Christi Dodge 0:00
Hey everybody, do you want to experience the podcast in person in real time, we have an opportunity. If you are in the Portland metro area, we are connecting with the just create community. We are going to go see Armageddon Time. When it comes out on November 4, we’re gonna go see the movie, and then we’re gonna go out to dinner and talk about it’s going to be like the podcast.

So if that’s something that sounds fun for you, email me at christi@dodgemediaproductions.com. That email will be in the show notes. You will get more information. We’ll find out when we’re going and what time and what theater. If you’re interested, shoot me an email, and we’ll get you looped into what we’re going to do. Thanks.

Hello, everybody, we want to do a quick little straw poll, we’re thinking of maybe doing for a special event, an in person podcast taping, and we’re wondering how many people in the Portland metro area would be interested in attending, this would be a free event.

We would just record the podcast in front of a live audience. You guys can see what it’s like to, you know, kind of be behind the scenes. So let us know if you’d be interested so that we can get a venue that would be big enough to hold everybody and we will put something like that together. Email me at christi@dodgemediaproductions.com. That email will be in the show notes and just shoot me an email and say I’d be there.

Mike Dodge 1:24
Dodges’s never stop and neither do our listeners.

Brennan 1:27
You’re listening to Dodge Movie Podcast. Your hosts are Christi and Mike Dodge the founders of Dodge Media Productions. We produce films and podcasts. So this is a podcast about films. Join them as they share their passion for filmmaking.

Christi Dodge 1:45
Welcome back, everybody to the Dodge Movie Podcast. This is going to be an unusual podcast. Settle in, because this is gonna be like no other episode we’ve ever done. That’s a great tagline. I’m gonna, I’m gonna promote the episode with that to try to get more listeners. Right. Okay, I’m just going to give it to you straight. We pick the movies. Usually, we’ve seen them one of us has seen them. And a couple of times, neither of us have seen them.

Mike Dodge 2:17
Right. In this case, I’d seen this movie. Yeah, a couple of times, even before our viewing.

Christi Dodge 2:21
And like you pointed out this movie is on the AFI’s top 100. I mean, this is a well known well

Mike Dodge 2:29
liked movie. Yeah, pretty noteworthy. I think you could say yeah.

Christi Dodge 2:34
Which is why we picked it. So we settled in to watch it did started doing my research, like I do, and quickly discovered that the director Bryan Singer, has had numerous allegations of sexual assault made against him.

Mike Dodge 2:53
The footnote here is I always get confused between Bryan Singer and Brian Grazer. So I apologize to Mr. grazer if I’ve ever referenced the wrong thing. But I didn’t know that he was the director of this film, right? I knew Kevin Spacey was in it. And I was aware of the allegations against Kevin Spacey. And I was also aware that Stephen Baldwin can be a little cuckoo, but that’s a separate issue. But I wasn’t aware of this.

It was only during the research portion of this when we started talking about after we had actually watched the film, and taken our notes and everything like we normally would, that the topic came up. It feels weird to say that there’s some number of acceptable read and if I haven’t, if feel film, yeah, but it is interesting, because, again, as I said, I knew that Kevin Spacey was in it. But I felt like it was noteworthy enough that the character of Kaiser Souza was something that was in kind of the parlance of the film community. The reveal of washing his feet is, in my opinion, really very unique and noteworthy. Right. So there was a lot in the film, as a thriller that I thought was worth talking about,

Christi Dodge 4:08
And this is a podcast that talks about filmmaking. It checked all those boxes.

Mike Dodge 4:13
Yeah, there’s a lot of of filmmaking in there. And then as we started talking about, I felt like the topic that was more interesting was whether or not a film should be still considered, still watched, still talked about when some of the actors or in this case director as well had some very serious allegations against them. And that then kind of led into just an overall discussion about separating the art from the artist.

Christi Dodge 4:45
Yes. We’ve had this discussion before. There have been other movies that we have talked about, or even just in general in our own personal viewing. It’s even extended out to other filmmakers.

It’s extended out to other musicians that maybe you’ve liked their music, and then you find out something about them. Does that change the way that you feel about listening to their music in the future?

