Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Gremlins: Deep Thoughts About Great Movies, Genre Mashups, and Where Gremlin Marauders Get Their Tiny Little Clothes

• Sister podcasters raised by 80s and 90s movies: Tracie Guy-Decker, lover of animation, Muppets, comedy, and feminism & Emily Guy Birken, storytelling nerd, mental health advocate, and pop culture aficionado • Episode 116

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...And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Today, Tracie returns to another one of the movies that traumatized her and Emily in early childhood: the 1984 film Gremlins. Written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante, the film was advertised as a fun family fantasy, with the adorable mogwai Gizmo (described by Roger Ebert as a cross between a Pekingese, Yoda, the Ewoks, and a kitten) as too cute for little kids to pass up. What the 1980s movie going audience didn't know was that this film was playing with storytelling and fiction tropes and really tap-dancing on the fine line that separates comedy from horror. Columbus and Dante created a film about their love of movies, using Gremlins as an opportunity to recreate some of their favorite scenes, characters, and moments from classic movies. And then, like one of the eponymous rampaging gremlins, they stuck it all in a blender and hit frappe.

The result is a fun, weird, scary, bizarre, and sometimes offensive mashup of movies and messages and lessons and metaphors that don't entirely make sense all together, because making sense was beside the point.

Put on your headphones and take a listen. Just don't turn your back on any nearby Christmas trees. 

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.cracked.com/article_38101_sexual-anxiety-racism-the-vietnam-war-no-one-knows-what-gremlins-is-a-metaphor-for.html

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/

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We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

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SPEAKER_01:

The movie makers clearly love movies. I mean, that's why they went into what they went into. And that shows through. There are specific movies whose references we see, like because clips of them appear, including It's a Wonderful Life, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Disney Snow White. But there are other references to movies throughout that, so that we get sort of in these three acts, it's almost like three separate genres, which is really, I think, really interesting. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just up culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit. Because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be talking about the 1984 film Gremlins with my sister, Emily Guyberkin, and with you. Let's dive in. And we saw this together. So I know you saw this movie. So tell me what's in your head about it.

SPEAKER_00:

So this is one where you said recently that I like remember entire plots of movies and you just remember how they made you feel. This is one where I don't really have that much of a memory. I there are some things I know about it. I know that this movie scared the crap out of us because I know that this is the movie that made dad decide that if he took us to the movies, he would go see it first before he took us to see it. Which, hypocrite much, Mr. Poltergeist. I remember like Gizmo, the good gremlin, like driving a little toy car and being super cute. I remember like Stripe, like the bad gremlin, and like something about one of them in a microwave. I had completely forgotten that it was set at Christmas until something reminded me of that. I remember that there were rules about not feeding the gremlins after midnight and not getting them wet. And I kind of remember that the Gremlin was a gift, like a Christmas gift it must have been, that the main character's father got in like Chinatown or something. And that's about the extent of it. That's like 60% of the plot that you remember. Oh, and the other thing, I know that this is apparently there's one other movie, but this is one of the two movies that is the reason why we have PG 13. Yeah. Because dad was taking us, I would have been what, five and you were eight.

SPEAKER_01:

It was 1984.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So why are we talking about this today?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, we're talking about it right now because it is in fact a Christmas movie. So this and last week's episode about love actually are our double-barreled Christmas episodes this year. It was on the list because, yeah, it was one of those ones that we watched as kids that like I remember it scaring us. And but I also remember all of the like merchandising around it and how like Gizmo was like, like, I think we had a toy of him in that little pink car when we were that age. So that's why I was on the list originally, and that's why we're doing it right now. So let me give you some postcards from The Destination. Like this film has surprisingly a lot in it. I didn't remember until I just re-watched it that Steven Spielberg is the executive producer, directed by Chris Columbus and written by Joe Dante. Huh. Because Chris Columbus directed the first Harry Potter film. He has a long filmography. Yeah. He's very prolific in sort of the like oove that Deep Thoughts covers. So, and I didn't remember any of that. I want to talk about the way that like other movies, like that references old movies to kind of like make you expect something and then subvert what you're expecting. Those include It's a Wonderful Life and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and even Steven Spielberg's own ET a little bit. I also want to talk about like it seems to have some cultural commentary, possibly about xenophobia, about consumerism slash capitalism, and like greed, and about different commentators have different ideas about what the gremlins represent. So I want to spend some time talking about that. There are some commentators, multiple commentators who see the gremlins as stand-ins for black folks, like moving into the suburbs and like have called it a very racist movie as a result. So I want to like spend some time unpacking that. There's like a bunch of shit to talk about with the rules that you mentioned. Like there is actually one other, and like just the nature of this species that I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time on because a lot of people have gone real deep on that and they'll do a better job than I will anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

But I will just say don't feed them after midnight at some point, going like Eastern time, central time.

