Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: The questions asked if movies have.
Speaker 1: Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast
Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: I call this meeting of the the man Hating Bechdel
Speaker 2: Cast Club.
Speaker 1: To order, O tay otay. That was my takeaway. That
Speaker 1: was my takeaway. Welcome to the bechel Cast AKA. Some
Speaker 1: critics would say the man Hating Club, O tay.
Speaker 2: My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Droonte.
Speaker 2: This is our show where we examine movies through an
Speaker 2: intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a
Speaker 2: jumping off point. It's not the focus of the show.
Speaker 2: We just use it to launch bigger conversations about little
Speaker 2: boys who hate women.
Speaker 1: And little boys who like women but are a shame.
Speaker 2: Yes. The Bechtel Test, of course, being a media metric
Speaker 2: created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel
Speaker 2: Wallace Test, it has many versions. Ours is do two
Speaker 2: characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak
Speaker 2: to each other? And is their conversation about something other
Speaker 2: than a man. Ideally, we like it when the conversation
Speaker 2: is like narratively relevant and not just like throwaway dialogue.
Speaker 2: We'll figure out if the he man women hating characters
Speaker 2: of this movie past the Bechdel test. But yeah, today's
Speaker 2: episode is The Little Rascals nineteen ninety four, directed by
Speaker 2: Penelope Spherus.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think our second Penelope Spherus on the show
Speaker 1: because we also did Wayne's World.
Speaker 2: M we sure did. Today we have a wonderful guest
Speaker 2: with us to discuss the movie. We're very excited. He
Speaker 2: is a writer and journalist. It's Tarak rove Hi. Welcome. Hello,
Speaker 2: you brought us this movie. Tell us about your relationship,
Speaker 2: your history, et cetera with it. I love how we
Speaker 2: start ours by being like, you brought us this movie.
Speaker 1: So why why.
Speaker 3: Why did you make me watch this?
Speaker 2: Well explain yourself.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, it was really fond of it for
Speaker 3: such a long time. I remember watching it as a kid.
Speaker 3: I remember watching it just being in awe and like,
Speaker 3: I specifically remember the pickle scene, like remembering the pickle
Speaker 3: scene as a kid, being like I love pickles, I
Speaker 3: love the pickle dance. And like it just was a
Speaker 3: fun time and I and I was like, I haven't
Speaker 3: seen the Little Rascals in years. So I was like,
Speaker 3: I saw that on your on your most requested list.
Speaker 3: I was like, m hm, yeah, let's let's do it,
Speaker 3: especially because I I kind of remembered that they were
Speaker 3: in a club and it realized quite how women hating
Speaker 3: their club was. Until I was watching, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: I thought it would be a really fascinating movie to
Speaker 3: dissect from this lens it is.
Speaker 2: I also didn't remember the extent to which like gender
Speaker 2: politics plays into this children's movie. It's yeah, wild, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to be honest like that.
Speaker 1: I went into this viewing being like, this is going
Speaker 1: to be a breeze. It's a kid's movie, eighty minutes long, amazing, great,
Speaker 1: and then you know, within the first two minutes you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I have to lock the fuck in, like this is
Speaker 1: this is a text.
Speaker 2: So this was a big movie of your childhood tark right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like I think I was, like I
Speaker 3: was probably I was born in ninety one, and I
Speaker 3: don't remember when this movie came out, but I was
Speaker 3: like roughly around like the same age as these kids,
Speaker 3: I think when it came out, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I came out. I remember this being like a
Speaker 1: very popular like VHS pick. This came out in ninety four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was ninety four.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was like I was definitely like in
Speaker 3: the age range of like Alfalfa. Like when I watched it,
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, I like this.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, some of the kids are like they seem
Speaker 2: to be like like Buckwheat and Porky are like four
Speaker 2: maybe five years old Alfalfa and some of the older
Speaker 2: kids are like nine. But yeah, because I'm the same
Speaker 2: age as like the actors who played Alfalfa and Waldo
Speaker 2: and a couple of the other ones, I.
Speaker 1: Made the mistake of being like, what is Alfalfa up
Speaker 1: to today?
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, don't do that, don't google him.
Speaker 1: Really, I mean, well, just I don't want to. Let
Speaker 1: let's say that, I don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's a long story short, it's a bumber. It's a
Speaker 1: bummer bug hall Man.
Speaker 2: Bug a Hall.
Speaker 1: I was like, what a fun name. Wonder what he's
Speaker 1: up to. Don't recommend, don't recommend finding out when he's
Speaker 1: up to anyways, we'll.
Speaker 2: Circle back, sure for sure, But Yeah. This was also
Speaker 2: a big movie of my childhood, and I watched it
Speaker 2: a ton as a kid, probably from like you know,
Speaker 2: ninety four to ninety seven, and then that's when Titanic
Speaker 2: came out, so I pretty much only was watching that
Speaker 2: for many years. Same, but I rewatched this movie recently,
Speaker 2: kind of apropos of nothing. I was like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: on a streaming platform. This is a movie I used
Speaker 2: to love as a kid, and I rewatched it probably
Speaker 2: like a year ago. It's pretty recently. Did not remember
Speaker 2: most of it. I do very distinctly remember the scene
Speaker 2: where the I guess it's four kids, two of them
Speaker 2: are stacked on the shoulders of two others. They go
Speaker 2: into the bank to try to get alone. Did not
Speaker 2: remember it was from mel Brooks.
Speaker 1: Which is kind of the I mean, as we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the cameo situation. This movie really runs the gamut
Speaker 1: of kinds of cameos. Some age great, one really doesn't.
Speaker 2: One does not know because he's not our fascist dictator
Speaker 2: of America.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my jaw dropped when I saw him.
Speaker 1: I was and unfortunately at the time I can see
Speaker 1: why it made perfect sense. You're just like, fuck, that
Speaker 1: was in our lifetimes. Anyways, Well, he.
Speaker 2: Made a few cameos in different movies alone too, and
Speaker 2: then he's also in Zulander. As we discussed recently.
Speaker 1: Right inescapable. But baby, Raven Simone, you're just.
Speaker 3: Like, yes, I love that. I had to pause. I
Speaker 3: was like, what I know.
Speaker 1: It's like all the famous trousers of the day. I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, they got they got the they brought
Speaker 1: it in the heavy hitters. Although I will say so
Speaker 1: none of the cameos have names. But for some reason,
Speaker 1: Raven Simone is credited as Steimy's girlfriend at the club,
Speaker 1: which makes it sound like she's twenty five and not
Speaker 1: a little bit the clerb.
Speaker 3: Like, no one's gonna no one's gonna clock this. But
Speaker 3: the little sister from Smart House was also in this,
Speaker 3: which I recognized her. She was like very tiny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh my god, well spotted because we've covered we've
Speaker 1: covered Smart House.
Speaker 2: And I didn't wow.
Speaker 1: And then yeah you got you got Riba Riba in
Speaker 1: her second best cameo after Barbin Star go to Visa
Speaker 1: del Mar. Oh my gosh, right, that's her best one.
Speaker 2: You've got WHOOPI Goldberg.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great one. Daryl Hannah, who I didn't
Speaker 1: recognize as Daryl Hannah, but then I realized and I smiled.
Speaker 3: Wow the end, I feel like maybe that's why we
Speaker 3: remember this movie so well. As partly it's just because
Speaker 3: like we remember all the stars and we were like
Speaker 3: in awe from it, and then we didn't remember any
Speaker 3: of the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I again, I didn't remember the they were in a
Speaker 2: he man woman haters club and that that was like
Speaker 2: a huge focal point of the movie.
Speaker 1: Really, I was curious if okay, so that is.
Speaker 2: Not that did not stick with me.
Speaker 3: I'm a little ashamed to say that. As I was
Speaker 3: watching this film, I thought to myself, I was like,
Speaker 3: this movie's really bad.
Speaker 2: Okay, I thank you for some light defenses of this movie.
Speaker 2: I will you know it does does it fix feminism
Speaker 2: the way it tries to claim that it does at
Speaker 2: the end, I would say, no.
Speaker 1: Didn't work for bug Hall. He's a member of the
Speaker 1: he Man Woman Hating Club to this day.
Speaker 2: Yikes, which is ironic because Alfalfa is the only boy
Speaker 2: in the club who loves women.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 1: But also I have but I have some thoughts on
Speaker 1: Alfalfa and his little boner haircut. Oh my god, how
Speaker 1: many boner drugs are going to be in this movie?
Speaker 1: Starring seven year old?
Speaker 3: It was still a little uncomfortable. It was a little
Speaker 3: Reba McIntire saying like like, are you is that a hair?
Speaker 3: A hairla? Or you just happy to see me?
Speaker 2: Was like.
Speaker 3: Years old.
Speaker 2: It was a child, you're speaking to me?
Speaker 1: Read the room. A lot of the jokes.
Speaker 2: Though, in this movie are like comedy gold. The joke
Speaker 2: writing in this movie is largely very fun. I like
Speaker 2: Penelope Spears as a comedy director. There's lots to discuss,
Speaker 2: but yeah, we'll get there. I love it.
Speaker 1: I feel like Kaitlyn, you're rarely the defender of the movie.
Speaker 1: This is exciting. So this is a childhood favorite of
Speaker 1: yours that you recently revisited.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Jamie, what about you?
Speaker 1: I had not seen this one. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I've found that I mix it up constantly with the
Speaker 1: Sandlot because the posters look very similar. But no, I
Speaker 1: hadn't seen it before, and it's like it's a weird
Speaker 1: little movie. I didn't hate it, and I didn't hate it.
Speaker 1: I guess that's my review. I didn't hate it. I
Speaker 1: think it is like pretty fucking impressive that Penelope Spheeris
Speaker 1: pulled off a movie this like vast with a cast
Speaker 1: this young, because like the kids are doing okay, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get a star every time, and in
Speaker 1: this case, I think they're kind of batting.
Speaker 2: Oh for ten.
Speaker 1: No offense to the kids, except actually the fancy the
Speaker 1: fancy little kid, I like Stymy and the fancy boy.
Speaker 1: I was like, they they were they were cooking.
Speaker 2: Oh you mean Waldo Alo Wishous Johnston the third.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, fancy McCaulay culkin is how I refer
Speaker 1: to my notes. For a second, I was like, is
Speaker 1: it no? But McCaulay culkin played Ritchie Rich around the
Speaker 1: same time.
Speaker 2: So I also found.
Speaker 1: It interesting, like looking back at because I knew that
Speaker 1: the Little Rascals had history. I didn't know it was
Speaker 1: like over one hundred years of history. So I have
Speaker 1: some some notes on that.
Speaker 2: But it's you know, I think it's.
