October 28, 2025 • 16 mins
Sally, the Ragdoll from 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas, resonated with a lot of people. We piece together her history, and talk about the good and the bad of this character in this classic episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Anny.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff I'll Never Told You, a productive
I heeart for you, and yes, it is just me
today bringing back a classic. As we are rapidly approaching Halloween,
(00:26):
I'm still behind. I have so many horror movies to watch,
including this one. So today we're bringing back an episode
about the character Sally from Nightmare before Christmas, and I'm
really excited to watch it. I always try to do
that one closer to Halloween because it kind of gets
(00:48):
me into the this is the end of Halloween and
now we're approaching all of these other holidays at the
end of the year. But as always, listeners, we would
love to hear from you about any movie that are
classics for you, traditions for you, whatever costumes you might
be dressing up in, or pumpkins that you've carved, and
(01:08):
just you know, how are you doing. We would love
to hear from you, but please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stefan Never
Told You production of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another sub
(01:33):
sub sub sub segment fictional women around the World.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
How do ween?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In addition who, Yes, today we are talking about Sally
the ragdoll from the nineteen ninety three film Another Anniversary,
which we keep running into, hey, which is the stop
motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas First Voice by
Catherine O'Hara. I just watched this movie the other day
(02:00):
when I.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Was a kid.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It scared me so bad. I don't think I watched
it again until after.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
The first time I ever watched it, I think was
last year. Oh really, because I don't care for animations.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I don't care for Tim was his face, Tim Burton,
I said it.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I've never watched any of his outside of like
the old school old school, so definitely watched Beetlejuice and
definitely watched Edward Scissors Hands. I think that's it though, Yeah,
although he does have some surprising movies that I.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Didn't realize was his.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, so maybe I have and I didn't realize it.
So like, I'm not a big Johnny Depp fan, so
m hmm, definitely not gonna watch that. But I finally
watched this last year, which, by the way, I just
saw recent TikTok saying that the children are named after
their deaths.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, that made me really sad. It's a dark film
in a lot of ways. I mean when I was
a kid, I was like, oh.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
My god, yeah, I was like, oh, well, okay, okay,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, I watched it the other day and I was
just thinking about this because I was like, I see
this character come up so many times, definitely in like
goth spaces, when I was going to hot topic in
high school.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Sally. I have some pajamas actually that I got from
Hot Topic.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, and this film and this character did really resonate
with a lot of people. There has been a lot
of debate and disagreement about whether her character is a
good or bad role model.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
We'll talk about that at the end.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
As side of the film, she has been featured in comics, books,
and video games, including the Kingdom Heart series, which I loved.
Sally's song, the song she sings in it that it
is called Sally's Song, has been covered at numerous times,
including by Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee, which I forgot until
I was researching this. There's also a line about it
(04:03):
in the Blink one eighty two songs I Miss You,
which I was very.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Good at on my karaoke game that I had on PlayStation.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Halsey will alternate with Catherine O'Hara as Sally in an
upcoming live production of The Nightmare for Christmas at the
Hollywood bol Apparently they've been doing this for many years.
Any listeners have been let us know Billie Eilish saying
their role a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
The costume was.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Allegedly inspired by Selena Kyle Catwoman from Batman Returns, which
is another holiday movie that we did. You can see
our episode on it. But yeah, let's talk about this character.
When we first meet Sally, who is a patchwork rag
doll made of found fabrics, Her dresses made of found fabrics,
and she is stuffed with dead leaves, living in Halloween
(04:48):
Town in the film, she longs for independence. Her creator,
controlling mad scientists, doctor Finkelstein, definitely a reference to Doctor Frankenstein,
keeps her locked up in his tower, though she has
tried to escape several times. After the Halloween party, she
manages to get away from him by undoing the threat
on her arm, and she dismembers her arm. She does
(05:10):
this a lot, but due to her nature, she is
able to put herself back together. She secretly follows Pumpkin
King Jack skelling ten and her crush up to the
moonlit Spiral Hill and hears him sing about how he
isn't happy with Halloween anymore. He's bored, basically. Sally returns
to the doctor for her arm and wants it's reattached.
