Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have.
Speaker 2: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and
Speaker 2: husbands or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, z
Speaker 2: efphin best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 3: Ja me phone ho, okay, yeah, call me please, Jesus
Speaker 3: call me now. I like how the whole pot of
Speaker 3: the movie is like Et just like trying to text
Speaker 3: his friends to come pick him up.
Speaker 1: He's just trying to text his mom. He literally is
Speaker 1: just like, I need to text my mommy. And it
Speaker 1: was the eighties. You couldn't just text your mommy. Back then.
Speaker 1: It was the whole thing.
Speaker 3: You had to build a whole machine and set it
Speaker 3: up in the woods.
Speaker 1: Today, E t would have just texted his mommy and
Speaker 1: it would have been fine. Welcome to the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 1: My name is Jamie Loftus.
Speaker 3: Okay, my name is Caitlin Dorante. Is that okay?
Speaker 1: M that's okay, that's okay. And this is our podcast
Speaker 1: where we talk about your favorite movies using an intersectional
Speaker 1: feminist lens. And today we're talking about Et the Extraterrestrial
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have.
Speaker 1: But what is the Bechdel Test, Caitlin, Have you ever
Speaker 1: heard of that?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 1: No, oh, but.
Speaker 3: I'll do my best to explain it. It is a
Speaker 3: media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Wallace Test. It has many versions. Ours is
Speaker 3: this two characters of a marginalized gender must have names,
Speaker 3: they must speak to each other, and their conversation has
Speaker 3: to be about something other than a man, and ideally
Speaker 3: it's a narratively meaningful conversation.
Speaker 1: If this is your first episode, the Bechdel test is
Speaker 1: not the point of the show. It's a jumping off
Speaker 1: point for discussion, as we've said for many years. But
Speaker 1: this one, I feel like you could make an argument
Speaker 1: based on I think that Elliott projects gender onto et yes,
Speaker 1: which I think is intentional because I watched A Hole
Speaker 1: behind the Scenes documentary. I went deep Bonnie Tea and
Speaker 1: every time, and obviously, you know, it's like, I think
Speaker 1: that documentary was made in the nineties, so it was
Speaker 1: still like Spielberg was using binary gendered language, but he
Speaker 1: was always saying like with E T when they find
Speaker 1: him or her like He's always basically acknowledging that Elliott
Speaker 1: is just pretty I mean, which makes I mean not
Speaker 1: canceling Elliott. I'm not canceling Elliott. It's just like he's
Speaker 1: projecting himself onto his friend. And so I feel like
Speaker 1: conversations about ET do pass the bechdeltas basically in which
Speaker 1: case the movie does pass.
Speaker 3: I was gonna make a similar argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I get it Elliott, but like he's wrong, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, T has no conception of gender. ET is
Speaker 1: literally just trying to text mother.
Speaker 3: Or father.
Speaker 1: No, I'm kiddings the genderless parent from the Graape Beyond.
Speaker 3: For all we know, ET comes from a planet that
Speaker 3: has no concept of gender. He might come from a plant,
Speaker 3: or they might come from a planet.
Speaker 1: We're going to use he him pronouns, but we know
Speaker 1: that ET has not spoken out on this issue.
Speaker 3: This is true. ET might come from a planet that
Speaker 3: has one hundred genders, none of which are you know,
Speaker 3: man or woman.
Speaker 1: I just found that very like because as we were
Speaker 1: turning this movie on last night, I was like, is
Speaker 1: Spielberg gonna do the weird minion thing where he's like
Speaker 1: ET is a boy? Like like when Pierre Coffin famously
Speaker 1: insisted that the genderless minions had to be boys. They're
Speaker 1: all boys, and thankfully to criticize about Spielberg, but at
Speaker 1: least he is not a freak about projecting gender onto Et,
Speaker 1: an alien, Et and just characters in general. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I am glad we both thought of that. But I'd
Speaker 1: never really noticed that until this viewing that, like Gertie
Speaker 1: asks is he a girl or a boy? And Elio
Speaker 1: just is he's a boy, and You're like, well, he
Speaker 1: doesn't know that, but he wants his friend to be
Speaker 1: like him, and they just sort of roll with it.
Speaker 3: Well, then there's that scene later on. We can talk
Speaker 3: about this further, but where Gertie dresses Et in a
Speaker 3: dress and like a woman's long wig presumably.
Speaker 1: And ET's vibing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Et loves it. Et is a drag performer.
Speaker 1: It is awesome that Et is a drag performer. Did
Speaker 1: you see? I just love I mean, again, we'll talk
Speaker 1: about it, but I do really admire and appreciate a
Speaker 1: director who because I have all these complicated feelings around
Speaker 1: child actors, all three kids in this movie are incredible. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I really like, you know, in a world where
Speaker 1: it's like, well, child actor. It's not just gonna stop
Speaker 1: because Jamie has complicated feelings about it. But I really
Speaker 1: admire watching like directors who are really thoughtful about like
Speaker 1: directing children, and like, I just I don't know, I
Speaker 1: really enjoy watching This sounds creepy, I don't mean it creepy.
Speaker 1: I enjoy watching footage of Spielberg and Shymelan directing kids
Speaker 1: because I feel like they're so uniquely good at it
Speaker 1: and they're just talking to kids like their people. It's
Speaker 1: very gentle and thoughtful, and you can always like the
Speaker 1: kids parents is always like within sight, and they get
Speaker 1: great performances out of kids, I think because they kind
Speaker 1: of like feel safe and like it's a natural environment.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I just really admire that skill. And like
Speaker 1: the Henry Thomas performance and this is like, holy shit, that.
Speaker 3: Damn I'm kidd Have you ever seen the video of
Speaker 3: his like audition tape where he's crying on cute it's
Speaker 3: so fucked up and then they tell him he got
Speaker 3: the part at the end of the video.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I feel like that's like the kind of
Speaker 1: clip that goes viral every so often again, but it
Speaker 1: always hits. It's so beautiful. Also, Hayley's Forest Gump audition
Speaker 1: goes viral every so often.
Speaker 3: I've never seen that one.
Speaker 1: He's quite small in it, but the Henry Thomas audition
Speaker 1: is terrific. It's so like you're just like, who, how
Speaker 1: does how he do that? And he didn't really act
Speaker 1: very much after that? Right, I don't really know what.
Speaker 3: His No, he he like went on to have a
Speaker 3: pretty illustrious career, like.
Speaker 1: He whoa, oh my god, no, wait, he's chilling. Never mind.
Speaker 3: He isn't in any like huge thing really like not
Speaker 3: much in the way of like starring rolls after this.
Speaker 1: But he's like a Mike Flanagan guy now right, Like
Speaker 1: he's a all of Mike Flannagan's.
Speaker 3: Yes, I need to look up who that is exactly,
Speaker 3: but I'm sure you're correct.
Speaker 1: It's a younger Mike Flanagan directs like or it usually
Speaker 1: directs like another horror series for Netflix every year. So
Speaker 1: he did like a Hillhouse Haunting a blind manner and
Speaker 1: got it. Yeah, Henry Thomas is in all of them.
Speaker 1: You're like, hey, I know that guy my friend.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Well, Jamie, what is your relationship with E T.
Speaker 1: That's a little weird. I did not have any attachment
Speaker 1: to this when I was a kid. I know I
Speaker 1: saw it, but I just like I associated this movie
Speaker 1: with like my older cousins and I was like, that's
Speaker 1: kind of a them thing and let them have it.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't scared of ET, but I did think
Speaker 1: that he was a bit ugly and not cute.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: ET unfortunately is busted. Looks he looks bad.
Speaker 3: Not to like shame, but like he looks bad. Let's
Speaker 3: be honest, He's not pretty to look at. And I'll
Speaker 3: get into this, but that's a large part of why
Speaker 3: I think I was like not the biggest consumer of
Speaker 3: this movie as a child. But anyway, go.
Speaker 1: On, Yeah, I mean I think I was like kind
Speaker 1: of too young for this movie to be any sort
Speaker 1: of touchstone for me. I don't remember us having it.
Speaker 1: I do remember watching it, but it just like didn't
Speaker 1: really resonate with me when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: so I never really revisited it. There's a great Lindsay
Speaker 1: Ellis video on Nebula about like how this is like
Speaker 1: ET is like uniquely kind of one of the biggest
Speaker 1: movies ever to never get a sequel and not have
Speaker 1: like kind of all the stuff that we associate with
Speaker 1: all of these eighties movies that we can't stop getting
Speaker 1: like bashed over the fucking head with where it's like
Speaker 1: Ghostbusters forty five, Jurassic Park, Hell or whatever, like Eten
Speaker 1: they never really did and it's like a beautiful kind
Speaker 1: of standalone thing.
Speaker 3: Anyways, Well, I have a whole story about the ET
Speaker 3: sequel that never got made.
Speaker 1: About that, Okay, she talks about it a little bit.
Speaker 1: I want to know more about it. And also I
Speaker 1: just did oh cross promo alert. I didn't write the series,
Speaker 1: but I hosted a series on iHeartRadio, the network you're
Speaker 1: listening to right now, called The Legend of sword Quest
Speaker 1: that's about Atari, who famously made that bad ET game
Speaker 1: that they like buried literally right. Yeah, yeah, I love
Speaker 1: that story. I mean I know it like people love
Speaker 1: that story because it's like a folk legend that ended
Speaker 1: up being true. It's like so awesome. Anyways, focus Et.
Speaker 1: I thought he was ugly. I wasn't interested. I had
Speaker 1: no I said, that's none of my business. And then
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, a group of friends and
Speaker 1: I went to see Et in Imax. It was re
Speaker 1: released very quietly for whatever reason for its fortieth anniversary,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't seen it in like decades. I didn't
Speaker 1: really remember even the story. I just remembered like Reese's
Speaker 1: Pieces Pez Phone Home, you know, just kind of the
Speaker 1: cultural osmosis stuff. And Yeah, when I saw it two
Speaker 1: years ago, it like wrecked me. It was like sobbing.
