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If You Love This Planet
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Hey hey movie lovers and fascism haters! Emmy-nominated filmmaker and fellow Chicagoan Melissa Fox joins us to discuss the 1982 Canadian short documentary film If You Love This Planet directed by Terre Nash. It features anti-nuclear war activist Dr. Helen Caldicott as she gives a lecture on the dangers of nuclear weapons. At the time, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporations didn't air the film because it "didn't give a balanced view of the topic." They couldn't find anyone to argue for the use of nukes, however. The US Department of Justice required the American distributors of the film to register as foreign agents. We also discuss the Oscar-nominated 1988 documentary Radio Bikini that covers the nuclear tests on Bikini Atoll.
Listen in as we discuss:
- If You Love This Planet versus Radio Bikini
- Who gets nominated for awards and who gets essentially banned
- Whose stories get told, who gets to tell them, and why
- The inherent manipulativeness of stories versus intentional propaganda
- The political "pay to play" nature of major awards
- The dangers of allowing artificial intelligence control our nuclear arsenal
- Nolan fanboys
Since a nuclear holocaust would devastate the Earth's natural resources, we paired our discussion with a tall glass of luxurious ice water. Cheers!
Hey everybody, welcome to Bard Movies, the podcast that mixes band movies, booze, and conversation into one delightfully chaotic mix. I'm your host, Kelly Swales.
SPEAKER_00I'm your other host, Brandon Wilhelm.
SPEAKER_02And today we're going to be talking about the 1982 Canadian short documentary film, If You Love This Planet, directed by Terry Nash. Buckle in, gang, because it's going to get a little nuclear in here today.
SPEAKER_01Hi, my name is Melissa Fox. I am a Chicago documentary filmmaker. Oh, my husband always wants me to say that I am an Emmy nominated now Chicago documentary filmmaker because I don't brag about myself enough. Um I live in Chicago. I grew up here. I've been making documentaries in the city since um 2004, so a long time.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah. You're you're not a rookie.
SPEAKER_01Not a rookie, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Well, hey, welcome Melissa. Thank you so much for uh joining us today. Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, hey, welcome Melissa. Um before we get going, I want to talk about the beverage that we're drinking today. We decided, and I and by we, I mean Melissa, she suggested it, and I'm like, yep, that's what we're doing. We're pairing this with a nice tall glass of ice water because you know, listen, after the nuclear holocaust, water is going to be a luxury, let alone ice. So cheers, everybody. Cheers.
SPEAKER_01Now I know when you asked me, I was thinking like, oh, we'll do something green slime. And then I was like, you know what? Actually, it's more appropriate uh to just do water for the film that we're talking about.
SPEAKER_02So well, and honestly, um, with like the the data uh center conversation and the climate change conversation, I mean Yeah, it's all kind of wrapped together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we're in a moment where water is really precious.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah, and getting more so by the day. So now that we've got that out of the way, Brandon, do you want to uh tell us a little bit about this documentary?
SPEAKER_00Uh sure. Uh it's a 30-minute documentary feating anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott as she discusses the dangers of nuclear weapons. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation didn't air the film because it didn't, it quote, didn't give a balanced view of the topic. They couldn't find anyone to argue for the use of nuclear weapons. Funny how that works. The United States Department of Justice required the American distributors of the film to register as foreign agents. So it's clear that the powers that be didn't like what Terry or Dr. Caldicott had to say.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, Melissa, tell me how you learned about this film and and uh your your experience with it.
SPEAKER_01I'd actually never seen it before. Oh, really? When you sent over your list, I went through it and I looked at uh, you know, everything that you had on there, and there's some great films on there, which you know, and I almost picked the Da Vinci code, which is so opposite of the film that we're talking about today. Um, but because I'm a documentary filmmaker, I was like, maybe I should choose a documentary because I feel like that's like really in my wheelhouse to talk about. Yeah. Um, and it was made the year that I was born. So, like it, you know, it was interesting for me to think about, you know, in the in the time in my lifespan, even how much has changed in just documentary filmmaking, but also, you know, in the topic of nuclear war, which is you know what the documentary is about. So my that was my first time seeing it after you had reached out. So what was your impressions? Um, well, I thought it was really interesting to think about the how documentaries have shifted and how they're made since the 80s. So, like, I think this the format of this is very TED Talk before there was TED Talk, right? Oh, yeah. It's it's someone giving a speech, they have a presentation that backs them up, and then they have audience reaction shots. But in the 80s, that would have been really hard to produce with film. I mean, those those mags that they're using to roll the film, they're only 20 minutes at most. So if you're giving an hour-long talk and your documentary crew has to be out there to cover the whole thing, that's a really expensive endeavor. Yeah. And so I think that's why pieces like that before digital media were so important, you know, in documentary work. And that that has changed so much since then, right? Because now we have digital cameras, we have people that can run out and make documentaries on their phones. It's it's a totally different environment. And so I feel like the the format of it, I was like, oh wow, I was like, this is this is a TED talk, but it's long before we had the knowledge base and the media to produce those.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's interesting. I I was hoping uh we would talk about this, and you gave me the opening because I it's I had saw online that the um budget for this was like $70,000. And watching it, I was like, I don't know like where that money went really. It's just the film stock.
