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A Christmas Story with Brandon Bird · The Bechdel Cast

0:00
Speaker 1: On the dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have
0:03
Speaker 1: women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
0:07
Speaker 1: If do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
0:12
Speaker 1: start changing it with the beck del Cast. Hi, Welcome
0:16
Speaker 1: to the Beck Deel Cast. My name is Jamie and
0:18
Speaker 1: my name is Caitlyn. Did I forget? Did I just
0:23
Speaker 1: want to make it suspensefult into the narrative you just
0:28
Speaker 1: presented as way. I was like, no, she's sick and
0:32
Speaker 1: what is my identity? That's fun? Well, isn't that just
0:35
Speaker 1: the age we live in, the age of identity. We're
0:38
Speaker 1: all trying to figure out No, I know that I'm Caitlin. Okay, well,
0:41
Speaker 1: then that's good. I was just trying to I don't
0:43
Speaker 1: know why, but I was trying to create suspense. I
0:46
Speaker 1: like that. So this is the Backdel Cast. This is
0:48
Speaker 1: our podcast about how women are portrayed in movies and
0:52
Speaker 1: how hey usually not very good. Another good suspense moment
0:56
Speaker 1: by Yeah, Yeah, that's good. This is a spook suspenseful episode.
1:01
Speaker 1: It's December about a Christmas movie. Spooking the scariest month
1:07
Speaker 1: of all because you have to see people you do
1:09
Speaker 1: not fucking lie. Oh man, we're spending Christmas together. It's
1:15
Speaker 1: just like we've spent Thanksgiving together. We're basically domestic partners.
1:18
Speaker 1: We are a common one married and yeah, I think
1:21
Speaker 1: when this episode comes up, I'll be with my family,
1:24
Speaker 1: and I mean they'll never hear this podcast, which just
1:27
Speaker 1: about sums up how we're all doing. Okay, So this
1:32
Speaker 1: is our our podcast about women and movies. We use
1:35
Speaker 1: the Beck Dol test and men and by Alison back
1:37
Speaker 1: Dol as a yard stick, which requires let's see how
1:41
Speaker 1: it took a year, but maybe I can do it
1:43
Speaker 1: requires two women in a scene with names talking about
1:47
Speaker 1: something other than a man for exactly two lines of dialogue.
1:52
Speaker 1: Does a movie do it? For some reason? Holiday movies
1:55
Speaker 1: fair very poorly with the Beck Dol test. Just based
1:58
Speaker 1: on what we've been doing recently, can into it? Get
2:01
Speaker 1: into that? We'll get there? Is that all our business
2:05
Speaker 1: up top? I think? So let's introduced our guests. Wonderful.
2:08
Speaker 1: He's an artist, he's a nice guy. We love him.
2:11
Speaker 1: It's Brandon bird High. Thanks for being here, thanks for
2:15
Speaker 1: having me. It's December. For crying out loud, whiz, It's
2:18
Speaker 1: actually here's here's a little peak behind the curtain. It's
2:21
Speaker 1: actually November. November, so it's it might as well be December. Yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: I mean this is one of those long Christmas seasons
2:29
Speaker 1: because there there are five Thursdays in November. Christmas season,
2:34
Speaker 1: which is usually just December is now it was like
2:36
Speaker 1: extra long, lucky us. Yeah. Wait what are you? What
2:40
Speaker 1: are you doing for the holidays? Um? Well, my my business.
2:45
Speaker 1: You know, I sell princes of my artwork online at
2:48
Speaker 1: Brandon Bird dot com, the store dot Brandon bird dot com.
2:52
Speaker 1: So this month is usually if things go really well,
2:55
Speaker 1: it's just people ordering stuff and you're just constantly mailing things.
2:59
Speaker 1: Very nice. Uh So we're here to talk about a
3:02
Speaker 1: Christmas story now, Brandon, tell us your history with this movie,
3:07
Speaker 1: your your relationship to tell us everything. Yeah, get into it. Okay, Well,
3:13
Speaker 1: my relationship starts with my uncle Therb Therb. I think
3:20
Speaker 1: his full name is sergeant Therber What WHOA? That was
3:23
Speaker 1: a journey You don't have a journey name. Uncle. Is
3:29
Speaker 1: his name sergeant or is he always a sergeant? In
3:32
Speaker 1: the which is my grandpa's name too, it's not, it's
3:36
Speaker 1: spelled differently. Okay, So your uncle is not a sergeant,
3:41
Speaker 1: but his name is sergeant. Sergeant. He goes his name president, like,
3:46
Speaker 1: can you it's spelled differently, it's like a name. Anyway,
3:48
Speaker 1: they called him Therber or Therb. So were you do
3:51
Speaker 1: you have a cousin named sergeant or was your generation
3:54
Speaker 1: just ripped off with this generation? My generation we all
3:57
Speaker 1: got normal names. Brandon normal, I don't think sergeant. Okay,
4:05
Speaker 1: so you're so so Uncle Herbert introduced, Yeah, he had.
4:13
Speaker 1: He was like an early VHS adopter. He would buy
4:16
Speaker 1: movies when they were like a hundred dollars in three dollars,
4:21
Speaker 1: so he like bought Star Wars, like the first time
4:23
Speaker 1: Star Wars. But we borrowed a Christmas Story from him
4:28
Speaker 1: and we watched his like look at me, like this
4:29
Speaker 1: is the funniest thing we've ever seen. This crazy movie
4:32
Speaker 1: we've never heard of. And then you know, like ten
4:35
Speaker 1: years later everybody was like have you heard of CRUs Story?
4:39
Speaker 1: Oh man, I'm like, yeah, we borrowed Uncle's right, because
4:43
Speaker 1: this movie was not like it was. It was like
4:46
Speaker 1: it became a big deal as I recall, like the
4:48
Speaker 1: end of the nineties kind of yeah, like went like
4:51
Speaker 1: not until they were chowing on incessantly, which is weird, Like, yeah,
4:56
Speaker 1: I was. I was reading back some of the original
4:58
Speaker 1: reviews and there, you know, fine, they're middling. It was
5:02
Speaker 1: just this movie could have really cheap. So they were like, hey,
5:06
Speaker 1: let's that's all. This a good point, which is what
5:09
Speaker 1: happened with It's a Wonderful Life. Like it was not
5:11
Speaker 1: that acclaimed or popular of a movie back when it
5:14
Speaker 1: was made, and it wasn't until TV stations were like, oh,
5:16
Speaker 1: this movie is like so cheap to sir. And then
5:23
Speaker 1: I mean, there's not a lot of big, big, big
5:25
Speaker 1: budget Christmas movies that I can think. I mean, there's
5:28
Speaker 1: I think they're trying to turn like Elf into a thing. Yeah,
5:31
Speaker 1: But what I what I did want to say is
5:34
Speaker 1: that if there's any big budget Christmas movie that deserves funding,
5:39
Speaker 1: it's mine. The one that I wrote called Santa University.
5:44
Speaker 1: If anyone out there wants to give me about fifty
5:48
Speaker 1: million dollars to build an entire college campus and flooded
5:52
Speaker 1: with people dressed as Santa. They're killing each other. It's violent.
5:58
Speaker 1: It's also a musical, so we're gonna need big budget
6:00
Speaker 1: for that. Lots of Elves, there's a lot of different Santa.
6:03
Speaker 1: There's Santa. There's Dan Santa, there's Cool Santa. Not as
6:11
Speaker 1: cool as Cool Santa. You gotta you gotta check out this.
6:14
Speaker 1: So if any, if any big wigs with three million
6:17
Speaker 1: dollars and about four years of production and to just
6:21
Speaker 1: devote to this, I'd like to be flown out to
6:24
Speaker 1: I don't know, to Barbados for a couple of months,
6:27
Speaker 1: just to mill over Santa and in the most Anta
6:31
Speaker 1: like environmental Barbados. Yes, of course. Okay, what movie we're
6:35
Speaker 1: talking about. It's a Christmas story. Okay, let me preface
6:38
Speaker 1: what I'm about to say with I don't like Christmas.
6:43
Speaker 1: I don't like the Christmas season. I don't like the holiday.
