Che Guevara the time travelling maniac

Hello and welcome to The Popcorn Isn't Real. I'm Leif Eric and I'm here with my co-host Torvald and we're joined by special guest our sister Brita. She's so special. Dude can you okay wait just imagine imagine you're a little 15 year old girl just growing up in Argentina doing your thing and then out of nowhere this immortal time traveling man just like pops into your life. He's just this angry, angry man, and he's just following you around, criticizing everything you do, never leaving you alone, and he doesn't stop for the rest of your life. This doesn't sound like a super scary movie plot. It's like It Follows, but for Argentinian dictators.

And he also sings his anger at you. He sings constantly. He's so mad. She ran away to Buenos Aires and even became the wife of the president to try to avoid him. She was trying so hard to get rid of him. I mean, I will say one thing about him. Antonio Banderas cannot hold down a job in this movie. He just keeps moving from job to job. He has every job. Well, the movie It Follows is a metaphor for sexually transmitted disease. And one might argue that Evita is a metaphor for the dangers of sexually transmitted disease. Wait, no, it's not a metaphor because it's a real life story. No, it actually is. Yeah, it's not a metaphor at all. Okay, wait. It's a magical metaphor for puberty. So wait, if people don't know yet, we're talking about Evita, the musical about the Argentinian. a president. She was the president's wife. What would you call her? She was the wife of the president, yeah. She was the spiritual

leader of their nation. And in many ways, the actual leader of their nation. I mean, yeah. What is your guys' favorite song in Evita? What's the best song? The Waltz for Ava and Che. Yeah, dude. Right? It's the Waltz for Ava and Che. I agree. 100%. That song's so freaking good. Not only is it a good song but like the lyrics are great and i love the power struggle between che and ava and they're both like putting all their cards on the table just telling each other you know screw you christine by the way doesn't understand that perspective she's like but the best song is don't cry for me argentina that's what i was gonna say is i think most people would pick the iconic don't cry for me argentina but it's good but waltz for ava and che come on i also i gotta No, I got to give shout outs to like another suitcase in another hall. That one's good. I remember watching Miss Congeniality as a kid.

And when William Shatner says, don't cry for me, Alabama, I was like, oh, that Evita musical must be kind of famous. Yeah.

There's also a joke in Cronk's New Groove where he has two secretaries named Marge and Tina. And when he like loses everything, he says, don't cry for me, Marge and Tina. my favorite part of evita bar none is when antonio banderas looks at uh madonna he looks at evita and he's like shoot coward you'll only kill a man i don't remember that part wait wait i've watched it many times he must have said that that's his most famous line everyone knows that Che Guevara said that line right what are you talking about that's crazy this theory is already going off the rails wait what theory I don't even have a theory so my money keeps rolling out what should I do well you don't keep books if it keeps rolling in wait don't keep books but then how can I tell I've done well by the happy grateful looks oh i've got all these figures but they're just getting in the way out just don't ask how oh good okay so don't keep books don't ask how happy grateful looks all right i got it thank you

now we can get on with the theory all right um so yeah you want to yeah what is it um so the theory that we're talking about today is about the i believe 1996 movie evita starring antonio Banderas and Madonna as the two leads. And the main characters of this movie are Evita and Che. And the theory we're talking about this week is that Che is actually Che Guevara and he is capable of time traveling, following Evita around throughout this movie. What a scary, scary man. Already blowing my mind because I thought that it was already an accepted fact that this was Che Guevara and that Che Guevara can time travel. Yeah, that's why it's not much to the theory, honestly. Like I said, this is not a metaphor. This is not hypothetical. This is real life. This actually happened. This is history. But wait, just in case. So I do have to point out one thing. Anybody who just watched Evita, you know, the musical film, Casualty, would have no idea what Antonio Banderas' character is named.

And they're going to be asking right now, why are we calling him Che Guevara? Because he is nothing like Che Guevara in this movie. So you probably, watching this film, you probably assume that he's just the omniscient narrator. Turns out he is an actual named character in the film. His name is Che, and he is none other than the infamous rebel guerrilla leader Che Guevara, who has nothing to do with Evita. Just pointing that out. And I have a whole two pieces of evidence that will really blow this theory out of the water. They're really good. The name Che was picked because it's just an Argentinian expression for hey. It's just kind of meant to be the name of a great man. Okay, wait. So when you say the name was picked, are you talking about real life, how Che Guevara got his name? Well, he did get a nickname. His real name is Ernesto. Exactly. So you're correct. That is how Che Guevara got his name.

It was just the word like, hey you, hey, hey guy, get over here, you know? This is getting way too confusing. He also had some other nicknames. One famous nickname he had was Dirty Pig. And then the other one was like Slime Ball. And those were his nicknames because he didn't bathe. He was a stinky boy. Gross. He was gross. Good for him. Yeah, but Che was the one that stuck. So Che Guevara, that's his name. Yep. We are talking about some just, like, really great people today. Yeah, we are. Just amazing people. They're not, like, controversial, hated figures. No, yeah, there's definitely a consensus these people are great. Also, I did, like, a bunch of research into Evita. I did read Evita's, her book, Evita by Evita. Oh, that's a great title for a book. Yeah, but it's not an autobiography. She can write a book called Abrita by Abrita. Wait, wait. Are you telling me she didn't write it? No.

Well, actually, I'm not sure if she wrote it. It has someone else's name on it, but she said it's not by Evita. Is that name on it Che? Oh, Che. And it's all like, tell me before you walk out of my life. Is it just a really angry book? I hate the main character of the story that I'm writing.

It's also called Eva Duarte Perón Tells Her Own Story. I think the other name is The Translator. But essentially, it's her fascist manifesto in defense of Perón. It's similar to, like, reading Mein Kampf. Well, I mean, maybe. I'll bet Che Guevara wrote one of those, too. Yeah, he was a big fan of manifestos. He wrote some motorcycle diaries. I didn't read them. They were kind of racist, but anyway. I also read a little bit of The Woman with the Whip by Mary Main. It came out in 1953, I think, immediately after Evita's death. And it's very, very critical of Evita. It does not like her. The rumor is that that book is where most of the information for this movie came from. So, yeah, essentially, Che wrote it. It's the omniscient narrator. So the movie Evita is a musical adaptation by Andrew Lloyd Webber and I think Tim Rice. Yes. So it's a musical version of the life of Eva Perón, the wife of the dictator Juan Perón.

