My Big Fat Greek Wedding & Enmeshment

<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
<v Speaker 1>movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brittany Brownfield and
<v Speaker 1>I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.
<v Speaker 2>Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists.
<v Speaker 1>We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
<v Speaker 1>who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
<v Speaker 1>mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entertainment purposes
<v Speaker 1>and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture and
<v Speaker 1>all forms.
<v Speaker 3>Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
<v Speaker 3>we aren't your therapist.
<v Speaker 2>If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
<v Speaker 2>a local mental health provider.
<v Speaker 1>Happy Valentine's Day, everybody. So we are doing your guys'
<v Speaker 1>pick for twenty twenty five, which is my big fat
<v Speaker 1>Greek wedding. This movie One in a Landslide. I was
<v Speaker 1>very surprised. I was very surprised as well. And I
<v Speaker 1>don't think for nassarily for the romance. I think people
<v Speaker 1>wanted to hear, want us to talk about the family
<v Speaker 1>and guess what, everybody, You're gonna get what you paid
<v Speaker 1>for because we were gonna talk about this family, yes
<v Speaker 1>we are. So the topic for episodes today is enmeshment,
<v Speaker 1>how it shows up in this family, kind of like
<v Speaker 1>the cultural reasons for why some families can be more
<v Speaker 1>in mesh than others, the consequences of enmeshment, which I
<v Speaker 1>think is what we see a lot in this movie,
<v Speaker 1>especially with Tula and her her individualism and confidence. And
<v Speaker 1>they're also obviously going to talk about Ian and Tula's
<v Speaker 1>relationship and how the family dynamic trickles down obviously and
<v Speaker 1>impacts the relationship. And as always treatment and final thoughts.
<v Speaker 1>So long story shorts. This movie is about a thirty
<v Speaker 1>year old named Tula who feels very I would call
<v Speaker 1>her a late bloomer, yes, and she doesn't really know
<v Speaker 1>who she is. She's not very confident. She gets antagonized
<v Speaker 1>a lot, in my opinion by a very big, close
<v Speaker 1>Greek family yep. And then she meets say ugh non
<v Speaker 1>Greek Amien and they fall in love and they get
<v Speaker 1>married baby, And so that's this movie, all right, goodbye,
<v Speaker 1>everybody have the firus episodes my fund So in Meshman,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna throw it to you, Hannix. I know you
<v Speaker 1>have a definition for enmeshment on deck. And also, this
<v Speaker 1>is a word that's being used a lot in our culture,
<v Speaker 1>so I wanted to make sure that we had a
<v Speaker 1>firm understanding of what we mean as therapist when we
<v Speaker 1>say in meshment.
<v Speaker 2>So the definition that I have is two or more people,
<v Speaker 2>typically family members are involved in each other's activities and
<v Speaker 2>personal relationships to an excessive degree.
<v Speaker 3>Check check, check it, e check. In this movie, I
<v Speaker 3>think all those are quite clearly exceeded.
<v Speaker 4>Well right away.
<v Speaker 1>You are established in the movie that this family really
<v Speaker 1>doesn't do anything without each other. They all work at
<v Speaker 1>each other's businesses, They are constantly spending all their free
<v Speaker 1>time together. This is a family that doesn't really have
<v Speaker 1>a social life, it seems, outside of their relatives and
<v Speaker 1>or maybe other Greek people in their community.
<v Speaker 3>Right, their family and their community, their church.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, So why is it about this family specifically other
<v Speaker 1>than what I just mentioned that we would say like oof,
<v Speaker 1>this family is in meshed versusges, this is a close family,
<v Speaker 1>or this is a family that's just like very family oriented,
<v Speaker 1>Like why are we saying enmeshed and.
<v Speaker 2>Meshment shows up in this family where you have everybody's
<v Speaker 2>in each other's business all the time or specifically times
<v Speaker 2>of what enmeshment looks like in families is where one
<v Speaker 2>person is not allowed to completely express who they are
<v Speaker 2>because they have to keep within the connection to the family,
<v Speaker 2>the connection to another person.