6:46
Speaker 1: Just recite the book very I am Ebenezer, Scrooge and
6:50
Speaker 1: thern fused into one sour posts of of a gal
6:55
Speaker 1: who hates holiday cheer. I found spending a holiday with
6:59
Speaker 1: you to be Are you enjoyable? Thank you? Well? We
7:02
Speaker 1: didn't really do much to I mean, did Christmas movies
7:05
Speaker 1: and ate a lot of food. We went to Denny's
7:08
Speaker 1: like in the Santa Claus. It was a blast and
7:11
Speaker 1: that was fun. Yes, it's fun, But are you going
7:13
Speaker 1: to do the Santa Claus? I wanted to, but I
7:15
Speaker 1: don't think this year. Yeah, I don't think it's in
7:17
Speaker 1: the cars this year, like a whole month of the trilogy,
7:21
Speaker 1: the God the Claus month. What a trouble hast Caitlin's
7:27
Speaker 1: don't let Me do the Master of Disguise. The fact
7:30
Speaker 1: that I was able to so early in the podcast
7:34
Speaker 1: is maybe the biggest miracle that will ever happened. Yeah.
7:38
Speaker 1: So I don't care for Christmas and I don't celebrate Christmas.
7:41
Speaker 1: I celebrate Winter Solstice. Brag and even not that. I
7:44
Speaker 1: don't like anything feeling so hard yourself because you're you're
7:50
Speaker 1: fun and a holiday we've exchanged games. I mean, I
7:53
Speaker 1: don't know. I just I hate the Yeah, I love
7:58
Speaker 1: the Rigamar role. Well, first of all, I'm addicted to
8:02
Speaker 1: the Righam role. I'm literally obsessed with the Rigamar role.
8:06
Speaker 1: I always get I have like seasonal effective disorder, so
8:09
Speaker 1: I always am very depressed around this time of year.
8:11
Speaker 1: I don't like all, like the commercialism and the consumerism.
8:16
Speaker 1: Well we got to buy a bunch of gifts and
8:17
Speaker 1: the la lah and I don't know, I just don't
8:20
Speaker 1: like it. See Santa with here's a fun throwback to
8:24
Speaker 1: we don't need to talk about the movie. What does
8:26
Speaker 1: talk about Christmas out there? Do you remember around this
8:30
Speaker 1: time last year, maybe a few weeks out where I
8:33
Speaker 1: was late to a different episode of the back And
8:36
Speaker 1: it's hard to remember because I'm late to a lot
8:37
Speaker 1: of them. But I was late because I was looking
8:40
Speaker 1: for Santa's all day. Oh I do remember this. Ye,
8:42
Speaker 1: that was a fun one. Yeah, there was last year
8:44
Speaker 1: I got. I went to like seven different malls and
8:47
Speaker 1: found as many Santas as possible. Yeah, I remember it.
8:50
Speaker 1: Come with me this year. I can't not do that now.
8:53
Speaker 1: Once you do it once, you have to look for
8:55
Speaker 1: as many you have to top last year's goal. Seven
8:58
Speaker 1: full Santas. Hey, okay, so Christmas Story. Um, I did
9:02
Speaker 1: not grow up with this movie as many people did.
9:04
Speaker 1: I did not see it until probably college. Yeah, I
9:08
Speaker 1: got a late start on it, and I until you know, yesterday,
9:12
Speaker 1: I had only seen it that one time. I will
9:15
Speaker 1: get into how I feel about the movie, but based
9:18
Speaker 1: on what you know about how I feel about Christmas, Jeremi,
9:25
Speaker 1: I saw this movie for the first time, I want
9:28
Speaker 1: to say, when I was probably around ten, which was
9:33
Speaker 1: when I was first aware that they were really broadcasting
9:36
Speaker 1: this movie on a loop, and I associated with being
9:39
Speaker 1: in my grandma's house in Brockton, Massachusetts, go boxers with
9:44
Speaker 1: my second least favorite uncle just hurting all the children
9:49
Speaker 1: in a room saying hey, look at this and then
9:52
Speaker 1: shutting the door because that is where the children's table
9:56
Speaker 1: ended up being, and they didn't want anyone going to
9:58
Speaker 1: hang out with the adults. So he'd be like, hey,
10:00
Speaker 1: look at this movie as a trick, and then he'd
10:03
Speaker 1: trap us with the movie and would take the remote
10:05
Speaker 1: so we couldn't change the channel. We had to keep
10:07
Speaker 1: watching the movie until Christmas was over. I hate this movie.
10:12
Speaker 1: This movie reminds me of prison. Yeah yeah, and all
10:16
Speaker 1: my cousins that that stink. Yeah. I also don't care
10:21
Speaker 1: much for it. Well, let me do the recap. So
10:25
Speaker 1: A Christmas Story is about a little boy named Ralphie
10:29
Speaker 1: and Christmas is just right around the corner and he's like,
10:32
Speaker 1: I want this fucking baby gun, you guys, that's all
10:36
Speaker 1: he wants, all he wants, and he tells his family
10:39
Speaker 1: and his mom's like, no, you'll shoot your eye out, Brandon.
10:41
Speaker 1: You're allowed to interrupt as much as you want during
10:43
Speaker 1: the recap, but never again after that it's well then okay.
10:49
Speaker 1: So then Ralphie has this like hallucination where he's like,
10:52
Speaker 1: oh look, wow cool, I'll be if I have this
10:55
Speaker 1: baby gun, I can protect my family. And he's very
10:58
Speaker 1: spiffy and everyone's any It's like it's exciting. He's wearing
11:02
Speaker 1: like a silver, sparkly cowboy outfit, and I think he
11:07
Speaker 1: is a queer icon in that scene. He has a
11:09
Speaker 1: queer icon in that scene. You're right, Actually they cut
11:14
Speaker 1: this is a bit of trivia. They cut another fantasy
11:17
Speaker 1: sequence where he's like with Flash Gordon in space. Interesting. Okay,
11:23
Speaker 1: so some other stuff happens. Like it's very episodic. Yeah,
11:27
Speaker 1: I mean it doesn't really have like a it's not
11:30
Speaker 1: super cohesive. His father verbally abuses a furnace. What's his job?
11:35
Speaker 1: Is he an old mobile salesman? Is he a furnace repairman?
11:38
Speaker 1: I don't know. This is why you don't make a
11:40
Speaker 1: movie based on a book of essays? Is that what
11:43
Speaker 1: it is? A book of essays? We can get into it.
11:46
Speaker 1: I found the book in a trash pile once and
11:49
Speaker 1: then tried to read it. That's where you find a
11:51
Speaker 1: lot of jenks. Well, that's where Christmas stuff belongs to
11:56
Speaker 1: trash pile. You're you're I like our great Cindy lu
11:59
Speaker 1: who vibe We've got I am and I'm just like
12:03
Speaker 1: I've got some Christmas story trivia. I want to hear it.
12:06
Speaker 1: I am the sergeant in the War on Christmas, Sergeant Therb.
12:12
Speaker 1: I am coming in full force and taking Christmas. But
12:15
Speaker 1: Sergeant Christmas the analogy that doesn't want to love the
12:20
Speaker 1: whole of Jeane Jeane Shepherd. He was a Jean Shepherd fan.
12:25
Speaker 1: I think so because because many people do not know
12:27
Speaker 1: is that they're like a bunch of sequels to this,
12:30
Speaker 1: to this movie. Yeah, the Christmas Story, because like it's
12:35
Speaker 1: like one of those things where like you know, like
12:37
Speaker 1: they're different adaptations of like different stories. They did like
12:41
Speaker 1: TV movies that had Matt Dylan as like a teenage Ralphie.
12:48
Speaker 1: I didn't do anything, and it was like this weird
12:52
Speaker 1: experience where in the late eighties there was like this
12:55
Speaker 1: PBS special for some reason, we taped it for Uncle
13:00
Speaker 1: Therpy's Like my mom was like, how he wants to
13:02
Speaker 1: tape this thing? All the hop noodles, Haven of Bliss
13:05
Speaker 1: and we're like watching it and we realize that these
13:07
Speaker 1: are all the characters from a Christmas story. What is
13:09
Speaker 1: it called All the hop Noodles Haven of Bliss? So
13:13
Speaker 1: noodles was in the title? Okay, yeah, like have these
13:17
Speaker 1: like kind of dumb big titles like that, right? I like?