So really our whole conversation is we’re not talking about what should happen outside of kind of, I guess, our purview and our podcast, we’re just saying for us as people, do we feel comfortable watching these films. And do we want to include them in the podcast? Is that fair to set that baseline? Like to kind of frame our conversation, right, so we’re not talking about should they be taken off streaming?

Or should they be never allowed to be shown it we’re not talking about that we’re speaking specifically from our point of view is people individuals making Christi and the movies that we want to put on the podcast.

Mike Dodge 5:51
Right. To be clear, I come down on the side of free speech. I believe that part of that is everything that someone has done as art should be up for consideration at all times. So someone maybe made a film like birth of the nation, which is not particularly in accordance with our current views, right. But that, to me, is not a reason that it shouldn’t ever be watched.

Again, there are some Looney Tunes episodes that are pretty heavily racist that they don’t show anymore. That makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable, because it’s a slippery slope to me. Right. So I think everything should be available. But the question is, whether we watch it, and we would watch it, or we would talk about it, or, or what is the merit? Right is, is it possible that the film could outweigh this stigma, I guess you would say, of the people associated and making it.

Christi Dodge 6:51
Right, in kind of right after we finished the movie, we had a discussion and we kind of came to the conclusion. We keep having this discussion about does the artists you can you separate the art from the artist, and you had the great idea. Let’s just turn on the mics and let everybody listen to this conversation instead of talking about the film, right?

Mike Dodge 7:14
Because, I think this is actually is part of the filmmaking process. Yeah, of the fact that it’s art. It’s made by artists, and they’re associated and to look at the headlines. Right? What about Rust? I don’t know that I will ever see that film. I don’t have any interest in seeing it, in part, because I know what happened. Yes. That, to me is hard to get past I can set that to the side. And that’s why, in our discussion, I did mention the concept of xy, I don’t want to know anything about the actors, because there’s the risk that there will be something in there that will affect it. In addition, I brought up my own eccentricity hypocrisy, wherever you want to call it.

I don’t like Tom Cruise because of his stance on mental health. I think that’s ignorant and hurtful. And so I generally don’t watch his films, even if they’re free, because I don’t like that. However, I was willing to watch this movie, The Hey, Kevin Spacey in it. Before I even knew the director is involved. Who has done pretty bad stuff too far as allegations go.

I recognize that’s not necessarily fair. And I think for me, there was it was an artistic merit decision. I wouldn’t go back and watch American Beauty Right? Or probably many other Kevin Spacey Holmes. This film got an exception for me, I think, because I felt like it was so noteworthy. Yeah, much like Birth of a Nation. That Okay, I’ll I’ll try to set aside that other part. And just focus on the film because it’s part of the visual language, the landscape of filmmaking. Yeah.

Christi Dodge 8:55
No and I was I was there with you because I, we talked about Kevin Spacey it was kind of gave me the creeps. Like I didn’t enjoy American Beauty at all. I didn’t understand what all the hubbub was about what everybody was getting all excited about. I was willing to watch this because and we talked about this too. So it merits kind of coming up.

Here we are, we appreciate the craft of filmmaking. And we appreciate because we’ve gotten to know some of these people, the many different people that are on a film set, and we have a good friend who runs sound down in LA and he’s done a handful of good size movies like well known movies and thinking of him if he had participated in a film and it later comes out that somebody did something bad.

Should his work not get to be appreciated, because one person did a bad thing now, I’m not at all defending a person like Kevin Spacey and what he does, but I think that’s where we get what’s the word we that’s where we get torn, because we don’t want to throw out the whole film. Because, right, somebody did something wrong. I mean, although like you said, personally, I won’t, I don’t want to see Rust because I know that a mother was killed making that movie. So I just don’t personally want, like when that scene comes up, I’m going to think of what happened, right.

Mike Dodge 10:25
And this is where I think that the real life to use the internet slang from like 40 years ago, but there’s no point right now that’s where real life impacts the art that it doesn’t exist any vacuum. The example that I brought up just a little bit before we started recording is Christian Bale’s tirade. He didn’t physically harm anyone. He didn’t, you know, touch them inappropriately. It was not, as I recall, racist or homophobic or anything. He was just being a complete jerk. he comes across as sounding very entitled. And not it’s not a good look for him.

