REVIVAL: Moulin Rouge! (2001) dir. Baz Luhrmann | Showgays

0:00 [Music] [Applause] [Music] Rock that's it you don't have to put on the red light strong opening I appreciate it I like it it is a strong opening of a show just like like this movie is strong opening strong opening yeah welcome back to another episode of show gaze movie musical podcast in which we discuss culturally relevant movie musicals that have really redefined an entire generation's idea of what a movie

0:45 musical is I'm gonna I have a very big claim to lay today oh okay let me say it right now yeah I think Mulan Rouge is the reason that we have legal gay marriage in America wow overberger found yeah I think that we should definitely put a pin in that and and make people keep listening in order to know you're reing what you got to do you got to hook them in that's called yeah the first the first minute yeah well Happy Valentine's Day everyone happy Valentine's Day Valentine's Day to all the gay couples that are married yeah only them not interested in anybody else celebrating I don't I don't know if men and women can

1:30 get married I'm not sure I'm not sure heard I've never met any men or women everyone I know is non binary every single person um also it's like a French February did we do that on purpose no but I was a French season we did American in Paris so when I was watching it yesterday I was like wow we are in fren again in France everyone yeah yeah it is funny that the one actual French movie was not Parisian though mhm as it turns out there are other places in France and I think the rest of the world probably doesn't know that and why you know French films are I'm sure said in many cities it's also our second February 15th in a row where we have watched a

2:17 French movie musical last year we watched and it was the same setup where it was the one fromal it was Phantom y it was a Revival I think there's like there's something in the water about France and Valentine's Day something there's something there something about love are known for the love you think we'll talk about love today no it's not really theme in this movie I don't think so no um Li the listeners are listening to this it's yes it's after it's after Valentine's Day Adam and I have just stuffed our faces at the Cheesecake Factory like we do every year on Valentine's Day yes tradition it's our tradition I told my boyfriend that we're going to watch pride and PR and then and then I said I'll never tell

3:02 you what to do but I really like flowers just so you know so we'll see if he delivers what's your favorite flower he doesn't listen to this right he he doesn't um my favorite flower is just like growing our lilacs but I don't think that those are sold as like a yeah in a bouquet lilac basically as soon as they're cut from yeah but we had a lilac bush in my backyard when I was we did too um so I love lilacs um I told him I feel like red roses are a little uh stereotypical so it's like kind of anything except for that I like other colors of roses but I I love purples and oranges in a bouquet oh yeah but I don't have like a type of flower that I'm more attached to other I like a li but White Lies are usually served funeral funeral

3:50 but it's so pretty when it blooms it's so pretty and then ice crazy I am so allergic their is wild also this is the first time that I'm mentioning having a boyfriend on the podcast and I do feel I need to just quickly apologize to the listeners for dating a man I'm sure you're all very disappointed I think all of the all of the Les the Les lemble let's say the lble lble the the feble um are so disappointed now they're like damn they're probably returning their money that they didn't pay for because they were promis show gaze and they got to show straight got a current show straight don't become straight just because you're dating man but yes by people don't exist Adam had an erase erase

4:37 erase Molly before we dive in before we dive into into this obviously yeah we have a mail we have a mailbag and I want to apologize to Lucas because I got the email like right after we recorded one but then also kept forgetting to read it so luuka sent us an email on January 2nd that was titled Wonka is good I swear it um because we kept making jokes about how we weren't going to see Wonka essentially um but he says that we I want to say this don't beat yourself up because in your defense if he sent this January 2nd we only recorded Mean Girls and then we already had umbrellas in the can that's true that's true we're like only one episode behind Okay um he says we should have checked it out in theaters I don't know if that's still a

5:22 thing that we could do um Paul King who directed Paddington one and two knows how to make a movie musical like Classic Hollywood um creating a movie musical creating movie musical magic that all ages could enjoy um the songs might not be show stopping with their surprisingly catchy and well- filmed numbers with fun dancing and and then he says and I take this a little bit as a personal attack um if you see Wonka please go in with an open mindheart and leave your cynicism at the theater door because it's a movie for families so judge it for what it is and Lucas I don't think that we're cynics I feel that I do we loved Zombies 3 yeah ionically Lov zombies um I can't believe that you would call us cynical

6:08 um and then he also says oh he does not like Color Purple um she says even if Wonka songs are silly and childish they're more complete than the first draft attempt at songwriting in The Color Purple musical um he says it felt more like a series of cool music videos in a big budget movie adaptation but misses the mark of the original novel I mean again any yes that was our big gap it's on my library hold lless yeah uh he also said also how weird is it that the Globes didn't nominate a single movie musical not counting Barbie this year the only reason I like the Golden Globes is because they honor comedies and musicals finally I'm dreading Mean Girls the secret movie musical but need to hear all your thoughts so Lucas I hope please write back we need to know yeah I hope

6:53 you enjoy yeah I know Rita said it wasn't her favorite episode because we liked it and she doesn't like the podcast episodes as much when we liked the movie oh yeah she just she loves to stir the pot that we pot she loves conflict yeah that's really the role she has in our family is is causing causing drama and Chaos everywhere she goes she's just like the girl later we talk about in the movie who like comes in to stir the pot and the unamed dancer roas for what we'll talk about later um I don't want to talk about this anymore I want to move on you this movie yes let's move on to literally anything what's the closer this week Molly yeah Molly what's your

7:40 closer um Molly I do have a question for you though um you were challenged this week to in a minute or less summarize the plot of the very complicated uh Mulan Rouge exclamation point Dred by BOS lurman from 2001 and I would love for you to do that right now our protagonist Christian moves to Paris to join the Bohemian movement and immediately falls into a group of artists including tler track who are looking to produce a new play the artist visit the Mulan Rouge where Christian fall first sees the beautiful burlesque star in cortisen satin through a mixup Christian ends up in satin's rooms where she is meant to be seducing a wealthy Duke who could fund a new show Christian and Satine fall in love the Duke promises funding and Satine strings him along while hiding their Affair under the guise of rehearsing the new play but eventually they are found out satin

