The Road to Wellville: Deep Thoughts About Scatalogical Comedy, Health Crazes, and What Films You Should Never Watch With Your Dad

With friends like these, who needs enemas?

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie revisits the star-studded yet mostly forgotten 1994 comedy The Road to Wellville. Set at the turn of the 20th century, this film offers cultural commentary on the bonkers health crazes that gave us breakfast cereal as health food, opium as an all-purpose panacea, and the idea that an erection was a flagpole on the grave. And yet, the psychology of John Harvey Kellogg, as played by Anthony Hopkins with prosthetic teeth, shows that he was no snake-oil salesman, even if he was overly invested in his patients' bowels and genitals. He truly believed that his regimen of roughage, calisthenics, enemas, and never ever ever touching yourself would improve your physical and mental health. And there's a great deal of comedy to be found in the bodily functions that result from his methods, if farts, poop, and masturbation are your sort of humor. (Emily feels no nostalgia for the experience of watching this comedy with her father and hoping for a sinkhole to release her from her nearly fatal level of embarrassment.)

That said, the Guy sisters enjoy a fascinating conversation about women and sex, health as a business, neurodivergence, and whether it's pronounced sanitAIRium or santORium.

We promise that no one has ever died listening to our podcast. So you can feel confident about throwing on your headphones to listen in!

Tags:

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, comedy, pop culture, movies, film, psychology, mental health, women, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, cultural commentary, analyzing film tropes, comedy podcast, cult classic, feminism, film analysis, storytelling, matthew broderick, anthony hopkins, bridget fonda

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

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. 

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com 

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Transcript

Welcome And Why Wellville

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And at first he's talking, you're like, oh, the two different tubs of water for his feet's kind of weird, but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But then he says, the one of the reporters asks about sex, and he says, like, no sex, no sex. He says something like, I don't know if he says it at that moment, but he definitely says, an erection is a flagpole on your grave. Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about. And so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode of the podcast, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1994 film The Road to Wellville with my sister, Emily Guy Birken, and with you.

Awkward Memories And Key Scenes

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Let's dive in. Okay, I know you've seen this movie because we briefly talked about it before we hit record, but tell me what is in your head about The Road to Wellville?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

That it was an extremely uncomfortable film to watch with our dad. I remember that Bridget Fonda and another character, another actress being masturbated by a male doctor to handle their hysteria, if I remember correctly, was something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

No, there's nothing about hysteria in it. No. Okay. You you remember accurately that they were being, it was um Cameron Manheim is the actress, and she does an amazing job. I know Cameron McCranehill. Yes, yes, yes, yes. But they're not hysterical. It's not just hysterical.

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Okay. I just remember that that scene and wishing, like wondering why sinkholes don't happen when you want to spontaneously. Yes. So I remember that because we were in the living room in dad's house and going like, oh dear God, why are we watching? Oh, on Olmsted? Is that where we were? Yeah, we're on Olmstead Road. So that's what I remember. And then I remember the very end of the film where Kellogg, whose first name I don't remember, saying something along the lines of, and I don't think he used this word because it was would not have been in character, but like my shit is enormous, and I believe I will live forever before jumping into like a lake or a pond or something and dying before he hits the water. And that being kind of funny.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yeah, you're close. I think his words were my bowels are impeccable, and I may just live forever.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

Yeah. So, and the thing is, I know that I think historically I might be conflating two things, but like graham crackers and then like Kellogg's cornflakes, and I think these other things were created partially to be bland because it was thought that that would discourage masturbation.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

I mean, they don't go into that in this film. I don't think you're wrong, but they don't go into those things in this film.

SPEAKER_00 3:34

So that's

Plot Sketch And Battle Creek

SPEAKER_00 3:35

just an aspect of like just trivia. I haven't I know I know that's true about graham crackers. I know that, but I can't remember if that's related to Kellogg or a different health guru from around that point in time. But and the idea, like all of the weird alterna health shit from that time, a lot of it had to do with discouraging touching yourself. Yeah. Which is why it was so weird that then, like there was also a side business in like masturbating women.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Oh, that was an alternative. That was not someone who was in this movie. That is actually a rival who is not sanctioned by Kellogg whatsoever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:20

So but that was a different, yeah. There's anyway. That's what's in my head about it. I have not revisited it. I think I've talked about how it's I don't, I as a writer, I don't write spicy scenes just because, you know, the idea of dad reading it, even though he's been gone for nearly 13 years, but just the idea of dad reading it, the level of embarrassment would be large enough that it could destroy the earth. So, which is why I've never seen this movie again. I mean, I was what, 15 when it came out?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

94, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, yeah. So it is more than 30 years past, and I still just like I'm blushing just thinking about it. So tell me, why are we talking about it today?

