May 6, 2025 • 51 mins
"Where are the people who know where the people are?"
On today's episode, Tracie introduces Emily to the 1990 Barry Levinson film Avalon, the director's love letter to Baltimore and his own Jewish immigrant family. The movie follows the Krichinskys from 1914 through to the 1960s as the large, tight-knit, extended family moves, changes, assimilates, and fractures.
As a lifelong Baltimorean and the great-great-granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant from Europe, Tracie feels seen by Levinson's story, and she recognizes the ways in which American culture, money, and changing technology have altered family dynamics and expectations in her own family history just like they do for the Krichinskys. Though Emily has never seen Avalon--which mystifies Tracie--she helps tease out some of the meaning behind the money psychology's role in difficult family dynamics in the film.
Take a listen, but don't cut the turkey without Gabriel!
Mentioned in this episode:
Money Scripts
https://www.yourmentalwealthadvisors.com/our-process/your-money-script/
The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity
Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635439/ambivalent-embrace/
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's this complicated and nuanced negotiation between
the culture and the family andthe new culture, and wanting to
be successful, but also kind ofresenting it, and I think that
nuance is part of what, in mymemory, also reads as true have
(00:26):
you ever had something you lovedismissed because it's just pop
culture, what others might deemstupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:49):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1990 Barry Levinson filmAvalon with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
All, right, em.
So right before we hit record,you were like um Em.
I don't remember seeing thismovie.
I mean, you're Em.
(01:09):
Right before we hit record, youwere like um Trace, I don't
remember seeing this movie.
So tell me what is in your headabout this movie, since it
seems like maybe not that much.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, so I have no memory of seeing this movie, no
memory of anything about itother than I know.
It's about a Jewish family andI think even before you
mentioned it last week, I knewit was Baltimore year when he
(01:45):
would come for any kind of likeholiday usually Thanksgiving,
but any kind of holiday.
He would come in even if hewasn't late and go.
You cut the turkey without us,and it took me years to find out
that that was from this filmthat he was quoting something.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's it.
That's what I got.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout this film?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I was really surprised when you told me that
you didn't remember this movie.
This movie is in some ways sortof it is not our family's
immigrant story, but it is aquintessential immigrant story
and for a lot of, especiallyAshkenazi Jewish Americans it is
sort of like the immigrantstory and not just Ashkenazi
Jews like other Europeans too,sort of the immigrant story it's
(02:21):
also it is in some ways a lovestory, a love letter to
Baltimore that Barry Levinson Imean many of his films are, but
this one in particular, and sothat makes it sort of special
for me and it holds a place oflike nostalgia in my head, like
this is an Oscar winning film.
This is not a film that, likemany of the films we watch, are
the ones that were sort ofthrowaways.
(02:41):
This was not a throwaway, butit sits in my memory, in the
furniture of my mind, as sort oflike true, with a capital T,
and I wanted to go back and lookat it and see if, in fact, it
holds up with today's analysis.
So what I'm going to share withyou there's a couple of buckets
that I want to talk about.
I want to talk about well,we'll talk about gender.
(03:03):
We'll start there.
There's not a whole lot to saybut I do want to name it.
We'll talk about assimilationand suburbanization for this
immigrant, this family.
We meet them in the early 20thcentury and we follow them
through about 50 years and sortof the changes in family
dynamics and structure and whatthe so-called American dream
(03:25):
does to this culture.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about the roleof TV and film in this movie in
that story of assimilation.
I want to talk about treatmentof the yeah right.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Very inception there.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I want to talk about this movie's treatment of
Jewishness in general and theHolocaust in particular, which I
think is sort of interestingbecause it is very much a Jewish
family but the Jewishness is insome ways down, like it's true
and it's authentic.
But in some to watch this movieand we were going to talk about
it and she was like you know,for years in my memory they were
(04:00):
Italian and then she and Iworked together at a Jewish
museum and she was like and whenI worked at JMM, you know, when
I worked at the Jewish museum,the people corrected me.
But I get why she thought that.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to kind of
(04:21):
grapple with.
And then, lastly, specificallybecause you are my thought
partner, I want to talk aboutmoney and attitudes toward money
from this family, likeintergenerationally and
specifically vis-a-vis theAmerican dream or the so-called
American dream, but also just ingeneral.
So those are the buckets, butlet me start, especially since
(04:42):
you haven't seen it, with kindof painting the picture.
And this movie is like there'snot a lot of action, right, it's
really not a sort oftraditional Western film with
the rising action and then aresolution.
It starts off with thisvoiceover of an older man
(05:05):
telling the story.
It's Sam Krasinski is tellingthe story.
I came to America in 1914 inthis sort of Russian accent and
he tells the story.
He came through Philadelphiaand he got to Baltimore on the
4th of July and Baltimore wasthe most beautiful place he had
ever seen, which, as a lifelongBaltimorean, like makes me
chuckle.
That's a kind of funny thing tosay, right, ever seen, which,
as a lifelong Baltimorean, likemakes me chuckle.
(05:26):
But there were fire.
That's a kind of funny thing tosay, right.
But he got there on the 4th ofJuly in 1914.
So you know, sort of that early20th century war period, you
know, like so there wasfireworks everywhere and
sparklers and bunting and hethought it was for him because
Sam had come to America.
And it's this really beautifulsequence, like if you've never
(05:48):
seen it, honestly, I mean, evenif you just go watch the first
five minutes, it's just reallybeautiful of him, like this, you
know, with the mustache, likethe early 20th century European
immigrant sort of walking withwonder, looking at the fireworks
and the bunting and everythingelse.
So we learn he's telling thestory to his grandkids, not just
his grandkids, his grandkidsand granduncles, so we meet the
whole Khrushchinsky clan.
(06:10):
Sam is one of five brothers.
He's the last to come over fromthe old country and meet his
brothers.
The brothers, they work duringthe week they all work as paper
hangers, wallpaper hangers, andon the weekends they all play
violin and they are musiciansfor hire.
He's telling the story to theyoung people.
They're there, it's, it'sactually thanksgiving in sort of
present day.
I'm putting quotes aroundpresent day because it's
(06:30):
actually, I believe, like late40s at this point.
And so sam's sitting around andand the other grown-ups are
like come on, we've all heardthe story.
And sam's like, no, I'm tellingthe grandkids, I'm telling you
know, and so we meet this wholeextended family, these five well
, now, four brothers, because welearned that William died of
the flu in 1919.
And he tells the story of howthey got together and they sort
(06:54):
of stuck together, they pooledtheir resources, they brought
their father over to America andthey're telling stories and
it's very funny and it's thishuge Thanksgiving with, you know
, tables that stretch intomultiple rooms and the kids'
tables and like all the wivesand the kids, so it's three
generations of these foursurviving brothers.
(07:15):
And we meet actually Gabrielwho comes in late and they say
we were about to cut the turkeywithout you.
He said you cut the turkeywithout us.
No, they hadn't.
So we've established nowGabriel's always late and they
say we were about to cut theturkey without you.
He said you cut the turkeywithout us.
No, they hadn't.
So we've established nowGabriel's always late and they
always threaten to cut theturkey without him, but they
don't.
And they tell stories.
They all know the stories.
We meet this extended family.
(07:35):
Sam is the patriarch of ourstory.
His son is Jules, jules playedby Aidan Quinn, and Jules seems
to be his only son.
And then Jules' cousin, who'sthe same age, izzy from one of
the other brothers I'm actuallynot sure which.
Izzy and Jules are in businesstogether.
(08:01):
They're salesmen, they'retraveling salesmen.
And Jules has one son, michael,who is about eight, played by
an adorable eight-year-old,elijah Wood.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
That sounds familiar, yeah,that sounds familiar.
That sounds familiar, yeahreally adorable.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So we see in the first sort of vignette it's
Christmastime and Michael goesout with his dad for the day.
It's very Baltimore.
They're like house to housewith the marble steps and their
traveling salesman cases andstuff, and then Michael's asleep
in the car, like we see themall day.
I mean it's sort of montage andJules is mugged and stabbed
(08:39):
while Michael watches from theback of the car.
It's traumatizing.
So Jules survives, you knowhe's okay and eventually.
But we see the older generation,the immigrant generation, the
four brothers sitting in thehospital talking, and this is
something I want to come back to, that's why I'm naming it
specifically.
They're like it's the money,the money is the problem.
(08:59):
Never have I heard of someonebeing stabbed for money before.
Money is the problem.
But we also have heard that thefour immigrant brothers, the
first generation, they allworked as wallpaper hangers and
we heard Jules tell Michael thatSam said you'll never be a
wallpaper hanger, you need to dosomething better.
So Sam had pushed Jules intosales rather than manual labor.
(09:23):
So that was sort of part of theAmerican dream.
Izzy convinces Jules to go intobusiness together, to actually
open their own place, a store,and they actually they get a TV.
While Jules is recuperatingfrom having been stabbed, they
get a TV, their first TV.
So it's like 48, 49.
And the entire family, so like20 people crowded around, all
(09:46):
different generations, likestaring at the test pattern and
like the old guys are like Idon't get it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That makes me feel like when my son shows me
whatever he's really into onYouTube.
I'm just like, yeah, I don'tunderstand, Right Right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So we watch their lives.
Jules and Izzy open a TV storeand we sort of watch and they do
fairly well for themselves.
They move out to the suburbs.
The extended family has afamily circle they actually like
with officers and regularmeetings and everything, and we
sort of see that.
And then we see them sort ofkind of complaining because the
(10:27):
old guys don't want to have tocome all the way out to the
suburbs.
And like being from Baltimore,like the movie's called what it
is because it's named after aneighborhood where they first
moved, called Avalon, which isfictitious, but all of the other
neighborhoods that they nameare real.
And like they moved to thesuburbs which is Forest Park,
which is like not that far fromwhere I live, which doesn't feel
like the suburbs still, youknow, because the way sprawl
(10:50):
works, but anyway, that's reallyinteresting.
And like they argue about thebest way to get there and
they're naming routes that areactual streets, which is very
cool.
And we see a vignette wherethey're out of the suburbs.
The kids are playing wall ballagainst the stairs of the single
family home and there's like abee's nest behind and the bees
swarm and poor Michael getsstung all over his body.