Speaker 1: I didn't see it coming that it was going to
Speaker 1: like hit so hard, and I was like, holy shit,
Speaker 1: this is like one of the greatest movies I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: It was. Yeah, I came all the way around on et.
Speaker 1: I loved watching it as an adult. I think it's
Speaker 1: also partially a response to like the level of complexity
Speaker 1: that happens in children's films now, which I think is
Speaker 1: like less in many cases. Yeah, but this movie is
Speaker 1: so sincere and so like just the biggest feelings possib Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just it absolutely wrecked me. And then watching it again,
Speaker 1: I was like thinking about my dad a lot, and
Speaker 1: I just I don't know, I really I've come completely
Speaker 1: around on this movie. It made no sense to me
Speaker 1: as a kid, I didn't get the appeal, And as
Speaker 1: an adult, I'm like, this is like a masterpiece. I
Speaker 1: think It's my favorite Steven Spielberg movie because there is like,
Speaker 1: I mean, you have the action sequences, you have the
Speaker 1: sci fi, but it like it is just like such
Speaker 1: a feelings story and I just love everything about it
Speaker 1: is so great. The relationship between the siblings where they're
Speaker 1: like assholes, but they don't hate each other. There's no
Speaker 1: like I get why people are like, well, this is
Speaker 1: like overly sincere, but it's like, I just I don't
Speaker 1: know right now. I love it and it was making
Speaker 1: me feel gigantic feelings and I was crying, crying, crying,
Speaker 1: and I love it. What's your history with Et?
Speaker 3: Well? I was thinking about parallels between this movie and
Speaker 3: the first Paddington movie, where Paddington is basically e t
Speaker 3: if Et stays with the family and they adopt him
Speaker 3: and really she did, but.
Speaker 1: He has to go in to go it's the saddest
Speaker 1: thing to ever happen. And the score, I mean, the score,
Speaker 1: come on, come on. Anyways, I feel very lucky I
Speaker 1: get to see it in IMAX because it was like unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Is so good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my history, we had it on VHS and
Speaker 3: my home growing up, and according to my mom, I
Speaker 3: watched it all the time. Interesting, I do not remember this.
Speaker 3: I remember it being on sometimes, but I think it
Speaker 3: was probably my older brother who's five years older than me,
Speaker 3: watching it, okay, and I was in the room and
Speaker 3: you were there as well, and it was kind of
Speaker 3: like before I was really storing memories the plight of
Speaker 3: the young sibling. So I was consuming it, but I
Speaker 3: think I wasn't as interested in it, partly because I
Speaker 3: thought et was creepy and ugly, and I thought that
Speaker 3: was gonna be such a controversial take and for you
Speaker 3: to share that opinion, but also like Spielberg was like,
Speaker 3: he's got a face that only a mother could love.
Speaker 3: They like acknowledge how ugly he is.
Speaker 1: So I mean I also think, like, again, that's another
Speaker 1: choice as an adult. I was like, what a weird,
Speaker 1: wild choice. I feel like that is such a like
Speaker 1: Spielberg flex that he was even able to get away
Speaker 1: with it, because unless you were super successful, no studio
Speaker 1: would let you make something that ugly, like they would
Speaker 1: be like, no, it has to be cute, Like it
Speaker 1: can't look like that.
Speaker 3: If this was a Disney movie, they'd be like, make
Speaker 3: this thing have big, beautiful eyes and little eyelashes and
Speaker 3: this cute little button nose and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Because Spielberg was like involved in Gremlins to hear like
Speaker 1: he made Gizmo, like he knows how to make something cute.
Speaker 1: But he's like, but I just don't want. I wanted
Speaker 1: to look like shit. I love it. Et looks bad,
Speaker 1: he looks like shit, but he's like, he's beautiful.
Speaker 3: I saw a clip of I want to say it
Speaker 3: was Matt Rogers, not Bowen on Lust Culture, just where
Speaker 3: he's saying like, if I ever encountered Et, like in
Speaker 3: the forest, I would have like, No.
Speaker 1: It's Colin Crawford, my coworker on Star Trek. Colin Crawford,
Speaker 1: one of the best comedy writers ever, had a tweet
Speaker 1: that said, me and my friends would have killed Et
Speaker 1: with hammers. I can tell you that much. That's the
Speaker 1: sweet It's it's just so true. Most kids would have
Speaker 1: killed Et with hammer.
Speaker 3: One of the hosts of Lust Cultures has said something
Speaker 3: very similar recently. So it's a common thing that I
Speaker 3: didn't realize how common because this movie is so beloved
Speaker 3: and Et is so beloved the character, so I just
Speaker 3: assumed everyone thought he was cute. But m hmm, it's
Speaker 3: coming out that people think he's ugly.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think. I'm like, what are other I mean,
Speaker 1: I know that kids always were scared of him, but
Speaker 1: it also kind of reminds me like the Chuck E
Speaker 1: Cheese animatronics, where like kids were always scared of them,
Speaker 1: but they were just very ugly and popular. And you're like, well,
Speaker 1: why was it I don't know, I don't.
Speaker 3: Know, I don't know, because they could make.
Speaker 1: A cute animatronic. We had Gizmo. Well, I guess it
Speaker 1: was Gizmo after when did Gremlins come out?
Speaker 3: That was a couple of years after. Yeah, they're just.
Speaker 1: Like et looked too horrible, But it didn't matter because
Speaker 1: this movie made eight hundred million dollars off of a
Speaker 1: ten million dollar budget.
Speaker 3: It was some highest grossing movie basically from like nineteen
Speaker 3: eighty three to ninety three.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then yeah, he like outdid himself with Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1: And then Jimmy Cameron came around and said he's.
Speaker 3: Just like ever heard of Titanic?
Speaker 1: And furthermore, Avatar and Spielberg hasn't been seen in public since. Unfortunately, Sorry,
Speaker 1: we keep cutting off the experience with Et.
Speaker 3: Now this is just gonna be a chaos episode. It's fine. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I watched it as a kid, although it was before
Speaker 3: I was like fully storing memories, and so I only
Speaker 3: had very vague recollections of watching this movie as a kid.
Speaker 3: And then I watched it once as probably like a teenager,
Speaker 3: maybe in my early twenties or something, and then not
Speaker 3: again until I started prepping for this episode. So it
Speaker 3: was something from like my very early childhood, but not really.
Speaker 1: That's like it's just stored in your brain before you
Speaker 1: could store things in your brain.
Speaker 3: Right, So I only remembered I very distinctly remembered the
Speaker 3: scene where Michael finds Et when he's like lying in
Speaker 3: the river and he's like discolored and like looks very ill,
Speaker 3: and I remember being like haunted by that. But most
Speaker 3: of the other stuff I didn't remember.
Speaker 1: I forgot when I saw it in IMAX. I forgot
Speaker 1: that they literally are like Et died. You're like, what
Speaker 1: the fuck are you talking about? Like, yeah, I really could.
Speaker 1: I mean I really couldn't handle Et being dead last
Speaker 1: in the body bag like they and then he said,
Speaker 1: I love you Et. It was if I had been
Speaker 1: thinking I would have been like, maybe let's cover this
Speaker 1: movie next year instead, but it's so like again, it's
Speaker 1: just like that's something that would not be allowed really
Speaker 1: in a children's movie. Now, for the most part, I
Speaker 1: think you can like handle the themes of death, but
Speaker 1: it's more of like a Moana like my Grandma's a
Speaker 1: beautiful ghost now instead of like you're not seeing Grandma
Speaker 1: in a body bag like looking bad. That's like would
Speaker 1: not have and it's wild. I don't even know if
Speaker 1: I like it, but I think it's really bold that
Speaker 1: they did it. Did you see also that ET's voice
Speaker 1: by a woman?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did. I have a couple thoughts on that
Speaker 3: that we can get to.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you didn't like when you're a kid, but
Speaker 1: what about later?
Speaker 3: It's not even that. I mean, I did find him
Speaker 3: scary looking, but I was like in the room while
Speaker 3: it was on, according to my mom, didn't leave. I
Speaker 3: wasn't leaving.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then I watched it as an adult ish like
Speaker 3: you know whatever, probably nineteen years old or something, and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, wow, yeah, I remember this, And
Speaker 3: then I didn't give it much thought until again prepping
Speaker 3: for this episode, and then I was like, oh, I
Speaker 3: see why this is such a beloved It's so earnest
Speaker 3: and it's so like, yeah, the kids developed this bond
Speaker 3: with this little guy, and I love a little movie
Speaker 3: where they find a little guy and they be friend.
Speaker 3: I mean again Paddington. So I was like, oh, this
Speaker 3: is really sweet and it's sad and I felt some
Speaker 3: feelings and so I get why it's such a beloved classic.
Speaker 3: So true. Let's take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 3: come back for the recap, shall we.
Speaker 5: Let's do it?
Speaker 3: Okay, we'll be right back.
Speaker 1: And we're freaking back.
Speaker 3: We've phoned back home.
Speaker 1: We're locked in. We've got our speak and spell, We've
Speaker 1: got our what else. There's so much product placement in
Speaker 1: this movie.
Speaker 3: There's like a buzz saw blade. Oh yeah, there's cores light,
Speaker 3: and there's Reese's pieces and.
Speaker 1: Pez Paus, various Star Wars consumer products. Yes, shall we
Speaker 1: just dive right in?
Speaker 3: Let's dive in so et. The movie opens on a
Speaker 3: spaceship that has landed in the wilderness not far outside
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. Ever heard of it? No. Several little aliens
Speaker 3: are gathering up plant specimens and bringing them onto their ship,
Speaker 3: and one such alien has kind of wandered off from
Speaker 3: the group.
Speaker 1: He's just a little guy.
Speaker 3: He's just a little guy. This is, of course, the
Speaker 3: alien we will come to know as Et, and he
Speaker 3: has to run off and hide when a bunch of
Speaker 3: guys in trucks show up. Men and trucks scary. They'll
Speaker 3: be revealed to be like government agents. We're not really
Speaker 3: sure from what entity, but they're these ominous like bureaucratic eight.
