DVD cover of Tiptoes

A romantic comedy that isn’t particularly funny or romantic…

To celebrate the season of love, we decided to watch the shockingly star-studded cast bumble their way through the nearly unknown film Tiptoes. While the movie itself is perfect content for this podcast, the stories around the film are perhaps even more interesting. We’re joined by special guest and friend of the pod, Ian Carroll, who helps us try to get to the bottom of this perplexing film.

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Grading the Film

As always, this film is reviewed with scores recorded in four main categories, with 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. Like the game of golf, the lower the score the better.

How accurate is the representation?

Jeff – 2 / 5

Erika – 3 / 5

Ian – 3 / 5

Total – 8 / 15

How difficult was it to watch the movie?

Erika – 2 / 5

Jeff – 3 / 5

Ian – 4 / 5

Total – 9 / 15

How often were things unintentionally funny?

Erika – 4 / 5

Jeff – 5 / 5

Ian – 5 / 5

Total – 14 / 15

How far back has it put disabled people?

Jeff – 2.5 / 5

Erika – 4 / 5

Ian – 1 / 5

Total – 7.5 / 15

The Verdict

Crimes Have Been Committed

Transcript – Part 1

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

Hey, Carol, what’s going on? Is everything okay?

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

Your brother dropped by this morning.

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

You drive all this way to tell me that.

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

I think you’re going to let me know that everyone in your family’s a midget.

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

Well, they’re not midgets. Carol, the D,

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

Whatever. It suddenly occurred to me that it’s a genetic thing, right?

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

Yeah, it’s a genetic thing.

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

Okay, so just tell me, if you and I have a kid together, is it going to be a midget?

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

Okay. I don’t see a midget say. Do look,

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

Just answer the goddamn question, Steven.

Steven Bedalia (McConaughey):

It is possible. It’s definitely possible.

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):
Oh, Jesus Christ…

[Opening punk song, “Arguing with Strangers on the Internet” by Mvll Crimes]

I’m arguing with strangers on the internet not going out today because I’m feeling too upset arguing with strangers on the internet and I’m winning. And I’m winning!!

Jeff:

Welcome back to another episode of Invalid Culture. It’s good to have you back. As always, I am your host, Jeff Preston, and I’m joined once again, the reemergence of our host Erica Katzman. Erica, how are you doing?

Erika:

I was better before I watched this movie. I won’t lie.

Jeff:

Is that pretty much your feeling every episode that you’re on this podcast?

Erika:

It is, absolutely. But this was a special one. I really felt like it was a testament of my commitment to you as a friend that I watched this film at all, and in fact, a second time just to brush up on details in preparation for the podcast, so know that I care about you.

Jeff:

Yes, our friendship can never be questioned after this three hours of labor that you’ve put into this. Much appreciated. So Erica is back and that is good because we are going to need her to survive this next two episodes of Invalid Culture, but we’re also joined by a very special guest, a very special guest because this podcast wouldn’t be happy. This episode of the podcast would not be happening if it wasn’t for him. We are joined by PSW Ian Carroll. Ian is the one who introduced me to this film, who forced me into buying this film and I thought it was only fair that Ian should come on the pod and be forced to talk about it with me. So welcome to the Pod, Ian.

Ian:

Hey, how’s it going? Thanks for having me. I just want to say I think it was more like you were racing to buy this movie from the moment that you heard about it as opposed to me forcing you to do it. I think that’s a more accurate description of how,

Jeff:

Yeah, that is actually more fair.

Ian:

This is like 10 years in the making or something. It was a very long time ago that we first watched the trailer for it, and it was just this past year, a few months ago, six months that we actually watched it for the first time. It would’ve been nice to have just gone into it blind, maybe not knowing anything about it beforehand, just like a lot of these types of movies, but that’s not the way it worked out. But yeah, I am sort of fascinated by this movie as opposed to anything else. It’s fascinating. It’s not a good movie. It’s not the worst made movie ever. It’s, it’s just very, very odd

Jeff:

Everything about it. And before we actually do the big reveal, although obviously if you’re listening to this, you probably saw the title of the film in the title of the episode, but I will state that this episode is going to have a lot of stories. There’s going to be stories about how this thing was made, stories about the actual film, and the first story is actually the story of how I access this film because it was a nightmare trying to find this film. I’ve been trying to buy this film for quite a while, and it is wildly priced on the internet. You cannot find North America versions of this disc for anything below 30, $40. I finally found a version on eBay that I could buy that was in our region code. I went through a massive bidding war in order to receive this. The price escalated.

I did win. I had to pay a fortune in shipping, and it took a month and a half for it to ship here. There was about a three week period where this DVD bounced around Chicago for literally a week and a half. It was being moved from one distribution center to the other. I thought, I may never get to watch this movie, and the day that it arrived, I remember showing it to Ian, and then when we opened it and we saw the art on the DVDI gasped, I literally gasped at the DVD art on this thing. Everything about this film is incredible and needs to be spoken about and will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Erika:

Wait, what’s on the DVD art?

Jeff:

It is so hard to explain. It is Gary Oldman on his motorcycle, but the lights on the motorcycle are lined up in a way that it appears as though they’re his breasts

Ian:

And anyway, yeah, we haven’t even said the title of the movie yet.

Jeff:

Yeah. Okay, so let’s dive into it. The movie that we are going to be talking about for the rest of our lives is the one, the only role of a Lifetime tiptoes. Now, for those of you who do not know a brief summary, this is from Amazon Prime, Amazon explains this movie is when his girlfriend gets pregnant, the father to be Steve is forced to reveal his little family secret. All of his relatives are dwarves, an offbeat romantic comedy with an all star cast.

Ian:

Oh boy. It’s a little family secret, right?

Jeff:

Yes. It’s the little things that count. So what the heck is Tiptoes? Erica, if you were to describe this film or if you were to explain the plot of this film, would it be pretty similar to that or would you describe it differently?

Erika:

I mean, I would use some different language perhaps. It’s offbeat, that’s for sure. Yeah, I mean, he does seem to be forced to reveal. It’s not a family secret. He’s the only one who’s keeping a secret.

Ian:

It’s not like his family has murdered somebody and in the backyard or something.

Erika:

No, they’re all out there living their lives. He’s the only one with the problem.

Ian:

He’s the only one with the problem in the whole movie, pretty much. Well, any big problems anyway.

Jeff:

Yeah, I was going to say there are some others.

Ian:

I mean, that’s the main story, but then there’s Rolfe,

Jeff:

Right, which is the biggest part

Ian:

Of the fact, right? He’s not even technically part of that slot synopsis. Right.

Jeff:

So what probably makes this movie the most significant is the amount of star power in this film. There are so many names. This is probably the biggest cast we’ve ever covered in this podcast. Right off the rip, in the lead role of Rolfe, we have Gary Oldman,

Ian:

Rolfe…Bedalia…

Jeff:

And Rolfe is a little person. Gary Oldman is not, and so he plays much of the film on his knees mostly and a lot of shots from the waist up. Gary Oldman is twins with Matthew McConaughey. This is Steven Medallia who is not a little person and not the same age as Gary Oldman.

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

So are you and Steven Blood Brothers?

Rolfe (Oldman):

Yeah, you could say that we’re twins.

Carol Bedalia (Beckinsale):

Wow. God, I can’t believe that.

Jeff:

I know that might be confusing to everyone, but it is a thing. We then have Kate Beck as Steven’s wife Carol now Kate Beck sale. This is like Prime Kate Beck. This is arguably right when her career is about to peak. We’re talking like Underworld, Kate Beckinsale. She is in this film. She agreed to do this film for the SAG minimum payment on one condition, which is that she was allowed to wear her lucky hat during the filming, and that’s going to play a role in this film. I know you are wondering what that means and it’s not what you think. And last, but certainly not least, we have Peter Dinklage. Yes. That Peter Dinklage. In a movie that stars a person that is not a little person. They also cast an amazing actor who is a little person in a side character role, and I imagine if you were to tell me that Matthew McConaughey and Peter Danko are twins, I would actually probably buy that.

Ian:

That’s plausible, right? Yeah.

Erika:

They have got to be closer in age.

Ian:

They’re born in the exact same year. They’re both born in 1969. They’re, in real life, they are months apart, and they’re like, let’s get Gary Oman. Let’s just make him do it.

Jeff:

It was right there, and they chose against it. Do you guys have any thoughts on the casting of this film other than the obvious?

Ian:

Well, there’s also, I don’t think you mentioned Patricia Arquette.

Jeff:

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Ian:

Other very famous acts who he plays dink’s love interest. I don’t know. What’s more offensive is Gary Oldman on his knees as Dorf or Peter Dinklage’s French accent. I’m not sure which one. It would be more upsetting to more people

Jeff:

And Patricia Arquette with Cornrows. Dreadlocks?

Ian:

Yep.

Erika:

And eventually Peter Dinklage

Ian:

With cornrows. Yes, later on decide to get them as well. Yeah.

Jeff:

Yeah. I will say they did absolutely foreshadow the coming crystal obsession, Crystal healing and things, in the Arquette character. I’ll give them that.

Ian:

Peter Dinklage is not only French, he is a French Marxist. He is in pain, he has constant pain, and that’s the whole, I think a more interesting movie would’ve just been Dinklage and Arquette on the road, their story, just them. That would be a more interesting story, I think, than

Jeff:

A hundred percent agree.

Ian:

…the tiptoe situation.

Jeff:

Well, okay, so let’s head into our second story about this film, which I think is really important for us to get a sense of what this is, which is the story of how this film got made and the story of how this film subsequently got buried. So the film was written and directed by a man by the name of Matthew Bright. You will notice that the writer of the film is not Matthew Bright. That is because Matthew Bright had his name changed eventually to the name Bill Wiener as the writer of the film. However, because of Guild Rules, he was not able to remove his name from the director slot. Now, Matt Bright was predominantly a writer of indie films before this and was a bit of an up and comer having movies like The Forbidden Zone, Shrunken Heads, and most famously Freeway 1 and 2,

Ian:

Right? Yes. So Freeway was 1996. It was Keifer Sutherland and Reese Witherspoon, and it’s sort of a modern retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story. It became sort of a cult favorite on VHS, and I remember watching it back in the nineties. It was sort of very fast paced, very sort of think hacker style editing type of movie. I saw Freeway one. I never saw Freeway two though. Okay, so it was Freeway two subtitle, confessions of a Trick Baby. And so instead of a modern retelling of the Little Red Riding Hood story, freeway two is a modern retelling of the Hansel and Gretel story

Right on the freeway. We’ll just keep going on the freeway. If you’ll just indulge me, it’ll take me 20 seconds. I’m just going to read you a description of the story of the plot line of freeway, two Confessions of a Trick Baby in this modern update of the Hansel and Gretel fairytale, actually more like Gretel and Gretel. 15-year-old Crystal is a bulimic delinquent. That’s the Natasha Leone who makes her living by beating and robbing potential tricks while awaiting a 25 year prison term. Crystal hooks up with a psychotic young lesbian named Cyclona doing time for slaughtering her entire family after escaping, they head for Mexico, where Cyclona Savior Sister Gomez lives in a confectionery, a confectionary full of children. Along the way, they leave a trail of crack rocks, binging and purging and dead people.

Erika:

What are the chances that Patricia Arquette’s character came from that film?

Ian:

She somehow lived in that world.

Erika:

She just walked off that bus onto the freeway, onto the bike, straight out of that world.

Ian:

I like that. It’s the Matt Brightverse.

Jeff:

Oh God,

Ian:

It’s all the same world.

Jeff:

This is actually really good preliminary information because I think it gives us a bit of a puzzle piece in trying to understand how the heck this movie happened, and one of those puzzle pieces is that at the time, so late nineties, Matthew Bright was seen as both an up and comer, but also someone that was willing to push boundaries. His films were seen as being movies that would say things that others weren’t necessarily brave enough to say or to engage with. That was an important part, I think, of how this script eventually was accepted. Now, it should be noted that in interviews, Matt Bright has stated that he originally wrote the script for tiptoes when he was 18 years old. In that original script, he had designed it to be a sex comedy with little people. The idea was it would be a movie about little people and they would all be having sex with each other. That was kind of the original conceit of tiptoes in the mind of 18-year-old Matthew Bright.

Ian:

Now, I wonder, was it still called Tiptoe or Tiny Tiptoes

Jeff:

That I have no idea.

Nor is there any clarity as to why the movie changed from a century like American Pie with little people and turned into this semi political, semi educational, extremely confusing romcom that we eventually got. Now the movie got picked up and got pushed forward, and people started to sign on relatively quickly. Producer Chris Hanley had told Yahoo Movies famously quote, it was really one of the first movies that approached the subject of little people in the story and one of the biggest movies that involved small actors that’s ever been made. Now that is an interesting comment. I mean, I didn’t realize that Tiptoes had come out before The Wizard of Oz, for example.

Erica, would you say any of that statement is accurate?

Erika:

I don’t know because I don’t know. So I was actually just observed in the film that there were so many little people, actors, and so the statement that it’s one of the first movies that involved small actors seems where are all these actors working, if not in other movies,

Jeff:

Right? Yeah, a lot of them were recognizable. There were little people, actors that I’ve seen in other movies

Ian:

Famously, the little woman who is in Total Recall in the Mutant Bar on Mars, she is a character in tiptoes. That’s someone a lot of people might recognize. So to talk about Wizard of Oz now, there was a movie made in 1981 called Under the Rainbow. It stars Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher, and it’s about the production of Wizard of Oz. There were all these horrible Hollywood myths about how the little people who played the munchkins in Wizard of Oz in real life, they all stayed at a hotel together, and there’s all these horror stories about they would have giant parties and orgies and all this stuff, and they were just out of control, which all these bad stereotypes of just little people gone crazy. But I looked up, I was curious how many little people were cast in Wizard of Oz and I was dead. 124 with people were cast in Wizard of Oz and Under the Rainbow claims to have cast 150 little people. So it could be this little known Chevy taste Goofy from the early eighties, I think has the most, or the record for the most little people actually cast in a Hollywood movie. No one’s ever seen it. No one’s heard about it. So that doesn’t really help the case, but I think technically it has the title.

Jeff:

Yeah, I don’t think there were more than 150 little people in this film. I feel like probably under a hundred…

Ian:

The party scene is the only one where there’s a large number of little people altogether.

Jeff:

Another important part of this film is that it had a significant funder and that significant funder, hilariously was a man by the name of John Langley, who maybe you have not heard of, but you’ve probably heard of his show, which is Cops. Yes, the TV show Cops. Do we want to move forward on this?

Ian:

Well, I just wanted to mention that the reason that Matthew Bright knew John Langley is that he was his mother’s boyfriend’s neighbor.

Jeff:

Now, Erica, if your neighbor knocked on your door and said, I got this great idea, it’s going to be a sex comedy. It’s little people. Will you fund it? What would your answer be?

Erika:

My answer would be, let’s get the GoFundMe going.

Jeff:

This thing’s going to be huge. It’s going to win so many Oscars.

Ian:

Well, part of that hypothetical question would’ve had to been, and also dp you produce the show Cops?

Jeff:

Right?

Ian:

If you produce the show cops and someone comes to your door, it might be a little different,

Jeff:

And the answer was yes.

Erika:

In that case, the answer would be, do I have the demographic for you?

Ian:

Right?

Jeff:

Yeah. You know what? I suppose if you look at it from that perspective, from the perspective of someone who’s made all of their money doing essentially like freak shows, criminal freak shows with cops, maybe I understand now why he didn’t even think twice about this.

Ian:

John Langley said, as long as the theme to the movie is “Tiptoes, Tiptoes, whatcha gonna do?”

Jeff:

We got to have a rap scene in this film!

Ian:

We have to have a variation of the song “Bad Boys” or else I’m Not In.

Jeff:

Now Langley plays an important part in this movie. Number one, there was a dispute on set because John Langley’s wife allegedly did not want Kate Beckett sale wearing this silly hat was demanding that she remove her hat. There was apparently a fight over that, but a more significant fight breaks out after the film is completed. It’s at this point where there is a rupture in the film in which Matthew Bright refuses to work with the movie editor that was hired by Langley. Now eventually the edits will go on without Matthew Bright turning the film into a 90 minute rom-com, which Matthew Bright says is not his original intention was not his vision. This fight then boils over in a semi-famous, urban, legendary kind of way in which the film was premiered at Sundance, and it’s here that Matthew Bright would take the stage and go on a bit of a tirade about Langley allegedly verbally attacking Langley, and then allegedly was forcibly removed from the stage by people that work for Sundance. The movie Festival Bright, however, says that this was not true, that he was not removed from the stage forcibly.

Ian:

I’m guessing that story is a bit of both. Maybe somebody sort of pulled him off the stage and he wouldn’t describe that as being forcibly removed. I’m guessing he did it. He seems like this type of person probably who did it. But…

Jeff:

Yeah, and I think that probably contributing to that is the fact that after this film, Matthew Bright, basically this was the end of his career in Hollywood. Matthew Bright, I believe, has said publicly that he feels that he’s been blacklisted, but he hasn’t gone on to do much else after this. This was kind of the beginning of the end, which is funny because for those of you who have not watched the trailer go and watch the trailer, because this was a movie that I think people clearly believed that this was going to win a ton of Oscars, like the most Oscars. Gary is literally described as this being a role of a lifetime. Everyone believed this, it was going to be a hit. It gets shown at Sundance. The director is yelling about it, and the thing can, it’s just it tanks. The movie does not do well at all.

Erika:

Was the director’s cut shown at Sundance or the edited version?

Jeff:

Only the edited version. So this is the other wrinkle. You are not able to access the director’s cut anywhere. However, there is rumor that Matthew Bright has a director’s cut, would like to release it if a fan movement could start, which that’s just never going to happen, just never. But allegedly, he has sent a copy of the director’s cut to the director of the film Drive who apparently really enjoyed it. So the other thing that we should talk about behind this film before we get into reviews is that a lot of people trying to be generous to this film often will refer to the incredible special effects that allowed for this film to present allegedly, and I’m put in a lot of weight on the word allegedly to produce a realistic image of a little person out of the body of Gary Oldman.

Ian:

Oh boy.

Jeff:

I would love to hear both of your opinions on whether or not you thought the special effects, which I will note…this is early 2000s. We’re not talking pre-CGI 2000s. Were the special effects “incredible” in your opinion?

