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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
Hook with Jenn Book Haselswerdt: Deep Thoughts About Peter Pan's Perpetual Prepubescence in Pop Culture
"To die would be a grand adventure!"
Emily is delighted to welcome her dear childhood friend--and lifelong Peter Pan enthusiast--Jenn Book Haselswerdt to the podcast this week to discuss Steven Spielberg's 1991 film Hook. Although this fantasy film suffers from a lack of editing as well as some lazy 90s pop culture stereotypes regarding fatphobia and distracted dads, Jenn explains how magical it felt to see this love letter to Peter Pan in the theater as a child.
While the storytelling gives Peter a number of strange opportunities for romance (which is partially a vestige of J.M. Barrie's personal antipathy to romance and his period-typical view of women as jealous), Jenn finds some delightful feminism in the film, especially in the form of Peter's daughter Maggie. The 7-year-old girl never backs down, even in the face of Dustin Hoffman's campy turn as the evil Captain Hook.
Jenn and the Guy sisters also talk about the deeper meaning the Neverland myth, considering the fact that Peter Pan was based on Barrie's deceased brother who never had a chance to grow up. Together, they wonder why pop culture has embraced the concept of a boy who never grows up and what it means to be a child who is never and adult, as in the original story, and an adult who was never a child, as Robin Williams' Peter Banning is at the beginning of this film.
Your adventures aren't over! To listen...to listen to this episode would be an awfully big adventure!
You can find Jenn on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/sunbonnet_sue_is_tired/
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.
There's a scene where Captain Hook has Maggie and Jack in pirate school. Their topic for the day is why parents hate their children. They talk about the reason your parents read you bedtime stories is that they want you to go to sleep so they can be by themselves. They were free before you. And Maggie says, no, mommy reads us stories because she loves us. Like, yes, it's true that your parents were free before they had you, but they love you and they read you stories and they don't just want to get rid of you for the day. But also this statement is mommy reads us stories because she loves us. And then Jack is confronted with well, dad doesn't.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture? And then Jack is confronted with well, dad doesn't, as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 3:I'm Emily Guy-Burken 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? This week, I'm delighted to welcome my dear childhood friend, jen Book-Hasselsworth, to share her deep thoughts about the movie Hook with my sister, tracy Guy-Decker, and with you. Let's dive in. So I am welcoming Jen Book-Hasselsworth, who is an arts integration specialist in Columbia, missouri, where she lives with her family, which includes two cats, ponyo and Sasuki. She has a BA in theater from American University and an MA in theater history and criticism from the Catholic University of America. Her master's thesis was on the feminine imperative in Peter Pan and she got to hold original documents by JM Barrie and the 1902 production with white gloves as part of her research. In addition to teaching through the arts, jen is also a dramaturg, playwright and crafter. Her visual artwork, much of which explores topics of narrative and Jewish culture, has been on display at Columbia Art League, access Arts and the George Caleb Bingham Gallery. Jen, I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome.
Speaker 1:So excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 3:I reached out to you. I can remember Millstone Road represent, being at your house and watching Peter Pan playing Peter Pan. I remember that was such a formative story for you, and so I remember reaching out to you and saying like I think that having you on the show to talk about Hook specifically because that was a movie that came out when we were adolescents and how it kind of fits into your love for Peter Pan would be like a great fit for the show. And so you know you were like yes, please. So thought I'd start off with asking Tracy, because I'm pretty sure you've seen the film what do you remember about Hook?
Speaker 2:I have seen this film and hi, jen, it's good to see you, I've seen it, but it's been a very long time. So what I remember is that Peter Pan, as Robin Williams, is all grown up and sort of forgets who he is, and then I feel like somebody gets kidnapped maybe his kid possibly and he has to go back to Neverland and remember. He has to remember his magic, and so it's all about like being an adult and all about like remembering wonder. That's what's in my head about Hook is that it's about remembering wonder through the vehicle of the Peter Pan story and Robin Williams is.
Speaker 3:That is grown-up Peter Pan. That's what's in my head about Hook. But, em, why don't you share what you've got if anyone was going to play that character? As an adult, I remember the moment when he kind of embraced his Peter Pan personality. There's the Lost Boys were having a food fight with invisible food and all of a sudden his imagination kicked in and he could see the. It was basically a colored whipped cream that they were throwing at each other and I remember being charmed by that. So like I have a pretty good, good memory of it.
Speaker 3:I remember that Phil Collins has a has a cameo in this movie for some reason, as a police inspector for Scotland Yard, and that Peter Pan ended up staying in the real world because he fell in love with Wendy Darling's granddaughter and not knowing how I felt about that and not knowing how I felt about Tinkerbell, who was played by Julia Roberts, being jealous which I think is in the original like she's jealous of Wendy Darling in the original, like she's jealous of Wendy Darling. So there's this like kind of push me, pull you, aspect of like sex appeal and love and romance in this which you'd kind of have to have if you have a grown up Peter Pan which is not there when you have a perpetual boy. I also remember Bob Hoskins played Smee. Since Roger Rabbit I have adored Bob Hoskins and the chemistry he had with I think it's Dustin Hoffman plays Hook, is that right? Their chemistry as boss and servant kind of thing. But Smee is definitely the brains of the operation.
