December 7, 2017 • 54 mins
Is Scut Farkus a feminist icon? Listen to this week's episode about A Christmas Story with guest Brandon Bird to find out! But also, he's not.
(This episode contains spoilers)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have
women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
If do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the beck del Cast. Hi, Welcome
to the Beck Deel Cast. My name is Jamie and
my name is Caitlyn. Did I forget? Did I just
(00:23):
want to make it suspensefult into the narrative you just
presented as way. I was like, no, she's sick and
what is my identity? That's fun? Well, isn't that just
the age we live in, the age of identity. We're
all trying to figure out No, I know that I'm Caitlin. Okay, well,
then that's good. I was just trying to I don't
know why, but I was trying to create suspense. I
(00:46):
like that. So this is the Backdel Cast. This is
our podcast about how women are portrayed in movies and
how hey usually not very good. Another good suspense moment
by Yeah, Yeah, that's good. This is a spook suspenseful episode.
It's December about a Christmas movie. Spooking the scariest month
(01:07):
of all because you have to see people you do
not fucking lie. Oh man, we're spending Christmas together. It's
just like we've spent Thanksgiving together. We're basically domestic partners.
We are a common one married and yeah, I think
when this episode comes up, I'll be with my family,
and I mean they'll never hear this podcast, which just
about sums up how we're all doing. Okay, So this
(01:32):
is our our podcast about women and movies. We use
the Beck Dol test and men and by Alison back
Dol as a yard stick, which requires let's see how
it took a year, but maybe I can do it
requires two women in a scene with names talking about
something other than a man for exactly two lines of dialogue.
Does a movie do it? For some reason? Holiday movies
(01:55):
fair very poorly with the Beck Dol test. Just based
on what we've been doing recently, can into it? Get
into that? We'll get there? Is that all our business
up top? I think? So let's introduced our guests. Wonderful.
He's an artist, he's a nice guy. We love him.
It's Brandon bird High. Thanks for being here, thanks for
(02:15):
having me. It's December. For crying out loud, whiz, It's
actually here's here's a little peak behind the curtain. It's
actually November. November, so it's it might as well be December. Yeah,
I mean this is one of those long Christmas seasons
because there there are five Thursdays in November. Christmas season,
which is usually just December is now it was like
(02:36):
extra long, lucky us. Yeah. Wait what are you? What
are you doing for the holidays? Um? Well, my my business.
You know, I sell princes of my artwork online at
Brandon Bird dot com, the store dot Brandon bird dot com.
So this month is usually if things go really well,
it's just people ordering stuff and you're just constantly mailing things.
(02:59):
Very nice. Uh So we're here to talk about a
Christmas story now, Brandon, tell us your history with this movie,
your your relationship to tell us everything. Yeah, get into it. Okay, Well,
my relationship starts with my uncle Therb Therb. I think
(03:20):
his full name is sergeant Therber What WHOA? That was
a journey You don't have a journey name. Uncle. Is
his name sergeant or is he always a sergeant? In
the which is my grandpa's name too, it's not, it's
spelled differently. Okay, So your uncle is not a sergeant,
(03:41):
but his name is sergeant. Sergeant. He goes his name president, like,
can you it's spelled differently, it's like a name. Anyway,
they called him Therber or Therb. So were you do
you have a cousin named sergeant or was your generation
just ripped off with this generation? My generation we all
got normal names. Brandon normal, I don't think sergeant. Okay,
(04:05):
so you're so so Uncle Herbert introduced, Yeah, he had.
He was like an early VHS adopter. He would buy
movies when they were like a hundred dollars in three dollars,
so he like bought Star Wars, like the first time
Star Wars. But we borrowed a Christmas Story from him
(04:28):
and we watched his like look at me, like this
is the funniest thing we've ever seen. This crazy movie
we've never heard of. And then you know, like ten
years later everybody was like have you heard of CRUs Story?
Oh man, I'm like, yeah, we borrowed Uncle's right, because
this movie was not like it was. It was like
it became a big deal as I recall, like the
(04:48):
end of the nineties kind of yeah, like went like
not until they were chowing on incessantly, which is weird, Like, yeah,
I was. I was reading back some of the original
reviews and there, you know, fine, they're middling. It was
just this movie could have really cheap. So they were like, hey,
let's that's all. This a good point, which is what
(05:09):
happened with It's a Wonderful Life. Like it was not
that acclaimed or popular of a movie back when it
was made, and it wasn't until TV stations were like, oh,
this movie is like so cheap to sir. And then
I mean, there's not a lot of big, big, big
budget Christmas movies that I can think. I mean, there's
I think they're trying to turn like Elf into a thing. Yeah,
(05:31):
But what I what I did want to say is
that if there's any big budget Christmas movie that deserves funding,
it's mine. The one that I wrote called Santa University.
If anyone out there wants to give me about fifty
million dollars to build an entire college campus and flooded
(05:52):
with people dressed as Santa. They're killing each other. It's violent.
It's also a musical, so we're gonna need big budget
for that. Lots of Elves, there's a lot of different Santa.
There's Santa. There's Dan Santa, there's Cool Santa. Not as
cool as Cool Santa. You gotta you gotta check out this.
(06:14):
So if any, if any big wigs with three million
dollars and about four years of production and to just
devote to this, I'd like to be flown out to
I don't know, to Barbados for a couple of months,
just to mill over Santa and in the most Anta
like environmental Barbados. Yes, of course. Okay, what movie we're
(06:35):
talking about. It's a Christmas story. Okay, let me preface
what I'm about to say with I don't like Christmas.
I don't like the Christmas season. I don't like the holiday.
Just recite the book very I am Ebenezer, Scrooge and
thern fused into one sour posts of of a gal
who hates holiday cheer. I found spending a holiday with
(06:59):
you to be Are you enjoyable? Thank you? Well? We
didn't really do much to I mean, did Christmas movies
and ate a lot of food. We went to Denny's
like in the Santa Claus. It was a blast and
that was fun. Yes, it's fun, But are you going
to do the Santa Claus? I wanted to, but I
don't think this year. Yeah, I don't think it's in
the cars this year, like a whole month of the trilogy,
(07:21):
the God the Claus month. What a trouble hast Caitlin's
don't let Me do the Master of Disguise. The fact
that I was able to so early in the podcast
is maybe the biggest miracle that will ever happened. Yeah.
So I don't care for Christmas and I don't celebrate Christmas.
I celebrate Winter Solstice. Brag and even not that. I
(07:44):
don't like anything feeling so hard yourself because you're you're
fun and a holiday we've exchanged games. I mean, I
don't know. I just I hate the Yeah, I love
the Rigamar role. Well, first of all, I'm addicted to
the Righam role. I'm literally obsessed with the Rigamar role.
(08:06):
I always get I have like seasonal effective disorder, so
I always am very depressed around this time of year.
I don't like all, like the commercialism and the consumerism.
Well we got to buy a bunch of gifts and
the la lah and I don't know, I just don't
like it. See Santa with here's a fun throwback to
we don't need to talk about the movie. What does
(08:26):
talk about Christmas out there? Do you remember around this
time last year, maybe a few weeks out where I
was late to a different episode of the back And
it's hard to remember because I'm late to a lot
of them. But I was late because I was looking
for Santa's all day. Oh I do remember this. Ye,
that was a fun one. Yeah, there was last year
I got. I went to like seven different malls and
(08:47):
found as many Santas as possible. Yeah, I remember it.
Come with me this year. I can't not do that now.
Once you do it once, you have to look for
as many you have to top last year's goal. Seven
full Santas. Hey, okay, so Christmas Story. Um, I did
not grow up with this movie as many people did.
I did not see it until probably college. Yeah, I
(09:08):
got a late start on it, and I until you know, yesterday,
I had only seen it that one time. I will
get into how I feel about the movie, but based
on what you know about how I feel about Christmas, Jeremi,
I saw this movie for the first time, I want
to say, when I was probably around ten, which was
(09:33):
when I was first aware that they were really broadcasting
this movie on a loop, and I associated with being
in my grandma's house in Brockton, Massachusetts, go boxers with
my second least favorite uncle just hurting all the children
in a room saying hey, look at this and then
shutting the door because that is where the children's table
(09:56):
ended up being, and they didn't want anyone going to
hang out with the adults. So he'd be like, hey,
look at this movie as a trick, and then he'd
trap us with the movie and would take the remote
so we couldn't change the channel. We had to keep
watching the movie until Christmas was over. I hate this movie.
This movie reminds me of prison. Yeah yeah, and all
(10:16):
my cousins that that stink. Yeah. I also don't care
much for it. Well, let me do the recap. So
A Christmas Story is about a little boy named Ralphie
and Christmas is just right around the corner and he's like,
I want this fucking baby gun, you guys, that's all
(10:36):
he wants, all he wants, and he tells his family
and his mom's like, no, you'll shoot your eye out, Brandon.
You're allowed to interrupt as much as you want during
the recap, but never again after that it's well then okay.
So then Ralphie has this like hallucination where he's like,
oh look, wow cool, I'll be if I have this
baby gun, I can protect my family. And he's very
(10:58):
spiffy and everyone's any It's like it's exciting. He's wearing
like a silver, sparkly cowboy outfit, and I think he
is a queer icon in that scene. He has a
queer icon in that scene. You're right, Actually they cut
this is a bit of trivia. They cut another fantasy
sequence where he's like with Flash Gordon in space. Interesting. Okay,
(11:23):
so some other stuff happens. Like it's very episodic. Yeah,
I mean it doesn't really have like a it's not
super cohesive. His father verbally abuses a furnace. What's his job?
Is he an old mobile salesman? Is he a furnace repairman?
I don't know. This is why you don't make a
movie based on a book of essays? Is that what
(11:43):
it is? A book of essays? We can get into it.
I found the book in a trash pile once and
then tried to read it. That's where you find a
lot of jenks. Well, that's where Christmas stuff belongs to
trash pile. You're you're I like our great Cindy lu
who vibe We've got I am and I'm just like
I've got some Christmas story trivia. I want to hear it.
(12:06):
I am the sergeant in the War on Christmas, Sergeant Therb.
I am coming in full force and taking Christmas. But
Sergeant Christmas the analogy that doesn't want to love the
whole of Jeane Jeane Shepherd. He was a Jean Shepherd fan.
I think so because because many people do not know
(12:27):
is that they're like a bunch of sequels to this,
to this movie. Yeah, the Christmas Story, because like it's
like one of those things where like you know, like
they're different adaptations of like different stories. They did like
TV movies that had Matt Dylan as like a teenage Ralphie.
