purple hearts bad 

hilarious that it writes cassie as "extremist" because she supports poc and gay people like what

KennieJD made a good point in her video that I think perfectly sums up this movie, which is that if your enemies-to-lovers story is dependent on one of them being a bigot, you're doing it wrong.

The tweet about this movie that really gave me a chuckle said 'Purple hearts is for girls with racist boyfriends' and it's SO TRUE because he literally never changes at all, and it doesn't count that he sees humanity in someone he is both married to and grows attracted to. And the worst part is that I have known/seen SO MANY CASSIES in my life that are these liberal women who are radical then slowly pull back because they fell for some racist. Luke is still the same - we never see how being with Cassie could open his eyes to changing or adjusting at all - and doesn't regret anything and I'm sure he'd be racist in any argument with Cassie's mom too if it got heated enough. The only way this is purple is if Luke's red bleeds into her blue. Not purple hearts, purple *heart*, singular.

I just want to bring my perspective as a former military spouse. My ex-husband joined the Navy solely because of the health insurance and all because I got pregnant and my job at the time wouldn't give me insurance. We had already been in a relationship for 4 years when this happened and even though we had our problems, we were good. He joined, our lives did get a lot better than they were and it was all because of the benefits. Tricare may be shit but it is better than nothing. Well, time passed and we started to grow apart. And the thing that the military does is that it really brainwashes people. I begged for my ex to seek help, to see a therapist so he could talk about his deployments and heal but he simply wouldn't out of pride. He was fairly liberal before joining and dare I say, a feminist, but I don't know what the hell happened that he became conservative. Our views began to differ drastically until the point that I no longer felt comfortable being around him. If anything, I became even more liberal and feminist than I ever was. We eventually decided to end things and I realized our issues were deeper than I thought. We're still married because of my health issues and I need the insurance and extra money while I go back to school and get my life together to provide for my son, so this movie hit deep but not in the way it's supposed to. This movie made me cry because every day I feel like I'm in a prison in hell that I don't know when I'll get out of since I really need health insurance. I don't want to be tied to my ex any longer, I want my last name back, I need my independence but I can't because of how screwed up the system is in this country. And like they say, divorce is for the rich and not as easy as the movie says it is.

The thing about these movies is it always ends up with the conservative considered having compromised just by... Existing around anyone not conservative? But the liberals have to make huge swings. It's like compromising with an unjust man but with your marriage.

“be kind of extreme” oh yeah, she has a rainbow flag on her balcony and he's a r4cist sounds very balanced to me

I think the most frustrating part of the central thesis of this film (and centrism in general) is that it treats being racist and calling out racism as two opposite ends of a political debate. As if "let's go kill some A-rabs!!!" and "let's not kill entire ethnicities" are two morally equivalent statements and that people with these opposing views just need to meet in the middle somehow. All this does is legitimize racism as a political stance and ask people on the left to prioritize the comfort of racists over the safety of people of color.

Also, let's not forget how this movie plays into the "white conservative man with vaguely racist views who ends up with the pretty Latina wife without ever challenging said vaguely racist views". Like, it's just kind of annoying how even when we aren't being straight up sexualized, we still aren't allowed to have enough self-respect to not be some white guy's fantasy.

the whole racism scene demonstrates the film’s failure to sell centrism by implying that racism is inherently conservative and anti-racism inherently liberal. By then insisting that the middle ground is correct, it’s calling anti-racism extreme and undesirable. If anything, the movie reaffirms the idea that centrism reinforces existing systems of oppression. It’s also a pretty powerful way to antagonize conservative viewers, which seems to be the opposite of the creators’ intentions.

That Halsey joke made me laugh really loudly.

I hate how the movie played into stereotypes of soldiers. Like most of the people I know who went military did it for college money, or to support their family. It would’ve been so easy to make that his motivation instead, and have the subtext be that the system failed both of them.

The film ended with Cassie becoming a NRA card-carrying, American flag waving, military wife who’ll end up in a Kevin Sorbo flick in twenty years where she plays a hostage needing to be saved from those depraved, demonic A-Rabs by a God-fearing WASP marine. 😌

You speak so eloquently. Like this may sound weird but your voice is very calming and would be great for radio and/or audiobook readings.

