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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Deep Thoughts about Disney's Robin Hood
Odelaly and Criminitly! The 1973 animated Robin Hood (with the foxes) is as familiar as matzo-ball soup, but what’s lurking in the comfort?
From treatment of gender (not only a lack of representation but also the performance of gender) to the surprisingly (or maybe not-so-suprisingly?) anti-anti-authoritarian message to the quietly queer-coded villains to the stick-to-your-own-kind romantic pairings, Tracie and Emily have a lot to unpack from those dancing and singing anthropomorphized animals. Even with all of what they uncover, the sisters remain enamored by the solid acting, delightful score, and beautiful⏤and innovative!⏤hand-drawn animation.
Join us as we turn a grown-up eye to a pillar of our childhood. We might even sing.
Mentioned in this episode:
Deep Thoughts about Gender in Pop Culture: Tools for Feminist Analysis (BONUS)
Tracie’s illustration of a giraffe playing jacks
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.
This is Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts about Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? Today, I will be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1973 animated Robin Hood from Disney with my sister, emily Guy Birken, and with you. Let's dive in. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters. You know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people. Okay, I know you've seen this movie because I think we've seen it together. So I'm talking about the 1973 animated Robin Hood as a Fox.
Speaker 2:Little John as a Bear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so what comes to mind? What do you remember? What's coming up when I mentioned this piece of pop culture?
Speaker 2:So there's a couple of things. I had a weird crush on Robin Hood as a Fox and I think some of that is also his voice, and I like British accents, even though you know nobody else is British. We will be talking about that. That's something I remember. My sense of cartoon snakes being able to make their eyes into spirals and hypnotize people comes from Sir Hiss. In this, let's see, the sheriff has some pretty funny lines that I say Doesn't he call someone fuzzy britches or something like that.
Speaker 1:He is bushel britches.
Speaker 2:Other people call him bushel britches, Bushel britches okay, which has become fuzzy britches and that's what my family calls each other, which is from the film but inspired by, apparently Inspired by.
Speaker 2:The other couple of things that stand out for me is sometimes the ups outnumber the downs, but not a nodding ham. That song runs through my head pretty often, the Oodle Lolly. And then this is a weird thing, but I remember noticing before I learned that because this is hand animated, hand drawn, they would reuse scenes, which makes sense. I mean, like it's so much work. And so there's a scene where the little kids are dancing in early on and then it happens again and it's the same scene. And so I remember noticing that as an eagle eyed child before I learned what was going on there, why that happened, and then I think, oh, this is where I learned the phrase absence makes the heart grow fonder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I tried to introduce this to my kids a couple of times and I wish I could remember my youngest said something about the rhinoceroses. Like you know, the rhinoceroses just create chaos. It was something really just adorable and funny. He was like four or five at the time. So those are, like you know, my kind of general feelings about this film that I have a lot of nostalgia for. So tell me, why are we talking about?
Speaker 1:Robin Hood today. So when I was a kid I mean all the way through, like maybe into high school I, if somebody asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say I wanted to be an animator, for Disney specifically. And I think that this, this movie, was not the only. There was lots of animation in our childhood, but this movie strongly contributed to that desire. I just, I just loved it. I just really loved it. It was just so charming and it was.
Speaker 1:It's one of those films that, especially because we're doing this project, then we sort of think like how was I first introduced to this piece of pop culture is like a question that we ask ourselves. I have no idea. Like you might as well, like it would be like asking me, like when's the first time you had matzah ball soup? Like it's just a thing that and it's comfort food in that way, like like Ghostbusters, what was for me, but even older, you know, dad had Disney Channel at his house or his apartment when we were kids.
Speaker 1:I must have been on that. I vaguely remember watching it at Grandma Betta's house and like with, like with Chris, our cousin, because there's a scene where the lady in waiting who's a chicken is like doing like she's like football player, like on a football field, like with the right sari. Yes, I didn't understand what that was and I can remember Grandma explaining or that like it was at grandma's house, anyway. Anyway, this thing is just like baked into my like entertainment DNA, like deeply, deeply and and even into my aspirations of sort of the kind of art that I wanted to create.
Speaker 1:And so that's why I wanted to talk about it and on rewatch. As with so many things, this like beautiful fun, like piece of fluff from my child is turning out to be a lot less benign than I would like.
Speaker 1:So, so, okay, so for those of you who haven't seen Disney's Robin Hood, it is an animated film where all of the characters are animals and the story of Robin Hood is a historic historical fiction or fable, maybe fiction, fable, whatever. Yeah, it is very much presented as a fairy tale in in this movie, and so it opens actually with a book. So we're looking at a book that then becomes animated and there is a narrator, of sorts as a rooster, who introduces himself as a bard, which is an old fashioned way of saying folk singer. That's what he tells us and he sings that song that you referenced, which I also love, about Nottingham. And so very first thing we do is we meet Robin Hood and Little John.