Ian:

Well, I thought they were incredible. Not that they were good, but incredible that everyone in the crew and everyone on the set was like, yep, that’s good. Let’s just stick Gary Oman in a couch and have some little legs popping out from beside his torso. And yeah,

Erika:

I would say if by incredible you mean not believable. Yes, yes. Incredible. Truly

Ian:

Non-credible effect.

Jeff:

So famously, Gary Oldman is not just on his knees, he also is wearing a prosthetic hump. He is apparently wearing prosthetic makeup on his face, and his arms have been tied behind his back to shorten or make the appearance of his arms being shorter than they actually are, which again, when I rewatched the film with that knowledge, his movements made so much worse sense

Erika:

Watching him without that knowledge, his movements made very little sense.

Jeff:

So we have our own opinions of this film, obviously, and we are probably actually kind of aligned with the critical response on this film. So let’s hear what’s a critical response? Well, as you can imagine right now on Rotten Tomatoes, this film holds a 20%, which is 19% higher than I thought it would be.

Ian:

Two

Jeff:

Roger Moore, probably not the one you’re thinking, Roger Moore famously has written, giving it a one out of five, and said quote “still like road accidents and the films of Uwe Boll, it’s worth a glance as evidence of how a whole lot of people, many of them agents whom one suspects must have been fired after this can get anything so terribly wrong.

Ian:

Most fascinating about this movie is that everyone involved had established Hollywood careers and everybody was like, yeah, this is a good idea. Guys,

Jeff:

The sense of GED is that this is a great example of follower syndrome within Hollywood where once they got the first bit of actor, which I don’t know this to be the case, but I wonder if it was Kate Beckinsale given this whole lucky hat situation. My guess is that it’s like Kate Beckinsale was in, and then McConaughey is like, well, if Beckett Sales is in, then I’m in. And then Gary Oldman is like, well, if McConaughey is in, I’m in.

Ian:

See, I’m wondering if Gary Oldman was like, I’ll only be in it if I can play a little person. I think because he is an actor taking, he likes to take chances or whatever. Maybe this information is out there somewhere. But I have a feeling Gary Open was like, I’ll do it as long as I can be a little person and I have a wear a harness and a hump, and I’m on my knees, and they’re like, okay, you’re a big actor, and that would be interesting, I guess. I don’t know.

Jeff:

There definitely is. There’s an Oscar bait vibe throughout this. I’m feeling this is like Gary Oldman was trying to do My Left Foot, what was happening here, I think, or Lieutenant Dan maybe from Forrest Gump, I think going on here where it’s like, oh, we’ll use the movie Magic to make me into this disabled character and I will touch an authentic piece of the human experience and I’ll make people feel things through Rolfe.

So that’s what the film critics say, but of course, film critics are garbage. The real reviews come to us from user generated content on the internet. So I got a couple here that I want to share with you, get your sense on it. This one comes from Google Reviews. This is from LMT (Common Core Diva). They gave it a two out of five, generous, and they said Matthew McConaughey was an absolute jerk in this movie. I kept watching waiting for the funny parts. After all, Amazon Prime build it as joyful never happened by far and away, Gary Old space Man pulled off a great role. My whole beef is that Hollywood picked yet another way to make special needs children out to be beyond a parent’s ability. This is hardly what I would call a comedy a tragedy. Maybe.

Ian:

That’s a weird review. I mean, it sounds like they didn’t like it at all, but still two out of five. Why not? There’s one out of five at that point. I dunno.

Jeff:

Well, for Gary Old Man pulling off a great role…

Ian:

Gary, Old, Man.

Jeff:

Erica, can you help us understand what do you think they mean by Hollywood 50 at another way to make special needs children out to be beyond a parent’s ability?

Erika:

I mean, that was certainly a dominant plot theme here that this, I mean, Matthew McConaughey, I really appreciate how this review just fully conflates Matthew McConaughey with the character. So Matthew McConaughey…this jerk, this ableist jerk. I mean that is his character’s kind of, is that his family being little people? Is this, I mean, he treats it as a shameful secret, but really when he finally puts it into words without the help of a therapist, because he refuses to see one, his true fear is about the pain and suffering that little people experience, which is represented in very minimal ways elsewhere in the film, except in his imagination, his hyper-masculine imagination.

Jeff:

Yeah. Actually, when I first started reading this, I was like, okay, and then by the end I was like, okay, I think common core diva kind of won me over a little bit.

Ian:

McConaughey does treat the whole thing. It’s like a curse basically, even though he sees his whole family having a great time and they go to the wedding and they’re having fine lives, and you would think also if their child was a little person, what better family for that little person to be a part of than the one where it’s like Matthew McConaughey is the only non little person in it. It’s very odd. He be like, oh, okay. I mean, if they a little person, at least they have this giant family and community of little people that I’m a part of and stuff. Was it their cousin is the leader of the Justice League for little people or something like that? Yeah, I think this kid would’ve been okay with all that support around them. But anyway, he’s just a jerk. Matthew McConaughey is a jerk.

Erika:

What a jerk. Absolute jerk.

Jeff:

He does full blown launches cell phone into the night at one point in a fit of rage for similarly, no reason, but

Erika:

Moments before he invites two young women to join him at a party that he wouldn’t have taken his fiance to.

Jeff:

We have another review from IMDB, this one by Fedor8, which I hope is Fedora enthusiast. The title is, Whoever Dreamt Up This Nonsense Needs Our Help. (I agree.) Certainly one of the most idiotic films ever made a PC message movie that ends up making fun of midgets a dialogue. The situation, the acting, especially back in sale, all move constantly, somewhere between ludicrous and bizarre, sometimes unintentionally funny, not funny when it meant to be, and sometimes just appallingly dumb and even disgusting, like the Marxist dwarf wrenching with Arquette. Yuck.

Erika:

Okay. I feel like this reviewer’s actual beef is just that the movie was attempting to be PC because they clearly are not.

Ian:

They’re dropping the M word, just to make that point clear.

Jeff:

Yes. Yeah. The movie very clearly tells us not to use that phrase, and then he very clearly does. Yep.

Ian:

When he said, what did you say? Wrenching.

Jeff:

Wrenching,

Ian:

Is that a term for coitus?

Jeff:

Believe so.

Erika:

It’s a regional thing. Yeah.

Jeff:

It’s an upper Midwest

Ian:

Pittsburgh because of the steel town they’re wrenching.

Jeff:

I don’t want to tell on myself a little bit here, but I’m going to Peter Dinklage was a snack in this movie. I mean, the accent was terrible, but the hair, the handlebar mustache, he was ripped.

Erika:

The painted nails.

Jeff:

The painted nails. Peter Dinklage, I would say was not disgusting or yuck in this film. Maybe a little greasy, but I would say he was bringing it in this film,

Ian:

And again, that would’ve made more sense for him to be Matthew McConaughey’s brother, the two handsome dudes. It just made, anyway, I was thinking, make him either French or a Marxist. Don’t make him a French Marxist. It’s one too many things

Jeff:

And misogynist, they add that later. That is a stone cold misogynist at the end of the film,

Ian:

Too, right? Yeah. That whole relationship goes absolutely nowhere. It’s completely pointless. But I would still rather watch a movie about those two, like a road trip movie about they should do a sequel, like a soft sequel to this movie with Dinklage and Arquette meeting up again, and

Erika:

They could call it Freeway 3. Yeah.

Ian:

Oh, I like it. I mean, Matthew Bright, if you’re listening,

Jeff:

Make this movie. I did not make the movie Cops, but I will fund Freeway 3 with Patricia Arquette and Peter Dinklage. Our last review comes to us from Joe Masca with the title, just a bad movie, giving This a three out of 10. Again, generous. Joe Masca says, tiptoes is dealing with serious themes using a combination of romantic comedy and melodrama tools, life of dwarves, their relationships with big people, human value behind appearance, prejudice, and pride. All of those are serious subjects, but they get no more than a schematic treatment in tiptoes.

Erika:

Was this written for a first year of film school?

Jeff:

Honestly, it’s either that or it’s chatGPT is now put in reviews on the internet by itself.

Ian:

The prejudice and pride thing is very weird because did they just write it like that so it didn’t sound like the novel?

Jeff:

Right. They were like, we better flip that.

Ian:

Nobody will notice if we say prejudice and pride.

Jeff:

Yeah. I love the concept of life, of dwarves relationship with big people.

Ian:

I dunno for sure. I’m guessing that’s not what little people call regular sized people is the big people.

Jeff:

I hope it is. Erica, what did you learn about their relationship with the big people in this film?

Erika:

Big people are the problem.

Jeff:

Well, one is, yeah.

Erika:

I mean, strangely enough. One was, and then one was trying to redeem one, and then she wasn’t anymore. So it’s just a whole complex, big people melodrama that’s really making life difficult for the rest of us.

Jeff:

Big people were the most volatile in this film, by far.

Ian:

Well, there were some volatile little people at the party, in the party scene, I think as Maurice got a little volatile there,

Jeff:

Right? A little bit.

Ian:

A little bit. The French Marxist, if you don’t remember what he was, he was a French Marist. Marist, yeah. Yeah.

Erika:

It’s because he was bringing the big people energy.

Jeff:

Right. Marx was a big person, as we all

Ian:

Know. Well done the big beard person too. He was, I think, big beard.

Jeff:

Yeah. Yeah. So those are the opinions of the internet. I’d like to hear just sort of some general impressions. Erica, what are your thoughts on the film?

Erika:

I mean, it is not terribly enjoyable to watch. I’ve had worse, I would not voluntarily watch it again, but on second watch, I did think that if you can look past all of the ridiculousness, the fact that a woman gets pregnant, has a baby, gets married, leaves her husband and her roots never grow out, although I do now understand why she was wearing that ridiculous hat. If you can look past those things, the special effects and whatnot, I think there are some redeeming narratives below the surface.

Jeff:

Ian,

Ian:

I think it is more of, like I said, an interesting sort of fascinating movie than it is a movie that you’d want to watch ever more than once ever. It’s not like, again, there are bad movies where there’s, there’s boom mics in the sided, or it’s just badly edited or the sound is bad or something like that. There’s that type of bad, this movie’s well made. For the most part, it’s edited. Well, that kind of stuff is done okay, but it’s just fascinating that, like I said, everyone involved from beginning to end. The fact that it got finished is sort of very interesting. I find that sort of thing fascinating. And then it went like what? 2003? 2003. I found out about it in about 10 or 11 years ago, about 2013. That’s about, I think when I showed you the trailer, I’m pretty sure I showed you the trailer right after I saw the trailer. So we found out about it around the same time. Nobody talked about it for 10 years. So somehow they were able to hide this movie with all these huge stars in it. Most fascinating that these giant stars were in it and that Gary Oman was walking around on his knees like Dorf golf. It is worth watching for the oddity of it all. That’s about it, I’d say.

Jeff:

So you brought me to my conspiracy theory when you asked this about how do they keep this under wraps, and my conspiracy theory is that the reason I could never find copies of this thing for reasonable prices is because Gary Oldman is literally buying every DVD and destroying it.

That is my theory, but it should be noted. I will say, for those of you who don’t know, this film was included in a mail out in Britain, so there was a newspaper in Britain that there was one edition of the newspaper. The newspaper had a different movie every week, and one of the movies that was in the package was tiptoes. So it was shelled off to this newspaper at one point as a promotional giveaway, which is kind of counter to my conspiracy theory that they were literally trying to Nintendo, what was that game? Nintendo do this game or Atari?

Ian:

Atari, yeah, the famously bad ET Atari game,

Jeff:

Which they’ve literally buried in a desert. So there were actually a bunch of copies of this movie, which you can find in Britain. They’re everywhere. I think they use them as coasters in Britain, actually, predominantly. So now there is so much more for us to discuss, but that is the end of this episode of this week. We have a lot more, so if you haven’t watched Tiptoes yet, why don’t you take a second, find one of those coasters in Britain, pop it in your DVD player, take a little look, and we will see you back next week where we will get into the analysis of tiptoes. See you on the other side.

[Outro punk song, “Arguing with Strangers on the Internet” by Mvll Crimes]

I’m arguing with strangers on the internet. Everyone is wrong, I just haven’t told them yet.

Transcript – Part 2

Voice Over:

A walk down the aisle

Rolfe (Oldman):

Steven, he’s a very lucky guy. I just hope he’s smart enough not to screw it up

Voice Over:

Is just a beginning.

Sally (Powers):

They’ll be rough patches. There’s no doubt about it.

Voice Over:

Canal Pictures and Langley Productions proudly present command performances from Kate Beckinsale, Matthew McConaughey, Patricia Arquette, and in the role of a lifetime, Gary Oldman.

[Music intro, “Arguing With Strangers on the Internet” by Mvll Crimes]:

I’m arguing with strangers on the internet not going out today because I’m feeling too upset, argue with strangers on the internet, and I’m winning. I’m winning!!

Jeff:

Welcome back to another week of invalid culture. We are back for part two of tiptoes because one was not enough. As always, I am your host, Jeff, and I am joined again by beloved host. Erika. How are you doing, Erika?

Erika:

Glad to be back.

Jeff:

Oh, that’s good. I’m glad that you’ve accepted the request and we are also joined by special guest Ian. Ian, you survived. How are things?

Ian:

Good. Good. Yeah. I’m also glad to be back. This is fun.

Jeff:

Yeah. Okay, well, without further ado…I’m sorry. Can we please talk about this film? So our movie begins with the introduction of Steven, who is played by Matthew McConaughey. He is a firefighter instructor who is getting into a serious relationship with his bizarrely dressed girlfriend Carol played by Beckinsale. As discussions of starting a family begin, Steven invites Carol into his little family secret. His entire family consists of little people except for him. He actually has a twin brother, Rolfe, who is totally not 11 years older than him and is gainfully employed as a journalist. Steve has been going to annual little people conventions without Carol knowing has hidden his family forever from her. Carol struggles a little bit with the news, but decides to go ahead with the relationship because, well, only Steven seems to have a problem with the fact that his family are little people.

Erika:

May I point out that she is already pregnant when she learns this? This is the reason this seems to be actually the source of the bulk of their relationship tension, is that Steven is deeply unsure about bringing a child into the world, but has not yet revealed to her the reasons for this concern, which is that based on his lived experience with his family, who by all appearances seem to live fabulous lives, he’s deeply concerned that this child will have a horrific life.

Jeff:

Yeah, it actually does come up. In one of their discussions, he’s saying that, oh, they’re going to need all these surgeries, and she asks, did your brother need these surgeries? And he says, thankfully, no. So it actually didn’t even necessarily reflect his own…

Erika:

Family experience, which then I believe the follow-up question is, oh, was he bullied? And he’s like, no, actually he was way cooler than I was in school.

Jeff:

Yeah, he was a stud. He was a stud in school, which of course, it’s a very Oldman.

Ian:

A lot of contradictions there. We have to at least briefly address, we talked about her lucky hat, but Kate Beck in sales wardrobe in this movie, it is a whole other movie by itself. They were very aware that they were in the two thousands and they were a few years in and they’re like, let’s just, even though this is more nineties than two thousands, she looks like she dressed as a different spice girl in every scene she’s in. I think that’s the best way to describe it, is just it’s a lot of hats, a lot of…

Erika:

Oh, we got chokers, we have got millimeters above the butt crack, low-rise pants.

Ian:

The whale tail, I think is involved at one point.

Jeff:

Yeah, there’s bows. Her hair is also different, and the hair budget for this film must have been out of control. Very elaborate hairstyles only on Kate Beckinsale. Matthew McConaughey, Gary Oldman, have the exact same hair for the entire film.

Erika:

Don’t forget…

Ian:

The cornrows.

Jeff:

Yeah. Oh and the cornrows. That also would probably have cost a bit of money unless she just caved that way. It’s possible that Patricia, that was just her hair at the time, possibly

Ian:

Beckinsale gets her special hat and Arquette gets her special cornrows or else they’re out.

Jeff:

That’s the deal.

Ian:

Since she’s an artist, I don’t think we talked to, they live in a big loft in la, downtown la. I’m guessing somehow they make enough money to have live in a giant loft as an artist, a sculpture. I don’t know. Painter’s. A painter. Painter, and a guy who teaches firefighting, which is also a weird thing. Why not just make him a firefighter

Jeff:

And a former Navy man? He was in the military beforehand, apparently.

Ian:

Yeah, obviously there are people who teach firefighting, but why not just make him a firefighter? It seems last week we talked about being French and being a Marxist. Be one, don’t be a firefighter and a teacher, just be a firefighter or just be a teacher. I dunno,

Erika:

They’re allegedly in their prime child making years, which makes him, what, late twenties, maybe early thirties?

Jeff:

Probably even earlier, probably like mid twenties. He was in the military, so five years after. So yeah, he’s probably like mid to late twenties.

Erika:

It’s just that usually people who teach in a profession have had a career in a profession.

Ian:

I wouldn’t want some 25-year-old kid teaching me firefighting. It’s like, I’m your age. Why are you here? Why are you teaching me this?

Jeff:

It’s also really important to note that in the few scenes that we do get of Matthew McConaughey firefighter instruction, he essentially is just the drill sergeant from full metal jacket. Essentially, he is just screaming in their faces. He is fat shaming one of his students.

Ian:

He is a horrible person in every aspect of his life, apparently

Jeff:

He’s a jerk. According to the review,

Ian:

Handsome guys can get away with a lot in life, and he’s a jerk to his students. He’s a jerk to his wife. He’s a jerk to his family. Matthew McConaughey is a jerk.

Jeff:

Just a jerk. Just a jerk. There wasn’t even a script. He actually thought that that was his real life. He was just

Ian:

Be himself. Again, it was another prerequisite Dale hat, our cat cornrows and McConaughey is like, I’m just going to be myself and the character’s going to be like me.

Erika:

I’m tired of acting like such a good guy.

Ian:

All the regular size actors in the movie, these prerequisites that they’re like, I’m not making this movie. Well, except one wanted to be a little person.

Jeff:

Well, then Peter Que was like, can I be interesting? And they’re like, no, you’re French. You’re a Marxist

Ian:

And you drink, was it the cherry morphine? Codeine, right,

Jeff:

Or morphine. It might be morphine. I think it might be morphine,

Ian:

Some painkiller because he did have the surgeries, right? Was that the thing? And

Jeff:

Ulcers, he had ulcers and a hernia, right?

Ian:

Yes. I see. Yeah.

