Latest / History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present / Yes, Mothers and Daughters Are Always Complicated (Ft. Mommie Dearest, Black Swan, and Unknown Number)

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Yes, Mothers and Daughters Are Always Complicated (Ft. Mommie Dearest, Black Swan, and Unknown Number) · History Harpies: Pop Culture, Past and Present

• 0:00
  They say we're loud, opinionated, afraid Telling
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  us to hush, dim our historical light But darlings,
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  we're the Harpies sharp and keen Unveiling the
• 0:12
  truth behind the silver screen! History Harpies
• 0:17
  hear us roar Through the ages we explore Fashion,
• 0:24
  film, and TV slow Welcome to History Harpies!
• 0:27
  I'm Lauren And I'm Christine And we are talking
• 0:31
  this week about crazy mother -daughter relationships.
• 0:36
  Christine and I were scrolling through Netflix
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  and came across what was the unknown number,
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  which was the number one pick of the week when
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  I was scrolling through Netflix. So unknown number
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  in some way is a riff off of our carry discussion
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  last week. And so we decided to take unknown
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  number and then to examine some derivative text
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  that deal with mothers and daughters and the
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  conflicts that ensue. Now, it probably bears
• 1:15
  mentioning that Lauren is the mother of a daughter.
• 1:18
  I am not. I am just the mother of sons. And so
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  Lauren perhaps will have some special expertise
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  to contribute to this pod today. I really hope
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  I don't in terms of my relationship with my daughter
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  resembling any of these films or the documentary
• 1:37
  we're going to talk about. First, though, I did
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  want to Let's maybe examine the new phenomenon
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  of the Rush moms, even though Rush rushes upon
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  us at some colleges, including ours. It may have
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  concluded. I think it has concluded by now. But
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  while I always thought of Rush as, of course,
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  important to our students at an SEC college and
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  many other colleges across the country, I really
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  hadn't thought about the role of the mothers,
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  nor did I ever think that I myself would be involved
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  in a Greek rush tradition as a mother, not as
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  a student. Yes, not as a participant. Correct.
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  And so I started to see all of these rush talks
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  about these girls getting into the sororities
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  and getting bid day and the dances and all of
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  that, which I'm very familiar with and see that
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  on our college campus all the time. But what
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  I didn't understand was the mother's investment
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  in the bids. and the infinite amount of money,
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  time, coaching, styling, and everything else
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  that goes along with getting the bid at the right
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  sorority. And so my question to you, Christine,
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  about your thoughts on this, we've talked a little
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  bit, or maybe a lot, about helicopter parenting,
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  moms going to the prom, moms going to kids' classes,
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  and so is parties. Is this mom rush phenomenon
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  part of an extension of helicopter parenting?
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  Or do you think that there have always historically
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  been moms that were invested in, in rush in these
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  sororities to the extent that they themselves
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  are going, not to just parents weekend. Okay.
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  Which most most fraternities and sororities have,
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  but to all the stuff. and, you know, curling
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  their daughter's hair before... Yes, buying the
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  outfits. Yes. The makeup. Consultations. I mean,
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  in one of those talks, there were, like, close
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  to 20 grand being spent on Louboutins and I don't
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  even know what for these particular rush experiences.
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  Do you think this is helicopter parenting, the
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  sort of natural progression of it? I think it's
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  a natural progression of helicopter parenting.
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  I think that is true. But what I think it is
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  more so a progression of, I would argue, is simply
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  social media use among all ages. And so I don't
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  think it's the case. In fact, I'm quite sure
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  it wasn't the case that you would have moms involved
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  in rush 20 years ago. I'm sure they were involved
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  in the sense of listening to phone calls and
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  giving advice. but in terms of this degree of
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  involvement. And I will say, I haven't watched
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  the TikToks, but as I told you, I did watch Bama
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  Rush and enjoyed it very much. And where some
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  moms gave cameos, and it was very clear even
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  in Bama Rush that a lot of moms, especially the
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  moms who had themselves been in sororities. Right,
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  the legacies. The legacies, that they were so
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  invested in seeing their daughters get into the
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  same house, right? Very often on the same campus.
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  Sure, sure. Not just the same national. Sure.
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  And so what I would argue is, it's helicopter
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  parenting, but where these are moms who want
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  a great deal of attention themselves, right?
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  Are not just living vicariously through their
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  children, as opposed to managing their children.
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  As opposed to the dance moms. As opposed to the
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  dance moms, right? So not doing that as much,
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  but wanting themselves to be on the stage, right?
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  Again, to look fantastic, to post, right? Instagram
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  reels about their daughters. And so I would guess
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  that there is a healthy dose of that. added to
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  the helicopter motif. Interestingly, we don't
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  see a whole lot of academic talk. You don't see
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  a lot of parents, say, posting their kids, I
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  don't know, bad AI written papers, or Glee club,
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  or their other activities, or their grades, or
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  hey, my kid made Dean's List. I'm going to make
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  a TikTok about it. You don't see Dean's List
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  talk. Well, that is true. And of course, the
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  other component of rush talk is that for a lot
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  of moms, they are still thinking about the comparisons
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  among houses. They are thinking which house is
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  the one on top. So it becomes an advertisement
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  for their daughter's popularity and beauty, social
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  status. And of course, the glee club is never
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  going to do that same thing. And so that's the
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  other interesting question. So for moms whose
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  daughters are getting into kind of like the not
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  super popular house, right? Presumably they're
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  not going on and saying, look, my daughter got
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  into the zero competition house. My daughter
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  got rejected from the top three and is now like
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  with a bunch of other girls who got rejected
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  from those houses. Yes. I have to, you know,
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  I will tell one little sorority story if I can.
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  Which is that, uh, I knew someone who did rush
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  and did actually join a sorority at a university
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  that's not going to be mentioned here. Okay.
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  And she told a story about one house that she
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  rushed and this house had some sort of like special
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  like snack mix. It was something totally stupid
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  and bizarre like that. And they would ask the
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  pledges, what did this snack mix or whatever
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  it was taste like? And so the person I knew who
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  rushed and did not get a bid said, Oh, it was
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  so weird because you were supposed to say it
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  tasted like X. And what I didn't say to this
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  person who had rushed unsuccessfully is that
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  I would guess the answer, the right answer pretty
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  much depended upon whether they liked the girl
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  or not, right? That this was a very easy way
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  to get rid of girls that they did not think were
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  really it. So anyway, because I was like, it
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  can't be the case that these girls - That there
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  was an actual answer. So it's sort of like the
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  voting registration drives in the South. Right?
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  Whatever the answer is, it's wrong. It's not
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  right. Unless we already want to, right? And
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  yes. Right. So I was, yes. And I think of that
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  in terms of are the moms posting like, oh, here
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  are my daughter's failures. Right. I'm guessing
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  that's not it. Well, it's also a point of great
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  pride, and I know for some of the moms I have
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  talked about here whose daughters have joined
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  the sororities of their choice or the sororities
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  that they were in, it was a driving force in
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  them attending the college to begin with. Yes.
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  And I understand that. If my... daughter went
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  to my college and you know she she won't and
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  she won't do any of the things that i did because
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  we're very different people but i can understand
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  the investment and the family investment in you
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  know having these connections and and following
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  through well one one of the weird and that does
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  make sense but one one of the weirdest examples
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  in bama rush It's a girl who's like from Wisconsin
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  or something, right? No family connection to
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  Bama, right, at all. But for whatever reason,
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  going to this place and joining X house, whatever
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  it was, right, was absolutely illuminating for
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  her. And her parents, in that case, were like,
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  where the hell did this come from that you're
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  like, I wanna be, you know, kappa kappa gamma
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  Bama or whatever. So. But you always have those
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  people, again, I never quite understand it, but
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  it is a phenomenon of itself. And I feel like
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  someone should write about it. People who are
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  obsessed with schools for no reason, but just
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  are. They follow football teams that no one in
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  their family has any connection to. They don't
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  live in the region. But for some reason, they
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  love Notre Dame. And you don't know why they
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  love Notre Dame. Over, I don't know, Purdue or
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  I don't know, some other place. But they love
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  that place. And then they want to go there and
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  all of it. Again, my own children were not like
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  that and we are very regionally tied. And yeah,
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  we don't have these like random associations,
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  but a lot of people do. A lot of people do. And
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  in some ways, I guess that's nice and comforting.
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  It certainly is a reflection of a modern American
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  dynamic, right? That it has become sort of translocal.
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  And I always think our wonderful department coordinator
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  and her husband became a huge Patriots fan. simply
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  because he was from the state of Michigan. Right.
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  And so he associated Michigan, the state, with
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  Tom Brady, the person. Right. And then began
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  to follow the Patriots. And I'm sure he's not
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  doing that now. Right. Although if he is, that
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  would be really interesting. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
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  For sure. And a lot going on in college football
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  last night. Penn State in double overtime, which
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  ended badly. So I heard. Despite the White House.
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  Despite the white eye which is again. I don't
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  I don't know if my son is uh Alive today, but
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  I hope he is and then the sort of Bama Georgia
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  of it all which I mean A lot of people might
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  not associate this with this podcast, but it's
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  - Lord and I both watch college football. We
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  drink in the South long enough. Yeah, we drink
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  some of the Kool -Aid. I don't know if we're
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  even following the right teams necessarily. But
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  yeah, having had a son at the Whiteout game,
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  which by the way, the tickets for the Whiteout
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  game are $400. He did not pay $400. I certainly
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  hope not. And he somehow got in there. Okay.
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  But that Whiteout game, I mean, I don't know
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  what - I don't know what to say about it. I don't
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  know what to say about it. Although as I told
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  Jim, I do not understand why the players were
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  not wearing white. Yeah, why aren't they? We
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  don't know. Okay, okay. We don't know. And that
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  the white -out tradition is fairly new. It's
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  a 2004 tradition. So when Jim went to Penn State,
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  there was no white -out game. And again, if you
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  think, if anyone's going to wear white, you would
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  think these football players would wear white.
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  You would think so. But they didn't. You would
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  think so. And it made the game kind of confusing
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  because their uniforms looked a lot like the
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  Oregon uniforms. So, anyway. Anyway, back to
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  our mothers and daughters. Okay. But it is, I
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  mean, the Bama mom, I'm sorry, sorority tip -talk,
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  that does obviously point to many of the things
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  we need to talk about with moms and daughters,
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  the different kinds of relationships that they
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  have, the ways in which moms very often want
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  to see their daughters. sort of as a reflection
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  of themselves and the way in which they can evolve
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  themselves. Or as a way that they can continue
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  parenting and continue their own existence. Yes.
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  So in what is it called again? In the documentary
• 12:23
  about the catfish egg. How can you forget this?
• 12:27
  Unknown number. Okay. Unknown number. So here
• 12:29
  is one caveat to say before we talk about unknown
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  number. Unknown number has the biggest spoiler.
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  of perhaps anything in it. It has the biggest
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  reveal. So if you have not seen Unknown Number,
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  which is this documentary about catfishing in
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  this high school, you really should fast forward
• 12:50
  through this segment of the podcast because you
• 12:53
  need to watch it and we will ruin it for you.
• 12:56
  The entire reason to watch this really horrific
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  documentary. It's actually a brilliantly made
• 13:05
  documentary in the sense that you really don't
• 13:07
  know what the spoiler is going to be, but the
• 13:09
  content of it is pretty horrific. But we will
• 13:13
  talk about the whole thing and we will talk about
• 13:16
  the identity of the catfisher. The reveal is
• 13:23
  so sh - Shocking. When I found this out, I had
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  to pause the TV and just sit there for a couple
• 13:35
  minutes to process. And then I didn't believe
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  it. I had to keep rewinding it and playing it
• 13:41
  again because I just didn't believe it. And you
• 13:44
  don't want to believe it. No, and you don't want
• 13:46
  to believe it. You don't want to believe it.
