Vulgar History - Zelda Fitzgerald Deserved Better (featuring Alicia from Trashy Divorces)

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00:00:30.000 So hello everyone and welcome to Vulgar History, feminist women's history comedy podcast. And if

00:00:35.540 you're a fan of feminist women's history comedy podcasts, I know you know my guest, which is 1.00

00:00:39.720 Alicia from Trashy Royals and from Trashy Divorces. So it's a trashy collab, trashy vulgar times. 1.00

00:00:47.240 Alicia, welcome. Oh my gosh. And I'm so thrilled to be here to talk about one of my favorite gals 0.75

00:00:53.200 and to get vulgar about it because man, I've got a lot to say. Yeah, exactly. So Alicia and I,

00:00:59.120 we recorded together a bit ago when I was promoting my book, Rebel of the Regency.

00:01:03.560 And we had such a good time. We're both like, let's do this again. And I remember you were

00:01:06.840 like, yeah, I can come on. I can talk about Zelda Fitzgerald. You just threw up that name where I'm

00:01:11.600 like, oh, she's got feelings. She's got emotions. This is the story of her heart. And I have to 0.85

00:01:16.900 have you on to talk about this. I am Zelda obsessed. And it might be because we're both

00:01:22.840 leo girls from alabama i'm not exactly sure why i have been enamored obsessed knocked over by

00:01:32.280 zelda my entire life i love her story i hate her husband i'm glad we can cuss over here because

00:01:39.840 you might know her husband is f scott fitzgerald but my personal name for her husband is 0.99

00:01:46.660 fuck off Scott Fitzgerald. There's never been a bigger wanker who's ever lived in the history 1.00

00:01:52.840 of Earth. I've got a lot of love feelings towards her and a lot of very anti-love feelings towards 0.78

00:02:01.240 Scott. Yeah. And this is like this is a safe space for you to please unleash all of your feelings

00:02:07.940 positive for her, negative for him. Probably on a feminist comedy podcast, you're not going to

00:02:14.820 get a lot of backlash about scott fitzgerald on this i don't think he's really the fan favorite

00:02:20.720 for this crowd i don't think you're gonna get a lot of defenders but also i love the alabama

00:02:25.400 connection so i feel like you're gonna bring like a real some like i'm here in canada you know i

00:02:29.960 don't know the context of of a lot of american histories i think like you're gonna come in with

00:02:34.560 some facts with your with your lovely accent i can imagine that's what zelda sounded like too

00:02:38.440 we're gonna take you on down to dixie today and how does that sound

00:02:41.620 amazing amazing so i know you you've come fully prepared so zelda tell us the story of zelda

00:02:50.700 zelda sayer just magical magical leo girl let's go ahead and get her set up and talk about her

00:03:00.840 until we intersect scott fitzgerald zelda was born in montgomery alabama july 24th 1900

00:03:09.140 making her a Leo Montgomery Alabama is sort of the cradle of the south she is a turn-of-the-century

00:03:19.780 baby but a turn-of-the-century baby in a south that's a little bit far behind so let me tell

00:03:28.920 you about Zelda's mom and pops her daddy papa daddy Anthony Dickerson Sayre he worked as a

00:03:36.300 lawyer. He was a representative within the Alabama state legislature. He was a state senator, a city

00:03:42.500 judge, as well as a justice on the Supreme Court of Alabama. So Zelda's father is kind of a big

00:03:51.380 deal. K-O-A-B-D in Alabama politics. But you can't stop there. Zelda's great uncle and grandfather

00:04:00.560 also served in the United States Senate. Zelda's dad is described as unshakable.

00:04:09.280 And when I say, when we talk about Montgomery, cradle of the South, the South thinks they won

00:04:16.580 the Civil War. Well, and this is like just after the Civil War, like she's born in 1900. This is

00:04:22.280 just like Civil War still in recent memory for her dad, for her grandparents. Oh boy. And they're

00:04:27.660 still so mad about it. So Zelda's dad will author this thing called the Sare election law,

00:04:35.920 which will prohibit blacks from voting in Alabama until the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. 0.63

00:04:43.860 These are not necessarily very progressive people. The family that Zelda's come from,

00:04:50.240 but the family Zelda's come from in Montgomery is just like every other family and they feel

00:04:55.140 the same way. I don't know if I'd be thrilled if my father had a law that restricted people from

00:05:01.980 voting on the roster for 65 years. But again, these are not people who like to think the South

00:05:10.360 lost the Civil War. We're living in a very veiled, sort of sleepy, it's going to always be our way

00:05:18.060 in the South, whether you like it or not, even though we know it's not going to be.

00:05:21.900 montgomery is known as the cradle of the confederacy it's a very insular world okay

00:05:29.440 so zelda's mom oh boy she's a little bit more extra so if dad is very staid he's not gonna

00:05:37.780 say crab pot but he's not like mr lovable zelda's gonna get most of the love from her mom and when

00:05:45.300 we talk about Zelda's mom, her own dream growing up, she wanted to be an actress. Huzzah! She's

00:05:53.660 exuberant. She's so ready for something big, but all those relatives, mom's father and all of her

00:06:03.040 relatives involved in politics are like, it is absolutely impossible for us to have an actress 0.90

00:06:10.560 in the family? Absolutely not. So Zelda's mom does marry Zelda's dad. Romance, maybe political

00:06:23.240 alliances, possibly. But here Zelda's mom is doomed, right, to leave her big life that she 1.00

00:06:32.900 wants on the stage and instead forced to be kind of a sensible grown up being a wife and a mother

00:06:42.960 and having multiple children and being the judge's wife and all that so there is a little bit with

00:06:49.700 Zelda I think being the youngest child that she gets a bit of her mother's deferred dream does 0.69

00:06:56.020 that make sense it does and I want to say she also has a cool ass name which is Zelda Zelda

00:07:02.340 Zelda was named after a character. This is not the polite term, but it is the way colloquially

00:07:09.440 it was referred to then. Zelda's mom names her Zelda because she had read a book where there

00:07:15.360 was a gypsy named Zelda in the book. And mom was just super taken by that name. So mom and dad,

00:07:25.260 oh boy, here comes little Zelda. She's got five older siblings, four sisters, one brother. So

00:07:31.700 Zelda comes in as the baby of the family significantly later in her mother's let's have

00:07:41.020 babies cycle many, many, many years after. So the Sears sort of have four kids on one side of the 0.50

00:07:49.740 age gap. And here comes Zelda a decade plus later. A little surprise, I would think. A little

00:07:56.260 surprise, but it makes Zelda the baby. She's literally called baby her whole life in her 0.73

00:08:02.860 family. Okay. Yeah. She's the youngest. She is the most spoiled, the most doted upon. And I want to

00:08:11.360 set the stage here really that Zelda is Southern royalty. She's in the cradle of the Confederacy. 0.67

00:08:18.880 She has a big deal family and it's a very tiny town. Not a lot. I mean, comparatively towards

00:08:25.920 some other cities in the U.S. at that time. Not a lot happening in Montgomery. She grows up in this

00:08:33.120 tiny, tiny, tiny little bubble, doted upon, loved upon by her mom, as well as all of her older

00:08:40.680 siblings. And I guess to the extent her father is capable of love, she's loved by him too.

00:08:49.380 Now I'm going to go ahead and pitch myself for another future episode if you haven't done it,

00:08:53.260 because I want to talk about one of Zelda's running buddies

00:08:55.920 when she's growing up in Montgomery, Tallulah Bankhead.

00:09:01.420 Okay, she's the Hollywood actress, yeah?

00:09:04.720 Tallulah Bankhead, Hollywood actress, 1.00

00:09:06.500 the most vulgar of all vulgar women. 0.98

00:09:09.940 She is an inspiration to all of us everywhere. 1.00

00:09:13.000 But Tallulah Bankhead is also from Montgomery.

00:09:17.720 So you've got Zelda. 0.98

00:09:19.660 Tallulah's a little bit older than Zelda. 0.98

00:09:21.420 enough to where Zelda growing up being a teenager, Tallulah has already gone to New York City,

00:09:30.800 the greatest city in the world to make it, quote unquote. So Tallulah is a little older,

00:09:37.440 but Zelda is always looking at Tallulah as a little bit of inspiration.

00:09:43.300 Like she got out of here. She's doing something like her mom didn't get to be an actress. Tallulah 0.98

00:09:47.620 is doing it. So Zella can see like, I don't want to be a wife and a mom. I want to do something

00:09:51.300 great. And here's someone from my town who did it. All Zelda wants to do is get GTFO, right?

00:10:00.520 She's fine. Growing up, she's not that great in school. She's passable, but she wants to go have

00:10:08.120 fun with her friends and she wears jeans and she's a tomboy, but she also will escape off and smoke 0.97

00:10:15.720 cigarettes and she likes to drink. Think about being born in 1900. You are coming right up to

00:10:23.200 that flapper era in your teenage years. So Zelda in town is wild and loose and fast. And she's the

00:10:34.140 talk of the town. And think about when you live in a tiny town like Montgomery, there's not a whole

00:10:38.780 lot of news so you've got the tiny column which talks about which of these girls went to whose

00:10:45.780 houses that day on a particular day for tea and it's written up so-and-so hosted the blah blah

00:10:52.220 blah girls of the so-and-so i need to let you know as a teenager as a kid as a teenager zelda's got

00:10:59.920 the boom boom pow her mom will make her costumes zelda loves to dance she's loved to dance her

00:11:06.000 entire life so she is dancing in soirees parties again tiny town you kind of have to make your own

00:11:14.660 entertainment as zelda is growing up and this happens a little earlier because zelda is not

00:11:23.180 going to go to college so think about zelda in her teenage years small town small state alabama

00:11:28.920 She is such a big deal

00:11:31.880 And is such a sought after

00:11:34.040 Belle

00:11:34.980 Canadian girl, do you know the term Belle? 0.99

00:11:37.580 B-E-L-L-E

00:11:38.340 Yeah, Scarlett O'Hara, I know

00:11:40.660 Okay, so she is such a Belle at the time 1.00

00:11:43.720 She's a big deal 1.00

00:11:44.800 There is a whole fraternity

00:11:48.080 That is formed at

00:11:49.900 Auburn University

00:11:51.040 Named Zeta Sigma

00:11:53.520 And the only way you could get in

00:11:56.000 Was to have had a date with

00:11:57.800 Zelda Sayre

00:11:58.920 Oh, my gosh. Wow. OK. OK.

00:12:01.800 Whole fraternity named after her.

00:12:04.220 But Zelda's not just hanging at Auburn University.

00:12:06.920 She's going across state lines.

00:12:08.820 She's got a lot of dates at Georgia Tech as well.

00:12:12.660 So you really have the baby of a family.

00:12:14.920 Hot to trot. Boom, boom, pow.

00:12:17.100 Knock out good looking.

00:12:19.540 Dating and getting to know every important young bachelor in the South.

00:12:27.160 Zelda's there is the catch.

00:12:28.920 the catch of the South. Hot stuff. She's living her best life, right? In a world that truly 0.58

00:12:37.620 is changing by the minute. Here, by the time we bring Zelda into her teenage years,

00:12:43.040 World War I is happening. Oh boy. And Zelda, almost the flapper age. She's a girl. She's got

00:12:50.580 big dreams and big ambitions. Now Zelda, about 17, sees her bestie from Montgomery to Lula,

00:12:59.720 older, breaking out into something big. So what can Zelda do? Oh, one other fun quote here,

00:13:08.480 just to prove kind of how legendary it is. Zelda being recalled, it is said when Zelda

00:13:15.900 Sayre came to dances. The Birmingham girls just went on home. Like she's incomparable. 0.97

00:13:25.260 So her Repton Montgomery, wild. She, oh God, causes a scandal when they go in her hometown 1.00

00:13:33.820 to the diving pond. It's not exactly a swimming pool, but they have a pond, a creek, where

00:13:40.600 everybody will go swim she will get a nude bathing suit so she's covered but she doesn't

00:13:48.860 look covered this gets written up she smokes she drinks she knows how to have fun zelda from a very

00:13:54.440 early age with her leo son and leo rising sign loves to flaunt convention she may not be great 0.96

00:14:02.880 in school but she's sharp as a tack she's creative she's gorgeous she's rebellious 0.55

00:14:07.680 and maybe something within her mother's dream deferred, 0.66

00:14:11.760 Zelda does have the heart of an actress.

00:14:16.340 So here we have Zelda, sweet summer child Zelda, 1917, 1918,

00:14:24.440 living her best life. 0.98

00:14:27.160 Should we enter in fuck off Scott now? 1.00

00:14:29.980 I was saying that the change in your vocal quality, 0.99

00:14:32.980 I'm just like, we're having such a nice time.

00:14:34.500 She's doing so well.

00:14:35.200 like this this part of the story only lasts so long what a different life zelda fitzgerald would 0.85

00:14:42.880 have led had she never run into that asshole not happy about it let's talk about scott i'm sorry i'm 0.67

00:14:50.340 i'm not mad about any part of scott until he gets to be about 16 but here we go so f scott 0.97

00:14:59.180 Fitzgerald. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He's an Irish Catholic boy from St. Paul, Minnesota.

00:15:06.420 He was born September 24th, 1896. He's a Libra. Zelda, four years younger than Scott.

