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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 The Last Unicorn
Magic! Do as you will!
Tracie brings her deep thoughts about the 1982 animated film The Last Unicorn, a lesser-known but beloved part of the traumatizing 80s movie canon. With gorgeous animation–the studio went on to become Studio Ghibli–this film tells an odd story about how mortality allows us to feel regret and reminds us there are no happy endings because there are no endings. Tracie and Emily’s conversation ranges from sublime (the gendered nature of power) to the ridiculous (I’m engaged to a Douglas fir!) and enjoys many pit stops through unicorn lore along the way.
Don’t be a Schmendrick! Put on your headphones and listen to this episode.
Mentioned in this episode:
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/
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I'm 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'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1982 animated film the Last Unicorn with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, 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 it'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. Okay, um, so we talked offline, so I know that this is not one of yours, this is not one that you are aware of being part of the furniture of your mind. And what's there? What's in your mind, if anything, about the Last Unicorn? What you got?
Speaker 2:So I've heard people talking about the Last Unicorn. I have no memory of seeing it ever. I have no memory of seeing it ever. I consider it like, if you think of like the 80s kids starter pack being like Neverending Story and Princess Bride and Ghostbusters, like that's the starter pack. I feel like the Last Unicorn is part of the expansion pack that I just didn't get. So, um, but based on what you were telling me, I think it is very possible that I did see it and just wipe memory wiped it because I am into unicorns in a way that is a little disturbing to my spouse. I have like kind of looked into both the book that the film is based on, in the film just in terms of like I've looked it up. I've looked at screenshots of, like you know, the the imagery, because it looks like it's beautiful animation yeah, it is it definitely is and I know that it is.
Speaker 2:You know, for those who did get the 80s kid expansion pack, I know that it's a similar kind of heartbreak to uh, um, artax dying in the never-ending story. Um, maybe not quite that that kind of uh like huge tragedy, but it was definitely like let's give children a movie that will scar them. Yeah, for sure, that is true, that is true. Um, so I know that is something about the film. And then I happen to know that and it's it's from sometime in the last 10 years when I looked it up that there's a magician named Schmendrick and I thought that was amusing. Yeah, and that is about the extent of my knowledge, cool. So tell me, tell me about why are we talking about this today and what's your experience with the film?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when we make, when we made our list which continues to expand, by the way, listeners so just so you know, in case you have suggestions but when we made our list, like one of the things I was thinking about was really trying to remember and investigate some of the films that are so deep that I maybe, as I say, don't acknowledge or don't recognize that they're part of the furniture of my mind, which doesn't mean they're not there. So that was part of like why it got put on the list and I think I was just looking for I mean, we haven't been picking them in any order, in any kind of actual strategic order, just like what we feel like.
Speaker 2:No strategery from us?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no strategery in terms of the order. So, yeah, I was just, I think I just was ready to like, dig into this one. So my recollection of it before really watching it for us was really, as I mentioned in the teaser for our last episode, like I, we watched it, I'm sure you did, but you would have been quite young, uh, at dad's house, so like maybe you were five, you know. Um, so I mean, it came out when you were three and we did not see it in the theater. We watched it like I want to say blockbuster rental vhs, like at dad's house, so maybe you were five and I was eight, somewhere in that range. You know, maybe we were six and nine, but it was somewhere in that range and I don't think we watched. It was. I'm certain we did not watch it over and over again. It was not one of those, because it was not one of those, like I mean, maybe if we were older kids, but it was.
Speaker 1:This film is like, as one commentator contemporary commentator that I read said, like at that point in the 80s, like the whatever the board is that puts the ratings on it, it's almost like they weren't actually watching animated films. They were just like oh, it's drawn, gee, because this one it's. It has some very adult themes. So so, anyway, what I discovered, and it's really interesting to me put it as like a Gen X expansion pack, I think, for a lot of Gen Xers who are older than us, we're young Gen X, both of us. You younger, obviously, but we're like like you're actually maybe I think some would call you Xennial born in 79.
Speaker 1:And I'm certainly like a young Gen Xer in 76. So I think Gen Xers who are a little older than we are like folks who were born in 70, for instance, or 72, who would have been like 10 or 12 when this came out. I have a feeling it was part of their starter pack, right, and it was one of the ones that was like like a stuff of nightmares in some ways, but like subtle, not nightmares that, like, like Freddy Krueger, was a stuff of my nightmares, even though I never actually saw one of the films, not like that, but in a deeper philosophical kind of a way. Anyway. So we'll get into it. But I want to talk about I want to talk about in this film, sort of unicorns actually as a cultural phenomenon, and how this film does and doesn't fit into that, what we've seen of it in the like since then. I want to talk about gender a bit. I want to talk about mortality actually believe it or not and love and sexuality and magic and that's a lot of things. So you'll have to help me keep coming back to my list because that's a lot of things and some of them will get smushed together. Sexuality and love obviously kind of go together.
Speaker 1:Okay, so those are some of the themes that I want to talk about, as you say, based on the book by the same name by Peter S Beagle, and it had an all-star cast. Mia Farrow played the unicorn, jeff Bridges was the love interest, christopher Lee was the villain of sorts, alan Arkin was Schmendrick, angela Lansbury was Mommy Fortuna, also a form of a villain. We had Robert Klein as a butterfly. Um, and then there were folks whose names I don't recognize but I think were known at the time. So, um, keenan winn, paul freeze, tammy grimes, renee aubergeon oh, you know who that is. Aubergine, noir Aubergine.
Speaker 2:Noir, he played Odo on you'd know On. Deep.
Speaker 1:Space Nine yeah.
Speaker 2:Deep Space Nine, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there was this all-star voice cast. It was the directors were, and this was before all-star voice cast was a thing. Yeah, and to be fair, I don't know that all of these stars were stars yet I think, like lansbury and pharaoh certainly were, was bridges in 82. I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think klein was, though so, and that would have been relatively early in his career I think so too.
