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SMNTY Classics: Why Didn't You Believe Her? · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm welcome to step
0:07
Speaker 1: I never told you production of iHeart Radio. And as
0:18
Speaker 1: you know listeners, we are big horror fans here at
0:22
Speaker 1: Smindy One costume. I didn't mention that I saw a
0:25
Speaker 1: lot at Dragon Con that is recently at freaked me out.
0:29
Speaker 1: Was the scream, the ghost face mask and made me nervous.
0:32
Speaker 1: And we've already been running some horror stuff because we
0:36
Speaker 1: have so much content around that. We've already started discussing
0:41
Speaker 1: our horror movies that we need to watch. We've got
0:44
Speaker 1: some plans. We've got some plans listeners, for sure, I'm
0:46
Speaker 1: sure no shock to you at all. But in the
0:49
Speaker 1: spirit of that, I have been meaning to bring back
0:51
Speaker 1: this episode. This was before your time, Samantha, but bright
0:53
Speaker 1: before your time when I bought on Lauren from Savor,
0:58
Speaker 1: our friend and co worker uh to do an episode
1:01
Speaker 1: with me about the trope and horror movies of why
1:05
Speaker 1: didn't you believe her? Because once you see it, you
1:09
Speaker 1: can't un see it. I swear it's a woman who's like, hey,
1:13
Speaker 1: I think this is a bad idea. We shouldn't do this,
1:16
Speaker 1: and then a guy being like no, no, no, no, no no,
1:19
Speaker 1: you're being too emotional. Whatever it is, let's go, and
1:24
Speaker 1: then death ensues. And since we've done this episode, I
1:27
Speaker 1: see it all the time, and in fact, I think
1:30
Speaker 1: I jokingly texted you and some of my other friends
1:35
Speaker 1: the paranormal Activity movies, which I do love. Um could
1:38
Speaker 1: essentially be summed up as a woman being like, hey,
1:42
Speaker 1: to to a dude in her life, I think this
1:44
Speaker 1: is bad. We shouldn't mess with it. The dude being like, oh, no,
1:47
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. Let's see what happens. Everyone does,
1:52
Speaker 1: but not always. Sometimes everybody just dies. But it is.
1:56
Speaker 1: It is something where I'm just like, there it is somebody.
2:00
Speaker 1: Usually a woman may be like, no, I think this
2:01
Speaker 1: is a bad idea. So yes, as we move into
2:06
Speaker 1: this season, we thought we would bring back this classic episode,
2:10
Speaker 1: so please enjoy. Hi. This is Annie and you're listening
2:18
Speaker 1: to stuff mom never told you. And today we're joined
2:34
Speaker 1: by a guest co host, Lauren vulgal Bomb. Hello. That's me, Hi, Lauren, Hi,
2:40
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Yeah anytime, I mean maybe not
2:44
Speaker 1: literally anytime, because I already do a lot of other things, Yes,
2:47
Speaker 1: including a show, a little show you may have heard
2:51
Speaker 1: of that we co host together once food Stuff. It
2:54
Speaker 1: is now called Savor Savor Savor. Um. It just re
2:57
Speaker 1: launched last week. We were trying or eating lots of food,
3:01
Speaker 1: drinking lots of drinks, a lot of people, talking to
3:03
Speaker 1: some amazing people, and incorporating clips from those interviews into
3:07
Speaker 1: our stories about different foods and food cultures. So it's
3:12
Speaker 1: pretty I think it's okay. Yeah, we're not biased. No no,
3:18
Speaker 1: And Lauren, has you've been on the show before, have
3:21
Speaker 1: you not? I have back up back when Kristen and
3:23
Speaker 1: Caroline where where the hosts. I was on an episode
3:26
Speaker 1: about Buffy the Vampire Slayer because I bugged them for
3:30
Speaker 1: years about doing an episode about Buffy. Well, you succeeded.
3:35
Speaker 1: It was a long, hard fought campaign, but it was
3:39
Speaker 1: you got what you in the end. And that's one
3:42
Speaker 1: of the reasons I wanted you to come on this
3:45
Speaker 1: week to fill in for Bridget because, Um, you like horror.
3:49
Speaker 1: I like horror. Oh yeah, yeah. We talked about this
3:51
Speaker 1: all the time. We do, we do um and I
3:57
Speaker 1: feel like real life has started to feel a little
4:02
Speaker 1: horror movie esque only just started. Yes, Um, so we
4:10
Speaker 1: originally today we were going to talk about and we
4:13
Speaker 1: are going to talk about the trope of in horror movies,
4:16
Speaker 1: why don't people believe women? And it turned into that,
4:22
Speaker 1: but also so much real life stuff. Yeah. I'm guessing
4:27
Speaker 1: that some of you have seen or heard the phrase
4:30
Speaker 1: believe women being tossed around lately. Yeah, so there's that
4:34
Speaker 1: whole trend believe women trending on Twitter in response to
4:38
Speaker 1: the accusations of assault made against Supreme Court Justice nominee
4:42
Speaker 1: Brett Kevinaugh and the complete dismissal of these accusations are
4:46
Speaker 1: even like just don't like, people don't care, um in
4:51
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases. Um, and you've probably all
4:54
Speaker 1: heard these numbers before, but I think they're worth repeating.
4:57
Speaker 1: Sexual assault is all too common, some estimates say one
5:00
Speaker 1: in five women, and it's more common than we think
5:03
Speaker 1: in men as well. We don't hear about that as often,
5:05
Speaker 1: but it should be part of the conversation. Absolutely, And
5:08
Speaker 1: only somewhere from two to eight percent of sexual assault
5:11
Speaker 1: accusations are found to be false, But the conversations we
5:14
Speaker 1: have around this would suggest that false accusations just happened
5:18
Speaker 1: all of the time. Yeah. Um, and I've been thinking
5:22
Speaker 1: a lot about this, and I think even outside of
5:25
Speaker 1: sexual assault. People just don't believe women. And I can
5:29
Speaker 1: think of so many examples in my life where I've
5:32
Speaker 1: said something like, hey, I like this song and been
5:35
Speaker 1: interrogated about it by a dude as if that there's
5:39
Speaker 1: no way you know this song, you like this song,
5:41
Speaker 1: you've never heard that song? Yea? What in like a
5:44
Speaker 1: fake geek girl way, like like you were trying to
5:46
Speaker 1: impress them by saying that yeah. And it was weird
5:50
Speaker 1: because I'm thinking of one particular instance, and it got
5:54
Speaker 1: to the point where another guy who I didn't know
5:57
Speaker 1: very well stepped in the conversation and said, dude, she's
6:00
Speaker 1: said she likes it. I don't. I don't know what
6:03
Speaker 1: was going on. It wasn't even that quote manly of
6:08
Speaker 1: a thing. In fact, I would argue that that's more
6:10
Speaker 1: traditionally feminine type music. But whatever. Another example is how
6:16
Speaker 1: I'm happy single people, that's impossible. You're just you don't
6:22
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about, young lady. You're just miserable.
6:26
Speaker 1: You don't know how to recognize it yet, but you'll
6:29
Speaker 1: you'll understand um. And I found a lot of studies
6:33
Speaker 1: researching this that show that managers are less likely to
6:36
Speaker 1: believe women who ask for flex time as compared to men.