Jeff:

Now, before getting married, Carol, as we’ve said, becomes pregnant and she begins her little person era. She meets Rolfe. Rolfe comes to her house, she meets other little people. She reads books about little people. She learns not to call them midgets, et cetera, after getting married and having a very strange moment in which she opened mouth kisses Steve’s brother Rolfe, after getting married, tensions begin to arise and Steven thinks that a little person’s life can only be composed of pain and suffering. Rolfe meanwhile is struggling with the fact that his girlfriend is sleeping with everyone in Hollywood, and so he decides to move to a cabin in the woods with his little Marxist friend, Maurice and Maurice’s Traveler, hippie Magic Stone wielding life partner, which is of course Patricia Arquette. So this is sort of the middle of the movie, which kind of hangs in a little way. I was not totally sure where this was going after the wedding. I’m like, where is this going?

Ian:

Well, apparently it’s going to the Friday the 13th, part four cabin in the woods, a little side, the same cabin from Friday, 13th part four that Cory Feldman is in that movie. Anyway,

Jeff:

That makes so much sense.

Erika:

I feel like we lost something significant in the edits. What we see is marriage at the altar in the car, husband and wife, post wedding. She says, hang on, I need to do something. She gets out of the car, runs over and kisses her off on the mouth in her wedding dress

Jeff:

And says that she’s an amazing person or something along these lines.

Ian:

So is the implication that she always liked Rolfe instead, and how long is it from when she meets Rolfe to their wedding?

Jeff:

So I can actually fill some of this in because I was paying eagle eyed attention and there actually are some time cues throughout this film. So the way that I understand it, as I understand it, Rolfe enters into the equation right around the point that she’s become pregnant, in which as all women does, she balances her PIs stick on top of her coffee mug away to the results. I’m assuming that’s what everyone does. Okay. So that’s the start of it, which means that we’ve got nine months until baby pops out and they get married before that happens. But she is very pregnant when she gets married. I would put her at probably around the seven month mark, give or take when they eventually get married. When they get married, she’s known Rolfe for about six months. We also know that when Rolfe first enters the equation, Matthew McConaughey is on a week long training out of town.

So Rolfe and Carol have been living together at this apartment for about a week before Matthew McConaughey comes back for the party and have apparently been talking and hanging out, and he took her to meet all of those things according to the way the movie was presented. All of those things happened within about a week’s time from when Matthew McConaughey was away, and then there’s a gap that we don’t know about, and then they get married. They then have the child probably a month or two after the wedding, and then they break up about 11 months after that. Matthew McConaughey says that it’s been under a year that they’ve been going through this and he thinks that it’s better for him to leave.

Erika:

I’d say you’re on, except that baby was not 11 months old.

Jeff:

No, not at all.

Ian:

So she did fall in love with Rolfe though, is that, or was it just the time after the wedding that she fell for Rolfe at the cabin? Yeah,

Jeff:

So this is where I think we have this divergence in the script because I’m thinking that the idea originally was that Beck and Sale and Rolfe were sort of building this relationship together while Matthew McConaughey was off doing this firefighting trainings and such, and that this all culminated the wedding had to go ahead anyways, but she had started to develop feelings for him, but that is not presented in the film at all.

Ian:

It was jarring. It was very jarring how quickly I remember watching it and saying, oh, wait, so they’re together now at the end. I mean, apart from the mouth kiss and him being nice to her, there wasn’t any sort of relationship developed there at all. So yeah, it must be the edit.

Erika:

I mean, they are twins, so essentially they’re the same person. He’s just a little person. So it is almost like one walked out and the other walked in and boom.

Ian:

It might’ve been like she didn’t even realize that it was Rolfe and not her husband. Right, right. Wait, so there’s playing a trick. There’s playing a trick on her.

Erika:

He does have all the sensitivity, calm, attune that his brother lacks.

Ian:

Yeah, I mean they’re alike in every way really looks and demeanor.

Jeff:

And I think there’s this other side story of Rolfe and Sally who is his high school sweetheart. There’s sort of an on again off again, they fight a lot. Weirdly topical. Her boyfriend was from the Gaza Strip, and there is a weird sort of Gaza sub-story in this movie, which Okay, interesting. And

Ian:

Were they trying to, that’s so bizarre. They’re trying to make these weird political statements with the Jewish family and the guy from the strip. Just again, too many things, too many things. That’s a theme here. They’re trying to do too many things with every character with the plot.

Jeff:

So I, what’s happened, I think the idea here was that they were trying to set up that there were these two troubled relationships, that there’s McConaughey and Beckett sale and their relationship is strained because of a disagreement about having the child. And then Rolfe and Sally have this strange relationship because Sally is immature and is a sex addict.

Erika:

Maybe promiscuous. Promiscuous is the word you’re looking for.

Jeff:

Seems to not be able to say no in a lot of ways.

Erika:

I don’t know. I think she’s just hot and getting a lot of offers.

Jeff:

Fair enough. Completely fair enough. So I think that was the idea was both of them are strained, and I wonder if there were scenes where Rolfe and Carol were sort of talking about these problems and that maybe that’s sort of where the relationship starts to form. But all of this is fully imagined because they don’t show us it ever.

Ian:

They show more of the Maurice, or sorry, the Dinklage and Arquette relationship that goes nowhere than they do the one that they should have been showing us, which was the Rolfe and Beck. I’m mixing up the actor’s names, the character’s names, but yes,

Jeff:

So many. And again, this movie is 90 minutes, 99 0. I assume the director’s cut is four hours. So the middle of the movie also features, I think one of my favorite scenes, and this is where I’m going to contest something that Ian said last week about this beautiful web made technically filmed because the middle of this movie features an incredible scene that makes absolutely no sense in which Beck and Sale has a cell phone conversation with McConaughey and McConaughey is shot completely normally, and Beck and Sale is shot with a closeup of her mouth, and she is very breathily talking from Matthew McConaughey about nothing sexual.

Erika:

If there is a need to set the stage, it is a scene perhaps actually taken directly out of Red Shoe Diaries.

Ian:

I was literally going to say Red Shoe diary. Steve is somehow stuck in an episode of that and he’s in tiptoes and she got for a moment transported to early nineties cable erotica moments.

Erika:

But the conversation is not remotely sexy

Jeff:

And Matthew McConaughey is talking completely normally, and Kate Beck and Sale is breathy, very breathy.

Ian:

It would’ve been something if maybe they had made McConaughey somewhat the same way or shot him in the same way, but they didn’t. Not at all completely different. So yeah, maybe that was editing as well, maybe or in the edit something was lost there maybe.

Erika:

But this was the turning point in my rewatch because as I was watching that, I was watching her lips because I was like, there’s no way that she’s saying the audio that we are hearing right now. There’s no way. It is completely illogical what she’s talking about and the sexiness of this scene. So yeah, from there on out, I was watching Eagle eyed, what has been changed, what have been modified, because this is just so clearly a reach on the edit,

Jeff:

And I’ll note that there’s a moment where they pan up to her eyes and then backed out to her mouth again. And her eyes, the facial expression that she’s making is one of concern. She is concerned, which matches the nature of the phone call. In some ways

Erika:

They were probably fretting about having a baby because that was most of what they talked about. I can’t remember. I don’t know if it was in that phone call or I think it must’ve been in that is either in that phone call or just after the phone call that he reminded her it’s not too late to adopt.

Jeff:

Yes. Oh yeah. He was pressing adoption throughout this film throughout

Erika:

Already pregnant

Jeff:

And Beckinsale does make it very clear she’s not some sort of anti-abortion person that was also a broad, she was open to the concept. She just wanted the baby,

Ian:

Which I think is reasonable.

Jeff:

Fair enough, fair enough. So ultimately, obviously as you can imagine, Steven Relent and the Baby is born apparently little at a hospital that is apparently staffed only by little people. This will eventually lead to Steven and Carol breaking up because gosh darn it, Steven just can’t stand to see another little person, and he figures that it is best for the baby to be fatherless. Carol will eventually move into the cabin in the woods with Rolfe and after I think a breakup scene between Steven and Carol, which is all about how they love each other, but also Steven is leaving and tells Rolfe to take care of his son. The movie ultimately culminates with Carol and Rolfe kissing because apparently they are now in love and the credits roll.

Ian:

Very jarring ending. I remember watching it and just thinking as soon as they start kissing and then the credits that that’s it. It’s the beginning and end of the relationship for the audience. Right.

Erika:

Second watch still fully jarring.

Ian:

Knowing it was coming. Oh boy.

Jeff:

Frustrating and abrupt. Okay, so that’s our film. That’s the nature of the film. But I think that we need to talk a little bit here about this edit situation because I have some theories. I think you guys have some theories. So I want to turn first to Erika. Erika, this movie is a mess. Is this movie a mess because of edits or was it always going to be a mess?

Erika:

Alright. I mean, I think it was going to be a sexy mess and it became something entirely other. I’m always here for the generous take. I’ve just got to believe that this was a good movie, that this was, I mean, I believe Peter Dinklage is quoted as saying it was beautiful. I believe he also said it was not problematic that Gary Oldman played a little person. So credibility questioned, but I don’t know. The portrayal of this community of little people just living great lives that is in the background of this strange problematic narrative makes me think that there was something good here and that got written out for Hollywood.

Jeff:

Yeah, I mean there is some compelling evidence that stuff was dropped here. There was, for instance, the fight that, the thing that does it for me is the fight with Peter Dinklage at the party because they start to get into a political conversation about how little people are represented and how the political wing of this little people organization is or is not actually supporting little people.

Ian:

Don’t forget the name of that organization is the Justice League of Little People in the movie. That’s what it’s called, which is odd.

Erika:

So I looked it up and it does not exist, but if you look it up, there is some real political baggage there. I’ll leave it at that.

Jeff:

Yes. Yeah, exactly. There’s that piece of it. It feels to me like there was a subplot here around opioids and people becoming addicted to painkillers because of medical management of DM as a child, but also was never fully dug into or explored in any way meaningfully.

Erika:

I mean, I think that something that didn’t get cut out even that is quite redeeming of the film is there’s a toxic masculinity commentary, right? Because McConaughey is so toxic. His character, what did they call him? A jerk. But he is, he’s just horrible and his twin brother is all that. He’s not. He’s the masculinity without the toxic. And there’s something that, I mean, not to say that that is redeeming, actually, now that I think it out, it’s kind of this impaired masculinity situation, right?

Jeff:

Yeah. The good guy wins, so to speak at the end of the film.

Ian:

I guess the good guy wins…ish. I guess they’re together.

Jeff:

Yeah. So my theory on the part of the edit thing theory is I think that they have flipped the final scenes of the movie. So I think that in the original script, I think that the Kiss actually happens earlier because you will notice that when the weird breakup scene happens, a Matthew McConaughey says to Rolfe, Rolfe take care of my son. Which is a weird thing to say to your twin brother as you’re walking away. And number two, Ralph actually takes Carol’s hand. They’re holding hands as McConaughey walks away after he says, take care of my son. I think that was intended to be the end of the film, that the film was supposed to end a century with this like, oh, it’s all wrapped up. McConaughey is out of the picture, Rolfe is in the picture, everything’s good. And I think for whatever reason, they were like, okay, no, no, no.

We’re going to strip all of the relationship building with Rolfe and Beck and Sale and we will just gesture with the kiss at the end that they’re now starting a relationship for another movie. The devil’s advocate, I think, to this question of was this movie ruined in the edit? And I was thinking a lot about this as I re-watched it is what could have been added to this film to make it better? And I don’t know, with what was provided to us as an audience, I can’t imagine if you added another hour to that film that you could actually save this thing. There are moments in this film that feel like afterschool special. Some of the scenes when they are laying in bed and just idea dumping, they’re just information dumping things about little people feels so afterschool special. So edutainment of a lot of this thing feels very entertainment, and I feel like if we had more film, it would’ve just been more of that.

Ian:

Are you talking about the guy who made confessions of a trick baby?

Jeff:

Maybe. Perhaps Matt Bright was part of the problem.

Ian:

I feel like if this movie had been made in a different alternate universe and had been made today, it could have been a good movie. It would probably be written by little people at the very least, maybe written in directed. It would just be more a real movie. This is not a real movie in a lot of ways because was not made by the people that it’s portraying really.

Erika:

That’s a huge question I have of this film is why, what was the inspiration? Where did this guy who I guess I’m assuming is not a little person,

Ian:

Matthew? No.

Erika:

Matthew Bright. Where did he get the idea to make a film about little people?

Jeff:

Well, as we understand it, his own story, his claim is that he wrote it as an 18-year-old and it was intended to be a sex comedy where it was funny to watch little people have sex.

Erika:

Do you know the one scene in the movie that actually captures that vibe is when the parents meet the dinner, when both sets of parents come together

Jeff:

And they very clearly the trying to drive this, what’s that movie? Who’s coming to dinner? Guess who’s coming to dinner? What was that famous? Yeah, guess who’s coming to dinner? What’s City? Yeah, that’s clearly what they were aping in that scene, and then they subverted our expectation and they were like, no, no, the parents are actually not upset about the little person thing. They’re nervous about the Jewish thing.

Ian:

Great.

Erika:

Aren’t we all.

Jeff:

Aren’t we all…

Ian:

I was going to say, so Matthew Bright, we talked about, so Forbidden Zone, let’s talking about the origins of this movie. So he was in the band Oingo Boingo with Danny Elfman, who famously, yeah, he wrote all the themes for all the Tim Bird movies, Batman, and he did Men in Black and stuff like that. And they did a movie in 1980 or 1979 called Forbidden Zone, and it’s just a very, very weird musical. So Matthew Bright is a bit of a weirdo, so I think he had this idea, this weird idea for a weird movie, little people and their sexual hijinks or whatever. He said it when he was 18, so he is just this 18-year-old weirdo punk in LA something, the underground music scene wanted to make a movie about little people, and I don’t know exactly the timeline. I don’t know how old he was when he made tiptoes, but over the years it clearly evolved into something else. Maybe he talked to people about it. I’d like to know if you talked to actual little people about it and they maybe gave their input about what kind of movie they’d like to see, and I’m sure this was supposed to be a very, very different movie when the genesis of it came to him. I would like to see how it went from weird little person’s sex comedy to what it became. I would like to see the evolution of that thought process, but

Jeff:

Yeah, maybe that’s the movie. Maybe that’s actually the movie is like, how did Matt Bright get from that point? At this point, a very fascinating journey. As listeners of the show know we have a rigorous, perfectly scientific tested way that we rate all of our films, our scale, the invalid culture scale, which as you know, we play a little bit like golf. The lower the score, the better the film. So let’s take a little look. Let’s see, final thoughts here on how we feel about tiptoes and the carnage that this movie has left behind. So let’s get started. On a scale of one to five, with five being the least accurate, how accurately does this film portray disability?

Ian:

I wouldn’t know exactly. I might not have a great insight into this. I’m guessing some of it is accurate because they show all these little people we’ve talked about living great lives, they have some of the best lives of any characters in the movie. I’m going to say three. I can’t say for sure either way, but I’m going to say three on that one.

Erika:

You know what, I was going to go two, but you swayed me. I’m going to go three. I think most of the actual portrayal a little people was good, and I think that the negative view from the non-disabled character was the problem. So yeah, I’ll join you on three.

Jeff:

So I was actually a little bit more generous than you guys. I actually gave this a two. I kind of felt like they actually did a pretty good job of showing a diverse world that the little people were living in. They showed lots of different little people, they had different interests, they had things outside of their disabilities. They also gave us lots of information, and as Erika says, the villain of the movie was the big person that was really the problem that needed to be overcome. So I don’t think this was horrible and I feel terrible saying that. On a scale of one to five, with five being the hardest, how hard was it to get through this film?

Ian:

Okay, so I’m going to give this a four. It was hard just because it is an awkward watch. I’m guessing it would be, I mean, depending on who you’re watching it with, again, it’s not a good movie. I said it was technically sound. There was the one red two diary scene that was technically not great, but apart from that, not a bad movie to get through. It’s just awkward. Again, it always comes back to Gary Oldman’s character. It’s just so silly and it’s just so distracting the whole thing. So it is just like, oh my God, and they’re replacing him with actual little people and they’re going and the legs and the chair and the, I’m going to give that a four. It was hard to get through just because the Gary Oldman character is so distracting and weird.

Erika:

It’s a two for me was honestly, I was dreading the rewatch and then I was actually, I was pretty captivated. So yeah, surprisingly I wouldn’t watch it again, but I wouldn’t say it was hard to watch.

Jeff:

So I gave this one a four and I originally going into this, assumed I was going to give it a five, but Erika on the rewatch, I distinctly remember dreading when I turned it on. I was like, oh geez, here we go. Watching my clock. I literally googled if there was a way to speed to watch faster on Plex, if you could watch it at double speed so I could watch it in 45 minutes instead of 90 minutes, and they just would talk fast, which spoil, alert, alert. I couldn’t figure out how to do that. And before I knew it, I was 60 minutes in and I continued watching it. The rest in one sitting, I was like, wow, this actually wasn’t as hard as I thought. So I said four, I’m actually going to revise it down to a three. I’ve convinced myself this wasn’t the hardest thing to watch, and I think the oddity of it also kind of helps get you through it. It is just so perverse in so many ways that there is, it’s like a car crash you don’t want to watch, but you kind of have to. On a scale of one to five, with five being the maximum, I don’t even know that I have to ask you this. How often did you laugh at things that were not supposed to be funny?

Ian:

Well, I think we’re all going to have the same answer here. That’s a five. That is a five for me. Again, Gary Oldman, the French accents, the kids in the park, throwing the Frisbee with the adults, making out this movie is full of moments of unintentional humor, and for that I maybe should revise how hard was to get through it because that does make it a lot of more fun to watch, watch. But yeah, this is a five,

Erika:

It’s only a four for me, and that’s just because I’m not sure that I ever actually left. It was just WTF factor where I was like, oh my, oh God. Oh, it was, it wasn’t not humor for me per se. It was the laugh where you kind of put your face in your hand and you’re just like, oh, it was more like that.

Ian:

Fair.

Jeff:

Yeah. So I gave this a five as well. I originally gave it a four for the similar reason to Erika that there wasn’t a lot of belly laughs by any means, but I gave them a bonus mark because the things that were supposed to be funny were so not funny that I felt that that needed to be honored in some way. So the absolute abysmal attempt at humor I think gave them an extra bonus, a bonus mark. So I bumped it to a five last, but certainly not least, on a scale of one to five, with five being the most, how many little steps did this film put back the disabled population?