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

When does it reset? Because it's always after midnight. Like, yeah. And apparently in Gremlins 2, Columbus does address that somehow. I didn't go into that. I didn't rewatch the sequels. This is only talking about the first movie. So, and I don't want to spend too long on that because I think a lot of ink, well, pixels have been spilled on that. And those folks did a lot more research and thinking than I'm I did. So I'm just gonna let them have it. I do want to unpack like what do the Kremlins gremlins represent and like what is the kind of whether intentional or unintentional commentary happening here. But let me start with filling in the plot. You really do remember like 60% of it. That is ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00:

I was five. I've not seen it since. That was 41 years ago.

SPEAKER_01:

I know. So we first meet through voiceover, Rand Randolph, Randall, I don't know, Rand.

SPEAKER_00:

He goes by Rand Pelzer. Is that intentional, like Ayn Rand, do you think? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. So he's an inventor. And he says he's in Chinatown to maybe sell some of his stuff and maybe get a Christmas present for his kid. So he goes down, like down these stairs, and this young boy, Chinese boy, is he's following. Rand is white. He's following this young Chinese boy, and he's like, Where are you taking me? And he says, This is it. He says, This is your grandfather's store. Yes. So it's this like like cliched, like, you know, very full curiosity shop. Grandfather, and that's the only name he has even in the credits, is this like elderly Chinese man with two different colored eyes, like smoking a long pipe. And he's looking around at all the different stuff, like dried animals and like tarantulas and like gold dragons, and like, I don't know, this sort of like orientalism. And I'm I'm using that word very intentionally. Xenophobia much. Yeah. Stuff that like that like white folks are expecting to find in an underground shop, right? And he tries to sell the grandfather the this bathroom buddy, which is like, imagine like a Swiss army knife, but with bathroom tools. But then when he presses the button that's supposed to put the toothpaste on the toothbrush, it like squirts all over him. He's not a good inventor. We establish that immediately. He hears some like kind of cooing and goes to find what it is, and it's this little creature, which we learn is called a mogwai, which Roger Ebert said looks like a cross between Yoda and an ewok and a kitten, which I think is actually fairly accurate. It's like a it's a moving stuffed animal. The Furby dolls were famously based on it and like really Warner Brothers sued them. I didn't know that. The Furby dolls being like looking just like Gizmo. So he says, I have to have it. You know, so very like Veruca Salt, like, I have to have it.

SPEAKER_02:

