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The Mysterious Origin of (and Disturbing Problems with) the "Wolf Whistle" · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Just thinking a lot about creepy oldies music recently.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Do you guys remember that song, Hey They're Little Miss
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: riding Hood. Hey They're a little Red Riding Hood. Anyway,
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  Speaker 1: I'm bad, I'm bed as soon as you said creepy,
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  Speaker 1: and I knew what we're doing, Ben, I knew it
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  Speaker 1: was going to be that song. Yeah, I'm no, by
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  Speaker 1: the way, and he's like, you sure can't, good yo,
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  Speaker 1: or everything that a big wolf could want, followed by oh,
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  Speaker 1: we're not talking about how exactly today, we're talking about
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  Speaker 1: more of a whistle, the infamous wolf whistle also known
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  Speaker 1: as a cat call, which I always thought was interesting,
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  Speaker 1: like maybe there's a there's something to be unpacked in
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  Speaker 1: the differentiation between a wolf whistle and a cat call. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. But it all started in this incredible
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  Speaker 1: movie that I have not seen in its entirety, what
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  Speaker 1: it's called Have That, To Have and Have Not, which
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  Speaker 1: is a romantic kind of drama thriller from um which
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  Speaker 1: I believe was one of the earliest debuts of of
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  Speaker 1: the incredible Lauren bacall Um, and she and Humphrey Bogard
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  Speaker 1: appeared across from each other in multiple films. But there's
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  Speaker 1: a scene where, um, you know, they're just kind of
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  Speaker 1: like the sexual tension is just killing you. It's it's palpable.
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  Speaker 1: You can cut it with a knife. And uh, she
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  Speaker 1: gives him a kiss and he said, well, what did
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  Speaker 1: you do that for? I don't know. When we play
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  Speaker 1: the clip, you know, you don't have to act with me, Steve.
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  Speaker 1: You don't have to say anything, and you don't have
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  Speaker 1: to do anything, not a thing. Oh maybe just whistle.
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  Speaker 1: You know how to whistle down? Just Steve, you just
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  Speaker 1: put your lips together and slow. You know, I've got
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  Speaker 1: to say from her description it sounds a little more
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  Speaker 1: simple maybe than it is, because a lot of people
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  Speaker 1: struggle with whistling. But I've got to ask our super producer,
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  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram Casey, you know, we didn't want to give
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  Speaker 1: you the nickname wolf Whistle for this one, and you'll
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  Speaker 1: see why. But have you have you? Have you seen
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  Speaker 1: to have and have not? I believe I have. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's Howard Hawks movie, and I'm pretty sure
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  Speaker 1: I thought at some point in college. But it's been
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  Speaker 1: a while. Did you learn to whistle from watching it? No? Um,
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  Speaker 1: I've never been able to do that whistle. I can
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  Speaker 1: do regular like tuneful whistling pretty well, but the wolf
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  Speaker 1: whistle completely aids me. Oh but that's the thing though,
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  Speaker 1: This is this is where it gets funny. She says,
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  Speaker 1: put your lips together and blow, uh, which you know
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  Speaker 1: the wolf whistle as I think about as where you
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  Speaker 1: put your thumb and forefinger exactly. I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: to do that. I don't even understand what it does do.
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  Speaker 1: Is it just intense? I guess you got to modulated something,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't know. I feel like it just sort
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  Speaker 1: of is like a little booster for a regular whistle.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know. But again, um, this scene really did
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  Speaker 1: because you know, he does the whistle sound. You hear
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  Speaker 1: that in the clip, and the wolf whistle is all
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  Speaker 1: about the pitch modulation. It's all about the we we
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  Speaker 1: you know, that's it. And uh, it was that archetype
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  Speaker 1: that kind of created the model of what was a
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  Speaker 1: very fashionable thing for a while. It was a sign
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  Speaker 1: of like, hey, good looking, you know, it's on a
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  Speaker 1: flirtatious or whatever. But it wouldn't be terribly long before
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  Speaker 1: it became uh incredibly um, maligned and in poor taste
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  Speaker 1: and something that we think of now today. The idea
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  Speaker 1: of cat calling is right up there with any other
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  Speaker 1: form of sexual harassment. Uh. It is not okay, um,
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  Speaker 1: and it's something that women don't want to have to
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  Speaker 1: deal with, no question about it. But you know, back
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  Speaker 1: when Bogey did it, it was kind of cute. It
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  Speaker 1: was it was portrayed as you know, an aspirational, cool
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  Speaker 1: thing to do, kind of like how spoken cigarettes was
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  Speaker 1: portrayed for a long time. UM. But I like your
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  Speaker 1: point about the sexual harassment. We have to set that
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  Speaker 1: out in the very beginning. We are a history show.