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  It is a... Horrible reveal. Okay, so this documentary
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  is about this small town High school, there's
• 14:00
  only a couple hundred people that attend this
• 14:03
  high school and then have attended School together
• 14:07
  forever forever forever. They don't really they
• 14:09
  don't know any other people. They're this really
• 14:12
  small community They're really tight -knit. Where
• 14:14
  is it again? It's Was it in Indiana? Wisconsin,
• 14:17
  Michigan, Indiana. Someone in the Midwest. One
• 14:19
  of those. Okay. One of those states with a lot
• 14:21
  of like blonde Lutherans in it. Right, right.
• 14:23
  And so there are these two young lovebirds, Lauren
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  and Owen, who start dating in middle school and
• 14:32
  they're just a kind of puppy love and they're
• 14:34
  really good friends, but they have a real fondness
• 14:37
  for each other and they continue to date and
• 14:40
  to high school. And at some point in high school,
• 14:44
  Lauren and Owen start getting these horrible
• 14:48
  horrible texts and they're constant that are
• 14:52
  Starting to say that Lauren is ugly then they
• 14:56
  need to break up that Lauren is I mean I would
• 14:58
  I can't even repeat some of the things that they
• 15:01
  say about her on this podcast because it is it
• 15:03
  is so harmful and it is so just It is so frightening
• 15:09
  what they're saying. They're telling her to kill
• 15:11
  herself They're telling her that Owen is with
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  other girls and and the persistent nature of
• 15:18
  these texts. It just won't stop. For years. And
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  they're getting the texts and then the parents
• 15:25
  are getting the texts and more people are finding
• 15:27
  out about these texts and so the parents in the
• 15:30
  community start telling the teachers and the
• 15:32
  administrators and they want to know who's sending
• 15:35
  them and then all these other people get fingered
• 15:38
  for sending the texts. And part of the reason
• 15:41
  why is because nothing external makes a difference
• 15:44
  in terms of trying to stop it, right? No phone
• 15:47
  numbers being changed, no new phones, right?
• 15:49
  Nothing makes a difference. That it is constant,
• 15:53
  that even if they do try something, the the texter
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  will discover. And also, Lauren has a poor to
• 16:01
  non -existent relationship with her boyfriend
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  Owen's closest friend, who is another girl. And
• 16:07
  there's very much this vibe that Owen's closest
• 16:09
  friends are these mean girls who dis, and in
• 16:12
  some ways that I didn't really kind of understand
• 16:13
  the entire dynamic. But there very much is the
• 16:16
  idea that Lauren is not one of the popular girls.
• 16:21
  She's sort of on the outside, even though she
• 16:22
  is dating this popular boy. and that his female
• 16:27
  friends don't like her. And so suspicion naturally
• 16:30
  falls on the female friend, Mean Girls. But it
• 16:33
  also, in addition to the Mean Girls, because
• 16:37
  of the kind of details that the perpetrator reveals,
• 16:41
  the sweater in somebody's house, they realize
• 16:46
  that it has to be somebody who has been around
• 16:50
  Lauren and her family on a sort of per annular
• 16:55
  level. Yes, intimate family occasions. It couldn't
• 16:58
  have been one of these mean girls because these
• 17:00
  mean girls, there are things about her that they
• 17:03
  couldn't know or that they couldn't have access
• 17:06
  to and it really feels like the sort of this
• 17:11
  predator is just lurking around this girl and
• 17:15
  watching her every move and and also that They
• 17:19
  play basketball the girls yes And so you know
• 17:22
  talking about the games and who she played and
• 17:24
  who had this many points And I mean just the
• 17:27
  kinds of things you would only know Honestly,
• 17:29
  if you were with us if you were this girl if
• 17:31
  you were this girl and so suspicion falls again
• 17:34
  very naturally on her cousin And the idea that
• 17:39
  this is someone who would have been present at
• 17:40
  these events, the cousin herself is someone kind
• 17:44
  of socially awkward and on the outside. And so
• 17:47
  there's the theory perhaps that she's just jealous
• 17:49
  or she wants to get one of the mean girls in
• 17:51
  trouble. But she also then is sort of crossed
• 17:54
  off the list. And one of the other things that
• 17:57
  is so disturbing about the content, Lauren, as
• 17:59
  you say, so much of it directed at Lauren is
• 18:04
  so super hurtful, insulting, kill yourself. Sexually
• 18:08
  graphic. Sexually graphic, but then the ones
• 18:11
  to him. And again, which start when they're what,
• 18:14
  13? Yeah. Also sexually graphic. Really, really
• 18:17
  sexual. And also like, you know, not just dump
• 18:19
  Lauren, but again, very, very explicit. Yeah.
• 18:23
  And again, the, and written in a register that
• 18:28
  you would think is a teenager. Is a teenager.
• 18:30
  Right, so a lot of slang. write a lot of like
• 18:33
  you just the letter you for you all of this sort
• 18:35
  of text line it's written in a way that would
• 18:39
  make anyone investigating this Really cross adults
• 18:42
  off the list because you wouldn't think that
• 18:45
  an adult would even have any Sense of the register
• 18:49
  of these kids in a way that I don't in a way
• 18:52
  that sometimes You know my my kids will write
• 18:55
  me a text and I'm like, what is that? What is
• 18:57
  that saying? What are you saying? What are you
• 18:58
  saying to me? You're writing, you know, I don't
• 19:00
  want to do TS Like is that okay? That's this
• 19:03
  shit. No, I know But this person writing these
• 19:08
  texts is fluent fluent in teenage text language
• 19:12
  in a way that they would, most adults, or even
• 19:17
  I would say most people not of that generation,
• 19:20
  or even that high school might not be. But then
• 19:24
  teamed also, that's what was so disturbing about
• 19:26
  the text. So you have that, but then teamed also
• 19:29
  with this incredible sexual maturity. Yes. Right,
• 19:32
  the reference to blowjobs, the reference basically
• 19:34
  again to basically like having, not having sex,
• 19:37
  and again super graphic. Graphic. That's what
• 19:40
  is in some ways so disturbing about those texts
• 19:42
  is that one in the same time, it very clearly
• 19:44
  is a teenage voice. But then you're like, I really
• 19:47
  hope this is not a teenage voice, right? Because
• 19:50
  it is so sexually explicit, sexually mature.
• 19:54
  and also with this almost sort of pornified vibe,
• 19:57
  right? Where you're like, okay, this sounds like
• 19:59
  a teenager who watches a lot of porn, and I'm
• 20:01
  not crazy about that idea. Right, it's giving,
• 20:04
  you know, again, it's giving sex offender vibes,
• 20:07
  but from a teenager's point of view and voice.
• 20:13
  It's it's very bizarre in certain terms of the
• 20:17
  the way that these texts are coming about and
• 20:20
  that this person who's sending these texts is
• 20:22
  also able to Find other teenagers and other counties
• 20:27
  at one point Owen starts dating this other girl
• 20:29
  somewhere else and she starts getting the tags
• 20:32
  and that whoever's doing it is a skilled IT person.
• 20:36
  I mean, they are not, you can't encrypt it. A
• 20:39
  person's not just changing phones and changing
• 20:41
  burners. They have really kind of gotten it down.
• 20:44
  Yeah, so they have basically a masking app. So
• 20:47
  all of these texts, the number itself is masked
• 20:49
  and so can't be tracked. And as you pointed out,
• 20:53
  what one of the, I think the ironies about this
• 20:55
  is that in effect, the texter gets what he or
• 20:58
  she wants in that the couple break up, right?
• 21:01
  Which seems to have been the goal. But then as
• 21:03
  Owen starts dating another girl at another school,
• 21:06
  the same texts happen with this other girl. And
• 21:09
  Lauren in effect gets like a relief, right? Seems
• 21:12
  to be the case because now the other girl is
• 21:14
  this target and that ruins that relationship
• 21:17
  as well. But Lauren continues to become, to be.
• 21:21
  a victim of these texts, even when they break
• 21:24
  up. I mean, just telling her to still kill herself,
• 21:26
  she's saying you're ugly, she's saying all these
• 21:29
  things about, the texts are saying these things
• 21:31
  about Lauren's body. And just to also, this is
• 21:33
  a small detail, but important, if you're listening
• 21:36
  to this and you haven't watched this, is that
• 21:38
  the majority of the documentary is pulling from
• 21:41
  the records of the printed out texts. So it's...
• 21:46
  It's not like there's evidence that this was
• 21:48
  made up by somebody. The evidence is there. It
• 21:51
  is there. That there are thousands and thousands
• 21:53
  and thousands of texts. And so anyone could have
• 21:55
  said, oh, so -and -so just made up this was happening
• 21:58
  to them and wanted somebody to give sympathy
• 22:00
  or whatever. That's out the window because there
• 22:02
  are records of these texts. The other thing about
• 22:05
  the documentary that I think that makes it quite
• 22:07
  brilliant in terms of the editing is that the
• 22:09
  whole thing obviously is told after everyone
• 22:12
  knows who... sent the text. So in the beginning,
• 22:17
  the people who are interviewed are able to talk
• 22:20
  about this story and what has happened to them
• 22:23
  without revealing who sent the text. And as you
• 22:27
  say then, so very much the sense of sort of real
• 22:29
  time. And so we have interviews with the parents,
• 22:31
  interviews with the principal. All of whom are
• 22:33
  saying, right, this is the way it was when we
• 22:35
  first heard about it. And then it got worse and
• 22:37
  then it got worse and then it got worse. And
• 22:39
  so we very much are reliving this experience.
• 22:41
  And one of the things, of course, that comes
• 22:42
  up so often is that the parents don't think that
• 22:46
  there is adequate investigation by the principal.
• 22:49
  They then don't think that the local cop is doing
• 22:51
  enough. And so there is nothing really is able
• 22:55
  to escalate in terms of the investigation until
• 22:58
  the FBI is finally called. Now, when the FBI
• 23:01
  is called, It is even taking the FBI a while
• 23:05
  to encrypt these texts But finally we we learn
• 23:09
  the FBI learned and we learned it almost feels
• 23:12
  like we learned at the same time as the FBI Even
• 23:14
  though of course the FBI already know That the
• 23:18
  texts were being sent by Lauren's mother Kendra
• 23:22
  who had been in the whole documentary who, up
• 23:27
  until this point, whatever, however many minutes
• 23:29
  in, 40 minutes into this thing, has been talking
• 23:31
  about the text as horrifying as trying to protect
• 23:34
  her daughter. We didn't know who was doing it.
• 23:36
  She was the basketball coach. She felt like a
• 23:40
  mother not only to Lauren, but also to many of
• 23:43
  the girls. She was just as shocked and outraged.
• 23:46
  She had actually teamed up with Owen's mother
• 23:49
  to try to find the perpetrator. And I get that
• 23:53
  this woman was herself the perpetrator, the mother
• 23:56
  of the girl who has been victimized for years
• 24:00
  now, years. With daily, daily 40 texts a day.
• 24:04
  Yes. I mean, we just don't know. We just don't
• 24:06
  know. And this mother is... arrested, this mother
• 24:13
  is questioned, and the daughter is sitting right
• 24:15
  there, and we also learn that she had been telling
• 24:20
  her husband, Lauren's father, that she was working
• 24:23
  remotely, and that she had been working in Texas,
• 24:26
  and I don't know, all these other places, and
• 24:28
  that she actually had had no job for multiple
• 24:31
  years, and was just doing this stalking full
• 24:35
  time. Full time. This was her full time job.
• 24:37
  Telling her daughter to kill herself was her
• 24:39
  full time job. And I guess creeping around the
• 24:41
  school and creeping around the people because
• 24:44
  there's no way she could have texted these things
• 24:47
  without actually following people and it wasn't
• 24:50
  just sitting at home. She had to be sort of mobile.
• 24:52
  We don't hear as much about that but there's
• 24:55
  no way she could have known all of these things
• 24:57
  just by living her... her life and sitting at
• 24:59
  home. Yes. But she did have a, you know, SUV
• 25:03
  style storyboard up there with all the people
• 25:08
  pinned and, you know, triangulated and connections.
