnosed for the second time, and it was a year after finishing treatment for the first one and all of my doctors said there's no way it's cancer, it's never gonna come back. And then it's like, you can't escape it. The thing about, you know, I had breast cancer, and once you have it, even if it's early stage and it's "cured", there's still a one-in-three chance that it'll come back and kill you. So, it's like that feeling of never getting away from it. I mean, obviously everyone who loves horror and has had experiences with trauma or with feeling marginalized or anything like that, I think we all probably find solace in seeing these things. And I always thought that it was more connected to the idea of survivorship. Like the idea of the final girl is something I obviously connect with. But this movie made me realize that it's not about surviving, it's about fighting and I love that it's kind of a coalition. I mean, a lot of these men are awful, obviously, but it ends up, I love her and Dillon, like it's this coalition, coalitional politics, where they're like, if you kind of want to take the idea of (Alien 3) being 2018 and kind of run with it, it's like, it feels hopeless if you're looking at the news, ever, these days. And sometimes a movie like this makes you realize sometimes even if it is, you still gotta fight. Like, what are you gonna do? Lie down and just let it happen? You know, even if, like, you die, fighting requires sacrifice. Fighting for social change, fighting for almost anything requires sacrifice, and this movie doesn't give you any easy anything, you know?

Jen: And I love that they kill; I hate Newt, I gotta be honest with you, I think that she's so irritating and I honestly think that's one of the queer elements of the film. 'Cause it's like James Cameron loves the nuclear family idea, you know, and Aliens ends with this little would-be nuclear family so it's like this just killed that off, off-screen. It's like an afterthought, it's so perverse, and then she's just in this like...

Michael: It's like a bug they flick away

Jen: Yeah! Like, "Well, that's over." And then it is moving, when he's, I don't know, there's so much to say about this movie. Like it's got these like, little camp elements, mostly involving Charles S. Dutton, I think, like, I love his speeches and stuff

Michael: I mean the minute he walks from behind like ten people to preach at the funeral, you're like, "Hey now."

Mark: (as Charles S. Dutton) "Why God?"

Jen: And his package, I noticed his package this time. It reminds me of like, David Bowie in Labyrinth, like it becomes its own character, you know? There's something about like, these belt things that make it really prominent

Mark: "Is that a chestburster or are you just happy to see me?" Hi, Roc

Mark: If the first one is a haunted house movie, and the second one is a Vietnam movie, what is the third one? I sort of was thinking about this and I was like, is it a [http://elizabethanenglandlife.com/Jacobean-Era/jacobean-tragedy.html#:~:text=Jacobean%20Tragedy%20In%20a%20typical%20tragedy%2C%20the%20protagonist,and%20was%20extremely%20popular%20in%20the%20Jacobean%20era. Jacobean tragedy], just like, it's a tragedy, but what like, but is there like a more specific kind of; and part four I don't know what the fuck part four is. I could never

Michael: "Part four is a movie."

Mark: Part four is Winona's a robot and that's enough for me but I still don't like it.

Michael: Ah, Winona the robot and the Ripley clone

Brennan: And she's an Amelie robot

Michael: Clone and Robot: Now in theaters'

Mark: I dunno

Michael: Would it be-- I mean, in a lot of ways isn't it against corporate greed and disease a lot of ways?

Mark: The whole series really is a...

Michael: I think it's against in a lot of ways, maybe I'm really off here, but almost like a shit on big pharma stuff? I think it's again, what did you say? The first two, what did you say? It throws you because it's about war, right? Or haunted house and then a war movie. I really think it's like a "fuck you". To corporations

Jen It is that. I mean, I think it's also a melodrama and kind of a prison drama

Michael: It's a prison industrial complex thing

Jen: Yeah.

Michael: Nay, what do you think?