Speaker 1: These movies have such a wild attitude towards characters from
Speaker 1: the government, like they cannot decide. They can't decide if
Speaker 1: they're good guys or bad guys. They're always like, well,
Speaker 1: there's a few, I feel like kind of the logic
Speaker 1: of this movie is like, well, there's a few bad apples,
Speaker 1: but ultimately everyone is doing their best, and you're like, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: see whenever you say.
Speaker 3: And any case, there are men and trucks and Et
Speaker 3: has to run off and hide, and the other aliens
Speaker 3: have no choice but to fly off in their spaceship
Speaker 3: and leave Et behind. We then cut to a house
Speaker 3: where a bunch of kids are hanging out. We meet
Speaker 3: Elliott played by Henry Thomas. I think he's nine or ten.
Speaker 3: His older brother Michael is maybe thirteen or fourteen, played
Speaker 3: by Robert McNaughton, and a few of Michael's friends are
Speaker 3: all playing D and D I think, and they make
Speaker 3: Elliott go outside to grab the pizza delivery. And while
Speaker 3: he's out there, Elliott hears something in the tool shed.
Speaker 3: He thinks it might be his dog, Harvey, so he
Speaker 3: tosses his baseball into the shed, and then the baseball
Speaker 3: gets tossed back at him and Elliott freaks out. He's like,
Speaker 3: dogs can't toss baseballs? What's that?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's so good.
Speaker 3: But when the boys, as well as Elliott and Michael's
Speaker 3: mom Mary played by Dee Wallace, go to investigate, all
Speaker 3: they find are some strange tracks on the ground. They
Speaker 3: think it might be a coyote. I go back inside,
Speaker 3: but we see that it is in fact, Et, the extraterrestrial,
Speaker 3: hiding in the shed. So later that night, Elliott goes
Speaker 3: back outside to look for this creature again, and sure
Speaker 3: enough he finds him and screams because again Et looks
Speaker 3: like shit.
Speaker 1: He looks, I mean like yeah. The beginning of the
Speaker 1: movie plays out like a horror movie, and then it
Speaker 1: just eventually like a half hour and They're like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's nice. Never, he's nice.
Speaker 3: Never. N it's kind of fin Yeah, don't judge a
Speaker 3: book by its cover.
Speaker 1: Whoops.
Speaker 3: But anyway, he doesn't know this yet, so Elliott is
Speaker 3: scared and he runs away, but he's also determined to
Speaker 3: find and possibly befriend this creature, so the next day
Speaker 3: he takes his bike and some Reciss pieces up into
Speaker 3: the woods near his house to look for the creature.
Speaker 3: But Elliott doesn't find it, and he, presumably off screen,
Speaker 3: tells his family that he encountered a goblin he calls it,
Speaker 3: and they don't believe him, especially his older brother Michael.
Speaker 3: He's like teasing Elliott about it. We also meet Elliott's
Speaker 3: younger sister, Gertie, played by a young Drew barrymore famously,
Speaker 3: and we also find out that their father is no
Speaker 3: longer in the picture.
Speaker 1: He went with Sally to Mexico.
Speaker 3: Yes, and this is something that their mom Mary is
Speaker 3: having a hard time with. And then I think it's
Speaker 3: later that night, Elliott is outside hoping to encounter this
Speaker 3: creature again, and e t appears and approaches Elliott with
Speaker 3: a handful of the Reese's pieces that Elliott had dropped
Speaker 3: in the woods and so, realizing that Et is friendly
Speaker 3: and won't hurt him, Elliott lures Et into his room
Speaker 3: using the Reese's pieces, and we see e t like
Speaker 3: mimicking Elliott's movements and gestures, and we're like, wow, they're
Speaker 3: becoming friends.
Speaker 1: I just love that he just is doing what like
Speaker 1: a nine year old wide He's like, here are my guys,
Speaker 1: here's this one, here's this one, here's this one. ET's
Speaker 1: like yep, yep, got it? So sweet? Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. That happens the next day where Elliott fakes being
Speaker 3: six so he can stay home from school to hang
Speaker 3: out with Et, and he's like, here's my Lando cal
Speaker 3: Rizzy in figuring, here's my Grido figurine. It's so embarrassing
Speaker 3: how much Steven Spielberg wants George Lucas to like think
Speaker 3: he's cool. It's really it's embarrassing the Yoda cost him.
Speaker 3: It's like, we get it, we get it. Well. They
Speaker 3: had collaborated with each other at this point because Raiders
Speaker 3: of the Last Art comes out the year before, so.
Speaker 1: In the making up documentary, George Lucas is so like taciturn,
Speaker 1: like he appears in it for a second and it's
Speaker 1: like Spielberg being like, and I put these little things
Speaker 1: in and I was like, I think George is gonna
Speaker 1: like this. I think he's it's really gonna make him smile.
Speaker 1: And then it cuts to George Lucas and he was
Speaker 1: like I saw it and that I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: that's nice, Like he was like, not very impressed by it.
Speaker 3: It was so I was like, oh, wow, rude bitch.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I'm comfortable saying he's a billionaire. We
Speaker 1: can he's a bitch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a bitch. Anyway, Elliot's siblings, Michael and Gertie
Speaker 3: come home that day and they find out about Et.
Speaker 3: Elliot makes them promise not to tell their mom, and
Speaker 3: then they're pointing to maps and globes, telling e t
Speaker 3: where they are and asking him where he's from. And
Speaker 3: then Et levitates some like balls of clay or something
Speaker 3: to symbolize a solar system to show them where he's from.
Speaker 3: So we learned that Et has telekinesis powers. He also
Speaker 3: can make dead plants come back to life because we
Speaker 3: see him revive a potted flower plant. We'll also learn
Speaker 3: that he has like healing powers for humans because he
Speaker 3: heals a little cut on Elliott's finger. Later meanwhile, the
Speaker 3: men in the trucks from the beginning, who have been
Speaker 3: searching for the aliens in their spaceship, they're still looking
Speaker 3: for this creature that they know has been left behind.
Speaker 3: One of them is this guy with like a bunch
Speaker 3: of keys on his belt loop and his character's name
Speaker 3: is Keys, so that's really creative, played by Peter Coyote,
Speaker 3: So he's, you know, looking for Et. The next day,
Speaker 3: the three siblings go to school. They leave Et at home,
Speaker 3: who gets into the fridge, drinks a bunch of cores
Speaker 3: lights or maybe just regular cores, and he gets strung.
Speaker 3: And it also seems to make Elliott drunk in class
Speaker 3: because there's some kind of like telepathic or empathic connection
Speaker 3: between them. So what Et feels, Elliott feels, and vice versa.
Speaker 3: So Elliott is supposed to be dissecting a frog in class.
Speaker 3: And first of all, I'm like, did they let ten
Speaker 3: year old dissect frogs in school in the eighties? Like
Speaker 3: I didn't do that until I was like a junior
Speaker 3: in high school.
Speaker 1: I never even did it. I think they were like,
Speaker 1: you can watch a video, like you're not a scientist.
Speaker 1: You're fourteen. But I was like, ANGI they gave them
Speaker 1: to them a lie a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, why was that necessary? Every time I've seen a
Speaker 1: frog dissection, like even in a movie, like they come dead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, they're like informaldehyde or whatever, and then they're
Speaker 3: already dead.
Speaker 1: Spielberg said that this is something that he did, that
Speaker 1: he released a frog.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: I was like, I don't believe you.
Speaker 3: Well, that's what ends up happening in the movie where
Speaker 3: Et influences Elliott to save his frog and all the
Speaker 3: frogs in the class. So Elliott, drunk as fuck, let's
Speaker 3: loose all the frogs.
Speaker 1: He surprised kisses a young girl.
Speaker 3: We'll get back to that.
Speaker 1: Kids like Ellie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Elliott hates drag performances, and he surprised kisses a
Speaker 3: girl in his class. So he's actually bad news.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's a pestilent.
Speaker 3: Anyway, when the kids come back home from school, they
Speaker 3: discover that Et is learning to speak. He shows Elliot
Speaker 3: a comic strip where a spaceman is receiving a distress
Speaker 3: call for help, and this is when we get the
Speaker 3: famous like E T Phone no scene, and they realize
Speaker 3: that Et is trying to build some sort of homing
Speaker 3: or communication device so that he can contact his alien
Speaker 3: friends so they can come pick him up. And Michael
Speaker 3: points out though that Et is looking kind of sick
Speaker 3: lately and we see him like wheezing and stuff, and
Speaker 3: so we're like, hmm, what's happening here? Is Earth killing him?
Speaker 1: And it makes you think?
Speaker 3: It makes you think. Then the kids take Et out
Speaker 3: on Halloween. They like throw a sheet over him and
Speaker 3: dress him up as a ghost, pretending that Gertie is
Speaker 3: the one under the sheet. And Elliott brings Et into
Speaker 3: the woods to try this like communication machine that he's built,
Speaker 3: and this is also when we get the very famous
Speaker 3: scene of Et making Elliott's bike fly through this guy
Speaker 3: past the moon. And then they land in the woods
Speaker 3: and set up the communication device and it works and
Speaker 3: Et is able to send out a signal into space.
Speaker 3: Although Elliott is set at the thought of Et leaving
Speaker 3: and suggests that he stay, but ET's like, no, I
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 5: Gotta get out of here.
Speaker 1: It's fucked up here, Like who could blame He's like
Speaker 1: Earth fucking sucks. Yeah, Like so true, so true, so true. King.
Speaker 3: So because the kids have stayed out past their curfew,
Speaker 3: Mary goes out looking for them, which is when the
Speaker 3: scary men in their suits show up at their house
Speaker 3: and like bug it. I think, I'm not really super
Speaker 3: clear what they do here, but they've been surveilling them,
Speaker 3: and then they like bug the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they like descend. It's pretty scary, especially when you
Speaker 1: hear like yeah, Mary be like this is my house
Speaker 1: and I was like yeah, yeah, wait wall.
