EPISODE 9: THE UGLY STEPSISTER & THE NEON DEMON

Just like fame, beauty costs. And here's where you start paying! Kim and Em are fascinated with the recent slew of Beauty Horror gracing our screens, often (but not always) directed by women seeking to reflect, comment on, and rebel against unattainable beauty standards. 

These are standards which are increasingly becoming the normal way to achieve validation as well as financial success. Kinda depressing right?! But is this a new thing? Kim and Em delve into the historical roots of the pursuit of perfection citing key films The Ugly Stepsister (2025) and The Neon Demon (2016) as they attempt to spotlight the villains, get to grips with the evil that makes the characters do what they do, and show how this raises a mirror to our own lives. And it wouldn't be Kim & Em vs EVIL without some brutally frank and unapologetically feminist banter! Live Learn Laugh Like Subscribe and all that jazz xoxo

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Two women, countless villains.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

You have entered Kid and M versus Evil.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello and welcome to part two of our dive into beauty horror, which began last episode with a look at Ryan Murphy's series The Beauty, and which continues apace this episode with recent Norwegian reimagining of the Cinderella story, The Ugly Stepsister. And as well as that, we're going to be looking at Nicholas Vinding Reffens 2016 Beauty Horror The Neon Demon.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Nicholas Vinding! Nicholas Vinding. Is it Vinding? Oh, okay. Well Danish. Ah, well, you love The Neon Demon and The Ugly. I love both films. I do love both films. Um, but yeah, so we're gonna have a good little dissection of these fantastic films. One's directed by a woman, one's directed by a man. Probably that doesn't really matter.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

I should mention uh the name of the director of The Ugly Stepsister. Yes. She is Emily Blickfeldt.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

That's yes, Emily Blickfeldt or something. Yes, hope we've got that correct, Emily.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

So this was 2025 that was released.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Yes, um, and a quick note on The Ugly Stepsister. I'm so proud of this one. I mean, A, it was her debut film. I mean, to make for that to be your first film, it's a period drama, uh, which is hard to pull off. It's stunning to look at. It looks like it's definitely got a good budget, loads of you know, ballroom scenes, amazing uh couture clothing, uh, special effects makeup, and a phenomenal soundtrack. Um, and it is up for an Oscar for um uh I think it's just Best Makeup or Makeup Effects. Um, so yeah, I mean what a feeling. I'm really amazed. I mean, I'm quite amazed actually that the Oscars have recognised it that much. So that's really that's that's refreshing, really.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

It is refreshing. I'm I'm my first thought on watching this film was has this this is incredible that this perspective hasn't been taken before. If it hasn't, I mean it's possible that that they've there's been a film that's taken the perspective of an ugly.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

You mean like twisting Cinderella? I mean, I think I think you're right, I think we're gonna start to see it more. But you could argue that we are starting to see um, especially looking at villains that we do, and I said that I would like to cover Maleficent at some point, but I think the idea of taking a traditional old fairy tale myth and then flipping the script, so to speak, and turning it on its head or showing the other side is is quite it's becoming quite cool. Yeah. Um I mean Maleficent is Disney, isn't it? Yeah, and that makes you um empathise with the traditional Yeah, in Sleeping Beauty, she's the the fair, she's like the evil fairy or queen, isn't she? Well, she's a fairy because she's got wings and everything.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

In Maleficent if I have a um blind spot, it is Disney. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

So but yes, I think um I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing um some more cool films that go back to our old fairy tales because after all, a lot of our stories and horror films are merely, you know, different stories of these old fairy tales that we know and love. Company of Wolves.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

You know?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

That's little that's little Red Riding Hood. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 3:43

So, what the ugly stepsister does. Have we got a synopsis um?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Oh, okay, I've got an IMDB one that I I often uh resort to that. Okay, so if you don't know, highly recommend it, by the way. Um, Elvira, that's the name of the main ugly stepsister here, will go to any lengths to compete with her insanely beautiful stepsister, the enchanting Agnes, or Cinderella, and is willing to use blood, sweat, and tears to conquer the prince's heart. In a fairy tale kingdom where beauty is a brutal business, Elvira fights tooth and nail to become the Bell of the Ball.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

She bloody does, doesn't she?

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Yeah, and she does it with such grit. So um this film, oh gosh, it goes into so many fantastic things. I think the the main one, well, there's a few, um the one of the main ones is Beauty as Pain, or rather, the the sort of strange contradiction of the ugliness of beauty, the ugly side of beauty, the the the ugly process behind achieving beauty. So so we will get into that. Um, but just quickly, I think one of the reasons we're starting to see a lot more of these um interesting films coming out, like the Neon Demon, like The Substance Light, The Ugly Stepsister, and um Rabid. Um, I mean, there's a there is a huge polarizing the Suska Sisters one, sorry, yeah. I mean, on the one hand, uh, this is what's happening, I think, generally in society. You can even stretch it out and see it in terms of gender politics. Yes, we're making steps forward, okay, but we're also completely going backwards. So, yes, we have on the one end, we've got the body positivity movement. People are using plus size models now, you know, frequently on the runway and in fashion catalogues, you know. So that suppose they're trying to address the balance. Um, but then you know, this is now, I don't know if that was just uh a a weird kind of blip and a weird trend because we we seem to be going backwards now, where everyone's going back to that super skinny look, it's especially in Hollywood, especially with a Zimpic culture, um, which we talked about in the last the last episode, where I feel like this notion of being as young as possible and line-free as possible, and snatched as possible. That's a phrase now. I want to look snatched. Um, it's it's everywhere, it ain't going anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 6:21