SPEAKER_01 5:15

So it came up in conversation recently with one of my partners, actually, and I was like, oh yeah, I remember that film. That was a weird film. Maybe I should rewatch that film. So that's why we're talking about it now. All I remember is thinking it was funny. I didn't even remember having watched it with dad. Maybe I would have resisted if I had remembered that.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

But the three years between 15 and 18 is pretty big.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, true. So there's not a whole lot at stake. This was just one of those things where I was like, oh yeah, I'm gonna put that on the list. And that was like right before we did our scheduling last time we did our scheduling. So here we are. Sometimes it works out that way. So there's not a whole lot at stake. It's just a thing that I, you know, remember from that time right at the end of high school, the beginning of college. And I thought, like, let's see what this is about. The things that I remembered most were actually the estranged son like hanging his coat up over and over and over again, and then finally being told he could stop and just dropping it, even though he had hung it up like hundreds of times, and the masturbation scene or the masturbating the women scene. Those are the two things I remember the most.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

But anyway, is there a word for that when someone does it to someone else?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Manipulation? Literal manipulation? Yeah, I'm fingering. I don't know. Anyway, all right. So let me give you some postcards from the destination. Folks don't have a whole lot to say about this film. Like, usually when I Google a film this old, like there have been retrospectives, like the things that show up on our list anyway. They're like such and such movie 20 years later or 30 years later, or whatever. Like, most of what I found was contemporaneous. Like, people are not talking about this movie, which is sort of interesting. But here's some postcards. So, this film, so many poop jokes, fart jokes, masturbation jokes, like if that's your thing, like this is your movie. Like, if you like scatological humor, like you should go rewatch this movie. Cause and like there's a lot, a lot of boobies. A lot of these actresses actually have their breasts visible and a lot of male tush, like so many male tushies. So I don't know if that's your thing. Again, this is your movie. So I want to talk a bit about sexuality as it's presented in this movie, male versus

Sex, Purity, And Poop Humor

SPEAKER_01 7:40

female, and some of the like anxiety and like anti-sex messages in this movie about those two, which is a little unusual. Like, usually from society writ large, like we're very careful to police female sexuality, and men were largely like atta boy. And that's not what happens in this film. So I want to talk about that role reversal a little bit. I want to talk about like messages about capitalism and specifically like health-based capitalism, like health as business that come through this movie, which I think will lead into the other thing I want to talk about, which is like why it's set at the turn of the 20th century, like why mid-90s this turn of the 20th century thing was appealing to enough people to get this movie Greenlit and this all-star cast, which I think is relevant. So those are the kind of postcards. So let me see if I can. I'm not gonna try and do like a blow-by-blow because the director whose name was Alan Parker was like very much in love with sort of paralleling different things, like, oh, look, this thing is happening. This thing's happening at the same time, and it's kind of similar. See how it's kind of similar? Yes, I see how it's kind of similar. Thank you, Alan. So I'm not gonna try and like lay that out, but I'll try and like sketch the actual action of the film, which happens that there's a couple of stories that end up kind of getting braided together. So this is all about the sanatori sanitarium, sanatorium, what's the sanatorium in Battle Creek, which was run by Dr. John. Michigan, right? I assume so. Is there another Battle Creek? I just my geography is real bad. It's my downfall. I'm a smart person. Except for geography. Battle Creek in some state. So there's a sand, they call it the sand, Battle Creek Sand, that Dr. John Harvey Kellogg runs. Now, Battle Creek is also, we learned very early in the movie, like the breakfast cereal capital of the United States, where there are over a hundred different breakfast cereals being produced in Battle Creek alone. So Kellogg's cornflakes are not the only ones. And Dr. Kellogg has a brother who has apparently lent his Kellogg name to a separate cornflake, which I think might be the one that we eat now, because I feel like that's William, isn't it? And this was John Harvey. Anyway, irrelevant. So we meet Dr. Kellogg immediately, and he's doing exercise on this rotating platform and talking to reporters. So he's like pulling down alternating arms on these pulleys. His feet are in two separate tubs, and he's talking. This is Anthony Hopkins wearing buck teeth and like a mustache. It's bizarre. But he's, and at first he's talking, you're like, oh, the two different tubs of water for his feet's kind of weird, but he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. But then he says, the one of the reporters asks about sex, and he says, like, no sex, no sex. He says something like, I don't know if he says it at that moment, but he definitely says, an erection is a flagpole on your grave. So it is made very clear from this very opening scene that he likes a lot of roughage. He believes in lots of poop, like people should be pooping a lot more than they are, and no sex whatsoever. Also, no meat. And so we're seeing like sort of almost like b-roll from around this sand where there are people in this turn of the 20th century dress, like jogging and doing sort of calisthenics, like arms out, like touching one foot, one foot and then the other with their arms out, and like this weird rhythmic laughing to it's bizarre. In the midst of this, we meet a couple who are on their way to the sand to the sand. So it's Matthew Broderick and Bridget Fonda as William and Eleanor Lightbody. Eleanor has been there before, William has not, and we see immediately that he is unwell. He has digestive issues. They meet on the train, Charles Osining, played by John Cusack. Apparently, the guy girls are on a Cusack streak right now. It's not a bad streak to be on. So Ossening is on his way to Battle Creek because he actually is uh, we learn when he meets this couple on the train, he is starting a business. They're gonna make cornflakes. Perfo corn flakes, P-E-R-H-F-O corn flakes. He has, and so we learn later