• 25:11
  And it was just disgusting and horrifying. And
• 25:17
  so her explanation, which comes after she went
• 25:22
  to prison for a short amount of time. For a short
• 25:25
  amount of time. The Owens family confronted her
• 25:29
  in court and she hadn't seen Lauren again at
• 25:33
  that point, at the end of the documentary, but
• 25:35
  she basically sort of said, well, no, I didn't
• 25:39
  want to let my daughter grow up and I wanted
• 25:41
  to cling on to her and this is like the only
• 25:44
  way I knew how. Well, and this, I mean, of course,
• 25:47
  it's so completely unpersuasive because, right,
• 25:50
  she tries to make this argument that she herself
• 25:53
  had been molested or sexually abused or something,
• 25:56
  not as a child, but that her teen years had something
• 26:00
  had happened sexually that she wasn't comfortable
• 26:01
  with, and that it's this completely convoluted
• 26:04
  explanation that says, I was trying to... Prevent
• 26:09
  my daughter from having a bad experience like
• 26:12
  i did right there for two or three years i told
• 26:17
  her to kill herself and basically said like her
• 26:19
  boyfriend was getting blowjobs from some other
• 26:22
  girl and if she didn't put out this is basically
• 26:25
  what i mean it's it's not really ridiculous and
• 26:27
  she also tries to say write that the very first
• 26:30
  text. This is the other explanation, right? The
• 26:33
  very first text wasn't me, but then I thought
• 26:36
  I would send Owen and Lauren texts pretending
• 26:40
  to be that person, hoping that then they would
• 26:43
  come back and say, is this Susie? And that would
• 26:45
  tell me who it was, right? And of course, none
• 26:47
  of these are persuasive. She's just a psychopath.
• 26:50
  Well, and I think there's evidence, I'm not an
• 26:54
  MD, okay, but I might just, I mean, you know,
• 26:57
  could be, that she, It has some form of schizophrenia
• 27:01
  and that she may not have been completely disassociated
• 27:05
  with herself when she was sending these tags.
• 27:08
  This is an excuse. I'm just that she turned into
• 27:11
  this like... weird, like, again, predatory teenage
• 27:16
  boy sending these texts in this jargon. And then
• 27:19
  the other part of her time, she was with her
• 27:21
  daughter and her daughter's basketball team and
• 27:24
  coaching them and acting like a regular mom.
• 27:27
  The whole thing is just so bananas that it is
• 27:33
  impossible to understand. It is. Although we
• 27:35
  have the other explanation, right, that she is
• 27:39
  someone who has always craved attention. Yes.
• 27:41
  And that this, in effect, someone even uses the
• 27:43
  Munchausen by Foxy, right? That this is a version
• 27:46
  of that. It's kind of a digital version where
• 27:48
  she is able to be the center of the drama by
• 27:52
  saying the administration at school isn't doing
• 27:54
  enough, and oh, my poor daughter, and she's going
• 27:56
  through so much, and again, we're going to be
• 27:58
  detectives here. And so that's something else.
• 28:02
  But of course, there are better ways to get attention
• 28:04
  than telling your own daughter, you're ugly and
• 28:07
  fat and you should kill yourself. Yes. And not
• 28:11
  only the life of her daughter, the life of Owen
• 28:13
  and the life of these other kids who are, you
• 28:17
  know, accused and had to live with it. And it
• 28:20
  was really painful for them to their families.
• 28:23
  I mean, she really destroyed this community.
• 28:26
  Yes. And and it's it's The end, when you see
• 28:30
  Lauren saying, you know, I haven't seen my mom
• 28:32
  in a while, but I love her and I hope I really
• 28:36
  miss her, I hope I see her soon, is just... Troubling
• 28:41
  and awful and your your heart breaks for her
• 28:45
  that she wants to see her mom Your heart breaks
• 28:47
  for her that this has happened to her Her father
• 28:50
  has been you know spending time with her taking
• 28:52
  care of her and seems like he's been doing As
• 28:55
  good a job as possible as possible give this
• 28:57
  incredible trauma. Oh But then we have the other
• 29:01
  dynamic, too Right, which is so disturbing even
• 29:04
  to think about, but is unavoidable, that it also
• 29:07
  simply seems possibility. She has a sexual obsession
• 29:10
  with this boy from when he's 12, 13. I mean,
• 29:14
  they show pictures of him when he's just a little
• 29:17
  middle schooler. When they started dating. And
• 29:21
  until what? He's a teenager. And he does say,
• 29:25
  right, that there were moments where she seemed
• 29:27
  to be really attentive to him and kind of give
• 29:29
  you a ride somewhere. You know that the possibility
• 29:33
  that she sees her daughter right or then there's
• 29:35
  these other girls that he dates is a sexual rival.
• 29:39
  Why isn't she basically arrested for you when
• 29:43
  she is arrested right for in effect. Creepy sexual
• 29:47
  stuff. Because that also is the other disturbing
• 29:51
  part. There are so many disturbing things about
• 29:54
  this. And again, the dynamics of this, which
• 29:58
  are interesting, especially compared to some
• 30:00
  of the other texts we're going to talk about,
• 30:02
  is not a momager vibe. And the whole time that
• 30:07
  you're watching this documentary, you don't get
• 30:09
  a sense that this is a mom who's trying to control
• 30:12
  her daughter and trying to put her in pageants.
• 30:15
  And this is not helicopter parenting. Although
• 30:18
  she tries to say it is, right? She tries to say,
• 30:20
  oh, well, I was just trying to prevent this terrible
• 30:22
  thing. But of course, again, that's not believable.
• 30:24
  But you don't get that sense at all. And you
• 30:27
  got the sense that this, before all this happened,
• 30:29
  that this was, you know, a pretty independent,
• 30:32
  you know, like normal high school kid who had
• 30:35
  a boyfriend and was really athletic and liked
• 30:37
  to play basketball and softball and you know,
• 30:41
  but it just... So heartbreaking to find out that
• 30:45
  her mother is so sad and again that there's there's
• 30:49
  no clear motivation in the way again as worked
• 30:53
  as the motivation might be in the other tax talking
• 30:56
  about okay the the motivation there is. It's
• 31:00
  at least understandable. It's not excusable,
• 31:04
  but it's understandable. This is just, who could
• 31:08
  ever make sense of this? Well, and that's the
• 31:10
  thing is, and I think this does come up in the
• 31:11
  documentary, but of course this style of abuse,
• 31:16
  right? So again, she's not physically abusive.
• 31:17
  She's not even emotionally abusive at home, right?
• 31:20
  She's not a yeller. She's not saying you're fat
• 31:22
  and ugly to her face. It's so bizarre, but it
• 31:25
  is abuse, right? Absolutely abuse. And so in
• 31:29
  addition, to the whole question of motivation,
• 31:31
  right? Even trying to say, what do we call it,
• 31:35
  right, when this mother pretending to be someone
• 31:39
  else? Right. Levels this degree of beyond abuse
• 31:43
  to her own child. I think it's so, anyway, it's
• 31:46
  so disturbing. Well, and I mean, I don't mean
• 31:49
  to stay the obvious, but if an IT person in the
• 31:54
  Midwest can do this to their daughter and for
• 31:58
  years undetected with the FBI even having some
• 32:02
  trouble, we really wonder what the pros can do.
• 32:05
  Yeah. Although in fairness to that, I mean, you're
• 32:07
  right. But of course, if the pros are doing it,
• 32:11
  you can successfully change your number, right?
• 32:13
  And that was the problem here, right? The mother
• 32:16
  was always going to know her and Owen's phone
• 32:19
  numbers, right? And so that, of course, explained
• 32:23
  all that. Sure. Why all of these attempts at
• 32:26
  solving the problem never worked. And so theoretically,
• 32:30
  right, the hope is that... a pro doing something
• 32:32
  similar. There would at least be that possibility
• 32:35
  of extracting yourself from the situation. It
• 32:37
  made me really wonder about who, again, who has
• 32:40
  access to these kids. And again, in a small town
• 32:45
  like this one, where you don't have, again, police
• 32:48
  or metal detectors or whatever surrounded around
• 32:51
  the school. Unfortunately, the way that we do
• 32:53
  now in so many high schools, this high school
• 32:55
  was seen as a safe one. It was seen as a tight
• 32:58
  -knit community. And that's what makes it. even
• 33:00
  more awful. Yes, but it does it does illustrate
• 33:03
  the principle that abusers are more likely to
• 33:07
  be someone that you know and someone closer to
• 33:09
  your family circle as depressing as that is.
• 33:12
  Right. But one just never would have expected
• 33:14
  it in that form. No. And again, as you're saying,
• 33:18
  as I was talking to you with my own mother last
• 33:20
  night, the register of the tax really made all
• 33:25
  the adults cross off the list. Yes, absolutely.
• 33:29
  And that's Again, in most cases where there is
• 33:32
  child abuse or, you know, this kind of predatory
• 33:36
  behavior, adults are not crossed off the list.
• 33:40
  But nobody thought that an adult could be sending
• 33:42
  these texts sounding this way. Yeah. Well, and
• 33:45
  also, I mean, it really does. It sounds so ridiculous
• 33:48
  to say it. But in some ways, it seems more believable
• 33:53
  to think about, like, her, like... hitting her
• 33:56
  child, right? As awful as that is, you know,
• 33:59
  who knows what that says. But it is, in some
• 34:02
  ways, it is even more thinkable to me to imagine
• 34:06
  her sitting in her living room with her daughter,
• 34:08
  getting angry and saying like, why don't you
• 34:10
  just kill yourself? It would still be terrible.
• 34:12
  But in some ways, that still makes more sense.
• 34:15
  But the idea that this woman, right, is sitting
• 34:18
  in her living room, you know, by herself or sitting
• 34:20
  in her car or whatever, with a screen, and I
• 34:23
  like, on purpose, typing that out. And I don't
• 34:26
  know why, but that just seems so much more monstrous
• 34:29
  to me. It is. No, it really is. It really is.
• 34:31
  Especially, again, combined. Also, because we
• 34:32
  can't put a finger on it. I mean, we just can't.
• 34:35
  We're like, what is that? Yeah. Where we've seen
• 34:38
  the other models that we're going to talk about.
• 34:40
  Yes. As horrible as they are, too. And then we
• 34:43
  do have it before we move on. We then, as you
• 34:45
  say, so we do encounter Kendra, the mother, in
• 34:48
  the documentary after she's been released from
• 34:50
  prison. And she also, she has been sending letters
• 34:54
  to her daughter from prison saying, I love you
• 34:56
  so much. I can't wait till we rebuild our relationship.
• 34:59
  You know, you didn't tell me you loved me last
• 35:00
  night and I'm angry at you now. And it's just,
• 35:03
  you really do. as you say, it's heartbreaking
• 35:05
  because you want this girl never to have any
• 35:08
  contact with her mother ever again in her lifetime,
• 35:11
  but also understanding how additionally tragic
• 35:13
  that is. Yes. The whole thing is tragic with
• 35:16
  a capital T. Capital T. Well, let's talk about
• 35:20
  maybe another overbearing mother, abusive mother.
• 35:26
  Yeah, should we then talk about Black Swan? Black
• 35:31
  Swan, Black Swan. So Black Swan came out in 2010,
• 35:38
  stars Natalie Portman as a belly ballerina named
• 35:43
  Nina who has been with the New York City Ballet.
• 35:49
  In the core, right? In the core. For who knows
• 35:51
  how long. Yeah, for who knows how long, but she's
• 35:54
  a pro. Late 20s, maybe? And she's in her late
• 35:57
  20s, and she is chosen by the ballet director
• 36:04
  Thomas. Thomas. Thomas. To replace the former
• 36:10
  Prima Ballerina who played by Winona Ryder. I
• 36:13
  had totally forgotten. This is a shock because
• 36:20
  not because Nina is not a beautiful dancer but
• 36:22
  because Nina is going to be the swan queen and
• 36:26
  needs to be both the white swan and the black
• 36:29
  swan and Nina's personality and also her performative
• 36:33
  style lends itself to the white swan much more
• 36:37
  so the kind of promiscuous, free, spontaneous,
• 36:44
  passionate, uninhibited. black swan. This is,
• 36:48
  by the way, Swan Lake, Tchaikovsky's Swan
• 36:50
  Lake. So the film is about Nina's journey to
• 36:55
  become the black swan, and a lot of Aronofsky's,
• 36:59
  you know, motifs are physical, kind of body horror.
