It was a run-by fruiting!
Revisiting the beloved 1993 Robin Williams film Mrs. Doubtfire this week was a reminder to Tracie that you can never go home again. Though she was expecting some early nineties transphobia (and was mostly pleased at its absence), she was horrified to realize the film's plot relied on a kind of men's rights activist feminist backlash, where every woman and girl in the movie represented a different feminist stereotype, from the humorless social worker to the ball-busting workaholic wife. Tracie had also forgotten how much of the film's humor came from cringe comedy, which both Guy sisters find unbearably painful, making the rewatch more of a squirm-fest than she anticipated. There are still some sweet moments and genuine humor underneath the regressive hijinks and heavy makeup--just recognize how deep you might have to dig for them.
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This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
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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):
I expected to find some unpleasant transphobia in
this film.
You know these.
However, many years later, 30years later and there is some,
though not as much as I expected.
What I did not expect and infact found is a sort of like
anti-feminist backlashundercurrent.
It's quiet, it's subtle, butit's there men's rights and,
(00:28):
like this, over and over again,subtle lampooning of women who
dare have the audacity to expectmen to be serious.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
pop culture, what others mightdeem stupid shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
(00:48):
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
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 1993 film Mrs Doubtfire withmy sister, emily Guy-Burken,
(01:08):
and with you.
Let's dive in.
Okay, em, I know you've seen it, we've seen it together, but
tell me what furniture is inyour mind about Mrs Doubtfire?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
on some of the kind of the humor that I find hard to
watch.
So like that scene in the endwhere he's doing the quick
change.
I hate those kinds of moments.
I really hate those kinds ofmoments.
And so much as I love and havealways loved Robin Williams,
this was not a favorite movie ofmine, but the thing there were
moments in my head that I founda little bit delightful, sort of
.
So there's the bus driver whohad a crush on him as Mrs
Doubtfire and I don't know why Iliked that because it was meant
(01:51):
to be cringe humor that I don'tlike Because Robin Williams was
a very hairy man and he did notbother shaving his legs as Mrs
Doubtfire.
And the bus driver sees hislegs and you can see that the
character is a little concerned,like oh, I've been found out.
And the bus driver's like no,it's natural, the way God made
you, or something like that.
(02:11):
And for some reason I justreally liked that.
Now, that may be because littleSemitic Emily also has very
hairy legs.
I don't know, there was justsomething about that that I
found kind of lovely, eventhough it's within this sort of
transphobic cringe humor moment.
(02:34):
So that's something that stuckwith me.
The moment when the Danielcharacter is about to be found
out, because he's taken off hisMrs Doubtfire makeup and puts
his face in the cake so it lookslike he's got cold cream on,
because that's kind of brilliant.
So that's in there.
And then the one thing that Iremember really connecting with,
(02:56):
so when our parents divorced in1982, our mom tells the story
of they did not do alimony andthey did not do child support,
but they decided that they wouldmeet up once a month because we
were very little you were six,I was three they would meet up
once a month and do anaccounting of what they'd each
spent, and so mom had taken usto the dentist and the eye
(03:22):
doctor and something else, anddad had taken us to the zoo and
wild world and something likethat and she owed him 20 bucks
and she's like we don't need todo this again yeah, and the fact
that daniel is the fun parent,and the fact that this movie
(03:42):
came out 10 years after.
Mom had that experience with ourdad, who had specifically
wanted custody of us on theweekends, in part because he
wanted to be the fun dad on theweekends, which is like a
systemic thing that happens justis.
It's in my head, and I thinkthat is also part of the reason
why this has never been one ofmy favorite movies.
So those are the things thatare in my head about this movie.
(04:03):
So tell me, why are we thinkingabout this?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because, like you, I have
a hard time with that sort ofcringe humor and there was a lot
of it in this movie whichwasn't in my memory, but it is
so beloved and it's RobinWilliams, who we both love and
associate with our dad, and Ithink you know, when we were
sort of looking at the list oflike 80s and 90s movies, I was
like, oh, I want to watch thatagain.
(04:30):
I wonder if it holds up.
You know, it was just sort ofthat like it just sparked
something as we were looking atthe list.
So that's why it surfaced now.
It wasn't anything super deepand meaningful, but I just
(04:51):
wanted to go back, especiallysince it is so beloved.
I think sometimes the morebeloved a piece is, the more
interesting our deep thoughtscan be, so that's why.
So let me give you a quickwhere I'm going, some postcards
from the analysis, and then I'lldo what I can for a synopsis.
So I expected to find someunpleasant transphobia in this
film.
You know these.
However, many years later, 30years later, and there is some,
though not as much as I expected.
What I did not expect and infact found is a sort of like
(05:15):
anti-feminist backlashundercurrent.
It's quiet, it's subtle, butit's there.
This sort of men's rights andlike this over and over again,
subtle lampooning of women whodare have the audacity to expect
men to be serious, to actuallybe responsible, or who get
resentful when they have toclean up after them, when women
(05:37):
have to clean up after men.
Like there's this lampooning ofthese women that I didn't see
in the 90s and like I deeplyidentify with Sally Field's
character, miranda, this timearound.
So that was something that Iwas surprised to find.
You're right, there is a lot ofcringe humor.
It was actually kind of hard towatch for me.
There were moments where I wasjust like, oh God, it's got to
(05:59):
be over soon, it's got to beover soon.
So that was something.
I think.
There's also something likeweirdly like essentialist about
gender.
That's an undercurrent of this.
Like daniel had to become awoman in order to learn how to
clean and cook and like expectthe kids to do their homework
(06:19):
and like ew, I think, ew, ew.
So there's just some stuff inthere that's just like
unexpectedly ick.
This is not where I expectedthe ick to be.
So that'll be interesting forus to talk about a little bit.
We can talk about that busdriver moment as well, because I
think there's something.
(06:39):
There's also something weird inthat.
I think every woman in theworld has been in that moment
where some stranger is feelingflirty and you're feeling
harassed.
And to have that happen toRobin Williams dressed as a
woman what are we meant to thinkand feel about that?
It's almost like he can take itbetter than we can, which is
like also ew.
(07:00):
So we can get into that alittle bit.
Let me give you a rundown.
I'm just going to hit thehighlights.
We meet Daniel Hillard, robinWilliams' character.
He is a voice actor.
We meet him while he's actuallyvoicing a cartoon about a
little bird, like think TweetyBird, kind of a look, and he
(07:23):
ends up half quitting, quitting,half getting fired.
When the character is likegiven a cigarette, like a last
cigarette before the cat's gonnaeat him, and instead of doing
the line which is like oh,that's that's so good about the
cigarette, robin williams islike oh, that's disgusting, I
would never do that.
And so like the voice doesn'tmatch or whatever, and he kind
(07:44):
of quits, kind of gets firedbecause of this refusal to.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Is it like an ethical thing Because it's for kids?
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So we do get an immediate sense that like he
cares about what message he'sgiving to kids.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yes, yes, we are meant to applaud him for not
just reading the line as itstands.
He's also, though we see he'slike against a hostile audience
because he says you know, hisproducer, who's in the booth
with him, is like just read theline and he turns to the sound
guys behind some glass and islike what do you guys think you
think we should be promotingcigarettes to kids that, like,
all three of them are smoking?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's hard to remember when that switched over when
people smoked on cigarette.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, when that switched over.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
When people smoked on cigarette yeah, when that
switched over.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, because people they don't generally now on
screen this, though I wonder ifit was one of the late holdouts
because, like, it made a pointand it was all about how
cigarette smoking was bad.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So that may have been intentional, I'm wondering if
it's one of those, like that wasan easy point to make because
at that point it had becomeclear that that was bad.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think maybe.
Yeah, Anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Anyway, so continue.
Okay.
So Daniel's, he's in SanFrancisco, he leaves.
It's made clear that, like, ifyou leave now you're never
coming back.
So he's just lost his job orquit his job, it's unclear.
And then we see him go pick uphis kids from school.
Three of them there's Lydia,who's 14, chris, who's 12, and
Natalie, who goes by, natty,who's five, and they are
(09:10):
surprised to see him.
They say we didn't think youcould get us.
And he said well, I got offearly.
And they go you got fired again, didn't you?
And he says something aboutcreative differences and one of
them says actors, which isexactly what the guy in the
booth had said.
Like the same way.
Anyway, it's Chris's birthday.
He says we're going to have aparty.
Lydia stick in the mud.
We're already seeing.
(09:32):
She says no, you can't.
Mom said no because of yourreport card.
Dad says mom won't be home foranother four hours.
You guys ready to see the wildkingdom?
So he has brought out a pettingzoo.
There are children and animalseverywhere on this, like it's
this big, gorgeous San Franciscohome and like the animals on
(09:54):
the stoop and in the house andit's like it's pandemonium.
So we see the neighbor likevery upset, like an old lady
neighbor, like very upset aboutthe animals.
She calls miranda sally field,who is the wife and mother, who
is a high-powered interiordesigner, like for like high
level, like think she's marthastort.
(10:16):
She's martha stort, but likefor hotels, like for like
corporate, like.
So she's like a high leveldesigner and she's clearly very
successful.
She gets a call from thisneighbor about this mess, so she
comes home.
She's got a cake for chris'sbirthday and she comes in and
there's children jumping on herfurniture and there's ponies in
(10:38):
the living room.
She sets down the cake to likefigure out what's going on, and
an animal starts eating it.
She pulls the plug on the music.
Daniel is dancing.
It's that 90s song Jump up,jump up and jump around.
So Daniel's dancing with twokids, including their son Chris,
on their dining room table.
So then we see them arguing andthey're cleaning up and you
(11:03):
know his reaction initially islike oh, you're home early, I
was going to have it all cleanedup, yeah right.
So they're cleaning up, they'reyelling at one another.
She's like, do not make me themonster.
You always do this.
I have something planned andyou have to overdo it and then I
end up having to clean up, andthen I'm the bad guy.
She asks for a divorce.
So the next scene we see him,we meet his brother, who's
(11:27):
played by Harvey Fierstein, whowas in Independence Day.
So he's a through line here forthese last two episodes oh, no,
a couple episodes ago.
Anyway, his brother Frank andFrank's boyfriend Jack.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
They do makeup, special effects and makeup like
like for film or broadway orsomething yeah, something like
that.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, so we're introduced to this character.
This is important, fast forward.
The court has awarded, at leasttemporarily, primary custody to
Miranda.
He gets Saturdays and he's veryupset by this.
He says I've never been awayfrom my kids for more than a day
(12:10):
since they were born, likethey're so important to me,
please.
And the judge is like you don'thave a job, you don't have a
place to live.
I'm giving you 30 days to geton your feet and then we can
reassess for more like jointcustody.
So fine, so he's gonna do that.
So he gets this crappyapartment.
