E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial: Deep Thoughts About Impeccable Storytelling, the Power of Connection, and Reese's Pieces

"E.T. phone home!"

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie revisits one of the classic movies of her Gen X childhood: E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

Director Steven Spielberg is at the top of his storytelling game with this sci fi film that introduces E.T., a gentle alien botanist who is accidentally stranded on Earth and taken in by 10-year-old Elliott, the middle child of divorced parents. Not only does Spielberg use every visual tool available to show his storytelling rather than drown the audience in exposition, but he also makes it clear that he truly understands the psychology of children. 

The film doesn't condescend to children in its audience and it recognizes how kids see the world. And because Spielberg relies on visual storytelling rather than exposition, he ensured that baby Emily and Tracie, aged 3 and 6 when the film debuted, understood what was happening on screen. This movie deserves every bit of your nostalgia.

Beeee goooood, and listen to this episode!

Tags
deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, storytelling, classic movies, gen x childhood, film, movies, psychology, 80s and 90s movies, pop culture, movie reviews, women, sci fi, gen x nostalgia, nostalgia, film analysis, steven spielberg

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

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

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

Privacy, Memory, And The Cold Open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

By showing us the government listening, juxtaposed to these two brothers remembering different times, it underscores the violation of privacy that the government is engaged in, right? Like the Spielberg doesn't show us them listening when they're talking about E.T. Mm-hmm. He shows us the government listening when they're remembering their dad being in the house. 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 over think 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 will be sharing my deep thoughts about ET, the extraterrestrial, with my sister, Emily Guy Birken,

Welcome To Deep Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 1:02

and with you. Before we dive in, listen, if you haven't yet, would you please take a moment and go follow the show on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify? On Apple, it's a plus sign, and on Spotify it's a button that says follow. It's free, but it will really help the show. Thanks so much. Okay, so now I'm gonna turn to my sister. I know you saw this because we saw it together. But tell me, what is in your head about E.T.? So there's a couple of things.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Reese's pieces. So I remember liking Reese's pieces as a very small child because of ET. And when I was a student teacher in 2006, one of the classes that I taught was a film class. And I wish I could recall the details, but there one of my the projects that the kids were doing was talking about what were to them older films. And I the kids were so charmed that Ms. Guy could remember liking Reese's pieces because of E.T. So I that's something I associate with it as well. So I know I've seen the movie multiple times. I have not seen it probably since I was in my earliest or mid-ish teens. So I remember very vividly the flying icicle, in part because that's became the logo for Amblin, uh-huh. Amblin Entertainment. I remember E.T. Phone Home. I remember Elliot because that all of that became famous. But the reason why I know that I saw it multiple times, and the last time I was probably in my earlier mid-ish teens, is because at some point, and I think it's before E.T. is introduced, the children, like Elliot or Drew Barrymore, who's his little sister. And I can't remember if there's a third child. There's an older brother, Michael. An older brother. Okay. So, and I imagine it's the older brother. Someone calls someone else a penis breath.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Elliot

Childhood Memories And Reese’s Pieces

SPEAKER_00 3:05

says that to Michael, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Okay. And I remember as a teen going, holy shit. Because I had because it had flown over my head, even if I had known what the word penis meant, because I know I I know no idea when I saw it the first time, because it's a 1983 movie. Two. 1982. So I suspect dad took us to see it in the theater. Because I remember being a very small child and being very excited to see Reese's pieces in the store as a tiny child because of E.T. So I suspect I saw it in the theater. I know I had no idea what a penis was at that point. I am sure I saw it again and knew what that was because I can remember details of the story. I remember the government people coming after E.T. I can remember like the frogs coming back alive when they go to dissect them.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:03

I remember like little bits of that. But that moment when I was a teenager going like, oh my goodness. That's funny. So, but overall, it's I just have a lot a lot of warm fuzzies about it and a lot of I also have a sense that our dad really loved it. He loved well, he loved movies. I felt like he really connected with Drew Barrymore as reminding him of us. Yeah. Even though she was a little blonde girl. Yeah. I think that Barrymore is I think she's my age. Your age. Although she might be in between us.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

It was 1982.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

She can't be your age. Yeah, she would have I think she must be a year or two older than me. Oh, she's one year older than I am. Okay. Okay. So, but I feel like Drew Barrymore reminded him of his daughters. Yeah. And I because I also dad had very strong opinions about child actors.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And Drew Barrymore was one of the children for whom he felt protective.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Because of how horrible childhood was. Yeah. And so, and I feel like this is one of the movies that made him feel like she was done wrong, even though I don't think this movie Yeah, I don't think this movie did, but her career after the her career. And it wasn't being in film, it was her family. Right.

unknown 5:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

And she seems to have come out of it okay. She's amazing. Yeah. Yes. So, in any case, those are the things that I associate with this film. But tell me, why are we talking about it today?