13:21
Speaker 1: I like. I don't hate Jane Shepherd's work. I became
13:23
Speaker 1: aware of him via his old He used to have
13:26
Speaker 1: a column and Playboy back in the day. He wrote
13:29
Speaker 1: some some fun little ditties. He's got a fun writing style.
13:33
Speaker 1: Why was this movie made to me? Unclear? But there so. Yeah,
13:38
Speaker 1: as you said, it's very it's like episodic. There's not
13:41
Speaker 1: a whole lot of like it's not a super cohesive story.
13:44
Speaker 1: But the basic story is that this kid, Ralphie wants
13:47
Speaker 1: a b begun for Christmas and everyone keeps telling him
13:50
Speaker 1: he's going to shoot his eye out with it. Some
13:52
Speaker 1: other stuff happens. He has some friends at school. Sometimes
13:55
Speaker 1: they get bullied. Somedays they like a pole. Sometimes yeah
13:58
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Sometimes one of them wants to go down
14:01
Speaker 1: on a pole perform some pole Connell Angus and just
14:06
Speaker 1: and it doesn't work out for him. Um, they go
14:09
Speaker 1: get a Christmas tree. There's the leg lamp there's pajamas.
14:13
Speaker 1: There's pajamas, a lot of layers at one point, and
14:16
Speaker 1: that's a fun another um when he puts on the
14:19
Speaker 1: Bunny the bunny pajamas, another queer icon moment. I think
14:23
Speaker 1: there's there are a lot of moments in this movie
14:26
Speaker 1: that like are I feel like the people who have
14:29
Speaker 1: never seen because before watching it all the way through yesterday,
14:34
Speaker 1: I was genuine I'm like, I'm not sure that I've
14:36
Speaker 1: actually ever watched this movie all the way through because
14:39
Speaker 1: it does play on a loop during very traumatic family events.
14:45
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I've for sure seen vignettes of it,
14:48
Speaker 1: but I think in my head, I'm like, well, for
14:50
Speaker 1: sure this story there's an overarching story, but turns out
14:53
Speaker 1: there's note I I mean, that's why you can watch
14:57
Speaker 1: it like that, because it's just like a little The
14:58
Speaker 1: movie itself is just little chunks. Yeah, it's kind of
15:01
Speaker 1: designed to be like watched in between arguments. That's why
15:06
Speaker 1: they show it so much. I mean, what little semblance
15:09
Speaker 1: of story there is is that he wants this be begun.
15:12
Speaker 1: He asks his mom, he writes an essay about it
15:14
Speaker 1: at school, he goes to Santa and he asked for
15:17
Speaker 1: every single persons like year, we'll shoot your eye out.
15:19
Speaker 1: And then finally Christmas morning comes. Yeah, he thinks he
15:24
Speaker 1: doesn't get the B begun, but then it turns out
15:26
Speaker 1: he does it again. Suspense what I'm all about. I
15:30
Speaker 1: love you know, a good suspenseful moment in a Christmas movie,
15:34
Speaker 1: and he fires. He does end up getting the B begun.
15:41
Speaker 1: The first thing he does with it is shoot his
15:43
Speaker 1: eye out, sort of hits his glass like the Little
15:45
Speaker 1: Babe hits his glasses. And then he has to make
15:47
Speaker 1: up this story about how an icicle hit him in
15:49
Speaker 1: the face. Everyone believes it, and then dogs come in.
15:52
Speaker 1: They eat the Christmas turkey. His dad's like, let's go
15:56
Speaker 1: out for Christmas and then they go to a Chinese
15:58
Speaker 1: restaurant where a very sustain unfolds and the movie ends.
16:03
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's pretty much the story. Also prominently featured,
16:07
Speaker 1: I think relevant to what we discuss. The most prominent
16:12
Speaker 1: the Chekhov's gun of this movie isn't a disembodied female
16:16
Speaker 1: body part. Yeah yeah, yeah, that you can plug into
16:20
Speaker 1: a wall and it like that. Just it felt worth
16:23
Speaker 1: mentioning because I was like, oh, what are you like that?
16:24
Speaker 1: You know, the few images that are that you associate
16:28
Speaker 1: with this movie. And the disembodied female calf is way
16:33
Speaker 1: up there in terms of what not just a calf,
16:35
Speaker 1: it's a whole, it's a thigh, it's everything. It's my
16:38
Speaker 1: apologies to all you a Christmas story heads out there,
16:43
Speaker 1: but yeah, it is like probably the most iconic image
16:45
Speaker 1: of the whole movie. But but we will say, as
16:48
Speaker 1: we have sort of taken to doing this, I would
16:51
Speaker 1: say female leg lamp neither feminist icon nor a queer icon.
16:57
Speaker 1: Definitely not. And we are the authority. It's yes, because
17:02
Speaker 1: you know that a man saw the ladies leg. Yeah,
17:06
Speaker 1: that's that's a real human leg that was turned into
17:09
Speaker 1: a lamp. O new fan theory. Okay, here's my fan theory,
17:13
Speaker 1: you know. Okay. In Titanic seven, there's I like to
17:19
Speaker 1: say that the year as if it's a part of
17:21
Speaker 1: the title. In Titanic, directed by James Cameron, there's this
17:26
Speaker 1: scene we will watch that on Thanksgiving. There's a scene
17:30
Speaker 1: where Jack Dawson is like showing Kate Winslet his drawings right,
17:35
Speaker 1: and he's like, she was a one legged also prejudice
17:39
Speaker 1: because he's like, oh, I didn't fuck her. Look, she
17:42
Speaker 1: only has one leg, and it's like, well, what's wrong
17:45
Speaker 1: with fucking people with one leg? As someone who's only
17:48
Speaker 1: fun people with one leg? That would be fun. Though
17:52
Speaker 1: maybe it's her leg, that's what I'm saying. Maybe it's
17:54
Speaker 1: Jack Dawson's French prostitutes leg become lamp interesting fan They jamie,
18:00
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you, thank you, no thank you? Right, Okay,
18:04
Speaker 1: So I thought this movie was gonna be worse to
18:09
Speaker 1: its female characters than it is. Me too. I thought
18:12
Speaker 1: we were going to have sort of like a stand
18:14
Speaker 1: lot situation happening where it's just like girls, how gross
18:18
Speaker 1: and awful and have some like weird. It's weird because
18:22
Speaker 1: I feel like the exchanges that girls just like, instead
18:25
Speaker 1: of there is a prominent female character and she's constantly abused,
18:30
Speaker 1: there's just not really a prominent female character besides his mom.
18:34
Speaker 1: There's the school teacher. The teacher and get a little
18:37
Speaker 1: bit of screenplan like it's it is weird that there's
18:40
Speaker 1: no like all his friends are boys, right, I mean
18:45
Speaker 1: that makes sense for the agent. Yeah, I mean nine.
18:48
Speaker 1: But but you're right, there's not that like a lot
18:50
Speaker 1: of those movies that try to like, let's do a
18:53
Speaker 1: movie childhood they try to do the like boys against
18:57
Speaker 1: the girls, and there's nothing. And there's also not that
19:00
Speaker 1: like a lot of movies made at the same time,
19:04
Speaker 1: they were like boy centric and they were about the
19:06
Speaker 1: boy like really needing to get laid or like, and
19:10
Speaker 1: I'm really glad that's not I was glad that neither
19:14
Speaker 1: Old Boy was not trying to fun. Yeah. I mean,
19:17
Speaker 1: I mean like if it had been like it would
19:21
Speaker 1: have been like a nightmare. Yeah yeah, yeah, and said
19:24
Speaker 1: it's still like this very innocent like all they wants
19:27
Speaker 1: is to be begun, right right, there's I did kind
19:31
Speaker 1: of assume that there would be more negative portrayals of
19:36
Speaker 1: women to talk about, but I think the inverse, which
19:40
Speaker 1: we do find kind of often is that there's just
19:42
Speaker 1: really not that much to talk about because there's not
19:44
Speaker 1: that many female characters. Sure, I mean, so the mother
19:48
Speaker 1: is definitely the female character with the most screen time.
