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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
Avalon: Deep Thoughts About Family, Money Psychology, and Waiting to Cut the Turkey
"Where are the people who know where the people are?"
On today's episode, Tracie introduces Emily to the 1990 Barry Levinson film Avalon, the director's love letter to Baltimore and his own Jewish immigrant family. The movie follows the Krichinskys from 1914 through to the 1960s as the large, tight-knit, extended family moves, changes, assimilates, and fractures.
As a lifelong Baltimorean and the great-great-granddaughter of a Jewish immigrant from Europe, Tracie feels seen by Levinson's story, and she recognizes the ways in which American culture, money, and changing technology have altered family dynamics and expectations in her own family history just like they do for the Krichinskys. Though Emily has never seen Avalon--which mystifies Tracie--she helps tease out some of the meaning behind the money psychology's role in difficult family dynamics in the film.
Take a listen, but don't cut the turkey without Gabriel!
Mentioned in this episode:
Money Scripts
https://www.yourmentalwealthadvisors.com/our-process/your-money-script/
The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity
Ambivalent Embrace: Jewish Upward Mobility in Postwar America https://uncpress.org/book/9781469635439/ambivalent-embrace/
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
It's this complicated and nuanced negotiation between the culture and the family and the new culture, and wanting to be successful, but also kind of resenting it, and I think that nuance is part of what, in my memory, also reads as true 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 overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. 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?
Speaker 1:On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1990 Barry Levinson film Avalon with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All, right, em. So right before we hit record, you were like um Em. I don't remember seeing this movie. I mean, you're Em. Right before we hit record, you were like um Trace, I don't remember seeing this movie. So tell me what is in your head about this movie, since it seems like maybe not that much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have no memory of seeing this movie, no memory of anything about it other than I know. It's about a Jewish family and I think even before you mentioned it last week, I knew it was Baltimore year when he would come for any kind of like holiday usually Thanksgiving, but any kind of holiday. He would come in even if he wasn't late and go. You cut the turkey without us, and it took me years to find out that that was from this film that he was quoting something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So that's it. That's what I got. So tell me, why are we talking about this film?
Speaker 1:I was really surprised when you told me that you didn't remember this movie. This movie is in some ways sort of it is not our family's immigrant story, but it is a quintessential immigrant story and for a lot of, especially Ashkenazi Jewish Americans it is sort of like the immigrant story and not just Ashkenazi Jews like other Europeans too, sort of the immigrant story it's also it is in some ways a love story, a love letter to Baltimore that Barry Levinson I mean many of his films are, but this one in particular, and so that makes it sort of special for me and it holds a place of like nostalgia in my head, like this is an Oscar winning film. This is not a film that, like many of the films we watch, are the ones that were sort of throwaways. This was not a throwaway, but it sits in my memory, in the furniture of my mind, as sort of like true, with a capital T, and I wanted to go back and look at it and see if, in fact, it holds up with today's analysis.
Speaker 1:So what I'm going to share with you there's a couple of buckets that I want to talk about. I want to talk about well, we'll talk about gender. We'll start there. There's not a whole lot to say but I do want to name it. We'll talk about assimilation and suburbanization for this immigrant, this family. We meet them in the early 20th century and we follow them through about 50 years and sort of the changes in family dynamics and structure and what the so-called American dream does to this culture. So I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the role of TV and film in this movie in that story of assimilation. I want to talk about treatment of the yeah right.
Speaker 2:Very inception there.
Speaker 1:I want to talk about this movie's treatment of Jewishness in general and the Holocaust in particular, which I think is sort of interesting because it is very much a Jewish family but the Jewishness is in some ways down, like it's true and it's authentic. But in some to watch this movie and we were going to talk about it and she was like you know, for years in my memory they were Italian and then she and I worked together at a Jewish museum and she was like and when I worked at JMM, you know, when I worked at the Jewish museum, the people corrected me. But I get why she thought that. So I think that's an interesting thing to kind of grapple with. And then, lastly, specifically because you are my thought partner, I want to talk about money and attitudes toward money from this family, like intergenerationally and specifically vis-a-vis the American dream or the so-called American dream, but also just in general. So those are the buckets, but let me start, especially since you haven't seen it, with kind of painting the picture. And this movie is like there's not a lot of action, right, it's really not a sort of traditional Western film with the rising action and then a resolution. It starts off with this voiceover of an older man telling the story. It's Sam Krasinski is telling the story.
