← Cannonball with Wesley Morris
Cannonball with Wesley Morris
There’s Nothing Sexy About ‘Wuthering Heights’
00:43:03
Valentine’s Day weekend is over, and we’re left with a new film adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights.” Audiences are hot, bothered and swooning. Can you blame them? The trailer had promised — and the film delivers — a stunning Margot Robbie, a seductive Jacob Elordi and a lot of sticky substances (like, a lot.) Wesley Morris knows sex and shock to be the director Emerald Fennell’s specialty, and this flick is no different. But where’s the actual substance? To confront his suspicion head on, Wesley takes a movie buddy, the culture editor Sasha Weiss, to see the film that’s got everybody and their lovers in knots.
Loading summary
Transcript243 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hey, Drake May here. You know that calm you get when your team has a drive under control? That's the same feeling I get investing and saving with Betterment. Their automated technology does the work to help grow your money and save you on taxes. So when the market gets unpredictable, you can stay calm, cool and confident. That's what I call the Betterment effect, and it's why I'm glad they're on my team. Get started today@betterment.com investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed paid client ad views may not be representative. See App Store and Google Play Store reviews. Learn more@betterment.com pursuitbetterpartners. I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball. Today, nothing says I love you like leaving a bunch of eggs in your man's bed. Love is hard. Hard to get, hard to keep, hard to let go. It's also hard to act in film. And that might seem like a funny thing to say given how many love stories we've been given from filmmakers, not to mention showrunners and novelists, but the percentage that really gets to me is low. There are two reasons to bring this up. One is that Valentine's Day just happened. The other is that just in time for that commercial event. I mean, really, like what really is Valentine's Day? We just got another movie of Emily Bronte's novel Wuthering Heights. Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi are in it. So are a lot of squished and squirted substances, and not even the obvious ones. This movie shoots straight out of the loins of Emerald Fennell. She's the director of Promising Young Woman and Saltburn. And Fennell is obviously interested in sexual obsession and romantic repression. She thinks she's being shocking, but I'm actually never shocked because the movies aren't about human psychology or relationships. They're about trying to shock you, which is trying. So I was curious about whether her Weathering Heights would be more than a shock show, and my pal Sasha Weiss was actually excited to see it. So we're going to talk about whether this movie changed our minds. Sasha, Wesley, thanks for coming back.
- [02:39]
B
Thanks for having me.
- [02:40]
A
I All I'll say is we saw this movie at the same time. Wuthering Heights. Emerald Fennell is giving us yet another version of Emily Bronte's novel. Her 179-year-old novel is back again.
- [02:59]
B
It never left it's hold on us as eternal.
- [03:02]
A
Yeah, I don't remember. I don't know when the first time you read it was, but I read it as like a 13, 12, 13 year old. the same time that I was reading other, you know, on the one hand, you know, Victorian Gothic literature, on the other hand, Lolita.
- [03:23]
B
Uh huh. Really getting into some of the.
- [03:26]
A
I really kind of wanted to deviant twisted sexuality. Okay. I wanted to understand because I had seen this William Wyler version of this movie with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier. Cause my mother watched a lot of old movies.
- [03:40]
B
Forgive me.
- [03:42]
A
Forgive me. And they really seemed to be holding onto each other in this really sort of passionate way and like, meaning everything they screamed at each other. I'm not a child anymore.
- [03:53]
B
You can't talk like that to me.
- [03:54]
A
I'm not talking to a child.
- [03:55]
B
I'm talking to Kathy.
- [03:56]
A
My Kathy. I understood as a kid that that was sensual. And I saw something else called Wuthering Heights on my mother's bookshelf and I.
- [04:05]
B
Was like, you put two and two.
- [04:06]
A
Together, let's see what happens with this guy.
- [04:08]
B
Yeah. I too read it as a kind of fevered. And it's perfect for that age because it's about these two impetuous, kind of crazy, uncivilized, you know, refusing to conform to the bounds of civilized behavior. Kids, teenagers, obsessives in love. So it's very appropriate for that age. Which made me kind of excited when I saw the trailer for this new film. And I was excited too, because Emerald Fennell, the filmmaker, is. She's a kind of, you know, transgressive, provocative image maker. And I was sort of like, okay, what's she gonna do with this? What's she gonna draw out of this? So when I saw the trailer, I was like, okay, give it to me.
- [04:46]
A
All right, so here we go. I mean, here's Margot Robbie.
- [04:54]
B
What should you do, Heathcliff, if you were rich?
- [05:01]
A
Jacob Elordi, sport and do all rich, live in a big house.
- [05:12]
B
Wanna be.
- [05:12]
A
Cruel to my servant, Take a wife.