And it just kind of follows her sexual escapades and how she made her way to the top and then eventually dies. Well, you might as well make a musical about the common cat or the king of Siam.

so eric or leif you were going to say how we found yeah wait so wait did we find this movie when we were like watching another movie but then we got we went into the movie's bedroom and there was like a smaller sadder movie in its bed called evita and that movie we were like get out of here and it was like so what happens now we're like i had no clue what you're going for That happens like six times in Evita. It's like the most common recurring theme. It happens once. It happens to Evita. It happens to that little girl. And it happens again to Evita when she's dying. She keeps asking, so what happens now? I have a quick little spiel to go on about how we found it, etc. So I believe we rented it probably from Russ's market. From Russ's market, yeah. I think that is the case, yeah. Probably with a free rental gumball. Russ's Market was this tiny little market in the place where we were growing up.

A grocery store. And they had a gumball machine. It was in another store. It was a room in a store. Was the actual store called Russ's Market? The store was called Russ's Market. It just had a video place in the back. I always considered the video rental place to be Russ's Market. But they had a gumball machine that had these ones that said free movie on them. And if you got a free movie, you could rent a free movie. Except that all of them said free movies. Well, it just seemed like it. We got socially. You would go and get, wait, you don't remember this, Brita? No, I remember getting movies, but I don't remember. We would go there and plan to get a gumball and then get a free movie. So basically it was 25 cent rentals because it was just a quarter to get a gumball. Anyway, this would have been the early 2000s. So Antonio Banderas was big. We liked him. We saw his face on the cover and we're like, hey, let's get this weird romance between Antonio Vanderas and whoever that is.

Because we had no idea who Madonna was.

And we rented it. And then I think the reason we liked it so much was just because we were just like, what is this? We've never heard of it before. We know nothing about Evita. And also we had no idea it was a Broadway musical. Well, first of all, it doesn't tell you it's a musical. It starts off with like a 15 minute interlude of like wailing and sadness. And then a girl loses her dad. And then an old lady is dead. And then there's like weird Latin bells and stuff going. So we're just like trying to figure out what's going on. And then Antonio just starts singing out of nowhere all like happily. He's like, oh, what a circus. Oh, what a show. It's completely dissonant with the tone up to this point. Go ahead. At this point, we're like, okay, we're familiar with musicals, like Disney musicals. People sing songs, but then they stop, and there are like normal scenes. And they never stop singing.

This one never stops. We're like, where are they going to stop? No, they never stop singing. Yep. Never. And so, it's crazy. It's not like Newsies, for example, where they actually talk sometimes. I think the reason why we loved this movie so much was because it was a mystery to us. The biggest mystery that we loved was, who is Che? Who is Che? Who is this guy? Why does he follow her around? Why does he hate her? Like, slowly we figured out that he is a narrator, but he's not like the normal kind of, like, nonpartisan narrator. No, he's a mad narrator. He's a narrator who absolutely hates the main character. He's a narrator of an opinion. A narrator with a chip on his shoulder. We've never seen anything like that before. A narrator with an axe to grind. A movie where the narrator just hates the person that maybe you're rooting for. And he doesn't just hate her, but he interferes in her life.

He works at her parents' hotel. He's not just a narrator. He tells her boyfriend at the time, Augustine Magaldi, to leave. He says, you better get out while you can, dude. This lady's about to mess up your life. So yeah, we slowly figured out that he's some sort of omniscient being of some kind. But he definitely exists in Evita's world. And then we watched it, re-watched it so many times. Freya loved it for a while, though apparently she loves Gattaca more. That's a whole different story. I mean, Gattaca's a great movie. I don't remember too much about this time period because i was very young when this all happened like i don't remember how young but pretty young but i do remember that we watched the movie and that at the very end of it when evita died i just i burst into tears so did mom and i was shocked because it was the first time i had ever cried at a movie and so it became my favorite movie and is still in my top three to this day yeah

yeah no the first several times i watched it i cried the background for this theory though is that like you said watching it you don't really know who che is and so then once i found they never say his name in the movie my head my mind just auto-filled che Guevara one day we were talking about the movie and i said to eric like oh yeah you know the scene where che Guevara is doing this and he was like what are you talking about i was like it's che Guevara and it was that moment that i realized that it's not cheque no no no that wasn't what happened no so what happened was you were texting me about this theory that you wanted to do and you said that Che Guevara is a time traveler and so I said I said oh that's interesting so and I was into it I was like so your theory is not just that he is a time traveler but that he is Che Guevara and then you got embarrassed and you didn't want to do the theory anymore I wasn't embarrassed I just like I was

shocked I had always thought he was Che Guevara and you blew my mind realizing that no his name is just Che he looks nothing like Che Guevara there's no reason he's Che Guevara's not involved with Evita there's no reason to think it would be Che Guevara is a person most people are not this kind of person but he is a person who has a very iconic look yes he certainly does a person is not Che Guevara unless he has that look Unless he's like, you know Mostly shadow and white Big black beard and a beret That's Che Guevara And like a cigar sometimes I remember that as a kid I also thought it was Che Guevara So I'm thinking That maybe at some point Because Freya would sit next to the TV At the computer researching Evita Just calling out random bits of trivia As we watched it And I wonder if she at some point said something about Che Guevara and several of us thought that was him eventually I figured out no

he's not Che Guevara because I I learned Spanish and I learned about Argentina and I realized oh Che just means like you you hey you hey guy is he's just a guy that's why he works all the jobs he just represents the guy who doesn't like Evita I will say that I think it being Che Guevara actually adds an interesting level to the musical in which Che kind of serves as a foil for Evita throughout the musical, like especially the scene where she's dying and you see him like also dying and nothing happens. You see kind of this dichotomy between them. And it's really interesting because that's also honestly true of the real Che Guevara and Evita. They parallel each other in really interesting ways in that she was born into just complete poverty, was the fifth of five children born illegitimately to a man who died and left them with nothing and worked her way up to become who she was and then also became like this fascist dictator's wife. And then Che on the other hand