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  Speaker 1: But right now in lu Bush's domain of France, politicians
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  Speaker 1: are seriously considering a bill where they're gonna find people
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  Speaker 1: uh ninety euros if they're caught wolf whistling because they
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  Speaker 1: want to try to combat sexual harassment. And then I
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  Speaker 1: believe there's even a British politician who's saying, let's crack
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  Speaker 1: down on this on cat calling people, wolf whistling on people. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, if you ask anybody, it's it's around.
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  Speaker 1: It's been around. But I think to your question, Noll,
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  Speaker 1: and I love the way you did the pitch there.
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  Speaker 1: The question is how did this become so charged with meaning? Well,
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  Speaker 1: I mean I think it's sort of like a pop
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  Speaker 1: culture trope kind of thing. You think about it in cartoons,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you think about it in like tech savory cartoons,
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  Speaker 1: or you know, stuff from the fifties and like the
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  Speaker 1: Bogar movie, Like that is the period that I think
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  Speaker 1: of that particular version of it, But it goes farther
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  Speaker 1: back than that, a lot farther. Um. It you know,
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  Speaker 1: was around in ancient Rome, for example. Uh, the idea
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  Speaker 1: of men hissing at women, that's that's definitely a little
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  Speaker 1: sinister um or whistling at them in a similar way,
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  Speaker 1: you know, not necessarily the same two tone kind of structure,
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  Speaker 1: but it definitely was a thing. Um. There was a
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  Speaker 1: comic playwright by the name of Claudis who wrote a
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  Speaker 1: play called Mercator in two inter BC, and he refers
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  Speaker 1: to a young woman saying that when she passed through
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  Speaker 1: the streets, all the men would look at her, leer, nod, wink,
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  Speaker 1: and whistled. So you know, if that's not just literally
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  Speaker 1: describing what a cat call is that I don't know
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  Speaker 1: what is Yeah, and you know this always thinks I've
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  Speaker 1: always been mystified by the motivation for cat calling or
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  Speaker 1: whistling to people in general, Like, is there ever anybody
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  Speaker 1: who's gonna like when they're eighteen, they're gonna say, oh, mom, dad,
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  Speaker 1: how did you meet? And they say, well, one day
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  Speaker 1: I was walking down the street, living my own life,
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  Speaker 1: and your father, who was who was pretty drunk, whistled
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  Speaker 1: at me and said, hey, hot stuff, you know you
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  Speaker 1: look your your butt looks like too bobcats in a
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  Speaker 1: tight sack fighting. And next thing you know, we're married
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  Speaker 1: in Vegas and here you are and we were so happy.
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  Speaker 1: We're so happy together and we love you so much, right,
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  Speaker 1: and thank you for asking about our origin story. Um. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it's something that yeah, no, exactly, Ben, Like, it's like,
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  Speaker 1: what what are you after with this? It's just a flex.
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  Speaker 1: It's a weird flex. It's a way of saying, hey,
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  Speaker 1: look at me, exercising some form of control over you.
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  Speaker 1: It's a way to make people uncomfortable, um, and to
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  Speaker 1: kind of exercise some form of dominance. Uh, in my
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  Speaker 1: in my opinion, and it certainly feels that way in
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  Speaker 1: the Roman version of it, where it's a group of
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  Speaker 1: men with a lone female passing through the streets and
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  Speaker 1: them trying to exercise some kind of control over her.
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  Speaker 1: Certainly there's no sense that they went after her tried
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  Speaker 1: to physically harm her or rape her or anything. But
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  Speaker 1: you know, enough alcohol and enough ill will and horrible
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  Speaker 1: nous that certainly would be an escalation of something like that.
