August 4, 2022 • 21 mins
Break out your butterfly clips and gel pins, it's time to look at some toxicity of the 90s that often gets glossed over.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of iHeart Radio, and it
is time for another happy hour, which as always means
drink responsibly if you decide to do so, and also
(00:27):
whatever you're doing, do responsibly listening to this podcast. We're
speaking of very quick content. Warning. I don't think we're
going to get into any details, but you know it's
just a warning. Um, we're we are going to talk
about some sexual assault stuff. I think today we're going
to be digging into some tropes from the nineties, so
that might give you a taste of what we're going
(00:48):
to discuss. Uh, Samantha, what are you sipping on? So?
I am making a play on figs because we in
my new house have a job giant fig tree in
my backyard and they're now blooming and we are quite
excited about this. So we picked several figs, so I
try to see if I can make like a fig
(01:09):
type of gin and tonic lessons learn. I need more
fig But if you wonder what, it's very sweet. M
I didn't realize how sweet they were, and they're just
nice and very delicious. But so I put a metal
fig with basil, because we all have a little thing
of basil and I love herbs and everything with some
gave it. Don't judge me for the gave. We've had
(01:31):
it for a while. I need to use it up.
Won't buy it again. And muddled it up together and
then added gin, shook it up, put it in my drunk,
added some uh tonic water because I couldn't figure out
what exactly I wanted. I might have to play with
that a bit um. But yeah, and now I have
a fig gin and tonic with basil, so it has
(01:53):
to be something different, I guess. And delicious, you have
definitely mixed it up with this one, and you've got
a lot of fresh ingredients. I'm very jealous. I canta
figure it out. What what you do again? I am drinking.
As I told you, Samantha, I had some very kind
friends who hung out with me recently, and uh they
(02:13):
went to buy me drinks because it was the anniversary
of my father's death and I drink vodka on that day,
and they drank all my vodka. I love you all.
I didn't judge you, but anyway, they went to go
replenish my stock and they came back with an assortment
of drinks that I associate with like early drinking as
and they don't match very well. But one of those
(02:35):
things they got was actually not alcoholic. But it's like
this fancy lemonade from Italy. I mixed that with some
vodka and some sparkling water and it's quite refreshing, freshing
like a good lemonade. Yeah, essentially that's what it is. Yes,
Oh my gosh, I've recently learned, and I would love
for listeners to write this in. We did lemonade as
(02:57):
a topic on Savor, the other podcast I do read,
and apparently lemonade is not a very big deal outside
of the South in the United States, So I would
love if people wrote it. I mean, it's some yeah,
I feel like that's a very Southern thing. But also
it has a kid child things, so I wonder if
that's part of it. It's not very sophisticated, fa you know,
(03:24):
and outside of South, you guys to be sophisticated. Is
this your Southern because I have one without having to
do one, so detending like I'm Southern building is not me.
I can't do that. I can't do a Southern accent either.
I got called into an audition once where they're like,
we want your Southern excent. And what I've discovered is
(03:45):
what they what they meant is they want their very
over the top Southern accent that exists in TV. He's
an actually reality Well you've heard us. Uh what movie
were we watching that? I kept getting worse and worse
x NT Yes, I hope so yes, So that was
real bad um because yeah, they're supposed to be be in Texas,
(04:07):
and of course Texas accent is different from uh Southeast accents.
Every accent is different. We know this, uh deep South
accent is different from Antebellum accents. Like it's it's vary um.
But yeah, it gets worse when we try truth truth.
I am currently trying to cast Samantha among other people
(04:31):
in our spenty fiction series, and there's there's a part
of me that would like revel and being like, do
your your best worst Southern accent, I mean, knives out
disagree as well well all of Walking Dead as well. Yes,
oh my gosh, yes, yes, no offense to the English.
(04:54):
I'm sure the English really hate when Americans, specifically Southern Americans,
are trying to do English accents. But like having English
actors due Southern accents as a whole different conversation. Yeah,
it was what happens with X. Yes, that frequently happens, um.