(11:13):
At that same moment, sam's wife, eva, reveals that she comes
running over to the house totalk to her daughter-in-law and,
I guess, niece-in-law Izzy'swife, to say I just got a call
from the American Red Cross andmy brother survived.
He survived the war, hesurvived those concentration
(11:33):
camps.
She had never met him.
She found out after she leftPoland that her brother had been
born and she had never met himand she thought he had died,
that he had perished in theHolocaust.
And it turns out he's alive,died, that he had perished in
the Holocaust, and it turns outhe's alive.
And he knew he had a sister inBaltimore, but he couldn't
remember her last name.
He knew it was Russian, notPolish, and anyway.
So they bring him over.
(11:54):
Simcha, we see the—.
Simcha is his name, simcha isthe brother's name.
Yes, Okay, I wanted to specifybecause for me, me Simcha means
like a joyous event yeah, six,and like we see, this sort of
language barrier here, where thewife who has a name, but I
(12:34):
don't remember it is talkingabout their experience in
Yiddish to the older generation,and Anne, who is Jules's wife,
and her sister-in-law, whosename I don't remember, are
talking in the kitchen laterlike what did say?
Did she say this?
And like because they didn'tunderstand the Yiddish, so that
like that was sort of like amoment too that felt really
really true.
And then the kids the daughter,who came over from Poland from
(12:56):
the DP camp and doesn't speak alot of English, is like playing.
I'm putting quotes around thatwith the other cousins because
I'm putting quotes around thatwith the other cousins, because
I'm putting quotes around it,because she's there, but she's
like not playing.
Like they watch cliffhangermovies and so they build a model
airplane and decide to make itlike a cliffhanger and they do
like a string of airplane gluealong the floor and light it so
(13:20):
that it just like in theirmovies and they're like so
excited and like like notfreaking, but like like jumping
for joy and like look at that,look at that.
And this little girl is justlike glassy eyed, staring, and
later we see she's sleeping on acot or something in Michael's
room and she sits up screamingin the middle of the night like
with a night terror and he'slike, are you okay?
(13:42):
And she's just lies back downand goes back to sleep.
So that's a little bit of thesort of the holocaust treatment.
And uh, jules's wife revealsshe's pregnant again, michael's
like nine ish.
So they had been living withsam and eva, who are the first
generation, the grandparents inthe house, with Jules and Anne
(14:04):
and Michael.
But we see that Sam and Eva aregoing to move in with the
brother Simcha and they're allgoing to get a house together.
Izzy and Jules open a big likea warehouse, like the first
discount appliance store inMaryland, and they're very
nervous about it because it'skind of a gamble, but they're
also very excited.
And they're very nervous aboutit because it's kind of a gamble
(14:25):
, but they're also very excited.
We see them filming these likereally schlocky TV commercial.
You know where they're likeobviously, reading the cue cards
like that's right, jules, whichis, you know, very funny and it
feels very.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I'm sure it's true in every city, but that feels very
Baltimore to me Just.
I feel like I remember seeingthose kinds of commercials
growing up.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right right.
Meanwhile Thanksgiving happensagain and this time Gabriel's so
late that they do cut theturkey without him and he comes
in and he's furious and actuallyleaves and that creates a rift
that is never healed between thebrothers Michael Jewel's son
and Izzy's son, teddy.
At the opening day of thedepartment store do the
cliffhanger thing again and theyput firecrackers on the model
(15:14):
plane and it starts a bit of afire.
Now they get it all out, theythink, and they say we're never
going to tell anybody that wedid this.
And then later they'recelebrating at like the country
club or something, and Izzy getsa call and the store's on fire.
They had a huge opening day.
They made something like$19,000, which I did not look up
(15:36):
, but you know, this is likeearly 50, like 49, 50.
It was a lot of money,significant amount of money.
Yeah, they were like we're rich,you were right, it was the
right thing to do.
And they're like throwingdollar bills with their
employees and stuff.
So they're celebrating at thecountry club and they get a call
that the store is on fire andit's a four alarm blaze and the
whole thing goes up.
(15:56):
And Michael is sure that it'stheir fault because of the
cliffhanger thing they did withthe model airplane, of the
cliffhanger thing they did withthe model airplane.
So at this point Sam, thegrandfather, has moved out like
back to a row home and Michaeljust runs away, catches a
streetcar, goes to Sam and islike I did a terrible thing.
(16:20):
I did a terrible thing.
And Sam is great, he's reallygreat.
We see Jules come to pick himup and Sam says Michael has
something he has to tell you.
And Michael says what he didand Jules says how many times
have we told you not to playwith fire?
Do you think maybe you'lllisten to it now?
Maybe you'll listen now?
And Michael's like yeah, Iguess.
So, I think so.
And he's like he's just bereft.
And then Jules says the firemarshal says it started on the
(16:40):
fourth floor.
You didn't do it, it wasn'tyour fault, but it turns out we
learned that Izzy had takeninsurance money to pay for the
TV advertising.
So they actually don't haveinsurance.
So Jules is out, he goes towork, he gets a sales job he's
actually selling airtimeadvertising.
And we see Simcha moves to NewJersey because he gets a job
(17:07):
running a farm and in thebeginning of them, with TV trays
in front of the TV, we see Eva,the grandma ends up getting
(17:29):
sick and then passing away.
So we see her funeral.
We see Sam walking away fromthe funeral like Gabriel didn't
come, simcha didn't come becausehe couldn't get away from the
farm, and Sam sort of mutteringlike this isn't a family.
As the movie's ending, there'sthis scene with Jules and Anne
sitting in bed watching TV andJules kind of looks blank and
he's like we've seen thatseveral years have passed, it's
(17:51):
now like the 60s and we see Sammistake David, the younger son,
for Michael.
And then we see Jules and Annesitting in bed and Jules says he
wets the bed, my dad wets thebed.
And then the final sceneMichael, now an adult, brings
his own son to visit Sam in anursing home and his son's name
(18:16):
is Sam and Sam says you're notsupposed to name after the
living.
And Michael says I know, andit's clear that Sam has met Sam
before and just doesn't remember, like he doesn't have, he's got
dementia and doesn't reallyremember.
And in this visit Sam sayssomething like you know, I, a
couple years ago I went to gosee Avalon and in the building
(18:37):
we lived in it just doesn'texist.
And I and I went to see youknow this place and it doesn't
exist.
And I went to see and I went tothe nightclub that I owned for
a while and thank God it wasstill there.
I was starting to think Iwasn't real and if I'd known
they wouldn't be there, then Iwould have worked harder to make
better memories.
And the final scene Michael andhis son, sam, are walking out
(18:59):
and young Sam says that mantalks funny and Michael says
well, he wasn't born here, hecame to America in 1914 and he
starts to tell Sam's story andwe see that very same scene from
the beginning.
So that's the arc.
It's really not a plot in thetraditional sense.
Some of the things that Levinsondoes beautifully are like at
(19:23):
the big Thanksgiving tables.
Beautifully are like at the bigThanksgiving tables.
While they're telling stories,we see the flashback and they
argue with one another.
It was 1925.
No, it was 26.
You know that sort of thingwhich definitely feels true, oh
my gosh.
Yes.
And in some of the arguments,like we see the flashback and
Sam's, like I remember it wascold, it was so cold and his
(19:45):
wife says no, it was May, itwasn't cold.
You're thinking of so-and-so'swedding, that was cold, and so
we saw the memory and there wassnow on the ground.
And now we see it again,exactly the same, except it's
sunny, like same street andeverything and all the same
people.
And that is like it'sdelightful, it's really
delightful.
(20:05):
And some of the other things,like the way he captures sort of
the family dynamic in this film, is like it's really I think
that's what I remember as truewith a capital T, in the way
that they sort of talk over eachother and correct one another,
and also like the sort ofaffectionate annoyance like oh,
(20:27):
do we have to hear this storyagain?
So that all felt reallyinteresting and true.
So that's the basic gist of it.
I think it's worth watching.
You should go see it.
I mean, like it's streaming onPrime.
It's definitely worth watching.
But let me start with the genderactually, because in some ways
this is the easiest.
This film very much passesBechdel without even trying,
(20:49):
like it's fine In many occasions.
So reminders, listener, theBechdel test from Alison Bechdel
, we ask ourselves are there atleast two female characters who
have names?
Do they talk to one another?
And do they talk to one anotherabout something other than a
man or a boy?
And yes, yes, yes, we have manynamed female characters.
Anne and Eva, thedaughter-in-law and
mother-in-law, talk all the timeabout all kinds of things, and
(21:11):
not just Jules and the twosisters-in-law talk about things
, not just men or boys.
So it definitely passes Bechdel.
That said, levinson is telling astory about men.
Yeah, like, ultimately he isinterested in the story about
men, and so women are present,but they are present as and in
(21:32):
relationship to the men.
They're wives, they aren't even.
I mean there are two girls whoare like in the third generation
, but they're really only thereas wives or mothers.
They're not there as their ownhuman beings, sort of
independent of their menfolk.
So I feel like that's worthnaming.
That said, eva, themother-in-law she's a huge
(21:55):
presence on the screen and inthe story, like she's real, even
though her role is supporting.
So it's a little both, and Ithink hoarding.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So it's a little both and I think it's also I would
suggest that it's period typicalof 1990.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Well, I was going to say of the story, like the time
that it's being told, so I'mgoing to push back on you on
that, because if you and I wereto make this story about our
family's immigrant story, wewould tell the story about the
women.
It would be all women, we wouldtalk about our
great-great-whatever-grandmother, dora, and her daughter Fanny
and her daughter Ruth.
We would not be talking Like Idon't even know Israel's story,
(22:38):
dora's husband.
So I'm going to push back onyou on that.
You're right.
I think Levinson was interestedin telling the men's story and
I'm not mad at him for that.
But I don't want to suggestthat there aren't other ways to
tell this immigrant story.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Oh, no, no, no, it's not that so much.
It's that if you are centeringthe immigrant story focused on
employment, yes, but it reallywasn't.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I mean, employment was important and we will talk
about it, because money and theAmerican dream are definitely
important.
And we do hear Anne's voicesaying I just want to feel at
home in my own home becauseeverything like I want to be
able to set something down onthe coffee table.
I think it looks nice and Icome back and it's been moved so
like her concerns are shown.
(23:29):
Her voice is there, but Jules'sstory is the one that we're
really hearing right and it isperiod typical for 1990.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It is period typical of 1990.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And I'm not mad at Levinson.
