So Totally Clueless (but secretly clever!)

Paul Rudd, iconic fashion moments, and a retelling of Emma that is so totally 1995! Today we're figuring out if Alicia Silverstone and Paul Rudd together is hot or... not. 

What do you think!?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Hey, come on over. Mom's not home till six, and we're exploring the TV shows, movies, and pop culture media that made us all turn down the volume, so our parents wouldn't hear. We're gonna build our intimacy literacy and dig into all the weird messages we took from pop culture about sex, relationships, and ourselves. Because, let's be honest, this was all the sex ed we got. Today, we're discussing clueless. And I'm excited to discuss this with my bestie, Veronica Dress, sexuality educator, coach, and intimacy director for stage and screen. Veronica.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hi! I am so excited to be here. And I am also joined by my bestie, who we, similar to the stars of this show, became besties because we know what it's like to have people be jealous of us. Of course, I'm talking about Blair Somerville. Note, I always want to say noted fashion photographer, which is from America's Next Top Model. That's how they always introduce Nigel Barker. Blair Somerville, noted therapist specializing in relationships and queer identities and sexuality and all of the cool stuff. I'm excited about this one, Blair. I say that every time, but I'm pr I I don't think I had seen this, or maybe in a very long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Wait, so this is a first, right? Because I had seen this. I saw it for the first time as an adult, but I had seen it before this, and you maybe hadn't seen it before.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

We don't have to. The turns have tabled.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

Oh my god. Okay, interesting. So I'll get to see what it's like on the other side.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, I I think so. I'm excited about it. It was cute and like problematic, but you know. Wild. What isn't from the year 1995? What were you doing when this film came out, Blair?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Wow. So it's 1995. I am three years old. So I'm probably eating Doritos, running around, playing in the dirt. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 2:20

Your go-to snack at age three were Doritos.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yes. My mom has a uh story she loves about me where I was very young and I discovered I generalized. I learned about triangles, and then I was eating Doritos, and I was like, this is a triangle. Which is true. And she was like, my baby's a genius.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Brilliant. Yes. She wasn't wrong. I at age I was five in 95, and I was also probably consuming something orange. I went through a big orange soda phase around that age. And almost every picture from the year 1995, I have a ring of orange soda around my mouth.

unknown 3:00

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So we'll we'll post that in the uh in the Instagram feed for our followers who are just dying to imagine who we were at that age. Which is to say, I didn't watch this until much later. I think I was out of college when I saw this for the first time, but I've seen it maybe once. And I'll be honest with you, I was on a date and so I wasn't paying attention. Winkle with nudge nudge.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Oh my god. You were Netflix and chilling with Clueless.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

It was like an outdoor movie in East Nashville. It was like a little screening.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

I see. And I was not a little movie in the park sort of deal.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

I got you. Yeah, I think I watched it in college. And I I think I watched it because I've I was a big fan of the TV show Psyche. And the actress, the lead actress in this is also in Psyche, and they kind of make some jokes about it in Psyche. And I decided I needed to see Clueless. I need to be, I need to be in on the joke, is what I need to be.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Absolutely. I think a lot of my pop culture journey has been following the rabbit hole of a reference from another thing, you know? So if you listener also are like, I think I saw it. I saw it, but it's been a long time. Let me just whet your whistle with a little bit of information. It is, after all, our classic season. So let's take a brief minute for you, our our listener, to take a quick guess in your mind of what classic this is based on. I'll wait. You're right. It was Emma. This is this is based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel, Emma. And the film follows a beautiful, popular, wealthy high school student who wants to do good deeds. She befriends a newcomer, played by our sweet, sweet Britney Murphy, and gives her a makeover while playing matchmaker for her teachers, examining her own life, and the slightly deeper dive of the plot. So we have Cher Horowitz, which is play who's played by Alicia. Is it Alicia Silverstone?

