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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
Weird Science: Deep Thoughts on Pygmalion, Women's Agency, and Why 1980s Movies Thought Computers Were Magic
So, what would you little maniacs like to do first?
This week, Tracie takes a deep dive into Weird Science: yet another of the John Hughes movies that helped to define Gen X pop culture. This 1985 teen comedy is a modern retelling of Pygmalion, the Greek myth that finds a sculptor falling in love with his artwork that comes to life. Except in this version, Anthony Michael Hall's Gary and Ilan Mitchell-Smith's Wyatt create Lisa (played by Kelly LeBrock) via Memotech MTX 512 microcomputer, because 1980s movies taught us computers are magic.
While Tracie was pleased to find the raunchy comedy isn't as bad as she expected—Lisa, as a benevolent agent of chaos, has more agency than anyone else, which is a definite improvement over Galatea in the original Greek myth and Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady—the movie struggles to universally apply the message that you don't have to change to be worthy of love. And like many movies continue to do in 2025, Weird Science treats Gary and Wyatt's teenage love interests as prizes to be won.
On the bright side, now we know that computers can't magic Kelly LeBrock from the ether.
No need to wear a bra on your head. Just some headphones will do.
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.
The rough story is there's this artist, this sculptor. He carves a woman out of marble that is so perfect that he falls in love with it, and Aphrodite takes pity on him somehow and grants this sculpture life, and they live happily ever after and have a kid together, which doesn't fit with my understanding of the Greek sense of storytelling. There should have been a tragedy there. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come 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? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1985 John Hughes film Weird Science with my sister, emily Guy-Burken, and with you. Let's dive in. All right, em, I'm pretty sure we saw this one together. But what's in your head about weird science? Kelly LeBrock? Yeah, being like 80s-tastic gorgeous, so like very curly hair. I remember Anthony Michael Hall and his sidekick friend Like I couldn't tell you who the other actor was Are nerds, and there's a point where someone has underwear on their head. I think Bras, bras. Oh, that's right. That's part of the like magic ritual they use with the computer. Yeah, and there is a point where they're designing Kelly LeBrock. It's like 3D animation, 80s style. It's like the green lines on black background and they make ginormous tits.
Speaker 1:I remember that, the thing that really stuck with me, because I am sure I have not seen it since. I've seen it since it came out. So it came out in 1985 when I would have been six. I've seen it since then, but not since, like maybe 1990. Yeah, but this is one of the films that I kind of grouped together in the like.
Speaker 1:We know that computers are powerful and do cool things, but we don't really understand what they do. So therefore, computers can do anything kind of like computers are magic sort of thing, and I feel like this was the most egregious of the computers are magic trope. I mean quite literally magic in this movie. Yeah, so like the word science is right there in the title and yet it's sort of a veneer over top of magic. Yeah, yeah, and an appealing one. Yeah, the kids were supposed to be like nerds, like really good at science and like the kind of nerds that you know were put in the locker or, you know, had their heads put down in the toilets in the 80s. Which did that ever? I'm sure that must have happened, who knows Anyway. But so they inherently understood computers. So that meant that they were magic anyway.
Speaker 1:And I can't recall, if you know, my child self watching this was like yeah, that's not realistic, but I know like looking back, my thinking was like what the hell were we watching? So that's basically what's in my mind on this. I don't. This is not a movie I spend a great deal of time thinking about. So tell me, why are we talking about it today? Yeah, it's funny Like we always talk about what the stakes are and usually we try to have things that have like at least medium stakes.
Speaker 1:This one actually was pretty low stakes for me. I loved the soundtrack. Like the soundtrack was something that I held on to like throughout adolescence. The movie itself not so much, and a regular listener recently said to me through a message they were like no-transcript, which is a fine reason. I don't know, it's fine. It also is the case that I think dad must have told us that this was a version of the Pygmalion myth, like in the 80s, because in my head when I think about Pygmalion, I think about this movie and my Fair Lady and I know dad told us my Fair Lady was Pygmalion. So we'll get into what Pygmalion is, but those are the reasons it landed on the list. So this movie is weird, it's just. It's right there in the title, it's right it's weird.
Speaker 1:So let me share a little bit of what I'm going to try and talk about. And the other thing that you mentioned before we started recording that. It shouldn't have blown my mind. But who's the director of this one? Yeah, john Hughes.
