Speaker 1: Let me go to the controversy section of Nora Ephron's
Speaker 1: Wikipedia page. Actually there is none. I see no controversy section. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: unproblematic queen. Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where
Speaker 1: we get yesterday's pop culture, today's takes. I'm ros Damnue
Speaker 1: and I'm fran Dorato, and we hope you had a
Speaker 1: lovely Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, however you celebrated. Um, we
Speaker 1: are jumping right into things this week. No news because
Speaker 1: you know, we were too busy, I don't know. Sucking
Speaker 1: and fucking and eating chocolate or whatever. Those are the
Speaker 1: things that people do on Valentine's Day, right They eat chocolate? Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And watch the Fifty Shades of Great trilogy and its entirety,
Speaker 1: which is what we covered last year for Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: So go back listened to those episodes if you are
Speaker 1: feeling spicy. But this week we are also talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who is very prolific when it came
Speaker 1: to romance, but from a slightly different perspective, slightly This
Speaker 1: week we're talking all about nor Fron, the prolific writer
Speaker 1: director of such films as When Harry met Sally sleep
Speaker 1: List in Seattle. You've got mailed Julie and Julia and
Speaker 1: Queen of the rom com and as Fran just learned,
Speaker 1: and as I learned ten minutes before that from looking
Speaker 1: at her Wikipedia. She also co wrote Silkwood, which neither
Speaker 1: of us have seen. Neither of us has have seen,
Speaker 1: despite me being a devout share stand um, I've heard
Speaker 1: it's actually good and Share plays a lesbian. There was
Speaker 1: also a really great documentary about nor eron Um on
Speaker 1: HBO a couple of years ago called Everything Is Copy,
Speaker 1: which I did walk but don't remember a lot of Fran.
Speaker 1: You you have claimed that you remember more of it.
Speaker 1: So do you want to start off by giving a
Speaker 1: little context about who Nora Ephron was? Sure? So, Nora
Speaker 1: Efron is, you know, one of the better Neppo babies
Speaker 1: in our Neppo baby cinematic universe. Her parents were screenwriters,
Speaker 1: and she I think pretty quickly got into making films
Speaker 1: UM after having a extremely prolific career as a magazine writer. Essentially,
Speaker 1: so her work as an essayist was like immediately profound,
Speaker 1: recognizable something that everyone saw after UM, and she did
Speaker 1: it by simply like kind of captivating the world with
Speaker 1: her own voice. And I think you see a Nora
Speaker 1: Fron voice in her movies. Right, It's very like conversational.
Speaker 1: It's from the first person perspective. It's like blunt and
Speaker 1: funny and sometimes mean. And I think like sooner rather
Speaker 1: than later, as she sort of took up this residency
Speaker 1: at Esquire at a time when there weren't very many
Speaker 1: like women writing for magazines, let alone for Esquire, she
Speaker 1: kind of just became this like thought leader, like a
Speaker 1: kind of socialite thought leader like um, if not intellectual,
Speaker 1: that people were who were looking for and like looking
Speaker 1: toward to like cultivate the culture. Like she was kind
Speaker 1: of famous while she was alive. She was the Tolentino
Speaker 1: of her time. She was she kind of she kind
Speaker 1: of was. And it's funny like I actually, you know,
Speaker 1: I haven't read like a ton of Nora Frans essays
Speaker 1: and didn't buy like a compilation of her work when
Speaker 1: she died or things like that. I actually only know
Speaker 1: her from her movies, and I think that I personally
Speaker 1: didn't know the life that she had outside of movies. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: it's also so romantic, grows like so romantic compared to
Speaker 1: like our experience in magazines, like you know, Nora Fron
Speaker 1: was writing alongside like Gay Tolles and like that old
Speaker 1: school generation of writers when like they would get paid
Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of dollars to write one story totally yeah,
Speaker 1: and that one story they would have like three months
Speaker 1: to finish. You know, this was a different This was
Speaker 1: sort of closer to Carrie Bradshaw's type of journalism. You
Speaker 1: could where you could have a weekly column that kept
Speaker 1: you in Manila obloics and you know, or Eron had
Speaker 1: an even more idyllic version of that going on, not
Speaker 1: like us where we were writing you know, like click
Speaker 1: bait about Javins, nail polish, Yeah, no, no health insurance, freelancing, begging,
Speaker 1: begging editors to give us like two fifty dollars to
Speaker 1: write like a four thousand word essay, Um that to
Speaker 1: do in two days. Um yeah. It's it's really definitely
Speaker 1: a more romantic version of like what it meant to
Speaker 1: be a writer before the Internet age. Um yeah. But
Speaker 1: those are kind of I think the background things that
Speaker 1: are important to know. Um As she kind of went
Speaker 1: into her film career and became like the filmmaker nor
Speaker 1: Efron as opposed to just the writer nor efron Um.
Speaker 1: What about nor Effron, I guess, like, do you have
Speaker 1: like a favorite movie of hers? Yes, And I have
Speaker 1: argued about this with with my mother fairly recently. I
Speaker 1: do think so. According to my mom, she thinks When
Speaker 1: Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made,
Speaker 1: and I slightly disagree with that, and I think that
Speaker 1: of her movies, You've Got Male is definitely my favorite
Speaker 1: and part of the reason why I am drawn to
Speaker 1: that as opposed to When Harry Met Sally. Even though
Speaker 1: I love When Harry Met Sally. It's a fantastic movie.