was extremely wealthy, extremely well read, went on two motorcycle journeys just for fun throughout South America. And then that was what turned him into a revolutionary who was like, get rid of these governments. They're messed up. They're terrible. He was an educated doctor and he also probably was not actually did not graduate. He probably just kind of forged that. It doesn't seem like he actually graduated, but there's no real records. I am going to blow both of your minds right now because you're saying that you think in reality in this musical Che is not Che Guevara I'm gonna blow your minds because actually Che in this musical in the original performances of the musical is Che Guevara he is actually Che Guevara he is literally Che Guevara that is the first of my one my two good pieces of evidence actually go ahead sorry why don't you tell us about it I don't want to steal your thunder when the the musical was originally

written by tim rice he just named the character che and didn't really move do anything else with it but when they brought in the very first director harold prince he insisted on the character being portrayed as che guevara and that was done as far as i know through all the runs from 1978 to when the movie came out right up until the movie yeah the movie was the first portrayal of him as not which is so weird to me he really is he is Che Guevara like you were right Rita you were right you knew it all along I can't believe it I mean it's so he's so clearly written to be an omniscient narrator in a metaphorical representation of like the Argentinian people and their anger and their concerns and like you said he's a foil to Eva right you know pointing out her flaws in the face of her successes and pointing out her successes in the face of her flaws or her failures I guess I should say but uh he he for whatever reason in the original play he was all of that and more he

was a literal guy he was Che Guevara and it's just so weird it's like Che Guevara and and Evita Peron are real people and they never interacted they never did anything together they never met they did their lives overlapped somewhat but it's like it's like it's like if I made a movie about George Washington. And I had it narrated by like, Marie Antoinette, right? Like, no, like they lived at the same time, but they never did anything together. They never made each other. It's just so weird. It's so strange to me. I love that he actually is Che Guevara. And I never would have known if it wasn't for your theory, Brita. So thank you. You made my day. I'm so happy about this well and the reason i think che kind of works is because he's known as a revolutionary who wanted to bring down corrupt governments and so i think it's believable to audiences to be like oh yeah this revolutionary would totally hate evita even though he didn't necessarily have

anything to say about her no and uh and so we're willing to believe that was he not a supporter of fidel castro he was he was fidel castro not he was like a dictator like their own well so che was like too much for fidel castro he was like too gung-ho fidel castro ended up like sending him away to africa and hoping he would die and che also hoped he would die like he wrote like his goodbye notes to everyone and then he came back and he's like oh gosh what do i do now guess i'll go to Bolivia and die. During the time of his life where Evita was still alive, he did not care about politics. Like you said, he was just a young rich kid at that point going on like motorcycle trips. It was because of his experiences in Argentina that got him interested in politics. Yes, this is actually, there is a very slight overlap. He started his motorcycle journeys in 1950 and then he went again in 1951. And Eva died in 1952. So he could have gone to Argentina

during Eva's dictatorship. No, no, he's from Argentina. He's an Argentinian man. He lived there. He was born there. He is Argentinian. That's why they put him in this play. But he could have gotten politically motivated during that time period and then become a time traveler. Eva Perón died when Che was taking a few years off of college to bike through Argentina, his homeland, and also some of South America. And he had done nothing political, nothing military related in his life. He was known to not be interested in politics, unlike his parents and close friends who were interested in politics. And he even confirmed this 20 years later when he wrote of his student self. He said, I had no social preoccupations in my adolescence and no participation in the political or student struggles in Argentina. So at the time that Eva died, he didn't care. Eva Perón meant nothing to him at that point.

So I just think it's so funny that they picked him to be so angry at Eva. Well, that kind of makes sense. Well, that's why he's a time traveler. He's not a deskamisado. Right. Right? He's not one of the poor people. He's one of the bourgeoisie. He's an educated, yeah. He's one of the oligarchs she wants to take down. Which, interestingly, the book by Mary Main, Woman with the Whip, that hates Ava so much, you can really tell the woman who wrote it is quite rich. And she's writing from that perspective. And she hates Ava. And that's the perspective they chose for Che. Well, and I like your comment, Brita, about how later in his life Che Guevara became very interested in politics and very anti, you know, establishment. And maybe, you know, he looked back at some of the policies enacted by, you know, Perron and his wife, Ava, and said, hey, this is bad. If only I could go back in time and, you know, make sure this didn't happen.

And then he found his time traveling motorcycle. Right, exactly. If I could just tell them how much they suck, then my life would be better. I wouldn't change anything. I'd just make my life happier. Does his motorcycle have to get up to 88 miles per hour? I assume so. Probably, but it's never shown on screen, so we can't be sure. Well, they didn't want to get sued. Just to wrap this up, Harold Prince, or Hal Prince as he was known, the director of the Evita musical, he decided that the narrator is literally Che Guevara. and every time he is portrayed he must be dressed in fatigues a beret with a big old che beard and you know most of the time a cigar every time that musical ran up until the film where the director of the film alan parker he was the writer and director of the film um and he even acknowledges that che was che guevara in the play but is not che guevara in the film that's where you'll have

your work cut out proving that he is um but he said uh he said my own feeling was that Che Guevara's actual story should not be cosmetically or dishonestly grafted on to our story about Evita instead it probably deserves its own film or two and and this wasn't to it what it wasn't to be this one hence the narrator in my film is purely and simply Che that's what Alan Parker said about he makes a good point but really he's lying to cover up you know the best theory exactly I was gonna say i can see that he's lying through his teeth so let's let's get into the film what are your guys thoughts on all the talk singing in this movie because they're just like saying lines to a tune i wish they were just no it's funny every every part of this movie is perfect yeah i agree i think all the time is great there's not a single thing that should be changed i was actually talking to my co-workers just yesterday about this people don't like this movie and oh they seemed the reason