I think that this is fairlyautobiographical.
I think that he is the ElijahWood character and I think that
he had a strong relationshipwith his grandfather and so he
wanted to tell that story aboutgrandsons and grandfathers.
So I'm not mad at him about it,but I do want to just name it,
yeah yeah, well, it's also we in1990, like how many female
(24:02):
directors, writer directors, didwe have?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Right?
So it's not that it's a problemthat this story is told, it's a
problem that other storiesaren't.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right, right, and that's really all I have to say
about gender really in this film, so I'll just put that on the
shelf.
So let me talk about theJewishness, assimilation and
suburbanization and maybe eventreatment of the Holocaust all
together in sort of aconstellation.
I think there's a fundamentalcritique of assimilation in
(24:34):
Levinson's film here.
Like we are definitely meant tofeel a sort of loss.
We are shown a loss from theraucous and loud and big family
gatherings of the beginning tothe so-called nuclear family
watching TV on Thanksgiving withTV trays.
(24:57):
I'm not suggesting that critiqueis wrong, but I think there's
so much in that conversationabout assimilation, and Levinson
, I think, does it with nuance,because this thing about money
like, and this sort of chasing,the American dream, sam's the
(25:17):
one who says to his son, youknow, and his brothers too, like
they say we don't want you todo what we're doing, we don't
want to teach you this trade,because we want better for you,
we want more for you.
And then at the same time soIzzy and Jules both change their
name from Krishinski tosomething that's easier to
(25:37):
pronounce.
So Jules goes with K and Izzy,his cousin, goes with Kirk, and
so their store is called K and Kor Kirk and K.
And when he learns it Sam islivid about this and he gets
over it.
But we see him like reallyupset, you had a name, like how
can we be a family if we allhave different names, two
(26:00):
cousins with different names?
Like Krishinsky?
It's a name, it's a good name,and at the same time it was his
pushing them toward the Americandream that made that a thing
for them.
And so I feel like Levinsonreally captures that tension of
the desire to assimilate andhold on to the old culture and
(26:24):
how hard that is to do, and howhard that is to do, and I think
the fact the old men nameexplicitly the money's the
problem and then the argumentsend up being about money, like
when Gabriel later at a familycircle after they cut the turkey
without him there's been thisrift and like he's still arguing
about it, he says your sonmakes a bunch of money and now
(26:46):
you think you don't have to waitto cut the turkey.
You live way out in the suburbsand it's a bunch of money.
And now you think you don'thave to wait to cut the turkey.
You live way out in the suburbsand it's hard to get to you now
.
And you think, because your sonmakes a bunch of money, and
like that is the crux of theargument, is this tension around
who makes what money.
And at the same time we sawearlier when Jules was stabbed,
(27:06):
when he was mugged, the old menblamed the money.
And so it's like it's thiscomplicated and nuanced, like
negotiation between the cultureand the family and the new
culture and wanting to besuccessful, but also like kind
of resenting it successful, butalso like kind of resenting it
(27:35):
and I think that nuance is partof what, in my memory, also
reads as true.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
You know I'm thinking like not that there is like any
resentment or anything likethat, but I know are a similar
thing that I have personallylamented a bit, even though I
have no regrets about the pathmy life has taken, is mom and
dad made it very clear to usthat they wanted us to go to
whatever school was the rightschool for us, which, generally,
(27:57):
which we were going to go outof state, like there was never
any question about that.
But there was also a hope,maybe a little stronger than a
hope, that we'd come back, andyou did and I didn't, and your
life took you on various paths,but you are back in Baltimore
and I am not.
And so just I'm thinking aboutthis because we just finished
(28:18):
Passover and one of my favoritethings, it's my favorite holiday
, in part because when we weregrowing up, mom would have these
enormous seders.
Seders yeah, that like just thishuge and it would be like it
would be found family becauseher sisters had gone out of
state Also left Baltimore.
Yeah, but you know we would haveall these people and like have
(28:38):
to set up tables in the basementto be able to fit everybody,
and it was just the four of usfor the seder.
You know, me and my husband andmy two kids this year, and I
really regret that.
You know the fact that if Iwant to celebrate with you and
with my niece and with my momand I have to travel or you have
to travel to me and it's a deal, and so like it's that push me,
(29:03):
pull you a little bit, becausemom and dad really wanted me to
have the experience that I hadby going out of state for
college, and I have no regretsabout that at all.
But there's always a cost, andso wanting your kids to do
better than you did, in whateverway, has a cost that you might
(29:23):
not even realize until you haveto pay it.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, it's really interesting that you bring up
Passover too and thinking aboutthis movie, because it's a
critique that some folks,especially Jewish folks, have
had of this movie, this Jewishor immigrant family.
But the holiday that we see overand over again is Thanksgiving,
and instead of a Seder or aRosh Hashanah dinner or
something, in fact, we don't seeany Jewish ritual in the film
(29:48):
at all, none at all.
And I think in some ways, Ireally think Levinson did this
on purpose, because this is astory of American dream and they
are Jewish, but actually thestory that he's telling is about
the effect of America on theirculture and on their family and,
(30:08):
like my friend thought it couldhave been an Italian family
exactly, and I think also thefact that the brothers put such
gravity on being respected atThanksgiving, which is an
American holiday, also feelsreally significant.
So it's interesting to me thatyou name that the Passover Seder
(30:29):
, because I think this it couldhave been a very similar story
with Passover.
It wouldn't have been you cutthe toiku without me.
It would have been somethingelse the brisket.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, the brisket, exactly.
Or you know, you started theSeder without me, Right, right.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
You poured the first cup without me, whatever it is,
you hid the hoppy common withoutme.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I think that's interestingand significant.
The other thing that I want toname here that is not in this
film at all and I don't want tospend too long on it because we
don't have enough time but onebig piece of the American dream
and assimilation for AshkenaziJews is also their being
(31:08):
accepted as white, andsuburbanization was part of that
in Baltimore especially.
Like Baltimore is whereredlining was piloted.
It's not a thing that you knowI've been proud of for the city,
but it's true.
And in that post-warsuburbanization, housing boom
(31:31):
and you know what we werebuilding like Jews were getting
out of the city and moving outto the county and the suburbs
into homes that were notavailable to their Black
neighbors and they had beenneighbors in the city.
In fact, redline neighborhoods,like Jewish residents in a
neighborhood, made aneighborhood borderline.
(31:52):
So the redlining schema fromthe government sort of told
banks what risk a neighborhoodwas and it was based on who
lived there.
And Jews in a neighborhood wasa moderate risk according to the
government, and this is fromthe 30s.
So, levinson, that's not in thismovie.
(32:14):
That's not in this movie at alland you know, in 1990, we
weren't talking about it, but Iwant to name it now, in 2025,
that this is a part of the storythat is happening off screen
that's just completelyunacknowledged and since it
happens in Baltimore, like Iwanted to at least like put that
pin in this film, I'm curiousalso, in the like being taken as
(32:39):
white, there's also this, thepassing for white in that.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
So Elijah Wood's not Jewish.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
No, I don't think so, and neither is Aidan Quinn.
Aidan Quinn's not Jewish?
No, I don't think so.
Neither is Aidan Quinn AidanQuinn is not Jewish.
The man who plays Sam ArminMueller Stahl, is also not
Jewish.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, so like markers of Judaism are either.
Like you will hear aboutOrthodox Jews, frummi Jews in
New York being attacked becausethey are conducting themselves
and wearing themselves in waysthat mark them as Jewish.
Ashkenazi Jews coming fromEastern Europe often are what
(33:15):
people think of when they thinkof someone who looks Jewish, and
that's something I experiencedas a teenager in Baltimore
suburbs.
I have a friend who is blondeand blue-eyed and Jewish, but
she has a lot of the featuresthat one would expect a Jewish
young woman to look like AnAshkenazi woman yeah, an
Ashkenazi Jew to look like.
(33:37):
But there was another kid in ourclass who said I looked Jewish
because I had dark hair and liketalking about like, what are
those markers of Jewishness andwho passes and who doesn't and
what people who didn't realize Iwas Jewish would say in front
of me that they wouldn't say infront of friends who had clearer
physical markers of Jewishness.
(33:58):
And so I'm thinking about thatbecause of my experiences
growing up in Baltimore andhaving that happen on several
occasions where, like eitherbecause I had dark hair, people
thought that I was, or because,you know, for whatever reason
they don't think I look Jewishthat people would say
anti-Semitic things in front ofme.
So in this film we havenon-Jewish actors who are very
(34:24):
easily going to pass becausethey are not necessarily like
they don't have any backgroundwith Ashkenazi Jewish features.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I think it's interesting too that, though we
do have this a little bitconversation about the Holocaust
, we really don't.
This movie does not talk aboutantisemitism.
There are no antisemiticincidences that we see.
We don't see any of that sortof like.
They're at a country club which, in the 40s, like there was a
(34:57):
Jewish country club in Baltimore, because prior to the war, like
Jews weren't welcome at thesort of traditional white
country club.
So we see the country club.
We don't hear about the factthat it's the Jewish country
club.
We don't hear about the like.
So that piece of it is reallynot.
Levinson wasn't interested intelling that story.
He couldn't not include thething.
(35:19):
You know something about theHolocaust and what's interesting
?
Well, so many things areinteresting.
Something that I found sort oflike almost meta is the ways in
which these survivors are, theAmerican family and the survivor
family just don't know how tointeract with one another.
(35:41):
And so we see Elijah Woods,michael, talking to the little
girl whose name I don't remember, who survived and came from the
DB camp, talking about TV, andhe's like telling her what TV
stations they watch, and we onlyhave 2, 11, and 13.
And how do you do these?
Monday through Friday at thistime and he's like, do you have
Captain Video where you comefrom?
(36:02):
And she goes, captain Video,and he says Captain Video, and
like it's like the disconnect isso huge from their experiences
and it goes uncommented.
And I think the uncommentedpart is what feels like
interesting and like ripe therethat we just expected folks to
(36:25):
like assimilate into whereverthey landed after the most
traumatic thing that hadhappened in a century.
And I think the way thatLevinson sort of showed that,
without sort of underlining thethesis, if you will, that also
(36:46):
like another of those momentsthat just felt sort of true.