(12:48):
I didn't do anything, and it was like this weird
experience where in the late eighties there was like this
PBS special for some reason, we taped it for Uncle
Therpy's Like my mom was like, how he wants to
tape this thing? All the hop noodles, Haven of Bliss
and we're like watching it and we realize that these
are all the characters from a Christmas story. What is
(13:09):
it called All the hop Noodles Haven of Bliss? So
noodles was in the title? Okay, yeah, like have these
like kind of dumb big titles like that, right? I like?
I like. I don't hate Jane Shepherd's work. I became
aware of him via his old He used to have
a column and Playboy back in the day. He wrote
(13:29):
some some fun little ditties. He's got a fun writing style.
Why was this movie made to me? Unclear? But there so. Yeah,
as you said, it's very it's like episodic. There's not
a whole lot of like it's not a super cohesive story.
But the basic story is that this kid, Ralphie wants
a b begun for Christmas and everyone keeps telling him
(13:50):
he's going to shoot his eye out with it. Some
other stuff happens. He has some friends at school. Sometimes
they get bullied. Somedays they like a pole. Sometimes yeah
it's crazy. Sometimes one of them wants to go down
on a pole perform some pole Connell Angus and just
and it doesn't work out for him. Um, they go
get a Christmas tree. There's the leg lamp there's pajamas.
(14:13):
There's pajamas, a lot of layers at one point, and
that's a fun another um when he puts on the
Bunny the bunny pajamas, another queer icon moment. I think
there's there are a lot of moments in this movie
that like are I feel like the people who have
never seen because before watching it all the way through yesterday,
(14:34):
I was genuine I'm like, I'm not sure that I've
actually ever watched this movie all the way through because
it does play on a loop during very traumatic family events.
So I'm like, I've for sure seen vignettes of it,
but I think in my head, I'm like, well, for
sure this story there's an overarching story, but turns out
there's note I I mean, that's why you can watch
(14:57):
it like that, because it's just like a little The
movie itself is just little chunks. Yeah, it's kind of
designed to be like watched in between arguments. That's why
they show it so much. I mean, what little semblance
of story there is is that he wants this be begun.
He asks his mom, he writes an essay about it
at school, he goes to Santa and he asked for
(15:17):
every single persons like year, we'll shoot your eye out.
And then finally Christmas morning comes. Yeah, he thinks he
doesn't get the B begun, but then it turns out
he does it again. Suspense what I'm all about. I
love you know, a good suspenseful moment in a Christmas movie,
and he fires. He does end up getting the B begun.
(15:41):
The first thing he does with it is shoot his
eye out, sort of hits his glass like the Little
Babe hits his glasses. And then he has to make
up this story about how an icicle hit him in
the face. Everyone believes it, and then dogs come in.
They eat the Christmas turkey. His dad's like, let's go
out for Christmas and then they go to a Chinese
restaurant where a very sustain unfolds and the movie ends.
(16:03):
So yeah, that's pretty much the story. Also prominently featured,
I think relevant to what we discuss. The most prominent
the Chekhov's gun of this movie isn't a disembodied female
body part. Yeah yeah, yeah, that you can plug into
a wall and it like that. Just it felt worth
mentioning because I was like, oh, what are you like that?
(16:24):
You know, the few images that are that you associate
with this movie. And the disembodied female calf is way
up there in terms of what not just a calf,
it's a whole, it's a thigh, it's everything. It's my
apologies to all you a Christmas story heads out there,
but yeah, it is like probably the most iconic image
(16:45):
of the whole movie. But but we will say, as
we have sort of taken to doing this, I would
say female leg lamp neither feminist icon nor a queer icon.
Definitely not. And we are the authority. It's yes, because
you know that a man saw the ladies leg. Yeah,
(17:06):
that's that's a real human leg that was turned into
a lamp. O new fan theory. Okay, here's my fan theory,
you know. Okay. In Titanic seven, there's I like to
say that the year as if it's a part of
the title. In Titanic, directed by James Cameron, there's this
scene we will watch that on Thanksgiving. There's a scene
(17:30):
where Jack Dawson is like showing Kate Winslet his drawings right,
and he's like, she was a one legged also prejudice
because he's like, oh, I didn't fuck her. Look, she
only has one leg, and it's like, well, what's wrong
with fucking people with one leg? As someone who's only
fun people with one leg? That would be fun. Though
(17:52):
maybe it's her leg, that's what I'm saying. Maybe it's
Jack Dawson's French prostitutes leg become lamp interesting fan They jamie,
thank you, thank you, thank you, no thank you? Right, Okay,
So I thought this movie was gonna be worse to
its female characters than it is. Me too. I thought
(18:12):
we were going to have sort of like a stand
lot situation happening where it's just like girls, how gross
and awful and have some like weird. It's weird because
I feel like the exchanges that girls just like, instead
of there is a prominent female character and she's constantly abused,
there's just not really a prominent female character besides his mom.
(18:34):
There's the school teacher. The teacher and get a little
bit of screenplan like it's it is weird that there's
no like all his friends are boys, right, I mean
that makes sense for the agent. Yeah, I mean nine.
But but you're right, there's not that like a lot
of those movies that try to like, let's do a
movie childhood they try to do the like boys against
(18:57):
the girls, and there's nothing. And there's also not that
like a lot of movies made at the same time,
they were like boy centric and they were about the
boy like really needing to get laid or like, and
I'm really glad that's not I was glad that neither
Old Boy was not trying to fun. Yeah. I mean,
I mean like if it had been like it would
(19:21):
have been like a nightmare. Yeah yeah, yeah, and said
it's still like this very innocent like all they wants
is to be begun, right right, there's I did kind
of assume that there would be more negative portrayals of
women to talk about, but I think the inverse, which
we do find kind of often is that there's just
(19:42):
really not that much to talk about because there's not
that many female characters. Sure, I mean, so the mother
is definitely the female character with the most screen time.
She starts out, I assumed because I didn't super remember
this movie from the first time I watched it, so
rewatching it, I was like, right at the beginning, I
was like, oh, she's a shrew. Like she's yelling, She's
like get down here and put on your clothes. And
(20:04):
eat your breakfast and blah blah blah, and she seemed,
you know, a bit naggy and shrewish, but later as
the movie progresses, their sort of a shift a complexity
to her. Yeah, I mean it is, yeah, you know,
like she kind of stands up to kind of protect
the kids from like their dad in certain times, to
just be like like she's like a good mother. The
scene that I was like, oh, wow, okay, I like
(20:26):
this character is when, although I hate this scene because
it makes me want to throw up, when she's trying
to get his little brother Randy to eat and she's
like me like a piggy and he's like it's like
oh the sounds and the like just the imagery of
him like shoving his face and a plane and mash
Like I feel sick just thinking about it. But you
(20:47):
see her being like fun and just like having this
cute little moment where she's like trying to get her
son to eat, so she like is kind of playful
with him, and I like that. I was like, Okay,
so she's not this just like very one dimensional shrewish character.
She also takes revenge on the leg she does. Yes, yes,
that was that I think the closest to any sort
(21:08):
of like whoa, okay, that that was a little bit
of like fun release for a female character as we
get to in this movie. Yeah, And I think some
people would argue like, oh, she was just jealous that
there's like this hot leg, just hot floating leg around
soary for this non existent leg. She can't stand it,
(21:29):
like come on. I think that she destroyed it because
she recognized that the leg was neither a queer icon
nor a feminist icon, and she's like, I don't need
this ship in my house. Yeah. So the mother character
is yeah, a little more complex than she appears at
first glance, at least. Um. The other thing about her, though,
is that she's sort of presented as kind of the
(21:52):
main obstacle throughout the movie, where Ralphie keeps being like,
oh my god, I want this bebacon. That's all I want,
and she's always saying like, no, you can't have that.
That's too dangerous. You'll shoot your eye out. So she's
sort of like the big obstacle and the source of conflict.
I feel like the Dad was more the actual like antagonist.
(22:14):
I think, yeah, you know, like like he wasn't he
was kind of neither for nor against the gun, but
he was like the presence that could swoop in and
kind of end everything, like the terror in the back
of everyone's mind kind of thing. That's sort of something
that I think. It's it's fascinating that, you know, it's
a movie about the kids, and both of the adults
(22:35):
are the essentially the bad guys, which I think. I
think that more often than not, the more we do
the show, often when there's not a lot to talk
about in terms of, wow, there's really just not a
lot of female characters in this movie. That's often because
(22:55):
a lot of what's being dealt with, whether it's explicitly
stated or not, is like hyper masculinity and men teaching
other men how to be men, and that is I
think what we witness, you know, Ralphi's dad trying to
do at some points, but it's you know, he's I
don't I don't know that it necessarily works, but there
(23:15):
there's like a few lessons imparted from father to son
here that's like, oh yeah, he's trying to pass on
a very antiquated idea of like this is what a
man does and this is how real boy acts. And
all and all that ship. I feel like maybe I
just wasn't paying a cluss of attention. I don't know
if I saw a whole lot of that. There is
(23:35):
like a moment where Ralphie and that kid, Scott Farcus
get in a fight and um Scott, Ralphie kind of
like beats the crap out of him because he's been
bullied by him throughout the whole movie and he's had enough.
He flips a table and he's like no more so Farcus.
(24:00):
He's swearing and he's beating him up. And then Ralphie's
mom shows up and she's like, come on, get home,
and Ralphie's crying. So one I like that. You see
like little boys crying in this movie a number of times,
and at one point his dad says something like, I'll
give you something to cry about. But I feel like
there's not a whole lot of like hyper masculine and
you're trying to be passed on from father to son.
(24:23):
And again, maybe I'm just kind of forgetting about some
specific details, but I do like that you like see
a little boy crying and he's worried, and he's like, oh,
I got in a fight, and then his mom says
something like she's telling his dad what happened, and she's like,
you know how boys are, which sort of is a
different way of saying boys will be boys. But I
(24:43):
don't think that just trying to diffuse the situation, like
like you don't need to know the details, just it's
kind of over now. Yeah, I think because she was
kind of trying to like shield him from the dad's anger, right, Like,
it's very strange in the movie that dad is presented
like this very like angry force, but you never see
(25:04):
it directed at the kids, Like it's not like the
dad beat us sort of like but it's still it
feel it's like it's like this subtext that like the
kids know they could be the force of this anger,
and the mom knows because she tries to shield but
but it's never like this explicit like you're still allowed
(25:27):
to kind of like the dad, Which is why, Yeah,
I think this movie has the potential to kind of
be worse and more toxic than it is. But but
then I think that that like speaks a lot to
what the mom's role is in the movie, is like
she is sort of directing her very angry husband's attention
elsewhere a lot of the time, or you know, saying
(25:47):
you know, I agree with you, I agree with you,
but I'm going to be the one to carry out
the punishment because she's trying to protect her kids, which
I think with the you know, soap in the mouth
thing is that's kind of like emblematic of that. I
don't know, like the dad's soapen the mouth is so
weird because this is a tangent, but that, like the
prop soap looks so unlike any soap I've ever seen. Yeah,
(26:09):
I was just like, it's blood soap. It looks like
a chunk of like rounded plastic. Yeah. And I was like,
is that special punishment soap they had in right? This
is you know it did soap change. There's jailed blood
(26:32):
and the blood of children. Post war America. They're like
soaps white now war is over, no more fancy blood
red soap. I don't know. That's interesting to me because
I I remember one of the few things that did
(26:52):
carry with me from past viewings of this movie into
my most recent viewing is even though he doesn't explicit
do anything wrong, and intense dislike of the father character
because it does seem like he's just always being held
back from doing like it never seems like he's like
I would never do something awful. It's just like, well,
try to stop me before I do something awful, like
(27:15):
and that I mean, again not too psychologically, but like that.