00:15:16.040 So there's a little bit of age disparity there. Scott, oh boy, has a dad. His dad is

00:15:26.040 kind of dapper. He likes to dress the part, but he's absolute shit at business. So dad is sort 1.00

00:15:34.520 of a failure. And I think there's something key in understanding how Zelda and Scott's dynamic

00:15:39.780 works in the future because Scott's mother is the actual enforcer of the family. His mother's family

00:15:49.560 is very affluent

00:15:51.180 but because mom married 1.00

00:15:53.580 such a crap at business dad 0.99

00:15:55.300 the thing that is key 0.99

00:15:57.180 about Scott Fitzgerald that you want

00:15:59.580 to know they grow up

00:16:01.280 he grows up in the worst

00:16:03.380 house on the best block

00:16:05.720 in town

00:16:06.360 so he's always kind of

00:16:09.360 outside looking in

00:16:11.140 this is like oh

00:16:12.640 like the oh and this man later writes

00:16:15.340 the great Gatsby okay

00:16:16.420 like that's

00:16:19.560 And the disparity here, Scott is always on the outside looking in.

00:16:26.240 He's yearning for something different.

00:16:28.080 He wants to be in that crew, but doesn't know how to get in the building.

00:16:34.200 And Zelda has no idea a building exists.

00:16:38.100 She's always been in the building, right?

00:16:40.120 Like the difference between the two of them and their psyches really immeasurable, which is going to cause some of this conflict.

00:16:51.480 Anyway, back to Scott.

00:16:53.420 For his mom and dad to actually make it, his mother is always borrowing money from her family just to stay afloat.

00:17:02.500 But because mom is borrowing money, she'll get Scott into fancy schools, the best schools.

00:17:09.500 But again, you have that same repetition. Scott is always the poorest kid around kids with all

00:17:16.740 kinds of money and privilege. He's always the underdog and will always perceive himself to be

00:17:24.000 the underdog in this sitch. But hopefully, I guess it does influence much of his writing

00:17:32.640 because he's always got that yearning. He's the observer. He can write in that specific way.

00:17:39.500 When Scott is about 15, his 1908, his dad is fired from the only job he's really had.

00:17:47.400 And then dad just sort of bails.

00:17:49.500 He's a failure for the rest of his natural life.

00:17:53.840 And dad just hands it over to mom to make it happen financially, socially, emotionally.

00:18:01.060 Everything gets put on mom to support the family and Scott.

00:18:07.000 Poor little sad outside looking in.

00:18:08.800 And it is during these years that Scott finds his talent, which is writing.

00:18:13.200 And he's super talented, so promising.

00:18:17.480 He's a poet and he knows it, right?

00:18:20.140 In the future, he's going to steal a lot from Zelda.

00:18:23.300 But when Scott begins his writing career, he is dedicated to the task.

00:18:29.480 His perseverance is unstoppable.

00:18:33.400 He is lousy with talent and drive.

00:18:37.020 So you add those two. He really does have the combination of something. Also kind of solitary kid, right? He's going to pour his attention, love, focus into writing. He will write and write and rewrite and do multiple drafts over and over. And he is determined to get every word correct in what he is writing. And like as a writer, you as a writer, you can respect that, right?

00:19:03.500 I do think there's a point that's just terribly sad that Scott Fitzgerald in his lifetime before his death, he's never a success. He will never know the success that he becomes because, well, he dies too early, sort of just like his dad, right?

00:19:25.420 in the alcoholic, I die at 41. But Scott is determined as a teenager not to be anything like

00:19:32.760 his father. And if he's got that one skill, which is writing, he wants to gain control over that,

00:19:40.700 which he does, to not be a failure like his father. And here, well, Scott's psychosis begins.

00:19:50.600 you mentioned he's okay up until he's 16 so i feel like we're hitting that point

00:19:56.520 yeah this is where well teenager college like he really is carrying around a lot of

00:20:03.580 deep psychosis which you feel bad for but that outside looking in sort of thing is key to him

00:20:13.400 mm-hmm let's go ahead and get scott to college 1913 he's accepted into princeton and here scott

00:20:23.480 really has elaborate fantasies of being at that time in the in the ivies what is called the

00:20:31.100 bmoc the big man on campus right scott is scrawny i need to tell you that he's 5 8 he's slight he's

00:20:39.540 very, very tiny, but that doesn't stop him from trying out for football. All right, whatevs.

00:20:47.620 Football, not exactly going to happen, but he will write for the literary magazine at Princeton,

00:20:54.440 as well as join the Triangle Club. Princeton at that time was all men, and the Triangle Club is a

00:21:02.360 theatrical society but Scott because he is smaller and slight he is the best looking when they dress

00:21:12.280 him in drag to play female roles okay okay yeah he looks fantastic in drag apparently

00:21:18.160 there's something nice I'm doing my best here to present both sides but

00:21:23.820 that's nice. I guess he looks good in drag. Scott begins his drinking here in a significant way.

00:21:33.460 So where he has been so dedicated to his writing, he's a daily diarist. He loves letters. He's all

00:21:40.780 about the words. But here in college, like a lot of us, you turn on to the drink, right? So all the

00:21:47.560 focus and all the drive that Scott has had sort of slacks off here. He's spending a lot more time

00:21:55.840 drinking than, well, studying, ending up with him on the academic probation type of list.

00:22:04.280 Another thing I want to set in our stage here about Scott. Scott does write letters. He is a

00:22:10.440 Daily Diarist, he has a very much control thing happening. And the thing you're going to see about

00:22:18.000 Scott all the way through this story is when he begins to feel internally that he is losing

00:22:24.160 control of the situation, instead of, I don't know, kumbaya, taking some time, touching grass,

00:22:31.900 he will instead flip the script to control others. It's never about himself. The more he's

00:22:40.700 losing himself, the more control he's trying to gain over anyone. This starts early. Scott will

00:22:49.500 write a letter to his younger sister. He's like 17. She's in her teenage years about how to get

00:22:57.620 a man. If you want to get a man, honey, this is what you have to do. And essentially that advice 1.00

00:23:03.160 comes down to diminishing yourself to get the man. He writes mean letters, but Scott, because he can

00:23:12.280 write, and that's the thing he can do. He likes to use the words to try to get the girls. I have

00:23:18.700 done a whole separate thing about these gals. They're called the big four. Ginevra King is one 1.00

00:23:26.960 of the big four. They were legendary in a certain particular circle in the North. Scott at Princeton

00:23:34.660 is going to meet this top girl, Ginevra King, in his sophomore year. And they're going to date for

00:23:41.680 a little bit of time. But Ginevra's father looks at Scott like, you are nothing. You are in no way

00:23:50.000 suitable to marry my daughter welcome to Gatsby here seriously here's your beginning subplot for

00:23:57.260 Gatsby because everybody thinks like oh maybe Zelda is that no it's Genevra King who is Daisy

00:24:04.680 in Gatsby dad Genevra's dad tells Scott rich girls don't marry poor boys so here you have

00:24:13.940 this reinforcement again of the outside looking in. He's never going to be good enough. He's never

00:24:21.840 going to attain to that level. He wants to, but Ginevra King here really is his golden girl

00:24:29.420 fantasy. Ginevra King is the girl that all the boys wanted, but no one could ever possess.

00:24:36.860 and I'm going to let you know that Scott is going to transfer his Ginevra King manic pixie dream

00:24:44.960 girl fantasy right on over to Zelda Sarah. You see it coming, right? Transferance. Scott is going to,

00:24:55.160 because of the whole academic probation thing, withdraw his junior year because he's essentially

00:25:02.720 flunked out and he's failed at love with Ginevra. So what's a boy to do at this time, 1917? You're

00:25:11.080 going to enroll, you're going to enlist to fight in World War I. And here Scott is gonna gussy it

00:25:19.640 on up and head on off to boot camp. Scott, where he's going to end up, who knows, but he can write

00:25:29.180 And he's going to boot camp for the war, kind of at a late entry stage here, 1917.

00:25:35.140 In boot camp, June of 1918, Scott Fitzgerald, second lieutenant, is going to show up at Camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama.

00:25:46.220 Oh, yeah.

00:25:46.720 OK. OK. I was like, the whole story, like his story is so northern U.S. and she's so southern.

00:25:53.100 I'm just like, how are these two going to even meet each other? But boot camp. OK.

00:25:56.340 He's at boot camp. He supplies himself with his own Brooks Brothers uniform. So he looks good. He looks fantastic when he shows up for boot camp. And because, oh, my God, nothing happens in Montgomery, right? So what? We have a boot camp that's actively training men. Fantastic. Servicemen, soldiers, let's throw a dance. Let's throw a fate. Let's throw a party.

00:26:20.180 so you've got montgomery and all the girls there entertaining these boot camp enlisted men

00:26:28.860 so on one fateful night sorry i'm just zelda i'm just like like all these like young men coming

00:26:35.380 like zelda this is like zelda paradise is so just like oh hey guess what who's coming

00:26:39.320 well i don't know two hundred men zelda paradise isn't even really boot camp zelda paradise is

00:26:45.820 college boys right she doesn't she wants out she's going to atlanta she's going to auburn she's going

00:26:51.960 to montgomery right she's all kinds of other places but okay we have to entertain the troops

00:26:59.520 fine so they'll throw these dances for stationed military men because the whole town is making

00:27:07.420 sure they're dedicated we're southern what can i get you to drink right we're very hospitable people

00:27:12.880 and they want to make sure all the boys are entertained before they head off for war and

00:27:19.480 remember Zelda dances in all the local things she featured dancer so there is a night oh boy

00:27:27.700 the two inevitably see well okay Scott sees Zelda in her little dancing outfit at this

00:27:36.100 entertainment thing and scott is smitten kitten he sees zelda and he is in love all the outside

00:27:46.580 looking in all of his words all of the long lost thwarted love with genevra he sees zelda and his

00:27:55.220 whole manic pixie dream girl manifestation is reborn and it has one focus and her name is

00:28:02.420 zelda sayer i don't know if zelda feels exactly the same way about him is it a love story baby

00:28:12.280 say yes if i was zelda i probably would have said no she doesn't know though because she's young

00:28:19.860 and exuberant and wants a bigger life and she's gonna get it i think sometimes to her detriment

00:28:26.980 in this story how long have we gone and let's go ahead and if we can just take a breath here

00:28:34.660 everybody go get a new cup of tea pour a new beverage take a little bathroom break

00:28:39.420 we're gonna come back and come back to scott's new golden girl obsession and the gold dust twins

00:28:48.260 the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered

00:28:57.480 like bones in the dust now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying the

00:29:04.660 darkness chooses someone else tonight but in the shadow dark the darkness always wins this is old

00:29:12.080 school adventuring at its most cruel your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies

00:29:18.240 something else rises to finish the job.

00:29:20.680 This is a brutal rules-light nightmare

00:29:22.860 with a story that emerges organically

00:29:25.560 based on the decisions that the characters make.

00:29:28.240 This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s

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00:29:59.960 the paranormal mysteries of liminal London,

00:30:04.260 and the cyberpunk chaos of Cyborg.

00:30:09.560 Be awed by our incredible guests from familiar shows like Oxventure and No Rolls Barred.

00:30:16.360 search realms of peril and glory to find out more 0.99

00:30:20.560 and we're back we're back with zelda f scott fuck you scott but not at this point i feel like 0.99

00:30:33.560 they're meeting and he she doesn't know that this is gonna be terrible he doesn't know that this is 0.99

00:30:38.840 not gonna work out they're they're young and they're hot well she is and they they hit it off

00:30:45.500 honestly i'm surprised no no not at all okay good no okay so zelda big deal biggest deal ever in the

00:30:54.000 south belle of the south here comes scott and his works brother's uniform and i mean scott is slight

00:31:00.380 but he is handsome he's dashing they are called when they do get together the gold dust twins

00:31:06.500 because they look so much alike oh they both have very fair hair blonde hair their builds are similar

00:31:14.760 They are sort of simpatico in a physical mirror representative of each other.

00:31:24.020 Scott comes into town.

00:31:25.300 He's head over heels about Zelda.

00:31:27.620 He is going to, and this is important to note, begin writing her letters about, it's so creepy.

00:31:36.640 She's the princess in the tower.

00:31:40.020 So he idolizes her.

00:31:41.840 She's very much put on a pedestal, but that princess in the tower lingo doesn't begin with Zelda.

00:31:48.480 It begins with Ginevra King.

00:31:50.680 Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:31:52.100 Ginevra King is the original princess in the tower.

00:31:54.800 So we really have just transferred.

00:31:57.560 I don't know if y'all have ever done that in relationships.

00:31:59.600 Like you've got a lot of feelings for one person and that one person isn't there.

00:32:03.460 So you try to recreate the thing with another person that's never going to happen.

00:32:07.380 scott zelda on the throne ginevra trying to recreate that thing at this point in boot camp

00:32:16.480 scott will begin his writing of this side of paradise boot camp's done he's just kind of

00:32:23.040 waiting to be shipped off but then oh no the war ends and there's nowhere to be shipped to

00:32:29.720 so scott is a little mad he will propose to zelda zelda is seeing 19 other guys a week

00:32:38.840 scott is like not on the priority list but he's going to propose to zelda before he

00:32:46.400 moves back to new york to get a job this side of paradise during this time just so you know was

00:32:53.880 rejected twice by Scribner's. He's going to get a legit job at an ad agency. He hates it. He'll

00:33:00.100 continue riding this side of paradise at night. But Scott, before he goes, proposes to Zelda.

00:33:06.760 Zelda's like, sure, fine, Scott. I'll marry you. But the thing you need to know in the next

00:33:12.740 sentence of that is probably Zelda saying, I have four other fiancés as well as a dozen pens from

00:33:18.980 all kinds of other frat boys all around the south also as the flight airline guys as the

00:33:27.980 flight pilots are learning how to fly for the war over at boot camp they fly over my house every day 0.95

00:33:35.260 and dip their wings just because they love me i mean charm and charisma zelda is loaded so she

00:33:44.140 It says yes to Scott, but it's not actually a real yes 0.95

00:33:46.880 because she has a shit ton of other boyfriends.

00:33:51.280 Yeah, yeah.