Speaker 1:This is a John Hughes film from 1985. He was like the storyteller of our childhood. Like there are a bunch of movies I knew was him, but this was one. This is not one of them. Not one of them, and I'm like he's a good 10% of our films on the list right now. He didn't just direct it, he also wrote it, so it had some source. There was like a source material called Made of the Future by Alf Feldstein. Was that a short story? I don't know, I'm looking at Wikipedia folks but Hughes wrote the screenplay.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so here's some things I want to talk about. I mean, like I went into this expecting to tear it apart in terms of feminist questions, and there's definitely some work to be done there. There's some serious feminist critique. There's some serious feminist critique and it's more complicated than I expected it to be when I came back to watch it again. So I want to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 1:I also want to talk about some of the kind of social commentary that I think Hughes was trying to make. That I'm not sure he did effectively, at least not like retroactively looking back on it, and I want to talk about that both regarding race and regarding class. So I get the impression that Hughes was like a well-meaning white guy in the 80s. Yes, I think so too, and so I think that, especially class, because he didn't really tackle race like in Breakfast Club, for instance, but he did tackle class directly in Breakfast Club, and I think some of those class things are similar and I'll get into sort of how he handles race. It is very sort of surface level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I also want to talk about your magic and science thing. This film doesn't. It's not pretending Like we've talked about other examples from the 80s where the veneer was meant to be real. You know, it was sort of science fiction to a certain extent. Like this isn't even that. This is science fantasy and it doesn't pretend otherwise. So I think that's like a really weird and interesting dynamic.
Speaker 1:I also want to talk about the two girls who are not creations of these two guys who end up being the love interest, like in their agency and the sort of like anti-feminist, like their prizes kind of a thing, and also they're given a little bit more, a little bit more agency than that. Like it's a little, push me, pull me. So I want to talk about them. There is a moment where these like mutant bikers crash a party and there's some like kind of anti-Native American racism in their look that I want to just name, or at least one of them. That's just surprised me. That's bizarre. I just's bizarre name. That, yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 1:And then, lastly, I just want to sort of say, like it's a john hughes film, and so the thesis that hughes was trying to underline was you don't have to change who you are in order to be worthy of love or worthy of being liked, which, like I mean, that's a fine thing to say. Like that's not. I don't have critique of the actual thesis, don't know that, like, the way we got there in this film is helping, but it's worth naming that like, as you say, well-meaning. So those that's where I'm going to go. Let me try and give a synopsis of this thing. I've got the Wikipedia page up on my other screen. I want to give a little more than what Wikipedia gives, because there are specific moments, like that moment with the bikers, that I want to give a little more context on. So, listener, you know I'm not very good at being concise, but I am doing my best and that's going to be good enough. So let's go. You're good enough, you're strong enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it. People like you, people like me, yeah.
Speaker 1:So the movie opens. We sort of pan up from sneakers up these two boys it's, as you say, anthony Michael Hall as Gary and his sidekick, who you don't remember the character's name is Wyatt, played by Elon Mitchell Smith and so these two guys are standing there in their gym clothes so two short shorts for, like, especially by today's standards. You know these like pasty, skinny, nerdy, white kids and they're talking, they're watching a full girls gym class doing gymnastics and like ogling and sort of saying you know what I want to do with them? Shower with them. And they're like talking about how amazing it would be to like be cool and like have these girls over for a party or whatever. And Wyatt, the not Anthony Michael Hall character, says you know, that's never going to happen. Nobody likes us, nobody likes us. And Gary Anthony Michael Hall says why you got to bring reality into it? We already know reality. Let the fantasy be the fantasy. And so Wyatt's like yeah, yeah, you're right. And so they keep talking and they point out two specific girls that are going to fall in love with the two of them. Their names are Hilly and Deb. So they start talking about Hilly and Deb and then we see behind them these two jocks come up and are listening to them and laughing at them. And these two guys are played by. One of them is a young Robert Downey Jr. I don't remember the other one, the other actor, it doesn't really matter, but they pull the two jocks behind them. Each one pulls, grabs the shorts and pulls their pants down and then says hey, look at us. And then the jocks leave. And so now you've got Gary and Wyatt standing there, the entire gym of teenage girls looking at them standing there with their shorts around their ankles and their tighty whities. So that's how we meet these two kids.
Speaker 1:The next scene is at Wyatt's house. Wyatt's parents are out of town, so Gary's sleeping over. We learn that Wyatt is very rich because Gary's in the bathroom, which is like an en suite to Wyatt's room, just messing around with shaving cream and whatever. And Wyatt says hey, man, don't make a mess in there, because the maid doesn't come until next week. And he made a big mess. Anyway, we also hear that Wyatt's older brother, chet, is home from college. Gary's like oh man, why didn't you tell me Chet was going to be here? I hate him, he's the worst. So now we know that Chet's a bad guy Played by Bill Paxton, by the way, Very young Bill Paxton.
Speaker 1:And then we see that they're like watching TV in Wyatt's room and they're watching like a 1930s Frankenstein movie. And all of a sudden Gary's like you know what? That's a good idea. And Wyatt's like what, what's a good idea? And Gary says we can make a girl. We can make a girl. And then she would like us because we made her. And Wyatt's like that's disgusting. Stop, I'm not digging up a dead girl. And Gary's like no, no, no, no, your computer. And he points to this computer which in 1985 was really really really fancy.