- [05:20]
B
I love the fog, the wind swept moors drenched encounters.
- [05:25]
A
A lot of wetness, a lot of wetness. So kiss me and let us both be damned.
- [05:37]
B
I mean, it's clear she's gonna take liberties with the source text.
- [05:40]
A
Yes, yes, yes.
- [05:41]
B
I mean, there's something about enacting a girlhood fantasy that is being offered here. And that's kind of what excited me. Like, I was like, oh, is it gonna get me in touch with the thing that was so essential to me as a girl?
- [05:55]
A
Right.
- [05:55]
B
And I actually, when the movie began, I thought there was some promise there because we have the kids, we have young Kathy, played by an actress Called Charlotte Mellington. And the young Heathcliff, played by Owen Cooper, who's the boy from adolescence, who's a very kind of tender looking, soft spoken, kind of heartbreaking boy.
- [06:14]
A
He's all. He's a lot of eyes, a lot.
- [06:16]
B
Of eyes and freckles. And so Heathcliff is a kind of street kid who's been taken in by Kathy's father. And Kathy's father is a drunk, he is a narcissist. We very quickly see that he's kind of a manipulative, unstable kind of father who volatile at one moment can be kind of caressing at the next moment. So she's living in this unstable world. This beautiful boy, you know, kind of lost, lonely, comes into her world as a playmate and also as a fellow witness to this unstable situation. So I feel like she does a really good job at the beginning of the movie of showing that the attachment between these two very tender young things is born of a kind of desperation and fear and living in an unstable environment. And for me, that was portrayed with like tenderness and a sense of reality. I don't know if you felt that way.
- [07:09]
A
Yeah, I mean, I thought it was interesting watching this little girl build this little boy.
- [07:13]
B
Yes. Do you know what I mean?
- [07:14]
A
He's a toy, he's a project. But she basically is creating for herself a playmate.
- [07:21]
B
Yes.
- [07:21]
A
And at some point the thing she builds also becomes desirable to her.
- [07:27]
B
Yes, yes.
- [07:28]
A
And then they grow up.
- [07:30]
B
And they grow up. She doesn't spend a lot of time in the childhood. I sort of wish she would have. But there's that scene, the barn scene. You know what I'm talking about?
- [07:40]
A
The best scene in the movie.
- [07:41]
B
The best scene in the movie. So, I mean, this was another thing that sort of offered promise, I thought. So basically there's like a flinging aside of a curtain and this little actress becomes the gorgeous, kind of laughably gorgeous Margot Robbie. And little Owen Cooper becomes the laughably gorgeous Jacob Elordi. And those seeds of attraction seem to have flowered, germinated and sperminated.
- [08:12]
A
I don't know. What are we, what are we, what are we saying?
- [08:14]
B
That is a very emerald Fennell.
- [08:16]
A
Thank you very much. I'm here all night.
- [08:20]
B
Before we get to all the fluids in this movie. So Catherine, there's a new neighbor on their land. He. Catherine's very excited that there's a new neighbor. She walks over, she sprains her ankle. She stays for six weeks. Heathcliff is heartbroken. She comes back dressed like a cake and she's very upset. That Heathcliff isn't really there to greet her.
- [08:44]
A
Mm. Because he knows what's going on. Like, you're with this other guy over there on the other side of this wall for, like, six weeks. Really.
- [08:54]
B
She's extremely jealous. But it's a jealousy that dare not speak its name because they're kind of siblings. Like, they're enmeshed. Are they siblings? Are they in love? Are they. They don't know how to understand their feelings, and they have this kind of rageful run in where they part and, you know, basically they insult each other. And then that night, she goes to find him in the barn loft where he sleeps in.
- [09:17]
A
Yes.
- [09:17]
B
But instead, what she sees is something kind of shocking and, to me, as a viewer, kind of promising. She looks through the crack in the floor underneath Heathcliff's kind of attic chamber in the barn itself. Will you take it away?
- [09:35]
A
You know, two of the servants. Man. He's having some private time. And, you know, you're not really sure what's happening because you're watching it from Kathy's point of view. But she's looking down through these slats. The slats.
- [09:52]
B
Cause she hears a noise. She hears some kind of telltale jangle.
- [09:55]
A
The woman. There's a woman and a man. The woman has essentially situated herself in what I would describe as a harness. And the man is sort of getting the instruments ready to do whatever it is they're gonna do. And Kathy's watching through the floor.
- [10:17]
B
And we're definitely meant to understand that Kathy has not wit.
- [10:20]
A
This is new sexual encounter.
- [10:22]
B
So what happens?
