Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast. The questions asked if movies have.
Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 2: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
Speaker 2: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: No no, no, no, no no no no no no
Speaker 3: no no, no no, it's the Bechdel Cast. Oh you're
Speaker 3: gonna keep Oh I will? It failed immediately?
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, what is what is the beel Cast introduction?
Speaker 4: If not a shocking lack of commitment on both of
Speaker 4: our parts. I think that that.
Speaker 3: Is what a true all about.
Speaker 4: It's being like, okay, you get the concept, but we're
Speaker 4: not gonna sing. Okay, the podcast is free to listen to. Yeah,
Speaker 4: welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is Shamie Loftus,
Speaker 4: and I'm not gonna sing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah. My name's Caitlin Dernte. I really wish I
Speaker 3: had the foresight to like write out a Like's family
Speaker 3: style Bechdel Cast theme song, but and it turns out
Speaker 3: I'm not an improviser, so it didn't work out.
Speaker 4: Well, here we are, and we are doing this our
Speaker 4: second Adams Family episode with I feel the superior Adams
Speaker 4: Family movie. But before we get into it, what the
Speaker 4: hell is this show? This show is a podcast where
Speaker 4: we take a look at your favorite movies using an
Speaker 4: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test as a jumping
Speaker 4: off point for discussion. But Caitlin, what.
Speaker 3: The hell is that? Well, it is just a little
Speaker 3: media metric that first appeared in our best friend Alison
Speaker 3: Bechdel's comic dis to Watch out For. It has many versions.
Speaker 3: The one that we use is do two characters of
Speaker 3: a marginalized gender have names? And do they speak to
Speaker 3: each other about something other than a man? And ideally
Speaker 3: we like it when it's a narratively substantial, meaty conversation.
Speaker 3: Not a problem for this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get let's get into it.
Speaker 3: We have an amazing returning guest, Yea, and I want
Speaker 3: to get her in here. Indeed, she is the creator
Speaker 3: of the Ali Naughty Test. She is a content creator
Speaker 3: with a terrific YouTube channel. You remember her from episodes
Speaker 3: on movies like Frozen, Two Avatar, Aquaman. It's Ali Nanny.
Speaker 1: I'm here. I rolled up because I heard you guys
Speaker 1: need a nanny.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes I might kill you.
Speaker 1: Guys and take your money.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've got this like weird brother who's single, which
Speaker 4: is a statement that's half true.
Speaker 3: I have a weird brother.
Speaker 4: He's daying someone.
Speaker 1: It's so good to be back. I was so excited
Speaker 1: when you guys asked me back, especially for this video.
Speaker 4: Welcome back, yes, because we I mean, you have made
Speaker 4: a video on this very movie.
Speaker 1: Yep, what was it? It was Sada the fat culture
Speaker 1: critic on YouTube. She these prompts for YouTube videos, and
Speaker 1: it's usually like for a positive emotion, like one scene
Speaker 1: for joy, one scene for forgiveness, one scene for hope,
Speaker 1: and this one was one scene for resistance because a
Speaker 1: lot of people ask me about my opinion about this movie,
Speaker 1: and I was like, what better way to just dive
Speaker 1: in because it was my one scene for resistance.
Speaker 4: Because it's perfect, it's a great video. We're gonna link
Speaker 4: it in the description as well. I mean, just congrassle
Speaker 4: your channel.
Speaker 3: It fucking rocks, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I work so hard on it, and I'm not monetized
Speaker 1: because as soon as I turn it into a job,
Speaker 1: I'll hate.
Speaker 3: It, sure of course.
Speaker 1: So it's just I need an outlet for this sort
Speaker 1: of thing, and it's something I've always wanted to do
Speaker 1: and it's it's really great and I'm just very bad
Speaker 1: at deadlines.
Speaker 4: So the but it doesn't matter if it's not your job.
Speaker 1: It's true, it's a hobby.
Speaker 3: That rocks.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you, thank you for coming back. Yeah, we
Speaker 4: have so much to talk about today, but let's get
Speaker 4: started in the way we always get started. What is
Speaker 4: your personal history with this movie, which I guess we
Speaker 4: haven't said the title Adam's Family Values in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: Yes, and you're corrected as the superior movie. And I
Speaker 1: don't know, maybe it's because I'm biased, because I explain
Speaker 1: in my video for it that, you know, I grew
Speaker 1: up in a biracial family. You know, my dad is
Speaker 1: a Nishnabe and my mother's white, and me and my
Speaker 1: sisters we grew up, you know, not on a reservation,
Speaker 1: not on an unseated territory without like a big native
Speaker 1: community like at all. So because my dad was assimilated,
Speaker 1: because his mother and his anti were residential school survivors,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a cultural connection either, you know, so
Speaker 1: when they raised us, it was you know, we were
Speaker 1: native and we understood that dad wasn't white, you know,
Speaker 1: at least visibly, and they would show us like we
Speaker 1: still wanted that connection, you know, to the culture and
Speaker 1: didn't really know how to go about doing that since
Speaker 1: we lived so far away, and a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: that my parents would do was, oh, there's a movie
Speaker 1: that has Indians in it. Let's show it to them,
Speaker 1: and they'll think that's cool because it's you know, like
Speaker 1: their dad, like us. You know. So sometimes it was
Speaker 1: good and sometimes a lot of times it was not.
Speaker 1: But you know, with problematic representation isn't a new thing
Speaker 1: for natives, but this was one of them, and I
Speaker 1: didn't realize until we get to that specific part why
Speaker 1: my parents chose to show us this movie. And it's
Speaker 1: been a favorite sense and I love the hell out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah.
Speaker 1: It also helps that when I put my hair in braids,
Speaker 1: especially if I try to go to like, you know,
Speaker 1: rallies or pow wows and stuff, because I'm very pigment challenged.
Speaker 1: I look more like Wednesday than I do like any
Speaker 1: of my native relatives.
Speaker 3: Like Okay, Jamie, what about you, what's your relationship with
Speaker 3: this movie?
Speaker 4: I was a late comer to it. I think I
Speaker 4: saw it when I was a kid, but I it wasn't.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I think my mom was just she's like the Adams Family,
Speaker 4: no goths in this house, which is why I got
Speaker 4: so into goth stuff because my mom said no goths. Anyways, Yeah,
Speaker 4: so I got really into the Adam's family as like
Speaker 4: a teen. I love this movie. It's my favorite of
Speaker 4: I mean, there's only the two, but this is the
Speaker 4: better one. I feel like this movie really is like
Speaker 4: the best use of the Adams Family that I've ever seen,
Speaker 4: in putting them in fish out of water situations to
Speaker 4: criticize American culture, which is the point of them. And
Speaker 4: I don't know. My niece watches that this is unrelated.
Speaker 4: My niece really enjoys the like animated reboot, and they
Speaker 4: just don't use any of the cool parts of the
Speaker 4: Adams Family. It's a waste. I haven't seen Wednesday, can't
Speaker 4: speak to it. But yes, I love the Adams Family.
Speaker 4: I think that this movie is doing so much in
Speaker 4: something that I feel like it's hard to find family
Speaker 4: films doing now, which is really exkewering and criticizing American
Speaker 4: culture and not sacrificing any funny to like, you know,
Speaker 4: be super didactic, which is just you just don't see
Speaker 4: it a lot. So it's I think one of my
Speaker 4: favorite comedies. I think, I mean, I think. I also
Speaker 4: think it's wild that any like has it happened and
Speaker 4: other things where like Joan Cusack and Christine Baranski two
Speaker 4: women I love so much, very confusing when they're in
Speaker 4: the same movie. Their vibes are similar. Sure, yes, and
Speaker 4: then I did, Caitlin. I didn't run this by you before,
Speaker 4: but I feel like it's just time to say something
Speaker 4: that it's been five years. It's been five whole years,
Speaker 4: eighty four years. So another reason that this is an
Speaker 4: especially interesting movie for us to cover on the show
Speaker 4: is because we have previously interviewed the director of this
Speaker 4: movie in one of the very few lost episodes of
Speaker 4: the Buxtell Cast. You'll never hear it. We are Barry
Speaker 4: Son and felt heads on the show. But he was
Speaker 4: definitely not brief done what our show is about.
Speaker 3: Or he was and he did not pay attention.
Speaker 4: We're not sure. I mean, it's like he's busy. I
Speaker 4: get it, pod has prep. It could be a lot
Speaker 4: of work and uh, but anyways, it's just a fun
Speaker 4: fact that something that happened five years ago, and we
Speaker 4: were like, someday we'll say it.
Speaker 3: It happened. It did happen.
Speaker 4: We we covered Wild Wow West, and you'll never.
Speaker 3: Know what happened in that conversation.
Speaker 4: You can imagine it, you can wonder, but we'll never tell.
Speaker 4: But I I feel like it's okay, I don't know.
Speaker 4: We talked to our point of contact and she was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: tell everyone it happened.
Speaker 3: Well, it happened, history, history happened.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Also, at the time, before the interview went the way
Speaker 3: that it did, we had posted like a screen grab
Speaker 3: of our zoom call on Twitter, I think, and then
Speaker 3: people were like, wow, that's cool. And then we just
Speaker 3: never released that episode and people are like, what wasn't
Speaker 3: that supposed to be something that came out, and we're like, really, don't,
Speaker 3: don't talk about it.
Speaker 4: I really know we were talking about.
Speaker 1: Have you guys deleted your Twitter?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 4: No, it's sitting dormant. It's just like a fucking.
Speaker 3: Graveyard and is gone. I was like, good for you,
Speaker 3: but yeah, I know this happened. And he's in the
Speaker 3: movie as a cameo. He plays He plays a character's father.
Speaker 4: Yes, and we are we are we are fans, we
Speaker 4: are Barry Heads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was wild which character's.
Speaker 3: Father Joel Joel's father a ka David Crumholtz his father.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: Like if it was the Sarah Miller's father. I was
Speaker 1: going to be like, oh no.
Speaker 4: So Also, this was the first I don't I haven't
Speaker 4: seen this movie in well, it's not even true. I
Speaker 4: saw it a couple of years ago. They did a
Speaker 4: double feature with Casper and Adam's Family. Value is great
Speaker 4: double double. So I saw that a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: and that was the last time I saw this. But
Speaker 4: this is the first time I registered that that's baby
Speaker 4: David Crumbholts. Oh nokay, I just I didn't know that
Speaker 4: Bernard was in this film.
Speaker 3: Bernard the Elf. Yeah, what can you do?
Speaker 4: Anyways, Yes, I love this movie and that episode exists. Yes,
Speaker 4: that's all I have to say at this time.
Speaker 3: Thank you for sharing. I have a pretty limited history
Speaker 3: with this movie. I probably saw both of the early
Speaker 3: nineties Adam's families when I was a kid, but I
Speaker 3: don't know something about my household. We were more of
Speaker 3: a no goths. We know, it was more that we were.
Speaker 3: We were a Tim Burton household.
Speaker 1: Have ten anime betrayals right there.
Speaker 4: It's funny.
Speaker 1: There was a time.
Speaker 3: I won't vouch for the man now, but we Yeah,
Speaker 3: for some reason, when it came to like nineties Gothy
Speaker 3: type movies that were mainstream. I mean, my mom fucked up.
Speaker 3: She should have we should have had these on BHS,
Speaker 3: but we didn't, and I resent her to this day.
Speaker 4: We weren't allowed to have Tim Burton I there.
Speaker 3: Anyway. So all this to say, I didn't really grow
Speaker 3: up with these movies. I think I probably saw them
Speaker 3: at some point, but I didn't really immerse myself in
Speaker 3: them until we covered the first movie, which was what
Speaker 3: like five six years ago at this point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with the Iffy and Danny, I.
