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Harriet the Spy with Jenna Ushkowitz · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del cast. The time
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: has come, the woman said to the other woman to
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: talk of many things, of shoes and ships and ceiling wax,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of cabbages and queens. Wow, Caitlyn, and why the sea
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: is boiling hot? And whether pigs have jeans to rhyme
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: with queens jeans? Oh, I was like, I was like,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: is that a feminist thing? Jeans instead of wings? Rest
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: just needed to That's true, and that's you know, that's
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: my bad. Jeans are a prison for all genders. Um,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: And so in that way, it's a very inclusive piece
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: of restrictive clothing. In conclusion, I liked your palm. Thank
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you so much. Um. It is from today's movie. But
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: before we get there, Hello and welcome to the Bechtel Cast.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Darante, my name is Jamie Loftus,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and this is our feminist movie podcast where we examine
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the representation of women in film, and we use something
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: called the Bechtel test. Jamie, what is that? Even? Well,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I think I remember. Here's what if memory serves, Here's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: what it is. The Bechtel test is a media metric
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: invented by cartoonist Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Wallace test, that requires a piece of media do the following.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: There has to be two female identifying characters with names
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: for our purposes, who speak to each other about something
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Most movies can't make it happen, absolutely can't. I just
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: watched that new movie with Chris Hemsworth on Netflix, and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I had to say, it doesn't pay and anything. It
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't pass the good movie test. It doesn't pass the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Bechtel test. It doesn't pass the I finished the movie test.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: A lot of movies don't pass it. Which one is
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: that extraction? Extraction? More like I want to extract myself
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: out of this movie watching experience. I haven't seen it yet.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, but today's movie. I feel like today's movie
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: will do okay on the Bechtel test. Not to not
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to spoil it would be imagine how deeply got wrenchingly
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: disappointing it would be of this movie somehow did not
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel test, right, it would be devastating. Well,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: we'recovering Harriet the Spy, and before we even introduce our guest,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: who we are very excited to have on the show,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: we wanted to jump to a quick conversation that we
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: had with a friend of the show. She played Janey
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: in the movie Harriet the Spy. It's Vanessa Lee Chester. Hi, Vanessa,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: welcome back him so excited to be back. I honestly,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: when I got Caitlin's email, I was like, what is
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: going on because I had just been thinking about you guys,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, you posted something on Instagram
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: and I was like, she's so fucking funny. And I
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: literally was like, I had such a great time chatting
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: with you guys, and all my friends who like listen
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: to the episode, we're like, this is such a fucking
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: legit show. And I was like, I know, right, And
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: so when you guys hit me up, I was like,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: they like me, we love you, welcome back. I'm excited
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: so so recovering Harriett the Spy, and I guess we
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: just wanted to start by talking to you about, like
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: your experience on that movie. How do you how do
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you remember that time and that shooting experience? Now, it
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: was fantastic. Like I can't speak for a lot of
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: other child actors, but I loved being on that set
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: so much. I feel like, of all the characters that
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I've ever played, I feel like the most similar to Janie.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: Like she's weird. She's very expressive in the way that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: she dresses, and that denotes so much of her character.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: She's passionate about science, which is something that you don't
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: see a lot in young women, and I'm obsessed. I
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: swear that Bill ny is my friend, but we've never met,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and it's just like in my mind, like Neil degrass
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Tyson is my uncle and then his best friend is
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Bill n I and we're just all this huge, great family. Um.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, Like working on that set was just so fantastic.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like the story is just it's like everything
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a precocious, curious kid wants to live out and then
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: getting a chance to actually bring it to the big
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: screen with such an honor. Like I loved every moment
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, I'm still like I'm still friends with everyone.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Like Greg and I talked, Yes, Greg is like my
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: boy like I he will have a special place in
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: my heart for the rest of my life. Yeah. And
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: then so now you're later what for you or just
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: based on you know, because I'm sure that people talk
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to you about it, Uh fair amount? What is what
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: is the legacy of this movie sort of like become
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: over time? Um. I feel like that's a really difficult
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: question because I feel like there's something really special about
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: this movie, but it resonates in different ways for everyone.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I got a really sweet d M I want to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: say at the end of last year from this lady
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: on Instagram. And I'm only saying her race because it's
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: relative to this it's important to the story. And she
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: happens to be white. And she was like, um, hey,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I just wanted to reach out to you
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and see if there was any way you could possibly
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: send me an autograph from my sister. She's adopted and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: she happens to be black. And we used to watch
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: Harry at the Spy all the time when we were
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: little because we were like, Janey and Harriet are basically sisters,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and we looked at it like us like two little
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: girls who are you know, outcasts, but are complete grounded
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and who they are, and I was like crying reading
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the d M, you know, and I sent her like
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I sent her an autograph copy of my DVD and
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: like a poster and I was like, this is for you,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: your sister and your brother, because like you guys are
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: basically Janey, Harriet and Sports. Yeah. It was really sweet,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: like we're friends on LinkedIn now. We're just so random
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: and like, do you think I actually have like a
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: dope job. I'm an actor trying to like be on
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: more movies. It always surprises me when I hear from
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: fans of Harriet the Spy and just how it resonated
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: for them. And I feel like a lot of girls
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: who I've heard some women from the LGBTQ community say that,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: like I kind of felt like Harriet may have been
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: like the first lesbian that I've read about, you know,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, That's something that I've never
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: thought about. And I just think that that's cool that
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: like it's almost up for interpretation, but you can see
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: yourself in it regardless for the best. I love it.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Um A quick question I had because neither Jamie nor
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I have read the book that the film was based
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: on and we were trying in our research to figure
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: out if the Janey character was specifically written as black,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: and we couldn't find anything out about that. So we
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: were wondering if if you knew about that, or if
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: maybe the character was just written kind of ethnically ambiguous,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and they cast it's no, it's really interesting that you
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: brought that up. I'm glad that you said that, because
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: I was going to bring it up myself. Um, once
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: you guys asked me to do this, I st I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: picked the book back up and I was like, I
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: need to like refresh myself and see what this is about.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: And in I want to say, the second chapter, when
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Harry is going back to school, they're describing all of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the kids and they described Janey and they're like, Janey
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: is a shy, meek girl with freckles and like doesn't
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: really like making eye contact with people. And I was like, WHOA.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, freckles could be any race, but they're generally,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: you know, associated with people who are going to be Caucasian.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, you know, and it kind
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of made me think, like I feel like Janie might
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: have been white. But the director didn't want that, and
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: I remember auditioning and they were like, we want you
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: to be bold, and we want you to be like
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: charismatic and have a lot of confidence, and like I
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: loved it. I was like, she's wild, Like this is
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: the version of me that I wish I could bring
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to school every day. But it seems as if Janey
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in the book is actually a little bit more questions
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: herself a little bit, which I thought was an interesting adaptation.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Janey in the movie definitely
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: feels like an aspirational like character, like you want to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: be like her? Oh my gosh. I remember, like I
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: knew I was getting paid, but I didn't really care.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I was like, but how can I have Janey's entire wardrobe?