SPEAKER_02 5:17

I do not know.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Alicia Alicia, oh, that's gonna kill me. Cher is stylish popular. She's living in Beverly Hills in a mansion with her wealthy dad, who's a lawyer. Her mom died during a liposuction procedure when Cher was a baby, and so she never knew her mom and very much is a parentified child. And her brother-ish is Paul Rudd, named Josh in this in this movie. He is brother-ish because he was once her stepbrother, but the parents have since gotten divorced. And it seems like he was her stepbrother when they were already like maybe in middle school. So they only had like a brief time that they were like siblings. But uncle. As Dad says, you divorce wives, not children. So as far as he's concerned, Josh is still one of his children, which we'll see gets complicated. Cher uh has a bestie named Dion, and they both bel she believes that Dion should be dating more mature men. And so we see this kind of as a through line throughout all of Cher's matchmaking is that the people she thinks are good enough for her to match people up with, she's continually talking about whether or not they are boys or like she wants someone who's like from another time, college student kind of energy. Yeah, I think that the impetus for this entire movie is that Cher gets poor grades on her report card. And she takes to renegotiating those grades with her teachers, but can't seem to budge Mr. Hall. And so she decides that she should matchmake him with the guidance counselor, Miss Geist, in order to put him in a good mood and therefore make him easier to negotiate her C up to uh hopefully an A minus. So it works. She's a successful negotiator, and this gives her a taste for the joy of matchmaking and really exercising control over other people's lives. And cut to Brittany Murphy transferring mid-school year. Her name is Ty. And she's very like, we're made to think she's very rough around the edges. She's from Brooklyn, she's got an accent. She kind of dresses in a more grungy nirvana aesthetic. And Cher turns to Dion and is like, perfect. Let's make her one of us. Let's make her pot. Our new project. Let's make her our new project. And there are some bumps in the road, which we'll get into, but ultimately it's almost too successful for Cher's light game because Ty ends up getting, in some ways, more popular than Cher at different moments and is finding herself interested in or in attracted to boys that are kind of entangled with Cher. Either it's Elton who actually has a crush on Cher, or it is Josh, and Cher does not realize she has a crush on Josh until she gets upset seeing how Ty is after him. There's a middle area where this transfers, or this kid who likes to splits his time between this school and one in Chicago. His name is Christian. He looks like a young Marlon Brando and talks like he's from the Rat Pack. And she is immediately taken with him because he is like a real adult. And it is very clearly a friendship from his perspective. And she's trying to seduce him. He is admiring the male actors in the film. And very quickly, she realizes how clueless she has been in not recognizing that perhaps he is not attracted to women, which we can talk about how they handle that conversation. Eventually she realizes her feelings for Josh. They realize their feelings for one another and have a big kiss moment on top of the stairs landing in their gorgeous home. And then she says, Well, you can guess what happened next. And then it cuts to a wedding. And she says, Just kidding, this is Beverly Hills, not Kentucky. But we're meant to think that they have sex because a big subplot in this whole film is that Cher has never is a virgin, is the language that they use. And so there we are. It seems like they're supposed to be happily ever after. And I'm curious what your prognosis is of that reality, Blair.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

I didn't, I didn't like it. I didn't like it. It made me feel weird. They like throughout the movie, they act, I don't know how long they were together growing up, but they act like siblings enough that it feels very weird for them to suddenly be like, we're in love. And we're not gonna talk about that that we're kind of siblings.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

I know. This seems to be a th maybe that's the unofficial theme of this season between Withering Heights and this. And why are why are all the classics about maybe siblings getting together? I don't like that.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Like t not technically not incest, but it is just barely. Yeah, and I also don't know where the hell the dad went because he was fairly present for a lot of Cher's stuff, like as a character until the love confession, which as you said, he's pretty clear he considers Josh his son still. Yes. I can't, I don't know how he's gonna feel about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Mm-mm. Especially because we see uh in contrast to say the 10 things I hate about you, father-child dynamic, this one is she's very much a parentified child in that she's always like, Daddy, you can't, you have to have your vitamins. Yeah, like she's very much like caretaking her father. And still, though, it seems that they're they go to one another. Like they have a weird standard for being proud of one another. Like when he finds out that she negotiated her grades from a C to an A, he is more proud than if she'd earned the grades originally. Like they're they're quirky, they're a little, they're a little funky. He's a lawyer, so he's proud of her as a future litigator. And he is less he is uh we see a lot less entitlement and ownership over her body than we see in Ten Things I Hate About You.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

And we do see her go to him for advice. Like they confide in each other, and he is like really loving to her. But when she goes to him about advice around Josh, she very notably does not mention that it is Josh. And I think probably because she knows that that is a complicated, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I'm gonna just say weird.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Go on, say weird, Blair.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

I'm gonna say it's weird, and I I made me uncomfortable. Also, can I just say so the the wedding at the end is these two teachers? Ain't no way these two teachers, which at presumably public school can afford the wedding they showed us, and also invited only a a weird selective handful of their high school students, and they don't know Paul Rudd, so what gave her a plus one?

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Gave her a plus one. Well, you know what? Here's my suspicion is that she just planned the wedding for them.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Maybe she did.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Maybe she's hosting it at her house.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Now that's possible.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Cher is very, it seems Cher is very she's she's in the mix. She wants to have a hand in everybody's life, is very much her brand. And you know, in addition to all of the designer brands. But we see we see a lot of her, and it's not that she's a dumb blonde in any way. Like she's very, very intelligent, and she has this wild vocabulary, and it's very fun. But it it does, we see her struggle with her worldview and her values throughout the whole thing in a way that I think is interesting to watch.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, she's not she's never portrayed as stupid, but she is portrayed as ignorant in a way that like sometimes I I don't know. And this all this comes up for me a lot when we watch comedies. Or like with teenage girls for how silly and weird high school can be sometimes and how big things can feel even when they're they're not that big. But it often felt to me kind of condescending and like we're aren't teenage girls so stupid and vapid?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

And that I didn't like that a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Yeah, it feels like we or at least the people in her life are supposed to underestimate her at every turn, and she continues to surprise them, I think is the uh very much it feels like she walked so that El Woods and Legely Blonde could run. You know, like there's almost an exact scene replica that happens in Legally Blonde from this movie that I didn't realize. Yeah, and it begins well, let's just start, let's just start by talking about the archetype of Cher Horowitz. We see her from the jump, we get this little montage of her being a typical high school girl in Beverly Hills in this crazy ass mansion.

