February 16, 2023 • 50 mins
- happy season of Love, Virgins!! Fran & Rose delve into romcoms by talking about 80s/90s/kinda fell off in the 00s but love Meryl as Julia!!! rom com queen Nora Ephron
what is the best rom com ever made? tell us @likeavirgin42069
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Let me go to the controversy section of Nora Ephron's
Wikipedia page. Actually there is none. I see no controversy section. Okay, great,
unproblematic queen. Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where
we get yesterday's pop culture, today's takes. I'm ros Damnue
(00:25):
and I'm fran Dorato, and we hope you had a
lovely Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, however you celebrated. Um, we
are jumping right into things this week. No news because
you know, we were too busy, I don't know. Sucking
and fucking and eating chocolate or whatever. Those are the
(00:47):
things that people do on Valentine's Day, right They eat chocolate? Yeah, exactly,
And watch the Fifty Shades of Great trilogy and its entirety,
which is what we covered last year for Valentine's Day.
So go back listened to those episodes if you are
feeling spicy. But this week we are also talking about,
(01:09):
you know, someone who is very prolific when it came
to romance, but from a slightly different perspective, slightly This
week we're talking all about nor Fron, the prolific writer
director of such films as When Harry met Sally sleep
List in Seattle. You've got mailed Julie and Julia and
(01:32):
Queen of the rom com and as Fran just learned,
and as I learned ten minutes before that from looking
at her Wikipedia. She also co wrote Silkwood, which neither
of us have seen. Neither of us has have seen,
despite me being a devout share stand um, I've heard
it's actually good and Share plays a lesbian. There was
also a really great documentary about nor eron Um on
(01:55):
HBO a couple of years ago called Everything Is Copy,
which I did walk but don't remember a lot of Fran.
You you have claimed that you remember more of it.
So do you want to start off by giving a
little context about who Nora Ephron was? Sure? So, Nora
Efron is, you know, one of the better Neppo babies
(02:17):
in our Neppo baby cinematic universe. Her parents were screenwriters,
and she I think pretty quickly got into making films
UM after having a extremely prolific career as a magazine writer. Essentially,
so her work as an essayist was like immediately profound,
(02:39):
recognizable something that everyone saw after UM, and she did
it by simply like kind of captivating the world with
her own voice. And I think you see a Nora
Fron voice in her movies. Right, It's very like conversational.
It's from the first person perspective. It's like blunt and
funny and sometimes mean. And I think like sooner rather
(03:01):
than later, as she sort of took up this residency
at Esquire at a time when there weren't very many
like women writing for magazines, let alone for Esquire, she
kind of just became this like thought leader, like a
kind of socialite thought leader like um, if not intellectual,
that people were who were looking for and like looking
(03:24):
toward to like cultivate the culture. Like she was kind
of famous while she was alive. She was the Tolentino
of her time. She was she kind of she kind
of was. And it's funny like I actually, you know,
I haven't read like a ton of Nora Frans essays
and didn't buy like a compilation of her work when
she died or things like that. I actually only know
her from her movies, and I think that I personally
(03:48):
didn't know the life that she had outside of movies. Right. Um,
it's also so romantic, grows like so romantic compared to
like our experience in magazines, like you know, Nora Fron
was writing alongside like Gay Tolles and like that old
school generation of writers when like they would get paid
thousands and thousands of dollars to write one story totally yeah,
(04:12):
and that one story they would have like three months
to finish. You know, this was a different This was
sort of closer to Carrie Bradshaw's type of journalism. You
could where you could have a weekly column that kept
you in Manila obloics and you know, or Eron had
an even more idyllic version of that going on, not
(04:33):
like us where we were writing you know, like click
bait about Javins, nail polish, Yeah, no, no health insurance, freelancing, begging,
begging editors to give us like two fifty dollars to
write like a four thousand word essay, Um that to
do in two days. Um yeah. It's it's really definitely
a more romantic version of like what it meant to
(04:56):
be a writer before the Internet age. Um yeah. But
those are kind of I think the background things that
are important to know. Um As she kind of went
into her film career and became like the filmmaker nor
Efron as opposed to just the writer nor efron Um.
What about nor Effron, I guess, like, do you have
like a favorite movie of hers? Yes, And I have
(05:19):
argued about this with with my mother fairly recently. I
do think so. According to my mom, she thinks When
Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made,
and I slightly disagree with that, and I think that
of her movies, You've Got Male is definitely my favorite
(05:43):
and part of the reason why I am drawn to
that as opposed to When Harry Met Sally. Even though
I love When Harry Met Sally. It's a fantastic movie.
But When Harry Met Sally nor efron wrote it, but
she didn't directed it, and she wrote and directed You've
(06:04):
Got Mail because she did. She didn't make her directorial
debut until with This Is My Life, and then for
the most part, she directed all of her movies, and
she co wrote most of her films with her sister
Deelia fron Um. But I think, like, obviously it does
kind of make sense that When Harry Met Sally is
(06:24):
written by a woman directed by a man, because like
literally the basis of the film is this question of
can men and women ever really be friends. But I
definitely preferred later in her career, when Nora Ephron was
writing and directing all of her films because they feel
so much more her vision in totality. Um, and I
(06:45):
think that's what I respond to. And I do think
You've Got Mailed is just a perfect romantic comedy. I agree.
I I honestly wish I had ranked, like thought to
like rank the Nora Evon movies that I had, but
I'm pretty sure that that is my favorite too. I
love when Harry met Sally. I think like it is something.
(07:08):
It's a movie that like sweeps you off your feet
in a way that her other films don't. But it's
it's an amazing well both both it and You've Got
My Little amazing New York movies. Yeah, they are their
love letters to New York. And like Nora Afron was
a kind of classic new Yorker, like even her writing
style like sounds like New York, like her literal voice,
(07:31):
the infectiousness of her voice like sounds like what New
York sounds like. Is that corny to say? No, I
think it's true when Harry met Sally also has this
quality that's like I think if you simplified it, like
it could be a play. It could be a play
about these two couples. Because it is kind of about
you know, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and then Carrie
(07:53):
Fisher and whoever the guy is that she ends up dating.
There is something um like theatrical about it. But then
obviously like it's a much bigger story than that. I
I rewatched it last year because I was watching a
lot of rom coms last summer and it's it's such
a great movie. And like, obviously the thing everyone remembers
(08:15):
from when Harry met Sally is the I'll have what
She's having orgasm moment in Katz's Deli. But it's just
it's so clever, and so much of the cleverness is
in the writing, the specificity of the jokes. Um. How
actually like heartfelt it is? Um And of course you know,
(08:36):
the performances are amazing. I'm not like the biggest Billy
Crystal fan, although I do love City Slickers Billy Crystal
hot in this movie, Um, he's not hot, but he
there is that image of him in like the chunky
cabled its sweater that always gets tweeted like in The Fall. Um,
(08:59):
you know, because it's very autumnal. It's well, it's a
very well, it's not a Thanksgiving movie, but it's a
very autumnal movie because the main action of the movie
kind of takes place from like summer to New Year's Eve,
which is when the movie ends. So it's it's super
autumn in New York, which I love. Which also I mean,
(09:21):
we'll get to You've Got Mail later, I think, but
You've Got Mail also has a very big autumnal quality
to it, although I think it's more of a spring movie.
Are all of her movies automn movies honestly, are anything
that Thanksgiving movie? To you? It was just like, yess
a Thanksgiving movie. I mean Sleepless in Seattle, I guess
(09:42):
is a little more winter. It's a little more winter.
I actually have only seen that movie once. Um, but yeah,
I gosh, I feel like I want to be Nora
f Fron. Is that like something that every does every
right or want to be nor every And it feels
like very natural to like want the trajectory and the
(10:05):
success and the kind of cool girl factor that she had,
Like it's I think, so I think a lot of
our friends who are writers are aiming for that kind
of trajectory because, you know, the I I think, not
knowing a lot about her life, I would imagine that
a big part of what launched her was the second
(10:28):
movie she ever wrote was Heartburn, which was adapted from
her novel of the same name, which was like a
sort of auto fiction novel based on her own divorce
when I think her husband cheated on her. Um. I
recently gifted the novel to my grandma for her birthday. UM,
maybe I should read it too, and she and I
can have a little book club moment. But it does
(10:50):
feel like so many of our friends who are writers,
so many people of our generation, especially people who come
from journalism, that is how they launched their careers. They
write memoirs, or they right sort of auto fiction e novels,
and then maybe those get like adapted or like get
like you know, huge like buzzy you know, internet success,
(11:11):
and then from there they go on and either like
write more novels or move into TV and film. Um.
And you know, that is kind of the north Front path.
It really is, especially when you're a Neppo baby. UM.
I God, I wish my parents were screenwriters. That would
have been so much easier, right do you think? Okay,
(11:33):
let's let's answer the question of when Harry met Sally,
do you think women and men can be friends? I
mean she also didn't and she also didn't take non
binary people into accounts, and when I was a man,
we were friends. M I feel like, um, honestly, I'm
(11:56):
literally I'm literally assessing the question. I'm literally as set
saying the question. Well, no, it's a very it's obviously
a question from you know, the gaze of the hetero patriarchy.