Speaker 1: Like an interesting way to adapt it for the nineties.
Speaker 1: I like that these like little Newsy kids live in
Speaker 1: la in nineteen ninety four and that's just cannon Like
Speaker 1: it's sweet. Yeah, it didn't really solve feminism, but I
Speaker 1: think it's nice that it thought it did.
Speaker 2: It was it was trying for something.
Speaker 3: Does I think it solves feminism? Is that when the
Speaker 3: movie stands, you think.
Speaker 2: I don't actually think so. But at the end when
Speaker 2: they're like, yeah, women, you're allowed in our club in
Speaker 2: which we hate women. You're welcome here now.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, I don't see them getting leadership positions
Speaker 1: anytime soon.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what they're basically framed is like the
Speaker 2: girlfriends now, which I have a whole shpielan. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about it, but.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, Stimey's girlfriend at the club. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: club we all vam or what is the thing is
Speaker 1: that it? No, wait, I don't know. I don't I
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. It's just funny to hear
Speaker 1: it from you and the clerb.
Speaker 3: We all sam.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, let's take a quick break and then we'll
Speaker 2: come back for the recap. And we're back. We're okay.
Speaker 2: Here's the recap of the Little Rascals nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: A little boy named Spanky. The names in this incredible.
Speaker 1: Yeah we got we gotta bring that back.
Speaker 2: Kids name Spanky, kids named Froggy, kids named Porky and
Speaker 2: Buckwheat and Alfalfa and wim.
Speaker 1: Yeah they all have Looney Tunes names.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Spanky sends a note around town via pd
Speaker 2: the Dog to announce an emergency meeting of some sort.
Speaker 2: This note is seen by a kid named Stymy when
Speaker 2: he's playing baseball. Then a kid named Froggy at his house.
Speaker 2: I guess that's his name because he has a very
Speaker 2: like raspy froggy voice.
Speaker 1: Which I no offense to Little Rascals defenders. I found
Speaker 1: so obnoxious and distracted it hard to listen to. Not
Speaker 1: the kid's fault, but I was like, Okay, yeah, not
Speaker 1: my favorite.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 1: I do like I hope that this is the movie
Speaker 1: that breaks the podcast. I hope the little I hope
Speaker 1: the Little Rascals do us end.
Speaker 2: This episode is going to end in blood and tears.
Speaker 2: No swee be Froggy.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Then Pete goes to two kids who are fishing, Porky
Speaker 2: and Buckwheat. Then eventually the boys the Little Rascals gather
Speaker 2: at their clubhouse for a meeting at the Clerb At
Speaker 2: the Clerb House, uh huh, for a meeting for the
Speaker 2: he Man Woman Haters Club they recite their oath, which states,
Speaker 2: I do solemnly swear to be a he man and
Speaker 2: hate women and not play with them or talk to
Speaker 2: them unless I have to, and especially never fall in love.
Speaker 2: And then it goes on about what the punishments are
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah. A character named uh huh who
Speaker 2: seems to only say uh huh, takes minutes from the meeting. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: outside to bullies who are not allowed in the club.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, having great great bully names.
Speaker 2: Yeah, butch and wom And I'm like, is that like
Speaker 2: worm but in a.
Speaker 1: In like baby noozies?
Speaker 2: I think?
Speaker 3: Get right.
Speaker 2: The two bullies talk about how they're looking forward to
Speaker 2: beating the Rascals in an upcoming go kart race with
Speaker 2: their go kart, which is called the Beast. Meanwhile, the
Speaker 2: little Rascal's go kart, the Blur, is their club's pride
Speaker 2: and joy. They pay respects to it and to their hero,
Speaker 2: their idol, a race car driver named A J. Ferguson,
Speaker 2: and they're like, he's the best race car driver that
Speaker 2: ever lived. Then they select a name out of a
Speaker 2: hat to see who's going to drive the Blur in
Speaker 2: the upcoming go kart race and the name that they
Speaker 2: select is Alsalfa, who is not there at the meeting.
Speaker 2: They discover that Alfalfa is secretly spending time with his girlfriend, Darla, because,
Speaker 2: unlike the other members of the he Man Woman Haters Club,
Speaker 2: Alfalfa is sensitive and romantic and he loves women. And
Speaker 2: Darla is like, well, then why the fuck are you
Speaker 2: in this ridiculous misogyny club.
Speaker 1: I love Darla. I love Darla so much. Darla takes
Speaker 1: no nonsense from these little boys. She has no time
Speaker 1: for them. I love it.
Speaker 3: She doesn't very grown.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's so grown, despite being like four years old
Speaker 2: when production started, so little.
Speaker 1: She's so tiny and you can just hear I don't know.
Speaker 1: Like the blooperrial was so cute because you're like, God,
Speaker 1: these kids are these kids are are just like hanging
Speaker 1: on by their little fingernails trying to remember these sentences.
Speaker 2: It's so cute. And Darla's little blooperrial segment at the end.
Speaker 3: Is like, stop looking at the camera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so cute. I have a whole spiel about the
Speaker 2: age difference between her and her various love interests, but
Speaker 2: we'll get we'll get to it. Wow, okay. So Alfalfa
Speaker 2: tells Darla that he's going to take her on a picnic,
Speaker 2: and she suggests they have it at his clubhouse so
Speaker 2: that he can prove that he's not ashamed of her
Speaker 2: and that he's proud of her. So the next day,
Speaker 2: Alfalfa goes to pick up Darla, he's attacked by a
Speaker 2: dog that belongs to Waldo. Aloisious Johnston the Third, a
Speaker 2: rich kid who absolutely sucks.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, he's so funny, and I hate it. It is
Speaker 1: it feels very nineties that they make a little social
Speaker 1: statement with what a piece of shit he is. Like,
Speaker 1: they go out of their way to be like he's
Speaker 1: a mini oil baron and you're like, what a detail,
Speaker 1: what a detail to just have there. I kind of
Speaker 1: loved it.
Speaker 2: And produces a great joke where yeah, he's like, my
Speaker 2: dad just bought the local oil refinery and Darla's like,
Speaker 2: that explains why you're so refined in Alfalfa and why
Speaker 2: you're so oily.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious as those are good. The jokes are good,
Speaker 1: the good jokes, Thank.
Speaker 2: You, thank you. Okay, So Waldo sucks, but he takes
Speaker 2: a liking to Darla to Alfalfa's dismay. Alfalfa and Darla
Speaker 2: go on a candlelight picnic the clubhouse the clubhouse, but
Speaker 2: the little rascals sabotage it by putting a whoopee cushion
Speaker 2: under Alfalfa. They put kitty litter in their sandwiches, all
Speaker 2: this kind of stuff, and then they start like banging
Speaker 2: on the door. So Alfalfa hurriedly shoes Darla away and
Speaker 2: tries to clean everything up, but he accidentally doesn't blow
Speaker 2: out one of the candles, so the clubhouse catches fire.
Speaker 2: The kids try to put out the fire, but the
Speaker 2: clubhouse burns down.
Speaker 1: I love this sequence when they're the little baby firefighters.
Speaker 2: It's so cute, cute.
Speaker 3: I like the entire time, I'm just like, where are
Speaker 3: any of the adults? The adults like they they they
Speaker 3: just don't exist in this worl These.
Speaker 2: Kids are never home.
Speaker 1: I kind of love the like just lot because it's like,
Speaker 1: because I was worried that they're gonna like single out
Speaker 1: specific kids, but it's just like, this is a world
Speaker 1: with no parents, except at the end when you see
Speaker 1: that they do have parents and they look exactly like them,
Speaker 1: but bigger and I liked that joke a lot, Like
Speaker 1: these parents are are bad at their job, but I
Speaker 1: love that. I feel like it is like this like
Speaker 1: fantasy for like people of our generation to be as
Speaker 1: loose as the little rascals are.
Speaker 3: Do whatever you want, live life without a care in
Speaker 3: the world, without any adults. You know, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: Your parents have no idea. You've organized a hate group.
Speaker 2: Underground.
Speaker 1: They didn't used to know these things, right, And these kids.
Speaker 2: Are like not going home for what seems like days
Speaker 2: at a time. They're just sort of like sleeping out
Speaker 2: at the club house.
Speaker 1: Maroon Alfalfa fishing out on a lake on their own.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel like this. This takes place in
Speaker 1: the South one hundred years ago, but also in Los
Speaker 1: Angeles in the nineties, and both reads are correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, for sure. It's great. Okay, so the house
Speaker 2: is burnt down. Meanwhile, because Alfalfa had tried to hide Darla,
Speaker 2: she realizes that he is ashamed of her, so she
Speaker 2: dumps his ass and leaves with that rich prick Waldo.
Speaker 3: Hie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's I wrote down. This is very specific,
Speaker 1: but it reminded me of when Jane Fonda divorced her
Speaker 1: activist husband and married Ted Turner. Wow, Jane Fonda heads
Speaker 1: will well know.
Speaker 2: Are they still married?
Speaker 1: No, she divorces ass too. She's I mean, she's the best,
Speaker 1: but she was married to Ted Turner.
Speaker 2: Which is why suspicious truly.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: In any case, the rascals put Alfalfa on trial and
Speaker 2: then on probation, and his punishment is to guard their
Speaker 2: go kart the Blur day and night, and he can
Speaker 2: never talk to, or see or think about Darla ever again.
Speaker 2: So that night, when Alfalfa's guarding the go kart, all
Speaker 2: the boys join him for a little sleepover in a
Speaker 2: tent and they're talking about why they think girls are gross. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: Darla is having a sleepover with her girl friends and
Speaker 2: they're talking about why they think boys are gross. It's
Speaker 2: a really fun like intercut scene. The next day, the
Speaker 2: boys get to work on rebuilding their clubhouse, but they
Speaker 2: don't have the money for lumber, which they try to
Speaker 2: buy from Norm from Cheers, so a few of them
Speaker 2: go into a bank. This is the scene that I
Speaker 2: distinctly remember from watching this as a kid. They're like
Speaker 2: stacked on each other's shoulders and they try to get
Speaker 2: a bank loan from mel Brooks, which he denies them. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: there's a scene where Alfalfa writes a love note and
Speaker 2: then has Buckwheat and Porky deliver it to Darla. But
Speaker 2: it's this whole comedy of errors situation where Darla ends
Speaker 2: up even more mad at Alfalfa because there's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the misinterpretation of what happens.
Speaker 1: I thought it was interesting that that whole gag is
Speaker 1: predicated on you have to be able to read to understand,
Speaker 1: and I was like, I don't think the target audience
Speaker 1: of this movie can read yet. Well.
