Summary
Overview
The How Did This Get Made podcast tackles the 1994 Michael Crichton thriller Disclosure, starring Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Hosts Paul Scheer and Jason Mantzoukas are joined by Big Mouth writers Nick Kroll and Emily Altman to dissect this controversial film about workplace sexual harassment with the genders reversed. The episode serves as a companion piece to Big Mouth season 3, which features a musical adaptation of Disclosure. The hosts explore the film's dated technology, problematic gender politics, convoluted corporate espionage plot, and its uncomfortable resonance with modern conversations about power and harassment.
Introduction and the VR Filing Cabinet That Changed Everything
The hosts introduce Disclosure as Hollywood's 1994 attempt to tackle sexual harassment of straight white men, featuring two mega-stars at the height of their powers. They immediately dive into the film's hilariously outdated technology—a virtual reality filing cabinet that supposedly makes the company worth billions. The VR world is disappointingly boring, just a hallway where you can open digital filing cabinets, yet characters treat it like revolutionary technology that will change human consciousness.
- Disclosure features Michael Douglas being sexually harassed by boss Demi Moore in a role reversal of typical harassment narratives
- The film's central technology is a VR filing cabinet system that's meant to be worth $100 million but looks incredibly boring
- Barry Levinson directed with a $55 million budget, making $213 million worldwide—this was a massive hit
- Michael Crichton sold the movie rights for a million dollars before the novel was published, just after Anita Hill hearings
" What we're selling is freedom. We offer through technology what religion and revolution have promised but never delivered. Freedom from the physical body. Freedom from race and gender. "
" I can't believe that this isn't the biggest movie in the alt-right world. The defensiveness that he has, the persecution that he goes through—it feels so much like right now. "
Michael Douglas: Tech's Biggest Playboy
The hosts dissect how the film presents Michael Douglas as simultaneously a mild-mannered family man and the most sexually prolific man in tech history. Everyone constantly references his legendary sexual past, with Dennis Miller delivering cringeworthy lines about his prowess. The movie goes out of its way to establish Douglas as irresistibly attractive, yet he's just a manufacturing guy in extremely baggy 90s clothes who carries a backpack to work.
- Michael Douglas plays head of manufacturing but everyone treats him like he was the biggest womanizer in tech
- Dennis Miller was specifically written into the screenplay by Michael Crichton to deliver crude sexual commentary
- Douglas's character takes the ferry to work wearing a backpack, undermining his supposed playboy image
- The 90s fashion is hilariously baggy—you can't see anyone's body despite constant references to how 'hard' and 'tight' Douglas is
" You have a sexual urge every 20 minutes. It's a physiological certainty. You know, it's hardwired into your limbic brain. You can't fight it. Why would you want to fight it? Live a little. I mean 10 years from now you're going to need a forklift to get a hard on. "
" He gets more ass than a rental car. "
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