- [10:24]
A
Well, while these two are down there doing their S and M thing, she's watching this, and she is fascinated. She is really just like, okay, I don't know what this is, but I'm very into it. And I would say the minute she has that thought.
- [10:46]
B
Who should come drape himself over her?
- [10:49]
A
The text gets doubled. And suddenly her eyes and her mouth are covered.
- [10:57]
B
And it's the first moment that Kathy and Heathcliff are explicitly sexual together. That's what you're given to understand. Yes.
- [11:02]
A
He's on top of her, by the way.
- [11:04]
B
He's on top of her, and he's participating in the eroticism of this moment. So the discovery of her sexuality. It's a very interesting moment. Right. Like, it's. It's hot. It's.
- [11:13]
A
It's definitely.
- [11:13]
B
I will give. It's intuitive.
- [11:14]
A
I will give it that.
- [11:15]
B
There's something sadomasochistic happening. There's pleasure. There's a kind of transmission between the Two of them. And what should happen? She runs away. The scene ends with Kathy leaving. The scene of her awakening sexuality and this encounter with Heathcliff. And she runs away. And to me, that's the end of the movie being interesting.
- [11:35]
A
Yes.
- [11:36]
B
It promises this kind of psychological reading. And also, like, what it does to me. I mean, it's. This stuff is not in the book. Right. The book doesn't have sex in it. The book has a lot of yearning. The book has a tempestuous darkness at the center.
- [11:52]
A
It's a boiling pot, but, like, very, very rigorously kept from boiling over.
- [11:58]
B
And the source of its heat is kind of mysterious. I mean, these are two dark people. So Emerald Fennell comes along and she's decided to locate the darkness in their psychologies and kind of in their sexuality. To me, that was, like, the great promise of the movie that I found pretty disappointing after.
- [12:16]
A
I mean, because she kind of murders it.
- [12:19]
B
Yeah. And the question she seems to want to ask is, like, can they actually explore their desires together? Can this relationship, forged in this weird shame cauldron, kind of yield, like a complex sexual thing? I mean, of course it's a tragedy. We know that it won't. But that's, like, the thing she's promising to explore instead. What I think she explores is fashion.
- [12:48]
A
But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yes, you are right. But I want to say that there is a moment where I have not given up entirely on the movie.
- [12:57]
B
Okay. Okay. Okay.
- [12:58]
A
Because after this. After this.
- [13:00]
B
Okay.
- [13:01]
A
You know. Because what you're waiting for. What I'm waiting for anyway, is some sign that what felt deeply meaningful to me watching her watch this sex happen is that it will recur somehow. It will recur in a way that is a duplication of what we watched her experience upstairs in the barn. And it happens. She marries Linton, the guy who lives next door. Edgar Linton. And they're in bed one night, and he, too, climbs atop her. And she makes a very interesting choice. She's like, you know what I can do? I can take my hands and put them on his hands and make him do what Heathcliff did to me that time that I haven't forgotten and I'm still thinking about. And he does it. And he's kind of like, oh, what is this? This is strange. And then there's a wonderful shot of Margot Robbie reacting to this, I think, realizing that I have married a man that can do this thing that Heathcliff did to me. But then the movie just goes on and does some regular old normie sex while they run off and, like, she makes a music video. She turns all the sex basically into a montage.
- [14:40]
B
Right.
- [14:41]
A
And they have basically.
- [14:42]
B
What was in the trailer was the whole movie.
- [14:44]
A
Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. I really feel like this is a kind of missed opportunity in some ways. But I also, you know, I do sense that. The movie is scared of itself somehow.
- [15:00]
B
Yes.
- [15:00]
A
You know, it is free to do as it pleases. It could have taken so many other liberties, but instead you get this kind of immature understanding of sexual proclivity. Desire as offloaded onto a series of images. Right. Excretion.
- [15:26]
B
I mean, there are egg yolks emission. There's fish in aspic.
- [15:31]
A
Yeah. There's a whole fish, you know, suspended in aspic. That a finger, kind of like Kathy's.
- [15:37]
B
Finger, you know, pokes, makes its way into. Makes its way into. There's snails and slimy things. So all of these things.
- [15:45]
A
There's a running gag where, like, they leave eggs in each other's beds. And apparently there's a thing where, like, in the world of this novel, they sit down in the exact same spot every time they get into bed.
- [15:58]
B
But also, like, when they discover that the yolk has been placed there, they run their finger. That's what I do when I find a broken egg. I run my fingers sensuously through it. I mean, so there's all of this sort of like. Yeah. Evocation of bodily congress, I guess. And then there is some sex, you know, but it's kind of like dime store novel sex.
- [16:19]
A
That's not interesting. Every single shot that you see of them doing it belongs on a book in a bookstore.