Ian:

How many tiny tiptoe steps? I’m going to say one on this. I don’t think it brought disabled people back at all. The people who are the problem in this movie are the quote big people who made it for one thing, Gary Oldman and essentially black based, all the horrible characters. Matthew McConaughey is a horrible person. Kate Beck and sale, not great, not great, sort of a boring person. The disabled people are the most interesting. It’s not offensive to them in the movie. They do say the M word a few, maybe one too many times, but I think in the end, this film does not bring disabled people back at all. So I’m going to say one on that.

Erika:

My gut said four and I’m just going to run with it. Honestly, I totally agree with what you’re saying. I agree there is some good representation. Honestly, I looked up the criteria of the fries test. I was like, does this film pass the fries test? And I do believe it does, but I don’t think there was any consideration for acting disabled in the fries test, and that’s a massive fail. And so all that star power, and although congratulations to Gary Alman for his efforts successfully bury the film, we still have the stars of the show. The dominant narrative is one of a negative view on disability.

Jeff:

So noted moderate. Jeff Preston comes right in the middle. I give it a 2.5 because I think that one

Ian:

Wait, we can have gradients on it?

Jeff:

It doesn’t actually end up mattering in the end, but I do it to be cheeky. So I gave it a 2.5 because I think one leg was being dragged backwards by Gary Oldman on his knees and the repeated assurances about how much pain and suffering little people experience. I think the audience was definitely intended to kind of sympathize with what’s, say Matthew Broderick, not Matthew Broder. It would never be in this film. I think that the audience was intended to sympathize with Matthew McConaughey a little bit. We were supposed to be a little bit be like, yeah, maybe she should ab report the child. Maybe she shouldn’t have a little person child. I think that that was sort of there, even though at the end we were supposed to be brought forward to it. But yeah, I don’t know that this did a very good job of necessarily arguing on behalf of little people, and so I’m going to give it a 2.5.

Ian:

Lots of differing views on that question. That’s good.

Jeff:

Okay. We have tabulated our scores. Drum roll please, with a score of 38.5, which we will round up to a 39 tiptoes is a crime, may have been committed.

Erika:

I think that is really on brand with the film.

Ian:

Yeah. Again, it always comes back to Gary Oldman. It would be a different experience without him, his character, or without him doing that character. Anyway. That’s the crime. I think actually legally, he committed at least three crimes by doing what he did in this movie.

Jeff:

Yeah, I mean, you always know it’s a good and valid culture movie. If it feels like a human right is being violated,

Ian:

If anything movie has done it, then it’s this one.

Jeff:

Well, that pretty much wraps up our interrogation of Tiptoes. I would say that you should take your own view and take your own opinion, but I can’t in good conscience make that recommendation. But thank you for joining us for another fun episode of Invaled Culture. We will be back next month with a very interesting movie with a very interesting special guest. So we will see you in March. Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

 

[Musical interlude by Mvll Crimes]

 

Jeff:

And thus concludes another episode of Invalid Culture. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed it or not. Do you have a film you would like for us to cover on the pod, or even better? Do you want to be a victim on invalid culture? Head over to our website, invalid culture.com and submit. We would love to hear from you. That’s it for this episode. Catch your next month then. Until then, stay invalid.

[Outro song “Arguing with Strangers on the Internet” by Mvll Crimes]:

Everyone is wrong, I just haven’t told them yet.

 

Cover of the film "My Christmas Guide" featuring characters Trevor, Payton and guidedog Max.

What if seeing puns became a movie?

Anyone can see it is Christmas-time, but will a blind man spot the benefits of using a guide dog? Do you need eyes to be a man and a professor? In our 2023 Christmas special, Jeff and sar peep the recently released Hallmark Channel made-for-television film My Christmas Guide. Join us in gazing into the Christmas vomit abyss that is this romantic (?) holiday thriller woke-a-thon.

Listen at…

Grading the Film

As always, this film is reviewed with scores recorded in four main categories, with 1 being the best and 5 being the worst. Like the game of golf, the lower the score the better.

How accurate is the representation?

Jeff – 2 / 5

sar – 1 / 5

Total – 3 / 10

How difficult was it to watch the movie?

sar – 4 / 5

Jeff – 5 / 5

Total – 9 / 10

How often were things unintentionally funny?

sar – 2.5 / 5

Jeff – 3 / 5

Total – 5.5 / 10

How far back has it put disabled people?

Jeff – 2.5 / 5

sar – 4 / 5

Total – 6.5 / 10

The Verdict

Regrets, I have a few…

Podcast Transcript

Jeff:

Welcome to Invalid Culture, a podcast dedicated to excavating the strangest and most baffling representations of disability in popular culture. Unlike other podcasts that review films you’ve probably heard of, invalid Culture is all about the abyss of pop culture, adjacent media that just never quite broke through because well, they’re just awful. Now let’s dig in to the worst films you’ll wish you never knew existed.

Mvll Crimes [musical interlude]:

I’m arguing with strangers on the internet // not going out today because I’m feeling too upset // I’m arguing with strangers on the and I’m winning…and I’m winning!!

Jeff:

Welcome to a special bonus edition of Invalid Culture. As always, I am your host Jeff and I am joined today by past podcast and new co victim. Sarah, welcome.

sarah:

Hello. Thanks for having me.

Jeff:

Are you excited to be here again?

sarah:

Obviously I haven’t been here since the last Christmas special.

Jeff:

Yeah, we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus, but we thought it’s Christmas time, it’s time for family, and so it was time to bring you back for another moment of torture

sarah:

Time for more terrible Hallmark films vaguely about disability.

Jeff:

Absolutely. That’s the time of the year. It’s the reason for the season, I believe. So this year to ring in the festive season, we were given a present by the Hallmark Channel. Once again, a Hallmark has decided to dip their giant toes and walking sticks into the world of disability and media or film. This time with the 2023 November release of My Christmas Guide. Now from the Box, My Christmas Guide is allegedly a movie about “a college professor who connects with a guide dog trainer after losing his eye sight and a adopting a seeing eye dog.” That’s essentially the high level, but we’re going to dig a lot deeper into this movie. Before we do though, as I said, this is a Hallmark movie, made for TV, is released in November. It was written by Keith Hemstreet. Now he has a very interesting history. He has written a ton of movies in the last year that all appear to be romantic TV shows, things like a Royal Christmas Crush also came out this year and Love in Glacier National also cave out this year, so Keith Hemstreet just banging out the romantic TV movies. It was also directed by Max Mcguire. Max splits their time between Christmas movies, Christmas by Design, Record Breaking Christmas, The Most Colorful Time of Year and murder movies. Other movies he’s done: Abducted on Prom Night, The Good Wife’s Guide to Murder, the Ice Road Killer, et cetera.

sarah:

I want him to combine those two genres. I feel like he would be the guy to do it. I want the Ice Road Christmas killer.

Jeff:

Yeah, I love it. I love it. I thought that was phenomenal. What a career path. Great. Now, unlike most films that we do in this podcast, this film actually features an actually disabled actor playing their own character. Ben Mehl is playing the main character Trevor. Ben is disabled, is blind, and is best known probably for his role as a librarian in Netflix’s show You and he’s noted in an interview that quote, my role on you was my first role where I haven’t had to pretend to be able to see more than I actually can. He went on to talk about this movie in particular, stating that to be able to represent a character who has vision loss while personally having similar experiences attracted me to the role. He says that he hopes that he’s able to raise people’s understanding and awareness of the different experiences of disabled people and wants audiences to always be reminded to be aware of disability. So that’s a little bit about who we have in our main character. Trevor, does that help you understand the movie better at all, Sarah?

sarah:

No, but I really wish that he went for the seeing pun in that based on the script.

Jeff:

Yeah, not to always be aware, but to always see to

sarah:

See disability wherever we go.

Jeff:

Absolutely. Our romantic lead, a female lead is played by Amber Marshall, who is our guide dog trainer. She is from London’s own, I should have said London’s own Amber Marshall from London, Ontario, best known probably for her role as Amy in CBC’s Heartland. So we’ve got some real Canadian media legends

sarah:

Here. That’s something I’ve actually heard of. That’s pretty cool.

Jeff:

And then there’s a third character not in the Love triangle, but critical to the film, which is Trevor’s daughter.

sarah:

Oh, I thought you were going to say Chainsaw.

Jeff:

No. Chainsaw is the most important character to me.

sarah:

He was also surprisingly important to the Love Triangle, though. Don’t sleep on chainsaw.

Jeff:

Don’t sleep on chainsaw, but Chainsaw, unlike Ava Weiss who plays Annie, Chainsaw was not in the film Moonfall, which Ava Weiss was. She is in the terrible possibly amazing film Moonfall.

 

So just off the absolute top, Sarah, just really quickly, how did you feel about this movie?

sarah:

If you excuse all of the really poorly done references to the fact that they’re trying to do an inclusivity film, but through the lens of extreme exclusivity, they were obsessed in every scene with pointing out that the protagonist was blind. He is different guys. By the way, this is an inclusivity film. I was actually much more fascinated by the love triangle angle because I am convinced and we can argue about this, that the true victim of this film was Chad, the heavily gaslit boyfriend. I really feel like he lost a lot in this, and you’re supposed to just go with it because he is a nothing character and I disagree. I’m coming out in defensive Chad here. What did you think,

Jeff:

Jim? Chad? Yeah, I would say honestly, and I apologize to all the Hallmark fans out there, this was probably one of the most boring films I’ve watched for this podcast.

sarah:

It was hard. That was a tough one.

Jeff:

It was so slow and nothing happens. I think it’s the only redeeming quality, thank God. I don’t know if this is cinematographer decision or the director’s decision, but the number of Slowmo glamor shots of the Guide back of

sarah:

Max, yes, was the

Jeff:

Only thing that helped me get through this film.

sarah:

We were counting them at one point.

Jeff:

There were many. That was great. That was great. I have huge, huge love for that, huge love for chainsaw, and while those are our opinions and our sort of overarching views of the film, we are not the only ones who have opinions views about this film. There are of course critics that have written about this film that have analyzed it, have spoken about it, and let’s hear a little bit from them. And so our first critic that I wanted to talk about is Brett White. Now, Brett White wrote a very long thing about this film for Decider. It’s basically a blog that lets you help to understand if you want to watch a movie or not, which I think is actually a pretty clever, I pretty clever conceit. This is what Brett White had to say about his experience with the film. There’s a lot of patient character work that you only realize was character work, right? As the script is making big emotional moves, he goes on to say, interestingly, Trevor feels unlike any hallmark hunk we’ve ever had, primarily because he has a brainy profession and doesn’t exactly brood smolder or flirt with our leading lady. Trevor’s a different kind of leading man, and Ben is fantastic in the part

sarah:

I’m desperately trying not to ask for his background, but I’m thinking definitely Laurier and definitely film studies, and I can say that because I did Laureate film studies. I do like, what did I call her? I called her b-list Santa Stark, the protagonist love interest. She was probably the closest thing to actual talent in the film, but the rest, I don’t know, agree to disagree.

Jeff:

I particularly like this quote because it seems almost like Brett White is kind of calling Ben not attractive, is sort of like he’s

sarah:

Not my type.

Jeff:

He’s smart. He doesn’t brood or smolder or flirt.

sarah:

I needed a positive adjective and the one I went with was smart.

Jeff:

He’s a brainy professional,

sarah:

But even, okay, can we do quick rants?

Jeff:

Yeah,

sarah:

Even the scenes where they let him, okay, so context, they let him be some kind of amalgamation between sessional professor and full professor depending on what room he was standing in. That’s another thing. But if you take for granted that he is a legitimate English professor, every single time he does a scene where he’s supposed to be very bookish and knowledgeable about classical texts, he blows it. It sounds like he just read it the other day and he’s nervously commentating on it, and everyone around him immediately dismisses anything he says about literature to be like, no, your only legitimate character trait is that you’re blind. We don’t care about this book thing.

Jeff:

Yeah, I fully agree. I feel like the one thing I didn’t believe the most is that this man was a professor.

sarah:

Oh yeah. At all. He did no research for that role.

Jeff:

He had the satchel, he had the satchel bag…

sarah:

He did have the satchel, he did the, what’s it called, mock neck turtleneck. He did that a couple times and he attempted to speak in professional situations about literature, which I guess on its face I agree with, but I’ve heard sessionals do a better job than this. Maybe full professor.

Jeff:

Yeah, it sounded like chat GPT writing a professor character. Actually, I think that would probably be better, but yeah, so Brett White, he is a fan. He liked it. It’s a different kind of leading man. He’s not a hunk, he’s not brooding, he’s not smoldering. He doesn’t flirt, but he is fantastic. This was not the opinion however of CGVSLewis on IMDV who gave this a five out of 10 title in their user response quote, A guide dog finds a home for Christmas and a woman boots or obnoxious boyfriend. This is the title of the review.

sarah:

I already disagree, but continue. Yeah.

Jeff:

Okay, so I don’t know what CGVSLewis sounds like, but I assume it sounds a little bit like this: Also, as I keep mentioning, I like my entertainment as entertainment and not social justice causes. I work all day at a hospital as I have for 30 years, and I don’t want to come home turning on my entertainment to be the lecture. Granted, this was a soft lecture, but it still took several opportunities to hit us over the head with the challenges faced by those who are mobility impaired. Guess what? I see it every day at work. A big part of our job is education, and I would like to just be entertained when I come home tired and with sore feet. I did really appreciate the classic literature quotes. That was my favorite part.

sarah:

Where was the classic literature quote? Oh, in his lecture where he started reciting Chaucer from memory or something?

Jeff:

No, you were giving them way too much credit. He had a quote from To Kill a Mockingbird of one kine. He had a quote from Mark Twain and he had a quote from Ellison, which is probably the most not high school English class book, Invisible Man, that they referred to.

sarah:

Oh I’m hoping he was quoting American Psycho. That would’ve been great.

Jeff:

No,

sarah:

That would’ve been a nice Easter egg.

Jeff:

I love the fact that somebody went on a anti woke rant about a Hallmark movie, about a guide dog,

sarah:

The absolute wokeness of mobility impairment.

Jeff:

I also love that part of their job is education, but they don’t know that this would not be defined as a mobility impairment.

sarah:

Yeah, yeah. It checks out actually.

Jeff:

Okay, I’m sorry. I think we need to talk about this film. So let’s take a little wander through the story of my Christmas guide as best as I understand it.

So our movie begins with the introduction of Trevor, a Dickens-obsessed professor of “Classic Literature” in <insert random American town that is totally definitely not St. John’s NFLD>. Losing his vision and wife, no relation, several years ago has left him disoriented. After damaging his face walking into a non-OSHA compliant construction site, there are questions about if Trevor can continue working because there is apparently no way to make a 6-month long sidewalk construction project safe for blind people. One day, while picking up his dog-obsessed daughter from school, local guide dog trainer Payton is out for a stroll and observes Trevor aggressively serving Blind Man™. After staring silently at Trevor from across the street for an entire scene, Payton decides to intrude on this stranger’s life, demanding the school secretary give her dog guide service literature in a clear violation of school stranger danger rules. After some debate about whether or not a dog would make Trevor’s life easier or harder, he eventually relents and begins training to acquire extremely photogenic guide dog, Max. This training largely consists of being guided around town with Payton cosplaying as a harnessed dog and giggling maniacally. What are your thoughts on the beginning of the film, Sarah?

sarah:

That’s almost hard to characterize. I think for the first, at least half of its runtime, I was kind of confused as to what the movie was actually about because I think I was looking for, because when we watched Christmas Evil last year, there’s a fairly robust plot line. There’s this trauma circuit between the brothers and then there’s this B Ark where the brother tries to redeem himself by this Christmas party. There is virtually no blot in this film in comparison to last year’s film. So I kept waiting for the moment of intrigue, but I think upon reflection, the moment of intrigue was actually Peyton forcing herself into Trevor’s world via this kind of weird play at his daughter’s school to get him to adopt a dog because she’s the one who trains the dogs. But then I don’t even know why she knew what school to go to. It stands up until you start thinking about it and then you’re like, wait, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.

Jeff:

Yeah, I think they were leaving the school. I think that’s how she knew that was the school that

sarah:

The daughter went to, and she just shows up with disability information. By the way, in case you’ve only been blind since yesterday, I actually train seeing eye dogs and you can have one. Yeah, I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the setup.

Jeff:

Would you say that Peyton is a crafty capitalist or is she a conniving capitalist?

sarah:

Peyton is garbage, so a capitalist in general from the Marxist,

Peyton definitely coming out in favor of getting more clients for her dog training school, but she’s also spending most of the movie gaslighting the shit out of her boyfriend to think that he’s a terrible boyfriend so that she can break up with him with zero regrets or remorse in order to be with this blind guy that she just met, who I guess she thinks is hot or has a charismatic personality or both of which he actually exhibits neither. So I’m not sure what she’s seeing, but she’s definitely seeing more than what she sees in Chad, and she spends so much of this film and you were with me and I was so mad just telling this guy over and over like, you are no good. I don’t like what you’re doing to me. While he’s trying to be the kind of prototypical supportive boyfriend, they even named him Chad. They did him dirty, but they didn’t even make his villain arc good.

Jeff:

So let’s talk about that. As our story continues to unfold, we discover that Peyton is in a strained relationship with her golf obsessed boyfriend, literally named Chad, who is leaving her for Christmas to go golfing in Florida with his friends and chainsaw. Yes, these are their names. I should clarify here. Chad does not look like the kind of person who would have friends named Thurp and Chainsaw. Chad very much looks like the type of person whose friends would be named like Huston and Beauregard perhaps

sarah:

And Derek.

Jeff:

Yeah, absolutely not. And trades up. No. So as Peyton and Trevor start to work together, sparks begin to fly that even a blind man could see that maybe there is something here. Trevor’s daughter, Annie is now starting to get bullied at school because her dad is blind, but through the miracle potential of Peyton becoming her new mommy, she almost completely ignores a bully. Instead of wandering down the school shooter pathway, Peyton and Trevor continue to get closer with Trevor showing Peyton around the only campus in America where Christmas is clearly winning the war on Christmas. Peyton eventually decides to do a totally normal professional relationship thing and introduces Trevor to her father at a Christmas charity event because Chad has bailed on this commitment in order to golf at the number one golf course in Florida.

sarah:

So one, I think we decided partway through the film that although it seems to be introduced from Peyton’s perspective that Peyton and Chad are in a fairly serious relationship, it starts to kind of erode by the two thirds mark, and it seems to me at least that they’re in a way more casual arrangement than Peyton seems to think from the interactions they’re having. But even then he’s doing stuff like calling her from Florida to check in and ask for permission to stay longer with his friends and stuff, which to me seems like solid boyfriend behavior and she gets off the phone rolling her eyes. I can’t believe he would ask for more time. I can’t believe he’s not coming home to me right away from this trip that has clearly been prearranged for months. I don’t know. I’m back on this.