Speaker 1:Robin is a fox, little John is a bear, the same bear animation as Baloo from the Jungle Book, different color but the same bear, and they're in the forest, to you know, doing their thing. So we very early are introduced to the fact that they are running from the law and Little John says to Robin you know, rob, I've been thinking are we good guys or bad guys? Because we steal. So we're introduced they steal from the rich to give to the poor. We're showing that right away.
Speaker 1:And then the story ensues where Prince John, who's in charge because his brother, king Richard, is off on a crusade, is taxing the people relentlessly, and so the people of Nottingham are just suffering under the burden of this overtaxation. But Prince John is a clown, he's a villain. But like he's really a clown, the true villain with any kind of malice is the sheriff Fuschel Bridges himself. He's a wolf, but he's huge. He's bigger even than or as big as the bear. Little John Robin is in love with Made Marion, who, inexplicably, is the niece of the lions who are the King and Prince, even though Made Marion is also a fox.
Speaker 1:She's a vixen. Yeah, I mean like actually a female fox, In order to meet her. We see the cruelty of the wolf sheriff when he interrupts a young rabbit's birthday party and steals his birthday present, which is a far thing not steals, but collects it as taxes.
Speaker 1:Robin then comes in in disguise as a blind beggar and gives the kid a bow and arrow and his own hat and gives the widow woman, the mom rabbit, some money and she says you know, bless you. Then the kids go off. The birthday boy and two of his siblings and a turtle friend go off to play with the bow and arrow. They end up in the castle. They meet Made Marion and her lady in waiting, who is a hen? A hen, a big one.
Speaker 2:A really big one. It really seems like a possible mistake. Well, there's also the fox.
Speaker 1:There's also the rabbit and foxes thing going on. So, yeah, so we meet Made Marion and we learn that she is in fact still in love with Robin and she's afraid that he's forgotten her. That's where your absence makes the heart grow fonder. Happens. Cut to Robin in Sherwood Forest stirring the stew pot while little John hangs up laundry and he's totally mooning pining for Marion. Okay, so the love story set up.
Speaker 1:Prince John set some archery tournament to try and trap Robin. Robin comes in disguise, he does get trapped, but then there's like a, he gets away. There's a scuffle, there's a big fight and Marion and Robin declare their love for one another during the fight. So Marion and Clucky, the lady in waiting, escape with Robin's married men off into Sherwood Forest. There's another entrapment attempt when they say they're going to hang Fryer Tuck. So Robin and little John break Fryer Tuck out of jail, steal all the gold, like all the gold, destroy the castle and then go off again into the forest. And then we get a little play, acting and dancing, making fun of John, and then they get married and they live happily ever after.
Speaker 2:Well, doesn't King Richard come?
Speaker 1:back at the end, at the very end, king Richard comes back. He's at the wedding, he makes a joke which has been made before the An outlaw front end law. He has an outlaw front end law, yeah, which we actually had heard before, in the very, very beginning, actually, when Fryer Tuck tells Robin that before too long King Richard's going to have an outlaw front end law Is Marion Richard's daughter.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:I mean it's, I don't she's related somehow. She, she definitely is John's niece. She refers to him as uncle Okay.
Speaker 2:And so that would mean, since Richard is John's brother, Well, she's, oh well, they have another sibling. Yeah, well, no, that would mean that Richard is also her uncle.
Speaker 1:Either her father or her, also her uncle. Yes, yeah, yeah, okay. So they're related, either as a child, you know, as an offspring, or as a niefling, niefling and uncle. So I guess, niece, I guess, anyway. So that's the like rough story and like from my childhood it's. It's actually like anti authoritarian and like all about like redistributing wealth. I mean, I didn't think of it as a kid but like looking back on it like it was about doing good, even the face of bad greed and yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the music was awesome, like you said, like I love, like I still, you know, like Robin Hood and little John, walk it through the forest yeah. And every time has it's upset. Yeah, so let me start at the beginning with the Bechdel test, our good old fashioned standby. Yes, thank you Once again, alison Bechdel. Done pass. It's there are. There are two female names, characters, but they only talk about men. They only talk about rod. It's a marrying and clucky.
Speaker 2:What about? One of the little rabbits doesn't have a name and the church mouse wife?
Speaker 1:She doesn't speak to another female character. She doesn't have a name either, she's just little sister. Okay, gotcha. So it does not pass the Bechdel test. Marion is a little bit more than a sexy lamp, but not much Right Like in terms of her relationship with Robin. She's a sexy lamp which folks? There's a bonus episode over on a Patreon where explain all these things if you want to learn more about the Bechdel test or the sexy lamp.
Speaker 1:But shorthand, she has no agency and no actual action in the story. She does have an interaction with the rabbit, kids and the turtle, but really she's mostly a trophy and her only reason for being is to love, is to love Robin. So that that's not great. But the thing that, as I'm rewatching this and thinking about it now in terms of our project, the thing that I keep I'm coming up against is the little skippy, the rabbit like yells death to tyrants, like this is a thing that they're like it's totally anti authoritarian, but it's not.