• 37:03
  She's physically morphing into a swan, but it
• 37:07
  also captures a lot of the physicality of being
• 37:11
  a dancer. Having been the mother of a dancer
• 37:15
  for a long time, I can really appreciate the
• 37:20
  care that was taken to capture all the different
• 37:23
  elements, some of them very unpleasant that dancers
• 37:26
  go through to make sure their brand new pointe
• 37:29
  shoes are dance ready, to take care of their
• 37:33
  toes, to take care of their bodies, to the regimen.
• 37:38
  And it also captures the real stakes in the dance
• 37:44
  world of, you know, rising to the top, competing
• 37:47
  with other ballerinas. And the one thing that
• 37:50
  the film captures, which, again, I saw even in
• 37:55
  my daughter's company when she danced, was this
• 37:58
  real dichotomy between You have these dancers
• 38:01
  that are supposed to be pure, that are supposed
• 38:03
  to be physically beautiful, all those expectations,
• 38:07
  but on these incredibly sexualized roles. And
• 38:11
  some of them quite young. Some of them 12, 13
• 38:14
  years old, dancing with much older male dancers,
• 38:17
  and in roles that are very, very mature, and
• 38:21
  stories that are very, very mature. And even
• 38:24
  though Natalie Portman's character is in her
• 38:27
  20s, she still has to embody that kind of maturity
• 38:32
  and sexuality in being the Black Swan. But this
• 38:37
  also connects to the issue with her mother, played
• 38:40
  by Barbara Hershey, because it's very clear that
• 38:43
  we have in Barbara Hershey's mom character, we
• 38:47
  have someone who did herself fail at being a
• 38:49
  ballet dancer. She tries to argue that she gave
• 38:54
  up this promising career because she got pregnant,
• 38:57
  although Natalie Portman's character, Nina, later
• 38:59
  says that this is not true, right? This is simply
• 39:01
  a story that her mother has been telling herself
• 39:03
  to explain her failure. But it's very clear that
• 39:06
  her mother has been keeping her as a little girl.
• 39:10
  So even though she is in her late 20s, the bedroom
• 39:13
  is still decorated as if it is a child's bedroom,
• 39:16
  still has the stuffed animals. Her mother dresses
• 39:18
  her and undresses her. And it's super personal
• 39:22
  and physical. And so we have this juxtaposition,
• 39:26
  right, that as a dancer, she is described as
• 39:29
  being very cold. Frigid. Frigid, but perfect.
• 39:33
  So very much this dichotomy. of the coldness
• 39:37
  and the perfection that is dispassionate that
• 39:41
  has no sort of body or life behind it and then
• 39:44
  again the supposed black swan more messy and
• 39:48
  passionate and and more Joie de Vivre. But he
• 39:52
  was also a woman, right? He was also a woman.
• 39:54
  And it's suggested very strongly, even though
• 39:56
  the character denies it, that Nina is a virgin.
• 39:59
  And we have this then contrary figure, the Mila
• 40:02
  Kunis character, Lily, who does exist, by the
• 40:06
  way, right? She is not just a figment of Nina's
• 40:09
  imagination. Although there are hallucinations.
• 40:11
  Yes, there are hallucinations of her. And so
• 40:13
  part of the... function of the film is to make
• 40:19
  you question what's in Nina's mind, what's not
• 40:22
  in Nina's mind, when is Lily there, when is she
• 40:26
  not there. Yes, she's a real person in the dance
• 40:28
  company, but many of the things that happen in
• 40:31
  the film that we see are hallucinations or figments
• 40:36
  of Nina's mind. Yes. As she's transitioning to
• 40:39
  becoming this black swan. So there's this irrationality
• 40:43
  that's embodied in in becoming mature or uninhibited
• 40:48
  or however you want to think about it. Or being
• 40:50
  able to reconcile having both aspects of these
• 40:54
  personalities, right? Not just the white swan,
• 40:56
  but also the black swan. And one of the things
• 40:58
  you mentioned, the body horror, which of course
• 41:00
  in part is extremely realistic, right? But then
• 41:02
  we also have the unrealistic body horror, such
• 41:05
  as the wings starting to sprout from her shoulders.
• 41:07
  But what we also have so often in this film is
• 41:11
  which also makes sense, images of mirrors and
• 41:14
  reflections in windows, right? Over and over
• 41:17
  and over again. I mean, in a very unsubtle way.
• 41:19
  Darren Aronofsky is not the world's most subtle
• 41:21
  director. But also the mirror showing sometimes
• 41:24
  her, sometimes showing Lily, sometimes showing
• 41:27
  her mother, sometimes these kind of rotating
• 41:30
  images of people. And so you don't know exactly
• 41:35
  who she's imagining herself to be at a given
• 41:37
  time. Yes. And very disturbingly, this happens
• 41:40
  when she has an imagined sexual experience with
• 41:45
  Lily, that she sees her own face, which actually
• 41:48
  I think is one of the creeper things. That's
• 41:50
  pretty creepy. And I do think, I just have to
• 41:53
  say, I think that one... I assume, I've never
• 41:56
  looked this up, but that one of the inspirations
• 41:59
  for this is Ingmar Bergman's Persona, which is
• 42:02
  a wonderful, but in some ways very dark film
• 42:05
  about a woman who has become mute and the nurse
• 42:09
  that is hired to take care of her, they in effect
• 42:10
  start blending into the same person. They look
• 42:12
  physically alike. and they become intertwined
• 42:15
  in their personalities. And this has been my
• 42:18
  assumption. It definitely has nothing to do with
• 42:20
  dance and isn't even really about physicality
• 42:23
  at all. But I think that this is something absolutely...
• 42:25
  We actually did not talk about that with The
• 42:27
  Substance. Oh, that's true. That's true. You
• 42:30
  never brought that up. I did not. I did not.
• 42:33
  But there is... Although The Substance came out recently,
• 42:38
  there definitely is Black Swan energy in The
• 42:42
  Substance. Yes, I completely agree. There's no
• 42:44
  question that even though there are two different
• 42:46
  people in the substance, and this doesn't deal
• 42:50
  with the issue of age in the same way that the
• 42:52
  substance does. Yes, we only really see it in
• 42:56
  that it's very clear that Winona Ryder's character,
• 42:58
  right? Yes. She's being given the boot. because
• 43:00
  she is perceived now as being too short. And
• 43:02
  who knows what? The notoriety would have been
• 43:05
  40. But for a dancer, that is realistic. Also
• 43:10
  that she had a, it seemed complicated relationship
• 43:14
  with Tomas, who pretty much slept with every
• 43:16
  dancer in the company. And doing so basically
• 43:18
  telling himself that this is spurring creative
• 43:20
  greatness for him basically to bang the dancers.
• 43:26
  question for you and you know we can talk about
• 43:31
  the sort of Barbara Hershey of it all but you
• 43:33
  told me that you didn't like this film anymore
• 43:38
  on this I don't know what what what number of
• 43:40
  you in seconds second viewing then you did when
• 43:43
  you initially saw it correct and I thought that
• 43:45
  I would like it better. And I don't really know
• 43:49
  what it is. I think part of it is that I do have
• 43:52
  a strong dislike to Natalie Portman as an actress.
• 43:54
  Oh, interesting. And of course, she did win the
• 43:57
  Best Actress Oscar for this role. Right. And
• 44:00
  I think that in some ways, I think it reflects
• 44:04
  exactly what Thomas says. I feel this way about
• 44:08
  Natalie Portman. I feel like she has, she's a
• 44:11
  beautiful woman, exquisitely beautiful. I feel
• 44:13
  like she has no sex appeal. She has no charisma
• 44:17
  to me. And she, and maybe in part it's just thinking
• 44:21
  of, you know, Padme Amidala from the terrible
• 44:23
  Star Wars prequels. But I've always thought that
• 44:26
  her best acting is in The Professional, which
• 44:29
  is 12 years old, and she's great. And so I feel
• 44:33
  to me, she is not someone who has a great deal
• 44:35
  of vivacity as an actress. And I would say the
• 44:38
  same thing about May/December, which you and
• 44:40
  I watched together. We did not like that. We
• 44:41
  didn't. But to me, that's also Natalie Portman,
• 44:44
  right? It's the voice. It's the comportment.
• 44:47
  It's the body. And I don't mean, again, in that
• 44:49
  she's not beautiful. Again, she's exquisitely
• 44:50
  beautiful. But I do feel that way. I feel like
• 44:53
  she is cold as an actor. She doesn't move me.
• 44:57
  And I felt the same way again, watching this.
• 45:01
  And maybe that maybe Darren Aronofsky feels the
• 45:04
  same way as I do. And that's why she was cast
• 45:06
  in that role. I doubt that. But nevertheless,
• 45:10
  that is it to me. And so, again, seeing that
• 45:13
  and I think also the second time seeing it, I
• 45:16
  did appreciate even more that it's It's a rewrite
• 45:20
  of Persona in a lot of ways. And I don't know
• 45:22
  why that didn't really strike me in 2010 when
• 45:25
  I saw it, but there you go. You liked it better.
• 45:27
  I liked it better. Yes. Okay, how come? I liked
• 45:30
  it better. And it's not that I didn't like it
• 45:32
  when we first saw it. When I saw it in the theater,
• 45:34
  I remember... which is when I went and we saw
• 45:36
  it and I don't think we loved it but we thought
• 45:39
  it was interesting and we thought it explored
• 45:40
  a lot. I like movies about creativity and art
• 45:44
  and so I also very much appreciated that the
• 45:48
  nuance it gave to exploring the New York City
• 45:51
  Ballet and all the dimensions of that and I just
• 45:55
  appreciated that on a thematic level. On the
• 45:58
  second time around, having been through, again,
• 46:02
  for probably 10 years, the dance world, and certainly
• 46:06
  not the New York City Ballet, but a pre -professional
• 46:09
  dance company with many of the same dynamics
• 46:11
  that existed in this film, I could appreciate
• 46:17
  the small conflicts, the larger conflicts, the
• 46:24
  conflicts between the dancers, expectations of
• 46:29
  the director, the irrationality of the director,
• 46:33
  and even Barbara Hershey's character, you know,
• 46:36
  I have seen other dance mums act like that. Sure.
• 46:41
  And so for me, there was an element of realism
• 46:44
  that came into it in seeing it the second time.
• 46:48
  Also, I guess I appreciated that Natalie Portman,
• 46:52
  all the work she had done to embody the role,
• 46:56
  the training, the weight loss, the dance training,
• 46:59
  even though she was a dancer as a child, but
• 47:02
  she wasn't a professional ballet dancer. And
• 47:05
  it is for her dancing. So part of me appreciated
• 47:09
  all of that in a technical way that made me appreciate
• 47:14
  the film. more even though some of it as you
• 47:18
  say is wacky and not make a lot of sense and
• 47:23
  and creepy but again there's there's a there's
• 47:28
  a truth in it and even though I think Natalie
• 47:32
  Portman again I agree with you that she is cold
• 47:37
  and that some of her acting isn't you know, the
• 47:41
  most compelling, that there's a truth in the
• 47:44
  film that I appreciated. Okay, can I ask you
• 47:47
  a question then? Because about, so Barbara Hershey's
• 47:50
  character, and I don't think I'd really noticed
• 47:52
  this the first time I saw it when it came out.
• 47:54
  So we never see her outside of the apartment.
• 47:57
  No, right. But we're also not told that she's
• 48:00
  an agoraphobe or anything like that. She's clearly
• 48:02
  an artist. She's become a visual artist. She's
• 48:05
  a painter. Right. But So we don't see her as
• 48:09
  the kind of dance mom who's present, right? The
• 48:13
  only time we see her outside of the apartment
• 48:16
  is at the end when she's in the theater. Oh,
• 48:18
  yes. See, and that's the thing is that I think
• 48:20
  I always thought that that was like a hallucination.