Speaker 1: But When Harry Met Sally nor efron wrote it, but
Speaker 1: she didn't directed it, and she wrote and directed You've
Speaker 1: Got Mail because she did. She didn't make her directorial
Speaker 1: debut until with This Is My Life, and then for
Speaker 1: the most part, she directed all of her movies, and
Speaker 1: she co wrote most of her films with her sister
Speaker 1: Deelia fron Um. But I think, like, obviously it does
Speaker 1: kind of make sense that When Harry Met Sally is
Speaker 1: written by a woman directed by a man, because like
Speaker 1: literally the basis of the film is this question of
Speaker 1: can men and women ever really be friends. But I
Speaker 1: definitely preferred later in her career, when Nora Ephron was
Speaker 1: writing and directing all of her films because they feel
Speaker 1: so much more her vision in totality. Um, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what I respond to. And I do think
Speaker 1: You've Got Mailed is just a perfect romantic comedy. I agree.
Speaker 1: I I honestly wish I had ranked, like thought to
Speaker 1: like rank the Nora Evon movies that I had, but
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that that is my favorite too. I
Speaker 1: love when Harry met Sally. I think like it is something.
Speaker 1: It's a movie that like sweeps you off your feet
Speaker 1: in a way that her other films don't. But it's
Speaker 1: it's an amazing well both both it and You've Got
Speaker 1: My Little amazing New York movies. Yeah, they are their
Speaker 1: love letters to New York. And like Nora Afron was
Speaker 1: a kind of classic new Yorker, like even her writing
Speaker 1: style like sounds like New York, like her literal voice,
Speaker 1: the infectiousness of her voice like sounds like what New
Speaker 1: York sounds like. Is that corny to say? No, I
Speaker 1: think it's true when Harry met Sally also has this
Speaker 1: quality that's like I think if you simplified it, like
Speaker 1: it could be a play. It could be a play
Speaker 1: about these two couples. Because it is kind of about
Speaker 1: you know, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and then Carrie
Speaker 1: Fisher and whoever the guy is that she ends up dating.
Speaker 1: There is something um like theatrical about it. But then
Speaker 1: obviously like it's a much bigger story than that. I
Speaker 1: I rewatched it last year because I was watching a
Speaker 1: lot of rom coms last summer and it's it's such
Speaker 1: a great movie. And like, obviously the thing everyone remembers
Speaker 1: from when Harry met Sally is the I'll have what
Speaker 1: She's having orgasm moment in Katz's Deli. But it's just
Speaker 1: it's so clever, and so much of the cleverness is
Speaker 1: in the writing, the specificity of the jokes. Um. How
Speaker 1: actually like heartfelt it is? Um And of course you know,
Speaker 1: the performances are amazing. I'm not like the biggest Billy
Speaker 1: Crystal fan, although I do love City Slickers Billy Crystal
Speaker 1: hot in this movie, Um, he's not hot, but he
Speaker 1: there is that image of him in like the chunky
Speaker 1: cabled its sweater that always gets tweeted like in The Fall. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's very autumnal. It's well, it's a
Speaker 1: very well, it's not a Thanksgiving movie, but it's a
Speaker 1: very autumnal movie because the main action of the movie
Speaker 1: kind of takes place from like summer to New Year's Eve,
Speaker 1: which is when the movie ends. So it's it's super
Speaker 1: autumn in New York, which I love. Which also I mean,
Speaker 1: we'll get to You've Got Mail later, I think, but
Speaker 1: You've Got Mail also has a very big autumnal quality
Speaker 1: to it, although I think it's more of a spring movie.
Speaker 1: Are all of her movies automn movies honestly, are anything
Speaker 1: that Thanksgiving movie? To you? It was just like, yess
Speaker 1: a Thanksgiving movie. I mean Sleepless in Seattle, I guess
Speaker 1: is a little more winter. It's a little more winter.
Speaker 1: I actually have only seen that movie once. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I gosh, I feel like I want to be Nora
Speaker 1: f Fron. Is that like something that every does every
Speaker 1: right or want to be nor every And it feels
Speaker 1: like very natural to like want the trajectory and the
Speaker 1: success and the kind of cool girl factor that she had,
Speaker 1: Like it's I think, so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: our friends who are writers are aiming for that kind
Speaker 1: of trajectory because, you know, the I I think, not
Speaker 1: knowing a lot about her life, I would imagine that
Speaker 1: a big part of what launched her was the second
Speaker 1: movie she ever wrote was Heartburn, which was adapted from
Speaker 1: her novel of the same name, which was like a
Speaker 1: sort of auto fiction novel based on her own divorce
Speaker 1: when I think her husband cheated on her. Um. I
Speaker 1: recently gifted the novel to my grandma for her birthday. UM,
Speaker 1: maybe I should read it too, and she and I
Speaker 1: can have a little book club moment. But it does
Speaker 1: feel like so many of our friends who are writers,
Speaker 1: so many people of our generation, especially people who come
Speaker 1: from journalism, that is how they launched their careers. They
Speaker 1: write memoirs, or they right sort of auto fiction e novels,
Speaker 1: and then maybe those get like adapted or like get
Speaker 1: like you know, huge like buzzy you know, internet success,
Speaker 1: and then from there they go on and either like
Speaker 1: write more novels or move into TV and film. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, that is kind of the north Front path.
Speaker 1: It really is, especially when you're a Neppo baby. UM.
Speaker 1: I God, I wish my parents were screenwriters. That would
Speaker 1: have been so much easier, right do you think? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's answer the question of when Harry met Sally,
Speaker 1: do you think women and men can be friends? I
Speaker 1: mean she also didn't and she also didn't take non
Speaker 1: binary people into accounts, and when I was a man,
Speaker 1: we were friends. M I feel like, um, honestly, I'm
Speaker 1: literally I'm literally assessing the question. I'm literally as set
Speaker 1: saying the question. Well, no, it's a very it's obviously
Speaker 1: a question from you know, the gaze of the hetero patriarchy.
Speaker 1: Oh see, yeah, Okay, wait what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Because I'm like trying to evaluate it from like a
Speaker 1: heterosexual person in the nineties perspective, like Ken, well, not nineties,
Speaker 1: this was in this Yeah, it was really the eighties.