It really soured me, right. I don’t know that I had a strong opinion one way or the other of his work. But now I can’t see him and not think of that, because I think of the people who are on set the crew, and they’re working hard, and maybe a crew member made a mistake, they could have been new, we know that most productions, including our own, tried to get pre labor as much as possible, because budgets are always tight.

This could have been a person who is a first day and they’re in a PA, they’re not making anything. They’re just trying to do whatever. So I think that unfortunately, then kind of affects how I view all of his work. And you brought up Michael Jackson in the world of music. I still think he has some really good songs, but I won’t purposely listen to them anymore.

Because I don’t like that that brings that into the conversation. I don’t want to think about the things he was accused of. Right? It’s just too much. I mean, sure. Maybe they were unfounded allegations. Too much. I just don’t even want to think about it. As an artist, right? Where is that line? Where do you draw that line? A big name star?

Or do we hold Christian Bale accountable? Because we heard that? What if some Teamster who’s just a driver for the day had that kind of tirade? Would we not go see a film? I don’t know. It’s it is this weird kind of slippery slope? There’s this gray area? Is a film good enough to kind of see past it, at least to see it. So you could talk about it? Is it just completely buried? We’ll never watch it again. That seems unfair to everyone else on the project. But it’s a really difficult thing. I think it’s very personal.

Christi Dodge 12:41
We talked about you kind of alluded to just now, if a crew member behave badly, it’s not going to tank a film. Nobody, the people on that crew are going to know about it.

That person might not get as much work because in Hollywood, it is and in Portland, it’s it’s people relationships, you work with somebody, they’re a good person, you would give them your recommendation when somebody asked you so that’s going to affect that person’s work in that community. But it’s probably not going to tank a film. Then where do you draw that line?

Like, you know, a producer, Harvey Weinstein there’s a lot of films you know, do we just now we don’t watch anything Miramax? No I’m still gonna probably watch a lot of old Miramax stuff. Sure this but it definitely I know Kevin Smith felt horrible about profiting off of Miramax Films because Harvey was such a big backer of Kevin Smith films.

He said from here on out, I mean, talk about putting your money where your mouth is, any money he makes on any of his Miramax Films is going straight to I think like it’s called Women in filmmaking or something in organization.

So where do we draw that line? Because generally right now, it’s if it’s the main star does something wrong? Either their part gets recast, and they do reshoots, or I don’t know if a film has been not i feel like i There’s one that I’m not remembering. That wasn’t that just they just said we’re just never gonna air this.

Mike Dodge 14:13
So recently, I read that Matthew McConaughey pulled out of a film, because the person it was based on supposedly true story, something came up in the background research.

Matteo was not comfortable being associated with that. I respect his right to say that, yeah, but then where is kind of the line because then you think, okay, that girl gets pulled because some accountant thinks that it’ll actually help them more.

So all those people’s work goes away, right? So is that any different than us saying, Oh, well, you know, Johnny Depp and Amber Heard had this battle.

I just won’t watch either that films anymore because they’re both bad people that slap each other around, or something like that.

Just any of these seems Where do you where you draw that line? That’s why I said I thought this film was fascinating because we didn’t realize we the director had these allegations. So we thought going into it. Okay, you know, we got one, one person to kind of deal with like, Okay, I think we can live with Kevin Spacey in this film.

Then we found this other end. I really don’t want it to sound like there’s some sort of tally, right. It’s a paying contest, like we have a certain amount of misdeeds, then we don’t totally, but you hadn’t seen the film before? Yeah. So I could have been comfortable not watching it again, ever if I thought of these various misdeeds, because I’d already seen it, but you hadn’t seen it that would be good for you.

Christi Dodge 15:38
I heard about it all the time in film school. Like there were so many references. People go like, Oh, and unusual suspects. Like, this is a highly referral film or referred Yeah, talked about and, and so I felt like, you know, we talk about jokingly, you know, you can’t be a film narrative, you haven’t seen Godfather, or you know, there’s a handful of films like, and I felt like as a good film nerd, I needed to see this.

So I was willing to overlook, like you said, we’re willing to kind of overlook, because when this film was made, when you saw this film the first time, right, you didn’t know about any of that stuff. Now, not saying he wasn’t doing those things, but we had no consciousness of it. Now they did have a consciousness. We were like, okay, but they kind of got an asterix. Like, we’re gonna listen to it anyway.