Speaker 3:Also, I found charming that's basically what I have, but it's probably been 20 years since the last time I've seen it. Jen, tell me why. Now I know. I basically know why Peter Pan is so important to you. But why is this adaptation of Peter Pan important? Why are we talking about it today?
Speaker 2:And the rest of us don't know. So you can share the Peter Pan thing. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:Sorry and the rest of us don't know. So you can share the Peter Pan thing too. Yeah, that too Sorry, I share with the entire class.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the whole class who can't see me, I do have Peter and Tink permanently on my quarter sleeve. They are a very, very important part of my history, but I've been trying to work backwards from why Peter Pan is so important to me and I don't remember how it started. My mom pinpointed, the exact same time that I did the same point that I remembered, which was I was obsessed with the 1953 Mary Martin musical.
Speaker 3:I remember that very well.
Speaker 1:Which I would watch and video all the time, but I don't remember why I was obsessed with it.
Speaker 1:And you know, hook came out after I was standing on top of the jungle gym with my hands on my hips, pretending to be Peter and making Emily I think you were always Wendy, right, and Rebecca was John and my brother was Michael that sounds about right and I was always Peter, mm-hmm. And then my grandfather passed away in 1990, and we had tickets to go see Kathy Rigby in Peter Pan, and so my mom's best friend, my brother and me to go see Kathy Rigby in Peter Pan, and so my mom's best friend, my brother and me to go see Kathy Rigby in Peter Pan, while my family was sitting, shiva and she flew over our heads and it was like the most magical moment. And then, not too long after that, december 91, hook came out and I think it was my first adaptation of anything that I loved, that I could pinpoint and be like. I understand the differences between this and the thing that I love, and also its similarities and where it's coming from in the heart of the matter, and so I think that must be it.
Speaker 2:I'll buy it. I mean it totally. Yeah, makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then Finding Neverland came out many, many, many, many, many years later. That's why I decided to write my thesis on Peter Pan.
Speaker 2:So, jen, I want you to give us a quick synopsis of the film for those of us who haven't seen it in 20 years, and if there are any highlights of buckets that you're going to talk about that you want to give us a preview of then, now's the time for that as well.
Speaker 1:Awesome, great. We open on Peter Banning, who is who Peter Pan became. Robin Williams, his wife Maura, who is played by Caroline, something, something, she's the mom in the Princess Diaries and their son, whose name is Jack, who's played by the wonderful Charlie Corsmo, who did like four movies ever, and they are all wonderful and amazing. And then he stopped acting to be a person. Spielberg is the director. He signifies to us what Jack is like because he's holding a baseball glove and a baseball while at his sister's play and the play that his sister Maggie, who only ever did Hook, that's it, she didn't do anything else she is in Peter Pan and she's playing Wendy, and Peter is being played by a girl, as Peter is traditionally played by a girl on stage, and they're doing the dialogue from the play and it is a musical, but it's not. The musical. Hook was originally supposed to be a musical and you can totally tell where the songs were supposed to be, but only one song remained, which is wild, because this movie could have used a whole lot more editing, but they cut all the songs out. So Peter is a little bit distracted.
Speaker 1:Robin Williams, because he is a real estate lawyer and he needs to be lawyering. He is your classic 90s absent dad and so he's at this play. He gives some exposition about having to go to London for a gala for Granny Wendy that's being given a wing at the hospital is being named after her. The next part he's doing a Sorkin walk with his colleagues. They're all wearing suits and they're very busy 1990s executive type people. He's getting debriefed on something I don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1:He gets into an elevator because he's got to go to the airport and there is a scene or a part of the scene that signifies how important and businessy they all are. Because he and another colleague reach for their cell phone holsters and another female employee does like a Morricone kind of do-do-do-do-do and they draw their cell phones at the same time. And they're these giant you know 1990s bricks. He gets on the elevator and his colleagues all make fun of him for being afraid to fly. He is afraid to get on an airplane and fly, to get on an airplane and fly.
Speaker 1:During this time he is also sending an underling to video Jack's baseball game that he can't make because he's at the office and having to stay late for this meeting. So he's been present for Maggie's play but he is absent for this giant, really important baseball game that Jack has and Jack gets distracted and he strikes out and he loses the game for his team. So this is the kind of dynamic that he has set up with his family. So they're on a Pan Am flight to London and then we see Pan.
Speaker 3:Am was still around in 1991? I didn't even realize was still around in 1991? I didn't even realize 1991.