(12:31):
We see the kids in the apartmentwith him, like on a saturday,
and they're eating takeout likechinese takeout and they're
having a conversation and likethey mention mom and he says
something like how is the oldbattleaxe?
I mean mom.
And then he says I would hate,you know.
They say she seems really goodor whatever, I don't remember
(12:52):
exactly.
And then he says something likeI would hate for her to get
amoebic dysentery and the littleone is like what is that?
And the boy, the middle kid, islike that's when you get
diarrhea until you die.
And the little one's like youwant mommy to die.
Yeah, my sister has her mouthis open, jaw drops Like yeah,
(13:13):
yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That is some incel shit.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, it's pretty bad .
It's pretty bad.
So Lydia the 14-year-old islike dad, you're not trying hard
enough, you need to try harder.
And he says that he will.
And then mom shows up an hourearly and he gets upset You're
my goddamn kids too.
So mom comes up to the house andshe's like I don't have time
(13:39):
for this.
I have all of these errands torun.
She names all the things,including going to the newspaper
office.
He says, oh, are you going toplace a classified like a
personal ad?
And she says not, that, it'sany of your business.
I'm going to hire a housekeeper.
And you know for what?
Well, to help cook and to cleanand to be there when the kids
get home for a couple of hours.
He asks if he can be that person, and the kids are kind of like
(14:00):
yeah, dad can be that person.
She and the kids are kind oflike yeah, dad can be that
person.
She just doesn't trust him,right?
But he does sort of say can Isee the ad?
Like I'm their dad too.
And so he wants, he wants.
So he takes the ad and it's likethis is the 90s, so it's like a
form that she had filled outmanually.
He changes two of the numbersin the phone number and gives it
(14:20):
back to her.
So then nobody's going toanswer her ad because the wrong
number was printed.
Gives it back to her.
So then nobody's going toanswer her ad because the wrong
number was printed.
So he calls her repeatedly asdifferent people, because he's a
voice actor, remember, and likemakes sure there are all these
bad options Until then hedelivers Mrs Doubtfire, who he
didn't have a name for, likeDoubtfire came from like a
(14:44):
headline that was like policeDoubtfire was accident, so
that's where that came from.
Doubtfire came from like aheadline that was like police
doubt fire was accident, sothat's where that came from.
Meanwhile we've seen his courtappointed liaison, who is a
humorless woman in her like late50s, who again is meant to be
like another sort ofanti-feminist picture because
she's such a sourpuss and shehas no sense of humor and he
cannot make her laugh andtherefore she is awful Feminists
have no sense of humor.
Exactly, he gets a job shippinglike as a shipping manager.
(15:09):
It's a film company, but he'snot acting.
He goes to his brother and hisbrother-in-law he says can you
make me a woman?
And there's a you know firescene's like oh, I've been
waiting for this day, orwhatever it is.
So they dress him up in likemany different sort of
characters and then Williams isdoing the voices for these
different characters and thenthey say like classic 90s
montage.
(15:30):
Exactly, it is a classic 90smontage with him as like the old
Jewish Bubby and like a BarbraStreisand kind of a feel, and
then like it's like like longnails, like I think this might
be too much for the anyway.
Finally they land on MrsDoubtfire.
They have to like take a castof his face, cause the the face,
mrs Doubtfire's face, is like arubber mask, no-transcript.
(16:27):
Watching julia child and he'scleaning.
There's that that classic 90smontage of him, like dancing
with the vacuum cleaner.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, yeah and like just generally making their
lives better.
Like the kids are doing betterin school and they're like they
really like mrs dalfire.
She offers like discipline butalso like does the things like
natty loves to be read to, andso she's like reading stewart
little, and even miranda is sortof confiding in Mrs Doubtfire.
We hear them actually talkabout the marriage where you
(17:00):
know she sort of talks about howhard things were and like, and
he's like well, why didn't youever say it's like what?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Anyway, she probably did many, many, many, many, many
, many, many, many, many timesRight.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right, so introduce a new love interest for Miranda.
Pierce Brosnan Stewart is hisname.
I don't remember his last name,it doesn't matter.
He is very successful.
They have a history.
They dated in college and he'snow a very successful man.
He's looking to launch a newhigh-end bed and breakfast.
(17:38):
He wants the, the design firm,to do it.
He asked for Miranda by name.
He's clearly very interestedand she's interested back, even
though she's sort of like I'mgoing through a weird divorce,
like I I don't know, but he's,he's like, he's actually pretty
good, like I feel like he, he,he could have backed off a
little more than he did, but healso stayed pretty steady and
(18:00):
like you know, and it's not.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I didn't.
I didn't remember that theyhave a history, but the fact
that they have known each otherbefore that makes it a little
bit less weird that he doesn'tless weird that he doesn't, yeah
, especially like she says I'mgoing through a divorce and he
was like you know, I just wantedyou to be happy.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I'm so sorry to hear that that's not working out.
And you kind of believe him.
I mean, he also was just askingher to meet up for drinks, so
it's there's a little bit ofpush me, pull me, but I think
we're meant to mainly think he'sa pretty good guy, yeah, and
has her best interest at heart.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They do have this history yeah, it's also like
it's pier Brosnan.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I mean damn.
And it's Pierce Brosnan in the90s.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean he's still damn, but like damn he is he is,
but he was like, yeah, yeah, hewas pretty, yeah, so they start
dating.
Meanwhile, daniel, as Doubtfire, is like trying to like slut
shame.
Miranda is trying to like tellher that he doesn't want
anything, but sex is like do youreally like?
And he's like doing like littlethings that it's kind of gross.
(19:02):
He comes to the house one dayand Stuart is already there and
Daniel, as Doubtfire, like ripsthe hood ornament off of his
Mercedes and like ends up likehanding it to him.
And like Stuart says I'm fromLondon and I have a home there,
whereabouts in England, are youfrom?
Your accent's a little muddied,muddled or something like that.
(19:23):
And the response is so is yourtan dear?
Which is like I mean, it's justreally kind of gross.
So shenanigans ensue, with likeDaniel trying to stay a part of
this family because he loves hiskids, but also like really
trying to be a roadblock forStuart and his ex or soon to be
(19:45):
ex-wife, I guess ex-wife wherehe's like having to like quick
change.
So the thing that you rememberwith the cake, the court
appointed liaison who's checkingup on him is at the house when
he's coming home from his firstday as Doubtfire, and so she
runs into him at the front doorand, as Doubtfire, he says oh,
(20:08):
I'm Daniel's sister visitingfrom England, which she knew he
was a voice actor.
Why didn't he just say it was agig, anyway?
So then the shenanigans ensue,the rubber mask falls out the
window and gets run over by atruck, which is why he ends up
having to put the cake icing onhis face as cold cream.
And then the climax that youremember he has this opportunity
(20:31):
to maybe get a show at the TVstation where he's working,
because he ended up kind of likeriffing.
You know, he didn't thinkanybody was listening and the
owner of the station saw it andthought it was funny.
Honestly, it was only mediocre,I mean, even for Robin Williams
, like the actual thing that wesaw him do.
But whatever, he has anopportunity to pitch the guy.
He needs to be at the Bridgesrestaurant at 7 pm on Friday.
(20:53):
And then it's Miranda'sbirthday and Stuart is taking
the whole family, including MrsDoubtfire, out to dinner for
Miranda's birthday at Bridges at7 pm on Friday.
He tries to get out of one orthe other and somehow can't, and
so he goes and tries to do bothand he's doing this quick
change in the bathroom.
Meanwhile the station owner guyis like Mrundy is pushing
(21:14):
alcohol on him, like I meanthey're like they're matching
like scotch for scotch and likeyou on screen see him down at
least four plus two glasses ofwine.
So he's real tipsy.
In these quick changes he losesthe dentures in a glass of wine
and then he's Stewart, helps,helps him.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
He forgets that he's dressed as mrs doubtfire and
ends up that's the very end,yeah I'm getting there.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'm getting there.
So, as mrs doubtfire, he sayssome really horrible things to
stewart, like stewart givesmiranda a diamond tennis
bracelet for her birthday, andwhen miranda and the kids are
away from the table, mrsDoubtfire is like, says I guess
you're trying to get in herpants, but like, in all of these
(22:01):
horrible ways it's really,really gross.
And then he has to go back to.
You know he's going back toLundy.
He's really drunk.
At this point he hears that thefood is up for their table and
(22:25):
decides to go sabotage Stewart'sfood and puts cayenne pepper
all over his meal, which he toldthe waiter that he was allergic
to pepper.
And then he goes back to Lundy'stable, the station manager,
still dressed as Doubtfire, andhe sits down talking with his
voice Daniel's voice instead ofDoubtfire's voice and Lundy's,
like who the hell are you?
What the hell's going on?
And then finally he says, well,meet your new host for your TV
show.
And then out of his corner ofhis eye he sees his family's
(22:46):
table and Stuart is choking,like can't breathe.
So he runs across like vaultstables to get to them and gives
Stuart this very violentHeinlich maneuver, eventually
getting the shrimp out of theguy's throat.
But in all of that melee therubber mask has started to come
off.
So Miranda sees who he is andshe rightfully freaks the fuck
(23:13):
out.
He says to Stewart sorry aboutthe peppermint, and Stewart kind
of like hits his solar plexus,his own solar plexus with his
fist and sort of like nods.
And then they shake hands Likeit's all good because you saved
me from choking.
I guess the next we see isanother court moment.
And the judge doesn't evenmention the fact that he tried
to kill his wife's new boyfriend, just says like your behavior
(23:36):
recently is unorthodox at bestand you may have supervised
visits on saturdays and he givesthis speech about how taking
his kids away from him is liketaking away his air.
The judge is like that waspretty convincing, but I think
you're a very good actor.
So this is it.
(23:57):
This is my ruling.
We see that Miranda feelsreally guilty.
She seems to be having secondthoughts about this not going
well.
They talk about how much theymiss Mrs Doubtfire.
(24:18):
They hear her voice and it'sthe TV because he's gotten his
show and she's doing this.
This kid's or she, mrsDoubtfire, daniel, as Mrs
Doubtfire is doing this show andMiranda goes to visit Daniel on
set.
She says you know, I'm reallyproud of you.
This is going great and thekids miss you.
And he says what do you want meto do?
You may pretend I don't, thisis no big deal.
You want to pretend that I'mokay and put on a happy face.
(24:40):
Cut away back to the home.
There's a knock at the door.
Mom says get ready.
The kids say oh, I guess it'sthe new babysitter and they open
the door and it's dad and he'sgonna spend a couple of hours
with them every day after school.
And the kids are like whatabout the court?
And mom's like I took care ofit.
So they are really excited.
(25:02):
The three kids and the daddrive away.
Meanwhile, mrs Doubtfire isreading a letter from one of her
fans whose parents are gettingdivorced, like on the TV screen,
and talks about how sometimesgrownups, even when they don't
love each other, they still loveyou, and it's not your fault,
and families look all differentkinds of ways, and that's sort
of the voiceover on how it ends.