00:33:52.860 Manipulating them all, handling them all, which is fine. 1.00

00:33:55.580 She's young.

00:33:56.100 She's not ready to say yes to anybody really yet.

00:33:58.220 She just likes being the belle of the ball.

00:34:00.900 So Scott, writing her all these desperate letters,

00:34:04.960 princess in the tower, I'd love to see your sweet face again, blah, blah, blah.

00:34:10.280 okay Zelda one day I think honestly wants to dip on Scott she she's just I'm not going to say

00:34:18.440 annoyed but she's playing him like she's playing every other guy around but there is one point I

00:34:25.040 think she really does want to dip and as we get to the rankings at the end this is probably because

00:34:32.400 Leos aren't really scheming they're loyal they love you if you upset a Leo they're probably

00:34:38.520 going to drop you but i don't really see them as manipulative so to speak but zelda here is like

00:34:45.120 man maybe i don't like scott maybe i want to play games so she will write a letter to scott

00:34:56.260 kind of breaking it off but putting in the fraternity pen of the other letter that she's

00:35:06.480 written to the other guy she's breaking it off from so Scott gets this letter like oh what you're

00:35:15.540 you're returning a pin that's not even mine how many men are you going with number one

00:35:20.600 but Zelda writes Scott she's like listen man you're making $35 a week and I'm not sure if

00:35:27.420 you've heard what a big fucking deal I am here so it's pretty clear to me Scott I'm sorry like

00:35:36.680 I didn't mean to get like hung up on me but I think I can do better than you Scott 0.92

00:35:43.220 Zelda's being straight up she's being honest like this is not what I want I think I can do better

00:35:47.820 But Scott gets this devastating news when Zelda breaks their loose engagement in June 1919.

00:35:57.280 Scott is crushed.

00:35:58.740 He's devastated.

00:36:00.220 His princess in the tower has rejected him.

00:36:03.080 So Scott is going to bail out of New York City to head home, move home to St. Paul, Minnesota,

00:36:08.320 and will write for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, to finish this side of paradise.

00:36:17.280 so he can be a published author and zelda will love him he has to borrow money for all of his

00:36:26.000 pencils typing supplies his cigarettes this side of paradise just for my literature lovers

00:36:34.840 is a novel that is loosely constructed about his princeton college days because right as he's going

00:36:43.180 through this, he is looking at this new emerging generation of flappers and philosophers. The new

00:36:49.940 young hip kids, the generation that is changing here. 1920s coming on. Turns out all those

00:36:59.700 rewrites, all that work on this side of paradise works out for Scott Fitzgerald. His book is going

00:37:06.180 to be published. And he can't even wait to ride Zelda Princess in the Tower. My book's going to

00:37:13.600 be published. Look at me. I'm a success. Now you can marry me. Fantastic. And Zelda at this point

00:37:20.540 does plead with her family. None of her family think this is a good idea. Like Scott even

00:37:28.480 proposed when he was down like in front of her family. It's all it's treacherous. It's treacherous.

00:37:34.600 But Zelda, I guess, somehow looking at how much work Scott has done, and I also can get the fuck out of Montgomery.

00:37:43.200 Yeah. 0.98

00:37:43.880 For Scott, let's go ahead and get married.

00:37:48.400 This all happens pretty fast. 1.00

00:37:50.300 Okay, I want to sit in this moment for a second because Zelda, I guess, like we know, she's an impetuous person, generally.

00:37:57.720 and i wonder if like she's got so many suitors but something like what is it about scott is it

00:38:04.960 the fact that like he's got this artistic career and that's kind of the direction she wants to head

00:38:09.680 in she wants to get out of town he's in he's from the north she knows that she can leave like why

00:38:14.440 why would she have said yes at this point when she has like 25 other options every day

00:38:20.980 Scott is a yes and yes and yes to all of that also once she says yes Zelda knows she's hopping

00:38:30.040 a train to New York City and getting out of Montgomery yeah I can go where Tallulah's been

00:38:35.960 I can New York City 1920s oh my god everything is happening it's theater and music and jazz

00:38:44.040 and everything amazing and everything a girl from a tiny tiny tiny ass small town

00:38:49.020 has dreamed about her whole life this all happens pretty quick as soon as Scott gets the

00:38:55.400 note that his book is going to be published he writes to Zelda Zelda now we can get married

00:39:02.460 I've made something for myself Zelda's like New York City I mean there's something about Scott

00:39:08.600 that she likes and think about she's so young and he's got the words that can flatter her he's not

00:39:16.420 a dopey southern boy who is like he's different maybe a little bit exotic her family's totally

00:39:24.120 against it but march 26 1920 this side of paradise is released it sells out on the first day

00:39:33.340 that is how many books they did not print but also the demand for this like what's the new dawn

00:39:44.300 new day new decade this side of paradise is risque for the time because it's exposing

00:39:51.200 what young people in the day are doing we have petting parties we kiss you know we drink a lot

00:40:00.520 we smoke a lot it's this novel of the new generation seriously written about geneva king

00:40:08.000 transferred over to zelda in that thing but scott knows that he's getting published he knows the

00:40:15.060 release date he will re-propose to zelda zelda god bless her says yes this all happens pretty fast

00:40:22.720 this side of paradise gets released scott's 23 he's an instant celebrity instant celebrity

00:40:29.600 released march 26th scott goes down to st patrick's cathedral in new york city

00:40:36.160 and will arrange for him and Zelda to marry on April 3rd,

00:40:42.400 two weeks after the book is published.

00:40:44.740 This is how fast it happens.

00:40:47.220 Zelda is going to hop on a train in Montgomery 0.92

00:40:50.760 in her Alabama clothes, Alabama style, Alabama voice, Alabama hair. 0.99

00:40:58.300 She's a Southern girl.

00:41:00.120 And how exciting. 0.99

00:41:01.060 She takes the train to New York to get married

00:41:05.520 because she thinks she's awesome and she arrives and it's pretty much whisked off to st patrick's

00:41:13.100 cathedral fun fact here because zelda is not catholic they cannot marry in the rectory

00:41:21.560 they cannot marry in the church of the cathedral but there is one little side room that i did get

00:41:30.060 to go into when i was in new york city yes yeah in the church saint patrick's cathedral is enormous

00:41:37.660 but there is this one tiny tiny side chapel that scott and zelda did get married in but are you

00:41:45.540 ready for the dick move by scott oh no oh yeah zelda part of zelda's family is absolutely not

00:41:53.640 participating in this but she does have some family who wants to participate her sisters 0.97

00:42:00.300 want to be there but zelda shows and scott's like all right priest let's get it on i want to get 0.91

00:42:09.800 married to her so we can be done with this and begins the ceremony before her family shows up 0.65

00:42:15.600 scott okay okay oh zelda's sister rosalind who does show up and catches like the tail end of

00:42:25.900 this wedding is like hey congratulations thanks scott for not waiting for us at all and really

00:42:32.540 beginning this relationship on a good foot how about i take everyone here to celebrate 0.98

00:42:38.460 out to lunch and scott's like fuck that we're going to the biltmore to party all night 0.97

00:42:44.560 this sort of plants for rosalind zelda's sister and as she conveys it through the rest of the 0.99

00:42:52.640 family the fuck off scott scott's done with zelda's family pretty much from the day they 0.97

00:42:59.860 get married you ready for the second shitty thing scott does oh god okay bring it yeah yep 1.00

00:43:06.680 like next thing he is gonna ask one of his i'm saying girlfriend she's not a romantic interest 1.00

00:43:12.940 but a girl a lady to take zelda shopping for new clothes because everything she has is fucking 1.00

00:43:22.540 shit she can't be my wife and look like this she looks like a country hit from alabama 1.00

00:43:27.660 we're just building up the hate for scott you with me so far i am i am and it's like she 1.00

00:43:35.860 you know as you described like she grew up and she was the star of of montgomery alabama like

00:43:42.480 she was everything she did was just like everyone loved her and then to be dragged off to this place

00:43:48.560 where suddenly it's she's not in her element you know like she's talking different from everybody

00:43:52.840 she's dressing different the climate is different and instead of like helping her acclimate to this

00:43:58.360 he's just like everything you're doing is wrong he is the writer and he is handing zelda a script

00:44:07.000 for what she needs to be to him have you ever been to new york city yeah yeah okay can you

00:44:15.520 imagine being from a tiny spit place of a town in 1920 and walking into new york city

00:44:22.820 no like it's it's mind-blowing i cannot imagine and then for him to be like here's how you need 0.99

00:44:29.800 to dress here's what you need to do it's like how would you know that scott like you're from 0.94

00:44:33.620 minneapolis or whatever he loves to control people and he's all into the feminine he's been 1.00

00:44:38.680 trying to dress his sister and tell like again control right and he went in drag so he knows

00:44:44.880 how to dress yeah yeah correct so zelda i don't think is like she's pretty not blessed here she's

00:44:52.400 a southern girl walking in married to new york city in april of 1920 with this new script this

00:45:02.900 new role that scott has handed to her and remember he is the king of flapper philosopher literature

00:45:11.920 so it's extravagance she is zelda is now the queen of the flappers worldwide and scott is known as

00:45:20.060 king of the jazz age their antics beginning in new york city they are legendary so where zelda

00:45:28.260 has, bless her, seen clippings from New York and all those papers about what her friend Tallulah

00:45:36.020 Bankhead has been doing. Because Tallulah's racy, right? Like, Tallulah's got no shits to give.

00:45:43.180 Here's Zelda. She dances on tables at the Waldorf. They dance in fountains. Any fountain they can 1.00

00:45:52.400 find and they're always like dancing in a fountain super excited to see the fountain in front of the

00:46:00.140 plaza they actually get kicked out of the plaza they're that much trouble they're written up

00:46:08.860 everywhere uh they've done cartwheels and hotel lobbies they ride on top of taxi cabs down fifth

00:46:16.760 avenue on the weekend nights like they go teen wolfing right like they're living it up in new

00:46:23.900 york city and in this script every day has to be more outrageous than the day that came before it

00:46:32.040 they're both performers sort of performing in their own way and they look the part and they

00:46:40.420 act the part and these characters are the characters they're playing and they live them

00:46:46.140 on stage high and large no party is complete at that time without zelda and scott there

00:46:52.460 they are the hot couple in new york city always partying always doing the thing which

00:46:59.000 does give them a lot of time to drink i was gonna say i was this sounds like we already know that

00:47:07.180 He's like been leaning on alcohol.

00:47:09.220 Zelda, I don't know what her relationship is at this point,

00:47:11.500 but what you're describing,

00:47:12.960 I feel like there's a lot of alcohol

00:47:13.940 and a lot of cocaine involved

00:47:15.660 in like fueling the energy

00:47:18.080 to be able to stay up all night

00:47:19.620 and do all these antics.

00:47:21.680 Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol.

00:47:23.560 I want to switch out one thing. 1.00

00:47:25.460 I said Goldust Twins.

00:47:27.680 I should have said in that part,

00:47:29.480 Little Twin Stars.

00:47:31.900 Little Twin Stars.

00:47:33.500 They are Little Twin Stars.

00:47:35.380 gold dust twins technically are these two other cats guys that zelda grew up in alabama with but

00:47:42.500 here's scott and zelda oh my god they really are both head over heels zelda's thrilled to be here

00:47:47.940 living a life she never imagined well it's kind of that we know because of how things are gonna go

00:47:56.060 where this is headed but like that new relationship energy she's in her early 20s and it's just like

00:48:00.760 Like, this is amazing.

00:48:01.760 She's out of her small town.

00:48:03.400 Like that honeymoon phase, you know, just like the excitement of it all.

00:48:09.360 Yeah.

00:48:09.740 Oh, boy, do they honeymoon.

00:48:12.900 And Zelda has been propped up Princess in a Tower by Scott for so long.

00:48:19.700 And now they're finally together.

00:48:21.680 They're married.

00:48:22.540 So honeymoon on fire.

00:48:24.300 But here they really are inseparable.

00:48:27.860 They're collaborators.

00:48:29.100 little twin stars Scott trusts Zelda with everything and Zelda trusts Scott this is

00:48:38.280 her golden girl dream come true they're on the top of their game save the drinking an outrageous

00:48:45.820 amount of alcohol but they're young and you can kind of do that then Scott is still wanting to

00:48:53.640 control things and we're on the countdown to what i have termed in my own heart the switch

00:49:01.580 the switch and remember when scott loses control all he wants to do is gain control

00:49:08.840 over other people yeah so scott's writing you know doing some productive things king of the

00:49:16.740 Jazz Age. And because Zelda's getting known on her own, she has been asked as Mrs. Fitzgerald to give

00:49:27.220 a review of his book to be published. In this particular review, Zelda, you know, is a little

00:49:37.980 bit brutal. Maybe this is the first knife towards Scott, but Zelda is no fool. So in this particular

00:49:50.040 review, Zelda reviews this book from Mrs. Fitzgerald. It seems to me that on one page,

00:49:56.460 I recognized a portion of an old diary of mine, which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my

00:50:03.000 marriage and also scraps of letters which though considerably edited sound to me vaguely familiar

00:50:10.840 in fact mr fitzgerald i believe that's how he spells his name seems to believe that plagiarism

00:50:19.600 begins at home this is and this is a published review by her 100 yeah yeah so who she's

00:50:32.980 becoming so legendary women's magazines are reaching out like that one quote was fire the 1.00

00:50:39.200 publishing world is like oh this zelda is pretty sassy so women's magazines reach out like hey would 0.98

00:50:45.820 you like to write a woman's story for us and zelda really creative super smart she was writing 0.97

00:50:53.660 back in alabama at least you know different things like dreamy teenage girls do and here 0.99

00:51:01.960 zelda can be a free and independent woman or at least think she can because she's being asked to

00:51:07.760 write and i can write and make a little pen money but of course scott isn't going to love that

00:51:16.120 scott won't let her have anything in her name so zelda will write the story

00:51:22.260 and then scott will put his name on it no okay saying we can make more money that way

00:51:30.460 I mean, if they're going to pay you, I'm making up figures here, two dollars.