6:40
Speaker 1: They think their priorities are divided with families. It couldn't be,
6:46
Speaker 1: because they're they're human people. The only men are people.
6:50
Speaker 1: Women are women. That's right, that's right, that's the heart
6:54
Speaker 1: of this whole thing. Have you ever experienced something like this? Jeez,
6:57
Speaker 1: it feels like about once a week. Uh. My favorite
7:02
Speaker 1: is along the fake geek girl thing when when guys.
7:05
Speaker 1: Guys don't usually argue with me about it, but um,
7:07
Speaker 1: but I get this response from dude sometimes where they
7:11
Speaker 1: are shocked beyond belief that I like this geeky thing
7:15
Speaker 1: that they also like. They're like, well, but I'm like, well,
7:19
Speaker 1: but what They're like, well, be your girl, and I'm
7:21
Speaker 1: like yes, And I like Batman. I don't know why
7:26
Speaker 1: everyone likes Batman. It's it's strange. And another example, and
7:31
Speaker 1: thinking about this this morning got me so mad. Um.
7:34
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of intolerances to a bunch of
7:36
Speaker 1: different foods, bell, peppers, onion, stuff like that, which I
7:38
Speaker 1: discovered by getting like really sick repeatedly from eating dishes
7:43
Speaker 1: that contain even just a little bit of those things,
7:45
Speaker 1: and kind of like process of elimination, no pun intended
7:48
Speaker 1: figuring out that it's those specific foods um and Yeah,
7:52
Speaker 1: I had a dude argue with me about how just
7:56
Speaker 1: just a little bit can't possibly hurt you. It can't possibly.
8:02
Speaker 1: I was like, what do I need to record bathroom
8:07
Speaker 1: noises and send them to you? Like I don't, he'd
8:10
Speaker 1: probably never talked to you. Again, that's a long way
8:13
Speaker 1: to get to solve the problem. Yeah, this is true. Yeah,
8:18
Speaker 1: I've mentioned before on this show that, um, I I
8:21
Speaker 1: often get the fake get girl thing all of the time,
8:25
Speaker 1: and then once you finally have proven yourself, then it's
8:30
Speaker 1: like suddenly they're super attracted to me, at least in
8:33
Speaker 1: my case. And I'm like, so your qualifications are you
8:40
Speaker 1: want someone who's fluent in and Marvel and that is
8:44
Speaker 1: kind of a reflection of you. M well, that's for
8:49
Speaker 1: a different episode. We also talked about this, this whole
8:53
Speaker 1: thing I'm not believing women in our episode on women
8:55
Speaker 1: in pain, how the medical community consistently dismisses women who
9:02
Speaker 1: who come and try to get helps for pain specifically,
9:05
Speaker 1: and it takes so much longer to get a diagnosis
9:08
Speaker 1: for traditionally women's um issues, which is really frustrating. Oh, absolutely,
9:15
Speaker 1: and this also ties into an intersectional issue. The medical
9:19
Speaker 1: community also doesn't believe people of color pretty frequently. Studies
9:22
Speaker 1: have shown that implicit biases lead doctors to prescribe fewer
9:25
Speaker 1: pain killers and less aggressive treatments to black patients than
9:29
Speaker 1: white patients, even when the patients present the exact same symptoms.
9:34
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot of issues there. There's a
9:37
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that we need to work on. But
9:40
Speaker 1: in this episode, we're going to try to use horror
9:42
Speaker 1: movies as a semi fun ones to tackle a very
9:46
Speaker 1: depressing and frustrating issue. Gay. Yeah. Um, Like we talked
9:52
Speaker 1: about in our final Girl episode, horror movies are really
9:54
Speaker 1: great reflections of the anxieties we have as a society,
9:59
Speaker 1: or or the observ sans are hang ups. Just in general,
10:02
Speaker 1: I think horror movies are a great way to sort
10:05
Speaker 1: of test out where we are, do a little, a
10:09
Speaker 1: little yeah, just see to see see what's going on
10:11
Speaker 1: in the mind of the common common person. Yeah, And
10:15
Speaker 1: if if horror movies or anything to go by our
10:18
Speaker 1: horror media in general, we do not believe women or
10:21
Speaker 1: people of color, yes, both, alright, So even if we don't,
10:27
Speaker 1: even if you don't because Lauren and I do. Even
10:30
Speaker 1: if you don't watch a lot of horror movies, you
10:33
Speaker 1: have probably seen this before in crime procedurals and supernatural killers,
10:38
Speaker 1: anything like that. You've seen a character, most likely a
10:41
Speaker 1: female or a minority or both, say hey, I don't
10:44
Speaker 1: like this, let's go back and get ignored. And then
10:50
Speaker 1: probably they're both killed, or maybe it's a bigger group
10:52
Speaker 1: all killed by a monster in the woods or a
10:55
Speaker 1: CEO killer in the woods, or what have you. Or
10:58
Speaker 1: if the woman survives, the police don't believe her then,
11:02
Speaker 1: but I will admit the monster killed my boyfriend might
11:07
Speaker 1: be a bit of a stretch. I would I would
11:11
Speaker 1: want to conduct some further investigation. Yes, believe women find
11:17
Speaker 1: the truth. Yeah, I like that, which I've seen presented
11:21
Speaker 1: as a as a useful thing in these are non horror,
11:26
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say their non horror. And these
11:28
Speaker 1: are regular times, and these are non movie times. Yes,
11:31
Speaker 1: those times. If it's a big conspiracy and we're all
11:34
Speaker 1: in a movie, oh man, what a downer of a
11:38
Speaker 1: movie it is? Okay. Um. So, while most horror movie
11:46
Speaker 1: troops can be seen as moralistic or cautionary tales, this
11:50
Speaker 1: one seems more just assumed. Um. Take this scene from
11:55
Speaker 1: Night of the Living Dead, partly because it illustrates the
11:58
Speaker 1: point and partly because it's in the public domain. Yeah,
12:02
Speaker 1: here's the clip. Well, you used to really be scared here, Johnny,
12:08
Speaker 1: you're still afraid. Stop it now, I mean it. They're
12:12
Speaker 1: coming for you, Barbara. Stop it. You're acting like a child.
12:17
Speaker 1: They're coming for you. Look, that comes one of them.
12:21
Speaker 1: Now he'll hear you. Here he comes. Now I'm getting
12:25
Speaker 1: out of here, Johnny. Spoiler alert. It was a zombie. Yeah,
12:32
Speaker 1: Barbara was right. Barbara was right. And we were talking
12:36
Speaker 1: about this off Mike, and the trope is sort of
12:39
Speaker 1: one of necessity. If the one was like, I don't
12:42
Speaker 1: like this, let's go home, and instead of calling her
12:45
Speaker 1: a scaredy cat, the dude was like, yeah, okay, history ends. Yeah,
12:49
Speaker 1: there's no there's no movie. Then probably, But it is
12:52
Speaker 1: interesting that a good percent of the time it is
12:55
Speaker 1: a woman or a person of color are both that
12:57
Speaker 1: is the one raising the the concern and then getting ignored,
13:02
Speaker 1: totally ignored. Yeah, yeah, so much so that when it's
13:06
Speaker 1: not a woman or a person of color, it's strange,
13:09
Speaker 1: like it's a it's usually a purposeful reversal, it becomes
13:12
Speaker 1: the whole point. Like it was mind blowing in the
13:15
Speaker 1: X Files that Molder, the guy was the one jumping
13:19
Speaker 1: to these crazy conclusions that usually turned out to be right,
13:22
Speaker 1: and Scully was the scientific skeptic, a woman who is
13:25
Speaker 1: a scientist. Weird, what imp um or When the stoner
13:30
Speaker 1: character and Cabin in the Woods tells everyone that, you know,
13:32
Speaker 1: I've got a bad feeling about this, it's played for laughs,
13:35
Speaker 1: you know. The other characters tell him to man up
13:37
Speaker 1: and that the weed has a paranoid man um And
13:40
Speaker 1: of course he's right though, and the weed is what
13:41
Speaker 1: saves him. And and note also that this very frequently
13:47
Speaker 1: happens to child characters, Like basically none of the Harry
13:51
Speaker 1: Potter series would have happened if the kids and the
13:55
Speaker 1: adults trusted each other enough to fill each other in.
