Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / Yes, Pop Culture Invented Friend Groups (Ft. Love is Blind, The Big Chill, and St Elmo’s Fire)

Transcript

Yes, Pop Culture Invented Friend Groups (Ft. Love is Blind, The Big Chill, and St Elmo’s Fire) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

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  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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  us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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  we're the Harpies, sharp and keen Unveiling the
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  truth behind the silver screen History Harpies
• 0:17
  hear us roar I'm Lauren. And I'm Christine. And
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  this is our 20th episode. So for this anniversary
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  episode, we first need to celebrate the fact
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  that we are still here going at it. We are. We
• 0:47
  are like the faith militant. We are the faith
• 0:51
  militant. Game of Thrones. Yeah, you just you
• 0:54
  just can't get rid of us. You can't and we are.
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  I have to say, of course, we are slowing down
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  a little bit. We have to acknowledge that because
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  both Lauren and I have been extremely busy lately.
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  It's it's quote that time in the semester. It
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  is that time in the semester. But nevertheless,
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  our spirit is willing. We are still pushing on
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  throughout all the metaphors that you want to,
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  Lauren, but we are still and we are persisting.
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  We are. We are persisting. And we're consuming
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  pop culture regularly, voraciously. Yes. Even
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  if we aren't on the pod talking about it as much.
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  No one should think that the levels of pop culture
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  consumption have gone down at all. No, because
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  they really, they really haven't. actual, the
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  crap we will talk about today will testify that
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  we are really watching it all. Not all of it
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  is crap, but some of it is crap. We are committed.
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  So when Lauren and I were talking about what
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  we would do for our year anniversary, we decide,
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  we're going to kind of cycle around a couple
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  of things. And one of those is friend groups.
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  Yes. We settled on friend groups and we were
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  going for a while to talk about the Midwest.
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  We're not... Quite doing that, although we will
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  be talking about Ohio and Michigan. Right. In
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  some ways, but also universities and kind of
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  a hodgepodge, friend groups, universities, reunions.
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  Bringing people together. Bringing people together.
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  And one thing that I do want to point out, Lauren,
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  before we start talking about our text for this
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  week is. I, and perhaps you as well, I did, no,
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  yes, we both have started watching Rooster on
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  HBO. Yet another show set in academia. And perhaps
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  we will revisit that. We've talked about academia
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  before. We'll talk about it a little bit today.
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  But I think that maybe at some point we're going
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  to have to talk about that show because already
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  the number of things that have gone awry in its
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  vision of academia, Lauren. And perhaps we'll
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  talk about Vladimir. one episode of Vladimir
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  and I kind of, kind of stopped and moved on to
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  some other things. I did as well. Although I
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  did watch this movie called threesome, which
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  is, did you watch it? I did not. And let me tell
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  you. Filth. It sounds like filth. No, it's really
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  good. Okay. And it's really good. It's actually
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  really smart and sweet. And even the title might
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  throw it off. It is about a man who impregnates
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  both women that he has a threesome with. And
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  the journey that follows. I admire that man a
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  lot. It's really, really sweet. And it's like
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  an indie movie that isn't at all what you think
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  it's going to be. Okay, do they form a polyamorous
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  collective? That's what I need to know. They
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  do not. They do not because he is for real in
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  love with one of them. And it's really about
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  what happens to him. to that relationship when
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  they find out that the third party is with child.
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  So there was no birth control involved in this
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  threesome? Well, I don't want to spoil it. I
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  have to watch. You kind of do have to watch.
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  OK. Because the birth control goes awry, let's
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  just say. And you don't see the three. It really
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  is about this relationship and something that
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  tears them apart. OK. But not the actual threesome
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  itself. The pregnancy is what terrors, the pregnancy
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  of the third party. I will put this on my list.
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  Put it on your list. My long list. Put it on
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  your list. So Lauren and I thought that we would
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  start by talking about something that is kind
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  of trash, but also kind of fantastic. Oh yeah.
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  And that is the reality show Love is Blind, which
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  is on Netflix. It's a good one. It is. And it's
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  been on for several seasons now. And for those
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  of you who have not seen it, The conceit is that
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  singles have conversations in little pods where
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  they cannot see each other. So they have these
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  quote unquote dates in the pods where they have
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  again conversation with a wall in between them.
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  They kind of sit on couches and then they get
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  engaged before leaving the pod. So they get engaged
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  without ever having seen each other. There then
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  is a big reveal when they finally do see each
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  other. They go to some fabulous resort. They
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  live together for, what, a month or so, a few
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  weeks, and then they have to decide whether to
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  marry each other or not. Or separate forever.
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  Or separate forever. And whether or not love
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  is, in fact, blind. Is love blind, Lauren? That
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  is the question at the altar. has to go to the
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  altar, although there have been some tweaks over
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  the seasons. Yes. But everyone has to go through
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  this excruciating process, regardless of whether
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  or not they even like each other. They have to
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  pick on a wedding dress. They have to meet families.
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  They have to live together. And up until recently,
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  they did have to show up for the wedding. Yes.
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  And one of the things that has really amped up,
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  I think, in the past couple of seasons, which
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  is one of the things we wanted to talk about,
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  is there's been more and more a sense of the
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  couples knowing each other. So there's very much
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  the idea that all of the women who are living
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  in one space during the pods, they all become
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  super tight. The men who are living in their
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  own part, they become super tight. And more and
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  more on the show, there are events with all of
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  the couples. And traditionally it's been six
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  couples that have been this season, because one
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  couple. Christine and Vic were so popular and
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  lovable that they followed a seventh. The other
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  thing about Love is Blind, unlike, say, The Bachelor
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  or some other reality shows, is that it is set
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  in a city where everyone lives, so they can realistically
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  become couples. And some of them even knew each
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  other before the show, which is a no -no. So
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  you can't date someone who you knew before the
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  show or knew about or anything like that. Unlike
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  The Bachelor where they meet and then three days
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  later they're like, oh wait, I live in Connecticut
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  and you live in California? That's a problem.
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  This one, they actually go to the same places.
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  They might even maybe mutual friends. Yeah. So
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  it's a realistic dating option. Yes. And so what
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  we had in this past season was couples from Ohio,
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  specifically Columbus, the home of Ohio, I'm
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  sorry. The Ohio State University. I don't know
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  the theme song. Neither do I. But it also is
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  a Penn State rival. Of course. Big Ten rival.
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  Right. And so one of the contestants, and this
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  is really strange because of course we academics
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  don't do things like this. No. One of the contestants
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  was in fact a professor at Ohio State in what?
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  Public policy. Public policy. Yes. Who was just
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  so lovable. So sweet. So good looking. Yes. And
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  he... Oh, he was just so great. He was like a
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  regular mensch. A regular mensch, if I can borrow
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  the term from you. That's okay. That's okay.
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  And what was also interesting though, I think
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  watching him, and this was the contestant Vic,
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  you're kind of like, why isn't this guy? I mean,
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  with a lot of contestants, you're like, I totally
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  understand why you're this guy. Why they're not
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  married, right? Or why they're not even, yeah.
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  Super good -looking, tenure -track professor
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  at Ohio State, right? He's like tall. like super
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  built, right? Very handsome. Yes. Got the dreads.
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  Dreads. Like again, great look, you know, in
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  terms of his clothes. Smart. Not like a scrub. Very
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  smart. And again, very sort of gentle and just
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  seemed like a really nice guy. And you're like,
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  why is this guy single? Why? Maybe as part of
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  his tenure package. Go on the show. Go on the
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  show. Why don't we do that? Why? Why? Our tenure
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  and promotion package can be, and you get to
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  go on Love is Blind. One of the other things
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  of course about Love is Blind is that it is hosted,
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  to use that word very loosely, by Nick Lachey
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  of boy band and Jessica Simpson marriage fame
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  and his current wife. Vanessa Lachey. They are
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  pretty terrible and worthless and we don't really
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  need to see much about them. No, but we do need
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  to hear their little quips and they do host the
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  reunion show which is probably the best episode
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  of Love is Blind. This is true. So in this past
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  season we have the same kind of trend that there
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  are a lot of events with all of the people and
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  of course one of the thing that complicates the
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  friend group idea of Love is Blind is that all
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  of these people in the pods dated each other
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  and so with all of these kind of friend group
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  events that we have on the show. Very often,
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  it's the first time that someone sees in person
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  someone that he or she dated but didn't end up
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  with. Or may have thought about proposing to.
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  I mean, in some of these situations, you have
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  a person who's debating between two people and
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  really has feelings for both of them and goes
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  in one direction and then sees the other one.
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  Yes. And then it's sort of like, uh -oh, like
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  I picked the ugly one. says that quite explicitly.
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  And in fact, in his past season, there was Chris,
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  who was not shy about saying, Oh shit, I picked
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  the ugly one. Which is crazy. I'm sorry, the
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  fat and ugly one. That was pretty much how it
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  was. Which is so insane because she was hot,
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  she was successful, she was kind, and okay, fine,
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  maybe they didn't have sexual chemistry or maybe
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  they didn't get along. Lots of things, but the
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  idea that this woman didn't do Pilates regularly,
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  and she was like this tiny little thing. I mean,
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  it wasn't like, again, it was crazy. This guy
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  was bonkers. He was bonkers, but I have to say,
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  I didn't find her as attractive as I think you
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  did. But again, she was very successful. She
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  was a doctor. She had her own house. Yeah. She
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  had a nice house. She had a very nice house.
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  Look, I think the point that when he saw the
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  house, he was like... Peace out. Like this woman
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  is too successful for me. Yes. I think that I
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  really buy it. And look again, people don't get
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  along or don't have sexual chemistry or things
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  like that. And I'm fine with that. But him just
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  saying, you know, you are like basically a dog,
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  which is pretty much what he said. Yes. Yes.
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  Yes. And of course, what we what we get so often
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  on that show is some version of like, well, the
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  emotional connection is there, but not the physical
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  connection. In other words, I think you're a
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  hag. I was able to develop feelings for you when
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  I couldn't see what you looked like. Or I met
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  you and you're like 5 '2 and I want a guy who's
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  like 6 '1. Well, that's the other thing that's
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  interesting because this happened with Alex where
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  like he picked a girl who had these sort of Barbie
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  features, blonde, skinny, blue eyes. She was
• 11:38
  very attractive. She was. But not his type. But
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  not his type. And so he made that very clear
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  of saying over and over and over again. This
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  is not the kind of girl I would normally go out
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  with. And we're all, I'm sitting there like Walsh,
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  but she's really hot. I mean, again, like in
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  a conventional sense. And she's very, you know,
• 12:01
  she seems to be accommodating. And again, you
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  don't know what goes on in these relationships,
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  but he was interested in that other girl, Brittany,
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  right? And he was like, Brittany's way more my
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  type. Because she was brunette and he liked it.