Like the film’s big ‘I love you’ ending literally had Cassie say everything. Luke just was there and input nothing 😭

Probably the majority of the disagreeing comments I got on my video about this movie tried to make an argument to the effect of "the movie ISN'T pro-military because it shows bad things about the military (some soldiers being bigots, a soldier getting injured in action, and a soldier getting killed in action)" and "the movie ISN'T conservative because it shows the bad side of our healthcare system, Cassie being unable to afford insulin." And it just makes me want to tear my hair out, like did you guys not watch the movie?? These elements don't just exist in a vacuum! Yes, those things ARE PRESENT, but the film does not criticize them! Yes, Armando is a bigot, but Luke silences Cassie when she tries to call him out and defends him further to her outside (and like you said, he has the last word on this in the movie, never refuted.) Yes, soldiers in the film get wounded and die in action, but this is never depicted as anything other than a grim reality of the job. All we see is Luke getting the support he needs for his recovery and Frankie's beautiful, solemn military funeral. No one ever dares question if it was worth it. And yes, Cassie is unable to afford insulin, but the only solutions the film offers are 'marry a marine' or 'become rich and famous.' It never questions the underlying problem. I'm glad you really explained why the 'hunting down Arabs' scene is only supported/excused by the film. People saying it's been "taken out of context" need to work on their media literacy.

"go and teach THEM pronouns" hey look bud, you're doing it already! great work /s

its almost like being a centrist is just being a conservative

Cassie was piped down so good Luke got her saying America First. It was soooo bad.

The issue with these centrist narratives is that the person peddling harmful rhetoric never compromises and the progressive person just becomes more tolerant of intolerance because at the end of the day they're not affected. That's not meeting in the middle, that's just sprinting to the right.

To this day I’m mad that it didn’t end up being a movie critiquing the American health care system

I wouldn't even call it a hallmark, I'd call it a film adaptation of one of those cheap romance novels you can get at the supermarket. I am of the personal belief that military romances inevitably fall into nationalism propaganda one way or the other, but purple hearts has definitely taken the cake as one of the least subtle.

Yayyyyy new Julia Cudney video! Slightly off topic but when you said "Would you pay football without a helmet" during the sponsored bit my European self was like "?? Yes???"

This simply convinced me I need to watch dogfight

i love how concise the title is

This movie felt very much like a conservative male fantasy instead of the "Enemies to Lovers" they were trying to peddle. I keep seeing guys on Tinder trying to distance their relationships from their political views because turns out supporting policies that harm women and minorities gets you no 🐈🍑💋, but also they just wanna be taken care of all the time. They want a woman to love them for who they are so they can stop having to change their habits to improve themselves (sice they're not doing it for them, the only value they see in it is "chicks dig it") and let themselves go to be fed and clothed by their wife. The fact that the male lead does literally nothing to induce any kind of romantic feelings besides "uwu I'm injured from battle 💪🩹 bathe me and pretend you love me" and one day she apparently just does exactly that. No conversation about their differences, no fight with a true make up where we can see they can communicate if not in a healthy way, maybe just a productive way that works for both. Just "Bathe a man and you will love him eventually".

"journey to the center of the two party system" absolutely sent me

The moment I watched reviews of this film, I knew I wanted to hear your opinion on it so desperately. Your one of the few RU-vidrs who take romance movies aimed at girlies seriously. Your critique, opinions, hot takes, etc. are always in good faith and genuine. (The movie is such a shit show from the clips I’ve seen on twitter and RU-vid)

This is a minor point but America DOES go and teach pronouns to various people. That's called...teaching English. Most older children and adult language students know grammar terms because it's easier to put a sentence together when you know what each bit of it does.

Sofia carson did a very convincing job of looking pissed off while arguing about politics but i have to wonder why she wanted to be part of this movie after reading the script. Like i dont interpret this movie as normal? It seems like it has an aggressive agenda and i wouldnt expect to see her in a movie like that. Maybe im crazy though? I just seriously cant imagine watching it and not feeling frustrated by every character

also the message of "everything in moderation" doesnt fucking work with politics. the middle ground between a genocide driven by nationalist socialistic ideology and freedom and happiness for all people (no matter with which political framework thatd be possible, im inclined to think itd be something like socialism) is still....a little bit of a genocide. the middle ground between racism and liberation is still...a little bit of racism. in what world is that "the correct choice"? because its in the middle between two things??? (which is sitll stupid bc the one extreme is "killing people for their nationality and ethnicity" and the other one is "abolish police, give everyone a universal income and have as few social hirarchies as possible". i wonder if one of them might be worse than the other..? nah, surely not.

I've watched mediocre Netflix movies just because Sofia Carson was in them but this one was a step too far. I couldn't make it past the intense misogyny of the first 5 minutes.

have i seen purple hearts? no. am i going to watch this entire video? you bet!

