Speaker 1: On the Bechdelcast, the questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy zeph and Beast
Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: We must, we must, we must record. The Bechdel cost.
Speaker 3: Cost the Bechtel costs. Okay, so you just get you
Speaker 3: become British at the end. The Bechtel costs.
Speaker 2: The Bechtel costs.
Speaker 3: Yes, and if you say that thirty five times a
Speaker 3: day with your best friends, your podcast will get wig.
Speaker 2: Gets so freaking huge.
Speaker 3: It'll get so busty.
Speaker 2: So many listeners.
Speaker 3: I like to think spiritually, our podcast has big old titties.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, even though I haven't been blessed, I
Speaker 3: like to think my podcasts are have.
Speaker 2: Have big titty energy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yes. Well, well, now that we've started by objectifying
Speaker 3: our own podcast, which if you're a listener you can agree,
Speaker 3: just huge, just huge, huge naturals on this podcast. My
Speaker 3: name is Jamie Loftus parentheses, small naturals.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlin Dronte parentheses medium naturals.
Speaker 3: I mean you you you've got great bobs. Kalen thank you.
Speaker 2: I just posted I know a picture.
Speaker 3: I know I like them because I was like, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's just some some are blessed anyway. So this is
Speaker 3: the Bechdel Cast, the podcast where we take a look
Speaker 3: at your favorite movies using the Bechdel Test as a
Speaker 3: jumping off point for discussion. But Kitlin, what the hell
Speaker 3: is that?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. It is a media metric created by
Speaker 2: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
Speaker 2: There are many versions of it. The one that we
Speaker 2: use is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names?
Speaker 2: Do they speak to each other? And is there conversation
Speaker 2: about something other than a man? And a little kind
Speaker 2: of like caveat that we have is that it's a
Speaker 2: narratively meaningful, substantial conversation and not just throw away dialogue.
Speaker 3: And that actually I do there are some episodes where
Speaker 3: it feels like the Bechdel Test is a very sort
Speaker 3: of like tangential part of the show. This episode, I
Speaker 3: think is actually a great time to talk about it,
Speaker 3: because of you know, Alison Bechdel, and I mean, Judy
Speaker 3: Bloom is older than Alice A. Bechtel, But you know,
Speaker 3: they both have a huge sort of hand and forwarding
Speaker 3: feminist discourse of the twentieth century. So I feel like
Speaker 3: they're in conversation with each other. And today we are
Speaker 3: covering the twenty twenty three movie Are You there?
Speaker 2: God?
Speaker 3: Question Mark is me and Margaret period? An emphasis on
Speaker 3: the period, because that's going to come up a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 3: we have an amazing guest, So let's get her in here.
Speaker 2: We absolutely, I do. She's a podcast producer. She's host
Speaker 2: of the podcast Cramped, as well as co founder of
Speaker 2: Caveat in New York City. Ever heard of it. It's
Speaker 2: a great comedy venue. It's Kate Helen Downey. Welcome.
Speaker 4: Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, thanks for being here, and thank you
Speaker 3: for bringing us this movie. So I with your permission, Caitlin,
Speaker 3: I would love to know. I mean, normally this is
Speaker 3: where we talk about our history with this movie, but
Speaker 3: I would also love to know everyone's history with Mss
Speaker 3: Judy Bloom and her Ouvra.
Speaker 2: Indeed, Kate, let's start with you and also tell us
Speaker 2: about Cramped and kind of how all of this ties together.
Speaker 3: It's all connected. It's inception style.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I have had horrible, horrible period pain since
Speaker 5: I was fourteen, since basically the first time I got
Speaker 5: my period, I throw up, I pass out. Not every
Speaker 5: time I get my period, but sometimes, And I have
Speaker 5: never in twenty two years gotten a a diagnosis from
Speaker 5: a doctor or like useful treatment or anything really helpful.
Speaker 5: I have been told everything from your period pain will
Speaker 5: get better when you have your first baby, which is
Speaker 5: what I was told when I was fourteen, all the
Speaker 5: way to just yeah, your period. You're in a lot
Speaker 5: of pain. It's so weird, like we don't know what
Speaker 5: could be causing it. Have you tried ibuprofen?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And I changed insurances a lot in my twenties, so
Speaker 5: I saw a lot of different gynecologists and asked them
Speaker 5: all this question and never got a satisfactory answer. And
Speaker 5: then the more people that I would talk to about,
Speaker 5: you know, the more I opened up about my period pain,
Speaker 5: the more comfortable I got talking about it, the more
Speaker 5: people I found who also got very similar symptoms during
Speaker 5: their periods, and the more I kept going, like maybe naively,
Speaker 5: but going like, if this many people have this much pain,
Speaker 5: how are we all being told that were like medical freaks,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 4: Like it just doesn't right.
Speaker 5: And so I had this idea years ago to do
Speaker 5: a podcast about just searching for answers for myself, just
Speaker 5: trying to finally get some like real information that I
Speaker 5: could then share with all the other people out there
Speaker 5: who feel totally dismissed and like neglected by medicine and
Speaker 5: are experiencing this kind of pain. And so I ended
Speaker 5: up getting a grant to do ten episodes and the
Speaker 5: last one comes out as we're recording this. The last
Speaker 5: one is coming out next week.
Speaker 4: So yeah, we did it.
Speaker 3: Congratulations, that's amazing. I'm I'm so excited to listen to it.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I don't know, I don't want you
Speaker 3: to like force spoilers, but is there anything that like
Speaker 3: really stuck out in terms of your like your takeaways
Speaker 3: from having produced the show?
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I mean I got into it like with
Speaker 5: very simple questions where I was like, each episode, I'm
Speaker 5: just gonna like ask this question that like seems like
Speaker 5: a dumb question, but I don't know the answer, and
Speaker 5: so we're gonna like talk to whatever experts we need,
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna do the research and like we're gonna
Speaker 5: just try to answer this question that I've never been
Speaker 5: able to get answered, and so like the first one
Speaker 5: is just like literally, what's happening inside my body? Like
Speaker 5: why am I in pain? What is causing it? And
Speaker 5: it's like, yeah, that's a really complicated question to answer.
Speaker 5: And sometimes the questions are complicated and difficult to answer
Speaker 5: because bodies are complicated, and just like it could be
Speaker 5: a simple question and it's not a simple answer. And
Speaker 5: sometimes the questions are hard to answer because we have
Speaker 5: not studied it. We just haven't, like no one else
Speaker 5: has been curious about this or been funded to do this.
Speaker 4: And so very.
Speaker 5: Quickly I got into what you guys talk about a lot,
Speaker 5: which is the systemic sexism, racism, and misogyny that is
Speaker 5: present underneath all of the structures, underlies all of our structures,
Speaker 5: but especially the medical structures. And so we really get
Speaker 5: detailed and specific about like you know, it's it's is
Speaker 5: are the doctor's sexist? Maybe sometimes, but it's actually that's
Speaker 5: not the biggest problem. Like the biggest problem is like
Speaker 5: we don't study it, Like why don't we study it totally?
Speaker 5: Because we don't think it's important. We don't think it's
Speaker 5: important that millions and millions of people with uteruses are
Speaker 5: in pain. We just don't think that's really important as
Speaker 5: a culture, as a society.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then so when we were talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: having you come on the podcast and what movie to examine,
Speaker 2: you were interested in talking about a movie that like
Speaker 2: directly and explicitly addresses the fact that people have periods.
Speaker 2: And there were so few movies and the movie we're
Speaker 2: talking about today is one of.
Speaker 3: The few, and it's recent and like recent, it's I'm
Speaker 3: so excited to get into like the history of like
Speaker 3: how long it took this movie to be made, because
Speaker 3: it took literally fifty years. Like if it was made
Speaker 3: after it was published, it wouldn't be a period piece
Speaker 3: from a like it's a period piece and a period
Speaker 3: period okay, from half a century ago though, like it
Speaker 3: is just I'm just like glad Judy Bloom got to
Speaker 3: see it made cause I know, jeez, Louise.
Speaker 4: It's wild.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are I actually just I did a whole
Speaker 5: episode on why there aren't more period mentions in any
Speaker 5: kind of media, like we think of film and TV,
Speaker 5: but also like podcasts, like there's actually not for a
Speaker 5: medium that like talks about personal experience constantly like there's
Speaker 5: not much out there about periods, and then even social media,
Speaker 5: you search for like period cramps on TikTok and you
Speaker 5: get very little. And it's like why there are different
Speaker 5: reasons that there are different obstacles in each of these
Speaker 5: forms of media, but like.
Speaker 4: Why if it.
Speaker 5: I'll throw some stats out there to like show why
Speaker 5: it's so crazy. Ninety percent of menstruating people experience period
Speaker 5: pain some kind of period pain, which the medical term
Speaker 5: for that is dysmenteria. And thirty percent of menstruating people
Speaker 5: experience severe period pain, meaning pain that is bad enough
Speaker 5: that you cannot go about your daily routine like what
Speaker 5: you would normally be doing. And so thirty percent of
Speaker 5: menstruating people's that millions of people's that's.
Speaker 4: Like in the world.
Speaker 5: That's like back of the Napkin math that I did
Speaker 5: by myself. So it's not you know, don't don't quote
Speaker 5: me on it, but.
Speaker 3: This isn't a math show.
Speaker 5: That's fine, Yeah, but thirty percent of menstruating people worldwide
Speaker 5: is about five.
Speaker 4: Hundred and twenty two million people, So that's like over
Speaker 4: half a billion people.
Speaker 5: Third in severe pain multiple times a year, like not
Speaker 5: just once in a while.
Speaker 2: But like a lot frequently.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and yet we don't like it is not talk
Speaker 5: about Yeah no.
Speaker 3: And it still feels like I mean, I and this
Speaker 3: like extends to so many areas of medical study, but
Speaker 3: because it's still so dominated by men. There are so
Speaker 3: many areas of medicine I mean very often with I mean,
Speaker 3: you could extend it to trans people, you could extend
Speaker 3: it to I mean people with wombs. Definitely. It's just
Speaker 3: like the studies won't exist unless you can monetize them
Speaker 3: in a way that like satisfies that machine. I like,
Speaker 3: this is sort of a tangent, but I recently talks
Speaker 3: to someone who had their doctorate in smell studies, like
Speaker 3: old factory studies. She's really cool, and she is talking
Speaker 3: about how like she was like publicly mocked on the
Speaker 3: internet for having this PhD because no one cares about funding.
Speaker 3: A sense that the vast majority of people deal with
Speaker 3: every single day, that there are all these misunderstandings about
Speaker 3: literally affects everyone, but no one cares unless the only
Speaker 3: way you can get funding is if it's going to
Speaker 3: sell perfumer candles. And I feel like with menstruating people,
Speaker 3: it's like, well, can it sell a product and if not,
Speaker 3: we don't care. And suffering is an assumed part of
Speaker 3: having a uterus.
Speaker 5: You're like, oh, but it goes so much deeper than that,
Speaker 5: because like, Okay, there's five hundred and twenty two people
Speaker 5: worldwide in severe pain like multiple times a year, up
Speaker 5: to twelve times a year, and like, my take is
Speaker 5: I would pay any amount of money for a medication
Speaker 5: that would help me not be in pain that would
Speaker 5: actually work, and so would probably most of those five
Speaker 5: hundred and twenty two million people. And yet why is
Speaker 5: the pharmaceutic There's like, no, there's no markets that are
Speaker 5: that big in the pharmaceutical industry anymore. Like this is
Speaker 5: like cure the common cold kind of like opportunity and.
Speaker 4: They're just like, oh no, thank you, Like might all exists?
Speaker 3: Yucky?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but it's it isn't really about that, like it, yes,
Speaker 5: there's the profit motive, but there's also just like do
Speaker 5: we give a shit about that? Are there women in
Speaker 5: these pharmaceutical companies like making the decisions about where the
Speaker 5: research funding is going to go? Is there knowledge that
Speaker 5: this many people are in this much pain and desperate
Speaker 5: for a solution?
Speaker 4: I don't know, probably not I'm not a pharmaceutical person, right.
Speaker 2: Well, another little kind of tangent is that we recently
Speaker 2: on an episode, talked about how I was about to
Speaker 2: have a hysterectomy. I since had that hysterectomy, and so
Speaker 2: far it's only been about two months, but I haven't
Speaker 2: had period pain since, so it seems to be doing
Speaker 2: the trick. But I paid out of pocket nearly six
Speaker 2: thousand dollars for the surgery the hospital build my insurance.
Speaker 2: Guess how much money for the hysterectomy. One hundred thirty
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was like, what the fuck I have
Speaker 2: to pay six thousand dollars. I was like, well, I
Speaker 2: guess I don't have to pay one hundred and thirty
Speaker 2: seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's like it's obscene, and it's the only
Speaker 2: thing that I've found be like a satisfactory resolution to
Speaker 2: my horrible period pain. Yeah, because I was on birth
Speaker 2: control for many, many years and it did do a
Speaker 2: lot to reduce or eliminate my pain, but I had
Speaker 2: side effects from the birth control, so I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't want that. So, you know, I already talked
Speaker 2: at length about it on that other episode, But yeah,
Speaker 2: it is. It's just such a fucking nightmare for so
Speaker 2: many people.