- [16:26]
B
Yeah.
- [16:26]
A
I just felt like the energy needed to go. This movie needed to be a lot crazier and I'm sorry, you have some of the nuttiest source material ever written about romantic obsession. Right. Where, like, the sort of erotic and sensual and narrative sublime are essentially embodied in these two people who pledge that not only do they will they love each other unto death. Like, there's no point in living if the other person isn't here. We might even just be one.
- [16:59]
B
Two sides of the same soul. I mean, and that's the promise that's so exciting and intoxicating. And I think it would have been interesting. It would have been so interesting. Like, it's interesting to me that she wants to explore that through some kind of sadomasochistic sexual relationship. Right. Like, she wants to explore what it means to become one, what it means for your desires to align, what it means to Play these kinds of games where there's complete trust. Right. Like, that's the thing that she's sort of setting out to explore and never explores. And it's so frustrating because it's like there's something kind of new that she's finding in the subtext of this book. And then she just won't go there. And in fact, like, to me, there are moments where, again, Catherine and Heathcliff kind of walk up to the edge of this more risky sexual encounter. There's the moment where she's masturbating in the heath, you know, and he finds her and he. They kind of, you know, kind of come together for a moment. And he sucks on her fingers. And, you know, he's promising. There's some promise there. And then she just flees. And I feel like that is what Emerald Fennell does in the movie. Like, I just think every time she starts to get psychological or she starts to get risky, she just runs away with a billowing cape behind her. Yeah.
- [18:23]
A
Cause I think. I don't know, I feel like there's something really. This is a director trying to work something internal out. Right. I feel like there's something personal happening here that she can't get to the bottom of. I think the whole movie should have just been the two kids at the beginning. The more interesting movie, the more transgressive thing to do that probably would have yielded some kind of surprise is to just have much younger people embodying this very irrational, savage, unhinged. Unhinged, like punitive self flagellating. Like, deeply, powerfully romantic sort of alignment not only with another person, but as though this other person were some kind of cosmological principle. The thing that's embarrassing to me about this movie is everybody seems too old to be playing these games. You know, it's not like anybody looks too old for the part. Although Margot Robbie's clothes. It almost seems like she started off as the actor who's playing Kathy. And then, poof, woke up in little Kathy's clothes. Cause they don't all quite fit right. To me, it's almost like she's Alice in Wonderland or something.
- [19:51]
B
Yeah. There is this feeling of, like, cosplaying.
- [19:54]
A
Cosplaying. That's the word.
- [19:55]
B
Psychology.
- [19:56]
A
That's the word. That's the word.
- [19:57]
B
Playing at adult desire. Cosplaying at some kind of communion. And none of it feels sophisticatedly realized.
- [20:05]
A
You didn't like the other two movies, Promising Young Woman and Saltburn?
- [20:10]
B
I did like Promising Young Woman, and I felt like it was A promise from this director.
- [20:16]
A
You're using that word. You used that word a lot.
- [20:17]
B
Promising. Well, it's because I feel like she is proposing to go. I mean, all of the movies are revenge movies. All of the movies involve a kind of sexual power play. All of the movies explore sort of people who perceive themselves to be victims that can actually be quite cruel for all kinds of reasons. I mean, these themes are suggestive and exciting. And then in promising young women, I think they're the most realized. Saltburn is maybe the worst movie that I've ever seen. I'm so angry that I saw that movie because it's just.
- [20:50]
A
Amen.
- [20:51]
B
It's transgression for no purpose. It's transgression to take a picture for Instagram.
- [20:57]
A
She found a house.
- [20:59]
B
She was late. She's just interested in houses. She's not really interested in souls.
- [21:03]
A
Well, right. And I think there's something about the soullessness of these projects. I think that actually. I actually think it would be useful to sort of think about. Cause we're having a really interesting moment right now. I think that this movie is a part of. In terms of. I mean, this isn't successful, but, like, this movie is about a kind of sexual communication.
- [21:30]
B
Yes.
- [21:30]
A
This movie, at its very least, and its barely most successful, is about two people trying to figure out how to be with each other.
- [21:43]
B
Yeah.
- [21:44]
A
They just won't fucking talk about it. So what I want to do is I want to think about some of the work that we've gotten in the last year or so where people are trying to negotiate how to arrange their bodies.
- [22:03]
B
Right. Something you want to explore or maybe something actually transgressive. How do you ask for that? How do you talk about that? There are a bunch of works that are exploring this much more successfully than I think this managed to.
- [22:16]
A
Yeah, we're in a moment where there's a nice little bounty of that right now involving people, sex, desire, and communicating the desire. And I'd be fun to, like, look at some of that.