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: That's what we really need to talk about. Like I
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: get it, like I'm gonna go to college with this
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: money that I'm allegedly making. But what about those suspenders
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: that you guys made? I want those? Did you get
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: to keep anything? Um? I don't remember. To be honest,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I did. And who knows? Justice for the
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: overalls I got to find them. They're like in some
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: type of like it's a wrap type of thrift store
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: in Burbank, and I just got to find them. Um,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: do you have any other kind of final thoughts that
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: you want to share, any thoughts at all about your
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: experience being in the movie or just with the story itself,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: for anything along those lines. Well, now that we're chatting,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I'm really excited to revisit the book and just read
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: it now that I'm older and like have a different
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: type of analytical eye, because you know, when I was younger,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I remember starting the book and just dropping it because
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, like, I don't even want to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: read the rest. I just want to get a notebook.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And I thought it is really funny because I was
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: actually in the movie. I had just finished shooting it,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: and I went back to school with a notebook, And
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I think it's really funny as an adult looking back
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: on Heat. How even though I knew that I had
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: filmed this entire spectacular movie, Like my imagination was so
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: sparked by what she was doing. All I wanted to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: do was like run on roofs and spy on people.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And my mom was like, don't try that ship, do
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: not even try it. Like I went to school with
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: a notebook, Like basically pretending I was Harriet before the
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: movie came out. Like that's amazing. I had the same
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: experience where I saw the movie as a young child
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and was obsessed with Harriet and her notebook spy gear,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and I just like I wanted to be Harriet. Yeah,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And that's what's so amazing about it, Like we all
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: wanted to be Harriet, you know, like it just there
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was something so courageous about her, Like that's what we
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: all want to do, is like pretend we're older and
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: like that. The thing that I find to be very
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: endearing about Harriet is a lot of young kids, we
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: all feel like we're adults. Like I remember telling my
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: mom I could run the country, attend like I was
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: confident that I would be a better president than all
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: the people that I saw on TV. And maybe I
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was right. I mean, are you wrong? I know I was,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: like you're still out, who knows? Like I was a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: pretty woke little nine year old whatever. But it's amazing
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: how mature Harry is. And like in the book, they
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: denote the parts that are specifically her writing in her
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: notebook with a different font, so you know that those
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: are her thoughts. And there's a part in the book
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: where Old Golly says to her, like you need to
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: write down everything. You don't need to like sugarcoat it,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: write down things in the way that you see it,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: you know. And as you guys remember the movie, like
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: her friends see the notebook and everyone loses it. And
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, when I was little, I used to be like,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: oh my god, Harriet's so mean, she's so messed up.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: But like now that I'm older, like she's a child,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: and children are amazing because they're so honest. Like she
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't actually trying to be malicious. She was just documenting
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and writing down what she saw without trying to impress anyone,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: because she didn't feel like her thoughts would be out
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: in the public. You know, I don't know, it's just
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a thought that I had, No totally I have. I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: have the same feeling. Yeah. Yeah, Like he's like Janey's
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: weird and might blow up the world. Yeah, if you
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: had a friend who was like always talking about blowing
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: up the world at ten, you might be a little
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: skeptical a little there. That That's why, I mean, that's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: like part of what I really love about the movie,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: like is that it makes like friendships with kids like
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: it takes their friendship seriously and they're like complicated, but
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: they're also like, yeah, of course a kid would say
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that if they were I mean, and yeah, if they
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: didn't think anyone else would ever see it. So you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: can feel for her but also be like you can't
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: do Janey like that. I mean, that's a really great point,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: is like it definitely brings like a drama that's like
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: that's their world, and you know, we're sitting here, we're like,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: you're in sixth grade, it'll be fine, but like sixth
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: grade is everything when you're in sixth grade, right, So yeah,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: I love that point, Jamie, that's really legit. Well, Vanessa,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for contributing, for giving your amazing
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: thoughts and firsthand experience of being in the movie. And
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: thank you for being in the movie. Yes, you guys
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: are so amazing. Thank you so much for inviting me back.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: This has been such a great little piece of joy
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: during what we're all going through. Um being able to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: discuss one of the projects that I've been in that
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I absolutely adored being a part of, and I cannot
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: wait to hear this episode and how you guys break
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: it down because you guys kill it and I know
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: you're going to do with justice. Yes, thank you again,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and we'll have to have you back for like a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: legitimate episode, like a full episode. Yeah, like don't don't
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: play me. I will stock you if you don't know
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: that it's all on. We've got it documented. We accept
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: the challenge. Love it all right. You guys are awesome
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you to talk to you. Thank you so much, have
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: a good day. Yay, thanks again Vanessa for chatting with us.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to our wonderful guest for today's episode.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: She is a podcast host, a producer, and actress best
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: known from Glee. It's Jenna Ushkowitz. Hello, what's going on
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: you guys? So excited to be here. Oh, we're so
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: excited to have you. Love a good Quarantine record. You
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: know it? You know it. Oh yeah, it's a good
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: time to watch lots and lots of movies. It's true.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: It's full on escape Zone. I love it. Right. Tell
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: us about your relationship and your history with Harriet the Spy. Well,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: I loved Harriet the Spy. This is totally like we're
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: similar in age. Michelle Tractonberg and I and when this
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: came out, I was like, finally a girl who can
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: wear jeans and sneakers and doesn't have to wear dresses
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: all the time, and like somebody who kind of like
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: is wearing what I would want to wear. It. That's
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: the first thought I had when I when I saw
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Harriet the really cool little yellow raincoat. And I started
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: acting when I was really really young, and I would
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: do voiceovers a lot, and I got a call to
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: do some looping, which is the background voices throughout the
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: film that they need to fill in like a playground
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: or at school or whatever. And so I went in
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: to do looping for Harriet the Spy. So in some
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: of these scenes, I'm actually like whispering, like especially in
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the carry like blue paint scene, I whispered like into
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: the girl's ear and it was so cool, that's your voice.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: And so I still get these like mini checks from
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Paramount for ten cents um from Marry the Spot. Yeah,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: every once in a while it'll be like sixty cents.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: You're like we're going out and uh yeah. And Michelle
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: and I actually modeled together a lot growing up. We
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: were just, you know, we kind of like cross paths
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a lot in the business so um. But I love
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the film and I actually also loved it so much
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: that I got a note a marble notebook, and I
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: you know, duplicated the private on it and I wrote
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: all these like crazy things about my family in them.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And one day my walking my room, my mom's like
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: what is this. She's like what did she write? And
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: she's like, this movie is no good for you? And
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: I was it was like all made up stuff, but
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: she was like, I was like, you're reading my diary.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Parents have an interesting relationship with this movie because they're like,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure. That's such an amazing connection to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: this movie. That's so cool. Yeah, your voice has a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: press since life in the movie. Yeah. I very vividly
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: remember standing in like this big voiceover room and like booth.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: It was a really big booth though, and the movie
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: was like in this on this massive screen on the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: wall and they would just start and then you would
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you have to play and like being a playground with
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: like other kids. It was like the most fun. That's
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: so cool. That's so fun, Jamie. What's your relationship with
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the movie. I have a very complicated relationship with this
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: movie in that I was not allowed I was. I
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: was pretty I was like I was like three or
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: four when this movie came out, so I didn't see
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: it when it first came out. But I wasn't allowed
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: to watch it when I was little because I had
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: like I had. I was like a full on undiagnosed
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: o c D child, and so I took a notebook
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: literally everywhere, and I would get in trouble at school
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: about it because I did this thing from I first
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: remember doing it in First Raid. But I had this
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: like real child O c D fixation on writing down
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: when everyone in a room was wearing and saying for
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: no reason. Like it was unlike Harriet. I had no
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: end game. There was no objective or career goal attached
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to my notebooks. But I just did it compulsively and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I would get in trouble for it all the time,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and people were like, this is this makes me uncomfortable.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Why should she keep writing down that I'm wearing a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: yellow shirt? And so it was like such a chronicle
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: problem for me that my mom was like movie about
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: girl with notebook, we can't have it in the house, like,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: so I didn't get to see it, and I'm so
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: bummed because now now that I've seen it, I'm like,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: first of all, my mom was kind of right, and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it definitely would have made made my notebook problem a
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: million times worse and it was already pretty bad. Uh.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: But second of all, it's such a good movie and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: it's so like, I don't know, I just like I
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: love it in every single way. I love movies that
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: let kids be like complicated and kind of messy but
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: not fall into that like precocious child trope that is
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: so annoying. And I don't know, I don't think it's
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: so well done. I love like the direction style of it.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: It seems like everyone in the movie is like having
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the time of their life. And I just wish I
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: could have seen it when I was younger. But um,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I'll hand it to Jill. She was probably right not
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: to show it to me. Jim. Yeah, Jill being a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: good parent, which, well, she's just like, I don't want
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: my kid to get bullied at school for her horse
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: notebooks anymore than she already is. Uh. What's your experience
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: with this movie, Caitlin. I did watch it when I
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: was a youth. I was deeply impacted by this movie,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: But what I remember way more than the movie it'sself
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: was what I did in response to the movie. Like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: I think I probably saw it maybe only once or twice.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: It came out in nine I was ten, um, so
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I was like kind of the exact right age for it.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: But I think I saw it few enough times that
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what the story was at all. But again,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: it impacted me so much that the movie made me
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: want to be a spy. I had my mom get
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: me a notebook just like Harriet's, one of those like
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: marble notebooks. I put together this little like kit of
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: spice stuff, anything I could get my hands on, which
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was mostly just like a magnifying glass and like a pen.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: But it was like, I'm going to be a spy.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: And I started eating mayonnaise sandwiches because I didn't like tomato,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: but so I didn't want to eat the tomato part
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of the tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches that Harriet makes, but
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: I liked mayonnaise, so I would just eat just plain
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: mayonnaise sandwiches. I would do this thing where I would
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: slurp soup very obnoxiously and then say good soup like
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: Harriet does in the movie. Like I had I picked
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: up all these habits from the movie, but I rewatching
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: it to prep for this episode. I realized that I
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: had no idea what this movie was about. I like
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: had completely forgotten everything about the story. Um so, but again,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: it really it really had a major impact on me
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: when I was a child. So that's it's it's iconic.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: It really is. It had such a like it's so
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: interesting and had such an effect even though you didn't
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: even get to see it, Like it was really impactful
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: and like finally seeing a girl who's not so dainty
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: and like wanting to have a notebook to write things down,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Like I just I think it was impactful in like
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: a positive way, even though parents probably had a very
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: toward relationship with the film for their children. Um but
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: I feel the same way. I definitely made those sandwiches,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: and I definitely like I felt very like I just
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: wanted to be her. I wanted to replicate her. I
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to be her. She made it really cool, like
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: she she was really cool. Totally. I feel like, yeah,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: this is this movie is good representation for people who
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: double down on disgusting sandwiches, and I include myself in
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: that community of someone's like Yeah, this is the worst
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: food you could possibly eat every single day, and I'm
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: doing it proudly. You're like, all right. I mean it
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: also just speaks to and I'm sure we'll talk about
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: this a lot, but it just speaks for the need
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: for representation of movies about little girls like doing cool
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: things and doing things that like other little girls or
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: little children as viewers can aspire to, because there's just
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: isn't much of that still, and the fact that this
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: movie exists and was so impactful for so many people
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: just like speaks to that need. Yeah, and just being
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: like reflective of what a sixth grader's interests actually are,
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: because I feel like movies for like targeted at young
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: girls and and sometimes young young boys as well, is
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: like eleven year olds that are like there's a crush
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: narrative that's a it takes up a ton of real
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: estate that like, I don't know, there's so many like
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: sixth graders are weird and their interests are weird, and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: their friendships are like intense, and I like that this
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: movie kind of reflects all of that for sure. Well,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: should we talk about the story and then go from there?
