Slate Money: Movies: Indecent Proposal

Summary

Slate Money: Movies – Indecent Proposal

Episode Date: February 16, 2021
Host: Felix Salmon
Guests: Anna Szymanski, Taffy Brodesser-Akner

---

Episode Overview

In this episode of Slate Money Goes to the Movies, Felix Salmon, Anna Szymanski, and special guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner take a deep dive into the 1993 film Indecent Proposal. The hosts reflect on the movie’s cultural and economic assumptions, its portrayal of women, the nature of wealth and morality, and the complicated legacy of "tainted" money in society and media. The conversation is witty, critical, and nostalgic, weaving personal anecdotes with sharp social commentary about money, agency, and the enduring weirdness of this iconic film.

---

Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Cultural & Personal Legacy of Indecent Proposal

• First Encounters and Personal Impressions
  • Taffy recalls watching the film in 1993 after high school, noting how, raised in a religious environment, movies provided a window into a glamorous, possible future. She describes how the film became a recurring reference in her journalism career (01:43–02:43).
  • She connects her experiences profiling wealthy individuals and writing about the "sugar daddy" phenomenon to the movie’s fascination with using money to test moral boundaries.

Sex, Money, and Agency

• Sex for Cash and the Illusion of Choice
  • The group dissects the central premise: Would you accept a million dollars for one night with someone? Taffy discusses how the sugar daddy dynamic is less about sex, and more about leveraging money to transgress stated personal boundaries — "That's the kink." (03:12)
  • Questions arise about Demi Moore's character's agency: Is she a victim being maneuvered by the wishes of men, or does she have some say? Felix tries to argue for a "feminist subtext" by noting her decisions throughout, though Taffy and Anna remain skeptical.
  • Quote:
    • Taffy: "Now I see it as this woman who is just, like, abused from all sides. She's like a victim. She has no agency." (02:44)

The Movie’s Depiction of Money

• Moralizing Wealth and the Problem of "Dirty Money"

  • The trope of returning "tainted" money to cleanse oneself is dissected and critiqued as a recurring cinematic cliché that fails real-world logic.

  • Taffy: "All that you went through and you don't even get the million dollars, which now I know isn't a million dollars. It's after taxes, it's 500,000. I can't bear after taxes." (18:54)

  • The hosts riff on the famous scene of having sex on a waterbed covered in casino cash — its impracticality and symbolism as an economic and hygienic faux pas (09:27–10:17).

  • They connect the movie’s attitudes toward wealth and morality to Taffy’s personal experiences as a freelance writer and the difficulty of reconciling work, values, and financial security as a creative professional.

  • Notable Quote:

    • Taffy: "The only way to clean your soul is to get rid of the money. ... If I gave up the money ... I'd be like, how could you have put me through that and not keep the money?" (19:53)

Economic and Financial Realism

• Real Estate, Recession, and Movie Logic
  • Anna contextualizes the film within the early '90s recession and real estate bust, noting how land, mortgages, and wealth insecurity permeate the script (10:23).
  • They joke about the protagonist’s ability to buy a "wilderness" property in Santa Monica and the movie’s confused usage of a "demand note" as a plot device:
    • Felix: "A demand note is this very obscure financial instrument that is only ever really written between close friends or family members... It’s not something you get from a bank." (40:00)

Casting, Character Depth, and Stereotypes

• Robert Redford as the Billionaire
  • The panel debates Redford’s casting as a genteel billionaire, with Taffy asserting that his gravitas masks the character’s underlying sleaze. Anna notices Gatsby parallels and recognizes this as a deliberate attempt to have the audience both attracted to and repelled by his wealth and power (11:51–13:01).
  • Demi Moore’s character is criticized for being flat, existing only to facilitate the male characters’ ambitions.
  • Felix and Taffy observe that art (and film) consistently pushes the idea that money, especially if earned dishonorably, corrupts — a message at odds with the realities and ambitions of many viewers.
  • Notable Quote:
    • "For anybody who grew up poor... once the money is there, you cannot become a better person by getting rid of it, because you could never have undone those things." – Taffy (21:07)

Genre, Tone, and the Movie’s Place in Pop Culture

• Confused Narratives and Lasting Appeal
  • The hosts are mystified by the movie’s shifting tone — part romance, part class drama, part softcore thriller, and at times, "interior design porn" thanks to its set design and props (07:43–08:38).
  • The lack of financial and emotional realism undermines the drama, even as the movie remains a pop culture touchstone.
  • Quote:
    • Taffy: "Its genre was erotic borer. Like, instead of a thriller. It was boring." (41:37)