I remember I this always sticks in my mind. I remember interviewing Peaches, you know, Peaches uh years ago um about the fourth wave of feminism before it was even called the fourth wave of feminism. And I remember her saying something along the lines of uh when you know you make advancements in one direction. Um it it just it just um explodes in all directions, and so you know like the big bang. Yeah, essentially it made a lot of sense, and so yeah, so like with with feminism and the fourth wave of feminism and me too and all of that, the kickback in one direction against that was the manosphere.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Andrew Tate, and yeah, I guess it's it is it's it's reactionary, isn't it? You know, we've got you know, if someone goes extreme, someone gets fed up with it all, and and they'll react to that in a in an angry way in some cases. Yeah, um, but yeah, skin science, medical procedures. Um, I don't know exactly who is our audience, but I mean it is literally, you need you guys need to realise this. It is on pretty much every street corner in every town, it's not even regulated. Anyone can train, by the way, to give Botox. Anyone can train to give you a Botox injection. The the normalization of changing yourself, I mean, it is really normal now. I mean, 20-year-olds are getting their lips done, we all know that. And then, other end of the scale, um, you've got to be incredibly rich though to get the forever 35 facelift. I don't know about this. Um, it's just, I mean, I don't know if it's an official thing, but you can type it up. Um, and some of those are $200,000. Um, in this country, I think the the big one is the deep plane facelift, that's £35,000. Um, yeah, it is a it is a huge billion pound dollar industry, and it ain't gonna go anywhere. It's here to stay.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

The beauty, the series that we talked about in the last episode was very much going into that um uh financial gain side of things, a billionaire uh tech guy that whose company it was that developed the serum in that show, and how to squeeze more and more money out of people and exploit um our uh obsession with beauty and looking uh as perfect as media deems we should. So, yeah, but and then the ugly stepsister isn't so much about that that uh business side, is it?

SPEAKER_00 9:04

It's more No, the the reason I love this film, um, and I I watched an interview with her um the other day, and uh what she said kind of just rang loads of bells for me. I was like, oh yeah, absolutely. Um what what I took note and the importance of that film is that it kind of like places the position that women have kind of been forced into, and it does it historically, and I don't know if many other films have done that, especially all the beauty horror that we've cited, they're all set in the in the contemporary modern world, and uh the ugly stepsister, albeit it's based on a fairy tale. Um these are all still based on things that actually really happened.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I mean, go whether procedures or what is that the right?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

That's not the right word, but things people used to be yeah, on again on one level, very simply, um, women being forced to squeeze into a corset to the point where they couldn't fucking breathe. That was normal. And it wasn't because I don't think I mean, yes, people did it, but it wasn't because they loved how it felt. It felt awful probably to wear a corset. Um, and that was the norm then. Um, and then we were looking up something we should probably do a bit on the oh, we've done the story, haven't we, for the ugly stepsister. Um there's a bit where she, the poor girl uh ingests a tapeworm, an egg, it's really good, sort of yucky moment. She ingests the egg of a tapeworm um in order to lose weight. And me and Kim just looked that up, and indeed, people did do that in the Victorian times. People would get rid of a rib every now, you know, here and there. Dita von Tease has even like lost a rib just to make her waist um as small as possible. So I'm sorry, but I just don't see men anywhere historically, no, and now even, yes, they might undergo the odd surgical procedure, but they don't do this extreme body modification to change their bodies as much as we have had to do.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

The materialists, which I mentioned in the last episode, Celine Song's um uh film about kind of the well, about the New York dating scene, but about how capitalism has impacted the way we choose partners. Um New York is a good setting for that because you know it's one of the business centres of the world. Um the main character in that, and this is a spoiler, stop listening if you're worried about spoilers, but Pedro Pascal's character, he plays a man who has had um surgery to make himself six inches taller. So that's quite extreme, and that's something you can you can do. And that can you men are doing it? I want to be taller. I think it's really extreme, but but you know, men there is more pressure now on men. Let's let's not gloss over that um because capitalism sees that there's money to be made by making men feel insecure about themselves as well and making them want to.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Well, yeah, in that respect, yeah, I guess the industry is ignoring 50% roughly of the potential customers.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Exactly, but of course, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

The pressures on women for centuries have been such a in to an extreme Yeah, even in uh and the f the ugly stepsister has a lot of uh scenes where um she's at finishing school, and again, that was a real thing till probably not even that long ago. So we were expected to walk a certain way, cross your legs a certain way, hold a cup of fucking tea a certain way, talk a certain way, talk a certain way, cut a cake a certain way, and um and it was all to secure a husband, and this is a theme I really want to touch on really quickly. So, um, yes, we've got a dark spin on the Cinderella fairy tale, um, and it shines a light on how it feels to be defined in quite a blatant way as well. It's not beating around the old brush, is it? You are the ugly stepsister, that's what they're called. Um, and it's from her perspective, which is really interesting. So, Cinderella is still in the film a very uh important role, but it's not her perspective, it's not her experience. Um gosh, I keep getting sidetracked. Another thing I love about this film, which is really important. So, A, we've got the how it's making relevant the idea that our beauty standards have deep historical roots that go back hundreds of years. It's it's very deep set, it's not a new, necessarily a new thing, but it also is very interesting for looking at like female relationships, whether it's friendships or sisters, the mother-daughter relationship or the stepsister relationship, women being competitive. Yes, that's big in neon demon as well. Um, and even the substance kind of competing with one with themselves. Um, but uh what another theme that is really important and one I find really sad and tragic is the sheer um pressure that is put on poor Elvira.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

The ugly stepsister.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

The ugly stepsister. So she's a person with no power in society, yet she is given the biggest responsibility, which is not just oh, you've got to look after yours look out for yourself financially, but you've got to you're responsible for your entire family's financial security. And that ended up being on women's shoulders. You can see it in all sorts of um, you know, in history, in I don't know, 1700s, 1800s, 1900s, women couldn't own property, all of that shit. So and the so so with this film, The Ugly Stepsister, why it's clever is that obviously with fairy tales, they are very black and white. You know, you're either good or you're evil. There's the stepmother, evil, just evil, evil, evil. If you're an ugly stepsister, you're just ugly. But this film does something different. So um we empathise with the ugly stepsister. We don't think she's just a horrible, nasty, bitchy, horrible person that hates Cinderella. And there are times when we love Cinderella and don't like her, we feel empathy for the mother, the stepmother, when we realise actually she just had to marry Cinderella's dad. She didn't particularly want to. It was a position that she had to do for to protect her and her daughter's futures. And then when he dies, it's up to Elvira to try and sort out her future and the future of her mum and the future of her sister. And I'm like, that pressure on that poor girl. And I think it's that pressure, which is her motivation, her driving force. She just wants the prince to pick her. And when you see him picking Agnes, which is the Cinderella character, her, you know, her heart just falls, doesn't it? She's gutted. Yes, yes, yes. So heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Oh, and then this leads to my favourite moment in the film, which is the slipper. It's not glass slipper, is it? It's like satin or something. But um when you see Elvira trying to squeeze her foot into the slipper, and her foot is clearly far too big. It's massive.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