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  Speaker 1: So that's part of it too. There's an implication of hey,
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  Speaker 1: we see you, and yeah, you better be careful or
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  Speaker 1: we might do something about it. You know, somehow have
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  Speaker 1: that power over a person. It's interesting, you know we're
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  Speaker 1: mentioning uh, mercator merchant because for still scholars are debating
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  Speaker 1: whether or not that's the first mention of whistling used
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  Speaker 1: in this way. It may depend on translation. But there's
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  Speaker 1: another theory to the idea that this again very distinct
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  Speaker 1: whistle may have its roots in maritime history, that it
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  Speaker 1: may have come from sailors trying to communicate at sea. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they had a certain type of horn or like a
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  Speaker 1: pipe I guess called a boatswain's pipe that would make
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  Speaker 1: what was referred to as a general call. That was
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  Speaker 1: a way of communicating at sea, and you know, you
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  Speaker 1: think of sailors being away, see with no women around,
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  Speaker 1: they get back to you know, sure, and they're let's
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  Speaker 1: just say, feeling a bit deprived of the company of women,
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  Speaker 1: therefore perhaps acting a little let's say thirsty, um, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, behaving poorly towards women, whether involving alcohol or otherwise. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And again, I'm sure there are plenty of you know,
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  Speaker 1: very polite sailors that would you know, just court a
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  Speaker 1: woman in a any much more gentlemanly fashion. But it
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  Speaker 1: certainly was rife for these kinds of rumors that Okay,
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  Speaker 1: the general call is where this came from, was a
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  Speaker 1: way of getting sailors attention, for trying to get each
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  Speaker 1: other's attention, and they some historians believe that when they docked,
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  Speaker 1: they would do the same thing to let each other know, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: we got a live one here, we were spotted an
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  Speaker 1: attractive lady. This is controversial. There's an article in The
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  Speaker 1: Independent which kind of explains why politicians have been considered
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  Speaker 1: oring doing a band of this sort. Uh. A lexicographer
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  Speaker 1: Grant Barrett has one problem with this um wolf whistle theory.
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  Speaker 1: It's that as far as he can tell, it's not true.
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  Speaker 1: Historians at Britain's Royal Navy and its National Maritime Museum
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  Speaker 1: UH said that they had never heard of this before.
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  Speaker 1: They thought it would be unusual that sailors would take
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  Speaker 1: a specific call used for emergency situations to leer at women,
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  Speaker 1: but nol. We found the We found a collection of
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  Speaker 1: the varying whistles and calls that sailors use, and there
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  Speaker 1: is one that sounds a lot like a wolf whistle.
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  Speaker 1: Right well, dude, I mean to me, it strikes me
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  Speaker 1: as being like the equivalent of like an air traffic
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  Speaker 1: controller using like hand signals to like signal a woman,
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  Speaker 1: you know, is interested in a woman, like bringing out
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  Speaker 1: his lighted like lightsaber baton thing with this like orange
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  Speaker 1: vest on doing exactly that's the word. Uh, this would
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  Speaker 1: be very similar because this would have been like a
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  Speaker 1: a pretty I don't know, sacred has maybe taken a
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  Speaker 1: little too far, but these were sounds that they were
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  Speaker 1: allied on for safety, and we're very specific to different
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  Speaker 1: conditions and you know, different navigational um maneuvers that they
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  Speaker 1: would need to make, etcetera. So the idea that they
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  Speaker 1: would have taken one of a lexicon of these sounds
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  Speaker 1: and use that on land to kind of leer at
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  Speaker 1: a woman. Just doesn't make a lot of sense, though
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  Speaker 1: there is one of them that does resemble that classic
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  Speaker 1: wolf whistle sound that we heard Humphrey Bogart do. Let's
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  Speaker 1: let's hear that one real quick. It's for the maneuver
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  Speaker 1: of turn two. Okay, I mean yeah that I can
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  Speaker 1: see why you would think like people would think that.
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  Speaker 1: It makes sense to me. It's logical, right, it does.
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  Speaker 1: And I have to run through the rest of these
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  Speaker 1: because they're all so cool sounding. We've got a judah
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: temps call all hands, you know that one bill at
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  Speaker 1: heave around mess call im assuming that's food past the
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  Speaker 1: word piping the side. I like that one um secure
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  Speaker 1: general quarters, which I guess would mean stay inside sweepers.