(05:31):
She tricks and poisons the doctors so she can go
to the town meeting that Jack is called, where he
gushes about his experiences in Christmas Town. A little unsettled,
Sally heads back to the tower, where the scientist locks
her up, but Sally escapes by jumping out a window
with the basket of food and drink, and in doing
so scatters her body parts in the fall, but she
easily reattaches them. She gives the basket to Jack, but
(05:54):
flees out of shyness. While plucking the pedals Forget Me Not,
she sees a vision of a Christmas tree bursting into flames.
She goes to warn Jack, but he dismisses her concerns.
Desperate to put an end to Jack's plan to take
up a Christmas on Christmas Eve, Sally whips up a
batch of fog making potion so that she will be
unable to take off in his sleigh.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
However, Jack's dog Zero foils.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Her plan when he illuminates his nose red nose and
lights the way. Once Jack is gone, Sally overhears how
terrible his Christmas is being received, like the military is
talking about shooting him out of the sky, and decides
to rescue Santa Claus, who's being held prisoner by town
villain Oogie Boogie. Sally formulates a plan which involves distracting
(06:40):
a gee with a flash of her unbeknownst to him,
dismembered sexy leg as. She almost succeeds in fringing Santa,
but has captured herself. Jack, realizing what he's done, returns
to Hallween Town and fights Ugie Freese, Sali, and Santa Claus,
just in time for him Santa Claus to save Christmas,
(07:03):
but not before Santa issues a stern warning that she
had listen to Sally because she's the only one with any.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Sense around here.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Jack is on the verge of revealing his feelings for Sally,
but they are interrupted because they have to have that
scene in every movie. But eventually they both make their
way to the Spiral Hill and reveal their feelings for
each other, hugging and kissing or is it because We're
not gonna go in depth on this because I haven't
read these things. But in the comics and books they
(07:33):
get married and maybe have kids, like four kids.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I know this is a comic.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, comics and book. I think I was after the fact,
but yeah, she becomes the Pumpkin Queen, and she was
the one, the only one who never gets fooled by Oki,
but gets kidnapped a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
She rescues Zero. I'm not sure, listeners, let us know
it came out.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The book The Pumpkin Queen came out, I think last year.
This is pretty recent, but there is some stuff I
wanted to talk about with this character because I have
been watching.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I'm behind on my Halloween.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Movies because I've been so busy, but that means I've
been like watching when I have the chance a ton
of them at once, and I think that overload of
Halloween slash horror movies brought.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Me back to that point.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Lauren and I did a whole episode on it before
you came on as host, Samantha, why didn't you believe her?
It shows up in like every horror movie. I swear
to God, there is a woman who is like, this
is bad, we shouldn't do this, and they're all like, brah,
it's under control.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I know what I'm doing. And it was very present
in this movie.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And it's interesting because this is her like crush her,
her love, but she's also not.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Really chill was going on with this plan. She just
she tries to fail it a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We're gonna talk about that more in a suckut. Another
thing I found with the whole article about recognizing abuse,
and it was using this movie as an example, and
it was saying, like, you know, the doctor's controlling behavior
(09:18):
is verbal abuse. Oh yeah, it's very disturbing, like ownership
and entitlement. So here are some quotes from him. You
want me to starve an old man like me who
hardly has strength as it is me to whom you
own your very life, like very much manipulative, like say
I will die without you.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You have to stay. Here's another one. You're mine, you know,
I made you with my own hands. And then later when.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
He's like dissatisfied with Sally, he makes a new version
of Sally that he says will be an improvement.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
He puts like half his brain in her, I think,
And then.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
There's like examples of physical abuse like locking her up,
striving her down, and holding things important to her so
she has to come back, like her arm.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
There's no support in the town.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Like he's definitely not meant to be seen in a
good light. But it's very disturbing for sure, And that
brings us to the next point that she is fined
a lot through her relationships to men in her life.