Speaker 1:I know what a great visual gag too. So Jack has drawn the whole family like evacuating from an airplane crash and they all have parachutes, except for Peter, because Peter's a terrible dad and he's going to die in a fiery plane wreck. He's tossing the ball on a plane. We're in a pre-9-11 world. Peter promises Jack that he'll go to six games next season. He says my word is my bond and Jack says it's a junk bond. Peter says stop acting like a child and grow up. And Jack is like I am a child. And Charlie Corsmo is just so charming in this role.
Speaker 1:They talk about Granny Wendy. Is she the real Wendy? Well, she's sort of the real Wendy, but when they get to her house, tootles, who is one of the original Lost Boys, is there and he's her kind of butler. He's lost his marbles, so he's a kind of flighty kind of guy. And then the Wendy lady comes down the stairs and she says hello boy. And he says hello Wendy lady. And Jen Book Hasselsworth cries every time, because that is also how they greet each other in the play and the book. And it's Maggie Smith. So she is actually in age makeup, which is why in my head, maggie Smith has always been old. She's in very subtle age makeup. It's wonderful it's been 10 years between visits. She insists that the kids do not grow up, while in her house we learn things about Peter Banning. Besides that he's afraid of flying. He always has to have the window shut so that nothing can get in. When Jack is talking about him being a real estate lawyer, he uses pirate metaphor and imagery. Wendy is absolutely taken aback that Peter has become a pirate. They talk about Peter and Moira as they're getting ready for this gala, talk about missing their children's childhood and Moira throws his cell phone out the window where it is promptly mouthed by their dog and buried in a hole.
Speaker 1:As Peter is giving a keynote speech at Wendy's benefit, at the hospital where Wendy found homes for Peter and lots of other orphans, captain Hook comes and kidnaps the children and takes them to Neverland. We don't know that that's what's happening in that scene. We know that that's what has happened after they get home and they see, you know, scratches from a hook going up the wall. Hook left a note for Peter telling him to come to Neverland to save his children. Tootles does a cryptic rhyme about Hook being back, which 100% would have been a song and Wendy tells Peter that he is Peter Pan and reveals it to him for the first time.
Speaker 1:He refuses to believe it. He gets drunk and drinks some sipping whiskey or some other dark liquor and hallucinates. He thinks that a ball of light has come to find him and she is Tinkerbell the fairy. She's real. After he passes out from being super drunk, she wraps him up and flies him to Neverland, second star to right and straight on till morning. The visual is absolutely lovely of Neverland. This is 35 minutes into the movie, one thing that I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love that it's a real. This movie is over two hours long. I still love this movie. There is a lot that could have been cut out like a lot, but one thing that I found really charming, as Emily was talking about cameos in the movie as they fly over Neverland or over London they're kind of dripping pixie dust and we all know that happy thoughts and pixie dust are what make people fly. And so there's a couple that's kissing on Tower Bridge and they start to levitate, and that couple you can't see their faces but it's George Lucas and Carrie Fisher are the kissing couple. I love that, which is, yeah, it's really, really lovely.
Speaker 1:So we finally get to Neverland. Peter wakes up in like pirate land. They try to steal his shoes. It's a whole like fish out of water scenario. There's a whole lot of yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:And then we find Smee, who's played by Bob Hoskins, who I at the time did not know was actually British because I knew him with the Eddie Valiant accent from who Framed Roger Rabbit, and they do a big procession where they have Hook's hook on a velvet pillow to present it to the captain. Smee does a good morning Neverland announcement as he hypes up and does a comedian introduction to Captain Hook. Captain Hook is Dustin Hoffman in his campy, campy best. It's amazing. He notes that someone does not belong. He notes that someone does not belong and you know, you think it's Peter, but it turns out to be another cameo, which is Glenn Close in pirate attire. They put him in the boo box, which is a treasure chest into which they drop scorpions while they say boo. The other two cameos in this scene as pirates are David Crosby and Jimmy Buffett, which is really very appropriate. There's a lot of yada, yada, yada as we introduce.
Speaker 3:Another opportunity for a song there 100%.
Speaker 1:Yes. They display Peter's kids in a net that's risen above the mast of the ship. He reveals himself because he's like give me back my kids. He can't fly and they can't believe that he's an adult and can't fly. He can't fly and they can't believe that he's an adult and can't fly. There's some great puns in this part where he tries to like climb up the mast and he's like somebody give me a hand. And Hook's like I already did, he can't reach his kids. Tink talks them into not killing Peter and the kids Give us two days More. Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1:He gets knocked overboard, kissed by some mermaids who give him breath power, I don't know underwater, and then he wakes up in the Lost Boys treehouse where we meet Rufio, who is the new leader of the Lost Boys, played by the wonderful Dante Bosco, who more modern audiences might know as the voice of Zuko in the Avatar and Korra series.