Speaker 3: Think, yeah. And while prepping for that episode, I also
Speaker 3: watched Adam's Family Values. And these movies are very funny.
Speaker 3: I love the jokes in them. I wish I had
Speaker 3: kind of gotten to them sooner. Also side note, there
Speaker 3: is there is a third movie that I guess is
Speaker 3: canonically part of the trilogy, although almost the entire cast
Speaker 3: is different except for Oh the actor who plays Lurch.
Speaker 3: But there's a movie called Adam's Family Reunion. Yes, from
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight Tim Curry, Tim Curry and Darryl Hannah
Speaker 3: as Gomez and Mortitia.
Speaker 4: Wow, I have seen that. I guess that's like, I
Speaker 4: feel like it's its own thing. Wednesday, it changes, it's
Speaker 4: a different iteration.
Speaker 3: I mean once all day. Once you know Angelica Houston
Speaker 3: isn't there, Christopher.
Speaker 4: Lloyd or Flintstone's Viva Rock Vegas in that way? Right,
Speaker 4: You're like, where what's Jane Krakowski doing here?
Speaker 3: Yes, So anyway, I don't have much of a history
Speaker 3: with these movies, but I do enjoy them very much,
Speaker 3: and there's a lot to discuss today. Let's take a
Speaker 3: quick break and we'll come back for the recap, and
Speaker 3: we're bad. We're back.
Speaker 4: Hailey duff is in Adam's Family Reunion. Sorry, I'm looking
Speaker 4: at this list like as Wednesday or no, as Gina Adams.
Speaker 4: I'm assuming these are who I don't know. I'm assuming
Speaker 4: she went to the reunion. Gina Adams Harve.
Speaker 3: The reunion right right right right? Yeah?
Speaker 4: This guy straight to video. That would be a good
Speaker 4: Matreon theme, just like Curse Straight to Video.
Speaker 3: Sequels. There's so many bad ones with an entirely different
Speaker 3: cast I always think of like George of the Jungle.
Speaker 1: And Mortal Kombat Annihilation.
Speaker 4: Just some really gnarly stuff. A lot of actors in debt,
Speaker 4: right Yeah. Anyways, Adams family values, which does not suffer
Speaker 4: from this problem.
Speaker 3: Not at all. So we see the Adams family that
Speaker 3: we know and love. We've got Fester screaming at the moon.
Speaker 3: Wednesday and her brother, Pugsley and their granny are burying
Speaker 3: a cat alive.
Speaker 1: What cats.
Speaker 3: Hid Your cats? Lurch is playing the organ Gomez and
Speaker 3: thing our arm wrestling. Mortitia announces that she's going to
Speaker 3: have a baby right now, so the family rushes to
Speaker 3: the hospital and Mortitia gives birth. They bring the baby
Speaker 3: home and it looks like a miniature Gomez with a
Speaker 3: little mustache in the suit and everything. Wednesday and Pugsley
Speaker 3: resent the new baby and keep trying to kill it,
Speaker 3: but their plans are thwarted each time.
Speaker 4: Their love language.
Speaker 1: Movie perfectly like encapsulates my dark humor that I've developed
Speaker 1: over the years, because every single thing that happens in
Speaker 1: it is so bad and hilarious, Like they're dropping the
Speaker 1: baby and gor didn't hit with bowling.
Speaker 3: Balls and it's comedy, it's hilarious, it's amazing. Yeah. So
Speaker 3: Mortitia and Gomez are trying to be romantic because they're
Speaker 3: still so horny for each other, but their hands are
Speaker 3: full with three children. They try to hire a nanny.
Speaker 3: Cynthia Nixon plays.
Speaker 4: Like Maranda, what are you doing here?
Speaker 3: Marianda? Yeah, she's one of the people who is interviewed.
Speaker 3: Another is Debbie Jelinski played by Joan Cusack, who they
Speaker 3: eventually hire, and they introduce her to their baby, who
Speaker 3: they've named Pubert. Hilarious, awesome, saying how did.
Speaker 4: They get away with it?
Speaker 3: We don't know, we don't know, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: And then did you know that David Hyde Pierce is
Speaker 4: in the delivery rooms?
Speaker 3: He plays a doctor Blitz second.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of good cameos in this too.
Speaker 3: So Debbie also meets the rest of the family, and
Speaker 3: when she meets Fester, he's like hubba, hubba, who's that
Speaker 3: at And then Debbie moves in that night, and then
Speaker 3: she watches a news report about an unknown serial killer
Speaker 3: who the media has dubbed the black Widow because she
Speaker 3: seeks out rich and marries them and kills them on
Speaker 3: their wedding night so she can collect their money.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that happening in the Avengers movies, right,
Speaker 1: would have made things better.
Speaker 4: It would have been much more interesting.
Speaker 1: So that's why she showed up an Iron Man two.
Speaker 4: I do like that they take the trouble to show
Speaker 4: like four different pictures of Joan Cusack and various wigs.
Speaker 4: I think the disguises were pretty good. Like so, I mean,
Speaker 4: while Wednesday's right to say that she was sloppy, I
Speaker 4: still think she was doing She was running a pretty
Speaker 4: good grift.
Speaker 3: It's not until she met the Adams family and she
Speaker 3: was no match for them.
Speaker 1: No, if she just would have been so upfront, it
Speaker 1: would have been like, oh, honey, you want to.
Speaker 3: That's awesome.
Speaker 4: She and Martitia really could.
Speaker 1: Have bonded, I think joined a polycule man and then
Speaker 1: even Odder exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's the whole thing that this you know,
Speaker 3: Black Widow serial Killer is bi Jelenski, and she starts
Speaker 3: to go through Fester's things and finds all of his assets.
Speaker 3: There's stocks, there's bonds, there's deeds to houses, all that stuff,
Speaker 3: and it looks like he will be her next target.
Speaker 3: But Wednesday is on too Debbie. So Debbie gets rid
Speaker 3: of Wednesday by lying and telling Mortitia and Gomez that
Speaker 3: the kids really really want to go to summer camp.
Speaker 3: So the family arrives at Camp Chippewa.
Speaker 4: Ah, yeah, it begins.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about it does not mean orphan, No, it
Speaker 3: does not. They drop off Wednesday and Pugsley. At the camp,
Speaker 3: the kids meet a spoiled rich girl named Amanda, as
Speaker 3: well as the camp directors, Becky and Gary played by
Speaker 3: Christine Branski and Peter McNichol, who I recognized from Ghostbusters two.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yes. They also meet another camper, Joel. This
Speaker 3: is the David Crumholtz character, and he and Wednesday make
Speaker 3: eyes at each other. Meanwhile, back at the Adams family home,
Speaker 3: Debbie is there with Fester and she's working on getting
Speaker 3: him to fall in love with her, and she is succeeding.
Speaker 3: A double date is arranged Mortitia and Gomez and Fester
Speaker 3: and Debbie. They go out to dinner. There's this whole
Speaker 3: scene where Morticia and Gomez do like a tango dance number.
Speaker 4: That's a great number.
Speaker 1: It's great that inspired an entire generation of bisexuals. They
Speaker 1: know it because it was the nineties, and.
Speaker 4: It was yeah, everyone in that scene is cooking. I
Speaker 4: love that they're like getting off on making the other jealous,
Speaker 4: Like it's just oh, it's so good, it's so good. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and then cutting back to Uncle.
Speaker 3: Fester doing that. What does he do?
Speaker 1: He's like showing he's like sticking dreadsticks up.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, it's just just no, no, it's perfect hilarious.
Speaker 3: And then later that night, Fester and Debbie are alone
Speaker 3: and she tells him that she's a virgin. Obviously she's lying,
Speaker 3: but he very sincerely is like me too, and she
Speaker 3: professes her like you know, love for him, aka she's
Speaker 3: manipulating him, and they get engaged. Meanwhile, at camp, Wednesday
Speaker 3: is having a terrible time among all of the rich
Speaker 3: blonde children, especially that girl Amanda. The camp directors put
Speaker 3: Wednesday and Pugsley in this like time out cabin or
Speaker 3: it's called like army house hardy House. Little David Crumholtz
Speaker 3: is sent there as well. He and Wednesday continued to
Speaker 3: vibe with each other and the three of them try
Speaker 3: to escape the camp because Wednesday has learned that her
Speaker 3: uncle Fester is engaged and she wants to try to
Speaker 3: put an end to it, but the campers and camp
Speaker 3: directors catch them and stop them from leaving. They like
Speaker 3: sing Kumbaya at them.
Speaker 4: They just can't stop appropriating. I can't, I can't, they can't.
Speaker 1: Act of positivity is a weapon.
Speaker 3: And yeah, oh yeah, oh my god, absolutely so at
Speaker 3: the house, Fester and Debbie have an engagement party slash
Speaker 3: like joint bachelor slash bachelorette parties. Fester is still oblivious
Speaker 3: that Debbie is conning him. Then they have their wedding.
Speaker 3: The whole Adam's family is there, including the kids plus Joel.
Speaker 3: He got invited to the wedding and they managed to
Speaker 3: leave the camp. Then we cut to Fester and Debbie's
Speaker 3: honeymoon in Hawaii, where she tries to kill him by
Speaker 3: throwing a stereo in the bathtub while he's in it,
Speaker 3: but just turns him on.
Speaker 1: He's like, this is so awesome.
Speaker 3: So now Debbie is pissed that he's still alive and
Speaker 3: grossed out because now he wants to consummate their marriage
Speaker 3: and have sex ever heard of it? And she's like, okay,
Speaker 3: but after we make love, you can never see your
Speaker 3: family again, and he's reluctant, but anyone else. Yeah, honestly
Speaker 3: a pretty pretty cool move.
Speaker 1: He got tries so upset that he's alive. It's so mad,
Speaker 1: and then it's like, oh my god, Christopher Lloyd's fucking face. See.
Speaker 4: I was surprised at like how in detail that seed
Speaker 4: goes into, because I feel like with the kids movies,
Speaker 4: you usually get like an implication, but they're just they're
Speaker 4: just having a frank discussion about fucking.
Speaker 3: Well while he's inside her question mark.
Speaker 4: It's unclear. I watched it. I'm glad it's not clearer,
Speaker 4: but the fact that it's a possibility is wild.
Speaker 1: I think the only reason that it could do that
Speaker 1: was because Gomes and Morticia or clearly fucking like the
Speaker 1: entire time through both movies, it's true. And the movie
Speaker 1: even begins with Wednesday. You know that girl's like the
Speaker 1: diamond under the cabbage patch turned into a baby and
Speaker 1: Wednesday's like our sand sucks.
Speaker 3: That's hilarious joke anyway, So he Fester doesn't want to
Speaker 3: cut ties with his family. He's very reluctant, but he
Speaker 3: agrees because he's so freaking horny. Many such cases, the
Speaker 3: leaps in logic that we all do because of horniness,
Speaker 3: you know, yeah, Okay, So then they return from their honeymoon.
Speaker 3: Debbie is still furious that Fester is alive, but she's
Speaker 3: kind of accepted that he's going to be sticking around,
Speaker 3: so she gives him a makeover with like a bowl cut.
Speaker 4: He seems to be into it.
Speaker 3: She is a dom, he is a sub. And then
Speaker 3: they move into a mansion while the rest of the
Speaker 3: family receives word that Fester can never see them again,
Speaker 3: and they're like, what the fuck. So Morticia and Gomez
Speaker 3: go to Debbie and Fester's new house to be like, Debbie,
Speaker 3: U succubis, let us see Fester.
