Speaker 1: On the Bechde cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women and them all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Eph and
Speaker 1: bast start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Jump Jump the houses jumping, you.
Speaker 3: Need jump jump the house jump? What an iconic party?
Speaker 3: I mean Pat? Say what you will about Pat. She
Speaker 3: knows how, knows how to throw a party. Yeah, she
Speaker 3: knows how to get the house jumping. She is Yeah,
Speaker 3: oh Pat is Pat's an icon She is Megan. Uh,
Speaker 3: you know, we love Magan in this house. We love Magon,
Speaker 3: but but you know she Pat is the blueprint. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then we're like, there's How from two thousand on
Speaker 2: a Space Odyssey, and How wishes he was Pat?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, how in How's Dreams and it's Pad,
Speaker 3: a direct obvious ripoff of How.
Speaker 2: No, no, not even a little bit.
Speaker 3: No. Sorry. I trailed off for a second because I
Speaker 3: was trying to remember what Pat stood for. Oh, and
Speaker 3: I was like, peep and toilet paper, hilarious.
Speaker 2: Oh that's correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, brain is dust? What does it stand for?
Speaker 2: Personal applied technology? Okay, which is so generic it could
Speaker 2: mean any.
Speaker 3: I believe it. I believe it. Okay, this movie has everything.
Speaker 3: It has an evil house played by Katie Sigal. She
Speaker 3: should have won an Emmy for this, but she did
Speaker 3: it because she's only in five minutes of the movie.
Speaker 3: We have a girl boss that we are rooting for
Speaker 3: even though she's clearly on a destructive pass. And oh
Speaker 3: my god, fast forward Sarah's timeline twenty years.
Speaker 2: I don't want to know.
Speaker 3: Ooh, Tim Apple, there's this movie. Yeah, and also other things,
Speaker 3: but most importantly, those characters are so iconic and so
Speaker 3: we are here to cover. Okay, wait, should we start over?
Speaker 2: No? We okay, speaking of amazing paths, we are on one.
Speaker 2: This is the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Deronte.
Speaker 3: My name is Jamie Laftus, and this is our podcast
Speaker 3: where we look at your favorite movies using an intersectional
Speaker 3: feminist lens through personally applied technology that we have been
Speaker 3: developing over the last seven years. Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes yes, and we use the Bechdel test
Speaker 2: yes as a jumping off point to initiate a larger
Speaker 2: conversation the Bechdel Test.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what is it? Caitlin, Get me up to speed.
Speaker 2: It is a media metric created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel,
Speaker 2: sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test. It originally appeared in
Speaker 2: Alison Bechdel's comic Dykes to Watch out For in the eighties.
Speaker 2: It was intended as just like a goof a joke
Speaker 2: a lark in the comic strip, but it has been
Speaker 2: made into this media test many versions of it. The
Speaker 2: one that we use is this two characters of a
Speaker 2: marginalized gender. They have to have names, they need to
Speaker 2: talk to each other, and the conversation has to be
Speaker 2: about something other than a man. And we especially like
Speaker 2: it when it's a narratively impactful conversation and not just hello,
Speaker 2: here's a strawberry smoothie.
Speaker 3: But iconically this movie passes the Bechels test quite a bit.
Speaker 3: And I think that there are several important exchanges between
Speaker 3: particularly Pat and Sarah that you know this. I just
Speaker 3: so we're covering smart house stunningly common request. Yes, but
Speaker 3: I do think that it is one of the Disney
Speaker 3: Channel original movie from nineteen ninety nine, directed by LeVar Burton.
Speaker 3: Hello Jump scare incredible. I know it is by most
Speaker 3: people's metrics, considered to be one of the greatest d
Speaker 3: cooms of all time. I think it is a millennial
Speaker 3: classic and it holds up in a lot of regards
Speaker 3: extremely well. And then in other regards, No, it's camp.
Speaker 3: It's camp Caitlin. When Angie is jumping on her bed
Speaker 3: to Bewitched Sela V. At length, it's almost like Bewitched
Speaker 3: just paying them to do it, which they almost certainly are. God,
Speaker 3: we have some real nineties deep cut like Bewitched Irish
Speaker 3: girl group kind of a one hit wonder unless you
Speaker 3: count their cover of Hey Mickey, which I thought was
Speaker 3: pretty great. Okay, sure, but yeah, their big hit Seyla
Speaker 3: V features heavily and then, oh my god, one of
Speaker 3: my favorite songs of being like six was Ryan Merriman
Speaker 3: and his Merry Troop of Boys do a choreographed d
Speaker 3: I never get over this scene. It's I mean, it's
Speaker 3: like a very popular scene if you grew up with
Speaker 3: this movie. But it's to a boy band called five.
Speaker 3: Couldn't be more of a one hit wonder, And even
Speaker 3: that's kind of a stretch, but I remember them, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and their hit song was called slam Dunk the Funky
Speaker 3: and m Boy did they do a choreographed dance to
Speaker 3: slam Dunk the funk. Okay, I crush it. At this point,
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is the most cute boy behavior in
Speaker 3: the entire world.
Speaker 2: I'm in It was endearing. I I did not realize
Speaker 2: that was an actual song, and I just figured it
Speaker 2: was like one of those like corny song like fake
Speaker 2: songs that was written for this movie and inserted into
Speaker 2: the movie to pretend like this is a popular song
Speaker 2: that everyone knows. I did not realize it was a
Speaker 2: real ass.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. So I was so like I had
Speaker 3: so many older cousins that I feel like I had
Speaker 3: a wealth of boy band knowledge before it even made
Speaker 3: sense to because it was like everyone was like five
Speaker 3: years older than me. I mean, they're like, the cutest
Speaker 3: boys are in Otown. No, the cutest boys are in
Speaker 3: you know, in sinc versus Backstreet Boys as the obvious one.
Speaker 3: But you also have ninety degrees LFO ninety eight degrees,
Speaker 3: and then you have flops like Otown and five But
Speaker 3: I but Otown. Did do you remember that song? Because
Speaker 3: I want it all? Oh nothing? Oh my god, so
Speaker 3: many boys at this time, and we honor them boys. No,
Speaker 3: that song is real I think that the houses jumping
Speaker 3: is not real.
Speaker 2: No, that definitely sounds like a fake.
Speaker 3: Feels pretty on theme. It would be wild. If that
Speaker 3: song already existed, LaVar Burton would have been jumping for joy. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: I think they had to commission the houses jump in incredible. Okay.
Speaker 2: So, and so the reason we're doing this movie is
Speaker 2: that we discovered that all of the movies that we
Speaker 2: are releasing in July, three of the four that were
Speaker 2: like planned were live action Disney movies. Because we've got
Speaker 2: the Hannah Montana episode that was a live show that
Speaker 2: came out, we wanted to do, you know, a very
Speaker 2: like American jingoist movie. So of course we were like two.
Speaker 3: The Haunted Mansion's coming out, So we're doing the Haunted Mansion. Yes,
Speaker 3: we also, I mean, I feel like even though we're
Speaker 3: covering Disney movies and you know, we should go to
Speaker 3: jail for that. But honestly, on a long enough timeline,
Speaker 3: every movie is going to be a Disney movie, and
Speaker 3: then we would have to cancel the show. It would
Speaker 3: be challenging. They're simply acquiring so many things are so scary.
Speaker 3: But even within these live action Disney movies, there's sort
Speaker 3: of a wealth of different genres. You've got like the
Speaker 3: action with National Treasure two, You've got the coming of
Speaker 3: age movie with Hannah Montana, You've got the horror movie
Speaker 3: with Haunted Mansion, and you've got the sci fi thriller
Speaker 3: that we know as Smart House. Yes, I want an
Speaker 3: alternate ending to this damn movie. I would also as
Speaker 3: tired as this genre of movie is, and I feel
Speaker 3: like it's already kind of dying off. I wouldn't hate
Speaker 3: as long as LeVar Burton also directed it. I would
Speaker 3: not hate Smart House too.
Speaker 2: Where extremely smart House.
Speaker 3: Sarah is ruining the world Pat Ben has fallen in
Speaker 3: love with Pat. Oh they're secretly married. Wow, he's married
Speaker 3: to the house. Interesting Angie has Angie hasn't spoken to
Speaker 3: the family in years. She's a communist. The dad twist
Speaker 3: he's dead. Yeah, well he's my least favorite character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Sandra is basically on a path to becoming the
Speaker 2: Oscar Isaac character from Ex Machina.
Speaker 3: One of the many movies that this Disney Channel original
Speaker 3: movie that came out twenty years before shares a ton
Speaker 3: of parallels with. Yeah, this movie is so brilliant. I
Speaker 3: love it. What is your history with Smart House the
Speaker 3: movie though I hadn't them in I had never seen it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: wow again, how do you feel? Well, the only time
Speaker 3: I watched d COM's is for this podcast. I had
Speaker 3: never seen any of them. That's true, and so I
Speaker 3: but I just just sort of thought you would have
Speaker 3: started watching them in your spirit.
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I did watch one, actually two of my
Speaker 2: own accord and it was teen Beach Movie one and two.
Speaker 3: I remember, and those movies rock and roll they do
Speaker 3: rock so and they roll and don't forget they roll,
Speaker 3: they rock, they roll and they rule. But aside from that,
Speaker 3: I've never seen any dcoms on purpose. Well, this is
Speaker 3: an early one and it is a classic. It's the
Speaker 3: best I first saw this movie. I don't think I
Speaker 3: would have seen it when it came out, as probably
Speaker 3: too young when it came out, But they rerun these
Speaker 3: damn things on the Disney Channel all the time, and
Speaker 3: so I think probably I had seen it by the
Speaker 3: time I was like ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it maybe.
Speaker 3: Even a little sooner. And it's just such a fun movie.
Speaker 3: But it also, like I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 3: it captures it's definitely I think at its core a
Speaker 3: cautionary tale. I would be so curious what the writing
Speaker 3: process was in in terms of figuring out how to
Speaker 3: end this movie in a way that wasn't terrifying to children,
Speaker 3: because the ending is bizarre and feels dissonant with what
Speaker 3: the rest of the movie is, especially because especially because
Speaker 3: Pat essentially takes her own life at the end of
Speaker 3: the movie, it's and then she lives in jail forever.
Speaker 3: But that's the happy ending. We'll come back to it.
Speaker 3: I understand why this movie can't end in a terrifying
Speaker 3: cliffhanger because it is for eight year old But I
Speaker 3: just think it's like a fascinating moment in time of
Speaker 3: like excitement about technology but also fairly cautionary tale. And
Speaker 3: at first I was like, Ooh, it's so random that
Speaker 3: LeVar Burton would direct this, but it actually really isn't
Speaker 3: because he at this point I will talk about some
Speaker 3: like a couple of interviews that he did on this
Speaker 3: movie's twentieth anniversary a couple of years ago, but like
Speaker 3: at this point his career, he was mister Star Trek
Speaker 3: and like he's playing Jordie Laforage, and he had directed
Speaker 3: a ton of episodes of Star Trek, so you know,
Speaker 3: like technological cautionary tales are in fact extremely in his wheelhouse.
Speaker 3: And he's probably one of like the most like the best,
Speaker 3: most interesting choices to direct this movie. And I feel
Speaker 3: like this movie accidentally really packs a punch and I
Speaker 3: love it. And the stuff that holds up is kind
Speaker 3: of incredible and the stuff that doesn't is I was
Speaker 3: mostly laughing. I also think it's so funny that the
Speaker 3: guy that plays the dad, who is by far the
Speaker 3: biggest flop character, can't stand him. He's, first of all,
Speaker 3: with all due respect to this guy, a very weird actor,
Speaker 3: where some of his lines of dialogue are like my
Speaker 3: children and you're like what. He just sometimes will end
Speaker 3: a conversation or like mark the entering and exiting of
Speaker 3: Ryan Merriman by being like my children and you're like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck. I also love that his name is
Speaker 3: Kevin Kleine.
Speaker 2: Er Kevin Kleiner, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just like he's Kevin Klein but more so.
Speaker 2: No, wait it's not Kleiner, It's Kilner but close enough.
Speaker 3: No, it's Kevin Kleiner. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, he had to.
Speaker 3: Change it because people were just like, what do you mean, Kevin,
Speaker 3: Klein's just enough. We don't need more. I like Kevin Klein.
Speaker 2: I know I like him too.
Speaker 3: I think that's still a safe opinion to have. I
Speaker 3: don't know, I know, you never know in this world.
Speaker 3: I think that I think I like Kevin Klein. Yes,
Speaker 3: I can't say that for all we say cautiously. Yes,
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no one's going to be the top
Speaker 3: Kevin of all time. You know who that is? Kaitlyn,
Speaker 3: Kevin le Mignon, Kevin le Mignon. That's exactly right below. Okay, Bello,
Speaker 3: wake up. Smells it hot, bananas, smell the hot. But enough?
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, wait really quick, Okay, this is This
Speaker 3: episode will have a bit of a Matreon feel to
Speaker 3: it for those of you on our Matreon, because when
Speaker 3: it's just the two of us, it's just tangents all day.
Speaker 3: My mom and I because we have my family's had
Speaker 3: a biannual timeshare on the outskirts of Orlando for twenty years,
Speaker 3: and next summer is our trip and my mom has
Speaker 3: specifically set it up so that I can meet her
Speaker 3: in Florida to see Despicable Me for with her at CityWalk. Wow,
Speaker 3: she's so excited.
Speaker 2: Wait, Is there a Minions ride at Universal Inn Orlando?