Speaker 2: I mean, let me say I was eight when the
Speaker 2: movie came out, and I knew how to read at
Speaker 2: age eight.
Speaker 1: That's free.
Speaker 2: But also, I don't remember that joke at all, and
Speaker 2: I don't remember ever knowing what that letter said, so
Speaker 2: I don't know if I ever even understood what was
Speaker 2: happening in that scene.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can like cut this. This is a
Speaker 1: movie based on vibes. She ends up mattering absolutely, yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to show this movie to my niece, but
Speaker 1: I don't know if she reads well enough yet to
Speaker 1: get the joke.
Speaker 2: She's five. Yeah, Well, it turns out you won't get
Speaker 2: any of the jokes when you're eight or maybe even ten,
Speaker 2: so who knows. I truly was like, oh, there are
Speaker 2: like a dozen jokes that I never understood as a
Speaker 2: kid that I had to wait till adulthood.
Speaker 1: It's just like Shrek in that way.
Speaker 2: Wow makes you think, That makes you think really really hard. Okay,
Speaker 2: So Darla's even more mad at Alfalfa. So Alfalfa goes
Speaker 2: to Darla's ballet recital to try to clear things up,
Speaker 2: but Spanky insists on going with him to ensure that
Speaker 2: Alfalfa breaks up with Darla once and for all. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the two bullies Butch and Woim distract Buckwheat and Porky,
Speaker 2: who are guarding the Blur in this moment, so that
Speaker 2: they can steal the go kart, but the little rascals
Speaker 2: had set up a like Rube Goldberg pickle trap, so
Speaker 2: they are unsuccessful at stealing the Blur. Back at the recital,
Speaker 2: Alfalfa and Spanky dress as girls in like wigs and
Speaker 2: tutus in order to hide from Butch and Womb, and
Speaker 2: then while they're still in like little girl drag, Alfalfa
Speaker 2: and Spanky talk to Darla, who doesn't realize she's talking
Speaker 2: to these boys, and she's like, oh, here, take my handkerchief.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I remember Alfalfa. He took the best years
Speaker 2: of my life. Hilarious joke. And then she also says
Speaker 2: like I couldn't resist his singing voice because that's gonna
Speaker 2: all pay off later. Then Alfalfa and Spanky get shuffled
Speaker 2: in with the other ballerinas who are about to go
Speaker 2: on stage. They perform in the recital, they ruin it,
Speaker 2: which infuriates the instructor aka Leah Thompson aka Lorraine from
Speaker 2: Back to the Future. She chases them out, but oh no,
Speaker 2: the bullies are waiting for them, so they start chasing Alfalfa.
Speaker 2: He's in his underwear, by the way, because there was
Speaker 2: like a frog in his tutu. This the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I'm like, YadA YadA, frog twuto you know.
Speaker 2: You know, And I'm like, why are we making kids
Speaker 2: run around in their underwear on screen? Anyway, he runs
Speaker 2: into Darla and Waldo, who are like lounging by the
Speaker 2: pool drinking cocktails. They're getting fucked up in.
Speaker 3: The hot tub with umbrellas and like, like, what are
Speaker 3: you drinking?
Speaker 2: It's it is funny, but it's also just goofy as hell,
Speaker 2: and they see him naked. They see Alfalfa naked and
Speaker 2: it's weird. Meanwhile, the other little Rascals head to a
Speaker 2: fair to try to raise money to rebuild their clubhouse.
Speaker 2: Then back at the burnt down clubhouse, Alfalfa finds the
Speaker 2: checklist that his friends were using to sabotage his picnic
Speaker 2: with Darla, and Alfalfa realizes that they and especially are
Speaker 2: to blame for Darla hating Alfalfa, so he takes off
Speaker 2: in the blur to confront Spanky at the fair. Back
Speaker 2: at the fair, Buckwee and Porky have scammed people into
Speaker 2: paying admission for a free talent show.
Speaker 3: Listen. I would have paid for the four foot tall
Speaker 3: man eating chicken.
Speaker 2: Also such a good joke because you think it's gonna
Speaker 2: be eat a chicken who eats men men?
Speaker 3: But if I gotta scammed out of that, I'd be like,
Speaker 3: you know what, you it exactly? I was.
Speaker 1: I was shocked at how long it took me to
Speaker 1: figure out what that choke So funny, it's really funny.
Speaker 2: Okay, So this is when we see Darryl Hannah. She
Speaker 2: is like the coordinator of the talent show, named Miss Crabtree.
Speaker 2: She discovers this ruse and reprimands the boys, although Spanky
Speaker 2: makes a suggestion for what to do with the money,
Speaker 2: which is to award it to whoever wins first place
Speaker 2: at the upcoming go Kart derby. Then Alfalfa arrives at
Speaker 2: the fair where Waldo and Darla are singing a duet
Speaker 2: in the talent show. Alfalfa also performs a song, knowing
Speaker 2: that Darla melts when she hears his singing voice, although
Speaker 2: Waldo sabotages the performance by putting like dish soap into
Speaker 2: Alfalfa's glass of water, so he's like blowing bubbles and
Speaker 2: Darla's like, you suck Alfalfa.
Speaker 3: I remember this part too, and I'm being like, wow,
Speaker 3: so cool.
Speaker 2: Look when you're five, it is so cute. It's cute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe you want to drink dish soap and burn.
Speaker 2: Honestly a lot of things. I was like, I want
Speaker 2: to build a Rube Goldberg pickle machine.
Speaker 3: I also wanted an etch A sketch because of how
Speaker 3: well they drew that at there in that car.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So meanwhile, the bullies butch and Wims steal
Speaker 2: the Blur while it's parked outside the fair, and then
Speaker 2: after Alfalfa's performance, he and Spanky get in a huge
Speaker 2: fight and Alfalfa storms off and all the little rascals
Speaker 2: are sad, but then they eventually make up and all
Speaker 2: the boys reconvene and get to work on building a
Speaker 2: new go kart for the Derby. The Blur Too colon
Speaker 2: the sequel, or as I like to call it, an
Speaker 2: extremely blurry gok kurt.
Speaker 1: Yes exactly, exactly, yes, and.
Speaker 2: They build it out of like a trash can and
Speaker 2: washing machine parts and other random little do dads. Cut
Speaker 2: to the Derby, Alfalfa and Spanky are together in their
Speaker 2: new go krt, the Blur Too, an extremely blurry go kart.
Speaker 2: Several other drivers are there, such as Butch and Woim
Speaker 2: in the stolen Blur with a new paint job. Waldo
Speaker 2: and Darla are in like Waldo's rich kid go kart.
Speaker 2: By the way, Darla is starting to realize how much
Speaker 2: Waldo sucks. Yeah, Reba McIntyre is there, is the announcer.
Speaker 2: She makes a boner choke to a child and we're like.
Speaker 1: Was that normal in nineteen ninety four or was it
Speaker 1: weird then too? If we don't know, I think it was.
Speaker 2: More normal back then. Also, as we mentioned, our fascist
Speaker 2: American president slash dictator Donald Trump is there as Waldo's father,
Speaker 2: what Pe Goldberger's there. The race begins, There's some confusion
Speaker 2: and for a while, like Alfalfa and Spanky and the
Speaker 2: bullies and Waldo and Darla accidentally go the wrong way
Speaker 2: and get separated from the other racers. Waldo tries to
Speaker 2: sabotage Alfalfa and Spanky's go cart, so Darla is like,
Speaker 2: fuck you, Waldo, I'm done with you, so he pulls
Speaker 2: over to let her out of the go kart. Then
Speaker 2: the bullies try to sabotage Alfalfa and Spanky, but then
Speaker 2: it seems like Waldo helps them, but we can't super
Speaker 2: tell because they're wearing a helmet that obscures their face,
Speaker 2: so we don't know exactly who it is, but we
Speaker 2: think it's supposed to be Waldo.
Speaker 1: My gosh, and then get ready for a classic trope.
Speaker 2: Then the race is almost over. They're almost across the
Speaker 2: finish line, and Alfalfa and Spanky win by a hair
Speaker 2: literally because it's Alfalfa's little spike thing that crosses the
Speaker 2: finish line first, and then they realize that the person
Speaker 2: who helped them was not Waldo because they take off
Speaker 2: their helmet and it's.
Speaker 1: Darla, good good, good, good girl.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. The person you thought was a man
Speaker 2: because they're doing a traditionally masculine activity is actually a woman. Astonished,
Speaker 2: I can't believe it.
Speaker 1: The joke here is that a girl, well kid drive right.
Speaker 2: So Darla has forgiven Alfalfa after realizing his devotion to her. Also,
Speaker 2: Alfalfa and Spanky win the five hundred dollars cash prize,
Speaker 2: which means that they can finally rebuild their clubhouse. They
Speaker 2: also learn that their idol, A J. Ferguson, is a
Speaker 2: whoa whoa whoa whoa woman.
Speaker 1: I know, great twist from Riba.
Speaker 2: And because of all of this, they make an amendment
Speaker 2: to their club. They are still the he Man Woman
Speaker 2: Haters Club, but now they allow women to join. We
Speaker 2: see the Little Rascals along with Darla and her friends
Speaker 2: along with the Raven Simone.
Speaker 1: Raving Simone Stany's girlfriend at the.
Speaker 2: Club exactly, and they're now coexisting in harmony because the
Speaker 2: Little rast Gals fixed misogyny question.
Speaker 1: Mark or just made it more inclusive. They're like, we
Speaker 1: are now, I mean it kind of is like a
Speaker 1: lot of like right wing movements right now. We're like,
Speaker 1: we're also allowing the targets of our hatred to join
Speaker 1: the group. And you're like, okay, do.
Speaker 3: They also become women haters?
Speaker 2: Unclear? Well right, like many such cases internalized misogyny, which
Speaker 2: you know a lot of girls, especially in this era,
Speaker 2: were you know, socialized to have so could be.
Speaker 3: Do they become TERFs?
Speaker 1: Oh no not, I don't. I don't want to know
Speaker 1: what happens to these kids when they get older.
Speaker 4: I have.
Speaker 1: I just feel like they're headed down a dark road.
Speaker 2: It's dark. Guts are fucked up. So that's the movie.
Speaker 2: Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 2: to discuss.
Speaker 1: And we're back back. Should we just start at the
Speaker 1: he Man woman haters? Clumb I was curious, so the rundown,
Speaker 1: I mean there is truly if you're a true Little
Speaker 1: Rascals head, like going back to the very beginning.
Speaker 2: Literally there's not enough time.
Speaker 1: The longest Wikipedia page to ever exist is the Little
Speaker 1: Rascals page, because oh yeah, because they began as these
Speaker 1: theatrical shorts called Our Gang. The franchise began in nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty two.