The Lightbodys’ Marriage And “Therapies”

SPEAKER_01 12:45

he's got seed money from his aunt, and he has a partner, a business partner, who's supposed to be who's supposed to have been like establishing, like spending the capital to like buy a factory and get workers to like make this breakfast cereal. And the partner who is played by Michael Lerner, his name's Mr. Bender, has we can see that he has completely, he's just squandered it, but he manages to convince QSAC's character that it's fine and they're gonna make this work and you know they're gonna find another investor and whatever. So the light bodies get to the sand, and like it's real weird there. They get separated immediately, but not into separate sex wings because across the hall from Mr. Light Body is Ida Munts played by Lara Flynn Boyle wearing like very pale makeup with a greenish tinge. And we learn immediately that like enemas are a big part of the treatment at the sand. So we see a scene fairly early on that I'm sure was very uncomfortable for us sitting in dad's living room, where Matthew Broderick's character is being given an enema somewhat forcibly by a very attractive nurse. And she's like saying how, you know, you shouldn't like something she's repeating the thing that Kellogg said about sex being off limits in a much more poetic way than I'm gonna remember. And he was like, I'm having sexual feelings. I think I have an erection, like while she's like, anyway, it is deeply embarrassing. So we learn along the way that Mr. Lightbody had been a drunk. Mrs. Lightbody had found some like snake oil that was like liquor be gone or something, and she would put a drop of it in his tea every night. And it just made him sleep. And it was so such a relief to her to just make him sleep. And then she realized she was pregnant, she went to the sand to give birth, the baby died. While she was away in her confinement, he had this bottle analyzed, and it turns out it was opium. So she feels terrible because she turned him into an opium addict, which is why he's having all of these digestive troubles now. He can't keep anything down. He eats just dry toast and water all the time, and he still we see him vomit more than once. It's what a movie. Anyway, so lots of weird things happen. Then we meet Dr. Kellogg's estranged son, George, adopted son. He adopted over, we hear from George that he adopted 39. He had he has 39 brothers and sisters. And we see memories, flashbacks of George as a young man, like just not quite fitting in, like not making eye contact, whatever. And like there's this extended scene, which is the thing that I remember from 94, where he's meant to be maybe nine-ish, and he keeps leaving his, like just dropping his coat on the floor. So Dr. Kellogg tells their nurse, maid, nanny, I don't know, like George needs to go out the front door, come in the front door, walk up the stairs, hang up his coat, take his coat back off the hook, go back outside and do it again until bedtime tonight, start tomorrow and do it till 4 p.m. And so we watch the kid do this several times. And then we see the next day, Dr. Kellog comes home and the nurse, Hannah, has fallen asleep while George is doing this over and over and over again. And the doctor says, I said till four, it's seven. Why is he still doing it? And she says, We try to get him to stop, he won't stop. And then, like, whatever montage, like now it's after bedtime, and Dr. Kellogg gets up and he like physically stops George, holds him by the shoulders and says, Please, please go to bed. So George walks past him, drops the coat on the floor, and goes to bed. Like

George Kellogg’s Past And Pain

SPEAKER_01 17:05

after having like hung the coat up from coming in the house like hundreds of times at that point. That's stuck in my head. In a separate flashback, we see George like get annoyed with the food that they're eating, because Dr. Kellogg is a strict vegetarian. So all the kids are eating like this. I don't know, it looks like oatmeal, but like some sort of gruel. And he says, I don't remember how it starts, but George says, like, you call this food. We want real food, meat and potatoes, meat and potatoes. And he starts like clicking his spoon on the bowl, meat and potatoes, like a chant. And all the other kids are laughing. And anyway, again, montage, we see the table has been cleared, and it's like hours later, and George is still sitting at the table going, meat and potatoes, like hitting his spoon against the bowl.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

Now, today in the is that shown as like in the film, is that like played for like heartbreak? Is that played for laughs? Like that, because it sounds heartbreaking as you're describing it.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