Movies, Money, and the American Dream

• Broader Societal Messages
  • The panel expounds on how art made by the wealthy frequently demonizes wealth or claims that money can't buy happiness—while being produced by people removed from such struggles (24:14–24:18).
  • They contrast this cinematic narrative of noble poverty with their lived experiences and present-day economic realities.
  • Notable Quote:
    • "I do work really long hours, and ... if you didn't have an inheritance, ... these movies did you no good. They told you that ... middle class happiness was guaranteed... when really you're kind of on that boat all the time." – Taffy (37:24)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Time | Speaker | Quote | |------------|-------------------------|---------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:12 | Taffy | "That's the kink... trying to see if you could get them to subvert it for money." | | 09:40 | Felix | "That's definitely dirty. ... Money's so dirty. From a casino." | | 12:11 | Taffy | "Now from this parallax view of adulthood, ... that guy is disgusting. ... That's bad casting." | | 19:53 | Taffy | "All that you went through and you don't even get the million dollars, which now I know isn't a million dollars. It's after taxes, it's 500,000." | | 24:18 | Taffy | "They're made by people who ... cannot remember being poor. ... How dare they spray this through the land." | | 41:37 | Taffy | "Taffy Claude and I determined its genre was erotic borer. ... boring." | | 42:06 | Taffy | "Let me quote my favorite movie, Indecent Proposal, to you. Nothing will happen that he didn't want to happen." |

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:43 – Taffy's story of first seeing the movie and its ongoing relevance in her career
• 03:12–04:42 – Sugar daddies and the transactional nature of sex and money
• 09:27–10:17 – Sex on a waterbed full of cash: symbolism and impracticality
• 10:23–13:01 – Economic context: real estate, class, and early '90s recession
• 18:54–21:07 – Hollywood clichés of "tainted money" and real-life consequences
• 24:18 – Critique of the film industry's privileged messaging about money
• 40:00 – Felix explains what a "demand note" really is
• 41:32–42:31 – Final verdict: Is it actually a good movie?
• 42:06 – Taffy’s real-life use of the film’s most infamous line

---

Conclusion and Takeaways

• Indecent Proposal remains a fascinating cultural artifact, not so much for its plotting or realism, but for the way it inadvertently exposes attitudes toward money, gender, and aspiration in 1990s America.
• The film is critiqued for its muddled genre, implausible financial logic, and especially its portrayal of women — but it endures as a conversation starter and a lens on the era’s deeper anxieties.
• The hosts’ vivid personal stories and sharp observations make this episode particularly rich for listeners interested in the intersection of pop culture, economics, and personal narrative.

---

Transcript

[Felix Hammond]

Foreign. Welcome to the Indecent Proposal episode of Slate Money Goes to the Movies. I'm Felix Hammond of Axios. I'm here with Anna Shymansky of Breaking Views.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Hello.

[Felix Hammond]

This is going to be. I'm sorry to everyone else on this series, but this is going to be the best episode of Slate Money goes to the movies because we have Taffy Brodessa Agnew. Taffy, welcome.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It is so good to be here.

[Felix Hammond]

We are going to overthink indecent proposal, the 1993, was it movie by Adrian Lan. Is he English?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, sure, his name's Adrian.

[Felix Hammond]

His name's Adrian. And it's gotta be. Anyway, some guy called Adrian made a movie. It has Demi Moore and Robert Redford and Woody Harrelson and people having sex on cash and people having sex for cash and lots of kind of weird, fucked up attitudes towards money and women. We are going to talk all about it. This is, I promise you, the best episode of Slate Money of the year. So enjoy. It's all coming up on Slate. Money goes to the movies.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I'll bet you say that to all the girls.

[Felix Hammond]

Okay, Taffy, tell me, how old were you and where were you when you first saw Indecent Proposal, which is the best name for a movie ever?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It's the best name. And I have to tell you how Indecent Proposal has. Has followed me into my journalism career. It comes up more than you would think. But first, I'll answer your question. I will tell you that it was 1993. I had just graduated from high school. I saw it at the Sheepshead Bay United Artists movie. And as you know, I was raised in a very religious home. And so movies were really important to me because they were there to show me how I was going to live eventually. And when I saw Indecent Proposal, it was like one of the things that could possibly happen to me in my life. Like one day, if I needed money, maybe I'd end up on a boat spending a night with somebody for a million dollars. And like all these years later, you know, I did that sugar daddy story and I. Do you have a story?

[Felix Hammond]

I think I do.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

The sugar daddy story from gq. And I remember speaking to some sociological or psychological expert on the sugar daddy phenomenon. And whereas I kind of saw Indecent Proposal way back in 1993 at the UA in Sheepshead Bay, I saw it as, like, romantic. Now I see it as this woman who is just like, abused from all sides. She's like a victim. She has no agency. She ends up with a guy who doesn't even want her. He just wants her because he couldn't have her. And that's like the sugar daddy phenomenon is finding out what somebody's morality or their values are and trying to see if you could get them to subvert it for money. It's not, of course, across the board, sex work. It's this small avenue of, like, sugar daddy ism, where it's, oh, you said you wouldn't do that. How about for this? And that's the kink.

[Felix Hammond]

Wow. So that's the whole point of sugar daddies, right, Is that if you. If you have, like. What are they called? Sugar babies. If you have a sugar baby who, like, would do it for nothing, then that defeats the purpose.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

That's a girlfriend.

[Felix Hammond]

That's just a girlfriend. And who wants a girlfriend? The whole point is that you're getting something for money. You're, like, paying for whatever it is you're getting. And that's the thrill in this slim.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Avenue of this thing. It's not how sex work works. And surely no one in 2021 would say that men who seek a sex worker are people who need to do that. They're. There's just this slim thing that I have learned since. And now in rewatching this movie that, of course, took place in a universe of infinite possibility for young Taffy Akner, yeshiva graduate. I'm really, really shocked. I'm really shocked at what a disturbing movie it is. You're the one who has to buy women.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

You think I have to buy women?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Why me, then?