Speaker 1:So they decide to do this and so they're like cut out magazines, like they have Playboys and they have National Geographic, and they're like feeding into a scanner all of these like pictures, like including like Einstein and apparently the computer can scan a picture of Einstein and know what to make the brain like, because computers are magic, as you say. So they put all the stuff in and the thing you remember about the sort of it was like it was kind of like blue lines, like Tron looking thing, of like a, a female body, and they make the boobs huge. And then Gary's like no bigger than a handful and you risk spraining your thumb or something like that. So they make them small again. It's so offensive Because it's about his thumb and not her back, offensive anyway because it's about his thumb and not her back. It's just, it's just anyway anyway. So they need more power.
Speaker 1:So we see them like somehow like hack into some government facility and it cuts to this like government with like reel-to-reel tape and this guy in uniform is like what is happening? Like everything's spinning really fast and and Wyatt's like this is so illegal, we're so going to get caught. Anyway, they keep going. They hook up a little like Barbie doll to like two electrodes. They've got the bras on their heads. Wyatt's even like why do we have bras on our heads? Gary's like it's for the ritual of it. It's for the ritual of it, wyatt, or something like that. And then we see like a shot of the house from the outside and there's like red, get the bras. Wyatt's mom, I guess. Ew, I mean they're very like, very white and very like old-fashioned.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we cut to the outside of the house this giant it's, I mean why it's rich. And uh, there's like a red cloud and like lightning and stuff. And then it's like a hurricane inside the house and the boys are like what is happening and they're freaking out and they unplug the computer and it doesn't matter, like it keeps going. And like Gary grabs a baseball bat and Wyatt's like no, it was a birthday present. And he like goes to hit the computer with the baseball bat and the baseball bat, like a fiberglass baseball bat, shatters. So the computer is still it, just like it's crazy, you know pandemonium.
Speaker 1:And then it stops and Kelly LeBrock walks through fog wearing the outfit that the doll had been wearing, which was like blue panties and like a crop gray Heather sweatshirt. So they did it. They created this woman. These boys are meant to be 15. Kelly LeBrock was in her mid 20s when they made this movie and she is absolutely magic. So she's like we're going to party, let's go party. They're like what? And they're 15-year-old boys and they're not very social and so they're very nervous. So she somehow has this 1960s pink Cadillac convertible. She's all dressed up in like a shiny what's the word I'm looking for A strapless dress with like long gloves. They put on suits to go out and they walk out of the bedroom into the hallway and the suits transform out of the like sort of lame chet suit into these like very for 1985, very dapper dark suits for 1985, very dapper dark suits.
Speaker 1:She takes them to this bar. It's like a blues club and this is the sort of weird racist moment. They walk in and it's mostly Black folks, older, not kids, so they're in their 40s or 50s or whatever, and it's a blues club and they like walk in and the boys are like we don't belong here. Oh, she gives them fake ids, by the way, she just sort of like she. She's like a holodeck, she just makes them. She's janet no, I'm the good place, she's totally janet from the good place. She just like whatever she needs, she just wills it into being. So she wills these two fake ids for them into being.
Speaker 1:So they go into this club and the boys are like we don't belong here here. And she's like what are you talking about? It's a public place. Of course you do. It's a public place. So they go and sit down and they're like very awkward with these. They're sitting at this big table of like 10 people and the guys are like the other men are like what are you doing with these two? And it's just weird and silly.
Speaker 1:Gary gets drunk and Anthony Michael Hall does this shtick where he sort of takes on the black scent of the guys at the table, so like AAVE, I mean, yeah, but from the 80s. So like listen to this y'all. Let me tell you how it is that sort of thing. And like the men are charmed in, let me tell you how it is that sort of thing. And like the men are charmed like in the movie, they think it's funny and they're into it, they're with him. No-transcript, gross. It's weird and like I think the kind of message that we were meant to get is, which actually lisa is kelly lebrock's character's name. Lisa says, like they're just people, people are people right. And like that's the message which was look these black folks who are older than you, they're just people, people are people right.
Speaker 1:But the actual mechanism by which the connection was made it wasn't just Gary telling stories about being unlucky in love in the eighth grade. It was in this sort of appropriative accent which, I admit, watching Anthony Michael Hall do it was. I was charmed and also like like the race and racism and analyst in the back of my head is going oh, trace, that is not okay. So like all of that was true, okay. So the next day the boys wake up and they're back in their room and like everything seems to be normal and like they think maybe they dreamed it and they're like we had the same dream, what? And then we know it wasn't a dream, because Wyatt gets up out of bed and he's wearing the outfit that Lisa was originally wearing, which was just the underwear and top. So from that there was an implication that maybe they had sex, but actually Lisa makes it clear they never do. She says you fell asleep, or something like that.
Speaker 1:So Lisa promises to stay out of Chet's way. Chet is the older brother. Chet is a dick. He's like been at military school, which his main takeaway and joy on that is that it's taught him how to be cruel. So he extorts money out of Wyatt to keep things secret and he's just a jerk. And Lisa, we see her kind of listening and like really cringing and like wanting to do something, but she promised that she would stay out of the way. And like wanting to do something, but she promised that she would stay out of the way.