<v Speaker 4>So in this.
<v Speaker 2>Family, it's almost like everyone, every single person is en
<v Speaker 2>meshed with the next person, which is pretty which in
<v Speaker 2>some in some experiences, is pretty rare to have them
<v Speaker 2>be inside of each other in that kind of way.
<v Speaker 2>And we see with not only like what Brittany brought
<v Speaker 2>up in the beginning about how they all work together,
<v Speaker 2>about how they all spend all their time, they spend
<v Speaker 2>all their time together, and also they're all in each
<v Speaker 2>other's business, but they're in each other's business in a
<v Speaker 2>way that puts all of the focus on one person's
<v Speaker 2>specific part of their life. It seems like and romantic.
<v Speaker 2>The romantic part of Tula's life is definitely one of
<v Speaker 2>those areas where everyone gets involved in one way or another.
<v Speaker 2>Everybody has an opinion about it. Yes, everybody says the
<v Speaker 2>opinion out loud. Everyone feels like they have some kind
<v Speaker 2>of ownership over the relationship that Tula does not have
<v Speaker 2>or has had. Trouble finding, and the way that that
<v Speaker 2>impacts each other is that it stops someone from being
<v Speaker 2>able to develop because they have to be within these
<v Speaker 2>certain realms in order to keep the family happy.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I think something that you mentioned that to me
<v Speaker 1>is like the ding ding ding.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>For why this family is unhealthily involved with each other
<v Speaker 1>is what you said about like everyone's entitled to like
<v Speaker 1>an opinion or like ownership over what everyone else is doing.
<v Speaker 1>And that, to me is the difference between like a
<v Speaker 1>close family and a mesh family is that it's one
<v Speaker 1>thing if you share everything with people in your life,
<v Speaker 1>Like if you have a kind of relationship with your
<v Speaker 1>family where you can tell them everything that's going on,
<v Speaker 1>you talk to them every day, multiple times a day,
<v Speaker 1>and everybody knows what's going on with everybody else, that's
<v Speaker 1>one thing. If that works for you, all, that's fine.
<v Speaker 1>You know, Like we, or at least I don't want
<v Speaker 1>to be encouraging any like hyperindividualism, which I think is
<v Speaker 1>something that therapists are going to bad rap about right now.
<v Speaker 1>Is that therapy encourages like this like I don't know
<v Speaker 1>anybody anything kind of thing that's not true in a family.
<v Speaker 1>If you guys are all close, and that feels good
<v Speaker 1>to everybody. That's a fine what you were saying, Hannah, though,
<v Speaker 1>is the problem, which is when everyone feels like they
<v Speaker 1>are allowed to say whatever they want and that everyone's
<v Speaker 1>allowed to have an opinion about what everybody else is
<v Speaker 1>doing in a way that's not even like advice. It's
<v Speaker 1>controlling because when Tula gets told stuff or other people
<v Speaker 1>get told stuff in this movie about themselves, it's not
<v Speaker 1>like oof, like I don't know if you would really
<v Speaker 1>like that, you know, you did like art instead of
<v Speaker 1>this maybe should take our class. It's like, how could
<v Speaker 1>you do that to me?
<v Speaker 4>The family?
<v Speaker 1>Everything's taken very personally, very personally, and like it's also
<v Speaker 1>very like I'm allowed to tell you what to do
<v Speaker 1>versus you're grown up and I can still give you,
<v Speaker 1>like maybe my opinion out of what I want for you,
<v Speaker 1>versus like I'm still allowed even though you're an adult,
<v Speaker 1>to tell you what to do, and you should listen.
<v Speaker 1>If you don't listen, you're doing something to me or
<v Speaker 1>you're doing something to the family. Like That's what I
<v Speaker 1>think of with enmeshment, is like you guys are up
<v Speaker 1>each other's butts, like you're entangled like there is no me,
<v Speaker 1>there is no you, it's us.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's the the key phrase right there, that one.