always given is madonna i think madonna is amazing in this movie i've never seen her in anything else maybe she's bad in all the other acting she did but she's good in this like in the tv show angel when cordelia is threatening her ghost that lives in her apartment she says i'll play the soundtrack from evita that's right the one with madonna as though that's like a punishment maybe it was just like no one so it just seems to be widely regarded that this movie is not as good as the musical madonna sucks all that is wrong though but madonna is amazing in this i don't know anything else about her honestly but in this she's great how on earth can it be morning all day and morning all night it's the morning that ava died he loves it he's like this is my favorite morning all day and all night that might need some context so one of the lines and one of the songs at the beginning is chase a very first that people are mourning all day and mourning

all night, stalling over themselves to get all the misery right. And this is the first song, really, of the musical. Like you said, we see a lot of Ava dying and her dad dying. And then we see Antonio Banderas just kind of sitting out drinking, and he starts us singing, talking about this. He starts a little catchy tune. He's happy. Starting out with this, oh, what a circus. It's such a circus that everyone's throwing on about Ava's death. And yeah, he's not into it. Whatever she does, he criticizes her. It's like she does something bad. He criticizes her and he says, you should go die. She goes and dies and he's like, oh, great. Now everyone's going to mourn you. Now it's a big circus. It's never been so bad. And his best line is, you let down your people, Evita. You were supposed to have been immortal. Been immortal. That's all they wanted. Not much to ask for. I think he's being deliberately, you know, kind of facetious there.

He is, but it's like, it's very funny, especially from Torvald's perspective of like everything she does. Well, right. I mean, I personally think that his best line is when he says she literally she she literally dies. She drops dead. And he looks at the camera and says, why rule a country when you can become a saint? He's like, how could you die? I know what I'm like. It's it's just everything she does. Every like she's done. I think when she's successful, according to him, she didn't she didn't earn it when she's downtrodden. Well, she just has every disadvantage you need if you want to succeed, right? She starts out as she was literally being raped as a minor and then kidnapped by a celebrity, right? She was essentially whored out unwillingly by her family. And he's like, oh, yeah, he's the first man to be of use to her. She used to. Jeez, Jay, back off. She's not doing anything here.

She's a 15-year-old girl. What the heck, man? Oh, he hates her so much. He hates her. But this only makes sense if he's a time traveler. It only makes sense if he literally knew her as an adult, saw the effect of her decisions, and then came back to revel in her misery and her misfortune, right? Which he clearly did because he takes us back to her 15-year-old self right after. Yeah, right after, oh, what a circus. He takes us back to her 15-year-old self, just slept with Magaldi, and starts making fun of her. So they must have cut the part where he gets on his motorcycle. and revs up to 88 miles per hour. It's a play. That would be hard to do in a play, right? But this is the movie version. He should have had the budget. It's still a play. So yeah, Augustine Magaldi, who I have to point out is, he is Augustine from Encanto. And we know this because he is a cheating man. He likes to cheat.

He likes to have babies outside of wedlock. So Augustine is Mirabelle's dad, Augustine. And look at them. They look the same. They're identical. They've got the same mustache, the same face, the same expression. Anyway. Do they have the same power to just hulk out when they get stung by bees? Yes, when they get stung by bees. That's his power. Bees turn into a monster. He gets strong when he's stung by bees. That's what Storm decided. I know. I remember. That's his power. He's so cool. He can call the bees to him. He is. By the way, if it sounds like we're just speaking gibberish, go listen to our Encanto episode. Well, we didn't cover the bees thing in that episode. Oh, we did. You mentioned it. Did we? I understand that Che is so mad at Evita. Why, when Migaldi was done singing, did Che, like, do the awkward, angry, slow clap for him, like, 20 seconds after everyone else had stopped clapping?

What is his problem with Migaldi? I thought he didn't like Ava. He hates Magaldi because he thinks Magaldi started Ava's career. Without him, she would have never gotten to Buenos Aires. I just kind of think that Jay hates everyone. Well, no, no. It's because he specifically, we established, he came back in time not to stop anything from happening in Ava's life, but to express his displeasure with everything that happens in her life. So you're right. He considers Magaldi to be her first advantage, you know, The first thing that set her on her path to stardom and then fame and then fortune. So he's here expressing his absolute displeasure with Migaldi by clapping for him angrily. He has one of those time machines from like the time machine where you can't actually change anything when you go back. I feel like he just doesn't want to. He just wasn't very good at it in the time machine. He also seems to have like created this everyone has to sing all the time curse.

So maybe that's the result of his time. That's true. Brita, we need to talk about the play that we just saw. Yeah, I was going to mention that. Because that was pretty amazing. Dude, wait, you already told me about this. Well, just because the introduction of Che in the play, we had this actor for Che who I think was an understudy who had to step in at the last minute. So you guys, just to clarify, to set the stage, you might say, you guys literally went in real life to see evita the musical in like as a play yeah we went to a community theater version of a big budget production or no so we went to this community theater version and they they had this understudy for che walk out and start singing you know oh what a circus and he was just like the most pleasant happy guy like he seemed so nice like anytime he's trying to make fun of it it didn't read as sarcastic at all like he's just like so nice oh geez well that kind of and also ruins the play but

okay well no but the biggest problem was that he didn't know the songs and rather rather than like just singing any words, because we might not have known, he would just be like, your queen is dead. He would start humming. You're fed up, but I think I'm coming back to you. Well, I mean, it's hard to make up words to a song you don't know on the fly, so I can't really fault him. But also, he should have known the words if he's the understudy. That's kind of his job. He's the understudy in a pretty small production. He probably had another role he usually played as well. And then at one point, one of the extras took a random little box crate offstage and it just, like, fell apart. Oh, no. Like, a panel of it fell on the floor first and she was trying to kick that with her foot as she went behind the curtain. And then after she got behind the curtain, I saw several more panels hit the floor.

Oh, no. Then she just left them there for the rest of the play. They're not a big problem. And also in this play, Che and Perron's mistress cursed Evita to die. For some reason, the only prop, other than the box that fell apart, that they had in this play was a bunch of red lilies. Red lilies that don't exist. And they used them for everything. Like, Che used them as a pen to write things down. But it's worth mentioning that, you know, it starts with Ava's funeral. So they're all carrying them at her funeral and, like, put them on her casket. And so you think, like, oh, well, these are just funeral flowers. And then that scene ends, and they all, like, put them in their hair and, like, decorate the room with them for it to be Ava's home. Yeah, we get them all the time. Because Che just loved her funeral so much, he wanted everything in his life to remind him of it. So he brought those flowers with him as he traveled through time.