This just makes me want to watch Dogfight, the only River Phoenix movie I haven't watched. It's such a stark contrast between Eddie apologizing for being a dick, and Luke telling Cassie to sit down because she was calling out his shitty racist friend for being racist and shitty. You know that relationship wouldn't last one election cycle. Then again, with Cassie's 180 maybe she would end up quietly excusing Luke's friend's bigotry. And then probably ends up barefoot and pregnant less than a year later. Also, I just want to point out, Cassie does all of this for just a year of healthcare coverage. A year!! Like, girl, is it worth it for just that short amount of time? But I guess it was because Cassie sleeps with Luke the night of that stupid dinner for idek what reason other than...Luke is hot?? I don't know. This movie is garbage. I'd rather watch Dogfight and stare at River's beautiful face.

they claimed they intended to make a movie where two extremists become more tolerant and moderate but they really just made a movie where one person becomes tolerant of the other’s extremism… and I don’t know if it’s really genuine, like if it would actually stick and Cassie has genuinely changed or if she’s just acting like it because she kind of has to, but either one sucks and neither one is a romantic movie to me.

A Netflix movie referencing the social/political climate will ALWAYS have clunky, forced dialogue. And my god is it difficult to sit through.

Knew I was never gonna watch this movie after hearing that line about 💀 Arabs on TikTok, glad I get to see you review it tho!

i genuinely had no idea dogfight (the show) was based on a movie so, i’m just now realising what stellar casting it was to have lindsay mendez play lili taylor’s role… the resemblance between the two is genuinely quite uncanny.

i'm an avid hallmark movie watcher (25% of the time they're genuinely alright rom-coms, 75% of the time they're terrible and hilariously bad) and what you pointed to here is something that they have done in a LOT of their movies: the female lead has to change for the man. whether she moves away from home, moves back TO her hometown, gets a new job, whatever it is, it's almost always the female character making a sweeping change at the behest of the guy. even though the changes aren't always necessarily bad for the woman's life, it always puts me off that she's making the choice BECAUSE of the guy. it feels so antiquated as a trope and i wish everyone would simply quit that and write good movies instead. @ movie executives hope this helps

I went into this movie being unaware of the difference of their uhhhh political views. I wasn’t expecting enemies to lovers I was expecting marriage of convenience turns into real feelings with a splash of angst. safe to say I was disappointed

They lost me on the terrible script, I was rolling my eyes on nearly every line, plus the directing, editing and cinematography of the whole movie felt off and unconnected. And I really just can’t stand Sofia Carson’s singing voice, why’d they make her a starving musician who goes viral??

2 videos in 2 months?! Queen Julia is truly blessing us with content this summer :)

The political stuff In the movie was unnecessary. You have a story about two people who don’t like each other that decide to get marry to take advantage of the benefits of his job, that’s it. I think that’s enough conflict to work on its own

I knew you were going to reference Colors by Halsey as soon as you began reading the cast quotes about red and blue hearts becoming purple❤️♥️💙💜😂😭💀

IF THE SHOE IS SOLD BY A WOMAN OWNED BUSINESS

Films like this are atrocious! This idea that conservativism vs liberalism is just a "matter of opinion" as if conservatives are not actively pushing to take human rights away from minority people on a daily basis. As if they are not actively working to outlaw abortion, transgender rights, and gay marriage, and not to forget the atrocities being committed at the Mexican border. It's disgusting. I hate this film.

The set-up they give in the trailer made me expect an entirely different movie that had something to say about health care, human dignity, and the irony of tying people's ability to survive to their family's ability to kill/die for their government's wars. The fact that at first Cassie needs the health insurance for insulin of all things (famously overpriced due to capitalistic greed), and then surprise! they BOTH have to depend on it, all while lying about their relationship, made these themes seem almost too obvious to miss. I was actually excited to see where the movie went with it. I was disappointed.

What disappointed me the most is that I LOVE this trope, thefake marriage of convenience of it all, and I genuinely thought they wouldn't do Cassie dirty. especially seeing that Luke was an addict, I thought maybe they would make the military something he "needed" to get clean and put his life in order, but the discourse wouldn't be pro military. I want your version of purple heart too

I love that you're talking about Dogfight. I feel like no one ever talks about it but it deserves like 100 video essays

honestly purple hearts didn’t need to be a film that stirred up this much controversy. it’s not even worth it over some dumb romance that will have people divided for a few months before it becomes a thing of the past. it’ll be one of those films nobody remembers. its like those movies you find at the bottom of the bargain bin at walmart, except it’ll be at the bottom of the bargain bin on netflix.