Oh see, yeah, Okay, wait what do you mean by that?
Because I'm like trying to evaluate it from like a
heterosexual person in the nineties perspective, like Ken, well, not nineties,
(12:17):
this was in this Yeah, it was really the eighties.
So yes, if you're thinking about if you're a straight
woman in the eighties, can women and men be friends?
I guess is like a more real question. Yeah, yeah,
exactly from the lens of today, Like obviously yes, but
as Phoebe you just said in the chat, why would
(12:39):
she be friends with a man? She spilled you know,
it's funny because like Nora Fron was like a bit
of a quote unquote feminist icon. I and you do
feel like feminism imbued in her work, especially in like
a line like that, can heterosexual men and women women
be friends? I honestly can't think of a single example. Well,
(13:00):
I think the thing is that straight guys are always
trying to fuck literally everyone every woman around them. So
maybe from the woman's perspective, um, how is her work feminist? Her? Her?
She always writes these strong characters, these strong women, characters
(13:21):
that don't give a fun I'm not talking about I
don't think she was acclaimed as a feminist because of
her um screenwriting work. I think that by the time
she was writing for Esquire. So when she when she
was invited to write for Esquire, which at this point
in her career, she her her writing was already taking off.
(13:41):
They were like, what do you want to write about?
You can write about anything you want, which is like
an offer that like every writer would dream of from
the editor and Esquire. And she was like, I want
to write about women. And so she spent the whole
time writing from a women's perspective about women for men
in a way that I think is like kind of profound,
and and and her angle, like when she was um,
(14:04):
when she was on this like cusp of like whatever
wave of feminism was happening at this time, with like
glorious with Gloria Steinham literally like she was like one
of Gloria Stadiams peers um. I think she felt like
feminist discourse at the time was like so unfun right.
She was like, no one is like willing to self critique,
no one's having any fun with it, no one is
(14:26):
being honest, like, no one is like kind of no
one's taking it there like I'm going to take it
there with feminist writing. And I think that her bluntness
and her willingness to say like yeah, like I like,
what's a stupid examples like she wrote this like this
this story about breasts and how women always want their
(14:49):
breasts to be bigger and like what's in what how? How? Um?
Yes exactly exactly as we pull out our heads like
and and she would write about like, oh yeah, like
I want my breast to be bigger, as does that
not make me a feminist? And like why are women
so insecure about hers? She was writing about insecurities a
lot of the time. I think you see that in
her films. I think I think you see that in
(15:10):
her essays. It's like kind of in her personality. She's
not afraid to self deprecate and to acknowledge her shortcomings
and to and to say like, yeah, like you know,
I want X, Y and Z. That might be superficial,
but this is what I want. And I think that
at the time, especially when you're in the middle of
movement work, you don't really want to acknowledge all your
flaws along with it. You don't want to add that
(15:33):
kind of nuance. And she did, right, she was like,
this is everything else we're bringing to feminism. Um, I
think I honestly like, that's just my guess. You you asked,
You asked the question, and I think that's kind of
how I understood it. I wonder what, I think it's
better if we don't know. I kind of yeah, I
(15:55):
kind of thinking she might be in in you know,
(16:17):
moving forward in her career, the next big film and
probably the thing that put her on the map as
as a filmmaker as well as a writer. Um with
Sleepless in Seattle, which probably for most people is like
the romantic comedy. Like I think when you talk about
(16:39):
the lexicon of romantic comedies, Sleepless in Seattle looms larger
than any although for me, I don't think it would
even be in my top five, maybe not in my
top ten. What top ten nor Aron movies? No, I'm
talking top ten romantic comedies. Oh, I was talking about
Nora Afron movies. Yeah, I would not be in my
(16:59):
act sual romcom ranking. You know, Sleepless in Seattle is
a great movie. I love the Rose O'donald's in it.
Um for anyone who you know has never seen it,
it's about um, this little boy who like calls into
a radio show looking for um a woman for his
(17:19):
dad and Meg Ryan looking for a woman. She and
Tom Hanks fall in love somehow and then meet on
the umpire state ble to get the end of it.
It's it's It's sorry. This is the only thing I'm
contributing to the conversation. You want Tom Hanks's load in
(17:40):
this movie, right, like this is one where you are
Tom Hanks, Um, not not in this movie the movie
that I want Tom Hanks's load in Splash One of
the Way, which which which for for like a virgin,
for like a virgin lore Splash was one of the
(18:01):
things that made us want to do this podcast, and
we recorded this test episode talking about Splash because we
went on we went on a vacation to Joshua Treat,
but it actually was sort of like a retreat to
like basically blot out on the deck of this podcast
(18:22):
and an excuse for us to write it off. Yes,
and Splash is one of my favorite movies, one of
my favorite rom coms, and Norah Fron famously wrote and
directed Splash. Well you know where Nora Efron is the
seed of this episode, but it's talking into a beautiful
garden that is more generally about and Splash is a
(18:44):
great romantic comedy starring Daryl Hannah and a young hot
Tom Hanks. Load. I remember if I remember his butt.
I remember you pointing out his butt and being like,
look at his butt, and I was like, WHOA. I
actually did not expect that from Tom Hanks. It was
a bit of a dump truck. It's a it's a
very horny movie that he and Darryl Hammon has a
(19:06):
lot of something that's so baffling. He loves having sex
with her so much that he locks her inside of
like a hotel room or something like that. Doesn't he
lock the mermaid inside a room He like literally holds
her captive so he can fuck her. But that's not
how it's. It's it's some weird. It's some weird vibes.
(19:29):
That also also it stars a young Eugene Levy. No
Eugene Levy would get you his nose. It's about the nose.
Um wait, okay, that's some pretty good lore. Actually, like
wasn't I think the first things we ever watched were
Splash and then I think, oh my god, to a
(19:53):
Mrs Doubtfire episode because you know, it's one of my
favorite films. Okay, okay, okay, are there any other? So
there are fast forwarding a little further in in nor
Fron's career. Um is You've Got Mail in my favorite
of her films and definitely up in my like top
(20:17):
five romantic comedies of all time. Um it is a
for anyone who doesn't know and if you have never
seen You've Got Mail, I like literally can't believe you're
listening to this podcast. Um it's. It stars Meg Brian
as the owner of a charming little children's bookstore on
the Upper West Side, and she is um sort of
(20:40):
priced out of the neighborhood because a big bookstore, UM,
like a sort of Barnes Noble type store that is
run by Tom Hanks moves into the neighborhood and they
are secretly Internet pen pals and fall in love and
it is just the sweetest, funniest but also kind of mean,
(21:05):
like most New York and like specifically Upper West Side
ass romantic comedy. It's so nineties, but like turn of
the century nineties because of the A O L of
it all. Parker Posey is in it, UM and she's incredible.
Greg Kneer isn't it He's Meg Ryan's boyfriend at the beginning.
(21:29):
Dave Chappelle is in it. Dave Chappelle, Um, this movie
like captures like um. This this extremely specific era of
at least our lives like this generation's lives were. Then
the internet felt so new and scary and thrilling, like
(21:51):
like this. Sending your first emails like that was such
a Do you remember what they felt like? Do you
ever any idea what first email was or like, what
your first incidence is, what message was? No, but I
do have a lot. I have so many memories of
logging onto a O. L. And specifically to read fand fiction.
(22:13):
You know. This was so um, this was such an
important time for the formation of almost everything about my identity.
One of the few things that I can remember are
I remember having a girlfriend at the time. Her name
was Katie Crow. I was in seventh grade. I remember
chatting with her over email and writing like cute emails
(22:36):
to each other back and forth. And I remember taking
forever to decide the font and font color of my
you know, and the background color, which was usually a
cloudy rainbow, which yeah, I think that, like that was
the thing that like I obsessed over. I was like,
what the fund is the font? And this was this
(22:57):
was the time of you know, children, our little gen
Z listeners if you exist, you know, this was the
time when you had one family computer that everyone shared.
Mine was our our house that we lived and had
an enclosed patio in the back and that's where the
computer was. And I would go out there like early
(23:19):
in the morning so I could log onto a well
and ten minutes later once I was finally online. After that, um,
then I would you know, read my little Buffy fan
fictions and stuff, um and chat with probably like you know,
(23:40):
fifty year old men who wanted to murder me and
you were just a little girl. It was just a
little quote unquote girl. Um yeah, I god, I just
I I miss when the Internet was like at this
cusp um, I do you so long to do anything? Yeah,
(24:00):
But like our brains were better, Our brains were like
Nora Afron, that's honestly, like when I was exactly no, truly,
like are the Internet ruined our brains? That? I think honestly,
there's something a little nostalgic about It's so weird to
be nostalgic for a period that like we lived through.
But there is a nostalgia to the kind of cinematic
(24:21):
universe of Nora Afron's characters and this kind of pre
Internet purity that oh god, yeah, I'm just jealous of.