Speaker 1:I think so, I think so. So it was directed by jules beth, jules base and arthur rankin jr and it was animated by an animation studio which would go on to become studio ghibli that's not what it was called at the time but some of the same animators. So it was sort of that Japanese animation style, but then this Western storytelling and Western storytellers. So I'll give a synopsis of the plot and then there's a lot to unpack and I don't think we're going to be able to get to all of it, but's I'll see what I can do. So we open the. The title sequence is gorgeous that tries to incorporate sort of medieval like tapestry type image, imagery of unicorns, with the animation of the of the film, which is really gorgeous and um. And then so we open these two hunters and they're like we're not going to catch anything. And the older hunter it's like an older guy and a younger guy, they're both on on horses and the older guy is like, yeah, we're not going to catch anything here, cause this is the home of the last unicorn and she protects this, this space. So it's always spring here, it's always beautiful, and the animal will never see the animals and they here. It's always beautiful and the animal will never see the animals. And they say she's the last one, none of the other ones around. They ride off with this sort of direct address from the older hunter to the unicorn you stay put, you stay where you are, where it's safe, and you protect your friends and whatever they go off. And then we see the unicorn for the first time, voiced by mia farrow, and she's like what are they talking about? Unicorns are immortal. We don't fade, we can be killed, but we certainly don't just vanish. How could I possibly be the last one? And she's like a little upset by what she's heard.
Speaker 1:Enter Robert Klein as this butterfly who I don't know how to articulate this scene. It is so bizarre's talk. He talks to her um, and he keeps changing his hat and he talks in these different sort of voices and he's speaking in snippets of poetry and I think advertisements, like I recognize a line of shakespeare and I think I recognize a line of like, just like tv show commercial. All mixed up together it doesn't mean anything. And the unicorn's getting more and more frustrated. She's asking the butterfly have you seen others like me? She's trying to get from the butterfly because presumably he has come from another place and she's never left her forest, whether or not he's seen other people. And she keeps saying say my name, but her name is Unicorn, and I think that's significant. We'll come back to it.
Speaker 1:Finally, after this very frustrating kind of riddle-y kind of a thing, the butterfly shares that indeed all the other unicorns have been chased by the red bull and they are gone. And so our unicorn, mia Farrow, decides that she must go try and find them and figure out what has happened. So she says goodbye to all of her animal friends and there's this sort of tableau with them all kind of lined up like in twos and threes, and I'm just left thinking like like, are they gonna die now? Or like, are hunters gonna get them? Like, are they gonna be safe while she's away? But whatever, we don't address that, that's just me Anyway. So she leaves and almost immediately she's sleeping by the side of the road and she's come upon by these two men who don't recognize her. They don't see the horn, all they see is a white horse. They say she's a mare. She gets very insulted that they would say that and she sort of says something like I guess men see what they want to see. So that was sort of our introduction, that not all humans can see her.
Speaker 1:She falls asleep, she escapes from these guys, or she escapes from it's one guy. She escapes from him. He tries to catch her with a belt or something he can't see the horn and so she uses it to stop him. She runs away. She's sleeping by the side of the road and she has come upon by mommy Fortuna, voiced by Angela Lansbury and Schmendrick, who travels with mommy Fortuna. And then they have there's like a minion. Fortuna has a minion who's just like the muscle. So Fortuna can see the horn. She sees the unicorn for what she is. She asks Schmendrick if he can see her. He can, but he tells her that he cannot and the minion can't.
Speaker 1:She captures the unicorn to put the unicorn into her traveling show. So she has like a traveling side show. It's like Mommy Fortuna's Wonders or something like that. So she's got these like circus, train, car kind of thing, like that's what it looks like to me with like bars but on like cages on wheels, and Mommy Fortuna puts an illusion, an illusory horn which is just straight and slightly curved in front of the braided like the twisted horn.
Speaker 1:That is what we and what we expect from a unicorn like the twisted horn. That is what we expect from a unicorn. So we can see the unicorn has two horns because the humans can't see her actual horn. So Fortuna puts this illusion on her so that the humans who pay money to come in to see the sideshow see a unicorn. So unicorn's talking to Schmendrick and looks around and realizes all of these animals are illusions. So there's a manticore which is actually just an old toothless lion and there's another that I can't remember what the illusion is. But the actual animal is just an old chimpanzee with a broken foot and like a tired old snake. Who's who is a loose is glamored to look like a dragon of sorts. But the Harpy the Harpy's real. She looks like a giant vulture with three breasts.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, I remember that god, I remember that.
Speaker 1:So schmendrick agrees to help the unicorn escape. He's not a very good magician, so when he tries to help why he's called schmendrick? I mean it's his name, but yeah, yeah, so when he tries to like open the cage, he shrinks it and she's like stop. Anyway. He says you deserve a first-rate magician, but you'll have to settle for a second rate pick, lock, lock, pick, lock, pick. A second rate lock, pick, something along those lines. He's stolen the keys from the minion, opens the lock on the door, lets the unicorn out. She then with her horn kind of dissolves the locks on all of the other cages not the harpy yet and and schmendrick says don't, she'll kill you.
Speaker 1:But the unicorn's like no, I have to. We, we are two sides of the same coin. Right, like where I am beauty and light and life, she is death and decay and darkness. But we are two sides of the same coin. I have to release her. And the harpy actually speaks to her and calls her sister. She releases the harpy, the harpy goes for her, but she kind of like fights back. So the harpy, um, instead goes after mommy fortuna and the minion and kills them both. Schmendrick is like run, you gotta run and the unicorn's like no, you never run from an immortal being, because it only makes them chase you, or something along those lines so they calmly walk away from the harpy.
Speaker 1:Who's tearing mommy fortuna apart? Though the old witch, like, is almost proud, like she talks about like, because at one point the unicorn says the harpy will kill you. She says it to the witch and the witch is like, yeah, but I will have held her and she'll always remember me, just as you will. You will always remember me as the human who held you. So there's like a legacy almost in this, even though Fortuna knows clearly that it will lead to her death and it does. And she sort of embraces that and almost seems proud as she's being attacked. Okay, so Schmendrick and the unicorn are leaving the site of the release of the creatures and the death of mommy Fortuna and and her minion, and Schmendrick is like, really upset, he's like beside himself because the you know Fortuna is dead and it just he's just grossed out and freaked out and the unicorn's not. She's completely nonplussed. She's like she chose her fate, she knew what was going to happen. I don't have any regret. And then Schmendrick says I want to come with you to help you find the other unicorns. And she's like I wish you'd chosen something else as your payment for freeing me and like, ouch, but okay. So now they're traveling together on the road. They know they need horses, like see him and just pull him right out of the tree and carry him with them into their camp. This is um, a guy called. This is keenan win is the actor. He's captain cully, who is a robin hood type, but not robin hood, but it's this band of outlaws they're eating like crappy stew. In fact, somebody complains that there's not. They can't keep this new person, this new schmendrick, than the magician who they've captured because they can't afford to feed him. And um, captain cully's like no, he's great and you know, whatever, he's gonna stay.