SPEAKER_00 5:43

Well, it was on the list because it was one of those films that was like pivotal to our like we saw it in the theater, we saw it many times after. Our dad loved it. Our cousin Chris, our first cousin Chris, who sometimes comes up on the show, who's no longer with us. We all, the three of us all watched it together. I can remember being at grandma's house and watching it with Chris. And like he loved Reese's because of it, you know, and talked about like the flying bike and stuff. And so, like you, I had fond memories of it. And so that's why it was on the list. I don't have a good reason for why now, except that it felt like a departure from our recent, you know, we did some more like action and adventure and like grown-up themes in recent weeks. And so this one felt like just a little bit of a variety. So that's the only reason now. But there was a lot at stake for me because this was a really important movie to us growing up, and it reminds me of dad and it reminds me of Chris. So that's why that's sort of what's at stake. And I'm pleased to say that E.T. really holds up. I won't say it's a perfect film, but it is close. It's so good. That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

And that goes with my crush on Steven Spielberg as director.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah. So let me give you some postcards from the destination, and then I'll remind you what happens in the film. So I'm gonna talk a lot about storytelling and Spielberg as like a master storyteller and a master filmmaker, like specifically film to tell a story, because he uses all of the tools in the toolkit. Like the score is important, the lighting is important, the actors are

Why E.T. Matters To Us

SPEAKER_00 7:15

important, like it's all works together. Even the camera work, like it is it's masterfully done in terms of storytelling. I want to talk about two sort of the core lessons in this film, which I think are about relationship and connection and the need for connection. And we see that through the writing and the storytelling I just named, but there's also a lot of like visual metaphor using ET that gives us these lessons about connection that I want to kind of unpack a little bit. I want to talk about the fact that Elliot's family is reeling from a recent divorce. And what does that say about like the fact that E.T. kind of ends up in this quote-unquote broken home? And I think the lessons are about connection. Like, I want to unpack that a little bit about what Spielberg and the script writer Matheson were kind of getting at by placing this story in this setting of this recently divorced family. I want to talk about what kids can handle. This film does not condescend to its youngest viewers. And I think that's really beautiful. We don't see that today in media designed for kids. And this was not, I don't think Spielberg was trying to make a movie for children. I think he was trying to make a movie for everyone that didn't leave children out. And I think he succeeded. So I want to talk about some of that in terms of like what can kids handle? And we'll briefly talk about gender because that's one thing that I that I would say is not perfect about this movie is gender and representation. And then lastly, I want to talk about E.T. as a Christ figure, which I don't I'm gonna need to unpack with you because like I'm a scholar of religion, or I was, and unpack literature all the time. And so of course I can sort of see Christ figures, but like also I'm Jewish, and so it's not the first thing I think. So I actually didn't, like, as soon as I read a commentator who was like, E.T. dies and comes back, obviously he's a Christ figure, I was like, oh, right. Yes, yes, yes, I see it now. So we'll unpack that together a little bit. And that's where we're going. So let me give you the as brief as I can, and then I'll as I'm explaining some of the other things, I may like give more details later. The short version is this alien ship visits Earth, and they are botanists. They're collecting plants. And they, the government, US government, this is happening in California, we learn later, but it's sort of like in the California forest, they're collecting plants, and like pickup trucks and like