It's not played for laughs. I mean, the dropping the coat was definitely, I think, meant to be funny, but not like laugh out loud funny, just sort of like wow. The meat and potatoes thing is not funny at all. No. And in fact, Mrs. Kellogg is sitting on the stairs, like listening to George continuing to do the meat and potatoes chant when Dr. Kellogg comes out and like sits down next to her and is like, what did I do wrong? Why is he like this? I've tried to give him everything. And she says, maybe what you're giving him is not what he wants. So that that's not meant to be funny at all. But we see that childhood memory after we have met George today, played by Dana Carvey with like bad teeth and like drunk all the time. And like the first time we well, we've we meet him sort of asking Kellogg for money and being sent away. And then we see Mrs. Lightbody, Bridget Fonda, is like in one of the baths. They have these like different baths, and she's in one of the baths by herself and hears him, and he's like behind this curtain, and she's like, She's naked. Like, we actually have seen some boobs. So we know she's naked, and like it's a very tense moment. Like, we're not sure what's gonna happen. And in fact, she's like, Why are you here? And he says he's Kellogg's son, and he's there for money, and also to see that he likes looking at the naked ladies' bodies or something like that. So, like, it's tense, nothing untoward happens except for for some leering, like he doesn't actually threaten her in any way, although he is undressing by the time you know, workers at the sand like interrupt him and run him off. George becomes partners with Mr. Ottening and Mr. Bender, John Cusack's character, John Cusack and Michael Lerner's characters. He becomes a partner so that they can be Kellogg Perfo since he's George Kell Kellogg. Yeah. And we see them like trying to make cornflakes, and it's not good. Like they're terrible. We watch like this montage of them eating 22 batches that some dude they hired who used to work for Dr. Kellogg, but was not a baker or a cook. He was like worked in the stable, and like all 22 batches are disgusting, and like not even the pigs will eat them. So they end up stealing Kellogg cornflakes and putting them in their boxes. That all comes to light eventually. Meanwhile, the things that you remember, so Mrs. Lightbody, under the influence of Virginia, who the Cameron Manheim character is learning about this alternate health guru who actually says sex is good. And, you know, we hear her, Cameron Manheim's character, tell their the the women are riding a bike, riding bicycles, and which is apparently frowned upon for women to ride bicycles back home where Bridget Fondus from, Mrs. Lightbody's from, and Virginia Cameron Manheim's character is like, you know, my husband's pretty useless in the sexual satisfaction department, which is why I go for a bike ride once a week. They call it the bicycle smile, and I see, I feel a smile coming on. You go ahead. So we see that she has like, she's under her influence. We meet this a different doctor, badger, and then another doctor, some a German name whose name I don't remember, who does this therapeutic massage, which is actually the clitoral stimulation. So she's being sort of like radicalized around sexual.

Cereal Schemes And Health Hustles

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Pleasure on that side. And she has this great line when she's telling the story about how he was a drunk, and Virginia's like, Yeah, and he just he wanted sex all the time, didn't he? And she's like, Yeah. And they basically say it was terrible, it was just bang, bang, thanks. And she says, I just want to be more than a hole in the mattress with a name. And I was like, Damn, that's wow. Okay. While Matthew Broderick is going through all these bizarre treatments that we see many of, like being like sprayed with very high pressure water and like big loofahs, and like under these like tents with electric blankets, and so he and Laura Flynn Boyle's character have this weird little flirtation where he actually has sex with her twice, not sexy at all. And we also see him like in these baths where so the men are sitting in baths, like just their sort of tush and pelvis. Each foot is in a separate tub, and electric current is being run through the ones that their nethers are in. And it's supposed to diminish sexual feelings, but it's clear that it has the opposite effect, the way they're talking to each other. Oh my God. But then, like the second or third time we see them in these baths, like something goes wrong. And the operator and the they call him Mr. Unpronounceable, this Russian dude who only speaks Russian, are both electrocuted to death. And Matthew Broderick's like, what the hell is this place? We're supposed to be so healthy, and like they just died. Like, what like he's having a very reasonable reaction to this. Meanwhile, Kellogg's like secretary has who was following around behind him, like suddenly has a heart attack and keels over. And Kellogg's like, this is very unprofessional. This is very unprofessional that you would have a heart attack and die at a health sanitarium, sanitarium, whatever it is. And like, that's the first moment that we see him not like he was a wacko before that moment, but I didn't think he was like morally bankrupt before that moment, right? Because he actually like kicks the secretary's who's a man, like kicks at his arm. Very unprofessional.

unknown 24:27

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

And all of these, and then Laura Flynn Boyle's character has died in the middle of the night. So like Matthew Broder's character is like, we're here to get healthy, and people are dying everywhere. It all comes to a head. Charles Osnin, however you say his name, John Cusack's character has been arrested for fraud. And George, the Dana Carvey's the estranged son, has set fire using fireworks to the sanitarium and it is like exploding and burning. So there's a fire truck, except it's a carriage, like drawn by horses, coming toward the sand, while the cops with John Cusack in the kind of jail wagon going away from the sand, and they actually like have a collision. So Austin gets away, and the couple has come back together that day. The light bodies have come back together that day. Broderick, Mr. Lightbody, and his nurse sort of started canoodling in a boat, and he's like, I can't do this because I love my wife. And he like actually gets out in the middle of the lake and walks to the shore and ends up finding her being, you know, she's still mostly dressed, but the doctor who has his hands on her genitals and Virginia's is naked, and so is the other doctor who's masturbating while watching all of this.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