So we see the moment that yourjaw dropped open when Daniel was
(25:25):
badmouthing Miranda in front ofthe kids.
There's another moment when hefirst shows up as Mrs Doubtfire
at the home and she, miranda,starts to say something about
Daniel.
And, as Mrs Doubtfire, danielsays I know you ordinarily send
the kids out of the room beforeyou bash their father.
So you know, like like kind ofshaming her into like not
(25:47):
talking bad about him, which, asI'm watching now, like you said
the thing about amoebicdysentery to your five-year-old,
like what?
So anyway, there's like more inthere there's a lot more of the
rivalry.
There's more about him actuallylike getting his shit together.
But those are peripheral to kindof the main thrust of what I
(26:09):
want to talk about.
I'll bring them in if I need to.
I'll start with Bechdel testReminder listeners are there at
least two female characters withnames?
Do they talk to one another?
Do they talk to one anotherabout something other than a boy
or a man?
This passes Bechdel.
There are many more than twonamed female characters and I
know for sure Natty and Lydia,the two sisters, talk about
(26:31):
school and about what Natty didat school that day.
So it definitely passes.
Bechdel Got that out of the way.
And there is so much genderstuff in this movie which, I
mean, is to be expected withthis guy who goes in drag in
order to see his kids but theactual nature of the gender
(26:54):
stuff is like it was surprisingto me on rewatch.
It was really surprising to me.
On rewatch I read one.
I will link to it in the shownotes because I think that this
analyst did a really great job.
It's on a website called theThird Disc, like a blog.
The title was Mrs Doubtfire andits peculiar post-feminist
backlashery Kill yourPost-Feminist Backlashery.
(27:14):
And this analyst did a reallygreat job sort of looking at the
kind of hidden lessons.
I was very impressed with thisanalysis.
I will link to it.
But one of the things that thisperson pointed out is, like
named all of these femalecharacters who represent sort of
like the things we're meant todislike about feminists, right?
So there's the humorless,court-appointed person who we're
(27:37):
meant to really dislike becauseRobin Williams can't make her
laugh.
There's Miranda, who, frankly,is completely justified in 100%
of what she says, but we'remeant to see her as some sort of
like ball-busting buzzkill.
Know, like I was much moresympathetic to Miranda this time
(27:58):
around than I think I likewe're meant to like come to like
her because she eventually seeshow much Daniel just loves his
kids and makes it happen.
But from the moment she's firston screen, the moment she first
confronts him, like she isfully justified.
This man-child like justdestroys stuff and then sets her
(28:23):
up as a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But that's not what the movie makers are meant to
have us think about her and hecan do that because she's there
like if she had gotten hit by abus, what would he have done?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
right, right, right.
There's also, like even thekids.
Right, we have natty natalie,who's five, who hasn't been like
ruined by feminism yet.
Who's just like all sweetnessand light and awe and wonder and
she thinks her dad is the bee'sknees.
(28:59):
And then there's lydia, who's14, who sees how hard mom is
working, who sees how dad is notworking hard and like calls him
on his bullshit because she'salready been a little bit ruined
by feminism.
Yeah, so you know, like I wasnot expecting that in the gender
(29:20):
stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
And there's also, like this, undercurrent of what
easily, like you, don't have tostretch to turn some of the
fundamental lessons that are,under assumptions, undergirding
this movie into sort of the likemen's rights movements kinds of
things, you know.
He just wants to be with hiskids.
Why are you, why are you makingthis so hard?
And yet he lies, he deceives,he assaults her boyfriend, like,
(29:54):
multiple times.
He like breaks his car, youknow, pulls the hood on him and
off the car.
He throws a piece of fruit athim, which is in my memory
that's part of the furniture ofmy mind that I thought was
hilarious in 93 when Williams,as Doubtfire says, it was a run
by fruiting.
I thought that was really,really funny.
But like watching it now it'sassault, you know, and he was
(30:19):
mad because this guy is, quoteunquote, stealing his family,
like that's the way he names it.
And then he knows the man isallergic to pepper and then puts
a whole bunch of pepper on hismeal and like we don't know what
kind of allergic he is yeah andhe says when he sees stew or
choking, he says, oh god, Ikilled the bastard, but like he
(30:41):
maybe could have yeah and we'remeant to just like boys won't be
boys.
But he made us laugh, so it'sokay.
You know like, and I it doesn'tfeel like a stretch to sort of
say like that is dangerous thatto not hold daniel accountable
for that behavior, to not havehim have consequences, including
(31:04):
not having access to his kidsyeah and I am not someone who
feels that, like families shouldstay together period and also
that's dangerous behavior,because I didn't remember that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
The judge at the end says like that's very, very
convincing, but I believe thatyou're a good actor like I.
I had not remembered that partand so like good on the uh, the
filmmakers for doing that,because that's actually that is
responsible of the judge forhaving done that.
But.
But then it's on the woman tofeel guilty.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Right.
And the thing is, the judgeapparently doesn't even know
about the fact that he assaultedthe boyfriend, because I think
Stewart would have been withinhis rights to press charges.
Yeah, because he doesn'tmention that.
He doesn't mention the assaultof the boyfriend, he just says
the unorthodox behavior.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So like well, and here's the thing I'm thinking.
So something I see consistentlylike people talking about
online is there is this likemale fantasy you get among like
men's rights activists types islike I would do anything to
protect my family, and they meanit in like the second amendment
way, like I arm myself to theteeth to protect my family.
(32:15):
And then mean it in like theSecond Amendment way, like I arm
myself to the teeth to protectmy family.
And then people push backsaying like okay, will you do
laundry to protect your family?
Will you cook to protect yourfamily, because your family is
more likely to be in danger fromparasites from like COVID, from
, you know, from malnutrition,than they are from an armed
intruder.
And so that's the sort of thinglike the stand that Daniel
(32:38):
takes at the beginning.
Like you know, I'm not going tosay this line because, I am
protecting kids, which I don'twant to encourage kids to smoke.
If I lose followers because ofthat, I am okay with that.
But the thing is like you needto be able to put food on the
table for your kids, you need tokeep a job and you need to be
(33:00):
able to have a house that isclean and safe.
You need to know how to cookfor them, you need to make sure
that they get their homeworkdone and shepherd them safely to
adulthood, and so it's thatsame sort of now it's much more
charming because it's RobinWilliams and he's hilarious, but
(33:22):
it's that same sort of like.
I get to choose what it lookslike to care for my kids.
I get to choose what it lookslike when I say I love them like
air.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Right.
What's interesting onlybuilding on what you've just
said is that in this movie hedoes do those things learns to
cook, learns to clean, helpsthem with their homework but he
has to put on female gender,quite literally put it on in
order to get there because it'swomen's work yes, question mark
(33:56):
like that.
this is one of the things thatlike is surprising to me about
gender in this film that likethat making that connection, the
fact like why couldn't he havedone those things as daniel, as
dad?
He needed to be Mrs Doubtfire,to be the dad those kids needed,
(34:17):
and what does that say about?
I feel like I could make anargument that that is, in fact,
a critique of gender roles, oftraditional male gender roles.
I'm not sure it actually wasframed that way.
I don't know how it was Like.
I don't know what to do withhow it was framed.
I think we're meant to thinklike this guy is like just so
(34:40):
devoted he would do this thing,which is totally absurd.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Emasculating.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, literally, and he did it because it's what the
kids needed and clearly it'swhat the kids needed.
They're all happier, they'reall thriving, including Miranda
as a result of Mrs Doubtfire'sinfluence.
But why couldn't he have donethose things as Daniel Well?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
because he wasn't interested in what they needed
until he faced real consequences.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I mean maybe yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Well, because that's the story.
I mean whether or not thefilmmakers did this
intentionally.
That is the story you see overand over again.
I mean, what is it like?
70 or 80% of divorces areinitiated by women.
It's because men like Danieldon't do what's needed until
they're forced to.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I mean, people don't change when they're comfortable.
But I guess adding this layerof the gender performance, of
his performance as Mrs Doubtfirelike, really makes it like
messy for me, because Daniel wascapable, he was capable of
doing the things he could havejust done, the I mean it
(35:46):
wouldn't have been a story, itwouldn't have been the cringe
humor that was so popular in the90s it also gets to that sense
of entitlement, because he feelsentitled to Miranda.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's where the like my jaw dropping comes from.
Where he's like I hope shedoesn't get amoebic dysentery
and he like, feels like he hasthe right to throw limes at the
new boyfriend and poison him, isbecause he feels entitled to
this woman and this family,despite doing nothing to to be
what they need.
(36:14):
Doing nothing to be what theyneed, yeah, yeah, and that's
this rewatch has really left abad taste in my mouth.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Oh, that's a shame it really has.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
That's a terrible shame, just because I know that
is not what I don't know.
I didn't know the man and Idon't want to like since Neil
Gaiman, I'm trying really hardnot to put celebrities on the
list Not to project.
Yeah, from the things that Ihave read about Robin Williams
and some of the things that hisdaughter has said publicly about
(36:43):
him, and he seems like he was agentle soul and it seems like I
don't think he would havewanted to have put something
ugly out there yeah but that'slike, we swim in this, we swim
in this and we don't realizethat.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
That's exactly it, yeah, and in in the 90s, well,
and and like, like what you andI grew up with, go for the joke.
Go for the joke.
So like the drive-by fruitingwas hilarious, like, go for the
joke.
And like it takes distance torealize how, wait what?
No, how is that funny, you know?
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So two more things I want to make sure I I touch on.
One is that and actuallythey're kind of related one is
that I came into thisanticipating finding a lot of
transphobia and it was not asmuch as I thought there would be
.
So there is a moment actuallythe kids figure out who he is
because he's in the house as MrsDoubtfire and goes to the
(37:41):
bathroom and doesn't close thedoor all the way, and Chris
comes in and he's peeingstanding up and Chris freaks out
, goes into Lydia, call 911,because apparently a trans woman
is like goes into Lydia, call911.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Like because apparently a trans woman is.
But anyway, to be fair, in 1993, children would have had no
context for that.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, anyway.
So he's like freaking out andlike really upset, and so Daniel
comes out to them it's me, it'sdad, it's dad, I did this so I
could be with you.
And Lydia, when she realizes itreally is dad, she like gives
him a hug and like she's reallyexcited and he goes to hug Chris
(38:21):
.
And Chris was like, uh, no, I'mlike I'm not mad, but like I
don't want to hug you like this.
And Daniel's like it's like aguy thing, yeah, and like I
actually don't know what thatmeans.
Does he not want to hug him?
Because he's like I don't knowwhat the kind of hold up was, so
, but it feels like transphobia.
The other moment, in that momentChris is like you don't
(38:42):
actually like dressing like that, do you?
And Daniel's like I mean, someof it's comfortable, no, it's
terrible.