The one thing that is commentedis when Simcha moves to New
Jersey, one of the brothers islike, can you imagine like going
30 years and like having thiswar between you and she thought
he was dead and then theyfinally are reunited and they're
(37:07):
only together for a year beforehe moves to take a job.
And that's the only sort ofcommentary on it that we get,
which is sort of part of thebigger commentary about the ways
that life pulls families apart,american life, yeah.
So the last thing that Ihaven't exactly talked about,
though I've touched on it, is TVand films and their role in the
(37:31):
assimilation and the pullingthings apart, right.
So we see the kids at themovies like loving the
cliffhanger and things, and thatshows up again and again where
they're doing these dangerousthings, that they're trying to
recreate what they saw on film.
We see this progression fromthe first, like they're so
excited and they did it becauseJules is, he survived this
(37:53):
traumatic thing when he gotmugged and they set down this
piece of furniture and they'reall staring at it like as a huge
family.
That's where we start.
And then, like it is always onthrough the rest of the movie,
like every time, like as theyears progress, the TV is always
on as we move through to the70s.
(38:14):
And then Michael, after thestore burns and he doesn't feel
like he can rebuild with Izzy,he's out.
The job he gets is sellingadvertising.
Abbie gets his sellingadvertising and he has this
conversation with his mom who'ssick, she's in the hospital and
she's like I don't understandwhat you do.
You sell air.
And he says well, I selladvertising, you know, like for
TV commercials.
So I convince people, you knowcompanies, that they should make
(38:37):
a commercial and she says Ihate commercials, except that
one with the dancing cigarettes.
I like that.
One Did you sell that air andone Did you sell that air?
And he says no, mom, I didn'tsell that one.
So that's the role oftelevision in the kind of
transition and like reshaping ofthe family and how they
(39:00):
interact with one another andwith America, like there's a
through line there.
That I think is reallyinteresting, very critical I
think.
I think Levinson was sort ofsaying like TV messed us up,
which I'm not unaware of, theirony that I watched this on my
TV last night.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
So Well, the thing that's interesting is because
you said there's the point wherethe older generation is like I
don't get it about the testpattern, at least since the 20th
century, like the early 20thcentury, it feels like this is
what happens in every generation.
My job didn't exist when I wasa kid Right, because I write for
the internet, and so my kidstalk about wanting to be
(39:36):
YouTubers when they grow up andso, like that I can see like me
in the hospital with my grandsonor something like you know, in
30 years going like wait, you dowhat now?
Like I don't understand.
So like how do you sell memes,you know, or whatever it would
(39:58):
be, and so like that is alsojust part of the like.
It's a that's specific to 1990because the internet as a
personal tool was in its veryinfancy, but that's also a part
of just the march of progressand like the consumable progress
specifically yeah, that is likeLevinson points out like it
(40:22):
kind of ends up fracturing thisfamily in a way.
I mean, that's not what does it.
But then they're like they'reeating tv dinners in front of
the tv on thanksgiving, whenthey used to have, you know,
this giant huge, raucouscelebration and that's.
You know.
There are nights where, like,all four of us are in the same
room and we're each on adifferent device yeah, totally
(40:43):
which is like I have implementedmovie nights, because then
we're at least watching the samething, the same device, yeah,
so, yeah, that is.
It's an interesting commentaryand it's.
I have been thinking about theways in which we have been
(41:04):
trained to be consumers a lotlately, and that is something
that I can see, where Levinsonsees that as the onset, and
Stephen King, in his book onwriting, talks about how he
feels very lucky that he wasamong the last generation that
grew up without TV, because hefeels like that made him a
(41:24):
better writer, that made himlike just a better human being,
gave him more imagination, madesure like he could tolerate
boredom and things like that.
And I remember reading that,going like, oh yeah, that is
weird.
And then a few years laterrealizing like, oh, I feel that
way about growing up without theinternet, and in part it's
because, like the instantgratification which gets even
(41:45):
more and more instant thefurther we go.
So I do want to ask you younever really quite got me to
talk about money.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, so watching these guys sort of want better
for their kids and also sort ofsaying it's the money's fault
that he got that Jules got hurtas I was watching it last night
I was thinking about you and theway you talk about money
scripts actually.
So we don't have a lot of time,but could you like quickly talk
about money scripts?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
So we all carry these unconscious scripts about money
.
This was coined by Dr BradleyKlontz and his research partner
Sonia Britz, and I'll include alink in the show notes where
these are unconscious beliefs.
We carry about money, that kindof flavor, all of our
interactions with money, andthey fall into four broad
categories and the thing is likewhat it is.
(42:36):
They talk about how childrenare excellent sponges but
terrible interpreters, so likethey take in everything but they
interpret it through the lensof like this childlike lens.
And the example I always giveis like our mom used to think
that if doctors got sick they'dgo to jail.
And so the thing is we do thatwith money, but money is a taboo
(42:56):
subject so we don't have achance to push back against
those scripts that we make.
So if as a kid we were likemoney causes fights between mom
and dad, so money is stressful,we don't have a chance to push
back against that and learnsomething different about money.
And so when they're saying like,oh, it's the money's fault is
why he got hurt, well, money ismorally neutral, it just is.
(43:19):
And so saying it's the money'sfault is like it's as
unrealistic as saying it'sbecause it rained that day.
It doesn't have anything to dowith what's going on, but that
gives a way to put the emotionsof being furious and afraid and
worried for your son, yournephew, your father and make it
(43:43):
the fault of something.
That is okay.
It's okay to be mad at themoney and then also like gives
you like well then that meansthat he needs to do something
where you know he's not chasingmoney so much.
And even though they wanted himto do that they wanted him to
be financially successful theyalso were wary of it.
(44:04):
They were concerned about itbecause rich people can and this
is a money script rich peopleare vulnerable because someone
might stab them and steal theirmoney, or rich people are
unethical, or rich people anynumber of different things.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, and then we see that again with Gabriel when he
complains at the family circleabout like you think that you're
better than we are because yourson makes money.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yes, and so, like those, all money is, it's a
morally neutral thing.
It's actually this I like tosay it's a collective delusion,
because it doesn't actuallyexist, right?
It only has value because we allagree that it has value on it,
yeah, and so because of that,it's vulnerable to our own sense
of morality, our own neuroses,our own vulnerabilities, our
(44:53):
fears, whatever they are.
We put that onto money.
So when people are having anemotional reaction to money and
they think, well, that's becausethat's how money is, that's not
it.
They're having that emotionalreaction because that's how they
emotionally feel and it's thiscollective delusion that we have
.
And so there's no way ofproving it wrong that you only
(45:17):
think that because your sonmakes money, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Let me see if I can quickly wrap up what we talked
about.
So this movie, 1990, avalon,barry Levinson, this love letter
to Baltimore and to his familyand to his upbringing, which was
it, does pass back cell inmultiple ways and also is very
much a story about men.
It was at least semi-audit,biographical, I believe, and you
(45:41):
know he was interested intelling the story about him and
his grandfather and about hisdad and his uncle, and so the
women are there and they're real, but they are very much
supporters and supporting rolesin this film.
We talked about a lot aboutassimilation and suburbanization
and the American dream and therole of television in that.
(46:03):
Television in that and sort ofthe push me, pull me around.
Assimilation, where the desireof the immigrant generation for
their kids to have better lives,more successful, more
financially successful lives,but also to hold on to some of
the things that they value aboutthe culture from the old
(46:24):
country, including the familydynamics and the literal
geographic closeness which,though the two cousins who move
out to the suburbs actually dokeep, that because they live
right across the street from oneanother we see that it also is
lost because some of thebrothers are still back in the
row homes down in the city, notin the suburbs.
(46:45):
Back in the row homes down inthe city, not in the suburbs, we
see the role of TV and films insort of continuing the
separation of folks who used tobe close, both literally and
figuratively, and we see thatportrayed again through the role
of TV from the first time wesee a TV in one of their homes
with the entire family crowdedaround to look at the test
(47:05):
screen, through to later when weactually see a Thanksgiving
dinner that happens on TV trays,with just four people in the
nuclear family watching TV onThanksgiving.
One of the things that I namedwas that is not in this film at
all but is in retrospect isabsent is the role of being
(47:28):
accepted as white, thatAshkenazi Jews sort of sometimes
chased, sometimes just accepted, but the role that that played
in allowing them certainlybenefited from allowing them to
move out of the city in waysthat their Black neighbors would
not have been able to.
And there's some greatbook-length treatments of this
(47:48):
that I will include in the shownotes, notably Eric Goldstein's
the Price of Whiteness, which isnot new but really traces that
idea and is very interesting.
There's also one calledAmbivalent Embrace that's
specifically about the Americandream and this sort of immigrant
, multigenerational thing that Ithink speaks very closely.
So this book, ambivalentEmbrace, like traces exactly
(48:10):
what Levinson was chasing andlooks at it from a sociological
lens.
I will include a link in theshow notes to that movie.
We also talked briefly aboutthe treatment of the Holocaust
in this movie as just sort oflike this complete disconnect
between the American Jews andtheir European family who
survived and sort of knowing howto talk to one another and
(48:34):
knowing how to support thesurvivors, which I think
Levinson got right that we justdidn't, we did not know how to
actually support them.
They'd been through the mosttraumatic thing that anyone
could have imagined at the time.
We just didn't know what to dowhen we were like you want to
watch TV, and so that was reallyinteresting.
(48:54):
I named some of the moments thatfeel really true about family
dynamics and the ways that weargue with one another and like
affectionately give one anothera hard time and those sorts of
moments that feel true and someof the things that are actually
true about Baltimore.
You know the ways that he namedBaltimore streets and
neighborhoods and things.
There's also like little thingsthat our family didn't have,
(49:16):
but like little Yiddishisms,like the Eva the grandmother
says to Sam regularly don't runwith the machine, which is sort
of in Yiddish like to say to gotoo fast and the car is machine,
and so that's a thing that Ithink a lot of old people said
about driving too fast, don'trun with the machine.
That shows up repeatedly.
(49:36):
So little truisms like that,that like just are gems of like
nostalgia and truth and the carsare perfect and the costumes
are perfect, and I didn't evenname those like, but those
things are just like.
The nostalgia is really there.
And lastly, I asked you to helpus think about money scripts and
sort of attitudes towards moneyin like a broader sense that
(49:57):
show up in this film and theways that they contradict one
another.