She is like a damsel in distress. I guess because
she was the smart one. She was the one that
was like, this is bad, this is wrong. I've got
(10:28):
a need to fix it. I'll do it myself, but
still ultimately did need Jack to rescue her. That whole
idea of meant to be, which I believe is what
my pajamas say. They became like a really romantic couple,
like especially for goth emo kids, Like it was like,
oh Jack and Sally.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Which is why I said that.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Are and I have actually some different points about that,
some different quotes of people who disagree. So here's one
from Romper. The whole thing plays out like a narcissist wedge,
the story of a man who, in spite of a
great folly, gets to retain his status as compelling and
beloved genius, winding up with the quiet, mousey girl who
(11:08):
underplays her own ingenuity to worship him. Looking at it
from Sally's point of view, it's basically vicarious wish fulfillment
for every quiet girl who ever loved the lead singer
in a band. I will say I found this article
had like a lot of interesting points, but a lot
of them.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Sometimes you read.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
An article that's like, let's talk about sexism and a thing,
and it feels like the articles kind of being sexist,
and this had a few examples of that. I'm not
saying that was the case. There were just a few
where I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They also tried to make the point that Sally's a stalker,
which I think is a fair point, but also I
don't know, she's just kind of like wandering around.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, she discovered that he's doing something bad.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It's like, oh, maybe I need to keep an eye
on this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, And she was very shy and like not don't
get be wrong if I don't know if the genders
had been reversed, but to me it felt less stockream
more like she's trying to build up the courage, and
then Jack is singing this song and she's like, oh no,
that's a bad IDEA.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Wait a minute, maybe I need to stop this.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, and here's a quote from Marvelous Geeks Media. Unlike
everyone else, she refrains from showering Jack with constant praise
and adulation. Being in love doesn't meet ignoring the object
of your affections. Faults are staying quiet when they're about
to make a huge mistake. Sally is the only one
who tries to dissuade Jack from taking over for Christmas,
imploring that he give up on his plan to no avail.
(12:34):
And in this they point out some quotes from Sally's
song A Lot of People Did That, where she's kind
of like, I wish I could just go.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Along with him, but I can't. It's wrong, doesn't work
for me.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Jack Skellington is that guy who did a single study
abroad semester in Christmas down and thinks he knows everything,
the one who assumes that because he's really really good
at one thing, he must be equally good at anything
else he wants to do. Everyone else is so for
up Jack's bony ass that they're either enamored with everything
he says and does or too intimidated to say otherwise. Still,
(13:05):
it's Sally, the person who actually loves him the most,
who has enough respect for him and her own intelligence
to tell him the truth. That was a very funny
a lot of funny quotes from that article, which is
the Marvelous Geeks one. Here's a quote from Bussel Sally
even gets her own song, but the subtext that said
song is I don't see any of this working out,
including my feelings for that ridiculous man over there. That
(13:27):
very much goes against the classic dough white hope of
snow White or Cindrella. They were making the point that
she's technically a Disney princess because Disney helps the nightmare
before Christmas?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Is she is she consider that?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Well, I mean just technically a lot of people like
to fight about it, but she's in the Disney realm
of what would.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Be leading ladies.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Mm hmmm, Okay, often princess.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Not that Sally is void of positivity or doe eyes,
but she's very heavily married to realism and not waiting
for her prince or king to save the day. I
mean that guy is actually causing all this trouble place.
So yeah, she has a crush, but she doesn't passively
stand by and dwell on it. Instead, she pushes herself
to act for a better cause, making a valiant effort
to rescue Santa cause. And then I thought this was
(14:12):
really interesting. This is a quote I got from screenwriter
of the movie, Caroline Thompson, but I got it via
Din of Geek. If she were writing the character now,
Thompson said to al Horner, she would give Sally even
more of her own self.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Was it ending?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
In particular? She feels she let the character down somewhat.