I did it so I could be with you, you know.
So that moment really didn'tage well and I genuinely don't
know.
Like they just sort of say likeoh, it's a guy thing that Chris
doesn't want to hug his dad,while his dad's dressed like Mrs
Doubtfire.
I don't know if it's because hejust saw him peeing in a dress,
(39:05):
or because of the padding, or Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So that moment was a little bit weird.
I do just want to say in the uh, the fact that he does dress as
Mrs Doubtfire and this is getsback to the like, the
selfishness of of Daniel and theentitlement.
This is so he can see his kids,not so they can see him,
because they don't even knowit's him, because relationships
(39:31):
are supposed to be reciprocal,not so they can see him Right.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
They don't even know it's him.
They don't even know it's him,because relationships are
supposed to be reciprocal, right, yeah, I'm just, I'm getting
like, yeah, yeah, the more youspin it out, the grosser it gets
.
Yeah, and he says to them likeyou can't tell mom, I'll be
talking to you throughplexiglass.
If you tell mom and you can'ttell, it's just between us, the
(39:58):
three of us, which is yuck.
And then related sort oftransphobia is that moment you
remember with the bus driver.
It's exactly as you remember.
It's the second time we see him.
The bus driver pick him up asmrs doubtfire and he kind of
flirted with mrs dot fire thefirst time.
The second time, I was lovelyto see you again.
It's exactly the way youremember.
His skirt had come up above hisknee a little bit, and so the
bus driver sees the super hairyknee and he covers the knee and
(40:18):
he says, oh, I like theMediterranean women, like it's
natural, just as God made you.
And he says God broke the moldwhen he made me as Mrs Doubtfire
and this is from the analystthat I mentioned, whose blog
post I'll link to.
There's something again aboutthat moment of like unwanted
(40:39):
flirtation that every woman inthe world has experienced.
That, then, is meant to be sortof funny when it's directed at
Williams dressed in drag andalso I don't, there was a cringe
, but, like the, there'ssomething a little off about it.
(41:01):
The, the analysts that I readsuggested that the movie makers
are suggesting that Daniel, asDoubtfire like, can handle it
better than a woman would I.
I don't, I don't know if thatperson is right.
That analyst is right, thatthat's what's happening, but
there is something that justfeels a little off about the
(41:22):
whole thing in in terms of likepart of it, I guess, is just
making a joke of unwantedflirtation, which happens all
the time and, frankly, is often,often presages violence.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, that moment, part of it, is like you don't
get the impression that Daniel'sin any danger and Daniel
doesn't feel like he's in anydanger.
Doesn't feel like he's in anydanger.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And the fact that this bus driver is attracted to
Daniel as Doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It makes him the butt of a joke, yeah, but also in a
way, like kind of makes him sortof sweetly naive in a way.
I don't know, I don't know itmade me like the bus driver,
yeah, yeah, and I don't know how, like I don't know how to feel
about how this is put in thismovie, because it's just like,
because when I've had thatexperience, it has never felt
like that.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
No, it doesn't feel sweet.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And like the thing is like I've never connected it to
when I've been alone withsomeone who has been flirting
with me that I have been I havenot been interested in, but I
have been, like, I've been beenappreciative of that moment in
this which I even as I've beenlike yeah, I was, I was supposed
to be cringe humor and like youknow which, I didn't take it
that way.
It's weird.
(42:40):
There's a lot there.
You could unpack the scene andlike what exactly were they
going for with this, other thanthe fact that, like, we are
fucked up when it comes togender expression in this
culture?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I mean because I think you were
right.
We were like he thinks he'sfound out, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I don't know, I don't know, while the bus driver is
flirting, there's never anythinglike.
If nothing untoward, happensNothing untoward, and he never
seems pushy.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
He never even asks her for a date or anything.
He just sort of flirts.
He just flirts yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
So, like, unlike in Tootsie, there's flirtation that
is very much like it becomesharassment, to the point of
assault, I think, where DustinHoffman's character is like no
means no, whereas this is muchmore like it's much gentler.
Much gentler and more like.
Isn't it funny that there'ssome men who find this woman
attractive and I was more like.
(43:42):
I like that sweet bus driver.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think part of what's sweetabout it too is that one
expected a transphobic responseto the hairy leg and that's not
what came.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I think that is what's sweet about it, and the
natural, just like God made you,which now we know that Daniel
is a cisgender man.
Now that we had not that Ipersonally had that that that
language?
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I don't think we were yeah, yeah, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
But and who knows if the bus driver would have been
comfortable with a transgenderwoman, but we know that the bus
driver is perfectly comfortablewith non-culturally acceptable
gender expression and yeah, in1993, and it's just like good on
(44:30):
you, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, allright.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
So the last thing I'll say and then I'll try and
wrap up or let you shareanything.
Also, some of the message, theactual messages around women's
sexuality, undergirding this,like, are kind of yucky, right,
like miranda.
I mean, I'm sorry, butaesthetically pierce brosnan is
(44:56):
the upgrade of robin williams.
I loved robin williams.
He's a great guy and not andnot unattractive, but pierce
brosnan is like an adonis, youknow.
I mean they even have nataliesay to him they see him at a
swimming pool and he, she, saysyour stomach does not look like
my daddy's.
And then actually, as Doubtfire, daniel says, I can see that
(45:23):
water must be very cold, likewhat?
Holy shit.
Anyway, because her ex-husbandis our hero, like I, I don't
know what we're supposed tothink.
But again and again and again,as doubtfire, daniel slut shames
(45:46):
her, even though she's divorced, she's courting this man.
I mean he actually, he actuallysays, as Doubtfire, to try and
like intimidate, stuart at thebirthday dinner, at that
horrible, cringeworthy scene,talks about the fact that she's
got a vibrator in her drawer andhe's surprised she hasn't
chipped a tooth and like I don'tknow, like weird, weird stuff
(46:09):
that he's saying about thiswoman who is the mother of his
children.
It's just gross and I think weare meant to think he is out of
line.
I think we're meant to thinkhe's out of line, you know, when
she's getting dressed fordinner and like asking opinions
about different dresses, andhe's like they're all harlots
dresses, you know, as Doubtfire,you know, and I'm watching.
(46:31):
I'm like go get it, miranda, ofcourse.
Yes, yes, why wouldn't you?
And she's like miranda asks mrsdoubtfire how long after mr
doubtfire, before you, you know,had desire and, like you know,
went out with other men and shesaid never as mrs doubtfire,
never when the father of yourchildren is out of the picture,
(46:52):
then it is your job to just becelibate.
And Miranda's like celibate andin my head I'm thinking why are
you still listening?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
to Mrs Doubtfire Miranda.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'm like what.
No no, not even in 93.
So I just wanted to also putthat out there.
And what's interesting too isthat Brosnan's character does
not come back after the scenewhen he gets the Heimlich.
We don't see him again, so wedon't know what happens to him.
Because he has served his, arelike able to make it work and
(47:32):
what they.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
They seem to really care about each other yeah so,
and he is, he's appropriate,he's an appropriate he's age
appropriate, he's likeresponsible, he likes her kids,
he's good with her kids.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
You know, I don't know.
So any final things you want toshare before I try and wrap up
what I had?
Speaker 2 (47:53):
to no, I don't think I'll be revisiting this one.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, it's not going on the family movie night I have
seen it for the last time.
So this movie passes theBechdel test.
It doesn't get much else rightabout gender.
I don't think so.
I anticipated transphobia, andthere is some, but not nearly as
much as I thought there wouldbe.
What there is is a very weirdbraiding of sort of ideas about
(48:21):
gender and essentialism,essentialist gender and like
gender roles, insofar as DanielHillard has to literally put on
femininity in order to learn tobe responsible.
I don't know what to do withthat.
Like, clearly he was capable ofmaking the kids do their
homework and learning to cookand cleaning up Because he did
(48:42):
it as Mrs Doubtfire, but hecouldn't do it until he became
Mrs Doubtfire and then he wasable to do it as Daniel, and
that feels really messed up tome and part of it feels
realistic, as you pointed out,because so often men feel
entitled to everything untiltheir wives are like no, I'm not
(49:06):
doing this anymore, and theymake them face real consequences
, and then some men learn tostep up, and that feels real.
What doesn't feel real, or whatI don't know what to do with, is
the fact that this character,this dad and husband, needed to
perform as a woman in order tostep up.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
It's unclear if the filmmakers were doing that
intentionally to skewersomething or if this was just
like let's put Robin Williams ina dress, yeah exactly Like was
that actually trying to skewerhypermasculinity and sort of
toxic mess?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
It's not even toxic masculinity, but just sort of
like the learned helplessnessand like overgrown man child.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, weaponized incompetence.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Exactly so?
I don't know.
There's also an undercurrent ofanti-feminism in this film that
plays out through the variousfemale characters, from Miranda,
the sort of ball-bustingworkaholic, to the
court-appointed liaison, who ishumorless, to even the oldest
(50:15):
daughter, who has been startedto be tainted by feminism and
expects her dad to actually likedo the work yeah.
So that anti-feminist modecombined with some of the
entitlement and the.
You know we're meant to forgivereally bad behavior because
he's funny and because hegenuinely loves his children.
(50:38):
It's not a far leap from someof the assumptions under this
movie to sort of men's rightsactivism bullshit.
There's also like a shit ton ofcringe humor in this movie that
is very difficult to watch forme.
I do not enjoy secondhandembarrassment and there's a lot
of it in this movie.
That is very difficult to watchfor me.
I do not enjoy secondhandembarrassment.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
And there's a lot of it in this movie Just a lot.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
So I think that's everything we talked about.
What did I miss?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
The fact that there's that sense of like,
particularly in divorce dadsoften want to be the fun dad and
that there's something in thiswhich, when like and this, as
this film points out, like, thekids thrive when they actually
have discipline and structure.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there's some other stuffin there that's gross, that
y'all can watch it or not, butanyway.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, watch it or not , but anyway yeah.
So apparently not all of robinwilliams's uh work can be
revisited as a gem yeah nope,not this one, yeah, not this one
.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
So what are you bringing me next week?
I don't remember.
So next week I am bringing youtitanic.
Oh, I have friends, I havenever seen titanic.
I cannot.
How is that possible?
It's going on my, it's going onmy gravestone.
Here lies tracy.
I have friends, I have neverseen Titanic.
I cannot.
How is that possible?
It's going on my, it's going onmy gravestone.
Here lies Tracy.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
She never saw Titanic .
Speaker 1 (51:59):
All right.
Well, I look forward to hearingabout it yes.
Next week, next week.
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
(52:20):
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, 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.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's
episode.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Until next time, remember pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
I expected to find some unpleasant transphobia in
this film.
You know these.
However, many years later, 30years later and there is some,
though not as much as I expected.
What I did not expect and infact found is a sort of like
anti-feminist backlashundercurrent.