Speaker 2: During like the Silent era.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so, like the Little Rascals have been around with
Speaker 1: us for basically as long as movies have, give or
Speaker 1: take like a decade or so. And they've changed over
Speaker 1: the years, which I can't speak to every single change.
Speaker 1: But the He Man Woman Haters Club, as far as
Speaker 1: I could tell, goes as far back as nineteen thirty seven.
Speaker 1: Because I was curious if this was an invention of
Speaker 1: the franchise or this movie specifically to try to have
Speaker 1: some gender commentary, but it's it's canon. It goes back
Speaker 1: to nineteen thirty seven. There is a lot to be
Speaker 1: said for what I can tell about Our Gang or
Speaker 1: the Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Little Rascals.
Speaker 2: Over the years.
Speaker 3: This page is insane.
Speaker 2: It's so long.
Speaker 1: I've got to say I scanned it. But like hal
Speaker 1: Roach is like a big I remember him coming up
Speaker 1: in like film school because he also created the Laurel
Speaker 1: and Hardy series. Like, he's very influential in early movies.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to be said, and I know that
Speaker 1: we'll talk about it later in this episode. With regards
Speaker 1: to this movie. But this series relationship with race, as
Speaker 1: maybe you could imagine because it started in nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: is all over the place. It's extremely fraught.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: As far as the early shorts go, there have always
Speaker 1: been young black actors in Our Gang or the Little Rascals,
Speaker 1: which in the twenties was polarizing for different reasons because
Speaker 1: many black audiences felt correctly that the kids were being
Speaker 1: heavily racially stereotyped in the roles they were casted. And
Speaker 1: then there were a lot of white audiences that were
Speaker 1: just angry that there was a black character at all.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot to be said about that. But
Speaker 1: from what I can tell, the characters have been pretty consistent.
Speaker 1: They would be you know, throughout the twenties, thirties, and forties,
Speaker 1: they would be recast like they would just put a
Speaker 1: child in the garbage and then be like this is
Speaker 1: the new Alfalfa like and that would happen every couple
Speaker 1: of years. It was a big way to like launch
Speaker 1: your career in the studio system back in the day.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons that there's now more labor
Speaker 1: rights for child actors because most of the kids who
Speaker 1: starred in them, didn't go on to have like an
Speaker 1: enduring Hollywood career, and also didn't get any residuals or anything,
Speaker 1: even though the series, you know, the shorts were shown
Speaker 1: over and over.
Speaker 3: So you're saying, this is like the Doctor Who of
Speaker 3: Old America where you can regenerate and get a new alfalfa.
Speaker 1: Exactly, yes, kind of yeah, like I and this is
Speaker 1: like to be clear, I did not know a bar
Speaker 1: of this before this morning. So thankfully the Our Gang
Speaker 1: wikia was also very helpful to me because the he
Speaker 1: Man Woman Haters Club has its own page. So the
Speaker 1: he Man Woman Haters Club goes back to the thirties
Speaker 1: in the short male and female but male spelled m ail,
Speaker 1: which I'm sure is a hilarious joke in text. Don't
Speaker 1: really know, so I'll tell you that three times the
Speaker 1: he Man Woman Haters Club come up in the series.
Speaker 1: The first is in nineteen thirty seven, kind of a
Speaker 1: similar story from the nineties. Okay, Spanky had I'm quoted
Speaker 1: here from the Ourgang dot fandom dot com.
Speaker 2: Wow scholarly journal. Yeah, which whoever is?
Speaker 1: I'm like, who is this for? But I guess us? Okay,
Speaker 1: Spanky had founded the Exclusive Club as a defense against
Speaker 1: girls and Valentine's Day, but Alfalfa's heart was just.
Speaker 2: Not in it.
Speaker 1: His love for Darla keeps him from taking it seriously,
Speaker 1: but Spanky soon forces him to realize the bonds of brotherhood.
Speaker 1: Spanky later restores the club as an act of revenge
Speaker 1: after none of the boys get invited to the Makilla
Speaker 1: Cutty Girls party, and institutes Alfalfa as president. However, when
Speaker 1: Alfalfa learns the club rules to never fraternize with the
Speaker 1: girls again, he is forced to rush back and get
Speaker 1: a love note he sent to Darla, later trapping the
Speaker 1: club members there, but he gets busted when the love
Speaker 1: note is discovered. So like, there's similarities, right. There were
Speaker 1: adaptations in the eighties as well. I believe most of
Speaker 1: them were cartoons. But this is where in the eighties
Speaker 1: the he Man This is so much I'm sorry, guys,
Speaker 1: the he Man Woman Haters Club comes back around over
Speaker 1: sixty years.
Speaker 2: Into the Gang's run. So wait, let me pause you
Speaker 2: for one second. Yeah, so it's only in one episode
Speaker 2: slash one short film that the he Man Woman Haters
Speaker 2: comes up in the original run of this series. Is
Speaker 2: that right?
Speaker 1: I cannot confirm that for sure. I was only able
Speaker 1: to find that it's very relevant to the plot in
Speaker 1: exactly one short from nineteen thirty seven. Okay, okay, so
Speaker 1: I can't say that for sure, but it seems like
Speaker 1: this is just something that's planted. And then when they
Speaker 1: go back to it in the eighties, they find this
Speaker 1: episode and they're like, oh, let's bring back the Misogyny Club.
Speaker 1: That was fun, right right okay, which which is congratulations,
Speaker 1: So whoever the fuck did that? So okay in the
Speaker 1: eighties version, you can all see like shadows of what's
Speaker 1: going to happen in the nineties, Spanky refounds the club
Speaker 1: and installs himself as president. Darla briefly considers starting her
Speaker 1: own club, the She Woman Man Haters Club. However, in
Speaker 1: an attempt to cheer Darla up for losing the town
Speaker 1: beauty pageant, the boys make Darla queen of their club.
Speaker 1: Darla's response to her role is, I guess anybody can
Speaker 1: be a beauty queen, but not everybody can be Queen
Speaker 1: of the He Man Woman Haters Club. So that's how
Speaker 1: they tackle it in the eighties, and which is like,
Speaker 1: somehow worse than the first time. And then there's the
Speaker 1: reference to this one in the nineties.
Speaker 3: So are there threads of the little rascals that don't
Speaker 3: include a misogyny club?
Speaker 1: That is a really good question, not that I've been
Speaker 1: able to tell.
Speaker 3: I mean, misogyny really is just timeless, isn't it.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere, It's always.
Speaker 1: So my understanding is, yeah, it starts as silent films,
Speaker 1: it goes into the sound era. The kids are recast constantly,
Speaker 1: but it basically is released like seasons of TV before
Speaker 1: TV existed, so they would be shown before kids movies
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. And yeah, it's relationship with race
Speaker 1: is very complicated and it's been around for over one
Speaker 1: hundred years wild and for what. But let's talk about
Speaker 1: it a lot.
Speaker 2: So the way the He Man Woman Haters Club is
Speaker 2: represented in the movie, this nineteen ninety four movie is
Speaker 2: I feel like, very emblematic of the vibes when you
Speaker 2: were if you were a kid in the nineties, it
Speaker 2: was just like no girls allowed, you know, boys thinking
Speaker 2: that girls were grossed and awful because.
Speaker 3: They maybe this is why I'm gay. Girl.
Speaker 2: Ninety's misogyny made people gay. No, but like but little
Speaker 2: boys were little boys like hated girls simply because they
Speaker 2: were conditioned to think that they were supposed to and
Speaker 2: that they were told that like, you know, quote unquote
Speaker 2: girly things were bad and they were synonymous with like
Speaker 2: weakness and other negative qualities. And clearly the kids in
Speaker 2: this movie, like kids that young, haven't given much or
Speaker 2: any critical thought to why they hate girls and women,
Speaker 2: partly because they don't have the like cognitive capacity to
Speaker 2: do that type of critical thinking because they're just simply
Speaker 2: too young. But like they're just like, yeah, I hate
Speaker 2: girls because I'm supposed to because I'm a boy. You know,
Speaker 2: it's just like right, senseless reasons, and so that was
Speaker 2: very common. I remember like growing up as a kid,
Speaker 2: like being excluded.
Speaker 1: From I mean, I think it's still a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah, and yeah this movie is just like
Speaker 2: and let's have that. But you know, you have one
Speaker 2: this kid, Alfalfa, who belongs to the club for some reason,
Speaker 2: even though he is a self proclaimed male feminist or something.
Speaker 1: But he's also like I feel like he's like a
Speaker 1: closet feminist because it's not like he's he's not a
Speaker 1: feminist when it counts when he's around his voice.
Speaker 3: I'm not like those other kids. Darlin like, yes, I'm
Speaker 3: in touch with my feminine side.
Speaker 1: I do love the little boat.
Speaker 2: It's cute. And he's like, I'm a sensitive male. I'm
Speaker 2: into sharing, caring, feeling and healing. And then so you know,
Speaker 2: you have this kid who's like secretly at odds with
Speaker 2: the misogyny club, but he does nothing to like challenge
Speaker 2: them really, and then you have this arc by the
Speaker 2: end where after you know, realizing that their race car
Speaker 2: Idol is actually a woman and realizing that the person
Speaker 2: who helped them in the race was a little girl
Speaker 2: and not a boy like they thought, They're like, maybe
Speaker 2: girls aren't so bad after all, let's let them into
Speaker 2: our hateful club. And the arc of the story you're like,
Speaker 2: it's a start question where right? I did enjoy this
Speaker 2: scene although it's you know, just referring to a bunch
Speaker 2: of stereotypes, but like the sleepover scenes that are like
Speaker 2: juxtaposed against each other, where the girls are like, girls
Speaker 2: get along with each other, boys stand up for themselves.
Speaker 2: Girls care, boys take what's theirs. Boys won't listen. All
Speaker 2: girls want to do is talk. They'd ever shut the
Speaker 2: fuck up. Boys like tomon girls and they're like, no,
Speaker 2: we don't as if they're like having a conversation with
Speaker 2: It's so funny. But yeah, they're just like going on
Speaker 2: and on about like, oh, stereotypically girls like this and
Speaker 2: stereotypically boys like this, and you know, it's it's I
Speaker 2: don't know. I thought it was.
Speaker 1: I thought it was like it's it's so like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's it's a tricky needle to thread right where.
Speaker 1: I like that they are they are they're clearly like
Speaker 1: parroting things they've heard from other people and not standing
Speaker 1: at his fact. Like the movie is to some extent
Speaker 1: trying to push back on these assumptions, but it never
Speaker 1: pushes quite far enough because it seems like in every
Speaker 1: version of this story, best case scenario, the girls join
Speaker 1: the girl hating group, right, So it's weird.