8:25 attempts to finally seduce the deuce to Plate him but she is unable to hide her feelings for Christian the Duke attacks her but she is saved at the last minute and plans to run away with Christian the M's manager zedler tells the team first that the Duke has threatened Christian's life and second that she is dying of consumption zedler convinces Satine the only way to save Christian is to convince him that she never loved him she does so and a tormented Christian later returns to the Mulan Rouge on opening night to quote pay his [ __ ] on stage however Satine sings him the song that Christian wrote for her confirming their love the Duke's attemp attempted assassination is thwarted and satin collapses after the show and dies in Christian arms wow so close five okay I thought maybe the question you're gonna ask me is do you think you're going to do this in a minute and I was going to say I'm not confident this time but I didn't want to cut any of that stuff yeah it's all it's

9:11 all it's essential it's essential culture um Molly I'd love to know since you are the only person who really has never talked about this movie on this podcast before since RJ and I have done an episode on this before I'd love to know your history with this film uh I love this movie I watched it of course for the first time well I think I watched it the first time I was like a little young when I first watched it like late Elementary maybe even I think we were not supposed to be watching it and I was like at a friend's house and we watched it um but obsessed with it in like middle school high school had the soundtrack listen to it all the time big big Mulan Rouge fan yeah I don't remember when I first watched it too but it was I definitely

9:57 remember watching if not the whole whole movie parts of it like I think on TV like on cable TV maybe um but I had these songs in my like musical theater playlist so I had the elf and love Med medley I had um I did have uh be because we can can can um and uh the Tingo rockan and then yeah we watched it for a previous iteration of show Gaz together and now it is just played at Sidetrack every single night every single well every single show gaze because they do or not show gaze spoiler um every single show tunes night because

10:43 they do musical Mondays but then they also do like a Friday and Sunday like Sizzler pre you know um special what what song or songs do they play at Sidetrack it's elephant love that's like the big one and diamonds I've seen diamonds I've seen diamonds I've never seen them do roxan interesting yeah um but I think leaving the show I I've always Diamond are girls best friend was the one that I would always keep in my Shuffle rotation they should do spectacular spectacular because it's the campiest of all well I um the first time I ever watched this movie in its entirety was for our show gaze episode the first time around oh previous to that I had seen bits and pieces and I was very aware that it was not from

11:29 me um that being said this is now my second full-time watching this film I'll be honest I did second screen it and I was on my phone during it and I was playing like Candy Crush basically so how um I needed something that was less visually stimulating than fil you needed like white noise for your eyes it was just I was just watching a YouTube video of a Babbling Brook anytime I needed a break um and yeah I amum you know you can go listen to that old episode and find out really what I think about this movie but uh my I remember my mom and lesie I think liked it a lot um but of course I was too young because this was like fourth grade when this third third fourth grade when this movie came out my

12:15 sister was a huge Romeo Juliet fan she had all of the posters she had the biggest crush on Leo that movie yes and so I think maybe through osmosis we like watched Mulan Rouge together because it was like the next big one and I think she also had like a big moment with it not as big as Romeo plus Juliet but it was always prevalent in like you know um stuff that she would like watch and and was always on I'm fine with Romeo post Julia I we watch it in high school and I was like okay it makes I think the Shakespeare helps a lot because it's like it's accessible it's accessible it's meant to be like yeah yeah yeah you accept it Shakespeare's not really known for being accessible but glad that's your feeling on it but I think it grounds the frenetic energy about style you like

13:01 accept it because it's like well it's trying to tell Shakespeare and so like I think we've all just accepted that like you you put on a Capital C concept on Shakespeare you know yeah much to our professor shagrin um so lulan Rouge directed by BOS lurman written by BOS lurman and Craig Pierce produced by Martin Brown BOS lurman and Fred Baron this is the third in his uh his own personal glitter cycle let's say I forget what he called what it's called uh his red curtain Trilogy the first movie in his red curtain Trilogy is um everything's Ballroom strictly Ballroom strictly everybody's coming up ball everybody's coming up ballroom and then Romeo post Julet and this is the third Mulan Rouge um it Stars Nicole Kidman famous

13:48 Australian actress as Satine the Coran you and McGregor uh plays Christian John Lama plays tulo Trek Jim Broadbent who most people probably know is uh Professor slug horn plays Harold Ziggler zidler zidler sorry zedler Rachel Rachel zler he plays Rachel zler who is going to soon they just announced that she's gonna take she's gonna be satin on Broadway oh okay and then Richard rockburg plays the Duke cinematography is by Donald M M McAlpine it's edited by Jill bilcock its music is by Craig Armstrong production company is bosar Productions it's distributed by 20th Century Fox so

14:34 this is now technically a Disney film um princess yes it was released in the United States uh June 1st 2001 that's when it went wide it's running time is 128 minutes uh the budget was 50 million and it made $ 179.2 million and it was in American theaters for 46 weeks wow and it's an initial run W which is Bonkers we are now in a time where a movie will come out literally Color Purple came out Christmas Day and six weeks later it was you could rent it rent it on any virtual streaming device whatever yeah it's Bonkers to me let's talk about some uh let's talk about some stuff about this movie so um

15:20 BOS lurman there's a quote I have from here um he says we went to this huge this is when they were making uh uh he was doing the Opera of Midsummer Night stream oh uh we went to this huge ice cream picture Palace to see a Bollywood movie here we were with 2,000 Indians watching a film in Hindi and there was the lowest possible comedy and then incredible drama and tragedy and then breakout in songs and it was 3 and a half hours we thought we had suddenly learned Hindi because we understood everything we thought it was incredible how involved the audience were how uncool they were how their coolness had been ripped aside and how they were United in this singular sharing of the story The Thrill of thinking could could we ever do that in the west could we ever get past that cerebral cool and perceived cool it required this idea of comic tragedy could you make those