Nay: I was thinking about when (Ripley) kills herself and the Alien, all of the rhetoric around folks who are pregnant and need an abortion and due to like, the fetus, it's gonna harm the host, right? And I remember, I would have these conversations with my mom, like, "If for some stupid reason I am ever pregnant and you have to make a decision of like, is it my life or this fetus? You better fucking pick me." Like, you know, because my mom's super Christian and I know like of course you pick the baby. But I'm like, "You'd better pick me." And I was thinking about the end of that movie and I'm like, I dunno, there's something so rad about like, "I'm gonna kill myself and this baby."

Jen: Yes! I actually saw someone describe it, I wrote it down somewhere, it's so amazing. They said it was, "The most badass abortion someone has (inaudible)," something like that

Nay: Seriously. Honestly. Abortion via lava, okay?

Michael: It really is. She does it herself

Jen: Yeah. I love it

Mark: What are the big; I feel like, probably you consumed a lot of the conversations around Alien 3, whether it's the troubled production and inception of it. The fact that the movie had sets before they even had a finished shooting script

Michael: Or a hundred scripts before they...

Mark: I mean, God. Poor David Fincher inherited a bear. But I'd be really interested to hear some of your wilder theories or insights about the movie, that you know, maybe they're personal, maybe you can back them up, maybe… I dunno. I'm just curious to know

Jen: Okay, so. I don't actually have a lot of thoughts about the production part of it, because everyone's so cagey about it and yet they're really open about it being a disaster, but it's like...

Michael: You don't find new info in the process

Jen: Yeah, yeah. It's just kind of like...

Michael: "Yeah, it was bad." "What, can you tell us why?" "It was bad."

Jen: Yeah, people disagree about stuff, and money and time and you know, it was just conflicts. But the things that I found were cool; I was watching some of the special features and yeah, I saw that Ripley, not Ripley, Sigourney Weaver was saying like, "I will only do this movie if I die in it. And if there are no guns." And she said at an early meeting, once Fincher was signed on to it, she was like, "So what's your vision for Ripley?" And he said, "Uhhh, I don't know. Bald?" And she was like, "And that's when I knew I loved him." And I was like, that's fascinating. And you know, there's something about her taking on like a really dominant role in this production, where she in some ways, is responsible I think for the final product, at least for some of its darkness, because she insisted on dying and not making it through. And I think that helped Fincher, like they were kind of allied in that way.

Michael: Yeah, that's cool

Jen: Where the studio couldn't be like, "No, you have to find a way to make this work so we can do another movie." Obviously they found a really lame way to make it work and do another movie anyway. It makes me sad that Fincher disavows it, because, I understand it, I'm sure it was very stressful and he hated it, but I obviously love the movie and it's; I love Zodiac, that's like the only other movie he's made that I think I would say, I actually like Alien 3 better than all of his other movies except Zodiac

Michael: Zodiac 's so great

Jen: So yeah, it just makes me sad, so I've mostly ignored a lot of the production drama to focus on the film, so

Mark: But as far as the film itself, I'm interested in some of your wilder theories

Jen: Sure. So, the reason (Alien 3) feels very queer to me is like I said, kill off the nuclear family at the beginning. Ripley immediately shaves her head and is super androgynous. Watching it this time, so there's the sex scene, like she gets to be sexual. And of course it's with a man, but I'm bi, so I don't think that it cancels out, her having sex with a man does not mean it's not queer or that she's not queer, the character. But what I was noticing; this is gonna be really out there, but...

Michael: Please!

Nay: Do it! Yup!

Jen: It's post-coital, we don't actually see them having sex, but I noticed how they're dressed exactly the same way

Michael: God, I love it

Jen: The same hair

Nay: The gayest

Jen: She's like super flat-chested and it reminded me of the Marbles in Pink Flamingos

Michael: Oh my God!