I mean there's you know, everyone has an uncle that
sort of is maybe like that, a little bit of
just like, well, this isn't a good guy, but there's
a lot of people around him who are trying to
make sure he's a good guy. Like and and that's
what the dead character always reminds me of. And it
(27:35):
just I don't know, yeah, it really bugs me that character.
There's another scene where you see little brother Randy crying
in a cupboard. Randy feminis on Randy, Randy is crying.
This is later on in the movie. Their mother like
opens the little cabinet door and she's like, why are
you crying? And he's like, cause, dad, he's gonna kill Ralfie, right.
(27:58):
She says, like if there's a loom. But back to
the point that I like, do you see like little
boys crying? It's never like stop crying and man up.
You don't really see that in this movie, which um
I think it's kind of unusual and refreshing. Well, perhaps
let's let's give Jean Shepherd to a point. Maybe that
(28:18):
that is one of the pros of adapting an essay
about someone's actual life is you don't maybe get the
opportunities to know if it's from his actual it really
just sapricated liket to forty. Somewhere in there, the Wizard
of Oz exists. Jean Shepherd born. Yeah, so if this
(28:40):
happened to him he was like old, maybe that's a
screenplay adapt I mean, they just kind of fudge that's
it's like a little weird. It's like a writer not
being completely honest about everything. I didn't realize that there
was that date descripancy, but were meant we're led to
(29:00):
believe because Gean Shepard is the adult narrator that he
is old Ralphie. Can we also just talk about how
there is really this influx and then this movie is
not is by far not the worst of them of
movies about like white male childhood that is narrated in
a very egregious, lazy way, as opposed to setting up
(29:22):
a story that doesn't require voice over narrage. I just
bog like this movie started it like you wouldn't have
The Wonder Years without a Christmas story, which is fine
by me. I'm a hard pass on the one. I've
had multiple Chod boyfriends like ya, God, I want it's
Ben Savage is big brother. It's like, I can't what
(29:43):
air of reference there? Well, that's my favorite, but it's
Ben Savage's brother, whereas like generalread, Savage is fread exactly
wrong wrong these Corey from Boime's World brother like care
Care for Crime outline. Yeah there. I I hate movies
(30:05):
about childhood with voiceover narration, particularly fits about boys and that,
which I think I just hate. I mean, I hate
this hand lot, I hate it. I hate it. The
worst movie of all time. There's too many movies just
about white male childhood period without narration, late boyhood. Let's
let's stop making these. Oh god. But another thing I
(30:31):
did want to point out is that Ralphie's favorite radio
program is Little or Finnanny. Even at one point he
says something like I don't have time for smugglers and pirates.
Get this small larchy off radio. I do. Like he
was talking about Little Orphan. Yeah that was a show. Yeah,
(30:51):
that's what I'm saying that he likes a narrative about
a little girl, but not about He doesn't like the
pirate show. Little Franny is the pirate show? Wait? What
Little Orphany was all about pirates and spies? And because
the yeah, the comic and like the radio show. It
was like the story we're familiar with is all about
(31:12):
her transition from orphan to adoption. But the bulk of
like the comic and the radio show and all that
was all the adventures she and Daddy Warbucks then went
on because he's like a bazillionaire and he'll be like,
what's let's go to the jungle. Now, check out my
diamond mind. And then like somebody would kidnap little or
(31:34):
Fanny and and they'd have to get out of the
scrape and find Daddy Warbucks. So I haven't we seen
that movie at a bit? That's that's what it was like.
This like adventure. Okay, I used to see a movie
about domestic adjustment. Yeah, boring. I thought that it was
like the show about like is Annie gonna get adopted
(31:56):
or not? And he loved that, but he hated rates
and stuff. An adventure character who knew, well, that's even cooler. Yeah. Yeah,
I was just going to point out that, oh, how
how nice that his his favorite shows about this little girl,
which is like, you know, something that maybe little girls
might be more interested in listening to, whereas you know,
(32:19):
pirates and smugglers something a little boys. Okay, got it,
Well that's my point. My point is invalid then, but
I am fascinated to learn that that's what little or
Fanny was to look that up. Amazing. Uh. Something I
did want to also talk about is guns and masculinity
(32:43):
because this movie is about a little boy who is
desperate for agun and I researched some statistics about gun violence. So, um,
get ready for some exciting everyone ready, So episode a murder.
(33:05):
There is an article that I recommend in Time magazine
by Jill Stein. Okay, hang on me. I always say
that when people are talking about my mom, my mom's
name is Jill, it's like I was talking to Jill
like Stein. No, it's a Jill Philippo vic. I've probably
(33:29):
mispronounced Jill Um. She writes an article in Time magazine.
It is called one Undeniable factor in gun violence colon men.
So in the article, it cites some statistics that since
nineteen sixty six there have been a hundred thirty four
(33:50):
mass shootings. I believe that's confined to the US. I
don't think that's worldwide. Of those of those thirty four
mass shootings, one have been perpetrated by men, only three
by women. Of murderers are men. My point being men's
fascination with guns is maybe not good. You heard it
(34:11):
here first on the Bechtel cast. Maybe guns aren't great.
But she writes, if you were to extrapolate like the
events of the film, like the next day or the
weeks months, I always imagine that like Ralphie never used
his BB gun again, you know, like that was kind
of the impression that he got it. He used it,
(34:33):
and then it was not in any way, shape or
form like what he thought it would be. I hope
that that's the case. That was just kind of the
impression I got. Well, could we get the impression from
because like he doesn't he like you know, dings his
glasses and then he has to go inside, and then
like he leaves the gun out there, doesn't he has
to go back, right and he even says something like,
oh but my guns still out there, And she's like
(34:54):
you can get cleaned up and go get it later.
And I don't think we ever see that happen because
instead they go at the Chinese restaurant. I think you
see him at the very end. I think he might
be sleeping with it. I think you're right, Yeah, we're
but it is for most of the movie we see
Ralphie and Randy. Neither of them are like agro children, right,
(35:19):
They're they're being bullied. They're not hyped children there, They're
regular kids. And so it is. And and basically all
the information we have about Ralphie would not lead you
to believe like, oh, this kid's gonna fucking be weirdly
into his toy gun, which leads me to believe that like, oh,
(35:40):
this must symbolize something too in his head of either
status or you know, like overcomings whatever adverse, like as
opposed to actually wanting it and thinking, oh, this is
a toy I will have fun times because they like
why it's important. It's just the thing he's obsessing about, right,
(36:01):
Like it's a symbol more than it is, like because
like a theme of the film is these very small
like a kind of losses of innocence or like things
that don't turn out how you think they're going to
turn out. And that's kind of how he took the
gun obsession. It was like he's really into this, and
then it's not really quite what he wants right after
(36:23):
after all the hullabaloo. Yeah, well you do see that
sort of vision that he has very early on, where
are these like bad guys come and he has his
gun and he's protecting his family. So it's this sort
of like oh, to be sent right. Yeah, So it's
sort of like perpetuating this idea where it's like, oh,
(36:43):
I'm he's a man and he needs to be the
protector of his family and you know, exert this like
machismo over people, which like, I mean, I can't even
pretend like I understand all of the psychology behind people
who are obsessed with guns, and I'm I'm a guy,
I should love guns, And I don't get I mean, sorge,
(37:05):
I mean, I've only got like four or five guns.
Were the one I keep in my car and then
a couple under my bed. I mean, you're I don't
think that's about the gunpoint for the duration of the episode.
But I don't I don't get that. I don't get
these other people who are like really super into guns. Yeah,
like you have to have one in both of your
hands at all times than that? Why? Why? Right? So
(37:26):
the point I'm trying to make is, Okay, first, I
want to say that I don't think all people who
own guns are bad. I do, I do, I do.
I do think that all guns should be thrown into
an active volcano and then we shouldn't have guns anymore.
That sounds like that would actually be pretty dangerous. I
(37:47):
think they'd like melt instant, Yeah, they would. I think
they wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they go off.
I think maybe throwing them into like a pile of
fireworks might be dangerous, but a volcano volcano is generally
like in clothes used kind Yeah. I thought a lot
about this, and that's why I picked volcano. Jamie. Just
come over to my volcano and we can throw in
(38:08):
all the guns into that. I want to go to
a volcano. Okay. So the point that I want to
make is it's just peculiar to me that this whole
story is about this kid being obsessed with getting a
gun and whether or not he kind of abandons it
after the fact or not. We don't really know because
the story ends and we can only sort of speculate.
(38:30):
But the fact that this whole movie is about this
kid with getting a gun sends a message that like,
little boys like guns and guns or maybe something to
want for and and I think that helps create some
problems in society. Well, I think I think the reason
that I assumed that he just ended up not being
(38:53):
thrilled by the gun was like the little Orphananey scene
where he gets he's been super psyched about getting that
Dakota and then he gets it. He's like, this would
be so awesome. I'm totally in the club now I'm
gonna get these messages and he's just like a commercial. Sure,
I feel like that was like kind of foreshadowing, like
these these very small like losses of innocence to being like,
(39:15):
oh wait, this gun is kind of stupid, like right, okay,
but I feel like there's less of a definitive like
where when he doesn't, he doesn't end up having any
fun with it because he immediately immediately right, I mean,
he's trading about it because he got the thing he wanted.
His quest is fulfilled, even if the reality of it
doesn't match up. He's still and that's a lot of
(39:37):
holidays for kids. It's like, well, I got the thing
I kept screaming about. Now what how does it work?
Versus Randy, who didn't seem to have any Christmas preference.
I'm just totally fine with that. Zeppelin Randy, what an icon.