Speaker 2: I don't know. And this was like the spiel that
Speaker 2: I was gonna give about it, where like at the
Speaker 2: very end, when the girls are present at the misogyny
Speaker 2: clerb and we see like we see a few quick
Speaker 2: cuts of the girls and boys like sharing interests, their
Speaker 2: interests with each other, like dolls and lizards and sticking
Speaker 2: pencils up your nose. But then also we see like
Speaker 2: the boys kissing the girls a few times, which felt unnecessary,
Speaker 2: both from a like can we not have children kiss
Speaker 2: each other in movies? That just feels like a very weird, grossicky,
Speaker 2: like thankfully outdated thing that I don't think really happens anymore,
Speaker 2: but it also just seems to suggest, like, well, a
Speaker 2: big reason that the boys are now allowing the girls
Speaker 2: to hang out with them is because the girls are
Speaker 2: becoming objects of the boy's romantic affection, and that's the
Speaker 2: main function of women in a patriarchal society. So those
Speaker 2: like little kisses at the end, I was like, hmm,
Speaker 2: don't like the implications that I.
Speaker 1: Agree, yeah, And I luckily don't think that that. I
Speaker 1: hope that that wouldn't happen now.
Speaker 2: I'm like, ugh.
Speaker 3: One thing I noticed was like this movie was very
Speaker 3: reminiscent of like the problematic over sexualization of children in
Speaker 3: the nineties and how no one really ever thought about
Speaker 3: it and they just make all these awful jokes, and
Speaker 3: like there was no need for Alfalfa to be swimming
Speaker 3: in white briefs in a pool and be naked, and
Speaker 3: like it was tasteless, it was just like, why is
Speaker 3: this even here?
Speaker 1: Like I really like it's so yeah, it's gross. I
Speaker 1: know that we'll touch on Bug Hall really quick. Bug Haul.
Speaker 1: I have not watched the video, but I know that
Speaker 1: he has spoken out on feeling that he was mistreated
Speaker 1: in Hollywood as a child and that that really affected
Speaker 1: his life. He he continued to act through like up
Speaker 1: until a couple of years ago, had some addiction issues,
Speaker 1: but most relevantly, I guess to the content of this movie.
Speaker 1: So I do want to acknowledge that he and again
Speaker 1: I don't know the details of it, but says that
Speaker 1: he was mistreated as a kid. I don't know how
Speaker 1: severe the allegations are or anything like that, but he
Speaker 1: also hates women to this day. This is from scholarly
Speaker 1: journal Wikipedia. In twenty thirteen, Hall converted to Catholicism, later
Speaker 1: leaving Hollywood. In twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, Hall
Speaker 1: stated that he and his family had moved to a
Speaker 1: farm in the Midwest so as to undertake a vow
Speaker 1: of poverty. In December twenty twenty two, Hall was temporarily
Speaker 1: banned on Twitter after posting tweets in support of marital
Speaker 1: debt and corporal punishment of minors. Regarding his two daughters,
Speaker 1: marital debt is like your wife is legally obligated to
Speaker 1: have sex with you when you.
Speaker 2: Want to have sex with her. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: He followed up on the band through his Instagram, saying,
Speaker 1: the truth will always be unpopular, the truthful will always
Speaker 1: be persecuted, but eternity will always be sweet. Remember twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, Hall was criticized for referring to his daughters
Speaker 1: as dishwashers in an ex post regarding the birth of
Speaker 1: his first son, who he called his heir. So boo
Speaker 1: boo to wow, we'reas I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: these kids didn't work very long in Hollywood, so I
Speaker 1: can't follow everyone's career. But interestingly, Alfalfa, our hero turns
Speaker 1: out to be a real life villain. Meanwhile, Waldo our
Speaker 1: villain villain, Blake McIvor Ewing is a queer icon and
Speaker 1: has he's gay. He's gay, Oh my god. He's like
Speaker 1: done work for the It Gets Better project. He's been
Speaker 1: in La Go Go Dancer and like has been a
Speaker 1: huge advocate for gay rights for a very long time.
Speaker 3: So I need a book, a flight to La.
Speaker 1: Get over here Blake's waiting, but it's really I was.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, it's so it's the bug Hall
Speaker 1: stuff through me for a damn loop.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I did not encounter that in my research. Yikes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this this film really like doesn't really hit you
Speaker 3: on the head enough with like it's if its intent
Speaker 3: was to be like, well, like, actually women are like
Speaker 3: equal and like we should like these are all stereotypes
Speaker 3: that we fight and that we should be combating like that,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really do that at all. It like really
Speaker 3: elevates a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1: Right, which is weird because I felt like, well, I
Speaker 1: don't know what what y'all think, but like I felt
Speaker 1: like in nineteen ninety four you could get away with
Speaker 1: doing that, but especially in a movie that is like
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I love Penelope Spherists and who knows,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure this movie was like noted in
Speaker 1: studio Notes to Death. But I do wonder if there
Speaker 1: was ever if that was ever even like floated.
Speaker 3: Like having it be more like more feminist in its approach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I just wonder if that was ever even
Speaker 1: like on the table, like.
Speaker 3: So, actually I just watched TUTSI the other day, which
Speaker 3: is really funny because I saw it on your list
Speaker 3: and then my husband had it in our library and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, let's check this out. And that
Speaker 3: movie was made in the eighties, and that movie does
Speaker 3: a really great job at like talking about gender equality
Speaker 3: and like expectations of women at the time in the eighties,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, that was in the eighties, so like
Speaker 3: this was like ten years later. Like they absolutely could
Speaker 3: have gone way further with it.
Speaker 1: Especially in a movie for kids, where it would be
Speaker 1: extra valuable to include those values. And I don't know,
Speaker 1: it seems like they built out, you know, Darlaw's world
Speaker 1: a little bit more, but her her world is still
Speaker 1: very like stereotypically feminine, and it's like ballet and sleepovers
Speaker 1: and tudas, and the world of the boys is very
Speaker 1: stereotypically masculine. I liked the drag sequence was kind of fun,
Speaker 1: so I thought it was sweet.
Speaker 2: I don't know, there were a couple like moments of
Speaker 2: sort of like queer phobia where, for example, because of
Speaker 2: the girls who are talking to the two boys in
Speaker 2: Tutu's in wigs and everything, and they don't realize they're
Speaker 2: talking to boys. They are talking about Alfalfa as if
Speaker 2: he's not there, and I think it's Spanky goes, well,
Speaker 2: I heard Alfalfa dresses in girls clothing, I e. In
Speaker 2: this exact moment, right, and then all the girls are
Speaker 2: like shock and maybe discussed very dated. And then there's
Speaker 2: like a no homo joke where.
Speaker 1: Like they're eight like that I'm doing right, They're like weird.
Speaker 2: No, the girls see the boys again, not realizing they're boys,
Speaker 2: and they say, oh, are you fairies and they're like, no,
Speaker 2: we're not fairies, as if like eight year old kids
Speaker 2: understand that euphemism, and then they're like, no, we mean like,
Speaker 2: are you sugar plum fairies because they're about to like
Speaker 2: do scenes from the Nutcrack and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: we're sugar plum fairies.
Speaker 1: So it's just I mean this, I think, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure it has to do with its like age, but
Speaker 1: this like franchise has just struggled with equality conceptually. It
Speaker 1: seems like at every stage of its existence, the.
Speaker 3: Best thing it has going for it are it's cameos.
Speaker 1: Truly, yes, and I've like that that firmly places this
Speaker 1: movie in the nineties, where the characters are from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty for some reason, but they know Reba, so how
Speaker 1: bad could it be? Yeah, I guess I was curious
Speaker 1: because there this is a I guess for a nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four movie, more diverse than I expected. And I
Speaker 1: also didn't know that that is canonical to the series
Speaker 1: going back one hundred years. But we don't really know
Speaker 1: anything about the black characters, and almost everything they do
Speaker 1: is to support Alfalfa or Spanky.
Speaker 2: It seems like right it is a predominantly white cast,
Speaker 2: but as you mentioned, Jamie, I guess the inclusion of
Speaker 2: the two black characters who are among the main cast,
Speaker 2: between Steami and Buckwheat, it is kind of pulling from
Speaker 2: the original series from the twenties, thirties, and forties, which
Speaker 2: was considered to be groundbreaking because it was like one
Speaker 2: of the first and few pieces of media at the
Speaker 2: time that was portraying black and white children interacting as
Speaker 2: equals in the Jim Crow era. As you also said,
Speaker 2: the black characters were basically just racial stereotypes and that
Speaker 2: there were various like very racially charged gags that were
Speaker 2: just absolutely disgusting throughout the series, which was also further complicated.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of I forget what movie we
Speaker 1: talked about that had a simpler legacy where the actors
Speaker 1: who played these parts in the original shorts were sort
Speaker 1: of like later kind of defensive of the arguing shorts
Speaker 1: where I guess that Eddie Murphy performed as Buckwheat on
Speaker 1: SNL in the eighties and the original Buckwheat's family reached
Speaker 1: out and was like, fuck you, Eddie Murphy.
Speaker 2: It's a whoa.
Speaker 1: But it sounds like I haven't seen the sketches, but
Speaker 1: it seems like the sketches were built around like, yes,
Speaker 1: this was a black character on TV, but how like
Speaker 1: how racist were they being to this character?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean, as many people have pointed out when
Speaker 2: it comes to inclusion in media, just because a marginalized
Speaker 2: person is represented on screen doesn't mean that representation is
Speaker 2: thoughtful or responsible. Because going back to the nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: four movie, of the main cast, it is predominantly white.
Speaker 2: There are a couple black characters who are given some characterization.
Speaker 2: There's an Asian character who doesn't speak at all, because
Speaker 2: there's like I don't know, a dozen or so little
Speaker 2: rascals that are just extras, like they're in the club,
Speaker 2: but we don't ever meet them or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I'd say, at the very least, the very offensive racial
Speaker 2: stereotyping from the original series doesn't carry over into the
Speaker 2: black characters in the movie. But that is such a
Speaker 2: low bar and it is not an accomplishment.
Speaker 1: It just feels like there's still a deeply reduced role
Speaker 1: as a results for sure. Yeah, and that I think
Speaker 1: the only like young black girl that we see is
Speaker 1: raven In passing.