- [22:28]
B
Yeah, let's look at something that manages to do what, unfortunately, Emerald Fennell failed to do.
- [22:34]
A
All right, we'll take a break and when we come back, we'll do that.
- [22:59]
B
This break is brought to you by Adobe Photoshop. Here to help you make that thing only you could make here for when you've got an amazing idea you can't wait to share, and you need it to look exactly as you imagined. Photoshop gives you the ultimate image editing and design tools so you can dial in your creation perfectly down to the last pixel. Make epic images for zine covers, posters, brand graphics, social posts, or anything else you can imagine. It's your vision. Go all in. Get started. @photoshop.com we gave Times employees a preview.
- [23:31]
A
Of Crossplay from New York Times games.
- [23:33]
B
And here's what they had to say. I can finally play with other people.
- [23:37]
A
Play with friends that you already know, or you can just be matched with someone else world.
- [23:41]
B
In the the world, I have a J for 10 points and I can put that on a double letter. So J A M. That's 24 points. I am going to take facts and make it faxes for 30 points.
- [23:52]
A
I'm guessing tanga is not a word. Let's see. Tanga is a word.
- [23:56]
B
Oh, I don't know what tanga means, so I'm gonna press down on the word and. Oh, definition popped up. As in English. As a second language speaker, I like to learn new words.
- [24:08]
A
I'm pretty competitive. It's fun to beat friends and coworkers.
- [24:12]
B
New York Times game subscribers get full.
- [24:14]
A
Access to Crossplay, our first two player word game.
- [24:17]
B
Subscribe now for a special offer on all of our games.
- [24:29]
A
We're back. And now it's time to talk about some good sex.
- [24:34]
B
Yes. Yes.
- [24:36]
A
So, pleasurable sex.
- [24:38]
B
Part of what was such a bummer about this movie is that actually lately there are a number of works of visual pleasure seeking and pleasure giving that are engaging sex in a sophisticated way, in a risky way, in a way that, I don't know, I haven't quite seen it portrayed before. And I think in all of the things that I'm thinking of, there is some exploration of negotiating power, of trying stuff. And I think that what makes these things special is that a lot of that happens through talking. And some of the talking is actually what's really hot. It's not just the sex, which also is hot, but it's like sort of the way that it's arising.
- [25:25]
A
It's a package deal, baby. Sometimes you have to, you know, you gotta say what you want or speak that you don't want it. Right. Confirm or deny.
- [25:37]
B
Right. In this funny way that Wuthering Heights, it's sort of refusing to go with its character's desires. It's refusing to allow them to articulate it, and it's refusing to articulate them. And I'm just much more interested in works that articulate.
- [25:53]
A
There are so many words in that book. Emily Bronte wrote so many words, and yet these people can't say anything, any of the important ones. So how should we do this? Like, am I like. I will. Can. I will present you. I'd like to. I'll present you one that I think is doing it for me, please. That is achieving, you know, the whole work is an achievement of this kind of connection. And I feel like heated rivalry, you know, you've heard all. Everybody's heard all.
- [26:27]
B
I knew you were gonna talk about heated rivalry.
- [26:30]
A
I just feel like one of the things that is successful about this show, one of the many things that's successful about this show, which is of course the show about these two professional hockey players who have this years long affair that begins with sex and then I think through prolonged exposure to each other, fall in love. And one of the first times you see that love is possible between these two people actually comes in what I would describe as a kind of domination submission scenario.
- [27:05]
B
Yeah.
- [27:06]
A
And it happens in episode two. Ilia has just won the show's fake Stanley cup and he gets Shane, his quote, rival, unquote, for our purposes, his boyfriend. I mean, I don't know if they would say that about each other.
- [27:21]
B
No, they wouldn't. His lover.
- [27:22]
A
But I'm. Okay, fine.
- [27:24]
B
They would never say that.
- [27:25]
A
I don't like the term lover. I mean.
- [27:29]
B
Sex partner.
- [27:30]
A
Yeah. Thank you, Mrs. Weiss. When's my homework assignment due?
- [27:36]
B
I don't know what to call them. It's hard to know.
- [27:40]
A
Just for our purposes. Man. He's gonna get his man to come up. And Shane comes up. He's played by Hudson Williams and Ilya's played by Connor Story. And it's clear that Ilya is going to try to get a little domination on Shane. And Shane. Shane is going to submit. Congratulations.
- [28:02]
B
Thank you.
- [28:04]
A
Now take off your clothes.
- [28:07]
B
It's a lot of windows.
- [28:10]
A
Ilya loves himself a penthouse suite in the hotel. And.