SPEAKER_01Okay, film stock and the processing of it would have cost that much. Wow. And you would have had to have edited the film stock on a Steinbeck, which you know is those two double reels. Your audio would have had to have been recorded on a separate double reel and synced together. And that's a lost art. Like I learned that in film school, it's a knowledge base I never use, except when I can whip it out for fun podcasts like this to talk about. I mean, because you know, artists are still doing it, but yeah, it's a it's a totally different practice. Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, place I used to work at, uh, we got this editing like set up. Uh, I don't remember what it was, or I it wasn't anything I used in my job, but um I worked with a guy who used to do edit film editing, and he was looking at like this thing used to be a trailer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, they're heavy, they're big, they they weigh as much as a car. Like they're huge pieces of equipment. So, like making a documentary back then, you would have had to have been very specific about your planning. You would have had to have known the story you wanted to tell. You would have spent a lot more time. You know, you can't just pick up a camera and send a crew out to capture B-roll and moments, right? That's right, and you only have 20 minutes, so that that would have been very precious. So I think that really affected the format, which was what makes it so different than what we see on even just Netflix today, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. And even we also watched the uh bikini, Radio Bikini, yeah, that you had mentioned just to give a compare and contrast, and it's a lot different. Yeah. I mean, obviously he had more than $70,000 to do his thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But well, and I think the you know, the reason it made me think of Radio Bikini was because that one aired on PBS. So you have this Canadian film that was viewed as propaganda, which contains American propaganda, which is just hilarious when you think about it. Oh, yeah. The fingers pointing in both directions. Uh-huh. But Radio Bikini also uses those propaganda reels, and it's a much longer, it's like 60 minutes. Yeah. They both won Academy Awards, but one is banned and one aired on PBS. And Radio Bikini literally shows you what happens. They put these goats on the boats, and they're showing you the bikini atoll explosions, and they show you all the gore, everything. It's just as hard to watch as if you love this planet, but one's banned and one's not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, one goes directly at Reagan and Reagan. All but daring Russia to bomb us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's what kind of struck us. Like uh before we watched the movie, obviously you had you had watched it and you sent over your thoughts.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And after we watched it, I was like, you know what? I Melissa was making a really great point, I think, about you know, the male uh filmmaker versus the female filmmaker, because you know, obviously we know it's true in society, but it's especially true in the filmmaking world that women don't get enough credit, chances, yeah, juice, marketing, whatever. Right. You know, so there's there's that aspect and the aspect of the message, you know, the radio bikini is a lot softer. It is very soft. It's I I found it interesting though that the the focus of it was, at least in my mind, you know, we we came in and we kicked all of these kind of native people off of their island, like, hi, this belongs to us now. Right. We're going to destroy it with a nuclear weapon.
SPEAKER_01You can never live there again. Well, and the filming of those propaganda reels where they're literally, you know, creating media that makes it look like the indigenous communities are bravely giving up their island. And it turns out they don't even speak English. They don't even know what the man is saying in those reels. That's so and and they use that as propaganda to justify the taking of that land and then the you know, the ultimate, you know, rape of what they did to it later. Oh, yeah. Awful.
SPEAKER_02It's you know, it's it's one of those things where it's like just so galling, but it's also not surprising. Yeah. Just because you know, hey, this is what the United States government does.
SPEAKER_01Well, and just to back to your female filmmaker point, I mean, of course, that's something that I feel very deeply. And it was something I noticed right away. You know, here you have in, you know, for if you love this planet, you have this woman who's very passionately speaking about something she's clearly very knowledgeable about. But she's standing at a podium, which gives her a lot of, you know, power, authority, and authority. And and then in a radio bikini, it's all men who are speaking, and they're all done more interview style, which is why I think it appears more softer. Yeah. Right. And so uh if you love this planet is is very passionate and very, you know, forward in its message, where and it it's more about tell than show. Yeah. And then radio bikini is more like show, don't tell. Like it's more you get to decide how you feel about this thing. Right. And and I think it was just funny watching it. I was like, you know, in the 80s, like I guarantee you, most men did not want to listen to this woman on this podium. You know, she's kind of lecturing, she has a very like authoritative position. And even though everything that she's saying is very true and very real and terrifying, she may be seen more as like your mom giving you a lecture. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Like, hey, maybe don't use weapons. Yeah. Uh it struck me too that the Radio Bikini movie showed what the government did to men. Yeah. Which is horrific, obviously. Yeah, those interviews are really hard to watch. Yeah. But then if you love this planet showed footage of what we did to our quote unquote enemies. Yeah. And I thought that was a really That's a great point. I thought that was an important distinction because, hey, whenever our government treats their own uh soldiers that way, yeah, that's horrific, obviously. But we don't like to think about what we did to, or what I should say, what our government did to the Japanese people.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And that's what if you love this planet shows. It's like, no, this is the reality. This is what happens to people when you use these weapons.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think if you love this planet was really kind in what they showed. Oh, yeah. Considering what's available. Yeah. You know, I think I think they chose like the most tame footage that you could show of what a nuclear bomb does to a human body. Um, which, you know, I I was thinking, I was like, this is actually the scariest film on your list. You have a lot of horror films on your banned film list. Like these two are probably the scariest horror films ever made on those lists when you think about it. Yeah, because it's real. It's not, it's not make-believe.