Speaker 2: In one second. Yeah. I also think it's interesting that,
Speaker 2: like the nineties idea of racial diversity is like mostly
Speaker 2: white people and then a few black people, other racial
Speaker 2: identities never heard of them, especially, so like I mean whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying anything that we don't know already, but like,
Speaker 2: especially because this is canonically in LA, which has like
Speaker 2: always been a very very diverse place, like updated or
Speaker 2: don't pick a lane.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like they sought out to like recreate this
Speaker 3: like classic story and they're just like, let's just tell
Speaker 3: a fun little gig and let's not actually make it
Speaker 3: meaningful in any way.
Speaker 1: Right, And you're like, well, then yeah, why not do
Speaker 1: something like why not do a different story in that case?
Speaker 1: Because I just don't see the point of like, I mean,
Speaker 1: this still happens obviously all the time, but like why
Speaker 1: redo it if you have nothing new to say? And
Speaker 1: the answer is money, So I guess that's the answer,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: And that's that's a really curious thing to bring up,
Speaker 3: is like how many like like how many people love
Speaker 3: The Little Rascals like from the eighties or like grew
Speaker 3: up with this this stuff or like were like, oh,
Speaker 3: I want to be in this like remake of this
Speaker 3: thing that I grew up with or that my grandfather
Speaker 3: father like loves. Like I wonder how large The Little
Speaker 3: Rascals was because I'm just like, how do they get
Speaker 3: all these celebrities to get to be in this really
Speaker 3: weird movie?
Speaker 2: Like right this ip from early Hollywood to people, well,
Speaker 2: like Penelope's sphere being like present enough. It was like
Speaker 2: I watched these growing up, and that's part of why
Speaker 2: I was hired to direct it.
Speaker 1: But I think that they were like fairly enduring throughout
Speaker 1: the year because they would like reair on TV and
Speaker 1: stuff too, so it wasn't like they only aired in
Speaker 1: a void. I think that they were rebroadcast a fair amount,
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I also feel like it has
Speaker 1: to do with like weird nostalgia cycles, like how I
Speaker 1: feel like it was a couple of years ago now,
Speaker 1: but how like every Kid series took place in the eighties,
Speaker 1: the second Stranger Things did well because people who are
Speaker 1: kids in the eighties are now old and think, you like,
Speaker 1: that'll happen to the nineties, like it happened, It comes
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 3: All happening. It's currently happening to the nineties, and it's
Speaker 3: It's the terrifying thing is it's you can start seeing
Speaker 3: it happen with the two thousands as well.
Speaker 1: Oh no, oh no, we're not even the most recently
Speaker 1: old people.
Speaker 2: So scary.
Speaker 1: It's actually kind of I feel like it's kind of
Speaker 1: a relief now that it's like, oh, now kids who
Speaker 1: were born in the early two thousands feel old and
Speaker 1: I can just be old forever. But yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems like because this is like around the time
Speaker 1: the McCauley culkin Richie Rich movie comes out, too, which
Speaker 1: is also this like old timey thing, Like I wonder
Speaker 1: if this was just a nostalgia cycle that was taking
Speaker 1: place for parents in the way that a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff is happening now in the nineties and two thousands.
Speaker 3: Right, it's like the era of Richie Rich and Home
Speaker 3: Alone in like blank Check, yes.
Speaker 1: All the Macaulay Culkin.
Speaker 2: And like Cheaper by the Dozen.
Speaker 1: I feel like was one thing I didn't know when
Speaker 1: I was a kid that Doctor Dolittle or Cheaper by
Speaker 1: the Dozen had already been done a trillion times. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a new, awesome idea, and I think
Speaker 1: so did every kid that saw the Little Rascals. They
Speaker 1: were like, whoa who what are these?
Speaker 2: What is these?
Speaker 1: This fresh news story that takes place one hundred years ago.
Speaker 2: Same thing with Flubber being an adaptation from the whatever
Speaker 2: fucking thing Absent Minded Professor?
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, I mean I'll never watch The Absent Minded
Speaker 1: Professor because Flubber has all.
Speaker 2: I need in a movie. I mean, hello, it has
Speaker 2: the Flubber mambo, it.
Speaker 1: Has the Flobber mambo, it has the dance and go.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it has a.
Speaker 1: Robot that has a crush on Robin Williams. What else
Speaker 1: do I need?
Speaker 2: Nothing?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this film is like reminiscent of like Hollywood's obsession
Speaker 3: with IP and like its inability to think of something new.
Speaker 3: And then also it's like it's Oh, I forgot what
Speaker 3: the second point is, but it is it really is
Speaker 3: truly just an obsession with the IP and like the
Speaker 3: refusal to come up with new creative stuff because it's
Speaker 3: too much of a risk.
Speaker 2: Too whiskey to make money.
Speaker 1: I'm just realizing I have it in my notes that
Speaker 1: this was the same year that the like the Flintstones
Speaker 1: live action movie came out, so there was just like
Speaker 1: this big wave of nostalgia content that was coming out
Speaker 1: of varying degrees of goodness. I think I remember.
Speaker 2: Loving the flint Stones movie, but nus I watched it
Speaker 2: for the first time kind of recently, and I think
Speaker 2: it would be a very fascinating episode for us to cover. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I was also thinking about the Okay, and this might
Speaker 2: be me being a fool. Is the Adams Family based
Speaker 2: on IP from like it was a cartoonis or seventies
Speaker 2: or something? Okay, it was like a newspaper cartoon, right,
Speaker 2: because this was also around the time the Adams Family's
Speaker 2: movies were coming out. So yeah, Hollywood just does this
Speaker 2: time and time again for money reasons. And speaking of money,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about how the movie handles class
Speaker 2: because yes, the kids all seemed to come from you know,
Speaker 2: either working class, middle class families. One of the villains,
Speaker 2: because we have like villains in the bully kids who
Speaker 2: also seem to come from like, you know, a more
Speaker 2: working class background. But one of the bullies is this
Speaker 2: rich bitch, Waldo, whose dad is literally Donald Trump. There's
Speaker 2: a really funny joke toward the end where Waldo's on
Speaker 2: the phone with his dad and then Trump says, you're
Speaker 2: the best son money can buy. And I'm like, that's
Speaker 2: a funny joke. Obviously credit to the writer and not
Speaker 2: to fucking Trump delivering it, but.
Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't delivered.
Speaker 2: Well no, but I appreciate that, Like there's this villainization
Speaker 2: of you know, extreme wealth, and this is also pulling
Speaker 2: from the original series where you know, most of the
Speaker 2: kids were poor and they were at odds with snobbish
Speaker 2: rich kids. So I appreciated that because there are there
Speaker 2: have been a lot of movie, like just media from
Speaker 2: decades past the glorified wealth and that like featured pretty
Speaker 2: much exclusively you know, upper class families and kids. So
Speaker 2: I appreciated that this movie didn't go that route.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this the kids are so I know that they
Speaker 1: like date back to earlier than this, and also the
Speaker 1: original cast. I think they were just pulling the names
Speaker 1: from the actual children, Like the original Darla's name was Darla.
Speaker 2: Oh like that.
Speaker 1: I think because they were Yeah, I think because they
Speaker 1: were so young that they were like.
Speaker 2: It'll confuse them. Her name is Darla. We're calling her.
Speaker 1: Darla because she was like two originally, because old Hollywood
Speaker 1: is terrifying where they're like, just I don't know, find
Speaker 1: a baby, put it in a movie. It kind of
Speaker 1: remighted be of in Massachusetts, there is that like the
Speaker 1: on Zoom. Did I or if you watched Zoom growing
Speaker 1: up on PBS? No, Oh my gosh. It was this
Speaker 1: show on PBS where it was like the only show
Speaker 1: made in Boston that starred kids. So every kid was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to be on Zoom and then I'm going
Speaker 1: to be famous across the country. And our friend Taylor
Speaker 1: Garron was on Zoom because when I met him.
Speaker 2: Oh is that when she's okay? Okay? When I met
Speaker 2: her later.
Speaker 1: I was like, you're famous and she was like, I yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true because she was on Zoom. And it seems
Speaker 1: like Argang was the zoom of its time, where every
Speaker 1: little kid in La was like I want to be
Speaker 1: an argang. A lot of the actors were like plucked
Speaker 1: out of East LA, like they were all local kids
Speaker 1: that did this and then proceeded to make uh no money.
Speaker 1: But the just circularly by just a fact I thought
Speaker 1: was fun was the original. Buckwheat later went on to
Speaker 1: become like a film editor and was one of the
Speaker 1: editors on Jaws.
Speaker 2: Isn't that weird?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 2: Wait the kid.
Speaker 1: Not No, not in the movie in the original.
Speaker 2: Oh, I was gonna how did this?
Speaker 3: How did a four year old kid.
Speaker 1: Back in time, you know, like someone who was a
Speaker 1: kid in the thirties was later an editor would Okay,
Speaker 1: that makes much more sense. Yeah, sorry, I should I
Speaker 1: was not being clear enough.
Speaker 2: No, I should have used one speck of logic to
Speaker 2: understand what you must have meant. Well, good, good for
Speaker 2: good for that actor turned Jaws editor. Yeah, there's there's
Speaker 2: a lot of like fascinating production stuff around this movie.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Penelope Sphearist a little bit.
Speaker 2: We also discussed her to some extent on our Wayne's
Speaker 2: World episode, but she directed this movie. She co wrote
Speaker 2: the screenplay. There's a lot of like credited writers as
Speaker 2: far as like story by credits, and then there's three
Speaker 2: credited screenwriters. But she had a pretty big creative role
Speaker 2: in this in the sense that she was a co
Speaker 2: writer and director. Of course, just a little bit about
Speaker 2: her career. She started out directing music videos and music documentaries,
Speaker 2: mostly about punk and metal and rock and roll, including
Speaker 2: a trilogy of documentaries called The Decline of Western Civilization
Speaker 2: that kind of like put her on the map as
Speaker 2: a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: She's so cool.
Speaker 2: By the early nineties, she was directing big studio comedies
Speaker 2: like Wayne's World, like Beverly Hillbillies, like Black Sheep. She
Speaker 2: was one of only a handful of women directors during
Speaker 2: that time, directing mainstream studio movies in the US, and
Speaker 2: particularly like broad comedies, because almost no women were directing
Speaker 2: those at the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially ones that were not centered. Because I feel
Speaker 1: like this to this day, it's like women can direct comedies,
Speaker 1: but they.
Speaker 2: Better be about other women.
Speaker 1: Like the fact that she directed this, you know, not
Speaker 1: even I mean, I wouldn't call Wayne's World a hyper
Speaker 1: masculine movie, but just around two guys.
Speaker 2: It's very cool, right, because like, if women were directing
Speaker 2: comedies around this time, they were almost always rom comms.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of, you know, like Nora Ephron and.