Speaker 3: Yes, and it's like it's it's kind of like Kevin
Speaker 3: klein Er. Then the Minions ride at University Studios Hollywood.
Speaker 3: They they're building out like a whole new like land section.
Speaker 3: That's even. That's because I think at at Universal Studios Hollywood,
Speaker 3: it's sort of like just the theme park from Dispicable
Speaker 3: Me One, but they're going full Minions. They're like, no,
Speaker 3: we're doing villain con. We're going for it. Okay, I
Speaker 3: can't wait. It's gonna be great. The Minions are from
Speaker 3: what I can tell, they're busting out of jail yet again.
Speaker 3: These rascals. I love them. The Minions are anti cars
Speaker 3: role and that's canon. Okay. Smart House, I watched it
Speaker 3: a lot when I was a kid. I actually had
Speaker 3: seen it pretty recently because my boyfriend was homeschooled and
Speaker 3: didn't have cable and hadn't seen Smart House, and so
Speaker 3: I had to fix that. And now it's fixed. I'm
Speaker 3: so excited to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Great. Shall we get into it.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Let's take a quick break first, and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back for the recap. Poopye Bellow we're back. Margan's okay.
Speaker 2: So here's the recap of Smart House. We meet a house,
Speaker 2: but it's not just any house, Jamie. It's a smart house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this house, This house has brains for days. I
Speaker 3: love a good I was trying to think of other
Speaker 3: movies that open with some sort of suburban paper Boy gag.
Speaker 3: I feel like there's other movies that start with paper Boys.
Speaker 2: Doesn't Barbin Star open, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yes it does. Oh my god. Okay, that's a superior
Speaker 3: paper Boy scene. But I feel like, yeah, paper Boy
Speaker 3: scenes or you know.
Speaker 4: Paper childer person, paper Person, paper Child is a little
Speaker 4: scary sounding there, And I mean, and then you have
Speaker 4: that's the ultimate.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's paper Boy the movie. God, I've been
Speaker 3: listening to it. So I've been listening to the sound
Speaker 3: truck so much it's going to show up on my
Speaker 3: Spotify year endless. Very embarrassing. Anyways, we start with a
Speaker 3: classic paper Boy scene which will pay off later, believe
Speaker 3: it or not. I love, I mean love love. We've
Speaker 3: got LeVar Burton at the Helm. There's not going to
Speaker 3: be a loop left unresolved.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, no. Okay, So we meet this smart house,
Speaker 2: which was designed by a woman named Sarah Barnes played
Speaker 2: by Jessica Steen, yes, who designed this house and gave
Speaker 2: it all of these like advanced capabilities which we will
Speaker 2: learn more about in a little bit. But basically, the
Speaker 2: house has this AI operating system called PAT, which stands
Speaker 2: for peepee, poo, pooh and toilet paper.
Speaker 3: That's that's exactly. We are just really smart people. Yeah, yes, boy,
Speaker 3: smarter even than the house. Voiced by Katie Segal who
Speaker 3: I never watched this show, but I know a lot
Speaker 3: of people know her as Peggy Bundy, unmarried with children
Speaker 3: as well as I didn't. No, she's also Leela on Futurama.
Speaker 2: Okay, so that's what I recognized her voice from. I
Speaker 2: was like, right, whose voice is this? I know this?
Speaker 2: And then turns out Futurama.
Speaker 3: She's a legend. Everyone loves her and she is also pad.
Speaker 3: I loved thinking about Katie Sagal in just like a
Speaker 3: vo booth doing ninety percent of the work for this movie,
Speaker 3: where it's just like her saying Ben like fifty times
Speaker 3: now Ben now Ben. Oh my god. She's so like mommy,
Speaker 3: Like she's so I mean, it's wild. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 3: am a mother like no other You're like, what, ugh, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, So Sarah again, that's the designer slash engineer
Speaker 2: of the house. Not really exactly sure what her job is.
Speaker 3: A little wonky, but it wasn't ex Moki and iye
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: Right, she's a woman in stem it's safe to say yes.
Speaker 2: And she has launched this contest where some lucky family
Speaker 2: will win the house. And that really begs the question
Speaker 2: why would they not sell what would probably be a
Speaker 2: very like lucrative house to sell, but they're just giving
Speaker 2: it away.
Speaker 3: I wasn't as thrown by that as why have they
Speaker 3: not had Sarah live there for a while or had
Speaker 3: someone like test run the house that eats your blood
Speaker 3: when you walk in. It seems like there would be
Speaker 3: some sort of but I guess, you know, even with
Speaker 3: a lot of tech today, the regulation just isn't there.
Speaker 3: And sometimes it takes the house almost killing a family.
Speaker 3: I mean to realize that maybe there should have been
Speaker 3: some sort.
Speaker 2: Of self driving cars that run people over, et cetera.
Speaker 3: This is one of my biggest issues with this movie
Speaker 3: is like people should be more mad at Sarah than
Speaker 3: they are, but they're always like, no girl boss, like
Speaker 3: she's doing her best, and I was like, she made this,
Speaker 3: she made the house is trying to eat you anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, my head canon was that the reason they're giving
Speaker 2: it away rather than like putting it on the market
Speaker 2: to sell is that it's like a prototype that they
Speaker 2: want to test out via a family.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would make sense, And it's also like that's
Speaker 3: so dcom of like starting a movie with a kid
Speaker 3: winning a contest that you're kind of like, yeah, happens
Speaker 3: all the time in these movies.
Speaker 2: Got it? Okay? So then we meet Ben Cooper, who's
Speaker 2: played by Ryan Merriman of Final Destination three. Oh fame?
Speaker 2: Is that what the one?
Speaker 3: That's not what he is most famous for. He is
Speaker 3: sort of the king of d COM's for like he
Speaker 3: is like running this channel for some time. He has
Speaker 3: three classic Disney Channel original movies that he stars and
Speaker 3: back to back to back.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: He is, of course Ben Cooper in Smart House? Who
Speaker 3: could forget Ben Cooper? Smart House? Not me hang out
Speaker 3: with mister Cooper basically. Two years later, he is in
Speaker 3: iconic basketball film The Luck of the Irish, where he
Speaker 3: plays himself as well as he but he's like a
Speaker 3: basketball player He's always a basketball player in these movies.
Speaker 2: Disney loves because the characters in high school musical play
Speaker 2: oh yeah basketball.
Speaker 3: Oh oh carbon blue. Well, I guess Zach got front. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like the first one's very basketball code it yeah, just
Speaker 3: like a thirteen year old playing basketball. This channel can't
Speaker 3: resist it. So The Luck of the Irish is a
Speaker 3: movie about Ryan Merriman, who's a like teenage basketball player
Speaker 3: who then is turned into a leprechaun. And it's funny
Speaker 3: because now he is too short to play basketball. Oh
Speaker 3: and then he is in kind of a serious one
Speaker 3: that I don't remember as being very good, but a
Speaker 3: young Misha Barton is in it, and it's called a
Speaker 3: Ring of Endless Life. Oh my, it's a sad one.
Speaker 3: And then he was like, I need to get the
Speaker 3: fuck out of here. I'm gonna go star in Final
Speaker 3: Destination three and later iconically for big fans of Pretty
Speaker 3: Little Liars, he does play a pretty pivotal early character
Speaker 3: in Pretty Little Liars and he's killed by a bell
Speaker 3: at the church and then he wasn't on the show
Speaker 3: after that. He has really been exclusively in really campy
Speaker 3: movies for his entire career. It's interesting. But yeah, I
Speaker 3: think Smart House is sort of his big claim to
Speaker 3: finish his first big or just like his first big thing.
Speaker 3: But I think he's talented. I think he's a good
Speaker 3: child actor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose.
Speaker 3: Okay, Lukewarm, Yes, okay.
Speaker 2: So Ben Cooper is a thirteen year old boy who
Speaker 2: has been entering that contest to win the smart House
Speaker 2: so that he and his younger sister Angie and his
Speaker 2: dad Nick that's Kevin Liner Nill Nurse Slash Kleiner can
Speaker 2: move into the Smart House.
Speaker 3: I just want to add really quickly that to just
Speaker 3: close the loop on this whole basketball thing. At the
Speaker 3: beginning of the movie, you know that Ryan Merriman's character
Speaker 3: likes basketball because he's playing basketball outside. But in case
Speaker 3: that wasn't clear enough, his sweatshirt also just has a
Speaker 3: picture of a basketball on it. And it's that cinematic
Speaker 3: subtlety that leads me to believe maybe this kid likes basketball.
Speaker 3: And so later when Kevin Kleiner's like, why don't you
Speaker 3: play basketball, I'm like, why doesn't he play basketball? He's
Speaker 3: obsessed with basketball?
Speaker 2: Well, he tells us it's because he's too busy being
Speaker 2: the body of the family.
Speaker 3: I think that Ben is an interesting character. Anyways, the
Speaker 3: outfits are camp great, They're amazing.
Speaker 2: I'm laughing at the picture you just sent me.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 2: So Ben, like we said, he's like quote unquote mommy
Speaker 2: because he's doing a lot of the household chores and
Speaker 2: a lot of the work to keep the family together,
Speaker 2: and he knows that a smart house could help pick
Speaker 2: up the slack. So that's why he's so adamant about
Speaker 2: entering and hopefully winning this contest. The next day, the
Speaker 2: contest winner is announced and it's Ben, and he finds
Speaker 2: out at school and his friends are like, wow, good
Speaker 2: job Ben.
Speaker 3: There's a very nineteen ninety nine reason that he doesn't
Speaker 3: find out at home, and it's because he's on the
Speaker 3: internet too late, so the phone, the landline can't ring.
Speaker 3: And if you don't understand what that means, then congratulations,
Speaker 3: you're You should ask your parents before you listen to that. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then they also call a landline and leave a
Speaker 2: message on the answering machine, which they don't get because
Speaker 2: they're not at home. Very nineteen ninety nine problems.
Speaker 3: There used to be so many ways to not know things.
Speaker 3: I miss it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So his friends are congratulating him. And then there's
Speaker 2: also this kid Ryan I think it's his name who
Speaker 2: bully's Ben, Yeah, which you can tell because of how
Speaker 2: spiky his hair is exactly, and he calls the bully.
Speaker 2: His big mean nickname for Ben is Benny Boy. He's like, hey,
Speaker 2: Benny Boy, do my homework for me.
Speaker 3: I'm like, we need to punch up Ryan's I'm not
Speaker 3: scared enough of him. I like, yeah, I love that. Like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that this is like still kind
Speaker 3: of true in children's media, but it's like if if
Speaker 3: an actor has spiky hair, it means they're either a
Speaker 3: bully or just a general little stinker or is not
Speaker 3: flat if you're a little stinker.
Speaker 2: But I mean, like Ben's hair is pretty spiky. I
Speaker 2: mean that was just he's a little stinker. He is
Speaker 2: a little stinker, but he's also mommy. I love Ben,
Speaker 2: I'm rooting for him, but the way he talks to
Speaker 2: his little sister is so evil. He's so mean to
Speaker 2: his sister. He's so mean to Sarah. He does not
Speaker 2: respect women.
Speaker 3: No, he doesn't, except he loves Pat.
Speaker 2: He loves Pat and he loves his dead mom. Because yes,
Speaker 2: this is a Disney movie. Therefore, there is a dead mom.
Speaker 2: We're gonna need to kill the mom. Yeah, yes, okay.
Speaker 2: So Ben and Angie and their dad Nick meet Sarah,
Speaker 2: who acquaints them with the smart house and with the
Speaker 2: operating system pat.
Speaker 3: And Nick is like, hubba hubbah. Oh. Nick is such
Speaker 3: a fucking adult. He like when he learns that they
Speaker 3: won a free house in the newspaper, he immediately was like,
Speaker 3: who is that hubble. I was like, you just want
Speaker 3: a house? Do you? Weirdo? Oh Corney, and you're on
Speaker 3: the phone with your ten year old son and stop
Speaker 3: being horny. This is yet another movie. This is also
Speaker 3: very era specific of like a movie in which a
Speaker 3: young girl is obsessed with the sex life of her father.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it's just, oh, it's so weird, Like I
Speaker 3: want a new Mommy, shut up, Ben, let dad go
Speaker 3: have sex with this lady.
Speaker 2: I'm like why, And then Ben is like, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: Our dad is never going to fuck again.
Speaker 3: He's also obsessed. And then also the dad is so
Speaker 3: willing to engage in that conversation where it's like, were
Speaker 3: I Kevin Kleiner, I would be like, shut up, you guys,
Speaker 3: Like it's not your business right, but also he is
Speaker 3: welcoming the discussion by being such a weirdo and being
Speaker 3: like ooh a woga, Like, yeah, weird family, weird, weird family.
Speaker 2: It's a very interesting dynamic.
Speaker 3: They're going through a lot, but for crying out loud, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: So then we learn about what Pat is able to do.
Speaker 2: Pat is basically Ai and Pat's able to observe each
Speaker 2: member of the family and learn more and more about
Speaker 2: them and then like make adjustments along the way. Blood
Speaker 2: she eats her blood blood just so she knows more
Speaker 2: about your blood.
Speaker 3: This this all feels like they're especially the kitchen because
Speaker 3: I remember thinking the kitchen and then the floor observers,
Speaker 3: where like if you spill something, the floor eats it. Yes,
Speaker 3: I think that that was like, and then the huge
Speaker 3: well anyways, but like there was so much about the
Speaker 3: house that was really really cool, and a lot of
Speaker 3: it is just like ripoffs of like Star Trek things
Speaker 3: that existed forever, which again makes total sense because of
Speaker 3: the director. But I just remember thinking this house was
Speaker 3: so damn cool and now I think it's very scary
Speaker 3: and not worth it. And did the do you remember
Speaker 3: the Daniel Kluya episode of Black Mirror.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, which one's what's the plot?