SPEAKER_02It's not some zombie. It's not practical effects. It's yeah, this is the real thing. What were your thoughts, Brandon, as you were watching both of the films?
SPEAKER_00Well, I I agree with what you're saying. I I did feel at points with If You Love This Planet that it got very luxury. Um, that might be just me being a man and yeah, you're getting lectured too by bias in there, but uh I did overall like it. I like her point, and I think she, like you said, she's a very passionate speaker and she uh knows how to get a point across. There's I mean, she does it what 25 minutes and it's not it's not long and drawn out. I don't know if like that's her entire lecture, or they just trimmed it down. It's really effective at getting the point across. With Radio Bikini, I liked it, but there were points where I was a little like, okay, we're kind of we're talking about this a lot. But then there's something like when the camera pulls back from the soldier talking about his experience, and then you see what has happened to him. I was like, ooh, whoa. I thought that was probably the most effective moment in the in the Yeah, when you see his hand and it's just like three times the size, and nobody can explain why his limbs just keep swelling up and bursting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And like, hey, okay, well, this is going on with your right leg. Let's cut off the right leg because we can't figure it out. Oh, wait, now it's happening to your left leg. And it's like, well, I guess they didn't cut off his left arm because then what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_01It's gonna go to his right arm, and then yeah, it's no the horrors of the what happens, you know, to humans. And I think both films do try to center that, you know, like the cost, the hu the very human cost. And if you love this planet, does it, you know, she does it more through data too. Like she literally walks you through, you know, the data of what happens when a bomb explodes, what happens when um, you know, what happens to the community, how much time you have, like, you know, the very human cost of that. And then Radio Bikini sh literally shows it in the soldiers that were watching those test explosions happen and what happens to their bodies. And I think the role of trauma plays a big part in both of those documentaries. It's something I think about a lot in my films, right? When we send cameras out, I'm always very conscious of like what um role does showing people's trauma on screen play in media, right? And so in this instance, like the shock value I think serves the purpose of both of those films. You know, I'm my next project is going to be about um, you know, the Chicago gun violence and uh violence prevention programs here in Chicago. And one of the things we're discussing very seriously is what role does someone's trauma play on screen if they were a victim of a shooting? And how much of that do we want to share? How much does that paint bias? How much, you know, how important is that uh for an audience, right? And how do we get people to fall in love with humans on screen so that we don't have to exploit their traumas either? Right. Yeah. And you know, I think with both of these, this was an instance where I was like, okay, I think this is an appropriate use of showing people's trauma because how else are you going to explain the severity of what they're showing? And that's terri it's terrifying to look at.
SPEAKER_02It really, it really truly is. Like you said, they especially from the Hiroshimo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the there is footage that's more horrific than what they showed, but what they showed was yeah, you're getting the point across.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. You didn't need to show how terrible it could be. You know, and I think of like if if you see Chernobyl on HBO, and that is like, I couldn't breathe through that whole thing. And and I think they also did a really good job of like towing the line of like, how much is too much? You know, yeah, nuclear, uh, you know, when your body's exposed to that level of radioactivity, you literally turn an ooze. So, like, how do you show that? Yeah. You know, in a way that somebody can absorb it, um, absorb the serious of it, but also not want to turn away. You said there was a film on your list that you're like, I don't think I ever want to watch that again. No, no, no, no. Serbian film, I'm I'm not seeing it. Right. And is is that an effective use of the format, right? It and its purpose. You know, this is this is a woman who is clearly trying to advocate for the ending of nuclear power. Right. You know, so by choosing to show um something that you can that's just serious enough that you can digest, it's in service of her mission, versus something that you're like, I never ever want to, you know, think about or see that again.
