Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I want to stuff I Never Told You production by
Heart Radio. And recently it's come up a couple of
times in some of our exsos, especially the one we
did around the update on divorce, Strategic and competence really
coming back up in the conversation. And I was telling you,
(00:28):
I've been watching a lot of these movies that like
Oscar nominated or might be Oscar nominated movies, and this
comes up a lot. It's having a bit of a
moment a bit.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
I feel like it's like the new not me too necessarily,
but definitely conversation starter about why women leave.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah. Yeah, I was like taken aback at some of
these things I was watching, like, oh my goodness. Wow.
So another topic. Where going to have to do an
update on soon. But in the meantime, please enjoy this
classic episode.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
To Stefan Never Told You Protection of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Annie, you and I have been talking about doing this episode.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I think we've teased it a little bit in our
previous episodes about weaponize and competence, and I know I
think we've talked about something similar to this, we had
episodes that were kind of similar at least talking around
it previously before, right.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yes, so we have done past episodes on emotional labor,
which is related. Surprisingly, Women in Survival Horror has this
section that is related that I'm going to talk about
a bit later, because of course I'm talking about a
lot of fictional stuff that we see. Yes, also our
episode on the widowhood effect and widowers has some stuff
that's related to what we're talking about, and also episodes
(02:03):
on divorce have some of the stuff that we're going
to be discussing in this episode.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I think we've talked about that as well as with
like older being the responsible sibling or or like even
like I believe your episode and daddy issues had all
of those as well. Like it's a constant theme. And
one of the reasons I was like we need to
do this, let's talk about this, and you and I
started like going back and forth, like we could talk
about this and we can talk about this was because
there was this whole section in TikTok. Yes, y'all, apparently
(02:33):
I'm just TikTok talk all the time.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
So I apologize talk talk with a bit.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I mean, essentially I should just have that corner right
because it would never end. But part of that was
talking about weaponize and competence to the fact that this
one dude, uh, he did a whole little gimmicky song
about it, about what it is, and he got attacked
by men because he just called it out. There was
another TikToker who actually showed a groceray that she sends
(03:01):
with her husband, but instead of just being like get eggs,
get butter, get milk, it was get these types of
eggs and puts the picture next to it to show
them exactly what brands to buy, and it just kind
of started this huge conversation about what it was, and
weaponized incompetence has actually been kind of a newer ish term.
It is also known as strategic incompetence. And just in
(03:25):
case you don't know, it's the act of fading incompetence
that any one task usually and an unpleasant one to get.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Out of doing it.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
And that is from a Huffington Post and it is
that's exactly what that is. Is kind of like pretending like
you don't know, I.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Did this as a kid, but also it wasn't on purpose.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
It literally was when I was trying to put dishes
up and put it in the dishwash dirty sinc. It
got to the point that my mother would come behind
me and rearrange everything and they're like, what was the
point of me doing this? And I would get mad, yeah,
because it felt like it was a flight on to me.
But the same time, like, eat like the way I
do it?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I want you just do it the way you want to.
So that's kind of the flip side.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
But of course, yeah, that came into when that would
be asked the next time around and be like, no,
you do it, you do it anyway. I didn't say
it that way. My mother would smack me, but it
was kind of that implication and I was like, ah, yeah,
that's a whole thing.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It is a whole thing. And now that you mentioned that,
because we're going to discuss sort of the generalizations and
stereotypes about what this looks like, and in general it
is usually a man trying to get out of something
by saying, oh, you do it better, I can't do it.
You do it, yeah, something that's they don't want to do.
(04:40):
But now that you mentioned that, there's an interesting flip
too of that. In the dating world, where usually women
pretend they can't do something so that the men will
do it and you can get closer right in that way. Right,
So that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that, But that's
still like building up the ego of the dude in
this right situation.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Right, Well, I mean you think about it too.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
When we have in the same Huffington Post article, it
talks about the webinize in competence when it comes to
female orgasm and I was like, oh, oh yeah, saying
like that literal excuse that we've heard many men and
meninists say that women are incapable of having an orgasm,
(05:22):
so we're not even going to try. And you're like,
oh my, oh that makes me sad for you and
for every woman that you've ever been with. Please don't
be with women, you know, stuff like that. It's like
that's a whole either another level of webinized slash strategic incompetence,
and it's been used in the workplace, and that's kind
(05:43):
of like that bigger arching like this is how damaging
this is. This is how women continue to not be
able to move forward because people take credit of other
people's work and through using strategic incompetence as in fact, oh, y'all.
While we were researching this, an old Wall Street Journal
article popped up, and I say, oh, because it was
(06:03):
in two thousand and seven that this was written.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
So this has been over fifteen years, and I had
to be like, I had to read it.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
And when I read the word I was like, there's
one theme and we're going to talk about it. So
this article was written, like I said, in two thousand
and seven in the Wall Street Journal, written by Jared
at Sandberg. And the title of the article is the
art of showing pure incompetence at an unwanted task. So, yeah,
bear with me while I read this to you, and
(06:29):
let's discuss.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
So he starts.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
To learn something at the office can be difficult, but
to refrain from learning something requires years of practice and refinement.