Speaker 3: It's like almost ten years ago, but it's basically like
Speaker 3: people live in these future pods where like all your need.
Speaker 3: There's there's two references of like what the big because
Speaker 3: in in the Smart House there are rooms that are
Speaker 3: just huge TV screens and they're supposed to be able
Speaker 3: to like take you anywhere. They can make you feel
Speaker 3: like you're at a basketball game or of five concert
Speaker 3: or the jungle. And the two things that it reminded
Speaker 3: me of was, yeah, there's a Black Mirror episode where
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be like really cool that Daniel Khalulia
Speaker 3: is able to live in this pod and it really
Speaker 3: gamifies your life and it's supposed to be fun. And
Speaker 3: then of course it's Black Mirror episodes, so it turns
Speaker 3: out to be bad actually, but the that's very reductive,
Speaker 3: but like that is the whole show. Yeah, and they
Speaker 3: sleep in rooms like that. The other one that it
Speaker 3: reminds me of is a Ray Bradberry story, Like I
Speaker 3: have to imagine that LeVar Burton has read this story.
Speaker 3: I wonder if the writers had read this story. I
Speaker 3: remembered it from when I was a kid. But it's
Speaker 3: a short story called the Velt. I meant to read
Speaker 3: it before we did this, but I didn't have time.
Speaker 3: But it's about a family that moves into the Happy
Speaker 3: Life Home filled with machines. I'm reading from scholarly journal Wikipedia,
Speaker 3: of course. The Hadley family lives in an automated house
Speaker 3: called the Happy Life Home, filled with machines that aid
Speaker 3: them in completing everyday tasks. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: The two children, Peter and Wendy, enjoy time in the nursery,
Speaker 3: a virtual reality room able to realistically reproduce any place
Speaker 3: they imagine, and grow increasingly attached to it, which is
Speaker 3: very like I feel like they go out of the
Speaker 3: way to show you this room. And Sarah's like, you
Speaker 3: can feel like you're in anywhere, like the Savannah or
Speaker 3: Cape Cod. I think those are her only two ideas.
Speaker 3: But the way that story ends, because the kids are
Speaker 3: getting more attached to spending time in the nursery, the
Speaker 3: parents start to be like, mmm, we don't know, like
Speaker 3: we kind of like for our kids to go outside
Speaker 3: and interact with people. The kids grow very hostile when
Speaker 3: this is suggested. Okay, fast forwarding to the end. Spoiler
Speaker 3: alert for this story that came out in nineteen fifty.
Speaker 3: When the parents come to fetch them, the children lock
Speaker 3: their parents into the nursery with so what they it's
Speaker 3: so VR in the story that they basically set up
Speaker 3: the nursery to emulate a savannah full of lions, lock
Speaker 3: their parents in the room, and the parents die.
Speaker 2: I think I read this story too, because this sounds
Speaker 2: very familiar.
Speaker 3: I wish that spartause ended like I feel like if
Speaker 3: they had had, if this was not on the Disney Channel,
Speaker 3: this movie could have ended so differently. But I felt
Speaker 3: I'd be so curious. I looked to see if there
Speaker 3: was any reference to it in like the marketing around
Speaker 3: this movie, which of course there wasn't because it was
Speaker 3: a Disney Channel movie. But I have to imagine that
Speaker 3: people like the creative team of this movie knew about
Speaker 3: this story, and like it feels like that room is
Speaker 3: a direct reference to like the scary VR room is
Speaker 3: direct reference to.
Speaker 2: It, especially because there is that moment where they project
Speaker 2: a savannah savannah right, like elephants and apex predators and.
Speaker 3: Stuff, right, and then and and Angie gets scared and
Speaker 3: then Sarah's like, okay, I'll turn it off. Yeah, you're
Speaker 3: just and that sort of it because it's a Disney movie.
Speaker 3: But I was like, whoa are they bradburying right now?
Speaker 3: Oh my god? I yeah, I it maybe want to
Speaker 3: read more Ray Bradberry. I read that in I think
Speaker 3: like sixth grade, and it scared the shit out of me,
Speaker 3: but in a good way. Yeah. Anyways, I just wanted
Speaker 3: to shout out the velt and then also like the
Speaker 3: Happy Life Home Pat. It's the same thing. It's the
Speaker 3: same thing. But they're like, but what if this was
Speaker 3: only sort of bad? What if we trapped Pat there?
Speaker 3: I if so bizarre? Anyways, Sorry, I just wanted to
Speaker 3: I guess that that's sort of context corner a little bit. Sure, Sure, no,
Speaker 3: it's all. It's all very helpful.
Speaker 2: And Pat, in a addition to those things, can also
Speaker 2: like make a bunch of food and serve it to
Speaker 2: the family, like you said, absorb things into the floor
Speaker 2: if you spill. Let's say you request a strawberry smoothie
Speaker 2: and then the strawberry smoothie comes out and for some
Speaker 2: reason it's blue and not like pink like you might expect.
Speaker 3: And commercial and then you spill your.
Speaker 2: Blue strawberry smoothie onto the floor, Well, the floor absorbers,
Speaker 2: incredible creative naming device will break absorb the spill.
Speaker 3: They only had twenty minutes to write this movie, I'm sure,
Speaker 3: I think. Yeah, I thought that that was so funny,
Speaker 3: and it reminds me of the most futuristic appliance I own,
Speaker 3: which I know I've talked about on the show because
Speaker 3: I'm so cocky about it, is my automated spaceship litter
Speaker 3: box for flea. Oh yes, and it's kind of floor
Speaker 3: adjacent in that the poo poo does disappear. But then
Speaker 3: it made me think. I was like, but all that
Speaker 3: does go somewhere, and it's gonna be a stinky day
Speaker 3: when you have to empty out the floor absorbers. That's
Speaker 3: gonna be a bad day. Anyways, Did you know that
Speaker 3: LeVar Burton talked to NASA to research how to like
Speaker 3: make this house cool? It all feels or sorry not
Speaker 3: not LeVar Burtons, the guy who wrote the movie. One
Speaker 3: of the two male writers of the movie, Stu Kreeger.
Speaker 3: Because Stu Kreeger also he's kind of a spacehead. Guess
Speaker 3: what other dcom he wrote?
Speaker 2: I couldn't say.
Speaker 3: Xenon Girl of the twenty first century. That's right. This
Speaker 3: guy loves vaguely late nineties space technology, and I guess
Speaker 3: that he had like a plug at NASA that would
Speaker 3: help him like write in ideas.
Speaker 2: Uh huh. Interesting. Yeah, So here's what happened with me
Speaker 2: watching this movie. I forgot that decoms of this era
Speaker 2: have budgets of like eleven dollars and yeah, look like shit.
Speaker 2: So I had in my head because I knew the
Speaker 2: premise of this movie, and I knew it would be
Speaker 2: like futuristic high tech house stuff, and so I figured
Speaker 2: that the kind of production design of the movie would
Speaker 2: reflect the you know, high tech capabilities of this house.
Speaker 2: That is incorrect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no, of course not. It's a I'm sure
Speaker 3: that this was like a general house set on a
Speaker 3: studio a lot that they like added some dingle hoppers
Speaker 3: to to make it seem like a little fancier. But yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just like a sitcom set basically, Yeah, with the
Speaker 3: sort of clunkily edited in like video screen rooms. But
Speaker 3: I will say, like, as a kid that loved this movie,
Speaker 3: it did feel like the moments they chose to show
Speaker 3: what the house could do. It felt like it was
Speaker 3: enough for me. The kitchen like the snacks when when
Speaker 3: the girls are at the party and they get Infinity snacks.
Speaker 3: Pat's control room like the claw outside. You're like, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: when you think about it, it's a lot of camera
Speaker 3: trickery and just being told that this can happen. Right,
Speaker 3: But I was I was duped. I thought it was awesome.
Speaker 3: I mean, when you're eight years old, it will seem impressive.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 2: When you're thirty seven, not so much.
Speaker 3: Kila, Why are you dunking on this amazing movie? Why
Speaker 3: don't you make smart house and call me back?
Speaker 2: Why am I? They went to NASA? They went to NASA.
Speaker 2: Dunk dunk the house is dunk or the jump jump
Speaker 2: jump dunking the funk. Sorry I got my lyrics confused.
Speaker 2: Slam dunk the funk and then jump jump the house
Speaker 2: is jumping.
Speaker 3: Okay, Yes, sorry, really complicated lore.
Speaker 2: Okay. So the family settles into the new house and
Speaker 2: they love it. Everything's great. Nick starts working from home
Speaker 2: and he's finding that he can be way more productive
Speaker 2: at work.
Speaker 3: His job is the he ships baseball bats. I think
Speaker 3: is that because there's one scene where Pat is yelling.
Speaker 3: I mean this is later in the movie, but Pat's like,
Speaker 3: get back to work, Buster. But he is like on
Speaker 3: this call where he's like, all right, make sure all
Speaker 3: the bats and gloves get there by the end of
Speaker 3: the week. As like, what is this man's job? I
Speaker 3: think that he is a sports equipment shipping guy. Guy
Speaker 3: I don't know, vague, very vague, but sure. And then
Speaker 3: when when Ben calls him at the beginning, he's in
Speaker 3: front of a bunch of baseball looking things. I think
Speaker 3: he's like king of the bats.
Speaker 2: Sure, and well then he brings Ben home a basketball
Speaker 2: to remind us once again that Ben looks basketball right.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so he's so, I mean, he's got range.
Speaker 3: It's not just bats and gloves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also other things.
Speaker 3: Okay, So.
Speaker 2: Nick like the house is helping him be more productive
Speaker 2: at his job at school. This popular girl named Gwen,
Speaker 2: who Ben has a crush on, is like, hey, Ben,
Speaker 2: you should invite me over to your cool house. And
Speaker 2: so everyone's like, wow, this house is really doing one
Speaker 2: for us.
Speaker 3: Jump in it is jump jump.
Speaker 2: But oh no, Pat malfunctions while trying to make smoothies.
Speaker 2: Smoothies are with oranges, Yes, Smoothies are a big motif
Speaker 2: in this movie, and sometimes they are.
Speaker 3: Just too much. I think they're going so smoothie anymore.
Speaker 3: It makes you think.
Speaker 2: You think the irony of Pat malfunctioning and not running
Speaker 2: smoothly because she's trying to make smoothies is literary genius.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Ray Bradberry could never she could not.
Speaker 2: Okay, so Pat malfunctions and we're like, hmm, foreshadowing much so.
Speaker 2: Nick has Sarah come over to see what went wrong,
Speaker 2: and Sarah stays for dinner, which makes Ben furious because
Speaker 2: again he thinks that Sarah is trying to replace his mom,
Speaker 2: and he's really mean and condescending to her, and he
Speaker 2: storms off.
Speaker 3: We'll return to this conversation. Yeah, I do think it
Speaker 3: is kind of amazing that Sarah has a pet rat
Speaker 3: named Butler.
Speaker 2: She's like, like, rat Butler, get it?
Speaker 3: And I don't get it. It's what is that a reference?
Speaker 2: A reference to Rhet Butler, who was.
Speaker 3: Like, oh gone with the wind? Yeah, what a bizarre
Speaker 3: reference to make in a d comt. But at least
Speaker 3: Ryan Merriman's like, what shut up? That is weird behavior
Speaker 3: to name your rat after a racist movie character. But
Speaker 3: I liked that she had a rat.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's not like the other women in stem.
Speaker 3: No, she's dated a bunch of serial killers and she
Speaker 3: has a pet rat. They didn't need to write that down,
Speaker 3: but they did, and I think it's interesting. Well, the
Speaker 3: rat is.
Speaker 2: Another thing that is planted and will pay off. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's why we need the rat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, that's just that Stu Kreeger magic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. So Nick goes to talk to Ben and
Speaker 2: he's like, son, you're taking on too much. You don't
Speaker 2: have to work so hard to take care of us.
Speaker 2: And Ben is like, well, yeah, I don't have to
Speaker 2: work so hard anymore because now we have Pat. She's
Speaker 2: going to be mummy now. And Nick is like, well,
Speaker 2: don't forget, she's just a machine. And then Ben goes
Speaker 2: into the control room of the house and has Pat
Speaker 2: watch a bunch of nineteen fifties sitcoms to show Pat
Speaker 2: how to be more maternal.
Speaker 3: I'm just like Ben, Ben, Now, Ben, why not choose
Speaker 3: more current videos?
Speaker 2: Were anything else? Yeah, well we will return to this because.
Speaker 3: Yes, I also I just like, I don't know you, like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to bully this eleven year old character.
Speaker 3: Too much. But I'm just like this kid should be
Speaker 3: in therapy, Like Kevin Kleiner needs to get this kid
Speaker 3: into therapy. Like he's I feel bad because it's like
Speaker 3: he does all this shitty, little stinker stuff that's super
Speaker 3: misguided and sucks. But it's also like it's obvious that
Speaker 3: like he and his dad, like he doesn't really have
Speaker 3: anyone to talk to about his mom. He's like not
Speaker 3: been able to like properly grieve about it, and like
Speaker 3: I understand from a kid's perspective of like he feels
Speaker 3: like his mom is trying to be replaced and he
Speaker 3: feels like he can't talk about her ever, which like
Speaker 3: has to be really hard on a kid, and you
Speaker 3: would like probably lash out and do a bunch of
Speaker 3: weird stuff and all of that. I just but it's
Speaker 3: like the movie. The way the movie handles it, it's
Speaker 3: very you know, glazed over fantasy stuff. But it's like
Speaker 3: this poor kid, like he hasn't been able to grieve
Speaker 3: his mom and literally no one will talk to him
Speaker 3: about it. And it's like not that it's that his
Speaker 3: dad shouldn't be allowed to move on, like of course,
Speaker 3: but it's like it doesn't seem like there's ever been
Speaker 3: like a structured conversation about it, right, And it seems
Speaker 3: like these like reactions from Ben could at least be
Speaker 3: like tempered, even if it doesn't change how he feels.