And as someone who once did a whole monologue and
what I thought was great British accent, I apologize. And yes.
(05:19):
Also also yeah, I feel like also the show True Blood,
so many English actors trying to do in New Orleans accented.
Oh no, indeed, Amantha, And this is coming from a
place of love, which is where this episode is coming from. Actually, yes,
So I did want to ask you because we are
(05:40):
going to be talking about some nineties tropes in here. Um, Samantha,
what's your favorite nineties accessory that's no longer? Oh I
was see now I'm trying to remember because I will
hit to the late nineties because that was my coming
into my own fashion year. So butterfly clips, which have
(06:03):
come back I've seen, um as well as do you
remember the little spiky band headband things that if you
put it back, it looks like it makes your hair
streak and then it kind of poofs up. I forgot
whether it was like the stretchy bands, but it's plastic
and it's all just like sharp comb looking ones. I
(06:23):
loved those two things. They made me feel glamorous without
having to feel glamorous. The butterfly clips when you just
rolled it on top of your head and put little clips.
I wore that as a prom Do do you have
a picture? I'm sure I do. I'm not sure, but yes,
I'm sure I do. It's also during the time of
(06:45):
corset dresses, so I loved loved those because as a
thick girl with thick legs, and I was trying to
hide them. Not only where I was I able to
like suck it in with the corset dress, but it
fluffed out with too or whatever, and it was space spinny,
princess like that was it was, and it was light
yellow that was very spring with butters lovely. I would
(07:11):
have loved that to you, to be honest, I'm not
even being Jesus's absolutely something I would have loved. I
also loved the butterfly clips. I was discussing with my
friends the other day. I went through a big Claire's
phase and I would just like save up money and
go to Claire's and I would get like the lip
gloss that had like the stars and hearts in it,
(07:32):
which was so uncomfortable, but like that I can have
sticky things. M Well, I mean the discussion we're having,
I feel like the nineties fashion was all about being uncomfortable.
You've got like a spiky head band, You've got that
bracelet that was yeah, slat basis for genius. But you
know they also had the skater pants. That's true. That
(07:55):
was very very like the bigger the better. It was
ridiculous and hilarious. They also had air walks, which we
just I just talked about my partner. He's like, I've
never had that as a kid. I was like, I
don't think I did either. I think I borrowed my
friends who had everything. But those were the most comfortable,
ridiculously clown looking shoes that I was like, yeah, this
is these are amazing timber as well. Yeah, the nineties
(08:19):
was an interesting fashion time. Overalls there are also as overalls.
You saw me wear a pair recently because I saw
my friend Marissa, Hello Marissa, she wore some and I
was like, yes, I want to wear them. Yes, you
were very cute. Uh Flannel. Flannel was huge, Oh my god.
(08:39):
That was the era of me wearing three layers all
the time, and one of it had oversized, unbluntant flannel
shirts because I was cool like that. I'm not me too.
I loved the flannel and I was made fun of
in middle school because I would wear many layers frequently
and I had a friend stand up for me once
and she was like, that's what she's comfortable with, that
(09:00):
you leave her be. I still think about that. Thank you,
Elizabeth her sticking up with my quite eclectic fashion. I
have to say. I have to say also highways of
jeans very popular. Okay, all of this I so recently,
(09:33):
I was on this podcast called Tossed Popcorn, which is
about movies and watching the a F I best, the
one top movies. Uh they they watched through them and
they have things called minipops. So I was a mini
pop guest and I came up pretty hard against movies
from the eighties, which I like to make the point,
(09:54):
there are plenty of eighties movies that I love, but
I feel like if you miss the nostalgia factor of
some of them, then you missed it. Um and yeah,
and there are plenty of like eighties things that I like.
Like I like eighties music a lot of times, like
eighties style a lot of times. And then in that
I contradicted myself because I said, like, the most overrated
(10:16):
movie that I could think of was Top Gun and
then the most underrated was Returned the Jedi, and they're
both from the eighties, so whatever. But but I was
thinking about that, and uh, in lieu of that episode
coming out, I would just want to be clear that, like,
the nineties are extremely problematic too when it comes to movies.