SPEAKER_02 15:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

She's getting ready for school, she's wearing the tiniest little PJ set with see-through shorts. You can see her little white underwear underneath it, and she goes to her computer and on her old school Windows 95. Incredible, is going through her closet, but it like it's still like that very pixelated 90s computer screen. It feels like you're playing like Barbie's dream house, but it's all her own clothes, and she's mixing and matching clothing to find her outfit for the school day. Like she lives in a Barbie dream house existence. And even the way that she walks is very like, I'm just a little girl. What? She like floats around throughout the whole thing. And we don't really get to see, to your point, is she doing this as an act? Is this who she naturally is? Is this something she has learned to do so that she can be so as a tactic? I mean, I think she's like incredibly brilliant. We see that throughout the movie. But I wonder how how much of this is her, is it adaptation versus her personality?

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I think it'd be interesting to see more of that. I'm I'm willing to bet there's a lot more to that end in the novel about like how much is she sort of putting this on to like protect herself in some way? Because there's also a lot of implication that she is like pushing herself away from a lot of the vulnerability of being a teenager and like being interested and rejected and wanting romance and not being sure how to get it. And she keeps that all at arm's length by just sort of saying, uh, I just need someone who's more mature. I'm I'm just simply not interested. Which it seems like is sort of true, but not always true. Like I that's where the question mark is for me is is some of that an act to help her keep things as sort of arm's length.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Mm-hmm. She says at one point, she's like, I'm so particular about my shoes, and those only go on my feet. I I do think it's an she's an interesting character in that way because she is the archetype of like the skinny, blonde, white, incredibly wealthy, stylish, popular girl. And we don't see people really fawn over her in the way that you might see a Regina George in Mean Girls, right? Where people just like the C's part for them. What we see is like she gets bumped into when she freaks out about it and is very maybe the word, maybe the word people would use would be like high maintenance about it and is upset her outfit got ruined. But it is somehow endearing. She there's something about her that's really endearing that I I think is maybe because it is not that she is popular and mean to people, maybe not knowingly. It is that she is popular and has a lot of control issues and just wants everything to be just right. And perhaps it's because for her, aside from losing her mom so young, everything has been just right. And there's like a drive that she has and a strong-willed thing that she has that's very much, you know, like in the in the world of Elizabeth Bennett, like she is she knows what she wants and she's gonna make it happen. But that ends up meaning for her that she's kind of lonely or like is making things happen for everyone around her. But when it comes to herself, there's a panic. Like when she has over Christian for a movie night and she thinks maybe she's gonna have sex for the first time before she realizes that maybe he loves all of the movies because of the hot Hollywood men in them. She has a little baby panic attack.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Yeah. Yeah, she does. She sort of freaks out and she's like, before she, I guess, really considers that he's gay, she's like, Maybe there's something wrong with me.

SPEAKER_00 19:44

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

And she she does feel very anxious about it because things didn't go the way she planned. And they that whole evening doesn't go the way she planned from the beginning because she starts out like, you're supposed to always be cooking something, and she just throws the whole cookie dough pre preformed log. Yeah, she doesn't split it up. It burns to hell as soon as he's coming in the door, there's smoke everywhere. So that whole thing is maybe one of the first times. I guess that's not true. It's an escalation of things starting to not go to her plan. And that starts with Elton, where she has this plan that, oh, Ty and Elton aren't gonna be together. That's my vision for Ty. I'm I'm transforming her from this kind of rough around the edges Brooklyn girl to the same exact type of California girl that I am. And I'm gonna put her. This is her gift. Her gift to her is to make her popular. I'll save you. And Elton is not into it because he he's into Cher. Right. Not in to tie.

SPEAKER_01 20:46

And Cher is missing this completely.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

She misses it completely. Well, because it's not her plan. And why wouldn't things go according to her plan? So she finds this out in a rough way because she's in his car with him and he starts trying to Mackin on her. Mackin on her, and she keeps telling him no, and he's not listening. And she eventually gets out of the car and he dishes her in a parking lot, and she gets robbed at gunpoint.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

So there's that. Rude awakening for her, I think.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes. I know. And I hate that it because a joke throughout is her weariness about going to neighborhoods that aren't Beverly Hills, right? To go into neighborhoods that are like where normal people might live. And of course, she gets she's like at this corner store that's closed in the parking lot, having just been deserted by Elton, who's being a dick. And that's when she gets robbed at gun point. And I'm like, stop living into these stereotypes.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

I know. That was uncomfortable. I know. Well, side note, I just need to say I felt like that Ty's Brooklyn accent became contagious by the end of the movie. Really?

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Who else is speaking in it?

SPEAKER_02 22:02

I feel like I started to notice share, like a lot of them lost a little bit of their really rigid early-on Valley Girl accent and were drifting a little.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

That's really funny.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Maybe I was imagining it by the end, but that's really funny. I thought I noticed some drift.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Some accent drift. We'll have to listen in. Just a little drift, yeah. It is interesting to see all of the different relationships that we are seeing as different examples throughout, right? Or even like relationship to self. Because Brittany Murphy, as Ty, does not show up asking to be changed. She's asking, where are the people who smoke? Who's gonna smoke me up? And she would have done just as well connecting with that sweet skater boy who smokes a lot of weed. Like she would have had a happy little social life, but Cher knows best and wouldn't really let that happen. And it feels like the arc four tie is herself authentically, gets made over, is a little bit lonely because this isn't really authentically her, and then somehow finds her way back to her like some middle ground where she is still aesthetically made over, but is asking for what she wants and a little bit more confident.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Yeah. Yeah, something that I was a little disappointed, I think, by the romantic, the various romantic subplots in this movie was that they never really discussed that, like I don't know, the way the person treats you or interacts with you is important. Like we have Sharon Josh, where she eventually realizes she has feelings for him and he has feelings for her. And they have this little flashback of like some playful little interactions between them. But they don't really talk about like, oh yeah, and he's respectful or he's nice to me. I I feel good about myself when I'm with him or anything like that. And we have Ty, who they want her to be with Elton because he's social status. Yeah, and then he's a huge dick. And then we have the the cute what's his name, Travis, the straighter the skater kid.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yes, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