- [28:13]
B
But also there's not the suspense here. Like there's this kind of pulsing music, but they've already done it a bunch of times. So the suspense here really is like, well, what are they going to explore?
- [28:25]
A
Right? And the question is, do I want this or do I not want this?
- [28:28]
B
Right?
- [28:29]
A
And so there's an inherent safety of this connection, but there's also a frisson of uncertainty and suspense for Shane.
- [28:39]
B
Touch yourself. What? So Ilya asks him to start to touch himself. Yeah.
- [28:44]
A
What?
- [28:44]
B
It's my special day, Hollander. I want to watch. I've never. No shit. Fuck you. Give me some vodka at least. No, no, no. Vodka is for after as your reward.
- [28:58]
A
So Shane complies.
- [29:03]
B
Fuck.
- [29:05]
A
There's this amazing moment where Shane is like, I need. And Ilya's like, what?
- [29:13]
B
What?
- [29:13]
A
Cause he wants to hear it, right? And Shane's like, I need you, I need you.
- [29:25]
B
And.
- [29:29]
A
Okay. I find that an incredibly satisfying sexual encounter. It is such a, like, tender moment of vulnerability, connection, risk, trust, you know, for both of these guys, I think they're building a trust in each other.
- [29:51]
B
And also, I think, like, throughout the scene, the balance of power is shifting because Shane comes in, you know, he's vulnerable. He's coming to Ilya's room. Ilya's commanding. Ilya has more experience. Ilya's. Ilya's telling him what to do. Shane is, like, exploring that submission. But I think that when Shane finally says, I need you, it really turns Ilya on, right?
- [30:17]
A
Which is another vulnerability, right? Like, he's now admitting to Shane that he's toy. I like this tenderness I like it when you need me I like it.
- [30:26]
B
When you need me. And then suddenly Shane has a little bit of power and starts to, you know, not dominate, but at least take the lead. So there's, like, a really delicate choreography going on and also, like, many different registers, right? Like, to me, there are. I don't know if we could say dozens, but there are many registers that are explored, right? And the scene allows them to move through them and to kind of try them on and see how they feel. And it's like they're really trying on a bunch of different personae to figure out, like, which ones kind of harmonize, which ones talk together, which ones work together, how much teasing, how much power, how much dominance, how much submission is working for them.
- [31:04]
A
Well, it's interesting because I think. I think that that opposites attracting dynamic is also part of the appeal for both of them. Like, Shane gets to. Ilya gets to make Shane a little dirty, and Shane gets Ilya to sort of, like, lower the volume on his bad boy act. I don't know. I like what you're saying about how the power dynamic is sort of. It does. I mean, I hadn't really appreciated quite the. The valences of the shifts between the two of them. Is there, like, in this little power exchange?
- [31:44]
B
This is really an exchange of equals and peers, my friend.
- [31:48]
A
I've given you.
- [31:48]
B
We've long ago worked out our power dynamics.
- [31:51]
A
Have we?
- [31:52]
B
Well, I don't know. Let's find out.
- [31:53]
A
Let's find out. I've given you heated rivalry. What would you like to give me in return?
- [31:59]
B
I would like to give you Baby Girl. Oh, Baby Girl. One of my favorite recent movies.
- [32:06]
A
Nsfw.
- [32:09]
B
Well, actually, funnily enough, I feel like the scene or the parts of it that I wanna watch with you are perfectly safe for work. Because to have a good kind of rigorous sex scene, you don't always need to get to that. I mean, eventually you wanna get to the part where someone is having an extreme experience of pleasure. But this, the part that interests me is like the negotiation on the way to getting there. So let me set the scene for you.
- [32:33]
A
So if you pick the one I think you picked, this is one of the great sex scenes of all time.
- [32:37]
B
I agree.
- [32:38]
A
Right out of the gate. I mean, this thing is like two years old. This is like top ten.
- [32:42]
B
Okay, so Nicole Kidman is playing Romy, who is the beautifully perfectly coiffed type, a head of a tech company. Being a CEO means being a collaborator and a nurturer. I mean, I see myself as a strategy expert, but also a human expert. You know, extremely organized, uptight person who has the secret desire to be dominated.
- [33:07]
A
Basically, what they said. Nicole Kidman has always been in some way, but really isn't. That's not how she is.
- [33:13]
B
Well, we don't know. But here she is exploring this fantasy, and she's exploring it with her internal.
- [33:21]
A
I chose you as my mentor. What?
- [33:25]
B
I chose you as my mentor. I'm not a part of that program, so. No, you are. No, I'm not. He is very appealing. And he is a young, perceptive intern in her office.
- [33:41]
A
I'd say ambitious.
