So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?
This week, Tracie takes a deep dive into Weird Science: yet another of the John Hughes movies that helped to define Gen X pop culture. This 1985 teen comedy is a modern retelling of Pygmalion, the Greek myth that finds a sculptor falling in love with his artwork that comes to life. Except in this version, Anthony Michael Hall's Gary and Ilan Mitchell-Smith's Wyatt create Lisa (played by Kelly LeBrock) via Memotech MTX 512 microcomputer, because 1980s movies taught us computers are magic.
While Tracie was pleased to find the raunchy comedy isn't as bad as she expected—Lisa, as a benevolent agent of chaos, has more agency than anyone else, which is a definite improvement over Galatea in the original Greek myth and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady—the movie struggles to universally apply the message that you don't have to change to be worthy of love. And like many movies continue to do in 2025, Weird Science treats Gary and Wyatt's teenage love interests as prizes to be won.
On the bright side, now we know that computers can't magic Kelly LeBrock from the ether.
No need to wear a bra on your head. Just some headphones will do.
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The rough story is there's this artist, this
sculptor.
He carves a woman out of marblethat is so perfect that he
falls in love with it, andAphrodite takes pity on him
somehow and grants thissculpture life, and they live
happily ever after and have akid together, which doesn't fit
with my understanding of theGreek sense of storytelling.
(00:22):
There should have been atragedy there.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem 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
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:46):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what'sin your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1985 John Hughes film WeirdScience with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
All right, em, I'm pretty surewe saw this one together.
(01:07):
But what's in your head aboutweird science?
Kelly LeBrock?
Yeah, being like 80s-tasticgorgeous, so like very curly
hair.
I remember Anthony Michael Halland his sidekick friend Like I
couldn't tell you who the otheractor was Are nerds, and there's
(01:28):
a point where someone hasunderwear on their head.
I think Bras, bras.
Oh, that's right.
That's part of the like magicritual they use with the
computer.
Yeah, and there is a pointwhere they're designing Kelly
LeBrock.
It's like 3D animation, 80sstyle.
It's like the green lines onblack background and they make
(01:48):
ginormous tits.
I remember that, the thing thatreally stuck with me, because I
am sure I have not seen it since.
I've seen it since it came out.
So it came out in 1985 when Iwould have been six.
I've seen it since then, butnot since, like maybe 1990.
(02:08):
Yeah, but this is one of thefilms that I kind of grouped
together in the like.
We know that computers arepowerful and do cool things, but
we don't really understand whatthey do.
So therefore, computers can doanything kind of like computers
are magic sort of thing, and Ifeel like this was the most
(02:32):
egregious of the computers aremagic trope.
I mean quite literally magic inthis movie.
Yeah, so like the word scienceis right there in the title and
yet it's sort of a veneer overtop of magic.
Yeah, yeah, and an appealingone.
Yeah, the kids were supposed tobe like nerds, like really good
(02:54):
at science and like the kind ofnerds that you know were put in
the locker or, you know, hadtheir heads put down in the
toilets in the 80s.
Which did that ever?
I'm sure that must havehappened, who knows Anyway.
But so they inherentlyunderstood computers.
So that meant that they weremagic anyway.
(03:14):
And I can't recall, if you know,my child self watching this was
like yeah, that's not realistic, but I know like looking back,
my thinking was like what thehell were we watching?
So that's basically what's inmy mind on this.
(03:36):
I don't.
This is not a movie I spend agreat deal of time thinking
about.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout it today?
Yeah, it's funny Like we alwaystalk about what the stakes are
and usually we try to havethings that have like at least
medium stakes.
This one actually was pretty lowstakes for me.
I loved the soundtrack.
Like the soundtrack wassomething that I held on to like
throughout adolescence.
(03:57):
The movie itself not so much,and a regular listener recently
said to me through a messagethey were like no-transcript,
(04:26):
which is a fine reason.
I don't know, it's fine.
It also is the case that Ithink dad must have told us that
this was a version of thePygmalion myth, like in the 80s,
because in my head when I thinkabout Pygmalion, I think about
this movie and my Fair Lady andI know dad told us my Fair Lady
was Pygmalion.
(04:46):
So we'll get into whatPygmalion is, but those are the
reasons it landed on the list.
So this movie is weird, it'sjust.
It's right there in the title,it's right it's weird.
So let me share a little bit ofwhat I'm going to try and talk
about.
And the other thing that youmentioned before we started
(05:07):
recording that.
It shouldn't have blown my mind.
But who's the director of thisone?
Yeah, john Hughes.
This is a John Hughes film from1985.
He was like the storyteller ofour childhood.
Like there are a bunch ofmovies I knew was him, but this
was one.
This is not one of them.
Not one of them, and I'm likehe's a good 10% of our films on
the list right now.
(05:27):
He didn't just direct it, healso wrote it, so it had some
source.
There was like a sourcematerial called Made of the
Future by Alf Feldstein.
Was that a short story?
I don't know, I'm looking atWikipedia folks but Hughes wrote
the screenplay.
So yeah, so here's some things Iwant to talk about.
(05:48):
I mean, like I went into thisexpecting to tear it apart in
terms of feminist questions, andthere's definitely some work to
be done there.
There's some serious feministcritique.
There's some serious feministcritique and it's more
complicated than I expected itto be when I came back to watch
it again.
(06:08):
So I want to talk about that alittle bit.
I also want to talk about someof the kind of social commentary
that I think Hughes was tryingto make.
That I'm not sure he dideffectively, at least not like
retroactively looking back on it, and I want to talk about that
both regarding race andregarding class.
So I get the impression thatHughes was like a well-meaning
(06:31):
white guy in the 80s.
Yes, I think so too, and so Ithink that, especially class,
because he didn't really tacklerace like in Breakfast Club, for
instance, but he did tackleclass directly in Breakfast Club
, and I think some of thoseclass things are similar and
I'll get into sort of how hehandles race.
It is very sort of surfacelevel.
(06:53):
Yeah, I also want to talk aboutyour magic and science thing.
This film doesn't.
It's not pretending Like we'vetalked about other examples from
the 80s where the veneer wasmeant to be real.
You know, it was sort ofscience fiction to a certain
extent.
Like this isn't even that.
This is science fantasy and itdoesn't pretend otherwise.
(07:15):
So I think that's like a reallyweird and interesting dynamic.
I also want to talk about thetwo girls who are not creations
of these two guys who end upbeing the love interest, like in
their agency and the sort oflike anti-feminist, like their
prizes kind of a thing, and alsothey're given a little bit more
(07:38):
, a little bit more agency thanthat.
Like it's a little, push me,pull me.
So I want to talk about them.
There is a moment where theselike mutant bikers crash a party
and there's some like kind ofanti-Native American racism in
their look that I want to justname, or at least one of them.
(08:02):
That's just surprised me.
That's bizarre.
I just's bizarre name.
That, yeah, it's weird.
And then, lastly, I just want tosort of say, like it's a john
hughes film, and so the thesisthat hughes was trying to
underline was you don't have tochange who you are in order to
be worthy of love or worthy ofbeing liked, which, like I mean,
that's a fine thing to say.
(08:23):
Like that's not.
I don't have critique of theactual thesis, don't know that,
like, the way we got there inthis film is helping, but it's
worth naming that like, as yousay, well-meaning.
So those that's where I'm goingto go.
Let me try and give a synopsisof this thing.
(08:44):
I've got the Wikipedia page upon my other screen.
I want to give a little morethan what Wikipedia gives,
because there are specificmoments, like that moment with
the bikers, that I want to givea little more context on.
So, listener, you know I'm notvery good at being concise, but
I am doing my best and that'sgoing to be good enough.
So let's go.
You're good enough, you'restrong enough, I'm smart enough
(09:06):
and doggone it.
People like you, people like me, yeah.
So the movie opens.
We sort of pan up from sneakersup these two boys it's, as you
say, anthony Michael Hall asGary and his sidekick, who you
don't remember the character'sname is Wyatt, played by Elon
Mitchell Smith and so these twoguys are standing there in their
(09:29):
gym clothes so two short shortsfor, like, especially by
today's standards.
You know these like pasty,skinny, nerdy, white kids and
they're talking, they'rewatching a full girls gym class
doing gymnastics and like oglingand sort of saying you know
what I want to do with them?
(09:50):
Shower with them.
And they're like talking abouthow amazing it would be to like
be cool and like have thesegirls over for a party or
whatever.
And Wyatt, the not AnthonyMichael Hall character, says you
know, that's never going tohappen.
Nobody likes us, nobody likesus.
And Gary Anthony Michael Hallsays why you got to bring
(10:11):
reality into it?
We already know reality.
Let the fantasy be the fantasy.
And so Wyatt's like yeah, yeah,you're right.
And so they keep talking andthey point out two specific
girls that are going to fall inlove with the two of them.
Their names are Hilly and Deb.
So they start talking aboutHilly and Deb and then we see
behind them these two jocks comeup and are listening to them
and laughing at them.
(10:31):
And these two guys are playedby.
One of them is a young RobertDowney Jr.
I don't remember the other one,the other actor, it doesn't
really matter, but they pull thetwo jocks behind them.
Each one pulls, grabs theshorts and pulls their pants
down and then says hey, look atus.
And then the jocks leave.
And so now you've got Gary andWyatt standing there, the entire
(10:54):
gym of teenage girls looking atthem standing there with their
shorts around their ankles andtheir tighty whities.
So that's how we meet these twokids.
The next scene is at Wyatt'shouse.
Wyatt's parents are out of town, so Gary's sleeping over.
We learn that Wyatt is veryrich because Gary's in the
bathroom, which is like an ensuite to Wyatt's room, just
(11:19):
messing around with shavingcream and whatever.
And Wyatt says hey, man, don'tmake a mess in there, because
the maid doesn't come until nextweek.
And he made a big mess.
Anyway, we also hear thatWyatt's older brother, chet, is
home from college.
Gary's like oh man, why didn'tyou tell me Chet was going to be
here?
I hate him, he's the worst.
So now we know that Chet's abad guy Played by Bill Paxton,
(11:46):
by the way, Very young BillPaxton.
And then we see that they'relike watching TV in Wyatt's room
and they're watching like a1930s Frankenstein movie.
And all of a sudden Gary's likeyou know what?
That's a good idea.
And Wyatt's like what, what's agood idea?
And Gary says we can make agirl.
We can make a girl.
And then she would like usbecause we made her.
And Wyatt's like that'sdisgusting.
Stop, I'm not digging up a deadgirl.
(12:06):
And Gary's like no, no, no, no,your computer.
And he points to this computerwhich in 1985 was really really
really fancy.
So they decide to do this and sothey're like cut out magazines,
like they have Playboys andthey have National Geographic,
and they're like feeding into ascanner all of these like
pictures, like including likeEinstein and apparently the
(12:28):
computer can scan a picture ofEinstein and know what to make
the brain like, becausecomputers are magic, as you say.