"i can connect dots, i swear i can" 😂😂😂 Me too, sis, but somehow some producers think this is unfathomable...

the whole "hunting down some goddamn arabs" scene is so ironic cuz like, yeah that's exactly what the us military is doing lol.

it's funny how this movie is supposed to be a story about two people from different political beliefs compromising for each other, but cassie's the only one who has to make any real changes. she sits down when the guy's (i forgot his name bc he's boring) army buddies say racist shit, she lets him live with her when he's injured, she lets him sleep in the bed, she doesn't kick his ass when he says something offensive anymore (when she probably should), she goes back to him despite everything in the end. meanwhile, the biggest changes he's made are accepting help for his injury and stopping the drug dealer.

now see dove cameron would never do this to us

I never saw this movie nor do I ever want to thanks to the Arab line completely turning me off and the concept being handled so poorly. But honestly, by the sounds of it, this movie seems like a product of the 2000s. This movie is extremely pro military and racist towards swana people. Back then, that would make a bit more sense. While I was a little kid during this time, from what I remember Americans tended to be more pro military and spout out shit like that either as a coping mechanism or ignorance thanks to 9/11. (Don't get it twisted. I'm NOT saying that those people were justified. They were still bigots. But that's more of the explanation.) Whereas in 2022, the average American is a lot more jaded when it comes to the military, less nationalistic and even centrists are a least a bit more socially aware. Hell, even the military is mostly comprised of poor Americans trying to find a job than patriotic zealots. If this was set in the 2000s, I wouldn't have an issue with it in that regard. But it's not. It's set in modern times, so the character's ideals and the timeline make no sense. (Seriously, what war are they even fighting? US troops were pulled out of Iraq eons ago. Same goes for Libya. Afghanistan was more recently...even if that's in South Asia and not in the Middle East, but whatever. Guess he could be talking about Syria or Yemen, but those aren't exactly conflicts that most Americans are aware of.) But I will say that, sadly, that the situation happening here is realistic in the sense of her being swept more to the right. (Not the insulin thing, because I heard people say that's unlikely to happen in California.) I seen similar things play out IRL. Usually the girl gets swept up in the guy's bs and eventually takes on his beliefs thanks to uneven power dynamics. Still think Cassie was a spineless twit, though.

Grab Atlas VPN for just $1.83/mo before the deal expires: get.atlasvpn.com/Julia 🧚 the descendants gifs didn't save me from demonetization 😭 i could've re-edited the video to get rid of them, but i grew attached. i think they're funny

This isn't about "left" vs "right" politics. This isn't about any ideological position beyond openly hating minorities. This is not a centrist position - most people do not find open bigotry tolerable - it is the compromise between espousing and opposing hate. I can guarantee damn near any leftist could write more convincing centrist propaganda than any self-proclaimed "centrist". You can't encourage liberals or leftists to move towards the centre if your movie proves our stereotypes of the right to be correct and refutes none of our points, no matter how many boots the protagonist inexplicably licks.

i love how she's described as an 'extremist' on the opposite side when she's just a liberal who thinks people are owed basic human rights. like of course she was able to conform to his ideologies so easily, she practically started out the film as a moderate.

Watching all the clips with the marine in them feels like watching a romcom about mike teevee. His whole political stance is "shoot shoot bang bang guns cool"

The most dissapointing part of this movie for me though is how big Sofia Carson's involvement is in it. Like she is such a strong advocate for human rights and I constantly see her speak out about stuff on her social media platforms. Yet somehow she was SUPER involved in this movie. She didn't just act in it. She was a part of this movie from its conception (over 5 years ago, according to herself) and is a producer on the movie. She at any point could have expressed how this movie is just not okay at several parts yet she is still out here promoting this movie like it's the best romance movie ever made and it's the piece of media she's most proud of being a part of. Really I've been a fan of her since Descendants came out and the way she talks about this movie feels so disconnected from like everything she has ever said about anything remotely political it's kind of jarring.

I was just ranting about how much I didn’t like this movie yesterday after trying my best to watch it

I really enjoyed abother viewpoint on this film. I watched Kenny JD's beforehand and she made a lot of similar points, although I would argue less forgiving overall.

perfect title

babe wake up, a new julia cudney video just dropped

It feels very "The Taming of the Shrew" which doesn't seem like great framework for the theme they claim to be trying to promote...

I'm so glad Cassie's main character flaw of being such an annoying lib was resolved by the end of the movie, she really needed a good husband to give her some perspective/s

i wish i could watch a version of purple hearts with Evie gifs all over the footage. i'm sure it'd be an improvement.

Appreciating the Dogfight love. I’ve never watched the movie but I adore the show!!!