- [33:42]
B
Ambitious.
- [33:43]
A
Ambitious.
- [33:43]
B
Ambitious. Sexually ambitious. And in other ways ambitious who has her number. And he sees that she wants someone to play this kind of game with her, so he leaves her a note. He tells her to come to this kind of gross motel room, and she comes dressed beautifully. Your behavior is unacceptable.
- [34:03]
A
What behavior?
- [34:04]
B
That's all I have to say. It's the only reason I'm here, to stop this. And your wild behavior.
- [34:09]
A
What are you talking about?
- [34:11]
B
He comes in and she sort of plays the part of his boss. And she starts to say, this is wildly inappropriate. And he's sort of like, what role play are we in here? He's trying to negotiate what she wants, Right? And he's actually here to give her what she wants or to find out.
- [34:26]
A
What she wants, but she's not really even sure.
- [34:29]
B
She's not sure. And what ensues is there's this sort of awkward moment where they're trying to find that. And at first she flees, just like Catherine. I have to go. Unacceptable. Unacceptable? Yes. She doesn't want to get in touch with her real desire. But then she does want to.
- [34:50]
A
I don't like that. Not like that. Not like that, not like that. I don't want it like that.
- [34:57]
B
So then they start to tussle, and she's laughing, right? Like, it's a scene that could be read as violent. But they're laughing and they're playing. Now here he's been given permission to embody his role of dominator. Stop. And then he pins her down.
- [35:15]
A
But he's also saying in the pinning, right? It's not a violent pinning.
- [35:19]
B
No.
- [35:19]
A
It's like, you are safe.
- [35:20]
B
You're safe.
- [35:21]
A
You do not have to run. It's gonna be okay.
- [35:24]
B
Exactly.
- [35:25]
A
Just trust me. This is a. I'm holding you here, but don't run.
- [35:29]
B
Which is reminiscent of something that he did with a dog early in the movie, which is the source of her attraction to him, that he kind of calms this animal. And it's the same kind of gesture. He's got a kind of calming energy that allows her to relax.
- [35:42]
A
Like body work in some way, right? Yeah, it's like body work transferring an energy to her.
- [35:46]
B
Get up.
- [35:49]
A
Maybe take your clothes off.
- [35:51]
B
Can you do that? Mm. Mm. I don't want to.
- [35:53]
A
Why?
- [35:55]
B
I don't know. I don't want to.
- [35:57]
A
That's okay. She's a little girl now. I don't wanna.
- [36:02]
B
So he's thinking too. He's like, okay, what can he ask her to do? What might she want?
- [36:08]
A
Come sit here.
- [36:10]
B
So he's a little inviting. Come sit here. And now he's gonna think and search and find the right register, maybe.
- [36:19]
A
Could you get on all fours?
- [36:24]
B
Why?
- [36:25]
A
Just. Can you just try it?
- [36:26]
B
Why?
- [36:27]
A
And stop asking why. Can you just try? Maybe for the sake of what we're. This is an extraordinary scene, but I think. Do you think that she thinks that, like, I kind of don't want to, or why would I do that? But also like a little girl being like, but why? But why?
- [36:47]
B
No, I think that she is not quite ready to let go. And I think at first he goes too straight to the heart of what she wants. And it's like being burned by a flame. She can't take it. So he's adjusting the dials and adjusting the temperature.
- [37:04]
A
I like that.
- [37:05]
B
And what I love about the scene is that it really feels like a genuine exploration. And the movie lets us see all of that. The scene lets us see all of that. Kind of delicate.
- [37:14]
A
It's a much longer scene.
- [37:15]
B
It's a much longer scene. And they keep playing and they Keep trying to find it. And it gets more and more intense. And it culminates in an incredible moment where she has an amazing orgasm. But it really takes time, and they're building to it and they're finding it. So sort of like the scene in Heated Rivalry, there are, like, a lot of different shades and a lot of different. You know, sometimes there are sort of like, the wrong note is hit and they have to adjust, you know, and there's like, this kind of twinkling little music going on between them, and they're trying to find it. And, like, to me, this scene gives to Romy's character what Emerald Fennell denies to her character. Right. Which is like improv. Improv.
- [37:58]
A
Improv.
- [37:59]
B
And the capacity.
- [38:00]
A
Improv.
- [38:00]
B
Exploratory improv. And, like, having desires that are maybe, like. You don't even know how to name them.
- [38:06]
A
This, to me, is that. Right. Like, this is them attempting to try to explore something. I also think that, like, that movie began to me. I don't want to say it's responsible for this moment that we're. Yeah, but we're in a moment of a particular kind of erotics, right? Where it's two people trying to figure out what the sex is doing. Who has the power in this moment? How can I use the power to get what I want?