It's an office skill that Stephen Crawley finds indispensable.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
The inability to grasp selective things can be very helpful
in keeping your desk clear of unwanted clutter, says the
executive in HR or what he calls quote the dumping
ground of all unwanted office tasks. He says, I have
helped a very agile selective memory across a wide range
of non value added activities. The most memorable time he
(07:07):
brandished his non skill was when the president at an
automotive parts manufacturer asked mister Crawley to organize the company
picnic with a sensibility more dry than bubbly. He wasn't
crazy about party planning, so he began to milk his
lack of picnic knowledge for all it wasn't worth. He
responded to any inquiries or suggestions with questions and comments
(07:27):
such as, how do you do that? Or what did
you guys do in the past, or even help me
remember while we're talking about this. Ultimately, responsibility for the
picnic was reassigned mission unaccomplished, says mister Crawley. You'd be
amazed about how much I don't know about picnics. Strategic
incompetence isn't about having a strategy that fails, but a
(07:49):
failure that succeeds. It almost always works to deflect work
one doesn't want to do without ever having to admit it.
For junior staffers, it's just a way of a power
through powerlessness. For managers, it can reduce their status by
pretending to be incapable of lowly tasks. In all cases,
(08:09):
it's a ritualistic sharad. The only thing the person claiming
not to understand really doesn't understand that the victim, ultimately
stuck with the work, sees through the false incompetence.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
This tactic starts in early youth with chores.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
How do you open the dishwasher? It's puppy eyed helplessness
gets refined through homework with math work problems and book
reports on Beowulf. In college, it gets reinforced by enablers
who take better notes.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
In class, and in a marriage it.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
Works, but not as well by raising the spectrum disaster
from a task mishandled. If I do the wash, I
might shrink your sweater? And how do you change diapers
so they don't leak? At work, it can be institutionalized
at customer call centers, for example, whose operators will transfer
you to another department before the last department transfer you
back to them, and for a shady corporations and competence
(09:01):
is the best legal defense strategy for any employee. The
soul stealing complexity of office machinery such as fax machines, copiers, PCs, voicemail,
and even coffeemakers gives everyone ample cover to studiously never
learn how to use them. But the same blank stare
accompanies non mechanical tasks too. Clara Westler, an accountant who
(09:22):
used to work at a law firm, says, lawyers pretend
to be completely flummoxed by all of these machines, as
well as everything related to accounting except for billing. Their message.
I have so many lofty matters on my mind. I
can't be bothered with mastering these small tasks.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
She says.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Rescuing the pseudo incompetent from an office task can mean
doing it for life. Failing to rescue risks this sting
of being a non team player. There's nothing worse than
doing too good a job on something that you don't
want to keep doing, says Carol Kimbler Meager. She once
worked with another manager of different departments who played up
(10:01):
the fact that he quote couldn't find his belly button
with both hands, a map and a flashlight. Each month
he started complaining that he couldn't close his books. Their
boss would beg her to help him, she said, the
following month, we could go through the whole thing again.
Sometimes being a team player means getting your own stuff
done so that other people can get their own work done.
(10:23):
Laziness and status issues aside. Tom Colbert, president of a
logistics provider, observes that found incompetence sometimes comes from a
genuine fear, not of looking stupid, but of proving it.
There's no reason to demonstrate it, he says, for someone
for whom no task is too small, suggests mister Colbert himself,
(10:43):
the fax machine and its labyrinth, the menu of options
are more troubled than their worth. It's a jungle. I'll
coerce someone else into performing the task of by faiding
ignorance or frustration.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That person is Mary Powell.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
She reports that mister Colbert engages in a lot of shrugging, sighing,
and throwing up of the hands. He usually can figure
out most things without too much trouble, She says, this
one particular thing he doesn't want to take the time
to do. Strategic incompetence involves a lot of unnecessary posturing,
notes Robert Sutton, a professor of management science at Stanford University.
(11:17):
But it's not all bad. One way in which lower
status people feel more esteem in the presence of higher
status people is to show that they have a skill
that's valued and needed. He says, it can signify a
mutual respect found in other hierarchies.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
He adds, I think of apes grooming. That's how the
article ends.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
One of the big themes behind this is that it's
the men who say how to do this, how to
use this, and it's the women coming behind going yeah,
I have to fix this.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
Yeah, yeah. One being I think it's really interesting, especially
when you talk about like men failing up a lot
of times it's men failing upwards, right, and sort of
this idea that the non value added task as I
think he referred to it, and a lot of those
tasks being things that are traditionally viewed as women's work,
(12:09):
whether it is like copies are cleaning that you're going
to talk about in our fiction portion, more like these
things that people don't get noticed for or rewarded for.
Or if you do, as it said, if you do
too good a job at this thing because you're a
team player and you want to be seen as really
efficient and good at your job, then it becomes your
job and you're not getting paid anymore for it, right.
(12:32):
It just sort of we're able to successfully pass it
off to you. And it's a weird way of trying
to compliment you, I guess, but really they're just manipulating
you into doing a thing. When I first started working
at this job, and at the time it was like
twenty eleven, it was owned by a different company, our
colleague Bin Bowling told me, in all seriousness, never be
(12:52):
too good at something or they're going to ask you
to do it forever. And I remember sitting there thinking like,
but I've been taught to do violent do well.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Well. This kind of comes back into the alignment of
women have to be one hundred and twenty percent sure
that they are experts and be the qualify one hundred
and twenty percent beyond uh what is actually being asked,
and men literally seventy percent qualified, like yeah, we'll do this.