Jeff:

Sure. I mean, I will say there was the swap out where he implied that he had this big surprise for her and then he brings her outside and the surprise is that he has bought himself golf clubs.

sarah:

Surprise baby. I’m leveling up my golf game.

Jeff:

So I, I think this is the tension that they’re trying to draw out and this is that he keeps on insinuating that something’s coming to her, but it never is. It’s never coming. But I think you’re right in that there does appear to be this clear disconnect between where Chad thinks the relationship is and where Peyton thinks it is, because Peyton thinks it’s like we’re married or we’re about to get married, and Chad is sort of like, I might see you next week maybe

sarah:

Pretty much. Peyton also seems to not respond at all to emotional dialogue cues, which he gives a ton of, and at least among my female friends, we talk a lot about how that’s maybe missing in some relationships. Chad’s got it in spades, even if they’re just casual. He’s got the full social worker routine about how validated does this make you feel, or I’d like to remind you that you’re special to me kind of thing. I don’t think a lot of people have that, and she’s just sitting in the car like, Ugh, insufferable. And I’m like, really? Is it insufferable though?

Jeff:

Meanwhile, we have some really scintillating, some scintillated romance sparking between Peyton and Trevor. I will give this movie credit. They did not do the typical trope of the blind man touching the woman’s face and saying, you are beautiful.

sarah:

I’ve felt sure I was waiting for that.

Jeff:

They did not do that. What they did do instead was have Trevor essentially say, you smell real pretty. There is a scene in which he essentially says, well, I can’t see you, but you smell pretty and then asks if he smells pretty.

sarah:

He actually kind of demands that he complimented.

Jeff:

And I’d like to know how many of your relationships Sarah have started with an exchange of smell description?

sarah:

You know what? I think many of my past relationships have actually started on the seeing description how drop dead gorgeous I am. That is a joke. So maybe the joke is because he can’t see, hey, he’s got to start with smell, but he has taken that way too seriously. It gets a bit weird.

Jeff:

And I also wonder, I mean that the implication is that she has a lovely perfume or something that she’s wearing. I would’ve given this way more credit if she had been eating smart food before they met and she smelled like smart food. That is an appealing smell. I would That’s true. If you smell I smelled like smart food, I might ask to be out on a date. That’s true.

sarah:

If you follow it up with offering that smart food to me, yeah, I’d go places with you no problem if

Jeff:

You’ll share the smart food.

sarah:

Exactly. That’s fair enough. I’m getting right in the car.

Jeff:

That’s actually the surprise maybe that Chad had for the end of the film of family sized bag of smart food, perhaps.

sarah:

Perhaps.

Jeff:

Perhaps. Yeah. So we move forward in our film. We’re finally at the end. Chad has now returned from his golf trip only to discover that his girlfriend is spending literally every moment of her life with this clumsy blind man that she had lured off the street confronting Trevor Chad assures Trevor that Peyton is just not that into him. This is just how she is with all the blind people, so he shouldn’t get the wrong idea. Trevor, of course, has a masculine identity crisis and after being forced to go on leave because the school cannot figure out how to make this construction site accessible despite Max clearly having a guide dog that can navigate it has to go on leave. This is the final straw for Trevor whose big sad boy energy results and giving up on everything going home to sulk and returns the dog that he has been living with for weeks.

This tension is almost immediately resolved when a recording of Chad and Trevor’s conversation is revealed to have been captured on the guide dog business security camp. So Peyton dumps Chad runs to Trevor’s arms and assures him that he is a real man and definitely like a professor, even though he is blind, Trevor’s child now, a young offender after assaulted her bully in the cafeteria with a cupcake, is excited for Christmas and spends the final scene watching her dad make it out with new mommy on Christmas Day, which I think makes this film a prequel to Christmas evil.

sarah:

That was a bit of a wild crossover right at the end.

Jeff:

I did not plan this to be essentially a two part that was beautiful. This is evil, but it worked out perfectly. So there’s two things I want to talk about in this part of the film. So thing number one that I want to address. What are your thoughts about the fact that the university forces Trevor to go on a two-term leave because they cannot make this construction site accessible?

sarah:

I actually thought that this is one of the more realistic moments of this otherwise relentlessly unrealistic film because if you do believe and it flip flops throughout the whole film, but if he is a sessional instructor, he would absolutely lose those terms if somebody else could make their lives easier and replace him. So that is completely believable. And in that instance, if he’s been working term to term as a sessional, he probably would have to return the guide dog. And this is an argument I made to you before because all the upkeep costs associated with the CNIB and dog raising and dog training and paying off the dog as well as just all the costs associated with keeping the dog alive, IE vet bills and food and whatever else, he probably legit can’t afford the dog if he loses his sessional contracts. So that was, I don’t think they meant for it in any way to be that realistic. I think it was just a convenient plot point. But from a labor studies perspective, that was probably the most interesting part of the film.

Jeff:

So I had a similar take, but maybe a little hotter than yours. I think on the one hand, I don’t think he’s a sessional because he does have an enormous office and it has a fireplace. It does. Which his office is actually bigger than his chair who is in a cubicle farm for some reason. He does. So he has an enormous office to himself that has multiple Christmas trees. His boss chair, I would assume maybe a dean is in UNC cubicle somewhere on campus. But on the one hand, it’s obviously completely absurd this notion that the solution to, I mean, there’s been a lot of construction in my life and I’ve never been told, well, you can’t come to work. We don’t know how to make it safe for you. There’s a absurdity to it, but at the same time there is this unintentional kind of nailed it where not even just universities, but I think a lot of organizations, it’s exactly the type of baffling response to inaccessibility that rings actually weirdly true.

sarah:

Right. I was going to challenge you on that. Do you really not believe no one responds

Jeff:

Exactly. No one responds to inaccessible situations in a rational way. The responses tend to be really irrational and bizarre, and so in that way, this is actually maybe a really accurate representation that maybe there is actually a bit of reality to be like, yeah, I actually could see an institution being like, well, I don’t know what to do, so we’ll just pay you to not be here.

sarah:

I thought it was totally realistic. Do you remember what happened a couple years ago at u Guelph where the elevator stopped working? So they emailed all the students in wheelchairs and they were like, yeah, take online classes. We’re not fixing the elevator quickly, don’t come. And all the students were like, that’s completely unreasonable. And they didn’t fix it until they got roasted in the news for it.

Jeff:

Yeah. And so think in that way, it seems absurd, but it actually is maybe not completely out of the world. I will say it does seem like an overreaction given the scale of the problem. All we’ve seen of this construction is it appears they’re replacing sidewalk like pieces. This is not a major construction project by any means, and it feels like just a little bit of fencing is all it would take to make this accessible. But I digress.

sarah:

I would also argue that you are at an institution that has a disability studies department, so perhaps it’s easier for me to believe as being from an institution that actively hates disability, that we would fire those people instead of accommodating for them because we would never get a department like disability studies.

Jeff:

So this is the other question I have because they are really, really vague on their wording on what happens here because the way it’s framed in the film is that he just won’t be teaching for the winter term and the summer term that he’ll be taking two terms off and that decision is made and then five students write a letter to the boss and the boss changes his mind.

sarah:

Yeah, I forgot about that.

Jeff:

And reinstates, and so it doesn’t sound like they were necessarily firing him. It’s like he was going on leave. That’s sort of how they kept framing it, is that he had

sarah:

…and the students have a little solidarity protest about it.

Jeff:

Five of them, yes. I just want to put out only five of his students were willing to write a letter to say, you shouldn’t ban him from campus. Correct. Which seems like a low number, a really low number

sarah:

For an English prof. I don’t know. That also kind of rings accurate to me.

Jeff:

Yeah, I mean when they did do this shots of the students, there did only appear to be eight students in his class. Exactly.

sarah:

So five out of eight is actually great.

Jeff:

I also though don’t imagine many universities would do anything if five students wrote them. I think there’s a lot of universities that wouldn’t respond to a hundred students writing to them necessarily. So yes, there was though obviously that scene also killed me because clearly they were trying to do this whole sort of dead poet society like, oh, captain, my captain kind of thing, where they have the students marching into the office, but they didn’t have the budget to hire a lot of people. And so they’re like, well, we’ll have three people and one of them will hand in multiple letters and that’ll be our big protest maneuver. Then all the viewers will get their uplifting, all the students care about him. I felt really underdeveloped, I would say.

sarah:

I think the whole film felt a little underdeveloped. So in that sense, I’m with you. Fair enough.

Jeff:

Fair enough. So I think what we’re moving toward then is there are some tropes here in this film, some pretty well worn others, maybe not quite, but I thought we should probably talk a little bit about some of these tropes. So the first trope that I wanted to talk about is the requisite scene at the beginning of the film in which Trevor has to explain his disability because you Yeah, you

sarah:

Got to wonder why they went for the medicalization angle for something like blindness, because I think it’s fairly culturally accepted that there are some people who can’t see, and that’s kind of all the explanation you need.

Jeff:

They don’t into a surprising amount of detail.

sarah:

I want to see retina scans. I want to see exactly how much Trevor can’t see.

Jeff:

Give me the exact, why don’t you give us the camera view to show us stats, what he’s not able to see. Yeah. This felt weird and it felt weird in particular because of how much time the movie spends reminding us and showing us. If you cannot see

sarah:

From, he wears these ridiculous glasses just as a visual of, remember Trevor is blind,

Jeff:

Giant blackout, wraparound glasses, awful. Got the walking stick, always rocking the eye dog. Eventually he is surrounded by icons of blindness, and yet there needed to be this moment where he sits down for a very serious conversation to tell Peyton all about his medical history.

sarah:

Yeah, Peyton, somebody he literally just met.

Jeff:

Yes, but she smells good. So she does. She’ll understand

sarah:

Marker of trust.

Jeff:

Yes, yes. I’ve always wondered what would happen in my life if every time I met someone, 10, 15 minutes into the conversation, I started reading them out my medical chart and was like, alright before. And they’re like, this is a Starbucks, just make your order, please. And I’m like, no, you need to know about my formal muscular dystrophy.

sarah:

Pardon? It is

Jeff:

The big one.

sarah:

Exactly. The big one. We’re bringing that back.

Jeff:

Yeah. So I wonder, I feel like people would just tolerate it, but I don’t think it would make friends.

sarah:

No, I think people would uncomfortably wait for you to come to a complete stop and then they’d take a right hand turn.

Jeff:

They would no doubt of the relationship probably pretty quickly.

sarah:

Pretty quickly.

Jeff:

What I would love to see from a Hallmark movie is for them to just apply this as a standard for all characters, whether or not they actually have. So it’s like every character is introduced and then they’re like, you just need to know that I actually have dandruff and have my entire life, and I fought it and I was bullied for it. And it’s a thing that my scalp is so dry, medically dry,

sarah:

I’m the love interest and I have adult onset asthma and I’m going to relay for you the factors which make my life more difficult.

Jeff:

Yeah. I’m not really good at sleeping. My security rhythms are really off. Correct. And so I’m actually often really tired. And it’s a medical condition though.

sarah:

Correct. And the blind guys, are you trying to do an oppression Olympics here? I don’t give a shit.

Jeff:

You can take your C Pap machine and stuff it

sarah:

Chill out, buddy. At least you can see it.

Jeff:

Right. So that actually is a great segue to the second trope that I wanted to talk about. This movie spends a lot of time making puns around the word seeing exhausting and sight constantly. Everyone can see, obviously you can see if only they could see why was this intentional or was this Freudian?

sarah:

It had to have been because sometimes you can almost see the actors looking off screen or looking toward camera one or two. Did you get that?

Jeff:

I really wondered how in it, there were so many of them that at times I feel like this was just how the people wrote the script. This is just how they talk with this sort of idea of site being equivalent to knowledge that you must seem to understand. But then there were other times where they very clearly were leaning into it and trying to make this pun. Yes, but it was overwhelming at times. Yes.

sarah:

The equivocation of blindness and ignorance made this film really uninclusive for me. Not only because of how hard they went on it, but also how hard they went on his visual as his defining character trait is that he is blind. And if you know anything else about him, that’s just a bonus, which feels to me extremely uninclusive for an inclusivity film about, look at Trevor, he’s just like us. He has romance problems like us. He has to walk around traffic and construction like us. It just all rang really hollow when you add in all of those, I don’t know Tropey signals about, but remember he’s blind.

Jeff:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I don’t fully understand why they felt they had to keep reminding us. And it may be because this is a made for TV movie. It’s clearly designed to sit within commercial breaks. So people are kind of coming in and coming out at any moment. And I’ll say, and I don’t know if this is a, I compliment to the film, but you could pretty much start watching this movie at any point in the movie and you would have all the information you need to understand what’s about to happen.

sarah:

It’s like friends, it doesn’t matter where you start.

Jeff:

No. You just jump in wherever and you’re like, okay, well this guy’s clearly blind there. People are mentioning it, obviously they clearly have something going on. Oh, her boyfriend’s name, Chad. So he must be bad. Yeah. Okay. So I think that there may be that element here happening where the form is requiring it, but I think that’s a very generous assumption and I don’t think that that’s probably what’s going on.

sarah:

I think that speaks more to how little plot there was. It was bizarrely simplistic even for a Hallmark film.

Jeff:

Yeah. Well, I think it’s important to remember the writer and the director of this film made by 18 movies this year. So I assume they probably wrote the thing in four days, maybe

sarah:

Four hours,

Jeff:

Maybe.

sarah:

Maybe filmed in four days across Cobourg all the way to St. John’s.

Jeff:

Yeah, yeah,

sarah:

Yeah.

Jeff:

The other trope that I noticed that really stood out to me in this film was the bully. So Trevor’s daughter, Annie is being tormented a boy at school who is constantly doing a pantomime of her father. So he is constantly walking around with his eyes closed, being like, I’m blind, look at me and walking into stuff or touching stuff, and Annie’s getting angrier and angrier. Eventually Annie will decide to smash a cupcake in his face. Annie is then suspended, expelled, punished for suspended, suspended for violence on school campus. Again, I think accurate and brave of Hallmark to stand up on the anti-retaliation things that happened in school. And then eventually she will save the bully because as we learned in Star Wars, there’s always a bigger fish and there’s an even bigger bully who is picking on her bully. But this bully wets the bed, I don’t know how Andy knows this, but this boy who clearly experienced trauma as a child and is now bedwetting as an older child, gets called out embarrassed. He runs off and the blind bully is now your dad’s pretty cool actually, and everything’s resolved. Sarah, why do you think whenever we have a disabled character, there is always a need for a bully to be harassing this person or their family?

sarah:

Okay, so I’ve only been thinking about this for 10 seconds, but this is my conspiracy theory for why there is a hyped up bully character. I think, and this doesn’t work if you do it with Christmas Eve, but I think it’s the exception that proves the rule. I think a lot of these movies, especially as they get worse, like Harley Quinn or Beautiful Mind or Silver Linings Playbook, they put in these really simplistic bully characters to stand in for years and years or maybe even decades of accumulated kind of ableist trauma stems or all of these side comments that people made over the years that you could kind of take generously or maybe they didn’t mean it like that kind of thing. And over time, that starts to become its own kind of subra within you as to how people are being seen you. So if you take that as, or the bully as a stand-in for all of those collective years of trauma that you accumulate from these little microaggressions or maybe major aggressions both, it is a really silly way of representing all of that in one shitty character that takes up way less script time, way less film time to get the same kind of trauma across.

But if you don’t understand how all of those microaggressions can pile up into one big bully, I think that nuance is lost on you. And I think in this case, I don’t know if I would give the hallmark screenwriter credit for that’s what he was doing, but I think it could have been, I think I might come out for an at bat for him trying to represent trauma in a quick and dirty fashion.

Jeff:

Yeah. I struggle with this a lot because to have no bullies would be to imply that there isn’t, that people are all treated great all the time and that we never bring up disability, which is not obviously accurate to say when people get bullied just like anybody else, obviously.

sarah:

Absolutely.

Jeff:

So I don’t think it’s an answer of we should never do this, but I also though struggle with it often feels like there’s this quiet appeal in these characters that the viewer is to learn this lesson, to learn the lesson, to number one, to not be that person. So don’t be the bully, which is probably a good lesson. But then I worry that even more so there’s this story being told around the need to defend disabled people, that the world is hostile toward them and that your job as a strong able-bodied person is to stand up for the weaker in able disabled character who’s going to fall prey to this. Correct.

sarah:

And cannot, cannot possibly defend themselves.

Jeff:

Yeah. Trevor never,

sarah:

Even in the film, Trevor didn’t defend himself. It was his daughter that came out of defense of him, which I think he may have been, that would’ve been an honor fight at that point. But I think even more so there’s a kind of irony to that argument because the film itself, as in the screenplay, spends a ton of time bullying Trevor through all the seeing tons and how he’s walking down the street and he always looks a bit doe-ish and the constant visual similes for blindness and ignorance. The film itself is bullying him in the absolute, and we’re supposed to look at that bully and be like, and that’s why we can never be ableist and it doesn’t work. It rings hollow because the writers themselves are clearly wildly ableist about how blindness operates in society.

Jeff:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it’s also that same, how many times have we seen the story that the way to fix a bully is to help a bully? And I’ve always found this really complexing to me. If I think back to my time in elementary school, I genuinely do not think that if I had helped the people that were bullying me, I do not think they would’ve stopped bullying me because that’s not how bullying works. It’s not like a social credit system where, well, I will pay you $10 and now you’ll stop bullying me. It doesn’t work like that because at the root of it, there’s a power thing going on here, but there’s also a whole internal thing going on here with the individual. And so then what I’m watching this scene, and he, number one, she basically PTSD shames this boy who’s wetted his bed even though he’s much too old to wet his bed, which is pretty obviously, I would say aside that he probably has experienced in things in his life. So she bullies an older guy, and I wonder the type of dude who’s going to pantomime blindness to mock a girl whose father is blind. I don’t think that he is going to react with thanks to her intervention. I feel like

sarah:

I learned my lesson. Yeah.