00:51:35.040 They're going to pay me two hundred because I'm the one that's cool here.

00:51:39.660 But at the end of the day, Scott is stealing her work.

00:51:44.320 Yeah. And what you said, like the quote from her review where she's just like, oh, some of the writing in this book seems familiar.

00:51:50.360 So he's clearly already been like inspired by her to a plagiarism begins at home. 0.97

00:51:57.840 all he does most of his novels there are absolute hunks of his novels that are simply her fucking 0.91

00:52:05.200 diaries yeah yeah oh god i'm so mad i'm so mad if you go through i mean scott extensively wrote 0.91

00:52:14.380 had a few novels wrote many many many many many pieces and it is interesting how zelda goes from 0.95

00:52:22.380 collaborator for her husband to oh you're just gonna steal my shit directly and put your name 0.98

00:52:30.260 on it uncool scott not cool in order to be that kind of couple living it up in new york city 0.99

00:52:41.000 scott's only gotten his book advance you've published books how far does that get you

00:52:44.720 right no exactly yeah yeah you gotta keep coming up with something new you're not coming up with

00:52:50.000 like private jet money like that's not the way it happens and scott and zelda are burning through

00:52:56.240 money so he is stealing her words in life right and now in writing burning through money things

00:53:09.260 progress pretty fast for the couple in february 1921 zelda realizes that she's pregnant no

00:53:17.080 Oh, I sorry. That was just my instinctive reaction. It's just like, I don't want anything

00:53:22.440 to solidify her relationship to this guy, but here we go. Solidified. Their daughter,

00:53:27.700 Scotty is born October 26th, 1921. Okay. Here's the thing. Zelda goes into labor. I don't know

00:53:37.020 if you've heard this story, but oh boy, it is going to be recreated 100% in Scott Fitzgerald's

00:53:43.780 next work. Zelda goes into labor and she is on drugs, like wiped out because right, you're in

00:53:51.520 labor. Yeah. And Zelda will talk to Scott because she is on drugs. Everything she says to Scott in

00:54:01.760 the delivery room and in and around that delivery. Oh, I hope she's a girl about their daughter.

00:54:08.140 she'll be beautiful and a fool Scott has a notepad and pen writing down what she says so he can use 0.99

00:54:16.940 it in his next fucking novel her life is his source material Zelda is a mom tricky she loves 0.99

00:54:27.480 Scotty in very much her own way there's some because Zelda also is an artist makes paper dolls 0.98

00:54:35.300 paints and creates paper dolls for her daughter. These paper dolls have actually been published in

00:54:41.640 their own book. They're incredible. But now think about it, 1921, in 1921, beginning 1922,

00:54:49.260 we have Scott and Zelda now with child. So they move around a lot. They'll live in places a year

00:54:56.440 at a time. Scott is going to keep churning out work, not another novel here, but publications

00:55:02.740 for Saturday Evening Post, Red Book, Esquire, Making Easy Money.

00:55:10.320 These articles are also completely in his wheelhouse, King of the Jazz Age,

00:55:16.640 but also they're partially Zelda's work where he gives her no byline

00:55:22.840 or maybe a sub byline, but because Scott is working to make the money

00:55:28.140 to put the money in the bank it's taking time away from the novel writing he wants to do

00:55:34.600 the next novel he will finish is the beautiful and the damned this is where i believe the 0.98

00:55:43.280 she'll be beautiful and a fool comes in the beautiful and the damned is a novel 0.94

00:55:47.560 see how much of a repetition we have here this novel is about the demise of a happy couple who 0.97

00:55:54.500 self-destruct because of the drink his ideas are not especially sophisticated he's just like what

00:56:01.460 will i write a novel about my exact life okay yeah whatever me and zelda are doing now me and

00:56:06.760 me and zelda yeah yeah uh-huh nailed it they they have this young child now so how but i presume

00:56:15.500 they're continuing with their life of drinking and partying oh 100 they don't stop they don't 0.99

00:56:20.940 stop any drinking they don't stop any partying let's see so beautiful in the damned come out

00:56:28.300 fitzgerald's big dream is still his great american novel but essentially they're spending too much

00:56:34.240 money they're drinking way too much here in 1922 scott zelda baby will move out to great neck long

00:56:42.940 island great neck long island is about 30 minutes on a pretty fast drunk ride from manhattan

00:56:50.380 At this time, Great Net Long Island is mostly a place of mansions and parks. It is very upper

00:57:00.460 crust. These are the creme de la creme of the people. And this area certainly do have people

00:57:09.340 who live in the mansions who are there. You also have a great amount of country houses,

00:57:14.800 big houses that people snooty tooty people from New York City can drive out to in Long Island

00:57:22.680 for the weekend for the whatever 30 minutes away here Scott and Zelda are going to rent

00:57:30.340 the smallest house on the best block you can see Manhattan across the water Manhattan 23 miles away

00:57:41.500 it's now like 50 minutes by car but here's scott zelda proceed to drunken party it up parties last

00:57:48.640 for days and people from new york city come over to hang out with them these parties are lousy with

00:57:54.400 celebrities and writers and actresses because guess what else has also happened prohibition

00:58:00.480 oh yeah yeah so people need to go there for their secret booze correct so we got a lot of secret

00:58:07.040 booze floating around if any of that great neck long island thing sounds familiar that is going

00:58:12.800 to be the west egg east egg parallel in the great gatsby so yeah to your point he's just writing

00:58:21.280 about himself so scott zelda party it up they've got a butler as well scott drinks a whole lot of

00:58:30.460 the day essentially 24 hour party let's go ahead and talk about zelda's family for just a second

00:58:36.560 because here young and early her family wants to come for a visit that sounds great they show up

00:58:42.680 they are horrified they see a bunch of just drunk people laying around uh they show up

00:58:51.480 zelda has a black eye and blames oh i hit the door zelda did not hit the door so not only is

00:59:01.220 got lousy with drunk he is also physically abusing Zelda by this point and if the family hated him

00:59:08.260 before the wedding and then immediately after the wedding they really hate him now well because

00:59:15.520 she's baby she's baby yeah she's the like beloved little like everyone adored her and now she's

00:59:22.660 being treated so horribly yeah okay they like to drink prohibition is really getting in the way of

00:59:31.080 that. So advancing into the next location of our story, in the spring of 1924, Scott and Zelda and

00:59:42.380 Baby are going to pick up sticks and go to Europe. They come with $7,000 and 17 suitcases. Like

00:59:51.480 literally pick up sticks, move across. Scott is wanting to work here on his great American novel,

00:59:57.960 The Great Gatsby. This particular section of time is fascinating to me and could be an entire

01:00:06.620 extra 10-hour episode. But here they land in the French Riviera. This is a glittering crowd.

01:00:14.600 In France at that point, it is expat city. The dollar is strong in France. You can come with

01:00:21.500 not a lot of American money to France and live like a king.

01:00:26.660 Scott and Zelda get connected through actually some Montgomery ties that Zelda has to the

01:00:35.860 most glittering couple of that age named Gerald and Sarah Murphy.

01:00:42.180 They are the people to know.

01:00:44.240 They know everyone.

01:00:46.060 Picasso, Cole Porter, every artist, every poet, every writer.

01:00:50.520 gerald and sarah murphy are the epicenter of american expats in paris they're the group

01:00:59.520 zelda at this point begins to feel a little bit like luggage because right scott is getting the

01:01:07.560 attention but scott is not getting attention so much for his writing but for bad behavior 0.95

01:01:14.740 Even back in Great Necklog Island, here in France, most of Zelda's time is spent apologizing for her husband's shitty, shitty behavior.

01:01:28.780 She writes a note every morning to the hostess of who had that party that night saying, I'm sorry he acted so terribly. 0.99

01:01:38.360 So he's an alcoholic. 0.91

01:01:42.140 He's also a violent alcoholic.

01:01:44.740 behaves terribly and just he's that guy i don't know if you've ever seen that guy at the party

01:01:53.600 but like why why would you say that why would you do that scott's drinking so extensively that 0.84

01:02:00.140 and he'll wake up and not remember any of this crap and poor zelda is eternally apologizing for

01:02:06.360 him in this 1924 year scott is diligently he's working on gatsby but he's also drinking and 0.88

01:02:19.300 they're also in the french riviera hanging out with every because the french riviera at that

01:02:24.520 time was not the glitzy show place you think of it today it was a little bit more laid back

01:02:31.260 but it is a oh boy vacation place for this crew here Scott who is actually I don't know fooled

01:02:42.340 around on Zelda a little bit in their marriage Zelda sitting around home kind of bored you're

01:02:50.140 on the French Riviera Scott is off riding every day I want to introduce into Zelda's story

01:02:58.400 Jozanne. Jozanne is a sexy, handsome French aviator. Yes, an aviator. An aviator. And Jozanne

01:03:10.300 and Zelda do meet. Jozanne likes to buzz over Zelda's house in the French Riviera

01:03:17.280 in his airplane, just like all of her previous boyfriends. She will have a little adulterous

01:03:25.780 thing with Jozanne and her whole set Sarah and Gerald Murphy everybody else that's down there 0.91

01:03:33.520 at that time know something's up because Jozanne is on the dock every day with Zelda in her nude

01:03:41.920 bathing suit reading French novels right whole set knows something's up Scott doesn't he's clueless

01:03:50.980 so Zelda at this point is like you know what Scott I'd like a divorce this is not I mean

01:03:59.360 pretty early they've been married four years but she's like this isn't what I want and I'm really

01:04:04.040 sorry but I would like a divorce and Scott says sure no problem Zelda easy peasy right no Scott

01:04:12.500 does not do that Scott is pissed and will decide the way to take control over this situation 0.80

01:04:19.840 is to physically lock Zelda up in a room for an entire month. 0.99

01:04:27.420 For an entire month.

01:04:29.200 Locks her in a room for a month. 0.98

01:04:31.220 Yeah.

01:04:32.380 So she cannot see her sexy, handsome French aviator lover

01:04:38.180 leaving her locked in a room.

01:04:40.580 He can cheat all he wants, but she cannot.

01:04:44.080 Sadly for Zelda at this point,

01:04:46.340 she will overdose on pills at this time.

01:04:49.840 because she's like can you believe my life has come to this all i do is apologize to my husband 0.91

01:04:57.180 every day here comes the switch zelda's done she wants a new role she wants a new script

01:05:03.860 the script you gave me four years ago scott you haven't held up to that bargain a number one and

01:05:09.060 number two i'm not that person anymore zelda is resentful she is uncertain

01:05:15.120 So what I think happens here in the switch is that baby of the family, Southern Belle has the world at her feet, has been now for a number of years, an emotionally and physically abused spouse.

01:05:33.860 And here is where Zelda turns a little bit passive aggressive. 0.78

01:05:37.120 aggressive. She's been trying sympathy notes for the day after his bad behavior, but you never want

01:05:44.800 a Southern woman to get passive aggressive. Okay. Okay. This is a context where I'm so happy you're 0.86

01:05:51.180 the one telling this story. Like, yeah, no, it's you're done. You're kind of done for when this

01:05:55.500 happens. And this is all the passive aggressive, or is she really a Leo girl? You betray me. 0.95

01:06:01.720 i'm not into it how dare how dare you treat me like that zelda realizes at this point

01:06:11.900 kind of her fate is her fate how can she even escape this she is completely blown off her

01:06:18.740 family and their concerns because zelda's not even talking to them anymore because all they're

01:06:23.740 trying to do is break a little bit of sense through to zelda like yeah yeah we don't even 1.00

01:06:28.260 light divorce but will you please just get the fuck out of here and zelda can't get the fuck 1.00

01:06:32.380 out of there so she blows them off and zelda sort of here accepts her fate in a way that she's gonna 0.88

01:06:42.440 passive-aggressive turn this to hey scott i played your game for a while you want to see my game 0.96

01:06:48.640 you want to see what my game looks like motherfucker let me show you and zelda will 0.98

01:06:53.880 show him the game. What does that game look like? Oh boy. Let's take another break here and come 0.98

01:07:00.820 back and talk about Zelda putting her stakes in the ground. We'll be right back after this break. 0.99

01:07:09.820 I'm Anne Foster and I have never watched the show Spartacus Blood and Sand. And I'm Gina Berry

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01:08:16.800 And find us on youtube.com slash rebelgirls.

01:08:20.320 And whatever you do, stay rebel. 1.00

01:08:27.520 Fuck off, Scott. 1.00

01:08:28.880 And we're back. 1.00

01:08:31.280 Zelda is unleashing her Montgomery, Alabama, Southern Belle passive aggressiveness.

01:08:38.360 And how does that happen?

01:08:38.780 I'll show you the game, man.

01:08:39.820 I played by your rules for a long time and I'm no longer playing by your rules.

01:08:47.680 So Zelda here still in the French Riviera does find some way to get more and more desperate in her trying to escape the fate of being the princess in the tower. 0.53

01:09:01.120 She's paying less attention to Scott, more attention to other people, more attention into her own personal investing into herself.

01:09:10.600 And Scott, of course, is broken by all of this, broken by Zelda's affair and will continue to mistreat Zelda for the rest of his life.

01:09:22.560 I want to just pause for a moment because he brought back the, you know, he's writing her those letters early on about you're the princess in the tower.