It's quiet, it's subtle, butit's there men's rights and,
(00:28):
like this, over and over again,subtle lampooning of women who
dare have the audacity to expectmen to be serious.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's just
pop culture, what others mightdeem stupid shit?
You know matters, you knowwhat's worth talking and
thinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
(00:48):
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
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 1993 film Mrs Doubtfire withmy sister, emily Guy-Burken,
(01:08):
and with you.
Let's dive in.
Okay, em, I know you've seen it, we've seen it together, but
tell me what furniture is inyour mind about Mrs Doubtfire?
Speaker 2 (01:25):
on some of the kind of the humor that I find hard to
watch.
So like that scene in the endwhere he's doing the quick
change.
I hate those kinds of moments.
I really hate those kinds ofmoments.
And so much as I love and havealways loved Robin Williams,
this was not a favorite movie ofmine, but the thing there were
moments in my head that I founda little bit delightful, sort of
.
So there's the bus driver whohad a crush on him as Mrs
Doubtfire and I don't know why Iliked that because it was meant
(01:51):
to be cringe humor that I don'tlike Because Robin Williams was
a very hairy man and he did notbother shaving his legs as Mrs
Doubtfire.
And the bus driver sees hislegs and you can see that the
character is a little concerned,like oh, I've been found out.
And the bus driver's like no,it's natural, the way God made
you, or something like that.
(02:11):
And for some reason I justreally liked that.
Now, that may be because littleSemitic Emily also has very
hairy legs.
I don't know, there was justsomething about that that I
found kind of lovely, eventhough it's within this sort of
transphobic cringe humor moment.
(02:34):
So that's something that stuckwith me.
The moment when the Danielcharacter is about to be found
out, because he's taken off hisMrs Doubtfire makeup and puts
his face in the cake so it lookslike he's got cold cream on,
because that's kind of brilliant.
So that's in there.
And then the one thing that Iremember really connecting with,
(02:56):
so when our parents divorced in1982, our mom tells the story
of they did not do alimony andthey did not do child support,
but they decided that they wouldmeet up once a month because we
were very little you were six,I was three they would meet up
once a month and do anaccounting of what they'd each
spent, and so mom had taken usto the dentist and the eye
(03:22):
doctor and something else, anddad had taken us to the zoo and
wild world and something likethat and she owed him 20 bucks
and she's like we don't need todo this again yeah, and the fact
that daniel is the fun parent,and the fact that this movie
(03:42):
came out 10 years after.
Mom had that experience with ourdad, who had specifically
wanted custody of us on theweekends, in part because he
wanted to be the fun dad on theweekends, which is like a
systemic thing that happens justis.
It's in my head, and I thinkthat is also part of the reason
why this has never been one ofmy favorite movies.
So those are the things thatare in my head about this movie.
(04:03):
So tell me, why are we thinkingabout this?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because, like you, I have
a hard time with that sort ofcringe humor and there was a lot
of it in this movie whichwasn't in my memory, but it is
so beloved and it's RobinWilliams, who we both love and
associate with our dad, and Ithink you know, when we were
sort of looking at the list oflike 80s and 90s movies, I was
like, oh, I want to watch thatagain.
(04:30):
I wonder if it holds up.
You know, it was just sort ofthat like it just sparked
something as we were looking atthe list.
So that's why it surfaced now.
It wasn't anything super deepand meaningful, but I just
(04:51):
wanted to go back, especiallysince it is so beloved.
I think sometimes the morebeloved a piece is, the more
interesting our deep thoughtscan be, so that's why.
So let me give you a quickwhere I'm going, some postcards
from the analysis, and then I'lldo what I can for a synopsis.
So I expected to find someunpleasant transphobia in this
film.
You know these.
However, many years later, 30years later, and there is some,
though not as much as I expected.
What I did not expect and infact found is a sort of like
(05:15):
anti-feminist backlashundercurrent.
It's quiet, it's subtle, butit's there.
This sort of men's rights andlike this over and over again,
subtle lampooning of women whodare have the audacity to expect
men to be serious, to actuallybe responsible, or who get
resentful when they have toclean up after them, when women
(05:37):
have to clean up after men.
Like there's this lampooning ofthese women that I didn't see
in the 90s and like I deeplyidentify with Sally Field's
character, miranda, this timearound.
So that was something that Iwas surprised to find.
You're right, there is a lot ofcringe humor.
It was actually kind of hard towatch for me.
There were moments where I wasjust like, oh God, it's got to
(05:59):
be over soon, it's got to beover soon.
So that was something.
I think.
There's also something likeweirdly like essentialist about
gender.
That's an undercurrent of this.
Like daniel had to become awoman in order to learn how to
clean and cook and like expectthe kids to do their homework
(06:19):
and like ew, I think, ew, ew.
So there's just some stuff inthere that's just like
unexpectedly ick.
This is not where I expectedthe ick to be.
So that'll be interesting forus to talk about a little bit.
We can talk about that busdriver moment as well, because I
think there's something.
(06:39):
There's also something weird inthat.
I think every woman in theworld has been in that moment
where some stranger is feelingflirty and you're feeling
harassed.
And to have that happen toRobin Williams dressed as a
woman what are we meant to thinkand feel about that?
It's almost like he can take itbetter than we can, which is
like also ew.
(07:00):
So we can get into that alittle bit.
Let me give you a rundown.
I'm just going to hit thehighlights.
We meet Daniel Hillard, robinWilliams' character.
He is a voice actor.
We meet him while he's actuallyvoicing a cartoon about a
little bird, like think TweetyBird, kind of a look, and he
(07:23):
ends up half quitting, quitting,half getting fired.
When the character is likegiven a cigarette, like a last
cigarette before the cat's gonnaeat him, and instead of doing
the line which is like oh,that's that's so good about the
cigarette, robin williams islike oh, that's disgusting, I
would never do that.
And so like the voice doesn'tmatch or whatever, and he kind
(07:44):
of quits, kind of gets firedbecause of this refusal to.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Is it like an ethical thing Because it's for kids?
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
So we do get an immediate sense that like he
cares about what message he'sgiving to kids.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yes, yes, we are meant to applaud him for not
just reading the line as itstands.
He's also, though we see he'slike against a hostile audience
because he says you know, hisproducer, who's in the booth
with him, is like just read theline and he turns to the sound
guys behind some glass and islike what do you guys think you
think we should be promotingcigarettes to kids that, like,
all three of them are smoking?
Speaker 2 (08:18):
It's hard to remember when that switched over when
people smoked on cigarette.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Yeah, when that switched over.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
When people smoked on cigarette yeah, when that
switched over.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah, because people they don't generally now on
screen this, though I wonder ifit was one of the late holdouts
because, like, it made a pointand it was all about how
cigarette smoking was bad.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
So that may have been intentional, I'm wondering if
it's one of those, like that wasan easy point to make because
at that point it had becomeclear that that was bad.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, I think maybe.
Yeah, Anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Anyway, so continue.
Okay.
So Daniel's, he's in SanFrancisco, he leaves.
It's made clear that, like, ifyou leave now you're never
coming back.
So he's just lost his job orquit his job, it's unclear.
And then we see him go pick uphis kids from school.
Three of them there's Lydia,who's 14, chris, who's 12, and
Natalie, who goes by, natty,who's five, and they are
(09:10):
surprised to see him.
They say we didn't think youcould get us.
And he said well, I got offearly.
And they go you got fired again, didn't you?
And he says something aboutcreative differences and one of
them says actors, which isexactly what the guy in the
booth had said.
Like the same way.
Anyway, it's Chris's birthday.
He says we're going to have aparty.
Lydia stick in the mud.
We're already seeing.
(09:32):
She says no, you can't.
Mom said no because of yourreport card.
Dad says mom won't be home foranother four hours.
You guys ready to see the wildkingdom?
So he has brought out a pettingzoo.
There are children and animalseverywhere on this, like it's
this big, gorgeous San Franciscohome and like the animals on
(09:54):
the stoop and in the house andit's like it's pandemonium.
So we see the neighbor likevery upset, like an old lady
neighbor, like very upset aboutthe animals.
She calls miranda sally field,who is the wife and mother, who
is a high-powered interiordesigner, like for like high
level, like think she's marthastort.
(10:16):
She's martha stort, but likefor hotels, like for like
corporate, like.
So she's like a high leveldesigner and she's clearly very
successful.
She gets a call from thisneighbor about this mess, so she
comes home.
She's got a cake for chris'sbirthday and she comes in and
there's children jumping on herfurniture and there's ponies in
(10:38):
the living room.
She sets down the cake to likefigure out what's going on, and
an animal starts eating it.
She pulls the plug on the music.
Daniel is dancing.
It's that 90s song Jump up,jump up and jump around.
So Daniel's dancing with twokids, including their son Chris,
on their dining room table.
So then we see them arguing andthey're cleaning up and you
(11:03):
know his reaction initially islike oh, you're home early, I
was going to have it all cleanedup, yeah right.
So they're cleaning up, they'reyelling at one another.
She's like, do not make me themonster.
You always do this.
I have something planned andyou have to overdo it and then I
end up having to clean up, andthen I'm the bad guy.
She asks for a divorce.
So the next scene we see him,we meet his brother, who's
(11:27):
played by Harvey Fierstein, whowas in Independence Day.
So he's a through line here forthese last two episodes oh, no,
a couple episodes ago.
Anyway, his brother Frank andFrank's boyfriend Jack.
Speaker 2 (11:43):
They do makeup, special effects and makeup like
like for film or broadway orsomething yeah, something like
that.
Speaker 1 (11:49):
Yeah, so we're introduced to this character.
This is important, fast forward.
The court has awarded, at leasttemporarily, primary custody to
Miranda.
He gets Saturdays and he's veryupset by this.
He says I've never been awayfrom my kids for more than a day
(12:10):
since they were born, likethey're so important to me,
please.
And the judge is like you don'thave a job, you don't have a
place to live.
I'm giving you 30 days to geton your feet and then we can
reassess for more like jointcustody.
So fine, so he's gonna do that.
So he gets this crappyapartment.
(12:31):
We see the kids in the apartmentwith him, like on a saturday,
and they're eating takeout likechinese takeout and they're
having a conversation and likethey mention mom and he says
something like how is the oldbattleaxe?
I mean mom.
And then he says I would hate,you know.
They say she seems really goodor whatever, I don't remember
(12:52):
exactly.
And then he says something likeI would hate for her to get
amoebic dysentery and the littleone is like what is that?
And the boy, the middle kid, islike that's when you get
diarrhea until you die.
And the little one's like youwant mommy to die.
Yeah, my sister has her mouthis open, jaw drops Like yeah,
(13:13):
yeah, it's pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
That is some incel shit.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Yeah, it's pretty bad .
It's pretty bad.
So Lydia the 14-year-old islike dad, you're not trying hard
enough, you need to try harder.
And he says that he will.
And then mom shows up an hourearly and he gets upset You're
my goddamn kids too.