• 48:23
  And I was like, oh, is this real? And she's not
• 48:24
  invited to the party. She says, I wish I could
• 48:26
  have come. That party where he announces, you're
• 48:29
  my swan. Right. And so obviously she is real,
• 48:34
  right? Again, she in general is not a hallucination.
• 48:37
  But I mean, is there any way in which you identify
• 48:41
  with this character in the sense that she is,
• 48:43
  even though she's, again, she's not going down
• 48:44
  to the theater, she's not doing the hair there,
• 48:47
  she's not, you know, let's get the right stockings
• 48:48
  or whatever. Does that character seem real to
• 48:52
  you in terms of being like a dance mom, someone
• 48:55
  who is a parent of someone who is in the ballet
• 48:57
  world? Well, I guess the difference would be
• 49:00
  the age. It makes sense to me that somebody who
• 49:04
  is living in New York, who is the mother of a
• 49:07
  professional dancer, would be living with her
• 49:09
  in an apartment and would be micromanaging her.
• 49:12
  It wouldn't make sense to me that they would
• 49:14
  allow a mom to go into her private dressing room
• 49:18
  the way that they did the moms in My Daughter
• 49:20
  Dance Company because they were little girls.
• 49:23
  But it does make sense to me that... that some
• 49:27
  New York City ballet dancer of Natalie Sportman's
• 49:31
  age might have a mother that she lives with,
• 49:33
  and especially if the mother had been a dancer
• 49:35
  herself and was still really connected to her
• 49:39
  and still clinging on to that world and really
• 49:41
  clinging on to her daughter's aspirations would
• 49:46
  live with her and would micromanage her in the
• 49:49
  way that she did. I mean, we certainly don't
• 49:50
  see her trailing around after her or riding the
• 49:53
  subway with her or doing anything like that.
• 49:55
  She's calling the company. She clearly knows
• 49:58
  still, right? Administrative people or the secretaries
• 50:00
  or whatever at the company. Yes, yes, yes. And
• 50:04
  the interesting thing too about Barbara Hershey,
• 50:07
  which when Natalie Portman gets the role, surprisingly,
• 50:12
  Barbara Hershey is happy for her, but it doesn't
• 50:15
  seem like if Natalie Portman had just been to
• 50:17
  her company member, that Barbara Hershey would
• 50:21
  have... Like flogged her or something like that.
• 50:23
  Yes. Yeah, I agree. That she was just wanting
• 50:27
  to care for her daughter. And again, keep her
• 50:29
  young and keep her like a child and keep her
• 50:32
  immature. And the other thing, because it's a
• 50:35
  hallucination, which is this is a... Part of
• 50:38
  my critique of the film is that we really don't
• 50:40
  know how much Barbara Hershey is appalled by
• 50:43
  Natalie Portman going to the club and going out
• 50:46
  and drinking and being with Mila Kunis or even
• 50:49
  having a girlfriend in the apartment because
• 50:51
  that's all a guess, a hallucination. And we don't
• 50:55
  see her reacting, except for there's that scene
• 50:58
  where she gives her the cake and Natalie Portman's
• 51:00
  like, I don't really want the cake. And then
• 51:01
  she's going to throw it away, like acts like
• 51:03
  a psycho. But nonetheless, we don't see her reacting
• 51:07
  to Natalie Portman. She doesn't say, oh, you
• 51:11
  slept with the director, like you slugged or
• 51:13
  something. It's like, oh, well, that's kind of
• 51:15
  what happens in the ballet world. If you sleep
• 51:17
  with the director, that's something that you
• 51:19
  might have to do. But we do also have, I have
• 51:22
  to bring up, again, the creepiest scene. The
• 51:24
  absolute creepiest scene, which is where Natalie
• 51:27
  Portman wakes up in the morning and basically
• 51:29
  attempts to masturbate because Tomah has said,
• 51:32
  right, go home and touch yourself in his French
• 51:34
  accent or whatever. Anyway, and so we have this
• 51:38
  absolutely appalling scene where she's doing
• 51:42
  it, she's getting really into it, she sort of
• 51:44
  rolls over very naturally and opens her eyes
• 51:45
  and her mother is sitting. asleep, luckily. But
• 51:49
  her mother is, what, three feet away from her,
• 51:51
  sitting in a chair, asleep. Which raises the
• 51:54
  question that I think is not answered in the
• 51:56
  film at all, probably on purpose. Is it the case
• 51:59
  that part of this whole girlhood thing that it
• 52:01
  really is her mother has done whatever she could
• 52:04
  practically to stymie this budding sexuality.
• 52:08
  So in a sense, it's kind of her fault that her
• 52:11
  daughter isn't sort of black swan -ish. And,
• 52:13
  but we don't, that isn't explored enough, right?
• 52:15
  We don't really hear a lot about that. Again,
• 52:18
  there's that little sort of, oh, did he come
• 52:19
  on to you? What did you say about the issue of
• 52:22
  Tamar sleeping with members of the company? But
• 52:24
  that to me, that scene is so disturbing and it
• 52:29
  really seems to lend Barbara Hershey's character
• 52:31
  so much power in the construction of Natalie
• 52:34
  Portman's psychology, but that I do actually
• 52:37
  kind of wish we got a little bit more about that
• 52:38
  because as you say, we don't know if the Lily
• 52:41
  thing in the apartment, how much of it is real
• 52:43
  and seems like none of it is real. Right. The
• 52:45
  idea that she's brought this girl home. And presumably
• 52:47
  also, I mean, we're giving Barbara Hershey's
• 52:50
  interiority a lot of credit here, but that she
• 52:52
  would know that a fully developed dancer with
• 52:56
  a full spectrum of, you know, kind of motivations
• 53:01
  and expressions shouldn't be just a child. should
• 53:07
  have, again, a passion, a romance, seduction.
• 53:12
  And many of these roles demand that. Again, she's
• 53:16
  not just dancing by herself. I mean, she's dancing
• 53:19
  with her future husband, ex -husband. Yes, I
• 53:22
  actually kept thinking that while watching the
• 53:23
  movie. Right. But that ballet is inherently,
• 53:27
  especially when you're dealing with professional
• 53:29
  mature dancers, not kids, right? That ballet
• 53:32
  is a very passionate art form, and that in stunting
• 53:37
  Natalie Portman the way she does, she is limiting
• 53:39
  her range as an artist. And perhaps intentionally,
• 53:43
  right? For all we know. Because however much
• 53:46
  she wants to live vicariously through her, presumably
• 53:49
  there's also this glimmer of she doesn't want
• 53:52
  her to succeed. better than she herself had done,
• 53:56
  right? She doesn't want her daughter to succeed,
• 53:57
  which we get a sense of when Natalie Portman
• 54:00
  throws at her, right, basically, well, I'm the
• 54:03
  star of this show, and you were always just in
• 54:06
  the core, and you never made it out of the core.
• 54:08
  And so we get that sense of competition between
• 54:09
  mother and daughter. Sure, sure, sure. So we
• 54:13
  have then just to, because one thing I think
• 54:15
  about with Unknown Number, although I try not
• 54:17
  to think about it, is what would, Kendra Locari
• 54:21
  have done if she just had a son, right, as opposed
• 54:25
  to a daughter. That's an interesting question.
• 54:26
  But then I also think in terms of Black Swan,
• 54:28
  right, what would that dynamic be if in fact
• 54:31
  this were about a male ballet dancer? A male
• 54:33
  dancer. Still with Barbara Hershey's character.
• 54:37
  Would it have looked entirely different? Again,
• 54:40
  if we're removing that sense of basically, I
• 54:42
  hate to use this word, but sort of mimesis with
• 54:44
  the mother and daughter, right? That you are
• 54:46
  just simply this copy of me continuing on into
• 54:48
  the world, which obviously is not what Kendra
• 54:50
  LaCarrie thinks, right? She's not thinking, oh,
• 54:52
  my daughter is in effect me. She seems to have
• 54:55
  thought my daughter is a sexual competitor to
• 54:58
  me, you know, in this creepy way. And again,
• 55:00
  we have these different complexities in Black
• 55:02
  Swan about that. So it's like, would Barbara
• 55:05
  Hershey have just said, oh, son who's now in
• 55:07
  the ballet corps? But I think the answer is yes.
• 55:11
  And I think because also we get very few glimpses
• 55:15
  of male ballet dancers, but the ones we do introduce
• 55:19
  them as sexual beings. Yes, that's true. They
• 55:21
  could say, would you fuck her? You would fuck
• 55:23
  her and not her. I mean, we don't even. put in
• 55:26
  the possibility that they wouldn't fuck any of
• 55:29
  them. They all seem to be straight. They all
• 55:31
  seem to be straight. So the idea that, yes, these
• 55:36
  are red blooded men and lustful male belly dancers
• 55:43
  who are given this litmus test of fuckability
• 55:48
  of Natalie Portman versus Mila Kunis or some
• 55:52
  of the other dancers in the company. Again, that
• 55:56
  whole element of the film isn't explored in a
• 55:59
  way that is satisfactory to me. I understand.
• 56:01
  But again, my bar for films now also, keep in
• 56:06
  mind, Christine, is so low. And I do think that
• 56:10
  this film, in terms of exploring art in a two
• 56:14
  -hour narrative and telling a story and moving
• 56:18
  us through what it says it's going to do, which
• 56:21
  is wise one, and then the struggle to be the
• 56:24
  black swan, it does it. And right now, my patience
• 56:29
  for films is solo. And I feel like that one told
• 56:34
  a story about something that doesn't get very
• 56:38
  much attention in film and on a level of really
• 56:43
  delving into the art, into the craft. And to
• 56:46
  me, the body horror really is the nature of the
• 56:50
  beast. Again, I am grateful to the film for just
• 56:55
  at least introducing that into the lexicon. Well,
• 56:58
  and I would add to that, what I do appreciate
• 57:00
  about it is that it is actually, I think when
• 57:03
  we think about it, it is very rare to have at
• 57:05
  this point in film a psychological drama, right?
• 57:09
  Which this is. It is. And that's where, again,
• 57:11
  you can really see the Bergman DNA. But how many
• 57:13
  people are like, I want Bergman DNA in my film.
• 57:15
  I mean, how many directors are saying that? Writers.
• 57:18
  And we do have also an element of fantasy and
• 57:22
  which I do think is also really valuable and
• 57:25
  because I was like, okay, where is fantasy represented
• 57:28
  now in film, right? In film that is like an adult
• 57:31
  drama, right? And the closest I can get is that
• 57:34
  appalling Emma Stone film that you loved and
• 57:36
  I hated. No, I liked that film. But again, but
• 57:38
  that's not a fantasy so much as it's a fable.
• 57:41
  It's a, right. And so I think that that is something
• 57:43
  that I like about Black Swan. But even in, say,
• 57:46
  Baby Girl, Right. There's no fantasy. There is
• 57:49
  a baby girl. No. Okay. It's straight up boring
• 57:52
  again, like, oh, you know, sort of, it's a social
• 57:54
  film, right? Baby girl is a social film in the
• 57:56
  way that someone would have understood it in
• 57:57
  the 1970s. Then with a little dash of that 1980s,
• 58:01
  you know, sex drama. And there is a similar,
• 58:03
  it's coming to mind only because it's somebody
• 58:05
  who is sexually stymied, right? Yeah. Who somebody
• 58:09
  else is trying to bring that out in them. And
• 58:12
  this made much more sense to me, the Natalie
• 58:15
  Portman film, The Black Whereas you're like,
• 58:18
  why isn't Nicole Kidman just having sex with
• 58:21
  her hot husband at home? We don't know why it
• 58:24
  has to be wrong with her. And the idea that she's
• 58:27
  a dancer and that part of being a ballet dancer
• 58:29
  is this purity, both reinforced by her mother,
• 58:34
  but also by the nature of the craft in general.