I felt like that's where I kind of threw her
under the bus. That's a less than character, where she
was sort of a meshed and enslaved in her adoration
of Jack. I wouldn't have used those words at the time,
but in retrospect, I think that's what I was feeling.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, So I thought that was interesting from the screenwriter. Yeah,
I would say it's definitely that the end always kind
of feels like, oh, they're kissing now.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
To me, I mean, it's kind of the whole level
of like you can't just leave it be. They have
to be like the man has to somehow Trump. I
kind of felt that the same way about completely different genre,
but the newer version of Mad Max, Like it could
have just been left alone, but you still needed that
(15:10):
dude to be the one that rescues and sacrifice himself
right right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And it's still like, as most people rightfully pointed out,
it's still Jack's story. She's not the center of this story.
And while she does have plenty of moments, we're like, okay, cool, Yeah,
I like that. I like that she's still ultimately kind
of there to prop him up right and play a
role in his story. So a lot of people have
(15:38):
written a lot about this character, as you might be
able to too.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, and I didn't know it was the thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
We always do this.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I know a lot of movie My friend and I
we were watching Hokus Focus, and I was like, a
lot of movies came out in nineteen ninety three, and
we went on this whole rabbit hole of like, oh this.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
One too, this one too. So a lot of anniversaries
this year.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But yeah, yeah, I would love to hear from listeners
if you have any thoughts about this. I had to
go find my pajamas see what they say on that.
You can email us with thoughts our suggestions for this
segments at Stephania Moms Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or
on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff We've.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Never Told You.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You can find us on Tea Public where we have merchandise,
and we have a book you can find at stuff
you Should Read books dot com. Thanks as always to
our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya, and your contributor Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You his protection but iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
on my heart Radio, you can check out the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Hey, this is Anny.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm welcome to stuff I'll Never Told You, a productive
I heeart for you, and yes, it is just me
today bringing back a classic. As we are rapidly approaching Halloween,
(00:26):
I'm still behind. I have so many horror movies to watch,
including this one. So today we're bringing back an episode
about the character Sally from Nightmare before Christmas, and I'm
really excited to watch it. I always try to do
that one closer to Halloween because it kind of gets
(00:48):
me into the this is the end of Halloween and
now we're approaching all of these other holidays at the
end of the year. But as always, listeners, we would
love to hear from you about any movie that are
classics for you, traditions for you, whatever costumes you might
be dressing up in, or pumpkins that you've carved, and
(01:08):
just you know, how are you doing. We would love
to hear from you, but please enjoy this classic episode. Hey,
this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stefan Never
Told You production of iHeartRadio. And welcome to another sub
(01:33):
sub sub sub segment fictional women around the World.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
How do ween?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
In addition who, Yes, today we are talking about Sally
the ragdoll from the nineteen ninety three film Another Anniversary,
which we keep running into, hey, which is the stop
motion animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas First Voice by
Catherine O'Hara. I just watched this movie the other day
(02:00):
when I.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Was a kid.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
It scared me so bad. I don't think I watched
it again until after.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
The first time I ever watched it, I think was
last year. Oh really, because I don't care for animations.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
I don't care for Tim was his face, Tim Burton,
I said it.
Speaker 3 (02:22):
So I've never watched any of his outside of like
the old school old school, so definitely watched Beetlejuice and
definitely watched Edward Scissors Hands. I think that's it though, Yeah,
although he does have some surprising movies that I.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Didn't realize was his.
Speaker 3 (02:40):
Yeah, yeah, so maybe I have and I didn't realize it.