We want our kids to befinancially successful, but
we're also wary of money and theways that that sort of happens
sociologically.
You helped us think about thata little bit.
I'm out of time so I will stopthere.
Next week, what?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
are you bringing me?
I am bringing you my deepthoughts on Stand by Me.
Oh, excellent, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, talk to you then, see you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
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If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
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(50:45):
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(51:09):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
It's this complicated and nuanced negotiation between
the culture and the family andthe new culture, and wanting to
be successful, but also kind ofresenting it, and I think that
nuance is part of what, in mymemory, also reads as true have
(00:26):
you ever had something you lovedismissed because it's just pop
culture, what others might deemstupid shit?
You know matters, you know it'sworth talking and thinking
about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:49):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1990 Barry Levinson filmAvalon with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
All, right, em.
So right before we hit record,you were like um Em.
I don't remember seeing thismovie.
I mean, you're Em.
(01:09):
Right before we hit record, youwere like um Trace, I don't
remember seeing this movie.
So tell me what is in your headabout this movie, since it
seems like maybe not that much.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, so I have no memory of seeing this movie, no
memory of anything about itother than I know.
It's about a Jewish family andI think even before you
mentioned it last week, I knewit was Baltimore year when he
(01:45):
would come for any kind of likeholiday usually Thanksgiving,
but any kind of holiday.
He would come in even if hewasn't late and go.
You cut the turkey without us,and it took me years to find out
that that was from this filmthat he was quoting something.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's it.
That's what I got.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout this film?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I was really surprised when you told me that
you didn't remember this movie.
This movie is in some ways sortof it is not our family's
immigrant story, but it is aquintessential immigrant story
and for a lot of, especiallyAshkenazi Jewish Americans it is
sort of like the immigrantstory and not just Ashkenazi
Jews like other Europeans too,sort of the immigrant story it's
(02:21):
also it is in some ways a lovestory, a love letter to
Baltimore that Barry Levinson Imean many of his films are, but
this one in particular, and sothat makes it sort of special
for me and it holds a place oflike nostalgia in my head, like
this is an Oscar winning film.
This is not a film that, likemany of the films we watch, are
the ones that were sort ofthrowaways.
(02:41):
This was not a throwaway, butit sits in my memory, in the
furniture of my mind, as sort oflike true, with a capital T,
and I wanted to go back and lookat it and see if, in fact, it
holds up with today's analysis.
So what I'm going to share withyou there's a couple of buckets
that I want to talk about.
I want to talk about well,we'll talk about gender.
(03:03):
We'll start there.
There's not a whole lot to saybut I do want to name it.
We'll talk about assimilationand suburbanization for this
immigrant, this family.
We meet them in the early 20thcentury and we follow them
through about 50 years and sortof the changes in family
dynamics and structure and whatthe so-called American dream
(03:25):
does to this culture.
So I want to talk about that.
I want to talk about the roleof TV and film in this movie in
that story of assimilation.
I want to talk about treatmentof the yeah right.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Very inception there.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I want to talk about this movie's treatment of
Jewishness in general and theHolocaust in particular, which I
think is sort of interestingbecause it is very much a Jewish
family but the Jewishness is insome ways down, like it's true
and it's authentic.
But in some to watch this movieand we were going to talk about
it and she was like you know,for years in my memory they were
(04:00):
Italian and then she and Iworked together at a Jewish
museum and she was like and whenI worked at JMM, you know, when
I worked at the Jewish museum,the people corrected me.
But I get why she thought that.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to kind of
(04:21):
grapple with.
And then, lastly, specificallybecause you are my thought
partner, I want to talk aboutmoney and attitudes toward money
from this family, likeintergenerationally and
specifically vis-a-vis theAmerican dream or the so-called
American dream, but also just ingeneral.
So those are the buckets, butlet me start, especially since
(04:42):
you haven't seen it, with kindof painting the picture.
And this movie is like there'snot a lot of action, right, it's
really not a sort oftraditional Western film with
the rising action and then aresolution.
It starts off with thisvoiceover of an older man
(05:05):
telling the story.
It's Sam Krasinski is tellingthe story.
I came to America in 1914 inthis sort of Russian accent and
he tells the story.
He came through Philadelphiaand he got to Baltimore on the
4th of July and Baltimore wasthe most beautiful place he had
ever seen, which, as a lifelongBaltimorean, like makes me
chuckle.
That's a kind of funny thing tosay, right, ever seen, which,
as a lifelong Baltimorean, likemakes me chuckle.
(05:26):
But there were fire.
That's a kind of funny thing tosay, right.
But he got there on the 4th ofJuly in 1914.
So you know, sort of that early20th century war period, you
know, like so there wasfireworks everywhere and
sparklers and bunting and hethought it was for him because
Sam had come to America.
And it's this really beautifulsequence, like if you've never
(05:48):
seen it, honestly, I mean, evenif you just go watch the first
five minutes, it's just reallybeautiful of him, like this, you
know, with the mustache, likethe early 20th century European
immigrant sort of walking withwonder, looking at the fireworks
and the bunting and everythingelse.
So we learn he's telling thestory to his grandkids, not just
his grandkids, his grandkidsand granduncles, so we meet the
whole Khrushchinsky clan.
(06:10):
Sam is one of five brothers.
He's the last to come over fromthe old country and meet his
brothers.
The brothers, they work duringthe week they all work as paper
hangers, wallpaper hangers, andon the weekends they all play
violin and they are musiciansfor hire.
He's telling the story to theyoung people.
They're there, it's, it'sactually thanksgiving in sort of
present day.
I'm putting quotes aroundpresent day because it's
(06:30):
actually, I believe, like late40s at this point.
And so sam's sitting around andand the other grown-ups are
like come on, we've all heardthe story.
And sam's like, no, I'm tellingthe grandkids, I'm telling you
know, and so we meet this wholeextended family, these five well
, now, four brothers, because welearned that William died of
the flu in 1919.
And he tells the story of howthey got together and they sort
(06:54):
of stuck together, they pooledtheir resources, they brought
their father over to America andthey're telling stories and
it's very funny and it's thishuge Thanksgiving with, you know
, tables that stretch intomultiple rooms and the kids'
tables and like all the wivesand the kids, so it's three
generations of these foursurviving brothers.
(07:15):
And we meet actually Gabrielwho comes in late and they say
we were about to cut the turkeywithout you.
He said you cut the turkeywithout us.
No, they hadn't.
So we've established nowGabriel's always late and they
say we were about to cut theturkey without you.
He said you cut the turkeywithout us.
No, they hadn't.
So we've established nowGabriel's always late and they
always threaten to cut theturkey without him, but they
don't.
And they tell stories.
They all know the stories.
We meet this extended family.
(07:35):
Sam is the patriarch of ourstory.
His son is Jules, jules playedby Aidan Quinn, and Jules seems
to be his only son.
And then Jules' cousin, who'sthe same age, izzy from one of
the other brothers I'm actuallynot sure which.
Izzy and Jules are in businesstogether.
(08:01):
They're salesmen, they'retraveling salesmen.
And Jules has one son, michael,who is about eight, played by
an adorable eight-year-old,elijah Wood.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
That sounds familiar, yeah,that sounds familiar.
That sounds familiar, yeahreally adorable.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
So we see in the first sort of vignette it's
Christmastime and Michael goesout with his dad for the day.
It's very Baltimore.
They're like house to housewith the marble steps and their
traveling salesman cases andstuff, and then Michael's asleep
in the car, like we see themall day.
I mean it's sort of montage andJules is mugged and stabbed
(08:39):
while Michael watches from theback of the car.
It's traumatizing.
So Jules survives, you knowhe's okay and eventually.
But we see the older generation,the immigrant generation, the
four brothers sitting in thehospital talking, and this is
something I want to come back to, that's why I'm naming it
specifically.
They're like it's the money,the money is the problem.
(08:59):
Never have I heard of someonebeing stabbed for money before.
Money is the problem.
But we also have heard that thefour immigrant brothers, the
first generation, they allworked as wallpaper hangers and
we heard Jules tell Michael thatSam said you'll never be a
wallpaper hanger, you need to dosomething better.
So Sam had pushed Jules intosales rather than manual labor.
(09:23):
So that was sort of part of theAmerican dream.
Izzy convinces Jules to go intobusiness together, to actually
open their own place, a store,and they actually they get a TV.
While Jules is recuperatingfrom having been stabbed, they
get a TV, their first TV.
So it's like 48, 49.
And the entire family, so like20 people crowded around, all
(09:46):
different generations, likestaring at the test pattern and
like the old guys are like Idon't get it.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That makes me feel like when my son shows me
whatever he's really into onYouTube.
I'm just like, yeah, I don'tunderstand, Right Right.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
So we watch their lives.
Jules and Izzy open a TV storeand we sort of watch and they do
fairly well for themselves.
They move out to the suburbs.
The extended family has afamily circle they actually like
with officers and regularmeetings and everything, and we
sort of see that.
And then we see them sort ofkind of complaining because the
(10:27):
old guys don't want to have tocome all the way out to the
suburbs.
And like being from Baltimore,like the movie's called what it
is because it's named after aneighborhood where they first
moved, called Avalon, which isfictitious, but all of the other
neighborhoods that they nameare real.
And like they moved to thesuburbs which is Forest Park,
which is like not that far fromwhere I live, which doesn't feel
like the suburbs still, youknow, because the way sprawl
(10:50):
works, but anyway, that's reallyinteresting.
And like they argue about thebest way to get there and
they're naming routes that areactual streets, which is very
cool.
And we see a vignette wherethey're out of the suburbs.
The kids are playing wall ballagainst the stairs of the single
family home and there's like abee's nest behind and the bees
swarm and poor Michael getsstung all over his body.
(11:13):
At that same moment, sam's wife, eva, reveals that she comes
running over to the house totalk to her daughter-in-law and,
I guess, niece-in-law Izzy'swife, to say I just got a call
from the American Red Cross andmy brother survived.
He survived the war, hesurvived those concentration
(11:33):
camps.
She had never met him.
She found out after she leftPoland that her brother had been
born and she had never met himand she thought he had died,
that he had perished in theHolocaust.
And it turns out he's alive,died, that he had perished in
the Holocaust, and it turns outhe's alive.
And he knew he had a sister inBaltimore, but he couldn't
remember her last name.
He knew it was Russian, notPolish, and anyway.
So they bring him over.