Speaker 1:I came to America in 1914 in this sort of Russian accent and he tells the story. He came through Philadelphia and he got to Baltimore on the 4th of July and Baltimore was the most beautiful place he had ever seen, which, as a lifelong Baltimorean, like makes me chuckle. That's a kind of funny thing to say, right, ever seen, which, as a lifelong Baltimorean, like makes me chuckle. But there were fire. That's a kind of funny thing to say, right. But he got there on the 4th of July in 1914. So you know, sort of that early 20th century war period, you know, like so there was fireworks everywhere and sparklers and bunting and he thought it was for him because Sam had come to America. And it's this really beautiful sequence, like if you've never seen it, honestly, I mean, even if you just go watch the first five minutes, it's just really beautiful of him, like this, you know, with the mustache, like the early 20th century European immigrant sort of walking with wonder, looking at the fireworks and the bunting and everything else. So we learn he's telling the story to his grandkids, not just his grandkids, his grandkids and granduncles, so we meet the whole Khrushchinsky clan.
Speaker 1:Sam is one of five brothers. He's the last to come over from the old country and meet his brothers. The brothers, they work during the week they all work as paper hangers, wallpaper hangers, and on the weekends they all play violin and they are musicians for hire. He's telling the story to the young people. They're there, it's, it's actually thanksgiving in sort of present day. I'm putting quotes around present day because it's actually, I believe, like late 40s at this point. And so sam's sitting around and and the other grown-ups are like come on, we've all heard the story. And sam's like, no, I'm telling the grandkids, I'm telling you know, and so we meet this whole extended family, these five well, now, four brothers, because we learned that William died of the flu in 1919.
Speaker 1:And he tells the story of how they got together and they sort of stuck together, they pooled their resources, they brought their father over to America and they're telling stories and it's very funny and it's this huge Thanksgiving with, you know, tables that stretch into multiple rooms and the kids' tables and like all the wives and the kids, so it's three generations of these four surviving brothers. And we meet actually Gabriel who comes in late and they say we were about to cut the turkey without you. He said you cut the turkey without us. No, they hadn't. So we've established now Gabriel's always late and they say we were about to cut the turkey without you. He said you cut the turkey without us. No, they hadn't. So we've established now Gabriel's always late and they always threaten to cut the turkey without him, but they don't.
Speaker 1:And they tell stories. They all know the stories. We meet this extended family. Sam is the patriarch of our story. His son is Jules, jules played by Aidan Quinn, and Jules seems to be his only son. And then Jules' cousin, who's the same age, izzy from one of the other brothers I'm actually not sure which. Izzy and Jules are in business together. They're salesmen, they're traveling salesmen. And Jules has one son, michael, who is about eight, played by an adorable eight-year-old, elijah Wood.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do. That sounds familiar, yeah, that sounds familiar. That sounds familiar, yeah really adorable.
Speaker 1:So we see in the first sort of vignette it's Christmastime and Michael goes out with his dad for the day. It's very Baltimore. They're like house to house with the marble steps and their traveling salesman cases and stuff, and then Michael's asleep in the car, like we see them all day. I mean it's sort of montage and Jules is mugged and stabbed while Michael watches from the back of the car. It's traumatizing. So Jules survives, you know he's okay and eventually.
Speaker 1:But we see the older generation, the immigrant generation, the four brothers sitting in the hospital talking, and this is something I want to come back to, that's why I'm naming it specifically. They're like it's the money, the money is the problem. Never have I heard of someone being stabbed for money before. Money is the problem. But we also have heard that the four immigrant brothers, the first generation, they all worked as wallpaper hangers and we heard Jules tell Michael that Sam said you'll never be a wallpaper hanger, you need to do something better. So Sam had pushed Jules into sales rather than manual labor. So that was sort of part of the American dream. Izzy convinces Jules to go into business together, to actually open their own place, a store, and they actually they get a TV. While Jules is recuperating from having been stabbed, they get a TV, their first TV. So it's like 48, 49. And the entire family, so like 20 people crowded around, all different generations, like staring at the test pattern and like the old guys are like I don't get it.
Speaker 2:That makes me feel like when my son shows me whatever he's really into on YouTube. I'm just like, yeah, I don't understand, Right Right.
Speaker 1:So we watch their lives. Jules and Izzy open a TV store and we sort of watch and they do fairly well for themselves. They move out to the suburbs. The extended family has a family circle they actually like with officers and regular meetings and everything, and we sort of see that. And then we see them sort of kind of complaining because the old guys don't want to have to come all the way out to the suburbs. And like being from Baltimore, like the movie's called what it is because it's named after a neighborhood where they first moved, called Avalon, which is fictitious, but all of the other neighborhoods that they name are real. And like they moved to the suburbs which is Forest Park, which is like not that far from where I live, which doesn't feel like the suburbs still, you know, because the way sprawl works, but anyway, that's really interesting. And like they argue about the best way to get there and they're naming routes that are actual streets, which is very cool. And we see a vignette where they're out of the suburbs.