And he used them as pens. Well, but Che and Evita's mistress curse her to die because at one point they're just singing. And first of all, sorry, Peron's mistress comes out and just, like, stares at Evita. randomly then leaves like i don't know why she did that like five minutes later she comes out and does the same thing maybe she just came up too soon this time though she gets like a red over overshot her cue she gets a red spotlight on her like she looks evil and she's just staring at evita and like che comes out next to her and they both have a red spotlight on them and i think maybe they even sing something even though perron's mistress is not in this part of the play normally and then after that she got sick and died so I think they cursed her maybe with those red flowers okay so wait in this version of the play Che went back in time and did change something he like he killed Evita he cursed her

Evo could have lived much longer and it might have been bad he had to fix that okay so that's all with that really low budget plot version yeah what a great two props they had actually wanted to see it again exploding box and red lilies that's all you need the actress who played evita was stellar she did an amazing job and so i tried to see it again with our mom but they were they were actually sold out by the time i asked did did she have like just a little touch of star quality you might say yeah i would say that's pretty accurate because she sang really well but then when she tried to do the one speech it was insanely bad like okay i thought she was a great actress and then suddenly she was trying to do the speech about like desk amisados and it was so weird she reminded me of lenny frazier from ghostwriter like she was really young and she looked like a teenager and it was weird when she tells when she's like talking to the mistress

who's supposed to be younger than her but the mistress was much older than her anyway okay well she was much bigger than her okay so she couldn't act but she had the right friends And as we all know, our career depends on knowing the right fella to be stellar. So maybe that's why she was so stellar.

Get out of here, Magaldi. They're on to you. Wait, so Eva gets right down to business. She's like, to think you could love me. Anyway, I want to be a part of B.A., Buenos Aires, Big Apple. Like, she spends no time. Why does her family support her going with Magaldi? why are they pushing this when they know he's not going to take care of her like why didn't he tell her that he was married if he was afraid of like her family in retribution once they were on the train he could have told her and then why was he so annoyed but he means well yeah but like why does he get so annoyed when she's dancing around with other men if he was just planning to get rid of her i always thought that and then yeah he doesn't ever but then he takes her all the way he takes her all the way to his house and leaves her downstairs and just goes home. One floor down just so that his wife can see her. It's a power play for him. He's like, look what I

brought, wife. This is just mean. It seems bad for you. He's not very smart. Yeah. All baffling behavior. He's like, this is so my wife knows where she stands. And Evita. I want them both to know. I'm gonna piss off both the women in my life right at the same time. Let's see how that works out for me. So So, what happens now? Ah, well, another suitcase in another haul.

This is the first song where Ava and Che actually interact at all. He's like a bartender. Yeah, he's like comforting her. And yeah, I was going to say, it's the one song in which he's consoling her. Probably because in the original musical, they didn't do this here. In the stage version, there isn't another suitcase in another haul version. She just kicks McGaldi to the side and moves on to Goodnight and Thank You. And then another suitcase in another hall is saved. I think it's good they have this, because it makes sense. It saves the Peron's lover. Yeah, like in the original play version, and I've seen the play several times, So What Happens Now is only sung by Peron's mistress. And it's pointless. It's a stupid song, unless it is an echo of Evita's experience. There's no reason for it to be in the play. I can't stand it. Anyone who thinks that the musical is better is wrong. The movie is so much better.

I mean, having only heard that, knowing nothing about the musical, I agree 100%. I agree, too. I think that, honestly, I think the reason they did that in the musical was just to give another solo part to a woman. Right, because Andrew Lloyd Webber was sleeping with the mistress, probably. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, I think it works way better for Evita. He's like, I'll give you a part in my play. The audience cares about Evita. We care about her suffering. it gives you an idea that it's like it's not just a meteoric rise to the top she yeah she has these struggles too and then yeah like eric said it makes it way more meaningful when the mistress sings it and you see evita being like i don't care but then evita ends up singing it again at the end right and so it becomes this like through line like you said anyway yeah rather than just a one-off and that's another thing about the play version the play hates evita it hates her so much

and it doesn't provide another perspective of her it's she's bad and um also we don't care that she dies and we wanted her dead we cursed her the play version is a lot more overt about how they were like preserving her before she even died and they just have like a few extra lines right the movie doesn't really talk about that because that kind of ruins things and the play always has the line at the end her body disappeared for 30 years and that's the last thing you hear in the play and it's all everything about it seems to be calculated to just be like f this lady don't like her screw her she's dead whereas the movie actually like like brina was saying it makes you cry you really feel for evita even though you know she probably was a bad person well but you No, no, I mean, Peron was a bad person. She was a very complicated person. If anyone deserves any hate, it's Peron. He was a bad guy.

And for some reason, both the play and movie versions really treat him very nicely. Yeah. So what happens now? Well, good night and thank you. Ah. So in the play version, when he sends people away and he goes, which means... In the play version, he actually has a different line, he says, for every single one of them that goes along with the... And it rhymes with something he says before. And they usually censor this in most of the one we saw, Brita. One of them is, which means you're fucked. No, no. Don't say that. We have to censor that. Oh, no. But I forget what it rhymes with.

So the cool thing about this song, Ava and Che are actually singing this song together. They're actually looking at each other and interacting. for the first time it goes to show that the extent of che's powers that not only can he like slide into any job anywhere and just be accepted but he can just be standing on your balcony singing about how you're dumping your latest lover and you're like yeah he's right she can't stop him he won't get out of her life like what can she do he's like he's like it follows right she's gotta live with him isn't that what che guevara really did though he was like a chameleon he went from like argentina bolivia cuba africa you know he just slipped into any role he just kept failing his guerrilla insurrections he was horrible he was really bad at his job he never had one success each of these guys then follows him around and is there when they introduce the next guy and

they become like all they're holding his personal harem this is a club we should never have joined but yeah so i was like clearly apparently it's an actual club and time traveling them forward to see her next lover and then being like come on let's see the next one he's tormenting them he's like the ghost of christmas future he's he's showing them the horrible life that they could have had or something what he's doing is his own like really twisted bill and ted's excellent adventure exactly that's what i thought collecting all of her exes for some reason what a weirdo jacobar is such a kooky guy he's so crazy with his time traveling motorcycle but after that we get into uh the lady's got potential which is the first song that has peron it talks about his rise to power and gives a little bit of a hint into che's political views So he talks about just one shell and governments fall like flies.