16:06 switches find in Shakespeare low comedy and then you die in five minutes in Mulan Rouge we went further a recognizable story though orphan in shape is derived from Camille laboom whether you know those texts or not you recognize those patterns and character types so he's referencing there that he was inspired by laboom which he did direct at the Sydney Opera House in 1993 is where I found out that his background was primarily in Opera Direction wow and then it explained literally everything and I was like ah okay got it um other critics have or other people who have talked about this film have pointed out its similarities to or similar plot points to LA travata in a book called Nana by Emil Zola yeah which is about sorry go ahead go oh I was gonna say

16:51 lrav is based on Camille that's like the novel travat is based on so yeah all the same Nana a Zola it's a book in which a in like the span of three years this girl goes from like a pennil um prostitute to being like a super high-end sex worker basically and then I was kind of reading the plot on Wikipedia and every guy she like leaves or like she destroys their life somehow and half of them end up killing themselves because they love her so much it's kind of a slay kind of was like in to it yeah um and then there's um uh an orus Ry um angle that he obviously referenced and um Molly or RJ take it away remind us of the orus Ury mythology

17:38 Molly take it away Ury dies orus and Ury are in love Ury dies tragically and orus goes and Ventures into the underworld in order to save her he makes a deal with Hades that says you can take her away but only if you don't look back as you climb back up to the land of the living um and as they're walking something causes him to look back I think in kind of every telling it's a different different reason that he looks back of is it him is it her is it totally an accident why does he look back but the point is that he looks back and she's lost forever to the underworld wow um satin's character is based on a real person whose name was Jane of real

18:23 uh she was a Can Can dancer at the Mulan Rouge if you have your notes open I did put in this this first image this is not helpful anybody listening but this first image is a to L track painting of Jane of real on a poster for the Mulan Rouge um so pretty iconic to be like the face of the Mulan Rouge at the time and then this other one is a picture of her from like 18 and I was looking at this picture for so long because I could not figure out how her legs were doing what they were doing yeah her leg is so high to listeners her knee is basically at her chin yeah she's just casually standing yeah it's high it's very high she must be a short girl good for her wow she was

19:08 a SLE um let's talk about some fun uh production stuff so casting Christian could have been Leo DiCaprio okay not surprising Romeo plus Juliet could have been Heath Ledger o was not Heath Ledger because he was deemed too young and he resented BOS lurman for it so much that he refused to be part of Australia which he was offered en roll a rooll for later he resented BOS for not C casting him because he or he's saying he was too young for this role he was bz did not cast him because he was too young and so because of that he resented him and he resented him and did not do Australia wow wow uh Jake Gyllenhaal what year was sorry what year was this this was 2001 2001 did he just do when was 10 Things I Hate About You feels like

19:54 03 which I mean I love mil Rouge but 10 Things I ha about you is a superior romantic 10 Things I ha about you was 99 so this is after right after I mean he was he had just played a high schooler yeah yeah yeah and Ethan Hawk were the four um other people satin could have been Courtney Love She auditioned and she actually gave them there's this whole story about how she because she apparently has the rights to Smells Like Teen Spirit um so she gave them the rights to use it it's part of the uh it's part of the voule vu section when they like get to the Mulan rou it's one of the songs that's played and it was originally recorded by Marilyn Manson who she has a apparently a very famous Feud with I was

20:39 not around enough in the 90s to really know any of that information so when she found out she was so mad about it apparently there was like there's a clause in the contract that like the original performer has approval of like how it's used in the film or whatever so she like used the clause for them to have to re-record six days before before the movie came out that's the big story yeah Diva move but also I can't I kind of can't imagine knowing what the scene is like why would there be a single person singing it's like it's like a moment when like a chorus of men are entering the scene so why would it be one guy singing that's kind of confusing to me what they were originally planning on so she might have made it better yeah maybe thanks and we all say thank you Courtney Love Courtney

21:24 Love if you can't Courtney Love Yourself how in the hell you going to Courtney love somebody else can I get an amen amen to L uh could have been Rowan Atkinson or Alan [ __ ] I mean Alan [ __ ] obviously would have slay Alan coming famous for the traitors for hosting the TV show for hosting the TV show The Traitor never seen n famous for schune famous for so many things famous for being alen c yeah being the MC in the um so miss girl Nicole she during the filming of this movie she broke BR two ribs wow and she tore her knee cartilage and apparently multiple scenes in this movie are her acting while she's actually in a wheelchair so anytime they're basically showing her from like the the like chest up like the scene

22:11 where they're telling her like you're a real act the real actress scene or whatever oh where she's like changing the she's she is in a wheelchair during that scene which is so crazy to think about is that like because of unsafe filming conditions so one was one was I think the cartilage she fell from the trapes oh my God at one point and like broke or not broke her knee but like injured it and then the broken ribs one was because of a corset and another I think she fell down some stairs yeah yeah yeah yeah fully yeah um it's wild and she didn't even win the Oscar and she didn't even win the Oscar um so this film was nominated for a bunch of Academy Awards it was

22:56 nominated for Best Picture best Act R for Nicole Kidman best cinematography best film editing best makeup best sound and it won best costume design and best art Direction which are the two things that I said last night while we're watching this I was like the costumes movie are so good because it's so in excess yeah and then when we were in the elephant I was like you it doesn't get better than this production design it's so good it's top nutch yeah so I am the academy okay that's the point so it's your fault it's my fault it's your fault it's your fault and and Margo Robbie will never win best actress for Barbie um and then she wasn't nominated right exactly she never will win for it the academy um so here are the I so

23:43 technically there were like two theaters in the country that Mulan Rouge was in for like three weeks before it went wide but I did not count those so the week I'm going to tell you was the week went ride it was like June 1st or whatever in 2001 um that weekend number five five was what's the Worst That Could Happen an MGM film I do not remember at all uh number four is Mulan Rouge at uh for that weekend it was 13 million uh the animal was number three from Revolution Studios number two was Shrek uh somebody and number one was Pearl Harbor from Walt Disney Studios Motion Picture yep I did not realize that that was a Walt Disney movie Disney movie that is so funny to

