March 8, 2024 • 43 mins
Exactly 25 years ago, the blockbuster teen comedy “American Pie” launched the term “MILF” into the stratosphere — that is, Mom I’d Like to F*ck. Jennifer Coolidge, who played Stifler’s Mom, is perhaps still the most famous MILF in America. But… where did that term really come from? Jess and Susie uncover the MILF’s true origin story and how it was shaped by the most raunchy teen sex comedy of our time.
FOR MORE:
- Review: The Road to Manhood, Paved in Raunchy Jokes and Pie (NYT, 1999)
- American Pie at 20: The Notorious Pie Scene from Every Angle (NYT, 2019)
- Don’t Use This Acronym: MILF in the OED (blog post by Laurel Sutton)
- At the Super Bowl of Linguistics, May the Best Word Win (by Jessica, NYT, reporting from the annual linguistics convention in 2015)
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you grew up in the nineties, you probably know
the scene from American Pie that I'm about to tell
you about.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
No, not that scene.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This one takes place in a suburban living room at
a raging party with bad music and red solo cups
full of beer and a group of horny change boys
who are gathered in the hallway to admire a photo
of Stiffler's mom played by Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
That's Stiffler's mom.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
Yep shit.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I cannot believe a fine woman like.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
This produced a guy like stiff It took some milf.
The hell's that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What the hell is that?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
A milf?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That is m I lf mom?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'd like to fuck Yeah, Oh yeah, mil.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Mil hel.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Milf.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's a familiar term now, but where did it come from?
And I want to go away.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Ceesy Vanakaram.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
This is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We're talking about MILFs, a term popularized by the movie
American Pie, which celebrates its twenty fifth anniversary this year.
Susie we're talking today about American Pie, which, for those
who don't know or didn't grow up in the nineties
and early two thousands like we did, this was the
wildly popular nineteen ninety nine movie about four high school
(01:30):
virgins who are on the prowl to lose their virginity,
are essentially horny beyond belief and perhaps defined cringe before
cringe was a term that we used.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I mean, we should probably clarify that all the virgins
in this particular story are boys.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Oh guess true.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Now we might have a movie like this about female
virgins also trying to lose their virginity. In fact, I
think we have had those movies, but at this time
it was only boys. It was a boys But.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
As far as sex goes, I'm pretty sure this was
the film that, for a certain cohort of our generation,
really served as sex education.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I mean, it certainly had a lot of sexual tropes.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I mean, not even tropes, just like actual sex sects
in the most awkward way imaginable from masturbation and the
fear of mom walking in on you, of course, which
happens premature to acuation, spying through a webcam on a
foreign exchange student sex on prom night. It had jocks
and cheerleaders and band geeks. It had edging. It really
(02:31):
it had everything, and many of these moments are seered
into my teenage brain, how about you.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I definitely saw it at the time, but it's not
one of those movies I've seen a million times, Like
this feels like a movie some people have.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Seen a lot. I only remember having.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Seen it once or twice, and I had to rewatch
it to kind of remind myself what happens. But of
course the scene that I do remember that I will
aways remember is the one and where Jason Biggs, who
is the star of the movie, you know, has sex
with an apple pie.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What it looks like, I mean, first, who fingers the
apple pie?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yes, where he fingers it, which is in and of itself,
like you're like, oh god, what's happening. It's interesting because
I must have seen this movie when I was in
my late teens, and I don't remember being shocked by
it at the time, Like I remember just being like, oh,
this is a funny movie, and now it feels more
(03:30):
shocking somehow because I'm an adult, so I'm just like funny,
I know, I don't know why. It just feels like,
I notice how raunchy it is in a way that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I think I just took for granted at the time.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
It's worth mentioning there are a lot of really famous
people in this movie.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, sir, a ton of famous people and people who
then became famous after it. Jason Biggs, of course you
mentioned who is the main character. His father is played
by Eugene Levy. It's the father who then ends up
walking in on him while he is having sex with
the There's Natasha Leon and tera Ree. There's of course
Jennifer Coolidge, like really big names.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah, ann Alifon Hannigan who was a star on How
I Met Your Mother. So it's a lot of recognizable faces.
Mines Savari's in it, people who went on to have
big careers after this. Yeah. So okay, obviously there's the
famous apple pie scene, and that is the thing most
people remember. But the label of milf is also something
that I remembered. I just didn't really trace it back
(04:28):
to this particular movie. So what made you want to
talk about this?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'm fascinated by language, and this kind of stuff is
fun for me to track down the origins of Yeah,
and I started thinking about that actually when you and
I were recording last season our episode on Dawson's Creek
and Mary kay Lturno, which of course is about younger
boys in relationships with older women and how that is perceived.
(04:52):
And I just kept thinking about this term milf and
wondering where it had actually come from, and was it
really from American Pie because that's what I remember and
where I remember first learning about it, I think, but
that can't possibly be the first usage of it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So anyhow, that led me down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I do love when you go down a linguistic rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
But before we get into it, can you remind me
what's happening in American Pie when the term milf is
first used in the movie.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, let me just set the sceme for you a
little bit. So the guys the virgins there at Stiffler's house.
Stiffler is like the classic rich, arrogant kind of douchebag
guy that everyone puts up with because he throws all
the parties.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
What's up dude, the children to party night ausing a
fuck face. Every teenager has one of these, and every
every movie has one of these.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Absolutely and so they're all standing around gawking at this
photo stifflish mom on the.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Wall, and you know, it's all the guys.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But one of the really funny things I learned later
is that the guy who actually defines the term milf
that we all heard there is referred to in the
credits abound of a movie simply as milf guy number two.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
That's amazing because it's actually an actor I recognized. I
just couldn't figure out from where. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think you recognize him now because he's John Cho
who would later star in Harold and Kumar, but at
the time I don't think he was a recognizable name.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Wow, milk I number two really paid off for him.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Though, apparently, and so later in the movie what ends
up happening is that one of the virgins, Finch. He's
like the intellectual old soul of the group. He drinks
single mat whiskey and reads books on tantric sex. He
loses his virginity to the mill Stuffler's mom, and this
happens on a pool table during yet another party at
(06:36):
Stiffler's house on Promenay.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I had forgotten that detail, but I don't know how
it's so evocative.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And Finch has this kind of rivalry with Stiffler throughout
the movie, so like him sleeping with Stiffler's mom in
a way is like the ultimate teen boy fuck you.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
It's like, literally, I fucked your mom.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah, I mean, it's also just such a teenage fantasy, right,
It's like wild.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so in the final scene of the movie, the
boys were at a diner post prom and they're like
giving each other the details, and Finch said, oh.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I just got to say that women like a fine
wine only get better with age. And with that line, milf,
I think the word but also.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
The concept gets cemented into the culturals.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
I gast bil no no.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think it's worth exploring if we can stomach it
in our like prudish older years.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
You mean my older year.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well it was pretty gross, but like just how raunchy
American Pie was, because honestly, like you said, it is
pretty shocking to rewatch. And we only mentioned a couple
of scenes, but there were so many other gross ones
in the film. I was reading one of the early
reviews of the film, and there's this funny line from
the New York Times film critic Stephen Holden where he
(07:54):
says which scene is grossest, the beer scene, the pie scene,
the twilet scene.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
All over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
During the next few weeks, teenagers able to wrangle their
way into the R rated comedy will be comparing notes
and debating.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
First of all, I think it's funny that the New
York Times took this movie seriously enough to do a
full review of it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Like, that's amazing, SERI some York Times, and I should know.
It wasn't that kids were only debating. One kid in
Idaho actually decided to stick his penis into a pie
in real life and ended up getting third degree burns.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Okay, I actually feel like I remember this, and I
would wager to say that a lot of teens tried
this because most of them were smart enough not to
do it on a piping hot pie. So we don't
know about it because they didn't get third degree burned.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yes, exactly. You have to let the pie cool first.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I mean, I think the other thing I want to
say is that there's a lot of raunchy things in
this movie, but there's also things that we would consider
illegal now, like they record a woman without her consent, undressing,
and like live streaming, which I don't even know that
I knew at that time what live streaming was.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I don't think we did. But yeah, this is
the naughtiest scene.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
She's the hot foreign exchange student and she asks Jim
if you will tutor her, and he's basically like falling
all over himself response.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Absolutely, that that would be that would be a great sometime.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
How about tomorrow, Well, I have ballet practice. Perhaps I
could come.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
By your house afterwards.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I could change cloths at your place.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Right, of course she's gonna change clothes at his place.