He is so genuinely sweet to her. Oh, interested in her art. He's a cutie patootie. He's adorable, and they never like she eventually shows some interest back in him. Like they're they're sort of goobers in the same way. But again, it's more like, well, they match. They're they're similar types of people, so they match and they have an attraction. Not like, yeah, isn't he so nice to her? And they have shared interests.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Right. It's it's kind of the whole matchmaking setup is very much set in alignment with what Elton actually says to Cher before he tries to mac on her, aka sexually harass her.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

That he's like, Do you know who my dad is? Which is so cringy. And she's like, What? And he's basically he's like, Ty and I don't make sense together. Because for him, he's like, I'm hot and I'm wealthy. She is not, she's not that. But Cher, you and I, we make sense together. And I think that that intrinsically is the approach to matchmaking she's doing throughout the whole thing. It's like, who makes sense? You're both kind of grungy and skatery, but I don't want that to be who she is. And so I I refuse, I feel like at every turn, she's trying to keep Ty from following the dynamic that she's actually most interested in. Because she connects with Travis in the lunch line the first day she's there. Yeah. And it's like, I met this really cool guy. They're like, oh no, you can't you can't hang out with him.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, super shitty because he was so sweet. And okay, so can we talk a little about another big couple we see? Dion and what is her boyfriend's name? I forget his name. I know he's in Scrubs.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

I know, I know. I only know him as Turk, right? Turk from Scrubs. Yeah, hold on. Let's look it up. What's his name?

SPEAKER_02 26:19

What was his name? Was it cast? I would say Warwick, but I don't know if that's just the cast.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

We have Murray.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Murray.

SPEAKER_01 26:30

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

Okay. Dion and Murray. Their relationship is. I don't know. I sometimes felt sort of weird about how they were characterized, and it got uncomfy, especially in the vein of like, well, we're just kind of putting people together because they match, and then we have a black couple.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

Right. And from the beginning, we see there's even a line she said, like, it's the first time they're walking into school, and she's like narrating about like who everybody is, and she talks about Dion and how Dion is with this guy, Marie, and Marie is really he's a high school boy, so she discourages her from being with him because she thinks that they're kind of children, which like he does act childish, but once again, they're high schoolers.

SPEAKER_03 27:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

And really he's just playful. But the first bit of dialogue we see between those two only black characters in the whole movie, is she makes a reference to them bickering with each other, and it might be because they saw too much of the Ike and Tina Turner movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

That was horrible. And he keeps calling her, he keeps calling her woman, and she hates it. And they really are like bickering the whole time. And she like literally pulls up some woman's braid and is like, Who are you cheating on me with? I found this hair in your car. It's very racially problematic in a big old way. I do enjoy about them later on is the car on the freeway scene where she is driving. The three of them are in the car, Cher, Murray, and Dion. Dion is driving and she's very anxious as a driver. And Murray is helping, and they accidentally end up on the freeway, and everybody's screaming and screaming. And it got to a point where I'm like, what is the purpose of this scene? I do not understand why it makes no sense. But eventually they get off the highway, and Dion is visibly shaken, and Murray is so good. He is so good with her. He's so proud of her. He's like helping her regulate, he's helping her breathe. They are so sweet together. And that's a moment where Cher sees, like, oh, like that's that's it. Like, that's the point of the whole thing. And even later on, we see Dionne and Murray. I forget what they're talking about, but he is talking about misogyny and the patriarchy. Like they everyone surprises us with these little moments of brilliance throughout. And I'm not saying surprises us because they're the two black characters, but I think the way that Cher sets them up is almost to make people surprised by that, which is upsetting.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

So childish throughout because they are they're they're teen.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:21

So yeah. And it's surprising when they have this like level of insight and awareness as young teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

Which is like yet again, our society just wants to adultify children when they are so young. Really objectify sexually children when they are so young. And at the same time, just take away their brilliance and humanity and be like, oh, but you're just a child, so you're stupid. Children are brilliant. Young people are brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Well, so what do you think then? Josh is in college. Mm-hmm. Oh, you don't know how far into college he's a freshman. He's a freshman, so he's what, 18 or 19? Mm-hmm. So two-year age in that too.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Two years, two-year age difference, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:05

Yeah, she's 16, which for some reason they choose to hammer home again at the wedding. She's like, I'm only 16. And also, I don't know why when you literally have just put together two siblings that you would then invoke. What is this? Kentucky? What? Yeah, this I mean, this is why it's yes, and like justice for Kentucky also. Justice for Kentucky is how I feel monopoly on this.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Right. And like people are in complicated relationship situations across the world. And I don't like the Appalachian incest stereotype. I think it is unfair.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