Speaker 1:Shenanigans ensue. The boys are at the mall and they like are picking out perfume for Lisa and the perfume the girl behind the you know the makeup counter is like aren't you the boys who got beat up at homecoming? Or you know like? We just keep seeing more and more examples of how these two are really outcast. We see the two, the same two jocks who pants them in the very first scene at the mall, drop a slushy on them from the second floor of the mall down to where they're sitting and like publicly, were bullies really that cruel in the 80s or was it just that's how the how movies were Not at our schools? I don't think, but I don't know. I don't know. I think maybe they were. I mean, I've talked to enough people our age and a little older who talk about, you know, facing like actual physical threats, that I think maybe they were.
Speaker 1:So we also see the two girls that we saw in the very first scene, that they had identified, that they were both in love with a, deb and Hilly. We didn't know their names then. Now we know their names. They are the girlfriends of these two bullies, who are Max and Ian, played by Robert Ressler and Robert Downey Jr respectively. So and the girls are played by Suzanne Snyder as Deb and Judy Aronson as Hilly. So they're the girlfriends of these two jerks and they do not approve, they don't like it at all, but they also sort of you sort of see that kind of stuckness that actually reads as kind of true, not that they are bimbos, but they're like this is the way that girls were taught, especially in the 80s, to kind of gain status and feel worthy, which is I'm not mad at John Hughes for.
Speaker 1:So we also see Max and Ian, they see Lisa and they like turn around on the escalator, like go the wrong way on the escalator, chase her and try and track her down. And there is like a one of those like comeuppance moments where they're trying to talk her up and she's like, uh, no, sorry, I'm not interested. And then the two boys, wyatt and gary, show up in like a porsche that she has manifested for him, for gary, that has his like name as the license plate, and she makes it clear she's with them and they're like what are you doing with them? And she's like she says, oh, it's purely a sexual relationship, so that like like really to give the comeuppance to these two bullies out in the bathroom together while all these people are there, deb and Hilly end up in the same bathroom with them and they have this bizarre moment where the boys go into the shower and the girls are out looking in the mirror and they're having two separate conversations but in the same space. So weird.
Speaker 1:Anyway, lisa feels that they need more confidence and so she actually manifests these bikers, which, I'm realizing as I'm looking at the Wikipedia page, are actually meant to be Mad Max references, which maybe is where the indigenous thing that I saw that is coming from. So Vernon Wells plays Lord General, which is meant to be referencing his Mad Max 2 character, but he's got like mohawk hair with like feathers in it and like war paint on his face that very much reads as meant to look like Native American. And then the other two there are four total bikers who show up and they like crash through the giant windows in this house and there's that guy, and then he's got a woman with a collar on a chain, and then there's a guy with sort of facial dysplasia it's not the same actor who played the guy in Goonies, but he has the same condition and then a guy with like a metal plate like somehow affixed to his skull, to the front of his face, and they are like menacing the party. And Lisa is like you guys need to do something, you need to make them go away, and they're like, uh no, they're like hiding in the closet. And then eventually these Mad Max bikers like take Hilly and Deb kind of hostage and it's really gross the way they're menacing them. And then the two boys step up and sort of fight them off and the girls fall in love with them as a result.
Speaker 1:There were some other shenanigans that I missed. So, for instance, lisa picks Gary up from his house and has a conversation with his plumber dad and like, very like, like conservative mom, and they do not like the way that she talks to them and she just like doesn't care and it's bizarre and cringy. And then she somehow makes them forget about it and, like the mom, just forgets the encounter, but the dad actually forgets that they have a son at all. There's a very, very gross moment where the two bullies are like we're so sorry about the way that we've treated you, but you guys can have Deb and Hilly if we can have Lisa. Yeah, it's really really gross and they don't obviously take the deal. But what they do is to try and impress these two tormentors of theirs. They're going to make another woman for them and they want bigger tits.
Speaker 1:Like in that same scene where the original two nerds were like no, too big, these guys are like bigger, bigger. It's really really gross. But they forget to hook up the doll and instead these two electrodes end up on either side of an image of a Pershing missile and so this giant missile erupts from the floor and breaks through the ceiling and, like all of these weird things happen in the house. So like the kitchen just turns blue and like all the stuff gets kind of sucked up into the fireplace and up through the chimney, including at one point a piano and the girl who was playing the piano. But of course her clothes get ripped off first, so she's in just her underwear when she gets pulled up through the chimney and lands in the outdoor swimming pool. It is just weird and gross and unpleasant. And doesn't Chet get turned into like a toad or something? Yes, that comes later. Okay, because he's out duck hunting or something at this point during the party.