01:09:28.720 and now she's a princess in the tower but in the like trapped in the tower way right bro you locked

01:09:33.720 her in a room for a month she literally yeah princess in the tower not a romantic thing 1.00

01:09:39.440 no she's not gonna write apology notes for you anymore you motherfucker you locked her in a room 0.99

01:09:44.460 for the month so october 1924 the great gatsby is finished ish it's sent back across the pond 0.99

01:09:52.560 to America to the publisher Zelda at this point because they're working on the novel rewrites

01:10:02.020 blah blah blah Great Gatsby again for the third novel in a row is just stealing parts of Zelda's

01:10:10.720 life Ginevra's life the rich girls don't marry poor boys comes back into this one and by 24 like

01:10:19.180 the oracle of the jazz age is grown up. Scott's 30, right? He's not the young guy he was. The

01:10:29.140 flapper mystique at this point is over, at least as far as his career. He's changed. His story has

01:10:36.520 changed. Scott is now writing Zelda's life and their story has changed. This is not the marriage

01:10:42.620 we started out with. The audience also that Scott started out with is kind of gone too. We've changed

01:10:50.200 in those years. Great Gatsby does not sell well in Scott's lifetime. Now it sells, I don't know,

01:11:01.060 300,000 copies a year. It's been made into five films. It's required high school reading.

01:11:06.380 he did find his fame, just not in his lifetime. When The Great Gatsby is released, it has really

01:11:13.260 good reviews, but really disappointing sales. I don't even know how to get into this because

01:11:21.040 this is a whole nother story unto itself. So I'm going to try to TLDR it here. Zelda, Scott,

01:11:28.040 and Baby are spending 1925, the spring of 1925 in Paris. Scott is disappointed because the book

01:11:36.140 is not a success scott will meet another american expat living in paris you might know him

01:11:43.580 because he's pretty high up on my god i can't stand you either list 0.98

01:11:48.260 ernest hemingway god damn it yeah 0.97

01:11:52.600 oh boy okay that was exactly the right response and so yeah what you need definitely for alcoholic 0.98

01:12:05.560 Scott Fitzgerald is to meet alcoholic Ernest Hemingway.

01:12:13.540 They're buddies.

01:12:15.300 They get to know each other.

01:12:17.780 Fitzgerald's pissed because Ernest Hemingway is far more successful commercially, but the

01:12:24.020 two of them, like, hang out in the cafes.

01:12:26.660 They drink a lot every day.

01:12:28.580 The other thing you want to know is that Ernest Hemingway hates Zelda.

01:12:33.300 Ask me why. 1.00

01:12:34.300 why does he hate zelda because she sees right through all of his asshole bullshit 1.00

01:12:40.320 she's the first one hemingway comes in right i'm so big and macho and all that other crap 1.00

01:12:49.460 and zelda's like who are you fucking talking to i'm the belle of alabama you know i see three 0.97

01:12:55.980 bluff and bluster doesn't even like bug me which is what also earnest tries to come on to zelda 1.00

01:13:03.760 and zelda like turns them down like if you were the last man on earth i still wouldn't fuck you 0.98

01:13:09.380 get away from me so there happens developing at this time this really weird triangle love hate 0.97

01:13:18.440 triangle between zelda scott and earnest a completely alternative story but scott looks

01:13:24.840 up to earnest earnest hates zelda oh also for some reason i don't know scott thinks it's

01:13:32.620 appropriate to go to earnest because i guess zelda said like you're not hung that well and so one day

01:13:38.700 drinking scott and earnest go to the bathroom and scott's like hey earnest bro can you check out the 0.86

01:13:44.000 size of my junk and tell me i'm okay literal dick measuring contest okay measuring contest 0.87

01:13:50.580 earnest is like yeah buddy you're fine i don't really think he was fine but what else what else 0.99

01:13:57.800 happens for zelda and scott in paris at this point they're chilling with gertrude stein picasso

01:14:07.960 miro matisse one gris gerald and sarah murphy the thing to know about gerald murphy he's loaded

01:14:16.140 back from family money living it up with sarah over in paris but gerald murphy is also a very

01:14:21.380 talented painter. So where Zelda is beginning her, I can't believe you're hanging out with

01:14:28.220 Ernest Hemingway every day, Scott. That's dumb. Zelda is going to begin to learn how to paint 0.99

01:14:35.300 from Gerald Murphy, 1925. This is the first place really where her attention is going

01:14:42.080 a hundred percent of the time that is not her husband. Zelda will learn, begin learning how

01:14:49.560 to paint here color composition how to mix how to do figures gerald murphy's going in real slow

01:14:56.000 but giving zelda you know private lessons zelda is going to paint up into the day of her death

01:15:03.980 that's one of the places her attention goes i love i love that she has something i love that she's

01:15:12.960 got a passion oh she's going to develop quite a few her art really is her solace the second

01:15:20.720 thing zelda is doing is writing her most productive periods of writing are from 1925

01:15:28.740 to 1934 where is zelda writing from mainly mental institutions she'll have a reservoir uh-huh no

01:15:38.400 hold on hold on your face on that was beautiful she will have another period of creative writing

01:15:42.940 from 1940 to 1948. The other way, Zelda, because again, she's like, Scott, you put your attention

01:15:50.340 everywhere else. So can I. Zelda will rediscover her love for ballet and will begin training daily

01:16:01.140 with a very famous ballerina of the day who used to dance with the Ballet Russe.

01:16:09.200 Zelda goes every day, trains 16 hours a day,

01:16:13.620 becomes so good that Zelda is offered a solo starring role in ballet in an Italian company.

01:16:24.060 That's, she probably can't do it in Paris.

01:16:26.440 And remember, Zelda's older here by this point.

01:16:29.880 Yeah, she's like, what, mid-late 20s at this point?

01:16:32.740 Born in 1900, so she's 25.

01:16:35.380 Yeah, yeah.

01:16:35.840 six this is a very late time in life to become a professional ballet dancer so think about the

01:16:42.940 amount that zelda has to work and train to be offered a solo performer position in an italian

01:16:52.880 company she's pretty good and scott's like sure babes that's fine go run away to the ballet right

01:17:00.760 no scott does not say that no of course scott does not say that but the switch in zelda has

01:17:11.800 happened and she's going to refocus so hard that her refocusing sort of becomes obsessive

01:17:20.640 i don't know how you classify it i got a lot to say when people are like zelda's crazy zelda was

01:17:27.240 not crazy. Zelda got real tired of compensating for a delinquent, abusive, alcoholic husband.

01:17:38.520 More on that later. Zelda gets obsessive about everything she's doing here, and Scott

01:17:45.020 doesn't really like that. So let's go ahead and talk about 1927. Scott has now published

01:17:53.520 three novels not to moderate success he's writing articles writing magazines but in 1927

01:18:00.400 which you can see it at the time silent movies are going away we're going to talkies at this point

01:18:09.540 and if you're talking you need a writer for the script so scott is gonna be like hell

01:18:16.600 why not go to hollywood i can write in hollywood just as cool oh boy i get so mad for zelda

01:18:25.460 team zelda team zelda forever so 1927 hollywood oh boy here go scott and zelda to hollywood now

01:18:35.620 if you thought new york was fun imagine hollywood in 1928 right they're getting wooed about the time

01:18:42.160 they are given a lunch Scott and Zelda are at the home of Douglas Fairbanks in Mary Pickford

01:18:50.420 their home is called Pickfair it is the the most enormous place you'd ever want to be at that time

01:18:56.200 in Hollywood if you've made it to Pickfair you have arrived you'd think Scott would be happy to

01:19:02.400 be there with Zelda he is not Scott looks across the table and sees a 17 year old actress at this 0.71

01:19:09.800 okay her name is lois moran turns out she looks an awful lot like a young zelda scott is head

01:19:21.140 over heels and scott will pretty much obsessively spin this trip telling his wife zelda did you see

01:19:29.980 that lois this is the part is just gonna blow your head off zelda that lois can you imagine

01:19:36.960 she's an actress and she's so brave and courageous for wanting to make her own name and her own 0.53

01:19:43.880 money i may have found a way to like goodbye earl scott fitzgerald off this earth this is like you

01:19:52.240 just you just i don't know slip something in his drink when he's drunk and then he said oh no he's

01:19:57.920 he's dead oh how that happened i don't know poison i don't know that everything scott has derailed

01:20:04.000 in zelda you have to be my wife you can't make your own money i will steal your work why do you

01:20:08.860 have all these high here he's like lois she's everything i want a girl to be which is all 0.71

01:20:14.840 zelda's been trying to be for years and years and here scott is like bumping her up

01:20:19.620 scott will go visit lois without zelda lois is in the company of her mother but as you can 0.95

01:20:29.000 i would be you would be zelda's pissed like you have given me crap for all these years about your

01:20:35.400 struggle to support me you have to work this hard to support me and this is what you go for 0.98

01:20:41.200 and one of the very most classic this is my top 10 favorite zelda fitzgerald move she is so mad 1.00

01:20:48.060 she is so mad she is gonna dump all her clothes in a bathtub and burn them yes yes fuck you dude 0.99

01:20:58.240 so mad the other thing zelda will do is on the train back from hollywood to delaware which is 1.00

01:21:08.280 where they're going she throws scott when he sold this side of paradise bought zelda this very

01:21:14.660 expensive watch she throws it out the window of the train done done done done unsurprisingly

01:21:22.480 scott is not too much of a success in hollywood we give you a little bit of the inside

01:21:28.020 dish on here he will fight with Constance Talmadge who is the actress he's writing a script for

01:21:34.660 and she's like go I don't need more than I need you my dude you don't argue with the star of the

01:21:44.320 movie right Scott bails out of Hollywood failure kicked out of Hollywood there Scott and Zelda

01:21:51.820 going to go back to Delaware where whoa guess who comes to visit Lois Moran I was gonna say

01:22:00.760 teenage girlfriend to their new house yeah they're in Delaware for a little while that's fine

01:22:09.460 they're gonna end up going back to Paris now here Zelda painting dancing writing but the other thing

01:22:18.520 that zelda does here love it love it love it it's fine it's kind of a whole new set of friends 0.93

01:22:24.140 if scott can go get his dick looked at by ernest hemingway in the bathroom think about paris 1.00

01:22:31.900 avant-garde gay and queer are a thing you have an entire oh boy vulgar women the entire set of 1.00

01:22:40.560 lesbians in the 20s and 19 lesbians from I don't know 1900 on early 19 aughts in Paris. Romaine 1.00

01:22:51.520 Brooks, Natalie Barney, Juana Barnes, all these progressive women who are sapphic. They paint art

01:23:00.360 and write and have this whole circle. They make this wonderful thing called they make this

01:23:07.420 wonderful magazine they go have sapphic dances in this temple of artemis in the backyard of

01:23:13.740 natalie barney's apartment it's just amazing like if you are a lover of women this is the best time

01:23:23.620 best time best time to be a lesbian in paris in this group legendary yeah yeah so zelda in the

01:23:31.420 group she's been in. Of course, you can imagine, wait, all these women are so nice and so soft 0.99

01:23:39.260 and they accept my art and my writing and they like to see it and talk about it. And we're all

01:23:46.580 sharing this collaborative, creative space like women do in this community. Scott says,

01:23:54.580 oh babe i love your new friends right no he does not at this point scott is like 0.96

01:24:02.960 now i know what's wrong it doesn't have anything to do with me zelda it's because you're a lesbian

01:24:11.560 you have all these lesbianic tendencies and he's mad about it which honestly these tendencies in

01:24:19.640 zelda do pop and manifest from this point on but i think this is scott counteracting because both

01:24:28.400 scott and zelda are worried about his sexuality this comes up because there's rumors going around

01:24:36.920 about scott that perhaps he isn't playing on the absolutely heterosexual team and zelda's heard

01:24:43.080 about it and she's a little bit mad so remember when scott loses control he's going to want to

01:24:48.660 gain control over the person

01:24:50.680 that's making him lose control.

01:24:53.380 Very, very, very

01:24:54.600 sadly for Zelda, Sarah

01:24:56.640 Fitzgerald, this leads to her first

01:24:58.960 hospitalization.

01:25:02.280 For Scott, looking at

01:25:04.620 this picture, she dances obsessively.

01:25:07.020 She arts obsessively. She's 0.99

01:25:08.560 hanging out with a bunch of dykes. I'm so mad 1.00

01:25:10.740 about it. Scott's going to put

01:25:12.640 her into an institution because she's 1.00

01:25:14.700 not doing what

01:25:16.500 Scott wants her to do.

01:25:18.660 Zelda, if you thought didn't really like being locked up in a room for a month on the French Riviera, Zelda doesn't really like being locked up in a mental institution. Her mental state will deteriorate. 0.61

01:25:36.180 southern belle on a passive aggressive streak possibly can be seen as a rational behavior 1.00

01:25:45.060 zelda comes to pierce nobody knows what to do with her she don't talk like them she talks like 1.00

01:25:50.520 she's from south alabama which she does and she talks real fast she's a lot of colloquialisms 0.98

01:25:55.140 people are like what are you so imagine southern exuberant sassy girl who talks real fast and uses 0.99

01:26:05.300 a lot of colloquialisms showing up in these european mental institutions yeah yeah they 1.00

01:26:12.440 think she's off a rocker but i don't think she's off a rocker i think she is just doing what she

01:26:19.480 does but here's zelda gets applied with the label of a schizoid personality this

01:26:28.000 schizophrenia so personality diagnosis essentially was the thing that they would apply

01:26:35.400 to any woman that wasn't fitting into the basket their husband wanted to put them in 0.98

01:26:41.260 to add insult to injury this happens every time zelda will go to an institution and once they 1.00

01:26:51.760 get used to her natural quirks doctors are like well shit maybe you just don't like the basket 0.95

01:26:57.380 you've been put into uh okay I'm working this out with you Zelda cool cool cool and so the doctors 0.98

01:27:04.900 will type type type give their evaluations back to Scott like I don't know man because Zelda doesn't

01:27:12.440 hold anything do you know my husband's a drunk do you know he does this like Zelda's coming in with

01:27:17.180 her side of the story yeah every time doctors report Zelda's condition progress Scott comes in

01:27:25.880 And he's like, no, that's not what's happening here.