What an extremely fortunate twist for Jim, who is dying
to get her naked.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
And then the weirdest part in this movie of very
weird things is then while she's naked in his room,
she goes through his things and finds his porn magazines
and is like, Oh, you know what I'll do right
now while I'm in this essentially stranger's bedroom, I'm going
to masturbate here.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It's so unrealistic, right, And then it not only streams
to his friends, but to the whole school.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yes, he's accidentally sent it to the entire school, and
that's never acknowledged as weird that whole storyline ends basically
at that point in the movie because the next scene,
Jason Biggs is like, yeah, her host.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Family sent her home, and you're like.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
What about the like crime right at the time, I
think we just thought teenage shenanigans.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Also, there's this semen in a cup scene.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Oh my god, that's seen.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Keavin's girlfriend has given him a blowjob and he ejaculates
into a beer cup.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
As you know, one does.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I feel like you can picture like these red solo
beer cups everywhere throughout this movie, but this one is
actually clear, naturally, and so then Stiffler picks it up
and takes a sip of it.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah, which is like he first he gives it to
her girl and she takes a sip of it. I mean,
this is just kind of like gross out comedy, yes,
And those moments don't shock me as much as I'm
just like, oh no, no, stop, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's not even like sexy. It's just so gross in
a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, the movie isn't sexy.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's just about sex, right, which I think is an
interesting thing. Like there's no pretense that you're going to
like watch this movie and it's going to feel hot.
It's not a hot movie.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well another scene, actually this reminds me of was the
flute band camp scene. Yes, of course, so this is
you mentioned Alison Hannigan. She plays Michelle, and Michelle is
kind of like the band camp door who plays the flute.
And at a certain point, Michelle is telling Jim a
story at one of these parties, and he seems pretty
(11:33):
bored with whatever she's saying until oh.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
In this one time at band camp, I stuck a
flute in my pussy.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Excuse me what, you don't think I know how to
get myself off.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
It's so funny because I do feel like maybe I
remember this movie better than I thought, or maybe it
just became such a popular part of the vernacular, because
I do remember that for a long time after this movie,
people would just say one time at band camp exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean, there was so many things about this movie
that permanently lodged in the Czechs, maybe without us even knowing.
Like I was in the orchestra in high school. I
played the violin, and so from the moment we all
watched that movie, I don't think any of the female
flute players and the orchestra could ever.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Be looked at with a straight face. Again, like that
was like permanently their cross to bear.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Dress.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
American Pie came out in nineteen ninety nine, right, So
can you just give us a sense of what's going
on in the culture at that time that set the
stage for.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It, absolutely, because it was really this era in the
late nineties of not just shot comedy, but like sex, sex, sex,
sex sex sex.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Viagra has just hit the market. Asking about Biagar, maybe
it should be you.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Bill Clinton has denied, of course, having sexual relations with
that woman, which is Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But no matter what he has said, the late night
hosts have made a complete hater of making fun of
him and talking about the cigar that was inserted into
her vagina, and sales of cigars have gone up.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think we've gone on with Monica's President Clinton calls
her my little human door.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Anyway, this is in the political culture.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yes, and then I'm sure you remember the movie there's
something about Mary who could Forget, And I'm sure you
remember the scene and there's something about Mary.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
He has semen for some reason on him, and she
thinks it's hair gel, and she puts it in her
hand hair gel.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Great, No, you don't have to know you I just
ran out.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It's also disgusting because obviously, like you'd just take a
thing that's hanging off so in space and put it
in your hair for hairdel So, yes, there's something about
Mary with that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Very gross, really something memorbleous scene has just come out.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And this is also the era of Dsmy's Creek, which
we've talked about before, and all of the hilarious so
on the nose, over the top sexual nuendo they went
along with that should be proactive and grab them by
the dipstick off and do you walk your dog?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Huh? Jerkin is girkin? I'm just ecasion a little innuendo
in the hopes that maybe someday lead to something a
little more tangible.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I hadn't realized until digging into this research that the
year that American Pie came out was such a huge
year more broadly for teen movies. So like Varsity Blues,
Never Been Kissed, Cruel Intentions Election, like all of these
movies came out in nineteen eighty nine, So really big
moment for teen movies.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yes, all great movies and also all movies that I mean,
I guess all teen movies to some degree center on
sex and the ways in which it's confusing for teenagers.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And you know, I think American Pie had a lot
of lasting impacts, but Milf is one of them. And
I think that after it came out, it kicks off
what we might now refer to as the milf era,
the milf.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Era, have fomle.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
How does that play out?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It basically becomes popularized both as a concept and a term.
So in the months and years following this movie, tens
of thousands of milk branded T shirts and mugs are
sold online. There is this whole new genre of books
in like the Hot Mom Book, Realm.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
So it's like moms who embrace this because they want
to be known as.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
MILFs, I mean maybe, or it's publishers, like it's people
knowing that it will sell. But things like Confessions of
a Naughty Mommy, the Mill Anthology, the Hot Mom's Handbook.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
I really would like to read Confessions of a Naughty Mommy,
Like I feel like that would be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I have read any of these, But it's not just
the term itself that's being used. There's this moment happening
in television and film and elsewhere of hot older women,
and I'm putting I'm using air quotes on older because
oftentimes the.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Older was forty younger than us.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, oh no, but you like TV shows like Desperate Housewives,
and as you know, well, this is when the Real
Housewives began, when the Real Housewives franchise s Beagan, although I.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Would argue that those were not particularly hot women, but
maybe at the time they were considered hot.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Coverage to find it and then remember the fountains of
Wayne song Stacy's mom.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Of course in the middle of the stay.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
In two thousand and three, it was the number one
most downloaded song on iTunes, which was the year came out.
And then actually around the same time, this other hilarious
thing happens. And you know, this is maybe indicative of
my home state. I'm not sure what exactly what this
is indicative of, but in Washington State, a resident not
from Seattle, i will say, applied for a got Milf
(17:01):
vanity license plate and was approved, which is like kind
of fun.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I mean, it's fun, I fun, I got milk, got Milf.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But then people complained and He ended up having to
surrender it because on the application he had explained that
what MILF stood for was manual inline lift fluctuator, which
he claimed with some kind of like automotive gizmo.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I mean, honestly, that also sounds dirty. I don't know,
I don't know what to tell that, dude, But manual
inline lift fluctuator.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Sounds like a sex toy.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
But then the actual complaints about it, which were written
at of them, like the documents were revealed by the
smoking gun.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Remember that they were like, not sure what you people
the DMV have been watching, but you clearly don't know
what this actually means. Here's what it actually means, and
so they remoked the license.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
It's probably also worth mentioning that Got Milk was this
huge ad campaign at the time, so they probably weren't
so happy at the Milk Foundation or whoever ran that
campaign Got Milk. Okay, So, Jess, I think we can
finally get to the linguistic rabbit hole. What is the
etymology that you discovered?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
First, let me just caveat there's two things. There is
MILF the word, and then there is MILF the idea.
And so when we talk about milf the idea. Obviously,
we know that there's this fascination with sexual mother figures
that has always existed, or at least existed back to
like Freud days, and like the Oedipus complex.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, there is kind of this weird fascination or sexualization
of mothers. And for people who don't know, the Oedipus
complex is this concept that all sons secretly want to
have sex with their moms.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I kind of feel.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Like I've always known but must have been introduced to
me in some way.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I think it's in mythology.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And then Freud took it on and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
this is as fraid y yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And I think they've since said that there's no like
empirical evidence that that's a thing, But for some reason,
it just stuck culturally that like all men have some
weird affection for their roles.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I mean, the most famous example I think is the
cult classic The Graduate, which introduces the character of Missus
Robinson that came out in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Although in fairness, Missus Robinson is not his mom.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's his girlfriend's mom, right, And then you get the
song Missus Robinson, so there's this mythology slash and enduring
fascination that has existed for a very very long time.
But the term itself is a different story, like where
did this actual acronym come from? And the answer to that,
or at least the answer that I've seen, I have
not or I could not independently confirm. This is apparently
(19:35):
an early nineteen nineties issue of Motor Booty Magazine.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Okay, first of all, I am so happy to learn
that there is a motor Booty magazine.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
As was I.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But I have to tell you, Susie, it's not what
it sounds like. It's not a raunchy car magazine. It's
actually like an alternative music and comedy magazine.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh all right, I mean, I guess that's cooler.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
But like I kind of waspturing a lot of women
and look like their booties out on top of car, which.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Is I know, very I don't know, confusing, But that
one's really hard to confirm. What I am absolutely certain
of because I reached out to a pal of mine,
Ben Zimmer, who is a linguist, is that the actual
first usage case for which I have seen the official
proof was in nineteen ninety one. In a Buffalo, New
(20:23):
York newspaper. It was the name of a rock band
who apparently adopted it because they'd heard lifeguards at Fort
Niagara State Park using it to refer to the women.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
I guess, wow, this is actually kind of fascinating that
you were.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And so this is in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It appears in a local Buffalo newspaper like announcing a
show for this band. And funny side note, the other
bands that they were playing with in this show in Buffalo,
New York were called The Tails and Tugboat Annie, which
I feel like are also kind of like milfishy names.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I live something.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, And so how what is the proof that Ben
provides you that made you think this is well?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
So Ben actually spoke to the band.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Members, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
God, who confirmed?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Because it is basically Ben was doing research. Ben is
a columnist at the Wall Street Journal who writes about language.
He's also a linguist and he actually MC is the
annual Word of the Year convention every year for the
American Dialect Society.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Amazing, we should go to that. It's very fun.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, But so he was trying to find out the
first usages and he found this little band thing, but
you know, you couldn't be sure that milf meant mom,
I'd like to fuck. So he actually reached out to
this band member and was like, is that what it
stood for? And the band member, who didn't want to
be named because like, of course, you know he.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Has a real job. Yeah, he's probably gone on to
things LinkedIn or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Was like yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it, which was
super interesting because then the next reference that we can
trace is all the way in California in nineteen ninety two.