Speaker 1:Because when Robin is caught and he is being held by the guards, the thing that the like his moment of rebellion and resistance. Prince John says you're, you're arrested for being a traitor to the crown. Robin says traitor to the crown. That's King Richard's crown. Long live King Richard. And so, ultimately, it's not anti authoritarian right, it's not saying the system is messed up and we shouldn't have this you know feudal system, where we've got this hugely rich monarch and these, you know peasants living in squalor between his feet, yeah right, who have, like, every scent that they earn taxed away from them.
Speaker 1:That system is not at all skewered. What is skewered is that clown who is sitting on the throne when he shouldn't be. It should be that you know much more regal looking lion who is off running a crusade. Yeah, crusade, yeah, and like. As a Jewish person, that word has like, like drips with villainy and danger and like religious justification for persecution and violence. I know that is not the way it was taken by the broader culture in 1973. But that doesn't make that other stuff not true, right?
Speaker 1:So, and I did a little of very little folks, I did a very little research on King Richard. So this is a 12th century King of England who ran this, this, this crusade, with two other European kings. It was the King's crusade. It was a third crusade where they were predominantly fighting Muslims to try and reclaim European control of the Holy Land. And Richard was just as conniving and dangerous as any 12th century King you can imagine. You know, having people assassinated and like trying to like marry off his daughter in order to cement treaties and stuff. I mean, like he was not a paragon of virtue is what I'm trying to, yeah yeah, try to convey here, you know.
Speaker 1:So that has been sort of a little bit of a, like you know, skull blowing off the top of my head emoji as I'm thinking about it for our conversation here, in the ways in which the Robin Hood story could be presented to not be anti authoritarian you know, like. That's really like reiterating and underlining for me why we're doing this project.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Because it feels like, like it is one of the ones in our culture, that that's what it's for right, like that is, is that sort of stick it to the man, mm, hmm, mm, hmm. But that ain't it not here.
Speaker 2:You know, you've got me thinking about the fact that the Kevin Costner Robin Hood that came out in the 90s and I think they remember. Yeah, so Alan Rickman played the sheriff in that version, and they didn't have Prince John, they just had the sheriff, and it was an ensemble cast, and I believe that part of that decision was just to not muddy things, but at the same time, that also is a choice that makes it, you know, like oh, we're against this bad Apple, exactly.
Speaker 1:And that's not against the system. And that's exactly what this movie does as well, yeah, so there's.
Speaker 2:there's no like questioning the feudal system and the the reign of monarchs, which, yeah, when you think about it like that's not your crown, that's Richards, yeah, but nobody. Nobody elected him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, so, okay. So that's, that's a, that's a big thing.
Speaker 1:that's like sitting there for me, other things that you know come up as I'm watching this. You mentioned that Robin has a British accent, and I didn't pay attention to accent at all, not even a little, did not register, and I but I've been thinking about accents more personally, in part because of our Good Omens obsession, and thinking about, you know, michael Sheen's native Welsh accent and David Tennant's native Scottish neither which neither of them use like. Anyway, it's been in my head thinking about accents more, and so I was paying attention more and so, as you noted, robin is the only one with a British accent. Well, that's not true. Robin's the only one with the English accent. I think Clucky is.
Speaker 2:Scottish. Oh yes, that's right. And Marion. I think Marion is an American accent, or is it? Or is she an American doing kind of like a?
Speaker 1:British-y, like that, that wistful kind of yeah, yeah, so, and one of the things that I think is really interesting about that, though, is that the implied classism in these characters, like, in particular, the fact that this love interest, it's all different animals, and, in fact, the bunny, the older sister, bunny, I'm skipping younger sister, but the oldest- whatever Oldest of the girls yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oldest of the girls, when they realize it's Robin Hood under the blind beggar costume she's, he's so handsome, like. So there is at least admiration, cross species, but the actual pairing, they're both foxes. And not only that. In order for Robin this is my analysis but in order for Robin to be worthy of this royal's attention and affection, he has to have markers of upper class status, including the RP, the sort of Queens English accent of British English, and I totally miss that. As a kid I never would have picked up on that. Robin is surrounded by these American accent Mary men right, little John and Firetuck. Even our narrator, the rooster, it has this like American Southern drawl. He's a folk singer, he tells us, and Robin is one of them, but above them in some way.
Speaker 2:Now, one thing that I think might be an important aspect, like for the history of this, is like Robin Hood was supposed to have been a high-born gentleman, like Sir Robert of Loxley, I think, and most of his Mary men were not. So like Will Scarlett was supposed to be high-born as well. Firetuck is one of those where, like clergy's kind of this weird middle ground In between liminal. Yeah, because you could be like a second born son and go into the clergy, or you could be a more commoner.
Speaker 1:It was a way to move up.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So I mean, so there is yeah, and they actually make reference to that, because Robin says at one point when Little John's like if you'll ever go get her, and he's like, well, that's not how it works. You can't just stroll up to a woman and be like, hi, we were kids together, you wanna get married. So like they do make reference to that in this film and all of that backstory for me, I think, is less important in terms of not less important, but has less impact to the children watching this, understanding who belongs with whom.