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I say, yes, Okay, couldn't hurt. Okay. So we meet Harriet.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: That's Michelle Tratchenberg of course. Um. She is a young
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: girl who wants to be a writer. She learns everything
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: she can and she writes down everything she sees in
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: this private notebook that she always carries around. And that's
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: why she's a spy. She's a spy because she's gearing
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: up for a career as a writer. Um. We cut
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to her at school. She and her best friends Sport
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Gregory Smith and Janey of course, played by Vanessa Chester
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: who you just heard there in sixth grade, and Harriet
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: is nominated for class resident along with her arch nemesis
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Marian Hawthorne. And the best perk of being class president
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: is being editor of the sixth grade newspaper, which is
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: a weird thing that was I was like, wow, what
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a strange two powers to connect. It seems like the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: president shouldn't edit the newspaper. Yeah, that would be like
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: if Donald Trump was like the head of all news.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Right now he's the head of some news. Yea. All
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: had to say, it seems like a conflict of interest
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: to me. I agree. Also, I don't know about like
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: your schools, but like We didn't have a sixth grade newspaper.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: There was no journalism of any kind is for me. Yeah,
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: it was like high schools when school newspaper, right, okay,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: just just making sure before that it's just all you
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: just trust what you hear over the loud speaker and
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: if that isn't a totalitarianactly. I was very envious of
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: those classes where you'd see, like they have the morning news,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: where you got to be like a newscast, because I
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: would have totally been that girl, but like I didn't.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: We didn't have that. Yeah, I didn't have that. We
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: had like a teenager that went to the principal's office
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: to do the announcements every day so the principle wouldn't
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: have to. We just had the principle outsourcing their job
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: to children. Rude. Yeah. Well, unfortunately for Harriet, Mary and
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: her enemy wins class president. Then after school, Harriet goes
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: off on her spy route. She spies on this guy
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: who has a bunch of cats, um, dozens of cats.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: And now it's a great time to mention cats. Facts
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: with Caitlin. Cats have eight nipples and there were many cats.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many cat nipples there were but
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: there's a lot. Anyway. I was counting my cat's nipples
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: the other day and I couldn't. I couldn't get to eight.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Some of them don't have that many. My fact is
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: actually spread because that's what Google told me. The one
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: time I looked it up. Fakeness canceled me. Cat Fax's
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: fakeness anyway. Okay, So Harriet's on her spy route. She's
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: looking at the guy with a bunch of cats, and
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: she spies on the Hong Fat family at their supermarket.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: She spies on the delivery guy who she thinks is
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: stealing vegetables, and she's writing all of this down in
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: her notebook. Then we meet Harriet's nanny, Golly, played by
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: Rosie O'Donnell. She is a very important figure and mentor
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: in Harriet's life. She's like, she's a better parent than
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: Harriet's parents, Right, who are these kind of upper crusts
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: don't seem to spend a lot of time with Harry.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: I think her dad is like a comedy screenwriter or something.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: There's that exchange of dialogue where he's like, I'm the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: funny man. I do the comedy. Do you other guys
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: are the money men. I like to think this is
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: commentary on how most male comedy writers are actually very
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: uptight and not funny at all. Yes, I agree, what
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: an interesting choice of job for this upper crust family. Right,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: what were you writing on, sir? Yeah? Is he like
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: what show? Because this show kind of like, well, part
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: of what I love about the aesthetic of this movie
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: is like it could kind of happen basically whenever, Like
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: they do that cool thing where there's not any dated
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: tech really included in the story, so you can kind
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: of project it to be whenever. But yeah, I'm like,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: what what if he was like, I'm a Seinfeld writer
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and you're like, no, that canonically, what is he supposed
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: to be writing? That's really I was kind of thinking that, Yeah,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: who knows. Anyway, one night, Golly invites a date over
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: and it turns out to be the vegetable Steeler guy
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: and they go out for dinner in a movie and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: they're like getting back to Harriett's house and when they return,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Harriet's mom is super worried because she's like, where I
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: didn't know where Harriet was? So she fires Golly um
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: but then like immediately takes it back. But even so
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: this all transpires to Golly deciding to leave. She's like,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: it's time for me to go. Harriet has grown up
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: enough now and I'm gonna peace out. Also, Harriet's mom
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: was being very unreasonable in that situation. Yes, like this
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: woman is raising your child for you. Can you chill? Yeah?
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, women be lashing out, so, you know,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: good things. She has her comedy right, her husband to
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: keep her in check. It's like, what anyways here? His
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: parents are weird? Yeah they are. But Golly leaves and
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: her parting words to Harriet are you know, keep being
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: a by and keep writing. So she does. Um, she goes.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: She does her normal spy root with the cat guy
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: and the hung fat market, and then she sees her
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: friend Sport struggling to pay for groceries, and she pretends
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: that he dropped a dollar outside so that she can
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: help pay for his groceries. And then she snoops around
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Eartha Kit's house. What a treat? What a fun treat?
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: Because you hear Eartha Kit before you see her, and
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: so I was just like, no way, what what what?
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And then she it's it's her, and it's just it's
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: clear that she was on set for five hours, and
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: then I was so what a treat? So happy to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: see Oh yes, But it's at Eartha Kitts house that
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Harriet gets caught, and good spies never get caught, so
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: she's super down on herself for having been caught. So
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: the next day, instead of doing her usual spy route,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: she decides to play with her friends. She's like, I
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: don't deserve to be a spy. I'll do normal kids stuff.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: So during a game of bumper tag, Harriet drops her
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: notebook and her nemesis, Maran Hawthorne picks it up and
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: starts reading it to a group of kids, and it
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: becomes clear that it's basically a burn book where Harriet
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: is just saying pretty mean stuff about all of her classmates,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: including her best friends Janey and Sport. So now that
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: this is all out in the public, everyone hates her
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: and her friends ignore her, and the kids at school
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: are like passing around notes saying that Harriet smells. And
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: they build a clubhouse for catching spies and just a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: it's a cool clubhouse. It's I want that clubhouse, right,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: They duck tape it together. It's it's a it's built
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: the way that kids would build a clubhouse, and I
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: appreciated that. Then her parents are like, you're obsessed with
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: being a spy and it's not healthy, and they make
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: her give up her notebook. And then there's an incident
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: at school where Marian and her friend's dump blue paint
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: on her and she freaks out. She goes home, she
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: rips her notebook up. It's a very big fat liar.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Even though this movie came out before big fat liar.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, yeah, PAULIATI got blue painted too.