24:31 me um I have some other stuff we'll talk about when we get to specific songs but that's pretty much it honestly um I feel like let's just go easy breezy you know you know what it's it's Valentine's Day it's Bohemian so Bohemian so Bohemian the three of us really embody the Bohemian like abolutely making podcasts working working job now yeah part of the grind I think these are all things that like the Bohemian Insurance having health insurance that's very Boh

25:16 [Music] B um Molly yeah as we start this conversation about Mulan rou I would love first of all you've been to Paris did you have you ever been to the Mulan Rouge uh not all the way I I have been in M much and I've seen like the outside of it but I haven't gone to it and like seen a show there okay yeah my second question no you did neither have we uh my second question um do you like the this movie I think I already answered that I

26:01 will say um it was interesting watching it this time because I hadn't seen it in I mean at least 10 years maybe in 15 years at this point um to see it as a period piece of 2001 like I think we're really getting to that yeah level of distance from it that you can really see it that way um I mean yeah it doesn't like hit you in the same way when you're not 13 years old right um but I still think it's like so joyful and to me this is like the best version of a jukebox musical where you really are trying to make the songs work for the plot and to reimagine like a way of them being done like none of the songs are performed in the same way that they're performed in the original version they're they're like

26:48 re redone aesthetically in some way as well which I think is really cool I think that the performers are all having a really good time I think it's like really visually luscious and I think it's I think it's nice to just have movies that are just about like you know illogical levels of falling in love with somebody like sometimes we don't need it it's kind of what B was saying about like the anti-intellectual like it's not cool it's not you think or subverting your expectations just like no we're gonna take this story from like 1850 that we've all done a million times and we're just gonna like Do It full out and have some fun with it and I think that's really lovely and my question to you Adam would be why do you hate love um it's just not for me okay um I just don't Vibe with it I think I will talk

27:33 about mine RJ thoughts Oni I there were moments in this rewatch because I think I didn't have like it's not that I had like fond memories of the I think I always was like everyone loves the Elephant Love Story everyone honestly everyone loves all the scenes that happen inside her little elephant house like it's it's the highlight of the highlight of the movie The from from from the like false Duke Shenanigans to her having an orgasm over poetry is so funny to the declaring of the love at the end of Elf and Love Medley it's like that is the movie that I remember the most and I'm like if I'm ever thinking about like did I like Milan rou is Milan rou a good movie well I really like that so it's like and it was so powerful and like very creative and just like very well done and well

28:20 executed um I think this this time around I was I was noticing a lot more of the things that maybe didn't um like don't hold up as much like the weird background foreground kind of CGI stuff when they're trying to zoom through like Paris but those are like well I mean what how else are you going to do this you know like this at least it's a creative Clear Choice that um we always say that like at least if the director has a Clear Vision I would much rather do that than having very like aimless Direction scenes Vision it's funny to watch this movie a year after we had watched greatest showman be or was it two years ago now I don't even know I

29:06 don't even know two show after after watching greatest showman because it's so I mean it's more obvious than ever that greatest showman is just trying to was just trying to achieve like Mulan Rouge level of like excess and forv vality and like whatever and just can't I mean this movie let me talk about it since it's such a singular Vision no one else can make this movie this is a full BOS lurman picture I don't I'm not I I I find the excess nauseating but I I I that is truly just personal taste like I objectively understand why people really enjoy this I totally get it it's not even that it's done poorly it's just a

29:51 thing that's not truly for me at all yeah um but I can really I really respect all the technical aspects of it I think there's so much care put into this film that's so clear and then once I found out that he was like has an opera background like a theater background I was like well that's I mean that's so obvious because only like a [ __ ] theater freak would do [ __ ] like this yes like the Cutaway jokes like there were some stuff that were just like really funny and didn't wasn't afraid to just um kind of go for it like make it look Goofy and so I really I kind of appreciated that part of the Bosman anecdote that I'm shared of yeah like you said like the why like why are why are our movies so pressed on trying to be cool when people just want to have a good time and like just watch like a

30:38 love story I also really like again like as somebody watching it not as a 13-year-old anymore and so like not as caught up in just the love story part of it the comedy in this is so silly so funny it's so funny yeah it really is like low silly like you know it's not trying to be too clever with any of the and from everyone like everyone has a stake in it like Nicole Kidman does some really good oh my God it is so funny the scene where she thinks that he's the Duke she if this was how she acted she would be like the worst sex worker of all time like the way that she cannot read the social cues of the guy she's trying to seduce is hilarious like how would she be the number one star of the Mulan Rouge if like this is her approach

31:25 to trying to like figure out what somebody's into like that's true I assume the number one skill that one has if you're a sex worker it's like yes it's reading the other person yeah yeah I I mean the com the comedy in this is so obvious it's super broad it's it's referencing like those like some of even the like way it's edited where they like speed up some of the reactions like it's like those well it's like a Tik Tok now but like it's I mean it's clearly referencing like a Charlie chaplain like kind of like physical the the one I think of is like when they all they pop they're watching them like get she's they're watching him get seduced the other four artist their head and they pop their heads out and then they all

32:10 look at each other and they look at the other person and they pop back and it's all like beep beep beep be and the editing is clearly like they've lowered the frame rate so that it like moves really quickly yeah I mean it's very like from that aspect I'm like this is great amazing I just like I can't connect with it at all and that's it's truly just a person you don't have to you don't have to connect with it yeah I I don't and I won't and I sh um I think that's all we needed to say um um can we listen to we've already talked about it now I think like two or three times at this point we have to discuss the Elephant Love Medley because I think it is the Crown Jewel of the it truly is it is the necklace that she

32:55 puts on the big heart necklace and how much was that necklace a million dollar was the most expensive piece of jewelry ever made custom made for a film wow it had 1,300 diamonds in it why did they need to put real diamonds on it if it was for a movie I don't know that's my question it's like the same question as like when we watch Phantom we found out that that the chandelier was like swarovsky crystals I was like this is a movie it can be made of plaster I don't care um okay so I just want to reference here is the list of songs in this elevant love me and you have to tell me if you've heard of the song before before this mle Love Is Like Oxygen by sweet no no I've never heard of this love is a many Splender Thing by the Four Aces I have heard of this heard All You Need Is Love by The Beatles obviously because we famously watched