Speaker 1:The kids are playing wall ball against the stairs of the single family home and there's like a bee's nest behind and the bees swarm and poor Michael gets stung all over his body. At that same moment, sam's wife, eva, reveals that she comes running over to the house to talk to her daughter-in-law and, I guess, niece-in-law Izzy's wife, to say I just got a call from the American Red Cross and my brother survived. He survived the war, he survived those concentration camps. She had never met him. She found out after she left Poland that her brother had been born and she had never met him and she thought he had died, that he had perished in the Holocaust. And it turns out he's alive, died, that he had perished in the Holocaust, and it turns out he's alive. And he knew he had a sister in Baltimore, but he couldn't remember her last name. He knew it was Russian, not Polish, and anyway. So they bring him over. Simcha, we see the—. Simcha is his name, simcha is the brother's name.
Speaker 1:Yes, Okay, I wanted to specify because for me, me Simcha means like a joyous event yeah, six, and like we see, this sort of language barrier here, where the wife who has a name, but I don't remember it is talking about their experience in Yiddish to the older generation, and Anne, who is Jules's wife, and her sister-in-law, whose name I don't remember, are talking in the kitchen later like what did say? Did she say this? And like because they didn't understand the Yiddish, so that like that was sort of like a moment too that felt really really true. And then the kids the daughter, who came over from Poland from the DP camp and doesn't speak a lot of English, is like playing. I'm putting quotes around that with the other cousins because I'm putting quotes around that with the other cousins, because I'm putting quotes around it, because she's there, but she's like not playing. Like they watch cliffhanger movies and so they build a model airplane and decide to make it like a cliffhanger and they do like a string of airplane glue along the floor and light it so that it just like in their movies and they're like so excited and like like not freaking, but like like jumping for joy and like look at that, look at that. And this little girl is just like glassy eyed, staring, and later we see she's sleeping on a cot or something in Michael's room and she sits up screaming in the middle of the night like with a night terror and he's like, are you okay? And she's just lies back down and goes back to sleep. So that's a little bit of the sort of the holocaust treatment.
Speaker 1:And uh, jules's wife reveals she's pregnant again, michael's like nine ish. So they had been living with sam and eva, who are the first generation, the grandparents in the house, with Jules and Anne and Michael. But we see that Sam and Eva are going to move in with the brother Simcha and they're all going to get a house together. Izzy and Jules open a big like a warehouse, like the first discount appliance store in Maryland, and they're very nervous about it because it's kind of a gamble, but they're also very excited. And they're very nervous about it because it's kind of a gamble, but they're also very excited. We see them filming these like really schlocky TV commercial. You know where they're like obviously, reading the cue cards like that's right, jules, which is, you know, very funny and it feels very.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's true in every city, but that feels very Baltimore to me Just. I feel like I remember seeing those kinds of commercials growing up.
Speaker 1:Right right. Meanwhile Thanksgiving happens again and this time Gabriel's so late that they do cut the turkey without him and he comes in and he's furious and actually leaves and that creates a rift that is never healed between the brothers Michael Jewel's son and Izzy's son, teddy. At the opening day of the department store do the cliffhanger thing again and they put firecrackers on the model plane and it starts a bit of a fire. Now they get it all out, they think, and they say we're never going to tell anybody that we did this. And then later they're celebrating at like the country club or something, and Izzy gets a call and the store's on fire. They had a huge opening day. They made something like $19,000, which I did not look up, but you know, this is like early 50, like 49, 50. It was a lot of money, significant amount of money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were like we're rich, you were right, it was the right thing to do. And they're like throwing dollar bills with their employees and stuff. So they're celebrating at the country club and they get a call that the store is on fire and it's a four alarm blaze and the whole thing goes up. And Michael is sure that it's their fault because of the cliffhanger thing they did with the model airplane, of the cliffhanger thing they did with the model airplane. So at this point Sam, the grandfather, has moved out like back to a row home and Michael just runs away, catches a streetcar, goes to Sam and is like I did a terrible thing. I did a terrible thing. And Sam is great, he's really great. We see Jules come to pick him up and Sam says Michael has something he has to tell you. And Michael says what he did and Jules says how many times have we told you not to play with fire? Do you think maybe you'll listen to it now? Maybe you'll listen now? And Michael's like yeah, I guess. So, I think so. And he's like he's just bereft. And then Jules says the fire marshal says it started on the fourth floor. You didn't do it, it wasn't your fault, but it turns out we learned that Izzy had taken insurance money to pay for the TV advertising. So they actually don't have insurance. So Jules is out, he goes to work, he gets a sales job he's actually selling airtime advertising. And we see Simcha moves to New Jersey because he gets a job running a farm and in the beginning of them, with TV trays in front of the TV, we see Eva, the grandma ends up getting sick and then passing away. So we see her funeral. We see Sam walking away from the funeral like Gabriel didn't come, simcha didn't come because he couldn't get away from the farm, and Sam sort of muttering like this isn't a family.
