Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the classroom. Without these things, I am nothing.

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily shares her film analysis of the 1992 classic Candyman. Although director Bernard Rose is a white, British man (as is Clive Barker, who authored the original short story that inspired the classic movie), his movie offers unflinching cultural commentary on racism, systemic poverty, and policing in America. The storytelling seamlessly weaves together urban legend, real headlines from Cabrini Green in Chicago, and Rose’s own art.

As with any storytelling about the Black experience through a white artist’s lens, Candyman includes some blind spots, missteps, and jarring moments. The character of Candyman may reflect some of the worst racist tropes in American storytelling—but Tony Todd and Virginia Madsen’s performances as the titular villain and main character (respectively) ask us to think deeply about everything from mental health outcomes for poor Black folks to the nature of betrayal to which women receive protection in our society.

The episode, I assure you, will be exquisite. Come with us—and listen!

Mentioned in this episode:

Roger Ebert’s contemporaneous review of Candyman

How ’90s hook-handed horror Candyman remains relevant on the race and class issues that continue to move us

History, Collective Memory, and More in “Candyman” (1992)

Problematic Films: In Defense Of CANDYMAN (1992)

Tags: Deep thoughts about stupid shit, pop culture, storytelling, cultural commentary, film analysis, classic movies, film, women, feminism, mental health, psychology, 80s and 90s movies, movies, movie reviews, horror, romance, analyzing film tropes, cult classic, gen x nostalgia, Candyman, Tony Todd, Bernard Rose, Virginia Madsen, Clive Barker, Chicago, Cabrini-Green, racism

This episode was edited by Joan Peconcillo at Voice Work 

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Tumble out of bed and I stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition…

Tracie and Emily welcome a special guest on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit: Marian Berman, a.k.a. Mom, to talk about the 1980 film 9 to 5, starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton (of blessed memory). For Marian, this delightful comedy showed her young daughters multiple ways of being a feminist woman claiming her own power–which is why 9 to 5 was on regular rotation during Tracie and Emily’s Gen X childhood. 

What’s impressive about this classic movie is how it weaves cultural commentary and real feminist and labor activism with truly hilarious comedy–not to mention a banging soundtrack from Parton. All of this was by design. Though the movie was originally written as a drama, Tomlin and Fonda insisted on rewrites to make it a comedy. Fonda approached Parton to play Doralee because it helped expand the definition of a feminist woman (a label that Parton never embraced, although she certainly lived the ideals). The film shares its name with a feminist labor movement that explicitly sought the kinds of work reforms Fonda, Tomlin, and Parton’s characters enact at their office. By making us laugh and root for the three leads, Fonda helped normalize feminism and labor reform.

Throw on your headphones and take a listen—and we won’t judge if you want to play M&Ms at the same time! 

Mentioned in this episode:

In ‘9 to 5,’ Dolly Parton Put a Friendly Face on Feminism

Tags: Deep thoughts about stupid shit, pop culture, comedy, women, film, cultural commentary, feminism, storytelling, analyzing film tropes, gen x childhood, gen x nostalgia, film analysis, classic movies, gen x childhood, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, movies, psychology, movie reviews, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton

This episode was edited by Joan Peconcillo at Voice Work 

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

My, I’ll bet you monsters lead innnnteresting lives.

In this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie revisits some of her favorite classic hand-drawn animation from Looney Tunes, including the cartoon shorts “Duck Amuck,” “What’s Opera, Doc,” “Hair-Raising Hare,” “Transylvania 6-500,” and “One Froggy Evening.” 

While the technical skill behind everything from the animation to the musical score to the comedy still holds up 80 years after Chuck Jones started creating these beloved toons, some of the cultural commentary has aged pretty poorly–including the fact that there are very few women in most of the classic episodes and the assumption that men cannot control their lust.

But both sisters appreciate how these cartoon shorts, which were considered disposable entertainment to run before a feature film, have become their own pop culture phenomenon, in part because Chuck Jones took the animation, the writing, and the music seriously–but not himself. 