I like I missed that. I missed when writers didn't
have to write about the Internet. Like now that we're
in this like era of like work, like we can't
really have any of our conversations without acknowledging how social
(24:44):
media is influencing them or maybe like that it's like
about social media or like about some viral trend in
some way, And I don't know, I missed this like
kind of cuspol analog time. Um, it is nice to
think about the Internet being something that you had to work,
that you had to work for, that you had to
(25:04):
put an effort to access, and that was actually a
barrier of entry for a lot of people. And I'm
sure at the time this movie came out, UM, this
was very much a novelty UM using the Internet in
this way. And like it makes sense that these the
leads of this film were like coastal elites, like you know,
(25:25):
sort of like intellectual like book people, um, who were
falling in love online. UM. But also I don't know,
like the idea of love letters and like, um, you
know mistaken identities is so romantic. But I do think
this film is PROBLEMATICUM. I mean it's enemies to lovers.
(25:49):
But then you know, halfway the whole twist is that
halfway through the film, Tom Hanks realizes that it's Meg
Ryan who he's talking to online because they're supposed to
meet I r L. And then he kind of like
uses his knowledge of her to get her to fall
in love with him I r L. And then you know,
(26:10):
by the by the end of the film when they
actually do meet, she says I wanted it to be you,
which like is a is a great line, it's so romantic,
but also like he fully manipulated and her. You know.
The thing is like if she didn't say that line
I wanted it to be you, the movie would have
such a different ending, like it would be I think
(26:33):
it would be easy to assume that she like hated
his guss and she's like, you're dead to me forever,
you know, like you needed her to say that in
order to have that little Well, she was clearly in
love with him by the end, but he was using
in their actual lives once they started spending time together.
He was using the information he got from her when
they were anonymous to get her to fall in love
(26:54):
with him. Maybe she knew it was him all time,
and she she wanted him to know these things. I know.
I don't know about that. No, I don't think so either.
I was gonna say, um this again with this movie,
like it feels like, oh god, I feel I don't
want to be a redundant because like in our Julie
Roberts episode, we were like, they don't make movie stars
(27:16):
like this anymore, but like I do feel like they
like there there aren't writers like nor Fron anymore. It's like,
you know what I mean, Like she belongs to this
kind of internet cost generation of writers that like, we'll
just I don't know, I don't will never We don't
get writers that are so magnanimous and on every single
talk show the way nor Efron wasn't every single talk show,
(27:40):
and like was actually famous during her time. Well, I
think also what it is is that the um the
romantic comedy is kind of dead. Um. This nor Efron's um.
You know, heyday was the golden age of the romantic comedy,
(28:03):
which I would I would argue was really the nineties, um,
when we were like post sexual liberation and pre you know,
jaded internet era. Um. And she, you know, she was
the perfect writer for her time, Like there are these
(28:25):
ones in a generation people, I think. And of course,
like you know, she was speaking for a very privileged, white, sis,
hetero like elite idea of life and love, of course,
but you know it clearly did captivate a nation in
the world in a way. And so yeah, I think
(28:47):
she was she was this handah horvat one to be
the voice of her generation, or at least a voice
of a Generation. Her last films were two five Bewitched remake,
(29:15):
which actually watched kind of recently. I think On a
Plane really is Yeah, I mean it's awful. It's it's
so bad, but but it's still I mean, it's still
has like some charming dialogue and Nicole Kidman's charming. Will
Ferrell is just like woefully miscast. Kristin chenowis in it
and like she's great. Of course, Michael Caine's fab But
(29:36):
did you just it's you didn't like the movie? Is
there anything else? If you remember about it? It's just
like a bad framing of the movie. I think, like meta, right, Yeah,
it's about an actor, like a sort of like washed
up actor who's making a reboot TV show of Bewitched,
and it did kind of predict reboot culture. But then
(30:00):
an actual which gets cast in it and they fall
in love and it's just like stupid um. But then
her last film was Julia and Julia, which is I
think an incredible movie if you only watch the Julia
child scenes. Oh yeah, of course. I mean I've seen
the YouTube version called and Julia. That is the movie
(30:23):
with Amy Adams cut out of it. It's much better.
And totally watch the ball and Meryl Streep is incredible
as Julia Child. Okay, it should be said Meryl Streep
with Stanley Tucci. With Stanley Tucci very important. And I
love how how into each other they are, like they fuck,
they want to ravish each other. It's so cute. I
(30:47):
don't understand how there's that HBO Max Julia Child show
that that literally in the midst of everything going on,
HBO got renewed for a second season when we already
have kind of the definitive portrayal of Julia Child in media.
Meryl Street, Yeah, yeah, it really is. Um it doesn't
(31:09):
it doesn't quite make sense, but you know, reboot culture,
it's going to happen. Well, okay, I want to talk
more about romantic comedies in general and like where nor
Efron fits into it, because you know, as we've said,
she does kind of she's the the part of the
romantic comedy landscape that's like very you know, like intellectual,
(31:32):
a little jaded, a little cynical, very New York very
you know, like coastal elite. I would say, like you
have fucking Nancy Meyers on one end of the spectrum,
you know, she's making I would say, like more West
Coast romantic comedies, like big, big white kitchen comedies. Um.
(31:54):
And then nor Efron is like East Coast. You know,
she's making small you know, exposed brick kitchen. Um, still
still very nice kitch, still very expensive kitchen. So they're
they're the two coasts. Um. But you know, like like
their characters, I think there's like a shared cinematic universe
(32:15):
that their characters live in. I think so. I mean
I frequently kind of like lump Nancy and Nora like
in in the same kind of category in my brain,
even though the writing is so different. I am like
such a Nancy Meyers stand. Like, as I said on
the pod before, I love like, you know, movies about
like white women in crisis, like wealthy women who are
(32:36):
going through it emotionally. Um. But yeah, no, they're there.
I think West Coast East Coast is like the perfect assessment,
like there is something Nancy Myers movies are just sorry,
like so much more shallow, Like they don't they don't
have the voice Nora has. Like there Nora is, at
the end of the day, the thing that has stuck
(32:59):
with Nora through the entirety of her career and something
that we remember her for, even if we don't say
it explicitly, was like her voice, like she had a
very yeah the right the writing is Fancy does that
Nancy doesn't? You know? Um? But god, but think about
Nancy's She was like having so much fun. I want
to write any Myers movie not a Nora Afron movie,
(33:19):
you know what I mean? Yeah, I wish, I do
wish that Julia Roberts had been in um, an Nora
Efron movie at something. But but Meg Ryan is so
is the Nora Efron protagonist? Like that is the kind
of woman she was writing, I don't know, just like
(33:40):
a white blood woman with short hair with with anxious
speaking patterns. Yes, um I am. I love Meg Ryan.
She was certainly a mother at some at one point
in the culture. Um and I will always love her,
especially for being the voice of Anastasia in the animated
film Anastasia. Oh God, I forgot about that. And that
(34:03):
movie was stacked. It had Christen Dunce, It had um
John qu Sack, Uh, Angela no no, Bernadette Peters, oh yeah,
and Angela Lansbury. Um that Kelsey Grammar, Um yeah, Meg Ryan?
Wait there was another really, oh Hankazaria? Yes? And then
(34:27):
who was who was Resputen? It was like Christopher Christopher Lloyd. Okay, Um,
have we already talked about how rest we need you? We?
Should we do an Anna station episode? Should we do?
Should we do our Russian Dynasty episode? Um? Sure? Have
you ever read we could we could do like a
non and Disney animated movie, um? Episode? Because I think
(34:52):
Anastasia is one of those movies that everyone thinks as
a Disney movie but it's not. And there were quite
a few of those in the nineties when others studios
started to get in on the animation game that Disney
had like sort of created a monopoly around. Have you
have you ever read about when Risputant died? Yes? Like
how like how he died? It's so crazy. He died
(35:15):
like he like got shot like three times and then
was like beaten to death and stabbed and thrown in
a river, like a frozen river. And that's how I
want to go. Yes, And and it didn't in That's
what I'm gonna do to you. But his body they
found that he died from like like freezing, like he
didn't die from the gunshot. Runs or stabbing or anything.
(35:37):
It's crazy. It's also crazy that when they adapted Anastasia
into a Broadway musical that I never saw, they cut
rascipute in from it, and his song is one of
the best songs in the film. I wonder why is
it like too dark or was because? I think because
they did they didn't want it to be magical. Yeah, okay,
(35:58):
that's fair, which is boring? This fuck? Um? I remember you?
Will you watch season five of The Crown, the episode
about the Romanofs where they showed them all getting executed
at the beginning. Oh my, that episode is so gaggy.
They really pretty gay. Yeah, they popped a couple of
bullets off into the Romanofs. Oh my god, it's so sad.
(36:23):
Meg Ryan Love love her. Who are the other like
rom com diva is obviously Julia Roberts We've talked about. Um,
Jennifer Lopez. Monster in Law is one of my favorite
rom coms. Would definitely be on the like top ten list.
Queen Latifa is a rom com diva. Last Holiday is
(36:44):
she really is? Although he was? She? Did she do
any other? Oh Rene Salwagger, Bridget Jones. I've never seen
Bridget Jones Diary. What I've never seen an Oh my god,
I wrong with you? Are those Christmas movies? Um? Yeah,
(37:05):
kind of. I always well, I always watch Bridget Jones
Diary in the period between Christmas and New Year's because
it starts on New Year's Day. So mate, we'll do that.