Speaker 1:And then schmendrick does magic, and this is significant in my mind. At other moments when he does magic that fails, he says these like foreign sounding words, like latin or something. In this moment he says magic, do what you will, magic, do what you. And there's all this wind and whatever. And then these sort of apparitions of Robin Hood and his merry men kind of walk through the camp like straight through the fire and the Captain Cully's merry men and women are like oh, it's Robin Hood, it's Robin Hood, take us with you.
Speaker 1:And they follow this ghostly apparition and Cully gets really pissed and actually sort of captures Schmendrick for this magic and lashes him to a tree, facing the tree, arms around it, and is like I'll sell you in the morning or something along those lines. I don't remember exactly what the threat is, but whatever it is he's going to do, he's going to do it in the morning, most likely kill you in the morning, exactly. So, like Cully and like one guy who didn't run off after the apparition, they lash him to this tree. So Schmendrick says a spell again with like some kind of you know-english sounding words and the tree comes alive and is this giant sort of think marjorie, the trash heap from the fraggles like sort of vaguely new york jewish sounding, with gigantic bosom, because it's like the tree had like kind of like a mound in the front. So his face is shoved between these two bosoms that are like the size of those those stability balls that you use at the gym.
Speaker 1:Okay, and she's in love with him and she says there's no love like a tree's love or something like that. And he says, oh no, I'm engaged to a Douglas fir and it is so flipping weird, like I'm watching this thing going. What is happening right now. He's remember he's like tied to this thing, this woman with his arms tied around her, with his face in between her two ginormous breasts.
Speaker 2:Are they gravity-defying bosoms?
Speaker 1:I think they are, because they're that big blow and with her magic like turns the tree back into a tree and really, like the just touches the ropes with her horn and they, they drop away, and so now they're off on their way again, except they run as they're walking, the two of them, the unicorn and schmendrick. They're walking, they run, they, they come across molly grew, who was the cook back at captain cully's camp, and she was. She was the one who was like slit his wizard, like get rid of this dude right. And captain cully said splendid woman, that's just her way. And so she and she's like where are you going? Like no, and then she catches sight of the unicorn and she can see the unicorn and she's how dare you, how dare you come to me now when I'm like this? She's been dreaming about meeting a unicorn since she was a little girl. And how dare the unicorn come to her now when she's like this, putting a pin in that?
Speaker 2:Like this meeting. Like aged Old Okay.
Speaker 1:But she's, I mean, she's, mean, she's drawn like. I mean, how can you tell from an animated character? But we saw mummy fortuna, who was clearly a crone. She's not drawn like that okay, it's more like, like, based on how she fits with other characters, maybe 40, okay, okay, like, her hair is still all, like, is not gray, and we do see gray-haired characters. So, anyway, now the three of them have decided to go on, because she also knows the story of the red bull.
Speaker 1:So the three of them are going to go on and find the unicorns. So they travel for a little while. They end up near the castle of king hagrid, hagggard, haggard, king Haggard, and the red bull comes out and it's going to get her. And so Schmendrick says he needs to save her. So he, he does another like magic, do as you will, kind of a spell, and it transforms her into a human and the point was to make her not a unicorn, because the bull is after unicorn. So she's not a unicorn, the bull will leave her alone. That works.
Speaker 1:But the immediate response from both Molly and the unicorn herself is what have you done? Like you, idiot. This is terrible. The unicorn herself is like I can feel this body dying around me. This is not who I am. This is not right. And the they want him to change her back and he's like I. I mean, I, I can't like. I didn't exactly like the magic did what it did. I didn't intend to turn her into a human. The magic chose the form.
Speaker 1:So they keep going. The unicorn is now this live young woman like, still kind of all white. Um, she's put schmendrick's overcoat on because she was naked, uh, when she transforms. So they approach the keep, they meet two sentries who, like, bring them in. They lie about who they are. Now the unicorn is going by the name Lady Althea Althea, sorry, lady Amalthea, amalthea, and Schmendrick came up with that name and claims that she is his niece. Schmendrick came up with that name and claims that she is his niece. The king agrees to take Schmendrick on as his sort of court magician and therefore jester. He's replacing a magician who actually was a very good magician, who Schmendrick knew, I guess, from his training. The king was one of the two sentries. It's only him and his adoptive son, prince Lear L-I-R, who are the only ones in the castle, because he doesn't use these words. But King Haggard is aptly named. He's depressed, nothing brings him joy, and so he agrees to let these three stay, for the possibility that maybe they will be able to bring joy to him. So, and they're like living there.
Speaker 1:Prince Lear, voiced by Jeff Bridges, is immediately completely smitten with Amalfia because she's hot, I guess. I mean, she barely speaks. So we see him like slay a dragon and like bring its head back as like a prize for her. And she's just like. And so we see him like, complaining to Molly, like don't know what to do. I've done all the heroic things and she, just she won't even look at me. And molly's like yeah, maybe try something else, like you ever heard of poetry. So he tries to write her a poem.
Speaker 1:They do seem to fall in love, though I have to take the filmmaker's word for it. But meanwhile amalthea is forgetting who she is. She is, she's losing touch with her unicorn nature, and that I don't need to take their word for it. Like they show, they do show me that she's having dreams about what we've seen earlier and wakes up and thinks they're just dreams, to the point that king haggard um confronts her on this like balcony and it's like I know who you are, I know what you are. I knew instantly. But she's so dissociated from that she is like I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not an immortal creature, I'm a human like, and she means it. And so schmendrick and molly know they need to hurry up and find this bowl so that they can turn her back, because she can't. If she doesn't turn back soon, she's gonna be stuck like this and she will die. So you know molly's working in the kitchen in this castle that's, uh, abandoned. She's cooking for everyone.
Speaker 2:Of course she is, and uh, well, to be fair, that is her job yeah, I guess I mean because of course it is yeah.
Speaker 1:so she meets this cat who wears an eye patch and has one peg leg and talks like a pirate. Of course he does, because why wouldn't he? Yeah and um, he tells her how to find the red bull because it's become urgent, because amalthea is forgetting who she is, and at one point she starts to cry and schmendrick's like no, don't cry, because if you can cry, then you've lost what it is that makes you a unicorn or something along those lines. Anyway, we are to understand that it has become urgent, that she needs to stop being human, if she's ever going to stop being human. So enter cat plot device Clot device Deus ex machina.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, cat ex machina.