I think they were problematic in a different way. There
(10:38):
are similarities but also differences. A part of this is
also from an argument I had with my brother's fiance,
who was like, the nineties are so great in the
eighties basically suck, which whatever, But I was like, let's
hold on now. I feel like there's still some issues
in the nineties. Um. And we have talked about this
(11:00):
before when we talked about like Britney Spears, Um. I
think we cut the Lindsay Lohan bit eventually, but we
did have a bit about Lindsay Lohan as well and
our treatment, our toxic treatment of women from that time.
But I also just to be clear, I do love
a lot of like nineties shows and nineties movies. But
(11:21):
I do think there was a very specific form of
toxicity in the nineties because, as we've discussed, that was
when there was like third wave feminism, um, and we
were seeing you know, happy which is unhappy witches and
vampires and vampires, layers and all this stuff. But it
(11:43):
still seemed to come in this idea of women have
to look a certain way, often involving crop tops, tight
crop tops, and jeans, which is if you want to
wear that, fine, But I felt like it was very
put upon women, and also just I was watching these
nineties horror movies and so many of them were the
(12:06):
woman due to her sexuality, which I think is a
commentary on oh you want to be sexual, well, then
you're going to get a stalker, you're going to get
somebody trying to kill you, You're going to bring some
negative thing onto you by being this feminist sexual woman.
So it felt like a very big backlash to me
(12:27):
a lot of the stuff I was watching of feminism.
I don't know if you have a similar experience, you know,
I think, yeah, I would agree to a certain extent
for sure, that it felt like it was trying to
regress back into being like Okay, you can't be this
with these other going to be the backlash. I feel
like I always saw them for me, they were always secondary.
(12:47):
Even in the movies that they're supposed to be stars of,
there were secondary and because they're trying to find that relationship.
So for wo men it could be redemption or you know,
father figures. For women, it was mainly like, um, it's
always gonna be about finding a partner a man, always
a man, and or they're dying so therefore they have
to be avenged and all you see is a memories
(13:09):
and or yeah, they're spinsters all their life, and who
has to get attained by a man? That's what I
feel like. I remember Clueless was one of them because
I did love it, but it was kind of that
like finding that perfect match that was for a whole deal.
The movies like uh even the Matrix, like She Takes
a back Seat seven was one of those as well,
(13:32):
Like I remember that clearly good will hunting was that
competition that you talked about, Like that was always just
secondary to me, And and it was even the ones
that they were supposed to start, and it still was like, yeah,
they don't really exist for being an individual person. Yeah,
(13:53):
and to reiterate if I haven't, there are plenty of
like nineties movies I love, and there are plenty of
things that we like and are problematic. We know who
they are. But I just feel like it was a
specific type of like faux feminism where male writers and directors,
we're tapping into this movement and we're like, okay, well
(14:16):
put you know, a woman front and center. But by
being front and center, they were kind of taking this
messaging of oh, it's empowering for her to want to
dress this way and do this thing and find this
man because she's a woman, which can be true, but
I feel like they were just doing it as a
(14:37):
front to continue to do what they had been doing
under like the the pretend. Oh but I can check
that feminist checkbox, right, I've we've done the thing, and
then you know, I just there's something about it that
I was watching it. I'm like, I don't think this
is as empowering as you think it was. Right, Well,
(15:00):
like absolutely, Reese Weatherspoon would have been the top tier
of the nineties. Girl in Fear was her growing up
movie for sure, Although have you ever seen Men in
the Moon? I have but I literally only remember the
part where she's kissing her hands. Yeah, of course you do, um,
but yes, uh that so that was her first movie
(15:21):
from what I remember, I think like first or second movie. UM,
and she was coming from being you know, it was
the coming of age for her. Um. But like she
had to strip that off to be because also she
was very cute and cute see, so they were trying
to kind of make her see be seen as sexual,
(15:41):
which we've talked about before. You have to fit these
categories in order to fit the mold. And if you
get too old, you're not going to have a career
because that if you can't hit that mold, you're gonna
miss out. So I found that interesting. But yeah, she's
definitely one of those actresses as well, although we know
who she is and how amazing her repertoire is and
like her her skills and abilities and we know it
(16:02):
goes beyond that, but it does set up especially young