Jeff:

I feel like he’s going to be, the worst thing that could happen to him is that he’s being saved by the person that he is ridiculing constantly. I don’t think that’s how you overturn that power dynamic. So it seems like such a weird liberal dream that, well, if we just help each other, we can all build forms of community and that’s the high road. Which isn’t to say that you should also slam cupcakes in people’s faces either. I also don’t think that that’s how you resolve bullying, but

sarah:

I feel like we can almost picture the writer’s room conversation, and I think you hit the nail on the head with calling it liberal fantasy writing where they’re in the room and they go, okay, how do we humanize this bully to show that problems are relative and everybody has their own shit they’re going through and somebody calls out, what if we give him some very obvious trauma symptoms like late stage bedwetting. So now you’re introducing this whole subplot that you can choose to take interest in who is abusing this 12 or 15-year-old boy and why isn’t anyone reporting this? So instead you just get the daughter like, Hey man, that’s really not cool, and I’m going to mock your trauma coping systems because you make really shitty blind jokes in the lunchroom, and if you take it at face value, sure. You get the relativism argument of even people who are mean have their own shit going on.

And it’s possible that everybody is suffering in many of the same ways you are, even if you’re not visibly disabled. But now you’re introducing kind of layers of trauma and deity or long-term illness through this bully character that the movie doesn’t have a hope of framing correctly. They can’t even frame simpler disorders correctly. So this bully character becomes really problematic in a film theory sense because you don’t get his story rectified. Nobody attempts to actually help him because they’ve already deemed him an antagonist character and we get no resolution as to what happens to him. So it’s disappointing.

Jeff:

We’re almost supposed to laugh at the big bully who pees the bed, who also I guess could be defined as disabled, like leafy body disabled anyways by unable to control bodily function. So it’s like, ha, that guy suffered a trauma. Let’s laugh and mock him. But also we are not to be mocking the blind character that is off limits.

sarah:

Correct.

Jeff:

Yeah. Now we’re such an interesting example, unintentionally I think of the way that disabled population, the disabled community is segmented off from itself. And so you have people talking about, well, we need to do better by blind people in this movie. And then they’re like, but also we’re going to just throw under the bus this other type of disability that somebody’s experiencing.

sarah:

Well, it kind of reflects the ongoing conversation even within CDS of disclosed and undisclosed disabilities because disclosed are the ones, if I’m being incredibly reductive, getting all the love right now, everybody wants to include the disclosed disabilities, the more obvious ones, the ones where there’s no moral argument that they did it to themselves or et cetera. Not as willing to include people with terminal illness, mental illness, kind of long-term, undisclosed disabilities or disabilities, we can’t quite as readily understand as blindness. And that can maybe be typified through the bully character who has some obvious traumas and isn’t accepted the same way as the guy with the easily recognizable, easy to diagnose relatively unthreatening disclosed disability.

Jeff:

Yeah, definitely. Now the last trope that I want to talk about comes to us toward the end of the film. So this is after sort of the major breakdown. Trevor is having this masculine identity crisis. He doesn’t think he’s a real man, he doesn’t think he’s a real professor. And we get this very bizarro scene in which Trevor goes and stands behind the lectern and asks Peyton if he looks like a professor. And he discloses that ever since he became blind, he does not think that people will see him as a professor anymore. Again, seeing him as a professor and that he will not look like a professor. Unfortunately, he does have an app that will tell him the color of his suit, but the app, if he puts it on himself,

Will not say professor, unfortunately. And this also ultimately culminates at the end of the film in which Peyton goes and gives an impassioned speech, which convinces Trevor that despite his disability, he is a real man and he is a real professor, and this is sort of what he overcomes his insecurities and will take back his job and will create presumably a mass murderer in his daughter as he starts to make out with Peyton in front of her. So we have this trope often in film in which it is the role of the non-disabled character to come in and to convince the disabled character that they’re not that disabled after all. That may be the only disability and life as a bad attitude. And this movie leaned into it heavily.

sarah:

So I have continuing my completely unrealistic film analysis of this piece of shit film. I think there’s a really interesting connection here, and you can take it in multiple directions, especially if you’re a better scholar than me between, and I’m doing this on the spot, so correct me if I’m wrong, masculine hyper ability. So him at the lectern being this amazing prodigal totally deserving professor character who can do no wrong, all the tropes that we established with cis white male academics who historically have been put up on these Greek like pedestals with the rampant academic notion that we just cannot seem to erase. And it actually goes back to what we were saying about the film bullying him itself, all of that, his narrative of masculine hyper ability and how he doesn’t believe that he could do that. Well, blind relies on the audience presumption that you thought until this moment that blindness equals ignorance.

Like you entered the film this way and nothing we have done so far persuades you otherwise. So then the end of the film when what’s her face, Peyton is correcting him. Like, no, I think that more people than just cis white males could succeed in the academy. And it’s possible that academics don’t just look like that he does really even seem to believe it. Then it’s a really stilted kind of, oh, well, maybe agreement that speaks more to the masculine ability narrative continuing to ring true, and he can be able, despite his disability. And the word despite is coming from this ignorance narrative that you assume everyone in the room has, which anyone in Disability Gang would be immediately offended by. Why are you taking it as a given that that’s what I think that’s my five seconds of film theory about the end of that film.

Jeff:

No. So you’ve totally tapped into something that I really have wanted to talk about with this film. Yeah. Because to add another log onto the Beautiful fire, or maybe it’s a fire that you’ve built here. Excellent. Is that the movie also? It absolutely draws your eyes to the fact that his blindness is a recent development. The implication being he was not blind when he became this hyper-masculine failure of strength and knowledge that the blindness came after, and that it is now a threat to

His current standing, despite the fact that we do get a scene of him listening to, I believe it was a Christmas Carol and might’ve been, or was it one of Dick Dick’s novel? He’s listening to an audio book of a Dickens novel while he’s holding the book, and they ask him, why are you holding the book? You’re listening to it. And he is like, oh, how it feels. Okay, chill out, bro. Anyways, oh, and so anyway, it’s interesting that the movie is both trying to say, of course you’re still a professor even though you’re blind. But the movie itself had to backfill this story and say, oh, but he was a prophet before he became blind. So he did it before disability hit.

sarah:

Yeah. So you’re saying it kind of negates the narrative that he could have even become a professor if he wasn’t blind or if he was blind, he wouldn’t have made it.

Jeff:

Who knows? Maybe it’s like, did they need to put that in there because they felt that the audience wouldn’t believe it, that a blind man could be this professor? So they had to add that in, and I don’t know which is worse. Did they need it to be this lost narrative? He lost his wife, he lost his sight. They were allegedly not connected, but that he’s experienced these tremendous losses that Peyton and to a lesser extent, max, the dog will now fill that there’s this void that needs to be filled. And one of those voids is his relationship with his daughter, which is strange since the end of the marriage. And the other void is his masculinity. He’s lost his masculinity because he lost his wife and he lost his sight. He’s been castrated and that only a woman being reeded to his life. Can he regain that? And once he’s regained it, what does he get back his job? He’s now allowed to be a pro again because the students and the girl have come together, and now he’s a whole man again, even though he’s still has flaws,

sarah:

Count on Jeff to do a psychoanalytic reading of literally any film he has given.

Jeff:

I’m just saying maybe the walking stick is a penis.

sarah:

Do you thank Deleuze and Guattari directly for that, or does that go in the work cited?

Jeff:

I think that was a Lacan. I think that was more of a Lacanian take.

sarah:

Yeah, I think that’s sort of a Lacan. Well shut out, Jacques Lacan.

Jeff:

I think that Lahan hated this film because,

sarah:

Well, according to your reading, he would’ve loved it.

Jeff:

I’m not saying he wouldn’t have been titillated by it. Oh yeah. I just don’t think he would’ve liked it.

sarah:

Jacques Lacan on masculine hyper ability seen through the body.

Jeff:

Yes,

Mvll Crimes:

Exactly.

Jeff:

So as always, invalid culture is of course a completely rigorous and scientific endeavor, and we have developed a completely scientific way of measuring the quality of films. It is of course our invalid culture rating scale.

sarah:

Correct.

Jeff:

We are going to go through our questions here and see where this film lands on the invalid culture scale. As always, we are playing by golf rules, which means the lower the score the better. So let’s get this started. On a scale of one to five, with five being the least, how accurate does this film portray disability?

sarah:

Are we talking about just whether or not the protagonist was accurately blind one? Yeah.

Jeff:

Did it do a good job of presenting blindness or was it way out in the stratosphere about what blindness is?

sarah:

Well, I think you said the actor was actually blind. Right. So what…

Jeff:

Actor was, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they did a good job of it.

sarah:

No, I think the film was actively mocking him, but in terms of the portrayal of the protagonist being blind, I have to give that a one.

Jeff:

Yeah. I am going to give this a 2.5 is my view on it. I understand that he was fairly new to his blindness, but it also just felt really odd to me that he didn’t seem to understand how to be blind, nor was he actually actively trying to find ways to be blind. I found it odd that all of the solutions to his problems were externally generated, but also he was never animating the finding of solutions. He was always just kind of standing there being like, wow, I’m just going to have to keep running into posts. The beginning of the movie starts with him giving this sort of human rights rant about the legal code against the construction site and being like, there’s not obstructional ball. And you’re like, oh, okay. He’s like an advocate, but then routinely throughout the movie, he just gets completely blown over by everybody and everything, and so I’m like, I don’t know. Yeah, he’s new to it, but that felt a little bit, yeah. So I’m going to revise it. I’m going to give it a two, two out of five.

sarah:

Yeah, I feel you. I think that’s a good consideration to keep in mind.

Jeff:

On a scale of one to five, with five being the hardest, how hard was it to get through this film?

sarah:

Oh, wow. Four. The pacing kills this. This could have been a short film, like 25, 30 minutes, and you would’ve lost nothing.

Jeff:

Yeah, I gave this a five. I feel like this was one of the harder ones to get through. It had both so much and so little like all at once. There were lots of little side plots, the bully side plot, the construction side plot, that learning how to train a guide dog side plot, whether or not he would have a dog. His divorce, the Chad side plot, there was so much going on, but yet it also felt like nothing happened in this film. And that’s, I think never a good sign.

sarah:

What if it was the Banality of Day-to-Day life and how we choose to invest or divest in different parts of ourselves, and he went full hundred percent investment in Peyton and Blindness at the expense of literally everything.

Jeff:

His job. That’s actually why they let him go. Had nothing to do with the construction. They were just like, he is obsessed with his dog trainer. We think there’s a lawsuit coming. We have to get this guy off campus.

sarah:

You haven’t been to work in a week. That’s why we’re letting you go. It’s not the blind thing, and he walks away. It was definitely the blind thing.

Jeff:

Definitely the blind thing. On a scale of one to five, with five being the maximum, how often did you laugh at things that were not intended to be funny?

sarah:

Not as much as Christmas Evil, unfortunately. I would say 2.5. There were some funny moments, but a lot of it was just so dull.

Jeff:

Yeah, I would say I gave this a three. There were a few times where I was chuckling. I mean, I was laughing a lot at just the sheer volume of Christmas. I understand that this is Hallmark, and this is their method. Every scene will be the vomit of Christmas. But there is something legitimately hilarious about seeing a professor’s office in a university in America that is covered in Christmas. Trees is funny. That is funny. And also the dean or chair had literal wrapped gifts on his table. Love that. Literally, what a flex. Bring

sarah:

Back the spirit of Christmas.

Jeff:

Yeah, love it. So I leave it a three, but I agree with you largely this was not as entertaining as I would’ve enjoyed.

sarah:

Amen.

Jeff:

So then last but certainly not least, on a scale of one to five, with five being the most, how many steps back has this film put Disabled people?

sarah:

I think in terms of disclosed disability or disabilities that you can see and readily apprehend and interact with and are fairly obvious to the casual viewer, it does a pretty okay job with OSHA violations and some standard troubles that come with heart of sight. I think in retrospect, only because of the conversation we had today, this film really does undisclosed disability dirty. So for every point that I can award it for being super woke to an extent about some of the hardships of blindness, it felt like it was being reported to me by a 12-year-old girl who had recently read the A ODA, which I’m not saying there’s a problem with, but if the screenplay writer is above the age of 12 years old, I am expecting a little bit more depth. Right. You said golf score.

Jeff:

Yeah. High is bad. One is good. That’s a lot of steps back.

sarah:

That’s a lot. That’s quite a few steps back.

Jeff:

Quite a few steps back. I was more generous on this film. I gave it a two in the sense that I think, as you said, I don’t think they did a ton of harm per se. There was nothing that really sort of stood out. I do take rock off, I think for this repetitive masculine disability wrap up, this insistence that if you’re male and disabled, that you inevitably are going to have these weird hangups about your power proficiency, sexuality, whatever. But I also don’t think that that’s the most egregious of sins, so I’m going to give it a 2.5.

sarah:

It felt kind of tokenism plus not just blindness, but male blindness and what your hangups are going to be as a result.

Jeff:

Yes. Okay, so tabulated our scores together

sarah:

With

Jeff:

The score of 24. My Christmas guide are: Regrets, I have a few.

sarah:

That’s like the second tier, right? That’s not bad.

Jeff:

That’s pretty good.

sarah:

You know what? Not bad.

Jeff:

It didn’t blow it Hallmark. Congratulations.

sarah:

Not on this one. Anyway,

Jeff:

It’s not art. And perhaps because it was so shallow it couldn’t do more harm.

sarah:

That’s true. Yeah. If the dialogue had a little more depth to it, it might’ve actually done more overall damage.

Jeff:

And this concludes another episode of Invalid Culture. Thank you for joining us. I hope you enjoyed it or not. Do you have a film you would like for us to cover on the pod, or even better? Do you want to be a victim on invalid culture? Head to word to our website, invalid culture.com and submit. We would love to hear from you. That’s it for this episode. Catch you next month and until then, stay invalid.

Mvll Crimes [musical interlude]:

I’m arguing with strangers on the Internet // Everyone is wrong. I just haven’t told them yet.

 

"Swept Up By Christmas" dvd cover, featuring characters Gwen and Reed standing together before a festive backdrop

Just in time for Hanukkah, a special guest joins Invalid Culture!

In an IC first, Erika and Jeff are joined on our December episode by Paralympic wheelchair racer and budding movie star Josh Cassidy. Together we’ll chat about working in the television/film industry as a disabled person and unpack his recent Hallmark holiday film Swept Up By Christmas. Will Josh’s character find love? Is love the friends we make along the way? Find out in this very special episode!

Listen at…

Podcast Transcript

[Intro song: sleigh bells leading into folk punk song “War on Christmas” by Ramshackle Glory. Lead singer sings “Take down the lights, I don’t do Christmas. Religion is fine, I just hate Christmas.”]

Erika:

Welcome to Invalid Culture, a podcast dedicated to excavating the strangest, most baffling and worst representations of disability in popular culture. Unlike other podcasts that review films you’ve probably heard of, Invalid Culture is all about looking into the abyss of pop culture-adjacent representations that just never quite broke through because, well, they’re awful. I’m your co-host, Erika.

Jeff:

And I am your other co-host, Jeff. And in light of the holiday season, and as proud soldiers in the war against Christmas, this month’s episode is going to be a little different. Today we are joined by a real life Paralympic athlete turned disabled actor, who starred as the wheelchair-using vet, Mike, in a recent Hallmark film, Swept Up by Christmas. That’s right, we are joined by Burgoyne’s most famous son, all-around Bruce County beefcake, Josh Cassidy. Josh, welcome, as our first ever guest ever on this show.

Josh:

(laughing) Thank you.

Jeff:

You’re it.

Josh:

It’s an honor. Number one. That’s what I strive to be.

Jeff:

Number one in my heart. So, Josh, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who are you? Why should people care about Josh Cassidy?

Josh:

Oh my gosh. I don’t know why they should.

Erika:

So, what I’ve got so far is small town, perhaps, actor, Paralympic athlete, and long-term childhood friend of Jeff Preston. And I understand there’s a little bit of a story about how you and Jeff first met, so would you care to share a little bit more about that?

Josh:

Sure, yeah. We met, probably, I must have been nine or 10 years old. My dad was in the military, so we had moved all across Canada nine times… or, eight times in the first nine years of my life. And then, he left the military. We settled in Bruce County, going to elementary school in Port Elgin. Jeff’s dad, who is a police officer, came and spoke to the school, and after the presentation was done and we go back to our classrooms, and there was a knock on the door and he was at the door, and he asked the teacher if I could come out and he could talk to me. So as a nine year old, curious, slightly scared, did I do something wrong? I’m sure entered my mind at some point.

Josh:

But Jeff’s dad is just the most chill, soft spoken guy, and was just super kind, knowing I was just new to the area, and asked if I wanted to meet his son who happened to use a wheelchair as well. And yeah, that’s how our first, I don’t know, playdate or whatever you would call it at that age… I don’t even know what we did the first time, now that I think about it. But I mean, our early childhood was a lot of mini sticks, and video games, and video games, and reading, and Star Wars, and adventures in the… What would you call it? There was a name for the woods behind the town.

Jeff:

Beiner’s Forest.

Josh:

Yeah. So anyways, lots of awesome childhood memories.

Jeff:

I think it’s important to note that you said that our early childhood consisted of those things. I also think our teenager years and our adult years, that it didn’t actually change. We never grew up.

Josh:

It happened until we both left the town. We just lost the town and each other, that was all.

Jeff:

That’s it. That’s it. But as I said, there’s always that open… The invite is always open. If you want to come over for a sleepover, we can get back out on the road and play some hockey again.

Josh:

That would be great.

Erika:

So, how did you end up from small town, Bruce… Is it Bruce County?

Josh:

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Erika:

To the big screen, the Olympic stage.

Josh:

So, I always loved sports as a kid, and as I just mentioned, hockey was a big passion of mine, as it was Jeff’s growing up. And one of the challenges in school was being able to partake in extracurricular sports, and I always found a way to figure out how to adapt, and the schools, especially in that area, Port Elgin and Owen Sound where I grew up at that stage, there was really great teachers that, helped navigate through. But extracurricular, there was more bumps, as health and safety had a lot more restrictions and concerns about other kids getting injured if they knock into your chair or whatnot.