Speaker 4: And then the iconic but Debbie Pastels moment is so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I love that Mortitia respects the hell out
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, it's like you, you've put him under
Speaker 1: some sexual seductive spell. I respect that.
Speaker 4: But Debbie, it's so and I love the like the
Speaker 4: Angelica Houston lighting. She's just so movie star, her little
Speaker 4: eye line light that just irrationally follows her throughout everything,
Speaker 4: and I just love it.
Speaker 3: It's so good. So, yeah, they they confront Debbie, but
Speaker 3: she refuses to let them see Fester, who is cowering
Speaker 3: in the corner, too afraid of Debbie to defy her,
Speaker 3: so the family goes to the police and tries to
Speaker 3: report Debbie parentheses ACAB include Nathan Lane playing a cop.
Speaker 4: That was that was.
Speaker 3: That was a hard one. That's a hard one. But nonetheless,
Speaker 3: because the police are useless, they do nothing to help
Speaker 3: the family.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a that's a shock, right, They never do that.
Speaker 1: They're usually so competent.
Speaker 3: And oh yeah, meanwhile, the kids are back at the
Speaker 3: summer camp and the camp directors are organizing a play
Speaker 3: about the First Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4: And you know that they're obsessed with this racist story
Speaker 4: because they're doing it in the summer for some reason. Ye,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, fuck, And.
Speaker 1: Like it makes even less sense because that's not even
Speaker 1: the tribe. I mean, like, it's not gonna make sense
Speaker 1: for car.
Speaker 3: It's not the tribe. Pocahontas was not at the First Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3: Because Wednesday gets cast as Pocahontas. They start rehearsing the play.
Speaker 3: It is horrendous for many reasons. Obviously we'll talk a
Speaker 3: lot about this more, but Wednesday, Pugsley and Joel are like, Okay,
Speaker 3: this sucks. We don't want to participate in your awful play.
Speaker 3: So they are sent back to the Harmon House and
Speaker 3: made to watch a bunch of like uplifting family friendly media,
Speaker 3: Disney movies, Sound of Music, Brady Bunch Annie, all that
Speaker 3: kind of stuff to fix their bad attitude. Meanwhile, Pubert
Speaker 3: the baby seems to be sick or possessed because he
Speaker 3: suddenly looks like a more traditional cute baby with like
Speaker 3: rosy cheeks and blonde curls.
Speaker 4: He likes Doctor Seuss books, he wants the cat in
Speaker 4: the Hat so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Hubert looks like me when I was a baby,
Speaker 1: because exactly what my hair used to look like?
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Okay, I don't know.
Speaker 1: And then I guess I decolonize because now it's uh
Speaker 1: this color and gray.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Anyway, so they think Pubert is possessed maybe because
Speaker 3: of this like troubled family life ordeal that they're going through.
Speaker 3: Fester abandoning them, and so they work on trying to
Speaker 3: fix this. Cut back to the camp, it is time
Speaker 3: for the Thanksgiving play. Obviously, it's very whitewashed revisionist history
Speaker 3: version of the Thanksgiving narrative. So Wednesday goes off script
Speaker 3: gives a monologue about colonialism, stolen land modern day injustices
Speaker 3: that native people face, and then she and the other
Speaker 3: native characters in the play literally burn the set of
Speaker 3: the play and tie up that snobby rich girl Amanda,
Speaker 3: who had been cast as like the lead pilgrim woman.
Speaker 3: The whole thing is chaos. It's very cathartic, so good,
Speaker 3: and then Wednesday and Pugsley escape. After Wednesday and Joel
Speaker 3: share a heartfelt goodbye. Back at Fester and Debbie's house,
Speaker 3: she wraps up a b as a birthday present for Fester,
Speaker 3: once again trying to kill him, but he's like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, is this a bomb? Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: But she leaves the house and goes to a bar
Speaker 3: where Tony Shaloub is singing Macho Man.
Speaker 1: As you do.
Speaker 4: Just then you think it couldn't get any better. There's
Speaker 4: Tony Shaloub at a bar singing Macho Man.
Speaker 3: And then I guess the idea is like Debbie leaves
Speaker 3: so that the house can explode and then she'll come
Speaker 3: back to be like, oh no, my poor husband. But
Speaker 3: Fester survives the explosion, so Debbie pulls a gun on
Speaker 3: him and admits that she doesn't love him, that she
Speaker 3: wants to kill him, and take his money. But before
Speaker 3: she can do any of that, Thing the Adams family
Speaker 3: disembodied hand runs Debbie over with a car and rescues
Speaker 3: Fester and they drive off.
Speaker 1: Upon this most recent viewing, there's a piece of dialogue
Speaker 1: earlier on in the movie where Fester was talking about
Speaker 1: how he's been jealous of Gomez and Mortitia's relationship, and
Speaker 1: Gomez says something like, well, you have Thing, And I
Speaker 1: was like, has Thing.
Speaker 3: Been jerking off Fester this whole time?
Speaker 1: And then Thing comes and saves him from the woman
Speaker 1: who stole him away from him.
Speaker 4: So, look, everything in this family is fluid, and don't
Speaker 4: worry about it. What happens in Adam's manner stays in
Speaker 4: Adam's manner. I also love cousin it and his wife.
Speaker 4: That was a really fun, touchy but he's got a
Speaker 4: he's got a normy wife and they seem very happy.
Speaker 3: And then then they have a baby, and what a
Speaker 3: cute kid.
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you guys something. Yeah, it was me.
Speaker 1: I was cousin it.
Speaker 3: A celeb unkenny. I'm Kenny resemblance of Okay. So back
Speaker 3: at the Adams family home, Mortitia is trying to care
Speaker 3: for this new version of her baby, and Gomez is
Speaker 3: like bedridden and dying. I'm not really sure what's going
Speaker 3: on there no extra But then Fester returns home, as
Speaker 3: do the children, so the family reunites. But oh no,
Speaker 3: Debbie shows up with a rifle and puts the whole
Speaker 3: family in a bunch of electric chairs, shows them a
Speaker 3: slide show of all the people she has murdered, her
Speaker 3: past husbands and her parents when she was ten years
Speaker 3: old because they gave her Malibu Barbie instead of Ballerina Barbie.
Speaker 1: Incredible, incredible because then her parents might have taken it
Speaker 1: too far. But who else does Debbie kill? She kills
Speaker 1: a doctor because he's snipped dinner because the pope had
Speaker 1: a cold, not a girl. And she kills a senator
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, some of some of Debbie's crimes.
Speaker 3: You're like, I support it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, wait, you know whatever, it's valid.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, meanwhile, the only family member who Debbie didn't tie
Speaker 3: up is baby Pubert. He's on the loose, looking like
Speaker 3: a mini Gomez again, you know, zipping around the house
Speaker 3: and setting in motion a final destination style Rube Goldberg
Speaker 3: thing that electrocutes Debbie and turns her to dust. We
Speaker 3: cut to sometime later, the Adams family is safe and
Speaker 3: together and back to their normal cousin It and It's wife,
Speaker 3: Margaret and their baby come over for baby Pubert's first
Speaker 3: birthday party and bring along their nanny, Dementia, who seems
Speaker 3: like a very good match for Fester because they look identical.
Speaker 3: And Joel also comes to see Wednesday, and the movie
Speaker 3: ends with Joel being like, oh, Wednesday, I hope we
Speaker 3: can get married one day, and she's like, ooh, gross,
Speaker 3: cool it. And then she's like, I'd rather be like
Speaker 3: Debbie and kill my husband, except she was sloppy and
Speaker 3: I would get away with it. And then she plays
Speaker 3: a little graveyard prank on Joel the end. Oh, and
Speaker 3: then the credit song is I forget when episode We
Speaker 3: were just talking about this on Jamie, but when you
Speaker 3: were like, Oh, I miss the days when the credit
Speaker 3: song was a rap recap.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, this is such a good one. This
Speaker 4: one it like it makes no sense and therefore it's perfect. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I love it. What did they call it a fish?
Speaker 4: It has such a funny title.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the last movie I saw they did that recently
Speaker 1: was PG Psycho gore Man, where they had like some
Speaker 1: nineties not nineties, like eighties white rapper. I guess summarize
Speaker 1: the video.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's called Adam's Family.
Speaker 3: Woomp. That's okay. Oh yeah, they're sort of like that.
Speaker 1: Woomp. There.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it couldn't be more nineteen ninety three if
Speaker 4: it wanted to be. It's Adams Family.
Speaker 3: Woomp.
Speaker 4: You are seeing you are valued?
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, so let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 3: come back to discuss.
Speaker 4: And we're back, Ali, We're going to kick it to you.
Speaker 4: Where would you like to start?
Speaker 1: Oh? Okay, Well, first of all, perfect casting all around.
Speaker 1: Everybody in this movie is perfectly cast. I would love, like,
Speaker 1: I know you haven't seen Wednesday, and I've only seen
Speaker 1: like a couple episodes on the Netflix. The Netflix Wednesday. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but Sabrina Carpenter had Jenna Ortega and her music video
Speaker 1: for Taste, and it was a very death becomes Her,
Speaker 1: very morbid, but very funny and very toxic lesbian. You know,
Speaker 1: it's great, And Sabrina Carpenter could totally be Debbie on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and I just think that would make things perfect.
Speaker 4: That would rock young Debbie.
Speaker 1: They do it right this time, or it was like
Speaker 1: Debbie's niece or something like right sure, Sabrina Jelenski.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm waiting.
Speaker 1: That would be perfect.
Speaker 3: And then.
Speaker 1: Wow, where else do I begin? Like I'm going through
Speaker 1: my moods right now? What else?
Speaker 4: Here's seventy seventy places to stay?
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: Someone said on Tumblr or something about how beheading all
Speaker 1: the billionaires would include Gomes Adams because he's got all
Speaker 1: that money, and I was like, you know, he would
Speaker 1: just be so honored.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I say, I think he'd be like, you know what,
Speaker 4: you got me, I deserve it.
Speaker 3: You got me guys guillotine me.
Speaker 1: So Pupert has a little baby guilloty on top of
Speaker 1: his birthday cake and I want one.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 4: I love usually a movie where the premise is and
Speaker 4: now there's a baby, it's so hit or miss premise wise,
Speaker 4: but like Pupert Ooh, I love that baby. He's he's
Speaker 4: a great addition. He just makes sense. He's just as evil.
Speaker 3: I love his little mustache.
Speaker 4: And the story doesn't get lost in like I don't know,
Speaker 4: like what now there's a baby, which I just like.
Speaker 4: It is a very tired plot point like, yeah, there's
Speaker 4: a baby, the kids are trying to kill.
Speaker 3: Him, classic narrative.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and he's kind of loving it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and all that. Wednesday plays with a gea
Speaker 1: with the baby dressed up as Marie Antoinette, and I
Speaker 1: was children paying attention to comrade Wednesday.
Speaker 3: Fun fact, Hubert the baby is played by twin babies,
Speaker 3: as like children and babies often are in movies because
Speaker 3: it's like they need a break, We'll swap out this
Speaker 3: one for the other one. Yeah, but the babies are
Speaker 3: twin girls named Kristen and Caitlyn Hooper. But Caitlyn spelled
Speaker 3: the wrong way, so I can't forgive that.
Speaker 1: So the baby with the little mustaches, that's adorable.
Speaker 4: Something that stood out to me. I mean, this movie
Speaker 4: is doing so much cultural commentary. Obviously we're going to
Speaker 4: spend a lot of time on the Thanksgiving play, but
Speaker 4: I just wanted to shout out a few other things
Speaker 4: that popped out that I had to like put on
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety three goggles to understand. There's a few contemporary references.