Love him. Also, be sure to drink your Oval Tea
in This podcast is sponsored by ovalte But I just okay,
(40:01):
I'm going to stop talking about gun violence in a second,
but I have some important things to say. These are
quotes from the article The Reality of American Men and
Guns is as much about hyper masculine fettization, fetishization, fet
of murder toys as it is about tribal identity, a
deepening identification of self and clan that radicalizes marginal views
(40:24):
and magnifies personal entitlement and social distrust. This is a
communal masculine ideology, not an individual one. And then she
goes on to say about how I like, there's no
lone wolves. It's like hack mentality. So it's just talking
about hyper masculinity and toxic masculinity and how it perpetuates
this idea that guns are cool but they're not they
should be thrown in a volcano. The other quote I
(40:45):
wanted to say goes, almost half of the world's civilian
owned guns are in the hands of Americans, but those
guns are not distributed equally. Many are hoarded by super owners,
a group of mostly male extremists who make up just
three percent of the adult American population but own an
average of seventeen guns a piece. So you know, a
little more than what you have. And now Brennan has
(41:07):
led more guns out on the table so as to
demonstrate his dominance. Another sequel set in maybe like nineteen sixty, yeah,
the very early sixties, where Ralph is like a grizzled
gun nut, like preparing for like the race war that
everyone was afraid of it the sixties. The final vignette
(41:28):
as the story um. The quote goes on to say,
women are increasingly buying handguns for protection, and that seems
to be their actual motivation. They own a single gun
and they keep it in case of an emergency. One
suspects that the imagined assailant they are protecting themselves from
is a man. So there's that. Um. The only past
(41:51):
I would be willing to give this movie on this
particular subject, because I do think it's very it's not
a good precedent to have a little boy lusting after
a gun toy for the duration of a movie, but
at very least the gun toy in question was forty
years out of anyone desiring it by the time the
(42:12):
movie came out. Because I mean, like, if you think
if this was a if a Christmas story was made
in the context of its three and this kid really
wants this gun toy that you can go out and
get right now, like that, that somehow makes it a
billion times worse. I'm just trying. I remember at the
time the movie came out, like you could get like
(42:33):
the Sears catalog or whatever, and they would have like
BB guns and maybe other kinds of like sporting rifles,
like they're in the catalog there. Yeah, I mean that exists. Yeah.
I remember being a kid and you know, like my
older brother, my older brother's friends like being kind of excited,
Oh they're guns. Cool. But it was still this very abstractly.
I don't know anybody who like had a BB gun. No,
(42:56):
I never did. I I knew that they existed somewhere,
but exactly like by the time I like friends, I
knew in the neighborhood I had fake guns. They were
I mean, they did have them, and my mom was
very like hard on, like she were in a daycare
and if you had a fake gun, you couldn't bring
it to her daycare. But but they're like all the
ones that existed made laser noises. It was no longer
(43:19):
people people. They were like like I still remember before,
like you can still get like like a water gun
to look like a real gun. Before they did all
those laws like the orange tips. Yeah, because they're like
a couple shootings, like they made those laws because they're
like kids were killed because the cops were like good
and like um. But yeah, if I if I if
(43:45):
I were at ralph us Age and I asked for
a BB gun, I think my mom wouldn't They would
say no. But they wouldn't be because like you're still
you're out there just be like that's a really weird request.
It's like that was torturing animals. What's wrong with you? Ye? Yeah, yeah,
it'd be like this is I know, because it goes
against social norms because but but then I mean, even
(44:11):
so he loves after this gun, but does experience at
least a fairly large consequence of he does hurt himself,
but then he makes up a whole story. He's not
even willing to attribute it because he knows if he says, oh, yeah,
I shot myself in the eye's gonna get taken away.
So he has to fabricate this whole story about an
icicle hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses
and stuff like that. Winter is the real feeling of
(44:31):
hyper masculinity. It's winter, so I feel like he's trying
to protect his gun the way his mom has to
protect her kids from the wrath of their father. We're
going to add in this early sixties vignette. Yeah, yeah,
just like the Grizzled gun Nut Ralphie. It still goes
(44:52):
by Ralphie though still yes, is there a party going hap?
I'm not sure if you can hear some chatter in
the background in some music, we weren't invited, That is
all I know. Let's talk about the teacher a little bit.
Another person who, yeah, the one other female character with
pretty much any lines. She is also sort of depicted
(45:12):
as a shrew at the beginning um and then kind
of softens a little bit as the movie goes on.
But there is one point where Ralphie's having another vision
I like to call them. I think he's tripping on
acid this whole movie and he's having a hallucination. But
I think he has just gotten his paperback talking about
(45:33):
what he wants for Christmas, and she's given him a
C plus. So he envisions her as like this witch,
wicked witch type character. So he sees her as a
mean little bee and it's really, hey, maybe takes some
responsibility for your own writing. You earned with the plus,
not her fault. Seems very poorly written. So for just
(45:53):
judging by his voiceover, like, come on, you've gotta you've
gotta build on your ideas there, Ralphie, jeez, he becomes
a guy who writes a lot of short things for money.
You know what. That's that's evidence that Ralphie is not.
That's okay, okay, Yeah, he doesn't have he doesn't have
(46:14):
the touch. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie?
I would say, Scott parks feminist icon. I think that's
my last, my last major thought on this film. Let's
talk about whether or not the movie passes the spectral test.
I am going to argue as much as I don't
want to do. I think that it does. And one tiny,
(46:37):
tiny scene where students are filing in and giving miss Shields,
the teacher um little Christmas gifts. There's a name exchange,
is there not? One student puts something on her desk.
She says thank you Heather. Heather says Merry Christmas. The
teacher says, Merry Christmas. Rats, rats we know her name
(46:59):
were interesting. This movie passes better than Pirates of the
Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl does God damn It,
which is apparently inspired by Little or Finanny, because it's
about pirates damn it. I mean, it's like the Bear
Bear Bear minimum as we never see that Heather character. Again,
we don't see her speaking. She has no significance in
(47:21):
the story. Well and and so as we often I
would say, of the movies that passed the Backtel test
that we have covered on this podcast, at least of
them are a barely passed like this, like you know,
you get it on a technicality. It was almost definitely
an accident that this happened test because at no other
(47:44):
point in the movie does it even come close to passing.
In fact, it's mostly boys talking to each other or
boys talking to their mother. Ye, so well, I agree
with you. I was, I was this is this is
a weird experience where I was almost disappointed that it
has that. I was like, I guess they get it.
I guess I didn't even notice it until my second viewing.
(48:04):
I was like, oh wait, hey, wait, there's two women talking.
I jotted it down in dismay m same. So let's
then rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we
write the movie based on its portrayal of women zero
to five nipples, and then you can describe the nipples
or give them away to anyone you want. A character
(48:25):
in the movie. Character, but I mean one of your
loved ones, if he's so comfortable today, So give one
to give one the sarge. Yeah, sargebis therpist yeah, therbist. Okay.
(48:45):
So I'm gonna give this movie a It's probably gonna
be like a one and a half. I do like
that the two main female characters, the mother and Miss
Shields the teacher, aren't as one dimensional as they kind
of grow. There's a little arc there. The mother seems
(49:05):
like a good mother and she's not just like this
one dimensional shrew that we are led to believe in
the first few scenes. But other than that, just the
idea that the movie is about a little boy desperately
wanting a gun and all of his little adventures that
he has with feminist icon Scott and then his friends
named Flick and Schwartz was like, if you don't name
(49:28):
your your kids Scutt, you're crazy. But it gets a
one and a half nipples, and the nipples belong to
the leg lamp, which may I think maybe have a
nipple or two or one and a half. I'll give
it one and a half as well, because I mean, obviously,
(49:50):
this movie is about white male childhood, or as it
was known in childhood. And it's weird because it's like,
this movie does not abuse that premise as much as
I assumed it did, except for that last scene in
the Chinese restaurant, which was very uncomfortable. Yes, I mean, well,
(50:13):
this is a white, white, white, white white movie. There
are a few students of color in his class, although
they get no lines, very little screen time, and it
is predominantly and extremely white. It's a white white All
that said, I do think that yeah, there there where.
I hate to reward a movie for not making its
(50:35):
female characters shrews by default and giving them character by default.
But the two female characters we do manage to see
in this movie, although they would never be permitted to
speak to or view each other, um, they do both
have more depth than you would assume, especially seeing through
the eyes of a little boy. So in that way,
(50:58):
I liked it. I liked them Mom character quite a bit,
and I feel for her. So I'll give one of
my nipples to Mom, and I'll give it half enough
to Scott. Great, Yeah, how about you, Brandon. I might
go a little higher, like maybe an even two nipples,
just because I feel like this is a weird thing
(51:18):
to say, but I feel like it gets some points
for I guess omission rather than like because a lot
of movies there are quote unquote classics from the same
period are like unwatchable now because you're just like, oh wait,
this movie is actually about some gross kid trying to
get late take again and take every opportunity to make
(51:40):
that joke over and over and over. Yeah, and and
this is sort of like, oh, they just that's just
not part of the content, right. I Mean, it'd be
great if they were like more actual characters, but there
also aren't you know, like girls as just objects of
like Ralphie and his friends either like derision or desire, right,
(52:00):
Like they're the female characters we do manage to see
are not being overtly abused over and over and over,
which is again, yeah, like the the omission thing. But
for a movie you're I mean, I think we were
all kind of bleainly surprised. There's a ton there's a
lot like the you know of that period, like kind
(52:20):
of like meatballs and like all those like yeah yeah things,
whether it's about like you know, let's have a scene
where the boys like find a playboy like that kind
of like and I hate to keep going into the
sand lot, but that movie is that all over where
they used the whole like oh well it is at
different times. So everyone was looking disgusting and with the
(52:41):
rape and kid like it was just like discuss like
awful that yeah, and then they were like you're a
girl because you're kind of displaying some signs of weakness
and like that's the worst insult Everdence movie does not
doesn't doesn't do it. No, there is a scene where
they like just a quick little scene where um, they're
all sitting down to dinner and Dad is like, got
up and get me this. I want seconds and she's
(53:03):
like okay, and then she's about to eat again, and
then Ralphie's like, actually, can I have some more too?
And then she has to put her fork down, get up,
and like the voiceover said something like, my mom hasn't
had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years. But
that's really all it does to acknowledge that, like they
don't have bad so that I was just like, poor mom. Well, Brandon,
(53:27):
thank you so much for being here. Thanks really need
to talk about my favorite movie. Where can we find
you on the world wide Web? Well, you can go
to Brandon Berg dot com just in time for the
holiday season to buy some prints, greeting cards, Christmas bobbles.
Well you got I didn't know you had, babbles, lots
(53:48):
of fun stuff. Hey. You can follow the Beachel cast
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook to pick up on that. I
was just pausing for for Suspend and signed up for
our Patreon where you can get two extra episodes a
month at patreon dot com slash past it's only five
(54:10):
dollars one a gift to yourself to yourself to your friend,
give yourself a gift, Give your friends, your mom, your dad,
anyone in your family. We don't care. We're starving, all right,
Well you can find us there, yes, indeed, And happy holiday,
Happy freaking holidays, everybody, all right, goodbye, bye,
On the dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have
women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands?
