06x07 - Femme Fatales

[bunniefuu]

Mata Hari became
the number one exotic dancer

in all of Europe, but they're like,

"How the f*ck does this bitch know

all of this detailed information?"

I wish I could do everything drunk.

I really do.

And Maurine was like,

"These women are obviously guilty.

"They are not going to convict...

...me."

Um...

I forget.

We're doing gummy bear whisky tonight.

We're doing gummy bear whisky tonight.

- Aren't we?
- Yes, please.

You take one. Red is better for bourbon.

- Okay.
- Okay.

Oh, yeah. I already love it.

- Gummy bourbon.
- Gummy bourbon.

Mm-hmm.

Hello.

I'm Sugar Lyn Beard.

And I'm about to take you

through the story of Mata Hari.

- Cheers.
- Cheers.

Thank you for having me.

I'm so excited to tell you this story

because she's kind of like the
grandmother of the striptease.

- Whoa.
- She's an icon.

You had me at "grandmother."

So our story begins in 1903

when a Dutch woman
named Margaretha Zelle

moves over to Paris.

She's like, "I'm in Paris.
I have no money.

"What can I draw on? Oh, my gosh.

"I spent two years in...

"Ooh, that's gross.

"I spent two years in Indonesia

learning the dances."

So she decides to make up

a persona for herself.

She becomes Mata Hari,

the exotic Indonesian dancer.

She's like, "Come to my show.

"You'll see what dances are like

in the Far East."

She does her first very big show

in this big fancy theater.

She's, like, performing
in front of high society,

and she's, like, tearing veil by veil,

and underneath that, she's pretty naked.

And it's like, "Oh, sh*t.

This is traditional?
I can hang in for this."

And she, like, peels this one off

and then peels this one off.

And she's getting away with it

because people are like,

"It's not a naughty thing.

No, this is a cultural
educational experience."

"I need to watch this woman
strip down to her nitties."

- "Nitties."
- "Nitties.

It's like a titty
but covered a little bit."

- "Mm."
- Mm-hmm.

And with every veil that dropped,

her audience loved her more and more.

And with that, she became the number one

exotic dancer in all of Europe.

Oh. I'm spilling on my face.

Careful.

Jeez.

Wow.

Mm.

So, she's dancing.

She's getting rich.

And she was a lover,

so she was taking a lot
of these men to bed.

They're giving her money and jewels

and golds for this relationship.

Not goals. Golds.

Yeah. Give-a me golds, please.

Give me golds.

Lick-a my nitties for golds.

So, Mata Hari is performing in Berlin.

It is 1914 in July,
and the w*r breaks out,

and the German authorities come

and they're like, "You love the French?

"f*ck you.

"We're taking your golds

"and your jewelry,

and now you have nothing."

And she's distraught, and she's like,

"Ugh, f*ck every... thing."

Hold up.

Wait a minute. Oh, no, sh*t.

I'm so drunk.

Hold on.

I'm so f*cked up.

And so Mata Hari is approached
by the Germans,

and they're like, "Hey, Mata Hari.

"You're cool. You're sly.

"I got 20K francs for you

to spy on the French for me."

Mata Hari finishes, she's like,

"Oh, this is a good deal.
That's a lot of money."

So she agrees. She's like, "Okay, sh*t."

And he's like, "Your code name is H21,"

and she's like, "Fun. Okay."

Off he goes, and Mata Hari turns around

and she pockets that cash
and she's like,

"f*ck these people. No.
They stole my sh*t.

They owe me."

She doesn't spy for the Germans.

She just goes on this
luxurious tour of Europe.

She's living it up.

She's spending like crazy, to the point

that she gets the attention
of this dude named Ladoux.

- Ladoux?
- Ladoux.

The Dude?

Okay, hold on.

So, oh, oh, sh*t.

Georges Ladoux is part of the French

counterespionage bureau.

"We need to find someone

"f*ckin', you know, betraying France.