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

I bought you because you said you couldn't be bought.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I can't be bought. We're just gonna fuck, as I understand it.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

You might enjoy it.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Don't bet on it.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

I think I will.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Can I tell you how it comes up in my journalism life?

[Felix Hammond]

Yes.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

So, as you know, I do a fair amount of celebrity profiles. And the phenomenon that happens 15 minutes before the person shows up is that I am sitting there and like clockwork, a publicist calls me and says to me, hey, I just wanted to make sure you found the place and everything's going okay. And I say, everything's so far, going great. He hasn't arrived. It's usually a he. He hasn't arrived. But I'm sitting here waiting, and I'm looking forward to it. And then the publicist always says the same thing. She. It's always a she. Says, oh, I forgot to tell you, he doesn't want to talk about his personal life.

[Felix Hammond]

He.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And I'm so prepared for this totally bonkers thing that a person is saying to me 15 minutes before a personal profile that I'm about to write is that this is what I say. I say, let me quote my favorite movie, Indecent Proposal, to you. Nothing will happen that he didn't want to happen. And I always think that's so funny. And they're like upset or shocked, but I have to go because I now see him coming down the way. And so this movie is kind of always with me. And I think about it a lot because I quote that one very disturbing quote a lot. And in my head I had remembered it as something that was like that. He says that. He's like, I just want to spend the night with her. She doesn't have to do anything. And now in watching it, I'm like, oh, there was. There was a sex contract. Oh, there was a sex contract. And of course he says that. And he's like, I'm not gonna rape her, but I do have a sex contract. She has agreed to this. It's a very confusing movie on a lot of levels. My husband watched it with me. We kept trying to figure out what the genre of it is, is. What would you say the genre of Indecent Proposal is?

[Anna Shymansky]

I think it has multiple genres. And I think that's part of the issues with this film is that it doesn't. It doesn't know what it wants to be.

[Felix Hammond]

I would definitely put it in like the interior design porn genre.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Really? Because he's an architect.

[Felix Hammond]

Well, I mean. Okay, so can I.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Because he decorates her. Yeah, please, please.

[Felix Hammond]

Can I tell you my number one favorite Easter egg in this whole movie?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Please.

[Felix Hammond]

I'm pretty sure I did see this movie many years ago and then promptly forgot it. And then obviously we rewatched it for this.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Did you see it at the Sheepshead Bay United Artist?

[Felix Hammond]

It was definitely not in Sheepshead Bay. And I did not dream to myself that one day I could find a.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I didn't dream of it. It just might happen.

[Felix Hammond]

It just might happen.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

In the grim world, you never know what is going to happen.

[Felix Hammond]

But my favorite little Easter egg is that after they get the million dollars and they have a slightly less hand to mouth existence and they can afford to live in a nice place with a back garden where they grow vegetables. Yeah, they can afford decent furniture.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Right.

[Felix Hammond]

Then they have a fight. And then when they have the fight, she slouches back into her designer chair that happens to be just sitting there because obviously you're at home and you have a chair, and you slouch into your chair and you cry. And the chair that she slouches into is this very, very famous Frank Gehry cardboard chair, which is in many museums. And the name of this Frank Gehry cardboard chair, which they clearly bought with their million dollars, is the Little Beaver Chair. What?

[Anna Shymansky]

It's so funny you mentioned that, because I had a note when I was, like, watching the film that was like, what's up with the weird chair?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

That's so funny. I mean, it comes at you pretty fast. It.

[Anna Shymansky]

It's maybe, like, taking a little bit of a step back in terms of the financial angles on this here film.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I have. I have plenty on that. Are you referring to when they have sex on a waterbed with cash?

[Anna Shymansky]

That seems very impractical. Very impractical.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

They need that money.

[Anna Shymansky]

What are you doing?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Is that the financial.

[Anna Shymansky]

It's also gross. Like, where's that money?

[Felix Hammond]

That's definitely dirty.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Money's so dirty. From a casino.

[Felix Hammond]

Yeah, I just cut. It's such a crazy scene there. They're like, we are so happy about having made some money at the crap stable or whatever it was, that we are going to have sex on banknotes on a waterbed.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, it could have gone wrong.

[Anna Shymansky]

Very, very wrong.

[Felix Hammond]

How could it have not gone wrong? One of those Benjamins is going to wind up somewhere. You do not want it to wind up.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

What if there's a leak? And your money. You've torn up some money. Okay, okay. But we were going to talk. We're going to be good. And. And so I have a feeling.

[Felix Hammond]

No, no, no. We are not gonna be good. We are gonna be bad.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I didn't pick this movie so we could be good, Anna. Sorry.

[Anna Shymansky]

But, like, clearly this film came out in 1993. It directly references the recession that has just occurred. The film is also all about, like, land and real estate, which is also obviously significant because you had real estate kind of collapse in the late 80s, partly savings and loan crisis and a number of other causes. And this is also after you have this 1980s boom where you have this burst of wealth creation, kind of the rise of finance, but also the rise of inequality and the rise of this kind of new class of people who have a lot of money and people don't quite understand how they made it. And I think this film is definitely touching on all of that.