Speaker 3: So then Elliott passes out in the woods and when
Speaker 3: he wakes up the next morning, e T is gone.
Speaker 3: So Elliot returns home distraught that Et is nowhere to
Speaker 3: be found, so Michael goes out looking for him, and
Speaker 3: this is when he finds him all sick and lying
Speaker 3: in the river looking.
Speaker 1: Somehow worse worse, so hard.
Speaker 3: So Michael brings it back, but Et and Elliott are
Speaker 3: both dying because they have this empathic connection. And the
Speaker 3: kids finally show Et to their mom, but before she
Speaker 3: can really do anything about it, a bunch of like
Speaker 3: NASA astronauts and scientists and hazmat suits.
Speaker 1: It's all so like vague but scary.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very scary, And they show up and they set
Speaker 3: up this like quarantine tent in and around their house
Speaker 3: and they run a bunch of tests on Et, and
Speaker 3: then Keys approaches Elliott to be like, tell us how
Speaker 3: we could save e T. And Elie's like, he has
Speaker 3: to go home. Meanwhile, the connection between Et and Elliott
Speaker 3: starts to sever. It seems like maybe Et sacrifices himself
Speaker 3: to save Elliot, and then Et dies and the kids
Speaker 3: are devastated, especially Elliott. And then the scientists put ET's
Speaker 3: body in some like science coffin and they're about to
Speaker 3: take him away, but Keys lets Elliott spend some time
Speaker 3: alone with Et, and he's crying and he says.
Speaker 4: He I love you, which makes Et come back to
Speaker 4: life awesome, and his heart light is glowing and the
Speaker 4: potted flower revives, and then Et says.
Speaker 3: ET phone home because apparently his spaceship is on the way.
Speaker 3: So Elliott and Michael form a plan to hijack the
Speaker 3: vehicle that they put ET's body in so that they
Speaker 3: can save him and bring him to a spaceship. And
Speaker 3: the cops were chasing them, and the kids are on
Speaker 3: bikes and at one point they're surrounded.
Speaker 1: It's that part I feel like I'd heard this before,
Speaker 1: but how during that period in the early two thousands
Speaker 1: when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were like putting bad
Speaker 1: CG and they're older movies that he edited out the
Speaker 1: guns and made them walkie talking slashlight.
Speaker 3: Oh I thought it was flashlight, but it might be
Speaker 3: walkie talkies. It's something either way.
Speaker 1: It's something that. So then like that whole sequence is
Speaker 1: weird because they're like, what's Elliott? So like, right, what
Speaker 1: are they gonna do? Like it's like cuts to a
Speaker 1: walkie talkie and then Elliott's.
Speaker 3: Like, ah yeah, and the theatrical cut and the version
Speaker 3: I watched it was like shotguns that the cops had.
Speaker 1: They put the guns back.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think he was like, Okay, that was an overcorrection.
Speaker 1: It does have to be guns.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, the cops with the guns have
Speaker 3: the kids surrounded at one point, but then Et makes
Speaker 3: them all fly on their bikes with his telekinesis powers,
Speaker 3: and they arrive at the clearing in the woods and Elliot,
Speaker 3: Michael Gerdy, and Mary say a tearful goodbye to e
Speaker 3: T as his spaceship arrives, and he says I'll be
Speaker 3: right here, meaning that he will be there. In Elliott's thoughts,
Speaker 3: and feelings and then he flies away at the end.
Speaker 1: It's so awesome, it's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: That's the movie. Let's take a quick break and we'll
Speaker 3: come back to discuss.
Speaker 5: Okay, and we're back.
Speaker 1: God where like where, where where do you start? When
Speaker 1: it comes to Eat the Extraterrestrial? I wanted to touch
Speaker 1: really quickly one because I forget if we talked about
Speaker 1: this in our The Color Purple episode. I think that
Speaker 1: was the last Spielberg movie we covered.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: In any case, I just wanted to acknowledge at the
Speaker 1: top of the discussion because it's like something that's made
Speaker 1: it challenging to interact with a lot of Spielberg's work
Speaker 1: is that. Honestly, I was having trouble like getting good
Speaker 1: information about this in detail. But suffice it to say,
Speaker 1: Steven Spielberg is pro Israel and has made a lot
Speaker 1: of very both sides comments around an active genocide being
Speaker 1: perpetrated by Israel, and that feels horrible to know and
Speaker 1: to just have sort of looming over his catalog. And again,
Speaker 1: like I haven't done a deep dive into Steven Spielberg's politics.
Speaker 1: I know that he made Munich, I haven't watched it,
Speaker 1: I really have no desire to, So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to acknowledge that at the top, because I love this
Speaker 1: movie and I really don't like when Spielberg tries to
Speaker 1: say something important. It doesn't work for me at all,
Speaker 1: and now knowing this element of his personal politics, it
Speaker 1: just it's it's horrible.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, definitely worth acknowledging. And as someone who loves
Speaker 3: a lot of movies made by him, it's very disappointing.
Speaker 1: I wanted to acknowledge that it doesn't necessarily have a
Speaker 1: place within the discussion of this movie. Obviously, if we
Speaker 1: were covering Munich, which we wouldn't, it would be coming
Speaker 1: up more, but just that we're aware of it. And
Speaker 1: also I would be interested in more just information in
Speaker 1: general because I was kind of having a hard time,
Speaker 1: but I would be curious what folks think. Yeah, this movie, however,
Speaker 1: comes out before Spielberg like really says anything political in
Speaker 1: his work. Ever, I feel like so much of his
Speaker 1: early work is just like I say this with love,
Speaker 1: but it is like my parents got divorce. That's all
Speaker 1: of them, that's all of what they are. Elliott is
Speaker 1: clearly supposed to be him like d is supposed to say.
Speaker 1: I think I've said this on the show before. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait to get pneumonia before I'm gonna watch the
Speaker 1: damn Fableman's I have no interest.
Speaker 3: I didn't care for it at all.
Speaker 1: I also kind of can't believe if you're like a
Speaker 1: director who has infinite blank checks, you're gonna make a
Speaker 1: boring biopic about yourself loser.
Speaker 3: It felt so self indulgent, and I found it really
Speaker 3: unpleasant to watch.
Speaker 1: Well, and isn't it also like so many of his
Speaker 1: early movies have these mirror dynamics anyways, right where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you said that, Close Encounters and et like
Speaker 1: two back to back movies. We get it. Men hate
Speaker 1: when they're like I. It reminds me of I mean,
Speaker 1: very few people like whe their parents get divorced. It's
Speaker 1: a complicated experience to learn.
Speaker 3: But like.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way about The damn Saftie Brothers,
Speaker 1: where they're like the worst thing that's ever happened to me,
Speaker 1: My mommy and daddy didn'tkiss anymore, and you're like, I
Speaker 1: just find a new struggle, find a new struggle. Anyways,
Speaker 1: that said, this is my I think I mean I'm
Speaker 1: guessing Jurassic Park or Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3: What's your favorite Spielberg Ooh, it's probably Jurassic Park. Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3: Last Crusade comes in at a close second. I also
Speaker 3: really love Minority Report, I've never seen that, and a
Speaker 3: handful of others that he directed.
Speaker 1: I think for me it's a tie between this and Jaws.
Speaker 3: Oh, Jaws is so good too.
Speaker 1: I'm an early really Spielberg head fair but sorry, where
Speaker 1: do we want to start?
Speaker 3: Well, to speak a little bit more about the development
Speaker 3: of this movie. So, as you mentioned, it was kind
Speaker 3: of inspired by Spielberg's parents' divorce, where in nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: when his parents were splitting up, he basically created an
Speaker 3: imaginary alien friend who he would later recall as a
Speaker 3: friend who could be the brother I never had and
Speaker 3: the father I feel like I didn't have any more.
Speaker 3: So he created a little friend and based et.
Speaker 1: Off of that.
Speaker 3: Although there were some other bits of inspiration for this movie,
Speaker 3: where he started developing a project called Night Skies after
Speaker 3: he made Close Encounters of the Third Kind, in which
Speaker 3: malevolent aliens terrorize a family. But in that project there
Speaker 3: was a subplot where a friendly and the only friendly
Speaker 3: alien of this group of evil aliens, named Buddy, befriends
Speaker 3: a child with autism.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, isn't this script like publicly available and is
Speaker 1: not good?
Speaker 3: If so, I.
Speaker 1: Haven't read it, nor have I, and furthermore I won't.
Speaker 3: It also kind of inspired the Et sequel, which, oh,
Speaker 3: I meant to actually bring that up in my relationship
Speaker 3: with this movie. So there is a sequel to this
Speaker 3: movie that obviously never got made. A treatment was written
Speaker 3: for it by Steven Spielberg and Melissa Matheson, who wrote
Speaker 3: the screenplay for the first Et movie. And of course
Speaker 3: we want to talk about her.
Speaker 1: Yes, I cannot wait to talk about her because her life,
Speaker 1: first of all too short. I didn't realize that she
Speaker 1: had passed so young, but also fascinating.
Speaker 3: But sorry continue, Yes, so they co wrote this treatment
Speaker 3: basically just a synopsis for a CQ that would never
Speaker 3: be made, and it was also partially inspired by Night
Speaker 3: Skies because the treatment involves evil aliens coming to search
Speaker 3: for Et, knowing that he got left behind on Earth.
Speaker 3: And in this treatment, Jamie, I have something very important
Speaker 3: to tell you. In the treatment, you find out that
Speaker 3: ET's real name is Zrek. Almost Shrek, but Zrek with
Speaker 3: a Z.
Speaker 1: E entertainment ts like extra entertainment terrestrial e E T.
Speaker 3: Nope, Nope, it is Shrek Shrek.
Speaker 1: I saw West Side Story in the Museum with an
Speaker 1: introduction by Rita Moreno last week. And anyways, the police
Speaker 1: officer is called like officer Shrag, like it's really close
Speaker 1: to Shrek. It's just such a tease, and you're just like,
Speaker 1: just say Shrak, just say it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like in Batman Returns when Christopher Watkin's character
Speaker 3: is named Shrek and you're just like, Shrek is everywhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at least they go for it. They go
Speaker 1: they go for it, like just say say his name,
Speaker 1: like speak Strek's name.