The Plot In Plain English

SPEAKER_00 10:07

suburbans start to arrive, and there's like flashlights and headlights and things, and humans, these human men are like descending on the ship. And so they all, all the aliens like race to get back in the ship to escape the people who are descending upon them. And one gets left behind. He just doesn't get to the ship in time. And he ends up in the backyard of a suburban home, it's suburban LA, and ends up kind of connecting with this middle child, Elliot, of this family. It's a mom and three kids. So Michael, Elliot, and Gert are Gertie. And Elliot is 11, somewhere in that range. And Michael is like 15 or 16. Gert is seven. So, and we learn that dad recently left and has a new girlfriend. Nobody believes Elliot. We see them, he and E.T. meet, and when they first actually like are face to face, like they both yell and run away from one another. And so he's seen it and no one believes him. And he decides he's gonna actually like he he wants to see him again. He wants to see E.T. again, and he ends up actually managing to he draws him in with the Reese's pieces. He draws him in, right? And so he brings him into the house and he's keeping him a secret from his siblings and his mom. Eventually he brings both of his siblings into his confidence. Mom doesn't know he's there, and then E.T. and Elliot develop an empathic connection where they feel each other's feelings and sort of somehow have access to one another's thoughts. And Gert, the seven-year-old, actually ends up sort of almost teaching him how to talk. Or like she's there when he starts to learn how to talk. Doesn't she have like a tea party with E.T. or something? Or sort of like she she puts a wig and she dresses him up in like goofy clothes. Yeah. Yeah. And they're trying to figure out where he's from, and they show him like a map, and then they show him a globe, and they say, We're here, pointing to California on the globe. Where are you from? And he like points to the sky. And he builds with stuff from the around the house, he builds a communication device to contact his people, ET phone home. And it works. Meanwhile, the government has been like, they know there's a creature here, and they've been like listening in the whole neighborhood, like with a truck and a microphone. And they so they know the government knows, and it all culminates kind of on Halloween. So they're like they're able to get E.T. out because mom thinks it's GERT underneath a ghost sheet. And that's when the bicycle flying happens. Elliot is taking him to the forest to set up the machine. It works, but the government has closed in. E.T. is very sick, and therefore Elliot is very sick. He's dying. E.T. is dying, and the government comes in and they like tent the whole house and set up this like medical lab. And they're trying to save E.T. Like they have him hooked up and they're like checking his blood pressure and is like they give him like medicine and stuff, but he dies after he and Elliot have like E.T. disconnects their direct connection. E.T. dies. We meet one of the government guys whose name in the credits is only Keys, and I'll explain why when I do a little bit of analysis of the storytelling, who turns out to like be as kind as he can, because he's sort of who Elliot might turn into if Elliot lost his idealism, right? And gives Elliot some time with the body. And then E.T. wakes up and he's super excited because he wakes up because he can sense his people are closer. So with the help of his brother and some other neighborhood boys, Elliot gets E.T. to the spot where the ship is coming, and E.T. is reunited with his people and escapes the planet Earth. There's a lot that happens in between. There's a tearful goodbye scene, but that's the sort of what happens. So let me get into the storytelling because I that was like my biggest takeaway, honestly. Like I was just watching this and just struck by how all the things I knew about E.T. and about this family with zero exposition. Like in creative writing classes, it is a mantra that is

Spielberg’s Show Don’t Tell Mastery

SPEAKER_00 15:03

so hard to learn to actually do, to show, not tell. And Spielberg is a master at that in this film. So he is a master just in general. Well, just yeah. But I'm just looking at this film. But yes, like he really heard and like has integrated and models show, don't tell. So there's zero dialogue in the first maybe 10 minutes of this movie. We know that E.T.'s people are not a threat to us because they're botanists, right? Like we see them like touching plants and very like gingerly taking plants with their roots. And then we see inside their ship, and there are these like crazy looking plants, like, you know, it sort of looks like Willy Wonka with like weird mushrooms and weird things, but like we see that they are not a threat. And then even further, that they are not a threat, there's like a stick breaks. It's like a rabbit. And like the whole, there's a bunch of them, maybe a dozen of them, and they all stop suddenly and their heart lights light up, all at exactly the same time. And so by that one moment, like 10 seconds of film, I now know that they're all connected because their hearts all lit up at the same time. I know that they're more used to being sort of prey than predator because it was a startle response to that sound. And just from that 10 seconds of film, right? I'm watching this, I'm going, wow, wow, you know, and that show don't tell goes on like over and over and over again. So I mentioned that Elliot and E.T. have this empathic connection. I wasn't told that. Spielberg showed me that. There's a the scene that you remember with the frogs where Elliot's at school and E.T. is at home alone in the house. E.T. discovers beer and he drinks a beer and gets drunk. And Elliot gets drunk while he's in school. And E.T. is like watching something or sees something. He's like agitated, and Elliot goes, I have to free him. I have to free him. And the frogs don't come alive again. They were already alive. They were going to be dissected while alive. Yeah, it's really gross. So we see the teacher come up the aisle of the like science tables, dropping. He explains to us, these are chloroform cotton balls, and he's dropping them. Each of the frogs is in like a jar, and he drops a cotton ball in each, and the kids are supposed to put the lid on, and it will like the frogs won't feel anything, and the scalpels are very sharp. Hearing all of that, Elliot releases all the he opens all the jars. So there are frogs everywhere. It's pandemonium. Meanwhile, eats he's watching television, and the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man is on, and there's this famous scene where the leading lady like sort of walks out the door and he pulls her back and like kisses her. Dancing or something. Oh, okay, yeah. It's not dancing. It's like she's like walking away from him in the Quiet Man, and he kind of grabs her wrist and pulls her back and like dramatically kisses her. Okay. Into like it's like a spin into him, right? Sort of. He pulls her back and she sort of spins away and then yes. Okay, okay. And so we watch Elliot make a similar sort of move, but he's shorter than his crush. So like he makes another kid lie down and he stands on the guy's back so that he can do the same John Wayne move. And to Spielberg's credit, this is interesting. He has shown us that this girl is interested in Elliot. Earlier, they were all at the bus stop and she was like, Hi, Elliot. Hi, Elliot. Like she like, she's interested. We see her like furtively looking at him. So the kiss, it takes away some of like the lack of consent problem. And then we see her as Elliot then like runs away. We just see her feet, but like one foot kind of like turns a little bit, like oh my goodness. After people micro, which like visually shows us that she actually sort of enjoyed what she enjoyed what happened, not sort of she did. Yeah. So anyway, that's how like we know they feel what it the other one feels, they think what the other one thinks because we were shown. Like we're never told later. The grown-ups say their brain waves are synced, like when the government has taken over. But we already knew that. Like, as viewers, we already knew that.