[Felix Hammond]

So, yeah, Robert Redford is, like, his only job is billionaire. That's the only thing he does.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

What does he do?

[Anna Shymansky]

He signed some papers.

[Felix Hammond]

He's actually in this. He has lunch. He has even less visible backstory or business or corporation or anything like that than Christian grey in 50 shades of grey, who's just like, businessman, businessman. But at least there's a hint in there of he runs a company or something. There's not even a hint that he runs a company. The only person he employs is his driver. Who's.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

What. What does that guy do?

[Anna Shymansky]

He's just like, what is.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

The driver is gross. The driver is like acquisitions.

[Anna Shymansky]

I don't know if maybe this was just me, but I also, whenever I was seeing Robert Redford, couldn't not, not see Jay Gatsby especially. Cause there are scenes where he's literally in a white suit by a pool. The way his house looks. I was just like. And obviously it's Robert Redford who played Gatsby. So I was also wondering if maybe it was somehow tried to come at it.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It's very interesting that you say that. Cause when I was looking at Robert Redford, all I could see was Robert Redford. But now from this like, parallax view of adulthood, of having done like 10 disgusting stories in Vegas, right? Like, I know the guy who sits at that table and calls women over. And that guy is disgusting. And what it speaks to of the time is that we did not know that that guy was not a Robert Redford type. That's bad casting. That guy is like the sleaziest. Like, Robert Redford really classes up the role. It's not a Robert Redford role.

[Felix Hammond]

Yeah, what he says is terrible, right? He clearly considers women to just be the property of their husbands and something that their husband can just kind of sign over.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Did you borrow your wife? You said you weren't for sale.

[Felix Hammond]

It's really horrible.

[Anna Shymansky]

Yeah, I think it was. They were very conscious in terms of casting Redford because there was literally a scene where he says, like, you want to not be attracted to me. Like, he represents this kind of like, you know, you're supposed to be repelled by this thing, but you're actually attracted to it. And then you hate yourself for being attracted to it.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And she's like, no, I wasn't built that complicatedly. I'm actually quite two dimensional. And I'm gonna go from wearing shorts to carrying a parasol by the end of this movie. I have no inner life. Like, that's the thing that bothers me about her the most, is that there's like nothing to her. She makes no decisions. She only exists in the category of woman who is designed to root for her husband and help him realize his dream.

[Anna Shymansky]

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I agree. I mean, this is. I think this film is really like, trying to have it both ways. On one hand, it's trying to be like, oh, no, we're showing you how horrible it is that women are treated this way, but yet the film itself is treating.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I don't think the film is trying to show you that the women, they're like, look. Look what you could do with a woman.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

Suppose I were to offer you $1.

[Felix Hammond]

Million.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

For one night with your. I'd assume you're kidding. Let's pretend I'm not. What would you say?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

He'd tell you to go to hell.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

I didn't hear him. I'd tell you to go to hell.

[Felix Hammond]

Can I come in here and try and put forward the thesis that there was actually a. A feminist subtext to this movie?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I would love that. That sounds hilarious, Felix.

[Felix Hammond]

I mean, okay, it might be a little bit of a stretch, but Demi. What's her name? Diana. Yes, number one, it's her idea to do this. She actually has agency throughout. She decides that she's going to sleep with him. She decides that she's going to continue to see him. She decides that she's going to leave him and go back to husband number one. And she is the only person who's really capable of, like, making any decisions or making anything happen. And she ultimately winds up with what she wanted all along, which was like, I did that thing that I needed to do with that guy. It wasn't so bad. And then I wound up with my husband. The only problem to her plan was that her husband got all jealous and shit. And then, you know, she had to go the 40 nights in the wilderness waiting for him to come around to realize that he loved her after all. And then she's like, great, now I get what I wanted all along. And she had much more control over everything than anyone else. And I will just note that the real estate brokerage where she works.

[Anna Shymansky]

I think I know what you're gonna say.

[Felix Hammond]

What is her colleague reading as she walks into the brokerage? Susan Faludi's Backlash, the great feminist book of the 1990s.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I don't know. The other thing.

[Anna Shymansky]

I kind of wonder, Felix, Because I actually had very similar thoughts to what you're saying. Felix. I think there's something there. I also wonder if this was trying to make a comment on Pretty Woman, because this came out not long after Pretty Woman. And there are a Number of scenes in this film that seem to be direct references, right?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

When like a pretty middle class white woman walks into the Vegas store and the saleswoman looks her up and down like she's this menace, right? And she doesn't even see her steal the chocolate. But that doesn't. That didn't really happen back then. Like in Vegas, like, you wouldn't see a woman dressed kind of down market walk into your store. It's Vegas good.

[Anna Shymansky]

No one goes into those stores.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

There's always empty.