Speaker 2:Well, the way you're putting it, this is kind of reifying the importance of hierarchies.
Speaker 1:Exactly. That's exactly what I'm getting at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, instead of it being anti-authoritarian, it's like no, you jumped the line to Prince John. Exactly, it's not. And Robin is only worthy of Marion because he was a kid with her they were high-born both of them not because what he does is worthy.
Speaker 1:Exactly, that's exactly what I'm getting at. Thank you for articulating it that way.
Speaker 2:Well, what's interesting is does that mean that in order for Robin Hood to do what he does to be in outlaw and try to take care of the poor it has to be egregious? So, like the villains are just you know, taking money left and right so that everybody's starving.
Speaker 1:And they're all in debtor's prison, like we actually see the debtor's prison where everyone we've met in town is now in prison. Yes, except for the friar and the two little mice that you mentioned, who are at the church.
Speaker 2:Yes, and then they, you know, to try to draw Robin Hood out.
Speaker 1:they plan to hang Fryer Tuck, which is just shocking, which they react to even in the movie hang a man at the church.
Speaker 2:But, considering the fact that Robin is not anti-authoritarian, if Richard were there and it weren't quite so bad, would he still be willing to redistribute wealth? You know like, where. It's not that everybody's starving, everybody's in the debtor's prison, it's just things are tough for Widow Rabbit and because she's not allowed to do X, Y or Z, you know Like, and that's.
Speaker 1:No, I think that's a legitimate question and I think it actually is. The answer is in the movie and the answer is no.
Speaker 1:Because, when Little John from the very first scene says are we good guys or bad guys Because of all the stealing? Robin says we're not stealing, stealing is wicked, we're just borrowing a bit. And Little John says borrowing man, are we in debt? Which is funny, it's very funny. But the implication still remains that, like I mean, this is not a Marxist, this Robin of Lockely he's not saying like, of course we're stealing, we're redistributing the wealth because it was ill-gained in the first place and they didn't actually deserve you know, it wasn't actually theirs we're stealing it back. He doesn't say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:He says, oh, we're just borrowing from folks who can afford it.
Speaker 2:So here's something that's interesting to me when I was getting my master's degree in English education for those of you who don't know I was a high school English teacher for four years. It's what I was trained to do, and then life went in a different direction. I had a couple of classes that were required that were about like social issues in the classroom. I was student teaching at the time at a very wealthy district that had like a brand new school. That was just obscene the kind of money that went into just aesthetics for the school. And I remember talking about like I don't know how, the way that I was in Ohio and the way that Ohio funding works is that every single tiny little township in municipality has its own school district, whereas where Tracy and I were from growing up, the entire county would have the school district, which meant that wealth inequality was spread out a little bit more. I'm not saying it was a little effect, but it was better than what I saw where I taught, because this tiny little municipality not only do they have to pay for superintendent and all of that instead of one superintendent for something with like 50 high schools in any case, right next door to the district where I was student teaching, there's a district that they're using 15 year old, out of date textbooks that are falling apart because they can't afford to buy new ones, and I was like I don't feel like we can just take from this school district and give to this school district. Like there's something like I don't know how to reconcile that.
Speaker 2:And I had two classmates one who was just like why not? Which? I was really glad to be challenged that way, and then another who was like yeah, the churches should handle. Like we should not be mandating money going to anything. So like Churches, yeah. She was like charity should come from faith groups. Churches, things like that should not be anything that government takes care of.
Speaker 1:I'm flabbergasted by that.
Speaker 2:And it was not specifically about that dichotomy where I was just like I don't know how we make this work, but it's not fair that these kids don't have good textbooks and these kids have basically a chandelier in their dining hall. It was another something where it was talking about. It was the same class, different topic. It was talking about, I think, kids who are hungry, and this person was like, yeah, it's not the government's job to feed them. Like this should be like the faith community's job.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm not, even, I can't, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:So that is not an unusual opinion, it's the answer I know In the world I inhabit because now I write about finance, so I meet a lot of people in finance who did not take the same lessons I did. So what strikes me like that's the thing that I'm thinking about, because Friar Tuck is such an important character and because there's that scene when Friar Tuck is arrested and it's when the church mice go-.
Speaker 1:They put their last part in the collection box and then the sheriff comes and takes it as taxes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's really interesting when you start thinking about that classmate of mine. It was just like, yeah, the churches should handle charity and the fact that religious institutions are tax exempt in our country in ways that are very much taken advantage of, and so, like, what is this message sending us? So like, friar Tuck believes it's his job to help take care of the poor and that's why he has a collection box and all of that specifically to take care of the poor, and what? Here's government swooping in and taxing it? Now it's an evil government and authoritarian and greedy and not actually using the money to develop.