Speaker 2:Cat ex machina, I guess. Deus ex cat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, machina, anyway, anyway, Enter talking cat with an eyepatch who talks in riddles. She's like why can't you just tell me, why you got to tell me in riddles?
Speaker 1:and he's like yeah, because I'm a cat that fits actually as a lifelong cat owner so they have to go in the dungeon and there's like a riddle that turns out to mean a clock is the entrance into the bread bowls realm, because it does seem to be so like a pocket dimension or something, I don't know anyway. So they go into the, um, like depths, the bowels of the castle, uh, and they meet a skeleton who they trick into telling them more about the answer to the riddle by giving him an empty bottle that they tell him is wine, because he misses wine. So he's like on like an empty bottle. It is weird, it is really weird. Then they go through somehow, through the clock, kind of like platform nine and three quarters. They just sort of walk through it and end up on the other side of this weird kind of foggy greenish realm where the Red Bull is meant to live. Meanwhile Haggard knows they're doing this. He comes and destroys the clock. So they're stuck. Then they see the Red Bull. Oh, by the way, prince Learar is there. I don't know how I got there, but he's there.
Speaker 1:So, um, they see the bull, they tell lear what's going on. Amalfi is like I don't want to go back, I want to stay with you. Lear's like have to. And there's this whole back and forth where Lear says more than once I love whom I love, I love whom I love, he's going to love her even though she's a unicorn. Schmendrick is like no, you got to go back. He turns her back into a unicorn because the bull is no longer fooled and they figure she has a better chance if she's a unicorn. So she gets turned back into a unicorn and initially she's just um, very hesitant and reticent and he's like the bull is kind of like pushing her toward the sea which, oh, I totally forgot.
Speaker 1:Haggard has had the bull force all of the unicorns into the sea. They don't die, they don't drown, but they're like stuck there. And then when the waves come in, you can sort of see their little like, like what's the front of a horse's snout? Is it a snout? Whatever? You can see the front of their, their faces and their horns sticking up out of the white surf.
Speaker 1:That's what I remember from childhood, that it being kind of terrifying. So they're all trapped in the sea and the bull starts to get our unicorn into the sea as well. And then Lear stands between the bull and the unicorn and he kills him, bull kills him, and then she's like, oh hell, no. And she actually fights back and like gets the jump on the bull and forces him into the sea, freeing all of her siblings who come out in this like giant. You see it like like they draw it from above so they're like. They're just like streaming in like a stampede and the stampede like kind of shakes the castle from its foundations and it falls uh like sending haggard on a fall to his death from the ramparts, but he's kind of like laughing along the way so kind of like mommy fortuna's.
Speaker 1:Kind of so. Then the unicorn comes Lear is lying there face down on the sand, he's dead. So she touches her horn to him and like revives him. And then they like have a moment where, like I gotta go Love you Bye, I gotta go Love you Bye. And it closes with her us learning, I think in her voice although it's been a couple of days since I saw it so I may be wrong about this but I think in the unicorn's voice hearing that she is unlike any other unicorn, because she can now feel regret, and she does, and they so the unicorns all go, like they just leave.
Speaker 1:And then we see Schmendrick and Molly are going to continue to travel together and it's like there's this one like two second, like two frames of the animation where they're kind of close and you're like wait, were they supposed to be a love match? And then they go off. I don't know if that was meant to be, but they certainly are going to stay together as companions and who knows what Lear's going to do. And then that's the end. And interestingly, earlier in the film Schmendrick had said there's no such thing as a happy ending, because things don't end. So he doesn't say that now, but we had heard that earlier and now we sort of get that. They show us that with this ending to this film. So that's the not very concise synopsis of what happens in the film.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to start with I'm actually going to start with sort of expectations and I think because I think that's how you and I encountered this when we were children there was an expectation that this animated movie about unicorns was going to be sweet and light. There was an expectation. Our dad rented this movie, thinking he was getting my Little Pony, and he actually got like Memento Mori, like Remember your Death? Yeah, yeah, my Little Pony. And he actually got like memento mori, like remember your death? Yeah, yeah. And which is part of why it like stayed in my brain was because of the subversion of expectations and from what I can gather, I had a hard time finding contemporaneous reviews. But from what I can gather, that actually is the biggest critique of this thing that made people dissatisfied with it at the time.
Speaker 1:It is now kind of like a cult classic and like there's a there's a whole group like a big swath of Gen X who adore this film and I think people who are students and fans of Japanese animation also hold this one in high regard.
Speaker 1:I mean, there are pieces of it that are gentle and there are pieces like the three-breasted harpy tearing mommy Fortuna to pieces that are not at all gentle. So I want to start there because I think, especially remembering its context in 1982, in some ways the context makes it less surprising because we didn't have, I mean, we had my Little Ponies in the early 80s like as the toy right but the kind of the mechanism that is the unicorn industry, that it's meant to be, like rainbows and peace and light and appeal to eight-year-old girls, I'm not sure that it was fully. It wasn't the size that it is now in 1982. So in some ways it was less of a expectation subversion, but in many ways it was more. I read one commentator who pointed out that actually prior to this, like when Peter Beagle wrote this in the late 60s, unicorns when they showed up, like in the medieval literature or whatever, they were often described as male and so even the fact that she is female was a bit of a subversion when Beagle wrote the novel.
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I appreciate about the kind of resurgence of unicorns in the past 15 years I think it's been is the subversion of the unicorn imagery in the unicorn industrial complex. An industrial complex, so I have a ridiculous t-shirt for and I can't remember the name of the beer, but it's a. It's a. It's a cat holding a very specific firearm, like some, some kind of Eagle, something I don't even know. I only know that because I was on a road trip and I was wearing the t-shirt and at a gas station and a guy's like hey, do you know what kind of gun that is'm like? I really don't. I'm here, it's. It's a cat riding a unicorn through space with a gun. I'm here for the cat, dude, I'm here for the cat and the unicorn.
Speaker 2:I have this um mug of a uh skull riding unicorn with a uh, with a lightning bolt and a rainbow behind it, and that actually it kind of goes along with the um we were talking about with the adams family. My, my style is kind of whimsical, with an edge uh-huh, um, and so pushing back against this idea of like sweetness and light impurities and like that's even become part of our lexicon, as we'll talk about. You know, like it's all rainbows and unicorns out there. Maybe you know that kind of thing, yeah, um, and I'm curious as to, like, when that kind of became what it is, when, like, we started, and I I suspect that this film has something to do with the rise of, like, ironic unicorns, because the Gen X folks who are watching it as 12 year olds, you know, become the designers who are making skeletons riding unicorns and death riding a unicorn and things like that.