No. Bring back the Habsburgs. Let's blame them. How about that? Because that I mean if you want to talk about incest.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

I know nothing about the Habsburgs except for, once again, except for as a reference in Spring Awakening.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

So uh extreme that family tree, a circle for the the royalty like bloodline or whatever. It was bad. Veronica, it's bad. Gross. It's bad.

unknown 31:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

That's ooh. Yeah, European royalty.

unknown 31:26

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 31:27

Right. It's fine when royalty do it, but in Kentucky. Which, like, to be clear, we are anti-incest on this show. We are not, we are not pro-incest. Veronica coming out pro-incest. I'm getting a good idea. Let them do what they want to do. I know. By our three fans, they're gonna be mad.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

We're not gonna live through this. We're losing our three fans and they're all in Kentucky, Veronica.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

I I've had a grand old time in Kentucky. Yeah, I I always like I I read a thing recently about how in a recent survey, Gen Z is reportedly really anti-age difference in relationships, even when it is subtle, which I think is interesting. The I mean, I think it's the first generation that has more or less come up with language around consent and power dynamics. And because conversation about age differences has been hammered home so much, folks, even if it's like a two-year age difference in adulthood, there's still an anxiety about that power differential for Gen Z. And you know, you know, a generation is not a monolith. But I think there is quite a difference of power and agency and life experience between these two. Setting aside the fact that they were step siblings for a minute.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Yeah. For who knows how long, okay? Because for all we know, it was six freaking years. I don't know. Let's see if the air or was it six months? I mean, it could be anything. If it's six months, it's a little less weird. But like I said, the ways they interact with each other in the lead up are very casual sibling, normal stuff. It doesn't feel like a little stiff, like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

It was only a year.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Only a year? I don't know.

unknown 33:27

It's still weird to me.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

When they were already young teenagers.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Okay, and also Paul Rudd, uh, I don't like this. She she's in the kitchen eating something.

SPEAKER_01 33:37

He comes up with a lot of people. There's so much fat phobia in this damn film.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

You're you're really filling out there.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

I know. So much fat phobia rampant in this film, which is, you know, we are in an era right now with GLP ones and the like heroine chic coming back in into fashion, quote unquote, that it really is, it's not just 90s fashion, it's 90s sensibilities around thinness and fat phobia that is really stark. And so while hearing those sentences out loud in movies like this is just very jarring, thankfully, it's jarring now. But the sentiment underneath, I think, remains present in society today in a major way, whether or not it's politely said.

SPEAKER_02 34:30

Oh, yeah, I think there's a lot that that really hasn't changed at all. Like the number of times Cher or one of her friends would would allude to like, I feel so sick, or one time Cher says, I feel like such a heifer because I had like six MMs and like a handful of other snacks that she names.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

Yeah. And they talk about going to the mall when Ty realizes that she's not going to be with Elton. And they say, like, let's go to the skip seventh and eighth period, let's go to the mall and have a calorie fest. Yeah. I think is what they say. Yeah. And I mean, one of the first things she does in the makeover is make is try and have her on a regimen of different at-home workout VHSs. Yep. It's not, it would feel remiss to not name like more broadly Britney Murphy's journey as a human and performer in this context, right? That like she, you know, she died from complications related to anorexia as in IRL. She died at 32. And like, you know, it was pneumonia and there was some drug use, but I think like very much it is understood that her eating disorder played a huge role in in her illness.

SPEAKER_02 35:45

I mean the toll it takes.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

The toll it takes on her body, right? And so it is just infuriating to watch this narrative play out on screen, knowing like the road that one goes down. And I mean, poor Britney Murphy in every fucking movie is made to be like the butt of fat jokes, as like a like a regular looking human, right? And like what even is a regular human, right? That's a whole other thing. But yeah, it's a thing. But yeah, I I don't understand. I think that when it comes to Josh and Cher, there is an ease of relating to each other. There is an ability to trust him to show up for her when she needs him to. And we see him stand up for her even when she's not in the room. Like when the dad's law partner is m calling her a moron because she organized some papers into the wrong place.

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Because she's 16 doing an adult's job.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Right. This guy has the audacity to yell at them for like ruining his case that's so important. I'm like, then why are you asking for non-lawyers who are 16 and 18 years old to carry the weight of this case on their shoulders? This is unethical, A. And B, like, who the fuck are you? Now, exactly. Yeah. I don't care for it. But so we do see, we do see elements of like really lovely things in their relationship. And it is never named that like this is what draws her to him.

SPEAKER_02 37:31

Yeah.

unknown 37:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

And then we never see that like she's in love with like when she has her aha moment that, like, oh my god, I'm in love with Josh. The flashbacks that we get are not moments that when they happened, anyone was like, oh, there's something there. Yeah. Like, I don't think that they laid that groundwork well. I know that I knew what they were doing because it was very clear that that's what they that's where they were wanting us to be led as well.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Because they cast Paul Rudd in this role.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

I know. It was his, I think it was his first role ever.

SPEAKER_02 38:04

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

I know. Baby Paul Rudd.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Good for him. But yeah, you can tell, but some part of kind of because of the casting, because of the tropes, what they're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 38:13

But yeah, there was But not through the acting and interaction between the characters.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

No, no. The love confession feels uh kind of out of nowhere and sort of forced. Because they didn't really lay any of this groundwork. But it was like, well, end of the movie's coming up, we gotta wrap it up.