13:57
Speaker 1: But the kids thought that they wouldn't be believed, and
13:59
Speaker 1: the adult thought that the kids couldn't handle it. The
14:01
Speaker 1: fact that this trope happens to women, people of color,
14:05
Speaker 1: and children, I think really speaks to how infantilized those
14:10
Speaker 1: two groups that are not children. Yeah, yeah, that's a
14:13
Speaker 1: great point. Um And I thought about this a lot, because,
14:18
Speaker 1: as as listeners know, I'm a huge Harry Potter fan.
14:21
Speaker 1: And uh, it's another one of those things where the
14:25
Speaker 1: books wouldn't have happened if that trust had been there.
14:28
Speaker 1: Like a lot of children's books do operate on that. Um.
14:31
Speaker 1: And when I reread them as an adult, I had
14:35
Speaker 1: to step back because I kept getting so angry thinking
14:37
Speaker 1: why aren't the adults help from right? Oh man, yeah,
14:42
Speaker 1: there's it's it's infuriating. Um. But but yeah, like, like interestingly,
14:49
Speaker 1: the way that the troope does play out, disbelieving these
14:52
Speaker 1: people is to everyone's detriment, like you know, from either
14:56
Speaker 1: just the main characters in the movie to like the
14:58
Speaker 1: whole world. People suffer and perish because they aren't believing
15:02
Speaker 1: these adult human people. Yeah it's intelligent human beings. Right.
15:09
Speaker 1: It's like it's like, I don't know if that's a
15:12
Speaker 1: subconscious yeah addition or yeah. Um. However, I do think
15:19
Speaker 1: that this trope of of these people being right can
15:24
Speaker 1: also play into the sexist trope of women being preternaturally
15:28
Speaker 1: or even magically intuitive. Um, this is a witch woman trope,
15:32
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that ladies are just so mysterious.
15:35
Speaker 1: Who knows what's going on in our heads. Our thought
15:38
Speaker 1: processes are just so different. Um. You know the idea
15:41
Speaker 1: that men are logical or observational and women are emotional
15:46
Speaker 1: or intuitive. Yeah, I was thinking about that too, and
15:49
Speaker 1: I was thinking that it's another way or it can
15:52
Speaker 1: be used as another way to victim blame totally, like
15:55
Speaker 1: you should have intuited and then we do and no
15:59
Speaker 1: one believes us for frustrating at Yeah. And I would
16:04
Speaker 1: say that like a high level of observational logic can
16:08
Speaker 1: look like intuition um, similar to Arthur C. Clark's often
16:11
Speaker 1: quoted adage that UM any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable
16:15
Speaker 1: from from magic. UM. Like if you take Sherlock Holmes,
16:18
Speaker 1: his whole stick is that it seems like he's intuiting
16:21
Speaker 1: uh impossibly or even magically until he just breaks down
16:25
Speaker 1: his very rational observations. And he's often portrayed as being
16:29
Speaker 1: fay or feminine or otherwise non masculine. Maybe because of that,
16:33
Speaker 1: maybe alongside that, I don't know, it's a weird. Yeah. Yeah,
16:38
Speaker 1: And we're going to come back a little bit too,
16:40
Speaker 1: this whole woman's intuition and horror movies thing. But that
16:45
Speaker 1: is I do like that point that it can seem magical,
16:50
Speaker 1: but really you're just reasoning, oh yeah, high level. Yeah,
16:53
Speaker 1: I mean, and you kind of you kind of see it.
16:56
Speaker 1: You kind of see it everywhere. You've got, you know,
16:58
Speaker 1: the fortune teller, the wise woman, the woman healer or midwife.
17:01
Speaker 1: If you add in Nadasha racism, you've got the so
17:03
Speaker 1: called gypsy or voodoo woman. Um. If you're if you're
17:07
Speaker 1: in a fictional universe that incorporates magic, then like, okay,
17:10
Speaker 1: we we can talk about those characters. You know, both
17:14
Speaker 1: both with the metaphors that are in use there and
17:17
Speaker 1: also with the actual history of those medicinal and of
17:20
Speaker 1: religious practices and the fact that women have been accused
17:23
Speaker 1: of witchery all over the place. Um. But it's so
17:27
Speaker 1: fascinating to me that even in horror, set in a
17:30
Speaker 1: non magical universe where the villain is just a regular dude,
17:34
Speaker 1: you you still get this trope. Um, it'll have that moment, yeah,
17:39
Speaker 1: that we're talking about where the woman or the token
17:41
Speaker 1: rachel minority will express that seemingly intuitive thought this feels wrong.
17:46
Speaker 1: I don't like it. It's not it's not magic. They're
17:49
Speaker 1: just paying attention. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. There's a great
17:55
Speaker 1: article over at Tour written by Emily as your parent
17:58
Speaker 1: about this whole thing, and it was sol full when
18:00
Speaker 1: researching this, and we're going to be referencing it throughout.
18:05
Speaker 1: Should you want to look it up? Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
18:07
Speaker 1: It's called the Peril of Being Disbelieved, Horror and the
18:10
Speaker 1: Intuition of Women. Yes, and we have just so many
18:15
Speaker 1: examples for you. But first we're gonna stop for a
18:19
Speaker 1: quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back,
18:31
Speaker 1: Thank you, sponsor. So I'm thinking about this. The more
18:35
Speaker 1: we thought about it, the more and more examples we
18:40
Speaker 1: came up with. Oh yeah, I started realizing that it's
18:42
Speaker 1: in everything. But we wanted to point out a couple,
18:46
Speaker 1: a couple like really big strong ones. Yes, and I
18:51
Speaker 1: wanted to start with one of my favorite favorite horror movies,
18:55
Speaker 1: Scream and Scream Too, which is also good. Um, and
19:00
Speaker 1: this is a great example of what we're talking about.