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  More voluptuous and that sort of thing. As opposed
• 12:13
  to the Barbie. But we then, with Brittany, we
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  had the opposite issue because Brittany, who
• 12:21
  was biracial, she ended up being engaged to Devonte,
• 12:25
  who was himself biracial, and Devonte was shocked,
• 12:30
  absolutely shocked to learn that Brittany was
• 12:33
  a person of color. And he said straight off the
• 12:36
  bat that he had no interest in dating people.
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  You missed this? Lauren is giving me a shocked
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  look. What? You didn't see that? No. This is
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  the voice over when Devonte and Brittany have
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  their reveal. Oh. He's like, wow, I didn't realize
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  she was a person of color. And so we got the
• 12:55
  vibe. Because I thought, oh, she didn't say it
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  in the pod. She said later, my dad's black. Yes,
• 13:01
  my dad's black and my mom is what? I think Latina
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  or something like that. Right. I didn't realize
• 13:07
  that he thought she was not a person of color.
• 13:11
  Yes. That was his first reaction when he saw
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  her. And so clearly, of course, getting the vibe
• 13:17
  that he only dates white women, which is, of
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  course, his right. I mean, that's what he wants
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  to do. But it was hilarious because he described
• 13:23
  it as if this was the most outrageous thing possible,
• 13:26
  that this woman of color was out there in the
• 13:28
  dating pool. And so consistently, that was probably
• 13:32
  one of the more controversial relationships.
• 13:34
  It was also because he just wasn't that into
• 13:37
  her. He wasn't. And he really was so uninterested.
• 13:42
  And I mean, we don't know what goes on with editing
• 13:43
  and things like that. But all we saw from our
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  end was a guy looking away, not responding to
• 13:50
  conversation, not wanting to touch her, not really
• 13:53
  wanting to be in the same room with her. And
• 13:55
  you're kind of like, How could this woman think
• 13:58
  that he would want to marry her. And not that
• 13:59
  the father... That was very... Because that's
• 14:02
  why I think the editing was spliced, because
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  the father's like, we thought you were part of
• 14:06
  the family, and I really liked you, and you connected
• 14:09
  with us, and you're like, what? How did that
• 14:12
  happen? How did that happen? Right, right. But
• 14:14
  so we do have, I mean, he was not, Devonte was
• 14:17
  not someone who was clearly attracted to someone
• 14:20
  else and kind of this big pod friend group, right?
• 14:22
  We didn't have that kind of dynamic, which we
• 14:25
  did with Chris, who was very openly kind of lusting
• 14:28
  after Bri, and who had her own fiance. But with
• 14:34
  Devonte, there very much was the sense, as we
• 14:36
  learned in the reunion, that there was kind of
• 14:38
  off camera action with someone that he was more
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  attracted to. And what we also saw, right, that
• 14:44
  he was complete. Brittany did seem kind of stalkerish
• 14:47
  and kind of desperate. I think we have to. She
• 14:49
  had bought her wedding dress before even going
• 14:50
  on the show. So she was. But there was also that
• 14:54
  complete sketch behavior on his part of going
• 14:57
  to that like concert in Austin with the other
• 15:01
  two girls and then. telling her like he had a
• 15:04
  work function. Yes, he was a lying liar who lies.
• 15:07
  Yes. It was just so strange. And that those girls
• 15:10
  never told their friend that, hey, we're here
• 15:14
  with your fiance. And he's like, well, I took
• 15:17
  the ring off or I don't know. But this goes back
• 15:20
  to the whole sort of friend group. Right, right.
• 15:22
  Because, of course, what we heard a lot about
• 15:24
  at the reunion was since it was this whole sort
• 15:26
  of like that these girls were friends. Right.
• 15:29
  They're a friend group. Right. The whole batch
• 15:30
  is a friend group. Bro code. Bro code. code,
• 15:32
  girl code, and so I think they really have amped
• 15:36
  that up, the sense of all of these kind of betrayals,
• 15:39
  right? Now that we became such close friends
• 15:41
  in the pods, but you're attracted to my girlfriend
• 15:43
  or fiance or whatever, and so the whole trip
• 15:46
  with two of the other girls, with Bri and Ashley,
• 15:49
  that did become this hideous violation of girl
• 15:51
  code. Even though nobody hooked up with him,
• 15:54
  it doesn't sound like he even stayed in their
• 15:56
  apartment. He's really not so unattractive. He
• 15:59
  really isn't cute. And so that, I think, it's
• 16:04
  so interesting to think of that as a tactic of
• 16:06
  the show. To say, okay, well we did the pod thing,
• 16:09
  and that kind of worked, but now we're going
• 16:12
  to amp up the whole, we're all going to do these
• 16:14
  events together, and basically shove booze into
• 16:17
  everyone's hands. And then it's going to be this
• 16:19
  whole, well you know, I really. And make it about
• 16:22
  the friendships, and in fact, Nick Lachey said.
• 16:26
  I'm from Ohio, like we have Ohio bro code. Yes,
• 16:30
  Ohio bro code. As if that's something different
• 16:32
  than regular, like Pennsylvania bro code or I
• 16:35
  don't know. But wasn't it supposed to be like
• 16:36
  we have these wholesome Midwest values? I don't
• 16:39
  know. And because of that we actually honor bro
• 16:41
  code, which is being violated all over. But again,
• 16:44
  when they say, you know, we have to... quote,
• 16:47
  honor the experiment, that does mean you date
• 16:49
  multiple people. So, bro code and dating multiple
• 16:52
  people don't mesh. There are cross purposes.
• 16:55
  Yes, I agree. And the show is doing something
• 16:57
  very bizarre. Because of course, if it also,
• 17:01
  if it was the case that all of these individuals
• 17:03
  went into the pods and immediately, right, only
• 17:07
  fell in love with one person, the show would
• 17:08
  be incredibly boring. The show would not know
• 17:10
  how to work with them. Right. Right. It just
• 17:12
  wouldn't work because of course they want...
• 17:14
  drama, and they do want people dating lots of
• 17:16
  other people. Sure. And so what is very difficult,
• 17:19
  I think, about that show is that it tries to
• 17:21
  kind of hold itself up as a sort of a genuine
• 17:24
  reality show. Right. Which of course sounds like
• 17:26
  an oxymoron, but a genuine reality show in that
• 17:29
  people are finding these permanent relationships.
• 17:32
  Right. But they have to amp up this kind of bro
• 17:35
  code friend group drama where everyone's dating
• 17:38
  everyone else, but then the second there's the
• 17:40
  engagement, right? Right. All of these other
• 17:42
  attractions don't even exist. Those people are
• 17:44
  going to come to your wedding. Those people are
• 17:46
  going to be at your bachelorette party. Yes.
• 17:48
  You have no other world. You have no other world.
• 17:50
  You have no other friends. You're shopping for
• 17:51
  wedding dresses together. And you're living your
• 17:55
  real hometown at your real house. So what's interesting
• 17:59
  is that while there are some scenes with their
• 18:01
  real friends and their real family, the focus
• 18:04
  is on the other contestants who they just met
• 18:07
  like six minutes ago. But nevertheless, we do hear
• 18:09
  all the time, right? These girls are my best
• 18:12
  friends, you know, and vice versa. Because we
• 18:13
  went through the same thing. Yes, but it's like,
• 18:15
  well, what kind of friendships did you have before
• 18:17
  two months ago that these people that you just
• 18:20
  met are your best friends? Because then it makes
• 18:23
  sense that everybody keeps violating, right?
• 18:24
  Bro code and girl code. It's like we actually
• 18:26
  don't have any real... history. Well the other
• 18:28
  thing that the show violates which we can get
• 18:29
  into just a tiny bit. Okay so when the show first
• 18:33
  started they had to go through the choreography
• 18:36
  of the entire thing and yes you would never see
• 18:39
  the person again. Now people can just agree to
• 18:43
  date. They bring back people from the pods who
• 18:48
  they didn't pick. And sometimes they get together.
• 18:51
  And then we see them at the reunion. So it really
• 18:56
  isn't like The Bachelor where you go through
• 18:59
  this whole journey and then it's either sink
• 19:02
  or swim and then you're never going to see this
• 19:04
  person again and never see the other people again.
• 19:08
  And this one is kind of a... ish, you know, like
• 19:13
  married or not, like and you can, and again Connor
• 19:18
  and Bri did not. go to the altar, but apparently
• 19:22
  said, we love each other and we're really, we're
• 19:24
  really vibing and we're still together and we're
• 19:27
  just a couple and they were living together.
• 19:29
  They had adjacent apartments. Oh, right. Yeah.
• 19:32
  Adjacent apartments. But then also, so Jess,
• 19:35
  who was basically called fat and ugly by Chris,
• 19:37
  at the reunion, it turns out that she was dating
• 19:41
  seriously. Someone who had been in the guy group
• 19:45
  in the pods, but that she had never did you see
• 19:47
  that I'm trying I can't even remember his name.
• 19:50
  But so he was someone who had either like left
• 19:53
  the show or they had just never had contact in
• 19:55
  the pods. But now they were dating seriously.
• 20:00
  So Jess basically found love, but the same sort
• 20:02
  of thing, right? Someone who was kind of in the
• 20:04
  group. So what do we think then? How much of
• 20:09
  a good, bad, neither representation of a friend
• 20:12
  group do we have there? Before we move on to
• 20:14
  talk about our more fictional friend groups.
• 20:19
  To compare to The Bachelor, there isn't the kind
• 20:23
  of catty, you know, bitch slapping, you know,
• 20:26
  we're all fighting for the same man dynamic because
• 20:28
  they're not all fighting for the same man. And
• 20:31
  there is a more organic kind of combination of
• 20:35
  people that you can imagine being friends. On
• 20:38
  the other hand, the show pushes it at you so
• 20:41
  hard that it's hard to know whether or not it's
• 20:44
  authentic. But there are, interestingly, from
• 20:48
  almost every season, I'm not really keeping track
• 20:50
  here, but you're not teaching a class on it.