women at that point in time. But I was trying
to look through as you were talking about this, the
uh top ten movies, and so a recent list came
out from on Parade with a top ten nineties movies
and honestly, it's not as bad as I thought it
would be. Of course, as a predictable pulp fiction who
(16:24):
we know whom A Therman's character is almost the beginning
of the pixie manic girl. That what we see later
in the two thousands, which we've talked about before. But
like we have the movie Silence of the Lambs, which
Jodie Foster plays this very different character that we don't
typically see in these gritty movies, but she becomes a
herold like her own heroin in this movie is like, okay,
(16:48):
that stacks up differently. We see al Fargo, which I
forgot about, and she like she's a different character altogether
in general. Darmage like she just kind of has her
own role in this and she they defied it, which
is why it won so many awards at that point
in time. But yeah, I don't remember, Like, yeah, I
(17:09):
did define but they had to be almost a sexual
or masculine character. Yeah. I found that fascinating of course,
as as we know. But then they also had another
one outside of the pulp fiction, as we talked about
Titanic and her character in general, like the whole whispy fighting,
like she's exactly what you're talking about. She's trying to
(17:32):
be independent, but she can't be independent. But because she's independent,
she becomes uh an old maid but has a very
nice necklace that she throws into the ocean for some
unknown reason and ridiculous reason. Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah,
(18:07):
many strides were made in the nineties, but it felt
like it was still only within these parameters. You can,
but you can't be all of these things, right. It
was a very slow moving forward and there was a
lot of toxic stuff that we've talked about where it
felt very I mean, Britney Spears was a great example
(18:28):
of you have to be the innocent, innocent like childlike Madonna,
I guess, or the whore like you. You can't be there,
and it felt very just a lot of the clothing choices,
which again, if that's your choice and you want to
wear it, then I'm all for it. But it did
feel like a lot of stuff we saw in the
(18:48):
nineties was very tailored to the male gaze. And also,
like like you said, I mean, I was recently stunned
by that interview with um Laura Dern. I didn't know
she was three in Drassic Park and he was like
forty five plus, like that age difference. Like I remember
watching Entrapment with Katherine c To Jones and Sean Connery
(19:11):
and being like as a as a young person, like no, right, no, Well,
is it during the nineties that we see the tropes
of like the women hooking up with the both the
father and the son or has that always been a thing?
I can't remember because I'm thinking about also like the
later as you talked about Sean Connery, the later series
in Indiana Jones where Sean Connery father and the woman
(19:35):
character is checking them both like it's just like and
I remember seeing that as a twist on all the
things like why is this always a thing? Right? That's
a good question. I feel like we've opened a lot
of boxes for future episodes, and I yeah, I mean
there's so many nineties movies I love, and some of
(19:56):
we've talked about on our feminist movie Friday, like The Mummy.
But I just was after I did that episode, and
I was thinking about the eighties and nineties, and there's
plenty of things left to unpack then and still now,
right and still now, And it felt like a very
particular brand of like you can have this much women,
(20:18):
but only this much, and then we're going to sell
it as something that's very feminis and empowering. Anyway, it's
just been on my mind and I'm sure we'll return
to this in the future, but in the meantime, cheers, cheers, yes,
and to you listeners. As always, if you have any
suggestions for future topics or movies or whatever we should cover,
(20:41):
please let us know. You can email as a stuff
and your mom Stuff at I hurt me dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or an Instagram stuff I've never told you. Thanks. It's
always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina, and
cheers and cheers and thanks to you for listening stuff
and I told you his protection. But I hear radio
for more podcast my Heart Radio. You can just radio app,
have a podcast or whatever. You listen to your favorite shops,
(21:13):
m
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of iHeart Radio, and it
is time for another happy hour, which as always means
drink responsibly if you decide to do so, and also
(00:27):
whatever you're doing, do responsibly listening to this podcast. We're
speaking of very quick content. Warning. I don't think we're
going to get into any details, but you know it's
just a warning. Um, we're we are going to talk
about some sexual assault stuff. I think today we're going
to be digging into some tropes from the nineties, so
that might give you a taste of what we're going
(00:48):
to discuss. Uh, Samantha, what are you sipping on? So?