19:02
Speaker 1: For those of you who haven't seen these movies. They
19:05
Speaker 1: follow Sidney Prescott played by Nev Campbell, who in the
19:08
Speaker 1: first one is a teenager in high school and she's
19:12
Speaker 1: tormented by the ghost face killer. Um. I'm sure you've
19:16
Speaker 1: seen those sort of Grim Reaper costumes. Yeah, it looks
19:20
Speaker 1: like the Scream the painting. Oh yeah, it does look
19:25
Speaker 1: like that. Um or how I imagine that Grim Reaper
19:28
Speaker 1: would look. But I don't know if that's influenced by
19:30
Speaker 1: this or vice versa. I don't know. But that's what
19:34
Speaker 1: the killer or killers wears in these movies. Oh yeah,
19:38
Speaker 1: there's there's gonna be spoilers in here. Just just just
19:41
Speaker 1: f y I. I feel like the isn't the window
19:44
Speaker 1: is past. Yeah, but if you're really concerned about it, yes,
19:48
Speaker 1: f y Um. As we talked about in a little
19:52
Speaker 1: bit in our final Girl episode, Scream is a hyper
19:55
Speaker 1: aware horror movie. It's a horror movie making fun of
19:59
Speaker 1: horror movies. Is playing off the tripes. It knows the tropes,
20:02
Speaker 1: It knows that you know the tropes, and it uses
20:05
Speaker 1: that to mess with you. I love the first time
20:08
Speaker 1: I saw the first one, I thought almost every character
20:12
Speaker 1: was the killer at some point. I loved it because
20:15
Speaker 1: they were so great. They knew you were looking for
20:17
Speaker 1: the which is excellent. Um. And this trope of not
20:24
Speaker 1: being believed with a touch of gas lighting in this case,
20:27
Speaker 1: is certainly played with here because it turns out Toiney's boyfriend,
20:32
Speaker 1: the person who keeps telling her everything's going to be
20:35
Speaker 1: all right. Stop being so obsessed with the past. You're
20:37
Speaker 1: really overreacting. He's the serial killer. Yeah he um, he knew,
20:45
Speaker 1: he knew. Oh I don't know if you can say
20:48
Speaker 1: the character n the trope, but he knew that was
20:50
Speaker 1: a way to like he did. He's obsessed with horror movies.
20:53
Speaker 1: That's true. That That's an interesting thing about these movies too,
20:55
Speaker 1: is that the killers usually reference horror movies at the
20:59
Speaker 1: end as Yeah, I took um, I was influenced by
21:04
Speaker 1: Anthony Perkins and Psycho like yeah, yeah, that's another interesting
21:09
Speaker 1: aspect about these But um, if we moved to Scream
21:14
Speaker 1: to Scream too gets super meta and I love it.
21:18
Speaker 1: At this point, Sydney is in college and one of
21:20
Speaker 1: her extracurricular activities is drama and oh yeah, she's being
21:25
Speaker 1: tormented again by a ghost face killer and anyway, her
21:30
Speaker 1: starring role is Cassandra from Greek mythology and if you
21:36
Speaker 1: haven't heard or aren't familiar with Cassandra, she was the
21:41
Speaker 1: daughter of Troy's last king and Troy as in Helen
21:45
Speaker 1: of Yeah, the god Apollo was super in love with Cassandra,
21:50
Speaker 1: and he gave her the ability to see into the
21:53
Speaker 1: future and hopes that that would win her over. I
21:57
Speaker 1: didn't though, I didn't work, and she she wasn't into it,
22:02
Speaker 1: so he put a curse on her that made sure
22:04
Speaker 1: no one would ever believe her prophecies. So she saw
22:08
Speaker 1: agamem Noam's death, the fall of Troy. She told people
22:12
Speaker 1: no one believed her. And if you've heard beware of
22:16
Speaker 1: Greeks bearing gifts are possibly the translation is where the Greeks,
22:20
Speaker 1: especially those bearing gifts. That is a quote from her in.
22:26
Speaker 1: French philosopher Gaston Buccalard even named a syndrome after her,
22:30
Speaker 1: the Cassandra syndrome, to describe cases where legitimate concerns were
22:34
Speaker 1: raised and not believe yes, which brings us back to
22:39
Speaker 1: scream too. Okay, so Sydney isn't being believed. She's playing Cassandra. Yes. Um.
22:47
Speaker 1: There's a scene where they're rehearsing the play and Sydney
22:51
Speaker 1: playing Cassandra. She has sort of this Greek chorus wearing
22:55
Speaker 1: masks behind her, kind of like the stone versions of
22:58
Speaker 1: those tragedy comedy faces, and the chorus begins to do
23:02
Speaker 1: this dance attack type thing at her. There's a lot
23:04
Speaker 1: of choreography involved. Um, only she's not acting anymore because
23:09
Speaker 1: she sees that one of the actors is wearing the
23:11
Speaker 1: ghost face mask under their hood. But no one believes her.
23:17
Speaker 1: And it's great because they're chanting there, like chanting behind
23:20
Speaker 1: her hill, Cassandra, no one believes you. It's wild. And
23:27
Speaker 1: the finale of the movie takes place on that stage
23:29
Speaker 1: and Sydney uses a lot of the props, the disorienting music,
23:33
Speaker 1: the lights, the heavy bags holding up the lights, the
23:36
Speaker 1: falling of styrofoam rocks and pillars, the fog machine in
23:40
Speaker 1: her battle against the killer. And to me, it's kind
23:45
Speaker 1: of saying that we haven't really gotten that far from
23:47
Speaker 1: ancient mythological Greece when it comes to believing women that
23:50
Speaker 1: it's a battle that we're still fighting. But I've been
23:53
Speaker 1: known to perhaps read too much into horror movies. Anyway,
23:58
Speaker 1: Here is a clip from this scene, so dramatic, right, Oh, yeah,
24:23
Speaker 1: we were, we were just like we we watched we
24:25
Speaker 1: actually watched the clipping studio and uh and and producer
24:29
Speaker 1: Andrew and I. Neither of us have seen this film
24:31
Speaker 1: in like about twenty years and so it's I forgot
24:36
Speaker 1: how much I freaked out when that scene happened in
24:38
Speaker 1: the theater. It's great. Um yeah, there are layers upon
24:42
Speaker 1: layers of um it playing on on the first one,
24:46
Speaker 1: on the whole fear of the boyfriend. Now, of course Randy,
24:50
Speaker 1: the character who has all the horror movie rules, horror
24:53
Speaker 1: movie rules about sequels. Um, when she goes to the police,
24:58
Speaker 1: they don't believe her when she says, I think it's
25:01
Speaker 1: this Yeah. Yeah. The entire sequel is basically about her
25:04
Speaker 1: not being believed. Yeah. Wow. It's a pretty good example
25:08
Speaker 1: for what we're talking about. Yeah. Also, I didn't know
25:14
Speaker 1: this that there is an ABBA song about Cassandra and
25:19
Speaker 1: it's it goes like, sorry, I didn't believe you, You're
25:22
Speaker 1: right now we're all dead or some I know, getting
25:29
Speaker 1: getting serious there, I I have I have an example,
25:35
Speaker 1: um that that I wanted to discuss that isn't about women,
25:38
Speaker 1: but going back to the intersectionality of people of color
25:42
Speaker 1: also having this happen in horror films. Um. I wanted
25:45
Speaker 1: to talk about get Out. Yeah, this is another film
25:48
Speaker 1: that is very reflexive about its tropes. It expects you
25:51
Speaker 1: to have these certain expectations and it uses that to
25:54
Speaker 1: mess with you. Um, if you have not seen it
25:56
Speaker 1: and you like either horror films or ridiculous, sleep canny
26:00
Speaker 1: explorations of racism in liberal white America, stop this podcast
26:04
Speaker 1: right now and go watch it because A it's really
26:06
Speaker 1: good and be I'm going to spoil everything. Yeah, it's
26:09
Speaker 1: so good. Yeah, okay. So so get Out is a
26:13
Speaker 1: story about a black man's intuitive fears being valid to
26:17
Speaker 1: the extreme. Our hero Chris, has anxiety from the get
26:21
Speaker 1: go about driving out to the country to meet his
26:23
Speaker 1: white girlfriend's family. She assures him that everything will be fine.