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: It happens. Oh yep, I haven't seen that. Why is
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: that a children's movie trope? Just getting dumped on by
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: blue paint by blue paint, blue paint? I don't know.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, alright, I think peace on it, please.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: And then Harriet decides to get revenge on her classmates
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: for doing this, and she carves like a hit list
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: into her desk and she gets revenge by cutting off
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a girl's ponytail. She ruins various school projects. She tells
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: Mary and that her dad doesn't of her. Pretty traumatic
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: things like that, very rebellious, very rebellious. Yeah, she's listen.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: Harriet's a flawed character. It's true. We'll talk all about it.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: And then there's like there's little moments too where like
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I love Harriet so much, but I'm like, oh, yeah,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: she's also a rich brat where sometimes she'll do things
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: where I'm just like, oh, you just like have so
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: much privilege you can't see. She lives in an enormous apartment,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: really nice and the Upper East Side, but I mean,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I mean so much it boggles the mind. And it's
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: also such a cool movie house. It's rank controled you
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: guys there they pay seven a month to live there.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: She inherited it from her grandma's grandma. Okay, it's like friends, right, right.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: So her parents are like, oh, something's happening with our daughter.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: She's really lashing out. So they take her to a
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: child psychologist. And this is when she's maybe starting to
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: realize that what she was writing in her notebook was
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: kind of nasty and it hurt people's feelings. So her
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: parents give her notebook back and Golly comes back for
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: a visit, and Golly is like, here's the thing. You
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: need to apologize, and you need to tell some white
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: lies because white lies are okay, and also maybe try
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: writing something other than notes. In your notebook. So then
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Harriet goes to apologize to Jane and sport. They're still
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: sour at first, and then in class, Harriet suggests that
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: people besides just the class president should get to write
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: the school newspaper. So the kid with the purple socks
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I agree, and Harriet is a really
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: good writer. I nominate her to be the editor of
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the newspaper. It's kind of incredible how much the kid
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: in the purple socks ends up coming through and having
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: narrative significance in right, and they don't see it coming,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: don't see it coming. And this is someone who Harriet
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: said should hang themselves. It's really and he really gets
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: over it. He this is the thing piece I want.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: The kid with the purple socks went home and was like,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: you know what, sticks and stones may break my bones,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: but good journalism is good journalism that he advocates for her.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: He sure does. So everyone else is like, yeah, Harriet,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: you're the new editor of the newspaper. So then she
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: writes a retraction, apologizing saying the things that she had
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: written before weren't fair. She was too quick to judge
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: people and jump to conclusions. And then The movie ends
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: with her class dancing around during their winter pageant, like
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: in a gravy boat. In a gravy boat, Harriet is
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: an onion. I think they're The costumes are pretty fun.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: It reminded me so much of does anyone remember that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: episode of Hey Arnold? Were their fruits in the play? Yes,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that's another like fun children's media troupe, like we got
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to dress up the kids like food. People love it.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: It's so good. Uh, And that's the story. So let's
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we will come right
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: back to discuss uh where where to begind um with Harry?
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, should we just start by by talking about Harriet?
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I suppose so? Um. I think there's no better play.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: The first thing I want to say, I think is
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: that because I didn't remember what the movie was about,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: like my ten year old brain just comp really forgot.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I assumed that this story was going to be kind
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: of like a Nancy Drew type story, where like Harriet
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: would have to like solve a mystery because she's a
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: spine and she comes across a thing that she needs
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: to figure out. Interesting, But I think what happens in
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: this movie is way more realistic to what an eleven
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: year old girl would get involved in, rather than like
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: somehow being able to solve this like this mystery. So
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: I thought that was actually really cool because as I
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: was watching it, I was like, what's what's the missy?
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: When's the mystery going to happen? When are they going
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: to establish And I'm like, oh, wait a minute, that's
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: not what this movie is about. It's about her. Yeah.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I like that she like they make it clear that
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: she's like devoted to what she does and she is
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: good at it. But you're also like, but like what
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: is she doing? Which is how all of us when
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: we were eleven did things Like we were just like yeah,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: this is important and this is cool, and then at
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the end they're like, well what did you accomplish? You're
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: like nothing, nothing, I got into a fight with my mom.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Harriet is such a cool, complicated character. Where I was,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I was really like kind of like really impressed with
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: how this movie just like goes there with like parent
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: conflict and um, the like subtleties of like communicating that
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Harriet's parents are like kind of have like failed her
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: in some ways and that there has to be a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: conversation about how they have failed her in some ways
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and how they just don't really understand her. And there's
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: like class stuff tackled in this movie where like Harriet
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't clear I mean clearly to demonstrate through how she
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: treats sports, like doesn't understand class really at all, um
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and like has to learn that and she like fox up.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: But it's still I don't know. Yeah, it's like the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: movie tackles so many different things that are all like
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: stuff that affects kids, but it does it in a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: way that is still appealing to kids. It's like it's incredible. Yeah,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: they do a good job because it's it's Nickelodeon. I
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: think it was one of the first movies that Nickelodeon
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: had released, And I was reading about it because I
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: think it's interesting that the book by Louise fits You
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: is has been banned. It's on banned books lists for
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: different like school like children's libraries and school libraries and
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah, I don't remember ever seeing it
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: in a school library, which is like because it goes
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: back to the thing of like our you know, parents
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: probably have this weird toward relationship with the movie because
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: it's like the parents failing and they're not, you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: failing their child and not being there for her. But
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of like the power of words,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: like teaching the kids what the power that they have
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: with their what they say and what they think and
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: how they express it. I also was thinking about like
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: sweet little Gali Um and her relationship up. I love
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: that that relationship between the two ladies. But um, you know,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this is how I'll be able
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: to teach my kid about how to white light and
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: how that's okay. I was like, I'm gonna take that even.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, like that scene is such a cool, like
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: big swing of like I don't know, like just like
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: that just shows how seriously the like writers of this
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: movie take their kid audience of like they don't doubt
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: that that will like, you know, resonate with them. Yeah.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I mean I think like the whole way through with Harriet,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: like she is flawed. So I go back and forth
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: and like, am I supposed to be cheer like rooting
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: for her this whole time? Where am I supposed to
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: kind of I'm learning things as a thirty four year
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: old woman from Harriet Um. But you know, at the
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: end of the day, like with that sweet scene at
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: the end, it's like sometimes you have to lie, but
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: to yourself you must always tell the truth, Like that's it,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: you know. So I think there were really really great
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: messages along the way for a nuggets for these kids
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: to actually take even though you know, our tenure o
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: brains were like I want to be a spy, you know.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: And then but like having uh these like nonconformist women
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: at the helm of a film where you go like, oh,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I you know, the underrepresented is represented in a way.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I love her relationship with Golly. I think like her
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: relationship with Golly is so beautiful and cool, and I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: feel like a really good model of like how adults
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: can treat children not with kid gloves and it can
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: be like a very like that that's just like how
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: you should treat a kid generally. Um. I love like
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: that scene where um, Golly like listens to Harriet, she
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: cares about her interests, she supports what Harriet's interested in,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: and then also like does that cool thing where like
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: it's like an adult takes you seriously and then tries
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: to like spanned your knowledge where she like brought her
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: to see that movie about Mata Hari and she knows
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: about Josephine Baker and like all these female spies or yeah,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I think like Golly is such a cool character and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and the fact that we also get a little look
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: into her personal life and her interior life, because they
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: feel like in India's movies that mostly hang out in
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: like the upper crust class, the only poor characters you
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: see have no interior life that we're made aware of.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: But it's like Golly has a life, and she has
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: interests and she and she advocates for herself when like
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Harriet's mom, you know, like treats are like ship She's like, no,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: I'm out of here. I don't I don't need to
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: put up with this. I also love the fem Fatale
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: uh movie theater. Like I was like, okay, yeah, because
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: they went to like a fem fatale like film festival,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah yeah, and then they like saw think
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: it was a real movie that was like based on
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: like Mata Harris adventures. And I don't know, these were
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: like women that I wrote a like a report on
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: Mata Hari when I was a kid, like oh, spies,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: but it's yeah, their relationship is great and it made