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  Speaker 1: And then we've got turned two, which was our wolfie sound.
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  Speaker 1: And then these are these are a series of veers.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can fill me in on this spinner offer
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  Speaker 1: some conjecture that's V I E R S. And there
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  Speaker 1: are four varieties eight side boys, four side boys, six
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  Speaker 1: side boys, and two side boys. And again you can
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  Speaker 1: find all of these at archive dot org if you
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  Speaker 1: are in the maritime industry. I'd love to hear whether
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  Speaker 1: these are still in use. Uh, and you know, to
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  Speaker 1: tell us more weird stories about life on the boat
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  Speaker 1: and what's up with them boys, that's what I want
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to know. We're always concerned with them boys. There's one
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  Speaker 1: question we have not addressed in this. If it did come,
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  Speaker 1: you know, from a maritime source, if it whatever its origin,
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  Speaker 1: maybe how did it become called a wolf whistle? John Lucas,
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  Speaker 1: who penned a Brief History of whistling another very specific
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: experts exactly like the guy for whistles. He has his
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  Speaker 1: own theory and it is this. He said, he was
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  Speaker 1: talking with an elderly shepherd and the shepherd, you know,
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  Speaker 1: was also an expert in hurting sheep. And this guy
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  Speaker 1: told him that he trained sheep dogs and he has
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  Speaker 1: a bunch of calls for the sheep dogs, and that
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  Speaker 1: one of those sounds exactly like a wolf whistle. And
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  Speaker 1: then John Lucas apparently said that's kind of politically incorrect,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and they said, no, no, no, it's it's kosher. It's
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: from Albania, that's right. Um. He explained that in the
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  Speaker 1: mountains of southern Europe, Shepherds have used this tone the
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  Speaker 1: two notes for centuries to communicate with their dogs and
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  Speaker 1: let them know whenever wolves appeared. You can train a
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  Speaker 1: dog to respond to a particular set of tones. We
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  Speaker 1: know that you can make them drool when you blow.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Wasn't that a whistle a bell? That was a bell
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  Speaker 1: with the Pavlov dog situation. Yeah, so again you can absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: like you know, condition a dog to respond or to
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  Speaker 1: be aware of what a certain sound means. And the
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  Speaker 1: key was and honestly, as a sort of a sound nerd,
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  Speaker 1: I guess modulating sound causes it to carry better. So
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  Speaker 1: if you have like the high low, it gives you
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  Speaker 1: these like two opportunities to catch the sound kind of
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  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. I'm not being super scientific about it,
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  Speaker 1: but this this proved to be true. It would carry
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  Speaker 1: for miles uh and and especially in the open planes
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  Speaker 1: of like you know, pastures of sheep, grays and lands
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  Speaker 1: or what have you. Um, And so there we go.
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  Speaker 1: I feel like we can put that one to bed
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  Speaker 1: as well. So this wasn't a wolf whistle per se.
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  Speaker 1: It was more a whistle, not a whistle that a
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  Speaker 1: wolf would do. A wolf being sort of like a
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  Speaker 1: like a cartoonist stand in for like a you know,
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  Speaker 1: bad guy, right, like a bag. Yeah, I don't know,
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  Speaker 1: but I don't know wolves. I understand calling somebody a dog.