Mark: With the shrimping scene, yeah

Jen: Yeah, where they're like, they look exactly the same except one's got red hair and pubes and one's got blue hair and pubes but they're both really androgynous, same body type. You know, there's something about it. This is obviously far less camp and over the top, but it's such an interesting choice

Michael: Well, and it's such a cool, it's,I love that you put it that way, because like, queer sex, you know what I mean, just 'coz whatever someone's genitals are doesn't mean it's not queer

Mark: Mmm-hmm

Jen: Exactly. And then, so yeah, the AIDS metaphor would be uh, contagion and all-male environment, whatever, people dying off. But the only thing that really doesn't work in this movie, I think, is the CGI Alien. I think there are a few scenes where it looks terrible and I wish they would re-do that

Michael: When I was watching it this time, the first time you see the full Alien I was like, "Aww, it's so cute in '92 they thought they had the effects right."

Mark: One of my favorite things that I read in production notes is in early tests they were going to just put a dog in an Alien suit and have it run around

Jen: They showed a picture of it. They actually did it.

Mark: I wanna see it

Jen: It's in the special features

Mark: I need to see it

Michael: That's queer, 'cause that's camp

Jen: It's hilarious

Mark: I was like, "Doggy Alien!"

Michael: Are you kidding?

Mark: No!

Jen: They thought it was too funny. They made the whole suit, they dressed it up, it was a whippet, you know those like skinny dogs?

Nay: Oh my God, that's so cute!

Jen: And they show it running, and it's hilarious

Nay: Okay, I have to see this

Michael: Would it have been fully suited down to footies?

Mark: Ugh, I wish

Jen: I didn't ask if there were footies, but it was otherwise fully covered

Michael: Would he have been encased?

Jen: He was totally encased otherwise

Nay: That's a lot of work for a little whippet

Michael: I was really upset that they...

Nay: That the rottweiler died?

Michael: Yeah, that it had to go through a doggie

Jen: That made me sad, too. That is a sad part, but I dunno, I feel like the whole movie is kind of wrenching. Like I was like tearing up repeatedly

Michael: Well I think at that moment you kind of go, "Oooh, this movie's kind of dark," and this is what you're getting

Mark: Well, in the first two movies (Ripley)'s fighting for survival and in the third one she runs around screaming like, "I wanna die!"

Jen: Yeah,  that's such a good point

Mark: The whole movie she's yelling, "Kill me! You said were gonna kill me!"

Nay: That's so real

Michael: It kind of does remind you of what people go through. I remember my dad the last year he was sick, at one point I remember having a conversation with him, he was like, "I'm just so fucking sick of this."

Michael: I love that you kind of said something earlier about like there's no, like survivorship is cool but it's not everything. And I think that there's dignity in going, "You know what? I've tried really really hard, I've gone through this shit," my dad was sick in various ways for twenty years and it never debilitated him, he plugged along every single day and I think to kind of go one day, "You know what? I've had a really good life and I think I'm ready for it to be over." There's like dignity and there's strength in that, you know?

Jen: Absolutely

Nay: You said several really poignant things

Michael: I know. I was like, "Wait, did I say that?"

Nay: I mean, brought a whole new level of analysis to this movie. Like I was not thinking about any of that. And there's just so much power in talking about fragility with strength, because in my experience, listening to a lot of people who want to die, um, as part of my career in the past, no one feels strong when they're at that point. No one, nothing in those conversations do I hear people being like, "You know what? I am so strong for still being alive." That's usually what you're trying to imply to someone and to see if they'll like, you know, grasp onto that. But there is honestly so much fucking strength in that even sickness and fragility can be totally separate from that and I think that that is like just a message I would want so many people to hear, you know?

Jen: I think what strength looks like, you know, it's not moving through life on skates, right? What strength looks like is surviving shit and you can survive a lot of shit with like, you know, with not being able-bodied, with being frail and you know, clawing your way through each day, you know, and like, I don't think we see enough of that

Mark: Even the business of survival at the end of the movie is a giant bundle of confusion

Jen: I know, it really is

Mark: The business of trying to fight the contagion

Jen: They're like, "Where is it?"

Mark: "Where are we? What tunnel? Who are you? Who's that guy? Oh shit, he's dead! Oh God, we're dead! Oh wait, are they getting him in the piston? Or no? Not in that pit? Is it supposed to go-- I don't understand!"