Speaker 5: I know you talked on that other episode because I
Speaker 5: just listened to it about this and about like suspected endometriosis,
Speaker 5: and so I I, over the last year have paid
Speaker 5: over ten thousand dollars out of pocket just to get
Speaker 5: a diagnosis, not even an official diagnosis, but like a
Speaker 5: diagnosis of suspected endometriosis. After twenty two years of having
Speaker 5: exactly the symptoms of endometriosis and asking dozens of doctors
Speaker 5: about it, I had to pay out of pocket so
Speaker 5: much money to see a specialist because edometriosis specialists don't
Speaker 5: take insurance generally, because insurance doesn't reimburse properly for that treatment.
Speaker 2: And I wonder why that might be.
Speaker 3: Almost like they don't give it.
Speaker 5: Yeah there, but my question is so like and then
Speaker 5: the other part of the ten thousand dollars was on
Speaker 5: like pelvic floor physical therapy and all the other things
Speaker 5: that you know, like a nutritionist that is supposed to
Speaker 5: help you be able to like eat more, anti inflammatory
Speaker 5: and like all these things that your insurance doesn't cover.
Speaker 4: Who knows if they help or not. You know, it's
Speaker 4: not linear.
Speaker 5: But like my question is, did they end up finding
Speaker 5: endometriosis when they did your hysterectomy or adnomiosis?
Speaker 2: Yes? Both?
Speaker 4: Okay, so that explains it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I also didn't have an official diagnosis of
Speaker 2: endometriosis because they have to do a whole other surgery
Speaker 2: to even officially diagnose it. But they just took my
Speaker 2: word for it. They're like, oh, you've had this horrible
Speaker 2: pain for your entire like adolescent and adult life, and
Speaker 2: you don't want to have children. Great, we believe you
Speaker 2: about both things. Here's your surgery. That'll be one hundred
Speaker 2: bazillion dollars case. Yeah, but like I.
Speaker 3: Meant, that was the best case scenario after years of
Speaker 3: fighting for.
Speaker 2: It, right exactly. But yeah, they discovered not as much
Speaker 2: endometrisis as I thought I might have, but they did
Speaker 2: find some lesions. And then they also did they like,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know, cut my uterus open.
Speaker 4: Right right, they did an autopsy on your uterus?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, basically, Also, okay, this might just be the
Speaker 2: most like tangenty episode ever. But so Jamie, you were
Speaker 2: kind enough to pick me up from the hospital after
Speaker 2: my surgery, and I was like so loopy and in
Speaker 2: so much pain. They like definitely did not keep me
Speaker 2: at the hospital long enough. No, they didn't.
Speaker 3: They literally like catapulted you into into our back seat.
Speaker 3: And then I was like ah, and.
Speaker 2: I was like crying in the backseat because I was
Speaker 2: in so much pain. They didn't give me adequate pain killers.
Speaker 2: Like it was it was a nightmare. But I knew.
Speaker 3: I knew that you weren't doing well because you asked
Speaker 3: me to turn down the Moon and Roots soundtrack, which
Speaker 3: has never happened before.
Speaker 2: I only have the vaguest memory of that. I do
Speaker 2: have a clearer memory of you phrasing an aspect of
Speaker 2: my surgery as I gave birth to my own uterus,
Speaker 2: because so they they removed my cervix, they pulled my
Speaker 2: uterus out through my vagina, and so I gave birth
Speaker 2: to my own uterus, and then they sewed the top
Speaker 2: of my vagina shut. Just awesome stuff happening all around.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that all hurt a lot, and so I
Speaker 2: was crying.
Speaker 4: But that's like the way, that's like the easiest recovery.
Speaker 5: That's what I've heard. Is that like because they don't.
Speaker 5: They don't have to cut you open. So you're like
Speaker 5: not healing from all that, you're just.
Speaker 2: I mean have I did have some like laparoscopically done
Speaker 2: tiny little incisions on my abdomen. They're already like healed.
Speaker 2: Everything's good there. But yeah, anyway, so they did an
Speaker 2: autopsy on the uterus that I gave birth to, and
Speaker 2: it was discovered that I have what's it called adenomiosis.
Speaker 5: Atomiosis is where which where that well, you say, you're
Speaker 5: the one that I just had you, but it's.
Speaker 2: Basically where your uterine lining that should be, you know,
Speaker 2: inside the you know, empty part of your uterus that
Speaker 2: it grows and then it sheds during menstruation. That uterine
Speaker 2: lining grows within the walls, like it's kind of embedded
Speaker 2: within the walls.
Speaker 4: In the muscle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I suspect that's what was probably causing me
Speaker 2: so much pain all those years. Yeah, because again they
Speaker 2: found endometriosis, but it wasn't super severe. But yeah, the
Speaker 2: I don'tomiosis, it's a bitch. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 5: I've had A don'tomiosis described to me as Endo's nasty sister.
Speaker 5: Oh okay, but also described to me as fudge ripple
Speaker 5: ice cream, where the fudge is the because they're trying
Speaker 5: to describe like how the endometrial tissue is like inside
Speaker 5: the muscle, and they're like, it looks like fudge ripple
Speaker 5: ice cream, like, but the fudge is the end because
Speaker 5: it bleeds inside and so it leaves these like stripes
Speaker 5: and like swollen parts of the muscle.
Speaker 4: And it's like, yeah, that sounds like it fucking hurts.
Speaker 3: Like I will never look at fudge ripple the same
Speaker 3: way again.
Speaker 4: I know that doctor did ruin that for me. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, So back to Judy bloom Slash.
Speaker 3: Are you there so interesting? I'm like, okay, fine, I
Speaker 3: guess I'll talk about that. It's a good movie.
Speaker 5: Oh but also the one thing it is a good
Speaker 5: thing to talk about because the WHO estimates that one
Speaker 5: in ten people with uteruses has endometriosis.
Speaker 2: Huge number of people, yes.
Speaker 5: Huge number of people, and it is there is a
Speaker 5: an average delay in diagnosis of seven to ten years
Speaker 5: between the onset of symptoms and actually getting a diagnosis
Speaker 5: when it is diagnosed at all. So this is extremely
Speaker 5: important to talk about because if someone has severe period
Speaker 5: pain and has had it most of their life. They
Speaker 5: probably have endometriosis, but it's probably going to take them
Speaker 5: years to get it diagnosed and treated because also the
Speaker 5: treatment that we have for it is surgery, which is
Speaker 5: expensive and often not covered or reimbursed by surgery. And
Speaker 5: also that surgery guess what it's really good at, and
Speaker 5: guess what it's really not good at? Tell us really
Speaker 5: good at restoring fertility, really bad at taking away pain?
Speaker 2: Oh, I wonder why you have again, o, people of
Speaker 2: viewters is only valued for their ability to reproduce and
Speaker 2: bear children. And do we not give a shit about
Speaker 2: their pain at all? Hmmm?
Speaker 3: Well, and also I mean not for nothing, even if
Speaker 3: you do want kids, that doesn't mean that you, like
Speaker 3: you shouldn't be in constant pain. Like it's like it's
Speaker 3: not even it's it just drives me. And like speaking
Speaker 3: to your point, Kate, like two of my closest friends
Speaker 3: of and Caitlin you are one of them, has been
Speaker 3: like stuff tremendously with endo for years. And Caitlin, it
Speaker 3: took you years to be able to get the hysterectomy done.
Speaker 3: And then my other friend, you know, she was only
Speaker 3: able to find out that she had ended up metriosis
Speaker 3: because she had to have a different procedure done. And
Speaker 3: they're like, oh, also we found this, and she was like, well,
Speaker 3: at least something like I know, but thanks for the confirmation,
Speaker 3: and that's the only way that she's gotten, you know,
Speaker 3: any treatment cleared.
Speaker 5: I also feel like there's so little validation given. Like
Speaker 5: one thing I learned doing the podcast talking to a
Speaker 5: pain scientist, like like a pain specialist who is a
Speaker 5: psychologist who specializes in like how the brain processes and
Speaker 5: like feels pain. Did this incredible study where there were
Speaker 5: these young women who experienced all experienced period pain, severe
Speaker 5: period pain. She brought them together in a group and
Speaker 5: did basically like group therapy where they all like shared
Speaker 5: about their experiences. They gave them some education and some
Speaker 5: like coping strategy jeez, but it was all like basically
Speaker 5: just them talking to each other, and they found that
Speaker 5: their pain level when they self reported their pain levels
Speaker 5: after these sessions for up to a year afterwards, they
Speaker 5: reported lower pain.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 5: So literally our brain And it makes sense if you
Speaker 5: think about like our brains, if we feel like we
Speaker 5: are alone in our pain, like there is no one
Speaker 5: there to support us, like no one believes us like
Speaker 5: we're in pain and we don't know why, and that's scary.
Speaker 5: Our brains are going to escalate those pain signals. Our
Speaker 5: brains don't like that experience. They're going to be like,
Speaker 5: something's really wrong. You're feeling all these negative emotions as well.
Speaker 5: That hurts more. And so like the fact that we
Speaker 5: are not taken seriously at the doctor when we are
Speaker 5: talking about our period pain, the fact that we're not
Speaker 5: given explanations that it doesn't seem important to say like, hey,
Speaker 5: here's why you're in pain, here's what is hurting, and
Speaker 5: here are some things you can do. Those all actually
Speaker 5: make our pain worse. And the taboo against talking about
Speaker 5: our periods, the way we are trained to not talk
Speaker 5: even to each other about our periods, actually makes us
Speaker 5: be in more pain.
Speaker 2: And a lot a big part of all of this
Speaker 2: is the lack of media representation and the lack of
Speaker 2: just normalization of menstruating and the side effects that come
Speaker 2: along with it, including pain. Because again, like we were like,
Speaker 2: which movies could we do? Well, there's Carrie and we've
Speaker 2: already done it, but.
Speaker 3: It's like we've done it, and also what can we
Speaker 3: take away? It was like.
Speaker 2: Horrible scary trauma associated with periods. There's a couple movies
Speaker 2: that kind of half explicitly acknowledged periods, but also they're
Speaker 2: sort of metaphorical as far as turning red and ginger
Speaker 2: snaps where it's like puberty turns you into.
Speaker 3: An animal, which and also we've also already covered those too,
Speaker 3: and we have all to cover those. There's only so
Speaker 3: many like that's it, right, wild.
Speaker 5: And I feel like, I like, I feel like those
Speaker 5: metaphoric things are like they're so great and I love
Speaker 5: them and I'm glad that they're out there.
Speaker 4: But I'm also like I want to talk.
Speaker 5: Literally, like I want to speak very specifically about this.
Speaker 3: I really love. I mean, this is like I guess
Speaker 3: starting to get into the movie, but I really love.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember ever really being like this. I
Speaker 3: mean I remember being like when, well, we'll talk about it,
Speaker 3: but like, I do like that these these young girls
Speaker 3: are very charmingly obsessed with their periods and they're like
Speaker 3: where is it?
Speaker 2: Like there would not relate.
Speaker 3: I love the intensity. The intensity of a twelve year
Speaker 3: old is just like unmatched, unmatched.
Speaker 5: This captured it so well, that intensity, and like both
Speaker 5: being terrified of it and being like, but I wanted
Speaker 5: to have in right now, but I need it.
Speaker 3: And then yeah, and then like you know, you're whoever
Speaker 3: in your life is like helping you through that, you're
Speaker 3: or you're like your mom being like no rush, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it kinda sucks so bad forever. But anyways, anyways, should
Speaker 3: we should we get into our history with the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, so' so Kate, tell us about your yeah,
Speaker 2: relationship with the source material if any the movie, et cetera.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So I definitely had Judy Blue. I know that
Speaker 5: I like read Judy Blue books. I was a big reader,
Speaker 5: Like when I was a kid, I lived on top
Speaker 5: of a mountain in May. No, it was for it
Speaker 5: was for sad reasons. Nothing. It was because we didn't
Speaker 5: have cable and I was only allowed one hour of
Speaker 5: TV or no, I was allowed half an hour of
Speaker 5: TV a day and mostly we just got PBS.
Speaker 4: And so it was like, Kaitlin, you're similar similar.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, so we got two channel, we got three channels.
Speaker 5: One of them came in clearly and it was BBS.
Speaker 5: And so it was just like me and so I
Speaker 5: read a lot, but I was more of like a
Speaker 5: red wall Narnia kid like more on the fantasy side,
Speaker 5: and so these like the Judy Bloom I read them
Speaker 5: because I read everything, but I was just kind of like, okay,
Speaker 5: like there's not a lot of talking mice in this,
Speaker 5: so I'm not really into it. But I do think
Speaker 5: that was partly because my parents are hippies and were
Speaker 5: very like upfront with me and like straight shooters when
Speaker 5: it came to like, oh, here's what's gonna happen when
Speaker 5: you get your period. Oh here's why this happens. Like
Speaker 5: my parents would like walk around naked after showers like
Speaker 5: air drying, and it was just sort of like that
Speaker 5: was not something that I was like curious about in
Speaker 5: that way where I was just like, I think for
Speaker 5: people who didn't have that kind of like openness in
Speaker 5: their family, I think Judy Bloom books were like way
Speaker 5: more important.
Speaker 4: And then the movie.
Speaker 5: I'd never seen it before, but I knew that it
Speaker 5: had come out, and when I was researching for Cramped,
Speaker 5: I didn't.