• 20:54
  No, but like couples, the reunion was like, whatever,
• 20:57
  the 10th reunion anniversary or whatever. Yeah,
• 20:59
  something like that. There were all these couples
• 21:01
  that had gotten married and have kids. It's successful.
• 21:05
  And at least one couple from every season has
• 21:08
  actually stayed together or gotten married. Now
• 21:11
  Cameron and Lauren from the very first season
• 21:13
  are still together. Now, interestingly, this
• 21:17
  one we had a divorce slash annulment because
• 21:20
  Jordan and Amber actually did get married. What
• 21:24
  a car crash that was. But then we find out they're
• 21:26
  no longer married because It's a shocker. He
• 21:31
  wasn't up for parenting somebody else's kid.
• 21:36
  Why someone with a child would do that show?
• 21:40
  I mean, she needs to be like, I don't know, have
• 21:42
  her parental rights taken away from her just
• 21:44
  because of that. It's really mental. It's really
• 21:46
  mental. And again, not to keep bringing up The
• 21:50
  Bachelor, which, of course, was canceled itself
• 21:53
  because the person was a domestic abuser. all
• 21:58
  kinds of like DV going on there so this one when
• 22:03
  they've had single moms before on the bachelorette
• 22:05
  or the bachelor they had i think one where the
• 22:07
  bachelorette had a child Okay. Um, but I think
• 22:11
  that child was incorporated into it a lot more,
• 22:13
  which like, God, I mean, this was literally like
• 22:16
  you are not meeting my new stepdad until the
• 22:18
  day before we get married, which was like so
• 22:21
  awful. And that kid's look at the wedding was
• 22:23
  so terrible. And then wouldn't it be like, I
• 22:26
  hope this guy's not a pedophile, whom I've known
• 22:28
  for literally four weeks. Oh, I just, I know
• 22:32
  him so well. It's like, here you go. Meet daddy!
• 22:35
  That was terrible. That was so awful. Seriously.
• 22:38
  It really was. That should never happen again.
• 22:40
  But again, the contrast of Christine and Vic
• 22:43
  with the others, it's like Christine and Vic
• 22:45
  just seemed like regular people. Normal people
• 22:47
  who might have met in a coffee shop somewhere
• 22:49
  in Columbus. Absolutely, absolutely. And hit
• 22:51
  it off. Or like a bookstore. Or church. Since
• 22:53
  they were both very, very devout Christians.
• 22:56
  Yes, yes. So that at least was a tiny bright
• 22:58
  spot of sanity. Okay, well let's talk about another
• 23:02
  friend group. Okay. And perhaps we should talk
• 23:05
  about The Big Chill. Which we brought up in our
• 23:09
  last pod because we were talking about William
• 23:13
  Hurt. Yes. And Lawrence Kasdan. And Lawrence
• 23:16
  Kasdan. And so we were after pod. In the after
• 23:20
  pod, I think we were discussing how much maybe
• 23:23
  we wanted to rewatch it. Yes. And then I read
• 23:26
  this horrible Oscars list of movies that didn't
• 23:31
  get the Oscar, which were like, pick the worst
• 23:34
  movies ever. It was unbelievably bad. But one
• 23:36
  of the things that it claimed was that the Big
• 23:39
  Chill was unwatchable. How could anyone think
• 23:43
  that? And so I wanted to know, like, okay, maybe
• 23:46
  the other times I watched it, I found something
• 23:48
  in it that I didn't find out. I did not find
• 23:50
  it unwatchable. No. It's still extremely watchable.
• 23:54
  It's very watchable. And perhaps is actually
• 23:56
  more watchable in some ways than it deserves.
• 23:59
  I agree with that. In terms of what it actually
• 24:01
  is trying to convey. It is greater than the sum
• 24:06
  of its parts. Let's put it that way. I think
• 24:08
  that that's fair to say, in that obviously it
• 24:11
  has fantastic actors. Great ensemble. Great ensemble.
• 24:15
  Great chemistry. Great casting. Great casting.
• 24:19
  And obviously everybody loved the soundtrack.
• 24:21
  And certainly when it first came out, 1982, 83,
• 24:24
  when was that? The soundtrack was on its own
• 24:27
  success. Very much so. Although, you know, okay,
• 24:30
  not to sort of get ahead of ourselves too much,
• 24:32
  but... I always thought, and since you are a
• 24:35
  historian of American pop culture, which I am
• 24:38
  not, I always did think that the soundtrack songs
• 24:43
  didn't work for me in that, right? So they're
• 24:47
  supposed to be kind of Michigan, anti -Vietnam,
• 24:50
  protesting, pot smoking, communist hippies. Right.
• 24:53
  So much of the soundtrack was Motown. Okay, yes.
• 24:56
  So, and it never really worked, so okay, you
• 24:59
  hear something like Tell Him by The Exciters,
• 25:01
  which is a great, great song, right? A fantastic
• 25:04
  pop song. And something like that, but it's like,
• 25:06
  well, okay, it's working for the movie, but I
• 25:10
  have, I mean, literally, since the time that
• 25:12
  film came out, when I was what, in like junior
• 25:14
  high, maybe freshman in high school, I wanted
• 25:17
  more, again, kind of like heavy. pot -smoking
• 25:21
  hippie woodstock rock. Fortunate Son. You want
• 25:24
  Fortunate Son. It's something. Right, right,
• 25:26
  right. And I think there's maybe, I mean, maybe
• 25:28
  as close as it gets is kind of Whiter Shade of
• 25:31
  Pale, but I'm trying to think, but so much of
• 25:33
  it. Well, there's The Who. But where do we, where
• 25:37
  do we... When she, You Can't Always Get What
• 25:38
  You Want. No, that's Rolling Stones. Oh, I'm sorry.
• 25:40
  I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm taking away
• 25:42
  your promotion. Oh, God. I'm taking away. It's
• 25:45
  late in the day. And I know. And I also had the
• 25:49
  Holocaust today. Yes, that's true. Lauren taught
• 25:52
  the Holocaust. So everything is going to be forgiven
• 25:54
  her today. So you're right. You're right. But
• 25:57
  so we have the Rolling Stones. But again, which,
• 25:59
  of course, we first hear right at the funeral
• 26:01
  at the beginning where JoBeth Williams' character
• 26:04
  is playing it on the organ. But again, so much
• 26:07
  of it is kind of Not that. It's a very Motown
• 26:12
  soundtrack. It is. And that always felt really
• 26:15
  jarring to me. As much as I love the soundtrack.
• 26:17
  No, I agree with you. But it just didn't work
• 26:19
  for me. Well, also dated wise, it doesn't work.
• 26:24
  The music is too early for the events of the
• 26:28
  movie. Which, if they unfolded, like the idea
• 26:31
  that William Hurt's character gets, you know,
• 26:34
  something happens to him in Vietnam and he's
• 26:35
  there in the 70s. This is about people in the
• 26:39
  early 70s, not in the mid 60s. And that's why
• 26:43
  the soundtrack for me is off. Yes, I completely
• 26:45
  agree. Motown mid 60s. And it's not independent.
• 26:49
  Like, there's no Marvin Gaye. There's not like...
• 26:51
  Well, there is. No, but there's not What's Going
• 26:54
  On. Yes, you're right. I'm saying there's not
• 26:55
  that sort of later, like, depressing, you know,
• 27:01
  stagflation kind of 70s soundtrack. And so that,
• 27:06
  yeah, because certainly I mean, we were talking
• 27:07
  about this before we started. So the film comes
• 27:09
  out, again, what, 1982? They are supposed to
• 27:13
  be out of college for 11 years? Maybe more. But
• 27:17
  I think we hear that at some point. But basically,
• 27:21
  they're supposed to be kind of in their early
• 27:22
  30s, right? And as far as I could tell. And I
• 27:26
  think they do say something like that at some
• 27:28
  point. point. But yes, we've had time enough.
• 27:31
  And so for anyone, if just in case anyone has
• 27:33
  never seen The Big Chill. So the setup is that
• 27:37
  one of the friend group, Alex, has committed
• 27:40
  suicide. off camera before the film starts. And
• 27:43
  as we talked about before, that was actually
• 27:45
  Kevin Costner who was then cut out of the film.
• 27:48
  So we have then this group of friends who were
• 27:51
  undergraduates together at the University of
• 27:52
  Michigan, again, anti -Vietnam War, they were
• 27:55
  all communists, whatever. Radical, anti -war.
• 27:59
  Radical politics, again, protesting. Port Huron
• 28:01
  Statement kind of people. Yes, yes. So they all
• 28:03
  gathered together for this funeral. And of course,
• 28:06
  the standard idea, they have all taken these
• 28:08
  particular paths. William Hurt, clearly has been
• 28:11
  drafted, was drafted to go to Vietnam and he
• 28:13
  is now impotent. Something happened to him. Something
• 28:17
  happened. Kevin Kline's character who is off
• 28:22
  on and off with his South Carolina accent. I
• 28:24
  think we have to agree with that. And the whole
• 28:26
  thing takes place in South Carolina. Yes. And
• 28:29
  was filmed in Beaufort. Yes. Was filmed in Beaufort.
• 28:31
  Yes. So he is actually a very prosperous owner
• 28:34
  of a chain of athletic shoe stores. Right. He
• 28:37
  has married one of the other friend group, Glenn
• 28:39
  Close's character, who is a doctor. Right. Jo
• 28:42
  Beth Williams' character is an affluent housewife.
• 28:44
  Her husband is kind of a dud who was not part
• 28:47
  of the friend group. Right. And Tom Berenger.
• 28:49
  Tom Berenger, a very successful actor who is
• 28:52
  in JT Lancer. In Hollywood. A kind of Magnum
• 28:55
  P .I. kind of person. Right. And then there was
• 28:58
  also the Jeff Goldblum character, who is this
• 29:02
  kind of very smarmy writer for People magazine
• 29:04
  in New York City. And... Chloe. Chloe, but the
• 29:08
  other one... Oh, Meg! Meg, who is also a lawyer.
• 29:12
  Meg, who is a lawyer. who is on a fertility journey.
• 29:17
  Yes, this weekend is on a fertility journey.