So they put all the stuff inand the thing you remember about
the sort of it was like it waskind of like blue lines, like
Tron looking thing, of like a, afemale body, and they make the
boobs huge.
And then Gary's like no biggerthan a handful and you risk
(12:50):
spraining your thumb orsomething like that.
So they make them small again.
It's so offensive Because it'sabout his thumb and not her back
, offensive anyway because it'sabout his thumb and not her back
(13:10):
.
It's just, it's just anywayanyway.
So they need more power.
So we see them like somehow likehack into some government
facility and it cuts to thislike government with like
reel-to-reel tape and this guyin uniform is like what is
happening?
Like everything's spinningreally fast and and Wyatt's like
this is so illegal, we're sogoing to get caught.
Anyway, they keep going.
They hook up a little likeBarbie doll to like two
(13:30):
electrodes.
They've got the bras on theirheads.
Wyatt's even like why do wehave bras on our heads?
Gary's like it's for the ritualof it.
It's for the ritual of it,wyatt, or something like that.
And then we see like a shot ofthe house from the outside and
there's like red, get the bras.
Wyatt's mom, I guess.
Ew, I mean they're very like,very white and very like
(13:54):
old-fashioned.
Okay, so we cut to the outsideof the house this giant it's, I
mean why it's rich.
And uh, there's like a redcloud and like lightning and
stuff.
And then it's like a hurricaneinside the house and the boys
are like what is happening andthey're freaking out and they
unplug the computer and itdoesn't matter, like it keeps
(14:16):
going.
And like Gary grabs a baseballbat and Wyatt's like no, it was
a birthday present.
And he like goes to hit thecomputer with the baseball bat
and the baseball bat, like afiberglass baseball bat,
shatters.
So the computer is still it,just like it's crazy, you know
pandemonium.
And then it stops and KellyLeBrock walks through fog
(14:37):
wearing the outfit that the dollhad been wearing, which was
like blue panties and like acrop gray Heather sweatshirt.
So they did it.
They created this woman.
These boys are meant to be 15.
Kelly LeBrock was in her mid20s when they made this movie
(14:59):
and she is absolutely magic.
So she's like we're going toparty, let's go party.
They're like what?
And they're 15-year-old boysand they're not very social and
so they're very nervous.
So she somehow has this 1960spink Cadillac convertible.
(15:19):
She's all dressed up in like ashiny what's the word I'm
looking for A strapless dresswith like long gloves.
They put on suits to go out andthey walk out of the bedroom
into the hallway and the suitstransform out of the like sort
of lame chet suit into theselike very for 1985, very dapper
(15:41):
dark suits for 1985, very dapperdark suits.
She takes them to this bar.
It's like a blues club and thisis the sort of weird racist
moment.
They walk in and it's mostlyBlack folks, older, not kids, so
they're in their 40s or 50s orwhatever, and it's a blues club
(16:03):
and they like walk in and theboys are like we don't belong
here.
Oh, she gives them fake ids, bythe way, she just sort of like
she.
She's like a holodeck, she justmakes them.
She's janet no, I'm the goodplace, she's totally janet from
the good place.
She just like whatever sheneeds, she just wills it into
being.
So she wills these two fake idsfor them into being.
So they go into this club andthe boys are like we don't
belong here here.
And she's like what are youtalking about?
It's a public place.
(16:23):
Of course you do.
It's a public place.
So they go and sit down andthey're like very awkward with
these.
They're sitting at this bigtable of like 10 people and the
guys are like the other men arelike what are you doing with
these two?
And it's just weird and silly.
Gary gets drunk and AnthonyMichael Hall does this shtick
(16:46):
where he sort of takes on theblack scent of the guys at the
table, so like AAVE, I mean,yeah, but from the 80s.
So like listen to this y'all.
Let me tell you how it is thatsort of thing.
And like the men are charmed in, let me tell you how it is that
sort of thing.
And like the men are charmedlike in the movie, they think
(17:09):
it's funny and they're into it,they're with him.
No-transcript, gross.
It's weird and like I think thekind of message that we were
(17:30):
meant to get is, which actuallylisa is kelly lebrock's
character's name.
Lisa says, like they're justpeople, people are people right.
And like that's the messagewhich was look these black folks
who are older than you, they'rejust people, people are people
right.
But the actual mechanism bywhich the connection was made it
(17:55):
wasn't just Gary tellingstories about being unlucky in
love in the eighth grade.
It was in this sort ofappropriative accent which, I
admit, watching Anthony MichaelHall do it was.
I was charmed and also likelike the race and racism and
(18:16):
analyst in the back of my headis going oh, trace, that is not
okay.
So like all of that was true,okay.
So the next day the boys wakeup and they're back in their
room and like everything seemsto be normal and like they think
maybe they dreamed it andthey're like we had the same
dream, what?
(18:36):
And then we know it wasn't adream, because Wyatt gets up out
of bed and he's wearing theoutfit that Lisa was originally
wearing, which was just theunderwear and top.
So from that there was animplication that maybe they had
sex, but actually Lisa makes itclear they never do.
She says you fell asleep, orsomething like that.
(18:57):
So Lisa promises to stay out ofChet's way.
Chet is the older brother.
Chet is a dick.
He's like been at militaryschool, which his main takeaway
and joy on that is that it'staught him how to be cruel.
So he extorts money out ofWyatt to keep things secret and
he's just a jerk.
And Lisa, we see her kind oflistening and like really
(19:20):
cringing and like wanting to dosomething, but she promised that
she would stay out of the way.
And like wanting to dosomething, but she promised that
she would stay out of the way.
Shenanigans ensue.
The boys are at the mall andthey like are picking out
perfume for Lisa and the perfumethe girl behind the you know
the makeup counter is likearen't you the boys who got beat
(19:42):
up at homecoming?
Or you know like?
We just keep seeing more andmore examples of how these two
are really outcast.
We see the two, the same twojocks who pants them in the very
first scene at the mall, drop aslushy on them from the second
floor of the mall down to wherethey're sitting and like
publicly, were bullies reallythat cruel in the 80s or was it
(20:04):
just that's how the how movieswere Not at our schools?
I don't think, but I don't know.
I don't know.
I think maybe they were.
I mean, I've talked to enoughpeople our age and a little
older who talk about, you know,facing like actual physical
threats, that I think maybe theywere.
So we also see the two girlsthat we saw in the very first
(20:25):
scene, that they had identified,that they were both in love
with a, deb and Hilly.
We didn't know their names then.
Now we know their names.
They are the girlfriends ofthese two bullies, who are Max
and Ian, played by RobertRessler and Robert Downey Jr
respectively.
So and the girls are played bySuzanne Snyder as Deb and Judy
Aronson as Hilly.
So they're the girlfriends ofthese two jerks and they do not
(20:47):
approve, they don't like it atall, but they also sort of you
sort of see that kind ofstuckness that actually reads as
kind of true, not that they arebimbos, but they're like this
is the way that girls weretaught, especially in the 80s,
to kind of gain status and feelworthy, which is I'm not mad at
John Hughes for.
(21:07):
So we also see Max and Ian, theysee Lisa and they like turn
around on the escalator, like gothe wrong way on the escalator,
chase her and try and track herdown.
And there is like a one ofthose like comeuppance moments
where they're trying to talk herup and she's like, uh, no,
sorry, I'm not interested.
And then the two boys, wyattand gary, show up in like a
(21:31):
porsche that she has manifestedfor him, for gary, that has his
like name as the license plate,and she makes it clear she's
with them and they're like whatare you doing with them?
And she's like she says, oh,it's purely a sexual
relationship, so that like likereally to give the comeuppance
to these two bullies out in thebathroom together while all
(22:06):
these people are there, deb andHilly end up in the same
bathroom with them and they havethis bizarre moment where the
boys go into the shower and thegirls are out looking in the
mirror and they're having twoseparate conversations but in
the same space.
So weird.
Anyway, lisa feels that theyneed more confidence and so she
actually manifests these bikers,which, I'm realizing as I'm
(22:30):
looking at the Wikipedia page,are actually meant to be Mad Max
references, which maybe iswhere the indigenous thing that
I saw that is coming from.
So Vernon Wells plays LordGeneral, which is meant to be
referencing his Mad Max 2character, but he's got like
mohawk hair with like feathersin it and like war paint on his
(22:52):
face that very much reads asmeant to look like Native
American.
And then the other two thereare four total bikers who show
up and they like crash throughthe giant windows in this house
and there's that guy, and thenhe's got a woman with a collar
on a chain, and then there's aguy with sort of facial
(23:14):
dysplasia it's not the sameactor who played the guy in
Goonies, but he has the samecondition and then a guy with
like a metal plate like somehowaffixed to his skull, to the
front of his face, and they arelike menacing the party.
And Lisa is like you guys needto do something, you need to
(23:35):
make them go away, and they'relike, uh no, they're like hiding
in the closet.
And then eventually these MadMax bikers like take Hilly and
Deb kind of hostage and it'sreally gross the way they're
menacing them.
And then the two boys step upand sort of fight them off and
the girls fall in love with themas a result.
There were some othershenanigans that I missed.
(23:56):
So, for instance, lisa picksGary up from his house and has a
conversation with his plumberdad and like, very like, like
conservative mom, and they donot like the way that she talks
to them and she just likedoesn't care and it's bizarre
and cringy.
And then she somehow makes themforget about it and, like the
(24:19):
mom, just forgets the encounter,but the dad actually forgets
that they have a son at all.
There's a very, very grossmoment where the two bullies are
like we're so sorry about theway that we've treated you, but
you guys can have Deb and Hillyif we can have Lisa.
Yeah, it's really really grossand they don't obviously take
(24:40):
the deal.
But what they do is to try andimpress these two tormentors of
theirs.
They're going to make anotherwoman for them and they want
bigger tits.
Like in that same scene wherethe original two nerds were like
no, too big, these guys arelike bigger, bigger.
It's really really gross.
But they forget to hook up thedoll and instead these two
(25:01):
electrodes end up on either sideof an image of a Pershing
missile and so this giantmissile erupts from the floor
and breaks through the ceilingand, like all of these weird
things happen in the house.
So like the kitchen just turnsblue and like all the stuff gets
kind of sucked up into thefireplace and up through the
chimney, including at one pointa piano and the girl who was
(25:24):
playing the piano.
But of course her clothes getripped off first, so she's in
just her underwear when she getspulled up through the chimney
and lands in the outdoorswimming pool.
It is just weird and gross andunpleasant.
And doesn't Chet get turnedinto like a toad or something?
Yes, that comes later.
Okay, because he's out duckhunting or something at this
(25:46):
point during the party.
So lisa comes.
It's like you guys, you forgotone thing, you forgot the doll.
And that's when the you knowthe missile comes up.