26:28
Speaker 1: Everything is not fine. Her family and their friends are
26:30
Speaker 1: like walking microaggressions, and the one other black dude there
26:34
Speaker 1: who is not a servant, gives Chris this panicked, cryptic
26:37
Speaker 1: warning to get out. Um. Chris is increasingly unsettled. He
26:43
Speaker 1: asked his girlfriend if they can leave, and you know what,
26:46
Speaker 1: she says. Yes, She's like, oh, of course, of course
26:51
Speaker 1: we can go. She believes him immediately, and Chris is
26:55
Speaker 1: relief and like mine, watching this movie is intense and palpable. Um, Like,
27:02
Speaker 1: you never expect that to happen in a scary movie,
27:05
Speaker 1: but hell, is your characters being believed. Of course, this is,
27:08
Speaker 1: you know, a horror movie, so it's a trick. Of course,
27:11
Speaker 1: she's in on her family's plot to kidnap Chris and
27:14
Speaker 1: supplant his consciousness with that of one of their white friends,
27:16
Speaker 1: because Chris's body is healthy, their friends is not. In
27:19
Speaker 1: Black lives don't matter. But y'all that moment where she
27:23
Speaker 1: says that she believes him, I know, it's it kind
27:27
Speaker 1: of goes back to what you were saying earlier about
27:29
Speaker 1: how the purposeful. It seems so odd to have Skully
27:35
Speaker 1: be the skeptic and scientifically it seems purposeful that moment.
27:38
Speaker 1: I remember that too, being like, oh my gosh, it's
27:41
Speaker 1: so refreshing, right, and then it's not. It's totally a
27:45
Speaker 1: purpose um. The film also explicitly portrays black people not
27:51
Speaker 1: being believed by police. Um On on the way to
27:54
Speaker 1: her family's house, Chris and the girlfriend hit a deer
27:57
Speaker 1: and a cop shows up, a white cop, and even
27:59
Speaker 1: though she was the one driving, the cop asks Chris
28:02
Speaker 1: for his I D and only backs off when the
28:05
Speaker 1: girlfriend insists that it's unfair and unnecessary. Um. And later
28:09
Speaker 1: when Chris contacts a black friend about how weird everything
28:12
Speaker 1: is out out of the ranch. The friend calls the police,
28:16
Speaker 1: but he is also dismissed. Um. And all of that
28:19
Speaker 1: pays off with one more twist at the end that uh,
28:23
Speaker 1: what was another moment that I was just like, well
28:26
Speaker 1: in the theater, like I didn't even know what was
28:27
Speaker 1: happening to my face. Um, so so you know, it's
28:30
Speaker 1: it's the end sequence. Chris is fighting the girlfriend for
28:32
Speaker 1: his life and he's winning. Yeah. But but out of
28:35
Speaker 1: the night, a police car approaches. And I've heard personally
28:41
Speaker 1: never been that scared by police showing up. And it
28:44
Speaker 1: was a profound privilege check for me, Like it was
28:47
Speaker 1: one of those moments where I was just like, oh, oh, oh,
28:50
Speaker 1: I get it. Thank you for telling me about it.
28:52
Speaker 1: I'm listening, and I'm so sorry for like not getting
28:54
Speaker 1: it previously. Um. And it turns out to be Chris's
28:57
Speaker 1: friend who's a T S A agent, And I don't
28:59
Speaker 1: care the probably they don't get cars like that because again,
29:02
Speaker 1: just like that sense of relief, like you know, if
29:05
Speaker 1: it had been cops, cops never would have believed him,
29:07
Speaker 1: our judiciary system never would have believed him. Um. And
29:12
Speaker 1: it turned out okay, which was such a relief. I
29:16
Speaker 1: read that the original ending of the film actually had
29:19
Speaker 1: cops show up and that the final scene is Chris
29:22
Speaker 1: in in jail or prison, um, and I am so
29:25
Speaker 1: glad that Jordan Peele gave us that relief instead, even
29:28
Speaker 1: if it's probably not realistic. Yeah, I think I saw
29:32
Speaker 1: the alternate ending. I think you can see it, and
29:35
Speaker 1: it was so it was just dismal. Yeah, it was
29:40
Speaker 1: quite dismal. Um. But that was another That is another
29:45
Speaker 1: great example of a a couple of things, a lot
29:49
Speaker 1: of things, but a couple of things that we're talking
29:51
Speaker 1: about of horror movies being reflective of of society and um,
29:56
Speaker 1: fears that we have in society, and also just a
29:58
Speaker 1: movie that knows it's true, hopes and messes with you
30:01
Speaker 1: because it knows that you know them too. Great. Ah yeah,
30:05
Speaker 1: so smart. Yeah, well, well to lighten things up a
30:15
Speaker 1: little bit, he was some sillier examples. I thought of, Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 1: drive home, how calmon, this trope is hocus pocus. Yeah,
30:23
Speaker 1: so I watched last night. Oh it's a good movie.
30:26
Speaker 1: Stayed up very late, or it's a silly movie. It's
30:29
Speaker 1: it's a movie I enjoy watching. That's probably the best
30:32
Speaker 1: way to describe it. I watched it so much as
30:34
Speaker 1: a kid. It was banned from my household. I'm not
30:36
Speaker 1: allowed to watch it. In fact, I didn't watch it
30:38
Speaker 1: from about the age of eight until about the age
30:40
Speaker 1: of four because my parents Nope, never again. So funny. Um.
30:47
Speaker 1: When Danny, who's a little sister, tells her brother Max
30:52
Speaker 1: not to light the black flame candle, he goes right
30:55
Speaker 1: ahead and does it. She says she's scared. She doesn't
30:58
Speaker 1: want to do it. It's a dumb idea. H He's
31:01
Speaker 1: trying to impress, Yeah, a lady friend. But she doesn't
31:05
Speaker 1: want him to do it either. Yeah, She's like, I'm scared,
31:08
Speaker 1: don't do that. Also, it's like a museum. Yeah. Anyway,
31:16
Speaker 1: we my friends and I played a drinking game to
31:18
Speaker 1: it last night, and every time they said, Hollywood, you
31:23
Speaker 1: had to take a drink. Um community in community, um britta.
31:31
Speaker 1: That's sort of a bit about the steps to writing
31:34
Speaker 1: horror movies. And one of the episodes, and she tells
31:36
Speaker 1: the story of a man and woman making out in
31:38
Speaker 1: a car and the woman keeps hearing something and the
31:42
Speaker 1: dude only agrees to check it out if she promises
31:45
Speaker 1: to give him sex when he returns, so he doesn't
31:50
Speaker 1: yeah believe her. Yeah, but he'll use it, but he'll
31:52
Speaker 1: use it to get sex. Yeah, great thriller. The music
31:57
Speaker 1: video which I've never seen before, or i'd seen the
32:00
Speaker 1: like short one, but there's a long thirteen minutes. Yeah,
32:03
Speaker 1: it's beautiful. Well, the whole plot thread is essentially this
32:08
Speaker 1: whole thing with Michael Jackson telling his date don't be
32:11
Speaker 1: afraid because it's only a movie. But the next then,
32:13
Speaker 1: of course, it turns out that it's not just a
32:16
Speaker 1: movie and she is followed by zombies. So that's encapsulated
32:21
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah, if you haven't seen it, check it out.