• 29:22
  And so certainly what we have in general is this
• 29:24
  idea of that they have all gone from being these
• 29:27
  kind of warm and fuzzy kind of members of this
• 29:30
  sort of friendship collective, and now they have
• 29:31
  made particular choices in the yuppie 80s. That
• 29:34
  Meg was a defense lawyer, she now works in corporate
• 29:37
  law, William Hurt, he's a drug dealer after doing
• 29:41
  lots of things. And again, Jeff Goldblum's character
• 29:44
  is super smarmy and is always hitting on Chloe,
• 29:47
  the much younger girlfriend of Alex, the deceased
• 29:50
  person. And that also... Glenn Close's character
• 29:53
  had had an affair with Alex when she was married
• 29:56
  or she still is married to Kevin Kline but that
• 30:00
  the two of them had always had this sort of hidden
• 30:02
  smoldering love affair and they finally consummated
• 30:06
  that when she was married to Kevin Kline but
• 30:08
  they're all such good friends that they kind
• 30:10
  of just went with it. Went with it. But there's
• 30:12
  still a kind of lingering resentment and obviously
• 30:16
  feelings that Glenn Close still has for Alex
• 30:18
  and she's very very upset throughout the film.
• 30:21
  about his death, and they all are, but she had,
• 30:24
  as you can tell, had a very, very special connection
• 30:26
  to him. Yes, and that he had been living on one
• 30:29
  of their properties. Right. And with his girlfriend,
• 30:32
  Chloe. And so we have very much the sense that
• 30:35
  this friend group, they had all of these various
• 30:38
  kind of intertwined romantic and sexual connections.
• 30:42
  So Meg had slept with Michael at some point.
• 30:44
  To me, the relationship that doesn't get the
• 30:46
  press and attention it really needs to, narratively,
• 30:49
  is that we are told very specifically a couple
• 30:51
  of times that Karen, the Jo Beth Williams character,
• 30:55
  that she and Nick had been in a relationship
• 30:58
  in college and there's almost no interaction
• 31:00
  between the two of them. We don't even realize
• 31:01
  that they know each other. No, no. To me that
• 31:04
  is just the weirdest choice when so much of the
• 31:07
  film depends upon the kind of ghosts of these
• 31:10
  relationships. But also that we know that Sam,
• 31:13
  the Tom Berenger character, has lusted after
• 31:15
  her and always had a thing for her, but she was
• 31:18
  with Nick. Yes, and that just doesn't it's again
• 31:21
  the two of them don't even have any like eye
• 31:23
  contact. No, it's very probably the entire It's
• 31:27
  very like was the scene cut out, right? There's
• 31:29
  that one exchange where she says to him what
• 31:32
  happened to you, right? Basically, but that's
• 31:34
  it I know and there's no reason to know that
• 31:35
  they have had any kind of relationship I know
• 31:37
  and it makes absolutely no sense. So we have
• 31:41
  then a friend group Well, is it a friend group
• 31:45
  and that to me is actually the most interest,
• 31:48
  not the kind of like 60s radicals who then become
• 31:50
  yuppies in the 80s. That to me is kind of boring,
• 31:53
  right? It's the whole classic, you know, "Deadhead
• 31:54
  sticker on a Cadillac" thing. I don't care. But
• 31:57
  to me, what is the most interesting question
• 31:59
  in that film is, are they actually friends or
• 32:03
  not? And this is something that William Hurt's
• 32:05
  character, Nick, discusses specifically. What
• 32:08
  do you think about that? He does. It's an interesting
• 32:10
  question because it's clear that other than Glenn
• 32:15
  Close Kevin Klein and Alex and I guess Chloe
• 32:19
  to some degree none of them and well and Meg
• 32:22
  Have seen each other regularly Meg knows the
• 32:26
  kids Yes, Kevin Kline and Glenn Close have two
• 32:29
  kids and so she's in their lives Sometimes yes,
• 32:33
  because there's a scene where the kids call because
• 32:36
  the kids aren't there when all these people are
• 32:37
  there and Talks to Aunt Meg or whatever. So there's
• 32:42
  there is kind of triangulation between some of
• 32:45
  these characters, but not all of these characters.
• 32:49
  And with Kevin Kline and Glenn Close kind of
• 32:52
  holding the group together, it's hard to say
• 32:54
  whether they are all friends, whether some of
• 32:58
  them will ever speak to each other again after
• 33:00
  this weekend. We know that Meg is likely to speak
• 33:05
  to... Kevin Kline and Glenn Close. Oh, one way
• 33:09
  or the other. Yeah, one way or the other. Now,
• 33:12
  again, another sort of subplot of this film is
• 33:15
  that, again, Meg is on this fertility journey
• 33:17
  and pretty much asks every guy who's there to
• 33:21
  impregnate her. And I guess as sort of a peace
• 33:26
  offering or some kind of compromise. Resolving
• 33:28
  guilt, whatever. Glenn Close offers up her husband,
• 33:31
  Kevin Kline, to impregnate her, I guess because
• 33:34
  she cheated on him. And so, you know, he can
• 33:37
  cheat on her but also this is her very close
• 33:39
  friend and she knows she'd be a good mom and
• 33:42
  All things like that. So I think we don't know
• 33:44
  whether or she'll be pregnant or we don't or
• 33:46
  not And that sexiness so cringe that it's the
• 33:50
  worst It's a sort of thing where you want it
• 33:54
  to be You want it to be not what it is and that
• 33:56
  it's kind of like, okay, so you want it either
• 33:58
  to be super chaste, I'm not going to kid you
• 34:01
  know, just like again, thrust, thrust, thrust.
• 34:03
  Or just off screen. Or off screen. Or I would
• 34:06
  say, actually it'd be interesting if it were
• 34:08
  super passionate. Yes. But it's the worst of
• 34:11
  all possible worlds in that they're kind of giving
• 34:13
  each other these little like, pecks. Pecks, while
• 34:16
  they're sort of looking at each other. And it's
• 34:18
  like, it just looks so gross and the light is
• 34:21
  on. It's so awkward. It's like blazing light.
• 34:24
  And she has that nightgown. Oh, it's awful. It's
• 34:27
  so awful. The whole thing, it should be, it should
• 34:29
  have been off screen. There's no reason for us
• 34:32
  to see that. Well, I get, the only argument in
• 34:35
  favor, I agree with you in that it's so unpleasant
• 34:37
  to watch. Again, it was just like, the little
• 34:39
  pecks just, oh God, it's so disgusting. But,
• 34:42
  of course, one of the reasons why we have to
• 34:43
  see it is because it's contrasting to Karen and
• 34:49
  Sam having down and dirty, literally dirty, in
• 34:53
  the dirt. Like rutting, basically. You know,
• 34:55
  this kind of passion that is bursting out. And
• 34:59
  so this thing that has never happened before,
• 35:02
  and that again, this idea that lust is bursting
• 35:04
  out. And, but also the other contrast, right,
• 35:08
  is when Chloe takes Nick down to her apartment,
• 35:13
  even though she realized and knows that he can't
• 35:15
  do anything sexually. And so she basically is
• 35:17
  in effect, even though she's been talking about
• 35:19
  having sex with Alex, right, she said, right,
• 35:21
  you know, the whole went out with a bang and
• 35:23
  not with a whimper. She is committing herself
• 35:26
  to basically a sexless relationship with this
• 35:29
  man. Although it is interesting now that I'm
• 35:31
  like thinking in kind of a woke mindset, it is
• 35:34
  a penetration modeled discussion of sex. The
• 35:38
  idea that William Hurt cannot do anything? But
• 35:40
  we don't know, right? We don't know. I mean,
• 35:45
  obviously he could do some things. But what I
• 35:47
  mean by that is, we have no indication, right,
• 35:51
  of his sexuality. post -Vietnam. That's what
• 35:54
  I mean. Right. Obviously, yes, he cannot do PIV,
• 35:58
  but we also don't have any kind of sense of a
• 36:02
  sex life other than that. Right. That's what
• 36:04
  I mean. And when he says, you know, I can't do
• 36:06
  anything, and you're like, well, can you? Well,
• 36:09
  that's the thing is we don't know. I'm always
• 36:11
  curious about that. But I think, I mean, not
• 36:13
  always, but in watching the film, I'm always
• 36:15
  like, what does he mean exactly? Well, I thought
• 36:18
  he meant that, yes, I mean, obviously he could.
• 36:20
  Sure. I mean, he has a mouth. Right, right. But,
• 36:23
  but I mean, my understanding of that, right,
• 36:25
  is just that basically he might have a working,
• 36:28
  a technically working penis, but he is permanently
• 36:30
  impotent. Right, but he can do. Other things.
• 36:34
  But. Right. Okay. No, but I mean, I take your
• 36:36
  point. I take your point. But I think what is
• 36:39
  important is that we have to understand, right,
• 36:42
  that again, after talking about the whole, like,
• 36:43
  you know, Alex and I made love the night before he
• 36:45
  died, and it was fantastic. Right. And that she
• 36:49
  is open, and because we know that she had called
• 36:52
  into his radio show when she was an adolescent,
• 36:55
  talking about how she was masturbating. Right,
• 36:57
  right. And she's walking around in her Calvin
• 37:01
  Klein underwear tank top. But she also is wearing
• 37:03
  a very Jane Fonda leotard and doing these stretches.
• 37:11
  And it's an outfit that you don't see very often
• 37:14
  in a movie. This is true. Except for maybe flash
• 37:16
  dance or a ballet movie or something like that.
• 37:19
  And her limberness is quite impressive. It is.
• 37:22
  It's amazing. Actually, it just looks like her
• 37:24
  legs are always going to break right out. But
• 37:27
  I do, one of the things that actually, to go
• 37:29
  back to something I asked about a minute ago,
• 37:31
  when I first saw The Big Chill, which again was
• 37:33
  probably my freshman year in high school, one
• 37:36
  line really, really bothered me. And that is
• 37:39
  when they are sitting around eating their Chinese
• 37:41
  food or whatever. And when Jo Beth Williams says,
• 37:45
  last year my girlfriend Rina and I went to Hawaii.
• 37:49
  You know, we went to a Chinese restaurant. That
• 37:51
  bothered me so much because I was like, wait
• 37:53
  a minute. And of course now it just seems so
• 37:56
  normal, but at the time it really, really bothered
• 37:59
  me. I was like, wait a minute. So she has a close
• 38:02
  friend that she travels with, and her other friends
• 38:07
  don't know that friend. Interesting. That really
• 38:12
  bothered me. That bothers you. Why does that
• 38:15
  bother you? I mean, it doesn't bother me now.
• 38:16
  But as a 14 year old, it really bothered me.