I am yes, I am really understanding why this was so uncomfortable to watch with our dad.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

So they've come back together, and he's like, What the hell? What were you doing? He was elbow deep in you, and she's like, You don't understand. I remember that line. It makes me happy. I feel happy. You don't know what it's like to be happy. And he's like,

Deaths, Disasters, And The Fire

SPEAKER_01 26:15

But I am happy. I really am. I feel great. And they're like, Oh, well, maybe we can go home. So they come, they're like walking back to the sand after being reunited, and it's all being destroyed. And then we hear sort of Mrs. Lightbody tells us what happened. They went back to wherever they were from. They had four daughters. Mr. Austin actually gives, he had borrowed money from Mr. Lightbody. He sends them a check. I mean, the girls are their daughters are all grown and they had not, they didn't have any at the time. So this is many, many years later, but he sends a check for the amount of money that he had borrowed. And it turns out he got very rich. The charges were all but forgotten because of the destruction that the sand and he got very rich when he realized that if you put combined sugar water with the leaf of a cocoa tree, that you could make something delicious. And there's like a picture of him. It's not Coca-Cola, but it's meant to be something like that. And then we hear like what happened. The sand was rebuilt, even better. And Dr. Kellogg, then we see the scene that you remember, where he's like on this high dive and is about to jump into the lake and ends up dying mid-dive. So we sort of hear what happened to some of the key players. So there's one scene that I'm just gonna back up just to tell you, because I I actually believe this entire screenplay was written for this one line. After everybody dies, Matthew Broderick's character, Mr. Lightbody, like kind of runs away and ends up at this bar and restaurant where he runs into John Cusack's character and he gets drunk and he eats a cheeseburger and they get drunk together and they're having a really good time. That's when he lends him the money. And he says, Which he? Broderick says, You really are my friend. And you know what? With friends like these, and Cusack finishes it, who needs enemas? And that, I believe, with friends like these, who needs enemas was the entire impetus for this whole movie being made. I think someone was like, we have to make a movie so we can say this line.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

So anyway.

SPEAKER_01 28:31

There's so much more that happens. There's so much embarrassing shit. There are so many tushies, there's so many masturbation jokes. Like there's an electric masturbation belt that Matthew Broderick wears at one point. There's like, there's just so much that I just can't get into. But that's like the gist of it. That's the gist of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

Considering how much dad needed to know about movies before he'd watched them. I'm surprised we watched this together. He must not have known. He must not have known.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Yeah, he must not have. Or he thought it was just about like the sort of wacky health bit.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Well, it's he needed to know if there were any child if there was any child endangerment. That was the only thing he needed to know. And there wasn't. There was no. There wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

I mean because that was the thing he couldn't handle in movies.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

So I think I I want to start, and like most of what analysis I have that's actually like beyond like, yeah, lots of fart jokes, lots of masturbation

Health As Business: True Believers Vs Grifters

SPEAKER_01 29:30

jokes, is about health as a business and what can be trusted. Right. Because and I think there's like it's this movie actually, I think, trying to make us laugh, but also trying to be a little bit nuanced because for sure we're meant to think Kellogg is a wacko and a charlatan. Yeah. Not a charlatan.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Because he believes it. He genuinely believes it and he lives it. But like the whole sex thing, we find out. I mean, I don't know if it's to be trusted, but someone suggests that he had the mumps and is impotent as a result of a childhood illness. And we do hear like he is he doesn't have sex and has never had sex.

SPEAKER_00 30:15

And so Which is why all of his children are adopted.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Yeah. But if he's impotent, like his, like I've never had sex, like well.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So it's not a sacrifice for you.

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And so we're I think we're meant to we're definitely meant to see him as wacky. Right. But he is not trying to trick anyone. On the other hand, we have Bender, Mr. Bender, but what is it? Goodlow, Goodlow Bender, played really deliciously by Michael Lerner, who is trying to cheat everyone, including his business partner, John Cusack's Mr. Osining, Charles Austening. So we have both of those in like as kind of primary players. And we know that there are, we've been told from the very beginning, there are hundreds of breakfast cereals being produced in Battle Creek alone. So, and we hear the story of the like liquor be gone that turned out to be opium. You know, and so there's this like there's evidence of true charlatanism, like snake oil. Just like tell you what you want to hear, if it'll make you buy it, right? On the other hand, Matthew Broderick's William Lightbody is in a really bad way when we meet him, and he's better. He genuinely gets better from his time at the sand. So, and Dr. Kellogg, wacko that he may be, genuinely believes in what he is peddling. He's not like Mr. Bender, who knows he's selling you false promises. Like, in fact, that final scene that you remember when he dies after saying, I may live forever, forever, Bridget Fonda's voiceover says he died mid-dive, proving that even he could be wrong. So, you know, it's like there's a tension, I think, that the movie makers are inviting us to kind of hold that, like, yeah, a lot of these people are lying to us just to get our money. And also, there may be something too, at least some of it. Like, I, you know, maybe it's like a if it's Aesop's fable, maybe it's a lesson about moderation, possibly. Maybe it's about being careful about who you trust and like knowing all the pieces. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I think it's interesting that these things are are held sort of side by side. This is not just a straight up indictment of health as a business. And it does suggest that most of the time it's probably, you know, nonsense. And I think it's interesting. This is made in the mid-90s and set in the like late. I think it's I based on my research, I think it's meant to be 1907. From the movie itself, it's unclear. It could be anywhere from like 1895 to like 1910, just based on like uh my in act in in precise understanding of fashion, but it's somewhere in that like turn of the 20th century range around 1900. So I think there's something interesting about sort of in the mid-90s, sort of saying, like, yeah, but remember when like breakfast cereal was considered a health food? Like, maybe just like slow your roll. Quit it with the snack wells.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Because that was that was when the snackwell cookies, everything was low fat.