19:50
Speaker 1: She starts out, I assumed because I didn't super remember
19:55
Speaker 1: this movie from the first time I watched it, so
19:57
Speaker 1: rewatching it, I was like, right at the beginning, I
19:59
Speaker 1: was like, oh, she's a shrew. Like she's yelling, She's
20:02
Speaker 1: like get down here and put on your clothes. And
20:04
Speaker 1: eat your breakfast and blah blah blah, and she seemed,
20:06
Speaker 1: you know, a bit naggy and shrewish, but later as
20:09
Speaker 1: the movie progresses, their sort of a shift a complexity
20:13
Speaker 1: to her. Yeah, I mean it is, yeah, you know,
20:16
Speaker 1: like she kind of stands up to kind of protect
20:18
Speaker 1: the kids from like their dad in certain times, to
20:21
Speaker 1: just be like like she's like a good mother. The
20:24
Speaker 1: scene that I was like, oh, wow, okay, I like
20:26
Speaker 1: this character is when, although I hate this scene because
20:29
Speaker 1: it makes me want to throw up, when she's trying
20:32
Speaker 1: to get his little brother Randy to eat and she's
20:36
Speaker 1: like me like a piggy and he's like it's like
20:38
Speaker 1: oh the sounds and the like just the imagery of
20:42
Speaker 1: him like shoving his face and a plane and mash
20:44
Speaker 1: Like I feel sick just thinking about it. But you
20:47
Speaker 1: see her being like fun and just like having this
20:51
Speaker 1: cute little moment where she's like trying to get her
20:53
Speaker 1: son to eat, so she like is kind of playful
20:55
Speaker 1: with him, and I like that. I was like, Okay,
20:57
Speaker 1: so she's not this just like very one dimensional shrewish character.
21:01
Speaker 1: She also takes revenge on the leg she does. Yes, yes,
21:05
Speaker 1: that was that I think the closest to any sort
21:08
Speaker 1: of like whoa, okay, that that was a little bit
21:11
Speaker 1: of like fun release for a female character as we
21:15
Speaker 1: get to in this movie. Yeah, And I think some
21:16
Speaker 1: people would argue like, oh, she was just jealous that
21:19
Speaker 1: there's like this hot leg, just hot floating leg around
21:25
Speaker 1: soary for this non existent leg. She can't stand it,
21:29
Speaker 1: like come on. I think that she destroyed it because
21:34
Speaker 1: she recognized that the leg was neither a queer icon
21:37
Speaker 1: nor a feminist icon, and she's like, I don't need
21:38
Speaker 1: this ship in my house. Yeah. So the mother character
21:42
Speaker 1: is yeah, a little more complex than she appears at
21:46
Speaker 1: first glance, at least. Um. The other thing about her, though,
21:49
Speaker 1: is that she's sort of presented as kind of the
21:52
Speaker 1: main obstacle throughout the movie, where Ralphie keeps being like,
21:55
Speaker 1: oh my god, I want this bebacon. That's all I want,
21:58
Speaker 1: and she's always saying like, no, you can't have that.
22:02
Speaker 1: That's too dangerous. You'll shoot your eye out. So she's
22:05
Speaker 1: sort of like the big obstacle and the source of conflict.
22:10
Speaker 1: I feel like the Dad was more the actual like antagonist.
22:14
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, you know, like like he wasn't he
22:17
Speaker 1: was kind of neither for nor against the gun, but
22:20
Speaker 1: he was like the presence that could swoop in and
22:23
Speaker 1: kind of end everything, like the terror in the back
22:27
Speaker 1: of everyone's mind kind of thing. That's sort of something
22:29
Speaker 1: that I think. It's it's fascinating that, you know, it's
22:32
Speaker 1: a movie about the kids, and both of the adults
22:35
Speaker 1: are the essentially the bad guys, which I think. I
22:41
Speaker 1: think that more often than not, the more we do
22:45
Speaker 1: the show, often when there's not a lot to talk
22:48
Speaker 1: about in terms of, wow, there's really just not a
22:52
Speaker 1: lot of female characters in this movie. That's often because
22:55
Speaker 1: a lot of what's being dealt with, whether it's explicitly
22:58
Speaker 1: stated or not, is like hyper masculinity and men teaching
23:02
Speaker 1: other men how to be men, and that is I
23:05
Speaker 1: think what we witness, you know, Ralphi's dad trying to
23:09
Speaker 1: do at some points, but it's you know, he's I
23:13
Speaker 1: don't I don't know that it necessarily works, but there
23:15
Speaker 1: there's like a few lessons imparted from father to son
23:18
Speaker 1: here that's like, oh yeah, he's trying to pass on
23:21
Speaker 1: a very antiquated idea of like this is what a
23:24
Speaker 1: man does and this is how real boy acts. And
23:27
Speaker 1: all and all that ship. I feel like maybe I
23:31
Speaker 1: just wasn't paying a cluss of attention. I don't know
23:33
Speaker 1: if I saw a whole lot of that. There is
23:35
Speaker 1: like a moment where Ralphie and that kid, Scott Farcus
23:41
Speaker 1: get in a fight and um Scott, Ralphie kind of
23:48
Speaker 1: like beats the crap out of him because he's been
23:50
Speaker 1: bullied by him throughout the whole movie and he's had enough.
23:53
Speaker 1: He flips a table and he's like no more so Farcus.
24:00
Speaker 1: He's swearing and he's beating him up. And then Ralphie's
24:02
Speaker 1: mom shows up and she's like, come on, get home,
24:04
Speaker 1: and Ralphie's crying. So one I like that. You see
24:08
Speaker 1: like little boys crying in this movie a number of times,
24:11
Speaker 1: and at one point his dad says something like, I'll
24:14
Speaker 1: give you something to cry about. But I feel like
24:16
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of like hyper masculine and
24:19
Speaker 1: you're trying to be passed on from father to son.
24:23
Speaker 1: And again, maybe I'm just kind of forgetting about some
24:26
Speaker 1: specific details, but I do like that you like see
24:28
Speaker 1: a little boy crying and he's worried, and he's like, oh,
24:31
Speaker 1: I got in a fight, and then his mom says
24:33
Speaker 1: something like she's telling his dad what happened, and she's like,
24:36
Speaker 1: you know how boys are, which sort of is a
24:39
Speaker 1: different way of saying boys will be boys. But I
24:43
Speaker 1: don't think that just trying to diffuse the situation, like
24:48
Speaker 1: like you don't need to know the details, just it's
24:50
Speaker 1: kind of over now. Yeah, I think because she was
24:53
Speaker 1: kind of trying to like shield him from the dad's anger, right, Like,
24:58
Speaker 1: it's very strange in the movie that dad is presented
25:00
Speaker 1: like this very like angry force, but you never see
25:04
Speaker 1: it directed at the kids, Like it's not like the
25:07
Speaker 1: dad beat us sort of like but it's still it
25:11
Speaker 1: feel it's like it's like this subtext that like the
25:16
Speaker 1: kids know they could be the force of this anger,
25:20
Speaker 1: and the mom knows because she tries to shield but
25:23
Speaker 1: but it's never like this explicit like you're still allowed
25:27
Speaker 1: to kind of like the dad, Which is why, Yeah,
25:29
Speaker 1: I think this movie has the potential to kind of
25:31
Speaker 1: be worse and more toxic than it is. But but
25:35
Speaker 1: then I think that that like speaks a lot to
25:37
Speaker 1: what the mom's role is in the movie, is like
25:39
Speaker 1: she is sort of directing her very angry husband's attention
25:43
Speaker 1: elsewhere a lot of the time, or you know, saying
25:47
Speaker 1: you know, I agree with you, I agree with you,
25:49
Speaker 1: but I'm going to be the one to carry out
25:50
Speaker 1: the punishment because she's trying to protect her kids, which
25:52
Speaker 1: I think with the you know, soap in the mouth
25:55
Speaker 1: thing is that's kind of like emblematic of that. I
25:58
Speaker 1: don't know, like the dad's soapen the mouth is so
26:00
Speaker 1: weird because this is a tangent, but that, like the
26:04
Speaker 1: prop soap looks so unlike any soap I've ever seen. Yeah,
26:09
Speaker 1: I was just like, it's blood soap. It looks like
26:14
Speaker 1: a chunk of like rounded plastic. Yeah. And I was like,
26:19
Speaker 1: is that special punishment soap they had in right? This
26:26
Speaker 1: is you know it did soap change. There's jailed blood
26:32
Speaker 1: and the blood of children. Post war America. They're like
26:37
Speaker 1: soaps white now war is over, no more fancy blood
26:44
Speaker 1: red soap. I don't know. That's interesting to me because
26:49
Speaker 1: I I remember one of the few things that did
26:52
Speaker 1: carry with me from past viewings of this movie into
26:56
Speaker 1: my most recent viewing is even though he doesn't explicit
27:00
Speaker 1: do anything wrong, and intense dislike of the father character
27:03
Speaker 1: because it does seem like he's just always being held
27:06
Speaker 1: back from doing like it never seems like he's like
27:09
Speaker 1: I would never do something awful. It's just like, well,
27:12
Speaker 1: try to stop me before I do something awful, like
27:15
Speaker 1: and that I mean, again not too psychologically, but like that.