• 38:19
  Because what that said to me was, okay. She her
• 38:24
  friends are complete because keep in mind. I
• 38:26
  was a freshman in high school, right? I was like,
• 38:29
  wait a minute. So her friends are Fractured.
• 38:31
  Yeah, right. So and the idea that someone might
• 38:33
  have totally separate right? Right that totally
• 38:37
  didn't register. I also keep in mind right for
• 38:39
  someone like me I was like, oh, okay I'll just
• 38:41
  be living in Maine for the rest of my life and
• 38:43
  so it won't be the case where there will be But
• 38:46
  also like your college friends, and maybe you
• 38:48
  see your college friends and get together. But
• 38:49
  I didn't think of that as a freshman in high
• 38:51
  school. I wasn't like, oh, this is what college.
• 38:53
  I had no conception. That's interesting. Of what
• 38:55
  college friends were like. None. None. And so
• 38:58
  that really bothered me. And again, whenever
• 39:01
  I would see it, I was like, it felt jarring to
• 39:05
  me. Not that I was like, oh, this isn't someone
• 39:07
  else's experience. But it was very sad. to me
• 39:11
  that she had a girlfriend that her other friends
• 39:14
  didn't know and even some and it didn't bother
• 39:16
  me so much at the time but now of course i think
• 39:18
  of none of her friends in that friend group had
• 39:22
  met her husband. So they hadn't gone to her
• 39:24
  wedding. Well, I also got this sense, again,
• 39:26
  about her. Yes, she came back for the Alex funeral,
• 39:29
  but she's not like a Meg. She's not talking on
• 39:32
  the phone with Sarah, with the Glenn Close cleric
• 39:35
  here. Has she ever met their kids? Who knows?
• 39:38
  Maybe not. And that was, to me, that's one of
• 39:41
  the interesting things about the movie is that
• 39:43
  you don't know the level of friendship that these
• 39:46
  different people have. And has JT Lancer, has
• 39:50
  Sam Berenger, ever come back since he was in
• 39:54
  college. And then the familiarity of the house.
• 39:59
  And some people have been there, some people
• 40:00
  have not. And that's true to life. And I think
• 40:04
  that that's realistic. But the fact that no one
• 40:06
  had ever met her husband. And one of the things
• 40:09
  that always confused me, but I think I got more
• 40:11
  clarity this time, is whether those kids were
• 40:13
  even hers. I didn't know whether, for a while,
• 40:17
  whether JoBeth Williams' sons, were, whether
• 40:20
  she married a man with those kids, or whether
• 40:22
  they were actually her biological kids. Because
• 40:25
  he's always like, my boys, my boys. And I'm like,
• 40:27
  oh. No, that's how I understood that. That they're
• 40:30
  actually her biological. Because she's like,
• 40:32
  you know, I'm basically giving these kids the
• 40:33
  life that I never had. And that's the excuse
• 40:35
  to marry him. Right? She's giving her children
• 40:38
  the stability that she herself did not have as
• 40:39
  a child. Right. When she says that whole stuff
• 40:41
  to Sam. Although, again, Some of the, then you
• 40:45
  get into the question, okay, I think Kevin Kline's
• 40:48
  like, we were all these privileged white kids
• 40:50
  at Michigan. And then I'm like, would they all
• 40:53
  have gone to Michigan? Because some of them,
• 40:57
  I'm sort of like, yes, that works for me and
• 41:00
  that tracks. And for some of them, I'm like,
• 41:03
  I don't know about. You think they're like what?
• 41:06
  Like dumb to get. I don't think they're dumb,
• 41:09
  but again, some of them feel more like Michigan
• 41:12
  radicals in the, early late 60s early 70s than
• 41:16
  the others do yes but of course that but that's
• 41:20
  part and parcel of the entire argument right
• 41:24
  that they have radically changed i will say the
• 41:26
  other thing in addition to the soundtrack and
• 41:29
  this might jive with what you're saying it never
• 41:32
  made sense to me that there are so many of them
• 41:33
  are football fans That actually drove me crazy.
• 41:36
  They're like all of a sudden, these like hippie
• 41:38
  communists, you know, protesting against the
• 41:41
  war. They're like, oh, we're going crazy. And
• 41:43
  they're outside playing and they're all... Yes.
• 41:45
  And of course I was like, you know... They wouldn't
• 41:47
  be like against the machine and like... Yes.
• 41:50
  They're all like, oh my God, the only thing we
• 41:51
  care about is watching this like football game.
• 41:53
  And you know, we care deeply about the coach
• 41:55
  and that made no sense to me. All of them. All
• 41:59
  of them. Yeah. Anyway, but I do, I just then,
• 42:02
  you know, thinking about what you just said about,
• 42:04
  you know, meeting, because Meg, right, Meg hasn't
• 42:07
  met Karen's kids, you know, all of these different
• 42:09
  sort of question marks about what connection
• 42:12
  they have had over the years. But that's when
• 42:14
  I do keep coming back to what I do think is so
• 42:17
  moving, you know, kind of, again, a sad way,
• 42:19
  when William Hurt says, a long time ago, right,
• 42:22
  we knew each other for a very short time. Right.
• 42:25
  as opposed to, you know, Sam basically saying,
• 42:27
  you know, we're friends forever, besties. And
• 42:30
  so, but that's what I think is really, and in
• 42:32
  a sense, the film never really resolves that.
• 42:35
  Right. You know, but I think that that is a...
• 42:39
  sensible and interesting and important sort of
• 42:42
  statement. When he says it was easy for us to
• 42:43
  be friends then. Back when we were all sort of
• 42:46
  together, but then we went out into the real
• 42:48
  world and these friendships fracture. But I love
• 42:50
  the idea that Sam and Nick, they have these two
• 42:55
  radically different understandings of the depth
• 42:57
  of that friendship. And it's a question mark.
• 43:01
  The question mark that isn't is that the end
• 43:04
  of the film when Nick decides to stay back with
• 43:08
  Chloe and fix up the house and stay with Kevin
• 43:11
  Kline and Glenn Close, that that will be more
• 43:14
  than just a passing friendship. That they will
• 43:16
  have a more substantive friendship. You are right.
• 43:21
  So I think part of the film is questioning the
• 43:25
  past and the kind of depth of the friendships,
• 43:28
  but also the possibility for new ones and renewal.
• 43:30
  Yes. And maybe with Meg and her baby, maybe with
• 43:35
  Nick and we'll see Nick fixing up the farmhouse
• 43:38
  with Chloe. We'll see. Some of them we know we're
• 43:41
  never going to see them again. And some of them,
• 43:45
  who knows? Although it certainly does end, right,
• 43:47
  in this optimistic note of kind of the refreshment
• 43:50
  of the friendships, right? Like, we will go visit
• 43:52
  each other, right? We will sort of see. And who
• 43:54
  knows? Who knows? Although when Karen says to
• 43:57
  Sam, oh, can you get us some tickets to, like,
• 43:59
  comment this? I mean, I think that's the end
• 44:00
  for them. To me. I don't think that he's calling
• 44:04
  her for like a booty call, like a cross -country
• 44:06
  booty call anytime soon. That's something else
• 44:08
  that never really worked for me. I'm like, why
• 44:10
  does she go back to her husband? I don't think
• 44:12
  that's really ever explained very well at all.
• 44:15
  It doesn't mean she has to, you know, because
• 44:16
  obviously he rejects her. Yes. Right. Yes. And
• 44:20
  with the whole sort of boredom thing. But it's
• 44:21
  never really kind of made sense. So she's like,
• 44:24
  I'm leaving him. They have hot sex in the dirt.
• 44:27
  And then she's like, I'm going back to my husband.
• 44:29
  Right. So maybe Sam was just bad at it. Maybe
• 44:32
  he's just mad at it. Who knows? But I do think
• 44:33
  that's something that I wanted to sort of see
• 44:35
  more of. Right. And I will say, I did not appreciate,
• 44:37
  having seen this movie a million times, Jeff
• 44:39
  Goldblum is just fantastic in this. He's so good.
• 44:43
  He is good. He's very, very good. And they all
• 44:46
  are. Yes, I agree. When we think that there wasn't
• 44:50
  a casting director Oscar back in the day, this
• 44:53
  would have been a movie to get one. Because again,
• 44:57
  like you said, the movie itself isn't necessarily
• 45:01
  a great movie, but there are so many great things.
• 45:04
  about it. Yes. And not much goes on. Not much
• 45:07
  goes on. And I will say, I mean, it's very well
• 45:09
  known that this was kind of a theft of a movie
• 45:12
  called Return of the Secaucus Seven by John Sayles.
• 45:15
  And I've never seen the entirety of that film,
• 45:17
  but I've watched like a little tiny bit of it.
• 45:18
  And The Big Chill is a much better fit. I mean,
• 45:22
  it's not this kind of indie that was made for,
• 45:24
  you know, $200 or whatever. And that's what I
• 45:27
  think is really, but it's so, it is, it's compelling.
• 45:31
  Right. Even though nothing really happens. Nothing
• 45:32
  happens. Right. But there's, again, there's just
• 45:35
  something about it that is... Yeah. And, you
• 45:38
  know, again, it's vibes. Yes. It is vibes. Yes.
• 45:41
  It is vibes. But I don't think vibes that anyone
• 45:44
  who's our age or not older would understand.
• 45:51
  Yes. I concur. Nobody would like it who's...
• 45:54
  I absolutely concur. Well, and speaking of again,
• 45:58
  again, people who are, I don't know, advanced
• 46:01
  in their life at a particular age, let's talk
• 46:04
  about our last friend group of the time. We have
• 46:07
  to. We have to. We have to. And that is Lauren
• 46:10
  and I also for this week watched... I didn't
• 46:15
  have to watch it because I've seen it so many
• 46:16
  times that there's just no need for it. No, I
• 46:18
  had to re -watch it. There's no need for me to
• 46:20
  re -watch. I had to re -watch it. I probably
• 46:21
  watch it every week. Oh my god. Yeah, it's the
• 46:24
  best. You know what? I had forgotten that I just
• 46:26
  absolutely hate it. No, I absolutely hate it.
• 46:29
  No, let me amend that. Let me amend that. Okay,
• 46:32
  Lauren is looking at me with a horrified look.
• 46:34
  Let me amend that. Okay. Okay. of course, as
• 46:38
  maybe our listeners know or not know, St. Elmo's
• 46:41
  Fire, which came out, what, 1986, 1985, thereabouts.