You know, at the end of this year, I can't
believe you've never seen Bridget jes Diary. It's going to
(37:29):
rock your world. Okay, we'll do an episode on it.
Let's do it done, and it's gonna be and you're
gonna be feel insane when they talk about how fat
she is when she's like not fat. Wait, there are
jokes about how fat she is. Hold that she's like
fat and she's like, you know, she weighs like a
(37:49):
hundred fifteen pounds. God. There's been so much discussion about
how kind of romantic comedies are a lost art, and
we did we did touch on this, you know, in
the Julia Roberts episode, which definitely go back and listen
to that if you haven't heard it. But the era
of rom comms was also the era of movie stars,
(38:10):
and that's what a lot of these films were sold on.
By having these movie stars in the starring roles so
that it almost didn't matter what the movies were about.
People were coming to them to see these stars fall
in love over and over again. And we kind of
don't have that anymore. And now rom comms really are
(38:33):
the main place they exist is on streaming, and so
you know, there's maybe something to be said about how,
you know, streaming could create this like renaissance of rom
comms because they are you know, like cheaper to make
than big budget blockbusters than like Marvel movies, and they
(38:56):
might just not ever reach the same you know, highs
of popularity and like universal peel that the rom coms
of of yester year of year old he hot times times.
I was gonna say, yeah, I think that a lot
of the reason that we don't have like the volume
(39:16):
of rom coms that we used to is has a
lot to do with streaming and with like kind of
the Marvel stuff. Just as you said, like, I think
that because the blockbuster movies are all actions now, it's
almost like these got scooted out. Um, maybe because the
movies of the two thousand's, like the late two thousand's
are like bad, like the romantic comedies were like not
(39:38):
on the level. It's just you feel like nostalgic for
like what a rom com used to feel like before
social media and before like millennials started making things like
Love Simon and like Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist like
like or or a five Days of Summer like that
that actually feels like But those are kind of romantic
(39:58):
drama das most you think they don't count it. You
don't think five hundred days of Summer that's a rom com,
isn't it. Maybe, Um, well, there really, there really is
a renaissance of romance, but it's happening in books. Um,
you know, like there is a huge market now on
book talk for romance. You know, we've talked about like
(40:21):
all the those books with like vector cover art of
little cartoon people. Like that's the biggest part of the
book industry outside of like you know, huge sci fi
novels is romance, and a lot of them are being
adapted into TV shows and movies. But it is books
more than anything, um that are selling. You know. You
(40:43):
look at like the like Colleen Hoover, which I've never
read a Colleen Hoover book, but um, the Seven Husbands
of Evelyn Hugo bitch Um, Taylor Jenkins read Emily Henry,
who's whose books I like, although I've heard that her
book that's coming out this year is not very good. Um,
but these books are like are like romance first, and
(41:05):
then some of them are funny, and then some of
them are dramatic, and it's more about the romance of
it all than the comedy of it. And I think
what what was so amazing about Nora Fron's work, and
I think why she maybe even haralded the age of
romantic comedies is that the emphasis I think was always
(41:25):
on the comedy and the characters, and the romance was
really the container for that. That's a good way of
putting it. Yeah, it's just like it's like the framing
is kind of what made I think, the framing and
the lens on it is like what made it so great.
I would like to see more queer rom colms, specifically
(41:46):
because like you know, we were all kind of tired
of the like sad gay period stuff and and like
you know, I also talk a lot about how I like,
you know, gay historical erotica, but those are usually not comedies,
although sometimes they're funny, but they're not specifically comedies. I
(42:06):
also like, wouldn't even really call Red White and Royal
Blue a rom com what? No, I would call it
a romance novel. I would call it a young adult
I would not young. I would call it a new
adult because that's like the categorization that exists now. I
would call it a new adult queer romance. Um, it
is funny, but it's not a comedy. Wait, Phoebe dropped
(42:30):
in the Chat Happiest Season as a roum? Did you watch?
Did we? Did we ever talk about that? Yeah? I
watched it when it came out. I rewatched it this
past Christmas season. Well, um, I was at my best
friend Ryan's moms for Christmas and she had never seen it,
so we watched it on Christmas Day. That bad. I
(42:53):
think it's I think it's good. I think it's a
cute movie that that has problems. The problems are mostly
that one of the romantic leads is irredeemable, is irredeemable
and Christ and Stewart should end up with opry Plaza.
But I still think it's a It's a well made
(43:15):
movie with some really good performances. Yeah, it is a
well made movie, and it does have good performances. That's
very diplomatic. The cannon of queer rom coms is so
small that you know, we kind of have to take
what we can get, and like I do hope we
get to the point where that's not true. I'm trying.
I'm putting in the work now to make sure that
(43:37):
you know the genre is expanded like I as as
I have alluded too many times, I'm in the process
of writing a queer romantic comedy and you know, look
out for that whenever I finish it plus probably two years. Um.
You you know you you've consumed a lot of roum
coms as market research for this book. Did you learn
(43:59):
anything new? Well, not necessarily like market research. More I
want to write something that is like aware of the
genre it exists in UM and like I think tropes
are very interesting and like it's fun to riff off
of them and to acknowledge them and be aware of them. Um.
(44:21):
Did you learn anything new in this in this exploratory
period about raum commas, specifically, anything you noted? Well? Yeah,
I think what I learned is that, you know, I
kind of had this revelation last summer, which is that
I was I was dealing a lot with um, worrying
(44:41):
that what I was writing was to the thinking that
I needed to make the story I was writing more
like general and like accessible to a wider audience. And
what I kind of realized was that, no, in making
my story as specific as possible, that is what would
(45:02):
make people want to read it. Um. And so that's
I think what I learned from watching a lot of
rom coms and also just consuming a lot of queer
media and kind of Bros in particular. Rose, Oh my god,
but we are not gonna we are not going to
(45:22):
speak about Bros. No, we don't. There's nothing left that
needs to be said about Bros. But God, do you
think Bros Is going to ruin it for the future
of all gay rom coms? Do you think that I
don't think will get a green light anymore? Okay, good,
because we need to make some movies. Rose, Yes, Um,
who would you want to play your love interest in
(45:42):
a rom com? Adam Driver? Definitely for a ent sure,
Adam Driver. Adam Driver in a transamorous relationship. That's all
I've ever wanted. What about you? Um? Kiki Palmer Balmer
Stanley Tucci, Stanley Palmer and Stanley Tucci, and we like
(46:05):
form a polycule. Yeah, you're in a throuble with We're
in a May December. I'm now trying to imagine when
a March May December polycule. I'm trying to imagine Stanley Tucci.
We need a throuble rom com. Although I absolutely support
(46:27):
polyamory and throubles, I don't particularly like reading about them
because like, yeah, I'm very much drawn to like two
people being in love and like, but that's also just
kind of the way I was socialized. So I'm trying
to unlearn that there should be throuble representation in rom coms. Like,
(46:48):
we have never had a polycule rom com. We've never
had Well, what I always what I always wondered about
the favorite is why didn't they just Why weren't they
just in a throuble? There are a lot of movies
that are like, why aren't they just another terrible I mean,
my best friend's wedding, Why aren't they just in a trouble?
That's true because I do think that Julia and Cameron
(47:09):
how to vibe. Yeah, but I always think I always
think everyone has a vibe and everything I watched famously,
do you think everything has a vibe? Um? And you
know what, I think nor Evron would agree with me.
I honestly, nor Efron would be so problematic about polyamorous
relationships if she were like problematic about a lot of things. Yeah,
thank god she like died before the internet like really
(47:31):
became a same. Don't say that's so horrible. We love you,
We do love you, but you probably would have hated
the Internet too. I mean you kind of did well. Anyways,
I was going to say, there needs to be Polly
representation in romances, like how come we have not had
like a Polly Disney princess, Like we need we need
(47:52):
Polly Nora Efron movies. We need um, Yeah, we need
like not we have not reached the representation part of
the conversation. No, we have. We were fifty minutes. Representation
doesn't matter. Representation matters, and we need polycueles on screen
(48:13):
that we need. We need a Disney princess who felch is?
I want to see a rom come with Felching in it.
That's when that's when I'll know that we really have
reached Um. It's a queer utopia in media. Will you
remind me what felching is? I feel like when you
eat your own come out of someone after you've come
(48:34):
in them. How did you not know that the version
the woman was too stun to speak? Have you never
felt someone or been felched? No? No? No? Really? Well
you don't let you don't love come the way I
love come Bobe, Phoebe has Babe has felched. I really
(48:56):
I really wish, I really wished. I really wish that
I was on that level. Honestly, I honestly feel ashamed.
I wish I had felched. Well, nor Evron. I hope
that before you left us you learned what felching is,
and I think you r I p nor Efron, you
would have loved felching. You can follow our burner account
(49:23):
at Like a Virgin Fine. We will be keeping you
updated on an extra special announcement on the coming episodes.