Mike Dodge 16:28
But then I started asking the question about how far do we take this, right? Because famously, pretty sure it was Kevin Hart got an hosted for the Oscars. I think it was because of something he had tweeted years ago, somebody ran across and dragged it up. And then that was it. He was out. So Orson Welles. Maybe he wasn’t the nicest guy, right? What if we find out that he kicked his puppy when he was a child? Do we hold that against him? Where is that? I don’t know. It’s a comfort level.

One of the other things that we brought up is, I’ve never been a huge fan of Woody Allen films. But any Hall is widely considered a very good film one of the best rom coms of all time. I haven’t seen it and I won’t, because I don’t like what has happened in his personal life. That makes me feel very uncomfortable. I take a pretty strong stand against that behavior.

So I just I’m not going to do it. That’s my own personal judgment. But do I have kind of the right to say, no one can see it? Of course not. Yeah. Right. I think it should still be available. And it may still be in the Zeitgeist and I just have to live without that. I have to figure it out. How do we draw that line? How do we what level of research art are you expected to do before you see a film? Right?

Christi Dodge 17:51
No, it definitely as the person who kind of, you know, we were planning 2023. And I definitely had a thought of maybe I need to do a deep dive. And what if we pick those films and then it comes out that one of those people did something bad.

Mike Dodge 18:06
We need to talk to the folks that kids in mind and have them add that to their assessment of every film, let’s watch the legality

Christi Dodge 18:14
Pedo meter this film, right?

Mike Dodge 18:16
Well, I also am not a big fan of slapping people around in the choke kings in the stuff of this nature, which unfortunately, went on and we’ve talked about this, I think, at least personally, I don’t know if on the podcast, how in the old days, it was perfectly reasonable to if you had a scene where a child had to fall out of a train, you just threw the kid out the window. Right? And you hope for the best?

Christi Dodge 18:36
Yeah, there’s I did do a little bit of research because I was curious kind of the history of of Hollywood scandals, and honestly, I bet either more. Well, gosh, I hate to have a ranking. But there was there was a studio executive that was a well known fixer name, Eddie Mannix, and he possibly was involved in the death of George Reeves some like brighter speculation that he would George Reeves played Superman, right in the last show.

Yeah, a long time ago, and Mannix I think George was having an affair with Mannix, his wife, oops. And when he found out he had friends in the mob, and later, George Reeves is found dead and it was ruled a suicide. And so there was lots of rumors around all of this.

Mike Dodge 19:28
He fell on a kitchen knife 12 times.

Christi Dodge 19:31
So there I mean, Hollywood scandals have gone back even before the most famous one is 1921 Fatty Arbuckle, Roscoe Arbuckle was accused of raping and killing a girl and it later came out that no he was acquitted. He didn’t do

Mike Dodge 19:47
Oh, well. There’s others Natalie Wood.

Christi Dodge 19:51
Right, but I meant I was trying to see like how far back there were some even before that,

Mike Dodge 19:55
Oh, I’m sure as long as they’re the studio system. There were people up to shenanigans, much of which we would not be particularly happy to know about. That’s kind of my thing is alternate history, right? I encourage all of you to look with very deep cynicism at all of your politicians throughout all time, because they’re all like this.

But when you put a person in a position of power, yeah. In particular, right, what I think makes filmmaking difficult, is there are so many people who want the few number of jobs they have. This is an excuse. But the reality is with actors, particularly, we select for good looking people, right. I think that tends to exacerbate certain passions of the human nature. You put a person in a position of power around a lot of young people who will do anything to get ahead of the math is right there, this is rife with it, I have to assume that some of my favorite films from the past had some pretty shady behavior that went on by some of the people involved.

We’ve heard of some leading men were not very nice to their CO stars. And, of course, studio producers are known for this kind of behavior. Do we not support kind of that kind of art because of this? This can happen? I don’t know. Are rockstars good with the groupies are labeled record label producers and executives? Are they good to the musicians? But when do you draw that line of saying, Well, I, because the artists suffered through this trauma to make this art, do we not appreciate it?