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: me cry when Colly left the first time. It's really
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: like maybe I'll travel. You know, You're just like I
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: want to go with Golly, right right. Some other things
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that I like that we've already touched on, but like
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: I guess in terms of um, Harriet's friend group, so
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: you know, you you you heard what Vanessa had to say.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: But the fact that, um, you know, Harriet's two friends
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: are Janey, who is a woman of color in STEM.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: It's so rare to see little black girls doing science
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: on screen or having an interest in science in any media.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: That that was really remarkable. And and it also doesn't
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: like make a big I feel like a big thing.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: There is also just like normalizing it and not making
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: it this like big focal point. It's like, yeah, Janey
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: likes science. This is what she does, this is how
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: she acts, blah blah blah, and like it just is.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: She's also has like a fascination with very destructive science.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: She's like, I love the h bomb crowd, Manhattan Project,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. And we're like, she's obsessed with laser
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: beams that would like disintegrate people. She'll work it out
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: in therapy later. Right, all these kids are in therapy, like,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, Janey is awesome. And I was also, um,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: kind of just based on other movies that we've covered
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: in like tropes that we've noticed over the years. Um,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: I think I'm thinking of the craft where yeah, normally,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: you know, in a movie where there's only one person
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: of color, and usually specifically a black character, you don't
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: get to see their home life or their home life
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: is kind of excluded from the narrative. And that again,
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: it's just like not the case for Janey, and it's
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: done in a very like just a normalized way of
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: like you see her mom, her mom's like stop blowing
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: things up, and you're like, all right, cool, there we are. Um,
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: you get a peek at the home life and and
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like I guess to be fair, not in the same
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: amount of detail that we get for Harriet and for
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Sport Um, but you do get to see her home life,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: her relationship with her mom, and it's you know, it's
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: like a meaningful part of the story. And then I mean,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: speaking of Sport, I also like that the movie normalizes
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: girls being friends with boys, because I think a lot
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: of media targeted to children would try to emphasize a
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: divide between girls and boys, and like how girls were
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: turning in to like a crushed narrative too. But they're
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: just you know, platonic friends. There's no indication, at least
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: in the movie that any of them have any you know,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: little crush on anyone else. You know, they're busy, if
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: they're too busy being spies and you know, making spores
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: in their bedroom and stuff like that. And then with
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: with Sport, there is, like you said, Jamie, um, some
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: attention is drawn to class because you know, Harriet comes
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: from a well to do family, whereas Sport I mean
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: to say the least, I mean her dad, Larry David, Like,
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: how is a comedy writer having that house? Who knows? Yeah,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Sport comes from a poor family who his dad is
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: also a writer. But you know, there's that line where
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Harriet says something like, my dad would call guys like
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: your dad a starving artist, get a real job. Yeah,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: why want Harriet's dad staff sports Dad? If he's the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: showrunner of Seinfeld, give Sports Dad a job on the show. Right,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: But like, but if he's a shitty writer, um, that
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: could be it. Well, he does sell something for ten
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: dollars at the end, so that's true. That's that's something.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: I like the sweet little scene where she climbs up
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and she's spying on Sport and like she sees Sport
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: with his uh with his dad and they're running around
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: like with you know, having this like grand old time
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: with a chicken hat or whatever. That thing was. Um,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I think it also shows that like happiness
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: comes in different forms and being fulfilled in a different way.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: For children to kind of understand that, like that you
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: don't need money to have a happy family was also
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like pretty pretty powerful, I thought for sure. I mean,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: there's definitely an existing trope where children from poor families
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: or just poor families in general are miserable, and often
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: there's like this idea that like, oh, earns of a
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: poor family are abusive or negligent or you know any
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: any manner of like really negative stereotypes, and we don't
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: see that at all with Sports family. Well, I will
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: say just a little bit that like Sport, I guess
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I think that sports Dad is kind of weirdly written
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: in some moments of like he's not a good parent.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: He's not written to be a good parent, because like
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: Sport is the one who is like doing the cooking
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: and like buying groceries because his dad is depressed to
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: write his shitty book. So I feel like it is
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: not like entirely like I don't know a fair point
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: that yeah, I feel like I mean this, this movie
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: and this story goes out of the way to give
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: kids a lot of agency, but like Sport is literally
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: seems to be running the house and he's yeah tenor
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: a weaven, I mean, which does mean we see a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: little boy doing a lot of like domestic chores, which
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: we never see the context of it. Though I don't know.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: It doesn't like is I don't I mean, yeah, it
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: seems like he has, you know, a depressive parent, but
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: then it's like that thing where they're like, well, depressive
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: equals art, so best not to deal with it. So
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I was a little concerned for Sport
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: even when things started working out for the family, uh,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: because I'm just like, are we does does sports still
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: have to cook tonight? Like? Can this dad learn how
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: to make a box of mac and cheese for his son? Please?
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: I was just worried about Sport. There there is an
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: exchange of dialogue that I thought was really powerful, and
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I think would have been especially powerful to see if
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I had remembered it as a child when I saw it.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: But you know, Harriet says something like I hate money,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: and Sport replies with, you'd like it a lot more
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: if you didn't have any, which is such a like,
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: you know, Harriet's coming from this really privileged place, so
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: of course, like she gets to hate money because money
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: doesn't a lack of money isn't affecting her, Like she
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: doesn't have to worry about that. She's never had to Yeah,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: she's never had to really think about it. Um. One
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: of the things where I feel, okay, so Harriet. I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: like that the that there is some like class diversity
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: in in this movie as well. And one of the
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I think cool things that Harriet does as a little
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: rich New York kid um is that she gets to
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: go to therapy. And I was kind of like when
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: this scene came up, I was like, oh, you know,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: it's like nineties six. You don't really know which way
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: this is going to go because I feel like, especially
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: during this time, there is still like significant stigma against
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: any kind of therapy, and you would sometimes see therapy
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: characters made out to be kind of like cookie and
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: like kind of like snake oil salesman, and you know,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: they're like, how are you feeling, and they don't actually understand,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: they're not actually listening. But I I really love the
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: direction that this movie takes it, which is that it
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: is helpful for Harriet, like and and the fact that
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: she went to therapy even though she herself was skeptical
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: of it, um ends up improved. I mean no, I
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: mean like really improving her parents understanding of her more
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: so than her understanding of herself. But I was happy
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: to see that therapy and like mental health stuff was
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: not made a joke of because I feel like that's
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: an easy joke that you kind of see a lot
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: in movies in the like nineties early two thousand's. Yeah,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I think you have a long way to go with
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: therapy still and mental health, even though we're moving in
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a forward motion. But I I'm actually we're watching Sopranos
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: for the first time right now, where I think they're
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: doing a really wonderful job with the way in that world,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: like you know, handling and approaching the topic of mental health.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: But like they bring their son to you know, their
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: sons not paying attention. They think he has a d D.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: He's going to get tested. It's like, I want to
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: see people go who don't have major overlaying issues, meaning
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: that like you have to go to therapy because just
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: because of that, Like I we always see kids being
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: brought to therapy because they're troubled, rather than just being
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: able to say, like therapy is okay for everybody, true,
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's ultimately in this case, it seems
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: like Harriet is being Part of the reason to Harriet
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: is being sent to therapy is because her parents are
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: not doing the work they need to do to understand,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: like it's just as much of them, like they should
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: also be in therapy, and I hope that they are right. Right, Well,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the movie kind of frames the Gali leaving is the
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: catalyst for trauma. Yeah, it's it's it's Harriet's trauma, and
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: it's why she sort of lashes out and because like
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: what happens is that people find her notebook where she
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: has said all these you know, perhaps truthful but still
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: mean things about all of her classmates, and then they
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: retaliate against her because they're like, you can't say this
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: horrible stuff about us, that's mean, and they kind of
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: shun her, but she retaliates against them again for having
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: been really doubles down. She doubles down, and it's like,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: but like, that's also a realistic thing that I think
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of eleven year olds would do. I honestly,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: watching this, I'm like I anytime I see a movie
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: where kids like kind of act out in a funny way, like, oh,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I wish I was I wish I was like a
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: bolder child, and I like recognize at the time and like,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: this really isn't going to have that much of an