Speaker 1:As the movie's ending, there's this scene with Jules and Anne sitting in bed watching TV and Jules kind of looks blank and he's like we've seen that several years have passed, it's now like the 60s and we see Sam mistake David, the younger son, for Michael. And then we see Jules and Anne sitting in bed and Jules says he wets the bed, my dad wets the bed. And then the final scene Michael, now an adult, brings his own son to visit Sam in a nursing home and his son's name is Sam and Sam says you're not supposed to name after the living. And Michael says I know, and it's clear that Sam has met Sam before and just doesn't remember, like he doesn't have, he's got dementia and doesn't really remember. And in this visit Sam says something like you know, I, a couple years ago I went to go see Avalon and in the building we lived in it just doesn't exist. And I and I went to see you know this place and it doesn't exist. And I went to see and I went to the nightclub that I owned for a while and thank God it was still there. I was starting to think I wasn't real and if I'd known they wouldn't be there, then I would have worked harder to make better memories. And the final scene Michael and his son, sam, are walking out and young Sam says that man talks funny and Michael says well, he wasn't born here, he came to America in 1914 and he starts to tell Sam's story and we see that very same scene from the beginning. So that's the arc. It's really not a plot in the traditional sense.
Speaker 1:Some of the things that Levinson does beautifully are like at the big Thanksgiving tables. Beautifully are like at the big Thanksgiving tables. While they're telling stories, we see the flashback and they argue with one another. It was 1925. No, it was 26. You know that sort of thing which definitely feels true, oh my gosh. Yes. And in some of the arguments, like we see the flashback and Sam's, like I remember it was cold, it was so cold and his wife says no, it was May, it wasn't cold. You're thinking of so-and-so's wedding, that was cold, and so we saw the memory and there was snow on the ground. And now we see it again, exactly the same, except it's sunny, like same street and everything and all the same people. And that is like it's delightful, it's really delightful. And some of the other things, like the way he captures sort of the family dynamic in this film, is like it's really I think that's what I remember as true with a capital T, in the way that they sort of talk over each other and correct one another, and also like the sort of affectionate annoyance like oh, do we have to hear this story again? So that all felt really interesting and true. So that's the basic gist of it. I think it's worth watching. You should go see it. I mean, like it's streaming on Prime. It's definitely worth watching.
Speaker 1:But let me start with the gender actually, because in some ways this is the easiest. This film very much passes Bechdel without even trying, like it's fine In many occasions. So reminders, listener, the Bechdel test from Alison Bechdel, we ask ourselves are there at least two female characters who have names? Do they talk to one another? And do they talk to one another about something other than a man or a boy? And yes, yes, yes, we have many named female characters. Anne and Eva, the daughter-in-law and mother-in-law, talk all the time about all kinds of things, and not just Jules and the two sisters-in-law talk about things, not just men or boys. So it definitely passes Bechdel.
Speaker 1:That said, levinson is telling a story about men. Yeah, like, ultimately he is interested in the story about men, and so women are present, but they are present as and in relationship to the men. They're wives, they aren't even. I mean there are two girls who are like in the third generation, but they're really only there as wives or mothers. They're not there as their own human beings, sort of independent of their menfolk. So I feel like that's worth naming. That said, eva, the mother-in-law she's a huge presence on the screen and in the story, like she's real, even though her role is supporting. So it's a little both, and I think hoarding.
Speaker 2:So it's a little both and I think it's also I would suggest that it's period typical of 1990.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to say of the story, like the time that it's being told, so I'm going to push back on you on that, because if you and I were to make this story about our family's immigrant story, we would tell the story about the women.
Speaker 1:It would be all women, we would talk about our great-great-whatever-grandmother, dora, and her daughter Fanny and her daughter Ruth. We would not be talking Like I don't even know Israel's story, dora's husband. So I'm going to push back on you on that. You're right. I think Levinson was interested in telling the men's story and I'm not mad at him for that. But I don't want to suggest that there aren't other ways to tell this immigrant story.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, no, no, it's not that so much. It's that if you are centering the immigrant story focused on employment, yes, but it really wasn't.
Speaker 1:I mean, employment was important and we will talk about it, because money and the American dream are definitely important. And we do hear Anne's voice saying I just want to feel at home in my own home because everything like I want to be able to set something down on the coffee table. I think it looks nice and I come back and it's been moved so like her concerns are shown. Her voice is there, but Jules's story is the one that we're really hearing right and it is period typical for 1990.