Um stay tuned for more surprises. Follow me at France
Squish go and follow Rose Dammo at Rose Damu anywhere
you want on social You can leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts or rating on Spotify and Like a Virgin,
(49:45):
Isn't I Heart Radio Production? Our producer is Phoebe Unter
with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etre Until next week,
See you later versions. Bye,
Let me go to the controversy section of Nora Ephron's
Wikipedia page. Actually there is none. I see no controversy section. Okay, great,
unproblematic queen. Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where
we get yesterday's pop culture, today's takes. I'm ros Damnue
(00:25):
and I'm fran Dorato, and we hope you had a
lovely Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day, however you celebrated. Um, we
are jumping right into things this week. No news because
you know, we were too busy, I don't know. Sucking
and fucking and eating chocolate or whatever. Those are the
(00:47):
things that people do on Valentine's Day, right They eat chocolate? Yeah, exactly,
And watch the Fifty Shades of Great trilogy and its entirety,
which is what we covered last year for Valentine's Day.
So go back listened to those episodes if you are
feeling spicy. But this week we are also talking about,
(01:09):
you know, someone who is very prolific when it came
to romance, but from a slightly different perspective, slightly This
week we're talking all about nor Fron, the prolific writer
director of such films as When Harry met Sally sleep
List in Seattle. You've got mailed Julie and Julia and
(01:32):
Queen of the rom com and as Fran just learned,
and as I learned ten minutes before that from looking
at her Wikipedia. She also co wrote Silkwood, which neither
of us have seen. Neither of us has have seen,
despite me being a devout share stand um, I've heard
it's actually good and Share plays a lesbian. There was
also a really great documentary about nor eron Um on
(01:55):
HBO a couple of years ago called Everything Is Copy,
which I did walk but don't remember a lot of Fran.
You you have claimed that you remember more of it.
So do you want to start off by giving a
little context about who Nora Ephron was? Sure? So, Nora
Efron is, you know, one of the better Neppo babies
(02:17):
in our Neppo baby cinematic universe. Her parents were screenwriters,
and she I think pretty quickly got into making films
UM after having a extremely prolific career as a magazine writer. Essentially,
so her work as an essayist was like immediately profound,
(02:39):
recognizable something that everyone saw after UM, and she did
it by simply like kind of captivating the world with
her own voice. And I think you see a Nora
Fron voice in her movies. Right, It's very like conversational.
It's from the first person perspective. It's like blunt and
funny and sometimes mean. And I think like sooner rather
(03:01):
than later, as she sort of took up this residency
at Esquire at a time when there weren't very many
like women writing for magazines, let alone for Esquire, she
kind of just became this like thought leader, like a
kind of socialite thought leader like um, if not intellectual,
that people were who were looking for and like looking
(03:24):
toward to like cultivate the culture. Like she was kind
of famous while she was alive. She was the Tolentino
of her time. She was she kind of she kind
of was. And it's funny like I actually, you know,
I haven't read like a ton of Nora Frans essays
and didn't buy like a compilation of her work when
she died or things like that. I actually only know
her from her movies, and I think that I personally
(03:48):
didn't know the life that she had outside of movies. Right. Um,
it's also so romantic, grows like so romantic compared to
like our experience in magazines, like you know, Nora Fron
was writing alongside like Gay Tolles and like that old
school generation of writers when like they would get paid
thousands and thousands of dollars to write one story totally yeah,
(04:12):
and that one story they would have like three months
to finish. You know, this was a different This was
sort of closer to Carrie Bradshaw's type of journalism. You
could where you could have a weekly column that kept
you in Manila obloics and you know, or Eron had
an even more idyllic version of that going on, not
(04:33):
like us where we were writing you know, like click
bait about Javins, nail polish, Yeah, no, no health insurance, freelancing, begging,
begging editors to give us like two fifty dollars to
write like a four thousand word essay, Um that to
do in two days. Um yeah. It's it's really definitely
a more romantic version of like what it meant to
(04:56):
be a writer before the Internet age. Um yeah. But
those are kind of I think the background things that
are important to know. Um As she kind of went
into her film career and became like the filmmaker nor
Efron as opposed to just the writer nor efron Um.
What about nor Effron, I guess, like, do you have
like a favorite movie of hers? Yes, And I have
(05:19):
argued about this with with my mother fairly recently. I
do think so. According to my mom, she thinks When
Harry Met Sally is the best romantic comedy ever made,
and I slightly disagree with that, and I think that
of her movies, You've Got Male is definitely my favorite
(05:43):
and part of the reason why I am drawn to
that as opposed to When Harry Met Sally. Even though
I love When Harry Met Sally. It's a fantastic movie.
But When Harry Met Sally nor efron wrote it, but
she didn't directed it, and she wrote and directed You've
(06:04):
Got Mail because she did. She didn't make her directorial
debut until with This Is My Life, and then for
the most part, she directed all of her movies, and
she co wrote most of her films with her sister
Deelia fron Um. But I think, like, obviously it does
kind of make sense that When Harry Met Sally is
(06:24):
written by a woman directed by a man, because like
literally the basis of the film is this question of
can men and women ever really be friends. But I
definitely preferred later in her career, when Nora Ephron was
writing and directing all of her films because they feel
so much more her vision in totality. Um, and I
(06:45):
think that's what I respond to. And I do think
You've Got Mailed is just a perfect romantic comedy. I agree.
I I honestly wish I had ranked, like thought to
like rank the Nora Evon movies that I had, but
I'm pretty sure that that is my favorite too. I
love when Harry met Sally. I think like it is something.
(07:08):
It's a movie that like sweeps you off your feet
in a way that her other films don't. But it's
it's an amazing well both both it and You've Got
My Little amazing New York movies. Yeah, they are their
love letters to New York. And like Nora Afron was
a kind of classic new Yorker, like even her writing
style like sounds like New York, like her literal voice,
(07:31):
the infectiousness of her voice like sounds like what New
York sounds like. Is that corny to say? No, I
think it's true when Harry met Sally also has this
quality that's like I think if you simplified it, like
it could be a play. It could be a play
about these two couples. Because it is kind of about
you know, Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal and then Carrie
(07:53):
Fisher and whoever the guy is that she ends up dating.
There is something um like theatrical about it. But then
obviously like it's a much bigger story than that. I
I rewatched it last year because I was watching a
lot of rom coms last summer and it's it's such
a great movie. And like, obviously the thing everyone remembers
(08:15):
from when Harry met Sally is the I'll have what
She's having orgasm moment in Katz's Deli. But it's just
it's so clever, and so much of the cleverness is
in the writing, the specificity of the jokes. Um. How
actually like heartfelt it is? Um And of course you know,
(08:36):
the performances are amazing. I'm not like the biggest Billy
Crystal fan, although I do love City Slickers Billy Crystal
hot in this movie, Um, he's not hot, but he
there is that image of him in like the chunky
cabled its sweater that always gets tweeted like in The Fall. Um,
(08:59):
you know, because it's very autumnal. It's well, it's a
very well, it's not a Thanksgiving movie, but it's a
very autumnal movie because the main action of the movie
kind of takes place from like summer to New Year's Eve,
which is when the movie ends. So it's it's super
autumn in New York, which I love. Which also I mean,
(09:21):
we'll get to You've Got Mail later, I think, but
You've Got Mail also has a very big autumnal quality
to it, although I think it's more of a spring movie.
Are all of her movies automn movies honestly, are anything
that Thanksgiving movie? To you? It was just like, yess
a Thanksgiving movie. I mean Sleepless in Seattle, I guess
(09:42):
is a little more winter. It's a little more winter.
I actually have only seen that movie once. Um, but yeah,
I gosh, I feel like I want to be Nora
f Fron. Is that like something that every does every
right or want to be nor every And it feels
like very natural to like want the trajectory and the
(10:05):
success and the kind of cool girl factor that she had,
Like it's I think, so I think a lot of
our friends who are writers are aiming for that kind
of trajectory because, you know, the I I think, not
knowing a lot about her life, I would imagine that
a big part of what launched her was the second
(10:28):
movie she ever wrote was Heartburn, which was adapted from
her novel of the same name, which was like a
sort of auto fiction novel based on her own divorce
when I think her husband cheated on her. Um. I
recently gifted the novel to my grandma for her birthday. UM,
maybe I should read it too, and she and I
can have a little book club moment. But it does
(10:50):
feel like so many of our friends who are writers,
so many people of our generation, especially people who come
from journalism, that is how they launched their careers. They
write memoirs, or they right sort of auto fiction e novels,
and then maybe those get like adapted or like get
like you know, huge like buzzy you know, internet success,
(11:11):
and then from there they go on and either like
write more novels or move into TV and film. Um.
And you know, that is kind of the north Front path.
It really is, especially when you're a Neppo baby. UM.
I God, I wish my parents were screenwriters. That would
have been so much easier, right do you think? Okay,
(11:33):
let's let's answer the question of when Harry met Sally,
do you think women and men can be friends? I
mean she also didn't and she also didn't take non
binary people into accounts, and when I was a man,
we were friends. M I feel like, um, honestly, I'm
(11:56):
literally I'm literally assessing the question. I'm literally as set
saying the question. Well, no, it's a very it's obviously
a question from you know, the gaze of the hetero patriarchy.
Oh see, yeah, Okay, wait what do you mean by that?