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: effect on my life. I should just do some fucked
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: up weird stuff. She gets like there, she really doubles
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: down in a way I would not have been brave
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: enough to attempt as as an eleven year old. It's inspiring, yeah,
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: because I think maybe a movie that had a lesser
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: understanding of like children's behavior and psychology would just to
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: have it so that her book got found all of
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: her you know, mean notes were revealed, and then she
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: would just be like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Everyone better now. But like, no, that's not It spirals
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: out of control and I could like totally see myself
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: like me, I don't think I ever did anything quite
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: like that. But like you know, when you're a kid
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: and you don't know how to hold yourself accountable for
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: any misdeeds you did, you're gonna keep lashing out because
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: you just don't know how else to process anything. I
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: had a really embarrassing thing like not I mean not
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: as it wasn't a mean thing, but when I was
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: in fifth grade, I left an open document at the
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: computer lab saying that I was like trying to I
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: don't know anyway. My teacher was Mr Brewster, and I
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: had typed the words Mr Brewster hot, and it became
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: a thing that was you know, it was not an
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: easy time to have been the girl that typed Mr
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Brewster hot, because I meant it as a question, not
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: as a statement, not that anyone would believe me. I
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: meant Mr Brewster HoTT, but the punctuation wasn't there, and
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: so and and and and I just doubled down in
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: saying that it was a question and not a statement,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: which made the whole thing worse. And being a child
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: is a full full fledged nightmare. It's traumatic, you really,
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: I think about it all, like, even thinking about it
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: now just still puts a pit in my stomach of like, damn,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: should have just pressed backspace, like it would have been
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: so easy. That's basically the plot of Love Simon. By
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: the way, I yes, I was. Uh, it's actually based
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: on me and Mr Brewster story. They licensed it from us. Incredible. Yeah,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: for more discussion and we're back. There are some as
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: as well as this movie does at exploring the intricacies
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: of what it's like to be an eleven year old
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: girl with abundant resources and um parents who don't seem
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: to be able to keep track of where their daughter
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: is most of the time because she's off doing spy
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: stuff and a New York version of New York that
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: is very safe, very safe, and quite white. Um, which
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: brings me to some of the issues that the movie has.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: So one of her spy targets is the Hong Fat family,
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: and she says something like, oh, they have a son, Frankie.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: He's cool American style, and then the parents are cool
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Chinese style, and then she like makes a comment about
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: how the parents would rather have Frankie working in the
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: store selling milk and bread and lizards. So it's this
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: joke made at the expense of like this immigrant family
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and like, oh, this thing they do that's unfamiliar to me,
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: it must be gross or it's weird, it's other does
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: not age well, especially because it's like there's no I
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: mean that's the end of there's no commentary. Like it's
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: just like there's so many things and it sucks because
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I I wanted to believe better of this movie. Of
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: there are so many things in this movie that Harriet
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: is wrong about and then she learns that she's wrong
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: and get some perspective on it. And you would think
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: that this would be a great opportunity for you to
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: be like, no, you're like a rich little white girl.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: You don't know what you're talking about here, Like, but
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: it just it never comes for this um storyline. No,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: it does, unfortunately, not, does it not? UM. I was
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: also kind of bummed that, um, I don't even she
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: they give this character a name, but Marian's I guess,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: like sidekick. Yes, her name is Rachel. Yeah. I don't
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: love how that character is treated as one of the
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: only like non white students that we get to know,
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: and that she's kind of like relegated to this sidekick role,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: and I also felt, I mean, Marian's character in general,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know how. I well, I guess I don't
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: know how. There's another weird class thing happening here because
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: we've got Sport who was very clearly from a low
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: income family. We've got Harriet who is rich, but then
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: Marian is even richer, and so she's the villain. It's
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: like it's right, and it's like, I don't know, I
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: know that like rich people technically have feelings that we're
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: supposed to really care about it, but it was just
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: that whole story a lote. I was just like, what
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: is this like? Because it's like I don't want to
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: It's just like a rich girl being mean to another
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: rich girl and then being like, actually I should have
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: thought more about the richer girl. And there you're just like,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, who care about any of this because
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: it's like demonizing extra extreme excessive wealth and marrying because
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: they like have her say these really goofy things like, oh,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: horseback riding if you can afford it is a super
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: fun activity. And then her idea for like a fun
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: game that all the children can play is let's role
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: play buying a Volvo. You'll pretend to be the rich couple,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: and you'll pretend to be the car salesman, and everyone's like, boo,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: you're an idiot. Um, so it's like kind of hates her, like,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: but then it's like, Harry, you're also rich, Like what
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: do you like? She's like, I guess slightly less rich
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: than Mary, and so Harry, it's like cool by everyone else.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I ended up just kind of
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: shrugging because I'm just like, I don't I guess that
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: we're I made to an extent, we're supposed to like
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: just be like we love Harriet no matter what. But
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, Harriet, like check yourself a little bit here.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: You're like you're in You're a three per center and
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Marian's a one percent er. What's the fucking difference? Everyone
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: to relax. Also, during that scene where like all the
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: children are pitching games that they might play, someone says
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: something and then Harriet says, no, that's our word. She
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: says the R word, which, again a very nineties thing
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: to do, even a very like two thousand to some
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: degree two thousands tens things to be like that word
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: was being used very casually. It's still kicked around to
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: this day, to our infinite frustration. UM, yeah, I was.
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: That was I like jumped. I was like, no, no, there,
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: how did you get here? How did you get in here?
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about the queer reading of this story? Please?
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: So I was doing. I've been known to do a
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: little context corner myself every once in a while. Um,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: not to step on your toes, Jamie, I know. I'm
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: so sorry. Don't worry, don't worry. But I was doing
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: some reading and um, full disclosure, I have not read
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: the book that this is adapted from. It was banned.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was so the author, Louise
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: fitz Hugh, was a queer woman. The book has a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: pretty substantial queer following the way, and I think it
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the way Harriet was
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: described in the book and just various actions and behaviors
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: of hers throughout the story. I wanted to read an
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: excerpt from an article that I found from The Guardian
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: entitled Harriet the Spy Helped Me come to terms with
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: my queer identity by Cat Patrick. Quote Harriet the Spy
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: blurred the lines between right and wrong in a way
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that liberated my nine year old brain as a kid
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: who already felt left out by the mechanisms of femininity
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: that everyone around me seemed to adopt with ease. Harriet
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: was the blue denim baby Butch I needed among the
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: endless Balderina narratives. Back then, I didn't have the words
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: for what I felt fizzing through my inside, and even now,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: fifteen years after coming out, I'm only just learning to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable with how I present non binary Butch end quote.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: I recommend reading this entire article because the writer goes
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: on to offer a queer reading on Harriet's spy route,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: the idea of having to tell you know, little white
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: lies to survive, but also remaining true to yourself. All
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: of these themes that are explored. Queer listeners. Let us
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: know how the movie resonated with you and the book,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: if you've read it, if you could get your hands
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: on one, if you can even get your hands on it.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I think, I mean, as far as the movie goes,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and we're we always want to know more about what
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: our our queer listeners think and what your read is.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: But I think that like a strength of the movie
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: is that it doesn't force heterosexuality on its child characters,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: like they're just being kids. There aren't like those constructs aren't.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: There's no external pressure for that really coming from any direction,
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: which is very I didn't realize. I mean I didn't
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: even I was like so refreshed by it. Then I'm like, wow,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: this really does happen in every other kid's movie because
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: it just like is it makes create so much room
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: in this story for interpretation and just doing other things,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: um by by not taking up too much real estate
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: with like boy girl crushes, which is also just boring
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: and bad writing. Yes, um, I have some context stuff
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: on the production, please, yes, this movie there, I mean
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: I pretty much love all of it. Uh So this
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: was directed by a woman, A pretty young women as well.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I think she was like twenty eight or twenty nine
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: when she directed the movie. It was her first big production.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: Her name's Bronwyn Hughes. Everything I've read about her love
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: She still is directing mostly like Prestige TV. Now. She
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: directed a Better Call Soul episode this year like She's
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: out here. But this was her first movie, and I
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: just was really interested in how she was able to
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: direct kids in a way that feels so organic. Because