Speaker 1:No, they make it clear that in this movie that the money's used only to make Prince John happy To happy yeah yeah, he's not even spending it.
Speaker 1:He's not even just counting it. Yeah, I mean one of the maybe this is obvious, but I feel like I should say it out loud Like one of the big differences between the animal kingdom of Nottingham and contemporary Ohio is that we're not in Ohio, in the United States. We're not all the same religion, like it's not, like it's a parish and we all belong to the same. It's not.
Speaker 2:Well, and then, even like I suspect that this you know this classmate of mine would have said to that oh well, you know, you don't have to be Christian to accept help. Yeah, screw you, but yeah, but like there's so many, there are soup kitchens where they won't let you have the food until you've prayed, you know.
Speaker 1:Make filet. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's also my right as an American to have no religion.
Speaker 2:It is it's also, if you are counting on faith communities to handle charity, they're only gonna handle the charities that they're interested in.
Speaker 1:Also, when the suffering, when the affliction is caused by the government, it is a cop out to then say it's not the government's job.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm bringing us back to the foxes.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting, because one of the ways that the movie makers make it clear that Prince John is a bad guy is by his greediness. As I just said, he's not even spending the money, he's using it.
Speaker 2:He's just counting it. Well, it doesn't surmise. Say to him like why don't you count your money? That always cheers you up.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, prince John is really mad because of the song that the towns people have written.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, too late. To be known as John the First, he's sure to be known as John the Worst.
Speaker 1:The phony king of England, yes, so he's really pissed off about this song and he can't get past it. And so Hiss is trying to get him out of it and he says why don't you count your money? You haven't done that in a while. It always makes you happy. Okay, Greed.
Speaker 2:Greed is the fundamental Greed cowardice I'm so destroying the childishness of, because Prince John is also shown as like sucking his thumb and calling for his mom and calling for his mom.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but greed is one of the fundamental vices of this villain. And then, with the jailbreak, when they get friar tuck out of jail and also all of the towns folks who are in debtor's prison, robin goes to the royal treasury, which also happens to be Prince John's bedroom, and redistributes the wealth, re-redistributes the wealth, with little Johnny sets up like a pulley system with arrows and they're sending out these bags of money. And my spouse happened to step in while I was watching it last night, while I was rewatching it, and it's like piles and piles and piles and piles of these bags of money and they're all gone, except for the one he's holding like a stuffed animal. There's one under his pillow and there's one that he's snuggling. Prince John is under Prince John's pillow and Prince John is snuggling and Robin goes for both of those too.
Speaker 1:And my spouse is there and goes, wow, greedy, and like that, like going after those last two actually caught, I mean it's not directly but indirectly cause all of the things that then cause the huge fight. Castle destroyed, robin almost killed In fact, little John thinks he's dead. Greed, robin's greed, and as an audience we don't think of it that way, because he's not taking it for himself, he's not taking it to just count it.
Speaker 2:But, still. How is, like all of the rest of the treasury, not enough?
Speaker 1:Yeah, except for two bags.
Speaker 2:Two bags, and there were hundreds and he could have made a completely clean getaway.
Speaker 1:Completely clean. John and Sir Hiss would have slept through it and there would have been no fire. No, yeah, so okay, there's that. Like that's bothersome. Oh man, I should have made a list because there were like things I was like I got a.
Speaker 2:I do think I would like to talk for a minute. I did not know that this was part of why you used to say you wanted to be an animator at.
Speaker 1:Disney, I didn't just say it, it was real.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, no, yeah, no, I didn't realize this. This movie was part of that, that dream. Yeah, I want to talk about how beautifully animated it is, just because it is an amazing feat. And I'm thinking specifically of Sir Hiss, who is like a hilarious character. There is a point where he gets mad at Prince John and or Prince John gets mad at him, and so he like sculpts back into, he's kept in like a basket and he, like he brings his two sides of his body to his body up and like leans on it, so it looks like he's got his elbows up on the edge of the of the basket.
Speaker 2:It's brilliant.
Speaker 1:It's brilliant, it's a brilliant who, whoever the animation, whoever the lead animator was on his, was truly brilliant. I I took a special note of that moment as I was rewatching it. There's also his like puts a balloon around his head and blows it up and then uses his tail as a helicopter. Which the physics of it. Okay, let's not overthink the physics of it.
Speaker 1:Obviously that wouldn't actually work, but as a visual gag it is beautiful and fun and whatever. There's something deeply special about the animation in this movie, separate and different from like Snow White. The first, the very first full length feature animated movie is gorgeous and I do not want to take away from its gorgeousness. But Disney and his animators were trying to recreate live action, almost like a like Rembrandt was trying to, you know, sort of capture life in drawing. You know the way that they, the model that they had, do the full all of the dancing of Snow White that then they they recreated as animated scene. That is not what this is. These are foxes and bunnies and rhinocerai and elephants and they are acting like humans, but in ways that make physical sense for what their bodies are Exactly, and there's something so charming about that.