I want it now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. He says, I'll give you a hundred bucks for it. He puts a hundred dollar bill down on the counter, and the old man's like, no, it's not for sale. And the little kid, you see, the little kid, the boy who had shown him down into the thing, his eyes widen at the$100 bill. He says, I have to, uh,$200. And the old man says, It's not for sale. With Mogwai comes great responsibility and you can't handle it. And he walks away. And the kid says, Go outside and wait for me. So the kid, unlike under his grandfather's nose, sells him the mogwai. So meanwhile, we meet Billy, his son, Billy Pelzer, who is in his early 20s, still living at home, working as a bank teller. He drives a little Volkswagen Beetle that doesn't drive. It's snowy. They're in Kingston Falls, and we immediately meet their neighbor, Mr. Futterman, who says Kingston Falls, New York? They don't say what state. Okay. Mr. Futterman says, You can't trust these foreign cars. That's why I only buy things made in America. And like he goes on and on about how things foreign manufacturing can't be trusted. But Billy has to get to work, so he walks with his dog, who's called Barney, who doesn't need a leash, and he goes and he works in a bank as a bank teller. The dog comes with him and like hides under his little desk while he's at the bank. I don't really get that. We also meet his love interest, whose name is Kate, played by Phoebe Cates, who has him sign a petition because they're trying to save a bar, I think, or some sort of establishment that Mrs. Dingle wants to not renew the lease on. And Billy says, Oh, them too. So now we've established Mrs. Dingle is like a mean landlady. She marches into the bank carrying a giant snowman head, like ceramic snowman head. And we see her like walking down the street to get to the bank, and she's like very mean. Like somebody says, Good morning, Mrs. Dingle. And she says, What's good about it? And then as she's on her way into the bank, like a woman with her two kids is like, Oh, Mrs. Dingle, my husband got a job and I've been taking up side sewing projects. And she says, I don't, Mrs. Harris, what why are you telling me this? And she says, just give us a little more time and we'll have the money for the rent. And she says, It's my job and the bank's job to make money. And Mrs. Harris says, It's Christmas time. And Mrs. Ding and Mrs. Dingle says, Well, then I guess you know what to ask for Santa for. So she's like real nasty. So we establish that, right? We established that pretty quickly. The snowman head is some Bavarian import that Barney the dog broke, and she's coming to confront Billy about it. He says, I'll pay you for it. She says, I don't want your money. I want your dog. Well, the dog, who apparently understands English, unties his little leash that's got him like tied up underneath of the teller table and like jumps at her and he almost gets fired, but he doesn't get fired. We learn. So this is all like this is all in the first few minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, this is Wizard of Oz stuff, it sounds totally.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. She very much, Mrs. Dingle very much is the Mrs. Gulch when she's very much Mrs. Gulch. Like the same vibe, the same energy, even of similar look. We learn that Billy is a artist. He's like a cartoonist. And in fact, apparently, like when he's sitting at a bar at the bar drawing where Kate works in the evenings, Chuck Jones is sitting next to him. That's what one of the commentators I was reading said, which is really interesting. Anyway, we see Kate and Billy interact and like somebody else from the bank, like giving Billy a hard time about this guy who's played by a famous actor, Judge Reinhold. He says how he's he's like only 23 and he's already a junior vice president and he's gonna be a millionaire by the time he's 30 or so. I don't know. He's like he's an asshole who was greedy. We go home, we meet Billy's mom, who is chopping onions and watching It's a Wonderful Life on a little tube TV in the kitchen. And she's crying, I'm guessing. Yes. And she's chopped about, I don't know, like four onions. Like one is one is led to him like believe that maybe she got distracted by the movie and just chopped more than she intended because there's like a mountain of onions. Anyway, there are inventions all over the kitchen that do not work, that are the dad's inventions. He comes home with the present. We open the present. Oh my God, it's so cute. The dad has named has been calling him Gizmos. Now we know his name. The three rules, which the little boy told the dad when he gave him the box with it, the three rules are number one, keep it away from bright light, especially sunlight. Sunlight will kill it. Number two, don't ever get it wet. You don't give it water to drink, you don't get it wet. You definitely do not give it a bath. And number three is that you don't feed it after midnight. The dad forgets those rules, but the mom goes to take a picture of them with gizmo and it flashes and he and little gizmo freaks out. So then dad remembers to tell the rules. Okay, great. Then we just see the sort of the ordinary like Norman Rockwell town, which we are definitely meant to see it as a Bedford Falls. Yeah. Since we just saw It's a Wonderful Life, right? We are definitely meant to see it as Bedford Falls. It's called Kingston Falls. It looks a lot like that town from It's a Wonderful Life, like with the Town Square and like the Burger King and the Sears and the whatever, all and the and all the people walking around, they all know each other, and like it's definitely meant to be Bedford Falls. Corey Feldman is a little kid. Like Corey Feldman is an 11. Yeah, very briefly. He works for his dad at the Christmas tree lot, like and has to wear this stupid Christmas tree costume. He ends up at the Pelzer's house to deliver their Christmas tree and is hanging out with Billy and meets Gizmo and like knocks over some paintbrushes that are sitting in water, and Gizmo gets wet, and it clearly hurts him. Like Gizmo is like writhing and stuff. And then like little puffballs pat like fall, like pop up off of his back and turn into new Mogwai. So now there are six of them. It's been like 12 hours and they've already broken one of the rules. Two. Because the light, light, right. Billy takes one of the new ones to meet his science teacher, Mr. Hansen, who's a black dude. Like apparently the only black dude in Kingston Falls. Mr. Hanson is like fascinated by this. Billy shows him how it reproduces. He likes takes an eyedropper and puts a little water on this new one. And now there's two. And Mr. Hanson says, Hey, can I keep one of these? I want to run some tests. And Billy's like, sure, whatever. Mr. Hansen has the thing, and like basically shenanigans ensue because both Billy accidentally, well, both of them accidentally, both Billy and Mr. Hanson end up breaking the third rule and feed them after midnight. In Billy's case, it's because one of the new ones, Stripe, they call him that because he has like a single white stripe up his head that that almost looks like a mohawk, has somehow cut the cord of the digital clock by Billy's bedside. And so he's they're acting like they're super hungry, the five new ones. And so he says, Well, it's not midnight yet, because he looks at the clock and it's only 1140. So he goes and gets them this giant pleat of chicken wings or legs. Like just they're just sitting uncovered in the fridge. What? Anyway, and meanwhile at the school, Mr. Hansen is there at like 220 in the morning. What? And he I used to teach that doesn't happen. I mean, he is doing experiments on this new form of life, but still, it's 2.20 in the morning. Doesn't happen. He has drawn some blood with a syringe from his little mogwai. Did not like that, by the way, and left like a half-eaten sandwich on some tinfoil, like within, I guess within arm's reach, mogwai arm's reach on the table from the cage where this thing is. Meanwhile, Gizmo and Billy had been watching, this is important. They'd been watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. So apparently, what happens if they eat after midnight is that they turn into these like nasty-looking cocoons, which Mr. Hansen helpfully tells us is the pupil stage, like a butterfly, Corey Feldman, whose character's name is Pete, tells us. So that inside they're going through some sort of metamorphosis. When they bust out, they are more like the xenomorph from alien than like an ewok. That's the gremlin. That's the gremlin. Right. They hatch like during class, Mr. Hansen is showing a film about hearts, like the organ. And the he realizes what's happening, you know, that it's hatching, but he doesn't want to draw attention to it for his students. The bell rings, they leave, and now he goes and gets the Snickers and is trying to draw this thing out. He like finds where it is under a desk and like has the open candy bar and sort of holds it under the desk. And we hear the gremlin go, yum, yum, which is like the only full sentence that they ever say. They do say words otherwise. And us, the audience, are like, oh shit, something bad's gonna happen because the music tells us that that's happening. But the dot the teacher doesn't know that. He's just like, yeah, come on out, little guy. Well, it like grabs his arm and we don't see what happens next. But Billy comes by to see Mr. Hanson because Mr. Hansen had called to tell him that it had hatched. So Billy's like comes by the school and finds him like mostly under a desk with a syringe in his ass and dead. So the black guy dies first.