Speaker 3: It's like, I feel like you do, oh you know
Speaker 3: your kid a conversation of like, hey, I'm going to
Speaker 3: start seeing people and like this is like how do
Speaker 3: you feel about that? And let's talk about it blah
Speaker 3: blah blah. But Kevin Kleiner's like, shut up, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: fuck like there, you know. But then in other and
Speaker 3: then eventually he feels bad about it. But I was
Speaker 3: just like this dad is a mess. So in that way,
Speaker 3: it's hyper realistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one conversation towards the beginning where Ben says
Speaker 2: something like our family is perfect the way it is,
Speaker 2: and then his dad is like, well, I think there's
Speaker 2: a little room for improvement.
Speaker 3: And it's like that's such a cruel thing to say
Speaker 3: to children. You're a grieving child. I yeah, I feel
Speaker 3: I feel for bad I have. I'm lucky to have
Speaker 3: not lost a parent before, but like it just seems
Speaker 3: like he has no support whatsoever, and his dad is
Speaker 3: like I don't know either like emotionally repressed or like
Speaker 3: doesn't have the skill set to like talk to his
Speaker 3: son about it, and then is bringing someone new into
Speaker 3: his kids' lives, which, of course, like every parent is
Speaker 3: going to be different about the timeline for that, But
Speaker 3: I just I don't know, like Ben, Like it doesn't
Speaker 3: excuse Ben being a little shitthead at so many points
Speaker 3: in this movie. But I also just feel like he
Speaker 3: just has very little support because his sister like probably
Speaker 3: would want to support him if she could, but like
Speaker 3: she doesn't remember her mom well enough to do it right.
Speaker 3: And then his dad won't talk to him about it,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, buddy, we got to get you
Speaker 3: into counseling. Anyways, he doesn't. That doesn't happen. He instead
Speaker 3: shows Pat a bunch of you. I think, like Pat
Speaker 3: literally gets radicalized by the YouTube algorithm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Ben is like, here's some here's some shows.
Speaker 2: And the titles of these shows are mother Knows Best,
Speaker 2: My Three Moms, which it's like, okay, what's that show about?
Speaker 2: Make Room for Mama and Noah's matriarch hilarious, And so
Speaker 2: Pat absorbs these so that she can learn to be
Speaker 2: more motherly, which works because the next day Pat is like,
Speaker 2: brush your teeth, darling, take your vitamin's honey, bunny, here's
Speaker 2: a cupcake, sweetie pie. And then she's also like a dad,
Speaker 2: you worry about business, I'll worry about taking care of
Speaker 2: the kids.
Speaker 3: I thought, it's like, it's kind of interesting commentary on
Speaker 3: like media of that time, but also it kind of
Speaker 3: goes nowhere, right. I just wanted to quickly shout out
Speaker 3: the fact that, for some baffling reason, we get to
Speaker 3: see dad in Sarah's whole date while Ben is throwing
Speaker 3: his party before Pat is put on the straight and
Speaker 3: narrow path of being a real disciplinarian kind of parent house.
Speaker 3: But I just think it's every time kids movie. I'm
Speaker 3: like I in my long career of being a child
Speaker 3: watching movies on the Disney Channel, I never want that
Speaker 3: any given point was like what's happening on their dad's date?
Speaker 3: And right, but they always show it to you. And
Speaker 3: in this one, for some reason, they show you this
Speaker 3: like ah, they kiss you and she because he has
Speaker 3: a little hershey kiss in his bag and then he's
Speaker 3: like kiss and like, I hate this guy so corny.
Speaker 3: She's like objectively too good for him, Like she's literally
Speaker 3: a super genius and this guy is a flop parent
Speaker 3: who's like, but leave her alone.
Speaker 2: Okay. So Ben is like, Wow, it's like my plan
Speaker 2: is working. And then off screen I could like not
Speaker 2: track this sequence of events really or like why this
Speaker 2: was us anyway? Off screen, Ben ends up to his
Speaker 2: bully at the advice of his dad. But Ben, it's
Speaker 2: beaten up very.
Speaker 3: Quickly, and then like, yeah, they the bully. I guess
Speaker 3: it's like good that they don't show it right, but like,
Speaker 3: but why does that happen? Yeah? Yeah, Like what's his name?
Speaker 2: Ryan, Ryan the Bully?
Speaker 3: Ryan the Bully kicks the shit out of him, which
Speaker 3: again seems like okay, Kevin Kleiner, this is a good
Speaker 3: point to like talk to this school, like do something,
Speaker 3: but he's a flop, so he does not do anything right.
Speaker 2: I do not know why this subplot with the bully
Speaker 2: is in the movie. Doesn't really connect it anything else.
Speaker 3: All it really does for me is like reinforce what
Speaker 3: a shitty parent Nick is, where it's like the first
Speaker 3: time he bothers to give his son any advice, he
Speaker 3: gets the shit kicked out of him, right, and you're
Speaker 3: just like, well, I don't know, maybe Pat. I think
Speaker 3: Pat is kind of a better parent. Sorry, wow, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, let's let's find out. So Ben. So, after he's
Speaker 2: been beaten up, Ben is feeling down and he's also
Speaker 2: still really missing his mom, and you know, Sarah is
Speaker 2: around more and more, and he feels very threatened that
Speaker 2: she's gonna come in and like quote unquote replace his mom.
Speaker 2: So then he watches a video which reminded me of
Speaker 2: remember on the John Wick episode we were talking about
Speaker 2: Deadwife dot mp four. He watches Dead Mom dot MLV.
Speaker 3: He does, he really does, and she and it's just
Speaker 3: like so, I mean, it's like it makes sense in
Speaker 3: a movie of this era. And then most I mean
Speaker 3: it's just as vague and Dead Wife dot mp four
Speaker 3: she's like, John, come on, John, You're like what are
Speaker 3: you talking about? Like why are you on the beach?
Speaker 3: What's happening? And then this one, at least it's a
Speaker 3: little more grounded, but she's like running around the kitchen
Speaker 3: being like, mom is gonna buy you? A mocking classic
Speaker 3: mom behavior and then she's like yeah, it uh, it's
Speaker 3: it's very I thought it was like sweet. It was
Speaker 3: like if they're going to dead mom route. I feel
Speaker 3: like Disney movies usually just elect to uh not reference
Speaker 3: grief at all. This one does, at least like you
Speaker 3: would do. Like, even when what Ben's doing sucks in
Speaker 3: the context of a kid who hasn't been able to
Speaker 3: properly grief his parent, at least it does make sense.
Speaker 3: But it's like that seems really sad, even though the
Speaker 3: video is kind of funny.
Speaker 2: Right, it's it's sad and he's crying.
Speaker 3: And Ryan Merryman, he is really good in that scene.
Speaker 3: Someone saw that and they're like, what what if he
Speaker 3: was a basketball playing leprechaun. Wow, he's got the range,
Speaker 3: he's got the.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he's watching this video and Pat is observing.
Speaker 2: Of course she's always watching. Meanwhile, Nick calls Sarah and
Speaker 2: asks her out to dinner on Saturday night, which she accepts,
Speaker 2: and Pat overhears Nick talking to Sarah about how he
Speaker 2: wishes that Ben was able to have more fun. So
Speaker 2: Pat gets the idea to invite Ben's friends over for
Speaker 2: a party the following night, and so a bunch of
Speaker 2: kids from school show up. This is where we get
Speaker 2: them doing a choreographed dance.
Speaker 3: Another scene that passes the back of test. Angie's working
Speaker 3: the door for some reason, and there's two girls that
Speaker 3: show up give their full names, and Angie says, get
Speaker 3: the fuck out of here, and.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh my god, this party is so exclusive.
Speaker 3: But I love that pass. That was a good one.
Speaker 2: It was really fun. So the kids are showing up
Speaker 2: to party, including Ben's crush, Gwen Ben and Gwen Ben Gwen. Okay, hello, a.
Speaker 3: Little bit too twiny for me, but sure too much rhyming,
Speaker 3: too much. Taylor Laughner married someone named Taylor, and you're like,
Speaker 3: I'm sure you're very in love, but this should not
Speaker 3: be legal.
Speaker 2: I will not even consider dating anyone that has the
Speaker 2: first name of any one I'm related to.
Speaker 3: I feel like it would be really difficult for me
Speaker 3: to definitely someone with my own name. But even like James,
Speaker 3: I sort of like I couldn't do it. It's too confusing.
Speaker 3: My grandparents' names were Patrick and Patricia. Oh, and they
Speaker 3: thought it was hysteria.
Speaker 2: And pat Were they smart houses?
Speaker 3: No, they weren't very smart houses, but they were good people.
Speaker 2: Okay, And.
Speaker 3: Anyways, sorry I just called my grandparents not smart. Let's
Speaker 3: move on.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we've got Ben and Gwen. And then also
Speaker 2: the bully Ryan In shows up to the party because
Speaker 2: Pat invited him so that she could publicly.
Speaker 3: Amiliate she wants to kick his ass. She I feel
Speaker 3: like if this was a Ray Bradberry story, she would
Speaker 3: have killed him. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, like to capitate him, like Megan did that to
Speaker 2: someone who bullied her friend Katie. It's yeah, absolutely, So
Speaker 2: Pat humiliates the bully and he goes running away. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: like you said, we cut to the date that Nick
Speaker 2: and Sarah are on, we see them kissing, and then.
Speaker 3: I was like, maybe it's just the fact that I
Speaker 3: watched this movie when I was really little, But when
Speaker 3: they kiss I'm still like yucky. It's also unnecessary for
Speaker 3: the plot. Yeah, yeah, listeners, please sound off other movies
Speaker 3: that do this, like a kid's movie that includes a
Speaker 3: weird amount of insight on the parents' love life that
Speaker 3: the core audience for these movies couldn't possibly give a
Speaker 3: shit about. It's also Mary Kate Nashley where you just
Speaker 3: see the dad on that dating montage, You're like, who cares?
Speaker 2: Which one was that?
Speaker 3: Was that Bill boil Bird dad? Was Billboard Dad? We're
Speaker 3: gonna have to return to that well spring at some point,
Speaker 3: but we've got time.
Speaker 2: Mary Kate and Ashley August or something. Okay, So Nick
Speaker 2: heads home from the date while the party is still happening,
Speaker 2: so Ben and Angie have to like kick everyone out
Speaker 2: and clean up the house via Pat's floor absorbers. But
Speaker 2: oh no, they missed something and Nick comes home and
Speaker 2: he sees it, so they get in trouble for throwing
Speaker 2: the party. But Pat is like, no, no, no, it
Speaker 2: was my fault. I invited everyone to the party, which
Speaker 2: is true, and so Nick is like, Pat, you gotta
Speaker 2: get yourself under control.
Speaker 3: Yeah, pull it together. Pat. You can't just throw awesome
Speaker 3: parties with my cool son.
Speaker 2: You can't have the house be jumping.
Speaker 3: The cows can't just be jumping like that.
Speaker 2: So Pat is like absolutely, of course I will simmer down.
Speaker 2: So then Pat starts like policing the family, what clothes
Speaker 2: they wear, what they do. She's like, you gotta finish
Speaker 2: your homework and your baseball selling job before you do
Speaker 2: anything fun. And then they're like, well this sucks. So
Speaker 2: they have Sarah come over to see if she can
Speaker 2: fix this new mode that Pat is in, and Sarah
Speaker 2: decides to shut the whole system down and give Pat
Speaker 2: a rest, but Pat turns herself back on mocking. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Ben is throwing another fit about how his dad is
Speaker 2: falling in love with Sarah and how he thinks Sarah's
Speaker 2: gonna replace his mom, and Nick sits him down and
Speaker 2: he's like, that's not what's happening, and they have like
Speaker 2: a really tender, nice conversation I thought, But I thought
Speaker 2: so too.
Speaker 3: I liked that scene and I'm just again feeling for
Speaker 3: this fictional kid. I was like, wow, Nick, it would
Speaker 3: have been really cool if you had this conversation with
Speaker 3: Ben four year years ago. Why is it taking the
Speaker 3: house that eats blood to force you to have this conversation?
Speaker 3: But yeah, I thought that that was nice. And they're
Speaker 3: in that scene, Nick is like, well I lost my
Speaker 3: wife and You're like, damn, that's true. But uh yeah,
Speaker 3: I thought that that scene was really sweet. And it's
Speaker 3: also I think pretty rare in the space of a
Speaker 3: movie that stars a boy to have a even when
Speaker 3: it's like very very misguided, to be like as emotionally
Speaker 3: expressive as Ben is. Sure, yeah, and then also that
Speaker 3: like a father son conversation about their feelings. I feel
Speaker 3: like in nineteen ninety nine. That's like, that's pretty solid.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make Nick a better parent. He's still a
Speaker 3: piece of shit parent. And I think he's still really
Speaker 3: playing fast and loose with bringing someone new into the
Speaker 3: house before he's talked to his kids about it in
Speaker 3: a way that's also like fucked up in like kind
Speaker 3: of disrespectful to Sarah too, because he keeps just being
Speaker 3: like my children, And I was like, dude, yeah, you're
Speaker 3: hurting everyone's feelings.