<v Speaker 3>There is no me without us, there is no me,
<v Speaker 3>it's us. As how do we advance our group, our people,
<v Speaker 3>our values, our family and you and your wants and
<v Speaker 3>your individuality are not even secondary to that, It's there
<v Speaker 3>is no secondary.
<v Speaker 1>There is antagonistic towards us. If you have things individual wants.
<v Speaker 3>Right, even must advance within the singular viewpoint that the
<v Speaker 3>family has always had, which usually comes down to a
<v Speaker 3>figurehead and what they are espousing. Everyone else's viewpoints are,
<v Speaker 3>and that everyone else must be adherent to that to
<v Speaker 3>be good enough to be accepted to make their own way,
<v Speaker 3>and their own way is whatever path everyone else is
<v Speaker 3>determined it to be no variation on that.
<v Speaker 1>Well, yeah, like Tula's only options are to get married
<v Speaker 1>to work at the restaurant. Everyone's options are like, well,
<v Speaker 1>you're either going to work at this family thing or
<v Speaker 1>this family thing, and any divergence from these spoken unspoken
<v Speaker 1>rules within the family is considered radical. It is radical
<v Speaker 1>to take a community college class one in computers. Maybe
<v Speaker 1>it is radical to change the style artistic styling of
<v Speaker 1>the family at restaurant menu, like any toe that anyone
<v Speaker 1>takes out of out of the circle to do anything different,
<v Speaker 1>if you will, is seen as an affront and is
<v Speaker 1>like a radical thing to do. There's like no wiggle room.
<v Speaker 1>And then obviously with the Ian situation, Tula, that's a
<v Speaker 1>bigger version of that. Like you were saying, Hannah, like, romantically,
<v Speaker 1>who you marry isn't just like who you're marrying. You're
<v Speaker 1>bringing someone into our lives, into our family. We all
<v Speaker 1>we're all marrying Ian. If you're marrying Ian, And I.
<v Speaker 2>Feel like the other things, what it really stops, is
<v Speaker 2>it really stops anyone being allowed to do or go
<v Speaker 2>for something that they're actually interested in. Your interests all
<v Speaker 2>have to be the same, You all have to be
<v Speaker 2>working towards the same goal, and you can't And again
<v Speaker 2>that kind of like you can't step out of line.
<v Speaker 2>And so I feel like where we see Nick the
<v Speaker 2>brother bring the menus with different art on them, where.
<v Speaker 4>We see.
<v Speaker 2>Tula trying to ask to do something different and wanting
<v Speaker 2>to work at the agency, they have to do this
<v Speaker 2>whole trick and pony show for the dad in order
<v Speaker 2>for him to say yes, Like he's the one who
<v Speaker 2>has to agree to everything before we can make any
<v Speaker 2>before anything can really start happening. Where normally, if somebody
<v Speaker 2>wants to take a college course, you just sign up
<v Speaker 2>and take the course. It doesn't have to be approved
<v Speaker 2>by especially when you're thirty fucking years old, it doesn't
<v Speaker 2>have to be approved by the head of the family.
<v Speaker 1>Well, you brought up that point right then, that there
<v Speaker 1>usually is ahead of the family, and in this one it's.
<v Speaker 4>Gus Gus, Yes, definitely.
<v Speaker 1>And yeah, like what you were saying, Hannah, Well yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And what you were saying, Hannah, is that even for
<v Speaker 1>her to take a college course, to still to do that,
<v Speaker 1>they have to convince him that it's connected to the
<v Speaker 1>rules of the family. Basically, they have to convince him
<v Speaker 1>that it's in service of the family, and it isn't
<v Speaker 1>Tula stepping out of the family. So she's not breaking
<v Speaker 1>a rule to do that. She is following the family
<v Speaker 1>in measurement rule in just a way that could look
<v Speaker 1>like she was stepping out, Like all this work to
<v Speaker 1>please him and to stay in line with what he wants,
<v Speaker 1>and the fact that that's treated and encouraged for Tula
<v Speaker 1>like that is okay.