They've got a man's slipper.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

She decides, after all, and we will go into these procedures uh or these these things that she puts herself through, these traumatic, uh brutal things. Um she decides she's gonna just cut her toes off to fit them into the sh to fit her foot into the shoe. And she does it with a cleaver. It's so brutal, isn't it? She doesn't manage to cut all the way through before she stops. Then the mother finds, Oh, I just love these this bit. What does that say about me?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Well it's very satisfying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

When the mum finishes the job. Oh, she says, You cut the wrong foot, dear. Oh yeah I'm paraphrasing, but words to that effect. Yeah. And so she finishes the job on that foot, the hash that the daughter made of it, and then she takes a cleaver to the other foot. And oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

It's yeah, I mean, we should probably say that's sort of the the climax. That's all yeah, that's the climax of her journey.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

So um however, I would say that that's uh not specifically with a cleaver, quite as crudely as that, but that is a real thing, Cinderella foot surgery, as it's called. It's called that, but is that what in the West In the West, yeah, to sh to shape your feet for beauty reasons, whether to fit into a specific shoe, um, you know, to make to make them narrower. I've never heard of that. Yeah. I've heard of like Cinderella facelift and all that crap, but I mean you've obviously got bunion surgery and stuff, which kind of has a has a practical purpose for what's the thing. Because bunions are quite painful, aren't they? Yes. But it's it's an extension of that essentially, but for aesthetic reasons.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Oh my lord. Anyway, yeah, so it But I'll tell you what going to the the foot thing. I do love, you know, I love my taglines. Just yeah, go on. So it just says, um uh yeah, the tagline. This is a real tagline. So after the uh synopsis online, the tagline is if the shoe doesn't fit. Dot dot dot That's it. If the shoe doesn't fit, dot dot dot. Because obviously they don't want to kind of chop your fucking toe off. Chop the fucking Yeah, chop it off. Do whatever it takes to get your foot into that shoe. Well, obviously, it's a metaphor, isn't it? The the the slipper is symbolising the unrealistic, unattainable, unachievable symbol of of beauty that she's literally trying to squeeze into and force herself to be into that ideal, and it doesn't fit, and it's very painful to even try and get there.

SPEAKER_01 19:09

That makes me think of the neon demon. I know we're gonna we're you know, I mean it's okay to jump around, but because because in that she says um Elle Fanning's character, uh Jessie, says at one point, um, I'm paraphrasing, I have written it down somewhere, but um uh women would kill to look like me, she says, and um um something about you know uh spending all this time to I think this is a half-rain version. Yes, is that was that her that said yes, it is on the diving board because at the end of the board. Alessandro Nivella's character says a similar thing about in the restaurant about beauty and true beauty and how that's the real prize because supposedly the 16-year-old Jesse has had no intervention cosmetically, and then there's one model who's played by um Bella Heathcote that um says in through the film she's had a lot of stuff done, and so he makes her stand up and and asks uh Dean, the guy, the kind of boyfriend, not boyfriend of Jesse, to uh say how how beautiful he finds her, what what he thinks of her looks, and she and he says she's fine. And he says, Exactly she's just fine, but she's because she's paid for it essentially.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Whereas this is so well, they're sort of alluding to an almost supernatural level of beauty, I think, because Elle Elle Fanning, yeah, she's pretty, but she doesn't look like the models. She hasn't got that sort of like exceptionally symmetrical, perfect look in a way, and the models have got almost that yeah it's I mean, and even the male character says, yeah, like he recognises that it's fake beauty that the other women have.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

And I think you know, the search for beauty is something is I think what they're saying in this film is something you'll never find because true beauty, you can't fake it. It's almost an untangible thing.

SPEAKER_00 21:14

She just got it.

SPEAKER_01 21:15

That's what that's what they're saying in the film, isn't it? There's something special about her, and it's not necessarily her looks, it just comes from women. Cheek implants, yeah. Anyway, she is they're all beautiful women, uh, or they at least fit aesthetically uh um a look that we a narrow definition of beauty, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:35

But um with with um uh ugly stepsister, I just want to um talk through the um the the um beauty as pain and all the processes she has to go go through. And um I mean your heart is absolutely with her, and even though as a character, like so. When we first introduced to Elvira, she's she's quite unassuming, she she knows she's ended. Cinderella's house as um as well not as a guest but as you know as the new she's the new girl and she uh she has her sister with her as well but she's in it a bit less. Um and at first her and Cinderella are friendly. Agnes, sorry, they don't call her Cinderella in the film, although obviously she's sort of alluding to that. Um and it's only really through the desperate position that these girls are put into that is where their conflict comes from and where their competition, the competitive nature comes from that. It's not naturally inbuilt. They started out as friends, so that's a really good, interesting theme that is being explored. But what we're seeing is the ugly, messy, horrible, awkward, painful um aspect of striving for ridiculous beauty standards. Uh they don't like her nose, and it's quite fun. They've got like this Victorian book where you can pick a nose, just pick a nose, and you've got the mum going, I can't remember the number, but it's like I'll have number 17, and the man goes, Good choice. And poor Elvira is just sitting on a chair with a woman holding her face, no anaesthetic, obviously, and he just sort of like gets a chisel and goes, and she does this scream. And I mean the acting is is phenomenal. And uh just on a quick sort of reflection, looking uh comparing the film to something like The Substance. The substance is fantastic for different reasons, it's outrageous, it's out there over-the-top theatrical, weird level of um sort of special effects makeup and and endurance and all that horror.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Yeah, it's quite um um what do we say, cartoonish?