But that's that whole rhetoric is like the men are
gonna be like, don't do good of a job, because
(13:21):
if you do, they're always going to ask you. And
then women are like, but we have to prove myself
or I'll never move up in the world. And even
if I do, I still won't move up in the world.
And the kind of like this article. I absolutely re
read it as sarcastic. I believe that's what the writer
was intending, because he definitely made a point to discuss
the unequal leveling in the workplace. Even the ending was
(13:46):
so condescending, grooming of monkeys grooming each other.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Okay, okay, coo cool cool.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
And then it literally was like, huh huh, you're calling
this out. You're leaving it without any opinion. I mean,
his language is absolutely an opinion, but you know, like
you're not saying anything outright and then moving on. But
if you really truly look at what's happening, it does
feel like and we're going to talk about this in
(14:11):
our section in a minute about fiction, but this feels
like the beginning of a fiction of a sitcom. This
is the office as you as we were going to
talk about, like literally the setup of an office and
Michael being the most incompetent boss and Pam having to
fix everything for him, like the phone calls, but yet
(14:33):
he kind of proves himself over and over and over
again and she's trying to fix that. And then also
as of late, Pam being the bad guy.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, maybe we should go ahead
and move into this fiction part we can we we love.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
This article in but one more thing I did like
that they made sure to discuss about the parenting and
the family, this whole bit about the fact I don't
know how to change a diaper, which I have actually
heard I've actually heard that being used and not just
by men, I will say, teenagers, And that's rightly so.
But they also were like, oh, this is girls. I
don't want it right, Like, it's not that hard, it's.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
Not that yeah. Yeah, my dad. My dad had many
a fine probably, but he he did a lot of
this stuff, like if he was left in charge of us.
I remember one time he tried to cook eggs, eggs,
burnt them, burnt them, and then he said to my
mom like, listen, we're gonna have to just get take
(15:28):
out anytime you're not here because I can't do it.
But I mean he could grill, which is the masculine area, right,
but nothing else outside of that. And then like, uh,
if I was sick, if I was throwing up, he
would freak out and be like, it's a crisis, where's yourma?
And he would like run literally run away. And then
if my mom went out. He would forget to put
us to bed, so she'd come home at like ten
(15:48):
pm and we were still awake and she'd be like,
why didn't you, Oh, I was just watching this. I
don't know. But he would often say those kinds of
things like I don't know how to do it. I
can do it, I can't learn it. I was just
kind of like a panic mode of like no, no, no,
no no, I can't do that right, And so she
would do it. It was she had to do it.
And she told me recently like she had to stop
(16:09):
going out as much because she can't trust he would
take care of it.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Like I can only think of a handful of times
that my dad stayed with us as well, and not
because he didn't want to necessarily.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
I don't know if that's the case, but my mother.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I think, absolutely felt guilty for being a way, which
is a different conversation in itself, but yeah, I absolutely
have seen that as well. And that's the same thing
with work for me. I absolutely would terrify of missing
work even till this day. Of course, what we do
is a little different, and we have each other and
our whole, our whole team as women, Thank God, and
they would pick up that slack and I love that,
(16:45):
And I've never really dealt with in my heart yet
of that type of inability to help someone. We have
a pretty good crew of people in our immediate group,
but like, I've definitely dealt with that in government, I've
definitely seen that as the higher ups. Who's doing what,
who's asking what? When we look at legal teams. I
have a friend who is pair legal who always get
the brunt of the load of things that that's not
(17:06):
even her job, but being asked to do that, I'm like,
what in a very Meldriven film where she was like
it was made up of a lot of people, but
you kind of like mmm, And there's a lot of
classism in this as well.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Sure that we can come back to.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, let's go ahead and jump into that whole office conversation.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Yeah. So one of the first things I think of
when we were talking about this, which of course I
have a lot of fiction examples and Samantha's got some too,
but is the office because it's kind of a prime
example of what we're talking about, where you do we
have this like ultimate and competent boss who should not
be in that position. So many times you should get fired.
And Pam as sort of, at least in the beginning,
(18:00):
in the sort of secretary position that is cleaning up
after him constantly. But there's one episode in particular where
Pam gets frustrated because the microwave is like constantly dirty
and she's always having to clean the microwave, so she
like leaves a note and then everyone's talking about how
she's being passive aggressive and like why can't she just
do it? And then she tries to explain to Andy.
(18:22):
She talks to Andy about it, I believe it's Andy,
and he's like, oh, no, I can't. I would just
make it worse. I would just mess it up. And
she's like, how would you make it worse? It's clean,
you just clean it. And he's like oh, and he's
like walking away quickly. I would just make it worse.
And that's kind of like what my dad would do,
Like that's the exact idea of like, oh, you do it,
you're really good at it. I would just mess it up,
basically saying I don't want to do this right, and
(18:43):
then her being seen as like nagging that sort of
nagging why can't she just do it?
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Well, and that's one of the things that she says
is if I do it now right, then I'm going
to hold up the standard and I'll be expected to
do this from now on. And that's that conversation again, like, oh,
well you did it before, Why why wouldn't you just
go ahead and do it. I don't we're talking about that.