Somehow between ninety one and ninety two, this term makes
its way from New York to California, and we're not
sure why, but in ninety two it appears at a
conference that you see Berkeley, where a linguist name Laurel
(22:05):
Sutton gives his presentation about various words derogatory words used
to describe women. And so she's collected all of these
different terms used by undergraduate students to refer to women,
and milf is one of them.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
I mean, this is actually why I love that you
love language so much, because it's so interesting that words
kind of just take on a life of their own
like this.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They do, they absolutely do.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what you see from there is that it starts
being used on early Internet message boards, and in particular
talking about a Playboy pictorial of hot moms. Oh okay,
it was called fabulous after forty have progressive.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Of Playboy in nineteen ninety five, I.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Writ, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And so another funny side is that the linguists who
presented that conference at Berkeley, Laurel Sutton, who I mentioned,
she would actually go on to write a paper about
these findings and it would be called Boaches and Skanky
hoe Bags the place of women and content piray slang, also.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Something I'm dying to read. So I will be reading
Bitches and Skanky ho Bags after that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Absolutely should.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Another funny little thread here is that years later, in
twenty thirteen, Ben Zimmer, who's the other linguist I mentioned,
he had to actually let Laurel, the author of Bitches
and Skanky hoe Bags know that her mention of milk
in that paper was actually getting this linguistic honor as
one of the first usages in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So this is like.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Jargon for us, but it's a huge nerdy honor if
you were a linguist. And so at the time she
wrote on her blog that she was quote both gratified
and mortified.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I'm so happy for Laurel.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like that's I know, right, I think it's really cool.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But she has this funny statement where she says, the
word in question is an awful acronym.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I first ran across while on.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Graduate school, when I was doing data gathering on slang
used by undergrads. Then as now and always, there was
an abundance of words that reduce wom into their desirability,
mostly of the negative type. If the words themselves aren't insulting,
like skank and hobang, they're condescending, which is what I
said about mil from my paper. She then goes on
to say the citation will live on long after she's gone,
(24:11):
and she can only hope that future generations will find
this word quaintly offensive and say, sure, glad, we don't
talk like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Wow, but we really do talk like that still.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
We have very much, unfortunately disappointed Laurel.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And now the term is actually like in every dictionary,
like it's often categorized under vulgar slang, but if you
look up Miriam Webster Dictionary or even dictionary dot com,
it is there as an acronym that stands for a
mom I'd like to fuck, And then in dictionary dot
com it says, which is often said by teenage boys
about their friends, attractive mothers, or just about women in
(24:48):
general who are considered of middle aged.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I think the other thing is this just feels like
it's so part of the vernacular now, Isn't it almost
always in the top five search porn terms in this country.
I feel like people love yes looking for milfborn.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I mean, that part is so disturbing, but it's like
it not a far jump from this definition saying that
teenage boys often say it about their friends hot moms too,
then imagining those teenage boys searching milf on porn sites.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I actually looked because I was curious, and in twenty
twenty two porn have had it as its number three
search term in the world, not just in America, in
the world. But it's also just fascinating that these kinds
of words go from being online searches to being in
the dictionary, Like, didn't they just put the word riz
in the dictionary? Which makes me feel a hundred.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Okay, well, so separate thing dictionary and word of the
Year are different.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I only know these really fine.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Distinctions because I used to go to the Word of
the Year conference every year.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Okay, wait, that sounds so fun. And why have you
never told me about this before?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I don't know I've written about it. I guess you're
not reading my artist.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Oh my god, you know that's not true.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
But it's it's honestly my most like one of the most.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Joy you get out of that highlight is going to.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
The annual Word of the Year conference. It's hosted by
the American Dialect Society every year, and people can present
papers on linguistic trends and there's all these academics there,
and then they have this event which people can go
to and vote on slash, debate and argue for the
words of the year. So there's now multiple Words of
(26:25):
the Year contests and it all gets very confusing. But
I just saw that Delulu had been nominated for the
American Dialect Societies.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
That's for delusional, which is definitely one of the best words.
I mean, I feel silly using it, but I definitely
do use it. Is this how you know all these
linguists that you reached out to for this artist? Yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yes, that's how I know some of them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah. Wow, impressive. There's always things I'm uncovering about your career.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Love linguists are very fun.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Okay, So back to the word milf.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So American Pie we have now established didn't create this term,
but it certainly pushed it into the mainstream, both in
term but also in concept, like Stiffler's mom became the
hottest milf in America, and it seems, at least in
that time, like milf was everywhere.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Yeah, and Jennifer Coolidge is truly the original Milf.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Right, Nobody will ever be more Milf than her?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And actually I want to pause on her for a second,
because she's talked about this quite a bit, and I
think in some ways she hasn't really been able to
escape that title or that role, but it also has
ended up being good for her in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
She plays it super well.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
After American Pie comes out, Eugene Levy ends up recommending
her for Best in Show.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I don't know if you remember. That can't be Maybe
she plays this trophy wife character.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
We both have so much in common. We both love soup,
and we love the outdoors. We love snow peas and
talking and not talking.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
She was very milfy in White Lotus too.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
I guess, don't spend your life chasing emotionally unavailable men.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
She is always kind of milfy. It's also great. The
thing is you can't age out of being a milf.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, it's true, a gum milf.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
But it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Maybe it's like kind of good because in every other
world it's like, oh, she's tool, But if you're a milf,
you can always be.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
But she still does talk about this milf reference because
I saw I've seen interviews in the last year where
she's talked about it.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
She embraces it, like. I don't think she rejects it.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
I think she recognizes that it really did help her
become a breakout star.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It also apparently led to a lot of sex for her.
I mean, I know, right, I mean she said, and
I don't know if this is a joke. She is
a comic, but she talks about how there were like
two hundred sexual partners she had after that movie because
everyone wanted to sleep with her after American Pie.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I mean, that makes sense to me. She was kind
of an icon of that era. But you know, This
reminds me there was another Milf reference after this that
I thought was hilarious. Britney Spears, at the height of
her fame, wore a T shirt that said Milf in Training,
which is pretty funny, and it was before she had kids.
So it's sort of this idea that being a hot
mom is something everyone should aspire.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
To, reminding me of something that I think is helpful
in understanding the backdrop or the context to when this
term was emerging.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Because as this is all going on, as this is
gaining popularity, as Britney Spears.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Is wearing her T shirt, the US is actually seeing
a rise in young single mothers like Stiff Flour's mom.
Real interesting, and also the postponement of marriage and parenthood,
so it's sort of like these things are juxtaposed against
each other, or maybe they're all intertwined, because research also
found that young adults were living at home longer than
(30:04):
ever before, which you can imagine probably impacted the perception
of mom's sexual beings for single women and like young
men just like hanging around older women more.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I guess it is interesting that there were obviously young
mothers before, but young single mothers mean that you have
to acknowledge that your mother to some degree is a
being who dates and has a romantic life, right, so
that would be like a shift in thinking.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
There's a moment that I really remember from that show Weeds.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Did you watch?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I mean, I know you're a weed enthusiast, so figure out.
So this is Mary Louise Parker. She plays with forty
three year old. I guess you could call her a
milk but like that's pretty young. And she plays this
widowed suburban mom who deals pot to support her kids.
And so there's this amazing episode where she's introduced to
(30:55):
Snoop Dogg, who plays himself iconic, and she's introduced.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
As a milf and he says, I do I mean,
of course, of course, and then he smokes her weed
and declares that it's milf weed and performs this hilarious
milfweed wrap.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
It's called the milk weed. If the good mommy smokes
the milk weed, take a talk to you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
But that is so funny because I remember smoking weed
that we called milfweed, or like referring to weed as milkweed,
or like that became a thing. It must have become
a like do you write, yeah, like, have you smoked milkweed?
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I haven't smoked milfweed, but I bet you if I
searched for it in the Dictionary of Weed Strains, which
exists online. Yeah. Here it is on leafle, which is
where you go to research strains of marijuana for those
who are not stoners. It is listed. So does it
describe it? It does describe it. Milf is known as
(31:49):
milfwed from mother Trucker Seeds takes its name from an
acronym from marijuana.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I'd like to flour. That can't be true.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
The milk strain tends to be led by a stroke,
heady buzz that elevates your mood.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, I mean it is as if the term kind
of took on a life of its own, and then
people started to ascribe other things to it.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Do you remember that Fergy song called milf money but.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Then Mill's money. I do not remember the song, but
it feels like I should.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I don't think it's like a good song or anything,
but it supposedly redefined the term as mom's I'd like
to follow.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Okay, that's making sense. And then it had you probably
remember this part.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
There were all these celebrity moms in various provocative scenes,
including Kim Kardashian showering and milk.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I do have an image of Kim Kardashian showering and milk,
so it must be from this, but I did not
raise that.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
So there have been various spin offs of this term,
some actually using the term, and others like SMLF. That
was a popular show on Showtime made by a friend
of mine, Frankie Shaw, which stood for a single Mom
I'd like to fuck and it was about her life
as a young single mom. Do you remember recently Martha Stewart.
