Fictional Women Around the World: Officer O'Leary

Whether investigating noise complaints about partying seventies ghosts or millennial zombies, Wellington Paranormal's Officer O'Leary really just wants people (and supernatural beings) to have fun - quiet, law-abiding fun. SMNTY needs backup!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I don't welcome to
stuff I've never told your protection of I hire Radio
and welcome to another sub sub segment of subsegment one
subseck I don't know of women around the world, fictional

(00:26):
women around the world, And today we're having over to
New Zealand to talk about Officer oh Leary from the
What We Do in the Shadows Universe from the spinoff. Currently,
this is one of the main characters on the c
W show that I'm in love with Wellington's Paranormal but
you can find on the c W R HBO Max
and yes, I do love What We Do in the Shadows,

(00:47):
both the movie and the show, which is the show
on f X is about to have it season three premiere,
and I definitely want to come back and do an
episode on Naudia. I'm going to talk about her briefly
at the end of this one, but that is in
the works and you can see the episode I did
on movie Crush about the What We Do in the
Shadows movie to learn more. But basically, the What We
Do in the Shadows Universe was created by Taiko W.

(01:08):
T T and Jamaine Clement. First a movie by the
same name, although they did have like and you can
still find it on YouTube. They had a short that
they did first as like a proof of concept, and
then they made the movie in and then they did
some shorts after that, a lot of them in conjunction
with like the New Zealand Documentary Board or with New
Zealand Air. They did like a Wellington tourism ad. Then

(01:32):
they did the spinoff show The TV Show on EFX,
which I adore, and now Wellington's Paranormal on the c
w AM, though it aired before this in New Zealand,
and I accidentally got spoiled as much as you can
get spoiled in a show like this, because I was
looking it up to research this and I was like, oh,
the episode summaries. What uh So? This show follows officers

(01:55):
oh Leary am Anogue along with Sergeant Maka as they
tackle or attempt to tackle paranormal activity in Wellington, New Zealand. Okay, so,
oh Larry in Minogue were first introduced in the Twoteen
mockumentary horror film as a pair of bumbling cops who
were glamored when investigating a vampire. Then and showed up

(02:17):
again later after a werewolf attack. Yes, and this movie
was hilarious. It took me a while begin into it
as I've been introduced, and like, ha ha, hilarious. So
Oli is played by who was actually a teacher, Yeah,
a kindergarten teacher. She's a kindergarten teacher. And um is
also a comedian, Karen O'Leary, who had never acted before

(02:38):
landing the role in What We Do in the Shadows.
I love it. Allegedly Clement was struggling to think of
a name, so he just went with A Larry in
minogue because they sound police like. Yeah, And it's it's
interesting knowing that now because a lot of how o'
larry acts. I can see her being a teacher because
she's very like, well, you know, you're not gonna have
a good time, or you're not gonna have a good

(03:00):
time if you stay up too later, if you do
it like. She's very kind of practical, no nonsense in
that way. And her first name has not been revealed
over three seasons, which I think is part of sort
of the running joke. I don't think that's any slight
on her being a woman and not having a first name. However,
Minogue's was revealed, but it was part of a joke
because he's getting picked on by these other cops and

(03:22):
they were calling him Kylie Minogue and he leaned in
and said, actually it's Kyle and the e is silent dude. Yes, yes,
that says a lot about his character. Actually, much of
the movie was ad libs, and the humor of both
of the movie and the show is very, very dry.
It's very straight faced and dead pan. Both the movie

(03:43):
and the show really lean into being set in New
Zealand and the character of New Zealander's as well, so
it's like really low key. When O'Leary does bad Cop,
for example, she just leans in and says, calmly, stop
that you're scaring me, and it's sort of a send
up of cops. Is filmed with hidden cameras, dash cams
and documentary crew. There's a lot of investigating noise complaints

(04:07):
and parties and telling people to be quieter, are ghost
to be quieter? As it so happens, um it's very
matter of fact in common the face of ghosts and
monsters and werewolves and vampires and zombies, treating them just
like any other citizen or like often they're more concerned
about the PaperWorks and the fact that there are aliens
making clones, which they do make a clone of Olaria.
I haven't seen the episode where the clone comes back,

(04:28):
but apparently it does. So o' larry believes she's really competent,
and she is more competent than Mino guy will say,
and often Sergeant Maca as well, and Sergeant Marca is
the one who like loves the X Files. His underwear
says like the truth is in here. He is like
so into it, he takes it so seriously, but both
of them are just kind of like, what is this?