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Cartoonish exactly, yeah, good word. And the ugly stepsister, that got me a lot more because it's very simple and believable. A lot of it is done with like noise and sound effective. Oh my god. When yeah, when they when they break her nose and then she has to wear this sort of like almost fetishised sort of face. Oh my nose thing's coming out. That metal nose piece while her nose is repairing.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, but even though do you remember she's watching those guys when she's outside, and then they take the piss out of her for having the metal.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Which is interesting because obviously she's doing this for beauty, and then then and then she's recovering and she's got a metal guard on her nose, but they're they're like, oh my god, you're disgusting. I mean, and then the tapeworm, I will just want to go back to the tapeworm because you know what this means, and this is something that women used to do as as well in um uh some women. No, not all women, uh, was swallow tapeworm eggs as in this film to lose weight, and uh around what did we research the end of the 19th century?

SPEAKER_00 24:49

So 1800s, 1900s.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yeah, and early 1900s. Uh it was a it was a practice that was um I don't know, I'm not gonna say popular, but uh because I wasn't gonna these things get taken out of context a little bit. But yes, um something that people used to do. So if you know about that, you know what that means. If well, if you know what having a parasite inside you is, then you will know what's to come. So she starts losing her hair.

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Yes, again, the ugly side of pertaining to get this ideal.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yeah, because of this tapeworms taking eating everything inside of her.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

And then they bring the wig on, so it's almost like where did that wig thing come from in the fairy tale? That's because she had no hair. A bit like our old uh is it Queen Victoria or Elizabeth.

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Oh, Elizabeth, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

Famously had no hair, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Um and you know, so in her pursuit of beauty, she's actually becoming uglier and uglier, not only on the outside, but also on the inside.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Um, and not just because of the tapeworm.

SPEAKER_00 25:48

It's quite Dorian Grey, isn't it? But yeah. Yeah, she becomes monstrous, you're right. And at the end, when she's crawling and she can't even walk.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Sister's with like holding her legs.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, she literally becomes a monster in a way.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

And the the sequence where the tapeworm comes out, that was really uh arresting, wasn't it? Like it's grotesque.

SPEAKER_00 26:08

It's grotesque because the it just doesn't stop coming. The worm gets bigger and bigger, and then she there's a lot of them on it. The false eyelashes. False eyelashes. I was about to, yeah, the false eyelashes, so um they're they're sewn on. Again, no anesthetic. Um, and so she feels every prick of the needle, and it's and and it's right, it's like close-up, it's so well filmed of the eye, and it's going in and out and in and out, and so she has these baby doll-like eyelashes. Yes, again, that she's sort of chosen from a sort of catalogue of of ideals. Um, basically becoming more doll-like. Yeah, isn't she?

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Yeah, that's the idea, but she becomes this kind of hell doll. She never inhab well, I suppose at the ball she does become this um version that she's been striving for, doesn't she? With the dress, once the dress is on and the wigs on.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

She feels like she's winning at I I don't know, sort of like two-thirds in. She's almost there. Even and then like the fairy tale, Sind um Agnes comes in and steals the prince's heart, and um and then Elvara realizes she's lost.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

That um that and this is this introduces a theme that we wanted to talk about. That ball where the men are assessing all the women that are being brought through, and they talk they they announce it's like a debutante ball thing, isn't it? And they announce their names and their ages and to their interests as well, I think.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Yeah, it's weird, it's like a twisted Miss World or something. And the mums come in holding them from behind. That was odd. They sort of walk on like that, the mums behind them.

SPEAKER_01 27:58

But the but the men are all like lasciviously just you know, objectifying them that talk about um her tits, don't they? The stepsisters when she bends over.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Oh yeah, the doctor goes, We'll get you a nice pair, like like nurse here, nursey here. I can't remember her name.

SPEAKER_01 28:15

So it just it just underlines that because they're all so young as well, and some of these men that are leching are old, and you know, and the neon demon um goes into this area as well about youth, about that um lusting after young women, um, particularly, and this whole kind of edging on the paedophilia side of things.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

Yeah, and the the sort of ridiculous charade of it all. Charade, charade. Um, when they go to the ball, um, and you're right, there's all these uh she has to remember when the mum, the the mum, she's like crying, she's heartbroken, she's lost. The prince has gone for um Agnes, Stroke Cinderella. She's after all this effort, all this pain, all this like not being able to eat, vomit, face, false eyelashes, broken nose, everything, it's not worked. And the mum just slaps her around the face and says, you know, get in there, dance with someone. There's plenty of other men to for that that could choose you, you've still got to find a partner. And then there's this sort of like dizzying sort of scene where she's just like doing endless waltzes with these like really ugly, keen looking men, and it is oh, it's just soul destroying, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 29:30

Because oh I mean it and in terms of to bring it back to villains, and it in terms of you know the characters that are villains in the film, certainly the the mother uh is presented in that way, but as you've already said, she's actually a victim. Um it's good at giving us both sides.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

The fairy the fairy tale gives you one side, and I think this film just yeah, the stepmother is clearly pretty awful to her daughters, but you it lets you understand why at least.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

And then you understand in that moment, it's very clear at the ball. Um all these privileged men, and it is privilege as well, isn't it, that's under attack, not just not just men and not just the people who are.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

No, because Agnes's partner um she's actually sleeping with a farm boy, and then she he gets like thrown out, and that's when Cinderella's called a whore and told to go below stares.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Um and he was alright. And he was alright, you don't see much of him, but apart from his arson cock. You see quite a lot, actually. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Well that's funny because I don't remember seeing.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Well I do, I kept remoting it.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

I remember seeing I'll show you later. The mother slash stepmother. Well, should we call her the mother because she's the mother of the ugly stepsister? That's true. Um you see that she's towards the end Emily is minding giving a blow. This is this is this is X-rated. So she is giving oral sex to a man on the bed, and you see his penis. I see. That's the bit I didn't see. I'm surprised at my it is quite dark. I mean, if your computer, if you watch it on your laptop and the settings were low, you might not have seen it.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