You shoulda taken a left turn at Albuquerque. Which means you have time to listen to this episode while you’re getting back on track.

Mentioned in this episode:

The Fold by Peter Clines

Adam Conover: Coyote vs. Acme proves the CEOs don’t know sh*t

Every Frame A Painting

Hair-Raising Hare (1946)

Duck Amuck (1953)

One Froggy Evening (1955)

What’s Opera Doc (1957)

Transylvania 6-5000 (1963)

Bonus:

High Note (1960) the cartoon where the musical notes are little characters.

Tags

Deep thoughts about stupid shit, pop culture, animation, comedy, women, film, cultural commentary, feminism, storytelling, analyzing film tropes, gen x childhood, gen x nostalgia, film analysis, Chuck Jones, Bugs Bunny, Looney Tunes, Mel Blanc, nostalgia 

This episode was edited by Joan Peconcillo at Voice Work 

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Four, Eight, Fifteen, Sixteen, Twenty-Three, Forty-Two

Today on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie and Emily welcome Seth Nesin to talk about the ethics of storytelling in the TV show Lost–and why you may be entitled to pop culture compensation for its completely unsatisfactory ending. 

Seth explains why revisiting this early 2000s sci-fi / mystery / drama hybrid television series doesn’t inspire nostalgia, because saying it was a “good show with a bad ending” feels no different than calling Sawyer’s romance con “a good relationship with a bad ending.” Tracie suggests that the psychology of the particular viewer may affect just how frustrated they feel by unsatisfying storytelling.

The Guy sisters and Seth also talk about what artists owe to their audience, especially when the storytelling seems to promise something that the artist simply can’t deliver. 

It’s NOT PENNY’S PODCAST! You should listen anyway.

Mentioned in this episode;

Encyclopedia Brown with Adam Gwon: Deep Thoughts About Potatoes, Problem Plays, and Pop Culture Expectations for Detective Stories

Tags: Deep thoughts about stupid shit, storytelling, pop culture, nostalgia, millennial nostalgia, psychology, mental health, sci fi, cultural commentary, television series, TV, LOST, damon lindelof, matthew fox, dharma initiative, Oceanic Airlines Flight 815, comedy podcast, evangeline lilly, harold perrineau

This episode was edited by Joan Peconcillo at Voice Work

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

“Why don't you try squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of an opening the size of a lemon and see how hot YOU look?”

On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily revisits the only 1980s romcom that starts with talking sperm, Look Who’s Talking. This 1989 film, written and directed by Amy Heckerling, reflects many of the frustrating realities women face during pregnancy and early motherhood, including the ways pregnant women are treated like public property and how mothers are shamed no matter what they do. 

The comedy lets us laugh along with this cultural commentary, but it also perpetuates some regressive and anti-feminist views. The film wants us to believe Kirstie Alley’s Mollie and baby Mikey (voiced by Bruce Willis) need John Travolta’s James, despite the man’s questionable parenting choices and the inappropriate sexual comments he consistently makes to the baby. Like many 80s and 90s movies, Look Who’s Talking wants us to accept that women would be happier if they just relaxed.

But even if this film doesn’t quite live up Emily’s Gen X nostalgia, the baby/ies is/are super cute, Bruce Willis’s voiceover acting is pretty funny, and there is always some feminism to be found in the 5% of films written and directed by women.

We won’t tell you how to breathe or what to do with your ears. However you want to listen to this episode is entirely up to you!