(04:51):
And oh Larry definitely takes things in stride. She's very
down to earth. She is often more annoyed that paranormal
creatures are flouting New Zealand's cas, whether it's goes who
have been partying too long and having all these noise
complaints about them since the seventies or millennial zombies who
are too busy looking on their phones and causing trouble
are jaywalking creepy clowns. And she's really annoyed about the

(05:13):
jaywalking and she really doesn't appreciate any suggestion she isn't
good at her job either, and she'll should get really
like defensive about it. Uh, there's been a werewolf in
particular where she's like, I learned how to do this
at least school. A lot of A Larry's personal life
and history is a mystery. You know. She likes softball,
plays guitar, and worst fear is embarrassing. Her mother is
often implied that she's a lesbian. She grew up in Wellington,

(05:37):
going on to join the Wellington Police Force, and yes,
she partnered with Minogue. So both A Larry and Minogue
are recruited by Sergeant Marca to investigate paranormal activities around
Wellington at the beginning of the show, a job they
undertake in our very bad at but ernest in their efforts.

(05:58):
Pay for effort, they asked the silly questions a lot
of us have about the paranormal, but they do so genuinely. Yeah. So, like,
for example, there's one time where they're investigating aliens and
Sergeant Marca says something about like unidentified applying object and
Minogue says, well, if we identify it, is it just

(06:18):
identified somethings like that just said really flat, like she's
not wrong, Oh, Larry has also appeared in some New
Zealand p s a s. She will appear in the
fourth season of Wellington Paranormal, which is just rap post protection,
and then we'll see after that. I know they're going
on kind of a pause and Jermaine Clement has said, like,

(06:40):
we're working on another project and we'll see what happens.
I do want to come back and talk about I
don't even know if it's a trope, but one day
I want to come back and talk about this whole
like competent woman trope, because I feel like there's a
lot of examples I can think of. Or there's three
characters and two of them are men and one of
the woman, and the woman is like the most temp wine.

(07:00):
So if you think of like Harry Ron Hermione or
Luke Leahan and then in this case, and I'm just
kind of curious about that, and I mean, oh, Larry
is definitely I mean, they're all bumbling, they're all wake ups,
but obvious three I would I would say she's probably
the most competent of the two. Yeah, yeah, So I

(07:22):
do want to come back and talk about that one day.
And even like in the show, you have nandor Laslo
Nadia Naudia is the most competent, but if you add
gear Mo went too that equation or even Colin I guess,
but definitely Giarmo than Giarmo is the most competent. Soma
is definitely competent. But but you think about that and
sitcoms too, that happens a lot in just sitcom so

(07:44):
not even like adventures, you know, any of that an
adventure because if you think of like Guardians of the Galaxy,
Gomera is the competent one of all of them, and
so the one that kind of keeps them together like
calm down, as well as in New Girl you have
CC being the ca but one typically and or just
being the one that takes the lead. M. Yeah, So

(08:06):
you're right, there's a lot of that, and we don't
typically look at it closely. They also get the being
the boring one, yeah, or the most annoying or bitchy. Right.
They don't get to have as much fun, right, And
although I mean, oh, Larry is having fun. And I
was thinking about this because it's not like there's been
a long history of the you know, ditzy sex object

(08:28):
portrayal of women. I'm just kind of curious about this
is whether it's like a really leaning away from we
can't make fun of women or as as kind of
a response to that history, or if it's even kind
of like how we do expect women to be more
competent at their jobs. So I don't know, I'm just curious.
I want to look into it more. I'm never like

(08:51):
super angry women are competence, but you know, just just curious,
just curious, such curious. But yes, I love this show.
I definitely recommend it. I recommend the movie and the
other show as well, And as always, we would love
to hear your suggestions for future fictional women around the world. Uh.

(09:12):
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(09:33):
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