This is you know this, It just it makes no sense.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
It makes us sense.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Again, As of late, I've seen a lot of rhetoric
that Pam was the bad guy, also that Jim was
a bad guy, and that's a whole different conversation in itself,
that Pam was a bad guy, and that she was
too nagging again, that she was condescending or rude and
all these things.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
And I'm like, was.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
She No, it is just because you don't like women
who were just present, right and maybe calling you out
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
And she did have like she had an arc for
sure where she kind of went from meeker to not
as meek, right, but certainly like she was. I wouldn't
say she was nagging, even where she was trying to
get people to do basically take care of their own nonsense, right,
she was. I mean, that's another part where not really
(19:58):
discussing as she was managing Michael like she was. It
was a whole extra task she was doing that she
wasn't getting paid for or like noticed in right where
she was cleaning up after all of his messes and
expected to do that. Because she didn't, then the cold
company would go under, right or are I either somehow
(20:19):
someone else would get in trouble, because that's the world
we live in. But yeah, I don't. I mean, it's
been a minute since I've watched it, but I don't
recall thinking she was in any way like.
Speaker 3 (20:30):
The villain, right, I mean also in this conversation again,
this is kind of be a maybe a little more
classest than anything else. Like she and the new receptionists
Aaron are both treated us really dumb. Don't get me wrong.
Annon's character are supposed to be a little more ditsy
trying to figure things out.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
I get that arc.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
But both of them, being the secretaries or PA's were
treated that way immediately, and so therefore they should be.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
The ones that are doing the menial tasks and doing.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
Like ridiculous things and be expected to like take some
of the abuse, and of course the sexual harassment.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
The office has not aged. Well, we'll go with that
for sure, but I don't think.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Much has changed in that type of conversation and rhetoric
and in every day rhetoric in that we see a
lot of PA's being women.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
It's gotten different.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
We actually, when I was working at DJJ, I had
a PA and we had one dude.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
That was it and he was awful, awful, like he
would just not show.
Speaker 3 (21:25):
Up and we were like what the hell? And we
had a pretty easy like hey, we understand, this work
is really just menial, Like you're taking notes, you're doing emails,
and you're doing like shredding papers because we had a
lot of sensitive information on paper, like this has to
be shredded, this has to be properly destroyed. Can you
do these things for us? And it's really menial tests
I get that.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
I get that.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
However, if it's that menial, it shouldn't be that hard.
And for him it was super hard. Showing up was
super hard, and I was like, Okay, starting to know
why it's mainly women who can do this type of
labor because they are organized and consistent enough to do so.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
And I don't have to harp.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Right, and also like going back to what you said,
which I think is a good point that women feel, oh,
I'm going to get fired if I don't do like
above and beyond or these expectations that we might have
been socialized to think is where we need to go,
Like the norm is actually higher than what is expected,
But like that pressure, because I definitely, looking back at
(22:32):
my career, I've had a few instances of what I
would call benign examples of this where people were like,
you're so good at doing this, can you help me? Yeah,
And I really don't think it was a manipulation tactic.
I think they could have done it and they were like,
she's good at it, maybe I can get her to
do it. I don't know, but I did. I was
(22:53):
thinking about this other day and I remember just so
clearly feeling, like we've talked about this recently, like I
could be fired if I don't do right perfectly. I
got to do so well, and so I think that
that is a really important part of this conversation, and
also that yeah, to the point of in the office,
I also feel like the receptionist character is often totally
(23:16):
dismissed or kind of seen as invisible and just somebody
who has to do the thing that you don't want
to do. Just not treated very respectfully, right, not being.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Asked, not being thanked, like all of those things.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
And I didn't want to go back to because this
is the same article about missus Meeker who talked about
her boss being ridiculous, and she's saying sometimes being a
team player I means getting your own stuff done so
that other people can get their own work done.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
And I thought it, like, yeah, you're literally holding back people.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
This is that whole like also that team building or
like group projects, when you have that one person who
doesn't want to hold up the end of the deal,
so therefore you're doing their work for them because it
affects everyone, but it doesn't matter because they don't care.
And they also again most likely someone in their group
(24:06):
will do it for them because this affects.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
All of them, right, and they are confident that they
will not be the one that gets blamed for it, right,
or that they can talk their way out of it, right.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
And just leave it alone, or maybe no one will
make a big deal and just do it, you know how.
I am I can't do this and this and this
and this, although I think if she's that with you,
when I'm like, I don't prioritize getting my money back,
can you do it so one of us can get
paid things.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Well? And I also want to talk about this is
something I have mentioned in several podcasts that I've wanted
to talk about. We're going to get into it more
in a minute, but I think not only is this happening,
but we're glorifying it and men like it's funny and cute, like, oh,
silly him, he can't do it, so all like the
wife in this case, I'll take care of it. He
needs me. Like we've made it into something that is,
(24:57):
like you said, a plot of a sitcom where it's
funny and we like these male characters that can't do
anything and we like laughing at them. I don't think
there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's that we're
making them the hero and the woman the nagging villain, right.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Right, It's true.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
And going back to that TikTok phenomenon, apparently like millions,
there's millions of people looking at the tag weaponized and competence.
There's been so many posts and you know, this pandemic
has shown the real uh, unequal bits of what is happening.
Who's taking on a chunk of the responsibility. And you know,
(25:36):
it's about trust, like just about being able to get
support and being able to lean on someone to get
that support to get things.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Done and not breaking down.