SPEAKER_01 38:30

Wrap it up. Well, and I think like the annoyance that we see playing between them makes sense for them as siblings, but it does not go so far that it makes the audience or the viewer be like, oh, there's something more here. Right. And I think that that we needed that in order for any of us to like in an emotional way be like, ooh, there's something happening between them. I hope they realize it. Like, I don't really know that we get that.

SPEAKER_02 39:02

No, I I didn't feel it. I don't feel it.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

No, sure didn't.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

You want to talk a little about um queer themes in this movie?

SPEAKER_01 39:13

Well, I love from the jump. The first interaction Ty has with Dion and Cher, she straight up says, You're the first straight friends I've ever had.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah. Oh, okay. I'm making sure if their reaction was like that's shocking, or if their reaction was like, I don't know what that means. They seemed completely clueless.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

They they seem clueless. And it was it's also interesting because Ty is a is straight in this. Like it's not as though like Ty is I mean, we don't know Ty is sexuality, but Bisexual sh only shows interest in dudes in this movie. Yeah. So that's I mean, from the jump shows up. But otherwise, we see this Will They Won't They with Christian.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

And then we've got also the com I got anxiety when they started talking about their next project because they had made some comments about the gym teacher and her being a lesbian. And I started to get anxiety because immediately after they were like, I need another project. They were at tennis class with her. And I was worried they were gonna get fixated on her and try and do something with her.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

Try and matchmake with the lesbian gym teacher.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah, or like try to make her straight or something. It was scary. I'm glad they didn't do that.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

I was scared. No, it didn't happen. You're safe. It didn't happen. Thank God. Yeah. No, it was just a setup for our the entrance of Brittany Murphy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The way that they handle Christian is interesting to me as well. I'm curious what your take on the Christian queerness storytelling.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

I thought I was really surprised because, you know, like we said, this is a movie with some uncomfortable racialized things, even when they're trying trying to be positive, apparently. Like Dion is Cher's best friend. This is a movie where we get a couple of casual arclers just throw them right out there, you know? Sure do. Uh we get the casual, oh yeah, and obviously the gym teacher's a lesbian. So I was sort of surprised the subtlety and like privacy they afforded Christian because, like you said, they show him talking more animatedly and more engaged with other male actors. They do a few things like where he's really into art. And anytime Cher is like, Oh, well, do you want to?

SPEAKER_01 41:58

I'm trying to like Yes, they're looking at all the sculptures in the backyard, right? They're looking at all the sculptures, and she's like, Do you want to get in the pool? He's like, And he's like, Let's go watch the movie.

SPEAKER_02 42:08

Yeah, let's let's watch the movie with the hotmail actor I love. And she's trying to like play footsie with him, and he's like, Oh, your feet are cold, and he like slams a pillow on her feet. It's clear she's putting the moves on him, and he's like, I'm gonna head out. I'm gonna just head out.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Right. It makes me wonder if he knew the misunderstanding was happening.

SPEAKER_02 42:28

I don't I don't know, but I kind of liked that they never had like she never confronts him. He never comes out. He doesn't say anything, nobody says anything about it. She just seems to have this realization. She chit-chats with I think Dion's boyfriend was like Murray is like, oh, you girls don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

He's good.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

And oh my god, I loved the way he described it too. He was like, he's an Oscar Wilde reading friend of Dorothy's.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

Yeah, I was like, Where'd you learn those words?

SPEAKER_01 42:56

I know. Where'd you learn that? It was the most avant-garde, lovely way to describe it.

SPEAKER_02 43:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

And then they were just sort of like, oh, okay. And moved on. And Cher was like, well, yeah, he can be he's a great friend then then. No big deal. I don't need to.

SPEAKER_01 43:09

We like shopping together. Which is, you know, trope. But in Cher's case, she loves shopping. It's her main love language.

SPEAKER_02 43:16

Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's a little tropey, but again, I I was really impressed that they didn't have a sort of confrontation coming out. They never You were gay?

SPEAKER_01 43:25

Yeah, there was none of that.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Setting him up with anybody. And he his main thing also continued to be like being into art and like sculpture in particular.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Mm-hmm. And fashion.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

So, yeah, and fashion. I thought that was kind of cool.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Yeah, he was interesting in that he followed the expectations and rituals that on the surface could be dating. Right. He picks her up, he tells her how beautiful she looks, because she does. And they go to this dance, and they dance together, but we also see him turn around and dance. Not overtly sexually, but like engaged dancing with men around her. And nothing bad happens, right? We see him go up to get drinks and he's very like engaged with the bartender. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:16

Not in a throws another girl off of him.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Yeah, a girl puts her hands on his shoulder and he's just like, no, thank you. But you could, I mean Cher could read that as like, oh, he likes me. He's not in anyone else. Yeah. And and we don't see him like his his body language toward the bartender is open, but it is ambiguous enough. Like it doesn't read as like I am flirting, definitely with this person. But at the end of the night, there's no one left at this party dancing except for him. And he's just by himself dancing on the dance floor. Having a grand old time. I think he's just kind of like a a weird little party guy. He just likes what he likes. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. And I yeah, I enjoy that they don't have a big altercation, confrontation happen. That it's okay. Yeah. My expectations of this dynamic are shifting.