27:20
Speaker 1: I mean there's you know, everyone has an uncle that
27:22
Speaker 1: sort of is maybe like that, a little bit of
27:25
Speaker 1: just like, well, this isn't a good guy, but there's
27:27
Speaker 1: a lot of people around him who are trying to
27:30
Speaker 1: make sure he's a good guy. Like and and that's
27:33
Speaker 1: what the dead character always reminds me of. And it
27:35
Speaker 1: just I don't know, yeah, it really bugs me that character.
27:39
Speaker 1: There's another scene where you see little brother Randy crying
27:42
Speaker 1: in a cupboard. Randy feminis on Randy, Randy is crying.
27:48
Speaker 1: This is later on in the movie. Their mother like
27:50
Speaker 1: opens the little cabinet door and she's like, why are
27:53
Speaker 1: you crying? And he's like, cause, dad, he's gonna kill Ralfie, right.
27:58
Speaker 1: She says, like if there's a loom. But back to
28:02
Speaker 1: the point that I like, do you see like little
28:04
Speaker 1: boys crying? It's never like stop crying and man up.
28:08
Speaker 1: You don't really see that in this movie, which um
28:11
Speaker 1: I think it's kind of unusual and refreshing. Well, perhaps
28:16
Speaker 1: let's let's give Jean Shepherd to a point. Maybe that
28:18
Speaker 1: that is one of the pros of adapting an essay
28:21
Speaker 1: about someone's actual life is you don't maybe get the
28:24
Speaker 1: opportunities to know if it's from his actual it really
28:28
Speaker 1: just sapricated liket to forty. Somewhere in there, the Wizard
28:35
Speaker 1: of Oz exists. Jean Shepherd born. Yeah, so if this
28:40
Speaker 1: happened to him he was like old, maybe that's a
28:45
Speaker 1: screenplay adapt I mean, they just kind of fudge that's
28:49
Speaker 1: it's like a little weird. It's like a writer not
28:52
Speaker 1: being completely honest about everything. I didn't realize that there
28:57
Speaker 1: was that date descripancy, but were meant we're led to
29:00
Speaker 1: believe because Gean Shepard is the adult narrator that he
29:04
Speaker 1: is old Ralphie. Can we also just talk about how
29:08
Speaker 1: there is really this influx and then this movie is
29:10
Speaker 1: not is by far not the worst of them of
29:14
Speaker 1: movies about like white male childhood that is narrated in
29:19
Speaker 1: a very egregious, lazy way, as opposed to setting up
29:22
Speaker 1: a story that doesn't require voice over narrage. I just
29:25
Speaker 1: bog like this movie started it like you wouldn't have
29:29
Speaker 1: The Wonder Years without a Christmas story, which is fine
29:32
Speaker 1: by me. I'm a hard pass on the one. I've
29:36
Speaker 1: had multiple Chod boyfriends like ya, God, I want it's
29:40
Speaker 1: Ben Savage is big brother. It's like, I can't what
29:43
Speaker 1: air of reference there? Well, that's my favorite, but it's
29:49
Speaker 1: Ben Savage's brother, whereas like generalread, Savage is fread exactly
29:55
Speaker 1: wrong wrong these Corey from Boime's World brother like care
30:01
Speaker 1: Care for Crime outline. Yeah there. I I hate movies
30:05
Speaker 1: about childhood with voiceover narration, particularly fits about boys and that,
30:09
Speaker 1: which I think I just hate. I mean, I hate
30:11
Speaker 1: this hand lot, I hate it. I hate it. The
30:14
Speaker 1: worst movie of all time. There's too many movies just
30:17
Speaker 1: about white male childhood period without narration, late boyhood. Let's
30:25
Speaker 1: let's stop making these. Oh god. But another thing I
30:31
Speaker 1: did want to point out is that Ralphie's favorite radio
30:34
Speaker 1: program is Little or Finnanny. Even at one point he
30:38
Speaker 1: says something like I don't have time for smugglers and pirates.
30:41
Speaker 1: Get this small larchy off radio. I do. Like he
30:47
Speaker 1: was talking about Little Orphan. Yeah that was a show. Yeah,
30:51
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying that he likes a narrative about
30:55
Speaker 1: a little girl, but not about He doesn't like the
30:58
Speaker 1: pirate show. Little Franny is the pirate show? Wait? What
31:02
Speaker 1: Little Orphany was all about pirates and spies? And because
31:06
Speaker 1: the yeah, the comic and like the radio show. It
31:09
Speaker 1: was like the story we're familiar with is all about
31:12
Speaker 1: her transition from orphan to adoption. But the bulk of
31:17
Speaker 1: like the comic and the radio show and all that
31:21
Speaker 1: was all the adventures she and Daddy Warbucks then went
31:24
Speaker 1: on because he's like a bazillionaire and he'll be like,
31:27
Speaker 1: what's let's go to the jungle. Now, check out my
31:31
Speaker 1: diamond mind. And then like somebody would kidnap little or
31:34
Speaker 1: Fanny and and they'd have to get out of the
31:38
Speaker 1: scrape and find Daddy Warbucks. So I haven't we seen
31:40
Speaker 1: that movie at a bit? That's that's what it was like.
31:45
Speaker 1: This like adventure. Okay, I used to see a movie
31:49
Speaker 1: about domestic adjustment. Yeah, boring. I thought that it was
31:53
Speaker 1: like the show about like is Annie gonna get adopted
31:56
Speaker 1: or not? And he loved that, but he hated rates
32:00
Speaker 1: and stuff. An adventure character who knew, well, that's even cooler. Yeah. Yeah,
32:08
Speaker 1: I was just going to point out that, oh, how
32:10
Speaker 1: how nice that his his favorite shows about this little girl,
32:13
Speaker 1: which is like, you know, something that maybe little girls
32:16
Speaker 1: might be more interested in listening to, whereas you know,
32:19
Speaker 1: pirates and smugglers something a little boys. Okay, got it,
32:24
Speaker 1: Well that's my point. My point is invalid then, but
32:31
Speaker 1: I am fascinated to learn that that's what little or
32:33
Speaker 1: Fanny was to look that up. Amazing. Uh. Something I
32:37
Speaker 1: did want to also talk about is guns and masculinity
32:43
Speaker 1: because this movie is about a little boy who is
32:46
Speaker 1: desperate for agun and I researched some statistics about gun violence. So, um,
32:56
Speaker 1: get ready for some exciting everyone ready, So episode a murder.
33:05
Speaker 1: There is an article that I recommend in Time magazine
33:08
Speaker 1: by Jill Stein. Okay, hang on me. I always say
33:16
Speaker 1: that when people are talking about my mom, my mom's
33:19
Speaker 1: name is Jill, it's like I was talking to Jill
33:21
Speaker 1: like Stein. No, it's a Jill Philippo vic. I've probably
33:29
Speaker 1: mispronounced Jill Um. She writes an article in Time magazine.
33:37
Speaker 1: It is called one Undeniable factor in gun violence colon men.