• 58:36
  And the hyper -focus on the body. Yes, that all
• 58:38
  makes sense to me. And so again, compared to
• 58:41
  anything I saw, say last year, Black Swan is
• 58:44
  a 10. I'm not saying Black Swan was a 10 when
• 58:48
  it came out, or I felt that way about it, but
• 58:51
  the bar is so low. The bar is now low. Okay,
• 58:55
  well, let's talk now about our last mother -daughter
• 58:58
  pairing, which I have to say, we watched Mommy
• 59:02
  Dearest from 1981, I think you're right, 1981,
• 59:07
  and very... sort of at the time when it came
• 59:11
  out, very notorious, very controversial in depicting
• 59:14
  this beloved screen star, Joan Crawford, whom
• 59:17
  we talked about when we talked about the woman
• 59:19
  because she plays Crystal Allen. The Minx who's
• 59:22
  working at the perfume counter at the department
• 59:24
  store Joan Crawford this beloved star for decades
• 59:27
  So a tell -all book comes out written by her
• 59:30
  daughter Christina that made it to a film very
• 59:32
  quickly Which Lauren and I watched mommy dearest
• 59:35
  this tell -all that Joan Crawford was this abusive
• 59:38
  hag and now the film is notorious for its camp
• 59:42
  the idea that The beautiful Faye Dunaway transforms
• 59:47
  into Joan Crawford. She really does. Faye Dunaway,
• 59:49
  and one of the things I do think we need to point
• 59:51
  out for maybe some of our listeners. Okay. Faye
• 59:55
  Dunaway was one of the most important female
• 59:58
  stars of the 1970s. This film basically destroyed
• 1:00:02
  her career. She never recovered from it. And
• 1:00:05
  again, from Bonnie and Clyde in 1967 on. Prestige
• 1:00:12
  she was Julia Roberts, right? Prestige films
• 1:00:14
  successful films. She won an Oscar for network
• 1:00:17
  Yes, and just absolutely this film just drove
• 1:00:21
  her into the ground because it was so camp It
• 1:00:23
  was understood to be so over -the -top. Yes,
• 1:00:26
  but I will say also a very entertaining watch.
• 1:00:29
  I agree. No, it was a Look, I'm not gonna say
• 1:00:33
  that. I loved Mommy Dearest But I could not turn
• 1:00:38
  my eyes away from it. It was, and it's funny
• 1:00:41
  because I don't remember the last time I saw
• 1:00:44
  it or, I guess I saw it in the 80s on cable or
• 1:00:47
  something like that. But I hadn't watched it
• 1:00:50
  seriously and I certainly hadn't watched it to
• 1:00:52
  talk about it. And I was so interested in it
• 1:00:56
  from the minute that it came on until the end
• 1:01:00
  of it. Not... only because of the camp aspects
• 1:01:04
  of it and the overacting and the ridiculousness
• 1:01:07
  and the drama of it all, but also the life of
• 1:01:10
  this woman is so interesting and that you're
• 1:01:14
  really straddling this line between a film about
• 1:01:19
  the backlash to an incredibly successful woman
• 1:01:21
  and then her horrific treatment of her daughter.
• 1:01:24
  And maybe her son too. And maybe her son. But
• 1:01:27
  really the way that she is abusive towards this
• 1:01:31
  daughter and the question of success and the
• 1:01:34
  price you have to pay for success, but that she
• 1:01:37
  just keeps on kicking, you know, this woman.
• 1:01:39
  She just rises up. Rises up. And that I do think
• 1:01:42
  in terms of sort of our reaction watching it
• 1:01:45
  and thinking of it as a genre of film. Because
• 1:01:48
  what I kept thinking, I'm like, OK, this isn't...
• 1:01:51
  a tell -all takedown of an abusive mother. No.
• 1:01:54
  It's a biopic of Joan Crawford. Yeah. Right.
• 1:01:57
  Where you do, unfortunately, see, what, maybe
• 1:02:01
  four scenes where she's, again, genuinely abusive.
• 1:02:05
  Horrible. But that's the, but in terms of response,
• 1:02:08
  what I do think is so difficult about watching
• 1:02:10
  it is that, yes, 80 % of the time, you're like,
• 1:02:13
  you go. I told you, like the whole scene. You
• 1:02:15
  go, girl. The whole scene where she's like, you
• 1:02:17
  fuck, don't fuck with me, fellas. You know, to
• 1:02:20
  the bone, it's Coca -Cola. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry,
• 1:02:22
  Pepsi Cola. Yeah, but she also, and this scene,
• 1:02:24
  she goes into the, whatever that restaurant is
• 1:02:26
  with the Louis B, right? And she says, LB, I'm
• 1:02:28
  not sitting with your people. And, you know,
• 1:02:30
  I'm going to be with my people and don't bring
• 1:02:34
  me out like a race horse or whatever. I mean,
• 1:02:36
  she really takes ownership of who she is in a
• 1:02:39
  way that you really admire. And that, it really
• 1:02:42
  is remarkable that way. Obviously, there's no
• 1:02:44
  way on the planet. that you watch an unknown
• 1:02:46
  number and you're like, wow, well, she has some
• 1:02:48
  good qualities. I know, you know, she's a monster.
• 1:02:50
  And even again, the Barbara Hershey character
• 1:02:52
  in Black Swan, you don't watch that and you're
• 1:02:54
  like, well, she does some things. Is she about
• 1:02:56
  the K -Code? No. But this, that is what is so
• 1:02:59
  in some ways troubling about it is that I think
• 1:03:00
  watching it as a woman, as a working woman, as
• 1:03:05
  a woman our age, you know, even in addition to
• 1:03:08
  even being a mother. There are scenes in there.
• 1:03:10
  Nobody should quote me on this. There are scenes
• 1:03:12
  in that film where I'm like, I agree with her
• 1:03:15
  parenting here, right? When you get, for example,
• 1:03:17
  no, seriously, I mean, obviously not. You're
• 1:03:19
  beating Christina with a pole scene. No, not
• 1:03:21
  the pole scene. Not the pole scene, not the wire
• 1:03:23
  hanger scene. But where she will say to Christina
• 1:03:26
  things like, look, you know, I grew up with nothing,
• 1:03:30
  right? Her father abandons her when they're like,
• 1:03:32
  you know, she goes to a boarding school, right?
• 1:03:34
  She has to scrub floors at the boarding school.
• 1:03:36
  But when she says, right, I don't want them to
• 1:03:38
  be spoiled Hollywood brats. I want you to be
• 1:03:42
  independent. I want you to work. Oh, that sounds
• 1:03:45
  okay. And then again, then she's doing the miserable,
• 1:03:48
  abusive stuff. And that, I think it is such a
• 1:03:51
  struggle because so much of the time you're like,
• 1:03:53
  she's struggling with age, right? Again, MGM
• 1:03:56
  basically boots her out saying, you're not making
• 1:03:58
  us enough money anymore. She had had this relationship
• 1:04:00
  - All kinds of sexism. All kinds of sexism and
• 1:04:04
  always having to live this very public life,
• 1:04:06
  right? With the publicity departments, right?
• 1:04:08
  First with MGM and then wherever she went next,
• 1:04:12
  Warners or whatever. that she always has to live
• 1:04:15
  this life in the newspapers, right, on the radio,
• 1:04:18
  and that it's so public, and that she has to
• 1:04:21
  deal with it. She perceives, right, that she
• 1:04:22
  has to have this perfect family, and so in some
• 1:04:26
  ways it's interesting, you know, to go back to
• 1:04:28
  our Bama moms, because... Obviously, now the
• 1:04:33
  presentation of her family would just translate
• 1:04:35
  to social media. That entire publicity machine,
• 1:04:38
  the MGM, would have its different manifestations.
• 1:04:41
  And people would say in the same way, oh, we're
• 1:04:43
  kind of getting to know Joan Crawford as a mother.
• 1:04:45
  The way we have some celebrities who have chronicled
• 1:04:50
  their fertility and their children and then what's
• 1:04:53
  going on with their children now and are more
• 1:04:56
  open or transparent about their family life,
• 1:04:58
  even if it's completely curated. They put that
• 1:05:02
  story out there on social media. And of course,
• 1:05:06
  Joan Crawford didn't have a choice. Yes, exactly.
• 1:05:10
  that scene with Christina and the birthday party
• 1:05:13
  and, you know, Christina has to be doing these
• 1:05:14
  things and Joan Crawford has to be feeding her
• 1:05:17
  the cake or playing with her with these special
• 1:05:19
  toys or that sort of thing. I mean, it's really,
• 1:05:23
  really sad. It is sad. But then I also feel really
• 1:05:26
  sad and you may have felt early the scene where
• 1:05:29
  she says to Christina, you know, you can only
• 1:05:31
  have one toy and we're giving the rest of the
• 1:05:32
  orphans. And I was sort of like, well, that's
• 1:05:35
  not really Christina's issue. Yes. And I, you
• 1:05:38
  know, and also making your daughter open all
• 1:05:41
  of those presents. And it's not like she said,
• 1:05:43
  well, we're just going to put them all in a pile
• 1:05:45
  and send them and then, you know, to Goodwill.
• 1:05:48
  And, you know, you can keep these five. I mean,
• 1:05:50
  she really forced her daughter to see these things
• 1:05:56
  that she enjoyed to appreciate these gifts, to
• 1:06:00
  feel joy, and then to take that away from her.
• 1:06:02
  Yeah, and we have the sense, right, that there
• 1:06:05
  is this double motivation. One of them is the
• 1:06:07
  publicity, right? Joan Crawford is so generous.
• 1:06:10
  But then also the sense of I'm going to deprive
• 1:06:12
  you because I'm going to kind of teach you this
• 1:06:14
  lesson. But then what we also see, right, is
• 1:06:16
  that when at different points, when she is telling
• 1:06:19
  Christina that we have financial struggles and
• 1:06:22
  you have to do, Joan herself is spending money
• 1:06:24
  on her own person. And so there is this sense
• 1:06:27
  that the messages are not consistent, that her
• 1:06:30
  values are not consistent, and how much it has
• 1:06:32
  to do with the publicity machine is unclear.
• 1:06:38
  Albert, the pesticide guy, goes and gives Christina
• 1:06:43
  a check because Joan's redecorating this multi
• 1:06:46
  -million dollar apartment in New York and Joan's
• 1:06:49
  like, sorry Christina, you can't have any money,
• 1:06:52
  go make it on your own. And he gives her the
• 1:06:54
  check and you're like, you bitch, I'm your daughter.
• 1:06:57
  some freaking money, right? Like she's a starving
• 1:07:00
  artist. She's doing basically what you did and
• 1:07:04
  why are you acting this way? Well, we know why
• 1:07:08
  she's acting this way because she's been pretty
• 1:07:10
  awful the whole time. But also that she has this
• 1:07:16
  real inability, of course, to reconcile her own
• 1:07:21
  fame and when her success is not the way it used
• 1:07:28
  to be, Christina's to blame or it's being chronicled,
• 1:07:32
  right? The interview with the journalist and
• 1:07:34
  Christina comes in and sort of like, you know,
• 1:07:37
  why are you doing this? And why are you here?
• 1:07:39
  And now I'm going to like strangle you and this
• 1:07:41
  journalist is watching and this story about Joan
• 1:07:45
  Crawford is going to get out and she's going
• 1:07:46
  to try to strangle her daughter. But ultimately,
• 1:07:49
  Christina pays the price. because she takes her
• 1:07:52
  and she sends her away again. And maybe that's
• 1:07:56
  good for Christina in the long run. I think my
• 1:07:59
  big complaint about the film is that it is very
• 1:08:02
  choppy, right? And there are all these things
• 1:08:03
  where I'm like, wait a minute, I don't understand
• 1:08:04
  what's happening. And so we do have this, because
• 1:08:07
  we have the sense, okay, she's sent off to boarding
• 1:08:09
  school, she doesn't want to go, she's then sent
• 1:08:11
  to an even harsher Catholic boarding school,
• 1:08:13
  she doesn't want to go, but then she's kind of
• 1:08:15
  like, oh, you took such great care of me. And
• 1:08:18
  so one of the things that I think is difficult
• 1:08:20
  and poignant in the film is that you do have
• 1:08:23
  the sense that Christina always wants Joan Crawford
• 1:08:26
  to love her. Yeah, right. And I think one of
• 1:08:28
  the most interesting scenes after we've seen
• 1:08:30
  all these scenes of abuse, the wire hangers,
• 1:08:33
  you know, the clean the floor, everything that.