Speaker 2:It is period typical of 1990.
Speaker 1:And I'm not mad at Levinson. I think that this is fairly autobiographical. I think that he is the Elijah Wood character and I think that he had a strong relationship with his grandfather and so he wanted to tell that story about grandsons and grandfathers. So I'm not mad at him about it, but I do want to just name it, yeah yeah, well, it's also we in 1990, like how many female directors, writer directors, did we have?
Speaker 2:Right? So it's not that it's a problem that this story is told, it's a problem that other stories aren't.
Speaker 1:Right, right, and that's really all I have to say about gender really in this film, so I'll just put that on the shelf. So let me talk about the Jewishness, assimilation and suburbanization and maybe even treatment of the Holocaust all together in sort of a constellation. I think there's a fundamental critique of assimilation in Levinson's film here. Like we are definitely meant to feel a sort of loss. We are shown a loss from the raucous and loud and big family gatherings of the beginning to the so-called nuclear family watching TV on Thanksgiving with TV trays.
Speaker 1:I'm not suggesting that critique is wrong, but I think there's so much in that conversation about assimilation, and Levinson, I think, does it with nuance, because this thing about money like, and this sort of chasing, the American dream, sam's the one who says to his son, you know, and his brothers too, like they say we don't want you to do what we're doing, we don't want to teach you this trade, because we want better for you, we want more for you. And then at the same time so Izzy and Jules both change their name from Krishinski to something that's easier to pronounce. So Jules goes with K and Izzy, his cousin, goes with Kirk, and so their store is called K and K or Kirk and K. And when he learns it Sam is livid about this and he gets over it. But we see him like really upset, you had a name, like how can we be a family if we all have different names, two cousins with different names? Like Krishinsky? It's a name, it's a good name, and at the same time it was his pushing them toward the American dream that made that a thing for them.
Speaker 1:And so I feel like Levinson really captures that tension of the desire to assimilate and hold on to the old culture and how hard that is to do, and how hard that is to do, and I think the fact the old men name explicitly the money's the problem and then the arguments end up being about money, like when Gabriel later at a family circle after they cut the turkey without him there's been this rift and like he's still arguing about it, he says your son makes a bunch of money and now you think you don't have to wait to cut the turkey.
Speaker 1:You live way out in the suburbs and it's a bunch of money. And now you think you don't have to wait to cut the turkey. You live way out in the suburbs and it's hard to get to you now. And you think, because your son makes a bunch of money, and like that is the crux of the argument, is this tension around who makes what money. And at the same time we saw earlier when Jules was stabbed, when he was mugged, the old men blamed the money. And so it's like it's this complicated and nuanced, like negotiation between the culture and the family and the new culture and wanting to be successful, but also like kind of resenting it successful, but also like kind of resenting it and I think that nuance is part of what, in my memory, also reads as true.
Speaker 2:You know I'm thinking like not that there is like any resentment or anything like that, but I know are a similar thing that I have personally lamented a bit, even though I have no regrets about the path my life has taken, is mom and dad made it very clear to us that they wanted us to go to whatever school was the right school for us, which, generally, which we were going to go out of state, like there was never any question about that. But there was also a hope, maybe a little stronger than a hope, that we'd come back, and you did and I didn't, and your life took you on various paths, but you are back in Baltimore and I am not. And so just I'm thinking about this because we just finished Passover and one of my favorite things, it's my favorite holiday, in part because when we were growing up, mom would have these enormous seders.
Speaker 2:Seders yeah, that like just this huge and it would be like it would be found family because her sisters had gone out of state Also left Baltimore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but you know we would have all these people and like have to set up tables in the basement to be able to fit everybody, and it was just the four of us for the seder. You know, me and my husband and my two kids this year, and I really regret that. You know the fact that if I want to celebrate with you and with my niece and with my mom and I have to travel or you have to travel to me and it's a deal, and so like it's that push me, pull you a little bit, because mom and dad really wanted me to have the experience that I had by going out of state for college, and I have no regrets about that at all. But there's always a cost, and so wanting your kids to do better than you did, in whatever way, has a cost that you might not even realize until you have to pay it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting that you bring up Passover too and thinking about this movie, because it's a critique that some folks, especially Jewish folks, have had of this movie, this Jewish or immigrant family.