Speaker 4: There's obviously the Michael Jackson reference, which I had to do.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I had a feeling why it was included,
Speaker 4: but I was like, well, like, where was that cultural
Speaker 4: discourse at at the time, And it ended up being
Speaker 4: actually quite personal to the movie, specifically because Michael Jackson
Speaker 4: was originally going to appear in this movie. Yeah I
Speaker 4: read that, and so yes, I'm pulling from scholarly journal
Speaker 4: Wikipedia here. He was supposed to have a song in
Speaker 4: the movie called family Thing. The song is rumored to
Speaker 4: have been removed due to the child's sexual abuse allegations
Speaker 4: against Jackson, but the truth is it was a contractual difference,
Speaker 4: so we don't know if they would have included it.
Speaker 4: If they could have, it seems like they probably wouldn't
Speaker 4: have because of the way he's referenced that Yeah, he's
Speaker 4: referenced like visually and Joel is terrified of him, which
Speaker 4: I'm sure got a big laugh in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 4: I personally don't like when they use his accurance to
Speaker 4: like seem like that's the source of horror when it's
Speaker 4: the act. Maybe just don't reference him at all. It
Speaker 4: is my fat And then I felt the same way
Speaker 4: about the Amy Fisher reference, which is also so nineties
Speaker 4: in a way that like in a movie that generally
Speaker 4: is pushing back on popular narratives. I don't know. Listen
Speaker 4: to the year wrang About episode about Amy Fisher. It's
Speaker 4: like a classic mischaracterization of a teenager who is being groomed.
Speaker 4: So there was that. I also didn't know that the
Speaker 4: title is a reference to a dan Quail speech question
Speaker 4: mark yeah, okay, also pulling from scholarly journal Wikipedia here.
Speaker 4: Of course, the family values in the film's title is
Speaker 4: a tongue in cheek reference by the writer to a
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two speech called Reflections on Urban America made
Speaker 4: by then Vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle. In the speech,
Speaker 4: Quail controversially blamed the nineteen ninety two Los Angeles riots
Speaker 4: on a breakdown of quote unquote family values, which is,
Speaker 4: you know, we don't need to tell you that's unbelievably racist.
Speaker 4: But I just didn't realize that the title was pulling
Speaker 4: from something. Yeah, both like very recent and very specific,
Speaker 4: and that is a culture reference that I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's a fun fuck you uh to Dan Quayle.
Speaker 3: Similarly, I would say that there are a couple jokes
Speaker 3: in the movie that just feel quite reductive. Most of
Speaker 3: the jokes in the movie are hilarious, and great, and
Speaker 3: I have a list of my favorites, but there's for.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety three is an accomplishment truly that more of
Speaker 4: it agees well than doesn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. There's a joke where like that implies that
Speaker 3: Gomez infest jerk off to a pin up style nude
Speaker 3: image of their mom and we're like, okay, insects and
Speaker 3: miss art. Dang, yeah that's there. There's an there's a
Speaker 3: joke that's judgy toward anyone who has had cosmetic surgery
Speaker 3: that Wednesday makes the where it's like, oh, all the
Speaker 3: girls woke up with their original noses and they're like, so,
Speaker 3: she's like shamy of that. Christopher Lloyd is in a
Speaker 3: fat suit to play Fester. So you know, there are
Speaker 3: some things that don't age very well.
Speaker 1: But as a person with an overbite, let me tell
Speaker 1: you when oh, yeah that one your bathing suit, is
Speaker 1: that your overboy brutal?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess with the with the joke about nose jobs,
Speaker 4: I felt like that was, Yeah, that's cruel of Wednesday,
Speaker 4: But I felt that they were trying to get at
Speaker 4: the waspiness of the girl she was talking to. It
Speaker 4: could have been a different joke.
Speaker 3: That's thing, like she could have commented on her whatever
Speaker 3: class privilege or something, didn't need to make a dig
Speaker 3: at anyone's appearance. But she does that a couple of times.
Speaker 4: She also tries to kill a baby. I mean problematic, problematically, yeah,
Speaker 4: and then I mean, yeah, the big, the big discussion
Speaker 4: to have here is the I mean the summer camp
Speaker 4: it itself and then the specific play that they put on.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so overall, it's I think a pretty effective
Speaker 3: satire of like American summer camp culture, where it's this
Speaker 3: camp for like privileged children who you know are just
Speaker 3: children with rich parents. Almost every child there is white.
Speaker 3: Almost all of them are blonde. Like you see shot
Speaker 3: like wide shots of like forty kids, and they're all
Speaker 3: just these blonde children. There's commentary on class and white
Speaker 3: supremacy and how non native people and especially white people,
Speaker 3: appropriate indigenous cultures, treat Native people as a monolith, act
Speaker 3: as though Native people don't exist anymore, that they're a
Speaker 3: thing of the.
Speaker 1: Past, completely make up the name, like say that the
Speaker 1: name of it, yes, scribe is because it's not orphan.
Speaker 1: What happened was is that Chippewa is what the colonizers
Speaker 1: heard when they said, oh, jibwa, and they thought, because
Speaker 1: how you spell it? And I'm sure how you say it?
Speaker 1: Before there was like a written language for these words.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, chippewa instead of ojibwa or ojibwa.
Speaker 1: That's what it is. It doesn't mean orphan. I forget
Speaker 1: what it means. It means something. It means something very weird,
Speaker 1: like if I recall correctly, but I forgot what it was.
Speaker 1: I can look it up somewhere.
Speaker 4: But racist brain cell to be shared among these colonizers.
Speaker 4: It's just like sough. I was curious. I guess I
Speaker 4: was curious if either of you. I hadn't thought about
Speaker 4: this in a long time, but I was talking about
Speaker 4: this movie with my brother, and we grew up in Massachusetts,
Speaker 4: where misrepresentation of Native history, I feel like, is particularly egregious,
Speaker 4: and we were talking about it wasn't a camp quite
Speaker 4: like this, but it's one of the or at least
Speaker 4: at the time in the late nineties early two thousands,
Speaker 4: was a default field trip that you would take in
Speaker 4: public schools to a place called Camp Squanto in Massachusetts.
Speaker 4: And so I did a little bit of research into it,
Speaker 4: because again, this seems like, it's a very like the
Speaker 4: camp that the Atoms are going to is a rich
Speaker 4: kid camp. This is a publicly owned camp that I
Speaker 4: think mostly boy Scouts use, but it has this very
Speaker 4: racist history that it doesn't seem like unlike you know,
Speaker 4: at very least there has been push back on the
Speaker 4: way Plymouth Plantation, another field trip I had to go on,
Speaker 4: is portrayed.
Speaker 3: There hasn't really been any.
Speaker 4: Motion on camps like this, but I just wanted to
Speaker 4: talk about it a little bit because I do like
Speaker 4: once my brother brought it up, I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I clearly remember going to Camp Squanto as a kid,
Speaker 4: which is you know, Squanto is yet another like misrepresented name.
Speaker 4: I looked into how the website portrays and I want
Speaker 4: to make sure I'm saying his actual name correctly. It's
Speaker 4: to Squantum, and he's He's a popular, falsely portrayed cultural
Speaker 4: figure in Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: I've learned about him all the time.
Speaker 4: Growing up, and the narrative that is attributed to him
Speaker 4: is that he was an indigenous person who helped the
Speaker 4: pilgrims and who like you know, helped them understand how
Speaker 4: the land worked. And he was presented as like helpful
Speaker 4: to colonizers and that that was a good thing. And
Speaker 4: that's why they named this weird camp after him, the Camp,
Speaker 4: And it seems like a lot of similar camps like
Speaker 4: it in New England. There's also a Camp Squanto in
Speaker 4: New Hampshire that's even worse because it's an explicitly Christian camp,
Speaker 4: which makes is what do you even say this that
Speaker 4: I was like, I was like, I don't want to
Speaker 4: bring these, but yeah, it's Camp Squanto invites campers to
Speaker 4: experience the love of Christ outside of four walls in
Speaker 4: a unique transforming environment. This is what wasn't the place
Speaker 4: I went. It was a federally owned piece of land,
Speaker 4: but nonetheless it is a piece of land that is
Speaker 4: dedicated to teaching kids, most of whom are not native,
Speaker 4: this false version of to Squantum. It opened in July
Speaker 4: nineteen twenty five, so it wasn't even originally integrated. Obviously
Speaker 4: by the time I went, it was. But it was
Speaker 4: a camp for white kids all over Massachusetts to learn
Speaker 4: a false version of history. And to this day it
Speaker 4: is very popular. It is still where boy Scouts will
Speaker 4: go and camp year round. And I guess I just
Speaker 4: I don't know I hadn't really connected that. Even though
Speaker 4: it's not the exact same kind of camp, it has
Speaker 4: a similar mission, which is just mis education and misrepresentation
Speaker 4: of history to serve the American project. So that's unfortunately,
Speaker 4: Camp Squanto in this.
Speaker 3: Movie seems very aware of all these types of camps
Speaker 3: that are all over Turtle Island and is satirizing them
Speaker 3: by way of this play that goes a little differently
Speaker 3: than the camp directors are expecting. So yeah, Ali, we're
Speaker 3: curious on your take on this.
Speaker 1: Well, Okay, first of all, I remember that ojiboy, the
Speaker 1: word is like kind of in reference to this is
Speaker 1: so silly, Like puckered up is more or less because
Speaker 1: the way we wear they would wear our moccasins is like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, the moccasins have like puckered scenes or
Speaker 1: something like that. So it's like, oh, puckered up or something.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of what ojibwe means. But obviously Ani
Speaker 1: schnabe would be more correct, you know. Anyways, it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean orphan, it means puckered up. God, I wish it
Speaker 1: didn't sound so dirty the Thanksgiving scene. So I, like
Speaker 1: I said, I did a video about this on YouTube.
Speaker 1: And the thing that I really loved the most about
Speaker 1: this scene was, you know, first of all, came out
Speaker 1: like I don't know, a year or so before Disney's
Speaker 1: Pocahontas came out, so before you know, like obviously, the
Speaker 1: story of Pocahontas has been told for you know, since
Speaker 1: the sixteen hundreds. People have like a vague, very whitewashed
Speaker 1: understanding of that story anyways, so it's familiar, and then
Speaker 1: Disney just made it worse. But it's just so interesting
Speaker 1: that this movie is so honest about the lie of
Speaker 1: not just not just Pocahontas. You know, they don't really
Speaker 1: dive into that story. It's just, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: play about Indians, and Pocahontas is an Indian, so let's
Speaker 1: just you know, throw her in there to make what
Speaker 1: stay uncomfortable. But just how honest it is about the
Speaker 1: lie of thanksgiving, and not only the lie of Thanksgiving
Speaker 1: that we tell our you know, the nation to children,
Speaker 1: but how the other parents in the audience very clearly
Speaker 1: are racist against Native people. And that's something that really
Speaker 1: stood out to me when I was little, you know,
Speaker 1: I saw this movie probably when I was like four.