So like, I'm not a big Johnny Depp fan, so
m hmm, definitely not gonna watch that. But I finally
watched this last year, which, by the way, I just
saw recent TikTok saying that the children are named after
their deaths.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yeah, that made me really sad. It's a dark film
in a lot of ways. I mean when I was
a kid, I was like, oh.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
My god, yeah, I was like, oh, well, okay, okay,
uh huh.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, I watched it the other day and I was
just thinking about this because I was like, I see
this character come up so many times, definitely in like
goth spaces, when I was going to hot topic in
high school.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Sally. I have some pajamas actually that I got from
Hot Topic.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yes, and this film and this character did really resonate
with a lot of people. There has been a lot
of debate and disagreement about whether her character is a
good or bad role model.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
We'll talk about that at the end.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
As side of the film, she has been featured in comics, books,
and video games, including the Kingdom Heart series, which I loved.
Sally's song, the song she sings in it that it
is called Sally's Song, has been covered at numerous times,
including by Evanescence frontwoman Amy Lee, which I forgot until
I was researching this. There's also a line about it
(04:03):
in the Blink one eighty two songs I Miss You,
which I was very.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Good at on my karaoke game that I had on PlayStation.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Halsey will alternate with Catherine O'Hara as Sally in an
upcoming live production of The Nightmare for Christmas at the
Hollywood bol Apparently they've been doing this for many years.
Any listeners have been let us know Billie Eilish saying
their role a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
The costume was.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Allegedly inspired by Selena Kyle Catwoman from Batman Returns, which
is another holiday movie that we did. You can see
our episode on it. But yeah, let's talk about this character.
When we first meet Sally, who is a patchwork rag
doll made of found fabrics, Her dresses made of found fabrics,
and she is stuffed with dead leaves, living in Halloween
(04:48):
Town in the film, she longs for independence. Her creator,
controlling mad scientists, doctor Finkelstein, definitely a reference to Doctor Frankenstein,
keeps her locked up in his tower, though she has
tried to escape several times. After the Halloween party, she
manages to get away from him by undoing the threat
on her arm, and she dismembers her arm. She does
(05:10):
this a lot, but due to her nature, she is
able to put herself back together. She secretly follows Pumpkin
King Jack skelling ten and her crush up to the
moonlit Spiral Hill and hears him sing about how he
isn't happy with Halloween anymore. He's bored, basically. Sally returns
to the doctor for her arm and wants it's reattached.
(05:31):
She tricks and poisons the doctors so she can go
to the town meeting that Jack is called, where he
gushes about his experiences in Christmas Town. A little unsettled,
Sally heads back to the tower, where the scientist locks
her up, but Sally escapes by jumping out a window
with the basket of food and drink, and in doing
so scatters her body parts in the fall, but she
easily reattaches them. She gives the basket to Jack, but
(05:54):
flees out of shyness. While plucking the pedals Forget Me Not,
she sees a vision of a Christmas tree bursting into flames.
She goes to warn Jack, but he dismisses her concerns.
Desperate to put an end to Jack's plan to take
up a Christmas on Christmas Eve, Sally whips up a
batch of fog making potion so that she will be
unable to take off in his sleigh.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
However, Jack's dog Zero foils.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Her plan when he illuminates his nose red nose and
lights the way. Once Jack is gone, Sally overhears how
terrible his Christmas is being received, like the military is
talking about shooting him out of the sky, and decides
to rescue Santa Claus, who's being held prisoner by town
villain Oogie Boogie. Sally formulates a plan which involves distracting
(06:40):
a gee with a flash of her unbeknownst to him,
dismembered sexy leg as. She almost succeeds in fringing Santa,
but has captured herself. Jack, realizing what he's done, returns
to Hallween Town and fights Ugie Freese, Sali, and Santa Claus,
just in time for him Santa Claus to save Christmas,
(07:03):
but not before Santa issues a stern warning that she
had listen to Sally because she's the only one with any.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Sense around here.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Jack is on the verge of revealing his feelings for Sally,
but they are interrupted because they have to have that
scene in every movie. But eventually they both make their
way to the Spiral Hill and reveal their feelings for
each other, hugging and kissing or is it because We're
not gonna go in depth on this because I haven't
read these things. But in the comics and books they
(07:33):
get married and maybe have kids, like four kids.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
I know this is a comic.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Yeah, comics and book. I think I was after the fact,
but yeah, she becomes the Pumpkin Queen, and she was
the one, the only one who never gets fooled by Oki,
but gets kidnapped a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
She rescues Zero. I'm not sure, listeners, let us know
it came out.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
The book The Pumpkin Queen came out, I think last year.