Speaker 1: So yes, if you're thinking about if you're a straight
Speaker 1: woman in the eighties, can women and men be friends?
Speaker 1: I guess is like a more real question. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly from the lens of today, Like obviously yes, but
Speaker 1: as Phoebe you just said in the chat, why would
Speaker 1: she be friends with a man? She spilled you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because like Nora Fron was like a bit
Speaker 1: of a quote unquote feminist icon. I and you do
Speaker 1: feel like feminism imbued in her work, especially in like
Speaker 1: a line like that, can heterosexual men and women women
Speaker 1: be friends? I honestly can't think of a single example. Well,
Speaker 1: I think the thing is that straight guys are always
Speaker 1: trying to fuck literally everyone every woman around them. So
Speaker 1: maybe from the woman's perspective, um, how is her work feminist? Her? Her?
Speaker 1: She always writes these strong characters, these strong women, characters
Speaker 1: that don't give a fun I'm not talking about I
Speaker 1: don't think she was acclaimed as a feminist because of
Speaker 1: her um screenwriting work. I think that by the time
Speaker 1: she was writing for Esquire. So when she when she
Speaker 1: was invited to write for Esquire, which at this point
Speaker 1: in her career, she her her writing was already taking off.
Speaker 1: They were like, what do you want to write about?
Speaker 1: You can write about anything you want, which is like
Speaker 1: an offer that like every writer would dream of from
Speaker 1: the editor and Esquire. And she was like, I want
Speaker 1: to write about women. And so she spent the whole
Speaker 1: time writing from a women's perspective about women for men
Speaker 1: in a way that I think is like kind of profound,
Speaker 1: and and and her angle, like when she was um,
Speaker 1: when she was on this like cusp of like whatever
Speaker 1: wave of feminism was happening at this time, with like
Speaker 1: glorious with Gloria Steinham literally like she was like one
Speaker 1: of Gloria Stadiams peers um. I think she felt like
Speaker 1: feminist discourse at the time was like so unfun right.
Speaker 1: She was like, no one is like willing to self critique,
Speaker 1: no one's having any fun with it, no one is
Speaker 1: being honest, like, no one is like kind of no
Speaker 1: one's taking it there like I'm going to take it
Speaker 1: there with feminist writing. And I think that her bluntness
Speaker 1: and her willingness to say like yeah, like I like,
Speaker 1: what's a stupid examples like she wrote this like this
Speaker 1: this story about breasts and how women always want their
Speaker 1: breasts to be bigger and like what's in what how? How? Um?
Speaker 1: Yes exactly exactly as we pull out our heads like
Speaker 1: and and she would write about like, oh yeah, like
Speaker 1: I want my breast to be bigger, as does that
Speaker 1: not make me a feminist? And like why are women
Speaker 1: so insecure about hers? She was writing about insecurities a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. I think you see that in
Speaker 1: her films. I think I think you see that in
Speaker 1: her essays. It's like kind of in her personality. She's
Speaker 1: not afraid to self deprecate and to acknowledge her shortcomings
Speaker 1: and to and to say like, yeah, like you know,
Speaker 1: I want X, Y and Z. That might be superficial,
Speaker 1: but this is what I want. And I think that
Speaker 1: at the time, especially when you're in the middle of
Speaker 1: movement work, you don't really want to acknowledge all your
Speaker 1: flaws along with it. You don't want to add that
Speaker 1: kind of nuance. And she did, right, she was like,
Speaker 1: this is everything else we're bringing to feminism. Um, I
Speaker 1: think I honestly like, that's just my guess. You you asked,
Speaker 1: You asked the question, and I think that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I understood it. I wonder what, I think it's
Speaker 1: better if we don't know. I kind of yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of thinking she might be in in you know,
Speaker 1: moving forward in her career, the next big film and
Speaker 1: probably the thing that put her on the map as
Speaker 1: as a filmmaker as well as a writer. Um with
Speaker 1: Sleepless in Seattle, which probably for most people is like
Speaker 1: the romantic comedy. Like I think when you talk about
Speaker 1: the lexicon of romantic comedies, Sleepless in Seattle looms larger
Speaker 1: than any although for me, I don't think it would
Speaker 1: even be in my top five, maybe not in my
Speaker 1: top ten. What top ten nor Aron movies? No, I'm
Speaker 1: talking top ten romantic comedies. Oh, I was talking about
Speaker 1: Nora Afron movies. Yeah, I would not be in my
Speaker 1: act sual romcom ranking. You know, Sleepless in Seattle is
Speaker 1: a great movie. I love the Rose O'donald's in it.
Speaker 1: Um for anyone who you know has never seen it,
Speaker 1: it's about um, this little boy who like calls into
Speaker 1: a radio show looking for um a woman for his
Speaker 1: dad and Meg Ryan looking for a woman. She and
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks fall in love somehow and then meet on
Speaker 1: the umpire state ble to get the end of it.
Speaker 1: It's it's It's sorry. This is the only thing I'm
Speaker 1: contributing to the conversation. You want Tom Hanks's load in
Speaker 1: this movie, right, like this is one where you are
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks, Um, not not in this movie the movie
Speaker 1: that I want Tom Hanks's load in Splash One of
Speaker 1: the Way, which which which for for like a virgin,
Speaker 1: for like a virgin lore Splash was one of the
Speaker 1: things that made us want to do this podcast, and
Speaker 1: we recorded this test episode talking about Splash because we
Speaker 1: went on we went on a vacation to Joshua Treat,
Speaker 1: but it actually was sort of like a retreat to
Speaker 1: like basically blot out on the deck of this podcast
Speaker 1: and an excuse for us to write it off. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Splash is one of my favorite movies, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite rom coms, and Norah Fron famously wrote and
Speaker 1: directed Splash. Well you know where Nora Efron is the
Speaker 1: seed of this episode, but it's talking into a beautiful
Speaker 1: garden that is more generally about and Splash is a
Speaker 1: great romantic comedy starring Daryl Hannah and a young hot
Speaker 1: Tom Hanks. Load. I remember if I remember his butt.