Speaker 1:But the holiday that we see over and over again is Thanksgiving, and instead of a Seder or a Rosh Hashanah dinner or something, in fact, we don't see any Jewish ritual in the film at all, none at all. And I think in some ways, I really think Levinson did this on purpose, because this is a story of American dream and they are Jewish, but actually the story that he's telling is about the effect of America on their culture and on their family and, like my friend thought it could have been an Italian family exactly, and I think also the fact that the brothers put such gravity on being respected at Thanksgiving, which is an American holiday, also feels really significant. So it's interesting to me that you name that the Passover Seder, because I think this it could have been a very similar story with Passover. It wouldn't have been you cut the toiku without me. It would have been something else the brisket.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the brisket, exactly. Or you know, you started the Seder without me, Right, right.
Speaker 1:You poured the first cup without me, whatever it is, you hid the hoppy common without me. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that's interesting and significant. The other thing that I want to name here that is not in this film at all and I don't want to spend too long on it because we don't have enough time but one big piece of the American dream and assimilation for Ashkenazi Jews is also their being accepted as white, and suburbanization was part of that in Baltimore especially.
Speaker 1:Like Baltimore is where redlining was piloted. It's not a thing that you know I've been proud of for the city, but it's true. And in that post-war suburbanization, housing boom and you know what we were building like Jews were getting out of the city and moving out to the county and the suburbs into homes that were not available to their Black neighbors and they had been neighbors in the city. In fact, redline neighborhoods, like Jewish residents in a neighborhood, made a neighborhood borderline. So the redlining schema from the government sort of told banks what risk a neighborhood was and it was based on who lived there. And Jews in a neighborhood was a moderate risk according to the government, and this is from the 30s.
Speaker 1:So, levinson, that's not in this movie. That's not in this movie at all and you know, in 1990, we weren't talking about it, but I want to name it now, in 2025, that this is a part of the story that is happening off screen that's just completely unacknowledged and since it happens in Baltimore, like I wanted to at least like put that pin in this film, I'm curious also, in the like being taken as white, there's also this, the passing for white in that.
Speaker 2:So Elijah Wood's not Jewish.
Speaker 1:No, I don't think so, and neither is Aidan Quinn. Aidan Quinn's not Jewish? No, I don't think so. Neither is Aidan Quinn Aidan Quinn is not Jewish. The man who plays Sam Armin Mueller Stahl, is also not Jewish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like markers of Judaism are either. Like you will hear about Orthodox Jews, frummi Jews in New York being attacked because they are conducting themselves and wearing themselves in ways that mark them as Jewish. Ashkenazi Jews coming from Eastern Europe often are what people think of when they think of someone who looks Jewish, and that's something I experienced as a teenager in Baltimore suburbs. I have a friend who is blonde and blue-eyed and Jewish, but she has a lot of the features that one would expect a Jewish young woman to look like An Ashkenazi woman yeah, an Ashkenazi Jew to look like.
Speaker 2:But there was another kid in our class who said I looked Jewish because I had dark hair and like talking about like, what are those markers of Jewishness and who passes and who doesn't and what people who didn't realize I was Jewish would say in front of me that they wouldn't say in front of friends who had clearer physical markers of Jewishness. And so I'm thinking about that because of my experiences growing up in Baltimore and having that happen on several occasions where, like either because I had dark hair, people thought that I was, or because, you know, for whatever reason they don't think I look Jewish that people would say anti-Semitic things in front of me. So in this film we have non-Jewish actors who are very easily going to pass because they are not necessarily like they don't have any background with Ashkenazi Jewish features.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting too that, though we do have this a little bit conversation about the Holocaust, we really don't. This movie does not talk about antisemitism. There are no antisemitic incidences that we see. We don't see any of that sort of like. They're at a country club which, in the 40s, like there was a Jewish country club in Baltimore, because prior to the war, like Jews weren't welcome at the sort of traditional white country club. So we see the country club. We don't hear about the fact that it's the Jewish country club. We don't hear about the like. So that piece of it is really not.
Speaker 1:Levinson wasn't interested in telling that story. He couldn't not include the thing. You know something about the Holocaust and what's interesting? Well, so many things are interesting. Something that I found sort of like almost meta is the ways in which these survivors are, the American family and the survivor family just don't know how to interact with one another. And so we see Elijah Woods, michael, talking to the little girl whose name I don't remember, who survived and came from the DB camp, talking about TV, and he's like telling her what TV stations they watch, and we only have 2, 11, and 13. And how do you do these? Monday through Friday at this time and he's like, do you have Captain Video where you come from? And she goes, captain Video, and he says Captain Video, and like it's like the disconnect is so huge from their experiences and it goes uncommented. And I think the uncommented part is what feels like interesting and like ripe there that we just expected folks to like assimilate into wherever they landed after the most traumatic thing that had happened in a century. And I think the way that Levinson sort of showed that, without sort of underlining the thesis, if you will, that also like another of those moments that just felt sort of true.