This is pretty recent, but there is some stuff I
wanted to talk about with this character because I have
been watching.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I'm behind on my Halloween.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Movies because I've been so busy, but that means I've
been like watching when I have the chance a ton
of them at once, and I think that overload of
Halloween slash horror movies brought.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Me back to that point.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
Lauren and I did a whole episode on it before
you came on as host, Samantha, why didn't you believe her?
It shows up in like every horror movie. I swear
to God, there is a woman who is like, this
is bad, we shouldn't do this, and they're all like, brah,
it's under control.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
I know what I'm doing. And it was very present
in this movie.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And it's interesting because this is her like crush her,
her love, but she's also not.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Really chill was going on with this plan. She just
she tries to fail it a lot.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
We're gonna talk about that more in a suckut. Another
thing I found with the whole article about recognizing abuse,
and it was using this movie as an example, and
it was saying, like, you know, the doctor's controlling behavior
(09:18):
is verbal abuse. Oh yeah, it's very disturbing, like ownership
and entitlement. So here are some quotes from him. You
want me to starve an old man like me who
hardly has strength as it is me to whom you
own your very life, like very much manipulative, like say
I will die without you.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
You have to stay. Here's another one. You're mine, you know,
I made you with my own hands. And then later when.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
He's like dissatisfied with Sally, he makes a new version
of Sally that he says will be an improvement.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
He puts like half his brain in her, I think,
And then.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
There's like examples of physical abuse like locking her up,
striving her down, and holding things important to her so
she has to come back, like her arm.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
There's no support in the town.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Like he's definitely not meant to be seen in a
good light. But it's very disturbing for sure, And that
brings us to the next point that she is fined
a lot through her relationships to men in her life.
She is like a damsel in distress. I guess because
she was the smart one. She was the one that
was like, this is bad, this is wrong. I've got
(10:28):
a need to fix it. I'll do it myself, but
still ultimately did need Jack to rescue her. That whole
idea of meant to be, which I believe is what
my pajamas say. They became like a really romantic couple,
like especially for goth emo kids, Like it was like,
oh Jack and Sally.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Which is why I said that.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Are and I have actually some different points about that,
some different quotes of people who disagree. So here's one
from Romper. The whole thing plays out like a narcissist wedge,
the story of a man who, in spite of a
great folly, gets to retain his status as compelling and
beloved genius, winding up with the quiet, mousey girl who
(11:08):
underplays her own ingenuity to worship him. Looking at it
from Sally's point of view, it's basically vicarious wish fulfillment
for every quiet girl who ever loved the lead singer
in a band. I will say I found this article
had like a lot of interesting points, but a lot
of them.
Speaker 1 (11:24):
Sometimes you read.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
An article that's like, let's talk about sexism and a thing,
and it feels like the articles kind of being sexist,
and this had a few examples of that. I'm not
saying that was the case. There were just a few
where I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Wait.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
They also tried to make the point that Sally's a stalker,
which I think is a fair point, but also I
don't know, she's just kind of like wandering around.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Yeah, she discovered that he's doing something bad.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It's like, oh, maybe I need to keep an eye
on this. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, And she was very shy and like not don't
get be wrong if I don't know if the genders
had been reversed, but to me it felt less stockream
more like she's trying to build up the courage, and
then Jack is singing this song and she's like, oh no,
that's a bad IDEA.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
Wait a minute, maybe I need to stop this.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, and here's a quote from Marvelous Geeks Media. Unlike
everyone else, she refrains from showering Jack with constant praise
and adulation. Being in love doesn't meet ignoring the object
of your affections. Faults are staying quiet when they're about
to make a huge mistake. Sally is the only one
who tries to dissuade Jack from taking over for Christmas,
imploring that he give up on his plan to no avail.