Speaker 1:So lisa comes. It's like you guys, you forgot one thing, you forgot the doll. And that's when the you know the missile comes up. Meanwhile, like wyatt's grandparents had come by and lisa somehow makes them like catatonic but smiling, and sticks them in a cupboard and there's just so weird, so weird. So after all the guests have gone, deb and Hilly are still around and we see the two couples kind of paired off and like it's the brunette girl and the brunette boy and the blonde girl and blonde boy is the way it gets paired. But we see the I don't remember which is which, but we see the one saying to Gary like, weren't you scared? And he was like, yeah, I was scared, but you know I did what I had to do and you know, whatever they, so they end up paired off.
Speaker 1:In the morning Chet comes home, the house is a mess, like none of the furniture's in the house anymore because it all went up through the chimney and is in the yard and the kitchen is still blue, and you know. So he's this super, you know, hyper masculine, macho asshole. He actually he's coming home from duck hunting, so he's got a shotgun. He actually like goes into Wyatt's room where Gary and his girl, who I think is Deb, are in one of the twin beds beds and he like points the shotgun at them, like in their like, touching their faces, like what happened. And then he goes to find Wyatt and he's in what looks like a little girl's room. I don't know, I don't know if they have a sister or something, but anyway he's in that bed with Hilly and similarly, like he's menacing and threatening and like physically like grabs and like what's the word I'm looking for? Like headlocks, wyatt, and why. It's like you can have my college money, you can have my social security anyway.
Speaker 1:Lisa shows up and like she's talking to them and somehow lisa convinces um chet to let the two younger kids boys take the two girls home. So they go off in these two fancy cars like a Porsche and a Corvette or something to take the girls home while she's talking to Chet, and that's when she ends up turning him into this weird toad fart monster. So they drop the girls off. Each of them confesses his love for his prospective love interest and the girls reciprocate. They come back to Wyatt's house and they park their cars kind of opposite one another so that the driver's sides are matched and they get out and they're both.
Speaker 1:So I'm just so happy, I'm in love, isn't it great. And whatever, we got to talk to Lisa. They're walking in, they're going to talk to Lisa, the cars disappear, like with this weird like lightning effect, that kind of accompanies, lisa's magic, and they go in and they have a conversation with her where she's like you fell in love, didn't you? I'm so proud of you. That's all I ever wanted was for you to be happy. And they're like aren't you upset? And she's like I mean a little, and she's a little bit teary eyed, but all I really wanted was for you to know how great you are Something like that. And then she like, gives them each hugs, walks into the bathroom and then a fog machine activates and she says she kisses them like waves what's the word I'm looking for? Blows a kiss goodbye and disappears. A kiss goodbye and disappears.
Speaker 1:And then, once she's gone, like all of the mess, magically, like, fixes itself, like the books, like everything, comes back up at the top of the chimney down into the house and sets itself back up. The books go back on the bookshelves, like everything. And so the parents are arriving as things are being set back together and they come in and the two boys come downstairs and we see Wyatt go to give his dad a hug and his dad's like no, shakes his hand instead, and the mom says are you guys okay? And they're like yeah, we're fine, we just hung around. And mom says daddy had this crazy idea that you maybe had a big party or something. And they're like no, not us, not here, no way. So that's the end of that. We see Chet come back to normal.
Speaker 1:The very final scene, another gym class from where we started all boys and the whistleblowers. They line up and it's Lisa wearing very little but workout gear and she says, okay, drop and give me 20. And then all of the boys, like, hit themselves in the forehead and fall backward and I don't actually understand what that was supposed to mean. Maybe it was some reference, I don't know. Anyway, that's the end of the movie. I probably missed stuff. It's 30 minutes in, good enough.
Speaker 1:So let me just start quickly with Bechdel test. This movie does not pass, though it comes close, because Deb and Hilly talk to one another quite a lot and at one point they're talking about Lisa, but they lead with. If our boyfriends see her, it's all over for us. So I don't think it counts. So so now I got that other way.
Speaker 1:So let me start with this sort of question of like feminism. It's a total male fantasy. Right, they create the perfect woman and she is, in at least a nominal way, their servant, gross. But she's not their servant. She's a chaos demon, you know. She's like. She's a benevolent but chaotic genie. Ultimately, you know, and Lisa has more agency than anyone in the entire film. She may be the only one with true agency in the film. She is very much the protagonist of this film, and so that, to me, pushes back against the. Even though it's a fantasy wish fulfillment. It's a fantasy wish fulfillment in which Galatea, the sculpture, has full agency and is an agent of chaos.
Speaker 1:You know the thing that in retelling this and I had not remembered that part at all where the bullies say, like you can have Deb and Hilly if you give us Lisa, which ew. And then the fact that Gary and Wyatt say like no, but we'll make another one for you, ew. And then the fact that Gary and Wyatt say like no, but we'll make another one for you, ew, considering the fact that Lisa has agency and has made it clear that she is a full, fully realized human being with we don't know human being, but like is capable of thought, is capable, like she's sentient, yeah. And then Gary and Wyatt stumbled into this. But then the bullies are saying no, bigger, bigger, bigger tits. And like ew, ew, ew, ew.