Speaker 1:The one thing that is commented is when Simcha moves to New Jersey, one of the brothers is like, can you imagine like going 30 years and like having this war between you and she thought he was dead and then they finally are reunited and they're only together for a year before he moves to take a job. And that's the only sort of commentary on it that we get, which is sort of part of the bigger commentary about the ways that life pulls families apart, american life, yeah. So the last thing that I haven't exactly talked about, though I've touched on it, is TV and films and their role in the assimilation and the pulling things apart, right. So we see the kids at the movies like loving the cliffhanger and things, and that shows up again and again where they're doing these dangerous things, that they're trying to recreate what they saw on film. We see this progression from the first, like they're so excited and they did it because Jules is, he survived this traumatic thing when he got mugged and they set down this piece of furniture and they're all staring at it like as a huge family. That's where we start. And then, like it is always on through the rest of the movie, like every time, like as the years progress, the TV is always on as we move through to the 70s.
Speaker 1:And then Michael, after the store burns and he doesn't feel like he can rebuild with Izzy, he's out. The job he gets is selling advertising. Abbie gets his selling advertising and he has this conversation with his mom who's sick, she's in the hospital and she's like I don't understand what you do. You sell air. And he says well, I sell advertising, you know, like for TV commercials. So I convince people, you know companies, that they should make a commercial and she says I hate commercials, except that one with the dancing cigarettes. I like that. One Did you sell that air and one Did you sell that air? And he says no, mom, I didn't sell that one. So that's the role of television in the kind of transition and like reshaping of the family and how they interact with one another and with America, like there's a through line there. That I think is really interesting, very critical I think. I think Levinson was sort of saying like TV messed us up, which I'm not unaware of, the irony that I watched this on my TV last night.
Speaker 2:So Well, the thing that's interesting is because you said there's the point where the older generation is like I don't get it about the test pattern, at least since the 20th century, like the early 20th century, it feels like this is what happens in every generation. My job didn't exist when I was a kid Right, because I write for the internet, and so my kids talk about wanting to be YouTubers when they grow up and so, like that I can see like me in the hospital with my grandson or something like you know, in 30 years going like wait, you do what now? Like I don't understand. So like how do you sell memes, you know, or whatever it would be, and so like that is also just part of the like.
Speaker 2:It's a that's specific to 1990 because the internet as a personal tool was in its very infancy, but that's also a part of just the march of progress and like the consumable progress specifically yeah, that is like Levinson points out like it kind of ends up fracturing this family in a way. I mean, that's not what does it. But then they're like they're eating tv dinners in front of the tv on thanksgiving, when they used to have, you know, this giant huge, raucous celebration and that's. You know. There are nights where, like, all four of us are in the same room and we're each on a different device yeah, totally which is like I have implemented movie nights, because then we're at least watching the same thing, the same device, yeah, so, yeah, that is.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting commentary and it's. I have been thinking about the ways in which we have been trained to be consumers a lot lately, and that is something that I can see, where Levinson sees that as the onset, and Stephen King, in his book on writing, talks about how he feels very lucky that he was among the last generation that grew up without TV, because he feels like that made him a better writer, that made him like just a better human being, gave him more imagination, made sure like he could tolerate boredom and things like that. And I remember reading that, going like, oh yeah, that is weird. And then a few years later realizing like, oh, I feel that way about growing up without the internet, and in part it's because, like the instant gratification which gets even more and more instant the further we go. So I do want to ask you you never really quite got me to talk about money.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so watching these guys sort of want better for their kids and also sort of saying it's the money's fault that he got that Jules got hurt as I was watching it last night I was thinking about you and the way you talk about money scripts actually. So we don't have a lot of time, but could you like quickly talk about money scripts? Yeah?
Speaker 2:So we all carry these unconscious scripts about money. This was coined by Dr Bradley Klontz and his research partner Sonia Britz, and I'll include a link in the show notes where these are unconscious beliefs. We carry about money, that kind of flavor, all of our interactions with money, and they fall into four broad categories and the thing is like what it is. They talk about how children are excellent sponges but terrible interpreters, so like they take in everything but they interpret it through the lens of like this childlike lens. And the example I always give is like our mom used to think that if doctors got sick they'd go to jail. And so the thing is we do that with money, but money is a taboo subject so we don't have a chance to push back against those scripts that we make. So if as a kid we were like money causes fights between mom and dad, so money is stressful, we don't have a chance to push back against that and learn something different about money.