So mom comes up to the house andshe's like I don't have time
(13:39):
for this.
I have all of these errands torun.
She names all the things,including going to the newspaper
office.
He says, oh, are you going toplace a classified like a
personal ad?
And she says not, that, it'sany of your business.
I'm going to hire a housekeeper.
And you know for what?
Well, to help cook and to cleanand to be there when the kids
get home for a couple of hours.
He asks if he can be that person, and the kids are kind of like
(14:00):
yeah, dad can be that person.
She and the kids are kind oflike yeah, dad can be that
person.
She just doesn't trust him,right?
But he does sort of say can Isee the ad?
Like I'm their dad too.
And so he wants, he wants.
So he takes the ad and it's likethis is the 90s, so it's like a
form that she had filled outmanually.
He changes two of the numbersin the phone number and gives it
(14:20):
back to her.
So then nobody's going toanswer her ad because the wrong
number was printed.
Gives it back to her.
So then nobody's going toanswer her ad because the wrong
number was printed.
So he calls her repeatedly asdifferent people, because he's a
voice actor, remember, and likemakes sure there are all these
bad options Until then hedelivers Mrs Doubtfire, who he
didn't have a name for, likeDoubtfire came from like a
(14:44):
headline that was like policeDoubtfire was accident, so
that's where that came from.
Doubtfire came from like aheadline that was like police
doubt fire was accident, sothat's where that came from.
Meanwhile we've seen his courtappointed liaison, who is a
humorless woman in her like late50s, who again is meant to be
like another sort ofanti-feminist picture because
she's such a sourpuss and shehas no sense of humor and he
cannot make her laugh andtherefore she is awful Feminists
have no sense of humor.
Exactly, he gets a job shippinglike as a shipping manager.
(15:09):
It's a film company, but he'snot acting.
He goes to his brother and hisbrother-in-law he says can you
make me a woman?
And there's a you know firescene's like oh, I've been
waiting for this day, orwhatever it is.
So they dress him up in likemany different sort of
characters and then Williams isdoing the voices for these
different characters and thenthey say like classic 90s
montage.
(15:30):
Exactly, it is a classic 90smontage with him as like the old
Jewish Bubby and like a BarbraStreisand kind of a feel, and
then like it's like like longnails, like I think this might
be too much for the anyway.
Finally they land on MrsDoubtfire.
They have to like take a castof his face, cause the the face,
mrs Doubtfire's face, is like arubber mask, no-transcript.
(16:27):
Watching julia child and he'scleaning.
There's that that classic 90smontage of him, like dancing
with the vacuum cleaner.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, I remember that one.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Yeah, yeah and like just generally making their
lives better.
Like the kids are doing betterin school and they're like they
really like mrs dalfire.
She offers like discipline butalso like does the things like
natty loves to be read to, andso she's like reading stewart
little, and even miranda is sortof confiding in Mrs Doubtfire.
We hear them actually talkabout the marriage where you
(17:00):
know she sort of talks about howhard things were and like, and
he's like well, why didn't youever say it's like what?
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Anyway, she probably did many, many, many, many, many
, many, many, many, many timesRight.
Speaker 1 (17:18):
Right, so introduce a new love interest for Miranda.
Pierce Brosnan Stewart is hisname.
I don't remember his last name,it doesn't matter.
He is very successful.
They have a history.
They dated in college and he'snow a very successful man.
He's looking to launch a newhigh-end bed and breakfast.
(17:38):
He wants the, the design firm,to do it.
He asked for Miranda by name.
He's clearly very interestedand she's interested back, even
though she's sort of like I'mgoing through a weird divorce,
like I I don't know, but he's,he's like, he's actually pretty
good, like I feel like he, he,he could have backed off a
little more than he did, but healso stayed pretty steady and
(18:00):
like you know, and it's not.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
I didn't.
I didn't remember that theyhave a history, but the fact
that they have known each otherbefore that makes it a little
bit less weird that he doesn'tless weird that he doesn't, yeah
, especially like she says I'mgoing through a divorce and he
was like you know, I just wantedyou to be happy.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I'm so sorry to hear that that's not working out.
And you kind of believe him.
I mean, he also was just askingher to meet up for drinks, so
it's there's a little bit ofpush me, pull me, but I think
we're meant to mainly think he'sa pretty good guy, yeah, and
has her best interest at heart.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They do have this history yeah, it's also like
it's pier Brosnan.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I mean damn.
And it's Pierce Brosnan in the90s.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Damn.
Speaker 1 (18:39):
I mean he's still damn, but like damn he is he is,
but he was like, yeah, yeah, hewas pretty, yeah, so they start
dating.
Meanwhile, daniel, as Doubtfire, is like trying to like slut
shame.
Miranda is trying to like tellher that he doesn't want
anything, but sex is like do youreally like?
And he's like doing like littlethings that it's kind of gross.
(19:02):
He comes to the house one dayand Stuart is already there and
Daniel, as Doubtfire, like ripsthe hood ornament off of his
Mercedes and like ends up likehanding it to him.
And like Stuart says I'm fromLondon and I have a home there,
whereabouts in England, are youfrom?
Your accent's a little muddied,muddled or something like that.
(19:23):
And the response is so is yourtan dear?
Which is like I mean, it's justreally kind of gross.
So shenanigans ensue, with likeDaniel trying to stay a part of
this family because he loves hiskids, but also like really
trying to be a roadblock forStuart and his ex or soon to be
(19:45):
ex-wife, I guess ex-wife wherehe's like having to like quick
change.
So the thing that you rememberwith the cake, the court
appointed liaison who's checkingup on him is at the house when
he's coming home from his firstday as Doubtfire, and so she
runs into him at the front doorand, as Doubtfire, he says oh,
(20:08):
I'm Daniel's sister visitingfrom England, which she knew he
was a voice actor.
Why didn't he just say it was agig, anyway?
So then the shenanigans ensue,the rubber mask falls out the
window and gets run over by atruck, which is why he ends up
having to put the cake icing onhis face as cold cream.
And then the climax that youremember he has this opportunity
(20:31):
to maybe get a show at the TVstation where he's working,
because he ended up kind of likeriffing.
You know, he didn't thinkanybody was listening and the
owner of the station saw it andthought it was funny.
Honestly, it was only mediocre,I mean, even for Robin Williams
, like the actual thing that wesaw him do.
But whatever, he has anopportunity to pitch the guy.
He needs to be at the Bridgesrestaurant at 7 pm on Friday.
(20:53):
And then it's Miranda'sbirthday and Stuart is taking
the whole family, including MrsDoubtfire, out to dinner for
Miranda's birthday at Bridges at7 pm on Friday.
He tries to get out of one orthe other and somehow can't, and
so he goes and tries to do bothand he's doing this quick
change in the bathroom.
Meanwhile the station owner guyis like Mrundy is pushing
(21:14):
alcohol on him, like I meanthey're like they're matching
like scotch for scotch and likeyou on screen see him down at
least four plus two glasses ofwine.
So he's real tipsy.
In these quick changes he losesthe dentures in a glass of wine
and then he's Stewart, helps,helps him.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
He forgets that he's dressed as mrs doubtfire and
ends up that's the very end,yeah I'm getting there.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
I'm getting there.
So, as mrs doubtfire, he sayssome really horrible things to
stewart, like stewart givesmiranda a diamond tennis
bracelet for her birthday, andwhen miranda and the kids are
away from the table, mrsDoubtfire is like, says I guess
you're trying to get in herpants, but like, in all of these
(22:01):
horrible ways it's really,really gross.
And then he has to go back to.
You know he's going back toLundy.
He's really drunk.
At this point he hears that thefood is up for their table and
(22:25):
decides to go sabotage Stewart'sfood and puts cayenne pepper
all over his meal, which he toldthe waiter that he was allergic
to pepper.
And then he goes back to Lundy'stable, the station manager,
still dressed as Doubtfire, andhe sits down talking with his
voice Daniel's voice instead ofDoubtfire's voice and Lundy's,
like who the hell are you?
What the hell's going on?
And then finally he says, well,meet your new host for your TV
show.
And then out of his corner ofhis eye he sees his family's
(22:46):
table and Stuart is choking,like can't breathe.
So he runs across like vaultstables to get to them and gives
Stuart this very violentHeinlich maneuver, eventually
getting the shrimp out of theguy's throat.
But in all of that melee therubber mask has started to come
off.
So Miranda sees who he is andshe rightfully freaks the fuck
(23:13):
out.
He says to Stewart sorry aboutthe peppermint, and Stewart kind
of like hits his solar plexus,his own solar plexus with his
fist and sort of like nods.
And then they shake hands Likeit's all good because you saved
me from choking.
I guess the next we see isanother court moment.
And the judge doesn't evenmention the fact that he tried
to kill his wife's new boyfriend, just says like your behavior
(23:36):
recently is unorthodox at bestand you may have supervised
visits on saturdays and he givesthis speech about how taking
his kids away from him is liketaking away his air.
The judge is like that waspretty convincing, but I think
you're a very good actor.
So this is it.
(23:57):
This is my ruling.
We see that Miranda feelsreally guilty.
She seems to be having secondthoughts about this not going
well.
They talk about how much theymiss Mrs Doubtfire.
(24:18):
They hear her voice and it'sthe TV because he's gotten his
show and she's doing this.
This kid's or she, mrsDoubtfire, daniel, as Mrs
Doubtfire is doing this show andMiranda goes to visit Daniel on
set.
She says you know, I'm reallyproud of you.
This is going great and thekids miss you.
And he says what do you want meto do?
You may pretend I don't, thisis no big deal.
You want to pretend that I'mokay and put on a happy face.
(24:40):
Cut away back to the home.
There's a knock at the door.
Mom says get ready.
The kids say oh, I guess it'sthe new babysitter and they open
the door and it's dad and he'sgonna spend a couple of hours
with them every day after school.
And the kids are like whatabout the court?
And mom's like I took care ofit.
So they are really excited.
(25:02):
The three kids and the daddrive away.
Meanwhile, mrs Doubtfire isreading a letter from one of her
fans whose parents are gettingdivorced, like on the TV screen,
and talks about how sometimesgrownups, even when they don't
love each other, they still loveyou, and it's not your fault,
and families look all differentkinds of ways, and that's sort
of the voiceover on how it ends.
So we see the moment that yourjaw dropped open when Daniel was
(25:25):
badmouthing Miranda in front ofthe kids.
There's another moment when hefirst shows up as Mrs Doubtfire
at the home and she, miranda,starts to say something about
Daniel.
And, as Mrs Doubtfire, danielsays I know you ordinarily send
the kids out of the room beforeyou bash their father.
So you know, like like kind ofshaming her into like not
(25:47):
talking bad about him, which, asI'm watching now, like you said
the thing about amoebicdysentery to your five-year-old,
like what?