Speaker 1: I remember you pointing out his butt and being like,
Speaker 1: look at his butt, and I was like, WHOA. I
Speaker 1: actually did not expect that from Tom Hanks. It was
Speaker 1: a bit of a dump truck. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: very horny movie that he and Darryl Hammon has a
Speaker 1: lot of something that's so baffling. He loves having sex
Speaker 1: with her so much that he locks her inside of
Speaker 1: like a hotel room or something like that. Doesn't he
Speaker 1: lock the mermaid inside a room He like literally holds
Speaker 1: her captive so he can fuck her. But that's not
Speaker 1: how it's. It's it's some weird. It's some weird vibes.
Speaker 1: That also also it stars a young Eugene Levy. No
Speaker 1: Eugene Levy would get you his nose. It's about the nose.
Speaker 1: Um wait, okay, that's some pretty good lore. Actually, like
Speaker 1: wasn't I think the first things we ever watched were
Speaker 1: Splash and then I think, oh my god, to a
Speaker 1: Mrs Doubtfire episode because you know, it's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite films. Okay, okay, okay, are there any other? So
Speaker 1: there are fast forwarding a little further in in nor
Speaker 1: Fron's career. Um is You've Got Mail in my favorite
Speaker 1: of her films and definitely up in my like top
Speaker 1: five romantic comedies of all time. Um it is a
Speaker 1: for anyone who doesn't know and if you have never
Speaker 1: seen You've Got Mail, I like literally can't believe you're
Speaker 1: listening to this podcast. Um it's. It stars Meg Brian
Speaker 1: as the owner of a charming little children's bookstore on
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side, and she is um sort of
Speaker 1: priced out of the neighborhood because a big bookstore, UM,
Speaker 1: like a sort of Barnes Noble type store that is
Speaker 1: run by Tom Hanks moves into the neighborhood and they
Speaker 1: are secretly Internet pen pals and fall in love and
Speaker 1: it is just the sweetest, funniest but also kind of mean,
Speaker 1: like most New York and like specifically Upper West Side
Speaker 1: ass romantic comedy. It's so nineties, but like turn of
Speaker 1: the century nineties because of the A O L of
Speaker 1: it all. Parker Posey is in it, UM and she's incredible.
Speaker 1: Greg Kneer isn't it He's Meg Ryan's boyfriend at the beginning.
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle is in it. Dave Chappelle, Um, this movie
Speaker 1: like captures like um. This this extremely specific era of
Speaker 1: at least our lives like this generation's lives were. Then
Speaker 1: the internet felt so new and scary and thrilling, like
Speaker 1: like this. Sending your first emails like that was such
Speaker 1: a Do you remember what they felt like? Do you
Speaker 1: ever any idea what first email was or like, what
Speaker 1: your first incidence is, what message was? No, but I
Speaker 1: do have a lot. I have so many memories of
Speaker 1: logging onto a O. L. And specifically to read fand fiction.
Speaker 1: You know. This was so um, this was such an
Speaker 1: important time for the formation of almost everything about my identity.
Speaker 1: One of the few things that I can remember are
Speaker 1: I remember having a girlfriend at the time. Her name
Speaker 1: was Katie Crow. I was in seventh grade. I remember
Speaker 1: chatting with her over email and writing like cute emails
Speaker 1: to each other back and forth. And I remember taking
Speaker 1: forever to decide the font and font color of my
Speaker 1: you know, and the background color, which was usually a
Speaker 1: cloudy rainbow, which yeah, I think that, like that was
Speaker 1: the thing that like I obsessed over. I was like,
Speaker 1: what the fund is the font? And this was this
Speaker 1: was the time of you know, children, our little gen
Speaker 1: Z listeners if you exist, you know, this was the
Speaker 1: time when you had one family computer that everyone shared.
Speaker 1: Mine was our our house that we lived and had
Speaker 1: an enclosed patio in the back and that's where the
Speaker 1: computer was. And I would go out there like early
Speaker 1: in the morning so I could log onto a well
Speaker 1: and ten minutes later once I was finally online. After that, um,
Speaker 1: then I would you know, read my little Buffy fan
Speaker 1: fictions and stuff, um and chat with probably like you know,
Speaker 1: fifty year old men who wanted to murder me and
Speaker 1: you were just a little girl. It was just a
Speaker 1: little quote unquote girl. Um yeah, I god, I just
Speaker 1: I I miss when the Internet was like at this
Speaker 1: cusp um, I do you so long to do anything? Yeah,
Speaker 1: But like our brains were better, Our brains were like
Speaker 1: Nora Afron, that's honestly, like when I was exactly no, truly,
Speaker 1: like are the Internet ruined our brains? That? I think honestly,
Speaker 1: there's something a little nostalgic about It's so weird to
Speaker 1: be nostalgic for a period that like we lived through.
Speaker 1: But there is a nostalgia to the kind of cinematic
Speaker 1: universe of Nora Afron's characters and this kind of pre
Speaker 1: Internet purity that oh god, yeah, I'm just jealous of.