Speaker 1: I want to say, three or four. And I understood,
Speaker 1: you know, at a very young age, just from like
Speaker 1: what my parents taught me, and then later when I
Speaker 1: would like go to school and stuff and interact with
Speaker 1: people who had never seen a Native person, like until
Speaker 1: my dad. My dad was probably the first, if not
Speaker 1: the only Native person that a lot of the white
Speaker 1: kids in my schools ever saw, you know, so probably
Speaker 1: one of the very very few that the teachers had
Speaker 1: to like interact with. Also. So it's like I understood
Speaker 1: at a very young age that there are adults and
Speaker 1: parents and teachers that are lying about what happened to
Speaker 1: the Native Americans, not just at Thanksgiving or even with pokehonnas,
Speaker 1: but throughout history. I realized that teachers will lie about this,
Speaker 1: like they'll even probably even know the story and still
Speaker 1: lie about it just because you know, it's a prettier version,
Speaker 1: it's a more flattering version.
Speaker 3: It's more quote unquote appropriate for children, and it's who's children.
Speaker 4: I've I got into an argument about this with one
Speaker 4: of my mom's co workers years ago, who teaches at
Speaker 4: an elementary school, and it was like this looping thing
Speaker 4: of I was like, well, but you know that's not true.
Speaker 4: And you know, she was like, well, but that's how
Speaker 4: are you supposed to explain that to children? I was like,
Speaker 4: figure it out.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's not true your job as an educator.
Speaker 4: But it was this idea of like, well, it's a
Speaker 4: tradition to tell this lie, and like she really felt that,
Speaker 4: and it's it's I think that there are a lot
Speaker 4: of people out there who still really don't want to
Speaker 4: face their own discomfort of having to explain this.
Speaker 1: No, not at all. But yeah, it's just like how
Speaker 1: the movie really just called that out, especially like in
Speaker 1: the early nineties, Like people have difficulty calling it out now,
Speaker 1: let alone, you know, back when I was three years old,
Speaker 1: so Wednesday not giving them an inch. It's like I
Speaker 1: like to think that she just sat in that cabin
Speaker 1: and watched all those movies and just was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm plotting how to get back at all of you
Speaker 1: just orchestrated all of this. I will say though, that
Speaker 1: the scene, as amazing as it is, it's still pretty problematic.
Speaker 1: Y like context matters, but racial stereotypes are still racial stereotypes.
Speaker 1: If you look at the Native the kids that are
Speaker 1: dressed up like natives, A lot of them have really
Speaker 1: darkened skin. I point that out in the video. I
Speaker 1: was like, Wow, they really just like dark in this
Speaker 1: kid's skin for the play. And it's racist. I mean,
Speaker 1: the whole play is racist.
Speaker 3: But right, it's tricky because yeah, the like, of course,
Speaker 3: these racist camp directors would put these children in brown face.
Speaker 3: They would like cast and it's not even predominantly white people.
Speaker 3: Because another thing with that is that the campers who
Speaker 3: are cast to play native characters are like the quote
Speaker 3: unquote outcasts in the camp. Like there's a disabled child
Speaker 3: who's Jewish, there's a kid who is fat, there's an
Speaker 3: Asian kid, there's a Latina kid, there's a black kid,
Speaker 3: a nerdy kid, like all the quote unquote outcasts who
Speaker 3: are not these like blonde children.
Speaker 4: Like descendants are pilgrims.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, and that's that is like a commentary of like,
Speaker 3: of course, these horrible camp directors would put children who
Speaker 3: who have been othered by society, you know, cast them
Speaker 3: in the role as the native characters in the play.
Speaker 3: But the movie also others those children and again it's like, yes,
Speaker 3: of course, these horrible camp directors would put those children
Speaker 3: in brown face.
Speaker 4: But like the viv isn't doing a ton to push
Speaker 4: push back to be like, let's get to know these kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we get more time with how terrible the
Speaker 1: white kids are than we are with you know, how
Speaker 1: cool these kids are. Actually, like Wednesday should have been
Speaker 1: with them more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, why doesn't she befriend like Jamal and Consuela
Speaker 3: and the other children who she has been outcast with,
Speaker 3: right like and find community with them anyway.
Speaker 4: So it's not really her thing, Wednesday.
Speaker 3: That is true. That's true.
Speaker 4: But even Pugsly, I mean Pugsly, who I do kind
Speaker 4: of like that. It's cannon to the Adams family universe,
Speaker 4: that Pugsy. You know, we can kind of take or
Speaker 4: leave him. Yeah, you know, he's in a couple of scenes,
Speaker 4: but but he's not putting butts in seats. You know,
Speaker 4: he seems like a sweet kid. I like his his
Speaker 4: performance as the turkey was very funny me. I mean,
Speaker 4: even down to the like lyrics that they're writing. I
Speaker 4: mean it is like it is really really sharp commentary
Speaker 4: writing display from this like horrendous couple's perspective.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are a lot of Native people who like
Speaker 1: the scene, and there's a lot of Native people who don't,
Speaker 1: and that's I think that's valid. Like I would never
Speaker 1: argue with a Native person about not liking this scene because,
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, it's you still have kids
Speaker 1: in brown face and culturally appropriating costumes. The dialogue is
Speaker 1: very racist too, you know, like it's you know, like
Speaker 1: racial stereotypes are stereotypes and they're harmful, so you know,
Speaker 1: like ironic racism can still racism. That being said, if
Speaker 1: I have to choose between two false accounts of the
Speaker 1: Pocahonta story, I'm going with this one because it was
Speaker 1: very very cathartic for me, you know, at that time
Speaker 1: in my life, and still kind of I mean, Donald
Speaker 1: Trump is using Pocahontas as a slur to this day,
Speaker 1: and with recent hate crimes committed against Indigenous actors like
Speaker 1: Jonathan Joss, I would see that. Yeah, it still holds
Speaker 1: up in some places, even if it doesn't in others, right,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 3: This is one of the few pieces of mainstream Hollywood
Speaker 3: media from this era that even acknowledged European settler colonialism
Speaker 3: and stolen land and modern Native people living in poverty
Speaker 3: on reservations as a result of colonialism and displacement and
Speaker 3: so like, I'll give the movie that, but like you said,
Speaker 3: there are things that ways in which the movie doesn't
Speaker 3: handle this perfectly. For example, I mean, the whole thing
Speaker 3: still centers whiteness. There are no Native characters present on
Speaker 3: screen to offer their perspectives or experiences. I feel like
Speaker 3: there are things that the play gets wrong that the
Speaker 3: movie could have easily acknowledged if it's something that like
Speaker 3: Wednesday includes in her monologue, or again, if the movie
Speaker 3: included one or more Native characters who could set the
Speaker 3: record straight.
Speaker 4: But again, one of the many things that I like,
Speaker 4: something that would have fit pretty seamlessly into Wednesday's monologue
Speaker 4: is acknowledging how racist their costuming is. Like that would
Speaker 4: have been at least a step toward not seeming as
Speaker 4: if the movie is just endorsing like any facet of that.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's I feel like it's almost kind of
Speaker 4: like leaned into versus resisted, which isn't true of a
Speaker 4: lot of elements in that speech.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, she could have acknowledged the costuming, the brown face,
Speaker 3: the fact that Pocahontas was not a quote unquote Chippewa maiden,
Speaker 3: as she says in her dialogue.
Speaker 4: Yeah, as you say in your video, very funny and repeatedly, Ali,
Speaker 4: she's nine.
Speaker 3: She is nine, Yes, yeah, she's a small child. Pocahontas
Speaker 3: was not involved in the first Thanksgiving, neither was the
Speaker 3: Ojibwe nation. It's just all these like again, the movie
Speaker 3: is commenting on how these racist white camp directors have
Speaker 3: created this and are perpetuating this very false version of
Speaker 3: the narrative. But for the people in the nineties watching this,
Speaker 3: and even people today watching this, many of them don't
Speaker 3: know any better. They don't know that the quote unquote
Speaker 3: facts presented by this play are completely incorrect, and the
Speaker 3: movie doesn't say, hey, all these details that you see
Speaker 3: here in the play are wrong. Again, it would have
Speaker 3: been easy for Wednesday to be like and by the way,
Speaker 3: this this and this, or it would have been easy
Speaker 3: for a native character to be written into the movie
Speaker 3: to say here's the actual thing. But the movie again
Speaker 3: just glosses all over that. But but it is very
Speaker 3: cathartic to watch this set burned down and for Sarah Miller,
Speaker 3: the pilgrim girl, to be tied up and burned at
Speaker 3: the stake question mark.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 1: So I think something that like in the hands of
Speaker 1: a responsible writer. Something that could have helped the scene
Speaker 1: would be if there was an actual Native person at
Speaker 1: the camp. Obviously you walk on thin ice with that one,
Speaker 1: like isn't a person attending the camp, And if it's
Speaker 1: a rich like city Indian, you know, or you run
Speaker 1: the risk of like you know, stereotypes anyways, but how
Speaker 1: they treat a rich Indian is still very racist, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're surrounded by rich white children or like maybe
Speaker 1: there's a camp director or something like that that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna teach you, you know, take you on a
Speaker 1: trail or take you horseback riding, and the kids are like,
Speaker 1: you know, because the other thing is, you know, you
Speaker 1: don't really want an excuse, like you don't want a
Speaker 1: Native person there specifically so people can be racist to them, right,
Speaker 1: But like if someone was there, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: the image in my head when I imagine how the scene
Speaker 1: probably could have been a little bit better, would be
Speaker 1: like a Native person watching this all unfold and just
Speaker 1: like nodding and smiling and just watching it like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: you know about it all. I don't remember this version
Speaker 1: of the Thanksgiving story, but it's a lot better than
Speaker 1: the ones they've been telling for the past like three
Speaker 1: hundred years.
Speaker 4: The other thing that I know we've like touched on it,
Speaker 4: but again, one of the things that I don't think
Speaker 4: I would have seen in other movies is the acknowledgment
Speaker 4: that Native people still exist. Like, I think that was
Speaker 4: something that I was I feel like, I mean, I
Speaker 4: didn't grow up around any Native kids. I grew up
Speaker 4: in a very diversity, but we didn't have a large
Speaker 4: Native population at all. And I feel like, even if
Speaker 4: it wasn't explicitly said to me that you're sort of
Speaker 4: taught that Native people don't exist anymore. And so that Wednesday,
Speaker 4: even in like it could have been a more detailed
Speaker 4: line of dialogue, but acknowledged that of course Native people
Speaker 4: still exist and they're extremely oppressed to this day, Like
Speaker 4: is really impactful for it, you know, kids in the
Speaker 4: audience who just have not been taught that whatsoever. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had a long talk with my brother about this
Speaker 4: because I was like, we didn't like, I just to
Speaker 4: verify how miseducated we really were. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: it's just again it's like a couple lines of dialogue,
Speaker 4: but it's I'm very glad it's there.
Speaker 1: One of my nieces. And this was back I want
Speaker 1: to say, like two thousand. Let's see, I graduated high
Speaker 1: school in two thousand and eight, so it must have
Speaker 1: been two thousand and five era, I want to say.
Speaker 1: But the kids in her classroom, so she was probably
Speaker 1: like in sixth or seventh grade. The kids in her
Speaker 1: classroom didn't think Native people were real. My god, They're like,
Speaker 1: why are we learning about this? This didn't even happen.
Speaker 1: I was like, what are you talking about? They're like,
Speaker 1: Indians aren't real. And I'm like, excuse.
Speaker 3: Me, Hi, nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: Like what the fuck is going on at our public schools?
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, oh my gosh. And it's only gotten
Speaker 1: gotten somewhat better and gotten somewhat worse because just recently,
Speaker 1: actually I was helping my nephew with his homework and uh,
Speaker 1: Sitting Bull was addressed Chief Sitting Bull, and they talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about the battle a little big horn,
Speaker 1: just what it was, and you know that Sitting Bull
Speaker 1: was there. Then they followed it up like the next
Speaker 1: page was about Golden Mirror. I think it's how you
Speaker 1: say it. Who was the fourth prime Minister of Israel
Speaker 1: oh and asked how was Goldenmeir and Sitting Bull alike?