[Felix Hammond]

But also, like, Vegas is the one place where you can never tell how much money someone is worth by looking at them. And this was the other thing which the movie overegs the pudding so much in terms of the costume design that the noble, you know, middle class drivers, all they can wear is like the same clothes they've been wearing since they were 19. And they can never afford, like, anything else. They're perfectly happy and they're like, you know, I mean, poor Woodyhausen can barely afford a shirt. He's like topless most of the time. And like, meanwhile, the minute you become a billionaire, suddenly you're swanking around in like perfect suits and looking very swanky the whole time. And you have to drive in your Rolls Royce and have the expensive, expensive, expensive everything. And like, the only purpose of money is to buy expensive stuff that doesn't look particularly desirable, right? And she then starts like dating this guy. And the minute she starts dating him, she's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to throw away all of my, you know, varsity sweaters or whatever and start wearing pretty.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Now I dress fancy. I've always.

[Felix Hammond]

But did. But yeah. Did she want it? Did she not? That was never really.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, this is the same era, I think the same era of Rocky 5 where Rocky loses all of his money. And part of losing all your money in the world of Rocky V means that Adrian's contact lenses are somehow confiscated and she's back to wearing her cat eyes from when she worked at the pet store. So it doesn't have to make sense. I like what you're saying. I wish it were true. But I have to say that, like, I think it's a little bit wishful thinking. She does not have agency as much as she's been written by people who don't want to make the men look so bad. And in the end, he gets to.

[Felix Hammond]

The men look terrible, though, but he.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Gets to do the hero thing in the end. Woody Harrelson, he gets to give back the million dollars. And that is what Brings me here to your podcast today is the idea that money has a moral value and that how you acquire it can poison you to the point where you have to get rid of it. I in 1993 watched that and said, thank God he gave back that money so that they could be. She could be with that guy again. And now I look at it and I think all that you went through and you don't even get the million dollars, which now I know isn't a million dollars. It's after taxes. It's 500,000. Like, I can't bear after taxes.

[Felix Hammond]

And after paying for the little beaver chair by avrangary, I mean, I don't know how much of it is left.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

That has to be on a payment plan. Right.

[Anna Shymansky]

They also spent the money on a hippo.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

The fact that the romantic gesture in the end is a hippo, I don't know what that means. I just know that the thing that is remarkable to me is that, like, sitting there watching that movie, when I was young, I hoped I would have money. I did not have money growing up. And now I look at that and I say, the amount of art that I have been exposed to, wherein the only way to clean your soul is to get rid of the money. It would be unforgivable if I did this in my marriage, if I again had. Had seen. Had seen life through and ended up on the boat with my new dress and my high heels and looking out onto the ocean and had done my thing that I only would do if I. If I wanted to do it despite my sex contract, I would say that if I gave up the money or if my husband was like, I'm sorry, I can't live like this. I'm giving up the money. I'd be like, how could you have put me through that and not keep the money? Like, I really believe that all of the movies around that time gave me such a fucked up idea of how money was supposed to play into my life in this moralistic way. And I would grow up to be a person who had to decide if, like, as a freelance writer, I was writing some things that I did not love, putting the old byline on, and they still exist somewhere. And in the end, would I ever give up that money because I didn't like the way I earned it. I used to have to do stuff for women's magazines where I would have to ask women what they hated about their bodies. Like, I committed so many feminist offenses in the name of, like, a woman's magazine profile. And I'M so glad I at least got the money because I feel so bad about it that if I did it for nothing. And that was the lesson of that movie, and that's the lesson of money in movies, that it doesn't solve your problems. When I would like to say I think it does. And like, I know that's not a popular thing to say, but. But this conversation did not start today. It started back when you expressed some curiosity as to why. I find the wealth on succession aspirational. And I do have a sense of self awareness. But for anybody who grew up poor, like, who cares? Not that you hurt people to get the money, it's that once the money is there, you cannot become a better person by getting rid of it because you could never have undone those things. And the only thing that will actually help you move forward is the comfort that money provides you with. Money gives you space, and money gives you time to think about who you want to be and what your standards are. Most of this country is too frenzied in making money to actually think about what their values are around it. And I just want to say that Indecent Proposal did not help.

[Felix Hammond]

So, Taffy, this is an absolutely astonishing insight, and I can't believe I wasn't thinking about it when I saw the movie. But you're absolutely right. This is a cliche in movies that the way you cleanse yourself is by giving away the tainted money. And I'm sure you can think of half a dozen movies off the top of your head which have this trope and it actually finds its way into real life, right? Where politicians will return donations from people if they don't. If that person turns out like, I received a donation from Harvey Weinstein. Now I need to return that donation or do something with it because Take that money.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Take that money. Take Harvey Weinstein's money. Are you crazy? He has so much money. Keep it and use it for your cause and get elected for your amazing cause.

[Anna Shymansky]

No, but I think you are hitting on something that is definitely present in so many films. Films like the idea of work, but they don't always like the idea of money. And they're very suspicious of characters that have too much money.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And they're made by people with so much money.

[Anna Shymansky]

So much money.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

They're made by people who cannot, if they were ever poor, cannot remember being poor. They can't remember any of it. So how dare they? How dare they, like, spray this through the land. My kids have two journalist parents, and you know what? They want to do when they grow up. We used to think that we were setting such a good example. We're like, we are going to show them that you do the thing that matters to you. And they're like, I don't know. It seems like our friends whose parents are lawyers, they see their parents more. Their parents are calmer and not as worried. I really do think that through our art, we talk about how money is something that has to have a moral value to it in how it's acquired. And I'm not talking about like a cartel. I'm talking about like the gradations between nebulous billionaire and striving architect. Right?