• 46:44
  It was known as The Little Chill when it came
• 46:47
  out because it was so similar. A friend group,
• 46:50
  in this case, who have gone to Georgetown, very
• 46:53
  recently graduated. This is their first year.
• 46:56
  And again, a kind of mix of romantic and sexual
• 46:59
  sort of dynamics. In the friend group, we have,
• 47:02
  what, three women and four men. and obviously
• 47:06
  lots of different sort of stereotypes. But they
• 47:09
  are all together. They are all still in the friend
• 47:13
  group. Some of them are living together as roommates.
• 47:15
  Some of them are living together romantically.
• 47:18
  So the time has not really passed. The time has
• 47:20
  not passed. They still go to the same college
• 47:22
  bar, St. Elmo's, that they went to as undergraduates.
• 47:26
  And so I think that... So they're 22. Right,
• 47:32
  right. Not all of them look 22. No. Of course,
• 47:36
  something else that was striking about St. Elmo's
• 47:38
  Fire is that there was significant casting overlap.
• 47:41
  Yes. With, say, both The Breakfast Club and Pretty
• 47:44
  in Pink leading to the Brat Pack. Although some
• 47:49
  non -brat packers. Some non -brat, including
• 47:52
  Demi Moore, who's never really part of the Brat
• 47:54
  Pack. And Mare Winningham also. Mare Winningham.
• 47:57
  Okay. Which is, again, the oddest choice of the
• 48:02
  movie ever. Mare Winningham cast as a Jewish
• 48:06
  girl. Jewish daughter of a - An overweight Jewish
• 48:11
  girl. And they're like, how did this even, how?
• 48:13
  She's supposed to be overweight and Jewish. How?
• 48:17
  in love with Rob Lowe and Rob Lowe kind of into
• 48:20
  her. There are so many oddities about the Mayor
• 48:25
  Winningham character, but let's proceed. Let's
• 48:28
  proceed. Okay. So we have, here's, okay. What
• 48:32
  I really reacted against this time around. Okay.
• 48:36
  I never react against anything. It has been a
• 48:39
  long time since I've seen it. I've also seen
• 48:40
  it so many times. I just love it so much. Okay.
• 48:42
  So what is the... the Kirby character, Emilio
• 48:48
  Estevez's character, all he does in this film
• 48:51
  is stalk someone. He does stalk someone. Andie
• 48:53
  McDowell looks so beautiful in this film. Just
• 48:56
  unbelievable. There is nothing else to his character
• 49:00
  other than he is a stalker. He is a sounding
• 49:04
  board for Andrew McCarthy. They do talk about
• 49:08
  this and that occasionally when he's not. stocking,
• 49:15
  but he has many iterations of his stocking, which
• 49:17
  are funny, at least to me. And when he has to
• 49:20
  be the doctor, he has to be the lawyer. He has
• 49:22
  to be the entrepreneur. He, you know, again,
• 49:26
  I'm not saying it's the richest Oscar deserving
• 49:29
  character ever. Um, I guess. I am willing to
• 49:34
  have these kind of, to me it's sort of like a
• 49:36
  sex in the storyline where like somebody got
• 49:38
  shafted on their storyline of the week, and he
• 49:41
  kind of got shafted on the storyline of the movie.
• 49:44
  He definitely did. Okay. I concur. But again,
• 49:48
  I can put the Kerbo aside. All right? I'll put
• 49:52
  the Kerbo aside. Also, it's a, there's a, because
• 49:56
  the other ones are so good. The other ones are
• 50:00
  so good. Okay, I'm gonna tell you my other big
• 50:03
  complaint this time around. Oh no. If you tell
• 50:05
  me that Rob Lowe isn't like… Rob Lowe is beautiful.
• 50:07
  Okay, thank you. He's just so beautiful. Thank
• 50:09
  you. Yes, he is. He's beautiful now, he's beautiful
• 50:12
  then, always beautiful. But the opposite of that,
• 50:16
  in that, okay, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham, whoever
• 50:19
  was the costume designer and the stylist, awful,
• 50:23
  awful. So the entire time… Ally Sheedy is just,
• 50:27
  it's the worst example of 80s. It's really bad
• 50:30
  Laura Ashley is what it is. Super bad. So she's
• 50:33
  always wearing the kind of like what black cardigan
• 50:36
  or jacket with like the lace collar. We basically
• 50:39
  see her wearing that. twice. It's like it's a
• 50:41
  long skirt. It's pretty buttoned up. Right. So
• 50:44
  super covered up. And she's she has that terrible,
• 50:47
  terrible 1980s, right, sort of boy cut with like
• 50:51
  the feathered back. But it was so she was so
• 50:54
  plain. But in the 80s, we liked it. In the 80s,
• 50:57
  somebody had it, is what I'm saying. Lots of
• 50:59
  people had it. But it didn't look good. No, but
• 51:02
  a lot of people in the 80s had the Ally Sheedy
• 51:04
  and went for it. I know. In fact, did I tell
• 51:07
  you that at one of my high school reunions, someone
• 51:09
  in my class actually came up to me and said,
• 51:10
  oh, hi, Christine, I'm so -and -so. She's like,
• 51:12
  you probably don't recognize me because I had
• 51:14
  that terrible boy's haircut when we were in high
• 51:15
  school. I was like, wow. Yeah. I didn't have
• 51:19
  it. I didn't either, but I definitely knew people
• 51:22
  who did. I would say 70%. probably in my high
• 51:26
  school class. So that was a thing back then.
• 51:30
  But that's the sort of thing where I'm like,
• 51:33
  OK, when we saw this, right, in 85, 86, I'm like,
• 51:36
  did they look pretty? Yes. But Mare Winningham,
• 51:40
  I don't think she did. But she's supposed to.
• 51:42
  No, Mare Winningham was always the characters,
• 51:47
  written as frumpy and overweight and unattractive,
• 51:50
  especially compared to the other women. And we
• 51:53
  all saw her that way when we saw the movie. But
• 51:55
  I also, but I even think that again, I mean Ally
• 51:58
  Sheedy looks plain, right? But, but of course
• 52:01
  Demi Moore looks... Gorgeous. Bombshell. She's
• 52:05
  a bombshell. Unbelievable. She just looks amazing.
• 52:08
  But even, again, in terms of the styling, she
• 52:11
  also is able to be styled in a way that is very
• 52:14
  typical 80s clothes, but not the frumpy, buttoned
• 52:17
  -up Laura Ashley or kind of L .O .B. No, but
• 52:19
  she's also supposed to be a huge contrast with
• 52:23
  those two. She's supposed to be the Rob Lowe
• 52:26
  of the girls. The Rob Lowe of the girls. So then
• 52:28
  we have, of course, on the other side, Judd Nelson,
• 52:32
  who playing a totally different character than
• 52:34
  what he did in Breakfast Club. Right, obviously.
• 52:37
  Judd Nelson from My Hometown of Portland, Maine.
• 52:38
  Oh, very good. Yes. And so what we immediately
• 52:43
  are supposed to understand that he's kind of
• 52:45
  a jerk because even though he's a Democrat, he
• 52:48
  goes to work for a Republican senator. Republican.
• 52:50
  And we know he's a philanderer. Philanderer.
• 52:53
  And you can really see that, right, as sort of
• 52:55
  a pre kind of like AIDS in the culture movie,
• 52:58
  right? When he does it with a sales girl. Standing
• 53:01
  up. Standing up in a dressing room. And again,
• 53:04
  it's like that probably, I don't know. Right.
• 53:06
  I'm not sure we would have gotten that five years
• 53:07
  later. So, and then we have again, Kerbo the
• 53:11
  stalker. Kerbo the stalker. Can I just say one
• 53:12
  more thing about Kerbo the stalker? When he basically
• 53:15
  drives up. after having crashed a party, and
• 53:19
  then later drives up and interrupts her ski trip.
• 53:21
  And they let him stay the night. Like, would
• 53:24
  you let a stalker like that stay the night? But
• 53:27
  here's the thing. I mean, I think we're supposed
• 53:29
  to read it as sweet, and I guess I do in some
• 53:32
  demented way. Because she was a freshman. She
• 53:35
  was a senior when he was a freshman, and he had
• 53:38
  this... Huge crush, and he took her to this one,
• 53:42
  he took her to see Annie Hall, and because she
• 53:45
  was being nice, and she's just a kind -hearted
• 53:48
  person, she's a doctor, of course she has this
• 53:51
  like boyfriend, this handsome boyfriend, and
• 53:54
  so she's just being a good Samaritan, and having
• 53:57
  this guy who went to her college who Kan was
• 54:00
  younger and and and I'm sure at some point she's
• 54:04
  like I was a freshman and I was kind of lost.
• 54:06
  Awkward. Awkward. Even though I was gorgeous
• 54:08
  and looked like Andie MacDowell. Correct. I'm not
• 54:11
  saying the whole thing links up but I don't think
• 54:14
  it was total like unsafe behavior for them to
• 54:17
  have him sleep in the house. Now giving him the
• 54:19
  pajamas and all that may have been a bit much.
• 54:23
  Although I wouldn't have lent him the car if
• 54:25
  our men were winning him. See that was it wasn't
• 54:28
  really clear to me if he just like stole the
• 54:30
  car. That's something else that I think is kind
• 54:33
  of unfortunate about the film and you can argue
• 54:35
  with me is that You know this poor like boyfriend
• 54:38
  of Mare Winningham's house. Where it's like
• 54:41
  even she's like making fun of him and I want
• 54:43
  to say like shut the fuck up you know bitch like
• 54:45
  because she's just like oh well you know he's
• 54:47
  so. Oh and when she's talking about one of her
• 54:49
  previous boyfriends right like oh would you would
• 54:51
  you sleep with so -and -so? Also it's kind of
• 54:53
  anti -semitic. It is! Because like all of her
• 54:57
  boyfriends are Jewish. Yes and they're these
• 54:58
  like. And they're these like loser like people
• 55:02
  that you'd never want to have sex with. Yes and
• 55:04
  it's said that like really And so the whole idea
• 55:07
  is like, you know, the only hot guys are basically
• 55:09
  like the goyim. I think for her, the only hot
• 55:13
  guy is Rob Lowe. And I might stand by that. Okay.
• 55:16
  But he is depicted as being 100 % the biggest
• 55:21
  fucking loser. Yes. Right. Absolutely. And one.