SPEAKER_01 19:30

So that means like me as a tiny child watching, I would not have understood their brainwaves were synced. Exactly. But I understood what I was watching.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Right, right. The other, so the show don't tell. He's the master of that. Part of that in a movie, too, like he uses all of the tools. The score is incredible. I think it's I think it's John Williams. It won an Academy Award. Like this movie was nominated for a million Academy Awards. I think it won four.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

And score was one of them. And so that's also part of how we know in the beginning, we know that the ET peoples are not a threat to us, is from the score. The government people, like the humans, get sort of the scary music. But the aliens in the forest, it's not scary music. He also uses lighting, right? The first, I don't know, half of the movie is very dark. Like things are in shadow. The forest is very dark, and then the sort of the flashlights like become sort of these vectors through the dark that are threatening. But even the home, even the tailor's home, is sort of in shadow, which I think also helps to like flavor the fact that it's a broken home, which again we learn through show don't tell when Elliot is feeling put out that no one believes him. He says, Dad would believe me. And mom says, Well, you know, you could call him and tell him. And Elliot says, I can't. He's in Mexico with Sally, which mom hadn't known. So she sort of excuses herself from the table and she's like at the sink. We just see her back. She turns around and there's tears on her face, and she says, He hates Mexico. So the recency of it, like what happens, like show don't tell. Like, oh my God, that is so good. I know, I know. And meanwhile, Michael, the older brother, who had been like needling and like just a jerk of an older brother, like to the point that Elliot called him a penis breath. When Elliot says that and mom gets up from the table, he goes, You're so stupid. Why did you do that? Michael's like protective of mom. Yeah. All of these layers of the relationships between these families. And later, after Michael is in Elliot's confidence and they want to have Help E.T. build the machine that he builds. They're in the garage looking for stuff, like for raw materials for this machine. And they're sitting and they're talking and they find dad's shirt that dad forgot. And Elliot like sort of smells it. And so Michael wants to smell it. And he says, old spice. And then they like remember a time dad took him, took them, I don't remember, fishing or something. And like, so they sit and reminisce. So they're like remembering before the separation. Meanwhile, the government is outside the house with this like long-range microphone listening. And so there's this interesting juxtaposition of like by showing us the government listening, juxtaposed to these two brothers remembering different times, it underscores the violation of privacy that the government is engaged in, right? Like the Spielberg doesn't show us them listening when they're talking about ET. He shows us the government listening when they're remembering their dad being in the house. Yeah. Yeah. As a, I think a very clear, this is a violation. And later we have, like after the government has taken over and like tented the whole house and like pushing folks out of the way, mom says, This is my home. Right. But we already felt that. Yeah, we already know that they're again like once it's said, it's just a validation of what we've already been shown. And the lighting, again, the the lighting kind of starts to change as the relationship with E.T. develops, right? So the darkness becomes brighter with his introduction into the sort of family. So I just was in awe of the storytelling, which on the one hand, if I'm sort of thinking about it, maybe it's not as good. Like I think there are those, I think there are those who would say it was manipulative because I was sort of seeing it. I didn't experience it that way. I just experienced it as wow. I yeah, wow. That's the way I experienced it.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