Then I think, for example, what if it’s kind of self inflicted, and I’m referring to metallic because Black Album in the documentary, there’s a lot of tension in the band, just between the band members, the producer was fine. It was the band members. As a human, I feel bad for them to have gone through that angst and that fighting and that tension, but the album was their best. I don’t necessarily believe you need to have mental illness or trauma to make good art. But do you throw the art out? Because there was trauma.

Christi Dodge 22:07
Right, right? Well just look at I mean, as I was doing research, there were a ton and I can’t even begin to list them all of celebrities whose lives were deeply impacted and their art by drug abuse. You know, some of it maybe we didn’t know at the time, Judy Garland? I’ll say, right, because I think at the time that you know who that wasn’t widely, well, you know, well known. But now, can I actually, I think I can watch Wizard of Oz without thinking of poor Judy later in life. Right. But it probably does kind of come up when you think about her life and total, and her family and what she went through.

Mike Dodge 22:49
Oh, we talked about in White Christmas. I think her name is Vera. The Oh, the sister. Yeah, her anorexia, right. Which was, I think a part of of being in the studio system. But we saw it on screen. And we had a concern.

Christi Dodge 23:05
I think every year we watch it, we still watch it, because it’s so much a part of our Christmas tradition. But I think every single year you go, man, that girl needs a sandwich. It’s just painful to look at her and to know that she there is some deep pain being behind right? That appearance. Yes.

Mike Dodge 23:21
And with all of this art, do you factor that in or not? Or how do you that to me was the part that was interesting, and I hope the listeners enjoy this discussion. Maybe it’s thought provoking. I certainly feel free to contact us this call the number send us email, whatever with your opinions. But what is our obligation as the consumers of the art?

Do we have an obligation to boycott something? So the example is, rest. To my knowledge, the incident onset was an accident of negligence. I think people are still culpable. But I don’t believe it was malicious. The incident with the poor woman on the train tracks a number of years ago in the Greg Allman biopic that was negligence, and perhaps one might say incompetence, but it was not malice. But let us say that we knew that on a film, someone was actively mean or evil to another person, or do we have an obligation to say no, we’re not going to see that at all. We’re going to shun them. Right. I don’t know. It seems an interesting conversation topic.

Christi Dodge 24:31
What is that? When you mentioned the the woman on the railroad tracks? What’s the movie with a helicopter where people died?

Mike Dodge 24:39
That was I think Twilight Zone. Right, Vic Morrow.

Christi Dodge 24:41
So wasn’t that a case of somebody being negligent?

Mike Dodge 24:47
I believe yes, it was negligence with where they put the special effects charges and stuff. If I recall correctly,

Christi Dodge 24:54
I probably would still watch that movie.

Mike Dodge 24:58
I did see it after I knew What had happened? I did watch.

Christi Dodge 25:01
And so does it kind of make you pause like, oh, yeah, like, especially when you get to that scene with the helicopter and the kids, and you’re like, Oh, crap, somebody died right here.

Mike Dodge 25:12
Yeah. That I don’t think I would now, because it’d be too hard to get past it. But when I was younger, I think you know, your lineage. Yeah. Because it was in the it was in the news, it came up before the film came out, I believe that there was this tragic accident. Did we have a different perspective with stunts, I look at motor racing were 40 50 years ago, we still expected people to die. Now we don’t. Now it’s a huge deal if someone dies, but there was a time in the 60s where I think every year somebody in Formula One died. It was just that dangerous.

Was that, you know, again, 40 years ago in the twilight zone movie was made. Were we more Cavalier as a society toward the risks of filmmaking? And I think it’s better now that we have a zero deaths policy is expected on films, but then I think of, okay, other parts of the world that maybe have a different culture and so for example, Hong Kong martial arts films, they use a lot more physical contact to make the fight scenes look real. Everybody knows is going in, but then as a person, do I have an obligation to not support that knowing that they’re really going to hit that guy.

Christi Dodge 26:27
Yeah, I was just gonna say what is the audience’s culpability in what is going on? If right if you know about it beforehand.

Mike Dodge 26:33
okay, so I’m gonna take this to kind of maybe an absurd extreme but Last Tango in Paris. The actress who had that scene with Marlon Brando says it was not consensual. So should I

Christi Dodge 26:44
Is that the one with the director told him to go a little bit too far.