Josh:

So, wheelchair racing was something that was introduced to me as a possibility for track and field in high school, and around the same time as the Sydney Paralympic games. Watched our Canadian, Jeff Adams, power away to medals, and I just was super intrigued by it and thought it looked fun. And so, that’s how I got started.

Josh:

Ironically, in our hometown, I had a chance meeting with a Paralympic coach that was there on business, and he got me connected as well, and that sort of was the beginning of my journey from the small town. I mean, in the small town too, I mean, I had the local track club that was great, but so much of my training throughout most of my career was on my own. And yeah, eventually I went to Sheridan College for illustration, and continued training there, and made my first national team, and yeah, the journey continued.

Erika:

And then, so how long have you been, I guess, doing elite athletics?

Josh:

I started competing around 2000, so 21 years, and my first national team was 2005. I believe it was 2005-6. So yeah, quite a while, now.

Erika:

And how long have you been into acting?

Josh:

Well, the first television commercial stuff that I did was most as an athlete, as myself, or as a wheelchair racer. So that’s how I first got some commercial gigs, and then that progressed to just taking some casting calls for other commercials, which another one was a BMO one, and Suicide Squad, which I was an extra in. And both of those was also some kind of, a little bit of consulting on the disability aspect. And then, yeah, this Swept Up by Christmas.

Josh:

I think they saw, I think the agency saw an audition I did for another show, where I actually played someone pretty much the opposite of my character in Swept Up by Christmas. He was a pretty chip on his shoulder, angry, I think war vet as well, but much different. But anyways, had an audition, and it was really after the fact for most of these that, oh, you’re an athlete as well? And that came about. So, yeah, it’s fun.

Jeff:

Yeah. I noticed that you said you were in Suicide Squad. How did that come together, what was your role, and would the movie have been better if you were the main character, and not Jared Leto?

Josh:

First of all, how did it come about? Oh, well, my mind is on Jared Leto right now.

Jeff:

Who isn’t?

Erika:

You speak for all of us when you say…

Josh:

I was thinking like, honestly, everything I have seen him in, he is fantastic. I have the understanding that there is way more that was shot that was cut. Obviously, that doesn’t change the take on the character, which wasn’t totally his, but it would be interesting to get a full take of what it was.

Josh:

So, I mean, it was crazy. I always, obviously I’ve been into comic books. I mentioned, I went to this school at Sheridan for illustration, and that was really derived from a very early love of superheroes, comic books and drawing, ever since I was a little kid. And so, obviously superhero movies and wanting to take a shot at acting at some point, it was always something just, I thought that would be fun.

Josh:

And I guess I put it out into the universe, and I got this random call the day before flying back from Australia from a training camp, and it was someone who had recommended me, gave me my number for a production that was going on in Toronto for a Warner Brothers movie, that sounded like a superhero movie, all tightlipped, whatever. And of course, I’m a comic book fan, nerd, so I know everything that’s going on and shooting. I’m like, oh my God, I’ve heard these rumors about Suicide Squad. This has got to be what it is.

Josh:

So, I had some conversations, because they’re looking for amputees, contortionists. They wouldn’t give much info beyond that. And would I be interested in having some discussions? So, when I got back, had meetings, and went on set, and they were rehearsing it at that point. And by then, I had figured it out, and they knew that I had figured it out, but they really weren’t allowed to say either. But will Smith was training in the next room for his dead shot rolls, and went into the room where Margot Robbie does her, where the very first opening scene where she’s like in a cage, tension area, right, as Harley Quinn. So, seeing that set up go, and man, just the scale of this thing is like, these big productions, that was just eye opening for me.

Josh:

So, the character was to be, well, it was going to be what eventually to me was probably the worst part of the movie, which was the basically sort of zombified. I don’t even remember. They’re like, yeah, zombified kind of super soldiers, these sort of black things that just you could kill, chop and arm a leg off, they’d keep fighting, type of thing. For me, even though I’m in a wheelchair, it was like, we need some double A gams, people that are athletic, that could maybe do some stunt work. So for me, I played goalie, as Jeff knows, on my knees in road hockey, and so my legs can bend all over. So basically, I had to strap my legs up as if they were amputated. The intention was for the shot was like, I would have, I would be basically blown apart and then keep on fighting from the ground.

Josh:

So then, I also helped with them consulting, bringing some other athletes that I knew that were amputees, and try to help recruit a team of these soldiers that would be blown to bits, but then keep on fighting. And rehearsed for one or two big scenes, and the one scene was shot during the national championships, which I was contracted to do, so I missed that one. And then, the other scene was literally on the last day of filming, and it was an all night film shoot. It was a week before the Pan Am games in Toronto.

Josh:

And yeah, again, just the scale was just incredible. It was like, it’s this massive lot, and it just really hit home. When you watch a movie, at the end, all of the credits that scroll, and all of those people, those are all humans with faces and lives that play a huge role, each and every single one, to make this whole thing come together. And then, when you’re on such a big production, you see all these faces and all this stuff that goes in, and the organization and network. It’s incredible.

Josh:

So anyways, long story short, my scene in the end, the ones that I rehearsed for, I didn’t shoot. The ones that I did were, it’s sort of the scene, and I think it’s even in the trailer, where Will Smith’s on this car. All these like zombie super soldier, black Uzi things are coming at him. And, do you want me to tell you the story of what I shot?

Jeff:

I was just going to say, did Will Smith kill you?

Josh:

So, unfortunately, Will Smith was shooting on that same day, because they were doing all these last minute reshoots, so it was a stunt actor that did, that shot me.

Jeff:

So, you were killed by the symbolic Will Smith?

Josh:

Yes, the fake one. They recreated this street, and everything is on fire, and they recreated part of the gardener that was crashed and down on this lot. And basically, they’re all just rushing towards this car that will Smith is on to attack him. And it’s basically like a football charge, rush the quarterback scenario.

Josh:

But for me it’s like, my legs are blown off, so I’m not in that first part. I’m after he starts unleashing. And they’re like, okay, so what we’re doing here is, they’re all going to be rushing. We need you to hide under this car, okay? Now, they’re going to be rushing. I want you to look at me. We’re going to count down the steamboats. One steamboat, two steamboat. They’re going to rush, and then you crawl, but you don’t go earlier than that, because they’ll just run right through you. And they’re like all parkouring through cars and everything, right? But don’t be late, because we’re blowing up this car that you’re under, so you want to get out of there.

Josh:

So, I’m crawling, and this is like a week before the Pan American Games, and my national team would have killed me if they knew. I was nervous myself. Oh shit, what did I do? And yeah, you’re crawling over broken glass and there’s fire and explosions going on. And anyways, they sort of like, kills everyone, and I’m one of the last ones, and I go back to shoot him again, and there’s this sort of 300 scene that’s filmed from the stop where there’s just all these dead soldiers, and I go to try and pop one more in him and he shoots me.

Josh:

But anyways, so much of that film is cut. I don’t… I can point out myself if I saw it. It’s a blink of an eye. So much of that film, from what I understand, like David Ayer a has done so many grounded movies, like End of Watch and Fury. And so, the take that it went, you can tell where the studio went in and was like, ooh, I think zombie soldiers and the Enchantress character… And I don’t know whose was whose idea, but there was just a disconnect from such a grounded thing that was happening, and something else. But anyway, that’s my Suicide Squad story.

Jeff:

And probably bad if you had died under that car in real life, we should say.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

That’s good. That’s good that you weren’t late.

Josh:

The stories that these stunt actors just casually tell was just crazy, the stuff. Oh yeah, hey, check out this one. This is where I was driving this F-1 car and I had to, the car, the wheel blows, so then I have to drive into this semi-truck. And it’s like, this is a car accident where people get killed and it’s like, this is their day job. It’s nuts. Yeah.

Erika:

You’re hitting some interesting themes that have come up in past episodes.

Josh:

Oh, yeah?

Erika:

Yeah. We’ve talked a bit about stunting, or I guess, who’s this stunt work, but also consulting. So, the first movie, the very first episode that did when we were researching a bit about the film, we found out that there was actually a hired disability consultant. And then, our more recent, Mac and Me, we learned that the disabled actor who was hired for the lead role, we learned through the audio commentary that he had consulted a lot on the film. So was that, is that… I’m just curious about your experience with consulting and what that was like.

Josh:

Yeah. I think all three, it was like I was hired as an actor or a stunt, and those bigger ones that I had mentioned. But I mean, all were extremely, let us know. What do we need to do? What’s right? What’s wrong? What can we do to make things easier, help? So, they were all very receptive and took some initiative on some fronts to try and do things, and on other fronts were like, oh yeah, we totally failed here. Please tell us what to do. So the way I was approached, I really appreciated it a lot.

Josh:

And the BMO commercial, that was one as well where it was like, waitlists, and so there was some messaging there that kind of conflicted with me, that I think they were pretty appreciative of, because basically in the commercial it’s like this. You put in your wish, and so the commercial’s like, my wife wishes that I can basically not be confined to my wheelchair, right? And it wasn’t those words exactly, but it was very much that was the vibe.

Josh:

And I was like, listen, I don’t wish that I wasn’t in a wheelchair. I mean, it would be great and cool to walk and run and jump and do all these things, but this is who I am, and it’s brought me so many good things, and I’ve accepted that. So, it wouldn’t be my wish, so if it was her wish, that would be kind of weird. But it was more like, you know what I wish? I’m like, I actually wish I could fly. So, why don’t we change this messaging to just being like, I wish that I could fly, and my wife wishes to see me be able to have the freedom of flight kind of thing. So kind of, the sentiment is there, but it’s a total different angle on the whole thing, right?

Jeff:

Yeah. I’ve got to say, when I first saw you on commercial, at the start of it, from the music, and you’re up in the plane, and I was like, oh hamburgers, here we go, right? This is going to be that classic thing about oh, if only I had one wish, I wish he was cured.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

But then you get this like actual, nice inversion at the end, where it’s like, yeah, no, the wish wasn’t liberation from the chair, the wish was to do something wild. It was…

Josh:

That everyone would love to do, right? Yeah.

Jeff:

Yeah. Now, I have a theory. You’ve been in a couple BMO commercials, and so I now call it the BMO-verse.

Josh:

I’m pretty sure it’s called the BMO effect, isn’t it?

Jeff:

The BMO effect? Maybe. Yeah. That’s true. So, I’ve noticed in the BMO-verse, you have a wife in the wishes, but you are definitely out with another woman during a solar eclipse, or a lunar eclipse.

Josh:

Here is the confusion, okay?

Jeff:

Okay.

Josh:

It wasn’t me in both of them. I mean, it was me as an actor, but in the BMO-verse, right? Me with my wife was one character. It was actually Mike from Swept Up by Christmas, that’s in the background having a latte with that other woman. So, it’s really Mike that’s… I don’t know in the BMO-verse if that’s before or after he met his Swept Up by Christmas… Vanessa, was her name.

Jeff:

Vanessa, yeah.

Josh:

I’m just trying to remember her name.

Jeff:

You don’t remember the love of your life?

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

Wait, are you saying you are not with Vanessa on the west coast right now?

Josh:

Listen, I don’t know where the BMO-verse version of Mike slipped into that dimension and stream, so I don’t know if it was before or after Vanessa, so I can’t comment. Mike might be a closet sleazebag, like oh yeah, another latte, with another woman, kind of thing.

Jeff:

Let’s go out with the solar eclipse.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

Lose your sight, but I’ll take care of you, baby.

Josh:

Yeah.

Erika:

So, two things here from me. One, and I don’t know if this question’s out of bounds, but…

Josh:

No.

Erika:

Are BMO and Hallmark the same thing?

Josh:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Erika:

They have overlapping universe?

Josh:

Oh, there’s a question.

Jeff:

I’ll say, nothing says Christmas like a bank. I think we can all agree on that, right?

Erika:

Now, I’m just thinking of, they have Interact commercials now where you can use your internet cards the way people used to drop coins into the charity tins. Now they have Interact commercials for that.

Jeff:

This is all coming together, guys. I feel like, I think this podcast is done. We sorted it out.

Erika:

Wait, wait, wait. We don’t know anything about the film yet. It’s time to get into Swept Up by Christmas.

Jeff:

Oh yeah, we should talk about that.

Josh:

Right, right.

Erika:

Josh, please, can you tell us, for listeners who haven’t seen the film, tell us a little bit about that film.

Jeff:

Basically, a Hallmark movie, Christmas movie. There’s a guy and a girl, and someone’s not in the Christmas spirit. Someone gets them in the Christmas spirit, and then they live happily ever after right at the end.

Josh:

Oh, was I in this one?

Jeff:

So, who are you? And who are you in all this?

Josh:

So, Swept Up by Christmas is basically, she’s an antique dealer, and the main character, lead male is a war vet who has a cleaning business. They meet on the sale of this estate, and yes, it’s about her bringing him back into the Christmas spirit. I am the main lead’s friend and business partner, named Mike, who is also a war vet. And yeah, basically they have this little business that helps war vets adjust to civilian life, and their cleaning business is their little passion thing, and then there’s a little side romance interest for Mike in the movie.

Erika:

And it’s the aforementioned Vanessa?

Josh:

Oui. C’est vrai. This is a bilingual podcast.

Jeff:

Yeah, it is. It is now. So, one thing that we love to do on this podcast is, we love to see what others have to say about the film. And so, we went out. There were not a lot of reviews, I have to say. Fans of the show, you are not doing your job. There were not a lot of reviews about this movie. But there was one really interesting thing that I learned. Actually, there were two interesting things. Thing number one, I learned there a lot of people writing reviews of every single Hallmark Christmas movie. It is like a whole community, and that is a thing that I didn’t know I needed to know, but I know it now, and I feel better.

Jeff:

But there were two reviews that really caught my eye. A lot of the reviews of this film felt that maybe the main romance was a little flat in nature. However, both on a website called Jamie’s Two Cents, and as well, a website called Lifetime Uncorked, two different reviewers said that they would have preferred if the story instead had been focused on Mike and Vanessa. An Amazon reviewer even went on to say, quote, “I gave this an extra star, four out of five stars to Hallmark, for adding the storyline featuring someone in a physically challenging role. And yes, it’s a formula movie, but I have to admit, I’m a fan of Hallmark’s Christmas movies.”

Jeff:

Now, I’m assuming that was a typo, and they meant physically challenged, but I will allow you to respond to movie guy on Amazon. Would you say your role was physically challenging?

Josh:

Oh, I don’t care.

Erika:

I mean, relative to the other work you described, that sounded like very physically challenging work.

Josh:

You know what, it was long days. The physically challenged… Suicide Squad was pretty physically challenging. And actually, the BMO was a stunt commercial as well. But you know what, it was a really great experience learning-wise for me, and lines and a whole role, and the long days and weeks that all went into that, and the process. Yeah, I mean, obviously Mike is in a wheelchair, so on the consulting side for this, they were more just really open, like what do you need on set?

Josh:

For the script itself, I had one or two kind of adjustments or amendments that I kind of put forward. I can’t remember the first one. The second one… I mean, there was definitely the one, I think it was, when he’s talking about his disability, and how it crushed his, I think it was C4 or something, right? Well, so I am partially paralyzed from L4 down, L3, L4. So I said, if this is integral to the story, I would have to change my level of ability and what I can do to represent if that’s important. If it’s not important, we change the script so that this is where I was injured, so that it’s accurate. So, I had to go through Hallmark and their writers, and their writers, and their writers, and it all got approved, and of course, move ahead, and yeah.

Jeff:

And I’ve got to say, that is something that is always, I’ve found, so strange about films, is that it’s like disability is this throwaway. Like, they don’t actually care if the definition or diagnosis is at all even close, right? They’re just like, I don’t know, C1, maybe. Oh, it looks like muscular dystrophy, I don’t know. And yet, the person is fully walking around with like a little limp.

Josh:

Oh, here’s the thing, though, here’s the thing. To be fair to them, if I’m thinking about these writers, and they’re churning these things out, it’s like, get the script written, throw something in. Let them hire someone else to do… Let’s check our disability accuracy facts here and consult someone that knows what’s going on. But yes, there isn’t always those people in place to catch these types of things, and agreed, it’s kind of thrown in at times. And I was super grateful for this role and this opportunity, and of course, there has to be something that ties in. For me, okay, that’s the reality, and like the other auditions I’ve done, somehow their physical disability is a part of their character. I mean, it’s a part of everyone’s life who has a disability.

Josh:

But at the same time, I mean, I’m not going off on some acting career crusade. I would love to do something with a lot more depth or whatever. But I’d also love to do something where it’s like, the disability part doesn’t even come up, too. Like, I would just, I’d like to take the Rock’s role in some action movie and try and do a better acting job, and bring something that’s great without actually having to delve too deeply.

Josh:

At the same time, I know all stories and drama are about going through challenges and heartbreak and an emotional component, and most people who have a disability have gone through that at some stage, so that’s a real part that people with a disability can connect with to portray that more realistically, too. So, I also appreciate that they’re seeking out more often people with disabilities, rather than trying to have an actor portray them.

Josh:

And again, on the flip side, because I’m both, I just, to bring full perspective, I don’t think there’s anything totally immoral about somebody who doesn’t have a disability playing someone with a disability completely, myself. Acting is roleplaying and diving into a character, and that might be someone of a different ability or a disability, or gender, or culture, whatever it is, however, with Hollywood and the way it is. It’s just like, okay, we’ve had enough of white mainstream playing other cultures and disabilities and whatever. It’s like, we have a huge demographic here that is not represented, and it’s time to kind of bring them into the fold. So, at least it feels like there’s that progression.

Jeff:

Yeah. I think honestly, Hallmark, I think, gets a lot of kudos for this film, and other films as well. I think Hallmark has actually kind of latched on to disability in a way I think others haven’t. But having said that, Erika and I have some questions. We have some questions for you about this film.

Josh:

I thought you were going to go on the LGBTQ, how there isn’t representation there.

Erika:

Oh, and that’s funny. It’s funny, that’s not how I would have phrased that. I wouldn’t have phrased it that way. I was just going to say, this is the most remarkably cis-heteronormative story I have seen ever in my life. And I want to say, this was also my first ever Hallmark Christmas movie.

Josh:

Same.

Erika:

Okay. Okay. And that just really stood out for me.