Speaker 3 (25:47):
And yeah, like you said, it is often villainized in movies,
and I feel that both of these cinemas are seen
in Missus Doubtfire, which is while I was like, any,
you have to go watch this before we start, So
can you please tell me you've watched this?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
Yeah, I did watch it. It was my first time.
I've never seen it. I'd heard of it, I knew
of its existence.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
So it was made in nineteen ninety three. I need
to hear a synopsis from you as well as a review.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Oh, Lord of buzz I was giving you assignments.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
H you are okay. So it stars Robin Williams as
the dad in this case, the strategic and competent person
who is an actor like a voice actor, child actor,
and Sally Field is his She she's business oh Jason,
She's high up business person, and he is sort of
(26:37):
the fun dad who never does the stuff that they
need to do to take care of their two three children,
three children, and so finally one day sally Field comes
home and it's like, I can't do this anymore. I
want a divorce and he's all like, no, you can't
do I need my children in my life, and she
says no, He's allowed visitation like on weekends and stuff,
(26:58):
but she also doesn't like what he's doing there because
his apartment's not great, and then the food he provides
isn't good. So she reveals she's going to get a
housekeeper and he asks if it can be him, and
she says now, So he of course stresses as an
elderly British woman named Missus Doubtfire. Oh yes, and gets
(27:21):
the job and part because he like knows the family,
I think. But anyway, the kids love Missus Doubtfire after
a tense start, and then Sally Field's character goes to
love Missus Doubtfire And also you see him really struggling
with like he has to learn how to cook and
he has to learn how to clean and all this
stuff he's been like putting off forever. And then Pierce
(27:43):
Browson enters the picture and is trying to date Sally Field,
and then why is this Missus Doubtfire, Robin Williams character
not Missus Stutfire, gets an opportunity at a TV station
for a children's show. It all comes to a head.
We find out the whole everyone finds out Missus Doubtfire
is in fact not Missus d I Robin Williams, but
he gets this show as Missus stuff Fire, and then
(28:06):
I guess they decide that he can work and take
care of the children at the end and maybe they'll
make amends. Was that a good good?
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I liked it really good? So what do you think
about it?
Speaker 2 (28:18):
I it was different than I thought because I had
heard a lot about it, and I was just kind
of still shocked at it. So I'm not sure how
well it's aged either, but you know, it was enjoyable.
I was annoyed at how since we are talking about
this and I was looking at it through that lens.
I was annoyed at how much like Robin Williams's character
does the like you're taking my kids from me and
cry and cry, and she's the bitch the villain who's
(28:42):
like not giving in to his his scenes of emotion,
and the kids are against her for a long time,
and he's against her, and so it did feel very
like he seemed to not be pulling his weight at all.
And then when she's like, well, you've gotta do what,
you gotta help me, and he didn't didn't really and
(29:04):
he was the fun dad and she was the bad
evil mom and I didn't. Yeah, I didn't like that.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
She kad gives that whole speech.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Yeah's the way because of Sally Fields, who was icon,
you know, and she just delivers that speech in the
heated way it is.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
She's not wrong, she's not wrong on what she's saying.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right, it was. It was weird because to me when
I watched it, I was, I guess I was, you know,
on her side, or at least I saw her point
of it. I wasn't at mas at her, but it
was definitely painting it like she's the one breaking up
this family. She's the one that won't let them be
happy together even though that's what the kids want, what
he wants. She is the villain Foreshore and now she's
(29:48):
dating Pierce Brosen and she's putting her work like in
a high place, so definitely bad. She hires a housekeeper,
she's not with her kids like it was definitely pointing
the finger at her as the bad mom and villain
of this, right when really it seems like she's just
trying to be the good mom and take care of
children and all that make money.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Right, And you know, thinking about it, Santa Claus, did
you ever see that, Yes, the same thing.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
The grandmother is the evil mother who is trying to
keep her son away.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
To be fair, the sons like, I don't want to
go over there because my dad's lacking so many things,
blah blah blah. I also want to go ahead, because
I was looking at IMDb, I was like, I just
want to make sure we got all the characters, because
you know, we had to get all that right. But
oh my god, these plot summaries that the reviewers put in,
let me go ahead, just read a line from each one.