SPEAKER_02 45:19

And again, especially for 1995 and a movie with, like we said, so many other problematic elements, they they didn't grab onto what would what could easily have been turning him into the butt of a joke. Right.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

Yeah. And in fact, he and Cher at the mall shopping and see Ty flirting with these guys from Foot Locker or something who start to dangle her over a railing from the second floor.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

My God.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Christian runs and saves the day. He saves her. He like gets in there, pulls her back, he pushes the guy. Like it's a very, very chivalrous sort of moment. His whole thing is like, chivalry isn't dead. I'm a stylish old Hollywood guy. Which is great vibe.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

I I liked too that they didn't make him particularly effeminate, either before or after Cher's realization that he's gay.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Right. Yeah. It was he he remained himself. And I think that they're they navigated that for the time as well as can be. Yeah. It's a low bar, but they cleared it. An incredibly low bar, but they did something. I'm wondering if you well, I know you were eating Doritos at the time. If you had seen this, maybe like, I don't know, instead of us seeing it when we're in college, I wonder if we had seen this in high school when mom wasn't home after school. What are the what are the things that maybe would have like gotten planted in our sweet little psyches about what to accept from what to expect from high school and what to accept from crushes?

SPEAKER_02 47:06

Every single one of these fucking movies and TV shows where they have a high school set in California. Stunning. I don't know what is going on with these campuses. It is absolutely not my high school campus. No. So I had I would have had a comp I already did, but I would have had an even more completely warped idea of what a high school campus looks like, what lunch is like, what the structure of school is like. Oh yeah. The possibility of just dip and how it's like.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

No one does a no one does a lick of homework the whole time.

SPEAKER_02 47:40

Nobody does any homework the whole time. They're not stressed. And I don't know about you. We had the vice principal get on a damn golf cart and chase kids around if they thought they were leaving and going to the mall across the street during school. You had a model evade the golf cart. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Um that's a good question. I don't we didn't have a golf cart happening, but we did have nuns. So like just a nun slowly walking up and down the hallway is it's like Darth Vader. Chilly to the bone. They weren't in habits. I feel like that's important for your mental health. The sisters of St. Joseph do not wear the habits, but they wear like a little pin and they dress in lay clothing, meaning normal people clothing. It tended to be like a pencil skirt and a matching blazer. Like, you know.

unknown 48:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Formal enough to be intimidating.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Formal enough. A lot of tweed.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

A lot of tweed. So that definitely some misconceptions about high school overall. I think I also would have internalized very much that there's a hierarchy in high school, and you sort of stay in your zone. Yes. If somebody from a higher zone chooses to lift you up and save you, they will raise you up.

unknown 48:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Then that's maybe an option, but you pretty much are stuck in your zone. And that's that.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

Yes. It's a very it's a like a high school caste system, is what it seems like.

SPEAKER_02 49:09

And you can only date and you must date someone who matches you within your cast system.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

Right. You have to date someone who is your character exactly in their friend group.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

That's those are the rules. And it has to be a boy, apparently. Because Christian's the only queer person we see. We don't see any couples that are gay.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

So while I like, I don't know that I wanted her to start matchmaking with him because it was 95 and I feel like they would have navigated that really problematically. It is kind of annoying to me that she like, okay, I'm sorry, why don't you want to matchmake for Christian?

SPEAKER_02 49:54

Yeah. Miss, I can do anything. Why don't you think you can do this?

SPEAKER_01 49:59

For our sake as the viewer, I'm glad we didn't have to watch them navigate that. But more broadly, from a morality and ethics standpoint, I'm like, huh.

unknown 50:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Notice. Interesting. Nudied. Yeah. It feels very and and my high school had, I mean, you had friend groups and you had like people who were interested in similar things, but it wasn't that archetypal and rigid that like never shall people cross over to talk to someone else from a different group. There was a lot of overlap.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

Yeah. To me, in my experience in high school, there was like loose sort of organization around like if you were on a sports team, you're closer with other people on the sports team. You know, if you took a lot of the AP classes, you saw a lot of the same kids, stuff like that. The only real firm, hard and fast, like, oh, you're a whatever kid was banned in J R O T C.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

Yeah. Both have costumes.

SPEAKER_02 51:03

The costumes. If you had a thing where you did a costume, you were your own thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:07

Yeah. Even with the theater kids, I feel like we had our own. Like after school, was there the gathering of the theater kids? Yes. But I don't think in my high school we had a social group that was the theater kids. I think every friend group, maybe not as much the jocks, but like every friend group had a smattering of someone who did the plays. And then we all came together after school to get in the car and then go to the boys' school to do their musical. As you do. As you do. Yeah. Well, and I'm curious what from a relationship standpoint, I think there is something cool that we see with the most popular girl in school being judicious about having sex. I think we get to see a variety of ways people are engaging with sex as a thing. It's not the main talking point of the movie. It's not like the whole movie's not about Cher being a virgin. But we do see that, like, okay, Dion's in this relationship and has been for a while and is quote unquote technically a virgin.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

Technically, but my man is satisfied.