(12:34):
And in this they point out some quotes from Sally's
song A Lot of People Did That, where she's kind
of like, I wish I could just go.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
Along with him, but I can't. It's wrong, doesn't work
for me.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Jack Skellington is that guy who did a single study
abroad semester in Christmas down and thinks he knows everything,
the one who assumes that because he's really really good
at one thing, he must be equally good at anything
else he wants to do. Everyone else is so for
up Jack's bony ass that they're either enamored with everything
he says and does or too intimidated to say otherwise. Still,
(13:05):
it's Sally, the person who actually loves him the most,
who has enough respect for him and her own intelligence
to tell him the truth. That was a very funny
a lot of funny quotes from that article, which is
the Marvelous Geeks one. Here's a quote from Bussel Sally
even gets her own song, but the subtext that said
song is I don't see any of this working out,
including my feelings for that ridiculous man over there. That
(13:27):
very much goes against the classic dough white hope of
snow White or Cindrella. They were making the point that
she's technically a Disney princess because Disney helps the nightmare
before Christmas?
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Is she is she consider that?
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Well, I mean just technically a lot of people like
to fight about it, but she's in the Disney realm
of what would.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Be leading ladies.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Mm hmmm, Okay, often princess.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
Not that Sally is void of positivity or doe eyes,
but she's very heavily married to realism and not waiting
for her prince or king to save the day. I
mean that guy is actually causing all this trouble place.
So yeah, she has a crush, but she doesn't passively
stand by and dwell on it. Instead, she pushes herself
to act for a better cause, making a valiant effort
to rescue Santa cause. And then I thought this was
(14:12):
really interesting. This is a quote I got from screenwriter
of the movie, Caroline Thompson, but I got it via
Din of Geek. If she were writing the character now,
Thompson said to al Horner, she would give Sally even
more of her own self.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Was it ending?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
In particular? She feels she let the character down somewhat.
I felt like that's where I kind of threw her
under the bus. That's a less than character, where she
was sort of a meshed and enslaved in her adoration
of Jack. I wouldn't have used those words at the time,
but in retrospect, I think that's what I was feeling.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Yeah, So I thought that was interesting from the screenwriter. Yeah,
I would say it's definitely that the end always kind
of feels like, oh, they're kissing now.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
To me, I mean, it's kind of the whole level
of like you can't just leave it be. They have
to be like the man has to somehow Trump. I
kind of felt that the same way about completely different genre,
but the newer version of Mad Max, Like it could
have just been left alone, but you still needed that
(15:10):
dude to be the one that rescues and sacrifice himself
right right.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
And it's still like, as most people rightfully pointed out,
it's still Jack's story. She's not the center of this story.
And while she does have plenty of moments, we're like, okay, cool, Yeah,
I like that. I like that she's still ultimately kind
of there to prop him up right and play a
role in his story. So a lot of people have
(15:38):
written a lot about this character, as you might be
able to too.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, and I didn't know it was the thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
We always do this.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
I know a lot of movie My friend and I
we were watching Hokus Focus, and I was like, a
lot of movies came out in nineteen ninety three, and
we went on this whole rabbit hole of like, oh this.
Speaker 1 (15:55):
One too, this one too. So a lot of anniversaries
this year.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
But yeah, yeah, I would love to hear from listeners
if you have any thoughts about this. I had to
go find my pajamas see what they say on that.
You can email us with thoughts our suggestions for this
segments at Stephania Moms Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com. You
can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts, or
on Instagram and TikTok at Stuff We've.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Never Told You.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
You can find us on Tea Public where we have merchandise,
and we have a book you can find at stuff
you Should Read books dot com. Thanks as always to
our super producer Christina, executive producer Maya, and your contributor Joey.
Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff I
Never Told You his protection but iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
on my heart Radio, you can check out the iHeartRadio
app Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your favorite shows
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