So I think I've talked about this before, possibly on the podcast, but the way I think of it is when you know what you are an expert in, you know what to look for. Yeah. And the the where I the metaphor that I came up with this was from our uncle, whose family was in the garment industry. Right. And he took me once to one of those very discounts, like Ross or Marshall's or something. Yeah, no, even more than that. And I was in college, he was like, pick out what you're interested in. And then once I had like several things, he's like, no, no, no, no. Because he was looking at the seams. And then the one sweatshirt, I think it was a hoodie, he's like, this one. You can buy this one. It's like uh discount factory, like one of those coat Burlington Coat Factory. That's where it was. It was Burlington Coat Factory, and impressed the hell out of me. And ever since then, that's my metaphor for like with storytelling, you and I, we know where to look for the seams. Right, right. And these seams are flawless. Yes. They really are. They are perfect. And just because we know to look for them, we know where the seams are, doesn't make these seams any less flawless. Right. It just means that we know where to look for them. Right. Whereas someone who doesn't spend time thinking about storytelling just doesn't just know, like, damn, that felt good.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah, how it makes them feel. Yeah. Yeah. So the last thing I want to mention, maybe I think the last, on this sort of master storyteller, master filmmaker thing is actually the camera work and the point of view. So we do not see an adult's face besides mom for the first two-thirds of the movie. Really? Everything is shot from sort of kids' eye level or E.T.'s eye level. And so I do remember, like, we see through yes, on Halloween, we see through the eye holes. But before that, that's near the end of the movie. Before that, like the scene with the science teacher, you only see him from sort of just below the sternum down as he walks up the aisle. And the government folks, like, we never see their faces. And in fact, that piece, Spielberg does this in a lot of his films, but he did it in this film too. We there is a focus on the man's keys hanging from a belt loop, like on a carabiner or something, like a little clip. From the very beginning, from that first scene when the suburbans arrive and they're the E.T. people get nervous and fly away. There's this one dude, we see his keys repeatedly. And then there's a couple of moments throughout the movie where, like, with the surveillance or other things where we see the keys. So we know this dude. He's the one who I said would be Elliot if he lost his idealism. Like he says to Elliot, when Elliot's like dying because E.T. is dying, he's a miracle. It's a miracle that he's here. And I'm so glad he met you first. And I want to do what I can to keep him alive. Like, how do we do? Like, what can we do? And he still, like grown-ups often do, unintentionally, is like causing the problem, right? Like he's not listening. Like Elliot's like, leave him alone. You're killing him. And they keep, you know, they keep going. So we keys, that's all he's called in the credits. We don't know his actual name. His is the first grown-up that we see, face that we see besides the others, when he sort of pulls off the like they're wearing when they show up at the house to like tent it, they're wearing like spacesuits, like astronauts with the like mirror dome. Um but the the other, then they show up in like sort of hazmats, and Keys is wearing like sort of a hazmat, and he we can see his face through it, and then he does end up pulling it off. And then the other doctors and stuff do, too. But the first two-thirds of the movie, we see no adult's face except for mom. And that too, I think, like I noticed it. I think it was me recognizing a seam, the way that you just described. But sort of the effect is like, I think for kids, is that like a truthiness, like a veracity, because the camera work was done at kids' eye level or low to the ground at ET's eye level. We see several points like POV where he's like moving through the tall grass and stuff, which is again show don't tell. So that's the last I'll say, I think, about the storytelling piece of it and like using all of the different tools of cinema.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So, you know, I just want to say that also shows that Spielberg, you're gonna get to it, but it's about about what kids can handle. But that also shows that Spielberg understands kids. Like he listens to kids.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Because he he's showing the movie from their perspective and understands that for kids, like kind of the only real adult in their life is their mom.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah. I mean, I think dad is too, but he's he is absent.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

He's absent. And teacher who's not gonna make them dissect a live frog might be real. But the teacher who's making them dissect a live frog, you don't see his face.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

Yeah. So now I want to talk about the core kind of moral of the story, what I think is the moral of the story, which is the which is lessons about connection, which we get in multiple ways, right? And in multiple ways and in ways that are in some ways subversive, I think, or maybe that's the wrong word, but like Elliot is the middle child,

Connection As The Real Heartbeat

SPEAKER_00 30:08

and he becomes the star. And I think that that's significant, not just the star, but like the hero, the core, the center. And that's middle and center are not the same, right? Yeah, yeah. And I don't think I'm speaking out of turn. Middle kids, if you're listening and you think I'm wrong, like please, please raise your hand and tell me. But I don't think I'm talking out of turn to sort of say that like middle kids almost never feel like the center, right? Because just the nature of like the one who came before and sort of broke the parents down, and the one who came after and now has like all of the parents' attention as the baby. And the middle kids often get forgotten. And Elliot is hungry for something. Like he's missing dad. He has a big sign on his room that says enter, right? Like, I don't think that's a mistake. That's not a coincidence. Like he's hungry. The very first scene that we see, not the E.T., like in the Taylor family home. Michael, the older brother, is like in a DD session with a bunch of his friends, and Elliot wants to participate, but he's like the annoying younger brother that they kind of don't want to let participate. You know, so he's hungry for something. And then E.T. kind of fills that space. And the lessons about connection, like, so Elliot says to E.T., because E.T.'s like still kind of scared when he first gets there, they finally kind of meet in the room, and everything's like, they realize they don't mean harm to each other. And Elliot almost immediately like sits down and falls asleep, as does E.T., right? Like there's this like relief once they're together. And then the literal connection that we see between their thoughts and feelings, and the way that protecting him and helping him brings the family together, including mom by the end. And then there's the heart light visual metaphor of E.T., which we see in the very beginning with the other E.T.s. And then after he has died, the way he comes back to life is it glows, and he wakes up and he's going, E.T. phone home, E.T. phone home. Like he's really excited. When they are in proximity, like that's what he needed. That's why he was dying, was because he was away from his family or people or what I don't, you know, he was away from his community. That's actually what was killing E.T. It wasn't like a virus, it wasn't a heart attack, it was disconnection. They were too far away. And then what brings him back is them in proximity. And we know that they have that empathic connection because we were shown in the very beginning when all of their hearts lit up at the same time, when they were frightened, when it was time to come back to the ship, and E.T. was our E.T. was like running trying to get there. And I started to say, E.T. is a little nervous, or Elliot thinks he's nervous, and he says, I'll be right here. I'll be right here. Elliot says that to E.T. several times. When E.T. is about to walk up the gangplank onto his ship, and Elliot is crying and says, I'll never forget you, and is like this tearful goodbye. E.T. points to Elliot's head and says, I'll be right here. And so the lessons about connection, even like the smelling of dad's shirt, there are all these layers about relationship and connection and the connection that lasts even in absence. He doesn't shy away from the grief of the absence or the literal pain. Like E.T. dies as a result of absence. And so he doesn't shy away from that. And yet, for me at least as a viewer, I was left with something really hopeful. Hopefully, and like I have a wistfulness almost for the vision of connection and relationship that this movie wants to give us. I mean, even Keys, who like in the beginning, we think he's a villain, right? But by the end, he actually ends up at the site because mom and Gertie are leaving. Gertie knows that the where the boys went. She was supposed to, he says, Did the boys leave yet? And mom says, The boys leave? What? And Gertie says, I was supposed to give you this note after they leave. And mom says, Give it to me now, Gert.