This one starts off with eccentric actor Daniel Hillard is
(30:37):
an amusing, caring father, so that's how that goes, and
he talks about how he's trying to get himself together
to see his children. His wife, Miranda, draws a line
and files for divorce. He can only see his children
once a week and doesn't sit well with him. He
also holds a job at a TV studio, like all
these things that you're like this obviously, yeah, you read
(30:59):
into that. And the last line is and he must
also deal with Miranda's new boyfriend, Studunmeyer.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Yeah, I'm like, that's an interesting way in that.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
And then this one says, troubled that he has little
access to his children. Divorced, Daniel Hillard hatches an elaborate
plan and then they go want and to explain what
it is. But it's like, hmm, that's an interesting way
to say that. And then this one, how far would
an ordinary father go to spend more time with his children?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
Well, okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
And then this longer line also starts with Daniel Hillard
is a voice actor living in San Francisco, California. Though
a devoted, loving, and well meaning father to his three children,
Daniel is a poor disciplinarian and his wife considers him unreliable.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, well so that's what I wrote some key things, Sam,
and I was watching it and I think, one, it's
interesting to me, and I'm glad he brought up the
Santa Claus because i think every Christmas movie ever has
this plot. But like, it's interesting to me that he's all,
I want to spend more time with my kids, but
he wasn't really outside of like being goofy dad every
(32:10):
now and then, he wasn't really spending that much time
with him anyway. It's ironic to me that he had
to pretend to be a woman to take some responsibility
and that's when he's first is like oh cleaning and
cooking and yeah, like he has this whole like tearful
line I need to be with my children, but he
really wasn't taking responsibility for their raising. And yeah, just
because he is the hero of this story, right again,
(32:34):
it goes back to what I was saying, where we've
really painted this into I don't like again, yeah, this
goofy well meaning like you know, oh he tries his best,
but does he though, because clearly he did.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
It did so we know that.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
It begins with the disastrous birthday party, which the neighbors
call Miranda to come home and fix up because he
wasn't listening to the neighbors. Which there's one thing to
be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, neighbors are annoying. However, in
this instance of having live animals roaming up and down
your street and you don't know what's happening at three pm.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
There's some questions.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
There's some questions him putting a job without talking to
his wife and not even leading up to something, and
the fact that she is the primary breadwinner in this
scenario as well, And yeah, they paint that as a
bad thing when I'm like, yeah, but he just quit
his job, like no one saw that. Who's going to
(33:29):
be the one taken care of? So she's going to
do both? Y'all are mad that she's going both? Okay,
moving on. And then also his redeeming arc because he's
already sympathetic to begin with, is that she finally has
a moment to confide in him and he's finally listening
instead of being defensive and argumentative. He could only do
that dress as a woman.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yep, yep, I thought that too, And I was thinking, like,
I guess I could make an argument that this was
a commentary on on a gender dynamic. Yeah, in a
heterosis relationship we already know exist, But it's weird that
it's so like accepted that this is the way it is.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Right, Don't get me wrong, I really love this comedy.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
This is one of my dad's favorite movies and he
used to do these lines and it was hilarious and
I still remember these iconic lines.
Speaker 1 (34:18):
Robin Williams.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
I loved him, and I am so grateful that he
was that good of a human that I don't have
to backtrack and say he's not a great person. We
know these things about him, very grateful for that, and
we know that he was a kind person, and this
pretty much fell into his kind of fault. Chris Columbus
is the one who directed this, and we know him
from Hiy Putter for me anyway, But like all of
(34:42):
these things, it's like, yeah, it's absolutely a stereotype.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
And it took a.
Speaker 3 (34:45):
While before really people had a moment of like, yeah, yeah,
this is not the best commentary on relationships and here's why.
And even still people would be like, feminists are being
over the top. It's just a good movie. Calm the
down type of commentator. But you're like, yeah, but this
does needs to be a conversation about why this is
(35:06):
the problem, why we need to have several talks about
what this is and how women are portrayed in media.
You've got one of the best actresses in the world
playing this awful character with some of the cutest.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Kids Mara Wilson in the movie.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
You know all of those things, but we need to
unravel some of this conversation of like why is this
so accepted and why is this the only way we
can take any true commentary into point And this We've
already gone through Kanye, so I'm not going to bring
it up too much more. Except this is kind of
that example of I'm a father, they're keeping my children
(35:44):
away from me and demonizing the parent when they're like, no,
you need to look around at your own attitude, what
you are doing in your actions and how Yeah, this
is not about keeping a child away for the father
is about having you get yourself together so you can
be a good father.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yes, I was thinking about, like I said, all these
Christmas movies have this plot of like the dad's not
that he's always working for Christmas and then he doesn't
(36:25):
get the toy and he forgot even though his wife
has been telling him forever to get the toy. I'm
talking about it all the way, but yeah, it happens
a lot in all the movies, and she is seen
as like the nagging person. He's the hero at the
end just because he finally realizes like, oh, I have
a family and I'm here on Christmas, and I can't
help but feel like this is like male writers writing
these stories either to redeem themselves or their own father's
(36:47):
I'm psycho analyzing email, right, I'm sorry, are the women
do it? Maybe write some of this stuff to excuse
all the work they do versus what their husbands do.
And we haven't even gotten into the sitcom wife yet,
which is the big piece of this conversation, especially for
me who I watched a lot of these growing up,
and so many of those sitcoms, especially of like a
(37:10):
certain time when I was watching them in like the
nineties early two thousands, were the husband and wife, and
the wife was seen as the villain who was stopping
him from having fun. She used the nagging housewife who
was never happy, always yelling at him. And also like
this is a separate conversation, but she was like banging
(37:33):
and he was not really right. And I hate to
make things about looks, and I actually have a whole
thought process that I want to come back in a
future episode about it, but just it's it made me
so mad, Like every time I'm like, why is she?
Why is the sitcom wife always like this, and we're
always laughing at like the antics right of the husband
and the main character in this who is like not
(37:56):
helping her out around the house or with the kids
and is messing up at work and forgets all this stuff.
And then we laugh and laugh and then when she
comes on, we're like, oh, no, the fun is ruined.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Yeah, literally, that's exactly right. They're like, oh no, she
took all the fun out of the room. You're like,
why could she ask you to clean? Why because she
told me to go to bed? Why because she said
dinner it's ready? Can you please come on? I could
ask some dinner come on. It's hilarious and not just
with like the really hot wives, but the majority of
the time they are half the age of the men.