- [38:41]
B
And what do you think? They think Birth. Like, where is it coming from?
- [38:44]
A
Well, I think, for one thing, it's really interesting that it's happening at a time when we are being told, according to a lot of journalism, a lot of scientific research and, you know, social research, that people are having less sex. I also think that, like, we're in a moment of negotiating our own relationship to power. Right. Like, we've been here for a minute, and in the world of these hotel rooms, you know, the sort of hotel motel becomes a studio for this exploration. This is like. This is work.
- [39:20]
B
Yeah. I mean, these other works are interested in kind of improvising the law. Right. Like, these people are negotiating a kind of emotional and sexual contract. And maybe in a way, it's like. It kind of makes sense to me in a way. Right. Like, we're coming out of this period. I do think it has to do with me, too. I do think it has to do with.
- [39:41]
A
No 100%. I think it really has to do with me, too.
- [39:42]
B
The Trump administration's rulings about the regulation of the female body and control. And I think that, like, we are in a kind of new territory where we have to renegotiate these things. And I think these works of culture are renegotiating them in some really subtle and useful ways that I feel actually really grateful for.
- [40:02]
A
And what I would say is more, please, I. You know, I. I can never get enough. I'm. I'm insatiable.
- [40:09]
B
Keep them coming.
- [40:15]
A
Sasha. We did it again. Thanks for stopping by. I appreciate it.
- [40:19]
B
Thanks for having me. Hi, my name is Dana. I am a subscriber to the New York Times, but my husband isn't. And it would be really nice to be able to share a recipe or an artist article or compete with him in wordle or connections. Thank you, Dana.
- [40:53]
A
We heard you introducing the New York Times family subscription. One subscription, up to four separate logins.
- [40:59]
B
For anyone in your life.
- [41:00]
A
Find out more@nytimes.com family. Before we go, I have a couple things I just wanted to say. First of all, in 24 hours, it seemed like Robert Duvall, Frederick Wiseman, and Jesse Jackson died. I'm still sitting with that, but I am actually still sitting with a person who is going to have a lot less ink spilled on them, a lot fewer tributes devoted to him. And that person is Damon Wilson, who played Lamont on one of the great sitcoms, Sanford and Son. I don't know if you remember Sanford and Son. The theme song goes something like this. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum bum cat. That is a very bad. That version of Quincy Jones's theme song for Sanford and Son. But in losing Damon Wilson, we have also lost one of our great straight men. I mean, we might have lost one of our great heterosexual men, but also one of our great comedic straight men. That basically, in comedy means that somebody else is supposed to be funny and it's not you. Your job is to take the funny and just absorb it. And Damond was like the son, and he had to really take Redd Fox's abuse as the father in the Sanford and Son relationship. Hi, son. I thought I heard the truck. Hey, Pop. They ran a junk shop. And Redd Fox talked a lot of junk to Damond Wilson. I was reading in the paper the other day, wife dies, the mate follows. Hey, Pop, now, you know Mama's been dead for 23 years. Well, sometime it takes a little longer. And it just was such a pleasure watching him take the abuse. You're scared. You're afraid to go down there. I ain't scared. Why are you so anxious for me to get extra anyway? You want to find something wrong with me, don't you? What are you talking about? I saw one of them medical shows. The kids had old men put in a mental institution. Then they took over the business. Even Marcus Welby couldn't get him out. It was just such a pleasure watching this man tell these people, y' all need to act better. Like, act right, Sedora. No kidding.
- [43:37]
B
Well. Well what?
- [43:38]
A
Want me to answer?
- [43:39]
B
No.
- [43:40]
A
Have it framed and hanging on the wall. And I just want to say, because nobody else is going to say, say that Damond Wilson was one of the great straight men of all time. But he was. We all know we saw the show. And I just wanted to give a salute to the hard work and, I don't know, punching bag work that he did on that show. Rest in peace, Mr. Wilson, and thank you, thank you, thank you for your service. That's our show. This episode of Cannonball was produced by Janelle Anderson, Elissa Dudley, John White and Austin Mitchell. It was edited by Lisa Tobin. Will Pychl did our fact checking this week. Daniel Ramirez engineered this episode. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Pittman. Dan Powell and Diane Wong did our music. Our theme music is by Justin Ellington. Bobby Doherty took the picture for our show art. And our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Lauren Pruitt. It was edited by Jeremy Rocklin and Jamie HEFFITZ. We're on YouTube next week. You know, it has been Black History Month. They might not want you to know it, but I just thought it would be fun to just go out by celebrating one of the. The titans of our people, of this country, of the written word. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Talk to you next week.