[Felix Hammond]

Oh, my God, the whole architect thing.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, the whole architect thing.

[Felix Hammond]

What is this? The second coming of John Galt here?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And then you see his design, they dare to show you his design. It's like when you're.

[Felix Hammond]

His design is just like a weird hodgepodge of random pomo. But what you said about the people who are making the movie being just insanely rich is so true. Just because none of the sums of money in this movie make any sense. They're a struggling couple and they suddenly manage to buy themselves a waterfront property in Santa Monica and build a house on it, which they get like a mortgage that they only need $50,000 to pay it off. But then there's a demand note that the bank calls in. Do you know what a demand note is?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, I think that the problem with that plot is that after the housing crisis, we all know it, we know that that couldn't have happened, right?

[Felix Hammond]

Like, yeah, there's like, there's no.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

They went to Vegas for a weekend and they missed their foreclosure.

[Felix Hammond]

But. But there's no world in which you can buy a Santa Monica property for whatever. I guess the implication is for some kind of six figure sum. And there's no way that that world can also be a world where $1 million is, quote, and I'm quoting Robert Redford here, a lifetime of security.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Well, maybe in Robert Redford's defense, he did not know that they had their eyes on an undisc. Can we go back to the Santa Monica property? Because it's like undiscovered. So she discovers it as if Santa Monica beachfront property is the wilderness. It's the wilderness. And she has.

[Felix Hammond]

No one knew about Santa Monica in 1993.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I know. What is this? It leads to this huge body of water. The pioneers found it.

[Felix Hammond]

But this is also a world where apparently, if you're a billionaire, you are Effortlessly elegant in all things. And you have a yacht and a helicopter and everything. And then you have your million dollar per night girlfriend and you decide that the thing that you want her to do is wear stilettos on a boat.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Like, you want to dress her up. It was like, that's the. That was like the weird, controlling. That's why I think she had no agency.

[Felix Hammond]

If he'd done that succession thing and been like, sales out, nails out. You have to be.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Succession is at least honest. It's at least honest about its greed. And this, like, by the way, I just want to say that when he does his thing at the end, Robert Redford, where he's like, trying to get her to break up with him by saying, like, isn't she the best of the million dollar club? And she's like, robert Redford, you're just trying to let me go back to my husband. And they leave her on the side of the road with her white dress and parasol. Like, they don't say, can I drop you somewhere? Remember, there are no phones, there are no Ubers. She's on the side of the Malibu highway, like, teetering in her heels. Like, what is she going to do when she gets to that pier? What is her plan? Is she going to live on that pier?

[Anna Shymansky]

Nothing really in this movie makes a tremendous amount of sense, especially the second.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Half of the film.

[Anna Shymansky]

I mean, it's not that the first half of the film makes sense, but at least there's some consistency in tone, I guess. Or at least you can kind of understand what the film is getting at, whether or not you may disagree. I mean, I don't particularly love what the film is saying, but you understand what it's saying. Then the second half, there are scenes that just really belong in a different movie. The one that really jumped out at me was where she's teaching a citizenship class and Robert Redford comes in and it's like out of a romantic comedy. And I'm just like, what? I mean, I understand, like, they wanted to make comments about, like, the American dream, but I'm like, this makes no sense. Like they did. I also don't understand why everyone always knows where everyone is going to be eating, like lunch or dinner.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And just there is no way she knew where to find him for lunch. But the citizenship thing was straight out of, I think, parenthood. Listen, I would like for you guys in real time to reconsider your statements about feminism. Because I would like to say that I went to film school and I have been listening to People argue feminist points of view of Adrienne Lynn movies since that very next year, 1994, like Fatal Attraction. And I'm like, I don't know. I think that the hero of that is Michael Douglas.

[Anna Shymansky]

I think, though, this film is like, it goes back to that. It's trying to have it both ways. Like, it's trying to be a feminist film. It's trying to say that she's the one who has agency. But then the way the film is actually structured removes all of her agency and just makes her an object, right?

[Felix Hammond]

The only thing we need to know to know that this is not a feminist movie is, like, at the beginning of the movie, she's, like, very organized, and she buys the property in Santa Monica, right? And Woody Howlson's like, oh, my God, she's very good at money. She organizes the whole thing. I'm just a dumb, dumb architect, and I just let her buy it. She wears the pants in the family, that kind of thing. Then she loses her job. He loses his job. And then she says, quote, I wrote this down because it was such a timeless quote. She says, quote, david, I'm scared. We don't have any money. What are we going to do? Like, the one thing that no woman has ever said in the history of the world, what are we going to do? Is at that point, you're like, okay, this is. I don't know who put those words in her mouth, but there's no way that person can ever be considered effeminate, right?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, or also, like, she's traded for sex in order to help her husband realize his dream. But of what? Of building that, like, middling house. I mean, the truth is, is that this is a thing that bothers me. Like, you could write a book about the most beautiful house in the world, and you could write a book about the most beautiful music in the world. But if you're going to make a movie about those things, you have to make sure that house is beautiful. That house was not even, like, that was fine. And actually, I could see that house in Santa Monica, but it is not a house. Like, he won't work.