Dogfight is one of my favorite movies, OMG. It's such a bittersweet movie

Haven’t fully watched the video yet but love the movie dog fight

I love the fact that you brought up the movie Dogfight. Such a beautiful movie.

purple hearts isnt a good title for the movie, purple generally means a relatively similar amount of red and blue, but this clownery? this is magenta hearts

Meet me in the middle says the unreasonable man, then he takes a step back.

I really enjoy your videos! I feel that you have an incredibly compelling way of reviewing media and telling stories! Generally, I don’t rewatch vids, but not only do yours stand up to multiple viewings, they are still generally entertaining! Thank you for creating this media!

was having a rough evening and this came out at exactly the right time thank you julia

can't believe this film is doing one of my favourite colours dirty like that

Watching that "out of context" scene gave me flashbacks to all the times I performed emotional labour, relived traumas, and tried to teach men about the experience of women and girls. And all it did was make me upset/retraumatized, no man ever changed how they felt, treated me or any woman better, and continued in their ingrained sexist behaviours. I never watched this movie but I am not at all surprised the lesson was "change for your man, he won't change for you". At least it's realistic when it comes to sexist, racist men.

Ive loved the dogfight musical for years but have never seen the movie, but the "im sorry" scene made me want to se it instantly

So...Dove Cameron seems more of a win as of late than Sofia Carson.

omg a julia cudney video!! :)

this was the only video i wanted to watch on purple hearts. i dont need to hear anyone else's opinions on this. just julia.

The weirdest thing about the movie’s writing as opposed to the book is that Luke is not that conservative in the book. I randomly read it during a flight and I really don’t remember them having so many fights about their views, I don’t remember specifically him calling her a “liberal nut” which really irked me in the movie or joking about socialism and her tattoos. His character in the book didn’t need a great redemption arc because he wasn’t really painted as having such conservative views. He didn’t intervene in her discussion with Frankie to call her out, just caught up to her after hearing them talk and made his proposition. She was the one who had more information about him possibly being court martialed and blah blah. In the book he really is just ignorant about the issues on which they fight in the movie, which is a really different type of character than the one portrayed in the movie and who wouldn’t need such a redemption arc, only minor understanding about how the world works and developing some empathy. Also, in the book, Cassie has way more issues and fights with her mom because she doesn’t want to continue her lawyer journey and is pretty stupidly stubborn about it and has a weird relationship going on with one of her band members at the same time everything is going on and on which I think she cheats with Luke at some point, so her character has some morality flaws which are not to be seen in the movie. At the beginning, they are even having a conversation about how they should end things after he comes back and he suggests that the reason could by her cheating and she is very offended and claims she is not a cheater, so she has her hypocrisy moments. The movie’s Cassie seems pretty perfect in terms of morality and everything and is really a character that someone can look up to (apart from the fact that in the end she ends up with Luke who has not changed one bit). So, they made Cassie a liberal who lives by normal progressive principles and doesn’t do anything wrong, and made Luke way more insufferable and actually believing the things that people believed around him, so the possibility of them having a healthy relationship was pretty doomed from the start. I do think though that they made a great choice by not including her relationship with the band member because it was an awful plot and would have complicated everything, but could have included some more details about Cassie’s life that would knock her off the perfection pedestal, so she could meet him halfway. However, they decided to make him so far off the right wing agenda, that, even so, they couldn’t have worked. So it’s just weird that they chose to write them like that, I think the movie Cassie and book Luke would actually work and not be that bad, but the final product is just not it.

I love this "____ is a garbage movie" in disguise 😋

The number one thing I got from this is to watch Dog Fight because oh my god the chemistry between the leads are in those short clips.

This reminds me of a book that went viral recently on booktok for being absolutely terrible, it's called Everything's Fine

I look forward to your video essays with this format because I walk away with a great new theater/movie recommendation

The descendants’ gifs UAhahhhhah

new julia cudney im seated

I only made it through about 20 minutes of this movie before it started giving me anxiety and I turned it off

I really love dogfight and I didn’t expect anybody to talk about it 😭

Ty for reminding me to watch Dogfight again

I always appreciate your uploads

well, i hadn't even seen that clip but now i'm genuinely disgusted. centrism is a disease. anyways, great hair, julia!

i can't believe this movie is as popular as it is, and not just from hate watches. how the hell are THIS many people falling for the military propaganda.

Not me wanting to watch Dogfight because of you

unrelated but your hair looks so cute!!

Now you made me want to watch dogfight

I watched dogfight because of this video and I don't regret it one bit, what a beautiful movie! Thank you for bringing it to my attention

Julia you are literally my favourite video essayist

need to take the time to compliment the thumbnail. it's great!

I'm 37 seconds in & im subscribed I LOVE DOGFIGHT the musical !!!