She is eighty one now and she was the oldest
(33:04):
woman to pose for the swimsuit cover of Sports Illustrated. Yeah,
she liked great, and so she was then crowned by
the Internet as a guilf.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I did see that, Yes, I mean also, it feels
like now there are dilfs right or or that like
a Zaddi or those different things.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Well, I think that there's a little bit of equal
opportunity milfing happening right now, dilphespecially with the popularity of
these actors like Pedro Pascal who everyone calls Zaddi. There
was some big thing about whether Timothy Shalomey, who obviously
does not have children and like is maybe also a child,
was a dilf.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Timothy Shalamey is so young to be a dilf. I
think of milf as kind of comparable to a cougar, right,
It's like a hot older woman.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, so it's worth making that distinction. They are different.
Both are used to describe older women. But a milf
is a woman who's desired, like I see that as
some one where the horny teenage boys are pursuing her,
whereas a cougar is kind of the aggressor, where she
is pursuing the younger man.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Oh right, that makes sense. So the cougar has more agency.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
We've been talking about early twenty twenty tens, but this
is very much still occurring today. There is a new
I think it came out last year reality TV show
on TLC called Milf.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Manor I'm sorry, how did I miss this?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
How did you miss this?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Because the premise is that eight older women are dating
each other's sons.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry they're dating each other's children. That
is a bizarre concept for a reality show, but I mean,
you got to give it to TLC. They know how
to really go there.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I guess it goes to show like there is this
enduring fascination with mother figures, like it's so weird, and
I guess in some ways they're often viewed as like
I don't think anyone is aspiring to be on milf
manor I hope.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I mean that feels tragic to me, But I don't
know that the concept of milf has ever felt tragic
to me, because it's kind of cool and aspirational, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I feel like it or is it objectified?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
So that's the thing, right, is often in culture, I
feel like women embrace or find aspirational being objectified. It's
just like so rooted in the way we think about
what it means to be sexy is to be objectified
in some way. Like I told a friend of mine
we were recording this and she has children, and she
was like, I am available for an interview.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You know, it's like a joke that we all she's
considering a point of pride.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Right, Like I think you know, if you're a mom
and you have kids, you want to still feel like
you're a sexual being, right, You want to still feel
like you're desirable. So while it's objectifying, I think we
do have a complex relationship. I mean, as women in general,
with things that are objectifying. You want to be hot
enough to be objectified, but not objectified, right, It's like
a weird conflict that we have about all of these
(36:02):
kinds of terms.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That cyclical idea is interesting too, because you know, so
American Pie is a wild success. Then it goes on
to franchise. There's a number of American Pies. I didn't
know that, yeah, and the milf idea becomes a major
plot point of them. Basically, Finch goes off to college,
but he only wants to be with Stiffler's mom, and
so he's teaching himself how to be a better lover.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You learn to channel your body's energies, your chakras.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
When you can do that, you can have sex for hours,
even days.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And it goes on and on and on until he
ends up ultimately with somebody his age who is age appropriate.
But it's funny because in the first the main American
Pie that we're talking about here, you don't ever learn
the name of Stiffler's Well, she's just Stiffler's mom. Like,
it's sort of similar to Stacy's mom in the song
Stacy's Mom.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Well, there's no character beyond just being the sex object,
right Like, She's just a very flat, two dimensional character.
She's just a hot mom, exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And so then later at the very end of American
Pie two, you learn that Stiffer's mom is actually named Janine.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Wow, that's not a hot name.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And we only learn that because Finch like drives off
with her to have sex, and we hear him call
it her name in like an erotic way, and she
tells him to call her stifflers mom.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Wow. I mean, I guess apologies to all the people
who named Jeanine. I probably just defended, but I really
wasn't expecting Janine.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
It's just kind of funny to think about how these
terms evolve and how in that case, it was a joke,
it was a punchline, but she doesn't really get to
have a developed personality.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
I am genuinely kind of fascinated, though, with this idea
that all things that can initially be kind of good
or bad eventually become embraced as aspirational among a certain
set of women. Right like, even cougar, which may have
been at some time time predatory. There was eventually a
(38:03):
TV series with Courtney Coxona called cougar Town, right, so
people eventually embraced that term and also were like, I
want to be a cougar.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I mean, there are a lot of things about how
Nilph makes inherently sexy a character than in a lot
of these pop culture representations, is actually a predator.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
That's like, that's a very real thing.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Right, where it's like there's this predatory thing that happens
with older women that we've turned into something like that's funny, right, or.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And often it's like, you know, you had the boys,
the virgins or whomever. They're high fiving about it. They're
not referring to it as a statutory rape, right of course,
and like that that just has become a plot point
in so many films. I think, right, of course, it
wouldn't be the same if the genders reversed.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Right, Like if a father had sex with a sixteen
year old virgin.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I mean that's the Lolita trope.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
I guess, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
The Lolita trope.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
I mean, I think the other thing that's interesting about
this is just this concept that women stop being attractive
or appealing after a certain age. So I guess part
of the reason women sometimes embrace these monikers is because
you know, that is just not true, right, There is this.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Rejection of the idea that you are put out to pasture.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right. Well, I mean that's why there needed to be
this term in the first place, because it goes against
the commercial wisdom, which is you can't be attractive after
a certain age, after you have children, and so thus
you are defying the norm and we're gonna call you
a milf.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
But you know what's actually super interesting. I was talking
about the subject with my students and one of them,
who is very very online. She spends a lot of
time on like stan Twitter. She knows everything that square
on on the internet. She was telling me that milf
is now being used as a compliment. What not just
for a mother and not for a middle aged woman,
(40:01):
but like for anyone gender notwithstanding, who is like.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Serving giving icon status.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Like you know how people use mom and mother as
a compliment based age.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, Like they'll be like, Taylor Swift is mother, and
what they mean is she's like an icon.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yes, she's an icon.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
She's Queen Mother it's like another way of saying queen
or giving a compliment, paying compliment to someone.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You often see it in comments on posts.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Yeah, so milf.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Has just sort of slotted in there with that.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So it's like Margot Robbie is a milf even though
she doesn't have children, or like Billie Eilish could be
a milf based on something interesting or cool that she's said.
Or Timothy shallow May maybe he's even a milf.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Okay, this is blowing my mind. I had no idea.
This was like a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Isn't that so interesting? And so then she was pointing
me to these Twitter accounts. There's one called archived MILFs
and there's one called archived dilfs, And from what I
can tell, they're basically long, long scrolls with many many
followers daily content of dilfhs, which is like hot guys,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, these are just like pictures of hot people.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
And like we don't know if they have children, we
don't know what age they are.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Like it's just become maybe another term for a hot
person or maybe not even hot, maybe just intellectually sexy.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Wow, I mean, Laurel Sudden would be so proud. We
have reclaimed milf. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I actually think that's a kind of nice place to
end it, that, like, this term has.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
In effect evolved from sexual thing reserved for I guess moms.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Or middle aged women to something that's just a compliment
for anyone who's like really bringing it.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Yeah, I mean, look at us, We've really evolved as
a culture.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I guess, Susie or milf.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Thank you so much, Jess. That means so much to me, Jess.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I want to tease what we're talking about next week
because it's a fun one.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Ooh, do we finally get to talk about my boyfriend
Jordan catalog.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yes, we do get to talk about Jordan Catalano, who
was everyone's boyfriend in the nineties, and we also get
to talk about a lot of other subjects.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Our listeners suggestin ugh.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Can't wait, this is in retrospect.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, You can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books, Feminist,
Fike Club, and This Is eighteen. In Retrospect is a
production of iHeart.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Podcasts and The Media. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer.
Derek Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronov
is our producer. Jarana t is our researcher and associate producer.
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Our mixing engineer is.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Amanda Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We
are your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
For even more, check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
See you next week.
If you grew up in the nineties, you probably know
the scene from American Pie that I'm about to tell
you about.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
No, not that scene.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
This one takes place in a suburban living room at
a raging party with bad music and red solo cups
full of beer and a group of horny change boys
who are gathered in the hallway to admire a photo
of Stiffler's mom played by Jennifer Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (00:22):
That's Stiffler's mom.
Speaker 4 (00:24):
Yep shit.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
I cannot believe a fine woman like.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
This produced a guy like stiff It took some milf.
The hell's that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
What the hell is that?
Speaker 4 (00:36):
A milf?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
That is m I lf mom?
Speaker 4 (00:40):
I'd like to fuck Yeah, Oh yeah, mil.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Mil hel.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Milf.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
It's a familiar term now, but where did it come from?
And I want to go away.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
I'm Jessica Bennett and I'm Ceesy Vanakaram.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
This is in retrospect, where each week we revisit a
cultural moment from the past that shaped us.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
And that we just can't stop thinking about.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Today.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
We're talking about MILFs, a term popularized by the movie
American Pie, which celebrates its twenty fifth anniversary this year.