Meanwhile, like wyatt'sgrandparents had come by and
lisa somehow makes them likecatatonic but smiling, and
sticks them in a cupboard andthere's just so weird, so weird.
(26:08):
So after all the guests havegone, deb and Hilly are still
around and we see the twocouples kind of paired off and
like it's the brunette girl andthe brunette boy and the blonde
girl and blonde boy is the wayit gets paired.
But we see the I don't rememberwhich is which, but we see the
one saying to Gary like, weren'tyou scared?
(26:30):
And he was like, yeah, I wasscared, but you know I did what
I had to do and you know,whatever they, so they end up
paired off.
In the morning Chet comes home,the house is a mess, like none
of the furniture's in the houseanymore because it all went up
through the chimney and is inthe yard and the kitchen is
still blue, and you know.
So he's this super, you know,hyper masculine, macho asshole.
(26:52):
He actually he's coming homefrom duck hunting, so he's got a
shotgun.
He actually like goes intoWyatt's room where Gary and his
girl, who I think is Deb, are inone of the twin beds beds and
he like points the shotgun atthem, like in their like,
touching their faces, like whathappened.
And then he goes to find Wyattand he's in what looks like a
(27:16):
little girl's room.
I don't know, I don't know ifthey have a sister or something,
but anyway he's in that bedwith Hilly and similarly, like
he's menacing and threateningand like physically like grabs
and like what's the word I'mlooking for?
Like headlocks, wyatt, and why.
It's like you can have mycollege money, you can have my
social security anyway.
(27:37):
Lisa shows up and like she'stalking to them and somehow lisa
convinces um chet to let thetwo younger kids boys take the
two girls home.
So they go off in these twofancy cars like a Porsche and a
Corvette or something to takethe girls home while she's
talking to Chet, and that's whenshe ends up turning him into
(27:59):
this weird toad fart monster.
So they drop the girls off.
Each of them confesses his lovefor his prospective love
interest and the girlsreciprocate.
They come back to Wyatt's houseand they park their cars kind
of opposite one another so thatthe driver's sides are matched
(28:19):
and they get out and they'reboth.
So I'm just so happy, I'm inlove, isn't it great.
And whatever, we got to talk toLisa.
They're walking in, they'regoing to talk to Lisa, the cars
disappear, like with this weirdlike lightning effect, that kind
of accompanies, lisa's magic,and they go in and they have a
conversation with her whereshe's like you fell in love,
didn't you?
(28:39):
I'm so proud of you.
That's all I ever wanted wasfor you to be happy.
And they're like aren't youupset?
And she's like I mean a little,and she's a little bit teary
eyed, but all I really wantedwas for you to know how great
you are Something like that.
And then she like, gives themeach hugs, walks into the
bathroom and then a fog machineactivates and she says she
kisses them like waves what'sthe word I'm looking for?
(29:00):
Blows a kiss goodbye anddisappears.
A kiss goodbye and disappears.
And then, once she's gone, likeall of the mess, magically, like
, fixes itself, like the books,like everything, comes back up
at the top of the chimney downinto the house and sets itself
back up.
The books go back on thebookshelves, like everything.
And so the parents are arrivingas things are being set back
(29:22):
together and they come in andthe two boys come downstairs and
we see Wyatt go to give his dada hug and his dad's like no,
shakes his hand instead, and themom says are you guys okay?
And they're like yeah, we'refine, we just hung around.
And mom says daddy had thiscrazy idea that you maybe had a
big party or something.
And they're like no, not us,not here, no way.
(29:49):
So that's the end of that.
We see Chet come back to normal.
The very final scene, anothergym class from where we started
all boys and the whistleblowers.
They line up and it's Lisawearing very little but workout
gear and she says, okay, dropand give me 20.
And then all of the boys, like,hit themselves in the forehead
(30:11):
and fall backward and I don'tactually understand what that
was supposed to mean.
Maybe it was some reference, Idon't know.
Anyway, that's the end of themovie.
I probably missed stuff.
It's 30 minutes in, good enough.
So let me just start quicklywith Bechdel test.
This movie does not pass,though it comes close, because
Deb and Hilly talk to oneanother quite a lot and at one
(30:33):
point they're talking about Lisa, but they lead with.
If our boyfriends see her, it'sall over for us.
So I don't think it counts.
So so now I got that other way.
So let me start with this sortof question of like feminism.
It's a total male fantasy.
(30:55):
Right, they create the perfectwoman and she is, in at least a
nominal way, their servant,gross.
But she's not their servant.
She's a chaos demon, you know.
She's like.
She's a benevolent but chaoticgenie.
(31:17):
Ultimately, you know, and Lisahas more agency than anyone in
the entire film.
She may be the only one withtrue agency in the film.
She is very much theprotagonist of this film, and so
that, to me, pushes backagainst the.
Even though it's a fantasy wishfulfillment.
(31:41):
It's a fantasy wish fulfillmentin which Galatea, the sculpture
, has full agency and is anagent of chaos.
You know the thing that inretelling this and I had not
remembered that part at allwhere the bullies say, like you
can have Deb and Hilly if yougive us Lisa, which ew.
(32:01):
And then the fact that Gary andWyatt say like no, but we'll
make another one for you, ew.
And then the fact that Gary andWyatt say like no, but we'll
make another one for you, ew,considering the fact that Lisa
has agency and has made it clearthat she is a full, fully
(32:21):
realized human being with wedon't know human being, but like
is capable of thought, iscapable, like she's sentient,
yeah.
And then Gary and Wyattstumbled into this.
But then the bullies are sayingno, bigger, bigger, bigger tits
.
And like ew, ew, ew, ew.
And it reminds me of have youseen the film Ex Machina it is
about there's a brilliantinventor who has made basically
(32:47):
lifelike androids that you areincapable of telling the
difference between them and realhuman beings, and he brings
another man to his very remoteisland to do a Turing test to
see if he can tell thedifference.
The Turing test is to see iftest the difference between
(33:08):
artificial intelligence and reallife.
All of his androids are women,and my spouse and I had very
different responses to this,because the android he's testing
fakes being in love with thetester and she is very, very
Machiavellian, kills all thehumans and then like gets out
(33:31):
and is like let loose on theworld with absolutely no morals
or conscience.
And I was like right on, righton, sister, because you saw and
you see like footage of otherandroids, like destroying
themselves, trying to get out.
And to me it was like so OscarIsaac plays the inventor, like
(33:55):
Oscar Isaac has created thesesentient beings for his own
pleasure, sexual pleasure, yeah,and like that is the epitome of
cruelty.
And so that's that's what I wasthinking of when you're, when
you're talking about RobertDowney Jr and the other bully,
like we're doing this for ourown enjoyment and who gives a
(34:18):
shit?
Who gives a?
Who gives a shit how she feelswhen we know from Lisaisa that
she has sentience, she hasagency, she, she wants things,
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I, all ofthose things and it's up, it's
part and parcel with how theyfeel about hilly and deb.
It is exactly so.
(34:39):
Let's let me put this.
Actually I mentioned galatea,that, so that's the name of the
sculpture, the woman, thesculpture who becomes a woman in
the greek myth, which we knowthe best from ovid.
You probably, probably know itbetter than I do.
I haven't actually read it in along time.
I actually that's one part of.
I mean I'm familiar with it,but that's Okay.
So the rough story is there'sthis artist, this sculptor.
He carves a woman out of marblethat is so perfect that he
(35:02):
falls in love with it, andAphrodite takes pity on him
somehow and grants thissculpture life, and they live
happily ever after and have akid together, which doesn't fit
with my understanding of theGreek sense of storytelling.
There should have been atragedy there, but anyway.
So part of what I think we arereacting to is actually a
(35:27):
problem with the source material.
Not weird science, but fuckingGreek myth, right, which was
clearly written by a dude.
Well, also Greek understandingof femininity and women, right,
right.
So that's something that I justwant to like name.
(35:47):
That is again like I'm notforgiving.
In some ways it is moreprogressive because his Galatea,
his Lisa, has full agency.
(36:11):
She does not end up as the sortof servant slash wife.
In fact, they make it clear shedoes not have sex with either
of these boys.
So, like she uses her sexuality, she is confident in how
beautiful and sexy she is andshe uses that for all different
(36:35):
means.
But it is not, but it is fullyin her control, which I don't
know if that's the case in thesource material from Ovid or
wherever Ovid got it.
Yeah Well, and it's also likeyou said, she's a she's a chaos
agent.
So she's totally, she is she'ssort of their servant, but she
is also, she takes it on herselfto challenge them, yes To, to
(37:00):
force them to grow and change,because she feels that they can.
Almost every single piece offriction that they face is
either caused by the bullies orby Lisa, and they would not have
made any changes.
No, no.
So we don't have a lot of time,so I want to like make sure I
(37:22):
get some stuff so I want to talkabout.
I do want to talk.
I talked about the racism.
Those guys from the blues barshow up later at the party and
there's an interesting momentwhere they have friction with
the bullies, because the bulliesone of the guys that we met at
the blues bar is actuallyworking the bar for the party
and they make an order.
(37:42):
That's like trying to be tough.
Like he says do you have scotch?
I'll take a scotch.
And he says how do you take it?
And the bully says I'll justtake the bottle.
And the bartender, who's theblack guy from the blues club,
says why don't you bend over andI'll shove it up your ass.
And the bully goes on, therocks is good.
(38:03):
And he says that's what Ithought you were going to say.
It's like so weird.
Anyway.
So there's this weird sort oflike.
Having him show up again, Ithink, is like a validation, a
reiteration that somehow Garyand Wyatt, with with Lisa's help
, like saw past the differenceand now they're real friends.
And then this guy's likehelping defend him against these
(38:25):
phonies of the bullies, who areshown to be phonies over and
over again, right In so manydifferent ways, including being
cowardly when the bikers, whenthe Mad Max guys show up and
they're just like every minutethey just like have to get out.
One of them says, what aboutdeb and hilly?
And they're like what aboutthem?
Let's go, you know like.
And so the black friends I'mputting quotes around that just
(38:48):
sort of become like credentials,almost some of my best friends
are black.
That's kind, yeah, yeah.
So those are the sort of piecesI wanted to trace on kind of
race in this movie, which is isit's not a lot, it really is,
but it's there.
But then I also want to talkabout class, because Wyatt is
(39:08):
like filthy rich, his family isvery rich and Gary's dad is a
plumber, and I think that it'snever explicit, there is no
exposition to this effect, but Ido think that Hughes had
something in mind around thefact that these two boys are
friends across that class line.
(39:29):
That also was some sort ofcredential of their merit.
That's something that I justwanted to like say out loud,
especially as we talk aboutHughes's oeuvre and whether that
we've talked about or not, andthe ways that he kind of
approached class.
That is something he comes backto over and over again.
(39:52):
I'm thinking planes, trains andautomobiles.
That is part of the frictionbetween Neil and Del, the other
guy.
Yeah, and you mentionedBreakfast Club.