Speaker 1: I like I missed that. I missed when writers didn't
Speaker 1: have to write about the Internet. Like now that we're
Speaker 1: in this like era of like work, like we can't
Speaker 1: really have any of our conversations without acknowledging how social
Speaker 1: media is influencing them or maybe like that it's like
Speaker 1: about social media or like about some viral trend in
Speaker 1: some way, And I don't know, I missed this like
Speaker 1: kind of cuspol analog time. Um, it is nice to
Speaker 1: think about the Internet being something that you had to work,
Speaker 1: that you had to work for, that you had to
Speaker 1: put an effort to access, and that was actually a
Speaker 1: barrier of entry for a lot of people. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure at the time this movie came out, UM, this
Speaker 1: was very much a novelty UM using the Internet in
Speaker 1: this way. And like it makes sense that these the
Speaker 1: leads of this film were like coastal elites, like you know,
Speaker 1: sort of like intellectual like book people, um, who were
Speaker 1: falling in love online. UM. But also I don't know,
Speaker 1: like the idea of love letters and like, um, you
Speaker 1: know mistaken identities is so romantic. But I do think
Speaker 1: this film is PROBLEMATICUM. I mean it's enemies to lovers.
Speaker 1: But then you know, halfway the whole twist is that
Speaker 1: halfway through the film, Tom Hanks realizes that it's Meg
Speaker 1: Ryan who he's talking to online because they're supposed to
Speaker 1: meet I r L. And then he kind of like
Speaker 1: uses his knowledge of her to get her to fall
Speaker 1: in love with him I r L. And then you know,
Speaker 1: by the by the end of the film when they
Speaker 1: actually do meet, she says I wanted it to be you,
Speaker 1: which like is a is a great line, it's so romantic,
Speaker 1: but also like he fully manipulated and her. You know.
Speaker 1: The thing is like if she didn't say that line
Speaker 1: I wanted it to be you, the movie would have
Speaker 1: such a different ending, like it would be I think
Speaker 1: it would be easy to assume that she like hated
Speaker 1: his guss and she's like, you're dead to me forever,
Speaker 1: you know, like you needed her to say that in
Speaker 1: order to have that little Well, she was clearly in
Speaker 1: love with him by the end, but he was using
Speaker 1: in their actual lives once they started spending time together.
Speaker 1: He was using the information he got from her when
Speaker 1: they were anonymous to get her to fall in love
Speaker 1: with him. Maybe she knew it was him all time,
Speaker 1: and she she wanted him to know these things. I know.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. No, I don't think so either.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, um this again with this movie,
Speaker 1: like it feels like, oh god, I feel I don't
Speaker 1: want to be a redundant because like in our Julie
Speaker 1: Roberts episode, we were like, they don't make movie stars
Speaker 1: like this anymore, but like I do feel like they
Speaker 1: like there there aren't writers like nor Fron anymore. It's like,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like she belongs to this
Speaker 1: kind of internet cost generation of writers that like, we'll
Speaker 1: just I don't know, I don't will never We don't
Speaker 1: get writers that are so magnanimous and on every single
Speaker 1: talk show the way nor Efron wasn't every single talk show,
Speaker 1: and like was actually famous during her time. Well, I
Speaker 1: think also what it is is that the um the
Speaker 1: romantic comedy is kind of dead. Um. This nor Efron's um.
Speaker 1: You know, heyday was the golden age of the romantic comedy,
Speaker 1: which I would I would argue was really the nineties, um,
Speaker 1: when we were like post sexual liberation and pre you know,
Speaker 1: jaded internet era. Um. And she, you know, she was
Speaker 1: the perfect writer for her time, Like there are these
Speaker 1: ones in a generation people, I think. And of course,
Speaker 1: like you know, she was speaking for a very privileged, white, sis,
Speaker 1: hetero like elite idea of life and love, of course,
Speaker 1: but you know it clearly did captivate a nation in
Speaker 1: the world in a way. And so yeah, I think
Speaker 1: she was she was this handah horvat one to be
Speaker 1: the voice of her generation, or at least a voice
Speaker 1: of a Generation. Her last films were two five Bewitched remake,
Speaker 1: which actually watched kind of recently. I think On a
Speaker 1: Plane really is Yeah, I mean it's awful. It's it's
Speaker 1: so bad, but but it's still I mean, it's still
Speaker 1: has like some charming dialogue and Nicole Kidman's charming. Will
Speaker 1: Ferrell is just like woefully miscast. Kristin chenowis in it
Speaker 1: and like she's great. Of course, Michael Caine's fab But
Speaker 1: did you just it's you didn't like the movie? Is
Speaker 1: there anything else? If you remember about it? It's just
Speaker 1: like a bad framing of the movie. I think, like meta, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's about an actor, like a sort of like washed
Speaker 1: up actor who's making a reboot TV show of Bewitched,
Speaker 1: and it did kind of predict reboot culture. But then
Speaker 1: an actual which gets cast in it and they fall
Speaker 1: in love and it's just like stupid um. But then
Speaker 1: her last film was Julia and Julia, which is I
Speaker 1: think an incredible movie if you only watch the Julia
Speaker 1: child scenes. Oh yeah, of course. I mean I've seen
Speaker 1: the YouTube version called and Julia. That is the movie
Speaker 1: with Amy Adams cut out of it. It's much better.
Speaker 1: And totally watch the ball and Meryl Streep is incredible
Speaker 1: as Julia Child. Okay, it should be said Meryl Streep
Speaker 1: with Stanley Tucci. With Stanley Tucci very important. And I
Speaker 1: love how how into each other they are, like they fuck,
Speaker 1: they want to ravish each other. It's so cute. I
Speaker 1: don't understand how there's that HBO Max Julia Child show
Speaker 1: that that literally in the midst of everything going on,
Speaker 1: HBO got renewed for a second season when we already
Speaker 1: have kind of the definitive portrayal of Julia Child in media.
Speaker 1: Meryl Street, Yeah, yeah, it really is. Um it doesn't
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite make sense, but you know, reboot culture,
Speaker 1: it's going to happen. Well, okay, I want to talk
Speaker 1: more about romantic comedies in general and like where nor
Speaker 1: Efron fits into it, because you know, as we've said,
Speaker 1: she does kind of she's the the part of the
Speaker 1: romantic comedy landscape that's like very you know, like intellectual,
Speaker 1: a little jaded, a little cynical, very New York very
Speaker 1: you know, like coastal elite. I would say, like you
Speaker 1: have fucking Nancy Meyers on one end of the spectrum,
Speaker 1: you know, she's making I would say, like more West
Speaker 1: Coast romantic comedies, like big, big white kitchen comedies. Um.