• 1:08:36
  when Joan Crawford comes to the crappy apartment
• 1:08:39
  and Christina looks through the keyhole and she
• 1:08:41
  sees it's Joan Crawford. And we see her smile,
• 1:08:44
  right? That she's actually happy to see her mother
• 1:08:46
  and she's like, you know, after she dies, you
• 1:08:48
  know, I only wanted you to love me and I hope
• 1:08:50
  it's true that she loved me. And it's so sad
• 1:08:53
  that way. And reminiscent in a lot of ways of
• 1:08:56
  our unknown number. You are right. Yes. That
• 1:08:59
  really... wrong for me when she says, and of
• 1:09:02
  course, it's a very different dynamic between
• 1:09:05
  those two mothers and daughters, but when she's
• 1:09:07
  like, oh, I just always hoped she would love
• 1:09:09
  me, and I hope she did, and even though she didn't
• 1:09:11
  leave us any money. Yes, and we're about, yes.
• 1:09:13
  I and my brother have been written out of the
• 1:09:16
  will entirely, and they know why I did it. Who
• 1:09:19
  knows? Right, who knows? Even though there's,
• 1:09:22
  again, that Christina has done nothing but good
• 1:09:24
  for her mother that we've seen while she could,
• 1:09:27
  that she was there for her when she needed her,
• 1:09:29
  that she came home, she did the laundry, she
• 1:09:32
  was there for her when she was ill, she accepted
• 1:09:36
  a ward on her behalf, as much as we could see
• 1:09:38
  of that dynamic, and there's not a lot of it
• 1:09:40
  when she gets to be older. We don't see a lot
• 1:09:43
  of her as an older... Yes, and actually I thought
• 1:09:47
  that that balance was unfortunate because of
• 1:09:49
  course so much what we see when we have the younger
• 1:09:52
  Christina is what we see kind of glimmers right
• 1:09:55
  that Joan is either kind of not quite jealous
• 1:09:59
  of her but that Joan doesn't want her to be an
• 1:10:02
  actress right she doesn't want her to sort of
• 1:10:04
  dress up right we have the scene where she's
• 1:10:06
  angry a couple of times when Christina says I'm
• 1:10:09
  just kind of play -acting where it's not really
• 1:10:11
  clear what the problem is, and so I actually
• 1:10:14
  did wish that we had more of a kind of nuanced
• 1:10:18
  dynamic, nuanced understanding of that adult
• 1:10:21
  relationship. And we do still have the sense
• 1:10:24
  of kind of weird jealousy or replacement, especially
• 1:10:28
  in the soap opera. Yes, the soap opera. Which
• 1:10:30
  did happen apparently in real life. Really crazy.
• 1:10:32
  Where Christina is hospitalized because of a
• 1:10:35
  ruptured cyst. And Joan plays the role that Christina
• 1:10:39
  was playing in the soap opera, which of course
• 1:10:41
  is so bizarre. So ludicrous. And Christina's
• 1:10:45
  like, wait, that character's supposed to be 28
• 1:10:47
  years old. And Joan Crawford at this point is
• 1:10:49
  what? 60 or something. Anyway, so, but we do
• 1:10:53
  again have these moments of physical abuse, right?
• 1:10:56
  We talked earlier about Kendra LaCarrie and sort
• 1:10:58
  of identifying what she's doing as abuse. And
• 1:11:01
  of course we have straight up, right? Christina
• 1:11:03
  is beat. Now, I hate to say, we're not, but it's
• 1:11:06
  not clear how often, right? That's what something
• 1:11:09
  else I wish was different about the film. Right,
• 1:11:11
  right. We don't know how often these kind of
• 1:11:14
  outbreaks take place. We don't know what exactly
• 1:11:17
  triggers Joan. It feels erratic, but we also,
• 1:11:22
  the age, again, Christina's age jumps are pretty
• 1:11:27
  severe. The gaps between them are severe. We
• 1:11:32
  see a five -year -old Christina, and then we
• 1:11:34
  see a 12 -year -old Christina, and then we see
• 1:11:36
  like a 17 -year -old Christina. So we don't know.
• 1:11:39
  And of course, when she was in boarding school,
• 1:11:42
  Joan's not abusing her there, but we don't know.
• 1:11:44
  what the going home looks like. Except for maybe
• 1:11:48
  more than once, but we don't know whether the
• 1:11:50
  abuse just continues. And we do know when she's
• 1:11:54
  in the relationship with the lawyer, right? That
• 1:11:57
  relationship is a good one for many years. And
• 1:12:01
  she adopts another child, and they're together,
• 1:12:05
  and the kids call him uncle, and they think of
• 1:12:08
  him as a parent. And everything is going fine
• 1:12:10
  until, of course, her career starts to really
• 1:12:13
  flounder, and she associates him with LB, all
• 1:12:18
  that. But that she was in a healthy relationship,
• 1:12:21
  with both of the men we see on screen, at least.
• 1:12:26
  Who are depicted as being kind to the children.
• 1:12:29
  Correct. Both of them. Albert? Albert, yes. Albert
• 1:12:33
  from Pepsi, and then the other guy, I can't remember
• 1:12:35
  what his name was. Who's the lawyer at MGM. The
• 1:12:37
  lawyer, right. We don't see those guys as being
• 1:12:41
  outliers, or in these really troubled waters
• 1:12:45
  with her. So it's a question of, again, just
• 1:12:49
  beloved, formally beloved figure, but she's really
• 1:12:55
  awful to her daughter. And a daughter that she
• 1:12:59
  wants desperately. And one of the most interesting
• 1:13:02
  dynamics is that, of course, as we learn, it
• 1:13:04
  was illegal for her as a single woman to adopt
• 1:13:08
  in California. And so Christina and then her
• 1:13:11
  brother have to be, in effect, sort of bought
• 1:13:13
  under the table by the lawyer, whatever his name
• 1:13:16
  is. Because she is a celebrity. Yes, but she
• 1:13:20
  cannot legally adopt a child. And so we have
• 1:13:22
  this sentence, she's had multiple miscarriages,
• 1:13:24
  right? This is something she really, really wants.
• 1:13:27
  And so, and we're even told this, right? Oh,
• 1:13:30
  adopted children are the most loved children
• 1:13:32
  because they were chosen. But then we have all
• 1:13:34
  of these moments that completely belie that,
• 1:13:36
  but we don't really understand why. And one of
• 1:13:39
  the things that was a little bit confusing to
• 1:13:40
  me is I wanted a better through line about her
• 1:13:43
  drinking. Because obviously we see her drinking
• 1:13:45
  a lot. But it wasn't clear to me that these erratic
• 1:13:50
  moments, these very, very physically abusive
• 1:13:52
  moments, are connected to drinking. Some of them
• 1:13:55
  are and some of them aren't. And so it's just
• 1:13:58
  impossible to know and to map. And I thought
• 1:14:02
  that in some ways maybe that just reflects. Reality
• 1:14:05
  better sure. Um, but that's I think we do have
• 1:14:08
  this incredible juxtaposition Not just of this
• 1:14:11
  woman who is beloved by fans, but these two very
• 1:14:13
  good men Yeah, it is you say who seem to love
• 1:14:16
  her, right? And so, Anne, this dedicated kind
• 1:14:20
  of housekeeper, assistant, caring Anne, who's
• 1:14:23
  with her for decades. That's the inconsistency
• 1:14:26
  of the film as a viewer, as you're not seeing
• 1:14:29
  her as this monster that's alienating more and
• 1:14:33
  more and more people, including her children,
• 1:14:36
  right? You're seeing her as somebody who is abusing
• 1:14:40
  her daughter, and maybe her son. We don't see
• 1:14:42
  that. also has this longevity with the people
• 1:14:47
  she works with, with the people who work for
• 1:14:50
  her, and in these two pretty long marriages slash
• 1:14:54
  relationships with these two men who are service
• 1:14:58
  father figures to her children, who are loyal
• 1:15:01
  to her, and she's on the board of Pepsi. I mean,
• 1:15:05
  we don't see any of that Pepsi stuff, but obviously
• 1:15:09
  she's a good steward for Pepsi. And she's not
• 1:15:13
  so erratic that she can't work. She's not so
• 1:15:15
  erratic. Or so drunk that she can't work. No,
• 1:15:17
  no. And as I told you, I absolutely have to bring
• 1:15:21
  up that what we do see, and in some ways I wish
• 1:15:25
  they had also done a little bit better about
• 1:15:27
  tracking her. her career, because we are told,
• 1:15:30
  right, we're told the whole end of the 1930s,
• 1:15:32
  she's told she's box office poison, mayor who
• 1:15:35
  really has been his father figure to her, says
• 1:15:37
  sorry, you know, your career at MGM is over,
• 1:15:39
  won't even lock you to your car, you know, after
• 1:15:41
  dedicated service as an actress for years. But
• 1:15:44
  I think what is so striking to me is that she
• 1:15:47
  does win the Best Actress Oscar for Mildred Pierce,
• 1:15:51
  one of her first films, which she goes to again,
• 1:15:53
  I think it's Warner's, which is her big comeback.
• 1:15:57
  Right. And what's so fascinating about that is
• 1:15:59
  that Mildred Pierce is a film where she plays
• 1:16:01
  a mother with two daughters. The younger daughter
• 1:16:04
  at the very beginning of the film dies. That's
• 1:16:07
  not a spoiler, but the entirety of the rest of
• 1:16:11
  the film is about her relationship with this
• 1:16:14
  super spoiled daughter who looks down on her
• 1:16:18
  in terms of social and economic class, who wants
• 1:16:20
  to be against kind of in this Pasadena society
• 1:16:23
  and Mildred Pierce is this unbelievable, you
• 1:16:25
  know, kind of like struggling self -made woman
• 1:16:28
  who creates this business and is super successful
• 1:16:30
  and always with this desire to be desperately
• 1:16:33
  loved by her daughter who despises her. And so
• 1:16:36
  it's so interesting to me that then what we're
• 1:16:38
  presented in Mommy Dearest is the exact opposite
• 1:16:41
  right of this. The daughter who is desperate
• 1:16:43
  for the affection and attention of this mother
• 1:16:45
  that she loves and the mother is a heredon and
• 1:16:47
  is like, I'm going to beat you with. wire hangers
• 1:16:50
  for some irrational reason we don't know. Right.
• 1:16:52
  And so because that irony is so rich. It is.
• 1:16:55
  And I don't I'm not surprised that that film.