SPEAKER_01 34:46

So they're in the call. See why dad that reminded Dad of us.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

Drew Barrymore was a natural at seven years old. Like she's amazing. Anyway. Um and so adorable. Yeah. So mom and Gertie are in the car, like driving away from the tented house. And Keys says, Where are you going? And mom's gonna head, but Gertie goes, We're going to see the spaceship. So Keys goes with them or follows them in his own car. I don't remember. But so he's there at the site. And but he doesn't try to intervene. He doesn't try to stop. He just wants to witness it. And in fact, when sort of mom is moved by this, what's happening between her son and E.T., and Keys kind of gently puts his hand on her shoulder. So there are all these like subtle and not so subtle reminders of the web of connection that's there if we allow it. So that was something that like I found, yeah, just really beautiful about this movie. And it is conveyed in so many ways. Again, just like this, like what I spent all that time talking about the storytelling. Like it's conveyed through the writing. Like it is a well-written screenplay, like with the I'll be right, I'll be right there, right here. It's conveyed through the acting. Like Henry Thomas, who plays Elliot, had no right to be as good an actor as he was at 11 years old or whatever. Like, I mean, incredible. Like this movie would not work if I didn't believe the emotion from Elliot. And it works. He just nailed it. So the writing, the acting, the actual, like the way it's filmed, the visual metaphor of the heart lighting up. It just chef's kiss. And it gave me this lesson about connection and relationship that I just really I guess I really needed it right now.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

In in our current time frame where we don't yeah. It doesn't we feel like we don't have connections. And especially with someone who starts off as a villain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah. I think that leads into my sort of questioning about the placement of this story in this so-called broken home. Right. Where with the darkness in their home in the beginning, you know, and the and the sort of Elliot wanting to be a part of with the big kids and all of the kind of friction that's happening in this home that has recently experienced this upheaval of the separation. And I think maybe that's part of why the lesson about connection

Divorce Anxiety And The 1980s

SPEAKER_00 37:37

works here and feels so resonant. It's not a mistake. It's not a coincidence that this story was told with this family at the center being one who had recently experienced rupture. And not rupture of a death, but of this rejection and sort of breaking of connection.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Well, and that gets to, we've talked before about how in the 80s there was a lot of kind of just societal mishigas, societal anxiety about divorce. So I think you're right that this story about connection, it's not a coincidence that E.T. comes to this child of a family of recent rupture from divorce. But I also think that it's not a coincidence that this story came about during the decade when there was so much societal hand-wringing about what are we going to do about these kids? What are we going to do about these latchkey kids? What are we going to do about these kids, these children of divorce, that overweening, overwhelming concern that people had because divorce, you know, no-fault divorce had become common across the nation. And so divorce had become much more common. And so there were many, many more children of divorce. And so this story that is about connection and relationship, about building connections, even with people who are absent, not through death, but through separation. And that I will be right there. Someone who loves you, who is connected to you through this heart light, but can't be there because they need to be with their other people, is a movie that was a phenomenon at the early part of the 80s. I don't think that's a coincidence. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

So let's talk about what kids can handle. This movie does not condescend to its viewers, right? There's not sort of the like there's no watering down, I don't think. And I say that I think I'll get into this more maybe in the shit we forgot to say that will be for patrons only, but I'll just mention that there was a 20th anniversary release