33:40 Across the Universe our own our the only beetles only reference know any Beetle yeah Beetle Bailey um I Was Made For Loving You by Kiss yes yes yeah I know that one One More Night by Phil Collins yes I know Phil but I don't think I know the song yeah I don't think I I don't think I know it can you hum it no so maybe I don't know it if that's the LI m in the Name of Love by you to yes I know in the Name of Love uh do I do how it no I won in the Name of [Laughter] Love Don't Leave Me This Way by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and later thma Houston yes I know the houon this is a

34:27 disco girly oh okay I don't know it Silly Love Songs by wings no no not outside of the song I know that yeah I know I feel like I know the lyrics but I don't know the song up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and CH waren absolutely Heroes by David Bowie yes yes I Will Always Love You by Deli partner Del Parton L absolutely and both both perfect in their own right both perfect in their own right exactly both perfect Your Song by Elton John yes there you go so we know love I want to say this that's one two three four five six also the the it took me so long to realize why it was called Elephant Love Medley I was like the elephant part or the love part the elephant part the medley part

35:13 I I guess cuz I remember the Early times I remember watching it it didn't stick to me that like it's a giant she I should have looked up if the elephant was a real part of the Mulan Rouge back in the day cuz it's such a weird it is a weird but there's a lot of references to India throughout this so I don't know um I also want to say that I did watch this so young though that I feel like I didn't know a lot of these were I don't even know that I knew that any of these songs were from anything other than this movie when I first watched it yeah maybe I knew all you need is love but that's probably it I think I knew I will always love you and then your song Those like as a kid I didn't even know that that was yeah I didn't know your song um that's a lot of [ __ ] songs and I just have to commend them that it is not it

36:02 is not a Glee mash up where you just take two two songs and then shake them in the because most of them are just the titles it's and I think the smartest part of doing it this way is it's just like the one main line and then they move to the next song and in that way I think it's like so the not thematically but like um production wise like the whole movie is so frenetic that it makes so much sense for this medley to go from song to song to a poet he's a writer so he's just taking the iconic lines to create the and the sort of joke of the movie The running joke is that he comes up with all of these famous lines because we start with when he first gets pulled into the artist that he comes up with the hills are alive with the sound of music so it's like it's like we're supposed to be understanding like it's as if Christian is actually the origin

36:47 of all of these things that we've heard before which is a fun a fun concept um shoot what was I gonna say oh I want to go back to the frenetic thing because I think that the movie gets criticized for that a lot and I I feel like maybe you talked about this the first time around but like it really is like the first 15 minutes that are really frenetic and it's it's even it's not even like the beginning it's like it's like that shot that arj was referencing earlier where they like zoom into the Mulan Rouge and like the the like first three minutes of like traveling through Paris and being in the mulon Rouge that like really like I remember watching for the first time and like getting anxiety about like what is happening I think that once you know the plot so you're like not worried about like am I going to miss something in all of this it improves the experience a lot but like I think

37:33 because it starts out up there a lot of people think of the whole movie as being up there but it's not that level it really comes down and settles it it kind of manifests in different ways like there's still like lots of like like jumping from shot to shot like even like Tango Rock s it like goes from blurry to clear like they're still like that kind but it's not the same there's still yeah there's still quick editing through the whole movie it does it does calm down especially in terms of like especially after the can can like the the angles of the cameras kind of like revert back to just like being straight um straight you father um so that's true um yeah I mean it is I wished as we were watching it I was like God I wish I had

38:20 like taken eaten an edible or something cuz like I just needed like a little bit of like just to relax into it a little bit yeah I don't know I think you might have been panicking more if you had taken an edible honestly but it's true when it zooms through the streets of Paris and there's those that one like there's that one lady who like stares dead in the camera like I could picture Adam just being she's still here wait okay I also want to ask this question I'm kind of getting us off track with the songs but it it sets us up at the beginning as like kind of a decimated Paris and then we're like flashing back a year and so we see that woman like down on her luck and then she seems like she's kind of up on her luck when we're doing a year flashback right and the Mulan Rouge in like the framing device where Christian is writing at his typewriter about how sad he is about his tragic love story is like in disrepair

39:08 so like what happen is it just his perception or did the Duke like burn it down after all of these events happened like what is going on with like the building is like actually falling apart in a way that seems like not possible but the whole they rebuilt it they reil it for the for the whole movie is like from his he is the narrator of I mean we're everything is from his this is the most true Artis or true vision of like rosecolor glasses like he's writing this in the present thinking about his great time with Satine in the past his present he feels is so terrible maybe it was it's like if you're actually looking at it it was the Mulan Rouge is always like in a shotty state but be but because we're jumping back into his flashback it looks like or

39:57 or I think it's more likely to be the opposite that like I mean or somewhere in the middle of like some rosecolor glasses of the past but also like he's overly he overly sees it as a disrepair now just because like it's it's like it seems like structurally unsound in the shots of the FR device in a way that like you couldn't have people there a full trap attending a show yeah yes a full fly system like I read another quote where bz was saying like there's no way to shoot we couldn't do it like how we couldn't show like what actually would be happening in 1890 Paris because like that is still that would still be boring by today's standards we had to like meet where like what contemporary audiences would think is like just as exhilarating as exciting as to what

40:42 parisians at the time would have been feeling when they went to the Mulan RH yeah um I also learned about what did I call what did I say they were called something something knickers split nickers split nickers so apparently their nickers gonna say they were open in the middle and it was I technically it was so that you could pee easier that was it was to help go to the bathroom that was the point but you would wear those and then you do your little skirt your can can and you you peoo I see you and I was like oh that's why people were like so mad about the can my whole life until today at 31 years old I was like like people just hate dancing women like I don't even