32:26
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it quite a bit. Oh and it just
32:30
Speaker 1: like like yeah, like once we started thinking about it,
32:33
Speaker 1: it's hard not to pile up the the the examples
32:36
Speaker 1: of it. Um. I think it's interesting that in some
32:39
Speaker 1: of these stories it's it's not just other people disbelieving women,
32:43
Speaker 1: it's women doubting themselves, stuff like the Boba Duke, The Ring,
32:47
Speaker 1: Rosemary's Baby, Hunting of Hillhouse, Hereditary, the Shining Joy, Spuyers,
32:52
Speaker 1: and Stranger Things. I also think it's really interesting that
32:55
Speaker 1: all those characters are mothers. Yes, and I'm not sure
32:58
Speaker 1: what exactly that says. I think that's another episode about
33:01
Speaker 1: about motherhood and horror movies. But oh yeah yeah, um,
33:05
Speaker 1: of course all of these women finally do like own
33:08
Speaker 1: the fact that something we're just happening and reach out
33:10
Speaker 1: for help and they're disbelieved. But yeah uh and speaking
33:15
Speaker 1: of stranger things, oh okay, I keep getting excited. Uh.
33:18
Speaker 1: I do love that the two young women, um eleven
33:20
Speaker 1: and Nancy are a lot more confident, like they don't
33:23
Speaker 1: doubt themselves. Um, I mean they're they're also dismissed, but
33:27
Speaker 1: but at least, you know, I don't know, like it's
33:30
Speaker 1: it's better sweet like they I think the point is
33:32
Speaker 1: that they haven't had that confidence in their own senses
33:34
Speaker 1: ground out of them yet. That is more bitter than
33:39
Speaker 1: sweet perhaps, but um, I I do enjoy that as well.
33:44
Speaker 1: Here's hoping that. Yeah, these fictional characters keep fighting the
33:48
Speaker 1: good fight. Absolutely. Um. Right before we started podcasting, producer
33:54
Speaker 1: Andrew reminded us of Aliens alien to it's the second
34:00
Speaker 1: one that is aliens with an S and not alien singular.
34:05
Speaker 1: But the I just watched this recently as well, because
34:08
Speaker 1: I do like a whole two month horror movie thing um.
34:11
Speaker 1: And in the beginning, there's this committee of business people
34:18
Speaker 1: and lawyers questioning replace the corney Weaver's character about her
34:24
Speaker 1: experience on LV too for six or whatever it is
34:27
Speaker 1: um with the alien, and no one believes her. Yeah.
34:33
Speaker 1: She keeps saying, like, it destroyed my career, destroyed my ship.
34:37
Speaker 1: The only way I could get out was to jettison
34:40
Speaker 1: it and escape on this whole on the little pod.
34:43
Speaker 1: And they're all like, acid comes out on his rains.
34:50
Speaker 1: They're like, lady, that's patently silly, that's just jo. Do
34:56
Speaker 1: you know how much money we lost? Yeah? Yeah, they
34:59
Speaker 1: keep bringing that up, the whole money thing um. And
35:02
Speaker 1: then when she she's talking to the sort of marine
35:07
Speaker 1: the alien marines, the space marines, Alien marines, marines, um,
35:12
Speaker 1: and she's trying to share a story, and to me
35:14
Speaker 1: is obviously like having dividculty. It's clear she has this experience.
35:18
Speaker 1: They sort of are just like, okay, yeah, sure whatever, Yeah,
35:24
Speaker 1: it's just not that scary. Yeah, sure, it's not that bad. Um.
35:28
Speaker 1: Pretty much, And every episode of Supernatural, the TV series,
35:32
Speaker 1: starts with this some version of this. Sure. A lot
35:36
Speaker 1: of episodes of Buffy Too yeah, yeah, yeah, and and
35:39
Speaker 1: frequently it's one of the it's one of the actual
35:41
Speaker 1: Scoopy Gang. Like the number of times that Buffy herself
35:43
Speaker 1: is disbelieved by everyone around here is truly remarkable because
35:47
Speaker 1: it's just like, y'all, we did this last week and
35:51
Speaker 1: the week before that, um, paranormal activity to where it's
35:57
Speaker 1: kind of an interesting dynamic and um, if you haven't
36:02
Speaker 1: seen this, you probably know the gist of it. But
36:05
Speaker 1: basically it's this couple and her boyfriend. It's weird because
36:11
Speaker 1: it's like he believes her because he wants to. He
36:14
Speaker 1: believes that there's paranormal activity. He wants to capture it,
36:17
Speaker 1: but he doesn't believe her when she's telling him how
36:20
Speaker 1: serious and dangerous it is. So it's kind of a strange,
36:24
Speaker 1: like he's excited by it. He keeps inviting it in
36:28
Speaker 1: and she's saying no, like this is a scary thing
36:30
Speaker 1: we need to bring to mess with it. In fact,
36:32
Speaker 1: I think we should go do this and try to
36:34
Speaker 1: fix it, and he keeps saying, I can fix it,
36:36
Speaker 1: it's not that bad. He doesn't believe her when she's
36:39
Speaker 1: saying she's telling him the consequences and the severity the
36:43
Speaker 1: seriousness of it, which is an interesting kind of take
36:47
Speaker 1: on the whole thing. Um and we when we're talking
36:53
Speaker 1: about this, you might wonder why is this troupe so common?
37:02
Speaker 1: Probably you have a good idea, but talked about it anyway. Emily,
37:07
Speaker 1: as your parent, in that article that we reverence at
37:09
Speaker 1: the top, wrote, every woman knows what this feels like.
37:13
Speaker 1: They know what it means, They know how hard the
37:16
Speaker 1: world works not to believe them. And this particular narrative
37:20
Speaker 1: device always feels like a pointed jab, a great big
37:23
Speaker 1: spotlight on that precise problem. It doesn't even matter if
37:26
Speaker 1: it's intentional. In fact, the idea that it might be
37:29
Speaker 1: unintentional makes it all the more poignant. Filmmakers and script
37:33
Speaker 1: writers accidentally pointing out how women's fears are never taken
37:36
Speaker 1: seriously again and again. And why would she have that
37:40
Speaker 1: sense when no one else was bothered? Oh, you know,
37:43
Speaker 1: probably women's intuition. But intuition is not a magical power
37:47
Speaker 1: granted to half the population by sheer random happenstance. It's
37:51
Speaker 1: not the consolation prize you drew because the world calls
37:53
Speaker 1: you a woman. Intuition is an ability built up over time,
37:57
Speaker 1: powered partly by animal instinct and partly by learning and
38:00
Speaker 1: partly by experience. Any human being can tap into intuition,
38:04
Speaker 1: but women are constantly pegged as the humans who own
38:07
Speaker 1: this preternatural ability. Why because women are supposed to be
38:11
Speaker 1: on their guard every second of the day. Because our
38:14
Speaker 1: very existence in the right skirt or pair of high
38:17
Speaker 1: heels is an invitation to untold abuses. Because we're not
38:20
Speaker 1: supposed to trust anyone, but we're supposed to be unfailingly
38:23
Speaker 1: sweet to everyone. Women are intuitive because tapping that intuition
38:28
Speaker 1: is something that we are encouraged towards from the day
38:31
Speaker 1: we were born, for the sake of our safety and
38:34
Speaker 1: our lives. Yeah, you know, women and people of color
38:39
Speaker 1: have to pay attention. We have to control how we
38:41
Speaker 1: move through the world more carefully. You know. We we
38:44
Speaker 1: make note of our surroundings. We pick up on nonverbal cues.