What Kids Can Actually Handle

SPEAKER_00 40:03

special edition of this movie where things were changed. And one of the things that was changed was there's a chase scene when the neighborhood boys are all on bikes with Michael and Elliot also on bikes with E.T. in a milk crate on the front of Elliot's bike, and all of the bikes fly at that point. And the government agents are chasing them in like cop cars and stuff. And they sort of set up a blockade to stop them. And the government agents are carrying shotguns. And in the special edition, one of the things that was changed was that instead of holding guns, they're holding walkie-talkies. And so that would have been in 02, because it was it was 20 years. And Spielberg apparently immediately regretted this special edition. And like it's very hard to find now. When he released it on DVD, both editions were there. And now, like I streamed this to watch it on like Amazon Prime or whatever. I didn't even know that the special edition was an option. Like it's not easy to find the changes because Spielberg immediately recognized that this was a mistake, unlike his friend George Lucas. Don't get me started. Yeah. But I think part of like blunting that, like, there was real danger to these kids. And also like real judgment from the viewers of these government agents who would brandish a gun against kids on bikes. That I think by by removing that danger sort of takes away some of the power. It takes away some of the Chef's Kiss storytelling. And part of, I think, the thing that like Spielberg trusting kids, it's kind of like I'm gonna hearken back to our episode about Mr. Rogers' neighborhood, right? Like Mr. Rogers said everything that's mentionable is manageable and everything is mentionable. And I think Spielberg actually is modeling that in this film. He talks about divorce. He talks about or he shows us like what happens in this so-called broken home. I hate that phrase, but this post-divorce home. He shows us sibling friction and rivalry and also sibling love. He shows us like kids face real danger in this world. They do. And pretending they don't doesn't take the danger away.

SPEAKER_01 42:37

Even the thing, the penis breath. There's something I remember reading that Stephen King said where about writing children, he hates it when people refuse to have children say bad words because children curse. Right. And so, like, as like as I was, it was because it was more because I didn't know what was being said, not because it was said. Because that is what an 11-year-old boy would say to his 15-year-old brother.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 43:08

In 1982.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

And in the moment, mom sort of shock laughs and is like, elegant, but she's like laughing because which is also really real. So I think that when you add to that, the fact that we had the kids' point of view in the camera, the use of the camera, there is a trusting of children that I think is really powerful and often missing from media today. So I I wanted to really like just name that out loud because that was also something that I I didn't appreciate fully as I was rewatching it. It was like as I was reading other commentators and reading about what got changed in this special edition that I was like, oh yeah, yeah, that walkie talkies like takes away. Away some of the power because and and it also is like lying in a certain sense. Like, I think one of the things that I think Spielberg really wanted from this movie was that it be believable that it could actually happen in 1982 California. And unfortunately, the guns were real. Like that is the way the government would. I mean, if anything, the government is less violent than it would actually have been in 1982 California. So that was just that was something that like felt important to me to name in terms of what Spielberg got right. Briefly, I will talk about gender and I'll save ETS Christ for the last thing in this episode. So the one big quibble I would have with this movie is representation and gender. We have it does not pass, it does pass backdell. Does it pass backdel? Well, do Gertie and the mom talk about Gurdy and mom reads from Peter Pan to Gertie. So I think that probably counts. And we know mom's name is Mary.

Gender Gaps And Small Quibbles

SPEAKER_00 45:04

That's actually another piece of like the beautiful storytelling in terms of the connection, because they read the bit where you have to clap and really believe in Tinkerbell to save her. And so there is this sort of undercurrent idea that like Elliot's belief and even Keyes' belief in E.T. is part of what saves him. And I mean everyone, but yeah, you know, like by having that moment from the Barry where it's the other people's belief in Tinkerbell that saves her, and the clapping that like is kind of like planted seed. But so it passes Backdell, but it's just the two of them. Like there are no other, well, there's the crush whose name we don't know. And there are other like female students that were women, um, well, girls in Elliot's class. But that's it. And even like when we meet E.T. when Elliot introduces E.T. to his siblings, they're like, is it a boy or a girl? And Elliot's like, it's a boy. And like, how does he, you know, he I mean, he has a connection, but like, do the E.T. really like, do they even have gender?

SPEAKER_01 46:16

They have gender, yeah. You know, is it an enemy mind situation?

SPEAKER_00 46:19

Right. Yeah. Right. And so if it were made today, which it wouldn't be because but if it were made today, I like I would hope there would be sort of more representation of women and girls than we have in the existing movie. That's my only quibble, though. Like it's really and it's not, it's women aren't represented poorly. Like, I think Mary's of for what little bit that we get of her as mom, because moms are not fully formed human beings for their own children. Yes. Yeah. I think she is as fully formed as she can or should be. You know, and GERT is absolutely delightful, Drew Barrymore's GERT. So, but that is like one small quibble. I'm running out of time. So, but I do want to mention, like, I didn't see it, but I read another commentator who was like, Yeah, E.T. dies and comes back to life. Obviously it's Christ. I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, that's a thing that Christ does. So, and the fact that I like named the relationship and the need for connection and relationship in this family, like there, I don't think that's a an overblown or overthinking interpretation of E.T. Yeah. And