Speaker 1:And it reminds me of have you seen the film Ex Machina it is about there's a brilliant inventor who has made basically lifelike androids that you are incapable of telling the difference between them and real human beings, and he brings another man to his very remote island to do a Turing test to see if he can tell the difference. The Turing test is to see if test the difference between artificial intelligence and real life. All of his androids are women, and my spouse and I had very different responses to this, because the android he's testing fakes being in love with the tester and she is very, very Machiavellian, kills all the humans and then like gets out and is like let loose on the world with absolutely no morals or conscience. And I was like right on, right on, sister, because you saw and you see like footage of other androids, like destroying themselves, trying to get out. And to me it was like so Oscar Isaac plays the inventor, like Oscar Isaac has created these sentient beings for his own pleasure, sexual pleasure, yeah, and like that is the epitome of cruelty. And so that's that's what I was thinking of when you're, when you're talking about Robert Downey Jr and the other bully, like we're doing this for our own enjoyment and who gives a shit? Who gives a? Who gives a shit how she feels when we know from Lisaisa that she has sentience, she has agency, she, she wants things, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I, all of those things and it's up, it's part and parcel with how they feel about hilly and deb. It is exactly so. Let's let me put this.
Speaker 1:Actually I mentioned galatea, that, so that's the name of the sculpture, the woman, the sculpture who becomes a woman in the greek myth, which we know the best from ovid. You probably, probably know it better than I do. I haven't actually read it in a long time. I actually that's one part of. I mean I'm familiar with it, but that's Okay. So the rough story is there's this artist, this sculptor. He carves a woman out of marble that is so perfect that he falls in love with it, and Aphrodite takes pity on him somehow and grants this sculpture life, and they live happily ever after and have a kid together, which doesn't fit with my understanding of the Greek sense of storytelling. There should have been a tragedy there, but anyway. So part of what I think we are reacting to is actually a problem with the source material. Not weird science, but fucking Greek myth, right, which was clearly written by a dude. Well, also Greek understanding of femininity and women, right, right. So that's something that I just want to like name. That is again like I'm not forgiving.
Speaker 1:In some ways it is more progressive because his Galatea, his Lisa, has full agency. She does not end up as the sort of servant slash wife. In fact, they make it clear she does not have sex with either of these boys. So, like she uses her sexuality, she is confident in how beautiful and sexy she is and she uses that for all different means. But it is not, but it is fully in her control, which I don't know if that's the case in the source material from Ovid or wherever Ovid got it. Yeah Well, and it's also like you said, she's a she's a chaos agent. So she's totally, she is she's sort of their servant, but she is also, she takes it on herself to challenge them, yes To, to force them to grow and change, because she feels that they can. Almost every single piece of friction that they face is either caused by the bullies or by Lisa, and they would not have made any changes. No, no.
Speaker 1:So we don't have a lot of time, so I want to like make sure I get some stuff so I want to talk about. I do want to talk. I talked about the racism. Those guys from the blues bar show up later at the party and there's an interesting moment where they have friction with the bullies, because the bullies one of the guys that we met at the blues bar is actually working the bar for the party and they make an order. That's like trying to be tough. Like he says do you have scotch? I'll take a scotch. And he says how do you take it? And the bully says I'll just take the bottle. And the bartender, who's the black guy from the blues club, says why don't you bend over and I'll shove it up your ass. And the bully goes on, the rocks is good. And he says that's what I thought you were going to say. It's like so weird. Anyway. So there's this weird sort of like.
Speaker 1:Having him show up again, I think, is like a validation, a reiteration that somehow Gary and Wyatt, with with Lisa's help, like saw past the difference and now they're real friends. And then this guy's like helping defend him against these phonies of the bullies, who are shown to be phonies over and over again, right In so many different ways, including being cowardly when the bikers, when the Mad Max guys show up and they're just like every minute they just like have to get out. One of them says, what about deb and hilly? And they're like what about them? Let's go, you know like. And so the black friends I'm putting quotes around that just sort of become like credentials, almost some of my best friends are black. That's kind, yeah, yeah. So those are the sort of pieces I wanted to trace on kind of race in this movie, which is is it's not a lot, it really is, but it's there.