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: Caitlin and I have like joked around before like the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: way that some child actors are directed, it just does
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: them no favors. And the way that some child characters
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: are written does them no favors. But like here the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: spy feels like this big outlier and so um I
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to learn more about her direction style, and everything
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: I read about her was that they were just like
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: she just had like the highest energy and she was
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: like dancing with the kids all day, and so like
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: takes what happened right after, like Michelle tracton Berg was
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: like dancing around and then Brown when used to be
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: like okay, now go, and that would like bring the
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: energy into the scene. So here's a quote from Michelle
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Tractonburg about it. She says, I don't remember her not
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: dancing on set and music was always playing. It was
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: really cool and in terms of performance art, she was
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: pretty ahead of her time. It was also a great
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: way to direct children and keep things alive, and so
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: I I just I don't know. I ended up finding
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: a new director that I really want to see like
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: more of her work just based off of and even
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: like the pacing of it has like such a cool
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: like jazzy kind of pacing and some of the shots
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is like kind of like art
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: school for for a kid's movie. I like it. Yeah,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: thats just the colors, and like the tone of the
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: whole thing is like it's like a little quirky but
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: yet still like a little gritty at the same time,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: like you had that New York grit to it. And
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: I agree. I just wanted to know more about her
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: because I thought she did like a fabulous job. And
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to direct kids. I mean, I'll tell you,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Like when I was a kid, they would always just
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: like there would be really good directors and really bad
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: um and I recently had to direct a child and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: he's a bit younger, so that was even harder. But
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: like it's it's a it's a big mighty task to
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: take on. Yeah, and she just like kills it and
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: brilliant and you have to imagine that having a female
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: director on this movie made a big difference to and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: just like how do we see the kids? And so
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: there's also two credited writers on this movie. One is
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: a man named Douglas Petrie who has done a ton
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: of mostly TV writing, but on shows with a pretty
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: good reputation for representing women. You have. He was like
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: a staff writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Forever, he
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: wrote an Angel, He's written a lot of well regarded
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: female comic book characters. I don't know about books don't
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: at me. Uh. And then the other writer is Teresa Rebec,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: who is famous for she's like a legendary female mystery
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: writer and is known for writing like mysteries that have
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: like a feminist character at the center. So it seems
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: like they just really brought together a really solid team
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of majority women to make this movie happen, and it's
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: it feels like a great example of like a great
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: product that you can get if you just kind of
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: get some at least some of the right people in
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: the room. I wonder how passionate they were and in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: finding the director and finding bron Wyn, like, how passionate
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: they were about finding a female director for this film,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: because I think it could have been completely different film
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: without a female director um and a per female perspective.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And like you know, nowadays there it's it's a requirement
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: for a lot of films, and so I I would
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: just be curious in that time you know, how much
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: of a stickler they wore for it, or if she
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: was just the right you know, like who was pushing
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: for it. It's interesting because I feel like, especially in
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: this era, like Nickelodeon has kind of a better track
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: record with how it's females characters are written and treated
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: than you know, if if you're going pound for pound
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: against Disney, which you know their history with women is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: maybe not so great. I was also kind of surprised
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: that this movie was not particularly well reviewed. It was
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: not at the time, and and a lot of this
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I will chalk up to, especially in the nineties, older
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: white male film critics being like but and see anything.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: This wasn't for me, and then just kind of being
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: like Sia, but yeah, it seems like it was a
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: movie that was misjudged in its time as well, which
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: is which was just, I guess kind of strange to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: me because I've truly never heard a bad word about
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: this movie. But for going back to the original reviews,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: and I disagree with all of them, they're like, where's
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the mystery? Like there, she didn't even solve a mystery.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I'm pissed. I had the same thought. Am I bad
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: you're double campbook. But in any case, it's it's definitely
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: I think a movie that's reputation has really like solidified
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: over time. Apparently it didn't in the moment. I mean,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: it has to be a bit of a cult following, right,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: like a little bit, and I I think totally those
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: weird you know that art feel that I think I
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: think you mentioned earlier. It's like some people get it
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: and some people don't. And the tone of this is
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: really quirky, um, a little off kilter. And I feel
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: like if you're if you know, you're not the blockbuster
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: that they're looking for or the mainstream, it's not going
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to be well reviewed, but other people will get in. Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: I feel like the core that the intended audience of
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: this movie got it, and like it wasn't written for
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: old guys and so they perhaps did not get it.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: I also wanted to mention just because I'm like, this
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: is interesting, Teresa Rebec she wrote the screenplay for the
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: Halleberry Catwoman movie, and you're like, oh, my cinematic masterpiece, Catwoman. Yeah,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: so you know, people contain multitudes. They sure do. Um.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to touch a little bit on some of
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: the adults in the movie one. I appreciate that the
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: teacher was not villainized the way that a lot of
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: kids movies will vitainize educators. She was maybe made to
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: seem a little oblivious, perhaps, but she wasn't this like
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: mean authoritarian teacher the way that a lot of again,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: like kids movies will be like teacher bad um. And
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I understand, like the kids perspective perspective, sure teachers suck
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: or sometimes they're hot. Something to consider hot question mark
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: or not question mark. The teacher also magically disappears after
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: cleaning up Harriet with the blue paint, which also gave
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: me a slight panic attack. I was like, everybody, get
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: off of her. She just disappears. Yeah, she's like, let's
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: clean Harriet up. And then you know, Marian's like spill
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: and then where's she? Where's the discipline? Um? But yeah,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: that was just a quick little thing I had. And
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: then another quick, very quick moment in the movie, but
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: I appreciated this. It's after Harriet has tormented her entire
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: class and cut their hair off and strung a bra
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: up on the flagpole and like all this stuff. She
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: is at home and her parents come in and they
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: are trying to figure out, like what's happening, why did
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: she do this? And her dad comes in and he
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: says something like I used to mess around in school too.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: He's like trying to make light of the situation, and
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: then her mom says something like you always do that,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: you always make jokes, and then I have to come
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: in here and be the grumpy one, which like, it's
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: not what this movie is about at all. It's like
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: this tiny little moment that you would probably blanket you
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: miss it kind of thing, but I just appreciate that
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: small attempt to show that it is in a like
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: mother father household, it is often the mother who has
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: to bear the kind of emotional burden and the emotional
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: labor of like being the disciplinarian, whereas the dad gets
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: to be like, um, goofyld fun. I don't know how
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: to discipline my kids. It's not my job. I think
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: we talked about this a lot in the Mrs Doultfire episode,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: and that's also true of I mean, every family show
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: I remember watching as a kid was like, you know,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: shrewy mom that occasionally has a scene that's like, but
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I love you, and then like goofy, Dad, Right, it's
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: cannon it maybe I remember my dad used to get
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: really mad about it. He's just like, I don't know,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not really a fair of like who cares.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: But he was just like, not all dads are stupid.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, how does it feel to be negatively
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: portrayed in media? Dad? I just like just the mom
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: acknowledging that, and like acknowledging that frustration of like you
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: get to be the fun one and I have to
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: come in here and be the grumpy one. Like I
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: found that just to be a little, a little sliver
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: of something I enjoyed, just a nugget, just leave it there.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: And and and I liked that you do get a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: scene with Harriet and her mother where like Harriet, I
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: mean we we as an audience already know that Harriet's
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: parents are very flawed parents that don't really understand their
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: child because they haven't spent time with her and listened
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: to her, Like if they had spent the same kind
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: of time that Golly had, they would under have a
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: better understanding of her. And I like, I mean, it's
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: just like another shade of gray that this movie shows
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: you with, like how kids relate to people in their lives.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: That I thought was really nice of like her mother
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: admitting that she was wrong and that she doesn't always
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: understand her daughter and that like that can be true
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: and she can be trying to be better, and you know,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: you hope that moving moving forward that like, I don't know,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: it's it's nice that Harriet got because Harriet dies does
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: like deserve an apology from for how her parents treat her,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: and it would have been nice for it to come
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: from both parents. But I did like that mother daughter
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: scene where you even though I'm like this mom needs