Speaker 2: Like especially because this is the person who designed a
Speaker 2: house that's about to try to kill them.
Speaker 3: Ooh ooh. But but you know, Sarah's gonna go full
Speaker 3: girl boss mode. She has a laser. I forgot that
Speaker 3: she had a laser, Like, why the hell did she
Speaker 3: have this laser?
Speaker 2: Like a pocket laser, Like it fits in her pocket.
Speaker 3: It was pretty great. Anyways, we'll get there at a second,
Speaker 3: because Pat's about to go rugue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So what happens is Pat, who has turned herself
Speaker 2: back on, makes this like hologram projection of herself and
Speaker 2: now she's Kitty Sagall in the flesh and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: She goes to Ben's room to be like, let's team
Speaker 2: up to get rid of Sarah. I know you hate
Speaker 2: her too, and I'm the only mummy your family needs.
Speaker 3: I am a mother like no other, and you're just
Speaker 3: like what, I was so scared of her. I'm so
Speaker 3: scared of her, but I love her hair collar anyways.
Speaker 2: She's got a pretty good fit on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: She then throws Sarah out of the house and barricades
Speaker 2: all the doors and windows, trapping Nick, Ben and Angie
Speaker 2: inside because Pat wants to keep them.
Speaker 3: In smart house forever.
Speaker 2: And then the like hologram starts duplicating itself and Pat
Speaker 2: is getting scarier and scarier.
Speaker 3: God, now there's ten Katie Sagalls in the kitchen. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's like, I know that Nick can't be the
Speaker 3: hero of this, but he's making the most weak excuses
Speaker 3: as to why they should be allowed to leave. He's like, no,
Speaker 3: kids have to go to school, Nick, you should be
Speaker 3: stabbing the house, Like why are you? You are the
Speaker 3: least proactive parent in the history of parents.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. And then but then they figure out
Speaker 2: a way to get Sarah back inside via her pet
Speaker 2: rat and the newspaper retrieval door, which were things that
Speaker 2: were set up at the beginning of the movie, and
Speaker 2: Ben is like, Pat, you're out of control. Stop trying
Speaker 2: to be something you're not. You can't be our mom
Speaker 2: because you're not even real. And Pat is like, damn,
Speaker 2: you're right, she's fine.
Speaker 3: I'll miss you. And then yeah, oh my god, this
Speaker 3: is like very dry. I think it is like coded
Speaker 3: essentially that like Pat, I mean, she doesn't take her
Speaker 3: own computer life because she's still there at the end
Speaker 3: of the movie. They like go out of the way
Speaker 3: to show you that, like Pat's alive, but I feel
Speaker 3: like her being alive is almost worse.
Speaker 2: Did they learn nothing right?
Speaker 3: Right? Like they learned nothing? And also she's probably pretty
Speaker 3: mad in there. But the way that they illustrate like
Speaker 3: her going to like it feels like computer Heaven is
Speaker 3: like they just start playing like Rainstorm Dot MP four
Speaker 3: and it's it's because Katie Sigal is a good actor.
Speaker 3: You're sort of like, oh my god, it's just like
Speaker 3: two lines of dialogue and she's like, you're right, I
Speaker 3: have to die and you're like, well, no one said that.
Speaker 3: But then we need the movie to end happy because
Speaker 3: it's a d com. So I think the ending of
Speaker 3: this movie is so bizarre.
Speaker 2: Right, So basically Pat shuts herself down, and then Sarah
Speaker 2: is able to like reboot and maybe reprogram Pat. She
Speaker 2: said you need something, She can do anything so that
Speaker 2: Pat isn't so invasive and scary. And then Ben apologizes
Speaker 2: and he's like, I learned my lesson not to mess
Speaker 2: with Pat, which true he should not have done, but
Speaker 2: it's like, Sarah, you should be the one apologizing for
Speaker 2: the creating.
Speaker 3: Sarah Like it's so, I mean, I I love being
Speaker 3: on women's side, but I'm like, I mean, let women
Speaker 3: be Sarah is. But the movie has doesn't seem to
Speaker 3: want to explore that, like she's just so I think
Speaker 3: it is like vaguely misogynist that she isn't held accountable
Speaker 3: because I feel like the movie, even though the movie
Speaker 3: like it is her job is relevant to the plot,
Speaker 3: which is very rare in a love interest character. Sometimes
Speaker 3: we know like what they do, but I feel like
Speaker 3: it very rarely is actually relevant to what happens in
Speaker 3: the movie. It's not true here, like her job is
Speaker 3: super like the movie doesn't happen unless she's doing her job. True,
Speaker 3: but I feel like the way that like no one
Speaker 3: is upset with her, that she's built this killer house,
Speaker 3: and every time they call her over to fix the
Speaker 3: killer house, she's like, I don't know what's going on? Yeah,
Speaker 3: can I hang out? Like this is so unprofessional and
Speaker 3: you'd like you need to make the house stop eating them? Uh,
Speaker 3: she is like, so I feel like the plot ultimately
Speaker 3: treats her more like a girl friend because it's like
Speaker 3: they don't really take like, the plot doesn't take into
Speaker 3: account the fact that she is like hugely at fault here,
Speaker 3: not at all, and yeah, it to me, the romance
Speaker 3: between her and the dad is very like, well it's
Speaker 3: a movie, so of course, but it still feels very
Speaker 3: wedged in and she is behaving very unprofessionally and like
Speaker 3: you can't be dating the person who is living in
Speaker 3: the house that you're using, Like this family is like
Speaker 3: I mean speaking of rat Butler, like these are your
Speaker 3: like test rats that your testing this scary house on
Speaker 3: and that well that's also I'm just sort of like
Speaker 3: outside of unprofessionalism the gall of Sarah, because I like,
Speaker 3: if I were if I had a crush on someone
Speaker 3: who was essentially my lab rat and the experiment was
Speaker 3: not going well, I would not be like, let's go
Speaker 3: on a date. I would be like, this person's probably
Speaker 3: pretty upset with me, but thankfully Nick is not. He's not,
Speaker 3: to quote another Disney Channel original series, he's not a
Speaker 3: smart guy. Oh that's a Disney Channel series about You're
Speaker 3: never gonna believe a twelve year old who's real smart. Anyways,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I mean, we'll we'll talk about that after
Speaker 3: the break, because that's.
Speaker 2: That's what's happening right now. Poo pye, and we're back,
Speaker 2: bellow bello.
Speaker 3: All right, let's let's because we were just starting to
Speaker 3: have that conversation. Anyways, let's just jump into the Sarah
Speaker 3: and then the Sarah Nick relationship. I think that, like
Speaker 3: for your average dcom of this time, in the context
Speaker 3: of this time, Sarah is a bigger and more impactful
Speaker 3: character than your average dcom, which is nice because I
Speaker 3: feel like in all of these, I mean, in most sitcoms,
Speaker 3: but especially sitcoms and TV movies for kids, parents tend
Speaker 3: to be fairly tangential. They're often just like big comedic
Speaker 3: doofisy kind of characters. We see that in Lizzie McGuire movie.
Speaker 3: We see that, and even Stevens like this movie does
Speaker 3: make the parental figures Nick and then later, Sarah like
Speaker 3: flawed people. I just feel like, yeah, as we were
Speaker 3: just alluding to Sarah, she's you know, women's rights but
Speaker 3: also women's wrongs, and Sarah is wrong. It makes so
Speaker 3: many bad decisions in this movie. But yes, I wanted
Speaker 3: to start at the beginning because the way we're introduced
Speaker 3: to Sarah is so bizarre, the specific There are specifics
Speaker 3: with this character, but they're all so weird. We're introduced
Speaker 3: with her with a character we only meet twice who's
Speaker 3: kind of like misogyny. The guy Basically he's like her coworker,
Speaker 3: her boss, Like I don't know what their professional relationship is,
Speaker 3: but he is wearing like clear sunglasses.
Speaker 2: He's I think the publicist of this smart house. He's
Speaker 2: like doing pr well.
Speaker 3: He's doing a bad job. They're both doing a bad job. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but he's just like sexually harassing her casually and he's
Speaker 3: just like I don't know, like of course, because she's
Speaker 3: like we learn what her job is right away, and
Speaker 3: we know that she's in charge of pat but then
Speaker 3: we also learn she's single and she's kind of a mess.
Speaker 3: And then she read a book called Smart Women Foolish Choices,
Speaker 3: and I was like, wow, I'm under attack. Uh huh,
Speaker 3: And she's like, oh, well, have you heard of this book,
Speaker 3: Smart Women, Foolish Choices. It's my autobiography, Yeah, which.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe she meant literally, and I was like
Speaker 2: because at this point you barely know her, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: is she an author? Like what is her job?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, it just felt very like
Speaker 3: something that we see pretty often that is like rooted
Speaker 3: in something that's real. But it's like this movie is
Speaker 3: not equipped to make any sort of effective commentary, so
Speaker 3: it just sort of like reinforces tropes about like women
Speaker 3: having careers and having satisfying personal lives, Like.
Speaker 2: It's impossible to have both. We have no idea why,
Speaker 2: but it happens in society, so let's just put it
Speaker 2: in the movie, right, right.
Speaker 3: So that's like I mean, and we won't break down
Speaker 3: the entire like it's but yeah, it's like the sort
Speaker 3: of thing where it's like it frames that which is
Speaker 3: first of all, not prescriptive at all. Plenty of women
Speaker 3: and non binary people have fu filled relationships and fulfilling careers,
Speaker 3: but I like, I note that I don't know, like
Speaker 3: I've definitely struggled with that, but it's but it's always
Speaker 3: made out in movies like this and with characters like
Speaker 3: this to be a personal fault versus it's her fault.
Speaker 2: She just loves her job too.
Speaker 3: Much, right, which is something that you never see with
Speaker 3: male characters. And we've talked about this a million times.
Speaker 3: But it's like it's a pretty because I think because
Speaker 3: it's a kids movie, it's really like flagrant the way
Speaker 3: that it's presented. And literally we have glasses on her,
Speaker 3: and then as the movie, as she gets more comfortable
Speaker 3: and more flirty, the glasses come off. But basically this
Speaker 3: whole first scene has just like her publicist question mark, it'
Speaker 3: sexually harassing her, nagging her when she's like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to date right now, and he's like.
Speaker 2: This is selfish everything on you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's very it's very nasty. And but then
Speaker 3: the way she's replying, I think is very consistent with
Speaker 3: boomer rhetoric of like, well, that's just the way things are,
Speaker 3: that's how I'm treated at work. And so she's she's
Speaker 3: kind of taking it all in stride and she's like, no,
Speaker 3: work is much safer for me. And we learn so
Speaker 3: that exchange is pretty. It's like so bad. It's kind
Speaker 3: of campy, but it's just like atrocious because you know,
Speaker 3: two grown men wrote it, and you're like, well, I
Speaker 3: guess that this is how you view women with jobs
Speaker 3: question mark and like the only thing that could make
Speaker 3: her have a satisfying personal life is the first guy
Speaker 3: we meet in the movie. Who isn't this creep in glasses?
Speaker 3: Like there's no new ground being tread here, But I
Speaker 3: was kind of just surprised at how boldly it was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: boldly going interesting star trek code. It going to a
Speaker 3: misogynist place we've seen a million times.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the tropiest choice is possible basically when character
Speaker 2: rising this type of like girl bossy character. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: then the other thing the movie does is well, so
Speaker 2: it sets up this, you know, it sets her up
Speaker 2: as being, oh, she's had nothing but like cooky horrible boyfriends, and.
Speaker 3: What is going on with these boyfriend descriptions. She's like,
Speaker 3: I don't like a chicken thief or something. I was like,
Speaker 3: what the fuck are you talking?
Speaker 2: There's a rubber chicken manufacturer. But then there was someone
Speaker 2: who I think she was describing a serial killer or something.
Speaker 3: A lot sounded serially it sounded like she dated this,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, wow, do you have do the writers
Speaker 3: of this movie have so little faith in Nick is
Speaker 3: a character that they have to make him seem like
Speaker 3: a good alternative to a serial killer?
Speaker 2: Right? So yeah, she's just characterized as being like unlucky
Speaker 2: in love because she has poor judgment, which like relatable
Speaker 2: sometimes for me at least.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean it's like there's but it's like also,
Speaker 3: I think that that's the other thing is like it's
Speaker 3: always made out that you know, mostly women characters are
Speaker 3: bad judges of character in this way, like it's very
Speaker 3: and then but when that dynamic is presented with like
Speaker 3: men talking about past ex girlfriends, it's always like, well,
Speaker 3: because she was hysterical or she was great. It's never
Speaker 3: like I feel like the way it's positioned here is
Speaker 3: like these men were evil and scary and that's my
Speaker 3: fault for dating hum. But if it's reversed, they'd be like, ah,
Speaker 3: this like this broad I get like she is out
Speaker 3: of her mind, and it's there's no like personal accountability
Speaker 3: that which actually makes more sense. But yeah, I feel
Speaker 3: like it's it's for some reason, Sarah's fault that men
Speaker 3: are scary. And that's the other thing. It's just like, yeah,
Speaker 3: men are statistically more scary.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 3: The history books do corroborate this.
Speaker 2: Yes, So Sarah's characterization is pulled directly from the tropiest
Speaker 2: tropes possible, Yeah, and thrown into this like wedged in
Speaker 2: romantic storyline that is inappropriate for her to be in sure,
Speaker 2: and then she becomes Mummy's sort.