SPEAKER_00:

Only black guy. Yeah. The only black guy is now dead. Was the Snickers product placement? Probably. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

But actually, maybe not, because I don't know how I don't know if I actually saw the low the logo or if I just know it was a Snickers. Gotcha. Like there was definitely some product, like there was a Burger King, but I don't know about the Snickers. Anyway, so he's like, oh no, my mom, because she's there with five of these, right? Well, first, oh, first he like battles the thing and like it like scratches his hand and like jump scares him a bunch of times. And like it's clearly like malicious. So oh no, my mom. He calls his mom and she has meanwhile like come up. He lives like he sleeps in the attic, in like a attic bedroom. And so she's gone up and seen that they're all cracked, and like he calls and she answers the phone up in his room, and he's like, Mom, get out of the house. One of them cuts the fuck telephone line while they're talking. So she goes down and like she goes mama bear on these guys and kills one of them in the microwave, like you remember, kills one of them with a kitchen knife, like psycho, like Norman Bates style, and kills one of them by like shoving it into some sort of like mixer or like it's a Pelzer. Invention, but imagine like an open bowl blender, and that's how she kills that one. So there's like green goo all over. So she's now taken out three of the five. Well, I guess there's six because there's the one, oh, that they killed Mr. Hansen. So, I mean, good on her. But then one was like hiding in the Christmas tree, and the Christmas, like it's in the Christmas tree, and so the tree kind of attacks her at one point. I feel like there's a metaphor in that. And the gremlin has like a scarf or something around her neck and is like choking her just when Billy gets there. And Billy like takes this sword that had been hanging on the wall and like cuts its head off and it goes into the fire, and that's really gross. And so now there's only one left at their house. Stripe. Stripe. And it runs off into the snow. So Billy takes mom to the neighbors who's a doctor and drops her off and then goes off with the sword to try and get stripe. He follows him into the YMCA where Stripe ends up jumping in the pool.

SPEAKER_00:

There's like green like smoke and lights and everything from like all of the because that's how they reproduce. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I'd forgotten that.

SPEAKER_01:

So Billy goes to the cops, and the cops are like like the worst stereotypes about cops. Well, maybe not the worst because we don't actually see them beat black people. But like that's not a stereotype.

SPEAKER_00:

That's just true.

SPEAKER_01:

Like the worst kind of like incompetent, drunken, don't believe you kind of stereotypes about cops is these guys, right? So like they are actively drunk. They do not believe him, of course. He even shows them gizmo and they still don't believe him. Then they get calls. So while he's trying to convince the cops to do something, because there's going to be hundreds, if not thousands, of these things because Stripe jumped in the pool. Mr. Futterman, they get to Mr. Futterman's house and they're like on the TV antenna and like messing up with his TV. And he's like, this damn foreign thing. I told you we should have bought an American TV. So he goes out to check the antenna and he looks up at the roof and then he hears something in his garage. And now we've seen him before. He drives a Kentucky harvester tractor. Like that's what he drives as his vehicle to get around town.

unknown:

What?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. And the gremlins are driving it. And he actually had he gave us the word gremlin earlier because he said, you can't trust foreign cars because they put gremlins in them. Like there are gremlins in the machinery. And then he is killed. He and his wife are killed by Gremlins driving his Kentucky harvester right into his house and over him and his wife. There's this scene with a whole bunch of them like in the bar where Kate is actually still like she's trying, she's like serving them to try and like stay alive. And they're like, it is like they committed to the bit. Like, I don't know where they came up with this tiny clothing, but like, and this is where I think some of the accusations of gremlins being black folks come from. Like they're sitting around like gangsters, and like at one point they're like playing poker, and that definitely looks more like the mob, like Italian gangster kind of stereotypes. Stripe is in the center, and like two of them are sitting on the side with like aces on their ears, like on a cheat, and there's one dressed up like a woman next to Stripe, like in a wig with lipstick and stuff. But then there are others who have like sunglasses and like caps down over their eyes and other ways in which it's like 1980s fashion from black culture in this bar, and they're like like lying under the tap, like holding the beer tap like open into their open mouth, or like smoking three cigarettes at once. And like that's not necessarily, you know, coded as black, but it is coded as like bad. Yeah. And like undesirable. Kate manages to get out when she realizes that they don't like bright light, and she uses a another camera with flash to kind of work her way out of the bar. And then Billy comes and gets her in his car, which doesn't work. And these guys are everywhere. The cops see what's happening and they are total cowards. And the deputy's like, please start the car. I would very much like to go back to the station now. Meanwhile, the gremlins have cut the brake line. They end up flipping their car. The gremlins have like messed with the traffic lights so that it's green on all sides, causing like car accidents, total shenanigans all over the town, with like a moderately high body count, including Mrs. Dangle, who's across between Mrs. Gulch and Mr. Potter. So she uses one of those like stair chairs, stair lift chairs. Oh, I remember that. I remember that. Yeah. She has a whole bunch of cats, each named after a different currency. Like Dollar Bill is one of her cats, and like yen is one of her cats or something. I don't remember exactly, but they're named after currencies. And she's got lots of them. And anyway, she hears Carol's carolers and she's like, I hate carolers. I told you all to stay away. And she comes out and it's gremlins. And like again, they have committed to the bit and they're wearing like little coats and things and have like sheet music and like earmuffs and stuff. And they're singing like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like to their own tune, but like consulting their sheet music.