Speaker 2:but it's this really interesting like cultural phenomenon, because it's you know, you've got the pure white. It's like a metaphor for virginity and purity, which is like this really nasty trope that we keep putting on women over and over and over again and girls and girls like unicorns. You know, if a boy likes unicorns, that's going to be considered weird, right, and so we have all of that. And so we've got Peter Beagle kind of subverting that somewhat with this story where the last unicorn is female instead of what is prior that considered generally a male, which kind of makes sense. Unicorn Phallic yeah, phallic much. But at the same time there is still a sense of. You know, we were talking a little bit offline about how the unicorn Amalthea is very strong but she has to be pushed by schmendrick and leer to save her siblings, we'll get there.
Speaker 1:We'll get there at the end, after she's been human. She needs that. Yeah, yeah, um, I think there's something, though I want to stay with this thing like there was. There's this part of the unicorn lore, as you name is that, like, only virginal women and girls can see them, right, and it's interesting to me that Beagle who wrote the screenplay, by the way sort of went with a piece of the lore, which is that not all humans can see that she is a unicorn. But that wasn't the marker. She is a unicorn but that wasn't the marker.
Speaker 1:It wasn't female virginity that allowed. That allows humans to see her for what she is. Right, and I'm I'm thinking right now like what is it that allows them to see her? And I think part of it seems to be their desire to do so. I mean even the way she says men see what they want to see, right, and when Molly sees her and sees instantly what she is, how dare you show up now when I've been wanting to see you for so long? Right, and Mommy Fortuna wants to see, and Schmendrick wants to be able to see you for so long, right, and mommy fortuna wants to see and schmendrick wants to be able to see, and haggard, haggard I want to make him haggard haggard wants to be able to see, and those are the humans who can see her for what she is. So there's, there's, it's an interesting twist there that Beagle has given us, and I don't want to push on something that isn't there, but I find there's something interesting there, in desire from the trope that was about.
Speaker 2:Sexual purity.
Speaker 1:Yes, which implies either denied desire or lack of desire oh, oh, that's interesting, yeah so that I don't know what to do with that, and I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't come into the conversation with it, it just came up while you were talking, but that's something that I think is is really, really interesting, and and because she does spend time in this other form, which haggard sees through. There's also, I think, something in there about really being seen and and and like the desires to be seen, like I read one commentator who, like, adores this film. I didn't get the details of their biography. They named themselves to be queer and having been a queer kid and now a healthcare production practitioner who works with LGBTQ kids, and how this movie sort of gave them model for being seen, and so one thinks about sort of trans and queer kids in general. Yeah, well, looking to be seen as they are who they truly are inside of this body. That doesn't match who they know they themselves to be, like. I feel like there's some really interesting allegories that I I imagine Peter Beagle did on purpose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I'm also just thinking the fact that Amalthea, like, is immediately horrified that she has been made human, but then starts forgetting who she truly is. Yeah, like the sense of being in the closet and Kind of stealing one's truth yeah even from oneself yeah, and to to the point where, like you know, okay, because it's what's expected you get comfortable there yeah um, yeah, one could get comfortable there.
Speaker 2:I don't want to, I don't put it that way. But uh, you know, and and how the the pain of that, and even the pain of no choice, is without consequences. And so living your true self does mean having to leave some things behind, like Prince Lear. Yep, and that is ultimately what must be done, because not living your truth is not living. It must be done because not living your truth is not living. But you know the, the recognition that there are things that are are going to have to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah is really interesting. Yeah, I, I am. I do want to think, because you said the the novel was written in the late 60s.
Speaker 1:I believe it's 1968.
Speaker 2:Let me confirm that is that the summer of Love?
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's when it was published, okay.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking, you know, say what you will about boomers In the 60s. They were pushing back True.
Speaker 1:Yes, originally published in 1968.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, so they were pushing back against the idea that you know, sex is bad and so it's interesting because you can draw a line there from like okay, this dude is writing about something that's you know, presumably well known in unicorn lore. Like only little girls, only only virgins, can catch a unicorn and put turning that on its head, making it the unicorn female instead of male, and so you get from that to a queer gen x, or watching it as a child and seeing themselves in it, to becoming like a health care practitioner who helps kids find their truths and live their live their lives authentically. Like. It's just this very interesting thing, because each generation builds on the mores of the one before in a way that we hope progresses the world in a place where everyone feels loved and accepted. Yeah, but yeah, I find that really, really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, so but yeah, I find that really really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm gonna circle us back to something that you said about, about femininity, about strong women. So it's interesting that the the three named female characters that we get right. So we've got molly and mommy fortuna and the unicorn herself, amalthea, and they are in fact in terms of age, they fall into the archetypes. Molly's the mother, we. She doesn't literally have kids, but she falls into that sort of age range archetype and she's taking, she's certainly taking care of people both at the camp and in the castle, with the cooking and cleaning and things.
Speaker 1:Mommy Fortune is absolutely a crone depicted that way and that is sort of how she, and she's also a witch, but she is a crone. And then Amalthea is the maiden. You were sort of pointing to the fact that. So at the very end, after she's been turned back into a unicorn, which she resisted, she didn't want to be a unicorn again, she wanted to stay human.
Speaker 1:It was lear and and and schmendrick who kind of pushed that on her and then, once she is a unicorn, she needs to be nudged into actually kind of fighting back against the bull. She was just kind of gonna accept her fate. When she sees lear injured, killed, that's when she actually fights back. So it's it's based on what happens to him, not what's happening to her, nor what has happened to her unicorn siblings. So you know, as you said, like she's strong and does what needs to be done, but she needs this male push in order for that to happen. Mommy Fortuna does not. Everything she does is her own thing and we judge her for it. And also, like what she says isn't wrong about how she will be remembered Now. Is that the legacy that we want? Like I don't think we're meant to like treat her as a role model by any means, but neither is what she says false if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:That reminds me of um. There's a quote and I wish I could remember who said it. Sounds like something may west would say but if, if, if can't be a role model, you might as well be a cautionary tale. And it's funnier the way I've read it, like an absolute fucking disaster of a cautionary tale, something like that. And there is something to that where it's just like you know what. Yeah, I'd kind of rather like I'm down with horrible, brutal death, knowing that I have made a mark.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's a shitty mark that she makes.