SPEAKER_02You know, I think you make a really interesting point because I know that a big topic of our conversation in our discussion of the Serbian film was did the graphic nature of this film dilute the message that you're trying to send? You know, because I don't know if you know the movie at all, but the too long didn't read is it's a uh the protagonist is an aging porn star that gets roped into uh they're gonna throw a bunch of money at him for one last movie. And yeah, that goes just about as horrifically as you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01Porn star horror movie, great.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And uh yeah, it it touches on a a lot of really gruesome themes, but it also I I think the the ideas from the filmmakers, they're you know, Serbian and their country, it was after the Bosnian War and like Amer uh once Serbia became a country, basically Americans kind of came in because hey, there's no rules, we can make our snuff films here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so it was a commentary on that. So basically the message is, you know, they're talking about a real serious, obvious, obviously horrific thing that's happening in their country. But does the graphic nature of what they're showing on screen dilute that message? Yeah. So I think that's a really valid point. Like, how far can you push this? It's like how how real can you make this and still retain the audience and give that audience the message that you want to give them?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, just in our time now, you know, spectacle is something that's used so much in cinematic filmmaking, right? It's like if you don't make something a spectacle, are people gonna pay attention? So how far do you want to push it? How far do you want people to talk about your movie? You know, and where do you want to take it versus, you know, is that in service of whatever the purpose or the mission or, you know, mission's the wrong word, but you know, like the point that you want to get across when you're making a film.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, your theme, right? Like this is the reason that you're making this film and you want people to see it. Yeah. And hey, if you get some awards, that's great. Right. Let's talk about that a little bit, about the the politics of awards.
SPEAKER_01There's much, right? Yeah. Well, the Academy Awards are were a union busting event. Yeah. They're they're political.
SPEAKER_02I did not know that until we follow each other on threads, and she had mentioned that on threads. So I was like, wait a minute, what the fuck? Melissa, really? And then I kind of delved into it a little bit, and I'm like, oh.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know much about that. I do know that the studios kind of made up the Academy Awards to give themselves awards. Yep. It was always sort of uh like, well, this is the movie we want you to know about. So here it gets a bunch of awards.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and and so the the unions had a big victory, right? And the studios didn't like that because it meant more money. Um, and one of the ways that they tried to appease them was hey, we're gonna create, you know, this huge spectacle of awards, um, you know, to to back up, you know, the art. You know, it was all in service of you know, celebrating the art. Sure. Let's not pay people what they're worth, but you know, we'll hand you a golden statue, which by the way, I'm pretty sure you have to pay for all of that. Oh, you do? As a I mean, nominated person, I learned all of this. I paid for everything. I submit my own stuff. I have to be a member of the the committee. I have to pay for my submissions, you pay for your ticket to go to the event, you pay for your statute, you pay for your You have to pay for the statue. You pay to have extra people, extra names added as producers on your listing. Like it literally is a pay-to-play game. And I've never applied to the Academy Award, so I can't tell you about how that works. But yeah, and and then you have studios who will campaign and spend money to get their things seen by the judges who are part of you know, the uh people who vote on, you know, who gets to win, right? And so they'll buy billboards, they'll take people out to dinners, they'll swoon them with swag, they'll, you know, there's all kinds of things when you're campaigning. And so, you know, you have little I I have a crew of like three people, you know. I've worked with the same group of people in Chicago, you know, for 25 years. It took me that long to be able just to get to the Emmys. We can barely afford to buy a table. No, yeah, you know, we could barely afford to be there. And there was no guarantee that we were gonna win anything. But of course, you know, the spectacle of being awarded in that way, you know, you kind of need as a filmmaker, you need the chops to be able to walk into a room and say, Yeah, I have proof of concept, I'm Emmy nominated, you know. So I think it's really interesting. Documentaries and academies, they're one of the few categories I think that are allowed to be expressively political. Uh-huh. Um, they're mostly made by women, especially now, which, you know, as someone who tried to go into narrative filmmaking first and then landed somewhere in documentaries. I think there was more space for women to tell stories in the documentary space than there was in narrative spaces. And so a lot of those awarded documentaries, you know, are they highly political. They um they tend to give more political speeches when they win because they feel more passionate about the causes that they're telling human stories for. But also, I think sometimes it's hilarious because, on one hand, we'll award a film about nuclear power, and then we'll also, decades later, award Oppenheimer for making, you know, the creation of the nuclear bomb. Something that's, you know, sensationalized and sexy. I mean, they made Cillian Murphy so sexy in that film, and it just cracks me up that you would make such a you know a a big horrific moment in our history look so great. Yeah. And that's just, you know, indicative of who we are. I think in media, it's really funny.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what? I I didn't realize all of that. I mean, I knew about the the campaigning. I knew I knew about the campaigning in though you're not allowed to campaign. No, you're not allowed to campaign. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Everybody does. You you even are expected to go out and campaign. Right. But if you're not, like there was a couple years ago, Andrea Risebro got nominated for Best Actress for a uh a really small movie that like I can't remember who it was, but somebody brought people over, started like pushing this movie and her as a nominee. And when she made it, the academy turned on her. They went after the person for campaigning, they went after like everything about it. And I'm like, everybody campaigns. What are you doing? She was in a small independent film, and they didn't really want that film to be up there with the ones they wanted in there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, and I think they control the narrative ones more than they do. I think documentaries squeak through. Yeah. I think I think they get squeaked through, and it almost feels like you get a little pat on the head. Like it's like, oh, it's so nice for you. You know, like that they they don't really have as much of a stage as what you're as the actors, the actresses, the directors, you know.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I feel like I feel like the documentaries are like the um, like the smart nerdy kids. Yeah. You know, in in high school, and it's like, oh, well, we gotta give the nerd something. Right.