Susie we're talking today about American Pie, which, for those
who don't know or didn't grow up in the nineties
and early two thousands like we did, this was the
wildly popular nineteen ninety nine movie about four high school
(01:30):
virgins who are on the prowl to lose their virginity,
are essentially horny beyond belief and perhaps defined cringe before
cringe was a term that we used.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
I mean, we should probably clarify that all the virgins
in this particular story are boys.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Oh guess true.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Now we might have a movie like this about female
virgins also trying to lose their virginity. In fact, I
think we have had those movies, but at this time
it was only boys. It was a boys But.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
As far as sex goes, I'm pretty sure this was
the film that, for a certain cohort of our generation,
really served as sex education.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
I mean, it certainly had a lot of sexual tropes.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
I mean, not even tropes, just like actual sex sects
in the most awkward way imaginable from masturbation and the
fear of mom walking in on you, of course, which
happens premature to acuation, spying through a webcam on a
foreign exchange student sex on prom night. It had jocks
and cheerleaders and band geeks. It had edging. It really
(02:31):
it had everything, and many of these moments are seered
into my teenage brain, how about you.
Speaker 4 (02:39):
I definitely saw it at the time, but it's not
one of those movies I've seen a million times, Like
this feels like a movie some people have.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Seen a lot. I only remember having.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
Seen it once or twice, and I had to rewatch
it to kind of remind myself what happens. But of
course the scene that I do remember that I will
aways remember is the one and where Jason Biggs, who
is the star of the movie, you know, has sex
with an apple pie.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
What it looks like, I mean, first, who fingers the
apple pie?
Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yes, where he fingers it, which is in and of itself,
like you're like, oh god, what's happening. It's interesting because
I must have seen this movie when I was in
my late teens, and I don't remember being shocked by
it at the time, Like I remember just being like, oh,
this is a funny movie, and now it feels more
(03:30):
shocking somehow because I'm an adult, so I'm just like funny,
I know, I don't know why. It just feels like,
I notice how raunchy it is in a way that.
Speaker 3 (03:39):
I think I just took for granted at the time.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
It's worth mentioning there are a lot of really famous
people in this movie.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yes, sir, a ton of famous people and people who
then became famous after it. Jason Biggs, of course you
mentioned who is the main character. His father is played
by Eugene Levy. It's the father who then ends up
walking in on him while he is having sex with
the There's Natasha Leon and tera Ree. There's of course
Jennifer Coolidge, like really big names.
Speaker 4 (04:06):
Yeah, ann Alifon Hannigan who was a star on How
I Met Your Mother. So it's a lot of recognizable faces.
Mines Savari's in it, people who went on to have
big careers after this. Yeah. So okay, obviously there's the
famous apple pie scene, and that is the thing most
people remember. But the label of milf is also something
that I remembered. I just didn't really trace it back
(04:28):
to this particular movie. So what made you want to
talk about this?
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I'm fascinated by language, and this kind of stuff is
fun for me to track down the origins of Yeah,
and I started thinking about that actually when you and
I were recording last season our episode on Dawson's Creek
and Mary kay Lturno, which of course is about younger
boys in relationships with older women and how that is perceived.
(04:52):
And I just kept thinking about this term milf and
wondering where it had actually come from, and was it
really from American Pie because that's what I remember and
where I remember first learning about it, I think, but
that can't possibly be the first usage of it.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
So anyhow, that led me down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
I do love when you go down a linguistic rabbit hole.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
But before we get into it, can you remind me
what's happening in American Pie when the term milf is
first used in the movie.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, let me just set the sceme for you a
little bit. So the guys the virgins there at Stiffler's house.
Stiffler is like the classic rich, arrogant kind of douchebag
guy that everyone puts up with because he throws all
the parties.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
What's up dude, the children to party night ausing a
fuck face. Every teenager has one of these, and every
every movie has one of these.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Absolutely and so they're all standing around gawking at this
photo stifflish mom on the.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Wall, and you know, it's all the guys.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
But one of the really funny things I learned later
is that the guy who actually defines the term milf
that we all heard there is referred to in the
credits abound of a movie simply as milf guy number two.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
That's amazing because it's actually an actor I recognized. I
just couldn't figure out from where. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think you recognize him now because he's John Cho
who would later star in Harold and Kumar, but at
the time I don't think he was a recognizable name.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Wow, milk I number two really paid off for him.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Though, apparently, and so later in the movie what ends
up happening is that one of the virgins, Finch. He's
like the intellectual old soul of the group. He drinks
single mat whiskey and reads books on tantric sex. He
loses his virginity to the mill Stuffler's mom, and this
happens on a pool table during yet another party at
(06:36):
Stiffler's house on Promenay.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
I had forgotten that detail, but I don't know how
it's so evocative.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
And Finch has this kind of rivalry with Stiffler throughout
the movie, so like him sleeping with Stiffler's mom in
a way is like the ultimate teen boy fuck you.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
It's like, literally, I fucked your mom.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Yeah, I mean, it's also just such a teenage fantasy, right,
It's like wild.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so in the final scene of the movie, the
boys were at a diner post prom and they're like
giving each other the details, and Finch said, oh.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
I just got to say that women like a fine
wine only get better with age. And with that line, milf,
I think the word but also.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
The concept gets cemented into the culturals.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
I gast bil no no.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I think it's worth exploring if we can stomach it
in our like prudish older years.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
You mean my older year.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Well it was pretty gross, but like just how raunchy
American Pie was, because honestly, like you said, it is
pretty shocking to rewatch. And we only mentioned a couple
of scenes, but there were so many other gross ones
in the film. I was reading one of the early
reviews of the film, and there's this funny line from
the New York Times film critic Stephen Holden where he
(07:54):
says which scene is grossest, the beer scene, the pie scene,
the twilet scene.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
All over the country.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
During the next few weeks, teenagers able to wrangle their
way into the R rated comedy will be comparing notes
and debating.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
First of all, I think it's funny that the New
York Times took this movie seriously enough to do a
full review of it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Like, that's amazing, SERI some York Times, and I should know.
It wasn't that kids were only debating. One kid in
Idaho actually decided to stick his penis into a pie
in real life and ended up getting third degree burns.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
Okay, I actually feel like I remember this, and I
would wager to say that a lot of teens tried
this because most of them were smart enough not to
do it on a piping hot pie. So we don't
know about it because they didn't get third degree burned.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yes, exactly. You have to let the pie cool first.
Speaker 4 (08:45):
I mean, I think the other thing I want to
say is that there's a lot of raunchy things in
this movie, but there's also things that we would consider
illegal now, like they record a woman without her consent, undressing,
and like live streaming, which I don't even know that
I knew at that time what live streaming was.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I don't think we did. But yeah, this is
the naughtiest scene.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
She's the hot foreign exchange student and she asks Jim
if you will tutor her, and he's basically like falling
all over himself response.
Speaker 4 (09:14):
Absolutely, that that would be that would be a great sometime.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
How about tomorrow, Well, I have ballet practice. Perhaps I
could come.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
By your house afterwards.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
I could change cloths at your place.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Right, of course she's gonna change clothes at his place.
What an extremely fortunate twist for Jim, who is dying
to get her naked.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Right.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
And then the weirdest part in this movie of very
weird things is then while she's naked in his room,
she goes through his things and finds his porn magazines
and is like, Oh, you know what I'll do right
now while I'm in this essentially stranger's bedroom, I'm going
to masturbate here.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
It's so unrealistic, right, And then it not only streams
to his friends, but to the whole school.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Yes, he's accidentally sent it to the entire school, and
that's never acknowledged as weird that whole storyline ends basically
at that point in the movie because the next scene,
Jason Biggs is like, yeah, her host.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
Family sent her home, and you're like.
Speaker 4 (10:11):
What about the like crime right at the time, I
think we just thought teenage shenanigans.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Also, there's this semen in a cup scene.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
Oh my god, that's seen.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Keavin's girlfriend has given him a blowjob and he ejaculates
into a beer cup.
Speaker 4 (10:28):
As you know, one does.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
I feel like you can picture like these red solo
beer cups everywhere throughout this movie, but this one is
actually clear, naturally, and so then Stiffler picks it up
and takes a sip of it.
Speaker 4 (10:42):
Yeah, which is like he first he gives it to
her girl and she takes a sip of it. I mean,
this is just kind of like gross out comedy, yes,
And those moments don't shock me as much as I'm
just like, oh no, no, stop, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's not even like sexy. It's just so gross in
a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Yeah, the movie isn't sexy.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
It's just about sex, right, which I think is an
interesting thing. Like there's no pretense that you're going to
like watch this movie and it's going to feel hot.
It's not a hot movie.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Well another scene, actually this reminds me of was the
flute band camp scene. Yes, of course, so this is
you mentioned Alison Hannigan. She plays Michelle, and Michelle is
kind of like the band camp door who plays the flute.
And at a certain point, Michelle is telling Jim a
story at one of these parties, and he seems pretty
(11:33):
bored with whatever she's saying until oh.
Speaker 5 (11:35):
In this one time at band camp, I stuck a
flute in my pussy.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Excuse me what, you don't think I know how to
get myself off.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
It's so funny because I do feel like maybe I
remember this movie better than I thought, or maybe it
just became such a popular part of the vernacular, because
I do remember that for a long time after this movie,
people would just say one time at band camp exactly.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I mean, there was so many things about this movie
that permanently lodged in the Czechs, maybe without us even knowing.