Speaker 2:But yeah, oh, yeah, yeah but.
Speaker 1:I can see, especially since, actually, now that we're talking about this, both of the two truly magical creatures that she captured were female.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The harpy and the unicorn were both female.
Speaker 2:What you're telling me about mommy fortuna reminds me of esther finch from dead boy, totally, totally, totally. As I was watching dead boy detectives I was like, all right, so she's awful, but I love her oh my god and when I enter into my super villain phase, I have blueprint now because I want to be like she's amazing, except not at all.
Speaker 1:I feel like I am entering my witchy era and like that's the witch I want to be, except minus the murder stuff. Yeah, yeah. But I'm now that I'm thinking mommy fortuna, who is absolutely the crone. Her name is mommy. Yeah, she is not the mother archetype, which actually I think it's clear to me. Beagle chose the names very intentionally, so I think maybe some of that subversion is on purpose. Right, molly is the is the mother figure in the archetype, not particularly Molly grew.
Speaker 2:Yeah and grew. I mean like gruesome, I mean I'm thinking like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean mean everybody is. There is no um sort of nurturing maternal mother here, but there's, I don't know, there's something really there's something ripe there that I don't think I have captured.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's also the sense that, like the irony of her name being mommy fortuna, because she is so she is the opposite of motherly, and that is the worst thing we can think about a woman is a mother who is not motherly it's interesting too that it's mommy like I kept wanting to make it mama in my memory, but it's not.
Speaker 1:It's mommy, which is very yeah. Yes, it's interesting too that it's mommy Like I kept wanting to make it mama in my memory, but it's not. It's mommy, which is very yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's, and that's. That's the kind of mother that we are most judgmental towards for not being motherly enough. You know, a mommy to a, to a small child, cause that's when you're mommy. Yep, yep, it's, it's, it's fascinating, and I'm very, I'm, I'm very curious about beagle's background, like where this is coming from. Um, is he working through his own shit or is this?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, well, so especially interesting, like let's let's talk about sort of the fundamental themes, like the. If you know, if we're going to underline the thesis here, it's certainly, as I said, like dad thought that he was getting us my Little Pony, he was actually giving us, you know, remember your Death. It really is about the essential nature of mortality to morality of mortality to morality the unicorn isn't precisely amoral.
Speaker 1:She certainly has a moral code of her own in insofar as when she releases the harpy, it's like it's a, it's a, it's a, it feels. It feels an amoral obligation when she releases the harpy. But she says to schmendrick I am incapable of feeling regret, that's just not a thing I do, and she doesn't want to. Why would she? And so, at the very end, when we realized that she is a unicorn among unicorns if we take the word to mean something that is very rare, in that, because she spent time as a human, because she, she faced morality, she felt that body dying around her. Remember, now she was able to feel regret. So there's this implication that mortality is required and that regret or some sort of, you know, moral compass that would lead to regret is impossible without it. And we are left feeling that, though it is hard, though it is painful, unicorn slash, amalfi is richer for having it. We are certainly left with that implication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know that gets into. That's bringing two things up for me. One is this phenomenal book series by Neil Shusterman called Scythe. It's set in a kind of dystopian future after death has been solved. So basically, if you die, they say that you get dead-ish. As long as you get to a medical facility within a couple of hours, you can be revived. So the only way to really die is if you are killed and then not brought to medical facility within a few hours. And and so there are like the mafia would would like take someone out to the desert to kill them and then leave them there, so they'd stay dead. Um, and so once this has happened, these medical breakthroughs, they have a society has created what they call sides, which are people who cull individuals on a random basis, who are not to be revived to make sure that there is no overpopulation. And, um, Neil Shusterman is Jewish and I found this to be a very Jewish book, even though it's not overtly Jewish.
Speaker 2:Um, because it talks about what is art, what is morality, what is meaning when they're in a society without death, and is what the sides are doing. Is that beneficial, Is that a good thing? There's also questions of power, because some sides take their responsibility as this very important moral responsibility and some take it as an excuse to exert power. An excuse to exert power. So I'm thinking about that because there there's a point where the main character, um, goes with. She becomes an apprentice Scythe. She goes with her mentor to an art, to a museum, and they talk about how art was better before death was solved. Like, there there's they just you can't create art anymore when people don't die.
Speaker 2:And I, I, I really loved that point of view because, like, there is this sense of like, what we're expressing through art is something that disappears if we have all the time in the world. Um, and then the other thing it's bringing up is our first episode. We talked about Twilight and I think I mentioned in that episode that to me it was really clear that part of Twilight is Stephanie Meyer working through her extraordinarily acute fear of death. Because for me, the idea of becoming a vampire and staying the same forever, especially, sounds like hell, not even 20 years old yes, and I remember talking to a um colleague of mine because I was teaching at the time.
Speaker 2:I was talking to a colleague in the english department break room saying like I don't get where she's coming from, because death is a gift. And they're like what? And I'm like, well, you know, you become like haggard if you, if, if you never experienced death, there is, there is no meaning to anything because there is no end to it. And like, for one thing, like death is a gift because if we didn't die then we couldn't have new things be born, which is like part of the problem. Inside you get people who are like mother of 11, because not only can you live forever, you can stay young forever, basically, and so you can keep having babies and so, like you know, you get that overpopulation problem.
Speaker 2:But you also get the, the idea of like there is no sense of I can appreciate a two-year-old as an 80-year-old in a much different way than I appreciate a two-year-old as a 13-year-old. You know, like recognizing like that that the different places in life they're not there if there's no death. So I think that it's really interesting that this film. So I think that it's really interesting that this film is saying, basically, there is no sense of regret or morality. Morality is not quite, but there's no sense of regret if you're immortal. But that doesn't make immortality better, yeah.
Speaker 1:No, in fact. I mean, the movie certainly implies that it makes it worse. Yeah, that makes it worse that that her life is somehow incomplete yeah, well, and it's.
Speaker 2:It's the same way, um. So we recently had to put our dog down and I ran into a friend of mine, um, earlier today and I was talking to her a little bit about it and I was telling her there's a comedian I think it was Louis CK, but it was before we knew where. He said like you bring a puppy home to your family, and it's like here let's have our hearts broken in 10 years because that's what it is to own a pet, and you know as tough as it's been after having put Tevo down, like that's how you know it's meaningful. You know, if, if we got a dog that lived forever, you know that that wouldn't mean as much as being able to see him through his entire lifespan.