SPEAKER_01 34:02

Yeah, when we thought that lipids were our enemy.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to stick with this for a minute because so there's a podcast that I love called Maintenance Phase that they talk about a lot of this kind of stuff, about like health as a business and how oftentimes now you get a lot of people who are charlatans, but you also have people who are the true believers, and what they're selling is not necessarily bad, except that it's taken to this extreme because it is the idea that something that works for an individual will work for everyone. When health is, and especially when it comes to things like weight loss, because that's what maintenance phase often talks about is weight loss stuff. When it comes to weight loss, bodies are so idiosyncratic. And then you get to when you have the true believers, you get to people who cannot

1990s Diet Culture Mirror

SPEAKER_00 35:10

fathom the idea of ever being wrong about something. And then you get RFK pedaling anti-vax stuff and eating carcasses off the road. Ew. Yeah. But when if you're just listening to like the base level stuff that RFK Jr. is talking about, it actually sounds somewhat reasonable in the same way that the base level stuff that Kellogg was talking about early on, which is like plenty of roughage. You know, we should be moving our bowels more often than we are. You know, like the exercise. Exercise was important to him. Exercise is important. So RFK is saying stuff like, we need to eat less processed foods, we're all eating too much sugar. Like, what are these dyes that we're putting in our food? Like, our children need to be moving more, and like we should be, you know, having more protein in our diets. All of those sound perfectly reasonable. And then all of a sudden you drop off a cliff and it's like sex is bad, and you should have enormous poops multiple times a day. And then you have like vaccines cause autism, and so all of a sudden we have children dying from preventable diseases. Preventable diseases. And like, okay, yeah, we're gonna eat dead bears that were killed, killed in car accidents. Like, what?

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Yeah. I mean, I think it's it's sort of a human nature when someone has seen results from one specific thing. It's like, you know, this listeners may not know. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia when I was 23, so a long time ago. And I went to all kinds of different people, like some quacks, some legitimate doctors. And like every new person, like, you know, the psychiatrist was sure that he could cure, I'm putting quotes around that word, my fibromyalgia symptoms if he could correct my foot strike. Right. And, you know, I had this like wacky dentist who was sure that he could cure, quotes, my fibromyalgia if he could correct my bite, you know, like, and so like everybody who was a hammer saw me as a nail, you know, when in fact, like, yeah, probably there was a there were adjustments to my foot strike that would help. And probably there were adjustments to my bite that would help. But like it was the actual constellation of symptoms and pathology was so much more complicated than any of them were holding. And I feel like people become very zealous when they have seen results from something, right? About anything. And so, you know, the person who like the weightlifter who's eating all this protein and feeling so much better and having so much more energy and able to do more whatever, like trying to push protein on everyone. Like, I don't know, yeah, maybe I could use more protein in my diet, but that's not gonna, it's not a silver bullet. There's no such thing.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

And then on the other side of the equation, you have when people, especially when it comes to something like health, when people don't feel well, they become desperate for a simple answer. Oh, I I know. That's exactly why I mean, and that's why I'm not saying that for you. I'm saying that be it just because so, and that's why in every era we have new health gurus. Yeah. Because in every era we have new people who are primed to, who are vulnerable to the grift, whether if they're charlatans