I'm gonna have another look. Um yeah, and that but that is quite a good scene, actually. It's right at the end. So again, spoiler alert.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

The daughter sees, doesn't she?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

She sees but she so I think it's like it's the nice when they're gall.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

Obviously, naughty steps naughty mum has scored with someone, and um she's having a whale of a time with her mouthful. Um, but her daughters are clearly leaving her, and I think she looks up and sees them leave, and then she just carries on giving him a blow.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

They're not my responsibility anymore. So this guy, this guy, maybe she sees this guy, whoever this guy is, maybe he's got some money, or she thinks he has probably sorted. She's like, they can go now. My one of my daughters can only walk on her hands, anyway.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

So she was the one who cut both her to R. Poor old Elvira was left with toes that were half cut off. I don't know how mum's giving some random a blowjob. Things aren't looking great, but it's a actually a uh it does, even though it is twisting the whole happy ending to a fairy tale because the ending is a bit gruesome, but there is ultimately a moment that's a happy ending because um the other quote unquote ugly stepsister who's meant to be younger uh than her in this, um forgotten her name actually, she's the one that actually saves the day and kind of rescues um Elvira and says, We're out of here. Yeah. I think that's all that's the end, isn't it? We're out of here, and then they they go off on a horse.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

There is a nice you are left with kind of this good feeling because of that, like this love between the two sisters and the feeling that maybe they'll be alright. She does wheel her out like a wheelbarrow, doesn't she?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

But that but that's quite a touching moment because um even though at this point um Elvira is in shock, like literally traumatised by all this pain and blood loss, like as sisters, they're just giggling. Yeah, like she's literally trying to get down the steps from this sort of um castle on her hands, like you know, when you're playing wheelbarrow, yeah. Like they're doing that, she's doing the wheelbarrow, and then she sort of somehow lunges her, lunges her, gets her up onto the horse, and off they gallop. But obviously, instead of it being a prince, like in her dreams, there's loads of funny dream sequences with um brilliant music, by the way. It's kind of 80s synthie kind of music. Um, and instead of her dream, which is her galloping off with the prince in the kind of stereotypical cliched way, it's her younger sister that saves her in the end.

SPEAKER_01 33:55

And then the sequel to this film will be a take on Frozen.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

You you mentioned the tit the sisterhood was a bit like the sisterhood, yeah, uh, is the only thing that comes out as uh uh strong after all of that trauma.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Hope for the next generation in that world. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Well, we loved The Ugly Stepsister. I thought it was quite uh refreshing new uh take on uh of course on on Cinderella. Um so we're gonna do The Neon Demons 2016. I was surprised it came out. I thought it was much more recent than that, but yeah, 2016.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Yeah, I love I loved this when it came out. I loved it. You loved it.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

It's all I remember just quickly, I think, because it was really hyped up, wasn't it? And it was really written about I remember it being kind of everywhere culturally and in the papers and things like that. Um, and it is definitely a style piece. Yes. It typically Do you think it's style over content?

SPEAKER_01 34:58

No, I mean I I don't personally, I think there's a lot in there, but I I mean I like Nicholas Vinding Reffen as a director. I like everything he does. Um I think, or at least I think everything he does is very good, and he has this strong personal voice, which I always really admire in a director or a writer. Um, and everything he does pretty much is is very sparse, isn't it? And quite kind of subdued, uh quiet in a way.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Yeah, there's not much, it's it's not very um dialogue heavy. Um, or if there is things like music, it's like it's more like sound design. Yeah, like it's more dreamlike. It's more like there's a just a weird hum or a drone going on. And everything's slow. It's quite stage-like often, or just yeah, there's like loads of beautiful scenes, like each scene's a bit like a photo or a painting. Like, you know, that first um fashion shoots she's doing, and she's sort of lying on this sofa, not so like a beautiful kind of um yeah, sofa. What do they call it? Shizelong sounds better than sofa, and she's got this wonderful kind of gold or metallic makeup on.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Oh god, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

And a bit of blood dripping, and it's it's it's beautifully staged.

SPEAKER_01 36:14

And you mentioned the colours and um and and um one of the things that I I liked about one of the many things that I or admire about the film is the the difference. Um she's very she's she's clearly she's seen as different. We've talked about this already, um, to the other models. She's all natural, well, it's natural. I mean, she's obviously she wears makeup as a model and she has her head. It looks like she's got extensions in at times, whatever. But according to the film, she hasn't had any uh intervention surgically or uh injectables, whatever, like uh some of the other models, or other women they suggest that might be pursuing that route. Um and I she is she is always marked out as different through the film. She's like the the Hollywood, which is the neon demon, that's or I take it to be anyway.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Yeah, I was gonna say what is the demon, because it is so you think so Hollywood is represented.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

Or the or the image, the recorded image, the uh photograph or media could be what it's referring to, but it's set in Los Angeles. It's um uh so I always took it to be uh Hollywood with the neon neon representing Hollywood and it being this demon um that the that to sucks people in and sits them out and kind of cannibalizes them or exploits them, and she literally gets cannibalized. Yeah. To finish what I was saying, she's always aesthetically uh different from her, from the rest of the film, from the other people who are all of the studio settings or in interior settings are stark, angular, uh harshly lit. Um and then when you see her in her environment, which is the motel room she's staying in, the decor in there is soft colours, it's um uh patterns that are rounded, not angular. She's always wearing certainly for most of the film till the end, um, she's got quite ethereal, uh floaty clothes in pastel colours or the white. Um she's got this this golden hair as well, you know. Um whereas there's a scene with with her and um is Abby Lee's character, I think. Sarah, I think her character's name is, when um she doesn't get the job, Abby Lee's character doesn't get the job, and uh Jesse does as Elfanning's character. She's in white, Sarah is in a black suit, so structured and angular, and this floaty dress is opposing. And she's just Sarah's just broken the mirror because as we were saying um before about the destroying of the image, she just hates hates her that her looks have let her down, she hasn't got this job. Um and I liked that that I know it's something that all costume designers will probably think about, but I always like it when I notice it. She's she's this example of um structure and uh manufactured beauty, whereas Elle Fanny's character is held up as this Jessie. Yeah, Jesse. As this um opposite. And then she's the demon. She swallows her blood. She swallows her blood. Well, yeah, maybe she is.