We need to... we need to catch a spy."

Ladoux wants to put somebody
on trial for betraying France.

Mata Hari...

So he goes after Mata Hari.

What a Ladouchebag.

Oh, God!

Sugar Baby, she's just here to stay.

So...

where were we?

- Ladoux.
- Ha, Ladoux.

Oh, that's right.

So Ladoux's out there,

and he ends up following Mata Hari

kind of everywhere she goes for a while.

Ladoux finally reaches out to her.

He's like, "Hey, Mata Hari. What's up?"

Like, "You don't know me.
I don't really know you yet.

I think you're cool.
You should spy for us.

The French."

Mata Hari's like,

"Yo, I don't trust nobody.

"I will do this for you, though,

because I love Franch."

- I'm saying "Franch."
- "Franch."

Oh, my God, I wish I could
do everything drunk.

I really do.

This is nice.

Okay. She's like,

"I believe in your side of the w*r,

and also I'll do it for cash money."

Ladoux was like, "Absolutely.
We'll give you a ton of cash."

But Ladoux doesn't give her
any spy tips.

Anyway, so she has no idea how to spy,

but Mata Hari takes it upon herself

to seduce a German diplomat.

She's like, "You're hot, do you know?"

And he was like, "Oh, my God,
oh, my God!

"They love you on the coast of Morocco!"

So then she writes a very
detailed letter to Ladoux.

She has the intel.

Germany troops are landing

on the coast of Morocco.

Ladoux takes all of this information

and he uses it against her.

He says, "How the f*ck
does this bitch know

"all of this detailed information

if she's not actually working
for the Germans?"

So then Mata Hari is arrested.

- Oh.
- Yeah.

On 19...

Hold on, here it comes.

On February 17th, 2017...

Okay, so, here we go.

On February 1917, 1917,
Mata Hari goes to trial.

Ladoux, he's like, "How could
she have all this information?

"Like, the only way she could
have this information

"is if she's working for the other side.

"She's not smart. She's a woman.

"f*ck this bitch. I'm scapegoating her.

Whatever." And she's like,
"He's bullshitting everybody."

He said that... all that,
and it was lies."

At the end of the day,
the jury was like,

"This woman is immoral.

"You know, love affairs
and having sexy dancing.

We think this woman
should die, I guess."

They sentenced her to death
by execution.

"f*ring squad."

Yeah, whoa!

That is good!

Do it again.

Okay. Mata Hari is at her execution...

At her exec...

At her execution.

She looks at her lawyer.

And then she looks at her priest.

Blows kisses.

She looks them dead in her eye.

Dead in her eye.

Before she's sh*t to death.

Pow, pow, pow, pow, pow...

Pow, pow, pow, pow...

And she dead.

Oh, my God, Derek, the funny thing is,

four days after Mata Hari's execution...

Ladoux, this bitch, was arrested

on espionage bullshit.

f*ck that bitch.

Ladoux was a spy upon spies.

Ladoux was a lie upon lies.

Ladoux was a real not... lies.

It's not real.

At the end of the day,
she was never a traitor.

She was an honest woman.

Mata Hari was the first example

of women stepping out
and being progressive

and saying, like, "Yo.
This is what I need.

This is just who I am."

She showed up earlier than anybody-body.

- That was so good, Suge.
- Yeah.

I love my life.

I'm in the...

I'm right here with you,
and we're getting drunk.

Hold on, sh*t.

I have nightmares probably,
like, four times a week,

and I have to, like,
s*ab a home intruder

in the neck with a pen.

You have dreams

about stabbing people
in the neck with a pen?

Four times a week.

What's your nightmare?

Well, I had a dream once
where there was an intruder

and I had to pluck their
eyeballs out with my hands.

- Yours is way worse!
- You had to?

You evil women.

Hello. I'm Mae Whitman.

I'm Jane Levy.

And today, we will be discussing...