Like I was in the orchestra in high school. I
played the violin, and so from the moment we all
watched that movie, I don't think any of the female
flute players and the orchestra could ever.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Be looked at with a straight face. Again, like that
was like permanently their cross to bear.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
Dress.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
American Pie came out in nineteen ninety nine, right, So
can you just give us a sense of what's going
on in the culture at that time that set the
stage for.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
It, absolutely, because it was really this era in the
late nineties of not just shot comedy, but like sex, sex, sex,
sex sex sex.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Viagra has just hit the market. Asking about Biagar, maybe
it should be you.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Bill Clinton has denied, of course, having sexual relations with
that woman, which is Monica Lewinsky.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Speaker 1 (13:15):
But no matter what he has said, the late night
hosts have made a complete hater of making fun of
him and talking about the cigar that was inserted into
her vagina, and sales of cigars have gone up.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
I think we've gone on with Monica's President Clinton calls
her my little human door.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Anyway, this is in the political culture.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yes, and then I'm sure you remember the movie there's
something about Mary who could Forget, And I'm sure you
remember the scene and there's something about Mary.
Speaker 4 (13:45):
He has semen for some reason on him, and she
thinks it's hair gel, and she puts it in her
hand hair gel.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (13:52):
Great, No, you don't have to know you I just
ran out.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
It's also disgusting because obviously, like you'd just take a
thing that's hanging off so in space and put it
in your hair for hairdel So, yes, there's something about
Mary with that.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Very gross, really something memorbleous scene has just come out.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
And this is also the era of Dsmy's Creek, which
we've talked about before, and all of the hilarious so
on the nose, over the top sexual nuendo they went
along with that should be proactive and grab them by
the dipstick off and do you walk your dog?
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Huh? Jerkin is girkin? I'm just ecasion a little innuendo
in the hopes that maybe someday lead to something a
little more tangible.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
I hadn't realized until digging into this research that the
year that American Pie came out was such a huge
year more broadly for teen movies. So like Varsity Blues,
Never Been Kissed, Cruel Intentions Election, like all of these
movies came out in nineteen eighty nine, So really big
moment for teen movies.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
Yes, all great movies and also all movies that I mean,
I guess all teen movies to some degree center on
sex and the ways in which it's confusing for teenagers.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
And you know, I think American Pie had a lot
of lasting impacts, but Milf is one of them. And
I think that after it came out, it kicks off
what we might now refer to as the milf era,
the milf.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Era, have fomle.
Speaker 4 (15:19):
How does that play out?
Speaker 1 (15:21):
It basically becomes popularized both as a concept and a term.
So in the months and years following this movie, tens
of thousands of milk branded T shirts and mugs are
sold online. There is this whole new genre of books
in like the Hot Mom Book, Realm.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
So it's like moms who embrace this because they want
to be known as.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
MILFs, I mean maybe, or it's publishers, like it's people
knowing that it will sell. But things like Confessions of
a Naughty Mommy, the Mill Anthology, the Hot Mom's Handbook.
Speaker 4 (15:53):
I really would like to read Confessions of a Naughty Mommy,
Like I feel like that would be hilarious.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
I have read any of these, But it's not just
the term itself that's being used. There's this moment happening
in television and film and elsewhere of hot older women,
and I'm putting I'm using air quotes on older because
oftentimes the.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Older was forty younger than us.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Yeah, oh no, but you like TV shows like Desperate Housewives,
and as you know, well, this is when the Real
Housewives began, when the Real Housewives franchise s Beagan, although I.
Speaker 4 (16:26):
Would argue that those were not particularly hot women, but
maybe at the time they were considered hot.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Coverage to find it and then remember the fountains of
Wayne song Stacy's mom.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
Of course in the middle of the stay.
Speaker 1 (16:40):
In two thousand and three, it was the number one
most downloaded song on iTunes, which was the year came out.
And then actually around the same time, this other hilarious
thing happens. And you know, this is maybe indicative of
my home state. I'm not sure what exactly what this
is indicative of, but in Washington State, a resident not
from Seattle, i will say, applied for a got Milf
(17:01):
vanity license plate and was approved, which is like kind
of fun.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
I mean, it's fun, I fun, I got milk, got Milf.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
But then people complained and He ended up having to
surrender it because on the application he had explained that
what MILF stood for was manual inline lift fluctuator, which
he claimed with some kind of like automotive gizmo.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
I mean, honestly, that also sounds dirty. I don't know,
I don't know what to tell that, dude, But manual
inline lift fluctuator.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Sounds like a sex toy.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
But then the actual complaints about it, which were written
at of them, like the documents were revealed by the
smoking gun.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Remember that they were like, not sure what you people
the DMV have been watching, but you clearly don't know
what this actually means. Here's what it actually means, and
so they remoked the license.
Speaker 4 (17:46):
It's probably also worth mentioning that Got Milk was this
huge ad campaign at the time, so they probably weren't
so happy at the Milk Foundation or whoever ran that
campaign Got Milk. Okay, So, Jess, I think we can
finally get to the linguistic rabbit hole. What is the
etymology that you discovered?
Speaker 1 (18:08):
First, let me just caveat there's two things. There is
MILF the word, and then there is MILF the idea.
And so when we talk about milf the idea. Obviously,
we know that there's this fascination with sexual mother figures
that has always existed, or at least existed back to
like Freud days, and like the Oedipus complex.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, there is kind of this weird fascination or sexualization
of mothers. And for people who don't know, the Oedipus
complex is this concept that all sons secretly want to
have sex with their moms.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
I kind of feel.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Like I've always known but must have been introduced to
me in some way.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I think it's in mythology.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And then Freud took it on and was like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
this is as fraid y yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:49):
And I think they've since said that there's no like
empirical evidence that that's a thing, But for some reason,
it just stuck culturally that like all men have some
weird affection for their roles.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I mean, the most famous example I think is the
cult classic The Graduate, which introduces the character of Missus
Robinson that came out in the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 4 (19:08):
Although in fairness, Missus Robinson is not his mom.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
It's his girlfriend's mom, right, And then you get the
song Missus Robinson, so there's this mythology slash and enduring
fascination that has existed for a very very long time.
But the term itself is a different story, like where
did this actual acronym come from? And the answer to that,
or at least the answer that I've seen, I have
not or I could not independently confirm. This is apparently
(19:35):
an early nineteen nineties issue of Motor Booty Magazine.
Speaker 4 (19:39):
Okay, first of all, I am so happy to learn
that there is a motor Booty magazine.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
As was I.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
But I have to tell you, Susie, it's not what
it sounds like. It's not a raunchy car magazine. It's
actually like an alternative music and comedy magazine.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Oh all right, I mean, I guess that's cooler.
Speaker 4 (19:55):
But like I kind of waspturing a lot of women
and look like their booties out on top of car, which.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Is I know, very I don't know, confusing, But that
one's really hard to confirm. What I am absolutely certain
of because I reached out to a pal of mine,
Ben Zimmer, who is a linguist, is that the actual
first usage case for which I have seen the official
proof was in nineteen ninety one. In a Buffalo, New
(20:23):
York newspaper. It was the name of a rock band
who apparently adopted it because they'd heard lifeguards at Fort
Niagara State Park using it to refer to the women.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
I guess, wow, this is actually kind of fascinating that
you were.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
And so this is in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
It appears in a local Buffalo newspaper like announcing a
show for this band. And funny side note, the other
bands that they were playing with in this show in Buffalo,
New York were called The Tails and Tugboat Annie, which
I feel like are also kind of like milfishy names.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
I live something.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
Yeah, And so how what is the proof that Ben
provides you that made you think this is well?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
So Ben actually spoke to the band.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Members, Oh my.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
God, who confirmed?
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Because it is basically Ben was doing research. Ben is
a columnist at the Wall Street Journal who writes about language.
He's also a linguist and he actually MC is the
annual Word of the Year convention every year for the
American Dialect Society.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Amazing, we should go to that. It's very fun.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
Yeah, But so he was trying to find out the
first usages and he found this little band thing, but
you know, you couldn't be sure that milf meant mom,
I'd like to fuck. So he actually reached out to
this band member and was like, is that what it
stood for? And the band member, who didn't want to
be named because like, of course, you know he.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Has a real job. Yeah, he's probably gone on to
things LinkedIn or whatever.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
Was like yeah, yeah, yeah, that was it, which was
super interesting because then the next reference that we can
trace is all the way in California in nineteen ninety two.
Somehow between ninety one and ninety two, this term makes
its way from New York to California, and we're not
sure why, but in ninety two it appears at a
conference that you see Berkeley, where a linguist name Laurel
(22:05):
Sutton gives his presentation about various words derogatory words used
to describe women. And so she's collected all of these
different terms used by undergraduate students to refer to women,
and milf is one of them.