41:29 know no girl no it's her [Laughter] vva um is it uula no that's in your throat your throat yeah Little D thing that swings in the back of your throat Adam my God why' you say it like that um okay well shall we listen to a little bit of the elephant Lou medley All You Need Is Love A girl has got to eat all you need is love she'll end up on the streets All You Need Is Love love is just a game I was made for loving you baby you were made for loving me the only way of loving me baby is to

42:15 pay a lovely fee just one night just one night there's no way cuz you can't pay the you [Music] [Applause] [Music] you crazy fool great um I I want to say that the one thing that's always bother me about the Elephant Love Medley we paused a few lines before we got to it is at one point she says you'll be mean and I'll drink all the time yeah and at no other point in this movie does anything suggests that she has an alcohol problem it's such a weird addition to the like she has she has many good justifications

43:01 relating to like I can't afford to like fall in love with somebody basically but like it's like this weird line of like so is she is she an alcoholic like what nothing else tells us that why is that in there I mean the only alcohol reference in this film is the absence yeah yeah he's the one that drink featuring Kylie Mano icon iconic can I tell you she recorded three songs for this film nothing because they didn't know which one they wanted to use for her bit Cameo so she what she sing she sings um Sound of Music Children of the Revolution Nature Boy does that sound right yeah yeah great so she sings that they had her also record physical by Olivia

43:47 Newton and and a Donna Summer song um I can't I think it was on IMDb I saw it I don't remember which Donna Summer song but didn't use any of them yeah they'd only use the ones that are in the film anyway um I always thought that that was a line she was already that's already being quoted in a lyric oh maybe maybe it's from the original because yeah I don't know all these songs so click click Heroes because I think that's the beginning part of Heroes and I'll I'll drink all the time I guess I always thought that her spoken lines back were not from the original that that was the addition for for the movie yep yes it is and you you can be mean and I I'll drink all the time cuz we're lovers and that

44:32 is a fact yes we're lovers and that is that there you go okay well now mystery solved that explains it mystery solved we've done it uh I okay I'm gonna say I'm going to go out on a limb oh and I'm GNA say the thing I said earlier this is this was the hook to get him wrapped into the returning okay so Mulan Rouge there is a clear this movie comes out and it literally this I would say this plus Chicago as a onew punch of 2001 Mulan R 2002 Chicago is a onew punch of people realizing that you do not have to stick to the traditional way of filming a musical for it to work and I think that changes it changes Hollywood first and

45:18 then later ends up changing Broadway it pushes jukebox into the realm of like real possibility especially like with Mama Mia being so successful in Broadway at the time my point is this there is a direct correlation between what this movie is doing and what Glee draws inspiration from and if there is one cultural Touchstone that made people be like gay people are okay because Kurt got to fall in love with Blaine it was Glee and so because of that I'm going to go out on a limb and I'm going to say Mulan Rouge is the reason we've G marri and for that thank you Bosler man I think almost every part of that argument is incorrect to be

46:04 honest and you know what it's it's so nice and refreshing to hear something so confident yeah so confidently spoken that's so wrong so it's my yeah I'm in my 2024 bag I'm very like Twitter thread Twitter thread yeah like I'm just like speaking my truth and it doesn't matter if it is the truth because truth is subjective and look as long as I'm here to fact trck you you do that great great what do you what are your what are your specific yeah what what so you don't want gay people to get marriage is that what you're saying yeah I think I think I think actually all marriage should be illegal I I think it should be should go back to being property yeah yeah I shouldn't be allow to make my decisions um I think that I I don't know about the like filming musicals non-traditionally

46:50 because I don't know that Chicago is like you mean it's nontraditional and that it's the dream sequences like pasti yeah I would say cuz it's so pasti driven there is no I mean I'm going to outly Rocky hor picture show because it's such an outlier uhuh um but previously all the movie musicals that we've basically watched up until Mulan Rouge in Chicago are so still doing a very traditional golden age and I meaning Golden Age movie musical kind of energy of just like just shooting it very straight normal no kind of okay so I guess I could I could go with an of like these are a little bit more like music videos um I don't know that we can draw a straight line between that and Glee existing uh I don't think that this is the first time that jukebox was a

47:37 thing and I don't know that no one would have the idea of Glee Without it and I completely and adamant disagree that the plotline on Glee is what changed the majority of American mind and I'm was like okay I hear you you know yeah sure for sure yeah I mean sure Obama watched um what's that what's that movie with um the kids are all right the kids are all right and he that was what made him realize that gay people were fine or whatever I think he always thought gay people were fine no famously Obama this is TR this is my truth again famously Obama hated gay people this is not textually based no he did run he ran with like a defensive

48:22 Marriage Act Like That was the mainstream Democratic opinion when he he was not supportive of gay marriage but I don't think that he ever said like I don't like gay people I don't think that that was ever no I'm joking he no it also had nothing to do with the p because games Le was a Supreme Court decision so really it's not about the American public it's about those nine justices But ultimately the justices do kind of respond to public opinion I mean like the court can claim that they're it's not always majority of public opinion but like the court can claim that they are like purely legal Scholars but like there is there is absolutely an influence of political opinions of and that's what Adam is saying the influence was Glee which was then I would say I would say I would say thing to say I would say I okay I will

49:09 genuinely get on this podcast today and I will say that it is not the only thing but it is one of the it was one of the largest late 2010s late I'm sorry late 2000s early 2010s things that prominently featured like a gay basically main character that was in people's homes but it was being watched primarily by high schoolers who don't vote and weren't impacting who ended up on the Supreme Court and ended up I disagree that it was primarily watched by high schoolers who don't vot I think that that's insane Molly you there are literal ratings of this show it can't be just high schoolers that were watching it most of America was watching Glee the first two seasons there's no way there's no way9 how did we get here is there