(11:54):
Simcha, we see the—.
Simcha is his name, simcha isthe brother's name.
Yes, Okay, I wanted to specifybecause for me, me Simcha means
like a joyous event yeah, six,and like we see, this sort of
language barrier here, where thewife who has a name, but I
(12:34):
don't remember it is talkingabout their experience in
Yiddish to the older generation,and Anne, who is Jules's wife,
and her sister-in-law, whosename I don't remember, are
talking in the kitchen laterlike what did say?
Did she say this?
And like because they didn'tunderstand the Yiddish, so that
like that was sort of like amoment too that felt really
really true.
And then the kids the daughter,who came over from Poland from
(12:56):
the DP camp and doesn't speak alot of English, is like playing.
I'm putting quotes around thatwith the other cousins because
I'm putting quotes around thatwith the other cousins, because
I'm putting quotes around it,because she's there, but she's
like not playing.
Like they watch cliffhangermovies and so they build a model
airplane and decide to make itlike a cliffhanger and they do
like a string of airplane gluealong the floor and light it so
(13:20):
that it just like in theirmovies and they're like so
excited and like like notfreaking, but like like jumping
for joy and like look at that,look at that.
And this little girl is justlike glassy eyed, staring, and
later we see she's sleeping on acot or something in Michael's
room and she sits up screamingin the middle of the night like
with a night terror and he'slike, are you okay?
(13:42):
And she's just lies back downand goes back to sleep.
So that's a little bit of thesort of the holocaust treatment.
And uh, jules's wife revealsshe's pregnant again, michael's
like nine ish.
So they had been living withsam and eva, who are the first
generation, the grandparents inthe house, with Jules and Anne
(14:04):
and Michael.
But we see that Sam and Eva aregoing to move in with the
brother Simcha and they're allgoing to get a house together.
Izzy and Jules open a big likea warehouse, like the first
discount appliance store inMaryland, and they're very
nervous about it because it'skind of a gamble, but they're
also very excited.
And they're very nervous aboutit because it's kind of a gamble
(14:25):
, but they're also very excited.
We see them filming these likereally schlocky TV commercial.
You know where they're likeobviously, reading the cue cards
like that's right, jules, whichis, you know, very funny and it
feels very.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
I'm sure it's true in every city, but that feels very
Baltimore to me Just.
I feel like I remember seeingthose kinds of commercials
growing up.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Right right.
Meanwhile Thanksgiving happensagain and this time Gabriel's so
late that they do cut theturkey without him and he comes
in and he's furious and actuallyleaves and that creates a rift
that is never healed between thebrothers Michael Jewel's son
and Izzy's son, teddy.
At the opening day of thedepartment store do the
cliffhanger thing again and theyput firecrackers on the model
(15:14):
plane and it starts a bit of afire.
Now they get it all out, theythink, and they say we're never
going to tell anybody that wedid this.
And then later they'recelebrating at like the country
club or something, and Izzy getsa call and the store's on fire.
They had a huge opening day.
They made something like$19,000, which I did not look up
(15:36):
, but you know, this is likeearly 50, like 49, 50.
It was a lot of money,significant amount of money.
Yeah, they were like we're rich,you were right, it was the
right thing to do.
And they're like throwingdollar bills with their
employees and stuff.
So they're celebrating at thecountry club and they get a call
that the store is on fire andit's a four alarm blaze and the
whole thing goes up.
(15:56):
And Michael is sure that it'stheir fault because of the
cliffhanger thing they did withthe model airplane, of the
cliffhanger thing they did withthe model airplane.
So at this point Sam, thegrandfather, has moved out like
back to a row home and Michaeljust runs away, catches a
streetcar, goes to Sam and islike I did a terrible thing.
(16:20):
I did a terrible thing.
And Sam is great, he's reallygreat.
We see Jules come to pick himup and Sam says Michael has
something he has to tell you.
And Michael says what he didand Jules says how many times
have we told you not to playwith fire?
Do you think maybe you'lllisten to it now?
Maybe you'll listen now?
And Michael's like yeah, Iguess.
So, I think so.
And he's like he's just bereft.
And then Jules says the firemarshal says it started on the
(16:40):
fourth floor.
You didn't do it, it wasn'tyour fault, but it turns out we
learned that Izzy had takeninsurance money to pay for the
TV advertising.
So they actually don't haveinsurance.
So Jules is out, he goes towork, he gets a sales job he's
actually selling airtimeadvertising.
And we see Simcha moves to NewJersey because he gets a job
(17:07):
running a farm and in thebeginning of them, with TV trays
in front of the TV, we see Eva,the grandma ends up getting
(17:29):
sick and then passing away.
So we see her funeral.
We see Sam walking away fromthe funeral like Gabriel didn't
come, simcha didn't come becausehe couldn't get away from the
farm, and Sam sort of mutteringlike this isn't a family.
As the movie's ending, there'sthis scene with Jules and Anne
sitting in bed watching TV andJules kind of looks blank and
he's like we've seen thatseveral years have passed, it's
(17:51):
now like the 60s and we see Sammistake David, the younger son,
for Michael.
And then we see Jules and Annesitting in bed and Jules says he
wets the bed, my dad wets thebed.
And then the final sceneMichael, now an adult, brings
his own son to visit Sam in anursing home and his son's name
(18:16):
is Sam and Sam says you're notsupposed to name after the
living.
And Michael says I know, andit's clear that Sam has met Sam
before and just doesn't remember, like he doesn't have, he's got
dementia and doesn't reallyremember.
And in this visit Sam sayssomething like you know, I, a
couple years ago I went to gosee Avalon and in the building
(18:37):
we lived in it just doesn'texist.
And I and I went to see youknow this place and it doesn't
exist.
And I went to see and I went tothe nightclub that I owned for
a while and thank God it wasstill there.
I was starting to think Iwasn't real and if I'd known
they wouldn't be there, then Iwould have worked harder to make
better memories.
And the final scene Michael andhis son, sam, are walking out
(18:59):
and young Sam says that mantalks funny and Michael says
well, he wasn't born here, hecame to America in 1914 and he
starts to tell Sam's story andwe see that very same scene from
the beginning.
So that's the arc.
It's really not a plot in thetraditional sense.
Some of the things that Levinsondoes beautifully are like at
(19:23):
the big Thanksgiving tables.
Beautifully are like at the bigThanksgiving tables.
While they're telling stories,we see the flashback and they
argue with one another.
It was 1925.
No, it was 26.
You know that sort of thingwhich definitely feels true, oh
my gosh.
Yes.
And in some of the arguments,like we see the flashback and
Sam's, like I remember it wascold, it was so cold and his
(19:45):
wife says no, it was May, itwasn't cold.
You're thinking of so-and-so'swedding, that was cold, and so
we saw the memory and there wassnow on the ground.
And now we see it again,exactly the same, except it's
sunny, like same street andeverything and all the same
people.
And that is like it'sdelightful, it's really
delightful.
(20:05):
And some of the other things,like the way he captures sort of
the family dynamic in this film, is like it's really I think
that's what I remember as truewith a capital T, in the way
that they sort of talk over eachother and correct one another,
and also like the sort ofaffectionate annoyance like oh,
(20:27):
do we have to hear this storyagain?
So that all felt reallyinteresting and true.
So that's the basic gist of it.
I think it's worth watching.
You should go see it.
I mean, like it's streaming onPrime.
It's definitely worth watching.
But let me start with the genderactually, because in some ways
this is the easiest.
This film very much passesBechdel without even trying,
(20:49):
like it's fine In many occasions.
So reminders, listener, theBechdel test from Alison Bechdel
, we ask ourselves are there atleast two female characters who
have names?
Do they talk to one another?
And do they talk to one anotherabout something other than a
man or a boy?
And yes, yes, yes, we have manynamed female characters.
Anne and Eva, thedaughter-in-law and
mother-in-law, talk all the timeabout all kinds of things, and
(21:11):
not just Jules and the twosisters-in-law talk about things
, not just men or boys.
So it definitely passes Bechdel.
That said, levinson is telling astory about men.
Yeah, like, ultimately he isinterested in the story about
men, and so women are present,but they are present as and in
(21:32):
relationship to the men.
They're wives, they aren't even.
I mean there are two girls whoare like in the third generation
, but they're really only thereas wives or mothers.
They're not there as their ownhuman beings, sort of
independent of their menfolk.
So I feel like that's worthnaming.
That said, eva, themother-in-law she's a huge
(21:55):
presence on the screen and inthe story, like she's real, even
though her role is supporting.
So it's a little both, and Ithink hoarding.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
So it's a little both and I think it's also I would
suggest that it's period typicalof 1990.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Well, I was going to say of the story, like the time
that it's being told, so I'mgoing to push back on you on
that, because if you and I wereto make this story about our
family's immigrant story, wewould tell the story about the
women.
It would be all women, we wouldtalk about our
great-great-whatever-grandmother, dora, and her daughter Fanny
and her daughter Ruth.
We would not be talking Like Idon't even know Israel's story,
(22:38):
dora's husband.
So I'm going to push back onyou on that.
You're right.
I think Levinson was interestedin telling the men's story and
I'm not mad at him for that.
But I don't want to suggestthat there aren't other ways to
tell this immigrant story.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Oh, no, no, no, it's not that so much.
It's that if you are centeringthe immigrant story focused on
employment, yes, but it reallywasn't.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
I mean, employment was important and we will talk
about it, because money and theAmerican dream are definitely
important.
And we do hear Anne's voicesaying I just want to feel at
home in my own home becauseeverything like I want to be
able to set something down onthe coffee table.
I think it looks nice and Icome back and it's been moved so
like her concerns are shown.
(23:29):
Her voice is there, but Jules'sstory is the one that we're
really hearing right and it isperiod typical for 1990.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
It is period typical of 1990.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
And I'm not mad at Levinson.
I think that this is fairlyautobiographical.
I think that he is the ElijahWood character and I think that
he had a strong relationshipwith his grandfather and so he
wanted to tell that story aboutgrandsons and grandfathers.
So I'm not mad at him about it,but I do want to just name it,
yeah yeah, well, it's also we in1990, like how many female
(24:02):
directors, writer directors, didwe have?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Right?
So it's not that it's a problemthat this story is told, it's a
problem that other storiesaren't.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Right, right, and that's really all I have to say
about gender really in this film, so I'll just put that on the
shelf.