I mean it's, it's just arepeated issue is is class, it's
a thing that that was alive forhughes, yeah, yeah, and that
also considering the in the1980s with like that was the
(40:17):
decade of greed, is good andeconomics and like welfare
queens I'm putting that in scarequotes yeah, friendship across
class differences would be amarker that meant something to
viewers in the 80s Like it would.
(40:51):
It would be something that Ithink a viewer in 2025 who
didn't live through the 1980swouldn't necessarily clock as a
credential, but I think that itwould definitely mean something
to you know, a 15 year oldwatching it in 1985.
Right, right, the seeminglyanti-Indigenous racism of the
biker guy which, when we hitrecord, I actually hadn't seen
that this was a reprise or areference of the Mad Max
character.
So it may be and, listeners, ifyou want to like chime in here
(41:12):
it may be that actually theanti-Indigenous racism is from
Mad Max and I just am unfamiliarwith it because I don't know
Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess Ishould say because I don't know
Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess Ishould say because I don't know
it.
It stood out to me there was,there was that there was also
this like the guy with thefacial dysplasia felt a little
ableist, that he's like this,like mutant I'm putting quotes
around that bad guy.
(41:33):
The girl with the collar andchain, I don't know it all just
felt like a shorthand for badguys that relied on unpleasant
things.
I mean the guy with the metalface just I don't know what that
was about, like body horrorMaybe that's a Mad Max thing too
(41:54):
that I'm unfamiliar with.
And when Gary actually finallyconfronts them and tells them to
get out, he uses the F word.
That is a slur for gay peopleabout them, which really today
just rankles Like.
It stands out like a sore thumbto me Now.
In the 80s it was totallynormal and you know that's just
(42:14):
sort of like outdated language.
We don't talk like that anymore.
It's not acceptable to useslurs for gay people as insult.
It was then, but so anyway,that's just a little bit of an
aside.
Lastly, I want to name I think Isaid this Hughes's thesis here
you don't have to change who youare in order to be worthy of
(42:36):
love or worthy of whateversuccess.
Cool, agree, and the way thathe showed that right was to
ultimately like reward these twonerds with girlfriends, which,
on the one hand, it's made clearthat deb and hilly don't
(42:57):
actually like these two guysthat they're with.
In the beginning they feel sortof stuck and don't know what to
do about it, and then it justsort of feels like the way
they're conditioned to be, andthey do seem to genuinely like
wyatt and gary, on the otherhand, like women are not prizes,
you know.
Like it, I feel like this moviehelped contribute.
Help contribute to the idea oflike, put in good deeds, get out
(43:20):
sex, like that sort of vendingmachine idea that, when taken to
its extreme, ends up as what?
What do they call themselvesincels?
Yeah, incels.
Like that sort of like mad atwomen who don't do the thing
where they do the thing,malfunctioning sex robots.
You know, I put, I put in somany nice coins, why isn't the
(43:42):
sex coming out?
Exactly, exactly.
And I feel like this kind ofstory, this kind of male fantasy
, where these two nerds getrewarded for stepping up and
being strong and brave and doingwhatever the things are that
they were supposed to do, getrewarded with these girls that
they've been lusting after for awhile, I feel like there's a
(44:04):
direct line from this kind ofstory to the incel attitudes
that are literally killing us.
So I just wanted to name that,so like yes, john Hughes, yes,
you shouldn't have to change whoyou are in order to be worthy
of love use.
Yes, you shouldn't have tochange who you are in order to
be worthy of love.
It's not a guarantee, there'sno.
There's no like guarantee thatif you like be who you are, you
(44:28):
get sex and love.
So, all right.
I do have one thing that I wantto talk about, like kind of more
meta, before you kind of doyour synthesis.
So Kelly RockRock was huge,like all over in the 1980s,
sometime in the 2000s I can'tremember exactly how long ago it
was I can recall that she wason one of those celebrity weight
(44:50):
loss shows because she'd gainedweight as she got older, as you
do, as one does, and I rememberthe narrative about it was like
she let herself go and therewas this sense that she was, she
had been worthy.
When, in 1985, when she hadthis male fantasy body, when she
(45:13):
, you know, was this perfectplayboy centerfold, yeah, like,
literally, if you could make awoman, she's who you would make.
Yes, that's what this movie isabout.
And then, 20, 25, 30 yearslater, as a older woman who had
had many years of life, with allof the joys and heartbreaks and
(45:35):
tragedies and life experiencebecause her body looked
different.
And life experience because herbody looked different, she was
on some sort of weight loss show, which I don't have any opinion
about her decision to go onthat.
That is between her andwhatever she decided to do, but
that is a personal decision onher part.
But it had to have been in someway embarrassing to do that.
(45:59):
I mean that sort of narrativethat she let herself go.
Like fuck you.
I've decided, whenever I hearthat when someone says, when you
say, let yourself go, I'vedecided to think of that as like
you're on a ride and so you letyourself go.
It's like wee, yeah, becausethe thing is, our bodies are our
(46:21):
bodies and they do what they do.
Body's going to body yeah,that's what bodies do.
Yeah.
So, and like the thing is, sheis a gorgeous woman, yeah, no
matter what size she is.
And so the male fantasy thatshe represented in 1985, for one
thing, with makeup and like,like the fan blowing and the fog
(46:42):
machine is anyway, and likeeverything perfectly tweezed.
So that is something that I'mthinking about as well.
Like you don't have to changewho you are to be worthy, unless
you're Kelly LeBrock, unlessyou're Kelly LeBrock and you
happen to age and you're 40instead of 20.
Yeah, so that's something likewould that story be the same if
(47:05):
it were about Deb and Hilly?
Yeah, thinking about Galatea,would that story be like you
don't have to change who you areto be worthy?
That's not true of I just losther name, eliza Doolittle,
because she has to stop speaking.
Well, little, because she hasto.
She has to stop speaking.
Well, eliza was a statue.
(47:26):
I mean that's really gross,like she.
Like eliza is the raw clay thatyou mean galatea, I can.
No, I mean eliza.
She had to change who she wasin order to be the woman he
wanted to love.
Yeah, yeah, all right, we areout of time, so let me see what
I can remember to reflect backhere.
So doesn't pass back to Elle.
Not feminist, but also not asanti-feminist as I expected when
(47:49):
I came in because of the degreeof agency and power and, like I
don't know, benevolent chaosthat Lisa.
Actually, I want to be an agentof benevolent chaos.
Amen, sister, amen.
I want that to be my title onLinkedIn.
I thought it was publicintellectual.
No, no, I just changed it.
(48:11):
It's benevolent agent of chaos.
Okay, so not as anti-feministas I expected because, like Lisa
is the protagonist, lisa is themost interesting, the most
powerful, the most wonderfulcharacter period, the most
interesting Hands down, by farthe most interesting.
There is this sort of Pygmaliontrope, which is the Greek myth
(48:34):
whereby Pygmalion is an artistwho creates a sculpture out of
marble and falls in love with itand then Aphrodite brings it to
life and they get married andhave a kid.
Ew.
So like ew to this movie, butalso like and I hold John Hughes
responsible for the movie hemade but not accountable for the
story, because he was borrowingit from thousands of years of
(48:55):
culture.
There's some weird stuff aboutrace and class in this movie
whereby relationships acrossthose differences become
credentials of goodness.
But we don't actually see thework, at least around race, and
in fact the work that we do seeis is sort of appropriative and
and surface level.
And also, I have to admit I wascharmed by anth Michael Hall's
(49:19):
black scent, like I thought itwas.
It was, it was hilarious.
And even as I'm like chucklingto myself watching it last night
, I was like, oh, trace, don't.
So this movie is one of the onesthat you point to where science
is magic, computers, computersare magic, specifically
computers.
Especially in the 80s, this onetook it to the nth, so it
(49:41):
wasn't just like this thing thatwith.
You know, 30 years later welook back and go like, yeah,
computers can't do that.
They knew they couldn't do thateven in the 80s.
That's why there was this weirdlightning effect and like just
shit just magically changed.
You know, like we watched carsbe created out of nothing and
then return to nothing.
(50:01):
We watch the home furnishingsgo up the chimney and then come
back in the chimney, you know.
So the difference between magicand science in this movie
called Weird Science is minimal.
You couldn't slide a piece ofpaper in between that.
You couldn't slide a piece ofpaper in between that.
(50:22):
We have these two.
The jocks in robert downey jrand robert rustler's characters
of ian and max are just gross.
They are reprehensible andwe're meant to think of them as
reprehensible and we see thatover and over again.
They are foils to our heroesand we see that in multiple,
multiple ways.
(50:42):
Some of the ways that they aregross are like so gross and our
heroes do kind of buy into it,in so far as when the bullies
offer a trade, the heroes say,well, we can't do that.
Lisa's her own person, we wouldnever do that.
But they say, but what we coulddo and decide to make another
(51:04):
person which backfires, andinstead they make a Pershing
missile with huge breasts.
There was a moment that I namedthat.
Now I'm wondering if actuallywas a reference to a different
moment.
So I don't actually want to puttoo much analysis on this.
(51:25):
But, like, the magical bikerswho are the challenge that Lisa
manifests to make the boys bebrave are Mad Maxstyle bikers,
including one played by VernonWells who really reads as a
Native American stereotype innot a good way, not that
(51:49):
stereotypes are ever good.
Lastly, at the end of ourconversation I named the fact
that Hughes's thesis seems to beyou don't have to change who
you are in order to be worthy oflove, of friendship, of
whatever, which in and of itselfis fine.
But the way that it goes aboutit, this movie contributes to
the idea that leads directly toincel culture, whereby there is
(52:12):
a sense that if men behave aspecific way and put the nice
coins in, then comes out whichcompletely erases women's agency
humanity, consent I don't knowdignity, independence, like I
could keep going, sentience,sentience.
So this movie does contributeto that cultural phenomenon.
(52:37):
I think we need to hold itaccountable for that, and you
actually named it as related toanother film, ex Machina,
whereby that is even moreegregious.
But again, this is in thebackground influencing the movie
makers who end up making ExMachina.
So I think that's worth kind ofit's worth naming that.
This is part of the furniture ofthe mind of the folks who make
(52:59):
Ex Machina.
This is part of the furnitureof the mind of the folks who
make Ex Machina.
This is part of the furnitureof the mind that ends up
creating incel culture.
Did I forget anything?
Just the connection to likeKelly LeBrock herself.
Oh right, yeah, yeah, she hasto change who she is in order to
be worthy.
Yeah, if she dares to gainweight, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah
, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you don't drop dead at 27,.
(53:21):
You know how?
Dare you in any way change theway you look?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I don't know if that'llsatisfy our listener, who wanted
us to tear it apart, but I hadfun.
What are you bringing me nextweek?
Speaking of Pygmalion, I amgoing to be bringing you my deep
thoughts on Mannequin.