Speaker 4 (22:19):
I mean, this is actually why I love that you
love language so much, because it's so interesting that words
kind of just take on a life of their own
like this.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They do, they absolutely do.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
So what you see from there is that it starts
being used on early Internet message boards, and in particular
talking about a Playboy pictorial of hot moms. Oh okay,
it was called fabulous after forty have progressive.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
Of Playboy in nineteen ninety five, I.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Writ, yes.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And so another funny side is that the linguists who
presented that conference at Berkeley, Laurel Sutton, who I mentioned,
she would actually go on to write a paper about
these findings and it would be called Boaches and Skanky
hoe Bags the place of women and content piray slang, also.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Something I'm dying to read. So I will be reading
Bitches and Skanky ho Bags after that.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Absolutely should.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Another funny little thread here is that years later, in
twenty thirteen, Ben Zimmer, who's the other linguist I mentioned,
he had to actually let Laurel, the author of Bitches
and Skanky hoe Bags know that her mention of milk
in that paper was actually getting this linguistic honor as
one of the first usages in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Speaker 4 (23:28):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
So this is like.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Jargon for us, but it's a huge nerdy honor if
you were a linguist. And so at the time she
wrote on her blog that she was quote both gratified
and mortified.
Speaker 4 (23:39):
I'm so happy for Laurel.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like that's I know, right, I think it's really cool.
Speaker 4 (23:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But she has this funny statement where she says, the
word in question is an awful acronym.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I first ran across while on.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
Graduate school, when I was doing data gathering on slang
used by undergrads. Then as now and always, there was
an abundance of words that reduce wom into their desirability,
mostly of the negative type. If the words themselves aren't insulting,
like skank and hobang, they're condescending, which is what I
said about mil from my paper. She then goes on
to say the citation will live on long after she's gone,
(24:11):
and she can only hope that future generations will find
this word quaintly offensive and say, sure, glad, we don't
talk like that anymore.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
Wow, but we really do talk like that still.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
We have very much, unfortunately disappointed Laurel.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
And now the term is actually like in every dictionary,
like it's often categorized under vulgar slang, but if you
look up Miriam Webster Dictionary or even dictionary dot com,
it is there as an acronym that stands for a
mom I'd like to fuck, And then in dictionary dot
com it says, which is often said by teenage boys
about their friends, attractive mothers, or just about women in
(24:48):
general who are considered of middle aged.
Speaker 4 (24:50):
I think the other thing is this just feels like
it's so part of the vernacular now, Isn't it almost
always in the top five search porn terms in this country.
I feel like people love yes looking for milfborn.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
I mean, that part is so disturbing, but it's like
it not a far jump from this definition saying that
teenage boys often say it about their friends hot moms too,
then imagining those teenage boys searching milf on porn sites.
Speaker 4 (25:15):
I actually looked because I was curious, and in twenty
twenty two porn have had it as its number three
search term in the world, not just in America, in
the world. But it's also just fascinating that these kinds
of words go from being online searches to being in
the dictionary, Like, didn't they just put the word riz
in the dictionary? Which makes me feel a hundred.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Okay, well, so separate thing dictionary and word of the
Year are different.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And I only know these really fine.
Speaker 1 (25:43):
Distinctions because I used to go to the Word of
the Year conference every year.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
Okay, wait, that sounds so fun. And why have you
never told me about this before?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
I don't know I've written about it. I guess you're
not reading my artist.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Oh my god, you know that's not true.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
But it's it's honestly my most like one of the most.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
Joy you get out of that highlight is going to.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
The annual Word of the Year conference. It's hosted by
the American Dialect Society every year, and people can present
papers on linguistic trends and there's all these academics there,
and then they have this event which people can go
to and vote on slash, debate and argue for the
words of the year. So there's now multiple Words of
(26:25):
the Year contests and it all gets very confusing. But
I just saw that Delulu had been nominated for the
American Dialect Societies.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
That's for delusional, which is definitely one of the best words.
I mean, I feel silly using it, but I definitely
do use it. Is this how you know all these
linguists that you reached out to for this artist? Yeah,
that's it.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Yes, that's how I know some of them.
Speaker 4 (26:46):
Yeah. Wow, impressive. There's always things I'm uncovering about your career.
Speaker 6 (26:50):
Love linguists are very fun.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
Okay, So back to the word milf.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
So American Pie we have now established didn't create this term,
but it certainly pushed it into the mainstream, both in
term but also in concept, like Stiffler's mom became the
hottest milf in America, and it seems, at least in
that time, like milf was everywhere.
Speaker 4 (27:25):
Yeah, and Jennifer Coolidge is truly the original Milf.
Speaker 3 (27:29):
Right, Nobody will ever be more Milf than her?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
Right? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And actually I want to pause on her for a second,
because she's talked about this quite a bit, and I
think in some ways she hasn't really been able to
escape that title or that role, but it also has
ended up being good for her in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
She plays it super well.
Speaker 1 (27:47):
After American Pie comes out, Eugene Levy ends up recommending
her for Best in Show.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
I don't know if you remember. That can't be Maybe
she plays this trophy wife character.
Speaker 5 (27:55):
We both have so much in common. We both love soup,
and we love the outdoors. We love snow peas and
talking and not talking.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
She was very milfy in White Lotus too.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
I guess, don't spend your life chasing emotionally unavailable men.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
She is always kind of milfy. It's also great. The
thing is you can't age out of being a milf.
Speaker 3 (28:25):
Yeah, it's true, a gum milf.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
But it's kind of fun.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Maybe it's like kind of good because in every other
world it's like, oh, she's tool, But if you're a milf,
you can always be.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
But she still does talk about this milf reference because
I saw I've seen interviews in the last year where
she's talked about it.
Speaker 3 (28:44):
She embraces it, like. I don't think she rejects it.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
I think she recognizes that it really did help her
become a breakout star.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
It also apparently led to a lot of sex for her.
I mean, I know, right, I mean she said, and
I don't know if this is a joke. She is
a comic, but she talks about how there were like
two hundred sexual partners she had after that movie because
everyone wanted to sleep with her after American Pie.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
I mean, that makes sense to me. She was kind
of an icon of that era. But you know, This
reminds me there was another Milf reference after this that
I thought was hilarious. Britney Spears, at the height of
her fame, wore a T shirt that said Milf in Training,
which is pretty funny, and it was before she had kids.
So it's sort of this idea that being a hot
mom is something everyone should aspire.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
To, reminding me of something that I think is helpful
in understanding the backdrop or the context to when this
term was emerging.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Because as this is all going on, as this is
gaining popularity, as Britney Spears.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Is wearing her T shirt, the US is actually seeing
a rise in young single mothers like Stiff Flour's mom.
Real interesting, and also the postponement of marriage and parenthood,
so it's sort of like these things are juxtaposed against
each other, or maybe they're all intertwined, because research also
found that young adults were living at home longer than
(30:04):
ever before, which you can imagine probably impacted the perception
of mom's sexual beings for single women and like young
men just like hanging around older women more.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
I guess it is interesting that there were obviously young
mothers before, but young single mothers mean that you have
to acknowledge that your mother to some degree is a
being who dates and has a romantic life, right, so
that would be like a shift in thinking.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
There's a moment that I really remember from that show Weeds.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Did you watch?
Speaker 1 (30:35):
I mean, I know you're a weed enthusiast, so figure out.
So this is Mary Louise Parker. She plays with forty
three year old. I guess you could call her a
milk but like that's pretty young. And she plays this
widowed suburban mom who deals pot to support her kids.
And so there's this amazing episode where she's introduced to
(30:55):
Snoop Dogg, who plays himself iconic, and she's introduced.
Speaker 7 (30:59):
As a milf and he says, I do I mean,
of course, of course, and then he smokes her weed
and declares that it's milf weed and performs this hilarious
milfweed wrap.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
It's called the milk weed. If the good mommy smokes
the milk weed, take a talk to you.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
But that is so funny because I remember smoking weed
that we called milfweed, or like referring to weed as milkweed,
or like that became a thing. It must have become
a like do you write, yeah, like, have you smoked milkweed?
Speaker 4 (31:29):
I haven't smoked milfweed, but I bet you if I
searched for it in the Dictionary of Weed Strains, which
exists online. Yeah. Here it is on leafle, which is
where you go to research strains of marijuana for those
who are not stoners. It is listed. So does it
describe it? It does describe it. Milf is known as
(31:49):
milfwed from mother Trucker Seeds takes its name from an
acronym from marijuana.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
I'd like to flour. That can't be true.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
The milk strain tends to be led by a stroke,
heady buzz that elevates your mood.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
That's so funny.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, I mean it is as if the term kind
of took on a life of its own, and then
people started to ascribe other things to it.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Do you remember that Fergy song called milf money but.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Then Mill's money. I do not remember the song, but
it feels like I should.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
I don't think it's like a good song or anything,
but it supposedly redefined the term as mom's I'd like
to follow.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Okay, that's making sense. And then it had you probably
remember this part.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
There were all these celebrity moms in various provocative scenes,
including Kim Kardashian showering and milk.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I do have an image of Kim Kardashian showering and milk,
so it must be from this, but I did not
raise that.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
So there have been various spin offs of this term,
some actually using the term, and others like SMLF. That
was a popular show on Showtime made by a friend
of mine, Frankie Shaw, which stood for a single Mom
I'd like to fuck and it was about her life
as a young single mom. Do you remember recently Martha Stewart.