<v Speaker 3>It's encouraged. Yeah, just okay, that's it.
<v Speaker 4>And it's actually like smart and wiley to do that.
<v Speaker 3>It's just this is the way. That's it. This is
<v Speaker 3>the way. Yeah, there's no other way. And it's really
<v Speaker 3>clear that the children of the next generations are starting
<v Speaker 3>to view this as quite outdated and recognizing how different
<v Speaker 3>it feels from the way their peers family are run,
<v Speaker 3>while the older generations are looking at it like, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>what do you expect this way? It is? You just
<v Speaker 3>that's what you do. You work in the restaurant. It's
<v Speaker 3>your family's restaurant. Your father built it as the restaurant.
<v Speaker 3>What do you mean do something else. You're gonna be
<v Speaker 3>in the restaurant. Why wouldn't you be in the restaurant?
<v Speaker 3>Her monologue like, right in the beginning of Greek women
<v Speaker 3>are expected to do a couple things. Mary cook Greek food,
<v Speaker 3>Mary Greek men cook Greek food, make Greek babies.
<v Speaker 4>It's a very narrow view of what a woman's life
<v Speaker 4>could be like.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and so before we get into the consequences of enmeshment,
<v Speaker 1>which we're kind of touching on, let's take a break
<v Speaker 1>here and then talk about like the cultural reasons why
<v Speaker 1>a family like hers would be so enmeshed. All right,
<v Speaker 1>So before we jump too hard at critiquing this family
<v Speaker 1>even more, we wanted to make sure, though, to establish
<v Speaker 1>up top that there are a lot of very understandable
<v Speaker 1>reasons for a family to be in mesh in the
<v Speaker 1>way that we are seeing them in this movie. This
<v Speaker 1>is obviously a movie, given the title, that centers their culture,
<v Speaker 1>their Greekness, around why their family operates the way that
<v Speaker 1>it does, and touches upon that throughout the movie. Obviously,
<v Speaker 1>So up top, as we are all three non Greeks, yes, yes,
<v Speaker 1>or any of you as are hiding some from.
<v Speaker 3>Me, I'm pretty firmly Northern European according to my genetic tests.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And so one thing we do want to acknowledge
<v Speaker 1>is this is a family of people that are first
<v Speaker 1>gen is who immigrated to the country.
<v Speaker 3>It Okay, so he talks about he came to the
<v Speaker 3>country with.
<v Speaker 4>Eight thousand dollars in his pocket something classic. Yeah, so
<v Speaker 4>Tula is a first gen correct.
<v Speaker 1>So one thing when to say is that we aren't Greek.
<v Speaker 1>And so I'm sure there is a lot of part
<v Speaker 1>of the Greek culture that we don't. We don't know
<v Speaker 1>because we don't experience it. That does create this dynamic
<v Speaker 1>we are seeing in the movie. And then also something
<v Speaker 1>some things that are probably specific to being Greek. I
<v Speaker 1>know something you mentioned Ben before I started recording is
<v Speaker 1>that the country of Greece was going through a lot
<v Speaker 1>of turmoil.
<v Speaker 3>I mean historically Greece, historically by a great many nations,
<v Speaker 3>in particular Turkey. Greece has been invaded a lot. Think
<v Speaker 3>about the course of history, how many wars that there
<v Speaker 3>have been in that region. And for that reason, there's
<v Speaker 3>been a lot of genetic cleansing. Greeks have been enslaved,
<v Speaker 3>and they have been viewed as less than and they
<v Speaker 3>have gone through a whole lot of loss and violence.