Speaker 4: Know this, but are you there, God, it's me.
Speaker 5: Margaret is one of the most banned books just because
Speaker 5: it talks openly about periods and the people getting their
Speaker 5: periods are not like traumatized.
Speaker 4: They're they're like, it's like positive, like to this day.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think we're going to see another round
Speaker 3: of this book being banned or an escalation on bands
Speaker 3: that already exist. It's just like ridiculous.
Speaker 5: Well, they're trying to pass bills in Florida that are
Speaker 5: like you can't say the word period in school, like shit.
Speaker 3: Like but what if you're what if you need to
Speaker 3: write a sentence? We don't know, we don't know.
Speaker 2: Just said, yeah, Jamie, how about you? What's your situation.
Speaker 3: I a very specific relationship with Judy Bloom books. I
Speaker 3: was also a huge reader as a kid. I'm bragging.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm a big reader to this day. I love
Speaker 3: reading books and I reread anti intellectual Uh there. I
Speaker 3: reread because it's a quick read when you're an adult woman.
Speaker 3: But I reread are you there? God it to me
Speaker 3: Margaret yesterday because I remember, I don't like specific. I
Speaker 3: know that I read it. I think I read like
Speaker 3: every Judy Bloom book that was available, including her book
Speaker 3: for adults Summer Sisters.
Speaker 2: And we just talked about this on another episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because we've both read it and I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is for me, but then it was juicy, so
Speaker 3: I kept going. And then also, there's another Judy Bloom
Speaker 3: adult book that I learned about yesterday that I was like, well,
Speaker 3: why haven't I Maybe it was banned at my library,
Speaker 3: but she wrote another her first Anyway, I read the book,
Speaker 3: and I watched a documentary that came out a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago about Judy Bloom. So I'm just like
Speaker 3: riding high on Judy Fumes.
Speaker 2: But her first, Wow, Judy Flume.
Speaker 3: I've just I've just like mainlined Judy all yesterday to
Speaker 3: the point where I was like, oh, yeah, I have
Speaker 3: to watch the movie we're talking about. But yeah, so
Speaker 3: she her first like novel for adults was called Wifey
Speaker 3: and it was about like she wrote it suspiciously right
Speaker 3: before she left her husband, and it was about like
Speaker 3: cheating on your husband. And everyone was so scandalized and
Speaker 3: they're like, Judy Bloom's career is over and then guess
Speaker 3: what she It wasn't like it was a super bestseller,
Speaker 3: and everyone was like more horny adult Judy Bloom. But
Speaker 3: my Judy Bloom book. And I literally had I think
Speaker 3: at one point, and I hated her for a while,
Speaker 3: even though I'd read so many of her books. I
Speaker 3: liked her books for kids. The Fudge books are super fun.
Speaker 4: Yes, I loved her.
Speaker 3: Yes, like her. She writes for literally every age level,
Speaker 3: so well, it's like amazing. But I loved the Fudge books.
Speaker 3: And then I read are You There Got It's Me Margaret.
Speaker 3: And then when I was Margaret's age, like eleven twelve,
Speaker 3: I got diagnosed I don't even know, with scoliosis. And
Speaker 3: then I received five trillion copies of the book DEENI,
Speaker 3: and it made me want to fucking rip my head.
Speaker 3: For a while, I was a Judy Bloom fan, and
Speaker 3: then I was a Judy Bloom hater because I'm like,
Speaker 3: if another aunt gives me a copy of fucking Demie,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna suffocate myself with my own back price. Like
Speaker 3: I just really hated And I mean I read it
Speaker 3: the first time. I was but then I still like
Speaker 3: in the I kept them all out of sight. I
Speaker 3: have so many different additions, Like my aunt was like,
Speaker 3: I have the first edition and then they're like, here's
Speaker 3: the one with a new cover, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 3: someone fucking talk to me about the fact that it
Speaker 3: sucks to wear a back brace. But they're like, no,
Speaker 3: here's Deanie. But that is the beauty and the function
Speaker 3: of Judy Blue, I think for a lot of young
Speaker 3: people of all genders, is like and I remember another
Speaker 3: Judy Blue book that really stuck with me was Blubber,
Speaker 3: which was about I mean not I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: you could hope for a different title, but it was
Speaker 3: about a girl being bullied for her weight in the seventies.
Speaker 3: But it's told from the perspective of someone who's friends
Speaker 3: with the bullies but is afraid to stand up to them.
Speaker 3: And like, I remember being really impacted by that because
Speaker 3: you're like, oh my god, the protagonist of this book
Speaker 3: is like kind of evil, but also it could so
Speaker 3: easily be me to be afraid to stand up to
Speaker 3: people like I. Her books are amazing. Deanie can suck
Speaker 3: it because also the thing with Danie, you know that
Speaker 3: was a book. Yeah, well, because you didn't have scoliosis, Caitlin.
Speaker 3: Every person with scoliosis knows who fucking Deanie is and
Speaker 3: the problem with Deanie and it's not you know, I'm
Speaker 3: sure that I hope that there's other books about young
Speaker 3: girls with scoliosis now, because it you know, disproportionately affects,
Speaker 3: says girls because they grow fast. Whatever. But it just
Speaker 3: I hated that bitch so much because the thing with
Speaker 3: Deanie was her character was like, she was so beautiful
Speaker 3: and she was going to be a model, but then
Speaker 3: she got a back brace and she had to like
Speaker 3: develop a personality. And my take on Deani at the
Speaker 3: time was like, oh, congratulations on being so fucking hot, Deani,
Speaker 3: because some of us didn't start that far ahead. Some
Speaker 3: of us looked weird and then they got a back brace. Anyways,
Speaker 3: I had a real bone to pick with Deani for
Speaker 3: many years. I should go back and reread it, but whatever,
Speaker 3: did I have something else to yell about it with
Speaker 3: regards to Deanie? Uh oh oh, yes, that the thing
Speaker 3: that actually stuck with me with Deanie. That turns out
Speaker 3: and I want to talk a bit more about Judy
Speaker 3: Bloom Loore because I learned all about I mean, the
Speaker 3: entire Reagan administration was like, we've got to kill Judy Bloom.
Speaker 3: We're gonna kill her, and meanwhile, she's like the sweetest
Speaker 3: person in the whole world. The documentary was myth But
Speaker 3: something that I thought was really beautiful about it was
Speaker 3: that kids would write to her that felt like they
Speaker 3: couldn't talk to their own parents or the adults in
Speaker 3: their lives, and she would respond, and like she became
Speaker 3: a pen pal for some of her young readers, for
Speaker 3: like I'm Gonna Cry for like twenty years, and she
Speaker 3: like went to there was this girl, Laurie Kim, and
Speaker 3: she like had all of these like you know, very
Speaker 3: normal problems growing up. But then she had a bad
Speaker 3: relationship with her parents. And she wrote Judy bloom when
Speaker 3: she was going to graduate from college and she was like,
Speaker 3: will you come instead? And Judy bloom went, It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: like she's just so great. Anyways, the scene that about
Speaker 3: Deanie that was the reason the book was banned Hot
Speaker 3: Girls with Scoliosis is that's okay, we're not going to
Speaker 3: ban that from the library. But there's a scene in
Speaker 3: Deanie I remember so specifically where Deanie masturbates and she
Speaker 3: like figures out what masturbation is. It's literally a page,
Speaker 3: but it's the book was banned for the entire Reakud
Speaker 3: administration because they're like, Deanie cannot be masturbating anyways, Big
Speaker 3: Judy Bloomhead fucked Deanie. But I'm glad that she she
Speaker 3: Deani literally taught me how to masturbate. How embarrassing is that?
Speaker 4: What a like? What a perfect?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 5: Your aunts are giving you this like scoliosis book and
Speaker 5: you're like, fuck you, I'm gonna learn masturbation.
Speaker 3: Uh it was I'm trying to remember how I want to.
Speaker 3: I should reread Deanie, but it just stills me with
Speaker 3: like twelve year old rage. But it like described masturbation
Speaker 3: in a way that like actually made sense to me.
Speaker 3: It wasn't like I am Deani and I am going
Speaker 3: to masturbate. It was like I have this feeling and
Speaker 3: then I do this. I was like, I do that
Speaker 3: and you're like, wait, there's a name for it. So
Speaker 3: Judy Blum is awesome. And if your family is afraid
Speaker 3: to talk to you about your own body, I feel
Speaker 3: like she to this day is a very useful source. Caitlin,
Speaker 3: what's your history with this book and with Judy Bloom?
Speaker 2: I was also a big reader as a youth.
Speaker 3: Look at us, look at us?
Speaker 5: Shocking that three reader girls became podcaster? Wow shocking, no one?
Speaker 2: But yeah, I loved Judy bloom books. I also really
Speaker 2: enjoyed the Fudge books and then I'm guessing my mom
Speaker 2: put are you there? God is me? Margaret in my hands,
Speaker 2: and she's like, read this because it.
Speaker 3: Was like books of our mom's generation.
Speaker 2: Right right right. And I read it, And obviously this
Speaker 2: was like thirty years ago, so I barely remember it.
Speaker 2: But the one thing I do remember is not being
Speaker 2: able to relate at all to Margaret being excited about
Speaker 2: the prospect of having her period. Okay, because I think
Speaker 2: I read this, Yeah, I definitely read this before I
Speaker 2: got my period, and I was I was dreading it
Speaker 2: like I knew what a period was. It did not
Speaker 2: seem pleasant. I was not interested in getting it, and
Speaker 2: you're right, and I think I just like instinctively knew
Speaker 2: how bad my periods were going to be. I don't know,
Speaker 2: but I had my period for like six months before
Speaker 2: I admitted to anyone, like my friends at least, that
Speaker 2: I had it. I was like in denial. I was like, no,
Speaker 2: that's just blood that comes out of my body every month.
Speaker 2: There's not my period. I could not handle the fact
Speaker 2: that I got my period. I did not want it
Speaker 2: at all. And now I don't have it anymore, yay.
Speaker 2: But anyway, but otherwise I think I really enjoyed the book,
Speaker 2: and I am that I related to Margaret's, you know,
Speaker 2: journey around figuring out her religious identity or perhaps lack
Speaker 2: thereof that kind of like spiritual journey, because I was
Speaker 2: raised without religion as well, and I got like bullied
Speaker 2: for it in my like conservative small town, and so
Speaker 2: I imagine that was something that I connected with. But yeah,
Speaker 2: Judy Bloom Rocks we talked about this recently, Jamie, but
Speaker 2: we I read Forever, and that book taught me about sex,
Speaker 2: and then Somemer sisters taught me even more about sex.
Speaker 3: I never read Forever, but when they were recapping it, and
Speaker 3: the documentary is on Prime unfortunately, but it's there, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, Forever's dirty. And they were like
Speaker 3: these like when Judy Bloom was doing signings, and it's
Speaker 3: like all these young people who were like, I want
Speaker 3: to know how sex works. She would tak she would
Speaker 3: have like a little conversations with them at the front
Speaker 3: where she's like, how does your family feel about you
Speaker 3: buying this book? And they would either be like they
Speaker 3: have no idea or like they feel okay because they
Speaker 3: don't want to tell me what sex is. And she's
Speaker 3: like okay, but like its just she just seems like
Speaker 3: the coolest person in the world.
Speaker 5: She seems like she genuinely cares that like right, but
Speaker 5: like young girls know something about something, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like never wavered on that, and I just
Speaker 3: think that that's so cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like that.
Speaker 5: She doesn't seem like she has an agenda. She's not
Speaker 5: trying to like push any specific like way of thinking
Speaker 5: about things other than just like here's information and like
Speaker 5: here's how this girl feels about it, and here's how
Speaker 5: this girl feels about it, and that's okay, like right.
Speaker 2: Which has a very normalizing effect, and that's what we
Speaker 2: need from media. The other thing. So this movie, I
Speaker 2: didn't see it right when it came out, but I actually,
Speaker 2: funny story, I had plans to see it with two
Speaker 2: of my friends. Let's put a pin in that I
Speaker 2: had to bail at the last minute because I had
Speaker 2: such bad period cramps. The three of us went to
Speaker 2: Denny's together and I started feeling really really horrible, and
Speaker 2: I like had I went to the bathroom did my
Speaker 2: business there, but I was like, guys, I have to
Speaker 2: bail on the movie. I'm so sorry. So they took
Speaker 2: me home and I missed the movie. But the reason
Speaker 2: me and these two friends we're gonna go is that, Okay,
Speaker 2: you know when you're in a little group chat, and
Speaker 2: the group chat has a funny little name. My group
Speaker 2: chat with these two friends is called the Margarets. Oh,
Speaker 2: named after the book because this was before the movie
Speaker 2: came out. But the reason we're called the Margarets is
Speaker 2: because we So it's my friend Sammy friend of the show,
Speaker 2: and my friend Nicki and I was at Sammy's house
Speaker 2: and we were like text pestering Nicky because she was
Speaker 2: supposed to arrive at Sammy's as well. She was late,
Speaker 2: and so we we're just like text bombing her, being
Speaker 2: like Nikki, where are you are you here? Yet? Where
Speaker 2: are you are you there? Nikki? It's us Margaret And
Speaker 2: then it just stuck and then we like renamed the
Speaker 2: group chat the Margarets, and that has been our name
Speaker 2: of our friendship for the past like eight years or something.