Speaker 1: And I was like, excuse me, oh my god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, first of all, we never even learned
Speaker 1: about Israel like at all through my K through twelve education,
Speaker 1: like saying, none of it, not at all. I don't
Speaker 1: even think we learned about Sitting Bull in my K
Speaker 1: through twelve. You know, I think I learned about that
Speaker 1: like on my own, just because of who my family is.
Speaker 1: And it's like, so the one time you're bringing up
Speaker 1: Israel and Sitting Bull is to compare those two. And
Speaker 1: I wrote a very very angry email to my nephew's principle,
Speaker 1: So yeah, it.
Speaker 4: Shouldn't fault you. But I'm oh glad that people are
Speaker 4: keeping their eyes piled for it, because that's that's absurd.
Speaker 3: Like it goes without saying that Israel is the pilgrims,
Speaker 3: is the colonizers decimating an entire indigenous population.
Speaker 1: And I was very much like, listen, if this woman
Speaker 1: was anything like Sitting Bull, the United States would not
Speaker 1: be backing Israel, just so you.
Speaker 4: Know, like, yeah, they are the colonizers, it's their whole
Speaker 4: fucking thing. I mean it is it yeah again, And
Speaker 4: it's like it's tricky because I think we've had this
Speaker 4: conversation on the show before. It's it is like one
Speaker 4: movie is not going to be able to make up
Speaker 4: for years of miseducation, but it can help. And this
Speaker 4: is a scene that I think is an example of that. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I have for I have a whole section. I need to,
Speaker 4: I think, process this whole Camp Squanta thing because I'm
Speaker 4: still thinking so much about that, Like I double checked
Speaker 4: current stuff hanging at the camp just to see him,
Speaker 4: Like has the messaging changed at all? It hasn't, and
Speaker 4: you know it instead of being presented as oh, the
Speaker 4: translator for the pilgrims in Plymouth, where the truth, of
Speaker 4: course is far more complicated and horrific, is that he
Speaker 4: was overseas and returned to North America and his entire
Speaker 4: village was gone and it'd been replaced with Plymouth Plantation.
Speaker 4: And that is certainly not acknowledged within the walls of
Speaker 4: Campsquanto because that doesn't feel good to hear. And I
Speaker 4: feel like that is a lot of what is satirized
Speaker 4: in this Christine Baranski and other guy Gary Couple here
Speaker 4: is like they are in a way that like I
Speaker 4: think is like written pretty well of like they are
Speaker 4: so determined to appropriate the hell and misrepresent the hell
Speaker 4: out of any aspect of Native culture that they can
Speaker 4: accept the parts that don't feel good to hear. And
Speaker 4: that is there's that great line that I think they
Speaker 4: kind of split about privilege. What is it privileged young
Speaker 4: adults and we're all here to learn, to grow and
Speaker 4: to just have plain fun because that's what being privileged
Speaker 4: is all about. And like doing that in the context
Speaker 4: of misrepresenting and stealing Native culture for their own purposes
Speaker 4: unfortunately completely tracks. And I do appreciate that the movie,
Speaker 4: for its faults, does seem to know that. I also like,
Speaker 4: did they know that Pocahontas was in production when this
Speaker 4: was made? Because they have they have it out for
Speaker 4: Disney in this one.
Speaker 5: It's very satisfying, maybe because I remember, I guess around
Speaker 5: that time, like because Pocahontas and The Lion King were
Speaker 5: both being animated at the.
Speaker 1: Same time, and Disney wanted that Oscar Gold and thought that, oh,
Speaker 1: we'll get it with Pocahontas this time and make it
Speaker 1: edgy an adult, you know.
Speaker 3: Make her sexy.
Speaker 1: The gross, so gross nine nine, she was nine.
Speaker 3: I did.
Speaker 4: I did. Like the the other aspect of the like
Speaker 4: the camp being that if you disagree with them, they
Speaker 4: will try to basically clockwork orange you by making you
Speaker 4: watch The Little Mermaid a trillion times, and that Wednesday,
Speaker 4: Wednesday is stronger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, Ellie, she's you can imagine, she's
Speaker 3: just like sitting there as like Ariels singing part of
Speaker 3: this world or whatever, just like plotting. Like yes, I
Speaker 3: will pretend to agree to be in the play so
Speaker 3: that I can, you know, derail the play and give
Speaker 3: this monologue. I read a couple pieces by Native writers,
Speaker 3: one by Sasha la Point in huff Post in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty entitled as an Indigenous woman, I always hate Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: This year, I'm terrified of it in reference to people
Speaker 3: gathering a few months after COVID broke out, and then
Speaker 3: the other piece I read is by author Alyssa Washuota
Speaker 3: in twenty seventeen in a publication called Electric Lit, entitled Wednesday,
Speaker 3: Adams is just another Settler. In both pieces, the writers
Speaker 3: discuss their relationship to Thanksgiving and their relationship to this
Speaker 3: scene in Adam's family values, how they celebrated and or
Speaker 3: connected to the scene in their youth, but both say
Speaker 3: that like it's not enough. Though of course, white people
Speaker 3: like Wednesday Adams are still sellers on stolen Land. Liberation
Speaker 3: isn't going to happen via sharing this clip from the
Speaker 3: movie on social media on Thanksgiving, solidarity and allyship from
Speaker 3: white people has to be a lot more meaningful and impactful,
Speaker 3: and both pieces are definitely worth reading. We'll provide the
Speaker 3: links to those.
Speaker 1: But that makes me happy to hear though I know
Speaker 1: that you know, both of those were released, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, but especially how relevant it is,
Speaker 1: Like again, going back to Jonathan Joss, it's you know,
Speaker 1: his husband has been very vocal saying, you know, like
Speaker 1: please keep putting pressure on the fact that this was
Speaker 1: a hate crime against gay indigenous man, you know, put
Speaker 1: pressure on the police. And surprisingly every new piece of
Speaker 1: information about Jonathan Joss is worse than the last, and
Speaker 1: it's been very traumatizing, like just this past week, you
Speaker 1: know alone. But I really appreciate how much this man
Speaker 1: was loved by so many people, because it sounds like
Speaker 1: the police, the San Antonio Police Department was severely underestimated
Speaker 1: how much people would have cared about this, like oh
Speaker 1: it's another gay guy. Oh it's another dead Indian and
Speaker 1: everyone's like, oh no, actually absolutely not. We're not just
Speaker 1: gonna gloss over this murder that happened, you know, And
Speaker 1: again like that's another example of using your solidarity, not
Speaker 1: just sharing, you know, a very cathartic, awesome clip from
Speaker 1: your favorite movie, but being like this is their phone number,
Speaker 1: this is who you can call, this is you know,
Speaker 1: post on social media, send money to the GoFundMe. I
Speaker 1: heard that the husband doesn't want any more GoFundMe donations,
Speaker 1: but you know, using your platform, which I hope that
Speaker 1: the Parks and Rec and King of the Hill people
Speaker 1: will step up and put a little bit more pressure
Speaker 1: on it with their platforms. But we'll see, because I
Speaker 1: saw how they treated them at that panel, so hopefully
Speaker 1: Park Rec does better.
Speaker 4: I've been so disappointed to see how I mean, not
Speaker 4: that we expect anything from Chris Pratt, but Chris Pratt,
Speaker 4: I think, is the only person who is like acknowledged
Speaker 4: it in a public way, in a half assed, useless way,
Speaker 4: and all of the acknowledgments that he isn't here don't
Speaker 4: acknowledge the fact that he was murdered. It's just very
Speaker 4: like I read I was reading through just public statements
Speaker 4: made for the most part, it's like you would think
Speaker 4: he died in his sleep, you.
Speaker 3: Know, like you just it's disgusting.
Speaker 4: Especially I'm like Amy Poehlard couldn't have a huger platform, why,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: I hope she steps up. I hope they all do.
Speaker 1: So if you love this scene and Adam's family values,
Speaker 1: do something awesome this year for Pride and step up
Speaker 1: for Jonathan Jass. So yeah, anyways.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, I don't have that much else to
Speaker 3: talk about with this movie, especially stuff that we didn't
Speaker 3: also cover on our first episode. Yes, about the first movie,
Speaker 3: Corny Parents Rock.
Speaker 4: You know, we talked you could go back to our
Speaker 4: first episode to talk about the ways that the Added
Speaker 4: Family subverts all of these you know, Hollywood tropes in
Speaker 4: this really delightful way. I did want to talk a
Speaker 4: little bit about Debbie, because this is our first rodio
Speaker 4: with Debbie and unfortunately our last. I would love to
Speaker 4: see word Debbie. I think she's a pretty cool, like
Speaker 4: satirical character as well, where she is this like extremely entitled,
Speaker 4: you know, wasp by murderer. It's an interesting idea for
Speaker 4: a character. Yeah, and she's just she's killing guys. She's
Speaker 4: just she's just walking around killing killing rich guys, and.
Speaker 3: She's manipulating them, she's doming them, she's making them get makeovers,
Speaker 3: stealing from them, murdering them. It's honestly iconic.
Speaker 1: I like that she's very feminine and very pretty and
Speaker 1: where's you know, like white Sellstels, but is also very
Speaker 1: dark and very like unhinged and very angry. It's a
Speaker 1: great character. It's like girl you and more should have
Speaker 1: just hooked up and Orkard Gomez lovingly because he would
Speaker 1: have loved it.
Speaker 3: And yes, the thing could be there, you know whatever.
Speaker 4: I like that they don't try to like I don't know, well,
Speaker 4: they do justify her actions quote unquote where they give
Speaker 4: her like villain origin story, but it's so silly. It's
Speaker 4: the ballet bou barbie thing where Yeah, I think a
Speaker 4: lot of times we get I mean I think I
Speaker 4: complain about this all the time, and especially more recent
Speaker 4: Disney movies, where the villainous behavior is contextualized through like
Speaker 4: you know, something that almost feels like it's excusing the behavior.
Speaker 3: Itself.
Speaker 4: They're like, well, yeah, as tough childhood. So that's why
Speaker 4: he killed all those people, you know, like.
Speaker 3: And that's why they deserve a redemption.
Speaker 4: Right, right, And Debbie Jelinsky couldn't get less of a
Speaker 4: redemption arc if she tried. She dies like several times,
Speaker 4: and that, you know, her villain origin story is ridiculous.
Speaker 4: It's like she's just like, I think whatever, this representation
Speaker 4: of someone who is just like absolutely a selfish consumer
Speaker 4: to her bones, literally her bones, because she's crevated.
Speaker 1: I also love that Debbie's evilness isn't tied to oh
Speaker 1: I hate this other woman for being pretty or something,
Speaker 1: you know, like she doesn't really like. She and Mortitia
Speaker 1: are on opposite ends of the spectrum, but I wouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, you know, they're at odds as far as
Speaker 1: you know, oh she's prettier and oh she's got more money,
Speaker 1: you know, which would have been super boring.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love Martitia also is in you know, like I'm
Speaker 1: not like other girls like and response to it. It's
Speaker 1: just fucking beneath her and for her killing all of
Speaker 1: these dudes. I never got like this faux feminist vibe
Speaker 1: from it, you know, like, especially in the nineties where
Speaker 1: it's like feminism is man hating and blah blah blah.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, she.