<v Speaker 3>We see the grandmother character in this constantly in a
<v Speaker 3>state of trauma. The Turks are invading again, and that
<v Speaker 3>is something that happened a lot. So when you think
<v Speaker 3>about a people that have had to lean into their
<v Speaker 3>own genetic identity for safety, it explains a lot of
<v Speaker 3>where the enmeshment may come from, because outsiders were seeking
<v Speaker 3>to kill or enslave their people. So therefore trust no
<v Speaker 3>one who is in Greek gets to be very very
<v Speaker 3>simple and rooted in survival. Are they Greek? No, then
<v Speaker 3>they are in our friends. If you're the child of
<v Speaker 3>war or the child of a child of war, you
<v Speaker 3>or train your children to understand the world from the
<v Speaker 3>frame point you understand it.
<v Speaker 1>And the movie, even though it is played for jokes,
<v Speaker 1>they clearly inform us that the turmoil was so bad
<v Speaker 1>in just their like immediate famili's memory, that their grandmother,
<v Speaker 1>the grandmother is having like yeah, PTSD, you know, maybe
<v Speaker 1>like dementiaes PTSD field flashbacks, but she is having PTSD,
<v Speaker 1>so it was bad enough that she's still experiencing the
<v Speaker 1>intensity of that, and her son chose to leave their
<v Speaker 1>country and come to another country and bring her with him, obviously.
<v Speaker 1>And so then the other layer to this is, you know,
<v Speaker 1>being immigrants to America, a country that famously likes to
<v Speaker 1>treat every wave of whatever country immigrants is coming in
<v Speaker 1>as like the new parasite. As much as we like
<v Speaker 1>to pretend though we are like a melting pot, as
<v Speaker 1>we like to say, or that we are like immigrants welcome.
<v Speaker 1>If there's one thing that America is good at, it's
<v Speaker 1>like choosing one scapegoat per immigration cycle. Yes, so immigrating
<v Speaker 1>here just compounds like these protective the protective nature of enmeshment.
<v Speaker 3>Of course it does, because you are moving to a
<v Speaker 3>place that is very different than where you are from,
<v Speaker 3>and literally everything is different. Chicago does not look a
<v Speaker 3>single thing like Greece. What what even though this movie
<v Speaker 3>takes place here, and even Greek Town is a thing. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it is not a tremendously large area, No, but it exists,
<v Speaker 3>but it's not big and it certainly doesn't look anything
<v Speaker 3>like Greece. And you don't see Greek people everywhere like
<v Speaker 3>you would in the country of Greece. So people that
<v Speaker 3>move here obviously are going to want to create a
<v Speaker 3>community around other people that they feel at home around.
<v Speaker 3>And that's normal. That's normal for anybody that moves anywhere.
<v Speaker 3>Is to want to keep some sense of familiarity, because
<v Speaker 3>that's how we foster safety. We find things that are
<v Speaker 3>familiar because then we understand how to operate within a culture.
<v Speaker 3>And human beings are at our core social beings. Part
<v Speaker 3>of our neurological structure wants us to connect to other
<v Speaker 3>humans because animals that get isolated in the wild die,
<v Speaker 3>So we learn to connect to other people and the
<v Speaker 3>other people that are like us. Is really simple, and
<v Speaker 3>it's understandable why we see this entire community of this
<v Speaker 3>family lean further and further into those traditions as they
<v Speaker 3>are farther and farther away, especially from what their parents
<v Speaker 3>would know. The more emigrated families integrate into the place
<v Speaker 3>they emigrated too, the more the children by generation become
<v Speaker 3>more like the people of the new country.
<v Speaker 4>Well, yeah, which being Americanized or wherever.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, But they the parents who see them becoming exposed
<v Speaker 3>to more and more culturalisms that are unfamiliar to them
<v Speaker 3>and feel dangerous and threatening, and like they lose their
<v Speaker 3>children and lose their own identity by losing their children.