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  Speaker 1: Dogs are nice. That we're talking about dogs here, dogs
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  Speaker 1: protecting the dogs against the wolves with the wolf whistle. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So it does get confusing, and it's not easy to
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  Speaker 1: insert your own interpretation when things just fit so closely.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, even that boat wains call had me going
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  Speaker 1: because it sure sounds the same when you look at
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  Speaker 1: the motivation behind it or what it would have taken,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you know, to uh kind of what's the word co
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: opt that it starts to feel a little questionable, right, yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: And and John Lucas says that he saw this for
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: himself when he was a kid in World War Two,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: because there would be a lot of soldiers from the
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  Speaker 1: US who would hang around and try to whistle at
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: women who are going in and out of church halls
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and social buildings. And if we could, I love to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: do just a quick re enactment of a actual facts,
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: as our pal Lare and Vogelbam would say, newsreel about
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: wolf whistling. It's a report from July. It sometimes takes
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit of coaxing, but mostly these men of
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: the Six Corps enjoy the swanky swimming hole on their
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: day off. Nestled amongst the peaks of the Austrian Tyrone,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: it offers rest and relaxation to war weary Vet. Sue's
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: duties have become less pressing since v E Day. I'm sorry,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: what is v E Day? Oh? It's victory in Europe day. Ah. Yes,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and I want to say poinding app just one gas.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: But the guy he left behind can rest easily because,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: as these signal call pictures show, the non fraternization order
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: is still in effect. Tirolean gals are mighty enticing and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: all a wolf can do is how but maybe when
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: the dourist trade opens up again. We we I can't
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: really do. It's got to make the sound. Uh, but
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that that isn't that is part of it. G I
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: wolf whistles baby. Oh. And I did learn the I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: did learn the science of it, which is actually it's
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: funny to explain because it sounds really simple. You take
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: your lips and you kind of like dish, You tuck
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: your lips back around your teeth and let them hang loose. Yeah,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and then you can you choose a set of fingers
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: either you could do your index or middle or your pinky,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: whatever speaks to you. Yeah, and you put them together
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: so that there's like there's like a tiny gap between
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: the fingers. I push your tongue out. How is this
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: going to translate? Casey, push your tongue out, so it's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: like one set me or behind your cheek. I put
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: kind of pop your tongue up, and you try to
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: blow the air through that gap over the top of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: your tongue. No, get, get, get do it, get do it?
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Bend And I really hope we didn't gross everybody out
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: with all our mouth sounds. You you do it? Can
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you do it? Uh? Not yet, but I am I'm
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: gonna try to learn it. Okay, I'm gonna try. But anyway,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: so there is a way to do it. But we're
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: what what we're establishing with that is it's the same
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: kind of whistle all the way through from ancient probably
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: ancient room up through World War two. But for most
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of us, well I don't want to make assumptions, but
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: for many of us listening, definitely, all three of us.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: The first um the first image that comes to our
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: mind when we think of wolf Whistles is, like you
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: said at the top, nel cartoons, not all of which
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: have aged well. Pepe lapew is a real creep. Yeah,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: he's basically like a kind of a low key stalker
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: who uh you know he's he's so gentle and kind
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: of nonchalant about it that you know, it takes you
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a minute to wrap your head around the fact that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: he's just kind of like a serial killer, Like he's
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: just relentless. He's like a terminator type figure. But yeah,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I know, the cartoons of Text Avery, some of those
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: have an aged particularly well either, and that's because they're
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: taking a lot of the cues from their sexist and
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: often racist times in which they were around nineteen thirty seven.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: For example, in a Little Red Walking Hood, Uh, in
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: one of Avery's cartoons where his iconic wolf figure which
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: you see it in in memes and and gifts a
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: lot where his tongue rolls out of his mouth because
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: he's googling it's some you know, pretty lady, and his
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: eyes pop out and all that stuff. It's just this
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: kind of the nature of it is that he's completely unhinged,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: out of control of any of his bodily uh desires, right,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: and it's going to stop at nothing to have said woman. Right,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that doesn't happen like on camera or in frame. But yeah,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: it's definitely a thing, and it's it's very it's hard
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to watch, honestly, but the animation is is pretty incredible. Yeah,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: well that this is the fascinating part about this, right,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: so many of us understanding in the context of depictions
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: and cartoons, right, but Little Red Walking Hood which you
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: which you mentioned, is pivotal here because I think it's
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the first time text Avery had depicted a cartoon wolf whistling. Uh.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: And he he chases the protagonists around until someone knocks
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: him over the head with a hammer. And this is
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: clearly supposed to be justice being served. Right. You're the audience,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: You're supposed to be happy that this wolf creature got
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: has come up and uh and and according to analysts,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that's because in the ninetties, it was not considered a
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: good thing to be a lithario, a ladies man, you know, um,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: any other words you want to put in there. And
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: it only later evolved over the next few decades too,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: something like a positive image, which is weird to me
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that they started out, um not glorifying this. You know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that Ben. That's interesting to me. So
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: he really is kind have considered the villain in some