If do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
start changing it with the beck del Cast. Hi, Welcome
to the Beck Deel Cast. My name is Jamie and
my name is Caitlyn. Did I forget? Did I just
(00:23):
want to make it suspensefult into the narrative you just
presented as way. I was like, no, she's sick and
what is my identity? That's fun? Well, isn't that just
the age we live in, the age of identity. We're
all trying to figure out No, I know that I'm Caitlin. Okay, well,
then that's good. I was just trying to I don't
know why, but I was trying to create suspense. I
(00:46):
like that. So this is the Backdel Cast. This is
our podcast about how women are portrayed in movies and
how hey usually not very good. Another good suspense moment
by Yeah, Yeah, that's good. This is a spook suspenseful episode.
It's December about a Christmas movie. Spooking the scariest month
(01:07):
of all because you have to see people you do
not fucking lie. Oh man, we're spending Christmas together. It's
just like we've spent Thanksgiving together. We're basically domestic partners.
We are a common one married and yeah, I think
when this episode comes up, I'll be with my family,
and I mean they'll never hear this podcast, which just
about sums up how we're all doing. Okay, So this
(01:32):
is our our podcast about women and movies. We use
the Beck Dol test and men and by Alison back
Dol as a yard stick, which requires let's see how
it took a year, but maybe I can do it
requires two women in a scene with names talking about
something other than a man for exactly two lines of dialogue.
Does a movie do it? For some reason? Holiday movies
(01:55):
fair very poorly with the Beck Dol test. Just based
on what we've been doing recently, can into it? Get
into that? We'll get there? Is that all our business
up top? I think? So let's introduced our guests. Wonderful.
He's an artist, he's a nice guy. We love him.
It's Brandon bird High. Thanks for being here, thanks for
(02:15):
having me. It's December. For crying out loud, whiz, It's
actually here's here's a little peak behind the curtain. It's
actually November. November, so it's it might as well be December. Yeah,
I mean this is one of those long Christmas seasons
because there there are five Thursdays in November. Christmas season,
which is usually just December is now it was like
(02:36):
extra long, lucky us. Yeah. Wait what are you? What
are you doing for the holidays? Um? Well, my my business.
You know, I sell princes of my artwork online at
Brandon Bird dot com, the store dot Brandon bird dot com.
So this month is usually if things go really well,
it's just people ordering stuff and you're just constantly mailing things.
(02:59):
Very nice. Uh So we're here to talk about a
Christmas story now, Brandon, tell us your history with this movie,
your your relationship to tell us everything. Yeah, get into it. Okay, Well,
my relationship starts with my uncle Therb Therb. I think
(03:20):
his full name is sergeant Therber What WHOA? That was
a journey You don't have a journey name. Uncle. Is
his name sergeant or is he always a sergeant? In
the which is my grandpa's name too, it's not, it's
spelled differently. Okay, So your uncle is not a sergeant,
(03:41):
but his name is sergeant. Sergeant. He goes his name president, like,
can you it's spelled differently, it's like a name. Anyway,
they called him Therber or Therb. So were you do
you have a cousin named sergeant or was your generation
just ripped off with this generation? My generation we all
got normal names. Brandon normal, I don't think sergeant. Okay,
(04:05):
so you're so so Uncle Herbert introduced, Yeah, he had.
He was like an early VHS adopter. He would buy
movies when they were like a hundred dollars in three dollars,
so he like bought Star Wars, like the first time
Star Wars. But we borrowed a Christmas Story from him
(04:28):
and we watched his like look at me, like this
is the funniest thing we've ever seen. This crazy movie
we've never heard of. And then you know, like ten
years later everybody was like have you heard of CRUs Story?
Oh man, I'm like, yeah, we borrowed Uncle's right, because
this movie was not like it was. It was like
it became a big deal as I recall, like the
(04:48):
end of the nineties kind of yeah, like went like
not until they were chowing on incessantly, which is weird, Like, yeah,
I was. I was reading back some of the original
reviews and there, you know, fine, they're middling. It was
just this movie could have really cheap. So they were like, hey,
let's that's all. This a good point, which is what
(05:09):
happened with It's a Wonderful Life. Like it was not
that acclaimed or popular of a movie back when it
was made, and it wasn't until TV stations were like, oh,
this movie is like so cheap to sir. And then
I mean, there's not a lot of big, big, big
budget Christmas movies that I can think. I mean, there's
I think they're trying to turn like Elf into a thing. Yeah,
(05:31):
But what I what I did want to say is
that if there's any big budget Christmas movie that deserves funding,
it's mine. The one that I wrote called Santa University.
If anyone out there wants to give me about fifty
million dollars to build an entire college campus and flooded
(05:52):
with people dressed as Santa. They're killing each other. It's violent.
It's also a musical, so we're gonna need big budget
for that. Lots of Elves, there's a lot of different Santa.
There's Santa. There's Dan Santa, there's Cool Santa. Not as
cool as Cool Santa. You gotta you gotta check out this.
(06:14):
So if any, if any big wigs with three million
dollars and about four years of production and to just
devote to this, I'd like to be flown out to
I don't know, to Barbados for a couple of months,
just to mill over Santa and in the most Anta
like environmental Barbados. Yes, of course. Okay, what movie we're
(06:35):
talking about. It's a Christmas story. Okay, let me preface
what I'm about to say with I don't like Christmas.
I don't like the Christmas season. I don't like the holiday.
Just recite the book very I am Ebenezer, Scrooge and
thern fused into one sour posts of of a gal
who hates holiday cheer. I found spending a holiday with
(06:59):
you to be Are you enjoyable? Thank you? Well? We
didn't really do much to I mean, did Christmas movies
and ate a lot of food. We went to Denny's
like in the Santa Claus. It was a blast and
that was fun. Yes, it's fun, But are you going
to do the Santa Claus? I wanted to, but I
don't think this year. Yeah, I don't think it's in
the cars this year, like a whole month of the trilogy,
(07:21):
the God the Claus month. What a trouble hast Caitlin's
don't let Me do the Master of Disguise. The fact
that I was able to so early in the podcast
is maybe the biggest miracle that will ever happened. Yeah.
So I don't care for Christmas and I don't celebrate Christmas.
I celebrate Winter Solstice. Brag and even not that. I
(07:44):
don't like anything feeling so hard yourself because you're you're
fun and a holiday we've exchanged games. I mean, I
don't know. I just I hate the Yeah, I love
the Rigamar role. Well, first of all, I'm addicted to
the Righam role. I'm literally obsessed with the Rigamar role.
(08:06):
I always get I have like seasonal effective disorder, so
I always am very depressed around this time of year.
I don't like all, like the commercialism and the consumerism.
Well we got to buy a bunch of gifts and
the la lah and I don't know, I just don't
like it. See Santa with here's a fun throwback to
we don't need to talk about the movie. What does
(08:26):
talk about Christmas out there? Do you remember around this
time last year, maybe a few weeks out where I
was late to a different episode of the back And
it's hard to remember because I'm late to a lot
of them. But I was late because I was looking
for Santa's all day. Oh I do remember this. Ye,
that was a fun one. Yeah, there was last year
I got. I went to like seven different malls and
(08:47):
found as many Santas as possible. Yeah, I remember it.
Come with me this year. I can't not do that now.
Once you do it once, you have to look for
as many you have to top last year's goal. Seven
full Santas. Hey, okay, so Christmas Story. Um, I did
not grow up with this movie as many people did.
I did not see it until probably college. Yeah, I
(09:08):
got a late start on it, and I until you know, yesterday,
I had only seen it that one time. I will
get into how I feel about the movie, but based
on what you know about how I feel about Christmas, Jeremi,
I saw this movie for the first time, I want
to say, when I was probably around ten, which was
(09:33):
when I was first aware that they were really broadcasting
this movie on a loop, and I associated with being
in my grandma's house in Brockton, Massachusetts, go boxers with
my second least favorite uncle just hurting all the children
in a room saying hey, look at this and then
shutting the door because that is where the children's table
(09:56):
ended up being, and they didn't want anyone going to
hang out with the adults. So he'd be like, hey,
look at this movie as a trick, and then he'd
trap us with the movie and would take the remote
so we couldn't change the channel. We had to keep
watching the movie until Christmas was over. I hate this movie.
This movie reminds me of prison. Yeah yeah, and all
(10:16):
my cousins that that stink. Yeah. I also don't care
much for it. Well, let me do the recap. So
A Christmas Story is about a little boy named Ralphie
and Christmas is just right around the corner and he's like,
I want this fucking baby gun, you guys, that's all
(10:36):
he wants, all he wants, and he tells his family
and his mom's like, no, you'll shoot your eye out, Brandon.
You're allowed to interrupt as much as you want during
the recap, but never again after that it's well then okay.
So then Ralphie has this like hallucination where he's like,
oh look, wow cool, I'll be if I have this
baby gun, I can protect my family. And he's very
(10:58):
spiffy and everyone's any It's like it's exciting. He's wearing
like a silver, sparkly cowboy outfit, and I think he
is a queer icon in that scene. He has a
queer icon in that scene. You're right, Actually they cut
this is a bit of trivia. They cut another fantasy
sequence where he's like with Flash Gordon in space. Interesting. Okay,
(11:23):
so some other stuff happens. Like it's very episodic. Yeah,
I mean it doesn't really have like a it's not
super cohesive. His father verbally abuses a furnace. What's his job?
Is he an old mobile salesman? Is he a furnace repairman?
I don't know. This is why you don't make a
movie based on a book of essays? Is that what
(11:43):
it is? A book of essays? We can get into it.
I found the book in a trash pile once and
then tried to read it. That's where you find a
lot of jenks. Well, that's where Christmas stuff belongs to
trash pile. You're you're I like our great Cindy lu
who vibe We've got I am and I'm just like
I've got some Christmas story trivia. I want to hear it.
(12:06):
I am the sergeant in the War on Christmas, Sergeant Therb.
I am coming in full force and taking Christmas. But
Sergeant Christmas the analogy that doesn't want to love the
whole of Jeane Jeane Shepherd. He was a Jean Shepherd fan.
I think so because because many people do not know
(12:27):
is that they're like a bunch of sequels to this,
to this movie. Yeah, the Christmas Story, because like it's
like one of those things where like you know, like
they're different adaptations of like different stories. They did like
TV movies that had Matt Dylan as like a teenage Ralphie.
(12:48):
I didn't do anything, and it was like this weird
experience where in the late eighties there was like this
PBS special for some reason, we taped it for Uncle
Therpy's Like my mom was like, how he wants to
tape this thing? All the hop noodles, Haven of Bliss
and we're like watching it and we realize that these
are all the characters from a Christmas story. What is
(13:09):
it called All the hop Noodles Haven of Bliss? So
noodles was in the title? Okay, yeah, like have these
like kind of dumb big titles like that, right? I like?