So let me talk about theJewishness, assimilation and
suburbanization and maybe eventreatment of the Holocaust all
together in sort of aconstellation.
I think there's a fundamentalcritique of assimilation in
(24:34):
Levinson's film here.
Like we are definitely meant tofeel a sort of loss.
We are shown a loss from theraucous and loud and big family
gatherings of the beginning tothe so-called nuclear family
watching TV on Thanksgiving withTV trays.
(24:57):
I'm not suggesting that critiqueis wrong, but I think there's
so much in that conversationabout assimilation, and Levinson
, I think, does it with nuance,because this thing about money
like, and this sort of chasing,the American dream, sam's the
(25:17):
one who says to his son, youknow, and his brothers too, like
they say we don't want you todo what we're doing, we don't
want to teach you this trade,because we want better for you,
we want more for you.
And then at the same time soIzzy and Jules both change their
name from Krishinski tosomething that's easier to
(25:37):
pronounce.
So Jules goes with K and Izzy,his cousin, goes with Kirk, and
so their store is called K and Kor Kirk and K.
And when he learns it Sam islivid about this and he gets
over it.
But we see him like reallyupset, you had a name, like how
can we be a family if we allhave different names, two
(26:00):
cousins with different names?
Like Krishinsky?
It's a name, it's a good name,and at the same time it was his
pushing them toward the Americandream that made that a thing
for them.
And so I feel like Levinsonreally captures that tension of
the desire to assimilate andhold on to the old culture and
(26:24):
how hard that is to do, and howhard that is to do, and I think
the fact the old men nameexplicitly the money's the
problem and then the argumentsend up being about money, like
when Gabriel later at a familycircle after they cut the turkey
without him there's been thisrift and like he's still arguing
about it, he says your sonmakes a bunch of money and now
(26:46):
you think you don't have to waitto cut the turkey.
You live way out in the suburbsand it's a bunch of money.
And now you think you don'thave to wait to cut the turkey.
You live way out in the suburbsand it's hard to get to you now
.
And you think, because your sonmakes a bunch of money, and
like that is the crux of theargument, is this tension around
who makes what money.
And at the same time we sawearlier when Jules was stabbed,
(27:06):
when he was mugged, the old menblamed the money.
And so it's like it's thiscomplicated and nuanced, like
negotiation between the cultureand the family and the new
culture and wanting to besuccessful, but also like kind
of resenting it successful, butalso like kind of resenting it
(27:35):
and I think that nuance is partof what, in my memory, also
reads as true.
Speaker 2 (27:37):
You know I'm thinking like not that there is like any
resentment or anything likethat, but I know are a similar
thing that I have personallylamented a bit, even though I
have no regrets about the pathmy life has taken, is mom and
dad made it very clear to usthat they wanted us to go to
whatever school was the rightschool for us, which, generally,
(27:57):
which we were going to go outof state, like there was never
any question about that.
But there was also a hope,maybe a little stronger than a
hope, that we'd come back, andyou did and I didn't, and your
life took you on various paths,but you are back in Baltimore
and I am not.
And so just I'm thinking aboutthis because we just finished
(28:18):
Passover and one of my favoritethings, it's my favorite holiday
, in part because when we weregrowing up, mom would have these
enormous seders.
Seders yeah, that like just thishuge and it would be like it
would be found family becauseher sisters had gone out of
state Also left Baltimore.
Yeah, but you know we would haveall these people and like have
(28:38):
to set up tables in the basementto be able to fit everybody,
and it was just the four of usfor the seder.
You know, me and my husband andmy two kids this year, and I
really regret that.
You know the fact that if Iwant to celebrate with you and
with my niece and with my momand I have to travel or you have
to travel to me and it's a deal, and so like it's that push me,
(29:03):
pull you a little bit, becausemom and dad really wanted me to
have the experience that I hadby going out of state for
college, and I have no regretsabout that at all.
But there's always a cost, andso wanting your kids to do
better than you did, in whateverway, has a cost that you might
(29:23):
not even realize until you haveto pay it.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
Yeah, it's really interesting that you bring up
Passover too and thinking aboutthis movie, because it's a
critique that some folks,especially Jewish folks, have
had of this movie, this Jewishor immigrant family.
But the holiday that we see overand over again is Thanksgiving,
and instead of a Seder or aRosh Hashanah dinner or
something, in fact, we don't seeany Jewish ritual in the film
(29:48):
at all, none at all.
And I think in some ways, Ireally think Levinson did this
on purpose, because this is astory of American dream and they
are Jewish, but actually thestory that he's telling is about
the effect of America on theirculture and on their family and,
(30:08):
like my friend thought it couldhave been an Italian family
exactly, and I think also thefact that the brothers put such
gravity on being respected atThanksgiving, which is an
American holiday, also feelsreally significant.
So it's interesting to me thatyou name that the Passover Seder
(30:29):
, because I think this it couldhave been a very similar story
with Passover.
It wouldn't have been you cutthe toiku without me.
It would have been somethingelse the brisket.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
Yeah, the brisket, exactly.
Or you know, you started theSeder without me, Right, right.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
You poured the first cup without me, whatever it is,
you hid the hoppy common withoutme.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So I think that's interestingand significant.
The other thing that I want toname here that is not in this
film at all and I don't want tospend too long on it because we
don't have enough time but onebig piece of the American dream
and assimilation for AshkenaziJews is also their being
(31:08):
accepted as white, andsuburbanization was part of that
in Baltimore especially.
Like Baltimore is whereredlining was piloted.
It's not a thing that you knowI've been proud of for the city,
but it's true.
And in that post-warsuburbanization, housing boom
(31:31):
and you know what we werebuilding like Jews were getting
out of the city and moving outto the county and the suburbs
into homes that were notavailable to their Black
neighbors and they had beenneighbors in the city.
In fact, redline neighborhoods,like Jewish residents in a
neighborhood, made aneighborhood borderline.
(31:52):
So the redlining schema fromthe government sort of told
banks what risk a neighborhoodwas and it was based on who
lived there.
And Jews in a neighborhood wasa moderate risk according to the
government, and this is fromthe 30s.
So, levinson, that's not in thismovie.
(32:14):
That's not in this movie at alland you know, in 1990, we
weren't talking about it, but Iwant to name it now, in 2025,
that this is a part of the storythat is happening off screen
that's just completelyunacknowledged and since it
happens in Baltimore, like Iwanted to at least like put that
pin in this film, I'm curiousalso, in the like being taken as
(32:39):
white, there's also this, thepassing for white in that.
Speaker 2 (32:43):
So Elijah Wood's not Jewish.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
No, I don't think so, and neither is Aidan Quinn.
Aidan Quinn's not Jewish?
No, I don't think so.
Neither is Aidan Quinn AidanQuinn is not Jewish.
The man who plays Sam ArminMueller Stahl, is also not
Jewish.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
Yeah, so like markers of Judaism are either.
Like you will hear aboutOrthodox Jews, frummi Jews in
New York being attacked becausethey are conducting themselves
and wearing themselves in waysthat mark them as Jewish.
Ashkenazi Jews coming fromEastern Europe often are what
(33:15):
people think of when they thinkof someone who looks Jewish, and
that's something I experiencedas a teenager in Baltimore
suburbs.
I have a friend who is blondeand blue-eyed and Jewish, but
she has a lot of the featuresthat one would expect a Jewish
young woman to look like AnAshkenazi woman yeah, an
Ashkenazi Jew to look like.
(33:37):
But there was another kid in ourclass who said I looked Jewish
because I had dark hair and liketalking about like, what are
those markers of Jewishness andwho passes and who doesn't and
what people who didn't realize Iwas Jewish would say in front
of me that they wouldn't say infront of friends who had clearer
physical markers of Jewishness.
(33:58):
And so I'm thinking about thatbecause of my experiences
growing up in Baltimore andhaving that happen on several
occasions where, like eitherbecause I had dark hair, people
thought that I was, or because,you know, for whatever reason
they don't think I look Jewishthat people would say
anti-Semitic things in front ofme.
So in this film we havenon-Jewish actors who are very
(34:24):
easily going to pass becausethey are not necessarily like
they don't have any backgroundwith Ashkenazi Jewish features.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I think it's interesting too that, though we
do have this a little bitconversation about the Holocaust
, we really don't.
This movie does not talk aboutantisemitism.
There are no antisemiticincidences that we see.
We don't see any of that sortof like.
They're at a country club which, in the 40s, like there was a
(34:57):
Jewish country club in Baltimore, because prior to the war, like
Jews weren't welcome at thesort of traditional white
country club.
So we see the country club.
We don't hear about the factthat it's the Jewish country
club.
We don't hear about the like.
So that piece of it is reallynot.
Levinson wasn't interested intelling that story.
He couldn't not include thething.
(35:19):
You know something about theHolocaust and what's interesting
?
Well, so many things areinteresting.
Something that I found sort oflike almost meta is the ways in
which these survivors are, theAmerican family and the survivor
family just don't know how tointeract with one another.
(35:41):
And so we see Elijah Woods,michael, talking to the little
girl whose name I don't remember, who survived and came from the
DB camp, talking about TV, andhe's like telling her what TV
stations they watch, and we onlyhave 2, 11, and 13.
And how do you do these?
Monday through Friday at thistime and he's like, do you have
Captain Video where you comefrom?
(36:02):
And she goes, captain Video,and he says Captain Video, and
like it's like the disconnect isso huge from their experiences
and it goes uncommented.
And I think the uncommentedpart is what feels like
interesting and like ripe therethat we just expected folks to
(36:25):
like assimilate into whereverthey landed after the most
traumatic thing that hadhappened in a century.
And I think the way thatLevinson sort of showed that,
without sort of underlining thethesis, if you will, that also
(36:46):
like another of those momentsthat just felt sort of true.
The one thing that is commentedis when Simcha moves to New
Jersey, one of the brothers islike, can you imagine like going
30 years and like having thiswar between you and she thought
he was dead and then theyfinally are reunited and they're
(37:07):
only together for a year beforehe moves to take a job.
And that's the only sort ofcommentary on it that we get,
which is sort of part of thebigger commentary about the ways
that life pulls families apart,american life, yeah.
So the last thing that Ihaven't exactly talked about,
though I've touched on it, is TVand films and their role in the
(37:31):
assimilation and the pullingthings apart, right.