unknown:

I don't know what the hell.

SPEAKER_01:

Anyway, she freaks F out, goes inside, and is like, you're not gonna get me, you're not gonna get me. And she like gets on her stair chairlift, but meanwhile, one of them has like messed with it and like changed the speed, so it goes up really, really fast and it jacks her out a window at the top of the stairs. So the final showdown, no, kind of the final showdown, Kate and Billy have come out of wherever they were, and there's the streets are empty. And she's like, Where are they all? And he says, Well, it's gonna be light soon. I'm sure they're all somewhere dark. And so they're in the movie theater. And somehow they managed to get one of the reels working for Snow White, and it's like the work song, and they friggin' love it. The theater is full of these gremlins, and it looks like the Muppet Show. Like when you saw a view of the audience of the Muppet Show, Billy and Kate burn down the theater. They kill all the gremlins except for Stripe, who had left to go get some candy that he saw sign in the department store. So the final showdown is in the department store. And Stripe almost wins. Like he hurts Billy real bad. But Gizmo drives that little car that you remember and manages to open the skylights and kill him with the sunlight, just as he was getting in a little fountain to like start all over again. Dad shows up at the last minute, like just in time to watch the like death of Stripe. And they all go home. They're like watching TV where a news reporter is blaming mass hysteria on all of the reports of the little green men. When the grandfather from the store from the very beginning shows up at the door and is like, well, the dad says this is the man I bought gizmo from. And the grandfather's like, bot is an interesting use of that word. He gives the money back, he takes gizmo, he says, Your society did to Mogwai what you do to everything. You every all of nature's gifts, all of nature's gifts. You don't understand, you're not ready. And he leaves with gizmo, who does say bye, Billy. And he also says, bye, woofwoof to Barney. The final scene has another voiceover from Pelzer from the dad saying, like, if ever your TV's on the fritz or your washing machine isn't working, like turn all the turn on all the lights because there might be a gremlin or something like that, which is like maybe not the lesson. And then like the last visual is this old man walking away holding the box with the Mogwai in it. So once again, I did a terrible job doing a synopsis, but there's just, there's actually so much in this movie. I didn't even say, and I actually want to, Kate hates Christmas. And at one point, she delivers this line about how people get depressed at Christmas. Well, some people are opening presents, others are opening their wrists.

SPEAKER_00:

And like, Oh my God.

SPEAKER_01:

Whoa, this is not it's a wonderful life. And then we later find out that part of the reason she hates Christmas is her dad died at Christmas. He didn't just die at Christmas, he was trying to surprise them by coming down the chimney dressed as Santa Claus and slipped and broke his neck. And she found him when she lit a fire a couple days later and smelled something. So, like, holy fucking shit, this is dark. What the hell? And it's interesting when she says she hates Christmas, like this is in the middle of the movie, so before before they've turned into bad. And Billy's like, how can you hate Christmas? Are you Hindu or something?

unknown:

Like, what?

SPEAKER_01:

What?

SPEAKER_02:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

This movie passes back Dell Test, but just barely. Mrs. Dingle and Mrs. Harris talk about the rent that is owned. That's it, pretty much. Whee! It passes that very low bar. Low bar. I think there was an intentional like send up of the xenophobia, maybe because Mr. Futterman is so ridiculous. We do have some sympathy for him because he's meant to be a World War II vet who maybe has some PTSD. We learn later that he's lost his job and like things just have been hard for him. And that's actually potentially where the word gremlins comes from, because that was a thing that World War II pilots would talk about. That's what they would they would blame mechanical failure on. There is apparently not a much older tradition than that. Roll doll then brought it into the public consciousness with a book that he wrote. And then that Twilight Zone with the with William Shatner with the thing on the wing. So that very specific, like actually plain thing and the word gremlin, like that then also does come from this guy, Mr. Futterman. But his xenophobia is so ridiculous and over the top that makes me think that there was sort of an intentional kind of send-up of that by making making that makes me much more sympathetic to him being like so nasty about a Volkswagen.