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: to get it together, You're also like, well, okay, she
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: acknowledges that she, you know, has work to do and
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: that both parents have work to do. And I thought
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: it was handled, you know, pretty well. Yeah, for sure.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: There's another one last little thing is the movie and
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: this is like hardly anything, but there are two different
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: scenes in the movie where the kids are watching like
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: you're developing bodies going through puberty. This is how it's
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: going to be, like really old videos, so they're like
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: from the sixties or something, um. And then like the
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: fact that Harriet pretty much body shames one of her
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: classmates for like, having grown boobs over the summer is
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: again not something that we admire or recommend children do,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: but it is again just such a a realistic thing
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: because like you know, as young kids, their bodies are changing,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: they're going through puberty. They don't know what's happening. They
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: if they see someone else going through puberty first they
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: think it's weird and gross. And like again, every basically
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: everything that Harriet does and her thoughts, well, some of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: them are like pretty violent and I don't condone at all,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: like the like the kid with the stocks should hang himself. Um,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: that other girl someone should just kick her. Like those
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: obviously are not okay and there's no justification for them.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: But other ones, I'm just like, of course you think that,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: because that's such an eleven year old understanding of bodies
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: or of like socioeconomic class and you know, just different
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: things like that. So while some of them were quite
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: troubling and violent, other ones I'm like, I mean, I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: don't like that she said this, but I understand because
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: it's super realistic. Yeah, it's like it's complicated, it is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: coated with Harry at the spot. You know why that
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: just speaks to like it's so refreshing to see like
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: a complicated depiction of a little girl of any female ki.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: I mean we like female characters are so often written
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: to be so flat and stock and stereotypical that it
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: is nice to I mean we talk about like women
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: should be allowed to be mediocre in movies, women should
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: be allowed to like funk up and make mistakes, and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: like that's really most of what Harriet is doing is
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: like having to learn major life lessons, having to apologize
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: for various misdeeds things like that, and um, yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: I think it's it's actually very refreshing to get to
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: see like a little girl go through that arc. It's true,
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: this movie is fun. Yeah, kudis to the you know,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: like Nickelodeon for because they're saying like age nine is
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: like the common sense age and like most would be
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: too pure, you know, and not allow any of these
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: issues to really come to the forefront of the film themselves.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, I I really yeah, it's I'm like, it's
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: very hard to imagine like Disney and taking a female
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: protagonist this seriously, So I'm glad that Harriet was already
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: there for us. Does anyone else have any final thoughts
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: about the film. I think so. The last thing I
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: want to say is some anist icon Agatha k Plumber
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: a k A. Eartha Kid's character who we own she
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: SUPs to be like Agatha Chris. I was like, is
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: this an Agatha Christie reference? What is Eartha Kid doing
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: in there? I like, there, don't know, but one of
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: the few lines of dialogue she has is she's talking
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: on the phone with someone and she says, I have
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: the secret of life. You simply crawl into your bed
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: and never ever leave it again, which in the quarantine
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: is something that I have been doing, so thank you
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: for that. I get the k Plumber, I got, like, Hey,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, I feel like it's an act because
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: especially because it's like a female mystery story, and like
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: this has to be some weird I get the Christie
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: at least reference. I'm guessing, Yeah, maybe Shrug does Harriet
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: the Spy past the Bechtel Test by any chance? Yeah?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: All the time. Lots of different combinations of characters. Harriet
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: talks to Golly, to Janey, to her mom, to her teacher,
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: to marry In. Yeah, lots of different combinations of characters,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: and they're taught. They're not talking about boys or men
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: hardly ever. And there's also non Harriet combos to like
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Janey talks to her mom and Maryan talks to Rachel,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: and there's Yeah, there's a lot of good this. This
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: handily pass the test. Absolutely. Let's rate it on her
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: Nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its representation
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: of women. I would I would give this, I think
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: like a four. Um. I'll take some points off for
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: the very nineties punching down humor and language that we
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: see here and there, especially because I read that in
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: the book it's an Italian family that she spies on.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: It's the De Santi family, UM. So the adaptation deliberately
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: changed it to the hung fat family, UM, and then
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: made Harriet be kind of racist. So you know, you
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: don't get a nipple for that. You don't get a
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: nipple for that. Also, just like I mean, even though
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: the movie does address class, it is still like and
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: here's this you know, wealthy white girl and her story
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: because that's the story that you know, we feel needs
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: to be told more than other people's stories. So, you know,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: not not a perfect film or story, but I do
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: think it but much closer than most movies we've covered,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: for sure. So I'll give it four nipples. I'll give
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: one to Janey, Okay, I'll give one to Janey the character,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: and I'll give one to Vanessa Chester. Um, thanks again
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: so much to her for chatting with us and giving
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: her input. Um. I will give one to your voice,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Jenna that is present in the playgrounds or the you know,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: the various scenes. Um. And I'll give one to Harriet. No. Actually,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna give my fourth nipple to earth a Kit
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: and her um just wanting to stay in bed for
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: the rest of her life can relate. Yeah, I'm gonna
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: go with four nipples on this too. I think for
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: nine this movie does very well, but it still has
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, as we discussed, it has its shortcomings, it
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: has its dated nous, and it has, as most children's media,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: a fixation on uh Rich White family above any other family.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: It loses the nipple for that, But in terms of
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: creating a fleshed out, um not hyper sexualized female character
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: that makes mistakes that learned from those mistakes, maybe not
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: as mistakes, many mistakes as we would have liked, but
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: more than I expected to be honest. Yeah, just like
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: has a full life and is allowed a funk up
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and learn and have interests that are not hyper feminine
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: and and eat mayonnaise sandwiches and ship like. It's all great,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: um and and I do generally I like the small
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: class commentary. I mean, you know, probably could go a
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: little further, but it's a great movie. I really like it.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like it. It super holds up in most ways.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: So I'll give one nipple to Jenna's omniscient voice. I'll
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: give one nipple to Michelle Trachtenberg, one to Vanessa Chester,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: and I'll complete earth the kids set, give her give
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: her another nip. Incredible, Jenna, what about you? Yeah, I
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: would give it for nipples. One nipple definitely does not
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: get given any any attention. Yeah, for you know, the
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: little uh I don't want to call them slip ups,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: but the shortcomings with the you know, a socio economic
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: class and this young girl of really who has quite
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: a lot of privilege. But I do I do want
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: to say, like I I give the four for the
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: representation for kids and females to be specific, young girls
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: who like Harriet have sort of found their purpose in
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: the world in a way. Like as a writer and
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: it's just trying to figure out where it fits in
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: the world. And to have a kid who has purpose.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's why we, you know, as kids related
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: to her at least I did as a young girl
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: who had a purpose to or I wanted her purpose
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: in that moment in time, and I think that was
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: not and it still is not represented enough um in media.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: So I definitely give the nipples to Rosie, to Jake Cameron,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: to Michelle and to Vanessa. Awesome, Jenna, thank you so
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: much for being here, for joining us today. Thanks for
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: having me so much fun to um break down the
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: Harry at the spot Absolutely what would you like to plug? Yeah,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm mainly on Instagram at Jennashkowitz and my last
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: name is spelled U s h ko w I t Z. Yeah,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: we have. I have a podcast called Showman Pysically Recap podcast.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: You can find out where Refined Podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: um and podcast one. And uh yeah, that's that's pretty
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: much awesome. I didn't mention before, but I am a
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: Glee Stan I've seen all of Glee and I love
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: it all of it. I think you were the seasons.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: Were there six? Oh yeah, I lied. I think I
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: only made it to five. I'm so sorry. So you
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: were part of the pretty good No no, no, that's
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: that was pretty good. Thank you. But it started long
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: before that. Oh that's awesome. Thank you so much. Well,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: of course, I you can follow. You can follow us
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. At betel Cast, you can subscribe
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: to our Patreon a k a. Matreon By going to
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast and subscribing for five
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: dollars a month. You get to bonus episodes plus our
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: entire back catalog of bonus episodes. Hefty, uh, we and we.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: You can get our merch at public dot com slash
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast if you feel like we're in stuff.
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: And thank you for listening. Oh and thanks again to
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Chester for taking the time to talk to us.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: Be sure to follow her on social media and go
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: back and listen to our episode with her on the
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: movie Book Smart. She's the best. Yeah. And with that,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: the spy with social distancing, that's kind of what spying is.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: It's true, it's just true. Observing people at a distance.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: Spying is hot right now? He reasonal social distance sir,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: that's right, all right, Bye bye bye