Michael: Survival's very confusing

Jen: It is

Mark: For me, this movie is 2018 and that is just like...

Jen: Oh God yeah

Mark: "What's happening? We're fighting this thing…" It's just about watching...

Michael: "Where am I supposed to be right now?"

Jen: "What should I focus on?"

Mark: You're bringing-- I'm so happy you're here to talk to us about this

Nay: Seriously

Michael: Thank you for sharing

Mark: For me, yesterday watching it, I was, after, you know, I've seen (Alien 3) a thousand times but I hadn't watched it in years, and watching it I was like, "I'm watching Democrats get organized. I'm watching Democrats try to pull together." And in the end they will, in the end they will. There'll be like three of them left, and they'll be messy as hell and there'll be blood everywhere, but, but it will be okay.

Michael: I hate to toot our own show's horn, but I think that...

Brennan: Oh, I love it

Mark: Toot-toot!

Michael: What you're bringing to the show, and what I've found with like, Michael Varrati when he was on, and Don Mancini when he was on and Chris Landon talking about Carrie and just some of the stuff we've talked about in here, is just how one person's perspective in one person's connection to a movie can really change the lens of a movie for somebody

Nay: Oh yeah

Jen: Yeah

Michael: 'Coz I have to be honest with you, the first time I saw (Alien 3) I fucking hated it. I actually dreaded watching this movie again...

Jen: Oh no!

Michael: Because it had been so long. And I watched it and kind of ho-hummed through it, but like, fuck, now I wanna watch it again

Nay: Yeah, same

Mark: Well, actually after this conversation, now I wanna watch the [https://avp.fandom.com/wiki/Alien_3_Special_Edition#:~:text=The%20Special%20Edition%20of%20Alien%203%2C%20also%20known,removing%20some%20scenes%20found%20in%20the%20theatrical%20version. Assembly Cut]

Michael: Yeah

Nay: Yeah

Mark: Because the Assembly Cut...

Michael: Do you prefer that over?

Jen: I prefer the [https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/alien-3-comparing-the-assembly-cut-to-the-theatrical-cut/ theatrical. Just because the Assembly Cut], I don't think it actually adds much

Mark: I like the Golic, I like the Golic

Michael: I was just gonna say, what were you gonna say, Mark?

Mark: I love Paul McGann as Golic

Jen: Oh yeah, I forgot, yeah. There's more of him in that one, it's true

Mark: He actually is like, he's like, "It's a dragon!" He's worshiping the creature

Michael: Oh no shit

Jen: I forgot about that

Mark: Yeah, it's nuts. It's really nuts

Michael: That's queer

Nay: Yeah

Mark: It was also, the creature was born out of an ox

Michael: Like a bull, right?

Mark: It's disgusting. It's so gross

Michael: Why did; you just like wonder how they fought over what animal it was gonna be born out of

Jen: I know. I actually don't know why they did it both ways

Michael: Hollywood. The studio

Mark: No, apparently the ox, when it came time, because the the fake ox the chestburster came out of was fake. But when it came time to shoot a live ox with a...

Michael: The hugger?

Mark: The facehugger prosthetic, the ox wouldn't, was not having it

Michael: That's a good ox

Mark: To the point that they were like, "Fuck it. We're just gonna use a dog."

Jen: That is really funny

Michael: That's hilarious

Jen: But you don't see the facehugger on the dog either

Michael: That ox should...

Nay: Ugh, facehugger

Mark: Again, Alien 3 is strange and mysterious and is not for us to understand completely

Nay: The facehugger is the gayest in the whole movie

Jen: Oh yeah. I mean, it's like a little vulva, like just like, but also a little penis that goes down your throat

Nay: Just attach to your face and, "Shwoop!"

Michael: Well then the protruding mouth is the vagina and...

Jen: All the imagery is so sexual. I actually noticed this time, I laughed out loud in the cremation scene, which is I mean, I started out feeling kind of moved when Charles S. Dutton's character starts giving a speech. But did you notice they're intercutting with the dog death? But like specifically, so...