38:47
Speaker 1: It's a learned skill. Yeah. Um, And I was thinking,
38:52
Speaker 1: I haven't seen this horror movie in a while, but
38:53
Speaker 1: I was thinking about the silence of the lambs Buffalo Bill.
38:57
Speaker 1: He says something along the lines of wouldn't believe how
39:00
Speaker 1: many people like even though they're scared, are too afraid
39:06
Speaker 1: to be rude. Oh yeah, right, I remember that part. Yeah,
39:11
Speaker 1: like they'll put their safety at risk. And I feel
39:14
Speaker 1: that all the time, where I do think that, Um,
39:17
Speaker 1: women are socialized to be so polite and so nice
39:20
Speaker 1: and so friendly. Also watch out and watch out. It's
39:25
Speaker 1: your fault if anything happens, I mean, if it really
39:28
Speaker 1: did happen. Yeah, yeah, um. We we do have some
39:35
Speaker 1: more history and science science about why women, UM and
39:41
Speaker 1: people of color are less likely to be believed. But
39:43
Speaker 1: first we're going to pause for one more quick break
39:45
Speaker 1: for word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor. So,
39:59
Speaker 1: as we've said before on this show and in this
40:01
Speaker 1: very episode, harmonies are a great mirror the hold up
40:04
Speaker 1: to society. And this is no exception on a large
40:08
Speaker 1: societal scale. We don't trust women. They're over dramatic, they overreact,
40:13
Speaker 1: people of color to their unreliable narrators, all of us UM.
40:17
Speaker 1: And this goes back forever UM in the case of women,
40:21
Speaker 1: in the case of people of color, that the modern
40:23
Speaker 1: concepts of race are relatively recent constructs UM created and
40:27
Speaker 1: perpetuated during globalization and the and the slave trade to
40:30
Speaker 1: dehumanize and discredit enslaved people's and since then popular culture
40:35
Speaker 1: has largely drawn people of color as unintelligent brutes. This
40:40
Speaker 1: pervaded in the United States via minstrel shows basically right
40:43
Speaker 1: up until the Civil rights movement in the middle of
40:45
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. Um. But you know, although most people
40:50
Speaker 1: know that like black face is bad now, um, those
40:53
Speaker 1: biases are absolutely still part of our culture. Yeah. For women, Um,
40:59
Speaker 1: there's ane Pirus from It's the oldest known medical text
41:05
Speaker 1: that actually describes depressive symptoms, and it blames women's mental
41:09
Speaker 1: health problems on their uteruses moving around their bodies making trouble.
41:13
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, um yeah. Hop over to ancient Greece.
41:19
Speaker 1: A few centuries later you get physicians talking about uterine melancholy. Um.
41:24
Speaker 1: Hippocrates gave us the first written mention of hysteria around
41:28
Speaker 1: five b C. Hysteria being described as an anxiety and
41:32
Speaker 1: other symptoms in women caused by a bad and again
41:36
Speaker 1: wandering uterus. I don't know why they thought it detached?
41:41
Speaker 1: Is it like a ghostly uterus? I don't know. No,
41:44
Speaker 1: I think it was physical, because they would they would
41:46
Speaker 1: give you like they would like put like good smelling
41:48
Speaker 1: things by your nose, and like bad smelling things by
41:51
Speaker 1: your by your badge if if they wanted it to
41:54
Speaker 1: move higher up in your body, and they would reverse that.
41:56
Speaker 1: It's very sensitive to smell if they wanted it to
41:59
Speaker 1: move back down again. I know. That's why they didn't
42:03
Speaker 1: let women wide trains for a while, because they thought that,
42:06
Speaker 1: like any suns stop heck, although that could have just
42:13
Speaker 1: been they didn't want women writing tricks. I don't know,
42:17
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure. Uh yeah. In the case
42:22
Speaker 1: of ancient Greece, the cure for this was generally having
42:25
Speaker 1: sex with men. Oh, of course, because men were believed
42:27
Speaker 1: to be superior um and uh so later those those
42:33
Speaker 1: those beliefs were codified into religion. You know, Eve was
42:37
Speaker 1: physically mentally weaker than Adam, so she's the one who
42:40
Speaker 1: fell for the serpent's trick. Yeah and yeah. The belief
42:45
Speaker 1: in women being irrational due to problems with their sex
42:48
Speaker 1: organs lasted into the century. That's why it's why vibrators
42:53
Speaker 1: were invented. People were like, ladies, you you really need
42:56
Speaker 1: to You can't be coming into the doctor's office this
43:00
Speaker 1: been to get have a vibrator to have orgasms. We
43:03
Speaker 1: need to give you a take home method. Of solving
43:06
Speaker 1: this problem. They didn't call it orgasms then, but yeah,
43:10
Speaker 1: well one, that's one good thing I suppose. Oh and
43:14
Speaker 1: I do want to put in here that, of course,
43:16
Speaker 1: it is completely possible for hormones to affect your mental health.
43:20
Speaker 1: But like dudes have hormones too, breaking news. I'm sorry
43:27
Speaker 1: you had to learn it here, but learn it you did. Yeah,
43:34
Speaker 1: if we if we bring all of this back to
43:37
Speaker 1: the whole hashtag believer and Brett kavanaw thing um. When
43:41
Speaker 1: it comes to sexual assault, there has been some science
43:44
Speaker 1: looking into why we don't believe women, and it has
43:50
Speaker 1: to do with how the brain handles trauma. Survivors don't
43:54
Speaker 1: outwardly act how folks think they should. Instead of a
43:58
Speaker 1: sobbing mess, they might see kind of cold, and that's
44:02
Speaker 1: because a lot of survivors experience disassociation from their body. Also,
44:06
Speaker 1: a lot of times their memories might seem flimsy, which
44:10
Speaker 1: causes people to doubt them. But again, this is your
44:12
Speaker 1: brain shutting down all other functions that don't have to
44:16
Speaker 1: do with pure survival during a traumatic, potentially life threatening event.
44:20
Speaker 1: And in some cases it's not that you can't remember,
44:23
Speaker 1: it's just you have difficulty retrieving it and describing it.
44:28
Speaker 1: Another thing the brain does that plays into this has
44:30
Speaker 1: to do with how it handles and often rejects new
44:33
Speaker 1: information that challenges accepted patterns are perceptions. If you find
44:38
Speaker 1: out a friend of yours, someone you've known for a
44:40
Speaker 1: long time, is accused of sexual assault, this challenge is
44:44
Speaker 1: something you've long held to be true, and your brain
44:47
Speaker 1: is like, Nope, no, can't be obviously not. Yeah. You
44:51
Speaker 1: can be presented with all these facts and your brain
44:54
Speaker 1: is just um. But it is interesting to point out
45:00
Speaker 1: once a man gets involved, the story kind of changes.