Speaker 1:But then I also want to talk about class, because Wyatt is like filthy rich, his family is very rich and Gary's dad is a plumber, and I think that it's never explicit, there is no exposition to this effect, but I do think that Hughes had something in mind around the fact that these two boys are friends across that class line. That also was some sort of credential of their merit. That's something that I just wanted to like say out loud, especially as we talk about Hughes's oeuvre and whether that we've talked about or not, and the ways that he kind of approached class. That is something he comes back to over and over again. I'm thinking planes, trains and automobiles. That is part of the friction between Neil and Del, the other guy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you mentioned Breakfast Club. I mean it's, it's just a repeated issue is is class, it's a thing that that was alive for hughes, yeah, yeah, and that also considering the in the 1980s with like that was the decade of greed, is good and economics and like welfare queens I'm putting that in scare quotes yeah, friendship across class differences would be a marker that meant something to viewers in the 80s Like it would. It would be something that I think a viewer in 2025 who didn't live through the 1980s wouldn't necessarily clock as a credential, but I think that it would definitely mean something to you know, a 15 year old watching it in 1985. Right, right, the seemingly anti-Indigenous racism of the biker guy which, when we hit record, I actually hadn't seen that this was a reprise or a reference of the Mad Max character. So it may be and, listeners, if you want to like chime in here it may be that actually the anti-Indigenous racism is from Mad Max and I just am unfamiliar with it because I don't know Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess I should say because I don't know Mad Max or Mad Max 2, I guess I should say because I don't know it.
Speaker 1:It stood out to me there was, there was that there was also this like the guy with the facial dysplasia felt a little ableist, that he's like this, like mutant I'm putting quotes around that bad guy. The girl with the collar and chain, I don't know it all just felt like a shorthand for bad guys that relied on unpleasant things. I mean the guy with the metal face just I don't know what that was about, like body horror Maybe that's a Mad Max thing too that I'm unfamiliar with. And when Gary actually finally confronts them and tells them to get out, he uses the F word. That is a slur for gay people about them, which really today just rankles Like. It stands out like a sore thumb to me Now. In the 80s it was totally normal and you know that's just sort of like outdated language. We don't talk like that anymore. It's not acceptable to use slurs for gay people as insult. It was then, but so anyway, that's just a little bit of an aside.
Speaker 1:Lastly, I want to name I think I said this Hughes's thesis here you don't have to change who you are in order to be worthy of love or worthy of whatever success. Cool, agree, and the way that he showed that right was to ultimately like reward these two nerds with girlfriends, which, on the one hand, it's made clear that deb and hilly don't actually like these two guys that they're with. In the beginning they feel sort of stuck and don't know what to do about it, and then it just sort of feels like the way they're conditioned to be, and they do seem to genuinely like wyatt and gary, on the other hand, like women are not prizes, you know. Like it, I feel like this movie helped contribute.
Speaker 1:Help contribute to the idea of like, put in good deeds, get out sex, like that sort of vending machine idea that, when taken to its extreme, ends up as what? What do they call themselves incels? Yeah, incels. Like that sort of like mad at women who don't do the thing where they do the thing, malfunctioning sex robots. You know, I put, I put in so many nice coins, why isn't the sex coming out? Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I feel like this kind of story, this kind of male fantasy, where these two nerds get rewarded for stepping up and being strong and brave and doing whatever the things are that they were supposed to do, get rewarded with these girls that they've been lusting after for a while, I feel like there's a direct line from this kind of story to the incel attitudes that are literally killing us. So I just wanted to name that, so like yes, john Hughes, yes, you shouldn't have to change who you are in order to be worthy of love use. Yes, you shouldn't have to change who you are in order to be worthy of love. It's not a guarantee, there's no. There's no like guarantee that if you like be who you are, you get sex and love. So, all right.
Speaker 1:I do have one thing that I want to talk about, like kind of more meta, before you kind of do your synthesis. So Kelly RockRock was huge, like all over in the 1980s, sometime in the 2000s I can't remember exactly how long ago it was I can recall that she was on one of those celebrity weight loss shows because she'd gained weight as she got older, as you do, as one does, and I remember the narrative about it was like she let herself go and there was this sense that she was, she had been worthy. When, in 1985, when she had this male fantasy body, when she, you know, was this perfect playboy centerfold, yeah, like, literally, if you could make a woman, she's who you would make. Yes, that's what this movie is about. And then, 20, 25, 30 years later, as a older woman who had had many years of life, with all of the joys and heartbreaks and tragedies and life experience because her body looked different. And life experience because her body looked different, she was on some sort of weight loss show, which I don't have any opinion about her decision to go on that. That is between her and whatever she decided to do, but that is a personal decision on her part. But it had to have been in some way embarrassing to do that.
Speaker 1:I mean that sort of narrative that she let herself go. Like fuck you. I've decided, whenever I hear that when someone says, when you say, let yourself go, I've decided to think of that as like you're on a ride and so you let yourself go. It's like wee, yeah, because the thing is, our bodies are our bodies and they do what they do. Body's going to body yeah, that's what bodies do. Yeah. So, and like the thing is, she is a gorgeous woman, yeah, no matter what size she is. And so the male fantasy that she represented in 1985, for one thing, with makeup and like, like the fan blowing and the fog machine is anyway, and like everything perfectly tweezed. So that is something that I'm thinking about as well. Like you don't have to change who you are to be worthy, unless you're Kelly LeBrock, unless you're Kelly LeBrock and you happen to age and you're 40 instead of 20. Yeah, so that's something like would that story be the same if it were about Deb and Hilly? Yeah, thinking about Galatea, would that story be like you don't have to change who you are to be worthy? That's not true of I just lost her name, eliza Doolittle, because she has to stop speaking. Well, little, because she has to. She has to stop speaking. Well, eliza was a statue. I mean that's really gross, like she. Like eliza is the raw clay that you mean galatea, I can. No, I mean eliza. She had to change who she was in order to be the woman he wanted to love. Yeah, yeah, all right, we are out of time, so let me see what I can remember to reflect back here. So doesn't pass back to Elle.