I am making a play on figs because we in
my new house have a job giant fig tree in
my backyard and they're now blooming and we are quite
excited about this. So we picked several figs, so I
try to see if I can make like a fig
(01:09):
type of gin and tonic lessons learn. I need more
fig But if you wonder what, it's very sweet. M
I didn't realize how sweet they were, and they're just
nice and very delicious. But so I put a metal
fig with basil, because we all have a little thing
of basil and I love herbs and everything with some
gave it. Don't judge me for the gave. We've had
(01:31):
it for a while. I need to use it up.
Won't buy it again. And muddled it up together and
then added gin, shook it up, put it in my drunk,
added some uh tonic water because I couldn't figure out
what exactly I wanted. I might have to play with
that a bit um. But yeah, and now I have
a fig gin and tonic with basil, so it has
(01:53):
to be something different, I guess. And delicious, you have
definitely mixed it up with this one, and you've got
a lot of fresh ingredients. I'm very jealous. I canta
figure it out. What what you do again? I am drinking.
As I told you, Samantha, I had some very kind
friends who hung out with me recently, and uh they
(02:13):
went to buy me drinks because it was the anniversary
of my father's death and I drink vodka on that day,
and they drank all my vodka. I love you all.
I didn't judge you, but anyway, they went to go
replenish my stock and they came back with an assortment
of drinks that I associate with like early drinking as
and they don't match very well. But one of those
(02:35):
things they got was actually not alcoholic. But it's like
this fancy lemonade from Italy. I mixed that with some
vodka and some sparkling water and it's quite refreshing, freshing
like a good lemonade. Yeah, essentially that's what it is. Yes,
Oh my gosh, I've recently learned, and I would love
for listeners to write this in. We did lemonade as
(02:57):
a topic on Savor, the other podcast I do read,
and apparently lemonade is not a very big deal outside
of the South in the United States, So I would
love if people wrote it. I mean, it's some yeah,
I feel like that's a very Southern thing. But also
it has a kid child things, so I wonder if
that's part of it. It's not very sophisticated, fa you know,
(03:24):
and outside of South, you guys to be sophisticated. Is
this your Southern because I have one without having to
do one, so detending like I'm Southern building is not me.
I can't do that. I can't do a Southern accent either.
I got called into an audition once where they're like,
we want your Southern excent. And what I've discovered is
(03:45):
what they what they meant is they want their very
over the top Southern accent that exists in TV. He's
an actually reality Well you've heard us. Uh what movie
were we watching that? I kept getting worse and worse
x NT Yes, I hope so yes, So that was
real bad um because yeah, they're supposed to be be in Texas,
(04:07):
and of course Texas accent is different from uh Southeast accents.
Every accent is different. We know this, uh deep South
accent is different from Antebellum accents. Like it's it's vary um.
But yeah, it gets worse when we try truth truth.
I am currently trying to cast Samantha among other people
(04:31):
in our spenty fiction series, and there's there's a part
of me that would like revel and being like, do
your your best worst Southern accent, I mean, knives out
disagree as well well all of Walking Dead as well. Yes,
oh my gosh, yes, yes, no offense to the English.
(04:54):
I'm sure the English really hate when Americans, specifically Southern Americans,
are trying to do English accents. But like having English
actors due Southern accents as a whole different conversation. Yeah,
it was what happens with X. Yes, that frequently happens, um.
And as someone who once did a whole monologue and
what I thought was great British accent, I apologize. And yes.