45:04
Speaker 1: Six women had accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault, and
45:07
Speaker 1: Tina Fey referenced these accusations twice, once on a weekend
45:11
Speaker 1: to update another time on thirty Rock. But it was
45:14
Speaker 1: when the comedian Hannibal Burris called Bill Cosby a rapist
45:18
Speaker 1: and one of his bits that people started to think, oh,
45:21
Speaker 1: oh no, maybe we should look into this. It took
45:24
Speaker 1: a man to legitimize the conversation and lead to actual action,
45:31
Speaker 1: and just to drive this point home, in some countries
45:33
Speaker 1: around the world, rape allegations have to be corroborated by
45:36
Speaker 1: one or more men, and that used to be the
45:39
Speaker 1: case in some some states in the US as well. Yeah.
45:44
Speaker 1: Another way to look at this whole thing is how
45:47
Speaker 1: in our society we elevate the desires of men at
45:50
Speaker 1: the expense of women. Like in this whole conversation about
45:53
Speaker 1: Brett Kavanaugh, the accusers are destroying his life and his future,
45:57
Speaker 1: but never mind the lives and future, just general well
46:01
Speaker 1: being of the women involved. Yeah. Oh, and in the nineties,
46:06
Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Police sex crimes unit called themselves the Lion
46:10
Speaker 1: Bitches Unit. Uh yeah, so sweet. Yeah the article I read,
46:19
Speaker 1: they didn't seem too upset about getting found out either.
46:24
Speaker 1: Yeah uh um I read. I read an excellent essay
46:30
Speaker 1: by Stephanie Merritt in The Guardian called the Cult of
46:33
Speaker 1: the Unreliable Female Narrator Must be Stopped um, in which
46:37
Speaker 1: she argues that society's disbelief of women is exactly what
46:41
Speaker 1: makes horror movies like the ones that we've talked about
46:43
Speaker 1: today so effectively frightening. Um. She She says that because
46:47
Speaker 1: men are less vulnerable in our society, those creative works
46:51
Speaker 1: wouldn't have quote the same atmosphere of claustrophobic menace if
46:56
Speaker 1: the main characters were male. Yeah. Um, I feel like
47:02
Speaker 1: we could keep talking about this forever and keep bring
47:04
Speaker 1: up examples forever. But that kind of reminds me of
47:06
Speaker 1: the Witch. Oh yeah. Um, Which what I found so
47:09
Speaker 1: frightening about that movie was, um, it did such a
47:13
Speaker 1: great job of driving home to me why um we
47:19
Speaker 1: we read about the Salem witch trials all the time
47:21
Speaker 1: and it feels kind of at least in my case,
47:23
Speaker 1: it's always felt kind of distant. But that just brought
47:26
Speaker 1: home to me how there's no way to prove you
47:30
Speaker 1: aren't a wish. No one believed the main character thomasin um, yeah,
47:37
Speaker 1: you can't prove that you're not possessed by the demon,
47:41
Speaker 1: And it was terrifying. Um, no one believed her. And
47:45
Speaker 1: I think that's what made it so relatable, is even
47:47
Speaker 1: if we're not exactly trying to ward off accusations of witchcraft,
47:53
Speaker 1: although I mean you can see parallels certainly and in
47:56
Speaker 1: some things, that idea of not being believed is scary
48:04
Speaker 1: and absolutely yeah, And I think that really as a society,
48:12
Speaker 1: we don't want to believe women because we don't want
48:14
Speaker 1: to have to deal with it. We don't want to
48:16
Speaker 1: have to deal with what it means and with having
48:19
Speaker 1: to do the work too, to fix it, to combat
48:23
Speaker 1: what these women, all these women are saying is happening. Yeah.
48:27
Speaker 1: I think it's the same reason that there's such pushback
48:29
Speaker 1: against Black Lives Matter, because people are like, well, you know,
48:34
Speaker 1: like that that intrinsic response that all lives matter thing
48:37
Speaker 1: is essentially saying like, there's no problem, right, Like, why
48:41
Speaker 1: are you saying that there's a problem. Stop saying that
48:43
Speaker 1: there's a problem. Yeah, because if you admit that, then
48:46
Speaker 1: you have to admit that you have to work on it,
48:48
Speaker 1: exactly right, that it's it's a lot of work, and
48:52
Speaker 1: and it is frightening. It's frightening. Um balloons, balloons. Uh oh,
49:03
Speaker 1: I just watched it recently. No balloons. So this brings
49:11
Speaker 1: us to the end of this episode, which I I
49:14
Speaker 1: foolishly when I pitched it to you, Lauren, thought it
49:17
Speaker 1: was going to be a much more cheerful thing. I
49:18
Speaker 1: don't know what I was thinking. I was like, we
49:21
Speaker 1: can relate this to current events, which are great, so
49:27
Speaker 1: much fun know what I was thinking. But it was
49:31
Speaker 1: really enlightening to do. As someone like I said, we
49:35
Speaker 1: both watch a lot of hard movies, and I'm going
49:37
Speaker 1: to guess that for a lot of you. You're not
49:39
Speaker 1: going to be able to unsee this now. Uh, it's
49:44
Speaker 1: really everywhere it is. It is, And I don't know,
49:47
Speaker 1: and I do think that it's it's It's an interesting
49:50
Speaker 1: and like culturally useful trope, especially in discussions like this,
49:54
Speaker 1: you know, like once you're aware of it, then yeah,
49:57
Speaker 1: hopefully you can do stuff to help change it, one
50:02
Speaker 1: would hope. And we're all about change again, growing for
50:05
Speaker 1: the better here. Um, thank you so much for being
50:11
Speaker 1: on the show. Um, hopefully you'll you'll come back. We
50:14
Speaker 1: can talk some more horror movies one other things. I
50:16
Speaker 1: won't type cast you whatever you want to talk about. Yes, no,
50:20
Speaker 1: I thank you so much for having me. This has
50:22
Speaker 1: been This has been a lot of fun. Yeah, and um,
50:25
Speaker 1: you can always find the both of us on Saver.
50:28
Speaker 1: We would love for you to come check that out. Um,
50:32
Speaker 1: and I think I've mentioned before I love fan fiction,
50:38
Speaker 1: and uh, we we're trying to get a little maybe
50:41
Speaker 1: a mini series or on and off against series of
50:44
Speaker 1: reading stuff that you you listeners have written. So if
50:50
Speaker 1: you have any fiction, nonfiction, anything fan fiction that you've
50:54
Speaker 1: created that you are cool with us reading on the air,
50:58
Speaker 1: please send it in UM we might even get some
51:01
Speaker 1: voices and some production some production work into it. UM.
51:05
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I would love for any of y'all
51:08
Speaker 1: to send some stuff like that in UM. Also just UM.
51:13
Speaker 1: Another mini series we're thinking about doing is What's something
51:16
Speaker 1: your Mom Never told you? Because you know the show,
51:18
Speaker 1: we'll get back to our roots a little bit. So
51:20
Speaker 1: if you have anything like that, we would love to
51:23
Speaker 1: hear it. You can email us at mom Stuff at
51:26
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. You can find us on
51:29
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast and on Instagram at stuff
51:32
Speaker 1: I've Never Told You. Thanks as always to our producer
51:35
Speaker 1: Andrew Howard, and thanks to you for listening.