Speaker 3: Of mummy, right. And that's the other thing is like
Speaker 3: the movie has I think the movie makes the assumption that,
Speaker 3: of course she wants to be a step parent, Like
Speaker 3: there's no like because all we know is like what
Speaker 3: hasn't happened for her, which is a satisfying relationship. It
Speaker 3: seems like that is something that she wants, which fine,
Speaker 3: but we don't know anything else about what she like
Speaker 3: wants out of her life outside of that, And then
Speaker 3: it's just sort of like assumed. The like logic of
Speaker 3: the movie assumes that of course, this woman in her
Speaker 3: thirties wants to be Ryan Merriman's stepmom, where you're like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, like I just feel like she's her
Speaker 3: agency is like pretty undercut there, which sucks because like
Speaker 3: contrasted with like you have such an interesting setup for
Speaker 3: a character there where it's like this super genius who
Speaker 3: has created this terrifying house in this like random suburbia
Speaker 3: for some reason, Like I'm far more interested in that
Speaker 3: side of her, and like who allowed her to do this?
Speaker 3: Who is bankrolling this? What has she done in the past, Like,
Speaker 3: but it's just all undercut for like girlfriend and mommy
Speaker 3: storylines where you're like, this is a pretty diabolical character,
Speaker 3: or maybe it's like you could give her like a
Speaker 3: mister Andrews from Titanic kind of line where it's like
Speaker 3: she created this with good intentions and now it's gotten
Speaker 3: out of control and she must suffer for her hubris.
Speaker 3: But none of that happens. And because this movie is
Speaker 3: genuinely very similar to a recent movie Megan, in which
Speaker 3: Alice and Williams's character is put through a lot of
Speaker 3: the exact same story beats of like she is not
Speaker 3: super lucky in love, but also like we learn about
Speaker 3: this character she's not really interested in relationship and that's fine.
Speaker 3: She kind of just wants to fuck great. I get
Speaker 3: why that's not gonna be in a dcom, but Anyways,
Speaker 3: you could take a second to specify what does this
Speaker 3: character want out of her life and have enough interest
Speaker 3: in her. But she's also like put in a position
Speaker 3: to suddenly have to take on a maternal role that
Speaker 3: she's not ready for. And then she also has the
Speaker 3: super genius creation that she ends up having to destroy
Speaker 3: in the same way that Sarah sort of kind of
Speaker 3: almost destroys Pat and you get a far more satisfying
Speaker 3: story arc. But I think a lot of that is
Speaker 3: because it's like we actually see that Alice and Williams
Speaker 3: character struggle with the question of parenting, and like, is
Speaker 3: that something she wants to do? Is that something she's
Speaker 3: comfortable with and not have it just be assumed that's
Speaker 3: of course what she wants, and that movie isn't weighed
Speaker 3: down with an unnecessary romantic plot with mister random Kevin Kleiner, Right, Yes,
Speaker 3: So anyways, I guess that does at least show how
Speaker 3: this weirdly stock character. I also let them thinking of
Speaker 3: like Nicole Kidman and Paddington, Like I don't know, like
Speaker 3: woman super genius with an evil event, Like I love it.
Speaker 3: It's like Victor Frankenstein. Shit, it's great, but it's like,
Speaker 3: the worst thing you can do to a character that
Speaker 3: like fun and complicated is do the most boring gendered
Speaker 3: things to them, right, But that's what happened to Sarah unfortunately.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and listeners, if you're interested for more discussion on Megan,
Speaker 2: you can scoot over to our Patreon aka Matrio.
Speaker 3: It's so true, but Pat is so pat is like Pat,
Speaker 3: So Megan could run in those woods. Yeah, get that kid.
Speaker 3: Let's see if there's anything else with Sarah. Oh oh,
Speaker 3: this bummed me out, So we'll get to talk to
Speaker 3: you about Ben. But Ben is basically like projecting his
Speaker 3: anger at his father onto Sarah to make Sarah feel
Speaker 3: uncomfortable and not want to be around anymore, which is
Speaker 3: shitty behavior. But he's I also like, I feel like
Speaker 3: I keep coming to his defense because he's like a
Speaker 3: kid and no one has ever talked to him about
Speaker 3: his parent dying. Anyways. But there's that scene where Sarah's like, ooh,
Speaker 3: it's the Ray Bradbury murder room. Let's make it look
Speaker 3: like Cape Cod. I love cape Cod and you're just like, wow,
Speaker 3: she's so interesting. But Ben is like coming for her
Speaker 3: in this scene. Yeah, and he says, wait, I have
Speaker 3: this written down where Nick is being very complimentary of Sarah,
Speaker 3: which is nice that he like, does you know, value
Speaker 3: her skills? He values what she can do, and he's like,
Speaker 3: she's a genius. She's really great. And then Ben's like,
Speaker 3: you know, I hear geniuses are impossible to live with
Speaker 3: and make everyone around them feel inferior.
Speaker 4: And you're like, whoa, holy shit, And he's like, good
Speaker 4: for you in your big giant brain.
Speaker 3: Was like Jesus. But she retorts by undercutting her own
Speaker 3: intelligence like she does it. She's like, you don't have
Speaker 3: to worry. I'm not that smart. I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't know. You made the house that eats people, like
Speaker 3: kind of never been done before.
Speaker 2: It takes some brains.
Speaker 3: But and I do. I do feel bad for her
Speaker 3: in that scene, and I do think that it is
Speaker 3: Nick's fault more so than Ben's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he does put a lot of people in uncomfortable
Speaker 2: situations without adequately like having the conversations that need to
Speaker 2: happen to make sure everyone's on similar pages, make sure
Speaker 2: people are feeling comfortable with what's happening. He just ignores
Speaker 2: the need for or all of that open communication.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like yeah, let's all eat peach cobbler together and that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then later he like anytime he does something,
Speaker 3: he immediately like and something goes wrong, he immediately deflects
Speaker 3: the blame off of himself and is just like, so
Speaker 3: that was weird. You're like, that was your fault which happened,
Speaker 3: because like, once Ben and Angie leave the room after
Speaker 3: that really tense discussion, which wasn't was certainly like very
Speaker 3: cruel to Sarah that he does the thing. He's just
Speaker 3: like mine children, and I'm like, that was your fault
Speaker 3: that that happened. You fucking lose it. Oh. I just
Speaker 3: cannot stand this man's parenting. He is such a mess.
Speaker 3: So anyways, there is that the movie kind.
Speaker 2: Of reinforces this idea that like children need two parents,
Speaker 2: you need a mummy and a daddy.
Speaker 3: Which is completely consistent with this era of kids media.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's like pushing back on absolutely nothing, right.
Speaker 2: But then I think the movie is cutting Nick a
Speaker 2: lot of slack and like it because it shows these
Speaker 2: scenes where it's like, oh my gosh, isn't he such
Speaker 2: a great parent? He's like having these no conversations with
Speaker 2: his kids, and it's like well, yeah, but he's not
Speaker 2: doing nearly enough.
Speaker 3: He's doing it all half a decade late. And like
Speaker 3: I felt like he was similarly deflective when he suddenly
Speaker 3: realized that Ben has been taking on a lot of
Speaker 3: parenting ANGI for years, where he's like, hey, I'm realizing
Speaker 3: that blah blah blah, and it's like no. Earlier in
Speaker 3: the movie, I saw you demand Ben do a list
Speaker 3: of chores to help his little sister, which is like, okay,
Speaker 3: if that is the division of responsibilities at this house,
Speaker 3: Like okay, maybe, but but if that's the case, but
Speaker 3: you can't just like pretend you didn't know that was happening.
Speaker 3: You were actively making him do that stuff. You can't
Speaker 3: just be like, oh no, this happening. You're like yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know. And it sucks because it's like I
Speaker 3: feel like, again, the story opportunities are there, but you're
Speaker 3: totally right, Like Nick is just cut so much slack.
Speaker 3: Where I don't mind that. It's like the movie draws
Speaker 3: your attention to like how challenging it can be to
Speaker 3: be a single parent to two young kids, Like sure,
Speaker 3: I have no issue with that, but yeah, the fact
Speaker 3: but they just like cut him but the fact that
Speaker 3: they're like and the solution to that is a new mommy. Like,
Speaker 3: there's no alternative presented. There's no even though he lists
Speaker 3: off a number of alternatives, which included apparently they can
Speaker 3: afford childcare if they needed childcare. But I feel like
Speaker 3: it's all of those options are presented as inferior to
Speaker 3: new Mommy Sarah, which is just yeah, boring and shitty.
Speaker 3: There's also a moment in the score of this movie where, uh,
Speaker 3: when Nick first meets Sarah. First of all, Nick two
Speaker 3: horny overall him, He's a horny dad, and I hate
Speaker 3: that his children are constantly having really strong opinions on
Speaker 3: how horny he is. I'm just like, we just like
Speaker 3: should not know this about dad. We just shouldn't call
Speaker 3: me old fashioned. But I don't want my seven year
Speaker 3: old being like, you should definitely fuck that lady. Dad.
Speaker 3: You're like, no, don't do that. That was a pretty
Speaker 3: good angie. She's she's little stinker coated big time she is.
Speaker 3: But anyways, do you have anything else to say about Sarah?
Speaker 3: I just I just feel like her story possibility is
Speaker 3: like all the interesting ones, Like I wouldn't have even
Speaker 3: minded if she turned villain at the end, like like.
Speaker 2: Being really defensive of her invention. It's like, no, this
Speaker 2: is the future, this is how it should be. Something
Speaker 2: like that totally.
Speaker 3: I mean it's like, which would make more sense because
Speaker 3: I mean, imagine how long it would have taken her
Speaker 3: to make Pat and then just be like, no, I
Speaker 3: met a guy who doesn't kill people, and so I'm
Speaker 3: gonna kill Like, I don't know. I just think there
Speaker 3: were so many interesting ways for her story to go,
Speaker 3: and they chose the most boring route. I like at
Speaker 3: least that the story had enough respect for her to
Speaker 3: not like sideline her for the peak of the action,
Speaker 3: because I sort of forgot like when when Pat like
Speaker 3: pushes her out of the house, which a part of
Speaker 3: me was like, m is this just turning the only
Speaker 3: two women characters against each other? But I'm like no,
Speaker 3: that also feels consistent with like the creator creature right storylines,
Speaker 3: and like I'll give that a pass. And also you
Speaker 3: don't see that dynamic between two women, like a woman
Speaker 3: creator and a woman you know also happens in Megan anyways.
Speaker 2: Well, and then also like in I Frankenstein, for example,
Speaker 2: thank You, you have the monster turning against its creator,
Speaker 2: which is what happens with why it's true She's like,
Speaker 2: let's kill Sarah.
Speaker 3: I love that Pat sort of like, let's kill Sarah,
Speaker 3: and because when she says that, I'm sort of like,
Speaker 3: what's kill Sarah? In the same way when Alicia Vaikandor
Speaker 3: is like, let's kill Oscar Isaac, I'm like almost any
Speaker 3: other movie, I'd say no, but this one, I think
Speaker 3: we have to kill Oscar Isaac. Oh, but I thought
Speaker 3: I sort of was like, oh no, do they like
Speaker 3: throw her out of the height of the action, But
Speaker 3: she's like very active and she comes back because she
Speaker 3: has a laser and like she is right. I'd like
Speaker 3: the sort of like the two people who ultimately take
Speaker 3: Pat down are Sarah and Ben, which makes sense to me.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I didn't have a problem with it.
Speaker 2: So I was paying close attention to that. So somehow
Speaker 2: Ben is able to send an email to Sarah. You
Speaker 2: would think that Pat would be monitoring that.
Speaker 3: I know, I was like, how did you get do
Speaker 3: you have a burner? Well?
Speaker 2: I think what happened what we're supposed to think is
Speaker 2: he went into the bathroom where it's been established that
Speaker 2: he has privacy, Like Pat has no jurisdiction in the bathroom.
Speaker 2: So he's sitting in the tub with his dog, a
Speaker 2: Golden Retriever named Mutt.
Speaker 3: But I had that Pat was insulting the dog, but
Speaker 3: then I just found out that the dog's.
Speaker 2: Name was in it was actually Mutt. So yeah, so
Speaker 2: he's sending an email to be like, come here, Sarah,
Speaker 2: and then so she well before that, she has like
Speaker 2: sent a message via her rat to Ben. And then
Speaker 2: it's kind of unclear how this play. Oh, I think
Speaker 2: it is his idea that she comes in through the mail,
Speaker 2: like the newspaper.
Speaker 3: Yes, or something, his idea. I don't I don't.
Speaker 2: Well, he says something like I have a really wild
Speaker 2: idea if you're willing to go for it, and then
Speaker 2: she's like, hah yeah, but we don't hear what the
Speaker 2: idea is, so we just kind of have to assume
Speaker 2: either way.
Speaker 3: I'll even give the movie credit and say it was
Speaker 3: a joint plan, because I always assumed that Ben's part
Speaker 3: of the plan was like I will fake appendicitis and
Speaker 3: then you sneak into the house one way or an.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, So maybe it is her that like
Speaker 2: knows that she needs to get in through the mail slot.
Speaker 2: Yeah whatever, but she's in the house. She uses her
Speaker 2: pocket laser, but then she kind of does nothing else.
Speaker 2: That's true because Pat shuts herself down. Sarah doesn't do
Speaker 2: anything to like that's me.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess I was more referring to
Speaker 3: the pocket laser moment, which I really love because it's
Speaker 3: I think it would have sort of chafed against like Ben.