Because I'm like trying to evaluate it from like a
heterosexual person in the nineties perspective, like Ken, well, not nineties,
(12:17):
this was in this Yeah, it was really the eighties.
So yes, if you're thinking about if you're a straight
woman in the eighties, can women and men be friends?
I guess is like a more real question. Yeah, yeah,
exactly from the lens of today, Like obviously yes, but
as Phoebe you just said in the chat, why would
(12:39):
she be friends with a man? She spilled you know,
it's funny because like Nora Fron was like a bit
of a quote unquote feminist icon. I and you do
feel like feminism imbued in her work, especially in like
a line like that, can heterosexual men and women women
be friends? I honestly can't think of a single example. Well,
(13:00):
I think the thing is that straight guys are always
trying to fuck literally everyone every woman around them. So
maybe from the woman's perspective, um, how is her work feminist? Her? Her?
She always writes these strong characters, these strong women, characters
(13:21):
that don't give a fun I'm not talking about I
don't think she was acclaimed as a feminist because of
her um screenwriting work. I think that by the time
she was writing for Esquire. So when she when she
was invited to write for Esquire, which at this point
in her career, she her her writing was already taking off.
(13:41):
They were like, what do you want to write about?
You can write about anything you want, which is like
an offer that like every writer would dream of from
the editor and Esquire. And she was like, I want
to write about women. And so she spent the whole
time writing from a women's perspective about women for men
in a way that I think is like kind of profound,
and and and her angle, like when she was um,
(14:04):
when she was on this like cusp of like whatever
wave of feminism was happening at this time, with like
glorious with Gloria Steinham literally like she was like one
of Gloria Stadiams peers um. I think she felt like
feminist discourse at the time was like so unfun right.
She was like, no one is like willing to self critique,
no one's having any fun with it, no one is
(14:26):
being honest, like, no one is like kind of no
one's taking it there like I'm going to take it
there with feminist writing. And I think that her bluntness
and her willingness to say like yeah, like I like,
what's a stupid examples like she wrote this like this
this story about breasts and how women always want their
(14:49):
breasts to be bigger and like what's in what how? How? Um?
Yes exactly exactly as we pull out our heads like
and and she would write about like, oh yeah, like
I want my breast to be bigger, as does that
not make me a feminist? And like why are women
so insecure about hers? She was writing about insecurities a
lot of the time. I think you see that in
her films. I think I think you see that in
(15:10):
her essays. It's like kind of in her personality. She's
not afraid to self deprecate and to acknowledge her shortcomings
and to and to say like, yeah, like you know,
I want X, Y and Z. That might be superficial,
but this is what I want. And I think that
at the time, especially when you're in the middle of
movement work, you don't really want to acknowledge all your
flaws along with it. You don't want to add that
(15:33):
kind of nuance. And she did, right, she was like,
this is everything else we're bringing to feminism. Um, I
think I honestly like, that's just my guess. You you asked,
You asked the question, and I think that's kind of
how I understood it. I wonder what, I think it's
better if we don't know. I kind of yeah, I
(15:55):
kind of thinking she might be in in you know,
(16:17):
moving forward in her career, the next big film and
probably the thing that put her on the map as
as a filmmaker as well as a writer. Um with
Sleepless in Seattle, which probably for most people is like
the romantic comedy. Like I think when you talk about
(16:39):
the lexicon of romantic comedies, Sleepless in Seattle looms larger
than any although for me, I don't think it would
even be in my top five, maybe not in my
top ten. What top ten nor Aron movies? No, I'm
talking top ten romantic comedies. Oh, I was talking about
Nora Afron movies. Yeah, I would not be in my
(16:59):
act sual romcom ranking. You know, Sleepless in Seattle is
a great movie. I love the Rose O'donald's in it.
Um for anyone who you know has never seen it,
it's about um, this little boy who like calls into
a radio show looking for um a woman for his
(17:19):
dad and Meg Ryan looking for a woman. She and
Tom Hanks fall in love somehow and then meet on
the umpire state ble to get the end of it.
It's it's It's sorry. This is the only thing I'm
contributing to the conversation. You want Tom Hanks's load in
(17:40):
this movie, right, like this is one where you are
Tom Hanks, Um, not not in this movie the movie
that I want Tom Hanks's load in Splash One of
the Way, which which which for for like a virgin,
for like a virgin lore Splash was one of the
(18:01):
things that made us want to do this podcast, and
we recorded this test episode talking about Splash because we
went on we went on a vacation to Joshua Treat,
but it actually was sort of like a retreat to
like basically blot out on the deck of this podcast
(18:22):
and an excuse for us to write it off. Yes,
and Splash is one of my favorite movies, one of
my favorite rom coms, and Norah Fron famously wrote and
directed Splash. Well you know where Nora Efron is the
seed of this episode, but it's talking into a beautiful
garden that is more generally about and Splash is a
(18:44):
great romantic comedy starring Daryl Hannah and a young hot
Tom Hanks. Load. I remember if I remember his butt.
I remember you pointing out his butt and being like,
look at his butt, and I was like, WHOA. I
actually did not expect that from Tom Hanks. It was
a bit of a dump truck. It's a it's a
very horny movie that he and Darryl Hammon has a
(19:06):
lot of something that's so baffling. He loves having sex
with her so much that he locks her inside of
like a hotel room or something like that. Doesn't he
lock the mermaid inside a room He like literally holds
her captive so he can fuck her. But that's not
how it's. It's it's some weird. It's some weird vibes.
(19:29):
That also also it stars a young Eugene Levy. No
Eugene Levy would get you his nose. It's about the nose.
Um wait, okay, that's some pretty good lore. Actually, like
wasn't I think the first things we ever watched were
Splash and then I think, oh my god, to a
(19:53):
Mrs Doubtfire episode because you know, it's one of my
favorite films. Okay, okay, okay, are there any other? So
there are fast forwarding a little further in in nor
Fron's career. Um is You've Got Mail in my favorite
of her films and definitely up in my like top
(20:17):
five romantic comedies of all time. Um it is a
for anyone who doesn't know and if you have never
seen You've Got Mail, I like literally can't believe you're
listening to this podcast. Um it's. It stars Meg Brian
as the owner of a charming little children's bookstore on
the Upper West Side, and she is um sort of
(20:40):
priced out of the neighborhood because a big bookstore, UM,
like a sort of Barnes Noble type store that is
run by Tom Hanks moves into the neighborhood and they
are secretly Internet pen pals and fall in love and
it is just the sweetest, funniest but also kind of mean,
(21:05):
like most New York and like specifically Upper West Side
ass romantic comedy. It's so nineties, but like turn of
the century nineties because of the A O L of
it all. Parker Posey is in it, UM and she's incredible.
Greg Kneer isn't it He's Meg Ryan's boyfriend at the beginning.
(21:29):
Dave Chappelle is in it. Dave Chappelle, Um, this movie
like captures like um. This this extremely specific era of
at least our lives like this generation's lives were. Then
the internet felt so new and scary and thrilling, like
(21:51):
like this. Sending your first emails like that was such
a Do you remember what they felt like? Do you
ever any idea what first email was or like, what
your first incidence is, what message was? No, but I
do have a lot. I have so many memories of
logging onto a O. L. And specifically to read fand fiction.
(22:13):
You know. This was so um, this was such an
important time for the formation of almost everything about my identity.
One of the few things that I can remember are
I remember having a girlfriend at the time. Her name
was Katie Crow. I was in seventh grade. I remember
chatting with her over email and writing like cute emails
(22:36):
to each other back and forth. And I remember taking
forever to decide the font and font color of my
you know, and the background color, which was usually a
cloudy rainbow, which yeah, I think that, like that was
the thing that like I obsessed over. I was like,
what the fund is the font? And this was this
(22:57):
was the time of you know, children, our little gen
Z listeners if you exist, you know, this was the
time when you had one family computer that everyone shared.
Mine was our our house that we lived and had
an enclosed patio in the back and that's where the
computer was. And I would go out there like early
(23:19):
in the morning so I could log onto a well
and ten minutes later once I was finally online. After that, um,
then I would you know, read my little Buffy fan
fictions and stuff, um and chat with probably like you know,
(23:40):
fifty year old men who wanted to murder me and
you were just a little girl. It was just a
little quote unquote girl. Um yeah, I god, I just
I I miss when the Internet was like at this
cusp um, I do you so long to do anything? Yeah,
(24:00):
But like our brains were better, Our brains were like
Nora Afron, that's honestly, like when I was exactly no, truly,
like are the Internet ruined our brains? That? I think honestly,
there's something a little nostalgic about It's so weird to
be nostalgic for a period that like we lived through.
But there is a nostalgia to the kind of cinematic
(24:21):
universe of Nora Afron's characters and this kind of pre
Internet purity that oh god, yeah, I'm just jealous of.