SPEAKER_00 40:01

I mean, I think as a character, I don't want to go to too much into character studies, but like uh I I you quite like her. She's a bit she's sort of presented as uh rabbit caught in the headlights a little bit. Um she's only 16, which is really young to be living on your own um and in Hollywood. But she kind of becomes quite she's quite willing to play the game.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

And she sort of, you know, in at I mean it's towards the end, but she sort of says, as you were saying before, um, that women would do anything to look like me and be like, be a second rate version of of of what I am. So she does, I mean, she understands the power that she early on.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

She says, I'm pretty, and pretty will make me money, or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 40:47

And then I think, and again, beauty as money is definitely um, so capitalism comes into this a little bit. There's um the fashion designer, I think he's called Sarno, apparently, uh, says, and I quote, True beauty is the highest currency we have. Without it, she would be nothing. And he's referring to this is the bit when he makes this model, uh forgotten her neck character name, stand up and be scrutinized. And oh my god. I think that you're how often in in this film, in The Ugly Stepsister, you've got scenes and in the substance, all these scenes where someone is made to stand up, usually by a man, and scrutinized while you just stand there and say nothing and let people judge you. They do it in the substance, you know, when you know they're looking at what you look like in your gym wear and they're they're judging you and scrutinizing you. It's just pisses me off so much. And you know what else has just went into my mind as you were talking? And I thought, oh my god, this is a I can see it in real life as well. Scene after scene after scene in these films, going back to um whatever happened to baby Jane. Was that what it's called? What happened to it? There's a there's always a scene with a mirror. I've just bloody well done it in electric meat. I had to do a scene where I'm looking at myself in the mirror and I don't like what I see, and I scrub my makeup off. Demi Moore does it. Um, you see in in in so many of these films, women looking at themselves in the mirror and then self-hating. And I would even argue there's self-harming going on in things like the ugly stepsister, and that is a real thing, it's a real kind of endemic in in female culture to self-harm, self-hate. You don't put it outwards, you put it in on yourself, and I hate that. I find it really sad.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

Well, I um to to go back to the character Sano and the quote that you read out just now, he also says beauty isn't everything, it's the only thing.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

And um, and and in um the beauty, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

Yeah, that's all right.

SPEAKER_00 43:02

No, remember what you were saying. I've I'm in in the beauty to bring it back to the beauty TV series by Ryan Murphy, not quite beauty, but the male character Cooper, yeah, played by Evan Peters, yeah, he says sex is everything. And she goes, Is it really? And he goes, Yeah, every time you go to the gym, yeah. Every if you think about it, it all comes back to sex. Yeah. So whether it's so maybe we're thinking beauty, that's leading us and driving us, and sex is driving them. I don't know, that's very simplistic.

SPEAKER_01 43:31

As as men, you mean because because quite possibly because I think for for for women, it's um we said right at the start of the first episode, I think, that it's a it's a money thing, it's a capitalism thing. And and you know, we're taught from a very young age that our value is in our looks as women. Um, and that is only more true today, it's not less true. Um uh So it's it's about you, and we see women around us all the time on social media that have made money because of the way they look. You don't even have to look like that anymore because of filters and AI. Anyway. Um, but to invest in these procedures means investing like is it like you were investing in stocks and shares. You'll make it's you're almost guaranteed to make money if you can turn yourself into a beauty. Um, so I think it's more about that for women than it is about sex. So yeah, maybe that is just the male male perspective.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

But it's funny that they sort of our drives come down to these two quite simple simple things.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

But no, I think well yeah, and self-worth for women because yeah, you're not valuable unless you're unless you fit a certain look. But uh where else are we going with this? Yeah, I want to hear some trivia.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

You want to hear some trivia? Okay. Well, apparently the film uh The Neon Demon was shot in chronological order, which is highly unusual because it's usually highly um it's just not an easy thing to do. So I'm not sure why they did that. Um it's the second film by I you can say it and I can't, Nicholas Winding Reffen.

SPEAKER_01 45:19

Nicholas Vinding Reffen.

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Vinding Reffen to premiere at Cannes, that were was both booed and cheered. So it seems like his films are a little bit marmite. You either love them or hate them. I don't know him.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Um the other film was only God forgives, which is which is maybe my favourite of his film.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Something for horror fans, the mansion at the end of the film where like they're all sort of cannibalizing each other, is the location where they filmed. The ending of Scream 3. No way!

SPEAKER_01 45:46

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Well, apparently. Um, and it's ironic that a film so defined and driven by intense colour scenes, I mean it's it's dripping and saturated in various hues, um, is directed by a man who's colour blind, apparently. He's colour blind, and um L Fanning was uh replaced Carrie Mulligan for the role of Jesse. Um and I think that is interesting because both of them are they're not model model looking. They're beautiful, but they they're they're not that sort of typical, easy to look at, symmetrical model good looks. They're more unusual.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

It's like the casting of Rebecca Hall in The Beauty as well. They have this unusual thing that makes them um exceptional because they look like nobody else, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:34

It's uh whereas the the beauty um standard now is is look like look like everybody else by yeah coming back to our favourite villainess, possibly, if it's true, the most prolific serial killer ever in the world ever since the universe started. Um apparently the ending where Ruby, Gigi, and Sarah eat Jesse, big spoiler. Oh is the end of ruins. It is meant to evoke the um old story of Elizabeth Bathorey, who murdered and bathed in the flesh and blood of young virgin girls. Um again, who hasn't done that? Who hasn't? You know, it works. If you tell me you haven't, I know you're lying. Um, and for those of you who um like cat people, I think there's there's different reasons for this, but there's a really bizarre, well, there's bizarre casting actually with Keani Reeves. Oh my god, I always forget he's in this film. You do forget he's in it because he's almost like an afterthought. Because isn't he not a pedo rapist? Yeah, ooh, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

As well, which is against type.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah. Poor old Keani. Not in real life. No, no, he like well that I know it. I mean, I I think the film has more symbolism and metaphor, and it's more a mood piece than a film with a strict begin. I mean, I suppose it does have a beginning, middle, and end in a way, but to me it's just moments, it's like a tapestry of weird dreamlike moments.