01:27:30.140 I'm going to tell you what to do, doctor.

01:27:32.160 And I want my advice you to take so you can run Zelda's treatment.

01:27:39.880 What do we know anything about what treatment they're up to in like European mental institutions of the 1920s, 30s?

01:27:46.820 Is this like electroshock time?

01:27:49.380 I'm so glad you asked.

01:27:50.960 It's not great.

01:27:52.200 It's not not great.

01:27:53.440 Let me continue on here. 1.00

01:27:54.920 so Zelda bless her heart is at a disadvantage in these situations she's southern she has a 1.00

01:28:03.880 distinctive style of speech we get it perfectly but Europe doesn't get it so when doctors don't 0.95

01:28:11.100 know what to do they see her as aloof and distant which is a completely distinct difference from how

01:28:18.140 everyone else who's ever known her from knee high to a grasshopper so different all of the people

01:28:25.440 who know zelda call her warm and loyal and she's got grace under pressure and she's so kind and

01:28:31.180 zelda will get a handful of good doctors through a whole bunch of crappy ones and the good doctors

01:28:38.340 are like yeah your husband's an alcoholic and it sure would improve your marriage and communication

01:28:43.600 if he quit drinking. So here's the problem. Doctors approach Scott like, hey, maybe you

01:28:49.440 should quit drinking. We think Zelda will improve if you quit drinking. And as soon as a doctor goes

01:28:57.320 to Scott like, hey, maybe you should quit your drinking and you could fix this. He's going to

01:29:02.720 yank Zelda out of that place and put her in a new place. Scott, for this section of time,

01:29:10.100 the next few years, doesn't want to live with Zelda, doesn't want to have anything to do with

01:29:14.480 her. He would like to work a lot to make money to complain about how much he's paying to have her

01:29:20.020 baby sat by other people. Why? Scott doesn't want to impede his drinking. Scott doesn't want to

01:29:26.620 impede his fucking around and a wife gets in the way of both of those things. Zelda in this point, 0.99

01:29:34.420 to answer your question it's not lobotomized but she does suffer through an immense amount

01:29:40.240 of treatments there's a bunch of electroshock therapy there's some weird kind of drugs they're

01:29:49.940 putting her on in ways that through every institution zelda goes into she is put through

01:29:58.600 more severe treatment so if she was really okay walking in treatment in europe is weird right now

01:30:07.120 they're just throwing things at the wall right maybe this will work maybe this won't work let's

01:30:12.160 go ahead and try it on live human people to see how it goes it's bad what this is making me think

01:30:19.140 of is um britney spears when her family forced her into psychiatric treatment they were putting

01:30:25.860 on lithium and stuff like i just feel like you go in there they give you this treatment and you come

01:30:30.280 out worse than you were before because these treatments are not appropriate for what you're

01:30:34.360 actually dealing with i think zelda was exuberant and lovely and not at all crazy and her time in

01:30:41.040 the finest loony bins all through europe because her husband just needed to hide her away

01:30:47.240 probably sent her down a road that she would not have otherwise have been and even though scott's 0.99

01:30:54.920 got her locked up princess in the tower right his favorite thing to do is write her letters and bitch

01:31:01.080 at her about how much money she's costing him and Zelda will write back like dude I'm a painter I'm 1.00

01:31:08.780 a dancer I'm a writer I can make money you arrogant asshole get me out of this fancy summer camp where 0.98

01:31:15.660 I can actually do you some good why do you have me locked up here there's a fantastic fantastic 0.99

01:31:22.800 if you like horror stories of a marriage the entire transcript of scott and zelda because

01:31:29.780 he'll come to visit occasionally with a doctor the entire transcript of the two of them talking

01:31:37.240 through is like the worst can this marriage be saved ever they're not on the same plane and the

01:31:43.260 doctor here is moderating this thing between the two of them that whole transcript is well worth 0.63

01:31:49.280 your time if you want to be really really upset so zelda not ever really going to get out but she

01:31:55.760 will behave well enough to get some privileges in these places this is my one of the top 10

01:32:02.280 favorite stories about zelda i want you to see a little bit of l woods in this one zelda does get

01:32:10.420 some paper to write and a pen small victories it's in 1932 she's been institutionalized for

01:32:18.220 like six years like all kinds of different places 1932 zelda in four weeks will crank out what is

01:32:26.660 her first novel called save me the waltz her novel save me the waltz will believe it or not because

01:32:35.420 she's zelda sarah fitzgerald use all of her own life material and all of the material of her

01:32:42.100 hospitalizations and her life story gosh wonder where she learned that from guess who's mad

01:32:50.300 scott scott's pissed because zelda writes this bypasses scott and just sends it

01:32:57.860 over to scribner and they're like this is fantastic holy cats

01:33:03.440 Scott finds out about this and he's like what did you do you bypassed me you went right to

01:33:12.260 my publisher and you've written a novel with all the crap that I had been writing in the current

01:33:17.420 novel I'm working on and what you did it okay think in my think about how long Scott takes 0.99

01:33:24.060 to work on his dumb ass novels he writes this in four weeks and he's like when did you I mean 0.64

01:33:32.660 i just gave you paper and pen privileges a month ago and she's like yeah that's all it took i just 0.99

01:33:38.220 needed four weeks like it's hard yes yes like it's hard this sends scott off he is furious he's so

01:33:52.480 mad when she sends it to his editors his editors come back to zelda like hey we love this we're

01:34:01.760 going to publish this Scott at this point is like you can publish it only after I rewrite and edit 0.98

01:34:10.540 it oh Scott fuck off Scott Fitzgerald right keep in mind it takes him nine years to write his last 0.96

01:34:19.860 novel tender is the night tender is the night is all about a patient and the doctor and records 0.99

01:34:28.180 And Tinder is the Night is all about being hospitalized and working with the doctor and mental illness and this couple going through it.

01:34:38.280 Scott has just been building up record after record after dialogue after dialogue since 1927 when she goes away to spend nine years writing this book that she's like, I didn't four weeks.

01:34:52.800 Like it's hard.

01:34:54.380 save the waltz is released heavily edited by scott fitzgerald he will release tender is the night

01:35:03.180 in 1934 it is when it's released an outdated book it's a book of the depression era because

01:35:11.760 it's taken him nine bloody years to write it so the book that probably would have been a hit

01:35:16.440 five years before is not a hit in 1934 the novel will fail scott is devastated and wow

01:35:24.660 drinking more than ever so 1934 he was born in 94 so we have scott now at 40

01:35:36.400 his drinking has escalated so much that it's not unusual to have 30 beers a day

01:35:47.520 oh my gosh a gin before breakfast yeah just before breakfast like he wakes up and drinks

01:35:54.840 liquor with breakfast which is i don't know one of the things they tell you is you might have a

01:36:00.780 drinking problem it's a warning sign yeah if you're drinking at 7 a.m scott will say life for

01:36:07.880 me ended when zelda and i crashed what he writes from this point the crack up he's got a three-part

01:36:15.680 thing in esquire he's still trying to write because he's got to support himself and the

01:36:19.840 mental institution and don't forget scott's still a father of a girl they have a daughter

01:36:25.760 yeah we not haven't really talked about scotty at all since she was born back in 1926 right

01:36:32.360 scott of course in his in his dream holds himself up to be an exemplary father

01:36:40.680 i think that's kind of hard when you're a drunk and you've committed your wife to a mental

01:36:46.120 institution. Scotty is not with Scott. Scotty has nannies and boarding schools, and Scotty will

01:36:55.900 stay often with Scott's business manager and his wife, who raised Scotty more than Scott or Zelda

01:37:04.860 ever will. This is Harold Ober and his wife, Anne. Scott at this time, though, even though other

01:37:13.720 people are watching his children what does he like to do write letters to them about how they're

01:37:18.420 doing it wrong oh god yeah and admonishment and shame like he's looking at scott like a mini

01:37:25.840 zelda and he somehow doesn't want scotty to end up like his wife even though i think he's

01:37:30.900 kind of responsible for most of the decisions in this play so far let's go ahead and get to

01:37:39.440 the end of scott can we kill him off please scott had to die in september 1936 there's a new york 0.93

01:37:47.500 evening post article that will call scott fitzgerald a failed writer he is sodden and a 0.97

01:37:55.980 despairing alcoholic a famous drunk washed up and out of fashion this devastates scott can you 0.98

01:38:03.960 imagine how fragile his ego has been all the way through this damn story so 1936 man he's crushed 0.98

01:38:11.620 and drunk and zelda's still committed and he doesn't really have to worry about scotty and so 0.91

01:38:17.480 scott's like i'm gonna do it i'm gonna go ahead and try to resurrect my hollywood dream because

01:38:25.300 we're almost 10 years on down the road movies are a real thing now right so scott picks up sticks to

01:38:33.940 try to make his attempt in movies again. Become sober here. Sober enough for Harold Ober to

01:38:43.840 organize some kind of return for him. Cool thing. Love it. There's an infamous hotel,

01:38:51.700 infamous and famous hotel in Hollywood called the Garden of Allah. Scott is going to stay here

01:38:57.160 at this time. This is not a great place for a recovering alcoholic to be. You have stars there.

01:39:05.060 It's their secret hideaway. They have legit bar carts that come out to the pool. It is hedonism

01:39:12.100 galore. But Scott here working hard, pushing himself to stay sober. He who is trying to

01:39:21.320 write himself into kind of becoming a new character. He wants to be a Hollywood screenwriter.

01:39:28.900 He will meet a Hollywood columnist, gossip columnist named Sheila Graham. Sheila is,

01:39:39.340 to sum it up, an English rose of a girl and fresh off a divorce. And she is part of this trio of

01:39:48.000 syndicated gossip columnists including her two contemporaries luella parsons and had a hopper

01:39:56.660 sheila graham is the youngest of them though 0.96

01:39:59.560 and sheila graham is a dead ringer for zelda before scott broke zelda yeah within a few weeks

01:40:13.700 scott and sheila graham are living it up having dinner loving it up scotty will come out to visit

01:40:21.860 zelda and scott's daughter and sheila's like oh honey you have to eat your peas

01:40:27.340 sheila graham sort of taking on this maternal thing sheila and scott stay together for a while

01:40:39.360 I think it's very uncool. You're bringing your daughter into your affair. But Sheila sort of

01:40:45.980 reaches out. But Sheila sort of realizes here that Scott has no intention of divorcing Zelda.

01:40:56.160 Zelda gives him a reason to gripe about everything that's ever gone on wrong in his life that he

01:41:01.420 doesn't have to take accountability for that, right? Sheila Graham will love Scott for better

01:41:07.620 or worse until he dies. But she's always going to be his mistress. She hates that term. She's 0.88

01:41:17.960 like, what I'm doing is very noble for you. I help you with your work. Okay, this thing like

01:41:23.800 when Scott was writing The Great Gatsby, Zelda, because she's an artist, would draw his characters

01:41:30.500 over and over until her fingers bled so he could see the people he was writing about

01:41:37.940 sheila's doing some of the same thing here and being his muse his collaborator his everything 0.95

01:41:48.620 he's a vile vile man

01:41:51.540 in hollywood scott is working he'll work on a few movies here a yank in oxford

01:41:59.680 He's not credited for that one.

01:42:02.560 He will work on a film called Three Comrades, which is a minor hit.

01:42:07.820 This provides Scott's first and only film credit.

01:42:11.900 MGM at the time is going to give him a raise.

01:42:16.340 He'll write a play for Miss Joan Crawford called Infidelity.

01:42:21.720 But that movie, I'm not surprised if you haven't heard of it.

01:42:24.760 It's never been made because of a censorship barrier.

01:42:27.980 okay god's gonna find a house on the beach providing a little bit more quiet and respite

01:42:35.040 than the drunken hedonistic times of the garden of allah

01:42:39.060 also it has cheaper rent scott because his movies aren't getting made and he's not as

01:42:47.540 successful as he wants to be becomes very disappointed and what falls off the wagon

01:42:53.620 so much gin so much beer so much whiskey scott is loaned out to david o selznick for gone with

01:43:04.260 the wind but scott's mad because in writing that script he's only able to use dialogue from the

01:43:11.840 novel he can't make up any of his own so scott has that job for about two weeks where he sobers up

01:43:19.940 and tries it again.

01:43:20.960 But once that job is gone,

01:43:23.220 what's Scott's new plan?

01:43:25.360 Gin and juice.

01:43:26.320 She's going to drink all day long, every day.

01:43:29.920 His lover, muse mistress, Sheila Graham,

01:43:33.420 does not drink.

01:43:36.040 By the end of the year,

01:43:37.800 Scott is released from his MGM contract.

01:43:40.640 They do not renew him. 1.00

01:43:43.840 He is brought in eventually to polish

01:43:46.520 the script for Gone with the Wind.

01:43:48.100 but by this time Scott has a complete change in his personality he gets in terrible fights

01:43:55.200 oh god there's wrestling over a loaded gun like terrible terrible terrible he and Sheila are

01:44:04.840 fighting Scott is unemployed Scott is drinking drinking drinking also writing his novel loosely

01:44:11.980 based on Irving Thalberg called The Last Tycoon. Irving Thalberg was the boy wonder producer in

01:44:21.520 Hollywood. He's got the Midas touch. Everything he touches turns to gold. Irving Thalberg was

01:44:26.820 married to super starlet actress of the time, Norma Shearer. Scott, because he's not working

01:44:34.240 for the studios, will begin work on The Last Tycoon, so inspired by his time in Hollywood

01:44:39.840 with Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer.