Speaker 3: It's like the end of Oh my god, what's that
Speaker 3: movie never ending story?
Speaker 1: Say my name, Say my name? I was thinking Bele Shrek, Shrek, Shrek.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Okay, so back on track.
Speaker 1: Wait, that's wild.
Speaker 3: His name was Shred. We learned his name is Shrek.
Speaker 3: The point of this whole story is that I teach
Speaker 3: this treatment in my screenwriting classes because I have my
Speaker 3: students do a mock workshop just to like get them
Speaker 3: acquainted with the workshopping process, and we read the treatment
Speaker 3: and then you know, analyze it, and the treatment's not good.
Speaker 3: It is kind of a mess, and then they pulled
Speaker 3: the plug on it. I think it was a combination
Speaker 3: of the studio being like, I'm not sure about this
Speaker 3: and then Spielberg being like, never mind, sequels, bad idea
Speaker 3: for this, actually.
Speaker 1: Something he would reverse. But it is interesting because it's
Speaker 1: not like he is obviously not opposed to sequels, like hmm, Indiana,
Speaker 1: John like there's no shortage of sequels, right, but that
Speaker 1: there was no sequel for this movie. I really hope
Speaker 1: there's never a sequel to this movie.
Speaker 3: It would be very unnecessary.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when it's like, yeah, something that is like
Speaker 1: focused on, like, well, what's the lore of Et? And
Speaker 1: you're like, respectfully, it doesn't matter. That's not why we
Speaker 1: go to Et to be like, well but what is
Speaker 1: the culture? You're like, it doesn't matter. He made a
Speaker 1: friend and Elliott will never know, so we can never know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So in any case, Spielberg had this imaginary alien
Speaker 3: friend as a kid to help him cope with his parents' divorce,
Speaker 3: and then in nineteen eighty he told screenwriter Melissa Matheson
Speaker 3: he was like, yeah, I was developing this project called
Speaker 3: night Skies. Here was this subplot. I feel like there
Speaker 3: might be a movie there. And then she wrote the
Speaker 3: script for ET, formerly called ET and Me then simplified
Speaker 3: to E. T. The Extraterrestrial, and she wrote the first
Speaker 3: draft in I think like eight weeks or something. Spielberg
Speaker 3: loved it. It went through a couple rewrites, a few
Speaker 3: changes were made, But what I want to point out
Speaker 3: is that this movie was written by a woman, And
Speaker 3: I feel like that's something that a lot of people
Speaker 3: forget or overlook because people so closely associate movie with
Speaker 3: like Spielberg and assume that he had the sole creative
Speaker 3: vision behind this movie.
Speaker 1: I really love because I honestly forgot as well. And
Speaker 1: I feel like it's probably partially because we don't talk
Speaker 1: about Melissa Mathison very much, even though it's like her
Speaker 1: credits are wild. And I also saw that she was
Speaker 1: like so involved in the day to day production of ET,
Speaker 1: Like she was writing dialogue on set, She worked with
Speaker 1: the kids, she sort of oversaw like when the kids
Speaker 1: could improvise when they couldn't, Like she was so hands on,
Speaker 1: and her career, it appears, was kind of derailed by
Speaker 1: being an ally to Tibet, which is unfortunately a very
Speaker 1: prescient conversation to have right now. This is something that
Speaker 1: I want to do more research into, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it's not something that's very frequently discussed. I read
Speaker 1: a book a couple of years ago called It's called
Speaker 1: Red Carpet. There's a chapter in it that basically unpacks
Speaker 1: like a series of entertainment careers that were indefinitely put
Speaker 1: on hold because someone was too vocal about being allied
Speaker 1: with the Free Tibet movement. Yeah, and the biggest example
Speaker 1: of that, I honestly don't understand how Scorsese recovered, but
Speaker 1: he directed a movie in ninety seven that I feel
Speaker 1: like so few people have seen called Coundon, which is
Speaker 1: basically a biopic about the Dalai Lama, and I think
Speaker 1: that Dalai Lama was like meaningfully included in it. Melissa
Speaker 1: Matheson wrote the movie and became a close friend of
Speaker 1: the Dalai Lama while they worked on it for years,
Speaker 1: and this turned her into a lifelong activist for Tibetan freedom.
Speaker 1: And at the time she died, she was like on
Speaker 1: the board for the International Campaign for Tibet and just
Speaker 1: really did like a lot of really effective advocacy work.
Speaker 1: But you can see after she writes Condon, her career
Speaker 1: like it falls off. And I don't know necessarily, I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to find confirmation necessarily, or if she just
Speaker 1: wanted to step away to focus on advocacy work. But
Speaker 1: it just feels like she wrote et she wrote The
Speaker 1: Black Stallie, I mean, and the only things that we
Speaker 1: really see her right after that is she wrote one
Speaker 1: more movie for Spielberg, she wrote the BFG, But even
Speaker 1: that seems like well because they had a good working relationship,
Speaker 1: But there's not other big directors that she really works
Speaker 1: with after that, Like you see a very similar story
Speaker 1: with Richard Gear who also was a very loud advocate
Speaker 1: for Tibet.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't realize that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird. I don't know why it's not, especially
Speaker 1: like in recent years. I think it would make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense to just kind of revisit those stories.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Richard Gear, he was kind of the focal
Speaker 1: point of that chapter. I've got to remember exactly what
Speaker 1: the book was called, but that he was such a
Speaker 1: huge deal in the eighties and nineties and then towards
Speaker 1: the end of the nineties he became a very vocal
Speaker 1: advocate for Tibet, and he stopped getting cast and you
Speaker 1: really don't see him very much after that outside of
Speaker 1: like Chicago. But like I mean, name of Richard gear
Speaker 1: Roll from the last twenty years.
Speaker 3: Like Knights in rodanthy was he in that?
Speaker 1: There we go? I bet asked, let's call my mom,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's get my mom on the horn, and
Speaker 1: she would know. But yeah, like Tibet obviously a very
Speaker 1: complicated history that I'm not an expert on. But basically
Speaker 1: it's like, if your blockbuster movies were vocally pro Tibet,
Speaker 1: they would not play in China, which is a gigantic
Speaker 1: movie market, and so anyone who was too vocally supportive
Speaker 1: of Tibet would be kind of soft blacklisted. I'm curious
Speaker 1: if there was anything written let us know, listeners, if
Speaker 1: there was ever sort of this line drawn directly with
Speaker 1: Melissa Matheson. But anyways, what a cool lay. Also, Francis
Speaker 1: Ford Coppola cheated on his wife with her.
Speaker 3: Oh whoa oh you mean the director of megalopolypse go
Speaker 3: Off Kateles go Off cinematic masterpiece Megalopa lips megal what's
Speaker 3: it called Megatropolis. I don't have that movie gave me
Speaker 3: a lobotomy, so I don't know how to use my
Speaker 3: brain anymore.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Megal, what's the name of the Aubrey Plaza character.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh, Platinum Wow, plank Wow, something like that.
Speaker 1: We can't let him get away with this. Not Platinum Wow.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Melissa Mathieson. Outside of being Gone Too Soon, just a
Speaker 1: great Wikipedia experience. It's early Years, screenwriting and production credits.
Speaker 1: Dalai Lama Personal life. She has a whole section called
Speaker 1: Dalai Lama and you've gotta love that.
Speaker 3: I love it. She also wrote the screenplay for The
Speaker 3: Indian in the Cupboard, which I vaguely remember from my childhood.
Speaker 3: And she was a story consultant on Ponia that studio.
Speaker 3: And I never know if it's Ghibli or gible so
Speaker 3: someone please tell me gibley Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Think so, But her personal life section is awesome. It's
Speaker 1: Matheson had an extra marital relationship with Francis Ford Coplo
Speaker 1: while working as his assistant on Godfather Part two, an
Speaker 1: affair that lasted through the production of Apocalypse Now. So
Speaker 1: that's an affair of the five years damn Wow and
Speaker 1: then she was married to Harrison Ford for twenty years.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, I did not realize that either. Apparently
Speaker 3: I did not research enough about Melissa Matheson.
Speaker 1: They had two kids together.
Speaker 3: Wow. Harrison Ford was in et as a principal that
Speaker 3: they never show on screen.
Speaker 1: Wait, I didn't know that, but you like.
Speaker 3: Hear his voice reprimanding Elliott in the scene where he's
Speaker 3: like drunkenly letting all the frogs. Go oh yeah, but
Speaker 3: then they cut it.
Speaker 1: That's really funny. Gosh, what an incestuous kind of like groom.
Speaker 1: Because I'm like, is that how they met? Like because
Speaker 1: they got married in eighty three, the year after this
Speaker 1: came out. But they were married for twenty years and
Speaker 1: had two Like yeah, they married in eighty three, divorce
Speaker 1: and O four So wow, look at that.
Speaker 3: In addition to this movie being written by a woman,
Speaker 3: it was also edited by a woman, an editor named
Speaker 3: Carol Lyttleton. And two of the major producers of this
Speaker 3: movie are women, one of course being Melissa Matheson, the
Speaker 3: other one being Kathleen Kennedy.
Speaker 1: Young Kathleen. Kathleen Kennedy produced this damn movie when she's
Speaker 1: twenty nine. I'm like, shut up, shot enough, stop up.
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised to see how many women were
Speaker 1: meaningfully involved in this movie, and I just I don't
Speaker 1: know everything again, like not to just like geek out
Speaker 1: about it, but everything about the set and environment of
Speaker 1: this movie just seemed so sweet and like thoughtful. And
Speaker 1: there's footage of like they were shooting on Howen and
Speaker 1: Spielberg dressed up in drag all day because I think
Speaker 1: like Henry Thomas like dared him too, okay, and he
Speaker 1: was like this is so Spielberg. There's I mean, and honey,
Speaker 1: he looks great. He really does. And it's like it's
Speaker 1: very I don't know, just like really sweet, because I
Speaker 1: think it was like Henry Thomas was like, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna make Et dress up in drag, you have to too,
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'll do it and it's very cute.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well, speaking of shall we talk about the gender
Speaker 3: projections of et Et and gender?