SPEAKER_01Well, they have a conscience, you know, they have telling real stories about things that matter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, there's uh I I don't remember all the details, but they had to change the way they did best documentary at the Oscars because it was kind of this almost um God, I I don't want to say things and wind up being wrong, but it was almost a little corrupt in how they did it. Like it was almost outside the academy. There was a separate group of people who just basically were picking this, and that's what happens. Yeah. And I think they went in and changed it.
SPEAKER_01I uh please I'll have to look that up as like, you know, if I still want that. Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, take what I'm saying with the grain of salt. I don't really remember everything about it, but the details there was kind of a little mini scandal about it at one point.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think that was fascinating for me, just kind of uh swinging back around to If You Love This Planet and also Radio Bikini, just like the level of propaganda. Yeah. I'm kind of on the train of even aside from like male filmmaker versus woman film filmmaker and how their messages are told, it was immediately obvious to me, anyway, that the If You Love This Planet was a very pointed criticism of Reagan because she chose to use the Reagan propaganda films that he filmed back during the war. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and there was some controversy about that. And if you look that up in the film, that they almost didn't allow them to use those in the film. Oh, I'm sure not. So they had to spend a lot of time really lobbying to get those in, you know. So he didn't want those included in the film.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I'm sure that he didn't. I'm actually kind of surprised it happened. Yeah, honestly. But then, you know, hey, yeah, we'll let you use the film, but then we're just gonna let your distributors be listed as, you know, foreign agents. That's fine, right? That's the trade-off, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think that's one of the cause she never specifically mentions Reagan. No. But using those clips really makes that point, even though it's uh a training film about uh the Japanese zero, and the way the movie's titled is uh a little on the racist side. I even I looked it up because I didn't know what it was. A little the title on IMDB is not the title that's shown in the movie. They use the what's called the I guess it's like the full title, and then underneath it's like shortened title, the racist one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's uh it was just there's so many layers to dissect, I think, in watching both, you know, and even just like thinking about okay, 40 years, four 40 years has happened since this came out, right? And so I had to go look up. I was like, well, how many more nuclear warheads do we have now? I was like, and I pulled it up, and the only website that I could find that actually has the proper data and has like all is Canadian, of course. Which I was like, oh, that's just on point. But we there are 12,187 warheads in the world. And right now Russia has 5,459 of them. The US has 5,277, and then the next level down is like China with 600, and then it bumps down to France with like 200. Right. And it's like less and less and less. And she makes this point in the film that really stuck with me, you know, when she was like, you know, what who wins a nuclear war? Yeah, or how many bombs do you need? You only need one to just mess up the planet. You know, nobody wins that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, it's what's the point? Like the end of war games, right? With Matthew Broderick. It's like, yeah, shouldn't we just play chess? Because no one's going to win this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what's the only way to win is not the play.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, and computers were new back then, right? And so she gives that example of the war games in the film. And I just couldn't help but think of AI now. Oh, yeah. Like, here we are in the precipice of a whole new monster that's coming in with technology. Oh, yeah. And she gives that example of like how the world was on notice for six minutes that nuclear war was gonna happen. And it was just this computer mistake.
SPEAKER_02The defense contracts with like companies like Plantier or whatever, it's like, what's what's that going to do? Yeah. You know, do you really want an AI that you know can barely scrap Google for proper information? Do you want an AI in charge of our nuclear arsenal? I mean, that's so ludicrous.
SPEAKER_01Even just as a Tolkien fan, just naming it Palantir. Oh god. Like, I cannot. I the first time I saw that, I was like, I cannot believe how, well, I couldn't believe it, you know, like just how out we are about how terribly fascist we are. You know, yeah, you know, I that's like the whole point of Tolkien, and then you choose a literal name of an evil fascist object, you know, of surveillance for your company.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like we're not even trying to be creative. Yeah, no, no, no. I keep saying in barred movies and in barred books, as I'm sure you you can appreciate, and I just I just kind of keep saying it's like, oh no, they're just taking off their hoods now. Yeah. You know, they that they don't care if you know who they are.
SPEAKER_00Kind of going back to the what you're saying with AI. I mean, that's the uh I don't know if this is totally proven, but they were saying that the reason they we bombed that girl school in Iran was because they let AI pick the targets. Yeah. All the information was out of date. So we killed what 240 little girls.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, oops, sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, whoopsies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. That's just like radio the whole thing when you watch Radio Bikini. It's like, you know, this was a whole island with an indigenous community that had an entire culture and ecosystem that dates back, predates, you know, you know, the Americas. And we just blew it to pieces. This Pacific Island, these people just like obliterated, you know, oh, but we're saving the world. Well, we have to, you know, make sure uh Russia knows our might. Yeah. I don't know how that story could be any different. I was discussing, you know, with friends, and I was like, you know, how do you end a world war? Right. And so it's it's new, it's this incredibly nuanced conversation of power and propaganda and who gets to tell their stories and why. Yeah. And and that we're talking about, you know, two films that pretty much center a lot of the US and don't necessarily center the Japanese or the indigenous peoples of Atoll that are telling about where we still are in terms of who gets to tell stories and why. Yeah, and who gets celebrated and and who doesn't. Yeah, they get golden statues on the world stage, you know, pats on the back for, you know, trying to change, quote unquote, change the world, and then silenced on the back end when your film is banned.