Speaker 4: That's so cool.
Speaker 3: I did not know. Yeah, it was like the new
Speaker 3: Lord just dropped. I did not I know of that
Speaker 3: group text, but I didn't know the lore.
Speaker 2: Wow, yeah, this is the Lord. So so this this uh,
Speaker 2: Margaret and the Margarets has a special place in my heart.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so yeah, I guess let's take a quick
Speaker 2: break and then.
Speaker 3: We'll We've been recording for forty minutes, so we'll if
Speaker 3: you read that, and.
Speaker 2: We haven't even started the recap. But here we are
Speaker 2: normalizing periods, so we're doing good work. But yeah, let's
Speaker 2: take a quick break and then we'll come right back.
Speaker 3: And we're back now that we're talking about periods. I
Speaker 3: know we have to recap the movie, but I was thinking,
Speaker 3: did I. I'm sure I've mentioned it on the show
Speaker 3: at some point in the last like almost ten years,
Speaker 3: but I got my period when I was in eighth grade.
Speaker 3: I think I was kind of ambivalent towards it, like
Speaker 3: I didn't feel one way or another. I was just
Speaker 3: wearing a back brace and trying to be invisible, and
Speaker 3: that was my job, so no one cared if I
Speaker 3: was bleeding. I was invisible. But I, because I was
Speaker 3: like kind of a little bit behind most of my friends,
Speaker 3: I kind of decided that I was never going to
Speaker 3: get my period and that I was going to be
Speaker 3: like married Magdalen, and I thought that like it, I
Speaker 3: was like a supernatural being who is never going to
Speaker 3: get their period, and like and that made me really powerful.
Speaker 3: And then I got it. And then I was like,
Speaker 3: did I just shit myself? And my mom was like no,
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2: I know that part of the story that you thought
Speaker 2: you getting your period was you shitting yourself.
Speaker 4: People think that that's the same thing.
Speaker 5: I had Wendy Zuckerman from Science Versus on and that
Speaker 5: is exactly what she said. Is she the first time
Speaker 5: she got her period? She thought she shot herself and
Speaker 5: the word shart in an Australian accent over and over
Speaker 5: and over again.
Speaker 3: That so funny, good, that is, I mean, I and
Speaker 3: it also I mean but like period commercialism, like you know,
Speaker 3: I'm sure that some people still are like is my
Speaker 3: period blue? Like what is this? But even though but
Speaker 3: I was expecting, like, you know, beautiful, like perfect primary
Speaker 3: color red and it so it makes sense that people
Speaker 3: think they shit themselves. It's yeah, it's just not everyone's experience. Yeah. Anyways,
Speaker 3: what happens in Are you there God to meet market
Speaker 3: all tell you?
Speaker 2: Okay, So it's nineteen seventy and eleven year old girl
Speaker 2: named Margaret played by Abby Ryder Forston comes home from
Speaker 2: summer camp back to her family in New York City
Speaker 2: ever heard of it? We meet Margaret's mom, Barbara played
Speaker 2: by Rachel McAdams, her dad herb played by Benny Saftie,
Speaker 2: as well as her paternal grandmother Sylvia. It's like by
Speaker 2: Kathy Bade's question mark of Unsinkable Molly Brown fame. Margaret
Speaker 2: soon learns that she and her parents will be moving
Speaker 2: to New Jersey, something that Margaret deeply resents, so she
Speaker 2: prays to God, seemingly for the first time, because we'll
Speaker 2: learn that she was not raised with any religion, and
Speaker 2: she says, are you there, God, it's me Margaret. Hey,
Speaker 2: that's the name of the movie. And she says, please
Speaker 2: stop this move to New Jersey from happening, or at
Speaker 2: the very least, please make it so that New Jersey
Speaker 2: doesn't suck too bad. God does not stop the move,
Speaker 2: so Margaret and her family arrive in Jersey. A girl
Speaker 2: from the neighborhood named Nancy invites Margaret over, so they're
Speaker 2: hanging out. Nancy common on Margaret's flat chest and she
Speaker 2: boasts that she's already started growing bosoms. Nancy also asks
Speaker 2: if Margaret has ever kissed a boy. She admits that
Speaker 2: she hasn't either, but she practices a lot on her bedpost.
Speaker 2: Then Nancy's older brother, Evan, and his friend Moose show up.
Speaker 3: We just never in neither the book nor the movie,
Speaker 3: we never question the name Moose.
Speaker 5: It's literally it's like Margaret, Nancy, Evan Moose, Like they
Speaker 5: call him that at school, Like I guess we don't
Speaker 5: see his teachers call him that, but that's the.
Speaker 3: Feeling you get that they also call him Moose. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's very seventies in a way where it's very how
Speaker 3: I imagine the seventies, Like, yeah, they were just kids
Speaker 3: named Moose. They would mow your lawn.
Speaker 2: I don't know, Yeah, certainly, And so Margaret seems to
Speaker 2: take a liking to Moose. Nancy then invites Margaret to
Speaker 2: join her secret club, in which they cannot wear socks.
Speaker 3: Nancy's a freak the no socks thing.
Speaker 5: Did Like, I loved that because it was I remember
Speaker 5: in seventh grade, I like had a new group of
Speaker 5: friends and they all wore like the Adidas with the
Speaker 5: three stripes, and I was like, I have to get
Speaker 5: these shoes, mom, And then my mom bought me like
Speaker 5: the knockoffs with four stripes, and I was like.
Speaker 3: No, that was I think. My thing in middle school
Speaker 3: was live strong bracelets. You had to have a live
Speaker 3: strong bracelet or you were not living strong.
Speaker 2: So true, so true. Anyway, Margaret complies to the no
Speaker 2: sock rule and she lives to regret it. But Margaret
Speaker 2: returns home and she talks slash praise to God again
Speaker 2: and asks God to make her boobs grow. Then it's
Speaker 2: the first day of sixth grade at her new school.
Speaker 2: Margaret meets the other girls in the Secret Club, Jane
Speaker 2: and Gretchen. Also in their class is a boy who
Speaker 2: all the girls think is cute named Philip Lee Roy.
Speaker 2: There's another boy who they all think is like dweeby
Speaker 2: Norman Fisher. And then there's also a girl who is
Speaker 2: far taller and more developed than mostly everyone else, and
Speaker 2: her name is Laura Danker, who has a reputation because
Speaker 2: she lets boys feel her up behind the A and
Speaker 2: P supermarket, or at least that's the rumor that Nancy spreads.
Speaker 2: Laura innocence truly yes, And they also meet their teacher,
Speaker 2: mister Benedict, and it's his first year teaching and he's
Speaker 2: nervous and he's nice and he's a good teacher. Anyway,
Speaker 2: after school is the first secret club meeting at Nancy House.
Speaker 2: Nancy establishes more rules in addition to the no sock rule,
Speaker 2: such as you have to wear a bra. If anyone
Speaker 2: gets their period, they have to tell the others about it.
Speaker 2: They have to make boy books and write about the
Speaker 2: boys that they like, which they have to show each other,
Speaker 2: and they can never lie about them, a rule that
Speaker 2: Margaret immediately breaks because she denies her crush on Moose.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, admitting that you're lusting after someone named
Speaker 3: Moose can't be an easy journey.
Speaker 2: This is true. Yes, that night, Margaret tells her mom
Speaker 2: that she wants to get a bra, and what I
Speaker 2: thought was a very cute scene where Margaret is super embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Barbara is like, are you sure you need one? Bras
Speaker 2: suck shit. It's like okay, mom, there, yeah, but she's like, yes,
Speaker 2: of course, we'll get you a bra. Because Barbara is
Speaker 2: a very sweet, tender, supportive mother, and.
Speaker 3: Rachel McAdams is so good in this part. I know that,
Speaker 3: Like when this movie came out, people were like she
Speaker 3: was snubbed for I was like, I agree. She was
Speaker 3: like I thought she did such a great job.
Speaker 5: Also, the costume designer was her enemy in this, like
Speaker 5: the clothes they put her in and the clothes they
Speaker 5: put Kathy Bates in. I was like, all the favors
Speaker 5: that they could have been doing for Rachel McAdams they
Speaker 5: were doing for Kathy Baits.
Speaker 3: And Kathy Bates was really turning some interesting looks in
Speaker 3: this movie. There's yeah, at very least I had my notes.
Speaker 3: I was like, at least they let Rachel McAdams have
Speaker 3: the coolest hairstyle available. Yes, like she did have the
Speaker 3: coolest seventies hair out of all of the mom's. Just
Speaker 3: like so many of these scenes, even though it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, we went through this decade later, I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I never had that first bra shopping experience.
Speaker 3: My aunt just slipped me. I had, like I remember
Speaker 3: my first bra had Winnie the Pooh on it, and
Speaker 3: I was like, I felt so infantilized. Wow, But I'm
Speaker 3: like better, why or that nothing? We'll take it.
Speaker 2: That's amazing, Okay. And then so speaking of Margaret's mom, Barbara,
Speaker 2: she's adjusting to being a stay at home mom. She's
Speaker 2: learning how to cook. She goes to a PTA meeting
Speaker 2: in volunteers to be a part of every school committee
Speaker 2: because she really wants to be like super involved with
Speaker 2: Margaret's life and everything. Then Margaret's teacher, mister Benedict, announces
Speaker 2: that they have to do this like year long research project,
Speaker 2: and he suggests to Margaret that she does hers on
Speaker 2: religion because she had said that she hates religious holidays
Speaker 2: and does not consider herself to be religious because even
Speaker 2: though her dad is Jewish and her mom is Christian again,
Speaker 2: they raised her without religion and they're letting her choose
Speaker 2: what religion she wants to be when she grows up.
Speaker 2: She also mentions that she has never met her maternal grandparents,
Speaker 2: so Margaret asks her mom about this, and Barbara reveals
Speaker 2: that her super Christian parents more or less disowned her
Speaker 2: when she married a Jewish man. And Margaret is appalled
Speaker 2: by this and wonders, like, what kind of awful people
Speaker 2: would do something like that, especially to someone as nice
Speaker 2: as her mom. And then Barbara's like, enough of that,
Speaker 2: Let's go bra shopping. Let's go Bra bra shopping. Barbara
Speaker 2: says that get it, whoa yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahs. And
Speaker 2: so Margaret gets her first bra, this little training bra,
Speaker 2: which is super uncomfortable, and Margaret cannot wait to take
Speaker 2: it off. But then there's a scene where she she
Speaker 2: like stuffs it with socks and dances around her room.
Speaker 2: It's very fun.
Speaker 4: Although I will say you're not allowed Matilda owns that song.
Speaker 4: Sorry you can't.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Will say one of my one of my few criticisms
Speaker 3: of this movie, pretty uncreative needle drops. I was underwhelmed
Speaker 3: by the seventies needle drops.
Speaker 2: Yeah, could have been a better soundtrack. Maybe they didn't
Speaker 2: have the budget.
Speaker 3: It's a I mean, that's an expensive song to get true.
Speaker 3: Yeah that Mattel the I agree, mauntil the perfected.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. So at the next secret Club meeting, the
Speaker 2: girls share their boy books and the three others, Nancy, Janey,
Speaker 2: and Gretchen all put Philip Leroy in their book. This
Speaker 2: is where like Margaret puts Moose, but she lies and
Speaker 2: she says she also put Philip le Roy. Then they
Speaker 2: compare brass sizes. Everyone has a training bra, except for Nancy,
Speaker 2: who says that she does an exercise to grow her boobs.
Speaker 2: So they all do the exercise together.
Speaker 4: For some reason, it involves screaming you.
Speaker 2: Have to chant, and the chant goes, I must, I must,
Speaker 2: I must increase my bust and we're like, exactly.
Speaker 3: Totally Nancy. I do feel like everyone knew a kid
Speaker 3: sort of like Nancy. It's just like she doesn't know
Speaker 3: what she's talking about, but she is always speaking the
Speaker 3: loudest and so like, I definitely like as a quiet kid,
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, I guess she she must.
Speaker 2: Must be right, Yeah, yeah, she's saying it loudly, yeah,
Speaker 2: so confidently. Yeah. So then Margaret goes to visit grandma
Speaker 2: Kathy Bates in the city. Margaret talks to God again
Speaker 2: and says that maybe she'll try to decide what religion
Speaker 2: she wants to be, so she asks her grandma if
Speaker 2: she can go to temple with her. So they go,
Speaker 2: but Margaret is pretty underwhelmed and she doesn't really feel
Speaker 2: the presence of God. She also intends to go to
Speaker 2: a Christian service to see what that's like. A couple
Speaker 2: scenes later, she goes with Janie and her family to
Speaker 2: their church.
Speaker 3: I appreciate representation of kids being like church regardless of religion,
Speaker 3: Like our religious services are boring when you're twelve. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like they're che there's just nothing to love.
Speaker 5: I had such a weird I like was watching her
Speaker 5: go to these to like services with friends and like
Speaker 5: try out different things.
Speaker 4: I like did that when I was a kid.
Speaker 3: I really well.
Speaker 4: It was mostly because I lived.