Speaker 1:I have no idea how long we've been talking because we've had some technical difficulties and so this is like our third recording.
Speaker 1:So actually synthesizing is going to be really hard.
Speaker 1:But there is one thing that I want to, um, I'm going to bring us around to, uh, I want to, I want to talk about magic actually, and sort of Beagle's understanding of magic in this film and like what he's giving us, because I think there's something to me it's very significant then, when schmidt, that when schmendrick says when he says a spell it doesn't go the way he wants it to, when he says, magic, do what you will, amazing things happen.
Speaker 1:It's magic do what you will. That brings forth the robin hood apparitions, which are amazing and delight and mesmerize Captain Cawley's crew. It's magic do what you will. That transforms the unicorn into Amalthea. And I think there's something resonant alive in that truth, with the sort of theme that we were talking about a little while ago, about being seen for who one truly is, even being seen at all, like that, the well being seen for who one truly is, whether it's seeing through the human costume that the unicorn is wearing or being able to see that she is in fact a unicorn and not just a beautiful white mare, and so there's something.
Speaker 1:There's something in this film in multiple ways about authenticity authenticity and I think that there's there's these resin, I'm I'm feeling like, uh, like constellations where they're sort of like bright lines between different distinct stars, right. So there's a distinct star about magic as a real force that is separate from humanity, which can be channeled but has its own kind of flow, and when Schmendrick tries to control the flow he messes it up, but when he lets the flow kind of happen, sort of through him, amazing things happen. There's also this thing around the immortal creature and sort of being seen authentically. So again, authenticity here, right, and there's something about desire in that regret and death and the and the inner and the relationship with death and what that relationship with death allows to be possible. And I don't know precisely what the constellation is that's been drawn with these bright lines, but I feel like they're there and it's kind of like pulsing.
Speaker 2:So where I often go and it's because of my own complicated relationship with creativity, but the, the magic, do what thou wilt, compared to trying to channel it in a specific way, feels like the creative process. You know where, if you are trying to create something very specific as a writer, painter, artist, musician, whatever, because that's the right way to do things, it's going to be awful, whereas if you just let the muse take you where it's going to take you, even if you're not supposed to write that way, even if it's not supposed to be like that, that's when you get wonderful, amazing things that you never would have expected.
Speaker 1:I think there's also something, though, if that's the way we're going to go, I like that very much. There is also something in kind of being able to recognize it when you see it, with the desire to see the unicorn, so that when, like, molly didn't get to see the unicorn because she wanted to see it, but when the unicorn was in front of her she was able to see it because she wanted to see it. Right, so she didn't make it happen, but like the practice of thinking about it allowed it to be recognized once it was there, which I, it does, feel related to me, to what you're saying about creativity?
Speaker 2:yeah, um, absolutely, again, like I, I'm gonna be looking up peter s beagle and find out like what else he's written, and because this is the only thing I've ever known his name in connection with. I'm just curious if this is, you know, if these are things that he wrestled with, or if he stumbled upon these themes that just resonate with people. Yeah, because they do.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking about your point about death as a gift and like essential, and remembering the relationship that was named explicitly between the harpy and the unicorn.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the harpy as an agent of death and darkness and decay, specifically and the unicorn and of life and sister yeah, yeah, yeah, like the, the harpy names herself as sister and the unicorn acknowledges it. We are two sides of the same coin. I am your sister, like they both see their relationship, which you know, I also, is very. It's explicit there in that metaphor that you were just giving about the importance of death and then it runs through. The unicorn is not creative. She everything stays exactly as it is. That is her role. She keeps things status quo in that forest cool, that is cool.
Speaker 2:I can certainly understand why this film would be kind of traumatizing for a little five-year-old Emily and eight-year-old Tracy to watch, but it's like Neverending Story. There is this meaty stuff there and I know that there's good stuff, good children's entertainment, out there that they're making these days, but you know that that kind of meaty stuff I I feel like is often missing from a lot of pop culture for kids. Yeah, yeah but this wasn't exactly for kids. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I have no idea how long we've been talking, but I'm I actually do think it's, think it feels like it's been a while Probably. So I'm going to suggest that maybe I'm going to try, but I'm going to need your help because this is our third take that I'm going to stitch together and post because I love you all listeners, I love you so much so Last Unicorn, 1982 film based on a 1968 novel. This film in some ways was very subversive and looking backward it doesn't seem subversive because now, like at every truck stop, we have like t-shirts with death riding unicorns holding very specific rifles. But in 1982, there were things about this that were deeply subversive, one being, according to one commentator that I read, the fact that the unicorn was female, the fact that we have a love story but that love is not a reason to give up one's dreams, feels extremely, totally like Baby, feels very subversive in 1982 to me.
Speaker 2:And we're talking about Baby from Dirty Dancing. Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:I think it was also. I mean, part of the things that people don't like about this movie. They actually say out loud there's no such thing as a happy ending, because things never end. This is not a happy ending. It's satisfying, it is satisfying, but it is not a happy ending.
Speaker 1:And so when our dad rented this animated film for his eight and five year old, thinking it was like gonna be a distraction for them for 90 minutes, and then they'd come away like yay, that ain't what happened, because that's not what happens in this film. So that also feels subversive. I mean, and we didn't even talk about the fact that they use this medium, this animated medium, to tell this kind of story. Right, to use the, a medium that is completely associated with children by the 80s. Um, that it was kind of a low point for disney, like it wasn't, like it was like a cheap way to tell stories to kids, and so the stories were mostly cheap and this was not a cheap story and it's not cheap animation. I don't and I don't mean the actual cost value of whatever they paid the japanese animators, but I mean the care that was taken with the craft.
Speaker 1:There are some really interesting and alive tensions going on in this film through allegory and metaphor, thinking about authenticity, thinking about the role that death and the potential for loss play in creativity, thinking about what it means to allow a creative process to work through someone rather than trying to bend it to one's will. There's interesting stuff going on in here about authenticity of a person being seen, which we see why it becomes beloved for members of queer community who, like the commentator that I read I'll link to it was a psychology today story. A queer health care practitioner today who in 1982 was a queer kid, seeing themselves in this movie being seen for who they truly were you know I I want to just add something to that, please.