Speaker 1:They do what I noted as a tour of ridiculousness. As he runs through the Lost Boys land and finds that it has been completely 90s-ed up with skateboard half pipes and one-on-one basketball with cool flips. There is a very weird could-have-been-really-edited scene where Captain Hook is about to unalive himself and he's like don't stop me, Smee, don't stop me. And Smee is like, oh good, not again. And then he's like stop me, smee, stop me, I'm actually going to do it this time, stop me. And Smee stops him. Comes up with the plan that Captain Hook should get Peter's kids to love him instead of Peter, and that's what would really kill him if Peter's kids love him. We have a training montage of Peter losing weight to fight with Hook. There's a lot of body shaming here, even though one of the really prominent Lost Boys is a bigger kid and of course his name is Thud Butt.
Speaker 3:And he's got two days to train, right? I mean it's.
Speaker 1:He's got two days to train and they're all like lose that weight, you're real fat and it's like I don't think that that like teach him how to hold a sword maybe is what he needs.
Speaker 3:Not helpful.
Speaker 1:Also could have been a song. They sit down to dinner. Everybody say grace and they all go grace while Peter's like, oh, thank you Lord. Then the kids do amazing space work while they eat invisible foods. Peter is real hungry, he can't do it. He and Rufio insult each other back and forth and through becoming Robin Williams, he also becomes the pan and is able to use his imagination by you know, freestyle, you, rude, bag, food, dude or something like that. The kids say you're doing it, you're using your imagination, you're playing with us, peter. And all of a sudden Peter can see the food in front of him. It's a feast. They have a big food fight, like Emily said, with the food-colored whipped cream. It's really, really lovely. But he still can't fly yet because he hasn't found his happy thought.
Speaker 1:Maggie, peter's daughter, still hates Captain Hook because she wants her mommy. But Jack learns to become a pirate and starts forgetting about home. So we see him smashing the watch that Peter gave him. At the beginning of the movie we see him dressing up as Captain Hook wearing the Regency wig, and Hook says you know your dad couldn't save you wig. And Hook says you know your dad couldn't save you and Jack says he wouldn't save us. He could have tried, but he didn't. So Jack chooses to become a pirate and Hook supports him playing baseball. They make two baseball teams, both called the Pirates. They have a whole baseball game and they cheer for Jack and they're there for him in a way that Peter wouldn't be there for him because he was an absent 90s dad. They have a big baseball scene where the Lost Boys are, you know three kids in trench coats piled on top of each other, three kids in trench coats piled on top of each other, disguised as pirates. They cheer for Jack. The pirates are saying run home Jack, run home Jack. And Jack is like wait, what's this home you're talking about that I should run to? And they're like wait, we've got it backwards. Home run Jack, home run Jack. And Jack's like, oh okay, I got to hit a home run Jack. Home run Jack. And Jack's like, oh okay, I got to hit a home run More. Yada, yada, yada-ing.
Speaker 1:Peter finds his old tree house where he lived with Wendy. He starts to remember oh, because he got knocked on the head by Jack's home run ball. He sees his own childhood reflection in the mirror or in the lake. His shadow starts doing funny things and he finds that his happy thought is his children, which is really, really awesome. They find you are the pan he talks through the entire preface and beginning of the Peter Pan story that we know. And then Tink's feelings are so big, they're too big for her body and she becomes full-size Julia Roberts for the first time and only time in the whole movie, because her feelings are so big they couldn't be contained in her little body. And she professes her love to Peter and kisses him and he says Moira, I gotta get back home to Moira, I gotta save my kids and get back home to them. And I got to save my kids and get back home to them. And her heart is broken. But she understands.
Speaker 1:They all suit up to battle the pirates. They go and battle the pirates, they win. Thudbutt helps them win by becoming a ball and rolling down the stairs. His weight is the perfect thing Body neutrality, his body works to help them seize the day. It's not Newsies, this one's actually not a musical. Hook asks how did you ever manage to fit into those smashing tights again, peter?
Speaker 1:Peter and Hook do the same back and forth that they do in the original Insolent youth. Prepare to meet thy doom, dark and sinister man have at thee. It is unclear to me whether Captain Hook knows that he's quoting something that he said 30 years before. They win the battle, but not until after Hook runs Rufio through with a sword and he is no longer no longer alive. Until after Hook runs Rufio through with a sword and he is no longer alive. Hook does some bad form tricks to Peter, but ultimately Peter winds up asking him or making him yield. Hook does wind up disappearing in a very weird way, which is that potentially the crocodile who originally ate his hand and he had taxidermied and stuffed in the middle of Neverland, might have come to life and eaten him. It's very unclear and weird. But he's not there anymore and so he has Tink, sprinkle the kids with the pixie dust and they fly home.
Speaker 1:Peter names Thudbutt the new leader of the Lost Boys. Now that he's going home and Rufio's not around anymore, he says I want you to take care of everyone who's smaller than you. The smallest one says then who do I look after? And Peter says never bugs, little ones. They fly home. Moira wakes up and her kids are there and Smee is a street sweeper. So it's unclear about whether to him. You know whether it's all been a dream, but the kids remember it as well. Now they need to leave the window open always, instead of having it closed. He kisses Moira, which is something that he'd not done previously in the movie.