I am going to be bringing youmy deep thoughts on Mannequin.
(53:43):
Oh, it's totally Peck, millian.
It is Sweet.
We're on a roll.
It was unintentional, but therewe are.
We're on a roll, all right.
Well, see you then.
See you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking,thank you.
(54:03):
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
(54:24):
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
The rough story is there's this artist, this
sculptor.
He carves a woman out of marblethat is so perfect that he
falls in love with it, andAphrodite takes pity on him
somehow and grants thissculpture life, and they live
happily ever after and have akid together, which doesn't fit
with my understanding of theGreek sense of storytelling.
(00:22):
There should have been atragedy there.
Have you ever had something youlove dismissed because it's
just pop culture, what othersmight deem 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
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Guy-Decker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts
(00:46):
About Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture.
And shouldn't you know what'sin your head?
On today's episode, I'll besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1985 John Hughes film WeirdScience with my sister, emily
Guy-Burken, and with you.
Let's dive in.
All right, em, I'm pretty surewe saw this one together.
(01:07):
But what's in your head aboutweird science?
Kelly LeBrock?
Yeah, being like 80s-tasticgorgeous, so like very curly
hair.
I remember Anthony Michael Halland his sidekick friend Like I
couldn't tell you who the otheractor was Are nerds, and there's
(01:28):
a point where someone hasunderwear on their head.
I think Bras, bras.
Oh, that's right.
That's part of the like magicritual they use with the
computer.
Yeah, and there is a pointwhere they're designing Kelly
LeBrock.
It's like 3D animation, 80sstyle.
It's like the green lines onblack background and they make
(01:48):
ginormous tits.
I remember that, the thing thatreally stuck with me, because I
am sure I have not seen it since.
I've seen it since it came out.
So it came out in 1985 when Iwould have been six.
I've seen it since then, butnot since, like maybe 1990.
(02:08):
Yeah, but this is one of thefilms that I kind of grouped
together in the like.
We know that computers arepowerful and do cool things, but
we don't really understand whatthey do.
So therefore, computers can doanything kind of like computers
are magic sort of thing, and Ifeel like this was the most
(02:32):
egregious of the computers aremagic trope.
I mean quite literally magic inthis movie.
Yeah, so like the word scienceis right there in the title and
yet it's sort of a veneer overtop of magic.
Yeah, yeah, and an appealingone.
Yeah, the kids were supposed tobe like nerds, like really good
(02:54):
at science and like the kind ofnerds that you know were put in
the locker or, you know, hadtheir heads put down in the
toilets in the 80s.
Which did that ever?
I'm sure that must havehappened, who knows Anyway.
But so they inherentlyunderstood computers.
So that meant that they weremagic anyway.
(03:14):
And I can't recall, if you know,my child self watching this was
like yeah, that's not realistic, but I know like looking back,
my thinking was like what thehell were we watching?
So that's basically what's inmy mind on this.
(03:36):
I don't.
This is not a movie I spend agreat deal of time thinking
about.
So tell me, why are we talkingabout it today?
Yeah, it's funny Like we alwaystalk about what the stakes are
and usually we try to havethings that have like at least
medium stakes.
This one actually was pretty lowstakes for me.
I loved the soundtrack.
Like the soundtrack wassomething that I held on to like
throughout adolescence.
(03:57):
The movie itself not so much,and a regular listener recently
said to me through a messagethey were like no-transcript,
(04:26):
which is a fine reason.
I don't know, it's fine.
It also is the case that Ithink dad must have told us that
this was a version of thePygmalion myth, like in the 80s,
because in my head when I thinkabout Pygmalion, I think about
this movie and my Fair Lady andI know dad told us my Fair Lady
was Pygmalion.
(04:46):
So we'll get into whatPygmalion is, but those are the
reasons it landed on the list.
So this movie is weird, it'sjust.
It's right there in the title,it's right it's weird.
So let me share a little bit ofwhat I'm going to try and talk
about.
And the other thing that youmentioned before we started
(05:07):
recording that.
It shouldn't have blown my mind.
But who's the director of thisone?
Yeah, john Hughes.
This is a John Hughes film from1985.
He was like the storyteller ofour childhood.
Like there are a bunch ofmovies I knew was him, but this
was one.
This is not one of them.
Not one of them, and I'm likehe's a good 10% of our films on
the list right now.
(05:27):
He didn't just direct it, healso wrote it, so it had some
source.
There was like a sourcematerial called Made of the
Future by Alf Feldstein.
Was that a short story?
I don't know, I'm looking atWikipedia folks but Hughes wrote
the screenplay.
So yeah, so here's some things Iwant to talk about.
(05:48):
I mean, like I went into thisexpecting to tear it apart in
terms of feminist questions, andthere's definitely some work to
be done there.
There's some serious feministcritique.
There's some serious feministcritique and it's more
complicated than I expected itto be when I came back to watch
it again.
(06:08):
So I want to talk about that alittle bit.
I also want to talk about someof the kind of social commentary
that I think Hughes was tryingto make.
That I'm not sure he dideffectively, at least not like
retroactively looking back on it, and I want to talk about that
both regarding race andregarding class.
So I get the impression thatHughes was like a well-meaning
(06:31):
white guy in the 80s.
Yes, I think so too, and so Ithink that, especially class,
because he didn't really tacklerace like in Breakfast Club, for
instance, but he did tackleclass directly in Breakfast Club
, and I think some of thoseclass things are similar and
I'll get into sort of how hehandles race.
It is very sort of surfacelevel.
(06:53):
Yeah, I also want to talk aboutyour magic and science thing.
This film doesn't.
It's not pretending Like we'vetalked about other examples from
the 80s where the veneer wasmeant to be real.
You know, it was sort ofscience fiction to a certain
extent.
Like this isn't even that.
This is science fantasy and itdoesn't pretend otherwise.
(07:15):
So I think that's like a reallyweird and interesting dynamic.
I also want to talk about thetwo girls who are not creations
of these two guys who end upbeing the love interest, like in
their agency and the sort oflike anti-feminist, like their
prizes kind of a thing, and alsothey're given a little bit more
(07:38):
, a little bit more agency thanthat.
Like it's a little, push me,pull me.
So I want to talk about them.
There is a moment where theselike mutant bikers crash a party
and there's some like kind ofanti-Native American racism in
their look that I want to justname, or at least one of them.
(08:02):
That's just surprised me.
That's bizarre.
I just's bizarre name.
That, yeah, it's weird.
And then, lastly, I just want tosort of say, like it's a john
hughes film, and so the thesisthat hughes was trying to
underline was you don't have tochange who you are in order to
be worthy of love or worthy ofbeing liked, which, like I mean,
that's a fine thing to say.
(08:23):
Like that's not.
I don't have critique of theactual thesis, don't know that,
like, the way we got there inthis film is helping, but it's
worth naming that like, as yousay, well-meaning.
So those that's where I'm goingto go.
Let me try and give a synopsisof this thing.
(08:44):
I've got the Wikipedia page upon my other screen.
I want to give a little morethan what Wikipedia gives,
because there are specificmoments, like that moment with
the bikers, that I want to givea little more context on.
So, listener, you know I'm notvery good at being concise, but
I am doing my best and that'sgoing to be good enough.
So let's go.
You're good enough, you'restrong enough, I'm smart enough
(09:06):
and doggone it.
People like you, people like me, yeah.
So the movie opens.
We sort of pan up from sneakersup these two boys it's, as you
say, anthony Michael Hall asGary and his sidekick, who you
don't remember the character'sname is Wyatt, played by Elon
Mitchell Smith and so these twoguys are standing there in their
(09:29):
gym clothes so two short shortsfor, like, especially by
today's standards.
You know these like pasty,skinny, nerdy, white kids and
they're talking, they'rewatching a full girls gym class
doing gymnastics and like oglingand sort of saying you know
what I want to do with them?
(09:50):
Shower with them.
And they're like talking abouthow amazing it would be to like
be cool and like have thesegirls over for a party or
whatever.
And Wyatt, the not AnthonyMichael Hall character, says you
know, that's never going tohappen.
Nobody likes us, nobody likesus.
And Gary Anthony Michael Hallsays why you got to bring
(10:11):
reality into it?
We already know reality.
Let the fantasy be the fantasy.
And so Wyatt's like yeah, yeah,you're right.
And so they keep talking andthey point out two specific
girls that are going to fall inlove with the two of them.
Their names are Hilly and Deb.
So they start talking aboutHilly and Deb and then we see
behind them these two jocks comeup and are listening to them
and laughing at them.
(10:31):
And these two guys are playedby.
One of them is a young RobertDowney Jr.
I don't remember the other one,the other actor, it doesn't
really matter, but they pull thetwo jocks behind them.
Each one pulls, grabs theshorts and pulls their pants
down and then says hey, look atus.
And then the jocks leave.
And so now you've got Gary andWyatt standing there, the entire
(10:54):
gym of teenage girls looking atthem standing there with their
shorts around their ankles andtheir tighty whities.
So that's how we meet these twokids.
The next scene is at Wyatt'shouse.
Wyatt's parents are out of town, so Gary's sleeping over.
We learn that Wyatt is veryrich because Gary's in the
bathroom, which is like an ensuite to Wyatt's room, just
(11:19):
messing around with shavingcream and whatever.
And Wyatt says hey, man, don'tmake a mess in there, because
the maid doesn't come until nextweek.
And he made a big mess.
Anyway, we also hear thatWyatt's older brother, chet, is
home from college.
Gary's like oh man, why didn'tyou tell me Chet was going to be
here?
I hate him, he's the worst.
So now we know that Chet's abad guy Played by Bill Paxton,
(11:46):
by the way, Very young BillPaxton.
And then we see that they'relike watching TV in Wyatt's room
and they're watching like a1930s Frankenstein movie.
And all of a sudden Gary's likeyou know what?
That's a good idea.
And Wyatt's like what, what's agood idea?
And Gary says we can make agirl.
We can make a girl.
And then she would like usbecause we made her.
And Wyatt's like that'sdisgusting.
Stop, I'm not digging up a deadgirl.
(12:06):
And Gary's like no, no, no, no,your computer.
And he points to this computerwhich in 1985 was really really
really fancy.
So they decide to do this and sothey're like cut out magazines,
like they have Playboys andthey have National Geographic,
and they're like feeding into ascanner all of these like
pictures, like including likeEinstein and apparently the
(12:28):
computer can scan a picture ofEinstein and know what to make
the brain like, becausecomputers are magic, as you say.
So they put all the stuff inand the thing you remember about
the sort of it was like it waskind of like blue lines, like
Tron looking thing, of like a, afemale body, and they make the
boobs huge.
And then Gary's like no biggerthan a handful and you risk
(12:50):
spraining your thumb orsomething like that.
So they make them small again.
It's so offensive Because it'sabout his thumb and not her back
, offensive anyway because it'sabout his thumb and not her back
(13:10):
.