49:56 anything that MO is there there's nothing there's nothing on television that more than 50% of Americans watch that's true I don't even know if more than 50% of Americans watch the Super Bowl how do I find neelon ratings what do these numbers mean hold on I need to find like a ranking uh okay hold on I need to give total population hopefully with an age demographic breakdown would be ideal if you're going to make this argument neelon ratings okay well right now BL Molly blue is the number two show in America and is that not a show for children it is a show that a famously a lot of adults like watching but also oh so now adults watch shows interesting but also but also no one is claiming

50:42 that Bluey is making a big political shift in America in some way well you're not watching Bluey clearly cck television um oh no I'm sorry that was streaming numbers um so for the week of the 15 January 15th 2024 the Chiefs uh the Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills was the highest watch thing which is very exciting for all of us well we love it we're all football fans I have no idea how do I see hold on I'm gonna find this keep talking keep talking to R.J oh RJ what do you think what do you think the results are gonna be what's your what's your uh speculation here arge here we go I I don't know you're totally letting RJ wiggle out of this he's not going to take a stance come on RJ take a stance about something for once in your life Jesus Christ I you know I'll stand with

51:29 gay marriage I think I finally come around to it after all these years I think I'll Stand to support gay marage after almost being in one for five years I brave think I should support it also the way you said that sentence sounds like you guys have been like engaged and like about to have a wedding for five years yes you've been in one four almost five years not you've almost been yes yes yes yes Adam give this up she's she's criticizing me I am we are all critics here um okay here we go oh oh not coming soon Jesus Christ listeners right in with whether you think that what was it and plane were a signifant cultural

52:17 impact to the majority of Americans opinions about gay marriage in the late 2000s see ad this is why this is why ENT Time Entertainment Weekly shouldn't have died because they would print that [ __ ] every week and they would say here's what was number one this week on the television that's fair I think that you are very influenced by the age demographic you happened to be in at that time and therefore think of this show as having a bigger cultural impact than it did 2009 I mean was that Modern Family no that's later no 2009 yeah 2009 2009 is Modern Family Modern Family starts um yeah probably more impact than anything I would pick Modern Family more than G it's a kind of Niche thing Adam we just were all theater kids in high

53:03 school at the time that Glee came out okay I hate to tell you that I disagree I hate to tell you everyone knew about Glee well some of us were theater kids RJ came to musicals late as we all remember yes such a late bloomer yeah okay I have no evidence to back that up um but it was a good hook to get them into the episode was and now they're S I appreciate the tail that you've spun even if I think it's based on lies see and that and sometimes you know publicity stunts are are scams we love that you know yeah we were we were told this is just seeds to plant the inevitable fake Feud that we're gonna have in the show what

53:48 between me and Adam that's not fake that's not F that's not fake that's real love it girl that's real that's Elephant Love that's Elvin blood medley right there well let's talk about um pasti fenetic what do you want let's talk about frenetic let's keep going on this frenetic topic there is no song that is more emblematic of its Ematic than ftic emblematic of frenetic then this song that we about to listen [Music] to 50 years so exciting the audience will stop and so delighting it will run for yes aans Indian and cartis and juggling Bears girls fire

54:35 musle elcin [Music] electricity okay it's so good it's so good it's so clever it's so smart song this is original to this movie right yes okay the lyrics yes oh but the the the thing is like what is that it's from sorry it's from fire I don't know what it's called no it's from oh yeah it's of Overture of uh I believe uh an opera okay but I can't tell you there you go boss with his Opera background yeah yeah um it's so fun I just feel like this time that I was watching I was just watching Nicole Kidman thinking like she's having the best time she does not

55:21 get to do stuff like this very often you know no she doesn't that's all watching to I was just watching her she's so funny it's offen box can can okay oh it's the can can there you go can I think my about it I mean it's it's like the it's the play within a play within a play because they in the song they like pitch it's the pitch right it's the song so it's like they have to kind of come up on the cuff and it's so playful it's so fun they turn this is the this is how I was like this is the production design cuz they just take things in her bedroom to make a makeshift Little Theater like her lamps became the foot lamps and then like her her bedding became like the

56:08 curtains it was yeah so it's it's enjoyable to watch a movie that is so disinterested and engaging with any kind of realism whatsoever like it's like it is literally a liveaction cartoon there is no there is no reality whatsoever except for the fact that like she dies at the end and there's an attempted assassination but even the assassination is kind of silly it's her death is treated sincerely and melodramatic way melodramatically yes um but yeah a lot of it is very silly and honestly almost like we talked a lot about how the elephant is so good it's almost too good because I'm thinking about the fact that like the you should remember when they actually do this show at the end when they do spectacular spectacular and it is like way over the top and like amazing the show that ends up being

56:55 produced but you do not remember it as much as you remember just the inside of this elephant and the these opulently decorated rooms and how heart the heart Arch Archway the balcony it's so good yeah yeah I I love watching it for the like truly the production design is just so good yeah I do want to say treating this a little bit as a serious story even though we've we've kind of established that we don't think it should be taken all that seriously but the the one thing that I found a little tragic as well in this watch speaking of spectacular spectacular is that we set up that that satine's one real wish is to be a real actress so her motivation throughout the movie or at the beginning of the movie is she wants to seduce the Duke get his funding that they can do a show and she

57:40 be a real actress yeah and she like basically lets go of that idea in order to be with Christian which which is what part of what makes it so effective when she comes in and and convinces him that she doesn't love him is she says like oh the Duke is promising me everything I ever wanted um you you know that that is what she wanted and so you it like makes it more believable but it's also kind of sad that it's like in the process of the affair she sort of gives up on that and then she is remembered through the story that Christian tells in which like she exists as the object of his love but like not really she never gets to accomplish that dream because she dies young and at a moment of fulfilling love but not fulfilling any of her dreams

58:27 independent of that I feel like if this was a script that you would try to write today it wouldn't specify or she'd be girl Bas she'd be girl Bastin and then she'd be like Christian I'm not interested in you either and I'm gonna go be an actress and she would leave at the end she would be like I own the Mulan Rouge I own 51% of this Mulan Rouge 51% of this mul I feel like it would be like it's it's not about being an actress but more about like having a purpose and I think like they would have made a connection more of the like by being the by being like in love it's that thing of like maybe it's like being a muse and like if you're an actress like that's that's what she would want I mean she wants to