Mike Dodge 26:48
I think that’s the story. Or at least, maybe that’s his excuse. But that’s really tough because not only is that a violation, but it’s recorded on film.

Christi Dodge 26:58
And now we’re watching it if right how can we we are too tender hearted people, I guess that have trouble once you know a thing.

Mike Dodge 27:07
Right? Oh, to consume that. No, I might sound like an idiot here. But I have a hard time watching old timey westerns. Now that I know that they actually did break the horse’s legs.

Christi Dodge 27:18
I always hated watching Westerns with the horses when they would go down because I would just as a little kid, I would go How are the horses not getting hurt? I never well, I hated why the answer is they did get hurt.

Mike Dodge 27:28
And then they killed them. It really bumps me that once I learned that I had a heart. I love to lose old timey westerns. Yeah, but leave the horses alone. The dogs don’t ever mess with a dog or I’m done. Yeah. But that’s, you know, that’s a weird thing to say that we have to have some sort of, you know, like the ASPCA at the end of the film says no animals are harmed do we need to have somebody else who vets the production process to say the individuals involved in here are decent human beings. I mean, it’d be nice if that was a given. But as I talked about, I think there are some factors at play, at least in filmmaking that lets bad dudes get away with stuff.

Christi Dodge 28:09
We’re not necessarily talking about this. But as you were talking about some governing body I started to think but take into its its crazy, theater extreme extreme. What about all the actors who dramatically lose a ton of weight? They’re harming themselves. So now we can’t put that on the end of the film because Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Christian Bale, they all harmed their bodies permanently, for the sake of the art now.

I think if you ask them they are all three of those guys would say they did it willingly, right? An actress or an actor who is playing a serial killer. I mean, like, Charlize Theron, she had to get in the mind of that crazy woman. Arlene, right? I can’t remember her name. So and so she has to have had at least in that moment that she was playing that part. Have some psychological trauma.

Mike Dodge 29:02
Maybe a movie we’ve talked about on on this podcast, French Connection, the director smacked Gene Hackman in the face, right. That is an assault. Yeah. And do I not buy trench connection because of it? No.

Christi Dodge 29:16
And I’ll be honest, I can actually because Gene, kind of I think he said, Well, I don’t think he was happy did it, but he’s okay.

Mike Dodge 29:24
Now. Yeah. Right. And it’s I would expect other Mr. Hagman is a bit older now. But he would probably say if he did it again, I’d punch him back. And I think he would. So it felt like that was more in the category of oh, I can’t believe the things we did in the 70s to make films. But that’s why I said this is to me was such a fascinating topic, because it’s so nuanced. There’s so many different parts of it.

You mentioned governing body and so then I was thinking of course sag and I was having a conversation just yesterday with a friend. Hopefully he’s listening to this podcast about you unions and I said, I’m generally not the biggest fan of unions because I grew up with people who had to join the unions and had stories of graft and corruption and laziness and all those. I never heard a good story out of my family of origin about unions. However, as I told my friend with sag, I totally get why they exist, because there is this 1000 People want one part, that leverage, it makes it trivially easy to abuse actors. I’m sure learn.

Christi Dodge 30:32
I think the crew likes IATSE (labor union).

Mike Dodge 30:36
Right and the different, exactly same leverage, yeah, just different people. I get it, I’m sure there are a ton of horror stories of you know, I wanted to do this thing, and the union rep wouldn’t let me and all of that. But this is a case where I see that I see how they would need to come into play. But I don’t think SAG is necessarily the person that does that is at the DGA, or the PGA or their industry groups that could say we’re going to police ourselves. I’m thinking speaking of police, like the internal affairs division, should there be instead of the dopey ratings board that says it’s PG 13?

Should we as an industry have an internal watchdog group that says we’re gonna rat out these people first? Before before the Enquirer gets a hold of this or TMZ? We’re gonna find them and hold them accountable? I don’t know. But that that to me is is the thing that would make me feel better. Just like I like the thought that I have when I see that the ASPCA said no animals were harmed, even though I know there are cases where that’s not maybe living up to the standard that I would like, but it makes me feel better. And kind of the same thing. Do you know, would that be nice at the end of the film that they had, in addition to maybe the, you know, at sea stamp, or whatever that is, like, look, we made sure that nobody abused the caster crew.