Policing Male Sexuality Role Reversal

SPEAKER_00 39:00

or primed to listen to the true believers because they just want some relief. Relief. And then for people like the Matthew Broderick's character who do feel better because, you know, some little thing did help. You know, he needed to detox. I mean, like that it might have just been he needed some time to detox. And like he was like all of the other shenanigans that were going on that distracted him from the opium addiction, you know, like the embarrassment and the animas and all of that. So he wasn't that he was detoxing, so he felt better. Right. It's I think it's worthwhile telling these stories from a different era because it makes it easier to recognize it in our era because it's divorced. Like if you were to write, if you were to make a movie about anti-vaxxers now, people would be frothing at the mouth.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Right. It also helps to remember that we, whatever current generation, did not invent like health crazes. I think that's actually really helpful because they're new crazes, and so it seems like we invented them. Yes. But, you know, I'd love to talk about the sexuality aspect. Yeah, I want to go there. I want to go there. So it's interesting that often in society in general and Western culture in general, there's a lot of policing of women's sexuality and less so of men's. Not none, not none, but less so. In this movie, while Mr. Kellogg, Dr. Kellogg, rather, is very unhappy. In fact, he brings Mr. Lightbody into his office to say, you need to see to your wife, because she's been going to see this charlatan who's been giving her, you know, therapeutic massages or whatever. Like he he tells Lightbody what's happening and then immediately embarrasses Light Body by showing, like, I don't know, like 50 nurses this electronic masturbation belt that he is, and reminds him again of the erection as a flagpole on your grave thing. Male sexuality, the sin of Onanism, is invoked several times, is like very much like a piece of the charlatanism or not, sorry, a piece of the evangelism of Kellogg. Like he is like, he doesn't want men to have erections, and he certainly doesn't want them to touch them if they get them. And that's very important to him, which is unusual in Western culture. And I think part of that, like being unusual, is how we know as viewers that we can't trust 100% of what Kellogg says.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

Yeah, I was gonna ask that. Is that how it's like, you know, like, okay, okay, he seems okay. Oh, no, clearly this guy is off as a rocker.

SPEAKER_01 41:55

Yes. That is exactly how it happens from the very beginning while he's on this rotating platform doing the exercise, and you're like, okay, that's weird, but like it's 1900, so like, I don't know, maybe. And then he says the thing about sex, and you're like, oh, yep, nope, he's in a job. And I think that's really interesting when we pull back and sort of realize that like policing male sexuality, like, even to the extent of like sh masturbation and like that, sort of like an erection is a flagpole on your grave, like that's proof that you're unhealthy. That's where, as the viewer, you're like, oh, this guy's a whack job. That's the shorthand. And I think that's really interesting when I sort of zoom out. It's like makes sense. If instead he'd been saying, like, you know, women who want to have pleasure during pro during sex instead of just for procreation, like they're hysterical and we need to like put control on that. Like, at least some viewers would be like, oh, let's hear what he has to say.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Now, I do have one question about that because that's well, I I I don't think you're wrong, especially for like in 1994. But isn't he that far off historically? Like, isn't that historically somewhat accurate? I mean, there's the there there were the like the idea that you'd grow hair on your palms if you masturbated. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

Like, we certainly were as a society like discouraging young men from masturbating, but I don't think that there were many who were suggesting that married men should be refraining from having sex with their runoffs.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:41

I don't think that there were many like thought leaders.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

That was the part that took it from like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

He wasn't just saying the synovonism is bad. I think a lot of people were saying that. Yeah. Okay. He was saying, like, no sex ever. Yeah. He was actually saying that that's vital fluids that you need.

Neurodivergence, Parenting, And George

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Need to hold on to. You shouldn't be like losing that vital fluid. So unless you want to procreate. That's the only reason.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

Okay. I was gonna say, like, what was his answer to children?

unknown 44:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah. I think he believed he was lucky enough that he didn't have to worry about that. I mean, this character. I don't know if Dr. Kellogg actually felt that way. I'm just saying the character in this movie. This is very much fictionalized. It's based on a real character. It is based on a real guy, but like he didn't die that way. He died in his sleep, apparently. The sand did burn down, but it was not burned down by an estranged son. And by 1907, when this is supposed to have taken place, it had already been rebuilt. So there are definitely like seeds of historical accuracy in this film, but it is not a like fully accurate biopic. So the last thing I guess I'll just say really quickly before I reflect back is, you know, my questions about this Dana Carvey's George, and actually it's the child, is where I really felt this way, is whether or not he was meant to be coded as neurodivergent. I think the like staying on the annoying task or the task that was given so long after most people would have just gotten bored or whatever, like read to me as perhaps hyperfixation or perhaps like a form of stimming. I don't know. I actually am not a neurodivergent uh an expert in neurodivergence. And so I don't know exactly what it is that I'm trying to like to map from this behavior and this character to a diagnosis or a con what's the word that I want to say? Like a neurological reality. I don't know what I'm mapping. But watching it now versus in 94, instead of just being like, I think in 94, I was probably like, damn, I can't weird, right? And now I'm like, oh, hmm. I wonder what's happening with this young person's brain and like what different supports would have had different outcomes. I mean, obviously a more like loving approach would have had a different outcome. But like the other siblings, we see them and they're not having similar reactions. So there's something atypical about George. So I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's interesting to see at learning plus years later, and the difference that we as a society understand about neurodivergence, it just makes me approach the whole character differently. So I just wanted to kind of like name that.