(05:19):
Also also yeah, I feel like also the show True Blood,
so many English actors trying to do in New Orleans accented.
Oh no, indeed, Amantha, And this is coming from a
place of love, which is where this episode is coming from. Actually, yes,
So I did want to ask you because we are
(05:40):
going to be talking about some nineties tropes in here. Um, Samantha,
what's your favorite nineties accessory that's no longer? Oh I
was see now I'm trying to remember because I will
hit to the late nineties because that was my coming
into my own fashion year. So butterfly clips, which have
(06:03):
come back I've seen, um as well as do you
remember the little spiky band headband things that if you
put it back, it looks like it makes your hair
streak and then it kind of poofs up. I forgot
whether it was like the stretchy bands, but it's plastic
and it's all just like sharp comb looking ones. I
(06:23):
loved those two things. They made me feel glamorous without
having to feel glamorous. The butterfly clips when you just
rolled it on top of your head and put little clips.
I wore that as a prom Do do you have
a picture? I'm sure I do. I'm not sure, but yes,
I'm sure I do. It's also during the time of
(06:45):
corset dresses, so I loved loved those because as a
thick girl with thick legs, and I was trying to
hide them. Not only where I was I able to
like suck it in with the corset dress, but it
fluffed out with too or whatever, and it was space spinny,
princess like that was it was, and it was light
yellow that was very spring with butters lovely. I would
(07:11):
have loved that to you, to be honest, I'm not
even being Jesus's absolutely something I would have loved. I
also loved the butterfly clips. I was discussing with my
friends the other day. I went through a big Claire's
phase and I would just like save up money and
go to Claire's and I would get like the lip
gloss that had like the stars and hearts in it,
(07:32):
which was so uncomfortable, but like that I can have
sticky things. M Well, I mean the discussion we're having,
I feel like the nineties fashion was all about being uncomfortable.
You've got like a spiky head band, You've got that
bracelet that was yeah, slat basis for genius. But you
know they also had the skater pants. That's true. That
(07:55):
was very very like the bigger the better. It was
ridiculous and hilarious. They also had air walks, which we
just I just talked about my partner. He's like, I've
never had that as a kid. I was like, I
don't think I did either. I think I borrowed my
friends who had everything. But those were the most comfortable,
ridiculously clown looking shoes that I was like, yeah, this
is these are amazing timber as well. Yeah, the nineties
(08:19):
was an interesting fashion time. Overalls there are also as overalls.
You saw me wear a pair recently because I saw
my friend Marissa, Hello Marissa, she wore some and I
was like, yes, I want to wear them. Yes, you
were very cute. Uh Flannel. Flannel was huge, Oh my god.
(08:39):
That was the era of me wearing three layers all
the time, and one of it had oversized, unbluntant flannel
shirts because I was cool like that. I'm not me too.
I loved the flannel and I was made fun of
in middle school because I would wear many layers frequently
and I had a friend stand up for me once
and she was like, that's what she's comfortable with, that
(09:00):
you leave her be. I still think about that. Thank you,
Elizabeth her sticking up with my quite eclectic fashion. I
have to say. I have to say also highways of
jeans very popular. Okay, all of this I so recently,
(09:33):
I was on this podcast called Tossed Popcorn, which is
about movies and watching the a F I best, the
one top movies. Uh they they watched through them and
they have things called minipops. So I was a mini
pop guest and I came up pretty hard against movies
from the eighties, which I like to make the point,
(09:54):
there are plenty of eighties movies that I love, but
I feel like if you miss the nostalgia factor of
some of them, then you missed it. Um and yeah,
and there are plenty of like eighties things that I like.
Like I like eighties music a lot of times, like
eighties style a lot of times. And then in that
I contradicted myself because I said, like, the most overrated
(10:16):
movie that I could think of was Top Gun and
then the most underrated was Returned the Jedi, and they're
both from the eighties, so whatever. But but I was
thinking about that, and uh, in lieu of that episode
coming out, I would just want to be clear that, like,
the nineties are extremely problematic too when it comes to movies.