Christi Dodge 31:56
I don’t know by now that a recent with the metoo movement, so probably like, end of 2017, beginning of 2018. There were a shooting, I forgot the name of where they like relationship coordinators are Yeah, intimacy coordinator may seem corny, and that’s what it is. And so that, but that’s just dealing with kind of those intimate moments that are being captured on film. We’re not really that’s not looking at how is this gaffer being traded on set? Or how is this sound? You know, Is the mic person is the sound record is being respectful to all cast members, not just you know, the A players, but when they make up, you know, right.

Mike Dodge 32:43
I was thinking, if you look at professional sports, both pro football and international level rugby, they have an impartial doctor on site to assess head injuries, because they know that they can’t trust the teams to police themselves. Because there’s incentive for sending a player back out there while injured is too high. It just isn’t going to happen. No teams gonna say oh, no, no temps down your unit. Come on.

Is it a similar thing? Do we need an objective impartial third party who monitors and basically audits this? Right? And I know the movie CDs hate auditors of the financial kind. But is that is that a one way to help address this so that the viewer can feel safe?

Some people would say okay, well, now you’re restricting art? Well, sure. But you don’t have to do that. If you you know, you can be an independent filmmaker. And you can do whatever you want. Just like I can make a film. That’s not a SAG film. Right? Right. But if it’s going to be a SAG film, it was going to be $100 million Marvel movie. Maybe we maybe that’s part of it, right is that they should have an auditing company that comes in and says we’ve made sure that you all are not up to anything you shouldn’t be.

Christi Dodge 33:58
And I do I feel like I’ve heard some rumblings in that, like when I listened to different, like, right after the me to movement, and a lot of the actresses were putting together there was the time’s up group to that they were kind of trying to call out, you know, or have tried, they were trying to come up with some sort of I thought, a reporting program, kind of where people if they felt they had been harmed on set that they could report it, and it would be investigated. I don’t know.

Mike Dodge 34:27
But it’s interesting, because when you you brought up the me to movement that a lot of those actresses and you know, actors too, we talked about Terry Crews and Brendan Fraser everyone knew like in town Yeah. So don’t don’t go to his hotel room or don’t take this meeting. So to me that’s that’s where I say the industry needs to to self report on those. You need to get those out. But I think it’s the same math that worked before because For those individuals who are in a position of power, and so each person who may say yes or no, is now facing well, this person could Greenlight my film. Or I could say, hey, that guy’s a scumbag. I’m not going to work with him. But then my film never gets made. Right. Or I don’t get that part.

Christi Dodge 35:17
No, I mean, that part. Yeah, I think that was one of the things that came out of the time’s up movement. It was it was like, Hey, let’s stop having meetings in hotel rooms. And a couple actresses or you know, said, I get it. It’s convenient. You happen to be in New York, I happen to be in New York, let’s go meet. You don’t want to be out at a restaurant like so I don’t know, we need more like, right, I have co working place this is so that you can have a meeting in a conference room in a public area.

Mike Dodge 35:44
I have taken an interview in someone’s hotel room. And, I thought it was noteworthy odd. I very much was aware that I’m now basically I’ve gotten to the second location. The end, look, I was like, 23, I probably could, you know, kick the crap out of the guy. It was that wasn’t necessarily the biggest concern, but I was aware of it. Right? That does seem a little bit odd. When we talk about in other parts where you have, let’s say, you’re going to fire an employee at your business, you have someone else there’s a witness, so that it’s not, he said, she said kind of thing. Right. So there’s a lot of these things which seem obvious in retrospect. But ultimately, do you, you know, throw the baby out the bathwater, right? Because the industry has problems and has a long history, which, like I said, if we could go back in time, with the mobile phone cameras that we have today, I think we’d be shocked at some of the things that went on, absolutely. In and around the films that we love.

Christi Dodge 36:54
Right. So just one last thing that we talked about this weekend that I feel like bears, this is a good place to bring it up. Something that my film student friends and I butted up against a ton of times, we started out this conversation today by saying separate the art from the artist. Filmmaking is in this weird, it’s straddling two bit main. I don’t know entities, because yes, it is art. But it’s also called showbusiness.