(38:27):
And as the men are the comedians grow older and older.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
Do your wife stay the same age?
Speaker 3 (38:33):
And you're like, this is not realistic and apparently having
that flip is kind of offensive according to our society.
Like it's just it's quite funny because most of the
things that we see with women centric comedies is that
they're either single, they're with other women, or they're divorced
(38:55):
or widowed, like it's like they're trying to find themselves
as new you know, like those are the again hmmm.
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, perhaps separate easily we're kind of working on. But
I have noticed things like that too, and I actually am.
I mean there's a very there's a dark side of that, right,
and very sad part. But I've been excited to see
a lot of movies lately that I've been watching at
least that are very much about the power of female
friendship and supporting each other. That makes me happy. But
it is kind of like, well, did we have to
(39:23):
do this because the gender dynamic is so bad we
can't right, Yeah, And you know, we're watching this stuff
as children, and that's informing how we think households work,
and perhaps we're seeing it in our real lives and
that's informing how we think these relationships work and what's
acceptable and what's not acceptable. So we're really taking in
(39:44):
these messages right at a young age.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
I mean, it has everything to like we're being told
as women that wouldn't you become a wife a mother,
You are a caretaker to the entire family. And when
we talk about matriarch kind of bad is that women
are taking care of the household. And then when we
say patriarch, we're talking about them being the discipline area
or the lead or the head, and it's like, even
(40:08):
that seems sexist when we put that in terms.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, And it is always presented. I mean,
we've talked about this and so many things. But it's
again another damned if you do, damned if you don't,
because you have to take care of the kids, and
if you don't, then you're like a cold bitch. And
if you don't, like, if you work too much, then
(40:32):
what's wrong with you? You should be home with the kids.
But it's also like a weird space where you have
to work too right, it doesn't make sense. It's infuriating,
and it's just almost always like, well, we're blaming the
woman in this instance.
Speaker 1 (40:48):
And I find that interesting.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
They make sure to have the women really dislikable, and
it's not the fact that there's any redeeming quality.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
You just don't like them because they are all these
things that you see in your.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Very strict mother or a very strict person in your life,
and typically again our mothers in this in this type.
But then if the dude is a dick, it's just
funny ha ha.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yes, yes, and also like I want to come back
to that in a second. But also I promise you
most women don't want to quote bag, right, we don't
want to ask you to do these things, like I
dread it, Yeah, because I know that's how you're gonna
view me.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Yep, I'll just like I'll ask you one exactly, I'll
ask you twice that I'm done. And that's again the
same thing as weaponized and competence exactly. Think I don't
have to deal with that as much, but I've seen it.
I've seen it in work places, I've seen it in
like all of that.
Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yes, yeah, so that's that's a big part of this too.
Like we we really don't want to I mean, who
would want to do that? Right? A certain number of people, yes,
but most people don't want to have to like take
on this task, I don't think.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
So there's a lot of energy.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
It does, exactly. It's another thing we're doing and we're
not getting paid for or recognized or other than you're
being a bitch stop bother right right, Yes, So I'm
not going to go into this too much. I think
we should come back in a future episode I've mentioned
it a lot and I have a happy hour about
it coming up. But kind of related to this's what
I was talking about earlier, which is something I call
the glorification of the ass, which is kind of a
(42:17):
similar idea where we're laughing at the bumbling sitcom husband
and we're like, oh, yeah, well he's funny and putting
them in sort of the hero pedestal. And I think
lately we've seen kind of something related, which is the
anti hero who's usually a jerk and sarcassic and rude
(42:39):
is the hero and we're behind this person, right. So
I've seen it in Star Wars, I've seen it in Marvel,
Like I have a whole thing about Iron Man, who
I think is an interesting character. I just think, oh, praps,
we should exactly perhaps we should not be He's like
a lot of people's favorites, and I get I don't
play he's funny and he's interesting, but we should step
back and be like, Okay.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
I Pepper Potts had to take over the company because
he was getting like too sidetracked. Don't get me wrong,
I know he's inventing things and helping the world, but
he also claimed that for himself and was very proud
of it and took all the claim, even that whole
like beginning of Avengers where he's doing the whole clean
energy stuff and he's like, give yourself some credit and
give yourself like thirty percent. I can't remember the line,
(43:21):
but it's very significantly less. And she's like what right?
Speaker 2 (43:24):
What right? Which, yeah, which again I get is supposed
to be funny, but it's also like why it's funny though,
because yeah, and he has he has a lot of
instances where I'm like, like.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
He brought her strawberries and she's allergic. The only that's
the one thing, really, dude, you're trying to kill.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Yeah, cold, And again there's like a it's painted as
a quirk and he's busy and all this stuff.
Speaker 1 (43:50):
Sure you don't care about.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, it's there's a lot and I know there's like
conflict and there's a lot of stuff we could talk about,
but I do want to mention that, and I want
to mention when I said Survival Horror is another episode
you could listen to that sort of related to this is.