- Murderous Row.
- Oh.

You'll like it, though.

It's very cool and stressful and cool.

You like m*rder? Me too.

It's 1924.

Maurine Dallas Watkins,

she's just graduated from Yale,

and then she was like, "You know what?

f*ck this. I want to tell the truth."

She moves to Chicago,
this town of jazz...

- Jazz.
- Drink.

- Drink.
- Crime.

And she started working
for the "Chicago Tribune."

And she was like, "Yeah."

"I got a job at the 'Chicago Tribune, '

and I'm gonna investigate
what I gotta investigate."

That's what she really wanted to do.

- Hell, yeah.
- Right?

And then she comes upon
this editor, who is a man.

The editor was like, "Maurine,
I'm going to assign you

to the Cooks County Jail Murderous Row,

which is where they keep the
women who are awaiting trial."

And he was like, "You're a woman.

"Nobody else wants to report
on this sh*t.

"It's a little boring
for our male reporters.

"I care about the goods.

So give me the goods, baby."

And she was like, "I got you, bitch.

I got you."

She goes to Murderous Row
in Cooks County Jail.

She meets Sabella Nitti,
an Italian immigrant

who is accused of murdering her husband.

She says, "He hurt me.

I-I did k*ll him,
but because he hurt me."

And Maurine is like, "This is it."

Maurine went to her editor and was like,

"I heard about Sabella Nitti."

And he was like, "No, bitch.

Like, I don't care about Sabella Nitti."

The problem was, he wanted
something juicy, this editor.

- Loves juice.
- He said to her, "Look.

"I need you to bring me
something juicy as hell.

Really, like, get excited
about Murderous Row."

Like, you can say some sexy sh*t.

Like, you can, like...

Yeah, you know what I mean?

And then all of a sudden,

Belva Gaertner is arrested.

She was a cabaret dancer.

She was like, "Yes, my lover
was found sprawled out,

dead, as hell, across
the front seat of a car."

She was like, "Look, I'm just a woman,

and I was basically possessed
by the devil, which is jazz."

Meanwhile, Maurine was like,
"Oh, my God. Yes, yes, yes.

"This is exactly what I need
to make my career.

"I love goss. I love juice.

My editor's gonna eat this up."

Yeah. So that was her first big break.

So then, within, like, I don't
even know how many minutes.

- Not many.
- Not many.

She gets this other lady, Beulah Annan.

- Mm-hmm.
- And Beulah Annan's arrested.

She has had a lover's spat.

And they both reach for a p*stol,

and f*cking our babe, Beulah,
was like, "Whew! Pow!"

And while he was laying on the floor,

she played "Hula-Lu," and she danced

around his grave, and she made

multiple cocktails, and she drank them.

Beulah said, "I was taken
ahold of by drinking alcohol

and listening to jazz music,
and like, f*ck me, I guess."

It was just, like, a bunch of bullshit.

But Maurine is like, "Oh, my God,

I'm getting the juice that my editor

asked me for.

Hell, yes."

The newspaper comes out,
and these women realize

right away, "We have got to look good,

because that's what this sh*t
is about, is looking good."

And they're like, "If I cut my hair

and I do my mascara right,"
"And I do my eyeliner right,"

"And I move my hips right,"

"And I cry at the right moment,"

"They are not going to convict... me."

So they start a beauty school

within Murderous Row.

Did they call it anything?

They were ahead of their time.

And they're, like, taking these women

that are, like, "Ha-ha,
I just f*cking ripped

somebody's head off yesterday,"

and they're like, "I know,

but, like, sit down, sweetie."

These girls are actually
incredibly intelligent,

because they know
how to work their angle

and they're like...

Um... I forget.

- Can we play "Hula-Lu"?
- I'm gonna die.

All right, I'm dead.

Wait, well, you just k*lled her
so you dance around us?

♪ She did her dancing ♪

Is it over yet?

Stay tuned...

For more...