Speaker 5: Pretty far away from a lot of my friends and
Speaker 5: so if we did a sleepover on Saturday, it was like, well,
Speaker 5: you're going to church with us in the morning. And
Speaker 5: I remember like going to a Catholic. I was raised Quaker,
Speaker 5: which is also kind of nothing like it's mostly just
Speaker 5: being quiet and so like I didn't really have any
Speaker 5: like solid beliefs or anything. So I actually like related
Speaker 5: to this part a lot, and I would go to
Speaker 5: other services and just be like, I mean this is
Speaker 5: so cool, and like going to a Catholic one and
Speaker 5: like they were like you can't have a cracker and
Speaker 5: I was like why and they were like, you're not
Speaker 5: Gatholic and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, okay, Yeah. I grew up between a couple different
Speaker 3: faiths too, and never got to the finish line with
Speaker 3: any of them, and so whatever the snack was, I
Speaker 3: couldn't have it. You're like fuck.
Speaker 5: And it was always like it was always really interesting
Speaker 5: to like, go see how other people spend the time
Speaker 5: they don't want to spend a church in on a
Speaker 5: Sunday morning, But it was always like, well, I'd rather
Speaker 5: not do any of that.
Speaker 2: Actually, a very formative memory for me was going to
Speaker 2: a sleepover. The girl whose house it was stole the
Speaker 2: VHS of the porn movie that her parents had rented,
Speaker 2: so we watched it and we were like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: And it was the first time I ever saw like
Speaker 2: I didn't know what oral sex was, but I saw
Speaker 2: a blowjob being performed, and I was like, what's that? Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was like ten, I think. And then the next day,
Speaker 2: like they took all the people to sleep over to
Speaker 2: church and they like handed out bibles, and again, because
Speaker 2: I was raised not in religion at all, they hand
Speaker 2: me a Bible and they're like, okay, Caitlin turned to whatever,
Speaker 2: fucking Matthew whatever. And I didn't know how to cause
Speaker 2: it wasn't just like a page.
Speaker 3: Number, No, it's not an intuitive system, not fucking at all.
Speaker 2: So I had no idea how to find what page
Speaker 2: we were supposed to be on. And so I'm just
Speaker 2: sitting there for like what felt like hours just sort
Speaker 2: of like scrambling through the book, flipping through the pages,
Speaker 2: and then like my friend next to me had to
Speaker 2: like do it for me. But I like remember feeling
Speaker 2: so humiliated, and then I was like, fuck this religion
Speaker 2: for making me feel embarrassed. I'll never even consider it.
Speaker 3: God humiliated me today.
Speaker 4: What an educational twenty four hours for you?
Speaker 3: Truly, That's why it's such a formative memory for me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: that is so that God thinking about like weird sort
Speaker 3: of dirty stuff that you would do at sleepovers as
Speaker 3: a kid was so like, do you guys remember on
Speaker 3: like aim Smarter Child where it was literally a like
Speaker 3: proto AI, yes and you if you typed to it,
Speaker 3: it would type back. That was how I learned so
Speaker 3: many sexual words because I would go to my friend
Speaker 3: Rhyme's house. We would go to her house for sleepovers
Speaker 3: and she I think she was like, and I say
Speaker 3: this with love. She's kind of the nancy of our
Speaker 3: friend group, where she talked a lot.
Speaker 5: Every friend group needs a Nancy because otherwise nothing gets
Speaker 5: done exactly exactly.
Speaker 3: She talked a lot, but did she know what she
Speaker 3: was saying. But she would she would like make us
Speaker 3: gather around her like family's desktop computer after her parents
Speaker 3: went to sleep, and then would like send smarter child
Speaker 3: dirty messages and we'd be like whoa, and because smarter
Speaker 3: child will always respond like I cannot reply to that,
Speaker 3: and we're like oh. And then there was also a
Speaker 3: smarter child that was specifically Austin Powers three themed that
Speaker 3: would say that would say like, yeah, baby, I can't
Speaker 3: respond to that.
Speaker 2: That questions too randy. Well, speaking of kids getting into
Speaker 2: dirty little hijinks, Margaret and her friends look at a
Speaker 2: diagram of a penis in an anatomy textbook and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, why does it look like that? And
Speaker 2: then they also look at a Playboy magazine that belongs
Speaker 2: to Margaret's dad and they wonder if their boobs will
Speaker 2: ever look like they do in the Playboy magazine. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Margaret and everyone in her class get invited to a
Speaker 2: party thrown by Norman Fisher that like, quote unquote, doeebye kid.
Speaker 2: They all go to the party. They play Spin the Bottle,
Speaker 2: they play two Minutes in the Closet, which is basically
Speaker 2: seven minutes in Heaven. Margaret and Philip Leroy, the boy
Speaker 2: that everyone has a crush on, get matched up, and
Speaker 2: they go in the bathroom and he surprise kisses her.
Speaker 3: It's true, which is sort of what that whole game
Speaker 3: is predicated on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is very yucky, but like what eleven year
Speaker 2: olds were able to have conversations about consent in the
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that moment was the one where I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, I'm so embarrassed for the actor playing
Speaker 5: Philip leaving because it's just like a like a kid
Speaker 5: trying to be cool and.
Speaker 4: You're like stop.
Speaker 3: That's actually one of the moments that I think that
Speaker 3: the book out does the movie in where the book,
Speaker 3: I think, far better, is actually like more sort of
Speaker 3: thoughtful in its depiction of that, where like Margaret goes
Speaker 3: through this like she was like, well that was uncomfortable.
Speaker 3: I didn't love that, but I need to tell my
Speaker 3: friends that I loved that, which so I thought that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: the book was like a little more insightful because I
Speaker 3: feel like the movie just presents it as like, Wow,
Speaker 3: that was awesome, where like she actually has more of
Speaker 3: an internal dialogue.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the movie, it seems in the movie that
Speaker 2: she's like swooning over this kiss and her friends are jealous.
Speaker 2: So now Margaret has had her first kiss, but she
Speaker 2: still hasn't started growing boobs or gotten her period. Gretchen
Speaker 2: is the first of the group to get her period,
Speaker 2: and Margaret is so jealous. All she wants is to
Speaker 2: get her period so that she can be quote unquote
Speaker 2: normal like everybody else, and she's super worried that she
Speaker 2: will be a late bloomer.
Speaker 3: I like when Gretchen's like, everything's different, you wouldn't.
Speaker 2: So then Margaret and Janie go to a pharmacy and
Speaker 2: buy pads so that they can practice using them so
Speaker 2: they can be ready when the time comes. Then Nancy
Speaker 2: sends a postcard to Margaret saying that she got her period,
Speaker 2: but we find out that she was lying because she
Speaker 2: actually gets her period for the first time when she
Speaker 2: and Margaret are in the city seeing the rockets together.
Speaker 5: This is where I get very confused, because like timeline wise,
Speaker 5: there's this was like a montage of scenes and that
Speaker 5: it was like Christmas time when the right and she
Speaker 5: got this postcard from Nancy and she was like, oh,
Speaker 5: they went to DC for President's Day weekend, which is
Speaker 5: like when's that?
Speaker 2: And then January it's right.
Speaker 4: But then they go see the Rockets, and isn't that
Speaker 4: just on during Christmas?
Speaker 3: I think they do it other times of the year,
Speaker 3: or maybe they did it in the seventies, I don't know, But.
Speaker 4: Yet I thought the Rockets was like just a Christmas
Speaker 4: time thing. Oh maybe I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: No, I'm pretty sure they do other times of year,
Speaker 3: but I think that Christmas it's like they're nutcracker Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm guessing. Like a couple months past when
Speaker 2: they go into the city together, yeah, and Nancy gets
Speaker 2: her period and Margaret feels betrayed that Nancy lied to her.
Speaker 2: Then at school, Margaret gets grouped with Norman Fisher, Philip Leroy,
Speaker 2: and Laura Danker for a project. Laura confronts Margaret about
Speaker 2: her friend group being so cruel to Laura just because
Speaker 2: of how she looks and like spreading rumors about her.
Speaker 2: Oh Laura, Margaret realizes that she's been like a judge,
Speaker 2: bad person. Meanwhile, Philip makes a mean comment about Margaret's
Speaker 2: flat chest. Other things happen where like Margaret's parents cancel
Speaker 2: her upcoming trip to Florida to visit Grandma Kathy Bates
Speaker 2: because Barbara's parents are coming to visit because Barbara had
Speaker 2: sent them a card and like they're trying to kind
Speaker 2: of rekindle their estrange relationship.
Speaker 3: It's so hard to not feel for like literally everyone
Speaker 3: in this setup. It's such a like beautiful, painful sequence
Speaker 3: to watch because everyone's mad at Rachel mcadam's which makes
Speaker 3: sense because her parents are anti Semitic weird us. But
Speaker 3: you can also see that she like has this like
Speaker 3: little girl part of her that just wants to like
Speaker 3: believe that her parents don't suck. It's just so painful
Speaker 3: to watch, Yeah, I know.
Speaker 2: And then on top of all that, Margaret is still
Speaker 2: mad at Nancy for lying. Margaret's confused spiritually because she's
Speaker 2: talking and praying to God and looking for him but
Speaker 2: she can't seem to find him, so things are bad.
Speaker 2: It is the low point of the movie. Then Barbara's
Speaker 2: parents aka Margaret's maternal grandparents arrive. It's awkward, and it's
Speaker 2: even more awkward when Grandma Kathy Bates shows up unexpectedly
Speaker 2: with her new fuck body.
Speaker 5: Just like what amo again, Kathy Bates in this movie
Speaker 5: is like, that's aspirational for me, and I'm like, I
Speaker 5: want to be the New York City Jewish grandma wearing
Speaker 5: these clothes going to Florida to like get laid.
Speaker 3: She's down there fun fucking oh God, making sexy little
Speaker 3: comments about cholesterol. You're like, yes, sure, why not?
Speaker 1: Yup?
Speaker 2: Yup? So then mark Its maternal grandparents are asking if
Speaker 2: she's ever been to Sunday School, and Kathy Bates is
Speaker 2: like no, because Margaret is Jewish, and Margaret is like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm neither. I'm nothing. I don't even believe in God.
Speaker 3: Benny Saftie and Rachel McAdams are freaking out. They're like, God,
Speaker 3: it's drama.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Barbara feels horrible. Margaret storms out of the room,
Speaker 2: and Margaret starts writing her research project on religion, where
Speaker 2: she says, like, I thought you were supposed to be
Speaker 2: able to pray to God and he would answer your prayers.
Speaker 2: But I've prayed and prayed and things just keep getting worse.
Speaker 2: No one seems to be listening to me, and it
Speaker 2: just makes her feel very lust and alone. But her
Speaker 2: mom comforts her and apologizes for how messy things got.
Speaker 2: And then it's the last day of school. There's like
Speaker 2: this carnival thing and Margaret approaches Laura Danker and basically
Speaker 2: like extends and Olive brand and she's like, hey, want
Speaker 2: to be friends? Want to come dance with me? And
Speaker 2: Jane joins them as well. It feels like it's kind
Speaker 2: of implied that Margaret either like won't be friends with
Speaker 2: or won't be as close to Nancy and maybe Gretchen
Speaker 2: much after this, and then in the denu Mall, we
Speaker 2: see that Barbara has returned to teaching art. She's like
Speaker 2: gotten a little better about like establishing boundaries and saying
Speaker 2: no to being on all the school committees.
Speaker 4: I love that scene.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's really much where she's just like, oh, I don't
Speaker 4: want to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to, so no, thank you. Meanwhile, Margaret
Speaker 2: is gearing up to go back to summer camp, but
Speaker 2: before she does, she has a little chat with Moose,
Speaker 2: who suggests that they hang out when she gets back
Speaker 2: from camp, and she's giddy about it. And guess what
Speaker 2: else makes her giddy? She gets her period right after this.
Speaker 3: He guys, yeah, right, God is real.
Speaker 2: God is real, and God gave Margaret her period or whatever.
Speaker 3: She's technically what God is like, I did. God is
Speaker 3: literally just like Santa, like it's the same We're taught
Speaker 3: the same thing, except God is like meaner Santa. Santa's
Speaker 3: like very hands off when it comes to like the
Speaker 3: pain of living well.
Speaker 2: Except he has this whole naughty list and he's like,
Speaker 2: I'll give you cold.
Speaker 4: It really depends. It depends on what sect of santa
Speaker 4: Ism you are.
Speaker 3: God gives you kind of like spiritual coal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that's the end of the movie.
Speaker 4: So let's take another break.
Speaker 2: I will come right back.
Speaker 3: And we're back. I would love to start. I wanted
Speaker 3: to just talk a little bit about book to screen
Speaker 3: before we jump into the conversation. So we're all book
Speaker 3: heads here. I know we joke about on the show
Speaker 3: this being an anti book podcast, but it's just not true.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I blew through the book yesterday before watching the
Speaker 3: documentary and then eventually watching the movie. I will say
Speaker 3: that I feel like the third act of this movie,
Speaker 3: after revisiting the book, I found kind of underwhelming, and
Speaker 3: it felt like they were movie flying and making sure
Speaker 3: that everything was resolved and that everything is going to
Speaker 3: be okay from now on, with the exception of it
Speaker 3: being clear that the maternal grandparents are not going to
Speaker 3: be in their lives, like that is sort of the
Speaker 3: only the one thing that's left unsatisfactory. And I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't know. Judy Bloom says to that she likes
Speaker 3: she thinks the movie is better than the book, so
Speaker 3: who the fucking what?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And she said that, and I was also like
Speaker 3: some wrong but whatever, Like.