Josh:

I hear it all the same. I am only aware of this because I was involved in one, so then I was reading all the headlines of backlash, of there is no other kind of alternative storylines with representation. And so, anyways. I mean, we joked on set when we were reading this, like hey, I think we should actually really put a plot twist in there, and just be like, hey, Mike and his best friend, I forget what his name is already, Justin Bruening’s character, we’re actually lovers the whole time. Because we actually showed up to the party with the same sweater and the same pants. So we were like, maybe I slept over and I took something from his closet, and that’s literally our coming out of the closet together. And we just helped Hallmark take care of another area. Maybe they’re doing one this year. I don’t know. I don’t know. There’s probably 12 new ones.

Jeff:

Erika, I will say…

Erika:

This is a hard flash forward to a question I had, which is, will we get a sequel, perhaps titled Moved by Hanukkah? And then, you know, at the time, I think we were curious about maybe exploring your budding relationship on the west coast, but I really like where you’re taking this.

Jeff:

I fully agree.

Josh:

Maybe that’s the big plot twist. I go out with Vanessa to the west coast, and it’s like, no. I miss Reed. That was his name. And yeah, we really explore a lot more things out west.

Jeff:

I’ve got to say, your scenes together, I felt, were electric. I feel like there was something there. I fully do.

Josh:

It was fun.

Jeff:

So, I endorse it.

Josh:

He was, it was great to work with other people, both… I mean, Vanessa’s character, she has a big stage background, but both of the leads have been in lots of shows and movies and have a full acting career, so it was actually really great to feed off of them and their experience, and how relaxed they were, and also their approach, too. Like here, I’m looking at the script like, man, what do I do with this? And realizing that was the same for everyone. It’s like, okay, these movies are cheesy cardboard cutter, similar plotlines. People love them. That’s why they keep making them. But then it’s like, how do we try and bring something that feels real and authentic somehow to this? Anyways, it was good to experience that.

Erika:

I would just comment, you did not stand out as a lesser caliber actor. In fact, a decent part of the way through, I think I said you are by far my favorite character in this film.

Josh:

Oh, thank you. Well, thanks. Thank you.

Jeff:

I was biased. Erika was not.

Erika:

No!

Jeff:

So, that’s an authentic take.

Erika:

Yeah. So, recruiters out there, you have got some serious potential here in Josh Cassidy.

Josh:

Oh, thank you.

Jeff:

Absolutely.

Josh:

Thank you. I’d love to do something else again.

Jeff:

Now, I do have a bone to pick with you, though.

Josh:

Go for it.

Jeff:

So, throughout the film, your character seems to have this object fixation. In almost every scene, you are holding something, whether it’s a coffee cup, or a champagne glass, or a pen, or a pot. Your hands are always occupied.

Josh:

Interesting.

Jeff:

What’s the backstory on Mike’s need to have his hands occupied?

Josh:

Well, really, my hands were actually separately contracted. They are their own actors.

Jeff:

Right. It was in their rider.

Josh:

So, they have their own rules, their own contracts. Like, he’s playing the writer, he’s playing the champagne glass holder. And so, they had their own things that they had to do. One of them had to have a makeover, because the one is tattooed. So, my wonderful makeup artist did an amazing job covering it up. So, maybe that’s not equal representation. Maybe there’s something that isn’t fully exposed in its authentic nature there. But you know what? There’s a role to play. My hands were down. They signed the line, and they did their job.

Jeff:

Yeah, I was trying to think back into our past, if you often had things in your hands when we were friends.

Josh:

No. I mean…

Jeff:

I feel like you do have an average, you’re an average thing in hand person, I would say.

Erika:

Yeah, that’s it.

Josh:

I don’t think I’m over the top. It’s like, the marker, I’m drawing on the board, so I’ve got to have it. The mug, I’m taste testing, so hey, I have to be interacting. The champagne glass just got shoved to me, like hold this, you’re drinking champagne, it’s a party. But you know what, maybe it’s just that my hands were such great actors, it was like, you’re just drawn to them, like oh my god, those are their own roles happening on this film. So, you know what, I’d like to see what roles they have in the future.

Jeff:

It’s true. Yeah. You can’t question the artist, right?

Josh:

No, that’s right.

Jeff:

The artist just knows what to do.

Josh:

Yeah.

Erika:

You mentioned sampling drinks, and correct me if I’m wrong, but was this from the scene with barista Vanessa, and there was a bit of a remarkable moment there, or a memorable moment there. The conversation takes a little bit of a detour.

Josh:

Right. I know what you’re talking about.

 

[Clip begins from “Swept Up By Christmas”]

Mike:

Maybe a little travel thrown in for good measure.

Vanessa:

I haven’t had the chance for that yet, but I mean, I’d love to. I started working when I was 16.

Mike:

I joined the army young, too.

Vanessa:

But you got to travel a lot?

Mike:

Not as much as I would have liked. I was quartermaster in Afghanistan, and I went out on a supply run. An RPG overturned my transport and crushed my L4. So, travel plans were postponed. I came home to Windale, and a year later met Reed at the VA, and like so many, we needed a do-over. So, let’s get to the good stuff. Yuletide first, right?

 

[Clip ends]

Erika:

I’m sharing Jeff’s observation here, that your character comes a little bit out of left field with this disability origin story.

Josh:

Yes.

Erika:

So, can you tell us, was that intended? Was that something that you asked for, or had questions about?

Josh:

It was in the script. That was a part that was changed a bit, because I had the disability part. The other line part was changed in there, and I don’t remember what it was off the top of my head. But I had a lot of conversations with the director, Philippe, who was just awesome, and it was like, okay, this is Mike’s kind of moment. He tells his story, and it’s obviously, it feels shoved in, but it actually, if it holds weight, then it can be an emotional hook or whatever, to give him some depth into understanding who he is a bit. Okay, obviously it’s a bit forced, and all of the sudden in the background, but it’s about traveling, and okay. He also closes it with sort of, I’m getting sidetracked here.

Josh:

So, on one hand, it was sort of like, okay, he just got sidetracked going off into a story. On the other hand, that’s totally what it was, was how do we put this in here to give some weight. So, I mean, it was… you know what, I didn’t have a big problem with it. It was fun, and it was challenging, because in this one, all of the sudden, line-for-line, and then I got a monologue with this little story, and you go through all in one take. One sentence is happy, then it’s expressing good memories, then it’s like, I lost my legs, but hey, everything is okay. And it’s like this sort of way that I had to try and…

Josh:

I think what was on, there wasn’t anything left on the cutting room floor, but the take, I liked the take much better, and I remember that I finished a full take, and they said cut, and everyone who was on set kind of applauded it. So, I know I did a good job with it because it was taking on this whole thing. But yeah, I also didn’t want it to just end like, oh, nevermind that, too. I kind of wished that it could have gone on longer, but I’m like, you know what, that’s what a supporting character is, is trying to inject a little something, but it’s not really about you, too. So, I don’t know.

Jeff:

Contrary to the reviewer’s desire.

Josh:

Right. Yeah. They did do one Hallmark last year. I can’t remember her name. Maybe you know here. She was like, she won an Emmy, from Oklahoma.

Jeff:

I do. Ally.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

Yep.

Josh:

Did you see that one? Because I never saw it.

Jeff:

I have not. I wanted to come to your film as a purist, so I actually am never going to watch another hallmark movie ever again.

Erika:

Save it.

Jeff:

Not because they’re bad, but because I’m a Josh Cassidy purist. So, Hallmark, if you want my money, you need more Josh Cassidy. That’s the deal.

Josh:

I mean, exactly.

Jeff:

Yeah. The Josh-verse, in the Hallmark world. Yeah, I think that Lennard Davis talks a lot about how, as soon as disability is in the film, there’s this mandatory explanation of it. Like, that disability can’t just exist. It has to be grounded, it has to be situated, and that tends to come in these sort of origin stories. And so, obviously your character gets an origin story, but we don’t really get an origin story from Reed. Was it… The only way we know that Reed is a soldier is because he uses soldier talk at the end of sentences sometimes.

Josh:

Like, I’m supposed to be… Those feel forced to me, these little soldier talk force-ins. And I’m like, I grew up in the military. I know people in the military, and there’s some things that are naturally a part of it, and there are other things that feel kind of forced. But agreed, there is backstory with him, but you’re trying to work it out through the whole film and piece it together. Because as a supporting actor to him and his best friend, I’m trying to piece together, oh, this line. So, this means he had a past relationship, and oh, he left the military at this stage. So it’s like, after it you kind of piece together who he is, rather than just getting it, right?

Jeff:

It’s a slower burn. Yeah, it’s a much slower burn.

Josh:

But I wanted to, yeah. I mean, what was your feeling on it, though? On me…

Erika:

We had a, definitely I think we had the experience. We watched the films together. And we definitely had the experience of trying to piece together the backstory of that character, and we had a theory running for a while that there was a plot coming with him having PTSD. And because we, against the backdrop of these hyper gender roles, he was showing a little more emotionality than might have been expected.

Josh:

Yeah, yeah.

Erika:

And so, we thought maybe that’s where that was going to foreshadow. And you know, maybe that was there. Maybe, I don’t know if you can…

Josh:

I mean, I feel like it was, but at the same time, that’s probably why they fell flat too. Like, oh no, Justin’s this perfectly chiseled, good-looking guy. But I mean, that would have made it more interesting if they actually side plotted a little bit to more like PTSD, because that’s what he was trying to show and put through a little bit, obviously, from these little tics and attitude and all of that, right?

Erika:

That’s the future Hollywood film though, right? That busts out of the Hallmark universe.

Josh:

Right, yeah. That’s too far. And also why the brush off at the end of my store. Like, yeah, my back got crushed, but anyways, back to our Christmas story, you know? This is emotional. Don’t get too emotional. We got it.

Jeff:

It was a really, yeah. I felt like, I was like, whoa, things just got hyper serious for a split second, and then was like, back on with the program. And I’m like, I get it. This is supposed to be a movie about love and romance, and kind of softcore, in some ways. You have this titillating dialogue back and forth, right?

Josh:

Yeah, agreed. It is kind of, it is rushed, but you just try and do what you can with it. I got… I mean, maybe it’s also just in our position, because I did get messages from other people that were like, this part, that was so good, or that was really convincing, and whatever, whatever. So, yeah, I know that we’re probably so much more hyperaware of it, too, in our positions.

Jeff:

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the moral of the story is, if you’re on a date and the partner brings up travel, your best bet is to follow it up with how, on the last time you were traveling, your spine was crushed after an IED attack. Love is in the air. Now, I’ve got to know, was your character always intended to be a wheelchair user?

Josh:

Yes.

Jeff:

Or did you get the role, and they were like, oh, wheelchair user?

Josh:

No, no. It was intended, yeah.

Jeff:

Cool.

Josh:

And I mean, what I appreciated about the director too was, he’s telling me about one of his friends who also uses a wheelchair, and was describing him and who he is and mindset, and all that kind of stuff. And it was one of the early discussions that we had. I’m like, how recent did Mike get paralyzed? Because that changes how I would portray the character, as well. Like, is he still working through this? Is he whatever? And he’s like, no, no, this is done with. He’s dealt with it. He’s happy. He’s good. What you kind of brought just naturally in our first talk interview before even reading the script is the type of energy and mindset that I want to give this character. So, it wasn’t too much diving crazy. It was more of accentuating certain things for myself to try to bring to it, then. But yeah, so I mean, conversations like that, I appreciated, because that changes totally a character’s perception or how they’re portrayed.

Erika:

So, I don’t know if you guys are familiar with the Fries test?

Josh:

No.

Erika:

Jeff most likely is, but for Josh, for the audience, and Jeff, correct me if I’ve got this wrong, but as I understand, the Fries test is testing essentially the quality of disability representation in media.

Jeff:

Yeah.

Erika:

So, it’s based on, I believe it’s based on a gender test.

Jeff:

Yeah, the Bechdel test.

Erika:

Bechdel test, okay, which the questions are basically like, does the work have, in the gender test, does the work have at least two women in it? Do they talk to each other? And if they talk to each other, do they talk about something other than a man?

Josh:

Right, right, right.

Erika:

Right? And so, the fries test, which I presume is named for Kenny Fries?

Jeff:

Kenny Fries, yeah.

Erika:

Asks, does the work have more than one disabled character? Do the disabled characters have their own narrative purpose, other than the profit of a non-disabled character? And is the character’s disability not eradicated by curing or killing? And this is why I would…

Jeff:

And this movie passes!!!

Erika:

It does! That’s where I was going with the PTSD trope, was that I think it’s implied enough that Reed has PTSD that we could say that we have two disabled characters, who are interacting, who have their own narrative purpose, and neither of them is cured or killed.

Josh:

Right. Wow.

Jeff:

Exactly. Absolutely. I honestly, like I said, from the very beginning, hat tip to Hallmark, I think, on this test.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

I mean, say what you will about Christmas movies, but I think this was a really progressive film, when it comes to disability representation. Not where I thought I would find it, but here we are.

Josh:

Yeah. No, it’s great. It’s great. Especially a company like that, that does so many movies and has so much pull, and is so mainstream. Like, I didn’t even realized how much it was playing in other countries until this year when it came out. So, it’s great, and I hope that, I know they’ll make another dozen or two dozen this year, so I hope they’re doing more that are continuing that trend and with other minorities, as well.

Erika:

I think you’ve already spoken to this a bit, but just to name the question and hear an answer, what do you think this film got right?

Josh:

Hmm. Okay. Well, on the production side, everyone was just fantastic. They did their best to accommodate, whether it was putting in ramps or figuring things out for accessibility, and where there wasn’t, they just constantly were like, if you need anything, let us know. If we’re doing something wrong, or you need something better or different, let us know. And then, the amendments with the script. They took my feedback. They amended that to keep accuracy. And I can’t remember what the other point was on sensitivity, so you know what, it was a great experience from that perspective.

Josh:

And then, yeah, from the film, I mean, I don’t know. People love it. It’s your typical Hallmark Christmas, light. I mean, that’s what it is. That’s what it’s supposed to be. That’s why people watch them so much. We’re in a time where there’s so much stress and so many weird, crazy, horrible things going on, and people turn this on to just have something that’s a feel-good movie. So, they obviously got that right, and had some good emotional little hooks and things that made it a cute little story. So, yeah, it was a good experience, and great to have that opportunity to be a part of.

Jeff:

Well, what would you say is something that you would hope that other productions could learn from this film? Were there any innovations in the way the you filmed it using the wheelchair, or things that you learned in the production process that you’re like, yeah, I hope that filmmakers actually carry this forward?

Josh:

You know, the same parallels to my childhood and school and gym class, with teachers that got it right, as they did with this work experience. It’s basically just people asking questions, what do you need? And being receptive and listening, and just trying to do whatever is possible to make things accessible, and just feel normal and smooth without any barriers. So, taking the initiative on the first part is appreciated, even if it’s gotten wrong. If there’s an intention and effort, that’s always appreciated. And it’s being receptive and checking in. Often, they checked in more than enough with me with things. It definitely makes you feel comfortable. You never have to really worry about anything, and that’s what’s fantastic.

Josh:

Some of the harder things are what’s in advance, a set to prove, and they haven’t quite thought of, oh, jeez, this is on the third flight of stairs, and we had to overcome something like that. But you also realize the position too, and things are going to be missed, because it’s not all about the supporting character per se either. So, when it comes up and it’s realized, what action do you take, and how do you adapt and try to amend it? So, as long as that’s the approach, I don’t think you can ever go wrong or be at really any fault.

Erika:

And maybe lastly, thinking back on some of your experiences and this move from athletics towards the big screen, do you have any advice for young disabled actors who are maybe trying to break into that industry?

Josh:

Jeez, I don’t know. I don’t really actively pursue too much. Like, I see casting calls, things come my way. I respond to them. Obviously, all these things about accessibility, I don’t think you need to go over again. Just voice if you need something. I think the general narrative for actors with disabilities is how they’re represented, and speaking up if there’s something that you feel is better changed. And otherwise, it’s just doing what you do. You don’t have to do anything different, just making sure that you’re being treated yourself with the role that you feel you should play.

Josh:

And I mean, hopefully I would just like to, like I said, see more where you know that obviously there’s going to be a lot of stories. I want to see stories more too where there’s people that go through some challenge or injury or disability with a hook, and that doesn’t just have to be a full, lifetime thing. That could be a like a sports injury. Those are stories about overcoming adversity and resiliency, but my life day to day every day isn’t constantly some of those major hurdles and challenges at this stage, either. I just want to go have fun and play a role with the character depth that’s obviously formed at its base from some experience, but there’s a lot more layers and a lot more things to be explored, where… I’m looking forward to the day where, yeah, we see some people in roles where there doesn’t actually have to be anything about their disability that needs to even be talked about, because there’s enough other depth there that’s brought to the character’s story.

Jeff:

Yeah. I think that’s so true. But unfortunately, on this podcast, you are not going to find those movies. That is not what we are in the business of, my friend.

Josh:

Yeah.

Jeff:

We’re here for the filth.

Josh:

Yeah, the filth. Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t have too much dirt to dish. I mean, the hiccups that happened were so minor, and so I’m grateful for my experience and the people I was with. But it’s obviously things like this podcast which helps bring light to it, and which has brought like to these things, which made my experience better. And there’s still a lot more out there where I hear of other experiences that are not the same. So, great to bring awareness, for sure.

Jeff:

Yeah. Shout out to Hallmark. We’re going to carry your water. I might actually watch another Hallmark Christmas movie in your honor.

Erika:

And I’m waiting for the Hallmark Hanukkah.

Josh:

Yes.

Jeff:

I will gladly watch a Hanukkah movie. Let’s do it, Hallmark.

Josh:

Good luck with that.

Jeff:

I mean…

Erika:

Why, Hallmark? Why are you allowing Adam Sandler to own this niche?

Josh:

Yeah.

[Outro music: folky punk riff with horns and guitars from Ramshackle Glory’s “War on Christmas”]

Jeff:

And thus concludes the first half of season one of Invalid Culture. I hope you have been enjoying your time with us. We have certainly enjoyed watching and talking about some horrible films. If you like us and you want to give us a little Christmas present, why don’t you head on down, give us a little like or a comment on Apple music, or wherever it is you get your podcasts. But perhaps most importantly, a heartfelt and legitimate happy holidays, best of luck, and just a moment of peace and quiet to all of you over the winter break. We will see you all back in the new year, January, with another great episode of Invalid Culture. Take care, and we will talk to you soon.