Speaker 1: Right, which is like, you know, they're not knocking those whatsoever,
Speaker 1: right classics, But but yeah, like she is kind of
Speaker 1: an outlier in that way for sure.
Speaker 3: I kind of like the way that this movie had
Speaker 3: a Matilda esque vibe where it was just cartoonish enough,
Speaker 3: where like things were like a little out there, but
Speaker 3: like like cartoonishly weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like with the.
Speaker 3: Hose and like riding the hose and when they're trying
Speaker 3: to put out the thing, and then like the the
Speaker 3: the two villain kids getting like splattered with paint and
Speaker 3: they're like shadows around the van. Like I thought it
Speaker 3: was like really really fun, Like it took the absurdity
Speaker 3: of the film to a next to another level, And
Speaker 3: I just kind of wish they wrote that a little
Speaker 3: bit more and just even more absurd with it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, I have a live action cartoon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when it's like like this movie feels so
Speaker 1: clearly for kids, which is obvious, but stay with me.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's a lot of movies of the
Speaker 1: past whatever decade or so except for Minions movies have
Speaker 1: been I think it's just like because Pixar movies do
Speaker 1: so well and there's always this like profound message and
Speaker 1: like the villain is exposed to have this like Freudian
Speaker 1: problem that is resolved by the end of the film,
Speaker 1: and it is nice to go back and watch a
Speaker 1: kid's movie that you're like, this is just silly. This
Speaker 1: is a silly billy movie for silly billy's. The good
Speaker 1: kids are good, the bad kids they suck. We're not
Speaker 1: interested in like Waldo's trauma. We just want him to
Speaker 1: get the fuck out of the movie by the end.
Speaker 1: Like I just, I don't know. It made me feel
Speaker 1: very nostalgic for dare I say, a simpler time.
Speaker 2: But you mentioning Matilda reminds me of how few movies
Speaker 2: there were from this era that focused on little girls.
Speaker 2: Because Little Rascals is one of many that's about either
Speaker 2: a group of little boys, such as The Sandlot, which
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier, Jamie. There's a lot of other like
Speaker 2: little boys doing sports or like little boys just hanging out,
Speaker 2: and there were so few, it's a handful.
Speaker 1: I was like, I think the ones that come to
Speaker 1: mind are Harriet the Spy, ri Ip, Michelle, and a
Speaker 1: Little Princess is the only and obviously Matilda, but those
Speaker 1: are kind of the only ones that come to mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's more, we know, but like, yeah, it
Speaker 2: just was so much rarer to see little girls featured
Speaker 2: in a movie from this era.
Speaker 3: I just wish the girls in this film were not
Speaker 3: just the objects of men.
Speaker 2: That would be nice. That would have been Where's Little Rascal,
Speaker 2: Little girl Rascals, or just little rascals starring girls, little
Speaker 2: rast lets, you know, like, yeah.
Speaker 3: I want to see a movie about a woman, like
Speaker 3: a man hating club of women that like sabotaged these
Speaker 3: little boys lives and like they just like I would
Speaker 3: love that.
Speaker 1: And the movie ends by them doubling down and being
Speaker 1: like we were right, we were right exactly.
Speaker 3: You were not welcome in our club.
Speaker 2: Ever, because the fuck miss andry is a response to misogyny.
Speaker 2: It's not like, you know, girls and women are like
Speaker 2: also men are bad in a vacuum. It's just like, no,
Speaker 2: we don't like men because they hate us. They hated
Speaker 2: us first.
Speaker 1: What I what I learned this fairly recently when I
Speaker 1: was like I had to do a very unfortunate project
Speaker 1: on the Manisphere on my other show, and I learned
Speaker 1: that the term miss Andrey was little really made up
Speaker 1: by misogynists to be like, oh, I know you were,
Speaker 1: but what am I? So it's like it's barely a thing,
Speaker 1: because you're right. It's just like a logical response, which
Speaker 1: is why the word didn't exist.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Going back to Penelope Speirrus for a moment, so you know,
Speaker 2: she was one of a few women directing mainstream Hollywood
Speaker 2: movies in the early nineties. Her career eventually took a turn.
Speaker 2: There's an interview with her in The av Club from
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen. I think we referenced this a little bit
Speaker 2: in Our Land's World episode, but she basically describes her
Speaker 2: last studio movie, something called Senseless from nineteen ninety eight.
Speaker 2: It was a box office flop, and because she's a woman,
Speaker 2: that was enough to put her in like quote unquote
Speaker 2: director jail, because, as she points out in the interview,
Speaker 2: women don't get a second chance in Hollywood after they
Speaker 2: make one flop, while men get infinite chances. She also
Speaker 2: says that working with Harvey and Bob Weinstein, which she
Speaker 2: did on that movie Senseless, was a tipping point that
Speaker 2: made her realize that she didn't want to work in
Speaker 2: Hollywood anymore. To Penelope Right, a few choice quotes from
Speaker 2: her from this interview. Quote, you have no friends in Hollywood.
Speaker 2: Hollywood is a lonely, lonely desert, especially as a woman.
Speaker 2: Quote If they don't hire me because I'm a woman,
Speaker 2: because I'm an older woman, If they don't hire me,
Speaker 2: I don't give a shit. And quote I don't need them.
Speaker 2: I really don't. Especially now, what am I going to
Speaker 2: do work for a year on a movie and make
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars. They can blow me. That's a quote
Speaker 2: you can print that.
Speaker 1: I love her. I love her.
Speaker 3: That is incredible.
Speaker 2: But then you read on in this interview and you
Speaker 2: find out that she owns six houses and she's a landlord,
Speaker 2: and then you're like, oh shit.
Speaker 1: I honestly, I mean, yeah, landlord evil. But it also
Speaker 1: makes me. It makes me sad in more than one way,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, Wow, they used to pay people that
Speaker 1: much to do a job here, because the tules exist, Like.
Speaker 2: In the nineties, she would she made like nearly three
Speaker 2: million dollars directing. I think it was senseless. And then
Speaker 2: she's like and then now if I do something, I
Speaker 2: will get basically no money. Yeah. Yeah, So that's that's
Speaker 2: all I had on the director. I wanted to just
Speaker 2: say a few kind of stray thoughts. Oh the age
Speaker 2: difference between Darla Drag Them Them and the boys that
Speaker 2: love her. Okay, So we've talked about the common occurrence
Speaker 2: of older men being paired with a much younger woman
Speaker 2: in a romantic storyline in media, which often carries the
Speaker 2: implications of like older women or romantically desirable or you know,
Speaker 2: women should be valued for their youth and things like that. Obviously,
Speaker 2: usually we see this in adults, but it happens in
Speaker 2: this movie with these kids.
Speaker 1: So eight year old girl would be simply too old
Speaker 1: for Alfalfa.
Speaker 2: Too old for these eight year old boys. So Darla
Speaker 2: is played by an actor named Brittany Ashton Holmes. She
Speaker 2: was four years old at the beginning of the production.
Speaker 2: She turned five part way through. Alfalfa and Waldo, played
Speaker 2: by Bug Hall and Blake Ewing, respectively, were both eight
Speaker 2: when the production started, and they turned nine part way through.
Speaker 2: They all had birthdays in this like four month shoot.
Speaker 2: So these boys are like twice the age yucky of her, like,
Speaker 2: obviously a four year age gap is not a big
Speaker 2: deal if you're an adult, but when you're that young,
Speaker 2: like those years really make a developmental difference, and it's.
Speaker 1: Just two of your life.
Speaker 2: It's so it was I never picked up when this
Speaker 2: as a kid, but as an adult, I'm like, she
Speaker 2: seems so much younger than them, and it's because she is.
Speaker 2: And it was just really gross to me that these
Speaker 2: boys were lusting after a little girl who is basically
Speaker 2: still a toddler.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't know to not look at the camera. You
Speaker 1: shouldn't be making that kid kiss someone she doesn't.
Speaker 2: Know the camera.
Speaker 3: So icky, the way that heterosexual people sexualized children, and
Speaker 3: then it's always the queer people that get that get
Speaker 3: blamed for it, Like it's ridiculous, it's horrendous.
Speaker 1: Every time I go into like every time I walk
Speaker 1: through like a greeting card aisle, you're reminded at still
Speaker 1: how over sexualized little kids are. Where I don't like
Speaker 1: I was looking for like my friends got engaged. I
Speaker 1: was trying to buy an engagement card, and so many
Speaker 1: of them are like little kids kissing, and you're like, why.
Speaker 2: We're doing that, Why are we making them do that?
Speaker 2: Get over it? Yeah. The one thing I'll say about
Speaker 2: kids kissing on screen in this movie is that at
Speaker 2: least we see an example a boy asking a girl
Speaker 2: for consent to kiss her.
Speaker 4: The King of Consent, Alfalfa Alfalfa says, Darla, would you
Speaker 4: think me forward if I asked you for a big
Speaker 4: wet one and she's like what, and he's like a
Speaker 4: kiss and she's like okay, And so he asks for
Speaker 4: and then receives consent.
Speaker 2: The fact that we see them kiss then completely unnecessary.
Speaker 2: But I guess at the very least we see an
Speaker 2: example of someone asking for consent. Yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 2: Let me see if I had any other straight thoughts, Oh,
Speaker 2: just that this was like probably the first example I
Speaker 2: saw in a movie of the trope of like someone
Speaker 2: who's doing something that's consent that are traditionally masculine, and
Speaker 2: we assume it's a man, but we can't tell because
Speaker 2: they're wearing like a mask or a helmet that obscures
Speaker 2: their face. Twist it's a will woa woman or a girl. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we get like kind of two examples of that between yeah,
Speaker 2: back to back. Aj Ferguson turns out their Idol, their
Speaker 2: race car driver. Idol is a woman, and then with
Speaker 2: Darla taking off her helmet. So yeah, whenever I see
Speaker 2: that trope like this movie is the first thing I
Speaker 2: think of because I'm like, oh, I think I saw
Speaker 2: it there for the first time.
Speaker 1: I don't remember where I saw it for the first time.
Speaker 1: But it's never the last time. It's all I know.
Speaker 3: I know it never never, and it will never. It's
Speaker 3: gonna still happen twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. One of the many downsides of
Speaker 1: fascism is that this shit is gonna roll back and
Speaker 1: back and back. Where to see tropes we haven't seen
Speaker 1: in thirty years popping up in movies. It's but no,
Speaker 1: our podcast fixed it. I wanted to add. I wanted
Speaker 1: to add a quick just like a fun nineties kids
Speaker 1: fact that the voice of Froggy is Eg Daily aka
Speaker 1: the voice of Tommy, Pickles and Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls.
Speaker 1: She's a legend. She's also in Peebe's Big Adventure, Big
Speaker 1: eg daily Head, eg daily Head fans Unite.