So one of the things that we talked about is that you can have a film that a corporation, a studio has put up money, they’ve created a product, the film, and if there’s something wrong with it, now they have meaning like somebody was caught misbehaving badly, they have to decide, are we just going to scrap this entire product? Or do we try to recast reshoot digitally alter, so that we can put this film out so that we can recoup some of our investment. As artists, a lot of us hated? You know, when our professors would remind us, it’s show business as a business. Ultimately, like, nobody gives a crap about your art. Right? And none of us wanted to hear that.

Mike Dodge 38:17
It’s about butts in seats. Yeah. The example I gave when this topic came up was Mel Gibson. Right. So he said some mean things to some lady cop when he was drunk, and also an entire race. Well, and I was gonna bring up oh, sorry, he’s notoriously anti semitic. Yes, that is a problem for me. Right? I like the Jews. I don’t like people who hate the Jews, Jews. So that’s a problem for me. But the studio puts out the movie with him in that beaver or whatever it was.

Christi Dodge 38:50
He came back somehow how and the reason is because it was financially somebody put up the money and found it financially viable. And, and they were proven right?

Mike Dodge 39:01
I think I’m gonna give an anecdote. I’m not replying that Ben Affleck is anti semitic. But he then said in an award, he was accepting that he was told in Hollywood, you have to get over it, because you’re gonna have to work with that jerk again later, and you found it to be true.

Wow. So that is the nature of that business. At least right now. The world we live in right now, is that you have to make those those calls. That’s probably the part of being a studio executive that is both not fun and select for people with strange morals.

Yes, I think you’re a that’s a good point to bring up the business of show is that in certain cases, if there’s enough money in it, yes. Some producers can Greenlight that project, right. Yeah. It is incumbent on me as a viewer to not go to choose whether or not you want to go yep. Right. So I have two choices. I have my dollar choice. I also have the watching streaming, which is also kind of paying for it but in a much more indirect way. But just in general, even Who’s free from the library? Do I not not? Do I shun that, that art? Because I don’t like it. I say there are some things that I absolutely will never watch. So even if somebody paid me to watch it, right, but it is a business.

Christi Dodge 40:13
Yeah. Okay, so I guess ultimately, we both feel that it’s up to each individual person to decide. And that’s why I just wanted to frame this conversation. These were our opinions, the opinions expressed on this podcast are that of US and US only and

Mike Dodge 40:33
not that we

Christi Dodge 40:34
production on Dodge Media.

Mike Dodge 40:37
For the state of Oregon, or anybody,

Christi Dodge 40:39
This is just Mike and Christie trying to you know, get through this confusing,

Mike Dodge 40:45
okay, now, there may be a listener who actually thought this is like an interesting topic. And if you would like to continue further, please reach out I’m happy to continue.

Christi Dodge 40:54
And so we’re gonna next week, we’re gonna go back to our old format. We’re going to be talking about bromance movies in the month of November, but we just felt that maybe let’s just give the audience what happens, you know, sectional, as we debate kind of friendly debate, these kind of topics and so let us know what you think.

Give us a call 971-245-4148 Leave us a message let me know did is this kind of episode nice once in a while, are you annoyed and get back to talking about the movies you too? Whatever it is, let us know what you think. You can weigh in on this topic too. How do you decide what films to watch and not watch? Does the actor producer studio? Does their behavior affect your watching interests? So also, you could shoot me an email at Christi@dodgemediaproductions.com. That email will be in the show notes. I’ll just say that we I haven’t done a ton of research. So I think we’re talking about tags next weekend.

Mike Dodge 42:02
I’m sincerely hoping it helps us no skeletons in his closet.

Christi Dodge 42:06
I really hope he’s just a boy scout at heart.

Mike Dodge 42:10
Banjo playing Boy Scout?

Christi Dodge 42:12
Let us know what you thought of this episode. And if you have any feedback from about the podcast, but never forget,

Mike Dodge 42:19
Dodge’s never stopped and neither did the movies.

Brennan 42:21
Thanks for listening to dodge movie podcast with Christi and Mike Dodge of Dodge Media Productions. To find out more about this podcast and what we do. Go to dodgemediaproductions.com. Subscribe, share, leave a comment and tell us what we should watch next. Dodge’s never stop and neither do the movies.