I like. I don't hate Jane Shepherd's work. I became
aware of him via his old He used to have
a column and Playboy back in the day. He wrote
(13:29):
some some fun little ditties. He's got a fun writing style.
Why was this movie made to me? Unclear? But there so. Yeah,
as you said, it's very it's like episodic. There's not
a whole lot of like it's not a super cohesive story.
But the basic story is that this kid, Ralphie wants
a b begun for Christmas and everyone keeps telling him
(13:50):
he's going to shoot his eye out with it. Some
other stuff happens. He has some friends at school. Sometimes
they get bullied. Somedays they like a pole. Sometimes yeah
it's crazy. Sometimes one of them wants to go down
on a pole perform some pole Connell Angus and just
and it doesn't work out for him. Um, they go
get a Christmas tree. There's the leg lamp there's pajamas.
(14:13):
There's pajamas, a lot of layers at one point, and
that's a fun another um when he puts on the
Bunny the bunny pajamas, another queer icon moment. I think
there's there are a lot of moments in this movie
that like are I feel like the people who have
never seen because before watching it all the way through yesterday,
(14:34):
I was genuine I'm like, I'm not sure that I've
actually ever watched this movie all the way through because
it does play on a loop during very traumatic family events.
So I'm like, I've for sure seen vignettes of it,
but I think in my head, I'm like, well, for
sure this story there's an overarching story, but turns out
there's note I I mean, that's why you can watch
(14:57):
it like that, because it's just like a little The
movie itself is just little chunks. Yeah, it's kind of
designed to be like watched in between arguments. That's why
they show it so much. I mean, what little semblance
of story there is is that he wants this be begun.
He asks his mom, he writes an essay about it
at school, he goes to Santa and he asked for
(15:17):
every single persons like year, we'll shoot your eye out.
And then finally Christmas morning comes. Yeah, he thinks he
doesn't get the B begun, but then it turns out
he does it again. Suspense what I'm all about. I
love you know, a good suspenseful moment in a Christmas movie,
and he fires. He does end up getting the B begun.
(15:41):
The first thing he does with it is shoot his
eye out, sort of hits his glass like the Little
Babe hits his glasses. And then he has to make
up this story about how an icicle hit him in
the face. Everyone believes it, and then dogs come in.
They eat the Christmas turkey. His dad's like, let's go
out for Christmas and then they go to a Chinese
restaurant where a very sustain unfolds and the movie ends.
(16:03):
So yeah, that's pretty much the story. Also prominently featured,
I think relevant to what we discuss. The most prominent
the Chekhov's gun of this movie isn't a disembodied female
body part. Yeah yeah, yeah, that you can plug into
a wall and it like that. Just it felt worth
mentioning because I was like, oh, what are you like that?
(16:24):
You know, the few images that are that you associate
with this movie. And the disembodied female calf is way
up there in terms of what not just a calf,
it's a whole, it's a thigh, it's everything. It's my
apologies to all you a Christmas story heads out there,
but yeah, it is like probably the most iconic image
(16:45):
of the whole movie. But but we will say, as
we have sort of taken to doing this, I would
say female leg lamp neither feminist icon nor a queer icon.
Definitely not. And we are the authority. It's yes, because
you know that a man saw the ladies leg. Yeah,
(17:06):
that's that's a real human leg that was turned into
a lamp. O new fan theory. Okay, here's my fan theory,
you know. Okay. In Titanic seven, there's I like to
say that the year as if it's a part of
the title. In Titanic, directed by James Cameron, there's this
scene we will watch that on Thanksgiving. There's a scene
(17:30):
where Jack Dawson is like showing Kate Winslet his drawings right,
and he's like, she was a one legged also prejudice
because he's like, oh, I didn't fuck her. Look, she
only has one leg, and it's like, well, what's wrong
with fucking people with one leg? As someone who's only
fun people with one leg? That would be fun. Though
(17:52):
maybe it's her leg, that's what I'm saying. Maybe it's
Jack Dawson's French prostitutes leg become lamp interesting fan They jamie,
thank you, thank you, thank you, no thank you? Right, Okay,
So I thought this movie was gonna be worse to
its female characters than it is. Me too. I thought
(18:12):
we were going to have sort of like a stand
lot situation happening where it's just like girls, how gross
and awful and have some like weird. It's weird because
I feel like the exchanges that girls just like, instead
of there is a prominent female character and she's constantly abused,
there's just not really a prominent female character besides his mom.
(18:34):
There's the school teacher. The teacher and get a little
bit of screenplan like it's it is weird that there's
no like all his friends are boys, right, I mean
that makes sense for the agent. Yeah, I mean nine.
But but you're right, there's not that like a lot
of those movies that try to like, let's do a
movie childhood they try to do the like boys against
(18:57):
the girls, and there's nothing. And there's also not that
like a lot of movies made at the same time,
they were like boy centric and they were about the
boy like really needing to get laid or like, and
I'm really glad that's not I was glad that neither
Old Boy was not trying to fun. Yeah. I mean,
I mean like if it had been like it would
(19:21):
have been like a nightmare. Yeah yeah, yeah, and said
it's still like this very innocent like all they wants
is to be begun, right right, there's I did kind
of assume that there would be more negative portrayals of
women to talk about, but I think the inverse, which
we do find kind of often is that there's just
(19:42):
really not that much to talk about because there's not
that many female characters. Sure, I mean, so the mother
is definitely the female character with the most screen time.
She starts out, I assumed because I didn't super remember
this movie from the first time I watched it, so
rewatching it, I was like, right at the beginning, I
was like, oh, she's a shrew. Like she's yelling, She's
like get down here and put on your clothes. And
(20:04):
eat your breakfast and blah blah blah, and she seemed,
you know, a bit naggy and shrewish, but later as
the movie progresses, their sort of a shift a complexity
to her. Yeah, I mean it is, yeah, you know,
like she kind of stands up to kind of protect
the kids from like their dad in certain times, to
just be like like she's like a good mother. The
scene that I was like, oh, wow, okay, I like
(20:26):
this character is when, although I hate this scene because
it makes me want to throw up, when she's trying
to get his little brother Randy to eat and she's
like me like a piggy and he's like it's like
oh the sounds and the like just the imagery of
him like shoving his face and a plane and mash
Like I feel sick just thinking about it. But you
(20:47):
see her being like fun and just like having this
cute little moment where she's like trying to get her
son to eat, so she like is kind of playful
with him, and I like that. I was like, Okay,
so she's not this just like very one dimensional shrewish character.
She also takes revenge on the leg she does. Yes, yes,
that was that I think the closest to any sort
(21:08):
of like whoa, okay, that that was a little bit
of like fun release for a female character as we
get to in this movie. Yeah, And I think some
people would argue like, oh, she was just jealous that
there's like this hot leg, just hot floating leg around
soary for this non existent leg. She can't stand it,
(21:29):
like come on. I think that she destroyed it because
she recognized that the leg was neither a queer icon
nor a feminist icon, and she's like, I don't need
this ship in my house. Yeah. So the mother character
is yeah, a little more complex than she appears at
first glance, at least. Um. The other thing about her, though,
is that she's sort of presented as kind of the
(21:52):
main obstacle throughout the movie, where Ralphie keeps being like,
oh my god, I want this bebacon. That's all I want,
and she's always saying like, no, you can't have that.
That's too dangerous. You'll shoot your eye out. So she's
sort of like the big obstacle and the source of conflict.
I feel like the Dad was more the actual like antagonist.
(22:14):
I think, yeah, you know, like like he wasn't he
was kind of neither for nor against the gun, but
he was like the presence that could swoop in and
kind of end everything, like the terror in the back
of everyone's mind kind of thing. That's sort of something
that I think. It's it's fascinating that, you know, it's
a movie about the kids, and both of the adults
(22:35):
are the essentially the bad guys, which I think. I
think that more often than not, the more we do
the show, often when there's not a lot to talk
about in terms of, wow, there's really just not a
lot of female characters in this movie. That's often because
(22:55):
a lot of what's being dealt with, whether it's explicitly
stated or not, is like hyper masculinity and men teaching
other men how to be men, and that is I
think what we witness, you know, Ralphi's dad trying to
do at some points, but it's you know, he's I
don't I don't know that it necessarily works, but there
(23:15):
there's like a few lessons imparted from father to son
here that's like, oh yeah, he's trying to pass on
a very antiquated idea of like this is what a
man does and this is how real boy acts. And
all and all that ship. I feel like maybe I
just wasn't paying a cluss of attention. I don't know
if I saw a whole lot of that. There is
(23:35):
like a moment where Ralphie and that kid, Scott Farcus
get in a fight and um Scott, Ralphie kind of
like beats the crap out of him because he's been
bullied by him throughout the whole movie and he's had enough.
He flips a table and he's like no more so Farcus.
(24:00):
He's swearing and he's beating him up. And then Ralphie's
mom shows up and she's like, come on, get home,
and Ralphie's crying. So one I like that. You see
like little boys crying in this movie a number of times,
and at one point his dad says something like, I'll
give you something to cry about. But I feel like
there's not a whole lot of like hyper masculine and
you're trying to be passed on from father to son.
(24:23):
And again, maybe I'm just kind of forgetting about some
specific details, but I do like that you like see
a little boy crying and he's worried, and he's like, oh,
I got in a fight, and then his mom says
something like she's telling his dad what happened, and she's like,
you know how boys are, which sort of is a
different way of saying boys will be boys. But I
(24:43):
don't think that just trying to diffuse the situation, like
like you don't need to know the details, just it's
kind of over now. Yeah, I think because she was
kind of trying to like shield him from the dad's anger, right, Like,
it's very strange in the movie that dad is presented
like this very like angry force, but you never see
(25:04):
it directed at the kids, Like it's not like the
dad beat us sort of like but it's still it
feel it's like it's like this subtext that like the
kids know they could be the force of this anger,
and the mom knows because she tries to shield but
but it's never like this explicit like you're still allowed
(25:27):
to kind of like the dad, Which is why, Yeah,
I think this movie has the potential to kind of
be worse and more toxic than it is. But but
then I think that that like speaks a lot to
what the mom's role is in the movie, is like
she is sort of directing her very angry husband's attention
elsewhere a lot of the time, or you know, saying
(25:47):
you know, I agree with you, I agree with you,
but I'm going to be the one to carry out
the punishment because she's trying to protect her kids, which
I think with the you know, soap in the mouth
thing is that's kind of like emblematic of that. I
don't know, like the dad's soapen the mouth is so
weird because this is a tangent, but that, like the
prop soap looks so unlike any soap I've ever seen. Yeah,
(26:09):
I was just like, it's blood soap. It looks like
a chunk of like rounded plastic. Yeah. And I was like,
is that special punishment soap they had in right? This
is you know it did soap change. There's jailed blood
(26:32):
and the blood of children. Post war America. They're like
soaps white now war is over, no more fancy blood
red soap. I don't know. That's interesting to me because
I I remember one of the few things that did
(26:52):
carry with me from past viewings of this movie into
my most recent viewing is even though he doesn't explicit
do anything wrong, and intense dislike of the father character
because it does seem like he's just always being held
back from doing like it never seems like he's like
I would never do something awful. It's just like, well,
try to stop me before I do something awful, like
(27:15):
and that I mean, again not too psychologically, but like that.