Speaker 1:Apparently, neverland is marriage counseling. He had dug up his phone from where Nana had buried it, but now he throws it out the window again. Where Nana had buried it. But now he throws it out the window again. And Thudbutt had given Peter Tootles marbles which he had left behind in Neverland. So he gives Tootles back his marbles which he didn't lose after all, and they were his happy thought and he goes flying away through London. And it ends with another famous line from Peter Pan Someone says so, peter, your adventures are over. And he says no to live. To live will be an awfully big adventure. End of movie. That was more of a synopsis, but see, it could have been edited. So much, there's so much in this movie.
Speaker 1:It hard to be concise, it really is I didn't even like there's so much, I didn't go over so where would you like to start in the analysis?
Speaker 1:so I think, just because I've been thinking about what does it mean to be an adult versus what does it mean to be a child? And so Peter had been. He's forgotten everything up until Wendy, until he moved to moved, he picked up two guys in a truck, moved to London from Neverland, but he doesn't remember anything prior to being 12 or 13 years old when he first sees Moira in the house where he left Wendy and Wendy is now an older woman and she finds him a home. He doesn't remember anything before that, so he doesn't remember Neverland. He doesn't remember anything before that, so he doesn't remember Neverland. He doesn't remember anything before Neverland, so he doesn't remember being a child.
Speaker 1:And his whole thing with his children is grow up, stop being a child and he doesn't know how he can incorporate these childish things or childlike things into being an adult. And even when he remembers that he's Peter Pan, he is purely child for a moment, until he remembers Moira, until he remembers that he's a father and then he's able to put those two parts of himself back together and I think the idea of being there, like just remembering what it was like to be a child, leads to that 90s absent dad trope of being an adult is the only important thing, and he doesn't have anything. Like you know, I need to put food on the table or I need to like.
Speaker 1:This is what I need to do with the money. It's just. Dad is a grownup and he can't relate to us. Being an adult is the most important thing you can be.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just to build on that.
Speaker 3:I feel like that's really interesting, just in part just because of why JM Barrie wrote this, because he had a brother who died and so who never grew up and so like would forever be young, would forever be Peter Pan, and so Peter Banning is the opposite, is forever an adult.
Speaker 3:You know, had never, like never experienced childhood.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about before my dad died. There was a point where he said he had forgotten what it was like to be a child, like he had gotten to an age where he'd forgotten what it was like to be a child, and I wish I could remember when he said that to me, whether it was before or after I'd had kids, because he absolutely adored being a grandfather. But I also, like he really liked babies, like I'm not sure how he would feel about, like you know, elementary school kids and like once they've got a mind of their own Right. But that's really interesting and that's something that we've talked about a little bit before in previous episodes, like in Big, where as adults, we forget what it's like to stay connected to that childlike wonder that is such an important part of humanity that we lose in the.
Speaker 3:Being an adult is the most important thing. Like that we think, like I got to do the spreadsheets, but then we also, you know, if you refuse to accept any responsibility, then you like, you know the overcompensating and then, but then there's the like, the overlap, where, like with peter, here he's, he is like taking, he's saying like a responsibility so important and then he's missing the responsibility of being a father by completely missing his son's baseball games, which is so much more important than whatever he's doing with these real estate mergers or whatever.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and I think about like I'm really fortunate in my work that I do Like my work is playing and my school, where I work, is inspired by Montessori and Reggio Emilia work and Maria Montessori famously said play is the work of children and so I get to sit on the floor and I get to make things with pom-poms and things like that as an arts integration specialist and I think part of what separates being a normal adult because I'm not a normal adult I think part of what separates being a normal adult from being a child is the curiosity about the world and that's what leads to play.
Speaker 1:So in my research for my thesis, part of my thesis is that Neverland is a game of pirates and Indians and that everyone, all the children, are repeating what they've heard. And Indians is JM Barrie's language, and so everyone is repeating what they've heard their parents say about these different kinds of people. And it actually isn't until I just said that just now that I didn't realize that the Indians are not in this movie at all. Had not noticed that till right this very moment. But yeah, it's that wonder, it's that play, it's that if anything in the world could be on this table, what would I have it be, you know.
Speaker 2:I was also thinking about Big, so I was glad that you mentioned it because it also has been coming up for me and thinking about Wonder, but also actually SpongeBob, like when we talked about SpongeBob and like when you were talking about Imagination 10 and when you finally saw it and I thought about that meme you know, like imagination with the rainbow.
Speaker 1:I gotta tell you real quick that one of my that's one of the things that I do with the kiddos is we talk about the tools that we have in our toolbox as artists and I say you make your fists, you cross them at the wrists, you pop out your sparkle fingers and you make a rainbow above your head like SpongeBob, and that is. I gotta say that at the beginning of every school year.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. That's fantastic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's fantastic. That's fantastic, that's also well so. I've I've had a recent like philosophical conversation with my 14 year old. He's a writer too and like, oh my God, this, this kid is, is like a copy of me in so many ways.