Mentioned in this episode:

The Story of Harold Ramis and Amy Heckerling’s Secret Daughter 

‘Look Who’s Talking’ Director Amy Heckerling Spills 7 Tidbits, 25 Years Later – Kirstie’s Crush, Travolta’s Moves

How Amy Heckerling tricked male execs into making ‘Look Who’s Talking’

#52FilmsByWomen: Look Who's Talking (1989)

Women's Pictures - Amy Heckerling's Look Who's Talking

Tags: Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, women, feminism, romcom, comedy, film, 80s and 90s movies, gen x nostalgia, cultural commentary, classic movies, romance, analyzing film tropes, gen x childhood, film analysis, pop culture, movies, storytelling, Amy Heckerling, Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, Bruce Willis

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

“Hello, this is Sy Greenblum, president of Spatula City. I like the spatulas so much, I bought the company.”

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie and Emily welcome Justin Kramm, founder of Shitshow Creative, to talk about the cult classic comedy UHF. This 1989 film, written and starring Weird Al Yankovic, was a box-office failure, but a major pop culture success. Justin shares with the Guy sisters how the off-the-wall comedy encouraged him to embrace his weirdness and take creative risks. 

But UHF also serves as a time capsule for a specific type of Gen X nostalgia–how cable access television used to be the only way we encountered truly authentic weirdos in media. The inherent comedy of parodying this lost form of media offers a retrospective cultural commentary on the value of truly bizarre art. Justin, Emily, and Tracie also enjoy the way Weird Al turns many media expectations on their head, from the fact that the women in the film aren’t humorless scolds who hate fun to the way his storytelling lets many characters–and not just the hero–enjoy the spotlight.

Throw on some headphones, imagine you’re Indiana Jones, and take a listen!

Links:

Find Justin: 

justinkramm.com/news
https://www.instagram.com/krammstagram/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinkramm/

Stephen Colbert on cable access: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DlF5Cf4VLM

Weird Al on 30 Rock: Weird Al Parodies Jenna
Jenna Creates a Song That Can’t Be Parodied
He Reverses the Parody and Normal-Al’s Jenna’s Song

tags: 
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, pop culture, nostalgia, classic movies, film, comedy, women, storytelling, weird al, weird al yankovic, spoof, parody, MTV, justin kramm, feminism, genx nostalgia, movies, movie reviews, cultural commentary, analyzing film tropes, film analysis

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Now put that thing back where it came from or so help me…

Tracie revisits the classic Pixar animation Monsters, Inc in today’s episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit. This family film, which was released just after 9/11, offers the deeply reassuring message that laughter is much stronger than fear, and Tracie argues that our country’s collective mental health needed that pop culture lesson in late 2001. 

But in addition to the lovely psychology, this classic movie also gave us gorgeous and groundbreaking digital animation, plenty of comedy, a heartwarming relationship between Sulley and Boo, and masterful storytelling. The artists and writers behind this animation clearly took their craft seriously–check out the punny names of the DVDs Boo de-alphabetizes that are only onscreen for a second–while not taking themselves too seriously. 

That said, the gender dynamics don’t quite hold up to nostalgia. Not only are there a surprising dearth of women and girls in the film, but consider how different the story would be if Boo had been a boy-child. Still, there’s much to love in this delightful comedy.

Throw on your headphones and take a listen. Every time you laugh, you help power Monstropolis!

Mentioned in this episode:

Roger Ebert’s 2001 Review of Monsters, Inc

Tags:

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, pop culture, animation, mental health, psychology, nostalgia, classic movies, film, comedy, women, storytelling, Pixar, 9/11, feminism, millennial nostalgia, movies, movie reviews, cultural commentary, analyzing film tropes, film analysis, Billy Crystal, John Goodman, Jennifer Tilly

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

“I love you, but I love me more.”

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily shares her complicated love of the television show Sex and the City. When the HBO original comedy first aired in 1998, it was a breath of fresh feminism in pop culture. The show featured a quartet of fabulous single women in New York who had created a found family through their deep and abiding friendship with each other. 

Although Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw and Kristin Davis’s Charlotte York both dreamed of romance, SatC wasn’t exactly a romcom—at least, not at first. It offered audiences a peek into the sexy, infuriating, and overwhelming world of New York dating, along with trenchant cultural commentary on the difficulty of meeting Mr. Right, even if there was no shortage of Mr. Right Nows. 

