[PREVIEW] Episode 585: Actually a Lot of People Like Dramas This Size

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Everything is on the verge of something non-consensual.

Daniel Kolitz (0:02)

The women are being tortured in a lot of these.

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

And women are abused.

Daniel Kolitz (0:07)

In an earlier draft of this article, I listed out all of the ways in which Savannah Coffee, the star of Bound by Love, is tortured in this movie. It's like someone shoves a cigar in her face, she gets stabbed in the back while pregnant, she gets shot in the face, thrown off a pallet.

SPEAKER_1 (0:21)

She's shot in the face?

Daniel Kolitz (0:23)

No, sorry, shot in the back.

SPEAKER_1 (0:25)

After being stabbed?

Daniel Kolitz (0:27)

I guess it's already, the woman's already there, probably just goes right in. I mean, it's like kind of cartoons, they're kind of resilient.

SPEAKER_1 (0:33)

Yeah, it's a little lenient.

Daniel Kolitz (0:34)

We go back to normal, but I mean, for the people that are doing the acting here, it seems pretty punishing, you know?

SPEAKER_1 (0:39)

Yeah, I mean, all the women just basically endure while the men become these big stars. And I think that's actually kind of, this is all supposed to be for the female gaze, and yet all the females are also very disposable and interchangeable, to the point that you talk about female characters in some of these, where they literally are just like, we'll just use a different actress. They have like, the fat woman gets replaced by a pretty woman, pretty skinny woman. Yeah. And it's not even meant to...

Daniel Kolitz (1:07)

It's a slimming revolution, which is, this is, again, also something that someone who has worked for real short a lot told me is that an executive told him, in quotes, humiliation is very important to us. But the idea of humiliation is key to their whole enterprise. And this show you're talking about, Slimming Revolution, is about, I guess it's a woman whose husband gets rid of her because she's overweight and she wants to get revenge by losing the weight. And she successfully does so, but it's not the same actress. They just...

SPEAKER_1 (1:43)

That's what I'm saying.

Daniel Kolitz (1:43)

Yeah, exactly, they just replace her with a smaller...

SPEAKER_1 (1:46)

Brutal commentary.

Daniel Kolitz (1:47)

Yes, exactly. But it's like, but Real Short loves doing that. They love just doing like the most kind of like vulgar thing imaginable, the thing that like pushes against bad taste.

SPEAKER_1 (1:56)

Yeah.