I like I missed that. I missed when writers didn't
have to write about the Internet. Like now that we're
in this like era of like work, like we can't
really have any of our conversations without acknowledging how social
(24:44):
media is influencing them or maybe like that it's like
about social media or like about some viral trend in
some way, And I don't know, I missed this like
kind of cuspol analog time. Um, it is nice to
think about the Internet being something that you had to work,
that you had to work for, that you had to
(25:04):
put an effort to access, and that was actually a
barrier of entry for a lot of people. And I'm
sure at the time this movie came out, UM, this
was very much a novelty UM using the Internet in
this way. And like it makes sense that these the
leads of this film were like coastal elites, like you know,
(25:25):
sort of like intellectual like book people, um, who were
falling in love online. UM. But also I don't know,
like the idea of love letters and like, um, you
know mistaken identities is so romantic. But I do think
this film is PROBLEMATICUM. I mean it's enemies to lovers.
(25:49):
But then you know, halfway the whole twist is that
halfway through the film, Tom Hanks realizes that it's Meg
Ryan who he's talking to online because they're supposed to
meet I r L. And then he kind of like
uses his knowledge of her to get her to fall
in love with him I r L. And then you know,
(26:10):
by the by the end of the film when they
actually do meet, she says I wanted it to be you,
which like is a is a great line, it's so romantic,
but also like he fully manipulated and her. You know.
The thing is like if she didn't say that line
I wanted it to be you, the movie would have
such a different ending, like it would be I think
(26:33):
it would be easy to assume that she like hated
his guss and she's like, you're dead to me forever,
you know, like you needed her to say that in
order to have that little Well, she was clearly in
love with him by the end, but he was using
in their actual lives once they started spending time together.
He was using the information he got from her when
they were anonymous to get her to fall in love
(26:54):
with him. Maybe she knew it was him all time,
and she she wanted him to know these things. I know.
I don't know about that. No, I don't think so either.
I was gonna say, um this again with this movie,
like it feels like, oh god, I feel I don't
want to be a redundant because like in our Julie
Roberts episode, we were like, they don't make movie stars
(27:16):
like this anymore, but like I do feel like they
like there there aren't writers like nor Fron anymore. It's like,
you know what I mean, Like she belongs to this
kind of internet cost generation of writers that like, we'll
just I don't know, I don't will never We don't
get writers that are so magnanimous and on every single
talk show the way nor Efron wasn't every single talk show,
(27:40):
and like was actually famous during her time. Well, I
think also what it is is that the um the
romantic comedy is kind of dead. Um. This nor Efron's um.
You know, heyday was the golden age of the romantic comedy,
(28:03):
which I would I would argue was really the nineties, um,
when we were like post sexual liberation and pre you know,
jaded internet era. Um. And she, you know, she was
the perfect writer for her time, Like there are these
(28:25):
ones in a generation people, I think. And of course,
like you know, she was speaking for a very privileged, white, sis,
hetero like elite idea of life and love, of course,
but you know it clearly did captivate a nation in
the world in a way. And so yeah, I think
(28:47):
she was she was this handah horvat one to be
the voice of her generation, or at least a voice
of a Generation. Her last films were two five Bewitched remake,
(29:15):
which actually watched kind of recently. I think On a
Plane really is Yeah, I mean it's awful. It's it's
so bad, but but it's still I mean, it's still
has like some charming dialogue and Nicole Kidman's charming. Will
Ferrell is just like woefully miscast. Kristin chenowis in it
and like she's great. Of course, Michael Caine's fab But
(29:36):
did you just it's you didn't like the movie? Is
there anything else? If you remember about it? It's just
like a bad framing of the movie. I think, like meta, right, Yeah,
it's about an actor, like a sort of like washed
up actor who's making a reboot TV show of Bewitched,
and it did kind of predict reboot culture. But then
(30:00):
an actual which gets cast in it and they fall
in love and it's just like stupid um. But then
her last film was Julia and Julia, which is I
think an incredible movie if you only watch the Julia
child scenes. Oh yeah, of course. I mean I've seen
the YouTube version called and Julia. That is the movie
(30:23):
with Amy Adams cut out of it. It's much better.
And totally watch the ball and Meryl Streep is incredible
as Julia Child. Okay, it should be said Meryl Streep
with Stanley Tucci. With Stanley Tucci very important. And I
love how how into each other they are, like they fuck,
they want to ravish each other. It's so cute. I
(30:47):
don't understand how there's that HBO Max Julia Child show
that that literally in the midst of everything going on,
HBO got renewed for a second season when we already
have kind of the definitive portrayal of Julia Child in media.
Meryl Street, Yeah, yeah, it really is. Um it doesn't
(31:09):
it doesn't quite make sense, but you know, reboot culture,
it's going to happen. Well, okay, I want to talk
more about romantic comedies in general and like where nor
Efron fits into it, because you know, as we've said,
she does kind of she's the the part of the
romantic comedy landscape that's like very you know, like intellectual,
(31:32):
a little jaded, a little cynical, very New York very
you know, like coastal elite. I would say, like you
have fucking Nancy Meyers on one end of the spectrum,
you know, she's making I would say, like more West
Coast romantic comedies, like big, big white kitchen comedies. Um.
(31:54):
And then nor Efron is like East Coast. You know,
she's making small you know, exposed brick kitchen. Um, still
still very nice kitch, still very expensive kitchen. So they're
they're the two coasts. Um. But you know, like like
their characters, I think there's like a shared cinematic universe
(32:15):
that their characters live in. I think so. I mean
I frequently kind of like lump Nancy and Nora like
in in the same kind of category in my brain,
even though the writing is so different. I am like
such a Nancy Meyers stand. Like, as I said on
the pod before, I love like, you know, movies about
like white women in crisis, like wealthy women who are
(32:36):
going through it emotionally. Um. But yeah, no, they're there.
I think West Coast East Coast is like the perfect assessment,
like there is something Nancy Myers movies are just sorry,
like so much more shallow, Like they don't they don't
have the voice Nora has. Like there Nora is, at
the end of the day, the thing that has stuck
(32:59):
with Nora through the entirety of her career and something
that we remember her for, even if we don't say
it explicitly, was like her voice, like she had a
very yeah the right the writing is Fancy does that
Nancy doesn't? You know? Um? But god, but think about
Nancy's She was like having so much fun. I want
to write any Myers movie not a Nora Afron movie,
(33:19):
you know what I mean? Yeah, I wish, I do
wish that Julia Roberts had been in um, an Nora
Efron movie at something. But but Meg Ryan is so
is the Nora Efron protagonist? Like that is the kind
of woman she was writing, I don't know, just like
(33:40):
a white blood woman with short hair with with anxious
speaking patterns. Yes, um I am. I love Meg Ryan.
She was certainly a mother at some at one point
in the culture. Um and I will always love her,
especially for being the voice of Anastasia in the animated
film Anastasia. Oh God, I forgot about that. And that
(34:03):
movie was stacked. It had Christen Dunce, It had um
John qu Sack, Uh, Angela no no, Bernadette Peters, oh yeah,
and Angela Lansbury. Um that Kelsey Grammar, Um yeah, Meg Ryan?
Wait there was another really, oh Hankazaria? Yes? And then
(34:27):
who was who was Resputen? It was like Christopher Christopher Lloyd. Okay, Um,
have we already talked about how rest we need you? We?
Should we do an Anna station episode? Should we do?
Should we do our Russian Dynasty episode? Um? Sure? Have
you ever read we could we could do like a
non and Disney animated movie, um? Episode? Because I think
(34:52):
Anastasia is one of those movies that everyone thinks as
a Disney movie but it's not. And there were quite
a few of those in the nineties when others studios
started to get in on the animation game that Disney
had like sort of created a monopoly around. Have you
have you ever read about when Risputant died? Yes? Like
how like how he died? It's so crazy. He died
(35:15):
like he like got shot like three times and then
was like beaten to death and stabbed and thrown in
a river, like a frozen river. And that's how I
want to go. Yes, And and it didn't in That's
what I'm gonna do to you. But his body they
found that he died from like like freezing, like he
didn't die from the gunshot. Runs or stabbing or anything.
(35:37):
It's crazy. It's also crazy that when they adapted Anastasia
into a Broadway musical that I never saw, they cut
rascipute in from it, and his song is one of
the best songs in the film. I wonder why is
it like too dark or was because? I think because
they did they didn't want it to be magical. Yeah, okay,
(35:58):
that's fair, which is boring? This fuck? Um? I remember you?
Will you watch season five of The Crown, the episode
about the Romanofs where they showed them all getting executed
at the beginning. Oh my, that episode is so gaggy.
They really pretty gay. Yeah, they popped a couple of
bullets off into the Romanofs. Oh my god, it's so sad.
(36:23):
Meg Ryan Love love her. Who are the other like
rom com diva is obviously Julia Roberts We've talked about. Um,
Jennifer Lopez. Monster in Law is one of my favorite
rom coms. Would definitely be on the like top ten list.
Queen Latifa is a rom com diva. Last Holiday is
(36:44):
she really is? Although he was? She? Did she do
any other? Oh Rene Salwagger, Bridget Jones. I've never seen
Bridget Jones Diary. What I've never seen an Oh my god,
I wrong with you? Are those Christmas movies? Um? Yeah,
(37:05):
kind of. I always well, I always watch Bridget Jones
Diary in the period between Christmas and New Year's because
it starts on New Year's Day. So mate, we'll do that.
You know, at the end of this year, I can't
believe you've never seen Bridget jes Diary. It's going to
(37:29):
rock your world. Okay, we'll do an episode on it.