I think we're a lot more forgiving of men and
their flaws, especially white men and their flaws and their
trauma as compared to anyone else. So like a character
(44:16):
like Kyla Urn, for instance, we're like so ready to
explain his backstory and we're so ready to be like,
but he's tragic and sad, and oh, you can't be
mad at him because he has all this. We don't
do that for a lot of women or people of color,
like we're just like, no, I don't like her or
whatever it is, moving on exactly exactly. We don't give
them this side of fan work of but he's so
(44:39):
let me take care of him. He's so sad. And
that's sort of a different conversation, but it's related to this,
I think, where we're really ready to explain away men's flaws, right,
particularly white men's flaws. And then there's a whole conversation
with like Boba Feed and the Mandalorian and the anti
hero and why we're like so ready to forgive and like,
(45:00):
but they're so good at their job. And somebody posted
a list and was like are they though? And I
was like, this is what I'm talking about, And again,
there's nothing wrong with liking those characters. I think we
should just be clear on like the stories We've been
told so often about what a hero is and what
is somebody we're celebrating and why right and versus who
(45:21):
are we like condemning and why yes? And this is
like we've been talking a lot about fiction, but as
you started off this conversation, Samantha, this does have real
world consequences and like it's a way huger conversation than
we're going to get into right now. But I think
things like Donald Trump is part of this, Like this
this has real world impacts that are huge.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
I mean, we could look at what's happening with Russia
and Putin and yes we've had issues. I'm not putting
it sorely on Donald Trump, but this huge rhetoric of
all of a sudden painting Russia as a hero, which
did not happen until Trump. Honestly, like Cold War, is
still fresh in most people's minds. Even if you didn't
live through it, you still kind of know about it
(46:07):
because there's been a lot of like end of times
for the US has had a lot to do.
Speaker 1 (46:11):
With like Russia.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
We know this, but like yeah, like stuff like that
where you have this like but he wasn't being serious
and having to backtrack, right, but he he was like
he was. There's a lot of confus theories and maybe
not so conspiracy theories about like what did we promise? Hello,
look at what just happened with Ukraine and hello, look
what he did during the election, just the recent elections
(46:35):
in trying to strong arm the Ukrainian government, uh with
trying to win his own election, Like, there's so many
things to that his all this excuse that we give
to men kevanaugh there were boys. I got when my
mother said that to me, and she's like, he was young.
I was like, he was thirties. No, No, he was
(46:56):
an adult. I don't understand this.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
He was young. Let's stop.
Speaker 3 (47:00):
And that's that same level of incompetence that he's like,
do you really think.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
That he didn't know?
Speaker 3 (47:06):
Again, it says it in that article about is that
it becomes a great defense strategy and it has, it's worked,
and it's become absurd. We're looking at some of the
recent campaigning Marjorie Taylor Green, which we haven't talked about
because I'm like, I don't want to give her much
air in general. I know we can't ignore her, but
I don't want to acknowledge her either her recent like, oh,
(47:26):
I didn't know it was a white supremacist.
Speaker 1 (47:28):
I didn't realize this was a whole thing. I just
went to talk.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
About my stuff, like, no, you can't blame that on
your ignorance. Let's let's really be honest. Same thing with CRT,
same thing with so many other things. I think there
was a huge conversation on TikTok once again about Mount
Rushmore and how really bad it is and how they
literally took over the land from Indigenous people who've been
white men on it.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
That we idolize way too much. Let's just keep it
to that point.
Speaker 3 (47:55):
But there's a lot of that to that point, and
like people will be like, well, we need know why.
I'm like, yeah, this is what you should learn. Same
thing as plantations. When people are like, oh, I didn't
know it was a plantation. Well I thought they changed
it burned, bitch, No, you knew, or you could have
looked it up. It's not hard. It's not hard, right,
(48:15):
And this whole level of like how this goes and
stretches over all of society is not just men, it's
not just in marriages, it's not just that workplace, but overall,
how harmful this rhetoric is, and why education is so
important that's a whole different thing, and taking on responsibility
and just being a good damn human. Let's just be there.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
It does.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Oh, I love it. We've touched on a lot, Like
I know that there's so much we touched on that
is bigger than what we discussed today, and I'm sure
we'll come back and talk about that. But yeah, clearly
there's a lot going on with this conversation and its
impacts and the damage that it can do and has done.
(49:01):
But yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
So much.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
I do like a lot of the fiction I mentioned.
I'm just saying, be critical of the messages you're receiving
over and over.
Speaker 3 (49:13):
Be willing to have the conversation of yeah, this was problematic.
We've talked about this as we're trying to pick out
books and movies the feature. We want it all to
be highlighting and very happy, because oftentimes topics I pick
specifically are really sad and negative, so we try to
do that on an opposite end. But at this point,
you know, you just have to acknowledge I love this
at once upon a time, but yes, this is problematic,
(49:33):
and we need to talk about why instead of ignoring it.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
Mm hmm, well that's part of the reason we're here,
but in a fun ways.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
A fun way, in.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
A fun way. Not here to make anybody feel guilty
generally not you good listeners. No, yeah, we love you well.
Thank you so much for going on this journey with us. Yes, yeah,
it's been a long time. I'm coming and like I said,
we got some follow ups on this one. But in
the meantime, if you have any thoughts about this, if
(50:05):
you have any suggestions, please let us know. You can
email us a stuff vidia mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcasts
or on Instagram at stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
it's always to our producer Christina, thank you and thanks
to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told Uspects of
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