Speaker 3:And I'd recently told him, like you know, before you have kids, one of the things they tell you is that the hardest thing of parenting is your kids make the same mistakes you did and you can't, like you see it coming and you can't stop them from making those mistakes. And before I had kids, I was like what? I don't know what mistakes my kids will make. And then I had him and I told him that, because he is getting himself twisted in knots about like I'm not productive enough with my writing, I'm not doing enough with my writing, what if I never get published? What if this then that happens, which is exactly the same crap that I put myself through and like 30, 40 years of like overthinking my writing and like squeezing all the joy out of it. And I've told him that and I'm like, please don't do this to yourself.
Speaker 3:But it's the same sort of thing where it's the adult pressure on the childlike wonder, adult pressure on the childlike wonder. Like, because it's the joy and the just, the imagination and interest that is innately in me from being a small child making up stories. But then there's the adult pressure of like, but I got to do something with this that like squeezes all of the air out of it, and so, you know, I ended up having writer's block for six years and so, like, that's kind of what this story is. There's a bit of a meditation on that, which is why it's, I think, a really interesting adaptation of this beloved story. Because, like, what if Peter Pan grew up? There's a really interesting question there Like, what would happen to this like incredibly free character if he had to go through the pressures of adulthood?
Speaker 1:Hook has Maggie and Jack in pirate school and their topic for the day is why parents hate their children and they talk about the reason your parents read you bedtime stories is that they want you to go to sleep so they can be by themselves. And they were free before you, free before you, and now they can't be that anymore. And Maggie says no, mommy reads us stories because she loves us. And Hook gives her an F and she freaks out because she's seven years old and she's never gotten an F. She's like an F, and I see that very much coming from Peter.
Speaker 1:But that's such an amazing statement of no, even like yes, it's true that your parents were free before they had you, but they love you and they read you stories and they don't just want to get rid of you for the day, you know, and I think that's such a great statement. But also this statement is mommy reads us stories because she loves us. And then Jack is confronted with Well, Dad doesn't. This movie, I'm relatively certain, does not pass the Bechdel test, but it does have strong-named female characters who have backstories and who have personalities of their own and are not necessarily just there to serve the story, and Maggie is a character that I'm really glad my daughter can see specifically.
Speaker 2:Jen, I want to take us to a slightly different place. I want to ask you about this. Emily named that. Barry wrote this because of his deceased brother, who can never grow up, and I'm feeling a tension that I'd love to hear you talk about a little bit more. Like Neverland is a game of pirates and Indians and so it's just happening all the time. It's basically imagination, but also maybe Neverland is death because Barry's brother is there. Also, maybe Neverland is death because Barry's brother is there, but also Neverland is where this distracted dad who's forgotten what actually matters, where he goes to find his wonder Like all three feel like they're true in Hook and maybe in the Peter Pan original, and I'd love to hear you like kind of unpack that a little bit and also like how those things interact with one another, like how all three of those things are true and maybe others that I haven't thought of. Like what is neverland?
Speaker 1:that is such a great question and I love it so much. So one thing that's I'm not a hundred percent sure. And stop, I'm not not 100% sure. When Tinkerbell is taking Peter in Hook back to Neverland, he says I see a bright light and I'm moving towards the light. And that's really the only inkling that we get in this particular narrative, that Neverland might be death. I mean, of course he's talking about he's drunk, he's talking about the light of Tinkerbell herself.
Speaker 1:But I was also thinking while watching the movie this Go Round. You know how, like whenever people are haunted or whenever people think they see ghosts, they think they see little Victorian children. And that's what Peter Pan is right, little Victorian children and Edwardian. But in Hook you've also got the kids from the 90s, the 1990s, well, I guess the 80s. And I had been thinking recently anyway, because my house was built in 1999, that if there was a ghost in my house, that ghost would be from the 2000s. And you don't ever see ghosts from the 2000s, you don't ever see ghosts from the 90s. There's no like ghosts wandering around in flannels and a Nirvana shirt, right? So we do have, except in the very first season of American Horror Story spoilers, and so we do have.
Speaker 1:If Neverland is death, these kids who have come after Peter left, who he didn't know. There are still some of the original Lost Boys, there are the twins, they're still there, tootles left, but there are lots of kids that Peter didn't know, like Rufio, and those are the ghosts of the 90s. Those are the children who found Neverland in the 80s and 90s and that's why Neverland is different than it was. Since Peter was there. Neverland. There's a thought that the reason a lot of people have very few people have written about hook, lots of people have written about peter pan, and so there's a school of thought that the reason that kiddos do grow up in neverland but peter either kicks them out and they become pirates and that's where pirates come from or p Peter kills them once they start getting older.