Mark: A flower blooms and it's like, (regurgitation noise)

Jen: Yes. I wrote it down. It's like, "Within every seed there is a flower," and it's like, (squishy sound of the chestburster coming out of the dog's body)

Michael: Like on the nose

Jen: It's so perverse. I love it!

Mark: It's really perverse

Jen: "And a new beginning," and then it's like, cut to the little Alien chestburster, like, "Mrrrrr!"

Michael: I thought you were going to say that you; because I actually giggled when you hear their like body cinch?

Nay: Yes! Me too!

Michael: Like they really go there, like you hear, "sssssss."

Jen: I didn't notice!

Nay: Yeah, I did too

Jen: Wow

Michael: I watched it; Brian got me the wireless earbuds 'cause he likes to read at night and I intend not to be a reader. So i will sometimes put those in to watch something

Jen: Ah, so you really got it

Michael: And sound is really amplified in those fuckers and I just was like, "How? Wha?" Yeah, I was just like, "Did I just hear, 'Ssss,' twice?" And I kept rewinding and it was like, "Ssss."

Nay: That makes sense because I was listening with earbuds, and that's...

Michael: So fucking good, right? And I was like, I love this. Anyway

Mark: I have a little Easter egg if anyone's interested

Michael: [gasps] Give me the Easter egg

Nay: Yes!

Mark: So Sigourney, right, is...

Michael: Mother?

Mark: Mother. She's a queer icon, she's an icon period. And I, she's also someone who I go, "It must be terrifying to have her be angry at you."

Nay: Oh my God. Yeah! Or hot.

Mark: I was digging around on the web, so the actor who plays Aaron or also known as Eighty-five, he self-published his diaries on the web

Michael: Oh, no

Nay: Yes!

Mark: And from a few years ago he posted all his Alien 3 diary entries during the making of

Nay: Wow

Michael: Does he regret it?

Mark: Well, what he describes is a fucking shit-storm of crazy, whether it's just daily rewrites, daily new scenes coming through

Michael: Oh, I thought you were going to say she reads him

Mark: Oh no, she does. Because the thing was, is that Sigourney, being Sigourney and amazing, she was always on Fincher's side and Fincher was constantly eating shit from the studio who were just constantly telling him what to do, telling him to cut things, telling him that he wasn't allowed to shoot things and Sigourney then sometimes would apparently just run off with him to shoot things that he was told he was not allowed to shoot. She was like, "Fuck it, let's go." And they would do...

Nay: Wow

Michael: I mean I love this stuff

Mark: That scene where she's stalking the beast by herself and says that line, "You've been with me for so long, I can't remember anything else," that was a scene the studio refused to let them shoot and they shot it anyway on their own and it ended up in the final cut

Nay and Jen: Wow

Mark: No one was in a good mood on the set of Alien 3. That includes Sigourney, and apparently she would just get really pissed off.

Michael: Yes

Mark: Apparently. There's some good gossip

Michael: Do we have time?

Nay: Yes

Mark: One, there is when this actor, Ralph Brown, who complained to Walter Hill, saying like, My character went from being like semi-heroic and being kind of great and like, fighting the Alien to being called Eighty-five and then like running away from the Alien and like eaten, getting shot in the back." Walter Hill said to him, Rafe Brown, and I quote, "After went to the pub for drinks and I started to unwind. I am now paranoid about being cut from the film like Veronica Cartwright was from Alien as Walter had gently reminded me earlier, 'I don't want to alarm you Rafe, but well, yes I actually do want to alarm you. Don't end up like Veronica.'"

Michael: Girl

Mark: So, I mean, the world of Alien movies is a cutthroat place, okay?

Nay: Oh my God. Alfred Hitchcock could never

Mark: I've met Veronica Cartwright and she's a fucking doll, she's amazing. A legend. So fuck you whoever would do that to Veronica Cartwright, um, she's fabulous.