SPEAKER_01 52:18

Right. So take that to mean what? They're having oral sex and hand probably.

SPEAKER_02 52:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

Some fingering. Which high high school Veronica would have had questions about that. I would have been like, what does that mean? What does that mean? What are they doing? I know. I know. I'd be so confused. My terrible sex ed. And then we have Britney Murphy, who is supposed to be kind of like socially precarious, but she's had a bunch of sex. Right. That like the power differential and the the status symbols kind of shift on their head in that trio when it comes to sex. Yeah. Right. Which is which is interesting. I think the the place in which it goes sideways for me would have been watching then she kisses Paul Rudd and then they fuck. Yeah. Immediately. You can guess what happened next. It's just the thing.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Yeah, after she was so like, yeah, I don't know. I I want it to be significant for me in some way. Like, I want to be judicious about the person that I'm with. And also it seemed like to her the the sort of setting and like the evening of it all was important to her.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Yeah. She has, I mean, she has the personality of a uh event planner. Yeah. She's she's got an attention to detail, you know, in a major way.

SPEAKER_02 53:42

Yeah, so I I agree. That felt very weird. I did appreciate that there was no like I the way they were very casual in a way about sex and virginity. They were just sort of like, oh, that's interesting. Moving on.

SPEAKER_01 53:55

It was one of many topics. It was one of many topics, which I thought was in a weird way refreshing compared to some of the other stuff we've seen, right? Yeah. Where like the whole entire fucking movie is about virginity.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was surprised that it was relatively chill. Like, oh, interesting. You have you've had sex. Well, I haven't yet. And nobody was like, well, I'm doing it the right way and you're doing it the wrong way.

SPEAKER_00 54:21

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Yeah, absolutely. It was the closest we got to that was Ty being like, Cher, you're a virgin. Like we were teeting, we were not even just teetering on judgment. There was judgment. But then when Cher kind of stands her ground and is like, yeah, I am I'm very particular and I want it to be with someone that I want it to be with. She's respectful of that. And it's like, oh, that's really cool. Yeah. Press. Precious. Oh. So fresh. What is your healthy ever after? Healthier ever after.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Ever after. They fucking break up. Break them up. You know, I'm not always gonna be so firm, like just end it. I need them to break up. I don't like it. It's weird. They're too sibling, they're too much of siblings for me.

SPEAKER_03 55:12

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

And I want them to break up. And I want them to move move on to their own relationships outside of the family.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Mm-hmm. And continue to understand themselves better. They both seem to have maybe a a weird thing with the dad, with both wanting to be lawyers and wanting his like approval in a way that I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

They need to go out in the world. Yeah. Away back. I mean, he goes to school on the East Coast, right? Isn't that a thing?

SPEAKER_02 55:44

But like they sort of said so, but then he's like, I don't know. Yeah, they said so, but then his dorm or something was I can't speak to it. I don't know. It was confusing. But yeah, I they need to sort of become their own, differentiate, have more relationships outside of their family. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's what I want for them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:06

That sounds good to me.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

What about what about you? What would you wish for?

SPEAKER_01 56:08

I co-sign that. I co-sign that. I wish. I kind of want Britney Murphy and the skater guy to get to like hang out and be friends and maybe smooch a little.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

Yeah. Yeah, I want to see where that goes. They had that cute thing where he was like, I'm working my 12 steps, and I have this skater event. And they went to it and saw him, and he like did a cool trick. And Britney Murphy was like, He's so cool.

SPEAKER_01 56:35

I know. And Cher's like, I didn't know he was so driven. And it's like, yeah, girl, just because people don't live in your universe all the time and do things exactly like you would do them doesn't mean that they don't have passion or direction. Yeah. Bless her heart.

SPEAKER_02 56:50

Bless their heart. So yeah, I mean, I guess we see some event planning perhaps in Cher's future.

SPEAKER_01 56:55

I see event planning. I see maybe her moving away for college and exploring differing opinions and ways of being in the world. Love her clothes, though. I do co-sign all the clothing.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Yeah. Or, you know, send her to fashion school in New York. Maybe that would be really good for her.

unknown 57:13

That could be good.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

That could be good. Yes. And then maybe Ty shows her around the East Coast and she realizes that maybe maybe she was wrong to try and morph Ty into somebody she isn't.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Yeah. Maybe she will realize she can she has been wrong. What a concept. If only. If only. Well, I think we did it. We did it.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

I think we did it.

SPEAKER_02 57:42

It's about that time. We have next episode mystery with our first guest. Get excited.

SPEAKER_01 57:54

I'm very excited. Cool. So stay tuned, listener, and change the channel back to something appropriate before mom gets home.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

Yeah. And we'll see you next time.

unknown 58:05

Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Thank you so much for joining us today on Mom's Not Home Till6. Leave us a rating or review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you found us. Pitch us your alternate ending or send suggestions to mom's not home till six at gmail.com. It's probably no punctuation in the new momstick. You can find more from us by following us on Instagram at Mom's Not Home Till6 or on Blue Sky at Mom's Not Home. Find more from Veronica by following her on Instagram at the DressRearsal or support the podcast financially on the DressRehearsal. We'd like to extend our gratitude to the queer and trans community past and present to becoming possible today. And to the next time. Now be sure to change that channel back to something appropriate before mom gets home. And we'll catch you next time.