Speaker 3: I'm so you know, I'm actually a little bum. That's
Speaker 3: not his real.
Speaker 1: Voice, right, It was like that, I mean, it would
Speaker 1: have been a hell of a beforeance, but it is.
Speaker 3: I'm like, damn, that kid's got pipes, Like did they
Speaker 3: make him speak like that?
Speaker 2: In the entire time, I was wondering what sort of
Speaker 2: like voice modifying situation was happening there. But it's like
Speaker 2: a voice actor.
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It's just a voice actor who very frequently
Speaker 1: voiced little boys like such as Tommy Pickles. I love
Speaker 1: eg daily. She's like, so, she's incredibly awesome.
Speaker 2: She's great. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
Speaker 3: I'm so sorry for making you watch this film.
Speaker 1: No, I had there so much to talk about there
Speaker 1: really was.
Speaker 2: I had a great time revisiting this again. There's so
Speaker 2: many hilarious joke Like the comedy writing in this movie
Speaker 2: is really on par with some of the best comedy
Speaker 2: movies out there. For example, Spanky, how do you plead
Speaker 2: Alfalfa like this? And then he proceeds to show how
Speaker 2: he begs for mercy, and then Spanky's like, and now
Speaker 2: you're sentenced to execution at dawn? Hilarious Buckwheat and Alfalfa
Speaker 2: trying to call nine one one, but they're like, what's
Speaker 2: the number to nine one one? How should I know?
Speaker 2: And then pan over and they're right next to a
Speaker 2: fire station that they just walk past because they don't
Speaker 2: realize that that would help them. Oh, Alfalfa and Darla
Speaker 2: drink disgusting grape juice, and Alfalfa says, must have been
Speaker 2: a bad year, as if it's why that's pretty, that's
Speaker 2: good comedy. Alfalfa, we're singing a duet Waldo, how redundant.
Speaker 2: That's funny in and of itself. And then Alfalfa says,
Speaker 2: thank you if he's receiving a comedy.
Speaker 1: Kayla, you're defending this movie with your life. It's so
Speaker 1: fun to your life. Your body's on the train tracks.
Speaker 2: Look, okay, well we'll get tone. I mean, let's let's
Speaker 2: get to the Bechdel test. The movie does not pass.
Speaker 2: Darla and her friends do talk to each other, but
Speaker 2: it's always them either like fawning over Waldo or talking
Speaker 2: about how gross boys are at the sleepover, which I
Speaker 2: think actually might be an exception to the Bechdel test,
Speaker 2: but that's just me.
Speaker 1: I feel like spiritually that exchange passes, but technically it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I don't think this movie is doing I think in
Speaker 1: the movie that ends in all the girls joining the
Speaker 1: woman Haters Club. I don't. I think it doesn't pass there,
Speaker 1: I said it.
Speaker 2: I really wish that they had changed the sign. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that it was like the Woman Tolerators Club. They're
Speaker 2: not going to go straight into you know, intersectional feminism,
Speaker 2: but the woman Tolerators Club woman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't really think this test,
Speaker 3: this movie passes the test at all.
Speaker 1: No, I have something to say about a man that
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention earlier.
Speaker 2: Oh no, please, Yes.
Speaker 1: Did you know that Norm from Cheers is Jason Sedeikus's uncle?
Speaker 2: What I did discover that in my research? I didn't.
Speaker 1: I was like stealth nepotism. I did not know that.
Speaker 2: That's my favorite no idea, the like aunt uncle, Like
Speaker 2: that's you don't see that one coming. I know, because
Speaker 2: it's like that kid, that Wahlberg kid from the Dora
Speaker 2: movie is Mark Wahlberg's neewa. Emma Roberts is Julia Roberts's niece.
Speaker 1: Like it's but she's also Eric roberts daughter, you know,
Speaker 1: so like she is.
Speaker 2: True proper nepotism. Yeah, But as far as our nipple
Speaker 2: scale goes, the scale where we.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm so sorry. How does how does this work?
Speaker 3: This nipple scale?
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, but don't you worry. So we've got you covered.
Speaker 2: It's a scale where we rate the movie zero to
Speaker 2: five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 2: So a movie that does horribly would get zero nipples,
Speaker 2: like zero or one. The most feminist like intersectional feminist
Speaker 2: movie of all time would get five nipple. We almost
Speaker 2: never award five nipples.
Speaker 1: Just yeah, and if we do, we almost always take
Speaker 1: it back later.
Speaker 2: We regret it later.
Speaker 3: Okay, So that's fantastic. I love that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to give this. I'm kind of between like
Speaker 2: a one point five and a two because it does
Speaker 2: try to address gender and it tries to address misogyny,
Speaker 2: and the lesson at the end is the boys learn
Speaker 2: that their misogyny was based in nothing and that women
Speaker 2: can contribute to society. The movie does this on a
Speaker 2: very surface level, but it does make an attempt, and
Speaker 2: that's more than most movies from the nineties were doing.
Speaker 2: That's more than most kids movies from the nineties were doing,
Speaker 2: especially ones that feature a cast full of boys. So
Speaker 2: with your two.
Speaker 3: Nipples, Jamie's face right now is so great, the tight
Speaker 3: lipped smile.
Speaker 2: Just like I. Because this is a movie. I don't
Speaker 2: even think I owned this on VHS, but this is
Speaker 2: one that we would We rented so many times from
Speaker 2: the video store that it would have been way more
Speaker 2: cost effective if my mom had just bought it, because
Speaker 2: she spent so much money on like me, insisting on
Speaker 2: renting it all the time. Yeah, so I saw You
Speaker 2: Know on repeat a lot as a kid, and so
Speaker 2: I do have an attachment to it. And again, the
Speaker 2: jokes in this movie are fire, most of them. So yeah,
Speaker 2: two nipples. It does try to do something, it doesn't
Speaker 2: do it successfully. Two nipples is still two out of five.
Speaker 2: That's an f that's forty percent, But it's trying.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go one nipple because I bravely think this
Speaker 1: movie is not trying and it did just as bad,
Speaker 1: if not worse, than it did in the eighties. I
Speaker 1: don't see enough of a meaningful difference in between nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty two and this movie in terms of how women
Speaker 1: and girls are her trade. But I love Penelope Spheares.
Speaker 1: I think she's punk rock, She's very very cool. I
Speaker 1: love Wayne's World, and I won't hold it against this
Speaker 1: movie too much, but this was I mean, it was
Speaker 1: a really fun episode to put together because I just
Speaker 1: like did not know how much there was going to
Speaker 1: be to talk about Sorr.
Speaker 2: I should have warned you.
Speaker 1: No, I mean it was good.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We've covered so many movies from this span of time,
Speaker 1: but we have never covered a movie quite like this.
Speaker 2: So I enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: I yeah, it's a fun movie to watch, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it's really trying to do very much other
Speaker 1: than you know, have women joined the misogyny Club nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four. I mean, like you were saying earlier, talk
Speaker 1: like there were movies that coming out decades before this
Speaker 1: that were doing more so one nipple and I'm giving
Speaker 1: it to Darla, Oh, my friend, talk how about you?
Speaker 3: I'm sorry? Are we assigning characters nipples?
Speaker 2: You can award them? Yeah, like so I forgot too,
Speaker 2: But I'll give my two nipples, one to Pedi the
Speaker 2: dog and the other one to oh I forget the
Speaker 2: monkey's name. But I like to give myn I think
Speaker 2: number yeah Olmer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm also gonna give it. One nibble is a
Speaker 3: zero nibble, Like is that.
Speaker 2: Even like a do as little as sometimes we give
Speaker 2: negative nipples.
Speaker 3: I would say a one nibble because of the cameos.
Speaker 3: The cameos really they really make it stand out. I
Speaker 3: agree with you. I think they didn't try nearly hard enough.
Speaker 3: I think they went in for a flimsy, little fun
Speaker 3: movie about kids doing kids stuff, but like they had
Speaker 3: nothing new to add to the lore or to the
Speaker 3: to the franchise to like really make it a true
Speaker 3: sign of its times and the sign of its times,
Speaker 3: meaning like in the nineties there were there was so
Speaker 3: much more happening in terms of like trying to get
Speaker 3: better representation of women on screen, and they could have
Speaker 3: been one of one of those attempts, and they didn't
Speaker 3: really try hard at all. So I'm with you, Jamie,
Speaker 3: And then I would I would award Oh gosh, I
Speaker 3: guess I would award my no Alter to Elmer.
Speaker 2: Because I love that much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elmer is a cutie pie. I'm like, I I
Speaker 1: don't believe that Elmer. I think Elmer Petie learned the
Speaker 1: error of their ways and started a woman tolerators club nearby.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, well now that I'm crying, as was foreseen earlier,
Speaker 2: no tark. Thank you so much for joining us for
Speaker 2: this has been a bust.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me on. It was fantastic.
Speaker 2: Anytime, come back anytime. Where can people follow you online?
Speaker 2: Plug anything you'd like to plug?
Speaker 3: You can follow me on Instagram turk t A r
Speaker 3: i Q underscore r A O U F. I'm also
Speaker 3: on Twitter, which is same, use your name and then
Speaker 3: like I'm on TikTok to you, but like it's like
Speaker 3: all the same stuff on Instagram. So if you don't
Speaker 3: want to be on Instagram, I'm on TikTok to youa
Speaker 3: same use your name.
Speaker 2: I love it. You can follow us on Instagram. At
Speaker 2: Bechtel Cast, you can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon
Speaker 2: at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: Where currently we're doing the important work over there. We've
Speaker 1: recently done a month about insect movies and we just
Speaker 1: finished doing a month about rats.
Speaker 2: So it's roadent timber over there with episodes on Ratatui
Speaker 2: and The Great Mouse Detective.
Speaker 1: Really important disccourse taking place. Don't miss it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm I have fomo not being a part
Speaker 3: of your matron.
Speaker 2: Well, it's only five dollars a month.
Speaker 1: So I think the Bratituy episode was was a banger.
Speaker 1: I think it was really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think by the time this episode comes out,
Speaker 2: it'll either have just been released or it's about to be.
Speaker 2: Like Yeah, listeners, be on the lookout for Ratatue in front.
Speaker 2: Don't walk. I like that, we're talking this scurry, scurry
Speaker 2: your little rat. Pause over to that episode. And with that,
Speaker 2: I call this meeting of the man hating women and
Speaker 2: marginalized gender people loving club to an end, all in favor.
Speaker 1: Oh Tay tay, Bye, bye, bye, bye bye.
Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosensky. Our logo and merch
Speaker 2: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Speaker 2: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
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