- "Drunk History."
- No, I feel good.

Don't you think this story
is the coolest story ever?

Like, I better tell it now.

Let's keep going.

You remember where we left off?

Is it good? You like it?

- I don't know.
- Cheers to you both.

- Give us one clue.
- Can't tell.

Where did we leave off?

Uh...

So it was 1924, and Maurine
goes to Murderous Row,

and she interviews the girls
before they go to trial.

They were like, "I'm sorry,
but we love jazz and drink."

"We love ourselves.
We love to do the thing."

And they were like, "A woman would never

"k*ll a man, because a man would never

mean enough to a woman for her
to just m*rder somebody."

Obviously!

And Maurine is like, "These
women are obviously guilty.

"The evidence is laid out on the table.

These women are guilty."

But she didn't care about that.

So she's, like, writing these stories

that are, like,
super tabloid-y, salacious.

Anything these women had to say

got spun into this big juicy circus.

Okay, so we're at the trial,

after months of covering this story,

and the girls have
their, like, sideways caps

and their nice blue wide-set...

...eyes and their skinny little noses.

And their lawyer, etcetera, was like,

"My client is pregnant."

They weren't pregnant,
but they were like,

"I am pregnant.

My lawyer told me to say I'm pregnant."

And the reporters are like, "Oh, my God,

look at these girls and their haircuts

and their manicures.

Like, they could never commit a crime,

"and on top of that,

they might be carrying a baby."

And Maurine is like...

Typing on the computer
that's not invented yet?

She's like, "Sexy ladies do the thing

that you think
that they never could do."

I mean, Maurine got caught up.

Let's not mince words.

Maurine got f*cking caught up

in the sexiness of the whole thing.

Like, her agenda wasn't
necessarily to sensationalize,

but the stories were so, like,
dramatic that she had to.

At the end of the trial, they were like,

came to me and I feel concerned

and I feel taken advantage of.

I feel that I was someone
who explored the realm

too heavily and I need help,"

and like, that woman was like,
"I can't, I... etcetera,

"Altadena, etcetera.

Pasadena, etcetera."

And the boys were like,
"You're right. You're right.

"We don't care whether you did it.

"You're so hot. We want to f*ck you.

We don't care."

Which makes sense.

Juries back then, all male.

And the men were basically like,

"Okay, let me just tell you this.

"You have spent four months
in the system.

"Four months is too long.

"Get the hell out of here!

You better go home
and raise some babies.

You cuties."

And they were like,
"I can't wait to go!"

And they were like, "I will go, mwah."

And they basically, these women got off

after four months,
after these f*cking women

m*rder*d their lovers in cold blood.

Maurine, after this happened,
she took a step back,

and she said to herself,
"I have been a part of freeing

"these clearly guilty women who used

"their feminine wiles to get free.

That was my big fault."

Meanwhile, Sabella Nitti... got hanged.

And it was the first time
that Maurine was like,

"I'm sorry. I did the wrong thing.

This is f*cked up.
I f*cked this situation up."

So, Maurine, women's groups,
and Sabella Nitti's lawyers,

came together to change the laws,

and they made it possible
for women to be on juries.

And then Maurine was like,
"I gotta talk about this,

like, thing that happened to me,"

and she wrote a play called...

You okay?

I can't wait to release my hiccups.

You can let them out.

Not yet. How am I ever... not yet!

So she wrote a play...

It was called "The Brave
Little Women," which...

It's hard to understand

because it sounds like
"Little Women," but it's not.

So years and years and years
after she d*ed,

Bob Fosse got the rights for her play

and then made it into "Chicago,"

which turned into
the longest-running musical

on Broadway of all time.

What is the moral of the story?

That's a very good question.

Women can be villains

just as much as they can be heroes.

- However...
- However...

"Chicago" went to win best picture

at the m*therf*cking Oscars!

Okay? So sit down, shut up,

and appreciate that.

Just kidding.