[Felix Hammond]

He didn't even need to build the house.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

He's a era of dreamer men where the woman is, like, doing something adjacent to the job so that he doesn't have to, like, you know what? I'm 45 now. Back when I saw that it was this bill of goods, it was almost. I can't tell you how many friends I have who worked while their husbands were trying to Figure out their dreams. And, like, where did we all get that from? From Indecent Proposal.

[Felix Hammond]

And plus, the other thing is that he apparently, even when he wasn't building his dream house in Santa Monica, he managed to build an amazing portfolio of other buildings and houses, which got him an AIA award. And this is my favorite thing, the Prix de Rome, which is an architecture prize, but I looked it up. It's an architecture prize, which the last time it was ever given out was 1967.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Until him. Until David Murphy. And by the way, can we just say about Woody Harrelson, poor Woody Harrelson, who was really kind of trying to figure out who he could be having just been Woody on Cheers. A character that they couldn't even divert his name because, like, he was supposed to play such an idiot. Like, there was some real whiplash in 1993 to see him as an architect. Like, they put glasses on him. They gave him a shirt with a collar, but it was like, I know a little. My grandmother was an architect. And, I mean, architecture's, like, really just doing a lot of math all the time. And she had a lot of different kinds of jobs.

[Felix Hammond]

Wait, she didn't pin pieces of paper to the wall in the. Attack them with charcoal?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

She didn't. And, like, no one ever, like, sat on her lap and, like, gazed up at her while she worked. They were like, where's dinner? I know you're an architect, but it's dinner time.

[Felix Hammond]

At least Robert Redford was, like, doing the whole Robert Redford thing and being the movie star. Poor Woody Harrelson. Like, he's just so out of place in this movie.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

How old was Robert Redford when he did that?

[Anna Shymansky]

I guess, like, mid mid-50s.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Also, can we talk about the blowing on the dice? This is what I would have thought if I was. And especially I'm doing, as you know, I'm doing some screenwriting now. And I would say that if I presented in the first act someone who was asked to blow on the dice for a man who had $10,000 chips and money is no object to him, can't you just say, can I have three of those? I will blow on your dice five times. Can I have three of those or five of those? You have so many of them. That's what I would have done.

[Anna Shymansky]

And I think, like, maybe, like.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I'm really damaged. Do you know?

[Felix Hammond]

But she's playing that. She's playing the long game. She's playing the long contaffee. Like, she's in it for the full million. The Only mistake they made was not getting Oliver Platt to negotiate the deal.

[Woody Harrelson (character)]

Let me get this straight. He offered you a million dollars for a night with your wife, as in your wife, Diana, and you agreed to it? I don't know what to say. I mean, how could you do something like that?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

How could you negotiate without me?

[Anna Shymansky]

Never negotiate without your lawyer.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Never.

[Felix Hammond]

For a woman like Diana could have gotten you at least 2 million.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

He was the only honest person, it's true. In that movie.

[Anna Shymansky]

It's like the best character in the show also.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

He was.

[Felix Hammond]

But apropos, like, Anna's point about, like, this is the first sort of post yuppie movie, right? Like, he's the yuppie. He's the successful lawyer. He's made the money. He's unashamedly not. You know, he's not a billionaire, but he's got all the money he needs.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

He's a StairMaster.

[Felix Hammond]

He flaunts it. He's got his. Like, I'm sure he has an Audi in the garage or whatever. You know, his character is, again, like, flat as a pancake, and there's no character arc and no depth to it, but at least you know who that is. Whereas you're absolutely right. That Robert Redford's character, who's like, if you were mine, like, if I owned you, I wouldn't let you sleep with anyone. And you're like, what?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

You do own me now.

[Felix Hammond]

The lines coming out of his mouth are so crazy horrible that you really need to be Robert Redford in order for that character not to just be the biggest villain in the world.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I guess so. Like, that was a real desert in the 90s of, like, did Robert Redford know he was An Indecent Proposal? Did he, like, was he like, this is gonna be great, or was he sitting there? He was like, I was in Butch Cassidy and this. I was in the Sting and getting old sucks. Is that what he was saying? Or was he like, I'm with this edgy director and I get to own Demi Moore for a night?

[Anna Shymansky]

He probably was like, I want to buy a new boat or something. I mean, like, I'm sure it was a paycheck. It was like, why Marlon Brando was.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

In Superman, or he was funding indie film. He's like, I'm going to use this money and start and, like, fund what.

[Felix Hammond]

Proportion of the budget of this movie just went to Robert Redford's paycheck?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I mean, Demi Moore, I feel like, was a very high value. Like, she had this real moment right then, right? Like, she Was GI Jane right around then? She was Striptease right around then. Like, she really was the emblem of this early 90s power woman. She was in Disclosure, which would have been my other choice, by the way.

[Felix Hammond]

You had so many choices.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I had so many choices.