I mean there's you know, everyone has an uncle that
sort of is maybe like that, a little bit of
just like, well, this isn't a good guy, but there's
a lot of people around him who are trying to
make sure he's a good guy. Like and and that's
what the dead character always reminds me of. And it
(27:35):
just I don't know, yeah, it really bugs me that character.
There's another scene where you see little brother Randy crying
in a cupboard. Randy feminis on Randy, Randy is crying.
This is later on in the movie. Their mother like
opens the little cabinet door and she's like, why are
you crying? And he's like, cause, dad, he's gonna kill Ralfie, right.
(27:58):
She says, like if there's a loom. But back to
the point that I like, do you see like little
boys crying? It's never like stop crying and man up.
You don't really see that in this movie, which um
I think it's kind of unusual and refreshing. Well, perhaps
let's let's give Jean Shepherd to a point. Maybe that
(28:18):
that is one of the pros of adapting an essay
about someone's actual life is you don't maybe get the
opportunities to know if it's from his actual it really
just sapricated liket to forty. Somewhere in there, the Wizard
of Oz exists. Jean Shepherd born. Yeah, so if this
(28:40):
happened to him he was like old, maybe that's a
screenplay adapt I mean, they just kind of fudge that's
it's like a little weird. It's like a writer not
being completely honest about everything. I didn't realize that there
was that date descripancy, but were meant we're led to
(29:00):
believe because Gean Shepard is the adult narrator that he
is old Ralphie. Can we also just talk about how
there is really this influx and then this movie is
not is by far not the worst of them of
movies about like white male childhood that is narrated in
a very egregious, lazy way, as opposed to setting up
(29:22):
a story that doesn't require voice over narrage. I just
bog like this movie started it like you wouldn't have
The Wonder Years without a Christmas story, which is fine
by me. I'm a hard pass on the one. I've
had multiple Chod boyfriends like ya, God, I want it's
Ben Savage is big brother. It's like, I can't what
(29:43):
air of reference there? Well, that's my favorite, but it's
Ben Savage's brother, whereas like generalread, Savage is fread exactly
wrong wrong these Corey from Boime's World brother like care
Care for Crime outline. Yeah there. I I hate movies
(30:05):
about childhood with voiceover narration, particularly fits about boys and that,
which I think I just hate. I mean, I hate
this hand lot, I hate it. I hate it. The
worst movie of all time. There's too many movies just
about white male childhood period without narration, late boyhood. Let's
let's stop making these. Oh god. But another thing I
(30:31):
did want to point out is that Ralphie's favorite radio
program is Little or Finnanny. Even at one point he
says something like I don't have time for smugglers and pirates.
Get this small larchy off radio. I do. Like he
was talking about Little Orphan. Yeah that was a show. Yeah,
(30:51):
that's what I'm saying that he likes a narrative about
a little girl, but not about He doesn't like the
pirate show. Little Franny is the pirate show? Wait? What
Little Orphany was all about pirates and spies? And because
the yeah, the comic and like the radio show. It
was like the story we're familiar with is all about
(31:12):
her transition from orphan to adoption. But the bulk of
like the comic and the radio show and all that
was all the adventures she and Daddy Warbucks then went
on because he's like a bazillionaire and he'll be like,
what's let's go to the jungle. Now, check out my
diamond mind. And then like somebody would kidnap little or
(31:34):
Fanny and and they'd have to get out of the
scrape and find Daddy Warbucks. So I haven't we seen
that movie at a bit? That's that's what it was like.
This like adventure. Okay, I used to see a movie
about domestic adjustment. Yeah, boring. I thought that it was
like the show about like is Annie gonna get adopted
(31:56):
or not? And he loved that, but he hated rates
and stuff. An adventure character who knew, well, that's even cooler. Yeah. Yeah,
I was just going to point out that, oh, how
how nice that his his favorite shows about this little girl,
which is like, you know, something that maybe little girls
might be more interested in listening to, whereas you know,
(32:19):
pirates and smugglers something a little boys. Okay, got it,
Well that's my point. My point is invalid then, but
I am fascinated to learn that that's what little or
Fanny was to look that up. Amazing. Uh. Something I
did want to also talk about is guns and masculinity
(32:43):
because this movie is about a little boy who is
desperate for agun and I researched some statistics about gun violence. So, um,
get ready for some exciting everyone ready, So episode a murder.
(33:05):
There is an article that I recommend in Time magazine
by Jill Stein. Okay, hang on me. I always say
that when people are talking about my mom, my mom's
name is Jill, it's like I was talking to Jill
like Stein. No, it's a Jill Philippo vic. I've probably
(33:29):
mispronounced Jill Um. She writes an article in Time magazine.
It is called one Undeniable factor in gun violence colon men.
So in the article, it cites some statistics that since
nineteen sixty six there have been a hundred thirty four
(33:50):
mass shootings. I believe that's confined to the US. I
don't think that's worldwide. Of those of those thirty four
mass shootings, one have been perpetrated by men, only three
by women. Of murderers are men. My point being men's
fascination with guns is maybe not good. You heard it
(34:11):
here first on the Bechtel cast. Maybe guns aren't great.
But she writes, if you were to extrapolate like the
events of the film, like the next day or the
weeks months, I always imagine that like Ralphie never used
his BB gun again, you know, like that was kind
of the impression that he got it. He used it,
(34:33):
and then it was not in any way, shape or
form like what he thought it would be. I hope
that that's the case. That was just kind of the
impression I got. Well, could we get the impression from
because like he doesn't he like you know, dings his
glasses and then he has to go inside, and then
like he leaves the gun out there, doesn't he has
to go back, right and he even says something like,
oh but my guns still out there, And she's like
(34:54):
you can get cleaned up and go get it later.
And I don't think we ever see that happen because
instead they go at the Chinese restaurant. I think you
see him at the very end. I think he might
be sleeping with it. I think you're right, Yeah, we're
but it is for most of the movie we see
Ralphie and Randy. Neither of them are like agro children, right,
(35:19):
They're they're being bullied. They're not hyped children there, They're
regular kids. And so it is. And and basically all
the information we have about Ralphie would not lead you
to believe like, oh, this kid's gonna fucking be weirdly
into his toy gun, which leads me to believe that like, oh,
(35:40):
this must symbolize something too in his head of either
status or you know, like overcomings whatever adverse, like as
opposed to actually wanting it and thinking, oh, this is
a toy I will have fun times because they like
why it's important. It's just the thing he's obsessing about, right,
(36:01):
Like it's a symbol more than it is, like because
like a theme of the film is these very small
like a kind of losses of innocence or like things
that don't turn out how you think they're going to
turn out. And that's kind of how he took the
gun obsession. It was like he's really into this, and
then it's not really quite what he wants right after
(36:23):
after all the hullabaloo. Yeah, well you do see that
sort of vision that he has very early on, where
are these like bad guys come and he has his
gun and he's protecting his family. So it's this sort
of like oh, to be sent right. Yeah, So it's
sort of like perpetuating this idea where it's like, oh,
(36:43):
I'm he's a man and he needs to be the
protector of his family and you know, exert this like
machismo over people, which like, I mean, I can't even
pretend like I understand all of the psychology behind people
who are obsessed with guns, and I'm I'm a guy,
I should love guns, And I don't get I mean, sorge,
(37:05):
I mean, I've only got like four or five guns.
Were the one I keep in my car and then
a couple under my bed. I mean, you're I don't
think that's about the gunpoint for the duration of the episode.
But I don't I don't get that. I don't get
these other people who are like really super into guns. Yeah,
like you have to have one in both of your
hands at all times than that? Why? Why? Right? So
(37:26):
the point I'm trying to make is, Okay, first, I
want to say that I don't think all people who
own guns are bad. I do, I do, I do.
I do think that all guns should be thrown into
an active volcano and then we shouldn't have guns anymore.
That sounds like that would actually be pretty dangerous. I
(37:47):
think they'd like melt instant, Yeah, they would. I think
they wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they go off.
I think maybe throwing them into like a pile of
fireworks might be dangerous, but a volcano volcano is generally
like in clothes used kind Yeah. I thought a lot
about this, and that's why I picked volcano. Jamie. Just
come over to my volcano and we can throw in
(38:08):
all the guns into that. I want to go to
a volcano. Okay. So the point that I want to
make is it's just peculiar to me that this whole
story is about this kid being obsessed with getting a
gun and whether or not he kind of abandons it
after the fact or not. We don't really know because
the story ends and we can only sort of speculate.
(38:30):
But the fact that this whole movie is about this
kid with getting a gun sends a message that like,
little boys like guns and guns or maybe something to
want for and and I think that helps create some
problems in society. Well, I think I think the reason
that I assumed that he just ended up not being
(38:53):
thrilled by the gun was like the little Orphananey scene
where he gets he's been super psyched about getting that
Dakota and then he gets it. He's like, this would
be so awesome. I'm totally in the club now I'm
gonna get these messages and he's just like a commercial. Sure,
I feel like that was like kind of foreshadowing, like
these these very small like losses of innocence to being like,
(39:15):
oh wait, this gun is kind of stupid, like right, okay,
but I feel like there's less of a definitive like
where when he doesn't, he doesn't end up having any
fun with it because he immediately immediately right, I mean,
he's trading about it because he got the thing he wanted.
His quest is fulfilled, even if the reality of it
doesn't match up. He's still and that's a lot of
(39:37):
holidays for kids. It's like, well, I got the thing
I kept screaming about. Now what how does it work?
Versus Randy, who didn't seem to have any Christmas preference.
I'm just totally fine with that. Zeppelin Randy, what an icon.