Mark: So here's where Sigourney starts reading people.

Nay: Yes!

Mark: She was pissed off because people were stealing shots of her with the shaved head on the set and then publishing them in The Daily Mail, and getting really pissed off

Michael: Yeah, I would be too

Jen: That's legitimate

Mark: "February fifth, the canteen sequence. Rewrites still coming in. Sigourney's taking no prisoners today. First it's the hair." She comes up to Ralph and she goes, 'Your hair's too long, Ralph. We should put some lice in it.' "Then an hour later it's my costume. Quote, 'How come Aaron gets to wear a nice clean shirt while we're all in dirty crap here? So stupid Aaron-Eighty-five gets to look really cool then? Mister normal. She stalks off.'" And then Mister Brown goes, his quote, "I feel really weird now. All my paranoia is confirmed. Maybe she's anxious about having a shaved head but she successfully managed to dump her insecurity on me."

Michael: Oh my God

Nay: Holy shit

Jen: What the hell?

Mark: "Then, then Paul McGann who played Golic wanders over, and I tell him what happened. Sigourney walks past us, and I quote, 'Oh look, a little tete-a-tete between Mister Sublime and Mister Ridiculous.' Not over. 'I'll leave you guys to work out who's who.'"

Nay: Oh, my God.

Michael: Bad bitch

Nay: Seriously

Jen: Oh my God

Michael: I want her to read me now

Mark: But the last entry in the diaries regarding...

Michael: "And then Sigourney killed him."

Mark: Actually, no. There's one more. (Ralph) was in makeup one day and Sigourney walks past and says, "Don't make him look too pretty, I have to walk past him."

Michael: That's actually a really witty joke. That's not mean.

Mark: " 'Trust your image, Sigourney,' I reply. She hovers, so for something to say, I tell her that my death has now been rewritten five times so far, including quote, 'Alien eats me, Golic cuts my throat, I fall into lead mold, Company machine gun me.' And then she says, 'I asked them to kill you off on page ten.' But a couple of hours later she pokes her tongue out at me.'" And gross, he makes a weird joke I'm not gonna repeat here. But he does say that she ended up apologizing for being mean at the premiere, and you know, everybody, you know. She was dealing with a lot on that set, everybody was. But I thought that was some little...

Michael: She probably felt she was...

Mark: Sigourney shade is good shade

Jen: I love it

Nay: So Studfinder, is Sigourney your stud?

Mark: Are you kidding? Now and forever

Michael: The off-screen shade

Jen: I took a screenshot from the special features. Even the Alien was bummed out during the production of this movie

Mark: For listeners at home, it's an Alien that looks like it lost a Race. Like it, like its team lost the Super Bowl. It just looks bummed as fuck

Michael: My Studfinder goes to Jen

Mark: Yeah. Jen and Sigourney

Michael: We have a thing called Studfinder where we give like an MVP of the movie

Mark: Who's the hottie of the movie

Michael: It's you

Mark: This week it's you and Sigourney

Nay: Yeah

Michael: Sometimes you need to embrace darkness

Jen: Yeah, and I'm always willing to do that. Except apparently with (Netflix's) The Haunting of Hill House. I don't know why I draw the line there. That's just too relentlessly dark, there's not enough campy Charles S. Dutton I guess

Jen: ...and the AMC, Eli Roth's History of Horror, you can spot me talking about vampires and I think that episode comes out next weekend or this week or something?

Michael: I saw you on the slasher one, right?

Jen: Yeah, I'm in that one, it's for slashers

Mark: You mean Eli Roth's History of Smoldering Looks at the Camera in Dark Rooms?

Jen: There are a lot of attractive horror filmmakers I've been noticing. I dunno. Anyway.

Brennan: We've had most of them in this room

Jen: Yeah, I bet

Michael: We have

Brennan: Do you think the handle mistersublime is available?

Mark: Hopefully

Michael: I hope so

Mark: Or misterridiculous. It's here!

Nay: I'll let you decide which one

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