So anyway, there's like more inthere there's a lot more of the
rivalry.
There's more about him actuallylike getting his shit together.
But those are peripheral to kindof the main thrust of what I
(26:09):
want to talk about.
I'll bring them in if I need to.
I'll start with Bechdel testReminder listeners are there at
least two female characters withnames?
Do they talk to one another?
Do they talk to one anotherabout something other than a boy
or a man?
This passes Bechdel.
There are many more than twonamed female characters and I
know for sure Natty and Lydia,the two sisters, talk about
(26:31):
school and about what Natty didat school that day.
So it definitely passes.
Bechdel Got that out of the way.
And there is so much genderstuff in this movie which, I
mean, is to be expected withthis guy who goes in drag in
order to see his kids but theactual nature of the gender
(26:54):
stuff is like it was surprisingto me on rewatch.
It was really surprising to me.
On rewatch I read one.
I will link to it in the shownotes because I think that this
analyst did a really great job.
It's on a website called theThird Disc, like a blog.
The title was Mrs Doubtfire andits peculiar post-feminist
backlashery Kill yourPost-Feminist Backlashery.
(27:14):
And this analyst did a reallygreat job sort of looking at the
kind of hidden lessons.
I was very impressed with thisanalysis.
I will link to it.
But one of the things that thisperson pointed out is, like
named all of these femalecharacters who represent sort of
like the things we're meant todislike about feminists, right?
So there's the humorless,court-appointed person who we're
(27:37):
meant to really dislike becauseRobin Williams can't make her
laugh.
There's Miranda, who, frankly,is completely justified in 100%
of what she says, but we'remeant to see her as some sort of
like ball-busting buzzkill.
Know, like I was much moresympathetic to Miranda this time
(27:58):
around than I think I likewe're meant to like come to like
her because she eventually seeshow much Daniel just loves his
kids and makes it happen.
But from the moment she's firston screen, the moment she first
confronts him, like she isfully justified.
This man-child like justdestroys stuff and then sets her
(28:23):
up as a bad guy.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
But that's not what the movie makers are meant to
have us think about her and hecan do that because she's there
like if she had gotten hit by abus, what would he have done?
Speaker 1 (28:39):
right, right, right.
There's also, like even thekids.
Right, we have natty natalie,who's five, who hasn't been like
ruined by feminism yet.
Who's just like all sweetnessand light and awe and wonder and
she thinks her dad is the bee'sknees.
(28:59):
And then there's lydia, who's14, who sees how hard mom is
working, who sees how dad is notworking hard and like calls him
on his bullshit because she'salready been a little bit ruined
by feminism.
Yeah, so you know, like I wasnot expecting that in the gender
(29:20):
stuff.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
And there's also, like this, undercurrent of what
easily, like you, don't have tostretch to turn some of the
fundamental lessons that are,under assumptions, undergirding
this movie into sort of the likemen's rights movements kinds of
things, you know.
He just wants to be with hiskids.
Why are you, why are you makingthis so hard?
And yet he lies, he deceives,he assaults her boyfriend, like,
(29:54):
multiple times.
He like breaks his car, youknow, pulls the hood on him and
off the car.
He throws a piece of fruit athim, which is in my memory
that's part of the furniture ofmy mind that I thought was
hilarious in 93 when Williams,as Doubtfire says, it was a run
by fruiting.
I thought that was really,really funny.
But like watching it now it'sassault, you know, and he was
(30:19):
mad because this guy is, quoteunquote, stealing his family,
like that's the way he names it.
And then he knows the man isallergic to pepper and then puts
a whole bunch of pepper on hismeal and like we don't know what
kind of allergic he is yeah andhe says when he sees stew or
choking, he says, oh god, Ikilled the bastard, but like he
(30:41):
maybe could have yeah and we'remeant to just like boys won't be
boys.
But he made us laugh, so it'sokay.
You know like, and I it doesn'tfeel like a stretch to sort of
say like that is dangerous thatto not hold daniel accountable
for that behavior, to not havehim have consequences, including
(31:04):
not having access to his kidsyeah and I am not someone who
feels that, like families shouldstay together period and also
that's dangerous behavior,because I didn't remember that.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
The judge at the end says like that's very, very
convincing, but I believe thatyou're a good actor like I.
I had not remembered that partand so like good on the uh, the
filmmakers for doing that,because that's actually that is
responsible of the judge forhaving done that.
But.
But then it's on the woman tofeel guilty.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Right.
And the thing is, the judgeapparently doesn't even know
about the fact that he assaultedthe boyfriend, because I think
Stewart would have been withinhis rights to press charges.
Yeah, because he doesn'tmention that.
He doesn't mention the assaultof the boyfriend, he just says
the unorthodox behavior.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
So like well, and here's the thing I'm thinking.
So something I see consistentlylike people talking about
online is there is this likemale fantasy you get among like
men's rights activists types islike I would do anything to
protect my family, and they meanit in like the second amendment
way, like I arm myself to theteeth to protect my family.
(32:15):
And then mean it in like theSecond Amendment way, like I arm
myself to the teeth to protectmy family.
And then people push backsaying like okay, will you do
laundry to protect your family?
Will you cook to protect yourfamily, because your family is
more likely to be in danger fromparasites from like COVID, from
, you know, from malnutrition,than they are from an armed
intruder.
And so that's the sort of thinglike the stand that Daniel
(32:38):
takes at the beginning.
Like you know, I'm not going tosay this line because, I am
protecting kids, which I don'twant to encourage kids to smoke.
If I lose followers because ofthat, I am okay with that.
But the thing is like you needto be able to put food on the
table for your kids, you need tokeep a job and you need to be
(33:00):
able to have a house that isclean and safe.
You need to know how to cookfor them, you need to make sure
that they get their homeworkdone and shepherd them safely to
adulthood, and so it's thatsame sort of now it's much more
charming because it's RobinWilliams and he's hilarious, but
(33:22):
it's that same sort of like.
I get to choose what it lookslike to care for my kids.
I get to choose what it lookslike when I say I love them like
air.
Speaker 1 (33:32):
Right.
What's interesting onlybuilding on what you've just
said is that in this movie hedoes do those things learns to
cook, learns to clean, helpsthem with their homework but he
has to put on female gender,quite literally put it on in
order to get there because it'swomen's work yes, question mark
(33:56):
like that.
this is one of the things thatlike is surprising to me about
gender in this film that likethat making that connection, the
fact like why couldn't he havedone those things as daniel, as
dad?
He needed to be Mrs Doubtfire,to be the dad those kids needed,
(34:17):
and what does that say about?
I feel like I could make anargument that that is, in fact,
a critique of gender roles, oftraditional male gender roles.
I'm not sure it actually wasframed that way.
I don't know how it was Like.
I don't know what to do withhow it was framed.
I think we're meant to thinklike this guy is like just so
(34:40):
devoted he would do this thing,which is totally absurd.
Speaker 2 (34:43):
Emasculating.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Yeah, literally, and he did it because it's what the
kids needed and clearly it'swhat the kids needed.
They're all happier, they'reall thriving, including Miranda
as a result of Mrs Doubtfire'sinfluence.
But why couldn't he have donethose things as Daniel Well?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
because he wasn't interested in what they needed
until he faced real consequences.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
I mean maybe yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Well, because that's the story.
I mean whether or not thefilmmakers did this
intentionally.
That is the story you see overand over again.
I mean, what is it like?
70 or 80% of divorces areinitiated by women.
It's because men like Danieldon't do what's needed until
they're forced to.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
I mean, people don't change when they're comfortable.
But I guess adding this layerof the gender performance, of
his performance as Mrs Doubtfirelike, really makes it like
messy for me, because Daniel wascapable, he was capable of
doing the things he could havejust done, the I mean it
(35:46):
wouldn't have been a story, itwouldn't have been the cringe
humor that was so popular in the90s it also gets to that sense
of entitlement, because he feelsentitled to Miranda.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
That's where the like my jaw dropping comes from.
Where he's like I hope shedoesn't get amoebic dysentery
and he like, feels like he hasthe right to throw limes at the
new boyfriend and poison him, isbecause he feels entitled to
this woman and this family,despite doing nothing to to be
what they need.
(36:14):
Doing nothing to be what theyneed, yeah, yeah, and that's
this rewatch has really left abad taste in my mouth.
Speaker 1 (36:21):
Oh, that's a shame it really has.
Speaker 2 (36:22):
That's a terrible shame, just because I know that
is not what I don't know.
I didn't know the man and Idon't want to like since Neil
Gaiman, I'm trying really hardnot to put celebrities on the
list Not to project.
Yeah, from the things that Ihave read about Robin Williams
and some of the things that hisdaughter has said publicly about
(36:43):
him, and he seems like he was agentle soul and it seems like I
don't think he would havewanted to have put something
ugly out there yeah but that'slike, we swim in this, we swim
in this and we don't realizethat.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
I think that's exactly it.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
That's exactly it, yeah, and in in the 90s, well,
and and like, like what you andI grew up with, go for the joke.
Go for the joke.
So like the drive-by fruitingwas hilarious, like, go for the
joke.
And like it takes distance torealize how, wait what?
No, how is that funny, you know?
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
So two more things I want to make sure I I touch on.
One is that and actuallythey're kind of related one is
that I came into thisanticipating finding a lot of
transphobia and it was not asmuch as I thought there would be
.
So there is a moment actuallythe kids figure out who he is
because he's in the house as MrsDoubtfire and goes to the
(37:41):
bathroom and doesn't close thedoor all the way, and Chris
comes in and he's peeingstanding up and Chris freaks out
, goes into Lydia, call 911,because apparently a trans woman
is like goes into Lydia, call911.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Like because apparently a trans woman is.
But anyway, to be fair, in 1993, children would have had no
context for that.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
Yeah, agreed, agreed, anyway.
So he's like freaking out andlike really upset, and so Daniel
comes out to them it's me, it'sdad, it's dad, I did this so I
could be with you.
And Lydia, when she realizes itreally is dad, she like gives
him a hug and like she's reallyexcited and he goes to hug Chris
(38:21):
.
And Chris was like, uh, no, I'mlike I'm not mad, but like I
don't want to hug you like this.
And Daniel's like it's like aguy thing, yeah, and like I
actually don't know what thatmeans.
Does he not want to hug him?
Because he's like I don't knowwhat the kind of hold up was, so
, but it feels like transphobia.
The other moment, in that momentChris is like you don't
(38:42):
actually like dressing like that, do you?
And Daniel's like I mean, someof it's comfortable, no, it's
terrible.
I did it so I could be with you, you know.
So that moment really didn'tage well and I genuinely don't
know.
Like they just sort of say likeoh, it's a guy thing that Chris
doesn't want to hug his dad,while his dad's dressed like Mrs
Doubtfire.
I don't know if it's because hejust saw him peeing in a dress,
(39:05):
or because of the padding, or Idon't know.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
So that moment was a little bit weird.