I think they were problematic in a different way. There
(10:38):
are similarities but also differences. A part of this is
also from an argument I had with my brother's fiance,
who was like, the nineties are so great in the
eighties basically suck, which whatever, But I was like, let's
hold on now. I feel like there's still some issues
in the nineties. Um. And we have talked about this
(11:00):
before when we talked about like Britney Spears, Um. I
think we cut the Lindsay Lohan bit eventually, but we
did have a bit about Lindsay Lohan as well and
our treatment, our toxic treatment of women from that time.
But I also just to be clear, I do love
a lot of like nineties shows and nineties movies. But
(11:21):
I do think there was a very specific form of
toxicity in the nineties because, as we've discussed, that was
when there was like third wave feminism, um, and we
were seeing you know, happy which is unhappy witches and
vampires and vampires, layers and all this stuff. But it
(11:43):
still seemed to come in this idea of women have
to look a certain way, often involving crop tops, tight
crop tops, and jeans, which is if you want to
wear that, fine, But I felt like it was very
put upon women, and also just I was watching these
nineties horror movies and so many of them were the
(12:06):
woman due to her sexuality, which I think is a
commentary on oh you want to be sexual, well, then
you're going to get a stalker, you're going to get
somebody trying to kill you, You're going to bring some
negative thing onto you by being this feminist sexual woman.
So it felt like a very big backlash to me
(12:27):
a lot of the stuff I was watching of feminism.
I don't know if you have a similar experience, you know,
I think, yeah, I would agree to a certain extent
for sure, that it felt like it was trying to
regress back into being like Okay, you can't be this
with these other going to be the backlash. I feel
like I always saw them for me, they were always secondary.
(12:47):
Even in the movies that they're supposed to be stars of,
there were secondary and because they're trying to find that relationship.
So for wo men it could be redemption or you know,
father figures. For women, it was mainly like, um, it's
always gonna be about finding a partner a man, always
a man, and or they're dying so therefore they have
to be avenged and all you see is a memories
(13:09):
and or yeah, they're spinsters all their life, and who
has to get attained by a man? That's what I
feel like. I remember Clueless was one of them because
I did love it, but it was kind of that
like finding that perfect match that was for a whole deal.
The movies like uh even the Matrix, like She Takes
a back Seat seven was one of those as well,
(13:32):
Like I remember that clearly good will hunting was that
competition that you talked about, Like that was always just
secondary to me, And and it was even the ones
that they were supposed to start, and it still was like, yeah,
they don't really exist for being an individual person. Yeah,
(13:53):
and to reiterate if I haven't, there are plenty of
like nineties movies I love, and there are plenty of
things that we like and are problematic. We know who
they are. But I just feel like it was a
specific type of like faux feminism where male writers and directors,
we're tapping into this movement and we're like, okay, well
(14:16):
put you know, a woman front and center. But by
being front and center, they were kind of taking this
messaging of oh, it's empowering for her to want to
dress this way and do this thing and find this
man because she's a woman, which can be true, but
I feel like they were just doing it as a
(14:37):
front to continue to do what they had been doing
under like the the pretend. Oh but I can check
that feminist checkbox, right, I've we've done the thing, and
then you know, I just there's something about it that
I was watching it. I'm like, I don't think this
is as empowering as you think it was. Right, Well,
(15:00):
like absolutely, Reese Weatherspoon would have been the top tier
of the nineties. Girl in Fear was her growing up
movie for sure, Although have you ever seen Men in
the Moon? I have but I literally only remember the
part where she's kissing her hands. Yeah, of course you do, um,
but yes, uh that so that was her first movie
(15:21):
from what I remember, I think like first or second movie. UM,
and she was coming from being you know, it was
the coming of age for her. Um. But like she
had to strip that off to be because also she
was very cute and cute see, so they were trying
to kind of make her see be seen as sexual,
(15:41):
which we've talked about before. You have to fit these
categories in order to fit the mold. And if you
get too old, you're not going to have a career
because that if you can't hit that mold, you're gonna