Speaker 4: How long has it been since she read the book?
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's egg Judy Bloom? But I did. I mean
Speaker 3: I part of what I as I was like rereading it,
Speaker 3: part of what I was remembering, Like that I really
Speaker 3: like about Judy Bloom books is that there aren't these
Speaker 3: neat conclusions that I sort of felt happened at the
Speaker 3: end of this movie. One difference is that, you know,
Speaker 3: Margaret has that same interaction with Moose the day she
Speaker 3: gets her period, but Moose is I think more of
Speaker 3: like typical pubescent boy and is like get out of
Speaker 3: my way, see you later. Like it's just a more
Speaker 3: authentic reaction than like, I'm the nice boy and I
Speaker 3: hope you have an epic summer at camp. Should be
Speaker 3: chill soon, which just doesn't feel as real, you know.
Speaker 3: And Moose in general, I think like was portrayed a
Speaker 3: little more realistically as like he clearly has a crush
Speaker 3: on her but has been socialized to be like that.
Speaker 3: It's gross other things, where with the issue between Laura
Speaker 3: and Margaret is intentionally left unresolved in the book, which
Speaker 3: I think is actually really because I as a kid,
Speaker 3: I feel like that forces you to put yourself in
Speaker 3: Margaret's position more. And the interaction between them at the
Speaker 3: library and following her into the church is the same
Speaker 3: where she's like, I'm so I feel so horrible and
Speaker 3: I don't know. But in the book, like Margaret isn't
Speaker 3: quite able to get the courage up to actually apologize.
Speaker 3: She doesn't really stand up to Nancy, and she's just
Speaker 3: sort of hoping that after summer she won't be as
Speaker 3: close with Nancy. But there's no confrontation, there's no like
Speaker 3: big moment of victory, which again just feels more realistic. Right.
Speaker 2: Imagine how hard it is as a twelve year old
Speaker 2: to stand up to your domineering friend. It's like nearly
Speaker 2: impossible for almost every kid.
Speaker 3: Would not have been me.
Speaker 5: No, There's also that the fact that like, you're gonna
Speaker 5: keep going to school with these kids, like, yeah, this
Speaker 5: is the end of the school year, but like you're
Speaker 5: gonna be with them for the next like six years.
Speaker 5: Like it's not like, oh, everything has to be resolved
Speaker 5: at the end of the year. It's like I'll see
Speaker 5: them next year and things will be the same and
Speaker 5: or different.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, And yeah again, I was thinking about
Speaker 3: Blubber where I don't I mean, I don't remember the
Speaker 3: beat for beat of that book. But it more puts
Speaker 3: you in the position of like, what if you were
Speaker 3: a bystander to bullying and what if you weren't able
Speaker 3: to get the courage up versus this character has does
Speaker 3: the quote unquote right thing to do? Which isn't I mean,
Speaker 3: that's not like a story told that way is bad
Speaker 3: or less valuable. It just feels not Judy Bloom to me,
Speaker 3: because it's supposed to like force you to sit in
Speaker 3: that and be like what would I do? And then
Speaker 3: the final thing was the way that her mom's story
Speaker 3: resolves where and this feels more of maybe a thing
Speaker 3: of the times, but it's also something that's like very
Speaker 3: tied to Judy Bloom's life of like she didn't start
Speaker 3: writing until she was staying at home alone with her
Speaker 3: two kids while her first husband, who she would like
Speaker 3: later write best selling fiction about fantasizing about cheating on
Speaker 3: like when to work in the city, Like you know,
Speaker 3: I think they there's like there's to some extent, Margaret's
Speaker 3: mom is like a self insert character for her. But
Speaker 3: at the end of the book, she doesn't get that
Speaker 3: satisfying conclusion of like she's balancing being a housewife and
Speaker 3: still fulfilling her passion. Like in the book, it's sort
Speaker 3: of left as like, a this sucks for her mom,
Speaker 3: but she's going to try to make the best of it.
Speaker 3: And I don't know, like I not that I wanted
Speaker 3: the movie. I think I think I get what the
Speaker 3: movie is doing. It's very movie and if I hadn't
Speaker 3: read the book, I don't think it would have like
Speaker 3: registered for me at all. But I just I do
Speaker 3: kind of like when movies for kids don't end quite
Speaker 3: so neatly. But that's really my only problem with the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the other thing that I read because I didn't
Speaker 2: reread the book, but I read listicals of what the
Speaker 2: difference is between the book and the movie.
Speaker 3: The movie adaptations the same thing.
Speaker 2: And one thing that I saw was that the movie
Speaker 2: omits so with the Laura Danker character. I think it's
Speaker 2: present in the book that Nancy makes up rumors about
Speaker 2: her that she like lets boys.
Speaker 3: Yes, but that there's a confrontation.
Speaker 2: Well, there's also a component of the book that their teacher,
Speaker 2: mister Benedict leers at Laura Danker and like chooses her
Speaker 2: to be like his partner, where he's like demonstrating them
Speaker 2: how to do a square dance or whatever.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I wonder if they recorded that but cut
Speaker 5: it out, because there was the square dancing scene that
Speaker 5: like had nothing to do with anything, right, And I
Speaker 5: wonder if they like filmed it and then like cut
Speaker 5: that storyline out.
Speaker 3: I alsought this was just my read on it. It
Speaker 3: was also unclear to me that when Nancy was insisting
Speaker 3: that the teacher was doing this not to not believe women,
Speaker 3: but Nancy is known to telefib and make shit up,
Speaker 3: and so to me, at least in the book, it
Speaker 3: was unclear if that was actually happening or if it
Speaker 3: was Nancy projecting. But that definitely is like they don't
Speaker 3: even get close to touching it because again they need
Speaker 3: to movie by the movie and be like, mister Benedict
Speaker 3: is a great teacher, no notes, not weird at all?
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, which, I you know, for this movie, I
Speaker 2: was okay with.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I don't think that the tone of
Speaker 3: this movie that that really fit, And at least in
Speaker 3: my opinion, it was kind of unclear in the book
Speaker 3: whether that was Nancy Nancy ing or if that was
Speaker 3: something that was actually taking place, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, because obviously there are many cases of grown adult men, yeah,
Speaker 2: being really gross toward underage girls. But yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 2: does this movie have the space or the tone to
Speaker 2: address something like that?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: I think maybe not? So.
Speaker 3: My tenth grade art teacher was like, Jamie, you know,
Speaker 3: it would be really cool if you went to the
Speaker 3: park and drank a whole of cough syrup and then
Speaker 3: took pictures and then showed me the picture You're just
Speaker 3: like And I was like, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Remember you telling me this story for it, and it's
Speaker 2: ro so frightening. But yeah, I think otherwise, the movie
Speaker 2: is a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, and I
Speaker 2: mean both of them both. Obviously we're going to focus
Speaker 2: on the movie here, but I love that it is
Speaker 2: one of the few movies about young girls. We've talked
Speaker 2: about this a lot on the podcast, where there's just
Speaker 2: so few of them, at least as far as like
Speaker 2: mainstream movies go. And it's a movie that just has
Speaker 2: a lot of compelling themes and subplots between friendship among
Speaker 2: girls and like figuring out who your friends are and
Speaker 2: like the kind of person you want to be. Along
Speaker 2: the way, there's you know, just the exploration of going
Speaker 2: through puberty and trying to feel quote unquote and fit
Speaker 2: in during like one of the most confusing times in
Speaker 2: your life, and like being hyper aware of your body
Speaker 2: and other people's bodies and how they're all developing, and
Speaker 2: then like a byproduct of that being body shaming yourself.
Speaker 2: So you have like kind of internalized like hatred of
Speaker 2: your body because you feel like you're not normal or
Speaker 2: you feel like what's happening to you is you know, freakish.
Speaker 2: And then you're also fixating on other people's bodies and
Speaker 2: noticing that, oh, they're different from yours, so they must
Speaker 2: be quote unquote weirdo. And we see that with the
Speaker 2: Laura Danker character. You've got the exploration of sexuality and
Speaker 2: you know, the girls developing crushes and obviously everything we
Speaker 2: see in this movie is like very hetero. Because this
Speaker 2: is adapted from a book from the seventies, it would
Speaker 2: be nice to see, you know, more inclusive coming of
Speaker 2: age stories about queer kids exploring their sexuality and their gender.
Speaker 5: But I do love how it's portrayed as like most
Speaker 5: of the feelings about the crushes are like about what
Speaker 5: your friends will think of them, Like it's yeah, the
Speaker 5: person you have a crush on is is sort of tangential,
Speaker 5: like because it's really about the feelings you're having and
Speaker 5: what that means with the relationships that are actually in
Speaker 5: your life, like your relationships to your friends, and like
Speaker 5: what will they think of you because of this feeling
Speaker 5: you have? What will they like, is it acceptable?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 5: Will they think you're weird and laugh at you? Like yeah,
Speaker 5: that's like where most of the anxiety is. It's not
Speaker 5: actually from like having a crush. It's like all this
Speaker 5: other stuff.
Speaker 3: That's I feel like And because the I feel like
Speaker 3: the two minutes in bathroom or whatever the fuck they
Speaker 3: were calling it, because that was like portrayed a little
Speaker 3: differently in the movie to the book, I feel like
Speaker 3: it lost that a little bit. But it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: Margaret doesn't really have a crush on Philip. She just
Speaker 3: knows that she's supposed to. Yeah, and like it's so
Speaker 3: I mean, this is true across the gender spectrum, but
Speaker 3: like this felt like closer to my own experience of
Speaker 3: like so much of being these social groups, especially at
Speaker 3: this age, is like you're performing for the others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and it's.
Speaker 3: We don't even really we know that Margaret wants boobs
Speaker 3: in her period, but it's mainly because she wants to,
Speaker 3: you know, prove herself to her friend group. And like
Speaker 3: she doesn't get a bra because she's like, it's time
Speaker 3: for me to have a bra. She gets a broad
Speaker 3: because it's one of the weird rules of the weird
Speaker 3: group and.
Speaker 2: The fight club or whatever.
Speaker 3: And she has she has a crush on Philip because
Speaker 3: she's supposed to, but she doesn't actually, but she knows
Speaker 3: that if she she says she has a crush on Moose,
Speaker 3: well Nancy doesn't like Moose and so it's not allowed.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, in a in the way
Speaker 3: that like a lot of these i mean just friend
Speaker 3: groups at all, but you know, especially the younger you are,
Speaker 3: it's just a fundamentally dishonest endeavor, Like they're all like
Speaker 3: lying out of their asses to each other. I wish,
Speaker 3: I wish in the book and in the movie we
Speaker 3: got a little more focus on, Like it seems like
Speaker 3: Margaret and Janey sort of connects the closest, and I
Speaker 3: wish we got a little bit more on that. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's very much Margaret's story and that's fine, but I
Speaker 3: felt like Janie's sort of who's also the only black
Speaker 3: girl that we really get any insight into in the movie.
Speaker 3: I just feel like we got less of her than
Speaker 3: the other girls in the group, and that is a
Speaker 3: shame because she's such a sweetie and it would be
Speaker 3: nice to see Margaret actually sort of connect with her more.
Speaker 3: There's a really sweet I forget if this happens in
Speaker 3: the movie. In the book, there is a scene where
Speaker 3: when Margaret is getting her bra, they run into Janie
Speaker 3: and her mom on their way to do the same thing,
Speaker 3: but they lie to each other about it, where Janie's like,
Speaker 3: I'm getting new pajamas and Margaret's like I am too, goodbye,
Speaker 3: but they're both clearly getting the growbra or whatever. I
Speaker 3: was like, Oh, it would have been cool to have
Speaker 3: more moments like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is not in the movie. The scene that
Speaker 2: really stood out to me that is in the movie
Speaker 2: is the one where Margaret and Jane go into the
Speaker 2: drug store to buy pads and they're like so apprehensive
Speaker 2: about it and then they like whip.
Speaker 3: The tick tags.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, this is not about us buying pads.
Speaker 2: This is about us buying tic TACs, and the pads
Speaker 2: just happened to be there. Uh.
Speaker 5: Really cute, And I love the giddiness that they get
Speaker 5: after they like and it's just like the most normal
Speaker 5: interaction of like, yeah, the checker is just like going
Speaker 5: very you know, but it's just completely like they're having
Speaker 5: an experience that is totally like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 5: so crazy we're doing this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the most important thing they've ever done.
Speaker 2: And then I like the scene where when Margaret does
Speaker 2: go to like explore Christian church, she goes with Janey
Speaker 2: and it's to this predominantly black congregation. They're singing like
Speaker 2: lively gospel music. Then you also see that there's like
Speaker 2: a montage where all the girls are getting ready for
Speaker 2: the dinner party. Yeah, I appreciate that we do see
Speaker 2: Jannie's home life. There's a moment where like her mom
Speaker 2: is helping her get ready and like doing her hair.
Speaker 2: But it does feel like because one thing I do
Speaker 2: appreciate about the movie is that there's like there's a
Speaker 2: variety of opinions or kind of feelings about what does
Speaker 2: it mean to get your period or like how are
Speaker 2: we feeling about the prospect of getting our periods? And
Speaker 2: we have Like Gretchen, she gets hers first, she's pretty
Speaker 2: nonchalant about it. She's like, yeah, just freaking kind of happens, dude. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Nancy's lying about getting hers, and then when she actually
Speaker 2: does get it, she's like so scared and upset.