SPEAKER_00 46:45

And any response to that? It does strike me as something that would be a hyperfixation, especially if there's shame attached to it, as as like which would be why he kept going with the coat activity. And then the thing that I was thinking was how parenting has changed so much over the past hundred and so many years, because the idea that a father would say, like, make him do this all day and consider that an appropriate consequence for such a minor infraction. And that it be that's such cruelty, like such incredible cruelty, and not anticipate that would have repercussions for his relationship with his child as an adult. And so and then also like when just to tie it back to like vaccines cause autism, you know, the fact that that we wouldn't necessarily recognize people who have autism prior to a better diagnosis, in part because, you know, we had that kind of parenting back then. And so, unless someone

What Holds Up And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 48:00

was so neurodivergent that they were incapable of masking and being, you know, like somewhat fitting into society and just, you know, people being like, that guy's kind of quirky, kind of weird. Like it just, it's all part and parcel of the way that society has changed and been become more welcoming to people who don't fit.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah. Okay. I have some more stuff to say. I'm gonna save it for the shit we forgot to say for patrons. I actually have more to say about George, but I'm gonna come back to it in our bonus content. So right now, I'm gonna try and reflect back to you some of the things that we said. I didn't name this movie passes Beckdell, because we have many named female characters and they talk to each other. It's interesting because their conversations actually sort of like often start with men and then go in other places. But at a minimum, Virginia and Eleanor talk about bicycling. So there are other examples as well. So I think that's I didn't say that earlier, but it definitely passes back Dell. And also there are many moments where these two named characters are talking about men. So both are true. Oh, one other thing too, the sort of rival guy who's like pro sex, at one point he says to Eleanor, and your glasses, they're a crutch for your eyes. Throw them into the fire. That's how we know he. That's how we know he is a wacko. So anyway, okay, so this movie wrote to Wellville, all-star cast. I mean, really remarkable cast. Like these men and women were household names even in 1994. So, I mean, I think that's really worth noting. And yet, this film, like the script, like it just doesn't, I don't, unless you're like again, super into like scatological humor, male tushies and boobies, it just doesn't really hold up. Now, if you're into those things, this is your movie. Like you should go watch it right now if you're like super into those three things. But if you're not, it's like meh. It does have a lot of interesting things to make us think about health as a business, to think about health gurus and what we can trust from health gurus and what we can't. Because sometimes they are selling us snake oil that is nothing. It's water in a, you know, in a vial. It's a breakfast cereal that they want to tell us is a panacea. Or even worse, it's actually harmful. Right. And sometimes they believe in that breakfast cereal so completely that they are willing to, you know, they eat their own dog food. They're willing to like do the things, they're doing all the things, and they genuinely believe that they will help you. And that doesn't mean that they will, but it doesn't mean that they won't either. Like this movie is like willing to hold those competing truths at the same time, which is, I actually think that that is the sign of a of intellect, is to be able to hold competing truths at the same time. So that's worth noting. I think storytelling-wise, in sort of giving that message, it's interesting to note that it's mid-90s when there are all kinds of health crazes that we thought we invented at the time, and we did invent the specific craze. But the idea of a health craze, we did not invent. And this movie helps us to see when it's sort of set at the turn of the 20th century, when it was made at the end of the 20th century, that like every generation's got something, and what like some of it's true and some of it's not true, and that's probably the case now. So that's sort of an interesting thing to take away. One thing that I noted is that I think the screenwriter, the director, the actors were all super proud of with friends like these, who needs enemas? So that's just that's my thesis about this film. And then the last thing is like there's something about sexuality in this movie that, like, this movie sort of talks about male sexuality and policing male sexuality in a way that is so counter-cultural. That's how we knew from the get-go that Dr. Kellogg was at least a little bit off his racker with what he was proposing. So, and I think like we're meant to have sympathy for

Next Week’s Tease And Support

SPEAKER_01 52:30

these women who are receiving sometimes like the implication maybe for Bridget Fonda, like her first orgasm, possibly ever. Like, we are definitely meant to have sympathy for her. And also, like the guys, the doctors, I'm putting quotes around that, who are helping her achieve them, we are meant to judge harshly. Like, these guys are like not okay. So, again, competing multiple truths are true. Did I forget anything? No, just George's neurodivergence.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Yes, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Yeah. The character of George, who in the 90s we were just like weird. Now I think there's a much more nuanced take on him and why he behaved the way that he did and why his father's discipline and parenting style did not work and caused such estrangement. Yeah. Okay. Next week, I believe we are, we have a guest.

SPEAKER_00 53:26

No, right? Oh, yes, we do. That's right. Next week, we do we have a guest. We have my friend Zina Kumak will be coming on to give us her deep thoughts about the TV show The Nanny.

SPEAKER_01 53:36

Looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_00 53:37

Yeah, it's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon. There's a link in the show notes, or leave a positive review so others can find us. And of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin 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?