SPEAKER_02It's it's a really interesting conversation to me. Um I was in the uh speculative fiction publishing circles for a long, long time. And it's always a topic of conversation there too. Like who gets the who gets the book contracts, who gets the big advances, who gets the multiple, you know, three book deals, who who gets those, who gets the marketing budget, whose stories get to be told. Right. And it's a whole lot of the time, and it's white men. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, and and and to be fair, if you love this planet is a white woman from Australia.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, who better to tell the stories of what happened to Hiroshima than someone whose family lived through it? Yeah. But here we are, you know, someone a white woman, you know, telling this story on a world stage and winning awards for it.
SPEAKER_02Right. You know. The flip side of that, though, is would a Japanese woman even be allowed to tell the story? Yeah. Well, we should find out. Yeah. We should find out.
SPEAKER_01Like we should find out, you know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, why not? Let's let's find out. Yeah. Uh, so you had mentioned a little bit earlier, Oppenheimer. Yeah. And in that I think we have slightly different opinions on. Yeah, I'm not a Nolan fan, so I always like to put that out there first.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I know you follow me on threads a lot, and I I definitely go after the Nolan bros quite a bit because a thorn in my side, just being a woman in the industry. Yeah. Yeah. Nolan is seen as you know, the be all end all of like, you know, cinema, right? He's the our Scorsese, you know. Yeah. You know, which I also don't like his movies either. But um, yeah, so I always like to preface that. That my bias is I I have strong opinions about Nolan films.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, well, and I think those are those are completely valid. I I bring it up because uh you mentioned that one beef that you have with the movie Oppenheimer is because they don't really focus on the harm. Yeah. You know, they focus on the story of the creation and they focus on the man, but they don't focus on the harm. I think uh at one point in our email conversation, I'm like, I'm gonna push back on that a little bit because it's you know, that's not the story. The story is about the guy, right? Um, but at the same time, and I think this goes to your point, it's like, does Nolan get his Oscar for for Oppenheimer if he tells the story of the harm that we did? Right. You know, does that movie get made? Does he have the budget? I mean, honestly, at that point in his career, it probably does because he's he is who he is and he gets his money and and whatever.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But I I think it's a question though, you know, like well, um, there's a Nevermade Cohen Brothers movie, I think it's called To the Sea. It's a movie with almost no dialogue about a guy trying to get out of. I'm gonna might have this a little wrong. It's been a while since I looked into it, but it's a guy trying to get out of the aftermath of a Hiroshima, I think. And it they never got funding for that one. So I think, yeah, you know, yeah.
SPEAKER_01But when you center a white male protagonist, you tend to get more funding. I mean that's just the unfortunate state. Um, but my my critical argument about Oppenheimer, you know, and and I I'll say this to appease the Nolan bros, I will never uh debate the quality of filmmaking that Nolan brings to the table. Like he is he makes beautiful films, he has the most talented people, they do cool shit on screen. Yeah, right? Yeah. It's like I'm like, I'm never debating the technical quality. And I hate that I have to even say that before I preface my next point so that people will relax. Yeah. But my point is from a storytelling point and its impact on the world. Yeah. And and we've seen that even just with what we're dealing with right now in our country. You know, when we put men like that on a pedestal and humanize them with spectacle in the way that we've done, what does that do to society? Right. And what does it allow? And and we have answers for that, right? It we it's Trump. Right? Yeah. You know, he was a reality TV show uh bro, you know, that uh was made to look very powerful and like he knew how to run a business. And it was all propaganda and people bought it, and now he's president, and we're in this mess. And so similarly, you have, you know, Cillian Murphy, who is gorgeous and wonderful, and and you know, they always Nolan films, everybody is always dressed to the nines and they just they always look beautiful, right? Right. And so it's almost like Vogue, you know, it's like you're flipping through a Vogue magazine of some of the most beautiful people you've ever seen in IMAX. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Telling the most terrifying story that you've ever heard about, you know, the creation of a nuclear bomb. Right. And a lot of people would argue that that's the point, right? That that's the tension. But I argue, why tell that story that way if what it perpetuates is more harm? And when you center, you know, that Oppenheimer as a man, even if he is flawed, why does his story get to be told? Right. I think you make, I think you make an excellent argument. And I know, you know, historically I get it. He was the he was the guy, right? Yeah. He was the one who, you know, uh we've decided that it's his when we talk about the nuclear bomb, we decided as a people's that it's his story that gets told. Right. And there's harm when we only center that. Right. Right. And that was my point. And I don't think Nolan went far enough. You know, I've been, I I spent a lot of time in New Mexico. I've been to those labs, I've seen what those tests have done to the land. I've talked to the indigenous peoples that are there that are still dealing with the consequences in their bodies, in their lineage of what's happening. And it just smelled felt like a smack in the face. Right. You know, well, Linda thinks no agrees. That's my company. I know she's sweet. She's like, Yeah, I agree with you, mom. I think she's heard this rant from me a lot. So well, she felt you she felt you get amped up. So she's like, What's going on, mom? No, and and I think, you know, as a filmmaker, that's something that I take very seriously as point of view. You know, who's telling the stories and why? And how are we telling those stories and what impact do they have on society? And that's something that I'm really interested in.