So we see the kids at themovies like loving the
cliffhanger and things, and thatshows up again and again where
they're doing these dangerousthings, that they're trying to
recreate what they saw on film.
We see this progression fromthe first, like they're so
excited and they did it becauseJules is, he survived this
(37:53):
traumatic thing when he gotmugged and they set down this
piece of furniture and they'reall staring at it like as a huge
family.
That's where we start.
And then, like it is always onthrough the rest of the movie,
like every time, like as theyears progress, the TV is always
on as we move through to the70s.
(38:14):
And then Michael, after thestore burns and he doesn't feel
like he can rebuild with Izzy,he's out.
The job he gets is sellingadvertising.
Abbie gets his sellingadvertising and he has this
conversation with his mom who'ssick, she's in the hospital and
she's like I don't understandwhat you do.
You sell air.
And he says well, I selladvertising, you know, like for
TV commercials.
So I convince people, you knowcompanies, that they should make
(38:37):
a commercial and she says Ihate commercials, except that
one with the dancing cigarettes.
I like that.
One Did you sell that air andone Did you sell that air?
And he says no, mom, I didn'tsell that one.
So that's the role oftelevision in the kind of
transition and like reshaping ofthe family and how they
(39:00):
interact with one another andwith America, like there's a
through line there.
That I think is reallyinteresting, very critical I
think.
I think Levinson was sort ofsaying like TV messed us up,
which I'm not unaware of, theirony that I watched this on my
TV last night.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
So Well, the thing that's interesting is because
you said there's the point wherethe older generation is like I
don't get it about the testpattern, at least since the 20th
century, like the early 20thcentury, it feels like this is
what happens in every generation.
My job didn't exist when I wasa kid Right, because I write for
the internet, and so my kidstalk about wanting to be
(39:36):
YouTubers when they grow up andso, like that I can see like me
in the hospital with my grandsonor something like you know, in
30 years going like wait, you dowhat now?
Like I don't understand.
So like how do you sell memes,you know, or whatever it would
(39:58):
be, and so like that is alsojust part of the like.
It's a that's specific to 1990because the internet as a
personal tool was in its veryinfancy, but that's also a part
of just the march of progressand like the consumable progress
specifically yeah, that is likeLevinson points out like it
(40:22):
kind of ends up fracturing thisfamily in a way.
I mean, that's not what does it.
But then they're like they'reeating tv dinners in front of
the tv on thanksgiving, whenthey used to have, you know,
this giant huge, raucouscelebration and that's.
You know.
There are nights where, like,all four of us are in the same
room and we're each on adifferent device yeah, totally
(40:43):
which is like I have implementedmovie nights, because then
we're at least watching the samething, the same device, yeah,
so, yeah, that is.
It's an interesting commentaryand it's.
I have been thinking about theways in which we have been
(41:04):
trained to be consumers a lotlately, and that is something
that I can see, where Levinsonsees that as the onset, and
Stephen King, in his book onwriting, talks about how he
feels very lucky that he wasamong the last generation that
grew up without TV, because hefeels like that made him a
(41:24):
better writer, that made himlike just a better human being,
gave him more imagination, madesure like he could tolerate
boredom and things like that.
And I remember reading that,going like, oh yeah, that is
weird.
And then a few years laterrealizing like, oh, I feel that
way about growing up without theinternet, and in part it's
because, like the instantgratification which gets even
(41:45):
more and more instant thefurther we go.
So I do want to ask you younever really quite got me to
talk about money.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
Yeah, so watching these guys sort of want better
for their kids and also sort ofsaying it's the money's fault
that he got that Jules got hurtas I was watching it last night
I was thinking about you and theway you talk about money
scripts actually.
So we don't have a lot of time,but could you like quickly talk
about money scripts?
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (42:14):
So we all carry these unconscious scripts about money
.
This was coined by Dr BradleyKlontz and his research partner
Sonia Britz, and I'll include alink in the show notes where
these are unconscious beliefs.
We carry about money, that kindof flavor, all of our
interactions with money, andthey fall into four broad
categories and the thing is likewhat it is.
(42:36):
They talk about how childrenare excellent sponges but
terrible interpreters, so likethey take in everything but they
interpret it through the lensof like this childlike lens.
And the example I always giveis like our mom used to think
that if doctors got sick they'dgo to jail.
And so the thing is we do thatwith money, but money is a taboo
(42:56):
subject so we don't have achance to push back against
those scripts that we make.
So if as a kid we were likemoney causes fights between mom
and dad, so money is stressful,we don't have a chance to push
back against that and learnsomething different about money.
And so when they're saying like,oh, it's the money's fault is
why he got hurt, well, money ismorally neutral, it just is.
(43:19):
And so saying it's the money'sfault is like it's as
unrealistic as saying it'sbecause it rained that day.
It doesn't have anything to dowith what's going on, but that
gives a way to put the emotionsof being furious and afraid and
worried for your son, yournephew, your father and make it
(43:43):
the fault of something.
That is okay.
It's okay to be mad at themoney and then also like gives
you like well then that meansthat he needs to do something
where you know he's not chasingmoney so much.
And even though they wanted himto do that they wanted him to
be financially successful theyalso were wary of it.
(44:04):
They were concerned about itbecause rich people can and this
is a money script rich peopleare vulnerable because someone
might stab them and steal theirmoney, or rich people are
unethical, or rich people anynumber of different things.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Yeah, and then we see that again with Gabriel when he
complains at the family circleabout like you think that you're
better than we are because yourson makes money.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Yes, and so, like those, all money is, it's a
morally neutral thing.
It's actually this I like tosay it's a collective delusion,
because it doesn't actuallyexist, right?
It only has value because we allagree that it has value on it,
yeah, and so because of that,it's vulnerable to our own sense
of morality, our own neuroses,our own vulnerabilities, our
(44:53):
fears, whatever they are.
We put that onto money.
So when people are having anemotional reaction to money and
they think, well, that's becausethat's how money is, that's not
it.
They're having that emotionalreaction because that's how they
emotionally feel and it's thiscollective delusion that we have
.
And so there's no way ofproving it wrong that you only
(45:17):
think that because your sonmakes money, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Let me see if I can quickly wrap up what we talked
about.
So this movie, 1990, avalon,barry Levinson, this love letter
to Baltimore and to his familyand to his upbringing, which was
it, does pass back cell inmultiple ways and also is very
much a story about men.
It was at least semi-audit,biographical, I believe, and you
(45:41):
know he was interested intelling the story about him and
his grandfather and about hisdad and his uncle, and so the
women are there and they're real, but they are very much
supporters and supporting rolesin this film.
We talked about a lot aboutassimilation and suburbanization
and the American dream and therole of television in that.
(46:03):
Television in that and sort ofthe push me, pull me around.
Assimilation, where the desireof the immigrant generation for
their kids to have better lives,more successful, more
financially successful lives,but also to hold on to some of
the things that they value aboutthe culture from the old
(46:24):
country, including the familydynamics and the literal
geographic closeness which,though the two cousins who move
out to the suburbs actually dokeep, that because they live
right across the street from oneanother we see that it also is
lost because some of thebrothers are still back in the
row homes down in the city, notin the suburbs.
(46:45):
Back in the row homes down inthe city, not in the suburbs, we
see the role of TV and films insort of continuing the
separation of folks who used tobe close, both literally and
figuratively, and we see thatportrayed again through the role
of TV from the first time wesee a TV in one of their homes
with the entire family crowdedaround to look at the test
(47:05):
screen, through to later when weactually see a Thanksgiving
dinner that happens on TV trays,with just four people in the
nuclear family watching TV onThanksgiving.
One of the things that I namedwas that is not in this film at
all but is in retrospect isabsent is the role of being
(47:28):
accepted as white, thatAshkenazi Jews sort of sometimes
chased, sometimes just accepted, but the role that that played
in allowing them certainlybenefited from allowing them to
move out of the city in waysthat their Black neighbors would
not have been able to.
And there's some greatbook-length treatments of this
(47:48):
that I will include in the shownotes, notably Eric Goldstein's
the Price of Whiteness, which isnot new but really traces that
idea and is very interesting.
There's also one calledAmbivalent Embrace that's
specifically about the Americandream and this sort of immigrant
, multigenerational thing that Ithink speaks very closely.
So this book, ambivalentEmbrace, like traces exactly
(48:10):
what Levinson was chasing andlooks at it from a sociological
lens.
I will include a link in theshow notes to that movie.
We also talked briefly aboutthe treatment of the Holocaust
in this movie as just sort oflike this complete disconnect
between the American Jews andtheir European family who
survived and sort of knowing howto talk to one another and
(48:34):
knowing how to support thesurvivors, which I think
Levinson got right that we justdidn't, we did not know how to
actually support them.
They'd been through the mosttraumatic thing that anyone
could have imagined at the time.
We just didn't know what to dowhen we were like you want to
watch TV, and so that was reallyinteresting.
(48:54):
I named some of the moments thatfeel really true about family
dynamics and the ways that weargue with one another and like
affectionately give one anothera hard time and those sorts of
moments that feel true and someof the things that are actually
true about Baltimore.
You know the ways that he namedBaltimore streets and
neighborhoods and things.
There's also like little thingsthat our family didn't have,
(49:16):
but like little Yiddishisms,like the Eva the grandmother
says to Sam regularly don't runwith the machine, which is sort
of in Yiddish like to say to gotoo fast and the car is machine,
and so that's a thing that Ithink a lot of old people said
about driving too fast, don'trun with the machine.
That shows up repeatedly.
(49:36):
So little truisms like that,that like just are gems of like
nostalgia and truth and the carsare perfect and the costumes
are perfect, and I didn't evenname those like, but those
things are just like.
The nostalgia is really there.
And lastly, I asked you to helpus think about money scripts and
sort of attitudes towards moneyin like a broader sense that
(49:57):
show up in this film and theways that they contradict one
another.
We want our kids to befinancially successful, but
we're also wary of money and theways that that sort of happens
sociologically.
You helped us think about thata little bit.
I'm out of time so I will stopthere.
Next week, what?
Speaker 2 (50:16):
are you bringing me?
I am bringing you my deepthoughts on Stand by Me.
Oh, excellent, yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, talk to you then, see you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon there's a link in the
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
(50:45):
, of course, share the show withyour people.
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
(51:09):
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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