Speaker 1: And then nor Efron is like East Coast. You know,
Speaker 1: she's making small you know, exposed brick kitchen. Um, still
Speaker 1: still very nice kitch, still very expensive kitchen. So they're
Speaker 1: they're the two coasts. Um. But you know, like like
Speaker 1: their characters, I think there's like a shared cinematic universe
Speaker 1: that their characters live in. I think so. I mean
Speaker 1: I frequently kind of like lump Nancy and Nora like
Speaker 1: in in the same kind of category in my brain,
Speaker 1: even though the writing is so different. I am like
Speaker 1: such a Nancy Meyers stand. Like, as I said on
Speaker 1: the pod before, I love like, you know, movies about
Speaker 1: like white women in crisis, like wealthy women who are
Speaker 1: going through it emotionally. Um. But yeah, no, they're there.
Speaker 1: I think West Coast East Coast is like the perfect assessment,
Speaker 1: like there is something Nancy Myers movies are just sorry,
Speaker 1: like so much more shallow, Like they don't they don't
Speaker 1: have the voice Nora has. Like there Nora is, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, the thing that has stuck
Speaker 1: with Nora through the entirety of her career and something
Speaker 1: that we remember her for, even if we don't say
Speaker 1: it explicitly, was like her voice, like she had a
Speaker 1: very yeah the right the writing is Fancy does that
Speaker 1: Nancy doesn't? You know? Um? But god, but think about
Speaker 1: Nancy's She was like having so much fun. I want
Speaker 1: to write any Myers movie not a Nora Afron movie,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, I wish, I do
Speaker 1: wish that Julia Roberts had been in um, an Nora
Speaker 1: Efron movie at something. But but Meg Ryan is so
Speaker 1: is the Nora Efron protagonist? Like that is the kind
Speaker 1: of woman she was writing, I don't know, just like
Speaker 1: a white blood woman with short hair with with anxious
Speaker 1: speaking patterns. Yes, um I am. I love Meg Ryan.
Speaker 1: She was certainly a mother at some at one point
Speaker 1: in the culture. Um and I will always love her,
Speaker 1: especially for being the voice of Anastasia in the animated
Speaker 1: film Anastasia. Oh God, I forgot about that. And that
Speaker 1: movie was stacked. It had Christen Dunce, It had um
Speaker 1: John qu Sack, Uh, Angela no no, Bernadette Peters, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: and Angela Lansbury. Um that Kelsey Grammar, Um yeah, Meg Ryan?
Speaker 1: Wait there was another really, oh Hankazaria? Yes? And then
Speaker 1: who was who was Resputen? It was like Christopher Christopher Lloyd. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: have we already talked about how rest we need you? We?
Speaker 1: Should we do an Anna station episode? Should we do?
Speaker 1: Should we do our Russian Dynasty episode? Um? Sure? Have
Speaker 1: you ever read we could we could do like a
Speaker 1: non and Disney animated movie, um? Episode? Because I think
Speaker 1: Anastasia is one of those movies that everyone thinks as
Speaker 1: a Disney movie but it's not. And there were quite
Speaker 1: a few of those in the nineties when others studios
Speaker 1: started to get in on the animation game that Disney
Speaker 1: had like sort of created a monopoly around. Have you
Speaker 1: have you ever read about when Risputant died? Yes? Like
Speaker 1: how like how he died? It's so crazy. He died
Speaker 1: like he like got shot like three times and then
Speaker 1: was like beaten to death and stabbed and thrown in
Speaker 1: a river, like a frozen river. And that's how I
Speaker 1: want to go. Yes, And and it didn't in That's
Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do to you. But his body they
Speaker 1: found that he died from like like freezing, like he
Speaker 1: didn't die from the gunshot. Runs or stabbing or anything.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's also crazy that when they adapted Anastasia
Speaker 1: into a Broadway musical that I never saw, they cut
Speaker 1: rascipute in from it, and his song is one of
Speaker 1: the best songs in the film. I wonder why is
Speaker 1: it like too dark or was because? I think because
Speaker 1: they did they didn't want it to be magical. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: that's fair, which is boring? This fuck? Um? I remember you?
Speaker 1: Will you watch season five of The Crown, the episode
Speaker 1: about the Romanofs where they showed them all getting executed
Speaker 1: at the beginning. Oh my, that episode is so gaggy.
Speaker 1: They really pretty gay. Yeah, they popped a couple of
Speaker 1: bullets off into the Romanofs. Oh my god, it's so sad.
Speaker 1: Meg Ryan Love love her. Who are the other like
Speaker 1: rom com diva is obviously Julia Roberts We've talked about. Um,
Speaker 1: Jennifer Lopez. Monster in Law is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: rom coms. Would definitely be on the like top ten list.
Speaker 1: Queen Latifa is a rom com diva. Last Holiday is
Speaker 1: she really is? Although he was? She? Did she do
Speaker 1: any other? Oh Rene Salwagger, Bridget Jones. I've never seen
Speaker 1: Bridget Jones Diary. What I've never seen an Oh my god,
Speaker 1: I wrong with you? Are those Christmas movies? Um? Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of. I always well, I always watch Bridget Jones
Speaker 1: Diary in the period between Christmas and New Year's because
Speaker 1: it starts on New Year's Day. So mate, we'll do that.