59:12 be an actress because she she wants to escape the underworld they have a lot of she and zedler talk about like being creatures of the underworld and feeling sort of stuck and so legitimize what they do legitimizing ascending and social class does like the fame or the artistic satisfaction of being a real actress I think it's about sort of leaving behind the associations of the Mulan R for her um but like ultimately this is like one of many problems that I have with like pop girl boss feminism is like it's a tragedy so she has to die at the end so like her dreams do have to go un fulfilled for that to work yeah and sometimes movies can be about that not every movie should be about not every

59:58 character in every movie that's a woman should be just about falling in love but some of them should be well yeah I'd love to read you this one line um of the an in the Wikipedia page there's an an analysis section yeah and there's a postmodern section which I has is a little lengthy and then there's um a section called feminist critique and it says it's one it's no it's One S uh it has been argued that despite the film's postmodern stylings Mulan Rouge is not a feminist text because the death of its female protagonist Satine serves as a plot device that upholds patriarchal perspectives in storytelling H they should be more

1:00:43 specific in that sentence what exactly they mean also it has been argued it has been yeah we love a passive voice oh yeah yeah yeah it's thereit ad yes let me there is number 61 let's clickity clack um Connor Bennett from 204 page 111 and then on the left what is the text What's the title of the text uh I'm sorry Katherine Connor Bennett is her full name okay the gender politics of death three formulations of laboom in contemporary Cinema from the Journal of popular film and television that sounds excellent the ISS number is 1930 6458 in case you want to look up wow uh If This Were the old version of the podcast that I was doing when I was still a grad student I would have read that article

1:01:30 but I'm going to stop promising that I'm going to go back to that because it's just not gonna happen it's very hard to do you have to you have to be I don't have Library access anymore and also I have a full-time job academics gate keep Academia they do they do it's true oh my God Molly we have such a crazy story to tell you about Academia after pod do we yes oh we do we wow we really hook at them even though we're promising that we're not going to tell them the story be so curious we'll never hear it um I am very disinterested in thing it's very it's antithetical to what he's saying right he's like this you're you're you're it's a it's a story it's you we are just here to have fun and

1:02:16 watch a love story right yeah I'm it's a little it's a little like um the Beckel test becoming such a thing that it's was never truly intended to be in any way whatsoever yeah it was a comic strip that then people have given it was a joke basically a lot of me yeah uh Andrew and I the other day were looking up whether the Bible T passes the back oh um there's like two lines in the Book of Ruth that yeah I was going to say famously unfortunately I hate to say it but when when Mary goes to visit Elizabeth and is like we're both pregnant oh my God slay it's about it's about their it's about the fetuses I

1:03:01 think that was why we were talking about it because the high school is called visitation and it's named after that passage in the Bible I think that's how we got on the topic Ruth coming in clutch Ruth yeah bring Ruth back in names Ruth is a great name bring Satine back I don't know there's something about her name being Satine like sat I feel to me is associated with like it's not quite silk oh yeah it's like low it's like not quality so there is and I think I mean I think that might be intentional of like that because she does feel she feels like she's not legitimate yet right and so like I think that that's there um but I would not name my child well isn't there also a fabric that is called

1:03:46 Satine as well like but then there's two e and it's like a it's like a PO it's like not a real oh interesting I just thought it was cuz she's French so I figured that that was French version but yeah yeah I don't know um um um Saltine she tell her about oh yeah here's another line that I read and we we should just watch this okay the 2002 made for television movie it's a very merry Muppet Christmas movie features a Christmas themed parody entitled Mulan Scrooge in which various scenes and musical numbers are reenacted by Muppets in Mulan Scrooge Christian is played by Kermit the Frog satin named Saltine by Miss Piggy too truck by Gonzo and zidler by F fzy bear wow you're not a muppet person though I'm not really no I didn't

1:04:32 really watch those growing up I mean like obviously I've seen Muppet movies and I'm familiar with them my brother had a a Grover growing up a Grover animal oh that's Sesame that's Sesame I get some of the French characters confused sometimes yeah it's funny that you say Grover is a fren character cuz he basically was Elmo pre Elmo he was like the main star of and then they brought in Elmo totally yeah well just attacked on The Today Show did you see that Larry David was also on the Today's Show and Elmo was there and he went over and like punched Elmo and it was like a very stupid like very ironically airb Your Enthusiasm bit where then they later like made him apologize on camera to Elmo and Elmo was like ELO accepts

1:05:19 your apology Larry so funny your apology so dumb okay I just was going to say we called his Grover Super Grover and now my nephew has it so he gave his Grover I love Super Grover Grover is is my favorite like childhood book I remember growing up yes there's a monster at the end of this book oh right yeah meta teaching children about meta commentary speaking of meta let's go back to this fil okay would you like talk about what's our list of songs again a te yeah let we've got Diamond I I want to listen to ro sand come what may all right well let's rewind back to

1:06:05 the beginning of the film and do diamond friend on the hand may be quite Continental but Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend a kiss will be grand but it will pay the rent all on your humble flat or help you feed your own [ __ ] cat menow cold girls grow old and lose our charms in the end but square cut or par shap these rocks don't lose their sh diamonds are Tiffy um this is the most perfect introduction of a character in all I totally agree it's so good she is so

1:06:54 good in this her voice sounds like exactly what this character needs you know what I mean like it's so funny to me because this is a this is already a song from a movie Musical and it is so iconic in in the film in which it like it is so it's it would be so daunting to be like okay now you're going to follow Marilyn Monroe doing this song yeah in gentleman Prefer Blondes and then just like she it's not even like it's like she like doesn't even pay at any mind and it's just like doing she's not she's making it her own but it's not like she's like a signature style she's just like it's it's so good it's so good the the way everyone is just like completely still when the song starts GH I mean

1:07:43 there is there is so much about this that I'm like these decisions are all like correct like they shouldn't have

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