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: of these cartoons, and I always thought it was just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: kind of normalizing that behavior. But that's uh, that's that's interesting.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: And a lot of this you can read about Pierre Flouquet,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: who wrote the comic Language of Texas Avery. Um. He
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: he you know, knows the man in and out, and
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: he knows all of the nuances of his career and
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: you know, his contributions to you know, tropes like this,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: um and it's crazy. I was getting a little confused
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: because there's another Red Hood character. Avery did, Red Hot
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Riding Hood. Obviously things were you know, getting a little
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: more risque. Uh and and and you know it's super
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: um creative. It's the kind of things that you see
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: like depicted in the Who Framed Roger Rabbit, like that
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: style of things where you know, there's this weird kind
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of self mutilation kind of vibe where the wolf is.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna say it horny for this, you know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: attractive kind of Betty Boop, Uh, Jessica Rabbit asque little
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Red writing character that he's trying to like bash himself
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: repeatedly over the hammer to knock himself out so he
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't like do a bad thing, like you know what
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, Like it feels like he's trying to numb
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: his senses so he won't just rape this character. Like
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's pretty insane. Yeah, it's. It's troubling. Um Technically.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: The animation, though, is very well done. It's like hand
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: drawn and stuff. It's it's an iconic scene. Even if
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you feel like you have not seen it, you have
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: seen some version of it. It occurs, of course and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: who framed Roger Rabbit? It occurs in countless cartoons after.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: It's also in and I thought of this too. It's
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: also in The Mask starring Jim Carrey. I love the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: comic books. I don't know if I'm gonna watch it
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: again though, I'm not sure how it aged. I'll watch,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'll watch one clip on YouTube. Ben
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: somebody needs to stop you again. No, that's just that
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was his like catchphrase. They stopped me from watching The
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Mask again. I remember seeing in theater the first time
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you ever saw Cameron Diaz and she was also like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that's the thing. The thing about the little Red Riding
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Hood character in Red Hot Riding Hood is she is
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: she is a sex object. That is how she is
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: depicted and nothing else. She is meant to be like
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: busty and sexy, and it's kind of scantily clad and
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the wolf just loses his mind. And that's what happens
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: in the Mask as well with with the Cameron Diaz character.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: She's wearing this crazy like low cut, you know, kind
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of Vegas show girl type skirt and he just, you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: his heart starts beating out of his chest and all
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: of that stuff is from the tech savory tropes, but yeah,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's super troubling and definitely doesn't age well. Um
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and likely was just as responsible for Humphrey Bogart in
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: popularizing this as a kind of lothario esque kind of move.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: But the thing is that the Humphrey Bogart seem It's
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: really interesting about that is the Lauren McCall character is
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: super empowered, Like she's it's in his lap on her
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: own and she kisses him without permission and then does
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it a second time. Uh and and she has complete
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: control in that situation. So it's very very different and
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: when he whistles after she has kind of baited him
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: into doing it. So again, very different. There's a lot
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: more consent between these two characters than there would be
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a traditional you know, cat call or even this cartoon depiction. Right, yeah, agreed,
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Just to give you a sense of how sexualized this
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: tex Savery cartoon is. Again, that's the Red Hot Riding Hood. Uh.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: It ran into trouble with sensors in the beginning. And
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: now uh the author you mentioned earlier, No, now, now
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: people believe it was only able to be shown on
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: screen because the US military wanted cartoons like it. They're
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: a fascinating theory here. Luke says, if you increase the
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: libido or you know, the thirstiness of soldiers by watching cartoons,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: they'll get frustrated. If they get frustrated, they become more aggressive.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: And if they become more aggressive, that's the logic here,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: they become better soldiers. And you know, this is apparently
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the gist of what Army commissioners said when they were
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: you know, describing what they wanted wartime cartoons to do.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And the last note on Red Hot Riding Hood. It
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: was seen by so many US soldiers and by so
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: many kids in the US that if they weren't already,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you know, thinking of wolf whistles as cool, they were now.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And that's why the first mention of wolf whistling comes
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in a newspaper. But if we are being fair, we
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: have to tell you about something that I don't know about.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: You guys, It blew my mind. I had never heard
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: of this. There is apparently an equivalent to a wolf whistle,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: but from the other side of the sexual divide. Yeah,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: it's called the slurp. And it was reported on in
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: February n the Fresno b Um, where it's has that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: a group of Fulton Streets scientists report that at last
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: they have identified and isolated the female version of the
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: wolf whistle that often heard call used by men of
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: the armed forces when their trail crosses that of the
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: opposite sex. For certain reasons, this group of scientists do
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: not want their names published. I wonder why. Uh it
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: seems unnecessary to add that their research is undertaken for
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: no particular reason. This sounds like an onion article to me. Uh,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: there anyone can think of? They call this female and
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: with the wolf whistle to slurp. The slurp is defined
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: as a soft female noise made with the teeth, tongue,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and lips, which sounds exactly as it is spelled uh
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: and which sometimes but not always, means roger, as in
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: like yeah, I oh like whistle like whistle heard and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: copy that broke? Like that? Is it like a click click?