Speaker 1: You know, at the end of this year, I can't
Speaker 1: believe you've never seen Bridget jes Diary. It's going to
Speaker 1: rock your world. Okay, we'll do an episode on it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it done, and it's gonna be and you're
Speaker 1: gonna be feel insane when they talk about how fat
Speaker 1: she is when she's like not fat. Wait, there are
Speaker 1: jokes about how fat she is. Hold that she's like
Speaker 1: fat and she's like, you know, she weighs like a
Speaker 1: hundred fifteen pounds. God. There's been so much discussion about
Speaker 1: how kind of romantic comedies are a lost art, and
Speaker 1: we did we did touch on this, you know, in
Speaker 1: the Julia Roberts episode, which definitely go back and listen
Speaker 1: to that if you haven't heard it. But the era
Speaker 1: of rom comms was also the era of movie stars,
Speaker 1: and that's what a lot of these films were sold on.
Speaker 1: By having these movie stars in the starring roles so
Speaker 1: that it almost didn't matter what the movies were about.
Speaker 1: People were coming to them to see these stars fall
Speaker 1: in love over and over again. And we kind of
Speaker 1: don't have that anymore. And now rom comms really are
Speaker 1: the main place they exist is on streaming, and so
Speaker 1: you know, there's maybe something to be said about how,
Speaker 1: you know, streaming could create this like renaissance of rom
Speaker 1: comms because they are you know, like cheaper to make
Speaker 1: than big budget blockbusters than like Marvel movies, and they
Speaker 1: might just not ever reach the same you know, highs
Speaker 1: of popularity and like universal peel that the rom coms
Speaker 1: of of yester year of year old he hot times times.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, yeah, I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason that we don't have like the volume
Speaker 1: of rom coms that we used to is has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with streaming and with like kind of
Speaker 1: the Marvel stuff. Just as you said, like, I think
Speaker 1: that because the blockbuster movies are all actions now, it's
Speaker 1: almost like these got scooted out. Um, maybe because the
Speaker 1: movies of the two thousand's, like the late two thousand's
Speaker 1: are like bad, like the romantic comedies were like not
Speaker 1: on the level. It's just you feel like nostalgic for
Speaker 1: like what a rom com used to feel like before
Speaker 1: social media and before like millennials started making things like
Speaker 1: Love Simon and like Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist like
Speaker 1: like or or a five Days of Summer like that
Speaker 1: that actually feels like But those are kind of romantic
Speaker 1: drama das most you think they don't count it. You
Speaker 1: don't think five hundred days of Summer that's a rom com,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Maybe, Um, well, there really, there really is
Speaker 1: a renaissance of romance, but it's happening in books. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, like there is a huge market now on
Speaker 1: book talk for romance. You know, we've talked about like
Speaker 1: all the those books with like vector cover art of
Speaker 1: little cartoon people. Like that's the biggest part of the
Speaker 1: book industry outside of like you know, huge sci fi
Speaker 1: novels is romance, and a lot of them are being
Speaker 1: adapted into TV shows and movies. But it is books
Speaker 1: more than anything, um that are selling. You know. You
Speaker 1: look at like the like Colleen Hoover, which I've never
Speaker 1: read a Colleen Hoover book, but um, the Seven Husbands
Speaker 1: of Evelyn Hugo bitch Um, Taylor Jenkins read Emily Henry,
Speaker 1: who's whose books I like, although I've heard that her
Speaker 1: book that's coming out this year is not very good. Um,
Speaker 1: but these books are like are like romance first, and
Speaker 1: then some of them are funny, and then some of
Speaker 1: them are dramatic, and it's more about the romance of
Speaker 1: it all than the comedy of it. And I think
Speaker 1: what what was so amazing about Nora Fron's work, and
Speaker 1: I think why she maybe even haralded the age of
Speaker 1: romantic comedies is that the emphasis I think was always
Speaker 1: on the comedy and the characters, and the romance was
Speaker 1: really the container for that. That's a good way of
Speaker 1: putting it. Yeah, it's just like it's like the framing
Speaker 1: is kind of what made I think, the framing and
Speaker 1: the lens on it is like what made it so great.
Speaker 1: I would like to see more queer rom colms, specifically
Speaker 1: because like you know, we were all kind of tired
Speaker 1: of the like sad gay period stuff and and like
Speaker 1: you know, I also talk a lot about how I like,
Speaker 1: you know, gay historical erotica, but those are usually not comedies,
Speaker 1: although sometimes they're funny, but they're not specifically comedies. I
Speaker 1: also like, wouldn't even really call Red White and Royal
Speaker 1: Blue a rom com what? No, I would call it
Speaker 1: a romance novel. I would call it a young adult
Speaker 1: I would not young. I would call it a new
Speaker 1: adult because that's like the categorization that exists now. I
Speaker 1: would call it a new adult queer romance. Um, it
Speaker 1: is funny, but it's not a comedy. Wait, Phoebe dropped
Speaker 1: in the Chat Happiest Season as a roum? Did you watch?
Speaker 1: Did we? Did we ever talk about that? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: watched it when it came out. I rewatched it this
Speaker 1: past Christmas season. Well, um, I was at my best
Speaker 1: friend Ryan's moms for Christmas and she had never seen it,
Speaker 1: so we watched it on Christmas Day. That bad. I
Speaker 1: think it's I think it's good. I think it's a
Speaker 1: cute movie that that has problems. The problems are mostly
Speaker 1: that one of the romantic leads is irredeemable, is irredeemable
Speaker 1: and Christ and Stewart should end up with opry Plaza.
Speaker 1: But I still think it's a It's a well made
Speaker 1: movie with some really good performances. Yeah, it is a
Speaker 1: well made movie, and it does have good performances. That's
Speaker 1: very diplomatic. The cannon of queer rom coms is so
Speaker 1: small that you know, we kind of have to take
Speaker 1: what we can get, and like I do hope we
Speaker 1: get to the point where that's not true. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm putting in the work now to make sure that
Speaker 1: you know the genre is expanded like I as as
Speaker 1: I have alluded too many times, I'm in the process
Speaker 1: of writing a queer romantic comedy and you know, look
Speaker 1: out for that whenever I finish it plus probably two years. Um.