Love him. Also, be sure to drink your Oval Tea
in This podcast is sponsored by ovalte But I just okay,
(40:01):
I'm going to stop talking about gun violence in a second,
but I have some important things to say. These are
quotes from the article The Reality of American Men and
Guns is as much about hyper masculine fettization, fetishization, fet
of murder toys as it is about tribal identity, a
deepening identification of self and clan that radicalizes marginal views
(40:24):
and magnifies personal entitlement and social distrust. This is a
communal masculine ideology, not an individual one. And then she
goes on to say about how I like, there's no
lone wolves. It's like hack mentality. So it's just talking
about hyper masculinity and toxic masculinity and how it perpetuates
this idea that guns are cool but they're not they
should be thrown in a volcano. The other quote I
(40:45):
wanted to say goes, almost half of the world's civilian
owned guns are in the hands of Americans, but those
guns are not distributed equally. Many are hoarded by super owners,
a group of mostly male extremists who make up just
three percent of the adult American population but own an
average of seventeen guns a piece. So you know, a
little more than what you have. And now Brennan has
(41:07):
led more guns out on the table so as to
demonstrate his dominance. Another sequel set in maybe like nineteen sixty, yeah,
the very early sixties, where Ralph is like a grizzled
gun nut, like preparing for like the race war that
everyone was afraid of it the sixties. The final vignette
(41:28):
as the story um. The quote goes on to say,
women are increasingly buying handguns for protection, and that seems
to be their actual motivation. They own a single gun
and they keep it in case of an emergency. One
suspects that the imagined assailant they are protecting themselves from
is a man. So there's that. Um. The only past
(41:51):
I would be willing to give this movie on this
particular subject, because I do think it's very it's not
a good precedent to have a little boy lusting after
a gun toy for the duration of a movie, but
at very least the gun toy in question was forty
years out of anyone desiring it by the time the
(42:12):
movie came out. Because I mean, like, if you think
if this was a if a Christmas story was made
in the context of its three and this kid really
wants this gun toy that you can go out and
get right now, like that, that somehow makes it a
billion times worse. I'm just trying. I remember at the
time the movie came out, like you could get like
(42:33):
the Sears catalog or whatever, and they would have like
BB guns and maybe other kinds of like sporting rifles,
like they're in the catalog there. Yeah, I mean that exists. Yeah.
I remember being a kid and you know, like my
older brother, my older brother's friends like being kind of excited,
Oh they're guns. Cool. But it was still this very abstractly.
I don't know anybody who like had a BB gun. No,
(42:56):
I never did. I I knew that they existed somewhere,
but exactly like by the time I like friends, I
knew in the neighborhood I had fake guns. They were
I mean, they did have them, and my mom was
very like hard on, like she were in a daycare
and if you had a fake gun, you couldn't bring
it to her daycare. But but they're like all the
ones that existed made laser noises. It was no longer
(43:19):
people people. They were like like I still remember before,
like you can still get like like a water gun
to look like a real gun. Before they did all
those laws like the orange tips. Yeah, because they're like
a couple shootings, like they made those laws because they're
like kids were killed because the cops were like good
and like um. But yeah, if I if I if
(43:45):
I were at ralph us Age and I asked for
a BB gun, I think my mom wouldn't They would
say no. But they wouldn't be because like you're still
you're out there just be like that's a really weird request.
It's like that was torturing animals. What's wrong with you? Ye? Yeah, yeah,
it'd be like this is I know, because it goes
against social norms because but but then I mean, even
(44:11):
so he loves after this gun, but does experience at
least a fairly large consequence of he does hurt himself,
but then he makes up a whole story. He's not
even willing to attribute it because he knows if he says, oh, yeah,
I shot myself in the eye's gonna get taken away.
So he has to fabricate this whole story about an
icicle hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses
and stuff like that. Winter is the real feeling of
(44:31):
hyper masculinity. It's winter, so I feel like he's trying
to protect his gun the way his mom has to
protect her kids from the wrath of their father. We're
going to add in this early sixties vignette. Yeah, yeah,
just like the Grizzled gun Nut Ralphie. It still goes
(44:52):
by Ralphie though still yes, is there a party going hap?
I'm not sure if you can hear some chatter in
the background in some music, we weren't invited, That is
all I know. Let's talk about the teacher a little bit.
Another person who, yeah, the one other female character with
pretty much any lines. She is also sort of depicted
(45:12):
as a shrew at the beginning um and then kind
of softens a little bit as the movie goes on.
But there is one point where Ralphie's having another vision
I like to call them. I think he's tripping on
acid this whole movie and he's having a hallucination. But
I think he has just gotten his paperback talking about
(45:33):
what he wants for Christmas, and she's given him a
C plus. So he envisions her as like this witch,
wicked witch type character. So he sees her as a
mean little bee and it's really, hey, maybe takes some
responsibility for your own writing. You earned with the plus,
not her fault. Seems very poorly written. So for just
(45:53):
judging by his voiceover, like, come on, you've gotta you've
gotta build on your ideas there, Ralphie, jeez, he becomes
a guy who writes a lot of short things for money.
You know what. That's that's evidence that Ralphie is not.
That's okay, okay, Yeah, he doesn't have he doesn't have
(46:14):
the touch. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie?
I would say, Scott parks feminist icon. I think that's
my last, my last major thought on this film. Let's
talk about whether or not the movie passes the spectral test.
I am going to argue as much as I don't
want to do. I think that it does. And one tiny,
(46:37):
tiny scene where students are filing in and giving miss Shields,
the teacher um little Christmas gifts. There's a name exchange,
is there not? One student puts something on her desk.
She says thank you Heather. Heather says Merry Christmas. The
teacher says, Merry Christmas. Rats, rats we know her name
(46:59):
were interesting. This movie passes better than Pirates of the
Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl does God damn It,
which is apparently inspired by Little or Finanny, because it's
about pirates damn it. I mean, it's like the Bear
Bear Bear minimum as we never see that Heather character. Again,
we don't see her speaking. She has no significance in
(47:21):
the story. Well and and so as we often I
would say, of the movies that passed the Backtel test
that we have covered on this podcast, at least of
them are a barely passed like this, like you know,
you get it on a technicality. It was almost definitely
an accident that this happened test because at no other
(47:44):
point in the movie does it even come close to passing.
In fact, it's mostly boys talking to each other or
boys talking to their mother. Ye, so well, I agree
with you. I was, I was this is this is
a weird experience where I was almost disappointed that it
has that. I was like, I guess they get it.
I guess I didn't even notice it until my second viewing.
(48:04):
I was like, oh wait, hey, wait, there's two women talking.
I jotted it down in dismay m same. So let's
then rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we
write the movie based on its portrayal of women zero
to five nipples, and then you can describe the nipples
or give them away to anyone you want. A character
(48:25):
in the movie. Character, but I mean one of your
loved ones, if he's so comfortable today, So give one
to give one the sarge. Yeah, sargebis therpist yeah, therbist. Okay.
(48:45):
So I'm gonna give this movie a It's probably gonna
be like a one and a half. I do like
that the two main female characters, the mother and Miss
Shields the teacher, aren't as one dimensional as they kind
of grow. There's a little arc there. The mother seems
(49:05):
like a good mother and she's not just like this
one dimensional shrew that we are led to believe in
the first few scenes. But other than that, just the
idea that the movie is about a little boy desperately
wanting a gun and all of his little adventures that
he has with feminist icon Scott and then his friends
named Flick and Schwartz was like, if you don't name
(49:28):
your your kids Scutt, you're crazy. But it gets a
one and a half nipples, and the nipples belong to
the leg lamp, which may I think maybe have a
nipple or two or one and a half. I'll give
it one and a half as well, because I mean, obviously,
(49:50):
this movie is about white male childhood, or as it
was known in childhood. And it's weird because it's like,
this movie does not abuse that premise as much as
I assumed it did, except for that last scene in
the Chinese restaurant, which was very uncomfortable. Yes, I mean, well,
(50:13):
this is a white, white, white, white white movie. There
are a few students of color in his class, although
they get no lines, very little screen time, and it
is predominantly and extremely white. It's a white white All
that said, I do think that yeah, there there where.
I hate to reward a movie for not making its
(50:35):
female characters shrews by default and giving them character by default.
But the two female characters we do manage to see
in this movie, although they would never be permitted to
speak to or view each other, um, they do both
have more depth than you would assume, especially seeing through
the eyes of a little boy. So in that way,
(50:58):
I liked it. I liked them Mom character quite a bit,
and I feel for her. So I'll give one of
my nipples to Mom, and I'll give it half enough
to Scott. Great, Yeah, how about you, Brandon. I might
go a little higher, like maybe an even two nipples,
just because I feel like this is a weird thing
(51:18):
to say, but I feel like it gets some points
for I guess omission rather than like because a lot
of movies there are quote unquote classics from the same
period are like unwatchable now because you're just like, oh wait,
this movie is actually about some gross kid trying to
get late take again and take every opportunity to make
(51:40):
that joke over and over and over. Yeah, and and
this is sort of like, oh, they just that's just
not part of the content, right. I Mean, it'd be
great if they were like more actual characters, but there
also aren't you know, like girls as just objects of
like Ralphie and his friends either like derision or desire, right,
(52:00):
Like they're the female characters we do manage to see
are not being overtly abused over and over and over,
which is again, yeah, like the the omission thing. But
for a movie you're I mean, I think we were
all kind of bleainly surprised. There's a ton there's a
lot like the you know of that period, like kind
(52:20):
of like meatballs and like all those like yeah yeah things,
whether it's about like you know, let's have a scene
where the boys like find a playboy like that kind
of like and I hate to keep going into the
sand lot, but that movie is that all over where
they used the whole like oh well it is at
different times. So everyone was looking disgusting and with the
(52:41):
rape and kid like it was just like discuss like
awful that yeah, and then they were like you're a
girl because you're kind of displaying some signs of weakness
and like that's the worst insult Everdence movie does not
doesn't doesn't do it. No, there is a scene where
they like just a quick little scene where um, they're
all sitting down to dinner and Dad is like, got
up and get me this. I want seconds and she's
(53:03):
like okay, and then she's about to eat again, and
then Ralphie's like, actually, can I have some more too?
And then she has to put her fork down, get up,
and like the voiceover said something like, my mom hasn't
had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years. But
that's really all it does to acknowledge that, like they
don't have bad so that I was just like, poor mom. Well, Brandon,
(53:27):
thank you so much for being here. Thanks really need
to talk about my favorite movie. Where can we find
you on the world wide Web? Well, you can go
to Brandon Berg dot com just in time for the
holiday season to buy some prints, greeting cards, Christmas bobbles.
Well you got I didn't know you had, babbles, lots
(53:48):
of fun stuff. Hey. You can follow the Beachel cast
on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook to pick up on that. I
was just pausing for for Suspend and signed up for
our Patreon where you can get two extra episodes a
month at patreon dot com slash past it's only five
(54:10):
dollars one a gift to yourself to yourself to your friend,
give yourself a gift, Give your friends, your mom, your dad,
anyone in your family. We don't care. We're starving, all right,
Well you can find us there, yes, indeed, And happy holiday,
Happy freaking holidays, everybody, all right, goodbye, bye,
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