Kapow, kapow, die. Yep. And so I think that it helps to show that his political views seem to align pretty well with Che Guevara's. That, like, he thinks these governments are weak and they're just corrupt and falling down. Even though he could never actually topple a government. Well, it's harder to topple a government than you think. Unless, you know, you're entire people. No, I mean, I agree that it is. And I don't know why he was so dead set on trying it. Just one shot, and governments lose their nerve. Exactly, that's what he thought. They stumble and fall. If I would die, keep away from the wall. In the charity banquet, Magaldi gets to come back and sing his great song. His act hasn't changed much. Yeah, his act hasn't changed much. No, neither has Ava's. In real life, there is no evidence or reason to believe that Ava Peron ever met Augustine Magaldi. He was a real person and a real singer.

There's no reason to believe that they ever met and that he kidnapped her as a child and brought her to Buenos Aires. But also, by the time of this charity ball, he was freaking dead. So he definitely didn't meet her here. Not there. He died in like 1938. Unless Che brought him. Exactly. The only way he could have been there is if a time-traveling maniac picked him up, brought him to the ball, it was like now get out there and sing this is your chance to get back at the woman who hurt you all those years ago and remember this biting retort to her question to her taunt you have to say neither has yours when she says your act hasn't changed much that was amazing he knows he's a time traveler and he knows he's going to die and he's still into just like sticking it to Eva one more time that's all he has the chance to do he can't do anything else alright so the ball is a big success and she meets her future lover

her own yep and she's his reward for his efforts there that night Eva's book she says that's the most important night of her life no this is this is like this must be Argentinian culture because the first thing he does is bring her home to his current girlfriend this is what men do You have to make sure everyone knows. It's a showdown. About all your lovers. You're trying, they want the strongest wife. So they bring them home so they can fight it out. Right. And Eva, this time she's ready. She didn't expect it last time. It's like an inverse thing of what like deer and bulls do when they, you know, ram each other. Yeah, instead of the men showing off the win over the woman. And she's like, this little adolescent girl is a freaking pushover. I've got so many biting comments that will just make her leave. And when she asks what will happen, I'm going to just tell her, don't ask. She mops the floor with that girl.

In two versions of the play I've seen, they have cut out the line where she says, I like your conversation. You have a catchy turn of phrase. You're obviously going through an adolescent phase. They cut out the adolescent phase part. So she says, you have a catchy turn of phrase. And then it just silenced while it plays the next bits of music. But they don't sing the line. And I'm just like, so what? But are they worried about besmirching the good name of Juan Perón? Perón is a bad guy. He's a scumbag. Yes, he was sleeping with a teenager. But he's bad. I assume that it's because they're like, oh, well, that's a sensitive subject. We just won't bring it up. But they specifically say Ava's 15 when she sleeps with Magaldi. So how is this any different? Well, you can, right. I mean, it's okay to trash Augustine Magaldi, but you can't trash Juan Perón. He was dead at the time. Juan Agustin-Migaldi didn't actually do it in real life.

Juan Perón did. Definitely did. So it's okay to, I don't know, that doesn't make sense. It's only okay if it's actually slander. A lie. Yeah.

We don't want to besmirch people's good names with the truth. Only with lies. That's the only way we can besmirch good names. I wanted to say in Peron's latest flame, there's the scene where Antonio Banderas is interviewing her. It's really been your year. Who did you sleep dine with yesterday? And then she responds. And then he tries to say, are you going to quit? And then the two really deep voice guys just pick him up and take him off. Yeah, I love those guys. They're my favorite cameo in the entire movie.

They're so deep voice and so strong. They just carry him away. So then we have A New Argentina. A New Argentina. Yeah, kind of the midpoint of the play. A really good song. I wanted to say that they have several points where she's like just giving speeches in praise of Perón throughout. But especially in this part where she's like, Why he loves you is one of you. If not, how could he love me? Yeah. She's so sincere. I wanted to read you the very first paragraph of Evita by Evita because it's really good. She says, this book has sprung from my innermost heart. However much I speak in its pages of my feelings, my thoughts and my life, in all that I have written, the least observant of my readers will find nothing else but the figure, the soul and the life of General Perón and my profound love for him and for his cause. And that is absolutely indicative of the tone of this entire book. Yeah.

All right. This is going to be not Evita by Evita, but Perron by Evita. By Evita. Exactly. That's what it is. I just thought that they really nailed her tone in some of her speeches about Perron in this. They also had a pretty good quote in there where she says, I saw him clasp the hard and horny hands of the workers. Oh, I got to read this book. It sounds as good as the Canadian Mounted.

Hard and horny. Why those two words together? i know right well you know workers yeah she wanted to make it very clear what she was talking about their hands are aroused yeah and they were shaking with happiness she sees a handshake it's like a form of intercourse ava how did you become such a well-known whore if you're that confused no she was just shaking hands with all those guys. And they loved it. Wow. Her hands are so soft. Ava's pretty hands reached far and they reached wide. She must moisturize. She must use zest soap or whatever it was. Zazz. Zazz. That's right. The next song is Don't Cry For Me Argentina. Kind of the most famous song from the musical I understand it as a reprise I never understood it in its first form because like she was just elected president well wife of the president yeah why would they cry I was literally going to ask that why would they cry for her at this point I think clearly