SPEAKER_00:

The Volkswagen. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

If he's a World War II vet, yeah. Yes. Yes, exactly. But he's that way about everything. Yeah. Like the TV and everything. I mean, he's meant to be ridiculous, but slightly sympathetic. The Mogwai gizmo came from an Asian, almost over-the-top Asian character. He's like just on the edge of caricature. And so it's close enough that I can't tell if it was on purpose or not. You know what I mean? And so that piece of it as well, like makes me think that maybe there was an intentional kind of send-up of that mistrust.

SPEAKER_00:

Kind of like um big trouble in little China.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. Except then, like the thing, the things that suburbanites fear about like outsiders like moving into their neighborhoods and like destroying property values, like like pushing against their way of life, like that actually like then happens. I mean, even like the mom, when she fights off those three in her kitchen that you remember with the microwave, she says, get out of my kitchen. You know, like it's very like it's very nimble. Yes. Yes. I have to admit, I don't know that I would have seen this as racism if I hadn't read from other commentators saying that these gremlins represent black folks. I don't think I would have seen it. But once it's pointed out, I'm like, oh yeah, I see what they're getting at. You know, like I see where they're going with this potentially. Especially like in the bar scene, Dante and Columbus were just having a blast. Right. Like it didn't matter if it made sense. We see one gremlin in like leg warmers like breakdancing, and we see them like hanging from the fans and like they're wearing sunglasses. Like another one like has a tiny trench coat and like flashes Kate. Most of them are naked, so I don't know what he's flashing, but like the gag, the visual gag with the tiny clothing, like well, and none of that makes sense because where would they have gotten the clothing? Like this is it's all just sort of magical realism with the fact of the gremlins, you know? And the the movie makers are just enjoying themselves. Totally. They were just having a good time and there are a lot of sight gags. And then again, in the final showdown in the department store, again, now this one, I think when it's just Stripe and Billy, like Gremlin a mono, gremlin ah human, then that's where like there's some additional sort of consumerism stuff, right? Because like Kate is trying to turn on the lights, and so she's hitting all these buttons, and so all these like attention, Christmas shoppers, is like coming over the loudspeaker, and like there's all this stuff and toys, and there are so many references to other movies. So there's a reference to Spielberg's E.T. there, where Billy walks past a row of like stuffed animals, and there are Bugs Bunnies and other like recognizable characters, including a little E.T. doll that then Stripe kind of pushes them aside, and we see his face amidst the stuffed animals. And there are guns, like Stripe tries to shoot him. He takes a chainsaw to him and like almost gets him with a chainsaw, like Billy's holding like a baseball bat that gets all chewed up, like to protect himself from this chainsaw. Like it's potentially gruesome. Like, yeah, it's really intense. And apparently, one of the commentators said the original script had the mom get decapitated in the Christmas tree scene. And Columbus was like, no, Don Joe, Joe, like scale it back, scale it back. Mom lives.

unknown:

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01:

So I feel like there's something about consumerism and capitalism and greed. Like the there's a especially like the absurdity of the way that the like woman who is so mean to the entire apparently the entire town owes her, you know, owes her rent. And the way she gets sort of thrown out a window, she's Scrooge, but she doesn't get a chance to redeem herself. She just gets thrown out a window.

SPEAKER_00:

But she gets thrown out a window by this force that everybody is terrified of and hates.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Who also seem to be able to read because they see that it says Dingle Real Estate, and one of them goes, ah, dingle. Like, I like their intelligence is very curious as well. Like, I I don't really understand the rules of their intelligence.

SPEAKER_00:

That's part of, I mean, like, that's part of what like this film is not supposed to hang together. It's not supposed to. What they represent is all over the place. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01:

Like one commentator sort of named all the different or several different things that they represent, like immigrants or black folks, or sex, maybe? Like, which I didn't follow much at all, but maybe they all represent Billy's lust. I mean, we they do flash his the object of his interest.

SPEAKER_00:

So and there's something about the fact that he's like a young adult who still lives at home, and there's like the like there's the reproduction aspect of it, and the like I mean, there's there's the curiosity aspect. I mean, there's there's something there. Yeah. And it is like it's all over the place. You know, obviously the filmmakers, they were having fun with it, and they like they didn't care, which is fine. Like it's fine. It doesn't have to make sense. It's like this is entertainment. But because they didn't really have a cohesive idea of what it meant, some things can slip in. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And it's interesting when I look at the actual like story construction construction of this film, right? Because it's almost it was I think they were playing with genres, right? So that the first act when we first meet Mowgli, like it's kind of E.T., right? And there's just this like awe and wonder at this this life form that's out of this world. And then the second act, which is when they're all when they're in the pupil stages, they're in the cocoons, like it's heading toward horror, right? And we don't know which way it's gonna go. And it could have gone like full-on horror, but instead it went with this sort of campy, like visual gag horror, which there's actually kind of a high body count, but there's not actually like they're not gruesome, and none of them really like have any kind of an emotional impact. I think actually Kate's story about her father has the most emotional impact as a death, which happened when she was nine and she's meant to be in her early twenties. That third act is this sort of like just anarchic gag that was done completely like what's the word for analog effects? Like just physical effects. Like there were there were some there which is kind of remarkable. Like there I there's a reason that I saw the Muppets in that theater scene. Like didn't have anything to do with this? Not as far as I know. Okay, but they're all puppets and marionettes, and like the actual visual effects are all just physical effects, they're not digital, which is I mean, in some ways, shows, you know, from a contemporary viewer, in some ways I'm like, oh yeah, I see that. But once it's actually like in the thick of it, I was in it. I was totally in it. I wasn't like, oh, that's just a puppet. Like I was like, oh shit, what's gonna happen now? Run away, run away, get out of the house. Like I was really in it. It's fascinating to me that like, especially when I when I think about it as genre, and then I think about the movies that they make direct reference to where we actually see footage of It's a Wonderful Life, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. There's another one of like Gizmo watches some old film of like a racer or like race cars, which is then he's like making the same noise he makes when he drives that little pink Barbie car or whatever it's supposed to be. And then Snow White as well with the visual effects of Snow White. There's something, it's almost like a love letter to movies. I'm sure there are other Easter eggs in there that I missed that because I'm not I'm a movie viewer, but not like a cinephile in the way that I think I have a feeling that cinephiles watch this movie and they're like, oh, look at that. Oh, that oh, there's that thing. Probably even in 1984, well, definitely even especially in 1984 when it was made, you know?

SPEAKER_00:

It makes me think of like Jordan Peel because like he got his start in comedy, but horror was always his first love. And watching his movies, if you are especially someone who loves horror films, you can see the influences of like the major horror films. If it's similar to that, where like this is an homage to all these films, but it's also like when you were saying, because you're talking about how Mrs. Dingle is kind of like a mashup of Mrs. Gulch and um Mr. Picotter and Scrooge. Yeah. And so it's kind of like, you know, like what if I made that movie but then like made it totally camp and scary? And like Yeah, like what if I took It's a Wonderful Life and made it a horror film? Yeah, exactly. And so, like, there there's something well, we talked a little bit about this with uh Rocky Horror.

SPEAKER_01:

picture show where you know you just take all see the influences see the influences build on them and then you create something that is completely bonkers and totally new even though it's not exactly yeah yeah I yeah and I wonder what effect those influence have on then the sort of subtext which is it a send up or is it reifying like the xenophobia and the not in my backyard and the like because invasion of the body snatchers I think was about like Red Scare right when it was made. So when the kind of cultural subtext of the piece of media that is influencing you, like how does that then influence your cultural subtext? I think that's a really interesting question. Yeah. I mean it's also the case that it's a wonderful life gets real dark before it gets grateful again.

SPEAKER_00:

Well and it's a wonderful life Bedford Falls is entirely white. Oh gosh that's how communities were in the 40s there was redlining and you know the VA benefits were not for black soldiers and all of that. I mean so I mean the fact that there even was one black guy to die first was actually progress probably in 1984 honestly.

SPEAKER_01:

I mean right I don't know although that is a horror genre is I mean that is a horror cliche isn't it that the black guy dies first? Yeah but when did that start?

SPEAKER_00:

I have no idea I don't I don't either this is as horror as I get yeah I would have to do some research I don't know when that cliche began if that began in the 70s if that began in the 80s but it did not it would not have been earlier than like I think the 70s. As of the 60s I don't know how much horror there was where people there was a huge body count. Yeah enough of a body count for the black guy to die first or for there to be a multiple like a diverse cast even right right yeah so you had a couple other things that you you wanted to talk about. You you mentioned something before we got started about environmentalism.

SPEAKER_01:

Well yeah because I think that the final thing that the grandfather says to the Pelsers is and he said this is interesting too he says you taught Mogwai to watch television and then he says you did to Mogwai what you do to all of nature's gifts. I said this earlier you don't understand you're not ready and as he's leaving he looks at Billy because the mo because Gizmo wants to say goodbye to Billy specifically the grandfather can understand what he has to say and he says to Billy you might be ready one day so there seems to be like the fact that he needs nature's gifts like it feels like maybe there was an intention of some sort of environmentalism like we're not following the rules and like mayhem is happening. But it's it also feels a little like too little too late like like almost kind of like slapped on at the end in order for that like I don't think that's actually the lesson of the movie I don't think but I don't know like it's like what they wanted the lesson of the movie to be but I'm not sure they succeeded in giving us that.

SPEAKER_00:

Well and I don't know like nature's gifts like 'cause it I mean because it feels like this is more about like yes like the Mogwai is is supposed to be this creature natural creature natural creature. But it feels like it's more about like you took something from another culture that you didn't understand.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah it does it definitely does feel like more like appropriation. Although I g if I look back if I'm looking for evidence of that like the all of Pelzer's inventions are like overly complicated shit. Right? Like the mom keeps trying to use these like remote controls like to answer the phone that's like three feet away from her. She could just answer it. You know, or like to dim the lights. Again it's three feet away there's this like juicer that like spits pulp orange pulp everywhere and like a coffee maker that makes sludge that like what's wrong with your coffee maker man? You know like so he like overcomplicates things and overcomplicates nature's gift. Maybe I could make an an argument that is part of the case. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

It feels sort of forced it feels sort of forced yeah well and then is he talking just directly to Rand Pelzer?