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: I casey, you know behind the curtain here. I cannot
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: find any like documentation of this. You're the you're the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: person who uh off like, uh, I think both well,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I misspoke, I thought it was I had something completely
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: different in mind. Okay, Okay, so I don't know. I
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: cannot corroborate any of that. Okay, because because when we
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: were talking about this earlier, oh yeah the slur yeah
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: in case he got no excite, you were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: We're talking about especially like cartoon sounds. I can think
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of a few, I don't know, almost like the Hannibal
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: Lecter thing or whatever. But um yeah, yeah exactly, that's
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: kind of what it popped in my head. I did
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: not Whatever this thing is is something else. Can you
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: imagine cat call it? Like? Can you imagine if one
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of these guys had put out a wolf whistle and uh,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the person's whistling at hit him back with that hannibal
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: lecter fava beans and can't you know I wonder how
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that would go? Oh man, Yeah, it's it's crazy. Though.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: There is a screenshot of this page the Fresno b article.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Uh makes you pay money to look at it in
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: full screen. But I can see that this article that's
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: being referenced here and in our materials is uh is
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: a thing. Maybe it's some kind of satire. I don't know.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I certainly had never heard of the slurp, so perhaps
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: let's not report this. Is that the actual facts the thing,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: because now that we're googling it, Uh, it doesn't seem
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: to be much to back this up. But I like
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the idea of the existence of a of a female
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: equivalent to the wolf whistle. Yeah, fight the power. We
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: do also have records of wolf whistling being so popular
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: they were whistling contests. Uh. It was even used once
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: as sort of a talent portion of a beauty pageant
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: type thing, when seventeen year old Janice Norse on September one,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: the title Miss Sheboygan uh due impart to her incredibly
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: piercing wolf whistle. Fascinating I'm a big fan of precision whistling.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: You know, this wolf whistle thing is a little bit
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: more of like a blunt instrument. But you know, if
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you think about like snow White, her ability to whistle like,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: you know, in this really melodic, kind of polyphonic, almost
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: kind of way. Um, there is an Atlanta artist or
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: formerly of Atlanta. She lives in Los Angeles now, but
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: her name's u adron uh And and she has this
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: ability to do these like just super precise whistled um
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: sections and a lot of her music. I highly recommend
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: checking your out if you want to hear some really cool,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: non offensive whistling. How about Andrew bird Man. We gotta
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: give it up for him too. I love whistling and music. Oh, agreed, agreed. Yeah,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun. So you may be asking
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: yourself whither the wolf whistle? Where did it go? Because
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: you don't hear it as much now, I would imagine
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you see you still see it pop up in fiction,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: But it seems like according to a couple of the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: people we mentioned earlier, um, it started dying out in
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the nineties seventies because partially the rise of feminism, prosecuting
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: for women's rights. Hey, I shouldn't be her asked just
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: because I'm walking to the store. Uh. And then people
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: started seeing it as uncool, as a more demeaning thing
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: to do to other people. And now one of the
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: big debates is how will it be depicted in the future.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do you think I remember this whistle
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: occurring and things like the mask and and things like, um,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: you know, cartoons, but not any recent ones. Yeah, I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: mean it was definitely using like you know, I think probably. Uh.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: The way it's used now is to seem dated or
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: two in some way kind of create like an atmosphere,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: even though it was used in movies. Originally there was
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which writer in our research material said this,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: but the idea was to um very quickly convey some
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: things about a character, either uh kind of trashy sort
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: of like you know, lithario ness or flirtation or sometimes both,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: you know, And it was it was a very quick
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: way of expressing that, as it was done in the
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: movie Grease. There's um the uses of wolf whistles in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Grease to kind of help create that vibe of like
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: the fifties. But again that's a movie that was made