Speaker 5: And her mom is so like that broke my heart
Speaker 5: so much. That scene, yeah, where her mom is just like,
Speaker 5: what's up? Oh okay, Like here's say too long. Yeah,
Speaker 5: She's like, don't make us like take too long at
Speaker 5: dinner because you've got your period or whatever.
Speaker 4: Bite.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was also like, how does she not into it?
Speaker 3: What's happened here? She's there? She asks what's up?
Speaker 4: What's up?
Speaker 3: So many times I'm like, look at your kid, think
Speaker 3: of how old they are, What the fuck do you
Speaker 3: think is up? Like take a guess?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she does not handle that well. But yeah, that's
Speaker 2: like the Nancy situation. Margaret is desperate to get her
Speaker 2: period because again, she wants to be normal, and then
Speaker 2: she's super excited when it does happen. We don't know
Speaker 2: how Janie feels about the prospect of getting her period
Speaker 2: at all, and it feels very pointed that the only
Speaker 2: black girl gets overlooked in this matter. It's not as
Speaker 2: though Janie is overlooked constantly about everything, but it does
Speaker 2: feel weird because so much of this story is about like,
Speaker 2: oh no, we're going through puberty and this is how
Speaker 2: we feel about it. And then Jane feels we do
Speaker 2: get that where she's like, ooh, sex is gross. I
Speaker 2: never want to be naked in front of anyone, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to see anyone naked, and like I
Speaker 2: remember thinking that when I was eleven. I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm never gonna have sex. Sex is for is gross.
Speaker 3: But that's all you really get, I mean, and especially because,
Speaker 3: at least from what I can tell, like Jane's race
Speaker 3: was changed for the movie, which is like, that's good,
Speaker 3: but also it's like, but then also be aware of
Speaker 3: how you have cast the movie and adjust the script
Speaker 3: accordingly to make sure that characters are getting equal focused.
Speaker 3: Otherwise it just seems like you cast the only black
Speaker 3: girl we really get to focus on in this movie
Speaker 3: in the quote unquote smallest part. So it's like flesh
Speaker 3: the part out a little bit. It's not that hard,
Speaker 3: but I mean this is also while there are a
Speaker 3: lot of women involved, and also James L. Brooks because
Speaker 3: his career is interesting, but there's a lot of women involved,
Speaker 3: at the highest places in production, they are majority of
Speaker 3: white women.
Speaker 2: And you can tell because the movie feels like it
Speaker 2: just ignored race, and it ignores any racial tension in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies would have existed in this predominantly white suburb
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 5: Yes, because it's you think, like I wrote this down
Speaker 5: where I was like, yeah, they're moving out of New
Speaker 5: York City in nineteen seventy, which is like the early
Speaker 5: seventies were like pretty like New York City that was
Speaker 5: white flight basically.
Speaker 3: Like so they may in fact be white flighting.
Speaker 5: They might be white flighting because he gets I love
Speaker 5: also that they're like, oh dad got a promotion. We
Speaker 5: never know what his job is. We know it's like,
Speaker 5: don't clime of it whatever. No, no, I don't care,
Speaker 5: but I do love that that like his job doesn't matter,
Speaker 5: but it is the reason we have to change all
Speaker 5: our lives around and like that was interesting to me.
Speaker 5: But yeah, they moved to the suburb, and like one
Speaker 5: New Jersey suburb being this racially integrated doesn't feel that
Speaker 5: realistic in the nineteen in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 4: And then two there is just no mention.
Speaker 5: And like, again, this is on a book, so like
Speaker 5: we can't really be mad that they didn't like invent
Speaker 5: things that weren't in the book. But like, but I
Speaker 5: would have loved to see, yeah, like what you were
Speaker 5: saying about Janie, I would love to see Margaret having
Speaker 5: like a little bit of a realization that, like Jane's
Speaker 5: experience is different than her experience, and that would have
Speaker 5: been an interesting way for her to like wake up
Speaker 5: to the world a little bit.
Speaker 3: You know, as well as mister Benedict too. The book
Speaker 3: makes no mention to race whatsoever. So I'm not saying
Speaker 3: that like in the book, everyone is what, it just
Speaker 3: isn't brought up, Like race is just not a component
Speaker 3: of the book, which is a level of privilege in
Speaker 3: and of itself, but like, I don't even think it's
Speaker 3: like an effective argument if someone were to be like, well,
Speaker 3: it's the Bridgerton approach to casting, and we're just sort
Speaker 3: of because other social issues are very present in here,
Speaker 3: like the issue between inter Like this movie is a
Speaker 3: lot about interfaith marriage and the prejudice that existed around
Speaker 3: interfaith marriage at this time. So it's like they live
Speaker 3: in a society, but.
Speaker 2: The one that doesn't acknowledge racism at all.
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy, Like it's just weird. Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: I don't know. Again, it's like I'm glad that the
Speaker 3: cast is more diverse than ostensibly the book appeared to be.
Speaker 3: But if you're going to do that, it's a period
Speaker 3: piece and like you do have to make you know,
Speaker 3: I think if you're making these adjustments, a completely straightforward
Speaker 3: adaptation of the original book no longer makes total sense,
Speaker 3: Like you can't just go and it's not like the
Speaker 3: movie has to pivot and be entirely about race. But again,
Speaker 3: it's like Janey, like you do get the feeling that
Speaker 3: they sort of added in a majority of black congregation
Speaker 3: and kind of called it a day, and that is.
Speaker 2: Lazy, right, I mean, it's like I just kept thinking,
Speaker 2: like you're telling me that this predominantly white, middle to
Speaker 2: upper middle class suburb of again mostly white kids has
Speaker 2: a black teacher and.
Speaker 3: No one said anything about it, and.
Speaker 4: The shitty little teenage kids are not are like racist
Speaker 4: about it.
Speaker 5: Nancy's not being shitty and racist about it, Like yeah, right.
Speaker 3: The tricky thing too, is like it's not like you
Speaker 3: want to be like, Okay, the only black characters in
Speaker 3: this movie, we're gonna we're gonna actually make a point
Speaker 3: of how terribly they're treated by the other characters. But
Speaker 3: it just it felt like it overcorrected that so far
Speaker 3: that racism mysteriously didn't exist in this society where interfaith
Speaker 3: marriage is still a big issue, and it's like that
Speaker 3: just didn't it just didn't happen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, one bone I have to pick with this movie.
Speaker 5: But also, like pretty much all media like there is
Speaker 5: no there's essentially no representation of period pain.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 5: So even we're we're just talking about how hard it
Speaker 5: is to find a movie that portrays or discusses periods,
Speaker 5: there is ten times less media out there that portrays
Speaker 5: period pain. Yeah, where these it's all about like they're
Speaker 5: getting their periods. She gets her period and it's just
Speaker 5: like blood. Like it's just like, oh, periods are just blood.
Speaker 5: You know, it's the end. You know you have your
Speaker 5: period because you're bleeding. But it's like, at no point
Speaker 5: it does she feel sick or uncomfortable, Like nobody is
Speaker 5: talking about like cramps.
Speaker 4: Nothing.
Speaker 2: She's one mention of cramping.
Speaker 5: Her mom asks her like, oh, do you have cramping?
Speaker 5: And she's like, no, not at all.
Speaker 3: And it's like I just it's again, it's like you
Speaker 3: have if you're having like four young girls who are
Speaker 3: starting to menstrate, give them a variety of experience exactly,
Speaker 3: because it's like, sure, that's not gonna happen to everyone,
Speaker 3: but that does happen to a lot of kids, and
Speaker 3: it is scary.
Speaker 5: How interesting would it be if like Gretchen got her
Speaker 5: period first and was like everything's fine, but everything's different now.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't understand. And then Nancy got her period and
Speaker 4: she was like, actually, I'm in so much pain and
Speaker 4: like this like wait, why is this than my friend?
Speaker 4: You know, like that would be so and it would be.
Speaker 5: I just like if I had seen any movies or
Speaker 5: TV shows growing up where that had been portrayed at all.
Speaker 5: I would not have felt like such a freak that
Speaker 5: my period made me throw up, Like I would at
Speaker 5: least know that somewhere else out there that was happening
Speaker 5: to other people. Yeah, and other people would know that's
Speaker 5: a possibility, right, because when I was when I was
Speaker 5: fourteen and was throwing up on my period, people were like,
Speaker 5: that doesn't happen like, and It's like, no, it does.
Speaker 4: It's same.
Speaker 2: I had to leave school one day because I I
Speaker 2: got my period. I was feeling horrible. I like went
Speaker 2: to the nurse's office to lie down. I was like, I,
Speaker 2: this is horrible. I need to just go home. And
Speaker 2: so I went to like collect my belongings while the
Speaker 2: nurse called my mom. And as I was doing that,
Speaker 2: I puked all over the floor of the school. And
Speaker 2: then I heard someone come into the hallway and be like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, and I just run away. Sorry I
Speaker 2: never heard to this.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: It was really funny though, But I feel like the
Speaker 2: only movie I've seen that acknowledges period cramps is that
Speaker 2: Natalie Portman movie No Strings Attached, Yes, Yes, where they're
Speaker 2: like kind of lying around and they're like, ah, we
Speaker 2: all have cramps.
Speaker 5: But that's like that is basically just scene setting for
Speaker 5: Ashton Kutcher to come in and be like I brought
Speaker 5: cupcakes and I google periods and then they're like, great,
Speaker 5: everything's fine now, heroic if we did it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there needs to be more just understanding and media
Speaker 2: representation of side effects, symptoms totally of menstruation.
Speaker 4: Well and just the range like this is actually like
Speaker 4: what I'm I'm obsessed.
Speaker 5: This is my white whale now, this is my Roman empire.
Speaker 5: Is that we have one word for pain with periods, right,
Speaker 5: we have cramps. But that experience can be like ooh ow,
Speaker 5: like I'm a little uncomfortable, I'm going to take some
Speaker 5: ypipro and and then I'll be fine all the way
Speaker 5: to like I'm throwing up for seven hours, I'm passing
Speaker 5: out from the pain. And we don't have a different
Speaker 5: word for that.
Speaker 4: We don't have right, we just have cramps.
Speaker 5: So no wonder it's really hard for me to like
Speaker 5: describe my pain to a doctor or to my boss
Speaker 5: when I have to call out of work or like,
Speaker 5: because if I just say cramps, nobody knows what the
Speaker 5: fuck that means.
Speaker 3: There's no language for it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, and so like it literally, unless you are
Speaker 5: my parent or my like romantic partner and you have
Speaker 5: seen with your own eyes what that pain does to me,
Speaker 5: I basically can't tell you what this pain is or
Speaker 5: like what's happening to me. And that's partly because we
Speaker 5: don't talk about.
Speaker 2: It in media.
Speaker 5: Like how many different words do we have for like
Speaker 5: situationships and like all these different things so that we
Speaker 5: can understand what we're talking about when we talk to
Speaker 5: each other about romantic relationships, But we don't even stomach
Speaker 5: aches we have like bloated, we have heartburn, you know,
Speaker 5: we have all these different words that mean slightly different
Speaker 5: versions of my stomach hurts right right, But like we
Speaker 5: don't have that for cramps And if we talked about
Speaker 5: it in the media more, we would have to have
Speaker 5: better phrases and better more specific words, and we then
Speaker 5: we could use those in other situations and people would
Speaker 5: know what the fuck we were talking about and how
Speaker 5: serious it was.
Speaker 4: It's why I started.
Speaker 5: Calling my really bad cramp like when I throw up
Speaker 5: and pass out, those are death cramps. And I have
Speaker 5: to differentiate it because sometimes I just have cramps and
Speaker 5: it sucks like it always sucks, but like sometimes it's
Speaker 5: a medical emergency, you know.
Speaker 3: Right, God, And it's like, in terms of the movie,
Speaker 3: it's like this is I just think it's like frustrating
Speaker 3: what they chose to change versus what remained unaltered, because
Speaker 3: it just feels like the easiest, you know, the easiest
Speaker 3: cop out for that is like, well, we wanted to
Speaker 3: be true to the book, and it's like, well, but
Speaker 3: you actually kind of made the ending very neat and
Speaker 3: clean in the way that is not true to the book.
Speaker 3: So why wouldn't you update elements like acknowledging racism because
Speaker 3: you have a more diverse cast, why would you not
Speaker 3: update giving I mean, it wouldn't have changed anything about
Speaker 3: the story, accept better representation of what experiencing a period
Speaker 3: is like for different people if they had different like
Speaker 3: the plot changes, not at all. It's just better representation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Right, So that said, I mean, I felt that it
Speaker 3: is a really good movie, Like I enjoy it.
Speaker 4: I also like, we haven't even been able.
Speaker 5: One of the things I loved about it was like
Speaker 5: Rachel mcadam's like her character where she's that she gets
Speaker 5: a journey and Sylvia gets a journey of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: my family left and I'm lonely, but like, then I'm
Speaker 5: going to go to Florida and like make friends and
Speaker 5: fuck buddies and like, and they all kind of end
Speaker 5: up in different places, you know, they all have journeys, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that you follow throughout the movie, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: I that I love that, Like we're following these three
Speaker 5: generations dealing with very different things.