it is evidence to show that Shay is a time traveler because he's been telling her that she's going to die how her story will end and so she's like I know it's coming guys but don't cry for me well but then she seems so surprised by it later when she starts to you know lose her health and she's like i'm still gonna run for vice president because she thought it was gonna happen the first time she gave the speech but it didn't so she was like oh i've beaten it i'm immortal i'm yeah i was supposed to have been immortal i guess i am this is great um the next song high flying adored i think is just peak che it's like he's negging her every single line is just like oh you're pretty good but you suck and just trying to make her doubt herself and be sad it's just unimportant sorry doesn't matter there's no evidence that she feels like oh i've done it all and now i'm sad like because there's nothing else to do but he's like come on nothing's gonna thrill you nothing

fulfill you no you won't even care if people love you anymore isn't it great to have your own personal like time traveling heckler just follows you around wherever you go i mean ava's pretty good at dealing with him she just like turns around and it's like i have more to do than this all right i mean time traveling heckler is a part of my life particular curse because she's been dealing with like arrogant men all her life that's like her specialty right yeah so she picked both the perfect person and the worst person to do this to. The reason Che is so bitter at her for having achieved so much in her short life is because he achieved so little Che Guevara in his long life. His life was not that long. His greatest achievement is I was friends with Fidel Castro. Yeah, pretty much, yes. And then I was too communist for Fidel Castro and he sent me away. He sent me to Africa. Eva goes off on the rainbow tour.

That's a good song. I like that song. Mostly I like that song because, for some reason, Simpsons decided to do an Evita episode, and they did that song. They did. It was a great episode. Actually, that episode was my moment of, like, Eric was talking about being like, oh, I guess other people have heard of this musical. Which one do you think is more commonly known, Evita or Cats? Um, probably Cats. but i think i would agree but it's weird because i think people probably know the music from evita more than the music from cats that's probably true i think people know memories yeah okay yeah memories yeah people know but nobody's like walking around singing or parodying like magical mr mistoffelees or you know well okay i guess will and grace did mention uh skimbleshanks the railway cat so it gets brought up a lot there's our will and grace reference for the day wow can't live without it i think cats is like known for its absurdity it's just so weird that it really

sticks in people's minds in a way no but people don't know how absurd it is otherwise they wouldn't have been so surprised by the live action movie when it came out like there was like it was everything everyone should have expected but people were so shocked by it they were like why is this movie here why is it like this why does it it's because that's what cats is that's what cat's voice has been like it's cats it's totally okay and if you take out the scenes with james corden and rebel wilson it's actually a good movie but james corden ruins every movie he's in and rebel wilson scene is just gross because for some reason they decided to have her eating mice that are humans well and it was like the first song right and both those songs are near the beginning. And so it's just kind of like eww, I don't want to see James Corden just like bathing in his own filth.

That's true, I don't want to see that. I don't want to see James Corden in anything, he's a terrible person. Yeah, I don't really either. But did you enjoy Idris Elba's massive smooth spot?

Yes. Like they had to digitally smooth out his uh his nether region is packaged yep all right anyway release the bucket let's move on let's hear it for the rainbow tour so i was gonna say that uh in that song there's a line where perone goes off about how great she is there you are i told you so makes no difference where she goes and he just really thinks she's great everyone says her name who would underestimate her now right uh in the musical version we saw i don't know if this is always the case but probably ava sang that line to perone she was like see see perone i told you so everywhere i go i'm great him seemed like a jerk and her seemed really pathetic like just trying to win him over like see come on i'm so good at this in one of the musical versions i saw when she's like he actually called me a whore the person who they had say oh it's an easy mistake to make i'm i used to be people still call me captain or whatever it was admiral but i left anyway they had that that line

said by Perón. I was like, whoa. What? That's not a good thing for Perón to say to his wife. I mean, he did used to be a general, so it fits. She still calls him the general in her books, so there you go. He's right. Yeah, he left the position long ago. Long ago, but he's still the general. And she's still a whore. Oh, no.

The actress hasn't learned the lines you'd like to hear ends with, like, Che finally getting, like, super pissed off. Like, up till now, he's been kind of almost jokingly pissed, just like, oh, you suck. But here he's like, oh, fine as those sentiments sound. Little has changed. He's so mad. He's so mad. He's seething. He's even got, like, a whole army of Deskamisados behind him, all, like, really mad. He's been spending months building up anger in these citizens. He's probably just mad because for whatever reason, he seems to have been unable to follow her to Europe during the Rainbow Tour. Oh, yeah. old men his powers don't extend to europe just south america they're south american powers well you can travel through time sort of like south american yeah it's just a motorcycle he can't like cross the ocean in it that's true how are you gonna use a motorcycle to cross the ocean so then that leads us into the money kept rolling in and out when i was young i loved evita right

because i love this this musical so much yeah what little girl didn't love evita who wouldn't yeah she's a great role model um and so i was in like sixth or seventh grade and i got a world textbook and I was just bored so I flipped through to the back and was like oh do I know like any names or whatever and I ended up looking for Evita in there and they had a mention of her and so I was like oh let's go to the page and I found this mention of Evita and it was just like Evita was a wife of a president and she started a foundation that donated 500,000 sewing machines and had a picture of sewing machines and that was like the one mention of Evita but they actually show the sewing machines in this song there's like a shot of them in the background dude she's the sewing machine woman that's what i was like what do you know that was something she was really famous for but as a kid i was pretty disappointed i was like i think she did more than that

i also really love the moment during the song where che is just like playing in the water with the kids yeah and so happy i like that part so much as a kid because it's like even che you know who has a heart two sizes too small. Even he was affected by Evita's philanthropy.