SPEAKER_01:

Like you or is he saying you white folks he says you did what your society does. He actually specifically says your society. So I think he's talking to white folks.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. But or Western culture more generally well and he taught you taught them to watch television. Like that's interesting. Is that a like a anti-consumerism thing, anti-capitalism?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah I don't know it's really interesting given how like lovingly this movie treats other movies it is the case that there's a TV in every room in these folks' house which I have no idea how they afford that because clearly his inventions aren't working. Yeah. And she seems to be a homemaker. He does work at the bank but the kid works at the bank but anyway. How long has he been doing that? I mean he's in this only twenties yeah yeah so anyway I think that's all I have time for so I'm gonna have to record a shit I forgot to say. But let me see if I can reflect back what I did say which is that this movie does pass backdel but it's a very low bar. There's not none but there's not a whole lot of women represented here. There's mom and there's Kate and there are other like extras and the bad guy sort of Deagle Dingle whatever her name is and of course she has the worst possible like Mrs.

SPEAKER_00:

Dingle. Yeah yeah if you married a man whose last name was Dingle wouldn't you keep your maiden name?

SPEAKER_01:

I mean I don't know when this was supposed to be if it's supposed to be the 80s or earlier but like people didn't do that much.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyway Cruella Deville made her husband take the Deville name because she's a real person and that really happened. Because she didn't want the Deville name to die out. So that was in the 50s. And I know that was proof of how awful she was but still she was a villain.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. This movie has a lot of subtext about xenophobia and it's unclear to me how it actually shakes out. Like if it's just reflecting xenophobia of the time or if it is in fact kind of trying to critique xenophobia. The man from whose speech we get the most xenophobia, Mr. Futterman, who's constantly complaining about foreign-made things and by extension foreigners, is ridiculous and also a little sympathetic because he's a World War II vet. He also dies while when gremlins are driving his American made whatever it is tractor. So it's complicated. There are other commentators who I think have an argument to be made that the gremlins themselves represent black folks and Kingston Falls are the white suburbanites who are so afraid of invasion, I'm putting quotes around that word and lowering of property value and behavior that like the urban again quotes behavior that they think is against their way of life. I would not have seen that if I hadn't read that from another commentator, but once I read it I see why they make the argument there's a commentary about environmentalism and following the rules of like taking care of so-called nature's gifts that the movie makers gave us through the dialogue that I think is maybe a little misplaced from the actual action of the film. It seems to me more about cultural appropriation and and the sort of Western like I want this give it to me how much does it cost that like you know we could point to I don't know the British Museum or whatever like whatever the sort of Western appropriation of other cultures culture behavior artifacts pets the movie makers clearly love movies. I mean that's why they went into what they went into and that shows through there are specific movies whose references we see like because clips of them appear, including It's a Wonderful Life, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and Disney Snow White. But there are other references to movies throughout that so that we get sort of in these three acts, it's almost like three separate genres, which is really I think really interesting when we think about it as like a storytelling way of going and like while it was funny and that there's like a lot of sight gags with the inexplicable tiny clothing that these little gremlins wear, it's also like super funny. Like this is one where much like other horror films where we talked about where the villains get a lot more like appreciation on the other side than the heroes like that's the case here because those guys are funny, right? Like in their leg warmers and their tiny trench coats or whatever the hell they're wearing like they're funny. There's a reason that like we all have them in our heads I think we talked as we often do about comedy and horror I still found it like blood pressure raising.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a reason why dad was upset about having taken us to it.

SPEAKER_01:

Even with the sort of horror and like scare aspects of it. And we've talked about that before at great length. We didn't so much today but I think it's worth naming there's definitely some like intended critique of capitalism or at least of greed in the person of Mrs. Dingle who gets thrown out a window and especially in the context of a Christmas movie, I think there's definitely some critique of greed, possibly capitalism, possibly consumerism, although those all those both are slightly more fuzzy in my head because of who does and doesn't pay consequences namely Mr. Pelzer, the dad who steals slash buys the Mogwai in the first place faces no consequences whatsoever to himself. So that's worth noting. And lastly we briefly mentioned the impact of this movie that you named it in the beginning that this is one of the movies that caused the FCC to establish the PG 13 rating. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was the other which came out just a few weeks before it was the same summer. That's all I got for this Christmas movie. Well actually it's not I have more but that's all I have time for for this Christmas movie. So what are you bringing me next week?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh I've never seen that looking forward delightful or at least it was when I saw it the first time see then words but see you then this show is a labor of love but that doesn't make it free to produce if you enjoy it even half as much as we do please consider helping to keep us overthinking.

SPEAKER_01:

You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course share the show with your people thanks for listening our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from Incompotech.com 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