33:42
Speaker 1: So in the article, it cites some statistics that since
33:46
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty six there have been a hundred thirty four
33:50
Speaker 1: mass shootings. I believe that's confined to the US. I
33:53
Speaker 1: don't think that's worldwide. Of those of those thirty four
33:56
Speaker 1: mass shootings, one have been perpetrated by men, only three
34:01
Speaker 1: by women. Of murderers are men. My point being men's
34:07
Speaker 1: fascination with guns is maybe not good. You heard it
34:11
Speaker 1: here first on the Bechtel cast. Maybe guns aren't great.
34:15
Speaker 1: But she writes, if you were to extrapolate like the
34:20
Speaker 1: events of the film, like the next day or the
34:23
Speaker 1: weeks months, I always imagine that like Ralphie never used
34:28
Speaker 1: his BB gun again, you know, like that was kind
34:30
Speaker 1: of the impression that he got it. He used it,
34:33
Speaker 1: and then it was not in any way, shape or
34:35
Speaker 1: form like what he thought it would be. I hope
34:37
Speaker 1: that that's the case. That was just kind of the
34:39
Speaker 1: impression I got. Well, could we get the impression from
34:42
Speaker 1: because like he doesn't he like you know, dings his
34:45
Speaker 1: glasses and then he has to go inside, and then
34:47
Speaker 1: like he leaves the gun out there, doesn't he has
34:50
Speaker 1: to go back, right and he even says something like,
34:52
Speaker 1: oh but my guns still out there, And she's like
34:54
Speaker 1: you can get cleaned up and go get it later.
34:56
Speaker 1: And I don't think we ever see that happen because
34:58
Speaker 1: instead they go at the Chinese restaurant. I think you
35:01
Speaker 1: see him at the very end. I think he might
35:03
Speaker 1: be sleeping with it. I think you're right, Yeah, we're
35:10
Speaker 1: but it is for most of the movie we see
35:13
Speaker 1: Ralphie and Randy. Neither of them are like agro children, right,
35:19
Speaker 1: They're they're being bullied. They're not hyped children there, They're
35:25
Speaker 1: regular kids. And so it is. And and basically all
35:29
Speaker 1: the information we have about Ralphie would not lead you
35:32
Speaker 1: to believe like, oh, this kid's gonna fucking be weirdly
35:36
Speaker 1: into his toy gun, which leads me to believe that like, oh,
35:40
Speaker 1: this must symbolize something too in his head of either
35:44
Speaker 1: status or you know, like overcomings whatever adverse, like as
35:49
Speaker 1: opposed to actually wanting it and thinking, oh, this is
35:52
Speaker 1: a toy I will have fun times because they like
35:58
Speaker 1: why it's important. It's just the thing he's obsessing about, right,
36:01
Speaker 1: Like it's a symbol more than it is, like because
36:04
Speaker 1: like a theme of the film is these very small
36:09
Speaker 1: like a kind of losses of innocence or like things
36:12
Speaker 1: that don't turn out how you think they're going to
36:14
Speaker 1: turn out. And that's kind of how he took the
36:17
Speaker 1: gun obsession. It was like he's really into this, and
36:20
Speaker 1: then it's not really quite what he wants right after
36:23
Speaker 1: after all the hullabaloo. Yeah, well you do see that
36:28
Speaker 1: sort of vision that he has very early on, where
36:30
Speaker 1: are these like bad guys come and he has his
36:33
Speaker 1: gun and he's protecting his family. So it's this sort
36:36
Speaker 1: of like oh, to be sent right. Yeah, So it's
36:41
Speaker 1: sort of like perpetuating this idea where it's like, oh,
36:43
Speaker 1: I'm he's a man and he needs to be the
36:45
Speaker 1: protector of his family and you know, exert this like
36:49
Speaker 1: machismo over people, which like, I mean, I can't even
36:53
Speaker 1: pretend like I understand all of the psychology behind people
36:57
Speaker 1: who are obsessed with guns, and I'm I'm a guy,
37:00
Speaker 1: I should love guns, And I don't get I mean, sorge,
37:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I've only got like four or five guns.
37:08
Speaker 1: Were the one I keep in my car and then
37:10
Speaker 1: a couple under my bed. I mean, you're I don't
37:12
Speaker 1: think that's about the gunpoint for the duration of the episode.
37:15
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't get that. I don't get
37:17
Speaker 1: these other people who are like really super into guns. Yeah,
37:20
Speaker 1: like you have to have one in both of your
37:22
Speaker 1: hands at all times than that? Why? Why? Right? So
37:26
Speaker 1: the point I'm trying to make is, Okay, first, I
37:28
Speaker 1: want to say that I don't think all people who
37:30
Speaker 1: own guns are bad. I do, I do, I do.
37:36
Speaker 1: I do think that all guns should be thrown into
37:40
Speaker 1: an active volcano and then we shouldn't have guns anymore.
37:42
Speaker 1: That sounds like that would actually be pretty dangerous. I
37:47
Speaker 1: think they'd like melt instant, Yeah, they would. I think
37:50
Speaker 1: they wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they go off.
37:53
Speaker 1: I think maybe throwing them into like a pile of
37:55
Speaker 1: fireworks might be dangerous, but a volcano volcano is generally
37:59
Speaker 1: like in clothes used kind Yeah. I thought a lot
38:02
Speaker 1: about this, and that's why I picked volcano. Jamie. Just
38:05
Speaker 1: come over to my volcano and we can throw in
38:08
Speaker 1: all the guns into that. I want to go to
38:11
Speaker 1: a volcano. Okay. So the point that I want to
38:14
Speaker 1: make is it's just peculiar to me that this whole
38:20
Speaker 1: story is about this kid being obsessed with getting a
38:23
Speaker 1: gun and whether or not he kind of abandons it
38:25
Speaker 1: after the fact or not. We don't really know because
38:28
Speaker 1: the story ends and we can only sort of speculate.
38:30
Speaker 1: But the fact that this whole movie is about this
38:33
Speaker 1: kid with getting a gun sends a message that like,
38:39
Speaker 1: little boys like guns and guns or maybe something to
38:42
Speaker 1: want for and and I think that helps create some
38:46
Speaker 1: problems in society. Well, I think I think the reason
38:50
Speaker 1: that I assumed that he just ended up not being
38:53
Speaker 1: thrilled by the gun was like the little Orphananey scene
38:56
Speaker 1: where he gets he's been super psyched about getting that
38:58
Speaker 1: Dakota and then he gets it. He's like, this would
39:02
Speaker 1: be so awesome. I'm totally in the club now I'm
39:04
Speaker 1: gonna get these messages and he's just like a commercial. Sure,
39:09
Speaker 1: I feel like that was like kind of foreshadowing, like
39:12
Speaker 1: these these very small like losses of innocence to being like,
39:15
Speaker 1: oh wait, this gun is kind of stupid, like right, okay,
39:18
Speaker 1: but I feel like there's less of a definitive like
39:20
Speaker 1: where when he doesn't, he doesn't end up having any
39:22
Speaker 1: fun with it because he immediately immediately right, I mean,
39:27
Speaker 1: he's trading about it because he got the thing he wanted.
39:32
Speaker 1: His quest is fulfilled, even if the reality of it
39:34
Speaker 1: doesn't match up. He's still and that's a lot of
39:37
Speaker 1: holidays for kids. It's like, well, I got the thing
39:39
Speaker 1: I kept screaming about. Now what how does it work?
39:44
Speaker 1: Versus Randy, who didn't seem to have any Christmas preference.
39:48
Speaker 1: I'm just totally fine with that. Zeppelin Randy, what an icon.