E.T. As A Christ Figure

SPEAKER_00 47:29

I don't know what to do with it. Like Spielberg says, if you know, it's unintentional because he like he goes on in his career from this moment to like be very Jewish in what he to really like express his Jewishness through some of his filmmaking. And to be fair, he didn't write it. Right. That's true. That's true. But E.T. performs miracles. And he's actually refers to him as a miracle. And then he dies and is resurrected, and sort of his presence heals this family to some extent. I don't think it's an overthinking interpretation. No. I don't know what to do with it beyond that.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Well, and the the idea that his illness is separation from his progenitor. So like his illness is separation from God, which is what hell is according to some Christians. Some Christians. I mean, some Jews too, actually. Some Jews, yeah. Yeah, that's kind of a tough one. But E.T. is one of many. He's not right. But Christ is one of three, if if you go by go by Catholicism. Yeah. So I yeah, that's interesting. I would not have a quibble with anyone who sees this as a Christ metaphor. But the connection to Elliot, though, would that be, I don't know, like John the Baptist, like one of his disciples?

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Oh no, I don't think it's that literal. I would think it would be, I mean, I would think it would be more like an individual believer's access to. I see. That's more the way I would interpret it. Gotcha. Probably. But you know, I think it's a secular tale that like leans on some religious themes. Mm-hmm. You know, and I I don't know that it that I need to go any deeper than that, but I I just I wanted to name it because for those for whom that's a thing, like it's very obvious, you know.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yeah, yeah. So it's also important to remember, JC was one of ours. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

Well, he was a rabbi. Right, right. I mean, there's also he's a botanist, and there's this flower that is dying. I think it's even a sunflower, maybe. Or no, I think it's like a carnation. It potted plant that is like wilted that he brings back to life. And as he's dying, it starts to wilt. And so part of the way that like Michael realizes that he's better is that the flower gets better again. So that the flower becomes also sort of a symbol for E.T. There's I bring that up when talking about the Christ thing because for the visual metaphors, there's a sense that when E.T. dies, the miracles he performed also sort of fade, which I don't think aligns with a Christ figure. Although the cut finger that he healed, ouch. That's that doesn't reopen. So anyway, I guess what I will say is that, like so many sort of tropes or themes, that this is a that there is a Christ figure in here, maybe no more than like that has become a satisfying theme to Western consumers of media. So I'm running out of time. So let me see if I can reflect back the things that we talked about. And then in our shit we forgot to say, which is a patron only exclusive. Listeners head on over to our Patreon to check it out. We will go into a little more depth about a few more things about ET. So I spent quite a bit of time talking about the well-crafted storytelling, specifically in the medium of film.

Recap, Next Week, And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 51:10

The writing is beautiful, like it's just neat and like comprehensive with all of the little details, like the fact that mom is reading from Peter Pan, like those little moments that then all like layer together for this one story. I talked about using the tools of cinema to tell the story, the lighting, the score, which is incredible, the acting, the writing, like all of it works together. I talked about the core sort of the moral of the story, about relationship, about connection, which again we get through all of those different tools of filmmaking. And what I found deeply hopeful about this film is the lessons about connection, even through absence, about the I'll be right here in Elliot's head, even when E.T. is absent, which was underscored through, you know, this story about this home with our recent separation that right now in particular, all these years later, feels so important for us to remember the power of like our heart lights lighting up simultaneous with other people's, even if we're sort of not directly in connection. I talked about the broken home, the so-called broken home, as this divorced family, as like ripe for this particular intervention. They needed E.T. That was not a coincidence. It added to the power of the storytelling. The fact that Elliot was the middle kid in this home of recent divorce. He needed E.T., he was hungry for connection. He was feeling like disconnected. I talked about as one of the tools of storytelling is like the camera work and the point of view, the fact that we don't see an adult's face besides mom for the first two-thirds of the movie. And that's part and parcel with Spielberg taking kids seriously and listening to kids and not talking down to them. And like knowing that to paraphrase Mr. Rogers, what is mentionable is manageable, and like trusting kids to handle truth, which later he was sort of maybe pressured to pull back on and immediately regretted, apparently. I talked briefly about gender. I wish there were more women and more fully formed women and girls in this film. That is my one sort of actual quibble about this film. And then I spent some time talking about E.T. as a Christ figure and sort of dying and then being resurrected. Oh, I'm totally out of time. And then you pointed out, I love the metaphor of like recognizing the seams. So thank you for that. Finally, what are you bringing me next week?

SPEAKER_01 53:57

I'm bringing my deep thoughts on He-Man. Oh my god, I have the power! The power of Grace Gull.

SPEAKER_00 54:04

I cannot wait. 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?