SPEAKER_02And who gets celebrated for them?
SPEAKER_01Who gets celebrated and why? And as a someone who grew up on the south side of Chicago, who got to see how people talk about those places, you know, I'm often, you know, when I even what you're sitting in Garfield Park right now, even when I tell people where I live, they recoil. Yeah. Because there's still all these stories that say, oh, don't go there. Right. Or don't go there. It's a dangerous neighborhood. I was like, no, I grew up there. Yeah. And and there was this dissonance of like, those are my friends. Right. You know, and and who who's telling the stories about these places? Because clearly you do not have the information and you do not have the the lived experiences being in these places.
SPEAKER_02The lived experience, absolutely. I I had kind of that that same experience, but more more generalized whenever I first moved to Chicago, because I lived, I grew up down downstate near St. Louis. Um, but I've lived which has a similar segregation. Oh, it's yeah, super segregated in St. Louis. Same kind of story that Chicago has from a historical perspective, I think. But it also when you when you don't live in the city, you know, like the rest of the state, and honestly, the rest of the country, especially if you're listening to Fox News, which don't listen to don't listen to Fox News kids. Yeah, also propaganda. It's an entertainment channel, not a news station. Anyway, um Which I consider all news to be propaganda, by the way, if we're being fair.
SPEAKER_01Almost all of it is now. Well, it didn't used to be.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know what? There's always a bias. You know, it's uh I always kind of make the argument of, you know, if a kangaroo kicks a man, it depends on how you tell the story on if like the kangaroo gets euthanized or not, right? You know, like who's who's at fault, who's telling the story, who's what facts are being shown, what facts are being diminished. Right. Yeah, everyone's got a bias. And I mean, used to we had journalism that gave a shit. And that wanted to stay in the middle. Right. And try to be much harder now. Wanted to be as unbiased as possible, but you know, that doesn't sell papers. No. So no sensationalism.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that's the whole point, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So like living downstate and then moving to Chicago. Um, you know, our friends were like, Oh my god, you're moving to Chicago. And then it's like, yeah, we as soon as we moved in, it's like, look at this place, it's amazing. Yeah. You know, there's independent theaters and art and museums and this and that, and the lakefront and beaches, and yeah, okay, there's crime, but there's also three million people. There's gonna be crime. Yeah, you know, a little bit.
SPEAKER_00But it's it's also funny. Like I moved here in 01. Nobody talked about Chicago being the capital of crime at the time. That only started when Obama got to be president. They had to figure out a way to go after him. Oh, it's Chicago. Oh, Chicago's the worst. It's not even in the top ten most violent cities. Yeah. Uh you look up the stats, things like Baltimore and Detroit, St. Louis, these are all worse, but yeah. Yeah, Chicago became the punching bag because that's where Obama was from.
SPEAKER_01Well, and because he he was black. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And segregation and redlining here, the scars are still, you know, the scars are still here. We're still fighting, communities are still fighting. Absolutely. You know, uh, even in in my neighborhood here, you know, they're they're still fighting to get landlords who are holding on to buildings that don't they don't they're not even in Chicago. And so a lot of the infrastructure that doesn't exist in some of the neighborhoods that have been disenfranchised are because people are still winning somehow off of keeping those neighborhoods disenfranchised. Oh, yeah. And that fight, it plays out on a narrative level with how you tell stories about Chicago. And you know, that that was something that when I finally was able to kind of like drill down into it as an artist, I was like, you know, I have a real lived experience here, and I'm really interested in this, and that that's how I've spent my life's work telling, you know, retelling stories of Chicago. My goal is to like get people to fall in love with the humans, yeah. Not necessarily their circumstances, but you know, because the systems that we live in, they have very specific ways of telling stories about people, and those are so harmful.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it kind of comes back to basically like the theme of the this episode, right? Like who's who gets to tell stories and how do they get to tell those stories, and which ones get promoted, which ones get marketed, which ones get made? Yeah, which ones get the golden statues, and which and which ones get the golden statues. All right, so I'm gonna ask you a question that I like to ask uh in every episode of this podcast. Um, Melissa, should if you love this planet, be banned? Well, absolutely not. Yeah, absolutely not. It's an it's an incredibly important movie. Brandon, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00No, it shouldn't be banned. It was only banned because I mean there I think there's many, many reasons, and we've covered all of them, but I think basically it was a woman telling Reagan he's wrong, and that is a no-no. Yeah, you don't tell you don't tell the fascists they're wrong.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, you can't do that. And you certainly can't do that on a larger platform.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, no. No, not and you know, as a as a film uh woman film student with a very small budget, you know, yeah, you don't you don't get to have that power.