[Felix Hammond]

Honestly, this entire season should have just been Taffy Talks about movies because I'm.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Obsessed with money and I'm a good movie watcher. But also I really have a lot of opinions about the way money was marketed to me as a concept and the way that, like, the bills of goods that I was sold throughout my life, no one ever told me about comfort. They gave me the, like, if you do the thing you love, that will be enough. And I wish I had been given more of a choice, which is not to say I'm, I'm complaining, but I do work really long hours and I do think that, like, the more I look at the way it is for people who work very hard and who, who work successfully in this particular timeline, if you didn't have an inheritance, if you didn't have someone buy you a house, if you didn't have someone who let you know that your survival was assured, these movies did you no good. They told you that you. That like a sort of middle class happiness was guaranteed to you and that the only time you would end up on a boat like that is if you needed a million dollars for Santa Monica property. When really you're kind of on that boat. All the. I don't know.

[Felix Hammond]

We are all. We are all of us on that boat. Oh, my God, Tabby. This is Post Yuppies. It was Post, you know, Wall street, the movie. It was.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It was greed.

[Felix Hammond]

It was Greed is Bad. And it was. But it was also pre, like property bubbles.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Right.

[Felix Hammond]

The property was a consumption gambler.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

And that does not agree.

[Anna Shymansky]

Well, because you had. Part of the reason you had the savings and loan crisis was because you had massive increase in property value in Texas that they invested in and then that collapsed. And that was part of what caused.

[Felix Hammond]

The crisis right outside of Houston. But yeah, I feel like the idea that you would buy a house and pay the mortgage, and then within a few years, suddenly you'd made more money on the equity in your house than you ever had working for a living. That was still a decade away when this movie was made.

[Anna Shymansky]

Yeah, I mean, I think. But the house was supposed to signify security and this security was being taken.

[Felix Hammond]

From them because there was a demand note. I need to go back. A demand.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It was about demand notes.

[Felix Hammond]

A demand note is this very obscure financial instrument that is only ever really written between close friends or family members. So it's basically, you know, Anna comes to me and she's like, I need $200,000 to buy this house. And I'm like, okay, I'm going to give you $200,000, and I don't really expect you to pay it back. But, like, we're going to paper this up, you know, just so it's not income for you, it's a loan. You owe me the money back. Technically, I can ask for the money back whenever I want. But you trust me not to ask for the money back because I'm your friend. That's what a demand note is.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

A demand note is. What is that? You trust me not to.

[Felix Hammond]

It's me, like, basically, quote, unquote, lending the money to Anna and then Anna paying it back to me, like, when she finally can, more or less on her terms. It's not something you get from a bank, and it's not something where the bank will suddenly turn up and go, well, I used to be your best friend, but now I'm calling in this demand note. And so now you're broke and I can.

[Anna Shymansky]

I mean, why couldn't they just foreclose?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Why couldn't they just say, you haven't paid in a couple of months and we're taking it back?

[Anna Shymansky]

Because then the film wouldn't be able to get to the next scene because.

[Felix Hammond]

They were spending so much time in Las Vegas that, like, you know, they missed the whole foreclosure proceedings. I think we should wrap this up with the question we always need to ask at the end of these shows, which is, is this a good movie? Anna, you think it's not, right?

[Anna Shymansky]

No. No, I do not think it's a very good movie.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Taffy Claude and I determined its genre was erotic borer. Like, instead of a thriller. It was boring.

[Felix Hammond]

Erotic boredom.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Is this a great movie? It is not a good movie. However, will I still quote it when publicists call me and say, he doesn't want to talk about his private life? I will proudly.

[Felix Hammond]

And you will say, you won't need to do anything that you don't want to do. Is that the line?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I'll say, let me quote my favorite movie, Indecent Proposal, to you. Nothing will happen that he didn't want to happen.

[Felix Hammond]

I mean, that's the question, right? That's the big question Marky question in the center of the movie. Did she do something that she wanted to do?

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It's a trick question. She had no wants. She did. She was not developed enough to have a want. Did you like it? I loved it.

[Felix Hammond]

I didn't love it, but I found it much easier to watch than I thought I would like. It's definitely a movie that I wasn't like, sort of pausing and going like, why am I watching this? This is terrible. It had forward momentum.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

What movies have you done where that has been the problem?

[Felix Hammond]

I'll tell you the movie that I really got sick of watching halfway through and I was just like, do I need to watch this? Was There Will Be Blood.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

I just recently tried to watch it and I remembered being okay with it and I was like, who chose that?

[Felix Hammond]

Okay, that. I will tell you. This is the only movie in the entire season, I'm pretty sure, where the guest chose a movie that she had.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

Not seen before and she chose that.

[Felix Hammond]

And she was like, everyone tells me this is a very important movie and I really need an excuse to watch it. So I'm going to pick this movie and that's going to force me to watch it. That was how There Will Be Blood, maybe.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

What a sell. My runner up was Masquerade because I could speak also a lot about, like. I mean, I've been to the Hamptons twice in my life, but the genre of Hampton's social climbing movies. Ah, Chef's Kiss.

[Felix Hammond]

I don't believe that you're working all the time, Taffy, because I think you're watching movies all the time. You have watched every single movie ever made.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

But I went to film school. I don't have a basic education. I don't know history, but I know movies.

[Felix Hammond]

It was fantastic having you on, Taffy. Thank you, guys.

[Taffy Brodessa Agnew]

It.