Speaker 1: Just wants money, which valid don't get married, just get cash.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's doing a series of neutral acts. I think
Speaker 4: she I Yeah, I like jumping off that point. I
Speaker 4: think if Debbie was the only woman we met in
Speaker 4: this movie, I would have some issue with it because
Speaker 4: it's like, if you only get to know one woman
Speaker 4: and she's extremely selfish and horrible and evil, you know,
Speaker 4: that's something to talk about. But we get such a
Speaker 4: range of types of women, especially in the Adams family,
Speaker 4: like Martitia. Yeah, I love that. Martitia's like, I respect
Speaker 4: what you're doing, but you look tacky doing it. Wednesday. Uh,
Speaker 4: I mean you have you even have a range of
Speaker 4: types of horrible waspy white lady. Debbie Jolinsky and Christine
Speaker 4: Baranski's character are different flavors of terrible person and I
Speaker 4: think Christine Baranski's far worse.
Speaker 3: Yes, and then you've got the Amanda the little rich
Speaker 3: girl character. Yes, another brand of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's I guess maybe it's because we were recovering
Speaker 4: camp Rock too, but I was like, the it's such
Speaker 4: a it's such a stock character, like the bitchy blonde
Speaker 4: girl at camp.
Speaker 1: And she probably wouldn't have been the bad if it
Speaker 1: wasn't an Adam's Family movie. But what was interesting to
Speaker 1: me about Amanda's character was like, this is very clearly
Speaker 1: a child repeating the things that her parents and her
Speaker 1: teachers were telling her. You know. She like, if you
Speaker 1: don't know, you don't know, and you only know what
Speaker 1: the adults around you are telling you or not telling you.
Speaker 1: And adults weaponize this all the time, you know, because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, well, you can't get mad and you
Speaker 1: can't say anything because it's a child, you know, Like,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? Bully a kid for
Speaker 1: being racist? They don't know any better, and uh have.
Speaker 4: To fucking talk to them.
Speaker 1: You have to do better. And they'll run into someone
Speaker 1: like Wednesday, who will you know, scalp them and burn
Speaker 1: their village to the ground. We'll walk around and find.
Speaker 4: Out, Yeah, she will not forget that anytime soon. I
Speaker 4: do think it's tricky with a character like Wednesday specifically,
Speaker 4: I it seems like this is this dynamic is adjusted
Speaker 4: somewhat in the Netflix series so that Wednesday can have
Speaker 4: a friend I'm pretty sure, not sure, but this iteration
Speaker 4: of Wednesday, like she's not going to be building a coalition.
Speaker 4: That's just not what she's gonna do. So, you know,
Speaker 4: I think the result of that is like you can't there.
Speaker 4: You probably could have squeezed a little more. And it's
Speaker 4: not that I wanted to admit a character on screen more,
Speaker 4: but I feel like you could have gotten a little
Speaker 4: more nuanced, like you were just describing Ali of like
Speaker 4: we see that her parents are racist, but there's not
Speaker 4: an explicit connection of she is parroting what her parents
Speaker 4: are saying, because she does say like, you know, she's
Speaker 4: not just racist, she's also very classist. She you know,
Speaker 4: when they talk about, you know, uncle Fester is marrying
Speaker 4: the help and I don't know, this movie will choose
Speaker 4: a one liner over almost anything, so it's not like
Speaker 4: we're going to get a deep insight into this very
Speaker 4: toxic dynamic in Adam's family values. And not being said,
Speaker 4: I do love that exchange between her and Wednesday where
Speaker 4: Amanda's like, I'll be the victim and Wednesday is like
Speaker 4: all your life. It's so good.
Speaker 1: I also love Okay, as soon as Fester comes back,
Speaker 1: you know, and Gomez is on his deathbed, you know,
Speaker 1: his heart is broken because he lost his brother, and
Speaker 1: as soon as Fester comes back, it's just immediate love
Speaker 1: and support, like we know, you know, it's not. Wednesday
Speaker 1: has a moment where she's like, you know, you sent
Speaker 1: us a camp and they made us sing, you know,
Speaker 1: but she gets over it because that's their their unit,
Speaker 1: that's their family, and it's just such a nice example
Speaker 1: of how to care for your family when they come
Speaker 1: back from a very abusive, toxic relationship up which you
Speaker 1: know of all families do. To see Adam's family.
Speaker 3: I love the part right after Fester returns and Gomez
Speaker 3: is kind of in disbelief about it, and he's just
Speaker 3: like you are, mister Debbie, and I'm like, mister Debbie. Hilarious.
Speaker 4: They kind of they match each other's freaking a kind
Speaker 4: of interesting way. I wasn't not rooting for.
Speaker 3: Them back to Wednesday really quick, though I would have.
Speaker 3: I mean to me, it feels like they kind of
Speaker 3: wedge in an unnecessary hetero love story.
Speaker 4: There very studio notes.
Speaker 3: And look I Joel as a character I enjoy very much.
Speaker 3: And you know, a camp crush that's familiar people can.
Speaker 4: But it's beneath Wednesday Adams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do like that he comes over at
Speaker 3: the very end of the movie and is now like
Speaker 3: dressing like and Adams, and he basically gives up his
Speaker 3: identity for a girl, and I think more men should
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 1: So and I love how how it ends where she's like,
Speaker 1: I would scare him to death, you know, I assume
Speaker 1: he does so does kill him. And I feel like
Speaker 1: Wednesday is just like Debbie, that's how it's done. You
Speaker 1: were slappy because they're over her grave as they do.
Speaker 1: It's good.
Speaker 4: I also liked with with Joel. It's again it's it's
Speaker 4: a very like not a harped upon point. But Joel
Speaker 4: is from a Jewish family, and his family is very
Speaker 4: racist toward natives, and he clearly, like I think the Joel,
Speaker 4: we get a little closer to like what you would
Speaker 4: hope for in a character like Amanda, where his parents
Speaker 4: are just as racist as hers are, but he is
Speaker 4: resisting it and you know, actually trying to learn because
Speaker 4: he reads, because he reads.
Speaker 3: He's he reads books.
Speaker 4: Right right, which I mean even you know, hopefully he's
Speaker 4: just choosing authors and sources carefully.
Speaker 3: Jul.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, like I do like that you have
Speaker 4: an example of this kid who is unquestionably from privilege,
Speaker 4: but is not just wholesale buying into the bullshit that
Speaker 4: his parents believe. I think it's a good good character
Speaker 4: for kids to see.
Speaker 1: And I like that his explicit jewishness is at the wedding.
Speaker 1: So it's not, you know, a joke. It's not you know, like,
Speaker 1: oh the Jewish kid, you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 1: it's not offensive, it's like, oh, he just happens to
Speaker 1: be Jewish. And when he goes to the wedding, he's
Speaker 1: wearing I think it's called Yamaica. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: I'm not kidding he's wearing a Yamica, right, Because a
Speaker 3: lot of characters will be coded Jewish in movies but
Speaker 3: not explicitly defined that way. But I think it's safe
Speaker 3: to say that his Yamaica explicitly identifies him as being
Speaker 3: a Jewish kid.
Speaker 4: Which which makes sense with Barry sound and fault. I
Speaker 4: think that's been a very consistent part of like, you know,
Speaker 4: he wants to have good representation of young Jewish characters.
Speaker 3: Right. Shout out to a couple of my favorite lines
Speaker 3: slash jokes mortitious, saying, I'm just like any modern woman
Speaker 3: trying to have it all, a loving husband, a family.
Speaker 3: It's just I wish I had more time to seek
Speaker 3: out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.
Speaker 4: That's my one thing with this movie that there's so
Speaker 4: much amazing, there's so many great storylines. I just I'm like,
Speaker 4: not enough more Titia for me.
Speaker 3: I need.
Speaker 4: That's like the one thing that we're One of the
Speaker 4: only things that the first movie has the edge over
Speaker 4: the second movie, and is Gomez and Martitia are art
Speaker 4: around for the majority of the action, and which I
Speaker 4: don't know if that was like an availability thing or
Speaker 4: whatever it may be, But I mean, I just always
Speaker 4: want to see Raul.
Speaker 3: Julia's health was failing during the shooting of this movie.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, this is his last film, right, the.
Speaker 3: Last one that he shot. And then something else came
Speaker 3: out after he had passed Street Fighter.
Speaker 4: Yes, wow, Karen, but very nineties, Yes, Okay, that that
Speaker 4: does make sense.
Speaker 3: It could have been that, and maybe they needed to
Speaker 3: make changes to the script to accommodate his health. We're
Speaker 3: not totally sure, but he was missed.
Speaker 4: I also didn't realize that because the grandmother character is
Speaker 4: under so much makeup that it's Carol Kane in this one.
Speaker 4: I didn't didn't know that was her in there. Always
Speaker 4: happy to see Carol Kane.
Speaker 3: Indeed, one of my other favorite jokes is Gomez saying
Speaker 3: to Fester. After Fester is saying how oh he would
Speaker 3: like to one day get married and have children, Gomez says,
Speaker 3: I hope you someday know the indescribable joy of having
Speaker 3: children and paying someone else to raise them. Hilarious, incredible.
Speaker 1: Do you know? Like this movie was so ahead of
Speaker 1: its time anyways, But the fact that Pubert, you know,
Speaker 1: when he is possessed in his blonde and looks like
Speaker 1: the grandma, is like, he could become a lawyer and
Speaker 1: he's not in this house. He could be the president.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, that is legitimately terrifying
Speaker 1: now because there are lawyers who voted for Trump and
Speaker 1: Trump became president, and I would definitely be concerned as
Speaker 1: well for my child.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, I do.
Speaker 4: I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Their whole thing, like I feel like it hasn't really
Speaker 4: been done effectively since, but does the ideas of like
Speaker 4: them being the least American family in terms of like
Speaker 4: ascribing to these like white supremacist American values and yet
Speaker 4: really thriving all at all times. It's very cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like, when you think about it, it's
Speaker 1: like gom as a Morticia. Not only do they just
Speaker 1: love each other like fiercely, like they are very romantic,
Speaker 1: very sexual, very you know, like on each other's level,
Speaker 1: but they also respect each other. They co parent together.
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, oh, I'm cleaning up after
Speaker 1: my useless husband while he you know, weaponizes his incompetence.
Speaker 1: You know. It's, uh, it's very interesting, it's very wholesome.
Speaker 1: I also love how they're just so secure in their
Speaker 1: sexuality so much, like they know they're the hottest people
Speaker 1: in the room and the hottest people to each other.
Speaker 3: It's awesome.
Speaker 1: It's it's great goals.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was just gonna say, hashtag relationship goals. And yeah,
Speaker 3: I think we talk about that in quite a bit
Speaker 3: of depth in our first episode, so if listeners want
Speaker 3: to go back and check that out, we wax poetic
Speaker 3: about it. The last thing I wanted to say was
Speaker 3: Wednesday talking about Gary's play, right after she's initially been
Speaker 3: cast in it, and she's like, I don't want to
Speaker 3: be in this and she says, your work is puerile
Speaker 3: and under dramatized. You lack any sense of structure, character
Speaker 3: or the Aristotelian unities. And it's like us describing most
Speaker 3: movies they cover on the.
Speaker 4: Podcast Wednesday Adams come on the show, Christina, please, Yeah,
Speaker 4: I think that that's all I had. But that was
Speaker 4: a lot. I mean this, this movie gives a lot
Speaker 4: to chew on or however you say that correctly, a
Speaker 4: lot of gristle to.
Speaker 3: That was the word I was chew on. It's another
Speaker 3: weird word.
Speaker 1: Some one did say that Fester and Debbie is like
Speaker 1: Trump and Millennia, but I disagree completely, because Fester adores
Speaker 1: Debbie and Trump doesn't adore anybody except himself and his money.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, guys, why you got a drag Fester? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't deserve that Festers.