Speaker 1: Yes, let's do it.
Speaker 3: We talked about it a little bit already, but like
Speaker 3: we mentioned, when Gerty first encounters Et, she says is
Speaker 3: he a boy or girl? And then Elliott very definitively
Speaker 3: says he's a boy, and then Gerty asks if Et
Speaker 3: was wearing any clothes when Elliott found him, and he
Speaker 3: says no. So it's just like, yeah, he's just a
Speaker 3: boy because I said so. And later Gerty puts Et
Speaker 3: in women's clothing, you know, a dress, like a pearl necklace,
Speaker 3: this long blonde wig, a little missus nesbit hat kind
Speaker 3: of thing. And Elliott comes home and finds Et in
Speaker 3: drag and gets upset and says, you should give him
Speaker 3: his dignity. This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: And we're like, Okay, Elliott hates drag.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Elliot's denying something within himself. He's a
Speaker 1: confused child during the Reagan administration. I want to believe
Speaker 1: in him. I want to believe yeah, he grows up
Speaker 1: to do better. But I do think it is like
Speaker 1: not like I mean to the point where I never
Speaker 1: really even thought about it until this viewing, but how
Speaker 1: all of the kids are trying to understand Et based
Speaker 1: on what their limited conception of the world and themselves
Speaker 1: are right. And obviously a big part of that is
Speaker 1: like the limited gender expression in like Suburbia in the eighties.
Speaker 1: And there's not really a big comment made, but I
Speaker 1: thought it was like pretty thoughtfully done.
Speaker 3: Right, because like, Elliott finds this creature who he befriends,
Speaker 3: and presumably he wants a friend who he can closely
Speaker 3: identify with, and that for him would mean a friend
Speaker 3: who's a boy. Meanwhile, Gertie is hoping that Et is
Speaker 3: a girl, and presumably that's why she dresses Et in
Speaker 3: a wig and a dress and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: because she wants a little girl friend. And Et is
Speaker 3: like whatever, He's like, I don't care.
Speaker 1: It a crap. Yeah, I thought that that was like, again,
Speaker 1: especially for the eight there's I think like this movie
Speaker 1: sincerity is like so much of like why it holds
Speaker 1: up so well because you think of like even other
Speaker 1: eighties kids movies that would have gone so far in
Speaker 1: the other direction, and you do get a little bit
Speaker 1: of like, yeah, he needs his dignity, but that's like
Speaker 1: as severe as it gets, right, and I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: And Ets so he's such a chiller, he just wants
Speaker 1: to text his mom.
Speaker 3: Yes. Another reason I think this movie holds up as
Speaker 3: well as it does is its exploration of the emotional
Speaker 3: intelligence of the male characters. Because you have Elliott being
Speaker 3: this generally sensitive, gentle, compassionate kid. He wants to again
Speaker 3: befriend Et and protect him. They develop this empathic connection
Speaker 3: where they feel each other's feelings, and that is a
Speaker 3: power that we'll see in movies, but that is almost
Speaker 3: always ascribed to women in movies, where if there's like
Speaker 3: a super hero character I'm thinking of, is it mantis
Speaker 3: in like the Marvel Universe, characters like that, where like
Speaker 3: their power is empathic, And again it's almost always ascribed
Speaker 3: to women, So it's not typical for a like empathic
Speaker 3: power or ability to be ascribed to a male character.
Speaker 3: But we see that with Elliot, and it is generally
Speaker 3: a nice connection except that one time where Et does
Speaker 3: make Elliott surprise kiss a girl at school, But other
Speaker 3: than that, it manifests in a really like sweet, nice way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean that's like another thing that I
Speaker 1: think is also contrasted between the brothers, because this is
Speaker 1: definitely not like, yeah, a movie about women, but it
Speaker 1: is a movie, like you're saying about, especially in the eighties,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like that would have made a real difference.
Speaker 1: It's like celebrating like this young boy's ability to express
Speaker 1: and want to understand how others are feeling, and I
Speaker 1: really like again, it's I feel like the movie sort
Speaker 1: of like evades this trope of like the older brothers
Speaker 1: just like a piece of shit who doesn't get it
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, where it's like they are different,
Speaker 1: they're also just at different stages of development. But it's
Speaker 1: d Wallace is raising these kids, right. They care about
Speaker 1: each other. Yeah, and even though they like whatever, antagonize
Speaker 1: each other the way the brothers do, Like Michael's a
Speaker 1: sweet kid. He cares about Elliott and yeah, I just
Speaker 1: think it's really nice. I'm gonna start crying. And even
Speaker 1: with their sister where they antagonize her, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like I don't know, again, it just it feels
Speaker 1: very natural and they all genuinely do care about each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I felt that too about Michael, who I think
Speaker 3: he's probably like fourteen, so he has a few years
Speaker 3: on Elliott and has been exposed to more socialization of
Speaker 3: like what boys are supposed to be. Like, he's displaying
Speaker 3: more like quote unquote typical masculinity compared to Elliott, because
Speaker 3: you know, you see him with his like teen boy pals,
Speaker 3: and they tend.
Speaker 1: To like smoking SIGs.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, they'll gang up on Elliott and kind
Speaker 3: of give him a hard time and tease him and
Speaker 3: call him names and stuff like that. And Michael just
Speaker 3: seems to be a little bit more like easily aggravated
Speaker 3: and hostile compared to Elliott, but not in a way
Speaker 3: that is cruel necessary. It's just again, he's been exposed
Speaker 3: to more like masculine social conditioning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elliot's embarrassing him in front of his friends.
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, right, his friends who all want to dress
Speaker 3: as terrorists for Halloween. I'm like, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: But then you see them and you're like what I
Speaker 1: was whatever that joke was. I was like, baby, you
Speaker 1: had to be in nineteen eighty two, but I was
Speaker 1: not because I was like, it's a guy with an
Speaker 1: ax through and said what.
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's what he changed into because his
Speaker 3: mom was like, Mary said, you're not going dressed like that,
Speaker 3: So he switches to a different costume.
Speaker 1: Oh I don't love that choke.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know about it. But either way, yes,
Speaker 3: Michael has had more like typical social masculine conditioning, but
Speaker 3: he also has compassion. You know, he looks out for
Speaker 3: their mom. When Elliott makes a comment about their dad
Speaker 3: being in Mexico with his new girlfriend and he knows
Speaker 3: that this upsets his mom and he wants to protect her,
Speaker 3: and Michael tells Elliott, like, think about how other people feel.
Speaker 3: For a change, that's not an exchange that you would
Speaker 3: usually see in a movie between two male care Yeah,
Speaker 3: one encouraging the other to consider other people's feelings. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I found that to be like refreshing and interesting. And
Speaker 3: then even for Keys, who is presented as an antagonistic force,
Speaker 3: a lot of movies, I feel like would frame him
Speaker 3: as just like this blatant, big, bad, cruel, greedy, heartless,
Speaker 3: but he also displays compassion too, because you know, he
Speaker 3: understands that Elliot has this empathic connection with et and
Speaker 3: that he would want to say goodbye to e T
Speaker 3: when he dies, and he gives Elliott some time alone
Speaker 3: to say that goodbye. And in the sequel treatment that again,
Speaker 3: sequel never existed, but the treatment for it does have
Speaker 3: Keys and Mary getting together romantically, which feels unnecessary and annoying.
Speaker 1: Cares I was like, again, that's like the movie is
Speaker 1: too good for that. That's another thing that I like,
Speaker 1: where they don't say like, oh, well, what we need
Speaker 1: is a new father for these kids. It's like, I
Speaker 1: really like Dee Wallace's performance in this movie because it's like,
Speaker 1: we don't know a lot about Mary, but I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot comes through in the performance. She's a
Speaker 1: good mom, but also she's the sole breadwinner, so sometimes
Speaker 1: she's you know, it's like a latch key kid thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, breadwinter and caregiver. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Their house is so nice. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: their house probably would cost two million dollars today, if
Speaker 1: not more. But you know, I think that there is
Speaker 1: room to know more about her. But because we're seeing
Speaker 1: this from the kid's perspectives, they wouldn't be like, what
Speaker 1: is mom's job? Like, we just know that she has
Speaker 1: to go to work. She's around them as much as
Speaker 1: she can be. And again, it's just like really sort
Speaker 1: of like a genuine feeling family dynamic where her kids
Speaker 1: love her, but they're also little assholes because they're kids, right,
Speaker 1: But she's not made out to be like the I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot again and another like kid's movie
Speaker 1: trope where it's like the parents are totally goofy and
Speaker 1: like I have no idea what's going on, And she
Speaker 1: doesn't know what's going on for a while, but when
Speaker 1: she finds out what's going on, she takes her kids
Speaker 1: feelings about it seriously mm hmmm. And I just like
Speaker 1: she Yeah, I like that she is, I mean, a
Speaker 1: good parent, but also like a complicated person, And you
Speaker 1: get those moments to know like she's also going through
Speaker 1: a lot for sure, but they don't try to resolve
Speaker 1: that by being like, here's a new husband, which is
Speaker 1: like the laziest thing you could possibly do.
Speaker 3: Right. There's one scene where she has a few like
Speaker 3: close encounters damn of the third kind.
Speaker 1: That's et.
Speaker 3: The scene where Et is like hiding among the stuffed
Speaker 3: animals and she doesn't notice, or the scene where Et
Speaker 3: is literally like right there walking around the kitchen and
Speaker 3: Gertie is trying to like introduce her mom to Et,
Speaker 3: and Mary is too preoccupied with like putting away the
Speaker 3: groceries to notice. And I feel like you could argue, oh,
Speaker 3: that's like a mother character being written to be so
Speaker 3: cartoonish that she doesn't even notice the alien that's right there.