Let's do it done, and it's gonna be and you're
gonna be feel insane when they talk about how fat
she is when she's like not fat. Wait, there are
jokes about how fat she is. Hold that she's like
fat and she's like, you know, she weighs like a
(37:49):
hundred fifteen pounds. God. There's been so much discussion about
how kind of romantic comedies are a lost art, and
we did we did touch on this, you know, in
the Julia Roberts episode, which definitely go back and listen
to that if you haven't heard it. But the era
of rom comms was also the era of movie stars,
(38:10):
and that's what a lot of these films were sold on.
By having these movie stars in the starring roles so
that it almost didn't matter what the movies were about.
People were coming to them to see these stars fall
in love over and over again. And we kind of
don't have that anymore. And now rom comms really are
(38:33):
the main place they exist is on streaming, and so
you know, there's maybe something to be said about how,
you know, streaming could create this like renaissance of rom
comms because they are you know, like cheaper to make
than big budget blockbusters than like Marvel movies, and they
(38:56):
might just not ever reach the same you know, highs
of popularity and like universal peel that the rom coms
of of yester year of year old he hot times times.
I was gonna say, yeah, I think that a lot
of the reason that we don't have like the volume
(39:16):
of rom coms that we used to is has a
lot to do with streaming and with like kind of
the Marvel stuff. Just as you said, like, I think
that because the blockbuster movies are all actions now, it's
almost like these got scooted out. Um, maybe because the
movies of the two thousand's, like the late two thousand's
are like bad, like the romantic comedies were like not
(39:38):
on the level. It's just you feel like nostalgic for
like what a rom com used to feel like before
social media and before like millennials started making things like
Love Simon and like Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist like
like or or a five Days of Summer like that
that actually feels like But those are kind of romantic
(39:58):
drama das most you think they don't count it. You
don't think five hundred days of Summer that's a rom com,
isn't it. Maybe, Um, well, there really, there really is
a renaissance of romance, but it's happening in books. Um,
you know, like there is a huge market now on
book talk for romance. You know, we've talked about like
(40:21):
all the those books with like vector cover art of
little cartoon people. Like that's the biggest part of the
book industry outside of like you know, huge sci fi
novels is romance, and a lot of them are being
adapted into TV shows and movies. But it is books
more than anything, um that are selling. You know. You
(40:43):
look at like the like Colleen Hoover, which I've never
read a Colleen Hoover book, but um, the Seven Husbands
of Evelyn Hugo bitch Um, Taylor Jenkins read Emily Henry,
who's whose books I like, although I've heard that her
book that's coming out this year is not very good. Um,
but these books are like are like romance first, and
(41:05):
then some of them are funny, and then some of
them are dramatic, and it's more about the romance of
it all than the comedy of it. And I think
what what was so amazing about Nora Fron's work, and
I think why she maybe even haralded the age of
romantic comedies is that the emphasis I think was always
(41:25):
on the comedy and the characters, and the romance was
really the container for that. That's a good way of
putting it. Yeah, it's just like it's like the framing
is kind of what made I think, the framing and
the lens on it is like what made it so great.
I would like to see more queer rom colms, specifically
(41:46):
because like you know, we were all kind of tired
of the like sad gay period stuff and and like
you know, I also talk a lot about how I like,
you know, gay historical erotica, but those are usually not comedies,
although sometimes they're funny, but they're not specifically comedies. I
(42:06):
also like, wouldn't even really call Red White and Royal
Blue a rom com what? No, I would call it
a romance novel. I would call it a young adult
I would not young. I would call it a new
adult because that's like the categorization that exists now. I
would call it a new adult queer romance. Um, it
is funny, but it's not a comedy. Wait, Phoebe dropped
(42:30):
in the Chat Happiest Season as a roum? Did you watch?
Did we? Did we ever talk about that? Yeah? I
watched it when it came out. I rewatched it this
past Christmas season. Well, um, I was at my best
friend Ryan's moms for Christmas and she had never seen it,
so we watched it on Christmas Day. That bad. I
(42:53):
think it's I think it's good. I think it's a
cute movie that that has problems. The problems are mostly
that one of the romantic leads is irredeemable, is irredeemable
and Christ and Stewart should end up with opry Plaza.
But I still think it's a It's a well made
(43:15):
movie with some really good performances. Yeah, it is a
well made movie, and it does have good performances. That's
very diplomatic. The cannon of queer rom coms is so
small that you know, we kind of have to take
what we can get, and like I do hope we
get to the point where that's not true. I'm trying.
I'm putting in the work now to make sure that
(43:37):
you know the genre is expanded like I as as
I have alluded too many times, I'm in the process
of writing a queer romantic comedy and you know, look
out for that whenever I finish it plus probably two years. Um.
You you know you you've consumed a lot of roum
coms as market research for this book. Did you learn
(43:59):
anything new? Well, not necessarily like market research. More I
want to write something that is like aware of the
genre it exists in UM and like I think tropes
are very interesting and like it's fun to riff off
of them and to acknowledge them and be aware of them. Um.
(44:21):
Did you learn anything new in this in this exploratory
period about raum commas, specifically, anything you noted? Well? Yeah,
I think what I learned is that, you know, I
kind of had this revelation last summer, which is that
I was I was dealing a lot with um, worrying
(44:41):
that what I was writing was to the thinking that
I needed to make the story I was writing more
like general and like accessible to a wider audience. And
what I kind of realized was that, no, in making
my story as specific as possible, that is what would
(45:02):
make people want to read it. Um. And so that's
I think what I learned from watching a lot of
rom coms and also just consuming a lot of queer
media and kind of Bros in particular. Rose, Oh my god,
but we are not gonna we are not going to
(45:22):
speak about Bros. No, we don't. There's nothing left that
needs to be said about Bros. But God, do you
think Bros Is going to ruin it for the future
of all gay rom coms? Do you think that I
don't think will get a green light anymore? Okay, good,
because we need to make some movies. Rose, Yes, Um,
who would you want to play your love interest in
(45:42):
a rom com? Adam Driver? Definitely for a ent sure,
Adam Driver. Adam Driver in a transamorous relationship. That's all
I've ever wanted. What about you? Um? Kiki Palmer Balmer
Stanley Tucci, Stanley Palmer and Stanley Tucci, and we like
(46:05):
form a polycule. Yeah, you're in a throuble with We're
in a May December. I'm now trying to imagine when
a March May December polycule. I'm trying to imagine Stanley Tucci.
We need a throuble rom com. Although I absolutely support
(46:27):
polyamory and throubles, I don't particularly like reading about them
because like, yeah, I'm very much drawn to like two
people being in love and like, but that's also just
kind of the way I was socialized. So I'm trying
to unlearn that there should be throuble representation in rom coms. Like,
(46:48):
we have never had a polycule rom com. We've never
had Well, what I always what I always wondered about
the favorite is why didn't they just Why weren't they
just in a throuble? There are a lot of movies
that are like, why aren't they just another terrible I mean,
my best friend's wedding, Why aren't they just in a trouble?
That's true because I do think that Julia and Cameron
(47:09):
how to vibe. Yeah, but I always think I always
think everyone has a vibe and everything I watched famously,
do you think everything has a vibe? Um? And you
know what, I think nor Evron would agree with me.
I honestly, nor Efron would be so problematic about polyamorous
relationships if she were like problematic about a lot of things. Yeah,
thank god she like died before the internet like really
(47:31):
became a same. Don't say that's so horrible. We love you,
We do love you, but you probably would have hated
the Internet too. I mean you kind of did well. Anyways,
I was going to say, there needs to be Polly
representation in romances, like how come we have not had
like a Polly Disney princess, Like we need we need
(47:52):
Polly Nora Efron movies. We need um, Yeah, we need
like not we have not reached the representation part of
the conversation. No, we have. We were fifty minutes. Representation
doesn't matter. Representation matters, and we need polycueles on screen
(48:13):
that we need. We need a Disney princess who felch is?
I want to see a rom come with Felching in it.
That's when that's when I'll know that we really have
reached Um. It's a queer utopia in media. Will you
remind me what felching is? I feel like when you
eat your own come out of someone after you've come
(48:34):
in them. How did you not know that the version
the woman was too stun to speak? Have you never
felt someone or been felched? No? No? No? Really? Well
you don't let you don't love come the way I
love come Bobe, Phoebe has Babe has felched. I really
(48:56):
I really wish, I really wished. I really wish that
I was on that level. Honestly, I honestly feel ashamed.
I wish I had felched. Well, nor Evron. I hope
that before you left us you learned what felching is,
and I think you r I p nor Efron, you
would have loved felching. You can follow our burner account
(49:23):
at Like a Virgin Fine. We will be keeping you
updated on an extra special announcement on the coming episodes.
Um stay tuned for more surprises. Follow me at France
Squish go and follow Rose Dammo at Rose Damu anywhere
you want on social You can leave us a review
on Apple Podcasts or rating on Spotify and Like a Virgin,
(49:45):
Isn't I Heart Radio Production? Our producer is Phoebe Unter
with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etre Until next week,
See you later versions. Bye,
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