Speaker 1: You you know you you've consumed a lot of roum
Speaker 1: coms as market research for this book. Did you learn
Speaker 1: anything new? Well, not necessarily like market research. More I
Speaker 1: want to write something that is like aware of the
Speaker 1: genre it exists in UM and like I think tropes
Speaker 1: are very interesting and like it's fun to riff off
Speaker 1: of them and to acknowledge them and be aware of them. Um.
Speaker 1: Did you learn anything new in this in this exploratory
Speaker 1: period about raum commas, specifically, anything you noted? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think what I learned is that, you know, I
Speaker 1: kind of had this revelation last summer, which is that
Speaker 1: I was I was dealing a lot with um, worrying
Speaker 1: that what I was writing was to the thinking that
Speaker 1: I needed to make the story I was writing more
Speaker 1: like general and like accessible to a wider audience. And
Speaker 1: what I kind of realized was that, no, in making
Speaker 1: my story as specific as possible, that is what would
Speaker 1: make people want to read it. Um. And so that's
Speaker 1: I think what I learned from watching a lot of
Speaker 1: rom coms and also just consuming a lot of queer
Speaker 1: media and kind of Bros in particular. Rose, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: but we are not gonna we are not going to
Speaker 1: speak about Bros. No, we don't. There's nothing left that
Speaker 1: needs to be said about Bros. But God, do you
Speaker 1: think Bros Is going to ruin it for the future
Speaker 1: of all gay rom coms? Do you think that I
Speaker 1: don't think will get a green light anymore? Okay, good,
Speaker 1: because we need to make some movies. Rose, Yes, Um,
Speaker 1: who would you want to play your love interest in
Speaker 1: a rom com? Adam Driver? Definitely for a ent sure,
Speaker 1: Adam Driver. Adam Driver in a transamorous relationship. That's all
Speaker 1: I've ever wanted. What about you? Um? Kiki Palmer Balmer
Speaker 1: Stanley Tucci, Stanley Palmer and Stanley Tucci, and we like
Speaker 1: form a polycule. Yeah, you're in a throuble with We're
Speaker 1: in a May December. I'm now trying to imagine when
Speaker 1: a March May December polycule. I'm trying to imagine Stanley Tucci.
Speaker 1: We need a throuble rom com. Although I absolutely support
Speaker 1: polyamory and throubles, I don't particularly like reading about them
Speaker 1: because like, yeah, I'm very much drawn to like two
Speaker 1: people being in love and like, but that's also just
Speaker 1: kind of the way I was socialized. So I'm trying
Speaker 1: to unlearn that there should be throuble representation in rom coms. Like,
Speaker 1: we have never had a polycule rom com. We've never
Speaker 1: had Well, what I always what I always wondered about
Speaker 1: the favorite is why didn't they just Why weren't they
Speaker 1: just in a throuble? There are a lot of movies
Speaker 1: that are like, why aren't they just another terrible I mean,
Speaker 1: my best friend's wedding, Why aren't they just in a trouble?
Speaker 1: That's true because I do think that Julia and Cameron
Speaker 1: how to vibe. Yeah, but I always think I always
Speaker 1: think everyone has a vibe and everything I watched famously,
Speaker 1: do you think everything has a vibe? Um? And you
Speaker 1: know what, I think nor Evron would agree with me.
Speaker 1: I honestly, nor Efron would be so problematic about polyamorous
Speaker 1: relationships if she were like problematic about a lot of things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank god she like died before the internet like really
Speaker 1: became a same. Don't say that's so horrible. We love you,
Speaker 1: We do love you, but you probably would have hated
Speaker 1: the Internet too. I mean you kind of did well. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I was going to say, there needs to be Polly
Speaker 1: representation in romances, like how come we have not had
Speaker 1: like a Polly Disney princess, Like we need we need
Speaker 1: Polly Nora Efron movies. We need um, Yeah, we need
Speaker 1: like not we have not reached the representation part of
Speaker 1: the conversation. No, we have. We were fifty minutes. Representation
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. Representation matters, and we need polycueles on screen
Speaker 1: that we need. We need a Disney princess who felch is?
Speaker 1: I want to see a rom come with Felching in it.
Speaker 1: That's when that's when I'll know that we really have
Speaker 1: reached Um. It's a queer utopia in media. Will you
Speaker 1: remind me what felching is? I feel like when you
Speaker 1: eat your own come out of someone after you've come
Speaker 1: in them. How did you not know that the version
Speaker 1: the woman was too stun to speak? Have you never
Speaker 1: felt someone or been felched? No? No? No? Really? Well
Speaker 1: you don't let you don't love come the way I
Speaker 1: love come Bobe, Phoebe has Babe has felched. I really
Speaker 1: I really wish, I really wished. I really wish that
Speaker 1: I was on that level. Honestly, I honestly feel ashamed.
Speaker 1: I wish I had felched. Well, nor Evron. I hope
Speaker 1: that before you left us you learned what felching is,
Speaker 1: and I think you r I p nor Efron, you
Speaker 1: would have loved felching. You can follow our burner account
Speaker 1: at Like a Virgin Fine. We will be keeping you
Speaker 1: updated on an extra special announcement on the coming episodes.
Speaker 1: Um stay tuned for more surprises. Follow me at France
Speaker 1: Squish go and follow Rose Dammo at Rose Damu anywhere
Speaker 1: you want on social You can leave us a review
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or rating on Spotify and Like a Virgin,
Speaker 1: Isn't I Heart Radio Production? Our producer is Phoebe Unter
Speaker 1: with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etre Until next week,
Speaker 1: See you later versions. Bye,