Speaker 3: I honestly chalked it up to like she is the
Speaker 3: sole provider and caregiver for this family, and so she
Speaker 3: is going to be preoccupied, especially because like two of
Speaker 3: these kids are pretty young and right, So I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: she's just like handling the responsibility that she needs to
Speaker 3: handle as a parent. So it didn't feel written to
Speaker 3: me that she was like, oh, women or mothers are
Speaker 3: so oblivious. It's just that she's like got a lot
Speaker 3: on her plate.
Speaker 1: Right, the things that she doesn't know about. It makes
Speaker 1: sense and it doesn't make her negligent. And also just
Speaker 1: like her having to deal with like I guess Harrison
Speaker 1: Ford calling her and being like, Elliot's drunk at school.
Speaker 1: She's like, what, No, Yeah. I feel like she had
Speaker 1: like just the right amount of presence in the movie
Speaker 1: and is still like a very complicated, well thought out character.
Speaker 3: I also appreciate that you can tell that the kids
Speaker 3: miss their dad, that you know, there's a scene where
Speaker 3: Elliott and Michael find a shirt of their dad's in
Speaker 3: the garage and they're like smelling it and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: it's old spice, dad's old cologne. And then there's another
Speaker 3: part where Elliott has told his family about finding whatever
Speaker 3: this creature is before they know what it is, and
Speaker 3: no one believes him, and he says, like Dad would
Speaker 3: have believed me. So you get little hints of that
Speaker 3: throughout the movie, but there's no sense of like the
Speaker 3: kids deeply resenting their mother, that no, it's not parents
Speaker 3: have split up, or that the like brothers have like
Speaker 3: a desperate longing for a man parental figure. You don't
Speaker 3: get those like very I think tropy senses that you
Speaker 3: would see.
Speaker 1: Right, And it's just like the reason that it's painful
Speaker 1: is just because it's different and they feel like abandoned.
Speaker 1: But I, yeah, you're told, I didn't even connect that
Speaker 1: where it's like some divorce narratives involved the kids being like, well,
Speaker 1: what did mom do wrong? She must have done something wrong.
Speaker 1: And I feel like there's another really good moment that
Speaker 1: I liked between Michael and his mom when Elliott has
Speaker 1: that moment of being like, well, dad's in Mexico with
Speaker 1: Sally and she has a moment and Michael gets really
Speaker 1: defensive of his mom, which feels just really like would
Speaker 1: totally make sense for the eldest kid because he was
Speaker 1: the most cognizant of what would have been going on
Speaker 1: and how it would have affected his mom, And that
Speaker 1: was just like I thought a really nice moment between
Speaker 1: you know, you don't really get any moments between Michael
Speaker 1: and his mom besides hearing off screen that he has
Speaker 1: a fucked up Halloween cause but like that moment you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that totally makes sense and I feel like really endears
Speaker 1: you to Michael early in the movie where he wants
Speaker 1: to you know, be there for his mom. But also
Speaker 1: he's fourteen, right, it's just really thoughtful and yeah, like
Speaker 1: effortless where it's like his absence is there, but it's
Speaker 1: not like ET is my dad now, it's like like
Speaker 1: nothing weird like that. I did read that there was
Speaker 1: a like one of those like novelizations of ET where
Speaker 1: it's heavily implied that Mary wants to fuck Et whoa
Speaker 1: that she has a little bit of a crush on
Speaker 1: Okay Kinky kind of like I would read that book.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, forget.
Speaker 3: Keys, Yeah, ET's right.
Speaker 1: But mom, fuck e T meet your new father. It's ET.
Speaker 3: Well. The other thing about Mary is that she doesn't
Speaker 3: believe Michael about finding this like Goblin in the Woods
Speaker 3: or whatever. But she doesn't not not believe like it's right.
Speaker 3: She even says it's not that we don't believe you,
Speaker 3: but maybe you did imagine it, So she kind of
Speaker 3: dismisses him, but not entirely. We've talked about like children
Speaker 3: being believed or not being believed in different episodes as
Speaker 3: sort of a representation of how children are often not
Speaker 3: believed in real life and not taken seriously about certain matters.
Speaker 3: So I appreciate that that was addressed, and it felt
Speaker 3: like a realistic response, where like, yeah, if a kid
Speaker 3: comes up to you and it's like, yeah, I met
Speaker 3: a goblin in the field, you'd be like, are you
Speaker 3: sure it was a goblin?
Speaker 1: So well, but like she takes the concern seriously.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she doesn't entirely dismiss him, but she's also just
Speaker 3: like are you sure though, And it turns out he
Speaker 3: was sure because it is an alien, so egg on
Speaker 3: her face. But I felt like that was handled realistically.
Speaker 1: At least I agree.
Speaker 3: I agree, And then I wanted to talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about who is inside of ET because there were
Speaker 3: three people who took turns wearing the ET costume. So
Speaker 3: ET was a combination of like animatronic face stuff that
Speaker 3: was like done by puppeteers offscreen obviously, and then there
Speaker 3: were also people inside an Et costume, and so depending
Speaker 3: on what scene was being filmed, there were three possible
Speaker 3: people who it might have been. Two of them were
Speaker 3: little people. Their names are Tamara de Troux and Pat Bylon,
Speaker 3: and there was also a twelve year old kid named
Speaker 3: Matthew Demerit.
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of this.
Speaker 3: Wow, yes, I found it on scholarly journal Wikipedia. So
Speaker 3: Matthew DeMarre was born without legs, and he walked on
Speaker 3: his hands, and he played all the scenes where Et
Speaker 3: walked awkwardly or fell over, which is the phrasing that
Speaker 3: scholarly journal Wikipedia uses, like.
Speaker 1: When these like drunk kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: Wow, I did not know that.
Speaker 3: Yes, So what I want to say is that little
Speaker 3: people and people with other physical disabilities get so little
Speaker 3: visibility in media, and if they are involved in a movie,
Speaker 3: it's often in a capacity like this like The Lord
Speaker 3: of the Rings, like Force perspective stuff comes to mind,
Speaker 3: where they would have little people playing the Hobbits and
Speaker 3: things like that, where it's very rarely characters who are
Speaker 3: actually seen visibly on screen as little people living in society.
Speaker 3: It's actors who are little people playing some creature or
Speaker 3: something like that, or it's you know, other actors with
Speaker 3: other physical disabilities doing something where they're not actually seen
Speaker 3: visibly on screen as they are there being some creature.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to acknowledge those actors and performers for
Speaker 3: the work that they did on the movie, and also
Speaker 3: acknowledge that there's that major lack of visibility for absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I just like I didn't know at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there were and that ET's voice, yeah, Pat Welsh like hmm, uncredited.
Speaker 3: Yes, she smoked two packs a day of cigarettes to
Speaker 3: give her the like quality of voice that Et has.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of the thing we talked about on
Speaker 3: The Exorcist where Mercedes McCambridge.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, just like got fucked up all day long.
Speaker 3: And yeah, like would drink whiskey and ate rags and
Speaker 3: stuff to make the demon voice sound as intimidating.
Speaker 1: As it was. Like check in with me later, freed kid. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's certainly an approach, but also I appreciate that the
Speaker 1: people who brought Et to life also not prescriptive to gender,
Speaker 1: Like it's that knife like that's further kind of lays
Speaker 1: out that you know, Et genderless icon gender doesn't give
Speaker 1: a shit, Like he's literally just trying to phone home.
Speaker 1: That's all. That's it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, is.
Speaker 1: There anything else you wanted to talk about with it? Oh? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess the surprise I thought the surprise kiss was
Speaker 1: so unnecessary in the middle of that, Like I thought
Speaker 1: that just felt very dated, and also knowing that like
Speaker 1: Henry Thomas, I guess was really really really uncomfortable being
Speaker 1: asked to do that and like didn't want to do
Speaker 1: it because he was just a little kid who was
Speaker 1: not interested in kissing. So I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a smallish thing in the scope of eighties kids movies.
Speaker 1: ET is doing almost everything right, but I just did
Speaker 1: want to single that out. It's like not necessary, especially
Speaker 1: if they're not going to bother to like characterize.
Speaker 3: Little girl that Yeah. Yeah, it just feels very very
Speaker 3: reflective of the time where a surprise kiss was considered
Speaker 3: to be a romantic gesture, and the way it's framed
Speaker 3: in the movie is like ET is like helping Elliott
Speaker 3: do all these good things, such as release frogs from
Speaker 3: being killed ugly, that's a good thing, but also kissing
Speaker 3: a girl in his class without her consent, not good,
Speaker 3: not the same thing, Like, why would you pair those
Speaker 3: two things together?
Speaker 1: This is all like both seen as like heroic.
Speaker 3: Acts, right, and it was yucky.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I just saw my rug moving on the floor.
Speaker 1: What the fuck Casper got under the rug?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, around he was scaring my ass. Sorry, everything I'm saying, I'm.
Speaker 3: Safe now, Okay, good, glad to hear it. But no,
Speaker 3: that was really all I had. I'm sure there's some
Speaker 3: lure that we're missing, you know, there's so much with
Speaker 3: this movie. But yeah, those were the main points that
Speaker 3: I had. Did you have anything else?
Speaker 1: No, I think just the last This isn't a discourse thing,
Speaker 1: but the last thing I just wanted to single out
Speaker 1: was the creator of ET, or like the designer of ET.
Speaker 3: I guess yes.
Speaker 1: It was a guy named Carlo Rambaldi, and he just
Speaker 1: has an incredible resume. I just wanted to share other
Speaker 1: movies he did special effects on, including he had previously
Speaker 1: done Close Encounters with Spielberg. He did Alien one the
Speaker 1: seventy nine to one and won an Oscar for it.
Speaker 1: I believe he did Possession in the year before ET,
Speaker 1: which is like just wild. He did David Lynch Dune.