• 1:16:57
  Sure. Didn't want to dwell on that because it
• 1:17:00
  is so campy and so sensational in the technical
• 1:17:04
  sense of sensational. But I think that that's
• 1:17:08
  I'm sorry that it's not the kind of film that
• 1:17:10
  could have explored that. Right. And it also
• 1:17:12
  feels to me and I don't know if anyone's going
• 1:17:14
  to go back to Mommy Dearest because my guess
• 1:17:16
  is that my guess is that it's just not, I don't
• 1:17:20
  know, it's probably not something anyone wants
• 1:17:23
  to talk about in this particular climate. But
• 1:17:26
  it would be interesting to have a more complicated
• 1:17:31
  and more careful examination of that film. Or
• 1:17:40
  even of the original uh memoir yes so that we
• 1:17:45
  could get some sort of sense of how somebody
• 1:17:48
  can balance right this because again this is
• 1:17:51
  not unknown number it is not it and or i mean
• 1:17:56
  or is it because again we saw a new number mom
• 1:17:59
  kendra acting like a totally normal person and
• 1:18:02
  married to her husband and all that but this
• 1:18:05
  shows Both a woman trying and succeeding and
• 1:18:10
  being very successful professionally holding
• 1:18:13
  on to relationships with everyone around her
• 1:18:17
  and being a complete bitch and You know a monster
• 1:18:24
  to her daughter in some cases in some cases and
• 1:18:27
  that's what I think that you know not to and
• 1:18:29
  I think that in terms of the the current environment
• 1:18:32
  it is worth pointing out one of the difficult
• 1:18:34
  things right both about the book that Christina
• 1:18:36
  Crawford wrote and then this film is that people
• 1:18:40
  of course came out at the time when the book
• 1:18:43
  came out and said we obviously they didn't witness
• 1:18:48
  everything right but there were people who said
• 1:18:49
  you know I knew Joan Crawford for you know 50
• 1:18:52
  years or whatever and the soap opera event is
• 1:18:55
  a good example because the producers of the soap
• 1:18:57
  opera came back and said well you know the only
• 1:19:00
  reason why Joan Crawford played that role in
• 1:19:01
  the soap opera we were going to fire Christina
• 1:19:04
  we were going to fire her we were going to cast
• 1:19:06
  it with another actress Joan Crawford came to
• 1:19:08
  us and said Whatever it takes for you to keep
• 1:19:12
  for her to keep this role, right? Right. And
• 1:19:14
  so very much, of course in the film It's depicted
• 1:19:16
  as Jones out of control, right? She wants to
• 1:19:19
  seem younger, egomaniac But then apparently the
• 1:19:22
  reality was very different that she did that
• 1:19:24
  for Christina And so obviously people could have
• 1:19:27
  people were witnessing family dynamics that are
• 1:19:29
  very different from the actual intimate family
• 1:19:31
  dynamics, right? Of course, of course, but there
• 1:19:34
  was backlash and two of Joan Crawford's other
• 1:19:36
  children said, well, she just wasn't, that didn't
• 1:19:39
  happen. And apparently Christina Crawford also
• 1:19:41
  said, well, you know, the movie was a little
• 1:19:43
  bit exaggerated. And so that I think is what's
• 1:19:45
  so difficult because as I mentioned before, in
• 1:19:48
  a sense, I want to see the version, you know,
• 1:19:51
  the, not director's cut, but I want to see the
• 1:19:52
  non -abusive cut. And it was terrible. I know
• 1:19:56
  what you're saying, the non -camp cut. The non
• 1:19:58
  -camp cut, or the other side, the cut that is
• 1:20:02
  three hours long that is able to flesh out these
• 1:20:06
  abusive moments. I think much better. Where you
• 1:20:08
  don't think like, well, where did that come from?
• 1:20:11
  Either psychologically or even narratively. I
• 1:20:14
  don't understand where that came from. Right,
• 1:20:18
  right, right. Yeah, no, I agree with you. And
• 1:20:22
  I think it's interesting content. I don't think
• 1:20:25
  we're going to be revisiting it anytime soon.
• 1:20:27
  I concur. And I do think also, you know, again,
• 1:20:31
  it falls into, if we go back to the Marishka
• 1:20:34
  Hargitay paradigm, you know, abuse is abuse.
• 1:20:38
  I believe her. And that's where that's going.
• 1:20:41
  Yes. And I'm not saying I disagree with believing
• 1:20:45
  women and... you know, in condemning abuse, but
• 1:20:50
  I don't think there's going to be any black and
• 1:20:52
  white. Yes. I agree. I agree. And maybe the last
• 1:20:56
  tiny detail to point out before we do maybe book
• 1:21:00
  recommendations if you have one. But the other
• 1:21:03
  tiny detail is that, of course, Mommy Dearest,
• 1:21:06
  as a book and then film, they were so successful.
• 1:21:08
  But I don't know if you remember, but then Bette
• 1:21:10
  Davis's daughter, right, immediately came out
• 1:21:12
  with a book and was like, well, you know, she
• 1:21:14
  grabbed me once or twice. I'm like, you know,
• 1:21:17
  where's my check? My mama's horrible as a bitch,
• 1:21:19
  too. Yeah. Anyway, anyway. So do you have a book
• 1:21:23
  recommendation? I would say, you know, I feel
• 1:21:27
  like I keep suggesting fiction and not history
• 1:21:30
  books. And I really should. Because, of course,
• 1:21:32
  there are so many wonderful history books about.
• 1:21:35
  Hollywood in the 1940s and 1950s. But I'm not
• 1:21:39
  going to recommend one of those. I am going to
• 1:21:42
  recommend, again, fiction, James M. Cain's original
• 1:21:47
  novel of Mildred Pierce. So again, becomes an
• 1:21:50
  Oscar -winning film, became an Emmy -winning
• 1:21:53
  HBO series starring Kate Winslet in the Joan
• 1:21:57
  Crawford role, the title role of Mildred Pierce.
• 1:22:00
  And Mildred Pierce is, again, so James M. Cain,
• 1:22:03
  this kind of hard -boiled crime writer, writes
• 1:22:06
  a book about mothers and daughters. And it's
• 1:22:09
  really, it's a wonderful read. It's super kind
• 1:22:12
  of fast paced. You were so angry at the time,
• 1:22:16
  all the time, at Vita the bitch daughter, you
• 1:22:18
  just went up, er, anyway. And so it's it's really
• 1:22:22
  enlightening. It's fantastic about social class.
• 1:22:25
  It's fantastic about sort of California for maybe
• 1:22:28
  like the 1920s to kind of again, 1940s. And you
• 1:22:32
  have this sense of sort of California itself
• 1:22:34
  evolving from farmlands into this really sort
• 1:22:38
  of like urban environment. It's just great. But
• 1:22:40
  again, in terms of mothers and daughters, James
• 1:22:42
  and Cain, he hit out of the park. And I have
• 1:22:43
  no idea how that's my book. OK, so my book recommendation
• 1:22:48
  going in the scholarly route but um Definitely
• 1:22:52
  a read for anybody out there. Joyce Antler, who
• 1:22:56
  is a terrific historian of Jewish women in Jewish
• 1:23:00
  American Jewish history, wrote a book called
• 1:23:02
  You Never Call, You Never Read, which is about
• 1:23:05
  Jewish women, mothers and daughters, and really
• 1:23:08
  the figure of the Jewish mother in American history,
• 1:23:12
  stereotypes around Jewish mothers as domineering,
• 1:23:17
  as however you want to think about. Bubbies and
• 1:23:22
  all of it. So the book gets into various tropes
• 1:23:26
  around around Jewish mothers and the way in which
• 1:23:29
  they're both demonized and popularized in in
• 1:23:33
  popular culture in fiction and movies and all
• 1:23:36
  sorts of things so I really would recommend anything
• 1:23:39
  by Joyce Antler but this this one goes with the
• 1:23:42
  podcast and we have plenty of very famous Jewish
• 1:23:46
  mothers who are fiction and real. Including mine.
• 1:23:56
  So I will recommend that one to go with this
• 1:23:59
  podcast. in a very different vein of the abuse
• 1:24:04
  theme. That is not actually, that is interestingly
• 1:24:07
  not a trope that goes with Jewish mothers, although
• 1:24:12
  domineering and possessive and overbearing, sure,
• 1:24:16
  but the wire hangers aren't coming with our people.
• 1:24:23
  So yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, that sounds great.
• 1:24:28
  And I guess that's all we have for today, Lauren.
• 1:24:31
  In our 12th episode, we didn't mention before,
• 1:24:33
  this is our 12th episode talking about mothers
• 1:24:35
  and daughters. It is really impossible to believe
• 1:24:38
  that we have been at it for 12 episodes and we'll
• 1:24:42
  have to think about what we're going to do next
• 1:24:45
  week. Although I will say, just to finish off,
• 1:24:48
  I know we've been going on. What was your most
• 1:24:53
  favorite Emmy look? because we are coming off
• 1:24:56
  of the Emmys and what was your least favorite
• 1:24:58
  Emmy look? And you can relate it to mothers and
• 1:25:01
  daughters if you'd like. Oh my god, you know
• 1:25:03
  what? I think the Emmys have completely sort
• 1:25:05
  of like washed out of, wait, who was it who had
• 1:25:09
  the like, oh, see, that's the thing is I'm going
• 1:25:11
  to be like, who had that dress that was that?
• 1:25:13
  I honestly can't think. It's been too long. I
• 1:25:15
  know it's only been like two weeks and it's like
• 1:25:17
  totally, so I'll just ask you. Well. It's also
• 1:25:23
  going to be difficult for me. I will say that
• 1:25:27
  even though I appreciate creativity and I love
• 1:25:30
  me some project run right, so this will seem
• 1:25:33
  like a complete contradiction. Jenna, what's
• 1:25:39
  her name, the woman who's in Wednesday? Ortega.
• 1:25:43
  Jenna Ortega. Yes, her jewelry top. Her jewelry
• 1:25:46
  top. Okay, let me just say this. outfit was a
• 1:25:50
  mess. And what's interesting about it is that
• 1:25:54
  Ethan on Project Runway just won a challenge
• 1:25:58
  for making an outfit that actually looked quite
• 1:26:00
  similar. But unlike Ethan's outfit, which actually
• 1:26:05
  had a full -on jeweled face covering and was
• 1:26:10
  really avant -garde and really interesting and
• 1:26:14
  kind of drag influenced and all sorts of things,
• 1:26:17
  Jenna Ortega's outfit looked like it was just
• 1:26:20
  some misplaced gems on breasts and maybe a skirt
• 1:26:25
  or something. There was something. There was
• 1:26:28
  just something there. So I really didn't like
• 1:26:32
  it. And I just wonder why, you know, this this
• 1:26:36
  beautiful actress would have to go out of a way.
• 1:26:39
  Again, it's also just like we know you're Wednesday
• 1:26:41
  Adams. You don't need to go with the goth everywhere.
• 1:26:44
  Like flip it up a little bit. Understood. Right?
• 1:26:47
  Flip it up a little bit. I mean the heavy eyeliner
• 1:26:49
  looks good though. The gothy eyeliner I like.
• 1:26:51
  It's giving Mila Kunis. That's true. Mila Kunis
• 1:26:55
  and her smoky eye. going to say okay my best
• 1:27:01
  I don't know if it's best dressed but definitely
• 1:27:03
  best look and this is actually in some ways echoing
• 1:27:07
  some of the themes of this pod and not to get
• 1:27:10
  too heavy into the SVU but I actually think that
• 1:27:13
  Mariska Hargitay's whole look from head to toe
• 1:27:17
  was fantastic. See, you really needed to tell
• 1:27:20
  me before we did the pod that you wanted to talk
• 1:27:23
  about the Emmy fashions, Lauren. Because I don't
• 1:27:25
  remember it at all. Marushka Hargitate, she had
• 1:27:27
  this... Don't remember it at all. Her face work
• 1:27:29
  was incredible. Her hair looked great. She had
• 1:27:32
  that red sequined gown. No recollection at all.
• 1:27:36
  She looked really, really beautiful. And of course,
• 1:27:39
  she has these really crazy... relationship documented
• 1:27:43
  with her mother. Yes, okay. Of course, it was
• 1:27:45
  a very famous actress, Jamie. So I'm bringing
• 1:27:48
  it all back. I'm bringing it all together. All
• 1:27:51
  together. Yeah. All together. Yeah. And you know,
• 1:27:54
  maybe if we had more time, we could talk about
• 1:27:57
  Gwyneth and Blythe Danner. But sadly, that will
• 1:28:00
  be another time. And neither one of them were
• 1:28:02
  at the Emmys. So I'm putting them... We can put
• 1:28:07
  them in a different, or Melanie and Dakota. Yes,
• 1:28:11
  we will do a whole nepo baby mother daughter
• 1:28:13
  version. Okay, I really like that idea. I really
• 1:28:16
  like that idea. Nepo baby mother version. I love
• 1:28:19
  it. I love it. That sounds great. And okay, so
• 1:28:23
  that's all I think we have to say for today.
• 1:28:24
  Oh, I do have one final question. I'm sorry.
• 1:28:26
  Do we consider Christina a nepo baby if her memoir
• 1:28:32
  and narrative changed the story? Can NEPO babies
• 1:28:37
  be people who tarnish the reputation of their
• 1:28:40
  parents? Oh, that's a great question. I think
• 1:28:42
  that needs to be a question for our NEPO baby
• 1:28:44
  mother -daughter thing. Not that we'll talk about
• 1:28:45
  Joan Crawford again, because we will, but we
• 1:28:47
  will take up exactly that question. Well, until
• 1:28:49
  then, puppies out.