• 55:24
  Okay. We talked before about like maybe who got
• 55:25
  into Michigan and who didn't. How did he get
• 55:27
  into Georgetown? How did he get into Georgetown?
• 55:29
  How? There's no. No. That's the big question.
• 55:32
  How did Rob Lowe get into Georgetown? And was
• 55:35
  there ever, and we don't ever get the explanation
• 55:38
  of where the downfall. Now, here's the only thing
• 55:40
  I can figure out, because I'm thinking a lot
• 55:42
  about this over the years. Football scholarship.
• 55:45
  We know that he goes back to the fraternity and
• 55:49
  he's like, oh, you're going to play football.
• 55:51
  And he's like, I'd like to do some coaching.
• 55:53
  And I'm like, maybe he had some kind of sports
• 55:55
  scholarship. And now he's just a burnout and
• 55:57
  he's a drug addict and he's a million other things.
• 56:00
  And obviously got this girl pregnant. He got
• 56:01
  this girl pregnant and had to get, quote unquote,
• 56:03
  had to get married. Had to get married. And so
• 56:05
  he went there on some kind of athletic scholarship.
• 56:08
  That's the only thing I can come up with because
• 56:10
  there's no indication there was any studying.
• 56:13
  Whereas the other ones, I mean, to be more who's
• 56:15
  like a complete, like, cokehead and, like, you
• 56:18
  know, she's, yeah, all of it. But you could see
• 56:21
  her taking these, like, Wharton -esque kind of
• 56:24
  classes and being somebody that's, like, super
• 56:26
  into business and then gets a job at a bank,
• 56:29
  which is what she does. Which is what she does.
• 56:31
  Yeah. Yeah. Of course you could see Judd Nelson
• 56:33
  and... Um, and, and what's her name? Ally Sheedy.
• 56:37
  Like being these like, you know, political...
• 56:39
  What is Ally Sheedy's job even? I was like, what
• 56:42
  does she even do? She's sitting at like a drawing
• 56:44
  table, like she's an architect or something?
• 56:46
  Maybe. But I'm like, you don't become an architect
• 56:47
  from just like going to college. No, we don't
• 56:49
  ever know what her job is, but... it's something
• 56:52
  quote important yes because yeah okay well we're
• 56:56
  told like that's her excuse for not wanting to
• 56:57
  get married right but i actually i think the
• 56:59
  film again kind of fails and not even like bothering
• 57:01
  explaining what it is right what is her actual
• 57:04
  career right right and sweet Andrew McCarthy
• 57:07
  who has harbored this crush on Ally Sheedy forever.
• 57:13
  And, you know, that scene of them, which is one
• 57:16
  of my favorite scenes, I would just... Oh, like
• 57:19
  sex scene? Yeah, it's a great scene because of
• 57:21
  course, you know, he's headed for heartbreak.
• 57:24
  Yes. And at the same time, you're happy for him
• 57:27
  because you're like, you're getting what you
• 57:29
  want, finally. And, you know, it's not gonna
• 57:31
  last. It's not gonna last, but you're getting
• 57:33
  what you want. And then the next scene when Alec
• 57:37
  come in and it's just sitting there. I think
• 57:41
  I told you I read his memoirs. Which I don't
• 57:44
  recommend because they're like really depressing.
• 57:48
  No, I saw that movie though. Yeah, the Brat Pack
• 57:51
  documentary. But what he says in the memoirs,
• 57:54
  which I didn't know until reading them, is that
• 57:56
  the shower door really did break by accident
• 57:59
  when they were filming. And so I was like, oh,
• 58:02
  that's cute little detail. What about the pearls?
• 58:05
  I don't remember about the pearls. But we, of
• 58:08
  course, then have, I mean, we have this idea
• 58:11
  that. i don't know maybe so the friend group
• 58:14
  kind of fractures for a while over this kind
• 58:16
  of jealousy over ali shidi's character also fractures
• 58:20
  because billy is incredibly awful and rude about
• 58:24
  potentially uh what's her name? Mare Winningham's
• 58:26
  character losing her virginity, right? So we
• 58:28
  do have these fractures. Also we have everyone
• 58:31
  trying to save Demi Moore from like killing herself.
• 58:34
  Which I have to say, that is the single least
• 58:37
  efficient mode of suicide. I don't, I'm not trying
• 58:41
  to be flippant, but sitting in a room and opening
• 58:44
  your windows is really not. Right. It's not recommend.
• 58:48
  Right. Right. So not that I, you know, but of
• 58:51
  course that's something where I think the movie
• 58:53
  tonally again doesn't kind of know what it wants
• 58:58
  to be, right? Cause we have all these kind of
• 59:00
  like sort of funny moments again, you know, but
• 59:03
  then there's like, oh yes. And this character
• 59:04
  is trying to kill herself because she's her father
• 59:07
  hates her and she lost her job and all this other
• 59:09
  stuff. So I feel like at the end, we're kind
• 59:11
  of like hit with a lot of stuff. It is a lot.
• 59:15
  It's a lot. But again, I think the 80s vibes
• 59:20
  for me, they're all there. And every one of these
• 59:23
  storylines... Even the soccer one, I'm just there
• 59:28
  for it. I'm there for it. Look, I love these
• 59:30
  Brat Pack people so much. I watch them in anything.
• 59:33
  I mean, I even watched like Young Guns. I mean,
• 59:35
  I even watched the bad ones. I even watched Wild
• 59:37
  Horses. Oh my god, that one is so... Oh my god,
• 59:42
  that movie is so bad. Like some of them are so
• 59:44
  bad and so unwatchable. But I even watched that
• 59:47
  one. Did you watch Weekend at Bernie's? Of course.
• 59:50
  Which I've never seen. Weekend at Bernie's is
• 59:51
  terrific. I've never seen it. I mean, that's
• 59:53
  actually really funny. I mean, wild horses were
• 59:56
  like, what is it? Ally Sheedy is like complete
• 59:58
  trash. No, it's Molly Ringwald. Fresh Horses.
• 1:00:01
  Fresh Horses. Yes, it's Molly Ringwald. Molly
• 1:00:03
  Ringwald is total trash. Andrew McCarthy is like
• 1:00:06
  the, you know, he's the, what's that other character?
• 1:00:10
  Christian Slater, not the Christian Slater. John
• 1:00:12
  Nelson? No, what's that other actor's name who's
• 1:00:15
  always like the you know, James Spader? Yes, James
• 1:00:19
  Spader Yes, he's Ohio, Kentucky, Ohio sort of
• 1:00:23
  wealth and Kentucky white trash. Correct. Correct.
• 1:00:26
  He's like the James Bader character of that movie
• 1:00:29
  and it's and then they're like always in a barn
• 1:00:32
  and it's just and she has like a like a horrible,
• 1:00:36
  like, domestic violence guy. And she might be,
• 1:00:38
  like, young, it's, like, underage, it's just
• 1:00:40
  so, that movie's really creepy. It's so skeevy.
• 1:00:43
  But nonetheless, I watched it, because those
• 1:00:45
  people were in it. I just, I'm there for them,
• 1:00:48
  okay? I get it. And again, Rob Lowe, I just,
• 1:00:53
  when he is playing the drums at the Halloween
• 1:00:55
  party with that bat tank top, I mean - No, he's
• 1:00:58
  playing the sax. The sax. That's right. Because
• 1:01:01
  this, to me, was something that - out with Demi
• 1:01:06
  Moore on a drum. She is on now. Yes. Yes. Yes,
• 1:01:09
  you're right. She's like straddling the drug
• 1:01:11
  the drum He is playing the sax and then he has
• 1:01:13
  to sell the sax Yeah, and then he gets the sax
• 1:01:15
  back to go to New York. Yes And so that's something
• 1:01:19
  else that I think is like really just sort of
• 1:01:21
  disturbing about it Is that Mayor Winningham
• 1:01:23
  is basically like financially supporting him
• 1:01:25
  or Mare Winningham's dad? Martin Balsam is financially
• 1:01:28
  supporting him kind of gross. Also the other
• 1:01:32
  thing that's kind of gross which you know Again
• 1:01:35
  at the time as a young whatever whatever year
• 1:01:37
  it was and I watched those like every time that
• 1:01:41
  they try to hook up if he is so aggressive and
• 1:01:44
  it is so uncomfortable and she clearly is inexperienced
• 1:01:50
  yes, and it makes you feel like this is so predatory
• 1:01:54
  and disgusting and Like stop, but we're also
• 1:01:58
  supposed to think that he's doing her a big favor,
• 1:01:59
  right? He's doing her a big favor by actually
• 1:02:03
  sleeping with her. Because he's hot. Because
• 1:02:04
  he's hot and she's not. Right. And then when
• 1:02:08
  they do sleep together at the end, again, that
• 1:02:11
  sex scene to me is the same playing field with
• 1:02:15
  the Kevin Kline. Yes, it is. I could do without
• 1:02:18
  both of them. They're both just cringy and just
• 1:02:22
  like really just gross. And when she's like,
• 1:02:25
  Billy, like, oh my god, this is the most emotionally,
• 1:02:27
  oh my god, this is awful. It's awful. It is awful.
• 1:02:30
  It is awful. It's no Andrew McCarthy and Allie
• 1:02:32
  Sheedy in the shower. Let's put it that way.
• 1:02:34
  No. Or on the coffin. Or on the coffin. Or on
• 1:02:37
  the coffin. No. So we do... Okay. So what we
• 1:02:41
  certainly learn also from St. Elmo's Fire, friend
• 1:02:46
  groups, again, absolutely rife with sexual and
• 1:02:50
  romantic tension. Sure. easily fractured. Yes.
• 1:02:54
  That is again because of jealous and certainly
• 1:02:56
  one thing we didn't talk about with the Big Chill
• 1:02:57
  is that Karen is very jealous of Meg at one point
• 1:03:01
  when she thinks Meg and Sam have slept together.
• 1:03:05
  Oh, okay. Remember there's sort of - I guess
• 1:03:06
  so. And so this idea that again are these friendships
• 1:03:09
  - I mean Billy ends up leaving and of course
• 1:03:11
  what's also funny is going to New York and they
• 1:03:12
  act like they're never seeing each other again.