Speaker 2:I was recently at a creative writing conference very small for sci-fi and fantasy writers and we ended up having a really interesting discussion about representation in fiction and it was a lot of people who were members of marginalized communities were talking about how, the importance of being seen, and there was one person who very well meaning but, um, as far as I could tell, white cishet dude was saying like you know, that's great being seen, but you know, like not everyone's going to be seen, not blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:And um, I ended up talking to him a little bit saying like it's not so much as the seen or not seen, it's seen as something you're not, so that when you are seen as what you are, that is like, oh, thank goodness, you know, like you got it right, and it's not so much the invisible than visible. It's more about, like you know, forced into a mask and being seen without it and if you're used to always being stuck in a mask, having someone say, no, no, I see what you actually are, I see who you actually are, I see who you actually are, and it just feels amazing. And people who are not members of marginalized communities don't have that experience as much, and in fact they kind of lose their minds when it does happen. Yeah, that's true, people from non-marginalized communities can really get their feelings hurt.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they feel misrepresented misrepresented, mistreated, yeah, yeah, misjudged yeah, absolutely yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Other things that I think beagle was doing, like especially with the names, sort of playing with our expectations again with the names, right. So schmendrick uh, yiddish word that means like a stupid guy, like a, like a, like a dumbass right, and he is, except when he's not right like he's. He's a terrible magician in whom the magic really flows. We've got mommy fortuna, who is very much a crone. We've got you know um, the unicorn, whose name is unicorn until she becomes human. One presumes all of the unicorn's name unicorn. So there's like there's really interesting things going on there, like having talked about sort of the authentic essence of a person or a being and then their names.
Speaker 1:There's some interesting things going on that that beagle has has done for us in playing with this and in terms of a feminist critique of this movie or feminist analysis of of this movie, like in some ways we get, we get the archetypes, we get the expected. We have a mother, maiden and a crone, and yet they're not. Each one of them is not precisely that. We have this core. I mean the titular character, who is female, which is against expectations and is extremely strong, extremely powerful, immortal and also needs a nudge from two separate male characters in order to do I'm putting quotes around the right thing, um, and not even the right thing, the thing that she set out to do. She left her forest to find and save her kin and yet, at the actual moment of reckoning, she needs shmendrick and lear to sort of give her a nudge to make it happen.
Speaker 1:Finally, I guess well, finally, probably not finally another thing, and then we can see if it's finally is um, I didn't. I don't know if I said this precisely, but I want to come back to King Haggard and his depression and the ways in which the fact that nothing brings him joy, like it, pushes him into hurting others. And in my read of this and I wouldn't be surprised if somebody disagreed with me and I would not die on this hill, but in my read of his characterization we hold him with balance, there is some sympathy for him and there's also like dude, not okay, like right, like both, like I I I came away with both so that his death did not it had no pathos to it.
Speaker 2:I wasn't sorry he was dead and at the same time, I did have some sympathy for him in this like just crushing depression and nihilism that he was laboring under so this is entirely based on what you've told me today, because I have really no memory of this movie, but it feels like Mommy Fortuna and King Haggard and they are the only two like villains really. I mean, the Red Bull is, but the Red Bull is being what the Red Bull is. Right, yeah, agreed, yes, absolutely Agreed yes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. They seem like two sides of the same coin, where Mommy Fortuna is grasping for something like to be remembered, Whereas Haggard is just trying to recapture or just is depressed and cannot like it's. He's not proactive exactly well not exactly.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you say that, because they do also both capture unicorns. Um, she does it so that the unicorn will remember she was the one who captured him and thereby she will live forever. He captures them because seeing them and knowing that they are his is the closest thing he has to joy. Yes, so there is. There is certainly. It's like two different takes on power.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah and what's interesting, and I feel like that's kind of gender takes on power and maybe I'm wrong on that, but I feel like I can sympathize with Mommy Fortuna's aim, like like that's not really what I want, but when I think about being forgotten, that is what makes me upset. It's like the idea of not leaving any kind of mark on the world and, you know, being forgotten. And so, even if it's for something awful, the idea of like okay, I made my mark, I'm okay with dying because I will be remembered, even if it's for something awful, I will be remembered, even if it's for something awful. Whereas the idea of having something, corralling something, owning something, is not in any way tempting to me. There's nothing about that that sounds good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think part of it is the relationship, like the relationship to the other right like fortuna, she recognizes it's an, it's an inappropriate and unbalanced relationship. But it is in the memory of the relationship that that, that the relationship itself. The power over is not the end goal. The power over is the means to yeah a remembered relationship and for haggard the power over is it? It's the goal.
Speaker 2:The power over. Yeah, wow, and that feels very gendered as well. I completely agree.
Speaker 1:I don't know that it is bioessentially gendered. It's certainly gendered in the way that our culture has kind of, yes, culturally gendered Completely agree. I completely agree.
Speaker 2:And some of that also has to do with the fact that you know we remember men. Maybe well-behaved women rarely make history, maybe maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is not my most effective synthesis. I apologize, folks, and we've been talking now for I know it's been a long minute, so I'm actually going to like wrap us up. Anyway, it's, it's weird. It is worth a rewatch if any of the, if any of what we've said has been like well, that's weird. I want to see that. Please watch it. It's. It's actually really really fascinating. It's streaming on Amazon prime, like on prime video, for if you already have prime video, you don't need to pay more for it. So it is out there. You can probably also find it on YouTube, maybe because it is as old as it is. So I definitely, I definitely recommend checking it out and and I know I miss stuff because this is so deep, so please share your deep thoughts about my deep thoughts, if you're a slightly older Gen X than we are, or someone who has looked at this more recently like what did we miss? What did we get wrong? What else is out there? What did we say that you hadn't thought of? We would really?
Speaker 2:love to hear it. Why did you love the movie or why did you remember it from childhood?
Speaker 1:Yeah, please let us know so you can reach us. You actually can send us a text message from wherever you're listening. If you're listening on one of the podcasting platforms, you can email us at guygirlsmedia, at gmailcom, or you can find us on Facebook at facebookcom. Slash D-T-A-S-S podcast. D-t-a-s-s podcast. Okay, next time, em, it's your turn to bring some deep thoughts. So what are we going to be talking about?
Speaker 2:So we're going to go from unicorns to dinosaurs. So I'm bringing you my deep thoughts about Jurassic Park.
Speaker 1:Ooh, all right, can't wait, it's going to be fun. Ooh, all right, can't wait, it's going to be fun. See you next time. See you then. Do you like stickers? Sure, we all do. If you head over to guygirlsmediacom slash, sign up and share your address with us, we'll send you a sticker. It really is that easy. But don't wait, there's a limited quantity. 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, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?