But some pretty regressive politics lurked behind the progressive feminism. Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones was consistently slut-shamed by the show, even as she took control of her own sexuality. Early episodes included some very regrettable racial politics and bisexual erasure. And the fact that all four women end the series paired up with a man seems counter to the feminism the first season promised us.

Emily also shares why And Just Like That is dead to her (it has nothing to do with Mr. Big!), and the line that makes her tear up every single time.

I couldn’t help but wonder…why not start listening to this episode right this minute?

Tags: deep thoughts about stupid shit, feminism, comedy, pop culture, women, romance, cultural commentary, millennial nostalgia, gen x nostalgia, romcom, storytelling, psychology, mental health, HBO, sex and the city, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Darren Star

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Don't let your past dictate who you are, but let it be part of who you will become.

In this episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie revisits the surprise hit of 2002: My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This comedy broke many of the tropes that can make romcoms hard to watch, from the Hollywood gorgeous leading lady who is clumsy to show she's just a normal woman to the heroine enjoying a glow-up in response to her new romance. Writer, director, and star Nia Vardalos created a film that allows every woman to use their agency, even in sexist situations, for a sunny comedy that refrains from making anyone a villain.

But in addition to a romantic comedy, My Big Fat Greek Wedding is also a meditation on cultural differences. The movie offers a hilarious and compassionate portrayal of feeling out-of-place as the American child of immigrants. Although Vardalos tells the very specific story of a Greek family, the details resonated with audiences from myriad other cultures. Counterintuitively, the specificity of the storytelling made the film feel universal, so that audiences felt seen--even if they had never once eaten moussaka.

The root of the word "headphones" is Greek. So throw those bad boys on and listen in!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid shit, comedy, romcom, women, cultural commentary, storytelling, romance, classic movies, film, movie reviews, feminism, pop culture, film analysis, millennial nostalgia, my big fat greek wedding, nia vardalos, john corbett, mental health

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Don't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouch

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

“Somebody has to save our skins. Into the garbage chute, flyboy!”

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily tackles the foundational pop culture text of every Gen X childhood: the 1977 film Star Wars IV: A New Hope. By following the storytelling rubric offered by Joseph Campbell's monomyth (a.k.a., The Hero's Journey), George Lucas created a film that changed the industry. (If only he knew when to leave well enough alone.)

Emily reminds Tracie of how the depiction of Princess Leia as a badass inspired their mother, who knew that storytelling where a woman grabs the blaster and saves herself was revolutionary. But Leia is the only woman in the galaxy far far away, which meant the sisters also learned that there was only one way to be a heroine, and that she must be flawless.

The sisters also discuss how the film drew inspiration from history, including the recently ended Vietnam War. George Lucas intended for the rebels to represent the Viet Cong while the Empire represents America--a message the flew over the heads of the audience who most needed to recognize the critique. But Lucas also undermined his point by hiring an entirely white cast, making it much easier for viewers to identify with the rebels.

Finally, Emily admires the way Lucas made the world of Star Wars feel lived in--in part by making space and alien worlds look dingy, dented, and distressed, but also by refusing to slow down the plot to explain everything. Undermining this storytelling choice in later installments (we're looking at you Midichlorians!) is one of Emily's biggest disappointments with the greater Star Wars canon.

Stuck behind a big walking carpet? Throw on some headphones and listen in while you wait.

Mentioned in this episode

Power and Oppression in Star Wars: A New Hope
The Politics of Star Wars
The Real History That Inspired ‘Star Wars’
Soldadera Clara de la Rocha
Why Fascists Love Stories That Hate Them

Tags:

deep thoughts about stupid shit, storytelling, pop culture, gen x childhood, film, feminism, movies, mental health, comedy, classic movies, women, sci fi, analyzing film tropes, cultural commentary, gen x nostalgia, film analysis, nostalgia, star wars, george lucas, carrie fisher

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!