It's just, it's just anywayanyway.
So they need more power.
So we see them like somehow likehack into some government
facility and it cuts to thislike government with like
reel-to-reel tape and this guyin uniform is like what is
happening?
Like everything's spinningreally fast and and Wyatt's like
this is so illegal, we're sogoing to get caught.
Anyway, they keep going.
They hook up a little likeBarbie doll to like two
(13:30):
electrodes.
They've got the bras on theirheads.
Wyatt's even like why do wehave bras on our heads?
Gary's like it's for the ritualof it.
It's for the ritual of it,wyatt, or something like that.
And then we see like a shot ofthe house from the outside and
there's like red, get the bras.
Wyatt's mom, I guess.
Ew, I mean they're very like,very white and very like
(13:54):
old-fashioned.
Okay, so we cut to the outsideof the house this giant it's, I
mean why it's rich.
And uh, there's like a redcloud and like lightning and
stuff.
And then it's like a hurricaneinside the house and the boys
are like what is happening andthey're freaking out and they
unplug the computer and itdoesn't matter, like it keeps
(14:16):
going.
And like Gary grabs a baseballbat and Wyatt's like no, it was
a birthday present.
And he like goes to hit thecomputer with the baseball bat
and the baseball bat, like afiberglass baseball bat,
shatters.
So the computer is still it,just like it's crazy, you know
pandemonium.
And then it stops and KellyLeBrock walks through fog
(14:37):
wearing the outfit that the dollhad been wearing, which was
like blue panties and like acrop gray Heather sweatshirt.
So they did it.
They created this woman.
These boys are meant to be 15.
Kelly LeBrock was in her mid20s when they made this movie
(14:59):
and she is absolutely magic.
So she's like we're going toparty, let's go party.
They're like what?
And they're 15-year-old boysand they're not very social and
so they're very nervous.
So she somehow has this 1960spink Cadillac convertible.
(15:19):
She's all dressed up in like ashiny what's the word I'm
looking for A strapless dresswith like long gloves.
They put on suits to go out andthey walk out of the bedroom
into the hallway and the suitstransform out of the like sort
of lame chet suit into theselike very for 1985, very dapper
(15:41):
dark suits for 1985, very dapperdark suits.
She takes them to this bar.
It's like a blues club and thisis the sort of weird racist
moment.
They walk in and it's mostlyBlack folks, older, not kids, so
they're in their 40s or 50s orwhatever, and it's a blues club
(16:03):
and they like walk in and theboys are like we don't belong
here.
Oh, she gives them fake ids, bythe way, she just sort of like
she.
She's like a holodeck, she justmakes them.
She's janet no, I'm the goodplace, she's totally janet from
the good place.
She just like whatever sheneeds, she just wills it into
being.
So she wills these two fake idsfor them into being.
So they go into this club andthe boys are like we don't
belong here here.
And she's like what are youtalking about?
It's a public place.
(16:23):
Of course you do.
It's a public place.
So they go and sit down andthey're like very awkward with
these.
They're sitting at this bigtable of like 10 people and the
guys are like the other men arelike what are you doing with
these two?
And it's just weird and silly.
Gary gets drunk and AnthonyMichael Hall does this shtick
(16:46):
where he sort of takes on theblack scent of the guys at the
table, so like AAVE, I mean,yeah, but from the 80s.
So like listen to this y'all.
Let me tell you how it is thatsort of thing.
And like the men are charmed in, let me tell you how it is that
sort of thing.
And like the men are charmedlike in the movie, they think
(17:09):
it's funny and they're into it,they're with him.
No-transcript, gross.
It's weird and like I think thekind of message that we were
(17:30):
meant to get is, which actuallylisa is kelly lebrock's
character's name.
Lisa says, like they're justpeople, people are people right.
And like that's the messagewhich was look these black folks
who are older than you, they'rejust people, people are people
right.
But the actual mechanism bywhich the connection was made it
(17:55):
wasn't just Gary tellingstories about being unlucky in
love in the eighth grade.
It was in this sort ofappropriative accent which, I
admit, watching Anthony MichaelHall do it was.
I was charmed and also likelike the race and racism and
(18:16):
analyst in the back of my headis going oh, trace, that is not
okay.
So like all of that was true,okay.
So the next day the boys wakeup and they're back in their
room and like everything seemsto be normal and like they think
maybe they dreamed it andthey're like we had the same
dream, what?
(18:36):
And then we know it wasn't adream, because Wyatt gets up out
of bed and he's wearing theoutfit that Lisa was originally
wearing, which was just theunderwear and top.
So from that there was animplication that maybe they had
sex, but actually Lisa makes itclear they never do.
She says you fell asleep, orsomething like that.
(18:57):
So Lisa promises to stay out ofChet's way.
Chet is the older brother.
Chet is a dick.
He's like been at militaryschool, which his main takeaway
and joy on that is that it'staught him how to be cruel.
So he extorts money out ofWyatt to keep things secret and
he's just a jerk.
And Lisa, we see her kind oflistening and like really
(19:20):
cringing and like wanting to dosomething, but she promised that
she would stay out of the way.
And like wanting to dosomething, but she promised that
she would stay out of the way.
Shenanigans ensue.
The boys are at the mall andthey like are picking out
perfume for Lisa and the perfumethe girl behind the you know
the makeup counter is likearen't you the boys who got beat
(19:42):
up at homecoming?
Or you know like?
We just keep seeing more andmore examples of how these two
are really outcast.
We see the two, the same twojocks who pants them in the very
first scene at the mall, drop aslushy on them from the second
floor of the mall down to wherethey're sitting and like
publicly, were bullies reallythat cruel in the 80s or was it
(20:04):
just that's how the how movieswere Not at our schools?
I don't think, but I don't know.
I don't know.
I think maybe they were.
I mean, I've talked to enoughpeople our age and a little
older who talk about, you know,facing like actual physical
threats, that I think maybe theywere.
So we also see the two girlsthat we saw in the very first
(20:25):
scene, that they had identified,that they were both in love
with a, deb and Hilly.
We didn't know their names then.
Now we know their names.
They are the girlfriends ofthese two bullies, who are Max
and Ian, played by RobertRessler and Robert Downey Jr
respectively.
So and the girls are played bySuzanne Snyder as Deb and Judy
Aronson as Hilly.
So they're the girlfriends ofthese two jerks and they do not
(20:47):
approve, they don't like it atall, but they also sort of you
sort of see that kind ofstuckness that actually reads as
kind of true, not that they arebimbos, but they're like this
is the way that girls weretaught, especially in the 80s,
to kind of gain status and feelworthy, which is I'm not mad at
John Hughes for.
(21:07):
So we also see Max and Ian, theysee Lisa and they like turn
around on the escalator, like gothe wrong way on the escalator,
chase her and try and track herdown.
And there is like a one ofthose like comeuppance moments
where they're trying to talk herup and she's like, uh, no,
sorry, I'm not interested.
And then the two boys, wyattand gary, show up in like a
(21:31):
porsche that she has manifestedfor him, for gary, that has his
like name as the license plate,and she makes it clear she's
with them and they're like whatare you doing with them?
And she's like she says, oh,it's purely a sexual
relationship, so that like likereally to give the comeuppance
to these two bullies out in thebathroom together while all
(22:06):
these people are there, deb andHilly end up in the same
bathroom with them and they havethis bizarre moment where the
boys go into the shower and thegirls are out looking in the
mirror and they're having twoseparate conversations but in
the same space.
So weird.
Anyway, lisa feels that theyneed more confidence and so she
actually manifests these bikers,which, I'm realizing as I'm
(22:30):
looking at the Wikipedia page,are actually meant to be Mad Max
references, which maybe iswhere the indigenous thing that
I saw that is coming from.
So Vernon Wells plays LordGeneral, which is meant to be
referencing his Mad Max 2character, but he's got like
mohawk hair with like feathersin it and like war paint on his
(22:52):
face that very much reads asmeant to look like Native
American.
And then the other two thereare four total bikers who show
up and they like crash throughthe giant windows in this house
and there's that guy, and thenhe's got a woman with a collar
on a chain, and then there's aguy with sort of facial
(23:14):
dysplasia it's not the sameactor who played the guy in
Goonies, but he has the samecondition and then a guy with
like a metal plate like somehowaffixed to his skull, to the
front of his face, and they arelike menacing the party.
And Lisa is like you guys needto do something, you need to
(23:35):
make them go away, and they'relike, uh no, they're like hiding
in the closet.
And then eventually these MadMax bikers like take Hilly and
Deb kind of hostage and it'sreally gross the way they're
menacing them.
And then the two boys step upand sort of fight them off and
the girls fall in love with themas a result.
There were some othershenanigans that I missed.
(23:56):
So, for instance, lisa picksGary up from his house and has a
conversation with his plumberdad and like, very like, like
conservative mom, and they donot like the way that she talks
to them and she just likedoesn't care and it's bizarre
and cringy.
And then she somehow makes themforget about it and, like the
(24:19):
mom, just forgets the encounter,but the dad actually forgets
that they have a son at all.
There's a very, very grossmoment where the two bullies are
like we're so sorry about theway that we've treated you, but
you guys can have Deb and Hillyif we can have Lisa.
Yeah, it's really really grossand they don't obviously take
(24:40):
the deal.
But what they do is to try andimpress these two tormentors of
theirs.
They're going to make anotherwoman for them and they want
bigger tits.
Like in that same scene wherethe original two nerds were like
no, too big, these guys arelike bigger, bigger.
It's really really gross.
But they forget to hook up thedoll and instead these two
(25:01):
electrodes end up on either sideof an image of a Pershing
missile and so this giantmissile erupts from the floor
and breaks through the ceilingand, like all of these weird
things happen in the house.
So like the kitchen just turnsblue and like all the stuff gets
kind of sucked up into thefireplace and up through the
chimney, including at one pointa piano and the girl who was
(25:24):
playing the piano.
But of course her clothes getripped off first, so she's in
just her underwear when she getspulled up through the chimney
and lands in the outdoorswimming pool.
It is just weird and gross andunpleasant.
And doesn't Chet get turnedinto like a toad or something?
Yes, that comes later.
Okay, because he's out duckhunting or something at this
(25:46):
point during the party.
So lisa comes.
It's like you guys, you forgotone thing, you forgot the doll.
And that's when the you knowthe missile comes up.
Meanwhile, like wyatt'sgrandparents had come by and
lisa somehow makes them likecatatonic but smiling, and
sticks them in a cupboard andthere's just so weird, so weird.
(26:08):
So after all the guests havegone, deb and Hilly are still
around and we see the twocouples kind of paired off and
like it's the brunette girl andthe brunette boy and the blonde
girl and blonde boy is the wayit gets paired.
But we see the I don't rememberwhich is which, but we see the
one saying to Gary like, weren'tyou scared?