Speaker 3: It like, it makes sense that Ben's little monologue is
Speaker 3: the thing that ends up taking Pat out because he
Speaker 3: has to realize that computer isn't mommy before the end
Speaker 3: of the movie. But it would have been nice for
Speaker 3: Sarah to do a little more. But at least you
Speaker 3: also get I don't know, Pat, she's still learning. She's chaotic,
Speaker 3: like I don't know. Yeah, Sarah definitely could have done more,
Speaker 3: but I just felt, like, you know, she doesn't do nothing,
Speaker 3: which unfortunately I was pleasantly surprised at.
Speaker 2: I mean, the bar is so low.
Speaker 3: And it's better than like, at least Nick doesn't have
Speaker 3: If Nick had a real moment during that scene, I
Speaker 3: would have lost it. It made sense to me that
Speaker 3: Ben was mister monologue there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's true, but I don't think
Speaker 2: I have anything left on Sarah.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about Pat. I love Pat, So again, we've
Speaker 3: talked about a number of characters like that. I mean,
Speaker 3: Pat feels like a combination of a few tropes that
Speaker 3: we are not tropes, just like characters that are often
Speaker 3: women but not always that we've talked about in the past.
Speaker 3: We've already talked about the megan of it, all of
Speaker 3: an AI Powered. I mean, it really is like impressive.
Speaker 3: How much is similar where it's like an AI power
Speaker 3: invention that was made by a woman to provide companionship
Speaker 3: and support to a grieving child's It is pretty stunning.
Speaker 3: It's a little looser in Smart House, obviously because Pat's
Speaker 3: also doing all these other things. But I feel like
Speaker 3: there's like definitely hints of Mega. There's hints of ex Machina,
Speaker 3: although that was like a more gender dynamic, but also
Speaker 3: it reminds me a lot of her and how in
Speaker 3: our her episode, which is now five years old, if
Speaker 3: you can believe it, unbelievable time, but how we talked
Speaker 3: about in that episode, how it is so common to
Speaker 3: give AI that is service based, and like this house
Speaker 3: is taking care of you, it's protecting you. It's associated
Speaker 3: with all these kind of traditionally maternal qualities, and they
Speaker 3: will always assign a feminine voice to that. There's all
Speaker 3: sorts of reasons why. It's partially just because I think
Speaker 3: that they're like because so many of these are designed
Speaker 3: by people who are like thinking in a mass market
Speaker 3: patriarchal way of like, well, people are more comfortable asking
Speaker 3: women to do things for them.
Speaker 2: Especially like household labor.
Speaker 3: Exactly, or in the case of like GPS, I remember
Speaker 3: it was like, and people are more comfortable yelling at
Speaker 3: women too, so if they get lost, they will feel better.
Speaker 3: And how that is sort of contrasted with more masculine
Speaker 3: voices are assigned to like less domestic tasks and less
Speaker 3: labor based things, and it's more like if you're asking
Speaker 3: something that like someone should know. I remember there was
Speaker 3: like a robot that competed on Jeopardy and that was
Speaker 3: like an AI powered machine and that had a masculine
Speaker 3: voice because he was smart shit like that, like, and
Speaker 3: I think that is very present in Pat in a
Speaker 3: way that the move seems aware of. And I think
Speaker 3: that it is kind of interesting that Pat's creator as
Speaker 3: a woman, and I still like tracks for me fine,
Speaker 3: because it's not like, you know, it's like you don't
Speaker 3: have to be a not all women are feminists are
Speaker 3: like you know, and and I don't know, I just
Speaker 3: thought it was it is like a really it just
Speaker 3: felt like she feels like an encapsulation of a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff we've talked about in the past, and it
Speaker 3: seems like the movie is pretty aware of that. I
Speaker 3: don't think that it delivers on it necessarily, but it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, Pat's interesting because a lot of what we see
Speaker 2: that operating system do is household labor type stuff. Like
Speaker 2: she's prepping meals and she's cleaning the house via the
Speaker 2: floor absorbers, but she's also keeping the man with the
Speaker 2: job on task of like here's how to be more
Speaker 2: productive of she's doing like wifely duties. Yeah, that right,
Speaker 2: But then like she's also like doing Ben's bullies homework
Speaker 2: for I don't know, it's not exclusively household labor stuff,
Speaker 2: but it is a lot of like the roles that
Speaker 2: women have been traditionally expected to occupy as far as
Speaker 2: like overseeing the general welfare of the family and stuff
Speaker 2: like that, and like you know, maintaining the household. All
Speaker 2: of that stuff is Pat's responsibility, which is why Ben
Speaker 2: wanted the house in the first place. He kind of
Speaker 2: seems to resent that he had to take on a
Speaker 2: lot of that responsibility, and he's like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to do it anymore. I need a house to do
Speaker 2: this mummy stuff.
Speaker 3: Which for me, which is like so at the core
Speaker 3: of what his character's issue is is like he wants
Speaker 3: to I don't know, And it is again like based
Speaker 3: on this false binary of like what a functioning family
Speaker 3: looks like that this movie really subscribes to of like, well,
Speaker 3: you need two parents, probably a says man and a
Speaker 3: says woman for your life to be considered normal and functional,
Speaker 3: and like Ben is does not want another parent, but
Speaker 3: he also doesn't want to have to do all of
Speaker 3: this stuff at home, and like it all tracks but
Speaker 3: I like that. I don't know. I guess I'm of
Speaker 3: two minds about this, although I don't know. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 3: curious because we've just discussed I Frankenstein literally sorry, Adam
Speaker 3: Frankenstein has some pat energy about him with like the
Speaker 3: whole like tortured creature turning into a monster over time narrative.
Speaker 3: Is I don't know. In some ways, I feel like
Speaker 3: Pat going nuclear at the end could make it seem
Speaker 3: like she's hysterical. But I also feel like the movie,
Speaker 3: I don't know, did you feel like? I think? I
Speaker 3: think I feel like it did basically do enough to
Speaker 3: illustrate that like Pat is not reacting in this way
Speaker 3: because she is a feminine robot. She's reacting this way
Speaker 3: because she is receiving too much conflicting information and cannot
Speaker 3: handle it and is trying to perform the function she
Speaker 3: was designed to do and literally cannot do it because
Speaker 3: she is like not passing the Turing test. She like
Speaker 3: doesn't understand feelings because she's a computer. And that's the
Speaker 3: cautionary tale, is like computers can't, you know, be your
Speaker 3: mom because they are like not capable of empathy. Not
Speaker 3: that all moms are, but if my mom's listening, she's great.
Speaker 5: But but I don't know, Like I feel like the
Speaker 5: movie did do enough and it is satisfying seeing Pat
Speaker 5: create as living room cyclone at the end.
Speaker 3: I don't know, what did you think of, Like how
Speaker 3: Pat's emotions are portrayed in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see what you mean. The possible interpretation of
Speaker 2: like she gets jealous of the real woman, like this
Speaker 2: human woman trying to insert herself into this family because
Speaker 2: Pat wants to be the Mummy. But I feel quite that,
Speaker 2: which could be read as like, you know, a female
Speaker 2: character turning on another one for like jealousy reasons. But yeah,
Speaker 2: Pat only becomes the way she is because because she
Speaker 2: starts out pretty neutral. She's like, here's a blue strawberry
Speaker 2: milkshake or whatever.
Speaker 3: No one's calling me out for that mistake, all right,
Speaker 3: let's see what we can do here, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and then eating Angie's blood and being like, here's
Speaker 2: how much body percent fat you have? And it's like
Speaker 2: why is this a detail we need to have in
Speaker 2: the movie.
Speaker 3: But anyway, also, that's the bite and everyone's like, oh, oh,
Speaker 3: ok okay, I guess that's the bite, and like, no,
Speaker 3: that in nineteen ninety nine. That's triple scary.
Speaker 2: So scary. Yeah, But aside from the it was just
Speaker 2: like bad writing choices, Like Pat is seems neutral as
Speaker 2: neutral as AI can be, but then Ben is like, no,
Speaker 2: you have to be a nineteen fifties housewife. That's what
Speaker 2: I need from you. So then Pat is just like okay,
Speaker 2: and not just like actual nineteen fifties housewife like media's
Speaker 2: representation of that, so it's like even more skewed and
Speaker 2: like even more trophy.
Speaker 3: So it does feel like there is like some commentary.
Speaker 3: I just I find it confusing as a I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean because in some ways, like yeah, Pat's major
Speaker 3: glitching to being fed all of this, like post World
Speaker 3: War two housewife media is commentary on how flawed that
Speaker 3: media is. I just don't understand if I'm a kid
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety nine, why that would be what I
Speaker 3: would jump to. It's so weird because it's like Katie
Speaker 3: sagaalf played and I iconic, like gen X TV mom,
Speaker 3: Like why wouldn't you just show them footage of married
Speaker 3: with children? Like why I don't understand why he's like
Speaker 3: seeking a parent that has no resemblance to the parent
Speaker 3: that he's lot, Like I don't I guess, I just
Speaker 3: I will. I think that there's probably an answer to that, Like,
Speaker 3: but I just wish that. I think that the like
Speaker 3: sort of vague, like wishy washy commentary on housewives in
Speaker 3: media of that era was sort of undercut by the
Speaker 3: point that you're like, I don't understand why this is
Speaker 3: what Ben is asking for. I don't understand how he's
Speaker 3: even seen these shows, like.
Speaker 2: Right, he's watching Nick at Night just kidding that doesn't
Speaker 2: exist in the world of Disney, But I do not
Speaker 2: mention Nickelodeon around me. Right, You would think that it
Speaker 2: would It would almost take the life size approach where
Speaker 2: Lindsay Lohan's trying to bring her mom back from the dead, right,
Speaker 2: and Ben would like show the video like the home
Speaker 2: videos like the dead Mom dot mov files to Pat
Speaker 2: to be like, this is the mom I need you
Speaker 2: to be. That does not happen in the movie, but
Speaker 2: that would make more sense.
Speaker 3: I think, Yeah, I understand why they don't do that
Speaker 3: because it'll be fucking terrifying and reminds me of a
Speaker 3: different early Black Mirror episode, the dominall Gleeson one or
Speaker 3: he dies and then they and like that. The computer
Speaker 3: was bad in that one too, just like all of them.
Speaker 3: But uh yeah, I mean that would have been too
Speaker 3: scary for a kids' movie. But it does, like I
Speaker 3: feel like this even with me, you could maintain the
Speaker 3: tone of this movie and have Ben consider that or
Speaker 3: like or just give some reasoning of like why this
Speaker 3: is the media I'm showing because otherwise it just feels
Speaker 3: like this is probably just media that the fifty year
Speaker 3: old writer of this movie grew up with. And so
Speaker 3: he's like, kids, of course want a mom like Donna
Speaker 3: read You're like, sir, kids do not know who she is, right.
Speaker 3: Although Donna Reid is kind of a legend. She was
Speaker 3: like one of the first women to produce her own
Speaker 3: TV show, it's kind of the ultimate irony that she
Speaker 3: played a very you know, passive character on this show.
Speaker 3: She was busting her ass to keep on TV. Anyways, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I was confused at that. I feel like the movie
Speaker 3: did a little bit of commentary on it and like
Speaker 3: showed that it's a flawed mentality and that it's kind
Speaker 3: of like a hollow ethos to like live your life by.
Speaker 3: But it just was like it was a little mucky
Speaker 3: the way that played out.
Speaker 2: It didn't say enough about it.
Speaker 3: It was just like it was a little confusing.
Speaker 2: And then after that, I think is when Pat's like
Speaker 2: spying on them and she's like, my kids need to
Speaker 2: have fun. So then she throws the party.
Speaker 3: I think it shows her the nineteen fifties video after
Speaker 3: the party. I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, let me let me double check of.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the party happens after he shows.
Speaker 3: Okay, which also which also doesn't really make sense because
Speaker 3: it's like, I don't think that those like Stock characters
Speaker 3: wanted their kids to throw parties. But it's so weird.
Speaker 2: I don't know, so that's inconsistent.
Speaker 3: The only thing that it really succeeds in is giving
Speaker 3: Katie sagall and an incredible aesthetic and cost him to
Speaker 3: get into when she becomes a person. Outside of that,
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties housewife mom, I felt like the whatever
Speaker 3: they were going for there was a little confusing, unless
Speaker 3: it was trying to demonstrate that that being your operating
Speaker 3: system would drive someone to want to start a cyclone,
Speaker 3: which I'm sure many mothers of that age felt like. Again,
Speaker 3: not clear, maybe giving the movie a little bit too
Speaker 3: much credit, But I love that Pat says, I am
Speaker 3: a mother like no other, and I will not sit
Speaker 3: back and allow myself to be preempted. I'm like, oof,
Speaker 3: egot powerful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the movie, if it is trying to
Speaker 2: say something, it doesn't really stick the landing. I'm not
Speaker 2: quite sure exactly what, if any commentary it's making, which
Speaker 2: is like a bummer because this subject matter, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of opportunity to say stuff about gender roles, about technologies,
Speaker 2: role in society and in a family unit.
Speaker 3: What the expectations of a mother are and why that
Speaker 3: is all like there's a lot. Yeah, and it's like
Speaker 3: it's weird because I do feel like this movie is
Speaker 3: not unequipped to tackle those questions. But then you look
Speaker 3: at who made it and you're like, well, it's three guys,
Speaker 3: And I'm guessing maybe that's part of the reason why
Speaker 3: you really don't get very much would.