01:44:43.620 He gets through about 7,000 pages

01:44:46.160 that isn't actually long enough to do much with.

01:44:50.300 It is on December 1st, 1939.

01:44:54.920 There's a nurse that's been hired to watch his drinking

01:44:59.000 to like kind of babysit him all day.

01:45:01.880 He's going to assault the nurse. 1.00

01:45:04.240 He will pull a loaded gun out on Sheila Graham. 1.00

01:45:08.580 Sheila Graham at this point is like, fuck you, dude, and calls the police and leaves Scott to 1.00

01:45:16.180 die. I'm done. I've had enough with all of this. Scott will beg Sheila to come back in the way 1.00

01:45:24.080 that all abusive people beg you to come back. Scott and Sheila reunite. For a little while,

01:45:32.400 they're going to visit Mexico Scott manages to stay sober that's a condition of him getting back

01:45:38.280 together with Sheila he'll continue to write Scott will suffer a mild heart attack in November of

01:45:45.440 1940 and move in to Sheila Graham's place where Zelda still locked up while recuperating at Sheila

01:45:55.540 milligrams. Fuck off. Scott Fitzgerald will suffer a massive heart attack December 21st, 1940 and die 1.00

01:46:04.740 blessedly at the age of 44 years old. And the world is a better place.

01:46:13.680 I mean, you try to elicit a little bit of sympathy for Scott. I'm always like,

01:46:18.000 find the kinder place to come from. You get his childhood, but you also get he's kind of been

01:46:24.380 an ass from the beginning, right? Propped up in a bunch of ways and so controlling and 0.99

01:46:33.600 manipulative. I feel so bad for Zelda. Scott is buried in St. Paul, Minnesota. Zelda is too ill

01:46:42.580 to attend because now she's in a different mental institution back in the States. Scott's going to

01:46:49.520 pull her out of all the European ones and just loop her up in the States there.

01:46:54.860 He'll occasionally visit during that time.

01:46:57.720 They will take a few trips together, maybe just a day trip somewhere when Zelda's doing

01:47:04.100 well enough because now she's been locked up for 14 years.

01:47:08.100 There is a Florida trip they go on.

01:47:10.360 They're always kind of trying to restart, but it always stops because Zelda gave up

01:47:16.260 that ghost in 24, right?

01:47:18.560 She's done.

01:47:19.520 Zelda does not attend his funeral.

01:47:22.280 Fun thing also to know Sheila Graham will write a book about her years spent with Scott Fitzgerald if you're interested.

01:47:29.700 It is a book released in 1958 called Beloved Infidel.

01:47:33.840 It was later adapted as a movie.

01:47:35.900 I have this book.

01:47:36.660 It's fantastic.

01:47:38.300 Okay.

01:47:39.620 As for Zelda, Scott's out 1940.

01:47:43.720 We've got Zelda dying in 1948.

01:47:46.660 she has eight more years to live but remarkably if you can imagine zelda will spend this next

01:47:55.640 eight years in and out of hospitals but compared to her previous years zelda comes alive she's a

01:48:04.380 little damaged but she's still painting daily and she is writing she is flourishing here she does

01:48:12.520 get into this weird kind of religious manifestation zeal thing here where the tone of her paintings

01:48:19.580 turns biblical or maybe mother mary a lot of different biblical scenes she's not doing

01:48:31.080 flowers and landscapes necessarily like she was before scotty her daughter will get married

01:48:37.820 Zelda will have a granddaughter. Zelda's art will be exhibited in not one, not two, not three, but four exhibitions in Montgomery during this time. The Montgomery Museum of Art does have my very favorite Zelda painting on their wall. Gorgeous.

01:48:55.740 They do also have the original paper dolls and watercolors Zelda painted all those years ago for Scotty.

01:49:07.540 She's in and out of places.

01:49:09.260 She does go home a lot, still the baby, loved by her family.

01:49:12.600 But through her years and oftentimes abusive treatment from all those years and just the destruction of the swath of Scott,

01:49:22.900 But you'd hope that in 1940, when Zelda is widowed, that she really does embrace her best life.

01:49:32.040 But mentally, she's not exactly there because of the damage those years have done.

01:49:41.520 But living the best life she's lived in a very long time, my poor, sweet Zelda Sarah Fitzgerald summer child will perish in 1948.

01:49:52.900 when she is in an institution

01:49:55.360 with eight other women in a midnight fire.

01:50:00.200 The institution burns down, catches on fire? 0.56

01:50:03.560 Burns down.

01:50:04.460 Upper floor catches on fire

01:50:05.980 and there are bars on the window.

01:50:08.020 And so there is no escape.

01:50:10.340 Zelda is identified only by her dental records

01:50:13.800 and a half burnt slipper. 0.99

01:50:17.900 Ugh.

01:50:19.200 And she was born in 1900, so she's 48 when she died.

01:50:22.900 48 years old. Zelda, Zelda, Zelda. That is most of the story of Zelda Fitzgerald. I do want to,

01:50:33.320 if I can, can I go just a little bit more? Please do. Yeah. Because I want to talk about

01:50:38.360 the crazy thing. Because when people talk about Zelda, they're like, oh, Zelda was crazy. Zelda

01:50:45.960 was not crazy. There are a lot of, I don't know, male researchers and historians who are very much

01:50:54.800 pro Scott Fitzgerald, where it's real easy to throw the Zelda was crazy blame. I think you find

01:51:02.440 the women writers who are covering Zelda have a not masculine point of view at all. Me as a lady,

01:51:13.000 loving my girl Zelda is a lady. I think Scott made her crazy. Scott's the one who does it. 0.99

01:51:20.800 I want to compare it a little bit for any of my Shakespearean people to the Scottish King

01:51:27.380 and Lady M, his wife. I don't think that Lady M is all that terrible. I think she realizes she's

01:51:35.820 married to a weak and feckless husband and somebody has to do it for him. I think that

01:51:41.540 was Zelda for a long time until that wasn't Zelda. I see a lot of parallels there. I've got a piece

01:51:47.960 that's wonderful published in 2013 by Heather Lane Tolley. The particular article is entitled

01:51:56.760 Zelda Wasn't Crazy. How what you don't know about Fitzgerald tells us something about crazy women 0.99

01:52:03.340 then and now. Not going to read this whole thing, but there are a few key paragraphs that I think

01:52:10.140 are really interesting here.

01:52:13.340 Quoting the author, 1.00

01:52:14.400 Crazy is a gendered trope. 0.98

01:52:16.580 Arguably, calling women crazy 0.99

01:52:18.320 is the most commonly used strategy 0.93

01:52:20.460 for stereotyping and devaluing us.

01:52:24.900 It's also a label that functions

01:52:26.880 to stigmatize mental illness.

01:52:31.280 Consider Yashi Ali's A Message to Women 0.80

01:52:33.880 from A Man, You Are Not Crazy.

01:52:36.400 Ali explores gaslighting,

01:52:38.100 a subtle process of emotional manipulation regularly used to convince women that our reaction is

01:52:44.280 an overreaction. As Ali notes, whether gaslighting is conscious or not, it produces the same result.

01:52:52.200 It renders some women emotionally mute. Scott's biography regularly depicts Zelda as crazy. 0.95

01:53:02.800 Even city tours of the Appalachian tourist destination, Asheville, North Carolina,

01:53:08.160 feature a drive past the Highland Mental Hospital historical site.

01:53:12.660 Zelda will die in a fire at that facility.

01:53:16.200 Whether you'll hear that she was chained to her bed or clutching a pair of ballet slippers

01:53:21.660 depends on which tour guide does the telling.

01:53:24.760 The official medical report suggests she was awaiting electroshock therapy

01:53:29.900 and could have escaped had she not been sedated.

01:53:34.680 A retrospective reading of Zelda's biography reveals

01:53:37.820 what we might understand as gaslighting,

01:53:40.760 but it demonstrates something more insidious too.

01:53:45.020 Really getting to it here.

01:53:46.780 Stories of Zelda's fragility and ultimately her demise

01:53:51.360 leave out one critical fact.

01:53:53.580 Here it is, nailing it down right here.

01:53:56.040 There is no F. Scott without Zelda.

01:53:57.840 this historical record is clear scott's stories relied on zelda's own writing

01:54:03.580 but scott's role in zelda's crazy is conspicuously absent from public memory the crazy zelda that's

01:54:13.660 emerged in our popular imagination is as much scott's making as the great gatsby itself

01:54:21.000 that is in and of itself part of f scott's legacy his work depended on zelda's silence

01:54:30.040 aren't you mad don't you want to go protest in the streets for zelda with me

01:54:35.320 i want to go to whatever historical site there is that like is in tribute to f scott fitzgerald

01:54:41.940 be it a museum a statue i don't know and just like burn it down is my feeling right now please come

01:54:48.200 to alabama that's where i live now there is a scott and zelda fitzgerald museum that is the

01:54:53.440 home they lived in when they lived in montgomery fascinating place half of it i'll burn the scott

01:54:59.300 half of it and keep the zelda half of it you actually they have renovated the rooms upstairs

01:55:05.220 and have built out two suites so you can actually spend the night in the home that they lived in

01:55:10.880 there's a scott suite and a zelda suite burn down the scott suite yeah i mean don't tell anybody out

01:55:18.840 like we're not going to commit carson ann i would never do that but i'm making a booking now

01:55:24.560 and if it burns later that's a weird coincidence i'm sorry i know we've gone on so long can i do

01:55:31.260 a few more paragraphs because i get so riled up when people are like zelda was crazy and i'm like

01:55:36.760 stop and sit stop and sit you have to i want to i want to just say because it's just reminded me

01:55:41.820 so much of so many other stories i've done on the podcast probably other stories you've done

01:55:44.840 in your podcast where it's just like in order for this quote unquote great man of history like if

01:55:50.040 you're writing a biography about someone like f scott fitzgerald it depends on zelda being crazy

01:55:55.760 you can't make him great unless you make her crazy and if you accept that she was not then

01:56:01.440 you have to reconfigure how you think about him and so many people are not willing to do that work

01:56:05.220 i think scott's the crazy one zelda was the brilliant one the talented one the exuberant

01:56:11.120 one but yes you got to make her crazy and you got to shut her up a few more paragraphs from this 0.80

01:56:18.680 because you hear schizophrenia balanced ballied about when we talk about zelda there is no doubt

01:56:24.740 that many of zelda's behaviors violated societal norms of the day specifically prevailing gender

01:56:32.820 expectations. As Zelda reveals in a high school journal, I ride boys' motorcycles, chew gum,

01:56:40.120 smoke in public, dance cheek to cheek, drink corn liquor and gin. I was the first to bob my hair

01:56:46.820 and I sneak out at midnight to swim in the moonlight with boys at Katoma Creek and then

01:56:52.480 show up at breakfast as though nothing had happened. There was no pinning Zelda in from

01:56:58.520 moment one of her life. Some historical analyses have suggested that Zelda likely experienced

01:57:05.280 bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. It's also plausible that she was affected by consuming

01:57:12.400 copious amounts of toxic industrial alcohol and bootleg moonshine. The experimental,

01:57:20.900 psychological, and medical care she received also had lasting impacts. But retrospective

01:57:28.660 diagnoses of Zelda as mentally ill ignore the social and intimate context of Zelda's behavior.

01:57:37.580 According to Zelda biographer Therese Ann Fowler, Zelda did suffer some mental health crisis,

01:57:44.420 depression primarily, and was an inhibited, uncensored woman who didn't always think before

01:57:51.720 she acted, but she wasn't crazy. Unwise? Sometimes insane? No. 0.53

01:58:01.560 I think part of it, like when you're talking about she was being, you know, how she's put in the

01:58:06.240 mental asylums and it's like, she's not fitting in this box that Scott wants her to go on. Like,

01:58:11.340 it's just like taking this wild, like free spirit. And it's like,

01:58:15.560 why won't she be a Stepford wife? She must be insane. 1.00

01:58:19.180 We have to medicate her where it's just like, 1.00

01:58:20.760 that's just never going to be her.

01:58:22.500 And so if you keep trying to put her in this way, like,

01:58:26.480 of course you're going to like, yeah, anyone would anyway,

01:58:31.040 it's just like, what was she like as a person?

01:58:35.380 He wouldn't be anything without her. And he,

01:58:37.960 this is just what drives me mad sometimes in romantic relationships scott is drawn to zelda

01:58:45.320 because she is golden and light comes from her and she's beautiful and he loves all those things

01:58:51.940 about her and that's why he loves all those things so as soon as he marries her let's get rid of all

01:58:57.340 those things crush all those things it's like that's we see that you know like in so many like

01:59:03.040 you talk about this new podcast too but like contemporary hollywood relationships where

01:59:06.860 There's like an amazing woman and she has some like Cardi B and offset where

01:59:10.540 it's just like, he loves her. And then it's just like,

01:59:12.860 then he's mad that she's successful. He's mad that she's creative.

01:59:15.400 He's mad that she's artistic. It's like,

01:59:16.920 but that's what you loved about her. 1.00

01:59:18.340 It's like men love to take a woman like that and squish them down instead of 0.99

01:59:22.640 just marrying somebody who already is very small. You know, 0.99

01:59:25.720 it's like the,

01:59:26.620 the motivation to want to take a woman who's like full of life and just crush

01:59:31.540 her. 0.92

01:59:32.680 Crush, crush, crush, crush. 1.00

01:59:34.060 so that is my fuck off scott fitzgerald part of the story long live zelda sayer forever and ever 0.99

01:59:43.020 and ever what a sweet summer child hero she will never fail to fascinate me i am obsessed obsessed 0.99

01:59:51.700 with zelda well all that i can do to offer is to to include her on the very prestigious

01:59:58.000 scandalousness scale of the vulgar history podcast with your assistance um there are four 0.74

02:00:03.100 categories and we'll see where she lands. And this will be an interesting discussion. I think

02:00:06.960 the first category, and this is all like a zero to 10, um, with 10 being top marks,

02:00:12.120 zero being lowest marks is scandalousness. How scandalous was she seen in her time and era?