Speaker 3: He's had it hard enough. It feels almost subversive to
Speaker 3: me that he's this like love sick, like longing for companionship,
Speaker 3: and he wants to be married so much, and he's
Speaker 3: like he submits to the first woman that shows any
Speaker 3: interest in him. He's you know, he's like a very
Speaker 3: just love sick man.
Speaker 4: I mean, it.
Speaker 3: Feels like to see more of that.
Speaker 4: It feels like they're they like he or Debbie keeps
Speaker 4: waiting for him to feel emasculated, right, and he just doesn't.
Speaker 1: He just doesn't.
Speaker 3: It's not a.
Speaker 4: Part of his makeup. And I'm like, great, I don't know.
Speaker 4: It's he was looking for a woman to throw a
Speaker 4: toaster in his bats up and she found him. Yeah,
Speaker 4: rip Debbie.
Speaker 1: Oh daddy. My mom took personal offense that her name
Speaker 1: was Debbie, just because of how Fester would be like,
Speaker 1: oh Debbie. She's like, stop.
Speaker 3: It wait, is that your mom's name?
Speaker 1: My mom's name was Debbie. I take personal but her
Speaker 1: name is Debbie, just because how dare oh poor mama.
Speaker 3: Does anyone have anything else they'd like to talk about?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I like how this movie was as good as it
Speaker 1: was for the run time that it had. It doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like it dragged on for too long, except for
Speaker 1: you know, Fester's O face that dragged on a bit
Speaker 1: too long. But I just watched it this morning with
Speaker 1: my family and we laughed our asses off.
Speaker 3: So it's like a cool ninety four minutes or something
Speaker 3: like that. I love it. We should go back to
Speaker 3: those I know, so I'm always saying the movie does
Speaker 3: pass the Bechdel test where Wednesday and Amanda insult each other,
Speaker 3: Wednesday and Debbie.
Speaker 4: All of the Debbie confrontation that Mortitia and Debbie. There's
Speaker 4: at least one exchange in there that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Martitia and her mom. I think either mostly talk
Speaker 3: about the baby who's a boy or Gomez, but maybe
Speaker 3: there's a couple quick exchanges. Either way, the movie passes.
Speaker 1: She curses Debbie.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that passes. A woman curses, another one cursing Debbie.
Speaker 3: So yeah, lots of passes. Lots of combinations are nipple scale, though,
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
Speaker 3: on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I'll give it.
Speaker 3: I think like a three, maybe even as much as
Speaker 3: a three and a half. And maybe that's too generous,
Speaker 3: but considering this is a mainst stream studio movie in
Speaker 3: the early nineties that has a full monologue where a
Speaker 3: character acknowledges land theft and displacement and poverty and class
Speaker 3: disparity between white colonizers and Native people, and that is
Speaker 3: followed by a scene of said colonizers burning like their
Speaker 3: village burning to the ground, and you know, the main
Speaker 3: pilgrim lady being tied up at the stake about to
Speaker 3: be burned. All that like, it's very cathartic. As we've discussed,
Speaker 3: It's not handled perfectly. There are you know, things that
Speaker 3: could have been done a little bit differently, but again
Speaker 3: for the early nineties, it feels pretty groundbreaking for a
Speaker 3: movie to have done that. So and I just you know,
Speaker 3: I love this family. I love the characters who are
Speaker 3: girls and women in this family. They get most of
Speaker 3: the best jokes and laugh lines. I love it when
Speaker 3: women are allowed to be funny and allowed to have
Speaker 3: jokes because so few movies and so a few comedy
Speaker 3: movies let women say the funny things. But most of
Speaker 3: the best jokes are either Mortitia or Wednesday. Mabby is
Speaker 3: pretty funny too, and Debbie's funny too. Yeah, it's great
Speaker 3: every performance. No one does a bad job.
Speaker 4: No one does a bad job in this movie.
Speaker 3: So yeah, three, I'm gonna three and a half and
Speaker 3: I'll give one to Wednesday, one to more Titia, one
Speaker 3: to Debbie. She did nothing wrong, right, maybe Ibbie, And
Speaker 3: I'll give my half nipple to all to the kitten
Speaker 3: maybe got buried alive at the beginning rip. I know,
Speaker 3: I think it escaped. That's my head canon.
Speaker 4: I think I'll make sure at three point five. With
Speaker 4: the understanding that we've talked about a bit, and as
Speaker 4: you talk about in your video, ALLI like that my
Speaker 4: enjoyment of the movie.
Speaker 3: Does you know.
Speaker 4: I would never argue against a Native viewer who was like, no,
Speaker 4: fuck it, it's still doing a lot of the same
Speaker 4: reductive tropes that we see in movies over and over.
Speaker 4: But I agree with the Caitlin that this movie is
Speaker 4: doing this, particularly for its time, something that not only
Speaker 4: were other family directed media not attempting, but in short
Speaker 4: order would be doing the exact opposite with Pocahontas. And
Speaker 4: so the fact that this came out a year and
Speaker 4: a half before Pocahontas, I think is actually it is
Speaker 4: really really worth remembering how these movies are in conversation
Speaker 4: with one another, even though there are shortcomings that this
Speaker 4: movie has and that it is still ultimately centered on whiteness. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean, we've talked about most of it. But I
Speaker 4: think that this this movie and this like series in general,
Speaker 4: it just is like an endless amount of opportunities to
Speaker 4: push back on popular white supremacist American narratives, and I
Speaker 4: think this movie is the best example of them really
Speaker 4: swinging for the fences with it. So I'm gonna go
Speaker 4: three and a half nipples, and I'm giving them all
Speaker 4: to the very son Enfeld episode.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of rip RIP.
Speaker 1: I am giving it four because I loved it. I
Speaker 1: really loved it, just because of how cathartic it was,
Speaker 1: you know, and how it still like holds up now,
Speaker 1: and especially because like it could be made today, but
Speaker 1: then it would be canceled for being woke or something
Speaker 1: equally ridiculous and be like God that was so forced,
Speaker 1: or Wednesday gave that speech you know today, right, but
Speaker 1: still they would be wrong today anyway. So I would
Speaker 1: give my nipples to Mortitia and to Debbie that who
Speaker 1: else can have them? Who else? A thing?
Speaker 3: Why not?
Speaker 1: But he has to watch his name first after got No.
Speaker 4: Really, the of this movie is just doing so much,
Speaker 4: like so much? Why why all the incest implications with
Speaker 4: with the mom right?
Speaker 3: Is thing related to them?
Speaker 1: I hope not?
Speaker 3: I hope not.
Speaker 4: I guess I was talking about the mom thing? Why
Speaker 4: the mom thing? But why is that there? Why is
Speaker 4: that there? I don't know. Also shout out okay, I
Speaker 4: I couldn't tell if the movie. I think the movie
Speaker 4: was poking fun at him a little bit, But I
Speaker 4: liked that Fester was not ashamed or embarrassed or felt
Speaker 4: any which way about saying that he hadn't had sex before.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I liked that. I thought that was a cool moment,
Speaker 4: and especially because the contrasted, like the joke of the
Speaker 4: scene is that she is lying about being a virgin,
Speaker 4: because that is something that is valued, especially in white womanhood,
Speaker 4: is you know, purity, blah blah blah and that. But
Speaker 4: it's gross. It's like emasculating if men, you know what
Speaker 4: I'm talking about. But he was like, oh, I'm a
Speaker 4: virgin too, awesome. I was like, I love you love.
Speaker 3: I feel like the movie doesn't really cast judgment on
Speaker 3: him for that. Yeah, but I don't know. I was like,
Speaker 3: probably the.
Speaker 4: Nineteen ninety three I'm sure that that is supposed to
Speaker 4: be a laugh live but it just really endeared me
Speaker 4: to him. And it just is another way that the
Speaker 4: Adams family kind of consistently eschewes these gender norms.
Speaker 3: Well, there you have it. That's our Adams Family Valuees episode. Allie,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for joining us. Where can people
Speaker 3: bull check out your work? Tell us what you'd like
Speaker 3: to plug?
Speaker 1: Okay, so you can visit me on YouTube. That's where
Speaker 1: you'll get like my quality stuff. If you want to
Speaker 1: see my less quality stuff but still entertaining. I guess
Speaker 1: I'm on TikTok. I still run the Ali Nati Test
Speaker 1: on Tumblr, but it's the Aila Dash the Dash Aila
Speaker 1: Dash Test on Tumblr. I also run another blog that's
Speaker 1: not as fun, but I still try to make it pretty,
Speaker 1: you know, like relevant or important. It's called the your
Speaker 1: fave is Anti Native and that one is about It's
Speaker 1: kind of in the vein of your favorite problematic, except
Speaker 1: it focuses specifically on public figures, so actors or politicians
Speaker 1: or world leaders or whoever with like a big public
Speaker 1: influential presence how they have been anti Indigenous with their racism,
Speaker 1: either in the past or currently. So it doesn't like
Speaker 1: just tackle any like rando on the Internet. It's specifically like,
Speaker 1: this is who this person is, this is how you
Speaker 1: know who they are, and this is what they've said,
Speaker 1: you know, And it's less about you know call out
Speaker 1: culture and more about how normalized anti indigenous racism is
Speaker 1: like across a scale, you know, like if our politicians
Speaker 1: and our movie stars and stuff can get away with
Speaker 1: saying it, I mean, of course the people, the rando's
Speaker 1: and the comments are going to feel comfortable saying it,
Speaker 1: you know. So there's a lot of people on there,
Speaker 1: but more creatively, I mean, like my YouTube is the
Speaker 1: place to go for some more fun. And I have
Speaker 1: a project that's coming up soon that should be done
Speaker 1: sometime this week. It was supposed to be do on
Speaker 1: Memorial Day, but me and deadlines since it's not my job.
Speaker 1: So take your time and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: inviting me. I always love coming on. And this is
Speaker 1: number four now.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, five timer jacket on the way, the jacket
Speaker 4: we makeup.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy you guys aren't sake of me.
Speaker 4: I love you, We love you. Oh my gosh, thank you,
Speaker 4: thank you for coming back.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you Megwitch. I did want to say though,
Speaker 1: I wanted to really thank both of you because of
Speaker 1: the search the landfill hashtag that we talked about in
Speaker 1: the Avatar episode, because they found them. Like I try
Speaker 1: to keep you guys in the updated every time new
Speaker 1: information came up, but they found them, and so I
Speaker 1: you know, obviously a lot of people did a lot
Speaker 1: of work, but I think that though talking about it
Speaker 1: on the Beckel Cast probably put it on people's radar,
Speaker 1: otherwise wouldn't have. So I think every little bit helps,
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to thank you guys for doing that, so.
Speaker 4: Literally the least we could do. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 4: so much for consistently bringing important stories here.
Speaker 1: Let's do the same for Jonathan Johns and give him
Speaker 1: some justice.
Speaker 4: Justice for Jonathan. I still yeah, I literally just checked
Speaker 4: to be like, has anyone else from Parks and Rex
Speaker 4: said anything not at the time of this recording.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so fix that.
Speaker 4: Fucking fix it. Yeah, And with that, let's go, yell,
Speaker 4: let's go shake our fist at Debbie's grave.
Speaker 3: By bye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia,
Speaker 3: hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman,
Speaker 3: edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by
Speaker 3: Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voss Krasinski. Our logo
Speaker 3: and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus and a special
Speaker 3: thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast,
Speaker 3: please visit link Tree Slash Bechtelcast