I do just want to say in the uh, the fact that he does dress as
Mrs Doubtfire and this is getsback to the like, the
selfishness of of Daniel and theentitlement.
This is so he can see his kids,not so they can see him,
because they don't even knowit's him, because relationships
(39:31):
are supposed to be reciprocal,not so they can see him Right.
Speaker 1 (39:33):
They don't even know it's him.
They don't even know it's him,because relationships are
supposed to be reciprocal, right, yeah, I'm just, I'm getting
like, yeah, yeah, the more youspin it out, the grosser it gets
.
Yeah, and he says to them likeyou can't tell mom, I'll be
talking to you throughplexiglass.
If you tell mom and you can'ttell, it's just between us, the
(39:58):
three of us, which is yuck.
And then related sort oftransphobia is that moment you
remember with the bus driver.
It's exactly as you remember.
It's the second time we see him.
The bus driver pick him up asmrs doubtfire and he kind of
flirted with mrs dot fire thefirst time.
The second time, I was lovelyto see you again.
It's exactly the way youremember.
His skirt had come up above hisknee a little bit, and so the
bus driver sees the super hairyknee and he covers the knee and
(40:18):
he says, oh, I like theMediterranean women, like it's
natural, just as God made you.
And he says God broke the moldwhen he made me as Mrs Doubtfire
and this is from the analystthat I mentioned, whose blog
post I'll link to.
There's something again aboutthat moment of like unwanted
(40:39):
flirtation that every woman inthe world has experienced.
That, then, is meant to be sortof funny when it's directed at
Williams dressed in drag andalso I don't, there was a cringe
, but, like the, there'ssomething a little off about it.
(41:01):
The, the analysts that I readsuggested that the movie makers
are suggesting that Daniel, asDoubtfire like, can handle it
better than a woman would I.
I don't, I don't know if thatperson is right.
That analyst is right, thatthat's what's happening, but
there is something that justfeels a little off about the
(41:22):
whole thing in in terms of likepart of it, I guess, is just
making a joke of unwantedflirtation, which happens all
the time and, frankly, is often,often presages violence.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, that moment, part of it, is like you don't
get the impression that Daniel'sin any danger and Daniel
doesn't feel like he's in anydanger.
Doesn't feel like he's in anydanger.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And the fact that this bus driver is attracted to
Daniel as Doubtfire.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
It makes him the butt of a joke, yeah, but also in a
way, like kind of makes him sortof sweetly naive in a way.
I don't know, I don't know itmade me like the bus driver,
yeah, yeah, and I don't know how, like I don't know how to feel
about how this is put in thismovie, because it's just like,
because when I've had thatexperience, it has never felt
like that.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
No, it doesn't feel sweet.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
And like the thing is like I've never connected it to
when I've been alone withsomeone who has been flirting
with me that I have been I havenot been interested in, but I
have been, like, I've been beenappreciative of that moment in
this which I even as I've beenlike yeah, I was, I was supposed
to be cringe humor and like youknow which, I didn't take it
that way.
It's weird.
(42:40):
There's a lot there.
You could unpack the scene andlike what exactly were they
going for with this, other thanthe fact that, like, we are
fucked up when it comes togender expression in this
culture?
Speaker 1 (42:53):
Yeah, yeah, I don't I mean because I think you were
right.
We were like he thinks he'sfound out, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
I don't know, I don't know, while the bus driver is
flirting, there's never anythinglike.
If nothing untoward, happensNothing untoward, and he never
seems pushy.
Speaker 1 (43:15):
He never even asks her for a date or anything.
He just sort of flirts.
He just flirts yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
So, like, unlike in Tootsie, there's flirtation that
is very much like it becomesharassment, to the point of
assault, I think, where DustinHoffman's character is like no
means no, whereas this is muchmore like it's much gentler.
Much gentler and more like.
Isn't it funny that there'ssome men who find this woman
attractive and I was more like.
(43:42):
I like that sweet bus driver.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think part of what's sweetabout it too is that one
expected a transphobic responseto the hairy leg and that's not
what came.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I think that is what's sweet about it, and the
natural, just like God made you,which now we know that Daniel
is a cisgender man.
Now that we had not that Ipersonally had that that that
language?
Speaker 1 (44:05):
I don't think we were yeah, yeah, certainly not.
Speaker 2 (44:08):
But and who knows if the bus driver would have been
comfortable with a transgenderwoman, but we know that the bus
driver is perfectly comfortablewith non-culturally acceptable
gender expression and yeah, in1993, and it's just like good on
(44:30):
you, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, allright.
Speaker 1 (44:34):
So the last thing I'll say and then I'll try and
wrap up or let you shareanything.
Also, some of the message, theactual messages around women's
sexuality, undergirding this,like, are kind of yucky, right,
like miranda.
I mean, I'm sorry, butaesthetically pierce brosnan is
(44:56):
the upgrade of robin williams.
I loved robin williams.
He's a great guy and not andnot unattractive, but pierce
brosnan is like an adonis, youknow.
I mean they even have nataliesay to him they see him at a
swimming pool and he, she, saysyour stomach does not look like
my daddy's.
And then actually, as Doubtfire, daniel says, I can see that
(45:23):
water must be very cold, likewhat?
Holy shit.
Anyway, because her ex-husbandis our hero, like I, I don't
know what we're supposed tothink.
But again and again and again,as doubtfire, daniel slut shames
(45:46):
her, even though she's divorced, she's courting this man.
I mean he actually, he actuallysays, as Doubtfire, to try and
like intimidate, stuart at thebirthday dinner, at that
horrible, cringeworthy scene,talks about the fact that she's
got a vibrator in her drawer andhe's surprised she hasn't
chipped a tooth and like I don'tknow, like weird, weird stuff
(46:09):
that he's saying about thiswoman who is the mother of his
children.
It's just gross and I think weare meant to think he is out of
line.
I think we're meant to thinkhe's out of line, you know, when
she's getting dressed fordinner and like asking opinions
about different dresses, andhe's like they're all harlots
dresses, you know, as Doubtfire,you know, and I'm watching.
(46:31):
I'm like go get it, miranda, ofcourse.
Yes, yes, why wouldn't you?
And she's like miranda asks mrsdoubtfire how long after mr
doubtfire, before you, you know,had desire and, like you know,
went out with other men and shesaid never as mrs doubtfire,
never when the father of yourchildren is out of the picture,
(46:52):
then it is your job to just becelibate.
And Miranda's like celibate andin my head I'm thinking why are
you still listening?
Speaker 2 (47:01):
to Mrs Doubtfire Miranda.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
I'm like what.
No no, not even in 93.
So I just wanted to also putthat out there.
And what's interesting too isthat Brosnan's character does
not come back after the scenewhen he gets the Heimlich.
We don't see him again, so wedon't know what happens to him.
Because he has served his, arelike able to make it work and
(47:32):
what they.
Speaker 2 (47:33):
They seem to really care about each other yeah so,
and he is, he's appropriate,he's an appropriate he's age
appropriate, he's likeresponsible, he likes her kids,
he's good with her kids.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
You know, I don't know.
So any final things you want toshare before I try and wrap up
what I had?
Speaker 2 (47:53):
to no, I don't think I'll be revisiting this one.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, it's not going on the family movie night I have
seen it for the last time.
So this movie passes theBechdel test.
It doesn't get much else rightabout gender.
I don't think so.
I anticipated transphobia, andthere is some, but not nearly as
much as I thought there wouldbe.
What there is is a very weirdbraiding of sort of ideas about
(48:21):
gender and essentialism,essentialist gender and like
gender roles, insofar as DanielHillard has to literally put on
femininity in order to learn tobe responsible.
I don't know what to do withthat.
Like, clearly he was capable ofmaking the kids do their
homework and learning to cookand cleaning up Because he did
(48:42):
it as Mrs Doubtfire, but hecouldn't do it until he became
Mrs Doubtfire and then he wasable to do it as Daniel, and
that feels really messed up tome and part of it feels
realistic, as you pointed out,because so often men feel
entitled to everything untiltheir wives are like no, I'm not
(49:06):
doing this anymore, and theymake them face real consequences
, and then some men learn tostep up, and that feels real.
What doesn't feel real, or whatI don't know what to do with, is
the fact that this character,this dad and husband, needed to
perform as a woman in order tostep up.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
It's unclear if the filmmakers were doing that
intentionally to skewersomething or if this was just
like let's put Robin Williams ina dress, yeah exactly Like was
that actually trying to skewerhypermasculinity and sort of
toxic mess?
Speaker 1 (49:44):
It's not even toxic masculinity, but just sort of
like the learned helplessnessand like overgrown man child.
Speaker 2 (49:50):
Yeah, weaponized incompetence.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Exactly so?
I don't know.
There's also an undercurrent ofanti-feminism in this film that
plays out through the variousfemale characters, from Miranda,
the sort of ball-bustingworkaholic, to the
court-appointed liaison, who ishumorless, to even the oldest
(50:15):
daughter, who has been startedto be tainted by feminism and
expects her dad to actually likedo the work yeah.
So that anti-feminist modecombined with some of the
entitlement and the.
You know we're meant to forgivereally bad behavior because
he's funny and because hegenuinely loves his children.
(50:38):
It's not a far leap from someof the assumptions under this
movie to sort of men's rightsactivism bullshit.
There's also like a shit ton ofcringe humor in this movie that
is very difficult to watch forme.
I do not enjoy secondhandembarrassment and there's a lot
of it in this movie.
That is very difficult to watchfor me.
I do not enjoy secondhandembarrassment.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
And there's a lot of it in this movie Just a lot.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
So I think that's everything we talked about.
What did I miss?
Speaker 2 (51:01):
The fact that there's that sense of like,
particularly in divorce dadsoften want to be the fun dad and
that there's something in thiswhich, when like and this, as
this film points out, like, thekids thrive when they actually
have discipline and structure.
Speaker 1 (51:18):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, there's some other stuffin there that's gross, that
y'all can watch it or not, butanyway.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Yeah, watch it or not , but anyway yeah.
So apparently not all of robinwilliams's uh work can be
revisited as a gem yeah nope,not this one, yeah, not this one
.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
So what are you bringing me next week?
I don't remember.
So next week I am bringing youtitanic.
Oh, I have friends, I havenever seen titanic.
I cannot.
How is that possible?
It's going on my, it's going onmy gravestone.
Here lies tracy.
I have friends, I have neverseen Titanic.
I cannot.
How is that possible?
It's going on my, it's going onmy gravestone.
Here lies Tracy.
Speaker 2 (51:57):
She never saw Titanic .
Speaker 1 (51:59):
All right.
Well, I look forward to hearingabout it yes.
Next week, next week.
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
(52:20):
show notes or leave a positivereview so others can find us and
, 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.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's
episode.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Until next time, remember pop culture is still
culture, and shouldn't you knowwhat's in your head?
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