(26:30):
And he was like, yeah, I wasscared, but you know I did what
I had to do and you know,whatever they, so they end up
paired off.
In the morning Chet comes home,the house is a mess, like none
of the furniture's in the houseanymore because it all went up
through the chimney and is inthe yard and the kitchen is
still blue, and you know.
So he's this super, you know,hyper masculine, macho asshole.
(26:52):
He actually he's coming homefrom duck hunting, so he's got a
shotgun.
He actually like goes intoWyatt's room where Gary and his
girl, who I think is Deb, are inone of the twin beds beds and
he like points the shotgun atthem, like in their like,
touching their faces, like whathappened.
And then he goes to find Wyattand he's in what looks like a
(27:16):
little girl's room.
I don't know, I don't know ifthey have a sister or something,
but anyway he's in that bedwith Hilly and similarly, like
he's menacing and threateningand like physically like grabs
and like what's the word I'mlooking for?
Like headlocks, wyatt, and why.
It's like you can have mycollege money, you can have my
social security anyway.
(27:37):
Lisa shows up and like she'stalking to them and somehow lisa
convinces um chet to let thetwo younger kids boys take the
two girls home.
So they go off in these twofancy cars like a Porsche and a
Corvette or something to takethe girls home while she's
talking to Chet, and that's whenshe ends up turning him into
(27:59):
this weird toad fart monster.
So they drop the girls off.
Each of them confesses his lovefor his prospective love
interest and the girlsreciprocate.
They come back to Wyatt's houseand they park their cars kind
of opposite one another so thatthe driver's sides are matched
(28:19):
and they get out and they'reboth.
So I'm just so happy, I'm inlove, isn't it great.
And whatever, we got to talk toLisa.
They're walking in, they'regoing to talk to Lisa, the cars
disappear, like with this weirdlike lightning effect, that kind
of accompanies, lisa's magic,and they go in and they have a
conversation with her whereshe's like you fell in love,
didn't you?
(28:39):
I'm so proud of you.
That's all I ever wanted wasfor you to be happy.
And they're like aren't youupset?
And she's like I mean a little,and she's a little bit teary
eyed, but all I really wantedwas for you to know how great
you are Something like that.
And then she like, gives themeach hugs, walks into the
bathroom and then a fog machineactivates and she says she
kisses them like waves what'sthe word I'm looking for?
(29:00):
Blows a kiss goodbye anddisappears.
A kiss goodbye and disappears.
And then, once she's gone, likeall of the mess, magically, like
, fixes itself, like the books,like everything, comes back up
at the top of the chimney downinto the house and sets itself
back up.
The books go back on thebookshelves, like everything.
And so the parents are arrivingas things are being set back
(29:22):
together and they come in andthe two boys come downstairs and
we see Wyatt go to give his dada hug and his dad's like no,
shakes his hand instead, and themom says are you guys okay?
And they're like yeah, we'refine, we just hung around.
And mom says daddy had thiscrazy idea that you maybe had a
big party or something.
And they're like no, not us,not here, no way.
(29:49):
So that's the end of that.
We see Chet come back to normal.
The very final scene, anothergym class from where we started
all boys and the whistleblowers.
They line up and it's Lisawearing very little but workout
gear and she says, okay, dropand give me 20.
And then all of the boys, like,hit themselves in the forehead
(30:11):
and fall backward and I don'tactually understand what that
was supposed to mean.
Maybe it was some reference, Idon't know.
Anyway, that's the end of themovie.
I probably missed stuff.
It's 30 minutes in, good enough.
So let me just start quicklywith Bechdel test.
This movie does not pass,though it comes close, because
Deb and Hilly talk to oneanother quite a lot and at one
(30:33):
point they're talking about Lisa, but they lead with.
If our boyfriends see her, it'sall over for us.
So I don't think it counts.
So so now I got that other way.
So let me start with this sortof question of like feminism.
It's a total male fantasy.
(30:55):
Right, they create the perfectwoman and she is, in at least a
nominal way, their servant,gross.
But she's not their servant.
She's a chaos demon, you know.
She's like.
She's a benevolent but chaoticgenie.
(31:17):
Ultimately, you know, and Lisahas more agency than anyone in
the entire film.
She may be the only one withtrue agency in the film.
She is very much theprotagonist of this film, and so
that, to me, pushes backagainst the.
Even though it's a fantasy wishfulfillment.
(31:41):
It's a fantasy wish fulfillmentin which Galatea, the sculpture
, has full agency and is anagent of chaos.
You know the thing that inretelling this and I had not
remembered that part at allwhere the bullies say, like you
can have Deb and Hilly if yougive us Lisa, which ew.
(32:01):
And then the fact that Gary andWyatt say like no, but we'll
make another one for you, ew.
And then the fact that Gary andWyatt say like no, but we'll
make another one for you, ew,considering the fact that Lisa
has agency and has made it clearthat she is a full, fully
(32:21):
realized human being with wedon't know human being, but like
is capable of thought, iscapable, like she's sentient,
yeah.
And then Gary and Wyattstumbled into this.
But then the bullies are sayingno, bigger, bigger, bigger tits
.
And like ew, ew, ew, ew.
And it reminds me of have youseen the film Ex Machina it is
about there's a brilliantinventor who has made basically
(32:47):
lifelike androids that you areincapable of telling the
difference between them and realhuman beings, and he brings
another man to his very remoteisland to do a Turing test to
see if he can tell thedifference.
The Turing test is to see iftest the difference between
(33:08):
artificial intelligence and reallife.
All of his androids are women,and my spouse and I had very
different responses to this,because the android he's testing
fakes being in love with thetester and she is very, very
Machiavellian, kills all thehumans and then like gets out
(33:31):
and is like let loose on theworld with absolutely no morals
or conscience.
And I was like right on, righton, sister, because you saw and
you see like footage of otherandroids, like destroying
themselves, trying to get out.
And to me it was like so OscarIsaac plays the inventor, like
(33:55):
Oscar Isaac has created thesesentient beings for his own
pleasure, sexual pleasure, yeah,and like that is the epitome of
cruelty.
And so that's that's what I wasthinking of when you're, when
you're talking about RobertDowney Jr and the other bully,
like we're doing this for ourown enjoyment and who gives a
(34:18):
shit?
Who gives a?
Who gives a shit how she feelswhen we know from Lisaisa that
she has sentience, she hasagency, she, she wants things,
yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I, all ofthose things and it's up, it's
part and parcel with how theyfeel about hilly and deb.
It is exactly so.
(34:39):
Let's let me put this.
Actually I mentioned galatea,that, so that's the name of the
sculpture, the woman, thesculpture who becomes a woman in
the greek myth, which we knowthe best from ovid.
You probably, probably know itbetter than I do.
I haven't actually read it in along time.
I actually that's one part of.
I mean I'm familiar with it,but that's Okay.
So the rough story is there'sthis artist, this sculptor.
He carves a woman out of marblethat is so perfect that he
(35:02):
falls in love with it, andAphrodite takes pity on him
somehow and grants thissculpture life, and they live
happily ever after and have akid together, which doesn't fit
with my understanding of theGreek sense of storytelling.
There should have been atragedy there, but anyway.
So part of what I think we arereacting to is actually a
(35:27):
problem with the source material.
Not weird science, but fuckingGreek myth, right, which was
clearly written by a dude.
Well, also Greek understandingof femininity and women, right,
right.
So that's something that I justwant to like name.
(35:47):
That is again like I'm notforgiving.
In some ways it is moreprogressive because his Galatea,
his Lisa, has full agency.
(36:11):
She does not end up as the sortof servant slash wife.
In fact, they make it clear shedoes not have sex with either
of these boys.
So, like she uses her sexuality, she is confident in how
beautiful and sexy she is andshe uses that for all different
(36:35):
means.
But it is not, but it is fullyin her control, which I don't
know if that's the case in thesource material from Ovid or
wherever Ovid got it.
Yeah Well, and it's also likeyou said, she's a she's a chaos
agent.
So she's totally, she is she'ssort of their servant, but she
is also, she takes it on herselfto challenge them, yes To, to
(37:00):
force them to grow and change,because she feels that they can.
Almost every single piece offriction that they face is
either caused by the bullies orby Lisa, and they would not have
made any changes.
No, no.
So we don't have a lot of time,so I want to like make sure I
(37:22):
get some stuff so I want to talkabout.
I do want to talk.
I talked about the racism.
Those guys from the blues barshow up later at the party and
there's an interesting momentwhere they have friction with
the bullies, because the bulliesone of the guys that we met at
the blues bar is actuallyworking the bar for the party
and they make an order.
(37:42):
That's like trying to be tough.
Like he says do you have scotch?
I'll take a scotch.
And he says how do you take it?
And the bully says I'll justtake the bottle.
And the bartender, who's theblack guy from the blues club,
says why don't you bend over andI'll shove it up your ass.
And the bully goes on, therocks is good.
(38:03):
And he says that's what Ithought you were going to say.
It's like so weird.
Anyway.
So there's this weird sort oflike.
Having him show up again, Ithink, is like a validation, a
reiteration that somehow Garyand Wyatt, with with Lisa's help
, like saw past the differenceand now they're real friends.
And then this guy's likehelping defend him against these
(38:25):
phonies of the bullies, who areshown to be phonies over and
over again, right In so manydifferent ways, including being
cowardly when the bikers, whenthe Mad Max guys show up and
they're just like every minutethey just like have to get out.
One of them says, what aboutdeb and hilly?
And they're like what aboutthem?
Let's go, you know like.
And so the black friends I'mputting quotes around that just
(38:48):
sort of become like credentials,almost some of my best friends
are black.
That's kind, yeah, yeah.
So those are the sort of piecesI wanted to trace on kind of
race in this movie, which is isit's not a lot, it really is,
but it's there.
But then I also want to talkabout class, because Wyatt is
(39:08):
like filthy rich, his family isvery rich and Gary's dad is a
plumber, and I think that it'snever explicit, there is no
exposition to this effect, but Ido think that Hughes had
something in mind around thefact that these two boys are
friends across that class line.
(39:29):
That also was some sort ofcredential of their merit.
That's something that I justwanted to like say out loud,
especially as we talk aboutHughes's oeuvre and whether that
we've talked about or not, andthe ways that he kind of
approached class.
That is something he comes backto over and over again.
(39:52):
I'm thinking planes, trains andautomobiles.
That is part of the frictionbetween Neil and Del, the other
guy.
Yeah, and you mentionedBreakfast Club.
I mean it's, it's just arepeated issue is is class, it's
a thing that that was alive forhughes, yeah, yeah, and that
also considering the in the1980s with like that was the
(40:17):
decade of greed, is good andeconomics and like welfare
queens I'm putting that in scarequotes yeah, friendship across
class differences would be amarker that meant something to
viewers in the 80s Like it would.