SPEAKER_01No, and and you know, to be fair, like that's still happening today. Oh, yeah, absolutely. There's you know, I work on micro budgets and I'm taking on whole systems. Yeah, you know, and it's it's really hard work, it's not something that's valued in the way that an Olin film is valued. And you know, yeah, they're two completely different things, but I think, you know, just in topic of discussion, like what is more important than discussing ending nuclear war? What is more important than discussing who gets to tell their stories and why? And in a time where media literacy and and uh misinformation is being wielded for such terrible, awful things, the discussion about why something is propaganda is more important than it ever has been.
SPEAKER_02Oh. I absolutely agree. Absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think uh there's a uh another movie, it kind of can't I think it came out in the early 80s called uh The Atomic Cafe. That uh I don't know if you've seen it.
SPEAKER_01I've heard of it, I have not seen it.
SPEAKER_00Uh Radio Bikini borrows a lot from it in the way it uses the propaganda films to kind of tell the story, because that's what Atomic Cafe is 90 minutes of just the propaganda films, but the way they've they're using them and editing them, it shows you how wrong it all is and how just uh how we were all played.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's a good point. Like I always think it's fascinating, something that I point out to a lot of people who you know aren't working in media is how much of filmmaking is the art of manipulation, and not in like a bad it's not in a bad way. It's just you are being sold through editing, but choosing to show something in a certain order, choosing length, making all of those choices, they are a form of the art of telling that story, and it is manipulation.
SPEAKER_02So I want you to feel a certain certain thing at a certain time, and this is how I'm going to show that to get that response.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and there's a formula for that, and that they teach it in film schools. Yeah, you know, and we learn how to create emotion. We learn how to have an audience feel something. We learn when something has impact, when it doesn't. You know, we literally create films and we screen them in front of audiences to see their reactions, to see how they're reacting to something. And so when you're watching media, you have to understand that regardless of intent, even with the best of intentions, you're still being manipulated on some aspect to have an emotion, to feel a certain way, to think about point of view. And that's what's so fascinating about the art is that we get to talk about all of that. Yeah. And that's what drives me nuts about the Nolan Bros, is because they won't. They'll they'll dismiss you because you're like, oh, it's this beautiful, gorgeous film. How could you possibly, you know, have that? I'm like, no, there's this rich conversation to be had underneath all of that. Oh, absolutely. And I think that more of that discussion is going to help build community. It'll help us talk more about the hard things. And it'll also help bring to light, you know, oh, maybe, you know what, next time when I'm watching all the movie trailers and I realize that they're all white male protagonists, maybe Melissa was right. Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe there is a point there. And that doesn't diminish the art of what maybe Nolan has created. It doesn't diminish the art of Radio Bikini or of if you love this planet. It just is what it is, and it's it's a rich discussion to have. So Yeah. Yeah. I I loved um your topic of talking about band films. I thought it was a really great, yeah, great point of view.
SPEAKER_02Um, you know what, honestly, I for both band book uh band books and band movies, um, I've mentioned it before on the podcast, so listeners bear with me. It's just kind of like, what can I do? You know, it's uh like what role am I do I have to play in the resistance? And that's what it is. I'm a storyteller and I always have been.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So let's talk about these stories that are banned and why they're banned.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And why or why they claim to be banned. And it's not because you use the N-word, it's because you don't like looking at yourself in the mirror. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, that's hard. It's on its uncomfy. It's it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That's one of the uh authors I did a podcast with, we talked about Fahrenheit 451. And she teaches popular uh writing popular fiction at the at the collegiate level. And she her big thing is uh you know, popular fiction needs to be frictionless. Just these popular movies or whatever, they they make you think, but not too much. Yeah. They show you hard things, but not real hard things. You know, we don't I and I say we just as like the popular human, you know, hum human movie going and and book reading populace don't necessarily like to be challenged. And that's what these that's what these properties do, and they get banned for it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Shall we in there? That works. I think that's a great point today.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'll sip my water or or enjoy my fresh water while I have it.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely, absolutely. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you for having me. This was such a great, great conversation, and I never would have probably watched this movie if you hadn't suggested it. So thank you so much for doing that. Yeah, thank you. Well, hey, like I said, thanks to Melissa for hanging out with us today, and thanks to all the listeners out there for being as amazing as you are. Be sure to check out our Patreon page. Subscribers get a sneak peek at our lineup and can listen to the podcast before the rest of the world can. Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. And hey, tell your friends about us. This is Kelly Swales.
SPEAKER_00I'm Brandon Wilhelm.
SPEAKER_02And you've been listening to Bard movies. Catch you next time.