Dara begins this episode by sharing his go-to recipe for making cheesecake, raspberry cheesecake, specifically. Don’t ask why – it just felt like the right thing to do. Perhaps he was trying to flaunt his ‘new man’ credentials in advance of discussing male attitudes to high-profile, successful women in the not-so-distant past.
Before he gets to that, Dara revisits Peter Weir’s 1985 romantic thriller, Witness, which he rewatched to see if it was appropriate for his 10-year-old daughter to see. He found himself seduced by the chemistry between the two leads, Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis. The film has aged extremely well in its depiction of the culture clash that occurs when Ford’s savvy city cop has to hide out in McGillis’s old world Amish community. The cultural and sexual tension ratchet up as the stakes get ever higher. Why is that chemistry so hard to find, and why is it often the linchpin of many TV shows?
Dara has been listening to an excellent film history podcast that he just discovered. Listening to its creator and host, the film critic and writer Karina Longworth, discuss erotic movies of the 90s, and quote various contemporaneous publications including Playboy and Gloria Steinem’s Ms, it is extraordinary how blatant and unapologetic the sexist backlash was as directed at actresses like Sharon Stone, Demi Moore, Drew Barrymore, Alicia Silverstone and more.
Discussing his own thoughts on casual misogyny and the fear and hatred of women that some men experience, Dara recalls his own experience of watching the movies and performers in question, and tries to understand why the rhetoric of women being the enemy still has little trouble finding a male audience.
After consuming all that bile and chauvinism, Dara turns to a late 90s girl-power movie to provide a cheesy and satisfying antidote…
Karina Longworth’s excellent podcast on the history and forgotten stories of Hollywood’s first century: https://www.youmustrememberthispodcast.com/