(40:51):
It would be something that Ithink a viewer in 2025 who
didn't live through the 1980swouldn't necessarily clock as a
credential, but I think that itwould definitely mean something
to you know, a 15 year oldwatching it in 1985.
Right, right, the seeminglyanti-Indigenous racism of the
biker guy which, when we hitrecord, I actually hadn't seen
that this was a reprise or areference of the Mad Max
character.
So it may be and, listeners, ifyou want to like chime in here
(41:12):
it may be that actually theanti-Indigenous racism is from
Mad Max and I just am unfamiliarwith it because I don't know
Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess Ishould say because I don't know
Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess Ishould say because I don't know
it.
It stood out to me there was,there was that there was also
this like the guy with thefacial dysplasia felt a little
ableist, that he's like this,like mutant I'm putting quotes
around that bad guy.
(41:33):
The girl with the collar andchain, I don't know it all just
felt like a shorthand for badguys that relied on unpleasant
things.
I mean the guy with the metalface just I don't know what that
was about, like body horrorMaybe that's a Mad Max thing too
(41:54):
that I'm unfamiliar with.
And when Gary actually finallyconfronts them and tells them to
get out, he uses the F word.
That is a slur for gay peopleabout them, which really today
just rankles Like.
It stands out like a sore thumbto me Now.
In the 80s it was totallynormal and you know that's just
(42:14):
sort of like outdated language.
We don't talk like that anymore.
It's not acceptable to useslurs for gay people as insult.
It was then, but so anyway,that's just a little bit of an
aside.
Lastly, I want to name I think Isaid this Hughes's thesis here
you don't have to change who youare in order to be worthy of
(42:36):
love or worthy of whateversuccess.
Cool, agree, and the way thathe showed that right was to
ultimately like reward these twonerds with girlfriends, which,
on the one hand, it's made clearthat deb and hilly don't
(42:57):
actually like these two guysthat they're with.
In the beginning they feel sortof stuck and don't know what to
do about it, and then it justsort of feels like the way
they're conditioned to be, andthey do seem to genuinely like
wyatt and gary, on the otherhand, like women are not prizes,
you know.
Like it, I feel like this moviehelped contribute.
Help contribute to the idea oflike, put in good deeds, get out
(43:20):
sex, like that sort of vendingmachine idea that, when taken to
its extreme, ends up as what?
What do they call themselvesincels?
Yeah, incels.
Like that sort of like mad atwomen who don't do the thing
where they do the thing,malfunctioning sex robots.
You know, I put, I put in somany nice coins, why isn't the
(43:42):
sex coming out?
Exactly, exactly.
And I feel like this kind ofstory, this kind of male fantasy
, where these two nerds getrewarded for stepping up and
being strong and brave and doingwhatever the things are that
they were supposed to do, getrewarded with these girls that
they've been lusting after for awhile, I feel like there's a
(44:04):
direct line from this kind ofstory to the incel attitudes
that are literally killing us.
So I just wanted to name that,so like yes, john Hughes, yes,
you shouldn't have to change whoyou are in order to be worthy
of love use.
Yes, you shouldn't have tochange who you are in order to
be worthy of love.
It's not a guarantee, there'sno.
There's no like guarantee thatif you like be who you are, you
(44:28):
get sex and love.
So, all right.
I do have one thing that I wantto talk about, like kind of more
meta, before you kind of doyour synthesis.
So Kelly RockRock was huge,like all over in the 1980s,
sometime in the 2000s I can'tremember exactly how long ago it
was I can recall that she wason one of those celebrity weight
(44:50):
loss shows because she'd gainedweight as she got older, as you
do, as one does, and I rememberthe narrative about it was like
she let herself go and therewas this sense that she was, she
had been worthy.
When, in 1985, when she hadthis male fantasy body, when she
(45:13):
, you know, was this perfectplayboy centerfold, yeah, like,
literally, if you could make awoman, she's who you would make.
Yes, that's what this movie isabout.
And then, 20, 25, 30 yearslater, as a older woman who had
had many years of life, with allof the joys and heartbreaks and
(45:35):
tragedies and life experiencebecause her body looked
different.
And life experience because herbody looked different, she was
on some sort of weight loss show, which I don't have any opinion
about her decision to go onthat.
That is between her andwhatever she decided to do, but
that is a personal decision onher part.
But it had to have been in someway embarrassing to do that.
(45:59):
I mean that sort of narrativethat she let herself go.
Like fuck you.
I've decided, whenever I hearthat when someone says, when you
say, let yourself go, I'vedecided to think of that as like
you're on a ride and so you letyourself go.
It's like wee, yeah, becausethe thing is, our bodies are our
(46:21):
bodies and they do what they do.
Body's going to body yeah,that's what bodies do.
Yeah.
So, and like the thing is, sheis a gorgeous woman, yeah, no
matter what size she is.
And so the male fantasy thatshe represented in 1985, for one
thing, with makeup and like,like the fan blowing and the fog
(46:42):
machine is anyway, and likeeverything perfectly tweezed.
So that is something that I'mthinking about as well.
Like you don't have to changewho you are to be worthy, unless
you're Kelly LeBrock, unlessyou're Kelly LeBrock and you
happen to age and you're 40instead of 20.
Yeah, so that's something likewould that story be the same if
(47:05):
it were about Deb and Hilly?
Yeah, thinking about Galatea,would that story be like you
don't have to change who you areto be worthy?
That's not true of I just losther name, eliza Doolittle,
because she has to stop speaking.
Well, little, because she hasto.
She has to stop speaking.
Well, eliza was a statue.
(47:26):
I mean that's really gross,like she.
Like eliza is the raw clay thatyou mean galatea, I can.
No, I mean eliza.
She had to change who she wasin order to be the woman he
wanted to love.
Yeah, yeah, all right, we areout of time, so let me see what
I can remember to reflect backhere.
So doesn't pass back to Elle.
Not feminist, but also not asanti-feminist as I expected when
(47:49):
I came in because of the degreeof agency and power and, like I
don't know, benevolent chaosthat Lisa.
Actually, I want to be an agentof benevolent chaos.
Amen, sister, amen.
I want that to be my title onLinkedIn.
I thought it was publicintellectual.
No, no, I just changed it.
(48:11):
It's benevolent agent of chaos.
Okay, so not as anti-feministas I expected because, like Lisa
is the protagonist, lisa is themost interesting, the most
powerful, the most wonderfulcharacter period, the most
interesting Hands down, by farthe most interesting.
There is this sort of Pygmaliontrope, which is the Greek myth
(48:34):
whereby Pygmalion is an artistwho creates a sculpture out of
marble and falls in love with itand then Aphrodite brings it to
life and they get married andhave a kid.
Ew.
So like ew to this movie, butalso like and I hold John Hughes
responsible for the movie hemade but not accountable for the
story, because he was borrowingit from thousands of years of
(48:55):
culture.
There's some weird stuff aboutrace and class in this movie
whereby relationships acrossthose differences become
credentials of goodness.
But we don't actually see thework, at least around race, and
in fact the work that we do seeis is sort of appropriative and
and surface level.
And also, I have to admit I wascharmed by anth Michael Hall's
(49:19):
black scent, like I thought itwas.
It was, it was hilarious.
And even as I'm like chucklingto myself watching it last night
, I was like, oh, trace, don't.
So this movie is one of the onesthat you point to where science
is magic, computers, computersare magic, specifically
computers.
Especially in the 80s, this onetook it to the nth, so it
(49:41):
wasn't just like this thing thatwith.
You know, 30 years later welook back and go like, yeah,
computers can't do that.
They knew they couldn't do thateven in the 80s.
That's why there was this weirdlightning effect and like just
shit just magically changed.
You know, like we watched carsbe created out of nothing and
then return to nothing.
(50:01):
We watch the home furnishingsgo up the chimney and then come
back in the chimney, you know.
So the difference between magicand science in this movie
called Weird Science is minimal.
You couldn't slide a piece ofpaper in between that.
You couldn't slide a piece ofpaper in between that.
(50:22):
We have these two.
The jocks in robert downey jrand robert rustler's characters
of ian and max are just gross.
They are reprehensible andwe're meant to think of them as
reprehensible and we see thatover and over again.
They are foils to our heroesand we see that in multiple,
multiple ways.
(50:42):
Some of the ways that they aregross are like so gross and our
heroes do kind of buy into it,in so far as when the bullies
offer a trade, the heroes say,well, we can't do that.
Lisa's her own person, we wouldnever do that.
But they say, but what we coulddo and decide to make another
(51:04):
person which backfires, andinstead they make a Pershing
missile with huge breasts.
There was a moment that I namedthat.
Now I'm wondering if actuallywas a reference to a different
moment.
So I don't actually want to puttoo much analysis on this.
(51:25):
But, like, the magical bikerswho are the challenge that Lisa
manifests to make the boys bebrave are Mad Maxstyle bikers,
including one played by VernonWells who really reads as a
Native American stereotype innot a good way, not that
(51:49):
stereotypes are ever good.
Lastly, at the end of ourconversation I named the fact
that Hughes's thesis seems to beyou don't have to change who
you are in order to be worthy oflove, of friendship, of
whatever, which in and of itselfis fine.
But the way that it goes aboutit, this movie contributes to
the idea that leads directly toincel culture, whereby there is
(52:12):
a sense that if men behave aspecific way and put the nice
coins in, then comes out whichcompletely erases women's agency
humanity, consent I don't knowdignity, independence, like I
could keep going, sentience,sentience.
So this movie does contributeto that cultural phenomenon.
(52:37):
I think we need to hold itaccountable for that, and you
actually named it as related toanother film, ex Machina,
whereby that is even moreegregious.
But again, this is in thebackground influencing the movie
makers who end up making ExMachina.
So I think that's worth kind ofit's worth naming that.
This is part of the furniture ofthe mind of the folks who make
(52:59):
Ex Machina.
This is part of the furnitureof the mind of the folks who
make Ex Machina.
This is part of the furnitureof the mind that ends up
creating incel culture.
Did I forget anything?
Just the connection to likeKelly LeBrock herself.
Oh right, yeah, yeah, she hasto change who she is in order to
be worthy.
Yeah, if she dares to gainweight, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah
, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you don't drop dead at 27,.
(53:21):
You know how?
Dare you in any way change theway you look?
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I don't know if that'llsatisfy our listener, who wanted
us to tear it apart, but I hadfun.
What are you bringing me nextweek?
Speaking of Pygmalion, I amgoing to be bringing you my deep
thoughts on Mannequin.
I am going to be bringing youmy deep thoughts on Mannequin.
(53:43):
Oh, it's totally Peck, millian.
It is Sweet.
We're on a roll.
It was unintentional, but therewe are.
We're on a roll, all right.
Well, see you then.
See you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking,thank you.
(54:03):
Thanks for listening.
Our theme music is ProfessorUmlaut by Kevin MacLeod from
Incompetechcom.
Find full music credits in theshow notes.
(54:24):
Thank you to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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