Speaker 1:I actually gorgeous. I actually think that my part of like my personal style when I'm drawing my sort of whimsical animals doing human things, like I think about the giraffe that I drew playing Jax she is directly influenced by this movie. Right Like there's the elephants are the buglers, right, and at one point clucky, like the one an elephant is like announcing distress in the big fight scene. Clucky squeezes his trunk and it like gets caught and like backs up into his mouth and it's hilarious yeah.
Speaker 2:And even the flags are hanging off their trunks, and even how Robin goes in disguise, like he disguises himself as a pelican and he's a stork, that's right, a stork. And he uses like a stilts and like it's so inventive, you know in a way that is so, so different from other earlier Disney animated films. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It does interesting things to gender as well, right, so we talked about gender a little bit already. We have not yet talked about the fact that Robin and Little John dress and drag to trick Prince John.
Speaker 2:That's right One of the rhinos thinks Little John is adorable.
Speaker 1:Yes, not just adorable, there's definitely a sexual connotation to it. So Little John. So they're meant to be fortune tellers? Oh, that's right, that's right. So that's fortune forecast. So, and they? So, prince John turns aside to get his fortune told, and meanwhile they steal everything you know they when they kiss his caps when they kiss his rings, they like take the gems out of the rings with their lips, which Whoa, back you lips.
Speaker 2:You don't want to think about the implications, whoa.
Speaker 1:And they steal all the bags of money and like to the point that Prince John is left in his skibbies at the end of it and Little John, dressed as a woman, like he's got the gold coins in his bosom and he's got the hubcaps in his tush, and that's when the rhino notices him and the camera the camera like focuses on the big bosom and the big tush, before the rhino sort of turns pink, like his ears wiggle, and he turns a little pink and he like gives this little shy wave.
Speaker 1:So not just with these two male anthropomorphized animals who dress in drag, the only way to show gender in this, to show gender difference in this conceit of these anthropomorphized animals, is to greatly exaggerate the accessories, right? So the way we see that Marion is a vixen and not a fox is that she's got these super long eyelashes and we actually see them looking at each other. So from Marion's eyes to Robin's eyes, back and forth, and he's got these tiny little lashes and she's got like these lashes that like Tammy's, like Faye Baker lashes Like go on forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:And the rabbit kids Like. We know that the one who's not a baby is a girl, because she's got this giant pink bow on her ears.
Speaker 2:Well, and Lady Clark has like really pronounced bosom, doesn't she, huge bosom?
Speaker 1:with cleavage. Yeah, so that's like an extra layer of the idea of performing gender, Especially since we have a moment of literal drag, that is, it's got my you know wheels turning about. Also, what were some of the messages about gender that I was picking up from that? Not just in representation but also in performance of right Like and even in the when we first meet Marion, she's playing badminton with clucky and the kids like need to go retrieve their arrow and they, the clucky and Marion, realize that Skippy is pretending to be Robin Hood.
Speaker 1:So they do a whole Robin Hood thing. So he fights off clucky who pretends to be Prince John. Little skippy does. And then she like grabs the sword and puts it under her arm and like pretends to die. And little skippy is like I didn't really hurt you, Did I? And clucky opens her eyes and wings and says nah, now's the time when you rescue your Lady Fair. So Skippy turns around and goes and puts his hand out. I says come on, Lady Fair, let's go to Sherwood Forest. So they go hand in hand off to a little corner and they're like ducking underneath a low branch and Skippy's like well, what are we doing now? This is boring, you know, because he's like he's seven.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it's like Ken saying to Barbie like can I still ever? What would we do? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's I mean kind of, but also he's seven.
Speaker 2:He's also seven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And she says, well, now's the time when you give your Lady Fair a kiss and he's like kiss in that sissy stuff. So she says, well, if you won't, I will. And she picks him up because he's seven and a rabbit and she like gives him a little smooch on the cheek. And it's weird Like what messages was I getting about gender that even this grown woman with this seven year old kid, wow, has to do the performance of the kissing the lady fair.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm, what you know. It's interesting, I'm thinking about the like. So I had totally forgotten about the giant pink bow in the little girl rabbit's head On her head, and actually that gets to what I'm going for. So when both of my kids were born, the hospital had these little caps that they would put on the baby's head, the blue cap and the pink cap.
Speaker 2:Well, the caps that I had had alternating bands of blue and pink, so they were fine for any baby. I would have been great if they had just been anything Yellow, beige, I don't care, but you know okay. So a few years after my kids were born, I'm seeing pictures because I think those were pretty standard issue, because I'd see pictures of babies in those caps from born in hospitals all around the United States, and I start seeing it's still the little blue and pink caps, but some of them have a bow on it. And then I feel like it's been since my kids were born, but maybe not Seeing newborn babies, baby girls, where they put this giant bow on their head On a headband On a headband Because God forbid anyone not be able to tell the gender of a newborn Sex.
Speaker 1:We don't know the gender of me. We don't know the gender.