Speaker 1: He did just like all of these kind of incredible
Speaker 1: iconic special effects designs, and yeah when they Oscar twice
Speaker 1: once for Alien and once for et nice. And also
Speaker 1: I think that this is like a time that just
Speaker 1: something you don't see a lot or as much of
Speaker 1: anymore where It's like this huge blockbuster also got a
Speaker 1: lot of awards recognition because it's good, like and I
Speaker 1: think hopefully it seems like we're kind of turning a
Speaker 1: corner there where you can't just make a movie that's
Speaker 1: so bad and like I'm just like talking about Marvel stuff,
Speaker 1: but like, you can't just make a movie that's like
Speaker 1: a big piece of shit and expect to make a
Speaker 1: billion dollars. Like I think there is a turning audience
Speaker 1: expectation too. You do have to write to make it
Speaker 1: be good. It can't just look like shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Francis Ford Coppole, you can't just spend one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty million dollars of your own money embarrassing.
Speaker 1: I mean, at least it was his money.
Speaker 3: True, Yeah, he should honestly just redistribute his wealth by
Speaker 3: making bad movies.
Speaker 1: Bad movies. At very least when I see someone like
Speaker 1: Blow that amount of their own personal accrude wealth. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: at least they're not using it to hurt anybody. They're
Speaker 1: just except Caitlin's head.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: True, But yeah. ET was nominated for nine Oscars how Wild,
Speaker 1: including Best Picture, It's Amazing.
Speaker 3: And Best Director, and it won Score, Original Score, Best
Speaker 3: Visual Effects, Best Sound, and Sound Editing. So more of
Speaker 3: the technical stuff.
Speaker 1: I still feel like Henry Thomas should have gotten like
Speaker 1: Best like it's such a special performance.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, Yeah, that's all I have to say. I'd say
Speaker 1: it does pass the Bechdel test because ET's genderless icon
Speaker 1: and there is a conversation between Mary and Gerty about
Speaker 1: E T.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. So even though they project,
Speaker 3: you know, man gender onto ET, I think ET rejects
Speaker 3: that projection.
Speaker 1: I think ET is like, there's bigger We've got bigger
Speaker 1: fish to fry. Can we stop?
Speaker 3: Yeah. As far as our nipple scale though, the scale
Speaker 3: where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
Speaker 3: on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean characters of marginalized genders are not necessarily the focal
Speaker 3: point of ET, unless you count Et himself or themselves,
Speaker 3: but as far as like the human Women and Girls,
Speaker 3: which is pretty much only Merry and Girty, and Girty
Speaker 3: gets less screen time compared to her two brothers, and
Speaker 3: Mary doesn't get a lot of screen time because it's
Speaker 3: you know, coming from the kid's perspective of hiding this
Speaker 3: creature from their mom, so she's less of a presence
Speaker 3: than maybe some other kids movies. But I still appreciate
Speaker 3: how the movie handles emotional expression from the male characters
Speaker 3: and how it's presented as a strength, and the fact that,
Speaker 3: like the big connection between Et and Elliott is a
Speaker 3: like emotional one and an empathic one where they feel
Speaker 3: each other's feelings, and you don't really see that in
Speaker 3: most movies where there's some strong, like empathic connection between
Speaker 3: male characters or between a boy or man and anyone else.
Speaker 3: So I liked that. I liked that the other male
Speaker 3: characters are similarly compassionate, but also like multi dimensional. All
Speaker 3: the characters feel multi dimensional, and I feel like I
Speaker 3: want to feel like three nipples. I don't know why,
Speaker 3: but it just feels right in my heart, light and
Speaker 3: my in the tip of my finger.
Speaker 1: I love that, who are you giving your nipples?
Speaker 3: To I'll give one to the scene where Et gets
Speaker 3: plastered off of like one and a half cans of
Speaker 3: cores Iconic. I'll give one.
Speaker 1: To little Drew Barrymore, who.
Speaker 3: Was you know, her dad was an abusive parent and
Speaker 3: not really present in her life, and Steven Spielberg kind
Speaker 3: of adopted her slash became her godfather and like felt
Speaker 3: very responsible also wanted to maintain the illusion that Et
Speaker 3: was real. For Drew Barrymore, I love that story because
Speaker 3: she thought he was real and she would like have
Speaker 3: lunch with him on set and stuff. And one day
Speaker 3: she found like the various puppeteers and stuff who were
Speaker 3: controlling the like animatronic stuff with Et, and She's like,
Speaker 3: what's all this? And Spielberg was like, don't worry. Et
Speaker 3: is so important that he has eight assistants, Like those
Speaker 3: are just his little his assistants.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like Et is a diva. He has a
Speaker 1: lot of people, don't worry about I really like I again,
Speaker 1: it's like Spielberg is, he's a fucking Zionist. I will
Speaker 1: say that in the past, and still I mean it's hard,
Speaker 1: Like I really again appreciate especially like if you're we
Speaker 1: talk about this a lot, but not necessarily with like
Speaker 1: directors directing children, but like having you know, like if
Speaker 1: you are bringing an actor you know who is somehow
Speaker 1: vulnerable into your space. I also think about like when
Speaker 1: people cast non actors in their work, it's like you
Speaker 1: are to some extent I think responsible to like look
Speaker 1: out for them and like realize what incredible trust it takes,
Speaker 1: especially for a kid to trust you. It's like it's
Speaker 1: I'm glad that he like provided support even when she
Speaker 1: wasn't doing.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I'll split my final nipple
Speaker 3: between the three performers who were in the et suit
Speaker 3: and made et come to life in that way.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go three and a half. I think I'm
Speaker 1: grading it probably on a curve because I just think
Speaker 1: it's such a beautiful movie. Again, I think, like there's
Speaker 1: absolutely not even a shred or a suggestion of any
Speaker 1: diversity within the casting of this movie, which is embarrassing.
Speaker 1: This takes place in southern California in eighty two. There's
Speaker 1: absolutely no reason that there shouldn't be a more diverse cast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I do think, yeah, like you're saying that
Speaker 1: a movie that, yes, it is a boys on Bikes movie,
Speaker 1: but it's my favorite boys on Bikes movie because it
Speaker 1: is all about like sensitivity and emotional intelligence. But they're
Speaker 1: not like Mary Sue kids. Like they still are obviously kids,
Speaker 1: and they still kind of give each other shit, and
Speaker 1: like it feels like really authentic relationships between the kids
Speaker 1: that encourages, you know, young boys at a time where
Speaker 1: nothing about culture was encouraging young boys to feel their
Speaker 1: feelings and not be like ashamed of it, and that
Speaker 1: that's like a strength. And yeah, the way that the
Speaker 1: family dynamics I kind of wonder. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: think obviously this is far from the first movie that
Speaker 1: presents a divorced family, but even so, I think, like
Speaker 1: doing that on such a large scale and doing it
Speaker 1: in a way that is not blamey or shamey towards
Speaker 1: their mom, it's just difficult things really beautiful and yeah,
Speaker 1: I just love this damn movie. Et looks ugly though.
Speaker 3: There's no getting around it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, even though the characters we generally focus on, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, Elliott is a boy et genderless icon, but
Speaker 1: I just feel like there is equity not in screen time,
Speaker 1: but in how the care that every character is treated
Speaker 1: with and considered, and that feels so rare. I feel
Speaker 1: like so many mom characters or little sister characters just
Speaker 1: fade into the background or they're the joke, and that's
Speaker 1: not the case for this movie. So I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: it three and a half nipples. I'm gonna give one
Speaker 1: to Melissa Matheson. I'm going to also split one between
Speaker 1: the three performers. I'm gonna give one to d Wallace
Speaker 1: because I feel like she is so good in this
Speaker 1: and also like I'm sort of giving the nipple mostly
Speaker 1: too when she can't stop herself from laughing when Elliott
Speaker 1: calls Michael Penis breath. That felt like, that's just like
Speaker 1: such a great moment. And I'll give my last half
Speaker 1: to Pat Welsh and her cigarettes.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed, Well, listeners, there you have it.
Speaker 1: Do do do do do? Dude? We phoned home, but
Speaker 1: we didn't phone it in.
Speaker 3: We didn't phone it in, but we did phone at
Speaker 3: home to your home and to your ears. What if
Speaker 3: we recorded the podcast using the same device like communication
Speaker 3: device that ET uses.
Speaker 1: This whole thing has been recorded with a buzzsaw and
Speaker 1: a spell it sounds, so if it sounds bad, that's
Speaker 1: a lie.
Speaker 3: That's why. Well, but yeah, thank you for listening, and
Speaker 3: you can follow us on social media on Instagram at Bechdelcast.
Speaker 3: You can subscribe to our Matreon.
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
Speaker 3: This month we did the poll and the winners of
Speaker 3: the pole. It's Women Thieves Ary aka.
Speaker 6: Women's Wrongs Right and Women's Wrongs Women be Stealing is
Speaker 6: the theme because it's the Bling Ring and Ocean's eight.
Speaker 1: I'm very excited. I have seen neither, so I'm very
Speaker 1: excited to get into that month. We referenced our recent
Speaker 1: episode on The Exorcist. That's over there. We just finished
Speaker 1: our Horror Month. A lot of good stuff going on
Speaker 1: on the Matreon, so please go over. It's the best
Speaker 1: way to directly support the show. People sometimes will ask
Speaker 1: like what is that is the way to directly support
Speaker 1: the show?
Speaker 3: Way to do it? So go to patreon dot com
Speaker 3: slash Bechtel Cast and pledge only five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: What a bargain for a back catalog of over one
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty episodes. You can also grab some merch
Speaker 1: of your so inclined at teapublic dot com slash the
Speaker 1: Bechdel Cast and with that let's freaking go home. My
Speaker 1: mom just got here. My mom's here to pick me up.
Speaker 1: My mom's here to pick me up. I gotta go.
Speaker 3: We gotta go by.
Speaker 1: My mom's here. Gotta go bye. That's what he says.
Speaker 3: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 3: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 3: by Mola bord Our. Theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 3: Kaplan with vocals by Katherine Voskressensky. Our logo and merch
Speaker 3: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Speaker 3: Aristotle Assevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
Speaker 3: linktree slash Bechdel Cast