Speaker 1:Not feminist, but also not as anti-feminist as I expected when I came in because of the degree of agency and power and, like I don't know, benevolent chaos that Lisa. Actually, I want to be an agent of benevolent chaos. Amen, sister, amen. I want that to be my title on LinkedIn. I thought it was public intellectual. No, no, I just changed it. It's benevolent agent of chaos. Okay, so not as anti-feminist as I expected because, like Lisa is the protagonist, lisa is the most interesting, the most powerful, the most wonderful character period, the most interesting Hands down, by far the most interesting. There is this sort of Pygmalion trope, which is the Greek myth whereby Pygmalion is an artist who creates a sculpture out of marble and falls in love with it and then Aphrodite brings it to life and they get married and have a kid. Ew.
Speaker 1:So like ew to this movie, but also like and I hold John Hughes responsible for the movie he made but not accountable for the story, because he was borrowing it from thousands of years of culture. There's some weird stuff about race and class in this movie whereby relationships across those differences become credentials of goodness. But we don't actually see the work, at least around race, and in fact the work that we do see is is sort of appropriative and and surface level. And also, I have to admit I was charmed by anth Michael Hall's black scent, like I thought it was. It was, it was hilarious. And even as I'm like chuckling to myself watching it last night, I was like, oh, trace, don't.
Speaker 1:So this movie is one of the ones that you point to where science is magic, computers, computers are magic, specifically computers. Especially in the 80s, this one took it to the nth, so it wasn't just like this thing that with. You know, 30 years later we look back and go like, yeah, computers can't do that. They knew they couldn't do that even in the 80s. That's why there was this weird lightning effect and like just shit just magically changed. You know, like we watched cars be created out of nothing and then return to nothing. We watch the home furnishings go up the chimney and then come back in the chimney, you know. So the difference between magic and science in this movie called Weird Science is minimal. You couldn't slide a piece of paper in between that. You couldn't slide a piece of paper in between that. We have these two.
Speaker 1:The jocks in robert downey jr and robert rustler's characters of ian and max are just gross. They are reprehensible and we're meant to think of them as reprehensible and we see that over and over again. They are foils to our heroes and we see that in multiple, multiple ways. Some of the ways that they are gross are like so gross and our heroes do kind of buy into it, in so far as when the bullies offer a trade, the heroes say, well, we can't do that. Lisa's her own person, we would never do that. But they say, but what we could do and decide to make another person which backfires, and instead they make a Pershing missile with huge breasts.
Speaker 1:There was a moment that I named that. Now I'm wondering if actually was a reference to a different moment. So I don't actually want to put too much analysis on this. But, like, the magical bikers who are the challenge that Lisa manifests to make the boys be brave are Mad Maxstyle bikers, including one played by Vernon Wells who really reads as a Native American stereotype in not a good way, not that stereotypes are ever good. Lastly, at the end of our conversation I named the fact that Hughes's thesis seems to be you don't have to change who you are in order to be worthy of love, of friendship, of whatever, which in and of itself is fine.
Speaker 1:But the way that it goes about it, this movie contributes to the idea that leads directly to incel culture, whereby there is a sense that if men behave a specific way and put the nice coins in, then comes out which completely erases women's agency humanity, consent I don't know dignity, independence, like I could keep going, sentience, sentience. So this movie does contribute to that cultural phenomenon. I think we need to hold it accountable for that, and you actually named it as related to another film, ex Machina, whereby that is even more egregious. But again, this is in the background influencing the movie makers who end up making Ex Machina. So I think that's worth kind of it's worth naming that.
Speaker 1:This is part of the furniture of the mind of the folks who make Ex Machina. This is part of the furniture of the mind of the folks who make Ex Machina. This is part of the furniture of the mind that ends up creating incel culture. Did I forget anything? Just the connection to like Kelly LeBrock herself. Oh right, yeah, yeah, she has to change who she is in order to be worthy. Yeah, if she dares to gain weight, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah, yeah, or age, yeah, yeah, yeah, if you don't drop dead at 27,. You know how? Dare you in any way change the way you look? Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know if that'll satisfy our listener, who wanted us to tear it apart, but I had fun. What are you bringing me next week? Speaking of Pygmalion, I am going to be bringing you my deep thoughts on Mannequin. I am going to be bringing you my deep thoughts on Mannequin. Oh, it's totally Peck, millian. It is Sweet. We're on a roll. It was unintentional, but there we are. We're on a roll, all right. Well, see you then. See you then.
Speaker 1: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, thank you. 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?