Speaker 2:It strikes me as like why is that so important? Well, because it's so important that we know that this rabbit is a girl that we have to give her not only a bow, but a pink one. Yeah, it can't even be like a green bow or a light blue bow or a purple bow. It's gotta be unequivocal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, those headbands have been around for a long time. I mean, my kids are right between yours. But I can remember like once we realized, once we knew we were having a girl, my spouse was like promise me, you will never put one of those headbands with the giant bows on her head, which was easy for me to promise because I wasn't planning on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but yeah, I think the difference is that I'd see those in older babies like oh yeah, like two and three months.
Speaker 1:One, two, three months. Yeah, not newborns.
Speaker 2:It is still like I'm not a huge fan of, but okay, at least they're starting to be able to hold their head up. Their skull's not still mushy yeah, but it's the hour's old, still looking like a potato, you know. And it's also in that time that, like gender reveal parties went from a little niche thing that I hear about sometimes and like cupcakes to, like you know, starting ginormous forest fires killing people.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, the performance of gender is really, really an interesting, and that's actually one of the things about why Prince John is kind of illegitimate is because he is a feminine.
Speaker 1:The way that he's played. There's something of that, although it is played much more as childish. As you pointed out, he's always. His clothes are always too big for him, the crown is too big so that he has to like push his ears out so that it'll stay up and it keeps falling down on his head. The illegitimacy of Prince John is in, as I said before, the cowardice and, as you pointed out, the childishness. That's more of the focus. I don't think you're wrong. I think there is a bit of effeminate.
Speaker 2:Well, and some of that is because of the way Hiss is played. His voice is played very effeminate.
Speaker 1:Hiss is definitely played as if you know what you're looking for. Like he's he codes as gay, I agree, and he sleeps in the same room, and so there is definitely like there's a coded, there's a coded homosexual relationship between those two, but it is coded.
Speaker 2:It's coded. Yeah, this is not overt, and I think even an adult in 1973 seeing it is not necessarily going to get it. It's like I don't want to say it's a dog whistle, because it's not, it's coded. But there are some aspects of it that I think are interesting to talk about in terms of, like the way that queer coding had to work for both queer creators and people writing about writing negatively, and that's something I would love to get into at some point.
Speaker 2:A lot of the stereotypes we think of about gay men in particular come from the fact that the Hayes Code from the early 20th century made it impossible to overtly show any kind of romantic or sexual relationship between men, so they did covert stuff that came to be so well known, but it became stereotypical, right? But one of the things that I think is interesting is that I didn't know this until recently and by that I mean like last 10 years that being very close to one's mother was considered like a negative stereotype about gay men, about gay men. The other aspect of it is like the sinister queer person whispering in the ear of someone, so like his fits that as well, yeah, yeah, and Prince John is definitely negatively associated with being close to his mother.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, yeah. You know what? I think you've convinced me that that is more intentional. I think that was.
Speaker 2:I mean intentional, in the same way that the choice to have buttercup, not bash the ROUS over the head, was intentional, like they weren't going like oh yeah, we're homophobic, it was more just like Reflecting the culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but to your point though, reflecting the culture. In these two villains, who aren't even villainous, they're the clowns behind the muscle, who's the one that's actually scary, which is the wolf, who is not coded as homosexual at all? Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good point. Thank you for drawing that out more. We've been talking for a long minute now, and so I don't want to over stay or welcome here our listeners hanging out with us for more than an hour. So I will try to look back and synthesize, although this one's like kind of close, and so you're going to have to fill in for me. So, looking back at this film that has the potential to be well, because it is a story that has the potential to be really anti-authoritarian but manages to not be, despite the core plot.
Speaker 2:I do want to say about that, though is that the myth of Robin Hood? We talk about it as steal from the rich to give to the poor, but is that really the lesson that was intended by this Robert of Locksley tale that has been passed down? Because he was a member of the aristocracy, he was a close confidant of King Richard. It was a story of like don't let pretenders come to the throne.
Speaker 1:Well, that's certainly the way that it's played in this movie. I think it's significant, though, to note that this movie made in 1973, where one of the character says the phrase death to tyrants more than one. We hear that multiple times death to tyrants and steal, and steal is not an anti-authoritarian message.
Speaker 2:Ultimately, I've been thinking about this a little bit since the financial app Robin Hood came out and that app is evil. They're awful. It's hurt a lot of people. I understand there was a young man who died by suicide because he misunderstood what a paper loss was and if he had just waited until Monday he would have been fine financially. Anyway, I think that it is telling that they used that name for their app and it got me thinking about what are my assumptions about this story that I've known my entire life and what was the story actually telling even at the beginning?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. No, I think your point is well made, that my point is not actually surprising, because the. Robin Hood myth is not in fact anti-authoritarian the way that it has been passed down. So, I think that's fair. That's fair so also from this movie in particular, the anthropomorphized animals create some really weird and interesting dynamics about power and about gender. I mean power with the lions and the wolf and the foxes and the rabbits, and the way that the different species interact makes for some interesting tension.