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: in the late seventies that was a period piece about
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the fifties, and then some musical obviously, so that makes
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: sense to use it in that way. Or in Legally Blonde,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: for example, it's used for kind of like a gag
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: in which Reese Witherspoon's character talks about how she's comfortable
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: using legal jargon in everyday life. Then a man wolf
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: whistles and she says, I object. Uh. So, you know,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: it's definitely something that has been absolutely canceled because of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: the me Too movement and just a lot more forward
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: momentum in you know, not tolerating with any of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: kind of sexism or uh implied, you know, dominance of
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: men over women that we were talking about on the
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: top of the show. That's just not a thing that
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: people are okay with anymore. I mean, at least the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: people that that I know. Uh. And and it's becoming
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: less and less possible to carry on this kind of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: behavior and not just be completely shut down with how
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: quickly things can spread on the internet. And that is why,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: that is why super producer Casey Pegram did not want
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to give you the albatross of the nickname wolf Whistle.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It felt like a condemnation uh and an undeserved when
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and hey, you know, maybe that's the reason the three
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: of us don't know how to do it, because we
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: were because of the time we were raised in um,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: which which I think is fine. I'm sure there are
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: plenty of other amazing whistles you can learn uh and
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: watch and here in music and story and song. Uh,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but this was this was pretty eye opening to me.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: I'm glad we did this one man too. Yeah. It's
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: definitely not something I really think about because it does
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: feel like such a dated thing, but it really is.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: You know, there are people still in the me too
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: kind of discussions or just in general about like, you know,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: not treating women like trash. Uh. The idea of cat
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: calling is still very much a thing, and that's just
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: sort of an escalation of the wolf whistle, just using
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: words just what like unsolicited comments about women's bodies or
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: just about you know, their existence, uh, in terms of
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: how it would benefit men. So yeah, wolf whistling still exists,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: at least in terms of the escalation or just like
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: a more rhetorical version of it, where people are shouting
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: out at women from across the street. That's the idea
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: is just allowed unsolicited uh advance, let's say, but back
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: in the fifties and stuff, it was considered good, clean fun,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: and it'll be like, hey, come on, you don't have
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a sense of humor, like just doesn't mean anything. And
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: we want to hear your experience, your opinion on this.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: If you are a person with a talent for uh
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: for for whistling. I was trying to think of a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: cooler way to say you are. If you are a
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: whistler yourself, we'd love to hear some of your input
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: on whistles, the history of whistles. Uh. At this point,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying the word whistle because it's as fun
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: as saying she Boygan. Anyhow, thank you as always to
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: give Louisia who refuses to tell us how to pronounce
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: his last name, And of course thank you to super
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: producer Casey Pegram thanks to Alex Williams. A composed our theme.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Christopher Haciota is also here in spirit. Jonathan Strickland, that
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: notorious and DVS quister. I hope to have you back soon, buddy,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: or you know, maybe die in a fire. No, don't
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: do that. We love you. We want to have you back,
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: and you will be back soon, because it's really not
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: up to us. Um, you just kind of pop up
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: whenever you pop up. I'm surprised you haven't popped up
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: now because I'm talking about you so long. But I'm
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: gonna stop. Oh yeah, we gotta sew it up before
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: he gets here. Oh man, okay, I'll so. You can
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: find us on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter.
• 35:02
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• 35:05
  Speaker 1: our Facebook group. It is ridiculous historians. Check it out.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: You'll see some top tier means and some great discussion.
• 35:13
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• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I am at Ben Bulling on Instagram and at Ben
• 35:19
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• 35:22
  Speaker 1: on Instagram at how now and all brown. We'll see
• 35:25
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• 35:36
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• 35:39
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