SPEAKER_01 48:13

And if we're talking about symbolism, villains, okay. We've identified that um the pressures of our society and beauty standards are villains in the film and capitalism and Hollywood the women are not very nice in this.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

What about the makeup artists? The gay makeup artists.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

I mean, she's she is a strange character.

SPEAKER_00 48:34

Yeah, she's given a lot of script and time and screen time. Um I mean, she's and we like her at first, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

But then she she masturbates over a corpse.

SPEAKER_00 48:48

Yeah, she added to that. It was supposed to be uh apparently the actor, the actress, um, it was supposed to just be a kissing moment, and she took it that far. They just let the cameras roll and she just kept going for it. Um and she violates Jesse. Yeah, she tries to violate. So she kind of I mean, you don't often get lesbian rape or even look seen or looked at or discussed.

SPEAKER_01 49:10

Um and then she's the one who put who kills her, pushes her into the pool, isn't she? Am I right in thinking?

SPEAKER_00 49:15

But isn't that funny that she's masculine looking and gay, and she happens to be, I don't know, the sort of well, she's not the only thing.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

That's where she's outside and she's got those trousers on but no top, and she's got a lot of tattoos.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Yeah. That was I don't quite know what they're saying with her, really. Um don't know whether we like her or not. I don't think any of the cat the only thing with the neon demon is that you don't really like any of them.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

I tell you what, though, uh that I that was interesting to me, as many of the things about the film were interesting, but um after they've cannibalised Jesse Jesse. Um there's a funny eyeball moment. Well, no, well, before before that, is it before that?

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Is it the fetish where men like looking at us throwing up? Because in the ugly steps is so there's a lot of and then and there's a model going. There you go. There's your OnlyFans account.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

But the the the suggestion is that the fact that they've um eaten her has worked because something of her special source has entered their uh their bloodstreams because they get the job off that photographer who who who was the the shady one who who she was warned about. That was that's another thing. That's another thing. So she has that photo shoot and and he says it's a clothes set, sends everybody out, makes her take her clothes. Oh, that's makes her take her clothes off, and then he covers her whole body quite um uh sensuously in gold paint. And you don't see uh any more than that, really. But she comes out and she talks to um Ruby, the makeup artist, and Ruby warns her about him and says you shouldn't be alone with him. She says, Well, I thought it was fine, it was fine. And and with you saying, I'm not sure, maybe she is the demon, maybe something did happen and she was okay with it. Um she's clearly being warned that this guy is hand and he was handsy because we saw him kind of inappropriately caressing her. Um, and she's okay with it. I I I thought, well, just I'm just thinking, maybe is that part of her going, Well, I'm gonna do what it takes, and I'm okay with it. Anyway, that's an aside to go back to the there's something that rubbed off on these women, they got the job. Um, she Abby Lee's character, Sarah, is sitting there and he comes through and he goes, Have I met you before? She's like, No, oh well, I want you for the job, and he sacks the other model. So it's like having just eaten Jessie, now she's got that special something that he's noticed that he notes about Jessie, and he's immediately hired her for this job. So something about it worked.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

And I like how the other, the other, the other model who already had the job, she's she I I don't not sure what they're trying to say here, but again, she's vomiting, and she's she said, she looks up, and the girl goes, What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? Get it together, and she goes, I have to get her out of me, or something like that. She's I've got to I've got to get her out of me.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Gigi's character.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

And she vomits up an eyeball. Ugh.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

And then Ab uh Abby Lee's character eats it.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Oh, she carries, yeah, so she carries on.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

Yeah, she's she's vomiting. Consuming. And then she cuts uh Sarah, no God, what are the names? Gigi cuts herself open with the scissors, says I've got to get her out of me, and dies. And then Sarah eats the eyeball.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

So I suppose it's that what's it symbolizing? Consuming it's it's yeah, consumption, consuming female younger flesh.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

Yeah, the cannibalization of and the exploitation of a bit like society.

SPEAKER_00 53:04

Yeah. It comes back to society. It's the eating of what of one type of person eating another to um kind of acquire their powers or their special, whatever makes them special, or whatever it is, youth. In this case. Oh no, beauty in this case, I guess. But yeah, I didn't even say what I was gonna say, which was no bloody ages ago. Um, there's there's a nod to cinema, which I thought it was just there's a scene in Neon Demon where, and it's really jarring and it seems pretty pointless, where um a big cat, like a lion, I think it's a mountain lion, is just prowling around Jesse's motel room for no reason, there's no reason for it at all, apart from symbolism, or that Nicholas Vinding reference likes the film Cat People, because in Cat People, one of my all-time favourite films, and yes, I do like the 80s version the best, um, is there is a scene with the Black Panther prowling around in a hotel room that was used by a prostitute, and um they you know they have to they have to bring it down. Um so I thought so. I don't know if it's a nod to that, or as uh I I looked up and researched, it's just a symbol of uh the predator. So the women are predatory. The men are predatory in this as well, the photographers, the designers, they're all men by the way, um, they're all predators, but the women are predators with each other, and I suppose the cat serves as a symbol of this, a metaphor.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

I think it's I think I think uh it does, and I think it's foreshadowing and warnings as well. I think there throughout the film, too. I think there's the stuffed um cat in the mansion at the end is actually pointing and she follows where it's pointing, which I thought was There's another strange part, another strange character bit with Is it Ruby the makeup artist?

SPEAKER_00 55:02

Um because I read a uh it's not really a theory, but I read a thing online and it was actually saying about the witch-like elements, so the neon like the neon demon, demon, Satanism, witchcraft, taxidermy animals, symbols everywhere. And then at one point she sort of strips herself off naked and like does some moonbathing. There's a scene where Ruby's moonbathing, so I think there's it they they don't spell it out, but there are implications that she's some sort of witch. Yeah, or she's she's casting some sort of spell or something. Yeah, so maybe she's been like trying to harvest um Jessie all along.