Speaker 2:And so when they're saying like, oh, it's the money's fault is why he got hurt, well, money is morally neutral, it just is. And so saying it's the money's fault is like it's as unrealistic as saying it's because it rained that day. It doesn't have anything to do with what's going on, but that gives a way to put the emotions of being furious and afraid and worried for your son, your nephew, your father and make it the fault of something. That is okay. It's okay to be mad at the money and then also like gives you like well then that means that he needs to do something where you know he's not chasing money so much. And even though they wanted him to do that they wanted him to be financially successful they also were wary of it. They were concerned about it because rich people can and this is a money script rich people are vulnerable because someone might stab them and steal their money, or rich people are unethical, or rich people any number of different things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we see that again with Gabriel when he complains at the family circle about like you think that you're better than we are because your son makes money.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so, like those, all money is, it's a morally neutral thing. It's actually this I like to say it's a collective delusion, because it doesn't actually exist, right?
Speaker 2:It only has value because we all agree that it has value on it, yeah, and so because of that, it's vulnerable to our own sense of morality, our own neuroses, our own vulnerabilities, our fears, whatever they are. We put that onto money. So when people are having an emotional reaction to money and they think, well, that's because that's how money is, that's not it. They're having that emotional reaction because that's how they emotionally feel and it's this collective delusion that we have. And so there's no way of proving it wrong that you only think that because your son makes money, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Let me see if I can quickly wrap up what we talked about. So this movie, 1990, avalon, barry Levinson, this love letter to Baltimore and to his family and to his upbringing, which was it, does pass back cell in multiple ways and also is very much a story about men. It was at least semi-audit, biographical, I believe, and you know he was interested in telling the story about him and his grandfather and about his dad and his uncle, and so the women are there and they're real, but they are very much supporters and supporting roles in this film. We talked about a lot about assimilation and suburbanization and the American dream and the role of television in that. Television in that and sort of the push me, pull me around. Assimilation, where the desire of the immigrant generation for their kids to have better lives, more successful, more financially successful lives, but also to hold on to some of the things that they value about the culture from the old country, including the family dynamics and the literal geographic closeness which, though the two cousins who move out to the suburbs actually do keep, that because they live right across the street from one another we see that it also is lost because some of the brothers are still back in the row homes down in the city, not in the suburbs. Back in the row homes down in the city, not in the suburbs, we see the role of TV and films in sort of continuing the separation of folks who used to be close, both literally and figuratively, and we see that portrayed again through the role of TV from the first time we see a TV in one of their homes with the entire family crowded around to look at the test screen, through to later when we actually see a Thanksgiving dinner that happens on TV trays, with just four people in the nuclear family watching TV on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I named was that is not in this film at all but is in retrospect is absent is the role of being accepted as white, that Ashkenazi Jews sort of sometimes chased, sometimes just accepted, but the role that that played in allowing them certainly benefited from allowing them to move out of the city in ways that their Black neighbors would not have been able to. And there's some great book-length treatments of this that I will include in the show notes, notably Eric Goldstein's the Price of Whiteness, which is not new but really traces that idea and is very interesting. There's also one called Ambivalent Embrace that's specifically about the American dream and this sort of immigrant, multigenerational thing that I think speaks very closely. So this book, ambivalent Embrace, like traces exactly what Levinson was chasing and looks at it from a sociological lens. I will include a link in the show notes to that movie. We also talked briefly about the treatment of the Holocaust in this movie as just sort of like this complete disconnect between the American Jews and their European family who survived and sort of knowing how to talk to one another and knowing how to support the survivors, which I think Levinson got right that we just didn't, we did not know how to actually support them. They'd been through the most traumatic thing that anyone could have imagined at the time. We just didn't know what to do when we were like you want to watch TV, and so that was really interesting.
Speaker 1:I named some of the moments that feel really true about family dynamics and the ways that we argue with one another and like affectionately give one another a hard time and those sorts of moments that feel true and some of the things that are actually true about Baltimore. You know the ways that he named Baltimore streets and neighborhoods and things. There's also like little things that our family didn't have, but like little Yiddishisms, like the Eva the grandmother says to Sam regularly don't run with the machine, which is sort of in Yiddish like to say to go too fast and the car is machine, and so that's a thing that I think a lot of old people said about driving too fast, don't run with the machine. That shows up repeatedly. So little truisms like that, that like just are gems of like nostalgia and truth and the cars are perfect and the costumes are perfect, and I didn't even name those like, but those things are just like. The nostalgia is really there.
Speaker 1:And lastly, I asked you to help us think about money scripts and sort of attitudes towards money in like a broader sense that show up in this film and the ways that they contradict one another. We want our kids to be financially successful, but we're also wary of money and the ways that that sort of happens sociologically. You helped us think about that a little bit. I'm out of time so I will stop there. Next week, what?
Speaker 2:are you bringing me? I am bringing you my deep thoughts on Stand by Me. Oh, excellent, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, talk to you then, see you then. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half 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. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin MacLeod from Incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?