39:52
Speaker 1: Love him. Also, be sure to drink your Oval Tea
39:55
Speaker 1: in This podcast is sponsored by ovalte But I just okay,
40:01
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop talking about gun violence in a second,
40:03
Speaker 1: but I have some important things to say. These are
40:05
Speaker 1: quotes from the article The Reality of American Men and
40:08
Speaker 1: Guns is as much about hyper masculine fettization, fetishization, fet
40:17
Speaker 1: of murder toys as it is about tribal identity, a
40:20
Speaker 1: deepening identification of self and clan that radicalizes marginal views
40:24
Speaker 1: and magnifies personal entitlement and social distrust. This is a
40:28
Speaker 1: communal masculine ideology, not an individual one. And then she
40:31
Speaker 1: goes on to say about how I like, there's no
40:33
Speaker 1: lone wolves. It's like hack mentality. So it's just talking
40:37
Speaker 1: about hyper masculinity and toxic masculinity and how it perpetuates
40:41
Speaker 1: this idea that guns are cool but they're not they
40:43
Speaker 1: should be thrown in a volcano. The other quote I
40:45
Speaker 1: wanted to say goes, almost half of the world's civilian
40:49
Speaker 1: owned guns are in the hands of Americans, but those
40:51
Speaker 1: guns are not distributed equally. Many are hoarded by super owners,
40:55
Speaker 1: a group of mostly male extremists who make up just
40:58
Speaker 1: three percent of the adult American population but own an
41:00
Speaker 1: average of seventeen guns a piece. So you know, a
41:04
Speaker 1: little more than what you have. And now Brennan has
41:07
Speaker 1: led more guns out on the table so as to
41:09
Speaker 1: demonstrate his dominance. Another sequel set in maybe like nineteen sixty, yeah,
41:16
Speaker 1: the very early sixties, where Ralph is like a grizzled
41:20
Speaker 1: gun nut, like preparing for like the race war that
41:24
Speaker 1: everyone was afraid of it the sixties. The final vignette
41:28
Speaker 1: as the story um. The quote goes on to say,
41:33
Speaker 1: women are increasingly buying handguns for protection, and that seems
41:36
Speaker 1: to be their actual motivation. They own a single gun
41:39
Speaker 1: and they keep it in case of an emergency. One
41:41
Speaker 1: suspects that the imagined assailant they are protecting themselves from
41:46
Speaker 1: is a man. So there's that. Um. The only past
41:51
Speaker 1: I would be willing to give this movie on this
41:55
Speaker 1: particular subject, because I do think it's very it's not
41:59
Speaker 1: a good precedent to have a little boy lusting after
42:01
Speaker 1: a gun toy for the duration of a movie, but
42:05
Speaker 1: at very least the gun toy in question was forty
42:09
Speaker 1: years out of anyone desiring it by the time the
42:12
Speaker 1: movie came out. Because I mean, like, if you think
42:15
Speaker 1: if this was a if a Christmas story was made
42:18
Speaker 1: in the context of its three and this kid really
42:22
Speaker 1: wants this gun toy that you can go out and
42:25
Speaker 1: get right now, like that, that somehow makes it a
42:28
Speaker 1: billion times worse. I'm just trying. I remember at the
42:31
Speaker 1: time the movie came out, like you could get like
42:33
Speaker 1: the Sears catalog or whatever, and they would have like
42:36
Speaker 1: BB guns and maybe other kinds of like sporting rifles,
42:40
Speaker 1: like they're in the catalog there. Yeah, I mean that exists. Yeah.
42:44
Speaker 1: I remember being a kid and you know, like my
42:46
Speaker 1: older brother, my older brother's friends like being kind of excited,
42:50
Speaker 1: Oh they're guns. Cool. But it was still this very abstractly.
42:52
Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who like had a BB gun. No,
42:56
Speaker 1: I never did. I I knew that they existed somewhere,
43:00
Speaker 1: but exactly like by the time I like friends, I
43:03
Speaker 1: knew in the neighborhood I had fake guns. They were
43:06
Speaker 1: I mean, they did have them, and my mom was
43:08
Speaker 1: very like hard on, like she were in a daycare
43:11
Speaker 1: and if you had a fake gun, you couldn't bring
43:13
Speaker 1: it to her daycare. But but they're like all the
43:15
Speaker 1: ones that existed made laser noises. It was no longer
43:19
Speaker 1: people people. They were like like I still remember before,
43:23
Speaker 1: like you can still get like like a water gun
43:26
Speaker 1: to look like a real gun. Before they did all
43:28
Speaker 1: those laws like the orange tips. Yeah, because they're like
43:32
Speaker 1: a couple shootings, like they made those laws because they're
43:35
Speaker 1: like kids were killed because the cops were like good
43:39
Speaker 1: and like um. But yeah, if I if I if
43:45
Speaker 1: I were at ralph us Age and I asked for
43:47
Speaker 1: a BB gun, I think my mom wouldn't They would
43:49
Speaker 1: say no. But they wouldn't be because like you're still
43:52
Speaker 1: you're out there just be like that's a really weird request.
43:56
Speaker 1: It's like that was torturing animals. What's wrong with you? Ye? Yeah, yeah,
44:00
Speaker 1: it'd be like this is I know, because it goes
44:03
Speaker 1: against social norms because but but then I mean, even
44:11
Speaker 1: so he loves after this gun, but does experience at
44:13
Speaker 1: least a fairly large consequence of he does hurt himself,
44:17
Speaker 1: but then he makes up a whole story. He's not
44:18
Speaker 1: even willing to attribute it because he knows if he says, oh, yeah,
44:21
Speaker 1: I shot myself in the eye's gonna get taken away.
44:24
Speaker 1: So he has to fabricate this whole story about an
44:26
Speaker 1: icicle hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses
44:28
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. Winter is the real feeling of
44:31
Speaker 1: hyper masculinity. It's winter, so I feel like he's trying
44:37
Speaker 1: to protect his gun the way his mom has to
44:39
Speaker 1: protect her kids from the wrath of their father. We're
44:43
Speaker 1: going to add in this early sixties vignette. Yeah, yeah,
44:49
Speaker 1: just like the Grizzled gun Nut Ralphie. It still goes
44:52
Speaker 1: by Ralphie though still yes, is there a party going hap?
44:58
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you can hear some chatter in
44:59
Speaker 1: the background in some music, we weren't invited, That is
45:02
Speaker 1: all I know. Let's talk about the teacher a little bit.
45:07
Speaker 1: Another person who, yeah, the one other female character with
45:09
Speaker 1: pretty much any lines. She is also sort of depicted
45:12
Speaker 1: as a shrew at the beginning um and then kind
45:15
Speaker 1: of softens a little bit as the movie goes on.
45:18
Speaker 1: But there is one point where Ralphie's having another vision
45:23
Speaker 1: I like to call them. I think he's tripping on
45:25
Speaker 1: acid this whole movie and he's having a hallucination. But
45:29
Speaker 1: I think he has just gotten his paperback talking about
45:33
Speaker 1: what he wants for Christmas, and she's given him a
45:35
Speaker 1: C plus. So he envisions her as like this witch,
45:38
Speaker 1: wicked witch type character. So he sees her as a
45:42
Speaker 1: mean little bee and it's really, hey, maybe takes some
45:45
Speaker 1: responsibility for your own writing. You earned with the plus,
45:49
Speaker 1: not her fault. Seems very poorly written. So for just
45:53
Speaker 1: judging by his voiceover, like, come on, you've gotta you've
45:57
Speaker 1: gotta build on your ideas there, Ralphie, jeez, he becomes
46:03
Speaker 1: a guy who writes a lot of short things for money.
46:07
Speaker 1: You know what. That's that's evidence that Ralphie is not.
46:10
Speaker 1: That's okay, okay, Yeah, he doesn't have he doesn't have
46:14
Speaker 1: the touch. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie?
46:18
Speaker 1: I would say, Scott parks feminist icon. I think that's
46:21
Speaker 1: my last, my last major thought on this film. Let's
46:25
Speaker 1: talk about whether or not the movie passes the spectral test.
46:29
Speaker 1: I am going to argue as much as I don't
46:33
Speaker 1: want to do. I think that it does. And one tiny,
46:37
Speaker 1: tiny scene where students are filing in and giving miss Shields,
46:42
Speaker 1: the teacher um little Christmas gifts. There's a name exchange,
46:46
Speaker 1: is there not? One student puts something on her desk.
46:50
Speaker 1: She says thank you Heather. Heather says Merry Christmas. The
46:54
Speaker 1: teacher says, Merry Christmas. Rats, rats we know her name
46:59
Speaker 1: were interesting. This movie passes better than Pirates of the
47:02
Speaker 1: Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl does God damn It,
47:06
Speaker 1: which is apparently inspired by Little or Finanny, because it's
47:10
Speaker 1: about pirates damn it. I mean, it's like the Bear
47:15
Speaker 1: Bear Bear minimum as we never see that Heather character. Again,
47:19
Speaker 1: we don't see her speaking. She has no significance in
47:21
Speaker 1: the story. Well and and so as we often I
47:25
Speaker 1: would say, of the movies that passed the Backtel test
47:28
Speaker 1: that we have covered on this podcast, at least of
47:32
Speaker 1: them are a barely passed like this, like you know,
47:36
Speaker 1: you get it on a technicality. It was almost definitely
47:40
Speaker 1: an accident that this happened test because at no other
47:44
Speaker 1: point in the movie does it even come close to passing.