• 1:03:15
  I know, I know. Stay cool man. Don't go changing
• 1:03:19
  to try to please me. Okay, can I say one more
• 1:03:21
  thing? where I was like, seeing this movie again,
• 1:03:23
  I'm like, I don't like that. It hadn't really
• 1:03:25
  registered to me the first dozen times I saw
• 1:03:28
  it. So, Mayor Winningham's character, Demi Moore,
• 1:03:31
  they're basically like making out with Billy,
• 1:03:34
  and Mayor Winningham is willing to have sex with
• 1:03:36
  him when he is a married man. Are they? No, but
• 1:03:40
  I thought... No, when Felicia says to him, Felicia,
• 1:03:44
  the wife, says, there's this other guy who wants
• 1:03:47
  to marry me, the guy I dated before you, I'm
• 1:03:51
  cool with it, and I'm going to take the baby
• 1:03:53
  away. Didn't that all happen before... That happened
• 1:03:57
  before Mayor Winningham slept with him. Yes,
• 1:04:00
  but when they first try to do it in the study
• 1:04:04
  in her parents house. Oh, okay, right. When he
• 1:04:05
  sees the girdle. He is married. That has not
• 1:04:08
  happened yet. No, you're right. And when Demi
• 1:04:10
  Moore is kind of making out with him in the car,
• 1:04:14
  they are at his house. Yeah, they're in front
• 1:04:17
  of his house. And his wife obviously comes out.
• 1:04:22
  And yes, when he finally does have sex with Mary
• 1:04:25
  Winningham, his wife is going to marry that other
• 1:04:29
  guy. They're getting divorced. They're not together
• 1:04:31
  anymore. But earlier, Mary Winningham is willing
• 1:04:34
  to have sex with him when he is married. And
• 1:04:36
  again, in high school, I was like, oh, it just
• 1:04:38
  didn't even register. I don't think it registers
• 1:04:40
  because I think the movie tries to and whether,
• 1:04:43
  I mean, whether there is like some kind of moral
• 1:04:45
  issues with this, that the marriage isn't real,
• 1:04:48
  that he's just this playboy that, I mean, he
• 1:04:50
  married her, but that obviously he like sleeps
• 1:04:51
  with anybody who walks and he's not taking care
• 1:04:54
  of his daughter. And we're not supposed, and
• 1:04:56
  she's, and again, even she's like, all you care
• 1:04:58
  about are your friends and the bar. And we're
• 1:05:00
  supposed to in some ways be sympathetic with
• 1:05:02
  that. Yeah. Like, we love this bar and we love
• 1:05:06
  these friends and go away, right? And you're
• 1:05:08
  kind of, you know, you're a drag. So I guess
• 1:05:12
  I didn't perceive it as problematic either. I
• 1:05:16
  guess because it was like marriage, but only
• 1:05:18
  in name only and and that neither one of them
• 1:05:20
  is faithful I mean that she we see her at one
• 1:05:23
  point with this other guy and trying to make
• 1:05:25
  Billy jealous Sure sure and then of course they
• 1:05:27
  come together this like demented way But but
• 1:05:30
  it's not gonna last and he's you know, and it
• 1:05:32
  doesn't and it doesn't and it doesn't the other
• 1:05:34
  one though Okay before the other reason why I
• 1:05:37
  might love this so much is because of about last
• 1:05:39
  night. Oh I haven't really watched that in a
• 1:05:43
  long time another one that I probably watch,
• 1:05:46
  maybe on a weekly basis, okay? And that what
• 1:05:50
  you want to happen in St. Elmo's Fire, of course,
• 1:05:54
  does happen. That to me more and more, when we
• 1:05:55
  have sex all the time. Yes, yes. Wow, I totally
• 1:05:59
  forgot about that. And Jim Belushi. And Jim Belushi.
• 1:06:02
  And Jim Belushi. Yeah. It's just like, it's just
• 1:06:05
  so good. Okay, I take your point. I think the
• 1:06:10
  last thing that I will leave our listeners with
• 1:06:12
  is, and so, It is interesting to think, when
• 1:06:17
  did we, in terms of like American media, when
• 1:06:20
  did we start getting the friend group, right?
• 1:06:24
  As a thing, as a culture. As a vehicle. As a
• 1:06:26
  vehicle. Yes. So when did that happen? But then
• 1:06:30
  also, it's like, well, OK, what do we still have
• 1:06:33
  kind of the friend group film? Like what's the
• 1:06:38
  new version of that, right? What's the sort of
• 1:06:40
  either millennial or Gen Z, you know? Well, I
• 1:06:42
  mean something like something like Euphoria,
• 1:06:46
  okay, but those people are in high school. I'm
• 1:06:47
  trying to get something post high school of I
• 1:06:51
  mean, obviously it was friend but post Post Friends.
• 1:06:55
  Yes. Yeah, which of course huge hit. Yeah, okay
• 1:06:58
  People who are friends now from a particular
• 1:07:03
  moment in their life and have stayed Friends
• 1:07:06
  together. Yes, and I'm trying to think if anything
• 1:07:09
  comes to mind right now and part I when it does
• 1:07:13
  seem like it's like my children are now watching
• 1:07:16
  How I Met your Mother and I'm like, that's just
• 1:07:18
  a ripoff of Friends I told him I'm like, this
• 1:07:19
  is just a ripoff of friends, right? And but the
• 1:07:22
  same but in that case right a couple of I think
• 1:07:24
  What like one of the couples the married couple
• 1:07:27
  and then one of their friends they were in college
• 1:07:29
  together, right? Right. Right. And so there definitely
• 1:07:32
  is that I guess in terms of TV but we don't yet
• 1:07:35
  we don't have that same kind of like reflecting
• 1:07:37
  back on a cohesive sort of friend group. And
• 1:07:41
  there was actually that show called Friends from
• 1:07:43
  College that had... Which I tried to watch and
• 1:07:45
  then... I watched it. I had Fred Savage in it.
• 1:07:48
  Oh, yeah, yeah. And again, it wasn't a hit and
• 1:07:50
  it wasn't... I'm not saying it's even that good.
• 1:07:52
  Wait, was Keegan -Michael Key in that? Yes, Keegan
• 1:07:54
  -Michael Key is in it. And then some other people
• 1:07:55
  that, if I could remember, like people you've
• 1:07:58
  seen in other stuff were in it. And that definitely
• 1:08:01
  was the same deal, like people with unrequited
• 1:08:03
  loves and people with relations still having
• 1:08:06
  affairs from college and those tropes. But I
• 1:08:11
  can't think of anything that's come out at the
• 1:08:14
  moment that is people from college or these friend
• 1:08:19
  groups. And of course, girls, which... Yeah,
• 1:08:24
  yeah. But of course... They all went to college
• 1:08:26
  together. Yeah, but like the other people in
• 1:08:28
  their orbit didn't. I mean, well, what? There's
• 1:08:31
  like... There's the four of them that went. And
• 1:08:33
  then what's his name? What's his name? Andrew
• 1:08:36
  Rannells. Thank you. Andrew Rannells. So yeah,
• 1:08:39
  but it is interesting also then on the other
• 1:08:41
  side of it to think like it started at a, maybe
• 1:08:43
  it started the big chill, right? Again, trying
• 1:08:45
  to think of like earlier. I cannot think of a
• 1:08:47
  single, because obviously we talked before about
• 1:08:50
  where the boys are. Where the boys are. That's
• 1:08:52
  what I think. But of course, but that's different.
• 1:08:54
  That's not the same kind of thing. And they're
• 1:08:55
  in the moment. They're in the moment. It isn't
• 1:08:57
  them coming back later. Now there also is the
• 1:09:03
  vehicle of a murdered friend, and then friends
• 1:09:06
  coming to find out who murdered the friend. Yeah.
• 1:09:10
  Yeah. So, but this isn't that. This is not that.
• 1:09:13
  Okay. Well, I think we're gonna have to leave
• 1:09:15
  it there, Lauren. Thinking about, again, friend
• 1:09:18
  groups. I feel like we did them diligence. I
• 1:09:21
  think so too. I will say, I think I'm okay not
• 1:09:23
  watching St. Elmo's Fire again. I hate to tell
• 1:09:25
  you this, but I'll watch The Breakfast Club a
• 1:09:28
  million times over. But I think, because in part,
• 1:09:31
  I don't want to see the clothes again. It really
• 1:09:32
  is so disturbing to see Mare winning them all
• 1:09:34
  like bundled up like a teddy bear because they're
• 1:09:37
  trying to make her look like a bigger girl. Like
• 1:09:40
  with all the cardigans and the you know the big
• 1:09:42
  like dirndl skirts and stuff. Also I think Demi
• 1:09:45
  Moore was on drugs the whole time. I think so
• 1:09:47
  too. I think that's in that memoir. Yes. Or the
• 1:09:51
  book about her or something you know that recently
• 1:09:53
  came out that she was on drugs the entire time.
• 1:09:56
  But looks exquisite. Oh, and also one thing we
• 1:09:59
  should mention before we go. Ron, right, her
• 1:10:02
  neighbor. Isn't that David Silver's father? Yes!
• 1:10:06
  Yes, excellent call. I was like, Ron the designer.
• 1:10:10
  Ron the decorator. who did the whole Billy Idol
• 1:10:16
  like earring thing on the wall. Love it. And
• 1:10:18
  of course like the giant loft, right? Yes, yes.
• 1:10:22
  What's his name? Alec and Alice, I was gonna
• 1:10:25
  say Allison, like at breakfast club with the
• 1:10:27
  whole Nike ad, sort of very, very dated, right?
• 1:10:30
  On like 1980s apartments. Yeah. I love it. I
• 1:10:33
  love it all. I like the neon. I like the Jeep.
• 1:10:36
  I like, I mean, all of it is just, it's so dated,
• 1:10:39
  but I enjoy it. And we leave very much with the
• 1:10:42
  sense that they are maturing because they are
• 1:10:44
  going to brunch rather than going back to their
• 1:10:46
  college bar. Things have changed. And they see
• 1:10:49
  though, they see their old, the new crew, the
• 1:10:53
  new crew. They're 22 now. They're old. They're
• 1:10:56
  old. Well. I think that's it for us now, and
• 1:11:01
  Lauren and I, we'll have to figure out what we're
• 1:11:02
  going to talk about next time. Yeah. And we'll
• 1:11:04
  try to be a little bit more regular. We have
• 1:11:06
  been very busy though. I know. We have been,
• 1:11:08
  but there's been a lot going on and, but there's
• 1:11:11
  a lot of content out there. And so we can give
• 1:11:13
  it a think and come back to it. And until then.
• 1:11:15
  Until then. Harpies out.