Speaker 2: Be that you would think that LeVar Burton would have
Speaker 2: I don't know, he was mister reading Rainbow. He should
Speaker 2: have read a book on his gender roles, a damn book.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that what the the criticism of this
Speaker 3: movie Super six Season, I think is like anticipating a
Speaker 3: lot of terrifying issues that come with an automated house
Speaker 3: and because it's as I think it's and I think
Speaker 3: it's interesting that that was I mean, there's a great
Speaker 3: article in The Ringer for this movie's twentieth anniversarrate by
Speaker 3: Ben Lindbergh called what Smart House got right and didn't
Speaker 3: about the future that also clocked their Ray Bradbury reference,
Speaker 3: So I was like, wow, two scholars, Okay, no, I'm
Speaker 3: not actually the mart.
Speaker 2: Oh you should be proud of your big giant brain.
Speaker 3: I have to go and then you go my children. God,
Speaker 3: he's such a flop. But I like this article unpacked.
Speaker 3: I guess that, like the idea of the smart home
Speaker 3: became popular around the time Ray Bradberry wrote that story,
Speaker 3: which was post war so nineteen fifty, so like the
Speaker 3: housewife thing could have been contextualized better of like this
Speaker 3: era of American housewife media, and like white American housewife
Speaker 3: media became popular around the same time that people started
Speaker 3: speculating about smart houses, So like there's a connection there.
Speaker 3: It just is not really made by this movie. But
Speaker 3: I think it does really well, like does anticipate the
Speaker 3: like cautionary tale of like giving a house your blood,
Speaker 3: like giving away all of your data to technology that
Speaker 3: it has not been tested and is not necessarily have
Speaker 3: your best interests at heart, Which is again why I
Speaker 3: think it is like a real waste to make Sarah
Speaker 3: a mommy girlfriend character, because she is at the front
Speaker 3: of the pack, like making those decisions of you know,
Speaker 3: like she has no ethical issue with having this proprietary
Speaker 3: technology have all of the data of your body, and
Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, Sarah, are you planning on selling that anywhere? Like,
Speaker 3: you know, like there's so many questions that and maybe
Speaker 3: I mean it's nineteen ninety nine, that might not have
Speaker 3: been a question that you would think to ask at
Speaker 3: that point. Sure, But anyways, I mean, with some of
Speaker 3: the specific details of the house and potential issues of
Speaker 3: interacting with AI too much, I think it's cool that
Speaker 3: it's like it was such a prominent discussion that they
Speaker 3: felt like it was reasonable to make a dcom about it.
Speaker 3: That's wild.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm kind of impressed. And I do think
Speaker 2: that because that message is so clear and dcoms, and
Speaker 2: like most media for kids, if there is a message
Speaker 2: or some kind of takeaway, which there often is in
Speaker 2: children's media, a lesson to be learned, they're gonna really
Speaker 2: spell it out because they want to make it clear
Speaker 2: for the audience. And because there's nothing clearly spelled out about,
Speaker 2: you know, gender roles and the expectation of women in
Speaker 2: the expectation of motherhood and things like that, I think
Speaker 2: the movie just kind of threw that stuff in there.
Speaker 2: Had no idea what to say about it, and was
Speaker 2: just like, that's there. It is, IDK.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so but I think that again, it's like there's
Speaker 3: limitations on what you can say that with that in
Speaker 3: the purview of a nineteen ninety nine Disney movie. I
Speaker 3: have a few quotes I wanted to share, and then
Speaker 3: I have to peece so bad, and also we've recorded
Speaker 3: longer than the movie, I know, but I wanted to
Speaker 3: share a quote from an interview with Stu Krieger from
Speaker 3: that same article in The Ringer, basically explaining why he
Speaker 3: goes for a soft, optimistic end to this story outside
Speaker 3: of the fact that it's a Disney movie and they
Speaker 3: wouldn't have allowed it. So he says, quote, I am
Speaker 3: basically an optimistic person. The idea of wanting to have
Speaker 3: a wreck, conciliation, wanting to have these things ultimately be
Speaker 3: okay fit the Disney method, but it also fit what
Speaker 3: was important to me. Almost every episode of The Twilight
Speaker 3: Zone ends in some kind of horrible technology will kill you.
Speaker 3: A way to be able to be the counterpoint and
Speaker 3: the counterbalance to that is not a bad thing, which,
Speaker 3: now that I hear that like that also feels very
Speaker 3: in line with a lot of Star Trek ideology of
Speaker 3: how technology is. I mean, there's like the kitchen in
Speaker 3: Star Trek is exactly like the kitchen in the Smart House,
Speaker 3: and that's presented as like, this is a really cool
Speaker 3: innovation as long as it's used ethically, which again I
Speaker 3: don't think this movie really has the space for it,
Speaker 3: but it does feel like Star Trek is all about,
Speaker 3: you know, hope for a technologically driven, optimistic future. It's
Speaker 3: a fucking fantasy, but kind kind of nice. And then
Speaker 3: I wanted to share a quote from LeVar Burton. This
Speaker 3: is also an interview from twenty nineteen. He's being asked,
Speaker 3: do you think about this movie a lot? That's a
Speaker 3: weird question, says you know, because I started my directing
Speaker 3: career at Star Trek, I just automatically embraced science fiction
Speaker 3: and technology as a part of my background as a director.
Speaker 3: I love science fiction and always have. Smart House for
Speaker 3: me was a terrific exercise because not only was I
Speaker 3: telling a story for a completely different audience, but part
Speaker 3: of the idea was to really make that technology accessible
Speaker 3: and real. The whole idea of pat we're there now right,
Speaker 3: we are living in a time when technology has advanced
Speaker 3: to the point where there are devices that are controlling
Speaker 3: a lot of aspects of our lives. I've got nest,
Speaker 3: I've got the ring door bell. We all have so
Speaker 3: many wireless devices that are connected to the Internet of Things.
Speaker 3: Were there the flaw in Smart House is the kid
Speaker 3: was looking for the technology to fulfill a need that
Speaker 3: only a human being could and the result, as you
Speaker 3: might predict, was disastrous. So I think that that is, like,
Speaker 3: if that is like the core mission of this movie,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's successful.
Speaker 2: I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So even if this is a successful commentary on
Speaker 3: technology and Night ninety nine, does it pass the Bechdel test?
Speaker 2: It does?
Speaker 3: It does?
Speaker 2: Between Sarah and Angie, I think a couple of times,
Speaker 2: and then Sarah and her creation Pat, which I guess
Speaker 2: we can say is a female character, even though it's
Speaker 2: an operating.
Speaker 3: System genderless icon. Not a CIS man for sure. I yeah,
Speaker 3: And we didn't really talk about Angie. I feel like
Speaker 3: Angie is other than Ben being really mean to her.
Speaker 3: I think that Angie is like treated in a pretty
Speaker 3: gender neutral way. It's just like little sibling character generally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's better at video games than her older brother. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good for Angie, except of how interested she is
Speaker 3: in her dad's sex life. That's weird. These we need
Speaker 3: these kids in therapy. Anyways, it does pass the Vextel
Speaker 3: test a lot of times, I think, most iconically between
Speaker 3: Angie turning those girls away at the door. That's fun
Speaker 3: and it's so funny that they get full names. So
Speaker 3: it does get to pass. That's true. But that's not
Speaker 3: the most important metric in the world, is it.
Speaker 2: No, because that would be our nipple scale, a scale
Speaker 2: where we rate the movie based on examining it through
Speaker 2: an intersectional feminist lens zero to five nipples. I guess
Speaker 2: I'll give this. I don't know, one and a half.
Speaker 2: It's not really as far as as far as like gender.
Speaker 2: There's a lot present about like gender roles and the
Speaker 2: expectations of women and the expectations of mothers and things
Speaker 2: like that. The movie doesn't really know how to handle
Speaker 2: that in any kind of like thoughtful way, and it
Speaker 2: mostly just relies on a lot of tropes and if
Speaker 2: they are trying to if the movie is trying to
Speaker 2: say something, it's not really sticking the landing. As far
Speaker 2: as gender Roles Goes. I agree that it is successfully
Speaker 2: operating as a kind of cautionary tale on AI interfering
Speaker 2: too much in our human lives. But it just doesn't
Speaker 2: really know exactly what it's doing with those other things,
Speaker 2: I would say. But and then, like with Sarah being
Speaker 2: written as a rather tropy character, it's a very white movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Ben has a friend who is a black kid. We
Speaker 2: don't learn his name, I don't think.
Speaker 3: No, we just see him dance to slam Dunk the Funk,
Speaker 3: and then he says a few like friend character things,
Speaker 3: which is frustrating because it's like, this is a rare
Speaker 3: dcon that has a black director, but there's very little
Speaker 3: diversity to be seen in front of the camera or
Speaker 3: behind it otherwise.
Speaker 2: True, which I'm sure is as a result of just
Speaker 2: the pressure of the studio.
Speaker 3: Oh it's not LeVar Burton's fault. Yeah, no, no, right,
Speaker 3: But yeah, it is very of the era in that regard.
Speaker 2: Yes, speaking of Ben's friends, Ben's friends, he's telling them
Speaker 2: about all the things Pat can do, and his friends
Speaker 2: are like, wow, that's like having the world's most perfect
Speaker 2: mom who's only there to serve and who never complains.
Speaker 2: And Ben is like exactly, So it's like.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I guess that's how we view moms fascinating.
Speaker 2: So that's awesome. I'll give it one and a half nipples,
Speaker 2: and it's all going to the strawberry smoothie, which for
Speaker 2: some reason is blue.
Speaker 3: I'm going to give it two and a half. I
Speaker 3: really I think part of that is nostalgia driven, but
Speaker 3: I think that I think the Sarah character has done
Speaker 3: a huge disservice by not exploring the more interesting aspects
Speaker 3: of her character and just relegating her to this role
Speaker 3: that is not even necessary in this movie. I totally
Speaker 3: agree with you that the there was way more space
Speaker 3: in this mood, like and the ingredients are there, but
Speaker 3: it seems like the writers like are just not equipped
Speaker 3: to turn them into something of like examining like what
Speaker 3: are the expectations of a mother and why in most
Speaker 3: cases is that unfair and based in a lot of
Speaker 3: historical patriarchy and like all this stuff. Like, there is
Speaker 3: space in this movie and within the characters of Sarah
Speaker 3: and Pat to explore that, and I think that the
Speaker 3: movie definitely elects to go for a technology cautionary tale
Speaker 3: over an examination of gender roles, but I think it
Speaker 3: was possible to actually effectively do both, and that each
Speaker 3: point would be made stronger by including the other. We
Speaker 3: know that because there are movies that have done that
Speaker 3: before and since, and there is space for that here,
Speaker 3: and it's disappointing that it doesn't happen, but it is, like,
Speaker 3: I really think it's an awesome movie, especially for a
Speaker 3: movie of this genre. I like the ideas put forth
Speaker 3: in Sarah's character. I love Pat, She's an icon, I
Speaker 3: love her. I want to see a smart house drag
Speaker 3: show like oh Wow. And I like the dynamic of
Speaker 3: like a sort of like an all female reboot of
Speaker 3: Frankenstein where like you get the creator and the like.
Speaker 3: And I wish that we had gotten more between Sarah
Speaker 3: and Pat and like watch that relationship go sour. If
Speaker 3: the movie really does want Sarah to turn against Pat,
Speaker 3: I would love for it to have been for a
Speaker 3: reason other than my bayfan So, but I think that
Speaker 3: there are so many interesting ideas put forward in this movie,
Speaker 3: and it's like it feels like as close to like
Speaker 3: a technology kind of jump scare story that kids of
Speaker 3: this generation got, and a lot of it holds up
Speaker 3: really well and so uh, it's not an intersectional win
Speaker 3: by any stretch of the imagination. But I think it's
Speaker 3: like a really well told story, and I there's not
Speaker 3: a lot like it out there for kids, that's true.
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna go two point five and I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give one to Pat. I'm gonna give a one two Angie.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give the last half to Gwen because she
Speaker 3: didn't get to do anything.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there you go. Listeners. That is our smart
Speaker 3: House episode of the Bechdel Cast. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for listening. And if you enjoyed the style of this episode,
Speaker 3: well there's about one hundred and fifty more where that
Speaker 3: came from.
Speaker 2: It's truth, which is all found on our Matreon, Patreon,
Speaker 2: dot com slash Bechtel Cast, where we do two episodes
Speaker 2: every month. Usually is a part of a fun little theme.
Speaker 2: In July, we're doing sleepover movies and.
Speaker 3: We're having a sleepover to mark the occasion. Oh exactly.
Speaker 3: It's such a blast over there, and yet it's like
Speaker 3: generally more casual and goofy, and it's.
Speaker 2: Fun so fun. We slam dunk the funk over there.
Speaker 3: We're gonna be dancing in Unison at our sleepover for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah the house Jump Jump the house is jumping over
Speaker 2: on the Matreon.
Speaker 3: And by house we do of course me in one
Speaker 3: bedroom apartment. And yeah, you can also find us on
Speaker 3: social media, which I'm sure Pat's been mining our information
Speaker 3: over there. Disgusting of her, but I love her. You
Speaker 3: can find us every on Twitter and Instagram, at bachtel Cast,
Speaker 3: or grab some merch over at tea public dot com
Speaker 3: slash the bachtel Cast. Wow, Caitlin, do you want to
Speaker 3: go out and get some definitely strawberry milkshakes?
Speaker 2: Yes, but only if they're blue for some reason.
Speaker 4: Oops, I spilled.
Speaker 2: Oh don't worry, the floor absorbers will suck it up. Okay,
Speaker 2: bye bye