SPEAKER_01 55:44

Yeah, I I think I think she's like a an agent for the she does seem like this guy. Because she befriends her at first. She does it does like a maybe a familiar or something like that, but she does feel like she's in charge.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

Oh yeah, someone said the big cat might have even been her familiar.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Right, yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Or her in cat form.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

Yeah, yeah. Ooh, I hadn't thought of that.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

Ooh, Nicholas.

SPEAKER_01 56:10

But the the to to go.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

Tell us if we're right.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

To seeing um Elle Fanning, Jesse, as as um a potential villain is intra is is really interesting. I I don't because I was look watching this film, I was looking at after that vampire sequence where um Sarah uh drinks the blood from her hand that she's cut on the mirror. Um seems to be a change in Jessie. And and I I remember noting down, oh, she's infected. Like, is this the point where she becomes um corrupted? Where where she starts to change a bit more, and she she is from the start, always a bit strange. You don't really ever warm to that character, Jessie, do you? Um you don't ever see her in context, you know that her parents died, but other than that, she's come in from nowhere. She's got she's she's um she's this strange kind of blank canvas, um, almost sent in to try and derail things. I don't know. And then she certainly there's when Dean turns up at her motel room, he brings her some flowers, and she falls onto the carpet, which is red, and the flowers fall, and the petals break off, and it's all very symbolic, you know. And and um after that you see her um in a cup on a couple of occasions fractured or duplicated, so that she looks uh past a wall, and you only see one half of her face and the other half is the wall, and then later when Jenna Malone's character Ruby has drawn that face on the mirror with the crosses for the eyes and the mouth, you see her reflected within that mouth, and you see, and I was like, So this is clearly a two size to this person, or a duplication, or something, and I wasn't fully sure how to decode it.

SPEAKER_00 58:09

Well, he doesn't do anything in an over-obvious way, it's all very, it's all quite it. That's what I mean by the film feels like a dream piece in a way, because it's just yeah, it's not spelt out for you. No, um, which is possibly one of its strengths.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

Many readings or several readings.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Yeah, we can yeah, you can in what I it's quite nice when you can interpret a film um uh yourself a little bit. Yeah. Has he got any any more coming up?

SPEAKER_01 58:37

Oh Nicholas Windows I do follow him on Instagram and he's always teasing stuff. I'm not sure what the next thing is.

SPEAKER_00 58:43

It'd be interesting to see because it is you know, it's only now and then I would say one of the a film comes along that you get truly excited about, you know, where I don't know, and and they're nearly always female-driven narratives. Yeah. Honestly, you name me one film, uh okay, Don, I can name one, Donnie Darko. Where the character, the lead character, is male and and and you're fascinated by them. Absolutely obsessively fascinated by them, and they're sexy and gorgeous and beautiful, and you care about them, and I don't know, in horror especially. It's nearly always it's nearly always a woman.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Maybe we're just more interested in just looking up uh Nicholas Vinding Raffin's next projects.

SPEAKER_00 59:29

Um Sophie Thatcher.

SPEAKER_01 59:32

Yeah, and Doug Gray Scott, Diego Calver, her private hell.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

That sounds like it's Sophie Thatcher's everywhere as well now. She's she's she's like the big new bright thing in Hollywood. So do we have any more interesting tit bits, titty bitties, itty? Itty titty bitty committee. How can you be a whole committee when you've just got two little titties? Um we do like to talk about villains. We're supposed to be talking about villainy, whether it's a human, real thing, or a concept or just society. Uh neon demon, I suppose, the villainy, basically, the fashion industry, capitalism. Um it's a it's not so much a dog eat dog world as a bitch eat bitch world. That's the fashion industry, apparently.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

And it is, according to the latest documentary on Netflix, all about America's next top model. That's a good one to watch if you're interested in the dark side of the beauty industry. Oh, yeah. They they literally uh that one girl who she likes, she she loves the gap in her teeth. This model, this is in America's next top model, uh, the documentary. And um, they force her, she's crying throughout the whole procedure, it's all caught on camera, and they force her to change it. Um, there's a scene where a girl kind of gets groped and molested while she's practically unconscious. That was all filmed, they just let it go. Oh my god, honestly, the expose on on all of that as well. It's like fuck, it's actually happening. Um, yeah. Right, well, all right. Well, we well, we're not competitive, are we? At all. We're not competitive and we're beautiful, aren't we? Sort of. Should we wear these masks next time? They're good. I think they're kind of um, they just make me feel like I'm if you're if you're not watching, if you're only listening to the podcast, you won't get this bit. But I always feel like I'm doing a scene in um eyes white shots. It's eyes white shots. Very typical. Especially this one. Just need to be naked, man, have a red cloak on.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

Talking of eyes wide shots. Anyway, I just think Byron forced from the beauty, which I didn't say last episode, and meant to. Oh. He is like a cross between like Elon Musk and Jeffrey Epstein.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:04

Ugh.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:05

That's the worst. No. No, well, that's what he's like.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

Lucky virus. Okay, well, thank you. I hope you've enjoyed our um oh god, our dissection and look into the world, the whole world of the beauty industry, both in the our real lives, in culture, in history, in fairy tales, and in our favourite films as well. I found it really interesting. I got so obsessed with this online.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:38

Looking at all sorts of weirdness.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:40

I know, and it's uh it's a touchy subject, touchy subject. Yeah. It's a deep subject. It's obviously close to both of our hearts as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:49

And it ain't going anywhere. No, but yes. I'll just do my ponytail facelift. That's all you need, is like they used to call it applauding facelift. Do you remember that? It's quite good, it's quite effective.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Give it a headache.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

Oh, yeah, it does. And then when you take it down, your face drops. It's horrible, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

Temporary, that's where it's up.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:12

All right, love you and leave you, stay evil. Stay evil.