Speaker 2:All the most powerful characters are predators.
Speaker 1:That's accurate, yes, and Friar Talk is a badger. So, yes, indeed, it came from in some ways an understandable place where Richard was referred to as the lion-hearted.
Speaker 2:Lion-hearted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I imagine that that was sort of the spark of inspiration or a spark of inspiration for this. So that made for some interesting things around gender and power, and also there were some coded messages about romantic entanglements, where we have of all these animals but the only ones who are appropriately paired are from the same species, which I think is very interesting. In 1973, which I didn't even say when we were talking before, but I'm saying it now I think that's interesting to note in the early 70s that there was very much a you know with your own kind pairing happening.
Speaker 2:How long ago was Virginia versus Loving at that point? So it was relatively recent. So the Loving case was in 1967.
Speaker 1:So it was only six years and these movies took a long time to make. Yeah Right, so it started drawing 1970, maybe three years after Loving. So that's significant, and not just species but also class status, which is true to the original myth, to your point, that Robin Hood was Robert of Locksley and was highborn and maintained for this children's movie in the early 70s. So those are interesting pieces to note. What am I forgetting that we've discussed?
Speaker 2:Oh, doesn't pass the Bechdel test, barely passes the sexy lamp test. So the role of women in this film is quite reduced. Made Marion is just a love interest, and the performance of gender, yeah, the performance of gender which is magnified by the anthropomorphized animals.
Speaker 2:And then that also kind of leads into the it is coded but the queer coding of, because I can kind of remember thinking that a little bit, not as a little little kid, but by the time I had a sense that there were people who were gay. I had a kind of an inkling that Prince John and Sir Hiss were coded that way. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's an important thing to pay attention to. And then that also, like that gets into like when the rhino is flirting with little John. There is something there about how, like he's getting one over on him, not just in the fact that they're tricking them and stealing from them without noticing, but there's something like sexual about him getting one over on him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the fact that the movie makers make it very clear that the sexual interest is about the large bosom and the large tush. They make that very clear. And there's something.
Speaker 2:And so that means that the rhino is were invited to find the rhino ridiculous Because he is attracted to something that isn't real and is very obviously patently unreal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Though it's so.
Speaker 1:It fills Prince John as well.
Speaker 2:But one last piece of synthesis the brilliance and innovation of the animators in deciding how to create an entirely new world of animals that use their bodies in ways that make sense within the like physics of this world, even though they're not how real animals use their bodies, yeah, but also make sense as humans, yeah, as humans would use their bodies and so add, like the weaving of music and actually even the.
Speaker 1:This movie breaks the fourth wall at least once where the rooster narrator he has a name and I'm I don't have it on the tip of my tongue the rooster narrator when they are in the debtor's prison, like he looks out the window of the debtor's prison and says we're all here, yep, even me and he's like looking directly at us and he talks directly to the audience, which is really interesting in that, so that I think that that weaving of narrative style, you know, starting with the book having our narrator who is a folk singer, so that there is music which is really really good music, it is yeah, and there's pathos and there's humor and there are this brilliant visual gags there's a reason that I loved it, that I can, that I watched it last night and enjoyed myself, despite this voice in my head going like, oh, wait, a minute.
Speaker 1:I feel like I was less tight in our main and now I'm like giving you new information and what's supposed to be the synthesis. So I apologize for that, listeners, but I hope you'll come along with me anyway, and if you haven't seen the movie.
Speaker 2:It's worth watching, even just for the animation and the music for real.
Speaker 1:And there's, oh, the other. You talked about Odalali, so they say Odalali all the time. It's like a happy word. And then also the word that the sheriff says, that I sometimes say is crime and nitly. It's like a curse, right, crime and nitly, emily, that.
Speaker 2:I also want to say the the voice acting and I don't know if this was new, because Peter Ustinov does Prince John. He was a well-known actor and this was before well-known names did animation work and some of the like the voice of the sheriff and the voice of firetuck are ones that are recognized as doing other animation oh and and little John. But the voice acting is amazing, Really really good. It is really really fantastic. Even like whoever does his, even with the issue of it being a very queer coded voice, it is well acted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a scene where Robin is pretending to be one of the vultures who are the guards, and he says to the Robin pretending to be Nazi says to the sheriff Shetly labo. And that voice just like that. Sometimes, like when I'm like if I'm trying to get my daughter to go to sleep, that voice will come on my head and be like shetly labo. I'm telling you it's matzah ball soup man.
Speaker 2:It's matzah ball soup.
Speaker 1:So all right, well, that was fun. I'm going along with me on that one.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 1:we going to talk about next time.
Speaker 2:So next time the truth is out there, because I am going to be sharing my deep thoughts about the X files.
Speaker 1:Well, I know your hats. Yeah, that was one. That was all you.
Speaker 2:I didn't follow you, it's going to be a lot of David DeCovne appreciation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I know, I know, all right. Well, I'll see you then. See you then. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember up, culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?