Speaker 4: But they actually all get like a journey totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wrote down for Grandma Kathy Bates that she says
Speaker 2: that one line of like after they have moved to Jersey,
Speaker 2: she says, like I read that if you don't have
Speaker 2: any loved ones around your life, expectancy drops drastically, And
Speaker 2: I was like, parentheses, this is why people need to
Speaker 2: make and maintain friendships outside of their nuclear family. But
Speaker 2: then she does that and exactly she does it.
Speaker 3: I also got the feeling that she was being over
Speaker 3: dramatic in that I'm like, there's no way this lady
Speaker 3: doesn't have a shitload of friends.
Speaker 2: Like, she goes to Temple, She's got friends at Temple.
Speaker 3: Surely she's talking to Like I think she was just
Speaker 3: saying that to make her son feel guilty. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 3: I love that there's like these and that, as with
Speaker 3: most Judy bloom books like that, the women get the focus.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that the you know, I think
Speaker 3: with like with Herb, I kept calling him Benny Safti,
Speaker 3: but it is in fact Herb. But that Herb does
Speaker 3: have a few you know, solid moments, especially in that
Speaker 3: sort of climactic scene with all the grandparents. Oh, that's
Speaker 3: also a little bit different in the book, but I
Speaker 3: think the movie did do it better. Where in the
Speaker 3: book the Christian grandparents have already left by the time
Speaker 3: Kathy Bates gets there. I think it was better that
Speaker 3: they were all there at once. Yeah, but in any
Speaker 3: case that like that scene, it's very short, but I
Speaker 3: thought they did really well with it. With Herb and
Speaker 3: Rachel mcadam's on Barbara Barbara, remember brab Bra have this
Speaker 3: really painful conversation where you know, you can tell that
Speaker 3: like Herb is like, well, what the fuck your parents
Speaker 3: are bigots? Why are you inviting them over? And not
Speaker 3: only are they bigots, they treated you like garbage and
Speaker 3: so like he hates them on so many levels, all
Speaker 3: of which are completely valid and and just like I
Speaker 3: mean again, it makes it stick out even more that
Speaker 3: the racism of this time isn't but just how prevalent
Speaker 3: anti Semitism still was in the seventies, and how discouraged
Speaker 3: interfaith marriages were. And also I'm not I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: not Jewish. I can't speak to this. I did want
Speaker 3: to just mention because I know that there is a
Speaker 3: lot of like there's been a lot of discussion in
Speaker 3: the past, however many years about Jewish characters being played
Speaker 3: by non Jewish actors. I think it most most often
Speaker 3: comes up in like marvelous Missus Masel conversations. But the
Speaker 3: Kathy Bates is Christian, and I you know, I can't
Speaker 3: speak to whether that was a sticking point for anybody,
Speaker 3: but I did just want to acknowledge it.
Speaker 2: Sure, But something that.
Speaker 3: Was very sweet. There's a little bts is that the
Speaker 3: actor who plays Margaret, who is just the cutest kid
Speaker 3: and does such a great job, Kelly Freeman Craig.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, that's the that's the director, writer, director.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I'm so sorry. Okay, take it again,
Speaker 3: Abby writer forced in. Sorry, three names trippy up, like
Speaker 3: three names are in entertainment or serial killers? Like that's it.
Speaker 3: But you know, in spite of being a three names,
Speaker 3: she's great. Abby writer Fortson wanted this part so badly
Speaker 3: that she wrote this really sweet letter that kind of
Speaker 3: feels like a letter a kid would write to Judy
Speaker 3: Bloom about how she felt so connected. She like wrote
Speaker 3: this long letter to the producers of the movie, including
Speaker 3: James Brooks, which was wild, but I just wanted to
Speaker 3: and they published it in Variety as well. As she
Speaker 3: and Kathy Bates, I guess had like a really great
Speaker 3: working relationship and that two. I was like, oh, kids
Speaker 3: are so cool. That Abby, in order to get into
Speaker 3: her part. I don't know if she was told to
Speaker 3: do this or if she just took it upon herself,
Speaker 3: wrote letters in character as Margaret to Kathy Bates as
Speaker 3: if she were at camp and was like, hi, Grandma,
Speaker 3: and Kathy Bates wrote back, and they like shared some
Speaker 3: of those two, and I was like, that's so sweet,
Speaker 3: but I did want to share just like a little
Speaker 3: bit of her letter about why she connected with Margaret.
Speaker 3: So this is from Abby, Dear Kelly, Julia, and mister Brooks.
Speaker 3: It was really nice to meet you all. I really
Speaker 3: like Margaret a lot and feel really connected to her
Speaker 3: as we are both really insecure about growing up but
Speaker 3: still try to hide it. We are both not the
Speaker 3: popular kids at school and both just want to have friends.
Speaker 3: I very much enjoyed both the book and the script
Speaker 3: of Margaret, and feel like this would be an inspiring
Speaker 3: story for young girls to know that they are enough
Speaker 3: in their own bodies. Everybody is changing, some faster than others,
Speaker 3: but eventually it doesn't matter. What matters is what's inside,
Speaker 3: not how big your boobs are. Margaret has her body
Speaker 3: changing and it is having her quest for religion. I
Speaker 3: feel like she has a lot to be uncomfortable about,
Speaker 3: and she is also just starting at a new school
Speaker 3: and doesn't have any friends. I have always wanted to
Speaker 3: play a character like Margaret, a part that will help
Speaker 3: other people be confident in their own skins. When I
Speaker 3: read the script, I said to my mom, this is
Speaker 3: my life. I am Margaret. I get made fun of.
Speaker 3: I don't have a ton of good friends, I don't
Speaker 3: really have her religion, and I feel out of place
Speaker 3: most of the time because none of my friends are
Speaker 3: in any of my classes. Even though I'm a good
Speaker 3: kid in class. I feel the school is like, Okay,
Speaker 3: let's take all of Abby's friends away and see how
Speaker 3: well she does in school sitting next to a bunch
Speaker 3: of jerks. It goes on from there, but I just like,
Speaker 3: I thought it was so sweet and you can feel
Speaker 3: that in her performance too, that it's like even though
Speaker 3: she's playing a kid fifty years earlier that you know.
Speaker 5: I also love this that it starts with Hi, Julie,
Speaker 5: Kelly and miss like.
Speaker 2: You she should have just wrote a letter to God.
Speaker 2: Are you there? God? Yeah, it's me Abby.
Speaker 3: James Brook is like so fascinating anyways, And also just
Speaker 3: to shout out, this was written and directed by Kelly
Speaker 3: Freeman Craig, who had previously written and directed The Edge
Speaker 3: of seventeen, which I haven't seen, but there you go.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 2: It's true. We shall cover that on the show at
Speaker 2: some point. Yeah, the movie does pass the Bechdel test
Speaker 2: obviously so many times. But our nipple scale, the scale
Speaker 2: where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based
Speaker 2: on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens, I think
Speaker 2: I'd give this like I think of four. You know,
Speaker 2: there's areas for improvement as far as like, obviously they
Speaker 2: wanted to be more inclusive in their casting, but at
Speaker 2: the expense of like pretending like racism isn't a thing,
Speaker 2: which felt quite glaring. And again, it's all very cis
Speaker 2: had characters. It is adapted from source material from the seventies,
Speaker 2: so it's not necessarily surprising, but it just means that
Speaker 2: we need more stories, similar stories, but that are more
Speaker 2: stories inclusive and more representative of yeah, everyone that we
Speaker 2: have living in society today.
Speaker 5: And ultimately, if they if they had to make a
Speaker 5: choice between like doing an all white cast and sticking
Speaker 5: completely like to the source material and for sure imperfectly
Speaker 5: having a more diverse cast, but like not telling what
Speaker 5: that story, how the story changes, I'm I'm glad that
Speaker 5: they did. I'm glad they did what they did. I
Speaker 5: wish they could they could have gone further, but like
Speaker 5: they were still in the right direction for me anyway.
Speaker 2: Right right direction for improvement. But yeah, I think I'll
Speaker 2: have it four nipples.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree with that.
Speaker 5: I think four nipples is perfect, like in terms of
Speaker 5: content and storytelling, Like I just loved the focus on
Speaker 5: the three women and their journeys and Margaret's like genuine struggle.
Speaker 5: I would maybe go three and a half just because
Speaker 5: of my personal frustration with like no representation of period pain,
Speaker 5: but they're certainly not alone in that.
Speaker 3: True, I'm gonna go and be a coward and go
Speaker 3: three point seventy five and say, hey, I'm right between
Speaker 3: the two of you. Yeah, I agree, I have I
Speaker 3: have like my gripes with this movie. But again, it's
Speaker 3: definitely and almost unfortunately a huge step forward for portraying
Speaker 3: a version of puberty in a way that like most
Speaker 3: movies just like don't have the stones to make I
Speaker 3: have issues with and I'm with Kate on you know,
Speaker 3: I would rather imperfect and have a more diverse cast.
Speaker 3: And it's I mean, I know it's messy, but also
Speaker 3: maybe having more black producers and creatives on your project
Speaker 3: could help that. But all said and done, I think,
Speaker 3: like I'm just really glad that this movie exists. I
Speaker 3: would recommend you know, if you have, you know, a
Speaker 3: kid in your life that is coming of age and
Speaker 3: is going to men straight, this is a cool movie
Speaker 3: to show to them. I agree with Kate that you
Speaker 3: know that the spectrum of experience isn't shown, but this
Speaker 3: is a I think it's also like it speaks to
Speaker 3: the culture. Dare I say that it took fifty years
Speaker 3: to get this far, like it should not be taking
Speaker 3: place so far in the past. This movie should have
Speaker 3: come out in nineteen seventy four, but because it didn't,
Speaker 3: I think that, you know, this is certainly a step
Speaker 3: in the right direction, and I feel like it was
Speaker 3: kind of overlooked in this Oscar season. I know most
Speaker 3: people bring up Rachel mcadam's performance as the standout, but
Speaker 3: I just think that in general, movies that are about,
Speaker 3: you know, young women coming of age are generally over overlooked,
Speaker 3: overlooked and viewed as you know, kind of frivolous in
Speaker 3: a way that isn't fair. This is a great movie.
Speaker 3: I really enjoyed it. Three point seven five nipples, and
Speaker 3: I'm not giving any away to anyone because this is
Speaker 3: a movie for children.
Speaker 2: Yes fair ninety nine percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes critics score.
Speaker 2: By the way, this was this is a beloved movie.
Speaker 2: It's beloved, but also thirty million dollar budget and only
Speaker 2: twenty one point five million dollar box office.
Speaker 3: So I think that that has to do with promotion too.
Speaker 3: I did not see this movie promoted really at all.
Speaker 3: Same and to be fair, part of the reason this
Speaker 3: movie didn't exist earlier is because Judy Bloom turned down.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of opportunities to have it adapted, but
Speaker 3: her reasoning was that she didn't think it would be
Speaker 3: adapted responsibly. So it's just it's complicated. It's complicated. Also,
Speaker 3: Hans Zimmer composed the score, which I did not resonate
Speaker 3: for me at all, but noted. There you go. No,
Speaker 3: it just sounded sort of generic.
Speaker 2: Anyways, Yeah, for sure, Thank you so much for coming
Speaker 2: on the show. Kate, come back anytime.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Tell us where we can find you online plug away.
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, okay, well, Cramped is a ten episode
Speaker 5: limited series that's cr amped the last episode. It will
Speaker 5: be out by the time this episode comes out, so
Speaker 5: go listen, go binge all ten episodes anywhere you get
Speaker 5: your podcasts. You can find me on Instagram at Kate
Speaker 5: Helen Downey full government name, three names.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you're a three name on a three name?
Speaker 3: Are you a serial killer? Or are you a name name?
Speaker 5: So far just entertainment, but who knows. I could be
Speaker 5: a double threat someday.
Speaker 3: Life is long.
Speaker 4: And then on.
Speaker 5: TikTok you can find me at Kate is cramped, and
Speaker 5: I do a lot more like educational period pain content
Speaker 5: on there.
Speaker 2: Nice. You can follow us in all the normal places,
Speaker 2: on the normal places, especially the best place, I would
Speaker 2: say is our Matreon mm hmmm, okay, Patreon dot com,
Speaker 2: slash spectal cast and well, what do we have there,
Speaker 2: Jamie is it two bonus episodes every month.
Speaker 3: For the low price of five dollars, as well as
Speaker 3: access to our back catalog of nearly two hundred episodes
Speaker 3: at this point, as well as you're joining a community
Speaker 3: where you get to vote on the movies we cover,
Speaker 3: and usually we listen, but sometimes we don't.
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 3: It's the best way to directly support the show if
Speaker 3: you're a fan. And if you're out of main feet episodes,
Speaker 3: it's a little lucy goosey over on the Matreon.
Speaker 2: It's a fun little lucy moosy.
Speaker 3: It's yung. Yeah, So you could go and find us there,
Speaker 3: and that's where we cover a lot of your popular requests.
Speaker 3: And yeah, the other place to really follow us right
Speaker 3: now is on Instagram. And with that, shall we we must,
Speaker 3: we must, we must increase.
Speaker 2: We must increase our listenership. So tell your friends about us.
Speaker 3: Perfect ending Bye Bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Voss Krassensky. Our logo and
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