Speaker 2:Well, that's dark yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow, peter's not in the classic story, right? If we look at it from an adult perspective, captain Hook has gotten lost. He's a cavalier, king Charles II cavalier. That's why he looks like he does with the big wig and the big coat Also drag queen. But they wouldn't let me write about that for my thesis, so we're going to put that aside.
Speaker 3:Damn shame, because I would read that.
Speaker 1:He's a panto dame in the Victorian panto tradition. Anyway, I'll write that someday. So he and his crew get lost somehow in Neverland, or maybe they died and were taken to Neverland somehow. Here's this bratty 11-year-old kid who's like okay, you're my enemy. Now when we play pirates, I have to fight the pirates because that's my game. They become mortal enemies.
Speaker 1:The kid chops off his hand, throws it into the ocean or the lagoon where it's eaten by a crocodile who then has a taste for human flesh and comes after Hook for the rest of his life, and so Hook is fighting for his life because this 11-year-old can't leave him alone. So I mean, that's Peter Pan from an adult perspective, right, and so Peter's not a great guy. A very important part of his narrative in the original story is that Peter forgets, and so that's completely in character for him and Hook. When Peter comes to visit Wendy decades in the future, tink has died because fairies don't have long lives. Wendy asks about her and Peter says who's Tink? He forgets, and he comes to see Wendy less and less and less frequently, and that is what we see in Hook, but he forgets, and so I'm not sure whether that's the dead forget about the living or kids have short memories, but there's something there. I don't know if that answers your question. I don't know if there is an answer to that question, yeah that's fair.
Speaker 2:I wonder too if the forgetting is almost necessary to avoid growing up. Yeah, right, yeah, I feel like part of the thesis of this and Big and SpongeBob is that being an adult is not actually about the responsibility, the sort of the negative piece of adulthood is just sort of the cumulative effect of like forgetting what matters. But in order to, perhaps in order to stay perpetually childlike, one has to forget things especially difficult, things like Tinkerbell's death. To forget things especially difficult, things like Tinkerbell's death, right, like remembering your best friend's death, is going to take away some of your childlike wonder.
Speaker 3:It's going to adultify you in some way. And from there, something that I think is really interesting is it's not a coincidence that Michael Jackson called his home Neverland Ranch, and he really identified with Peter Pan as well. And I recently heard another writer say that writers tend to continually write about wherever they got stuck in childhood. And apparently Stephen King saw a friend get in a horrible accident when he was very, very small and that's why he writes horror. And you know, clearly, michael Jackson was horribly abused as a child, which is why he got stuck in this, whatever this childlike place he was, because Neverland does not seem like something that you would want to aspire to and Peter Pan does not seem like something you would want to aspire to, because that is not growth.
Speaker 3:Childlike wonder is something that you want to include into your growth but not have at the expense of remembering Tink, remembering your best friend. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and so so like I just I think that it's really fascinating that it's like the people who watch Fight Club without recognizing, like, what it's about, like watch it on, like without unironically, like I want to start a Fight Club, it's like no, no, no, you didn't get the movie, and not that I, like I have a lot of sympathy for, like the horrible abuse that Jackson went through, and yearning for a place where you can feel you can have the childhood you never had, but not recognizing that that is not something to want to live in you know Nice place to visit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Something that's really interesting too about that is that one of the things about being a child is that you don't form adult relationships or relationships in the way that adults do. And Tinkerbell in the original is very much in love with Peter. Her body's too small to hold more than one emotion at a time. That's in there in the original.
Speaker 1:And Wendy also loves Peter because she is a girl on the precipice of becoming a woman, and so she understands what adult relationships are.
Speaker 1:And the first time they meet she wants to give him a kiss and he holds his hand out because he thinks she's going to give him something, and so she gives him a thimble. The acorn that he gives her in return winds up saving her life when Tink tries to have the Lost Boys murder her, because you know, rivals and girls can't be friends with each other in popular culture. But you know, wendy loves Peter, tink loves Peter. Peter doesn't form adult relationships, and there is a thought that JM Berry did not have inappropriate relationships with the boys to whom he dedicated Peter Pan, and he also did not have an inappropriate relationship with their mother, who was married. Berry was married, but there is a real serious thought that he might have been asexual and could not or did not form, and maybe aromantic as well, did not or could not form those relationships with people in the way that a Victorian and Edwardian society would have expected one.
Speaker 2:I feel like there's two things that you said in advance that I want to just like lift up. And if you have any additional comment, because I want to make sure that our listeners hear this One is I'll just name it because you started to say it but there's something really fascinating about the idea that the play somehow exists in the world of Hook, and so we have, like, when you said, it's unclear whether or not Hook realizes he's saying something that he said 30 years ago or whatever I think the cosmology of that world that's created by that literature that is also the literature is really really interesting to me. So I just wanted to lift that up a little bit more explicitly. And then the other thing that you said that we haven't actually touched on is the ways in which this film, this adaptation, is a love letter to Peter Pan, and so if you wanted to say a few words about that before we wrap up, I wanted to give you the opportunity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's really Spielberg and the screenwriters just obviously know the source material so so well, and I think that the Lost Boys Treehouse in particular is exactly how I would have pictured it, and it's so full of childlike wonder.