miss out. So I found that interesting. But yeah, she's
definitely one of those actresses as well, although we know
who she is and how amazing her repertoire is and
like her her skills and abilities and we know it
(16:02):
goes beyond that, but it does set up especially young
women at that point in time. But I was trying
to look through as you were talking about this, the
uh top ten movies, and so a recent list came
out from on Parade with a top ten nineties movies
and honestly, it's not as bad as I thought it
would be. Of course, as a predictable pulp fiction who
(16:24):
we know whom A Therman's character is almost the beginning
of the pixie manic girl. That what we see later
in the two thousands, which we've talked about before. But
like we have the movie Silence of the Lambs, which
Jodie Foster plays this very different character that we don't
typically see in these gritty movies, but she becomes a
herold like her own heroin in this movie is like, okay,
(16:48):
that stacks up differently. We see al Fargo, which I
forgot about, and she like she's a different character altogether
in general. Darmage like she just kind of has her
own role in this and she they defied it, which
is why it won so many awards at that point
in time. But yeah, I don't remember, Like, yeah, I
(17:09):
did define but they had to be almost a sexual
or masculine character. Yeah. I found that fascinating of course,
as as we know. But then they also had another
one outside of the pulp fiction, as we talked about
Titanic and her character in general, like the whole whispy fighting,
like she's exactly what you're talking about. She's trying to
(17:32):
be independent, but she can't be independent. But because she's independent,
she becomes uh an old maid but has a very
nice necklace that she throws into the ocean for some
unknown reason and ridiculous reason. Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah,
(18:07):
many strides were made in the nineties, but it felt
like it was still only within these parameters. You can,
but you can't be all of these things, right. It
was a very slow moving forward and there was a
lot of toxic stuff that we've talked about where it
felt very I mean, Britney Spears was a great example
(18:28):
of you have to be the innocent, innocent like childlike Madonna,
I guess, or the whore like you. You can't be there,
and it felt very just a lot of the clothing choices,
which again, if that's your choice and you want to
wear it, then I'm all for it. But it did
feel like a lot of stuff we saw in the
(18:48):
nineties was very tailored to the male gaze. And also,
like like you said, I mean, I was recently stunned
by that interview with um Laura Dern. I didn't know
she was three in Drassic Park and he was like
forty five plus, like that age difference. Like I remember
watching Entrapment with Katherine c To Jones and Sean Connery
(19:11):
and being like as a as a young person, like no, right, no, Well,
is it during the nineties that we see the tropes
of like the women hooking up with the both the
father and the son or has that always been a thing?
I can't remember because I'm thinking about also like the
later as you talked about Sean Connery, the later series
in Indiana Jones where Sean Connery father and the woman
(19:35):
character is checking them both like it's just like and
I remember seeing that as a twist on all the
things like why is this always a thing? Right? That's
a good question. I feel like we've opened a lot
of boxes for future episodes, and I yeah, I mean
there's so many nineties movies I love, and some of
(19:56):
we've talked about on our feminist movie Friday, like The Mummy.
But I just was after I did that episode, and
I was thinking about the eighties and nineties, and there's
plenty of things left to unpack then and still now,
right and still now, And it felt like a very
particular brand of like you can have this much women,
(20:18):
but only this much, and then we're going to sell
it as something that's very feminis and empowering. Anyway, it's
just been on my mind and I'm sure we'll return
to this in the future, but in the meantime, cheers, cheers, yes,
and to you listeners. As always, if you have any
suggestions for future topics or movies or whatever we should cover,
(20:41):
please let us know. You can email as a stuff
and your mom Stuff at I hurt me dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast
or an Instagram stuff I've never told you. Thanks. It's
always to our super producer Christina. Thank you Christina, and
cheers and cheers and thanks to you for listening stuff
and I told you his protection. But I hear radio
for more podcast my Heart Radio. You can just radio app,
have a podcast or whatever. You listen to your favorite shops,
(21:13):
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