He's like, I can't resist it. We have running water. I could dance with this little girl in a ditch. Yeah. This is great. That little girl got to dance with Antonio Banderas like I was crying. I know. Let me hear it. I wish I was that little girl. Me too. she got to dance with puss in boots dude oh my gosh and zoro zoro and the mariachi everyone's favorite then we've got santa evita the song where she finally faints during catholic mass and she gets rushed to the hospital meanwhile che is injured and just left to die in the street how exactly and why did che get hurt right here like i get that he's like i mean is he like connected to evita where like when she's hurt he's hurt that's a terrible drawback to his power yeah no he gets hurt in like these riots that are happening yeah they're having a riot outside i mean right but he's a time traveler he should have been able to avoid it obviously we've already

talked about it's the best part of the movie but just that they're both dying at the same time and somehow they go to this just place where they can like face off against each other like this is the climax of the film the antagonist versus the protagonist um you know which whichever one you think is yeah whichever is which i mean evita wins this argument by far she definitely does which is funny because like it wouldn't be hard to point out like you've done some really illegal and horrible things but instead he decides to focus on things like why do you have no impossible dream yeah i know it's like that's a bad question for one like evita's whole thing was a war against poverty she was like i'm going to eliminate the rich everyone will be workers and there will be no poor and that was like her biggest goal in life and i'm like that is an impossible dream dude it sounds like a stupid argument but he is responding to her saying that she can't overthrow

the way things have been done and he's like what exactly stick to your guns lady i think you have no impossible dream and she keeps saying essentially that like it's an evil system but i've got to work within the system what else can i do and he makes good points where he's like how can you claim to be a savior when those who oppose you are stepped on or cut up or disappear but really that's their own fault it is although i mean she's doing it too supposedly yeah like anyone who says bad things about ava but i will say like that is a good point like hey you can't be a savior if you're murdering people and then she just says like well what am i supposed to do i'm not a saint i'm a winner and he's just like okay fine but couldn't you try it's not a good argument yeah so the one thing i was going to point out about this is i feel like this song is the best evidence of him being che Guevara and time traveling

And for some reason, she seems to know about it because she keeps talking about how she knows he's about to leave. Like, he's going to leave the country soon. She's like, you're going to ride off into the sunset. And she says, you're going to join the Forgotten Brigade, which is what he does. He goes and joins Fidel Castro's brigade, right? Like, it sure seems like she knows that he is out of here and about to go, you know, do his own thing. I think she talks about him seeking worthier pastures. And then she tells him to... No, he says he'll seek work in your pastures and thereby restore self-esteem. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He says to him that he should whip up your hate in some tolerating state. Some tottering state. Yeah, right. So he's telling him go to Cuba, basically, right? In the tottering state. Yeah, it's about to fall. So I see this as her somehow knowing about his future, which must be because he told her, because he's a time traveler.

Well, maybe. I mean, because I always did think it was weird that they're acting like, he's about to leave i know when she's about to leave yeah i was gonna say to eric's point about this being like the great showdown between the protagonist and antagonist as they're arguing i really love that they do have they sing the bridge together and that's the one line they agree on that right that they're both like there's evil around fundamental system of government like that's just how it is yeah that's definitely something that che believed in yeah not actually necessarily something ava believed in she seemed to i so i read her whole book and she describes herself as a justicialist which she says means everyone's a worker but we get to this point through cooperation rather than overthrowing the government because she loves the government the government in the nation is great and so basically what she wants is state-run

communism which is just fascism so yeah she wakes up and peron tells her he's that she's dying no he's dying no he's dying hey but you have to take over i'm dying too no what a twist who can we get chay here's i think the best evidence for chay time traveling she sings all that and then chay looks at her and is like ah the choice was yours and no one else's you can cry forever hang your head and then he repeats her line how she lived how she shone but how soon the lights were gone And during that scene, you can see he still has the injury that he got in the last scene right before Waltz for Ava and Che. And it's the same injury he had at the beginning during Oh, What a Circus. Ava collapsed in public and had her surgery in 1950, which we know that's what happened there because they showed them rushing her into surgery. And she didn't die until 1952. So he must have gone straight from that riot to her death and been like, now I'm going to make fun of her.

yep but wait then how come he didn't have that injury the whole movie because yeah that's what i was gonna say that's why it's the easiest to counter is because he had it during oh what a circus but he should have had it during the whole movie the other good evidence though is that we see during oh what a circus he is just totally mocking her right like he's like freaking ava you're supposed to be immortal she's instead of government we just had a stage like he just doesn't like her at all and then during this song though he's like kind of pensive as he's thinking like well you can cry about it she's no longer here to shine dazzle or betray and then he ends with how soon the lights were gone and he just seems kind of like sad like maybe he's thinking about it a little more like maybe she changed his mind a bit during the waltz and so that's interesting because technically this happened before he would have been singing oh what a circus

so what was the waltz do you think that was like some weird side effect of his time traveling it like created a weird time bubble for them to live in. I do. I think he interacted with her so much that she kind of got sucked into his powers. And then when they both knocked out, they just got sucked into a time bubble where they could chat. So yeah, there we go. The evidence that Che is Che Guevara. He was in the original musical and the evidence that he's a time traveler. Yeah, he literally was. He was Che Guevara. I mean, that's just how it was. Yeah. And yeah, definitely I think we've proven that he's a time traveler. There's no doubt. I mean, how could he have done all of this if he wasn't a time traveler? The movie makes no sense if he's not a time traveler. And we know he's not just a metaphor. He's not just a narrator because he interacts with people in the movie. People talk to him. They do things with him.

He takes her boyfriends and gets rid of them, which is essential to the movie continuing. And also brings them forward in time. He also brings them back, yes. Which is, again, evidence that he's a time traveler. So, yeah, he's not a metaphor. He's not just a pigment of her imagination. He's not just a narrator. He is an actual, you know, flesh-and-blood time-traveling man named Che Guevara. He saved Magaldi, even. He did death. Yeah, he brought him forward in time at least to mock Evo one more time.

What a beautiful, beautiful theory this is. I love this theory. This is so good. I've got to watch Evita again. I want to see more of this time traveling zany man. I encourage everyone to watch Avina again. It has beautiful music. Antonio Banderas and Madonna both do some amazing acting. It has beautiful Antonio Banderas. And yes, they're beautiful. So I think it's a great movie. I encourage everyone to watch it and to think about our theory and if you like it or not. And if you like our theories, then I encourage you to go ahead and like and subscribe and tell your friends. If you really like what we do, you can always check out our Patreon. You can subscribe and you'll get exclusive access to a few little behind-the-scenes audio clips. Music for this episode is provided by Christine. No, the music was provided by Andrew Lloyd Webber. Come on. No. I mean, this episode in particular, at least.

We sang enough of it that we probably have to credit it. Remember, the popcorn isn't real.

Thank you.