02:00:22.000 I mean, can I go higher than 10? She is scandalous growing up in Montgomery. She's 1.00

02:00:27.720 scandalous in new york city she's scandalous in great neck scott immortalizes a lot of that

02:00:34.680 scandal somehow within his novels zelda of course took a load off scandal when she was 0.99

02:00:43.400 institutionalized but then even she was still a scandal because scott is talking shit about her 0.95

02:00:49.040 to all the expats and all his friends scandalousness i don't know 14 out of 10 0.91

02:00:55.640 i can i can go as high as 10 but spiritually much more because yeah i think and that's just

02:01:03.820 who she was like while you were describing just like the airplane pilot zooming down to see her 1.00

02:01:08.040 like she has 19 boyfriends every day like she's like but wearing pants like bobbing her hair like

02:01:15.100 everything and then the the wild child jazz age era and then even being put away in the mental 0.96

02:01:20.660 asylum would which is not her choice but like that's a level of scandal like throughout her

02:01:26.180 life she was never not scandalous well you can imagine baby girl who has the world in her hands 1.00

02:01:34.220 right she has always been the center of attention anywhere scandal off the charts she loves that 0.99

02:01:41.460 kind of attention again only to have to get that script from scott and i still think she tried to 1.00

02:01:47.720 be as scandalous as she could be because she girl couldn't help it that's just who she was

02:01:52.720 i'm an aviator the french aviator you know like she's finding opportunities oh yeah but scott

02:02:00.440 re because he cheats on her all the time but puts her under this you absolutely cannot cheat you're

02:02:06.620 not allowed to leave the house without me i'll lock you in that room again god he's such a

02:02:11.520 that mastery. So the next category is scheminess. I think we touched on this a bit. Like that's not

02:02:17.740 her vibe. Her vibe is just like, I'm going to have fun. I'm going to do what I want. Like she's

02:02:21.840 not coming up with schemes. That's just not who she is. No. And it kind of put her in a position

02:02:26.860 where she couldn't do much. She was a little schemey in that time where she is trying to 0.72

02:02:33.620 claim some of her own independence with her art, with her dancing, with her writing. What? Like

02:02:40.300 it's hard that was a little steamy like scott's been working a long time on a thing and she's

02:02:45.400 like yeah i wrote a novel in like a week buddy come on schemey that trading fraternity pin for

02:02:52.240 the maybe but zelda's a leo she doesn't have a lot of schemey or manipulative in her heart she 1.00

02:02:58.940 does have self-preservation but not scheminess to create evil ends for other folks does that

02:03:09.460 make sense it does i would give her like some points not a lot of points i'm thinking like a

02:03:15.020 two or a three two three that's kind of where i'm going on my number not off the chart certainly on

02:03:21.400 the chart but not anywhere high ranking there's a bit i mean just the writing the novel in four

02:03:27.400 weeks like she knew what that would do to him like that's let's go ahead and call it three

02:03:32.740 three is the magic number maybe on that one let's go with three so the next category i feel like i

02:03:37.960 know what you're going to say but we'll talk through it which is significance her significance

02:03:41.780 to oh 10 to you personally but also to history in general and like you're saying like like

02:03:49.360 F Scott Fitzgerald's like his books are so well known good or bad but like they would not exist

02:03:55.200 without her without Zelda there is no F Scott her significance is huge her significance still here

02:04:02.520 today in Alabama is off the chart. She's a big deal. Yeah.

02:04:11.180 10. No question. Yeah. I feel like this is an absolute 10. Um, F Scott significance minus 10

02:04:18.200 minus 5,000. Not that we're scoring him. He doesn't deserve it. And then the final category

02:04:25.640 is what we call on this podcast, the sexism bonus. This is like giving people points

02:04:29.920 for how much did the patriarchy and sexism and in this case like a shitty husband how much did 0.98

02:04:35.760 this hold her back how much more could she have done without being trapped in a mental asylum 0.86

02:04:40.360 like if she had been able to publish more under her name like on a scale of zero to ten how much 0.99

02:04:45.560 anything zelda tried to do scott in this case the patriarchy just shit all over it 0.99

02:04:53.380 like zelda even had a exhibition of her paintings in i want to say 34 in new york city and he shit 0.96

02:05:01.620 all over that he shit all over her novel and had to rewrite it which you know the original version 0.96

02:05:08.440 her language is kind of flowery but it is amazing just word for word how much he is stealing from 0.97

02:05:16.100 her if your patriarchy in this particular question can be described as f scott fitzgerald

02:05:22.520 10 10 no like how much he what would her life have been like if he hadn't been there just

02:05:29.940 pressing his thumb down on all of her aspirations and talents and on her life

02:05:36.680 it is interesting to think about what zelda's life would have been without scott i'm certain

02:05:44.040 that she would have married somebody locally in montgomery who's you know her husband might

02:05:49.700 have gone into politics or been a lawyer or something and she'd maybe have that just wasn't

02:05:55.840 that wasn't the life she was ever going to be cut out for yeah she is no it's true Montgomery born

02:06:00.940 to shine she would have been unhappy in a different way I think being stuck there's some

02:06:06.040 politicians because then she would have been put in that box of like oh this is gonna be harmful 0.96

02:06:09.360 to his career or his legal career if you keep being scandalous you gotta tell she would have

02:06:13.340 ended up in a mental asylum that way too probably as souls humans people in the world go i feel like

02:06:20.780 there is just not a box zelda was ever gonna want or be well in she's too exuberant she's 0.99

02:06:31.020 sunshine she's sash she's light and i will never forgive fuck off scott fitzgerald for the damage 0.99

02:06:37.220 he did to my fellow alabama leo girl may you rotten hell scott long live zelda alicia i mean 0.99

02:06:46.480 this is like have you ever had an episode go on for so long i have and it's it's always somebody 0.55

02:06:54.440 who has a person they want to talk about and they bring it to me so i'm happy to just like give you

02:06:59.080 the platform to make everybody hate f scott fitzgerald and to make everybody love zelda but

02:07:04.520 tell everybody, in case one or two people don't know who you are and where they can keep up with

02:07:08.500 you, talk about your podcasts and all the things you do. Of course. My name is Alicia. I do a few

02:07:15.240 podcasts in the world. If you are a fan of a good podcast about bad relationships, may I suggest

02:07:23.400 Trashy Divorces. Trashy Divorces comes out a few times a week, always Wednesday and Sunday.

02:07:29.980 my partner, Stacey, and I go through, wow, bad relationships. It's wonderful. It really is a

02:07:38.520 good podcast about bad relationships. Do you think your relationship might be terrible?

02:07:43.500 Tune in. We're going to make you feel a lot better about your decisions.

02:07:47.060 Taking that trashy brand, which is kind of our universe, no divorce needed. If you are a fan

02:07:53.500 of history and perhaps naughty nobles and you maybe like to revel in our tales of our

02:08:01.600 betters behaving badly trashy royals is the podcast for you that comes out on thursday

02:08:07.840 i'm gonna mention the other secret heart i'm gonna mention the other podcast that lives in

02:08:14.300 my secret heart of hearts and i'm not sure canadian if you know about a guy named dominic

02:08:19.480 Dunn. Dominic Dunn was influential in Hollywood in the 50s and 60s as a producer. He in the 80s,

02:08:30.980 90s and early 2000 aughts was a writer for Vanity Fair. So when you see any high profile criminal

02:08:38.560 trial of that time, Dominic Dunn is the old guy in glasses that's always on the front row. I have

02:08:46.120 a very niche but very well-loved podcast if you are a friend and fan of Dominic Dunn you might

02:08:53.480 want to check out a little podcast I make called Dunn d-o-n-e and Dunn d-u-n-n-e Dunn and Dunn

02:09:01.960 it covers Dominic's life his writing his criminal trials as well as a universe of everyone he

02:09:10.740 connected into and boy is it fun if you like high society and or true crime you will dig done and

02:09:17.960 done fantastic i love i love the quantity of content that you are providing to people who

02:09:25.280 just love this kind of messy true story it is my delight i worked in corporate and training

02:09:34.460 and instructional design for many many many years and i can guarantee you and this is way way more

02:09:41.460 fun how people behave through time is fascinating to me it's so fascinating and i think it's the

02:09:49.020 combination of like what you do in your podcast what i hope i do in my podcast is to share these

02:09:54.020 stories of real people but with the delight of gossip like because that's that's how you make

02:09:59.820 fun exactly there's people who are like oh i don't think i'm interested in history it's like

02:10:03.980 well are you interested in gossip because everybody is it's just like that's all it is

02:10:08.480 it's just like messy ass people from the past they just happen to be in the past people have 0.87

02:10:13.580 always been messy thank the goddess and again if you enjoyed this put on your perspective schedule 1.00

02:10:20.760 somewhere to lula bankhead because whoa baby she's as vulgar as they come i adore her i love i love

02:10:28.880 thinking about i love the fact that i know we're going to do this and just like to learn more about 1.00

02:10:33.400 another Alabama gal. I'm your source for not only Alabama gals, but a whole lot of trash. And thank 1.00

02:10:40.980 you so much for inviting me on today. I can't tell you how much fun this was to talk about my

02:10:45.900 favorite girl. Thank you. I hope you feel like you really got it all off your chest. Like I too

02:10:51.020 carry around various historical men who I hate. And sometimes you just got to yell about it.

02:10:56.060 And I'm glad I was able to let you do that. I mean, you want to do a bonus episode. I could

02:11:01.500 go on 10 more hours about Zelda. Like, there are a few things I'm obsessive about in this world,

02:11:08.040 one being Plantagenet and Tudor England, the other really being Zelda Sarah Fitzgerald. So

02:11:13.300 it's been nice to get my kicks out today. Thanks again. Thank you so much.

02:11:24.020 That was the most fun. I love chatting with Alicia. We have such a good time together.

02:11:29.240 And so, I mean, make sure you're subscribed to her podcasts, Trashy Royals and Trashy Divorces, to get more Alicia in your life, which we all could use, I think.

02:11:40.020 And I have a big announcement.

02:11:42.480 I have big news.

02:11:43.820 So this past, Vulgar History's whole history has, we've always been kind of like a series with a theme.

02:11:49.740 And then we take a break in between, have some in between the seasons episodes, which we're in right now.

02:11:54.580 And then we start a new theme.

02:11:56.160 And so I'm excited to tell you that our new theme kicks off next week.

02:12:01.240 And that theme is going to be the Tudors.

02:12:04.860 We're getting into the Tudor era.

02:12:07.040 We're going to be talking about Anne Boleyn.

02:12:09.320 We're going to be talking about the other five of the six wives of Henry VIII.

02:12:12.800 We're going to be talking about Henry VIII and how I hate him.

02:12:15.800 We're going to be talking about historical mysteries, like who wrote Shakespeare's plays

02:12:19.860 and who was Bloody Mary.

02:12:21.320 and also because this is vulgar history and we like to have an expansive exploration of these

02:12:26.000 time periods we're going to move outside of england as well what was happening elsewhere in

02:12:29.940 the world at the same time um like such as what was happening in like north america was happening

02:12:35.600 over in asia what was like how were the tutors and english people interacting with the rest of

02:12:41.460 the world what was going on there so we're going to be it's going to be such a good time there's

02:12:45.660 going to be episodes where i'm joined by tutor historians and experts as well as some of my

02:12:49.940 friends who you'll be happy to hear as returning guests as well. There's also going to be a return

02:12:54.180 to Anne solo episodes, which people have sometimes mentioned that they would like to get those

02:12:59.660 episodes where it's just me talking without a guest. There's going to be plenty of those as

02:13:03.740 well. So I'm really excited. The theme of the season is Fuck Henry VIII. And I think we're

02:13:10.380 going to have a really good time. So that kicks off next week. And I do want to mention if you

02:13:14.600 want to stay up to date with all of the happenings of this podcast, but also me and my writing,

02:13:19.940 and like events and what's going on.

02:13:21.980 I haven't mentioned this in a while,

02:13:22.900 but I do have an email newsletter.

02:13:24.760 So I know not everybody is into social media

02:13:27.380 and not everybody is hype on joining a Patreon.

02:13:29.420 But if you just want to get like a random casual email

02:13:32.040 for me every now and then,

02:13:33.240 you can sign up for my email newsletter,

02:13:35.800 which you can do by going to vulgarhistory.com slash news.

02:13:39.840 That's vulgarhistory.com slash news.

02:13:43.440 And maybe there's going to be some more news coming out soon

02:13:46.300 and I'll be announcing it on the newsletter.

02:13:48.620 So that's where you'll hear about it.

02:13:49.940 But anyway, what a time. What a time. Fuck Scott Fitzgerald. Fuck Henry VIII. We're going to have a good time yelling about all of this in our next upcoming series, Vulgar History Tudor Era. Get ready for the new show artwork by our friend Karen Moynihan. Yeah, we're going to have a good time. So until next time, keep your pants on and your tits out.

02:14:12.720 vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster editor is christina lumagi theme 0.99

02:14:21.240 music is by the severin duo vulgar history artwork by karen moynihan social media videos by magdalena

02:14:27.520 denson transcripts of this podcast are available at vulgarhistory.com by aveline malik you can get

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Vulgar History - July 08, 2026

Zelda Fitzgerald Deserved Better (featuring Alicia from Trashy Divorces)

Episode Stats

Transcript