47:48
Speaker 1: In fact, it's mostly boys talking to each other or
47:50
Speaker 1: boys talking to their mother. Ye, so well, I agree
47:55
Speaker 1: with you. I was, I was this is this is
47:57
Speaker 1: a weird experience where I was almost disappointed that it
48:00
Speaker 1: has that. I was like, I guess they get it.
48:02
Speaker 1: I guess I didn't even notice it until my second viewing.
48:04
Speaker 1: I was like, oh wait, hey, wait, there's two women talking.
48:08
Speaker 1: I jotted it down in dismay m same. So let's
48:13
Speaker 1: then rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we
48:15
Speaker 1: write the movie based on its portrayal of women zero
48:18
Speaker 1: to five nipples, and then you can describe the nipples
48:22
Speaker 1: or give them away to anyone you want. A character
48:25
Speaker 1: in the movie. Character, but I mean one of your
48:27
Speaker 1: loved ones, if he's so comfortable today, So give one
48:29
Speaker 1: to give one the sarge. Yeah, sargebis therpist yeah, therbist. Okay.
48:45
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna give this movie a It's probably gonna
48:48
Speaker 1: be like a one and a half. I do like
48:51
Speaker 1: that the two main female characters, the mother and Miss
48:56
Speaker 1: Shields the teacher, aren't as one dimensional as they kind
49:01
Speaker 1: of grow. There's a little arc there. The mother seems
49:05
Speaker 1: like a good mother and she's not just like this
49:07
Speaker 1: one dimensional shrew that we are led to believe in
49:09
Speaker 1: the first few scenes. But other than that, just the
49:13
Speaker 1: idea that the movie is about a little boy desperately
49:16
Speaker 1: wanting a gun and all of his little adventures that
49:21
Speaker 1: he has with feminist icon Scott and then his friends
49:25
Speaker 1: named Flick and Schwartz was like, if you don't name
49:28
Speaker 1: your your kids Scutt, you're crazy. But it gets a
49:32
Speaker 1: one and a half nipples, and the nipples belong to
49:35
Speaker 1: the leg lamp, which may I think maybe have a
49:42
Speaker 1: nipple or two or one and a half. I'll give
49:47
Speaker 1: it one and a half as well, because I mean, obviously,
49:50
Speaker 1: this movie is about white male childhood, or as it
49:55
Speaker 1: was known in childhood. And it's weird because it's like,
50:01
Speaker 1: this movie does not abuse that premise as much as
50:05
Speaker 1: I assumed it did, except for that last scene in
50:08
Speaker 1: the Chinese restaurant, which was very uncomfortable. Yes, I mean, well,
50:13
Speaker 1: this is a white, white, white, white white movie. There
50:17
Speaker 1: are a few students of color in his class, although
50:20
Speaker 1: they get no lines, very little screen time, and it
50:23
Speaker 1: is predominantly and extremely white. It's a white white All
50:28
Speaker 1: that said, I do think that yeah, there there where.
50:32
Speaker 1: I hate to reward a movie for not making its
50:35
Speaker 1: female characters shrews by default and giving them character by default.
50:40
Speaker 1: But the two female characters we do manage to see
50:42
Speaker 1: in this movie, although they would never be permitted to
50:45
Speaker 1: speak to or view each other, um, they do both
50:49
Speaker 1: have more depth than you would assume, especially seeing through
50:53
Speaker 1: the eyes of a little boy. So in that way,
50:58
Speaker 1: I liked it. I liked them Mom character quite a bit,
51:02
Speaker 1: and I feel for her. So I'll give one of
51:05
Speaker 1: my nipples to Mom, and I'll give it half enough
51:07
Speaker 1: to Scott. Great, Yeah, how about you, Brandon. I might
51:12
Speaker 1: go a little higher, like maybe an even two nipples,
51:16
Speaker 1: just because I feel like this is a weird thing
51:18
Speaker 1: to say, but I feel like it gets some points
51:21
Speaker 1: for I guess omission rather than like because a lot
51:26
Speaker 1: of movies there are quote unquote classics from the same
51:30
Speaker 1: period are like unwatchable now because you're just like, oh wait,
51:34
Speaker 1: this movie is actually about some gross kid trying to
51:36
Speaker 1: get late take again and take every opportunity to make
51:40
Speaker 1: that joke over and over and over. Yeah, and and
51:42
Speaker 1: this is sort of like, oh, they just that's just
51:44
Speaker 1: not part of the content, right. I Mean, it'd be
51:47
Speaker 1: great if they were like more actual characters, but there
51:51
Speaker 1: also aren't you know, like girls as just objects of
51:55
Speaker 1: like Ralphie and his friends either like derision or desire, right,
52:00
Speaker 1: Like they're the female characters we do manage to see
52:02
Speaker 1: are not being overtly abused over and over and over,
52:07
Speaker 1: which is again, yeah, like the the omission thing. But
52:11
Speaker 1: for a movie you're I mean, I think we were
52:14
Speaker 1: all kind of bleainly surprised. There's a ton there's a
52:17
Speaker 1: lot like the you know of that period, like kind
52:20
Speaker 1: of like meatballs and like all those like yeah yeah things,
52:24
Speaker 1: whether it's about like you know, let's have a scene
52:26
Speaker 1: where the boys like find a playboy like that kind
52:29
Speaker 1: of like and I hate to keep going into the
52:32
Speaker 1: sand lot, but that movie is that all over where
52:35
Speaker 1: they used the whole like oh well it is at
52:37
Speaker 1: different times. So everyone was looking disgusting and with the
52:41
Speaker 1: rape and kid like it was just like discuss like
52:43
Speaker 1: awful that yeah, and then they were like you're a
52:46
Speaker 1: girl because you're kind of displaying some signs of weakness
52:50
Speaker 1: and like that's the worst insult Everdence movie does not
52:52
Speaker 1: doesn't doesn't do it. No, there is a scene where
52:55
Speaker 1: they like just a quick little scene where um, they're
52:58
Speaker 1: all sitting down to dinner and Dad is like, got
53:01
Speaker 1: up and get me this. I want seconds and she's
53:03
Speaker 1: like okay, and then she's about to eat again, and
53:06
Speaker 1: then Ralphie's like, actually, can I have some more too?
53:09
Speaker 1: And then she has to put her fork down, get up,
53:12
Speaker 1: and like the voiceover said something like, my mom hasn't
53:15
Speaker 1: had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years. But
53:17
Speaker 1: that's really all it does to acknowledge that, like they
53:21
Speaker 1: don't have bad so that I was just like, poor mom. Well, Brandon,
53:27
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. Thanks really need
53:30
Speaker 1: to talk about my favorite movie. Where can we find
53:33
Speaker 1: you on the world wide Web? Well, you can go
53:35
Speaker 1: to Brandon Berg dot com just in time for the
53:37
Speaker 1: holiday season to buy some prints, greeting cards, Christmas bobbles.
53:44
Speaker 1: Well you got I didn't know you had, babbles, lots
53:48
Speaker 1: of fun stuff. Hey. You can follow the Beachel cast
53:52
Speaker 1: on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook to pick up on that. I
54:00
Speaker 1: was just pausing for for Suspend and signed up for
54:03
Speaker 1: our Patreon where you can get two extra episodes a
54:06
Speaker 1: month at patreon dot com slash past it's only five
54:10
Speaker 1: dollars one a gift to yourself to yourself to your friend,
54:14
Speaker 1: give yourself a gift, Give your friends, your mom, your dad,
54:17
Speaker 1: anyone in your family. We don't care. We're starving, all right,
54:22
Speaker 1: Well you can find us there, yes, indeed, And happy holiday,
54:26
Speaker 1: Happy freaking holidays, everybody, all right, goodbye, bye,