Speaker 1:At one point, when they're saying goodnight to each other, one of them blows a raspberry to blow out his nightlight, which is just so lovely.
Speaker 1:I think that having so many quotes in there from Peter Pan and even referencing the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which is where all of the royalties from Peter Pan go in perpetuity, as willed by JM Barrie, and is where Wendy is getting honored in this movie Knowing that Wendy name-checking JM Barry but saying that she and her brothers would tell these stories to each other and Mr Barry wrote them down even nods to the history of the story itself rather than just quoting it.
Speaker 1:And I love to, because I am a person who, in my criticism and I do have a degree in theater, history and criticism, but I recognize that criticism doesn't have to be negative as you do when you, with this podcast, put a critical eye on things, but that doesn't mean being negative or nasty about them. I don't find it pleasurable to talk in a negative way about these things, and watching Hook as an adaptation, as well as a sequel, in such a loving way is such an absolute pleasure. Absolute pleasure. They don't cast a negative 90s Gen X eye on the original property. It's very earnest. Could have been edited a lot more, but incredibly earnest and loving.
Speaker 2:And it's such a pleasure to watch. Thank you, okay, let me see if I can reflect back what I heard. So that was a beautiful place to land, so we spent a lot of time talking about. I think the biggest bucket is what does it mean to be an adult and what does it mean to be a child, and I think there's a lot there to think about. There's priorities and wonder and imagination and play, and you brought in Maria Montessori in thinking about that in terms of, you know, play being the work of being a child and sort of the focus on work and focus on being an adult being the most important thing was the hypothesis that is being countered by this movie, hypothesis that is being countered by this movie and that intersects in interesting ways by the mechanism of Neverland. I think. I think there's something really interesting there that, when we take the broader property not just Hook, but the broader property of the Peter Pan kind of mythos that has been created in the wake of the play and all of the various adaptations, that has been created in the wake of the play and all of the various adaptations, where Neverland is the place where our Peter, as Robin Williams, goes to remind himself of wonder, but it is also maybe death, and it is also a place where, if you don't forget the things that matter, you have to leave or maybe die or maybe become a pirate, so like it's not unqualified, it is not uncomplicated, and I think that's really interesting and really important and probably why all of these years this property continues to be so animating for you. Also, you talked about this as sort of the when we meet him, peter banning, as the quintessential distracted 90s dad who we all had a good time shitting on then I mean, there's so many examples of that character, so I think that's sort of interesting as like a time capsule from the 90s. That's sort of interesting. And then just very quickly probably doesn't pass bechdel but does give some really strong and fully fleshed out and interesting female characters with voices, including young Maggie, who I think it's really poignant and sweet that you named. You're glad that your daughter, who I just had the opportunity to meet virtually and is three and a half, and you're glad that she has Maggie as a potential role model. So that's pretty great.
Speaker 2:And then I relifted up, which you sort of said in passing, the fact that there's this interesting cosmology of this literature that exists in the world of itself but also references it but also is an adaptation of it, like all of those self-referential points which make it ultimately a love letter to the original Barry, which is really really lovely, and I think also like allows you where you just landed, that we can have a critical eye and sort of see all of these things and all of this furniture of the mind that this has continued to impart about childhood and adulthood and about rivalries between women, which you just said in passing, but I think it's worth like renaming. And about like what does it mean to have adult relationships? Like when we're talking about romance and sex and the fact that in the original source material, wendy wants to give him a kiss and so he puts out his hand, and like what does that have to say about adulthood? Like there's so much in there.
Speaker 2:This is really really deep. I feel like we could have gone. We're going over time, but we could have gone a lot, lot longer. What did I miss from our conversation? In my attempt to share the highlights, I think I did it.
Speaker 3:There could have been a lot more music.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, actually, that actually is an important highlight. I think from this is what I learned from Jen. This movie could have been a lot shorter and it could have had music from Jen.
Speaker 1:This movie could have been a lot shorter and it could have had music. The only song is sung by Maggie oh yes, I remember that. That's the one song and it reverberates all through Neverland. You can hear it from everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, Jen, it was wonderful to see you again. It's been a pleasure. I used to babysit for Jen and her brother when we were kids. So this is like old home week for reals. This is so awesome. Thank you so much. It was really, really great to have you on the show. Is there a?
Speaker 1:way to get in touch with you. If folks want to socials, I am on Instagram at sunbonnet underscore sue, underscore is underscore tired.
Speaker 2:Sunbonnet Sue is tired. We will link to it in the show notes. Thank you so much, and next week it is my turn. I will be bringing my deep thoughts about the Disney animated film, the Sword in the Stone Very, very cool. Until then, all right. Until 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 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?