She is eighty one now and she was the oldest
(33:04):
woman to pose for the swimsuit cover of Sports Illustrated. Yeah,
she liked great, and so she was then crowned by
the Internet as a guilf.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I did see that, Yes, I mean also, it feels
like now there are dilfs right or or that like
a Zaddi or those different things.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Well, I think that there's a little bit of equal
opportunity milfing happening right now, dilphespecially with the popularity of
these actors like Pedro Pascal who everyone calls Zaddi. There
was some big thing about whether Timothy Shalomey, who obviously
does not have children and like is maybe also a child,
was a dilf.
Speaker 4 (33:41):
Timothy Shalamey is so young to be a dilf. I
think of milf as kind of comparable to a cougar, right,
It's like a hot older woman.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Yeah, so it's worth making that distinction. They are different.
Both are used to describe older women. But a milf
is a woman who's desired, like I see that as
some one where the horny teenage boys are pursuing her,
whereas a cougar is kind of the aggressor, where she
is pursuing the younger man.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Oh right, that makes sense. So the cougar has more agency.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I guess.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
We've been talking about early twenty twenty tens, but this
is very much still occurring today. There is a new
I think it came out last year reality TV show
on TLC called Milf.
Speaker 4 (34:27):
Manor I'm sorry, how did I miss this?
Speaker 2 (34:30):
How did you miss this?
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Because the premise is that eight older women are dating
each other's sons.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
I'm sorry, I'm sorry they're dating each other's children. That
is a bizarre concept for a reality show, but I mean,
you got to give it to TLC. They know how
to really go there.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I guess it goes to show like there is this
enduring fascination with mother figures, like it's so weird, and
I guess in some ways they're often viewed as like
I don't think anyone is aspiring to be on milf
manor I hope.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I mean that feels tragic to me, But I don't
know that the concept of milf has ever felt tragic
to me, because it's kind of cool and aspirational, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I feel like it or is it objectified?
Speaker 4 (35:16):
So that's the thing, right, is often in culture, I
feel like women embrace or find aspirational being objectified. It's
just like so rooted in the way we think about
what it means to be sexy is to be objectified
in some way. Like I told a friend of mine
we were recording this and she has children, and she
was like, I am available for an interview.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
You know, it's like a joke that we all she's
considering a point of pride.
Speaker 4 (35:40):
Right, Like I think you know, if you're a mom
and you have kids, you want to still feel like
you're a sexual being, right, You want to still feel
like you're desirable. So while it's objectifying, I think we
do have a complex relationship. I mean, as women in general,
with things that are objectifying. You want to be hot
enough to be objectified, but not objectified, right, It's like
a weird conflict that we have about all of these
(36:02):
kinds of terms.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
That cyclical idea is interesting too, because you know, so
American Pie is a wild success. Then it goes on
to franchise. There's a number of American Pies. I didn't
know that, yeah, and the milf idea becomes a major
plot point of them. Basically, Finch goes off to college,
but he only wants to be with Stiffler's mom, and
so he's teaching himself how to be a better lover.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
You learn to channel your body's energies, your chakras.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
When you can do that, you can have sex for hours,
even days.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
And it goes on and on and on until he
ends up ultimately with somebody his age who is age appropriate.
But it's funny because in the first the main American
Pie that we're talking about here, you don't ever learn
the name of Stiffler's Well, she's just Stiffler's mom. Like,
it's sort of similar to Stacy's mom in the song
Stacy's Mom.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
Well, there's no character beyond just being the sex object,
right Like, She's just a very flat, two dimensional character.
She's just a hot mom, exactly.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
And so then later at the very end of American
Pie two, you learn that Stiffer's mom is actually named Janine.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Wow, that's not a hot name.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And we only learn that because Finch like drives off
with her to have sex, and we hear him call
it her name in like an erotic way, and she
tells him to call her stifflers mom.
Speaker 4 (37:25):
Wow. I mean, I guess apologies to all the people
who named Jeanine. I probably just defended, but I really
wasn't expecting Janine.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
It's just kind of funny to think about how these
terms evolve and how in that case, it was a joke,
it was a punchline, but she doesn't really get to
have a developed personality.
Speaker 4 (37:42):
I am genuinely kind of fascinated, though, with this idea
that all things that can initially be kind of good
or bad eventually become embraced as aspirational among a certain
set of women. Right like, even cougar, which may have
been at some time time predatory. There was eventually a
(38:03):
TV series with Courtney Coxona called cougar Town, right, so
people eventually embraced that term and also were like, I
want to be a cougar.
Speaker 1 (38:11):
I mean, there are a lot of things about how
Nilph makes inherently sexy a character than in a lot
of these pop culture representations, is actually a predator.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
That's like, that's a very real thing.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
Right, where it's like there's this predatory thing that happens
with older women that we've turned into something like that's funny, right, or.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
And often it's like, you know, you had the boys,
the virgins or whomever. They're high fiving about it. They're
not referring to it as a statutory rape, right of course,
and like that that just has become a plot point
in so many films. I think, right, of course, it
wouldn't be the same if the genders reversed.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Right, Like if a father had sex with a sixteen
year old virgin.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
I mean that's the Lolita trope.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
I guess, yeah, that's.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
The Lolita trope.
Speaker 4 (39:02):
I mean, I think the other thing that's interesting about
this is just this concept that women stop being attractive
or appealing after a certain age. So I guess part
of the reason women sometimes embrace these monikers is because
you know, that is just not true, right, There is this.
Speaker 3 (39:22):
Rejection of the idea that you are put out to pasture.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Right. Well, I mean that's why there needed to be
this term in the first place, because it goes against
the commercial wisdom, which is you can't be attractive after
a certain age, after you have children, and so thus
you are defying the norm and we're gonna call you
a milf.
Speaker 5 (39:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
But you know what's actually super interesting. I was talking
about the subject with my students and one of them,
who is very very online. She spends a lot of
time on like stan Twitter. She knows everything that square
on on the internet. She was telling me that milf
is now being used as a compliment. What not just
for a mother and not for a middle aged woman,
(40:01):
but like for anyone gender notwithstanding, who is like.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Serving giving icon status.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Like you know how people use mom and mother as
a compliment based age.
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, Like they'll be like, Taylor Swift is mother, and
what they mean is she's like an icon.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Yes, she's an icon.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
She's Queen Mother it's like another way of saying queen
or giving a compliment, paying compliment to someone.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You often see it in comments on posts.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Yeah, so milf.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Has just sort of slotted in there with that.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So it's like Margot Robbie is a milf even though
she doesn't have children, or like Billie Eilish could be
a milf based on something interesting or cool that she's said.
Or Timothy shallow May maybe he's even a milf.
Speaker 4 (40:44):
Okay, this is blowing my mind. I had no idea.
This was like a thing.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Isn't that so interesting? And so then she was pointing
me to these Twitter accounts. There's one called archived MILFs
and there's one called archived dilfs, And from what I
can tell, they're basically long, long scrolls with many many
followers daily content of dilfhs, which is like hot guys,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (41:07):
Yeah, these are just like pictures of hot people.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
And like we don't know if they have children, we
don't know what age they are.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Like it's just become maybe another term for a hot
person or maybe not even hot, maybe just intellectually sexy.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Wow, I mean, Laurel Sudden would be so proud. We
have reclaimed milf. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
I actually think that's a kind of nice place to
end it, that, like, this term has.
Speaker 2 (41:30):
In effect evolved from sexual thing reserved for I guess moms.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
Or middle aged women to something that's just a compliment
for anyone who's like really bringing it.
Speaker 4 (41:42):
Yeah, I mean, look at us, We've really evolved as
a culture.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
I guess, Susie or milf.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
Thank you so much, Jess. That means so much to me, Jess.
Speaker 4 (41:53):
I want to tease what we're talking about next week
because it's a fun one.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Ooh, do we finally get to talk about my boyfriend
Jordan catalog.
Speaker 4 (42:01):
Yes, we do get to talk about Jordan Catalano, who
was everyone's boyfriend in the nineties, and we also get
to talk about a lot of other subjects.
Speaker 3 (42:08):
Our listeners suggestin ugh.
Speaker 4 (42:10):
Can't wait, this is in retrospect.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 4 (42:18):
Is there a pop culture moment you can't stop thinking
about and want us to explore in a future episode.
Email us at inretropod at gmail dot com, or find
us on Instagram at in retropod.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
If you love this podcast, please rate and review us
on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you
hate it, You can post nasty comments on our Instagram,
which we may or may not delete.
Speaker 4 (42:39):
You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett
and at Susie b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books, Feminist,
Fike Club, and This Is eighteen. In Retrospect is a
production of iHeart.
Speaker 1 (42:50):
Podcasts and The Media. Lauren Hansen is our supervising producer.
Derek Clements is our engineer and sound designer. Emily Meronov
is our producer. Jarana t is our researcher and associate producer.
Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our
executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina Norbel.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
Our artwork is from Pentagram.
Speaker 4 (43:11):
Our mixing engineer is.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Amanda Rose Smith. Additional editing help from Mary Do. We
are your hosts Susie Bannacarum.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
And Jessica Bennett. We are also executive producers.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
For even more, check out in retropod dot com.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
See you next week.
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