<v Speaker 3>Starts to become a pretty big conflict.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>So why you see so much pressure for the enmeshment,
<v Speaker 3>Because no, we have to keep them Greek, keep them
<v Speaker 3>Greek Orthodox. They can't change religion, they can't step outside
<v Speaker 3>of the family because if the family doesn't approve, we'll
<v Speaker 3>be bringing in people that aren't safe.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and also makes more sense of why there's this
<v Speaker 1>idea that you only work at family businesses that their
<v Speaker 1>safety to that too, Like you're not going to get fired,
<v Speaker 1>you're not going to be discriminated against.
<v Speaker 4>You know, you can we can depend on the family.
<v Speaker 4>And they did really well.
<v Speaker 1>Like they have a lot of businesses if they run
<v Speaker 1>so they are doing kind of what we would call
<v Speaker 1>like the quote unquote American dream of like coming here
<v Speaker 1>and being like very self sufficient within their family.
<v Speaker 4>Absolutely, and so one I.
<v Speaker 1>Can also understand the attack, like the attachment to those
<v Speaker 1>achievements as well of like I mean, I would understand
<v Speaker 1>how it would probably feel really heartbreaking if you work
<v Speaker 1>really hard to build a business and you have kids
<v Speaker 1>and then none of your kids want to take over
<v Speaker 1>that business and the business just dies on the vine.
<v Speaker 4>That would be really hard, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And and also so this idea that yeah, you came here,
<v Speaker 1>you created this foundation for your children, and you want
<v Speaker 1>them to appreciate it and then also take advantage of it.
<v Speaker 1>And so I get there's a lot of safety within.
<v Speaker 1>Don't venture too far outside the house. You can work
<v Speaker 1>somewhere else, but you can work at your aunt's travel agency.
<v Speaker 1>And then like you were saying, you're going to marry someone,
<v Speaker 1>can we trust them? Do they get it? Do they
<v Speaker 1>understand us? Are we starting to like water down our culture?
<v Speaker 1>Which is why with situations like this, there might be
<v Speaker 1>the request, like with Ian, of converting to their religion
<v Speaker 1>as a way to take the edge off of that,
<v Speaker 1>take the sting out of that.
<v Speaker 3>Oh, if they don't, they won't be recognized by the church.
<v Speaker 3>That'd be a constant source of shame for the whole
<v Speaker 3>family have been expected to not ever acknowledge them as
<v Speaker 3>married according to the church. The Orthodox churches are very
<v Speaker 3>very strict.
<v Speaker 1>What are other other things that you see hand in
<v Speaker 1>terms of like cultural reasonings, protective factors around and meshment.
<v Speaker 2>I don't know if I feel like there's anything else
<v Speaker 2>that needs to be said about it. I think that
<v Speaker 2>a lot of times families do what they have to
<v Speaker 2>in order for them to survive, and especially when they're
<v Speaker 2>not from this country, that's, you know, a big ask,
<v Speaker 2>especially in America, you have to do a lot of
<v Speaker 2>different things to protect the culture from being appropriated, from
<v Speaker 2>being misunderstood. It definitely makes sense for this family why.
<v Speaker 4>They are so enmeshed. And I feel like also in
<v Speaker 4>some ways kind of when the whole family is in
<v Speaker 4>such a dynamic where everything revolves around exactly what's happening
<v Speaker 4>in the family all the time, that's all everybody is
<v Speaker 4>ever talking about and that's all you're ever doing.
<v Speaker 2>That that makes you almost detached from the rest of
<v Speaker 2>the culture that's around you in general as well. So
<v Speaker 2>then and then the only way to keep that culture
<v Speaker 2>up is to continue to do things within the family.
<v Speaker 2>So you also the there's a really big lack of
<v Speaker 2>even wanting to try something different, of even thinking about
<v Speaker 2>something different. Like those things just aren't gonna happen because
<v Speaker 2>it's not what well.
<v Speaker 4>It's not what feels safe.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And you can see also Gus, like there's that
<v Speaker 1>clip in the beginning when they're in the car and
<v Speaker 1>he's expounding about Greece and she says that my dad
<v Speaker 1>will bring anything back to Greek culture. Yes, like every
<v Speaker 1>like word is relating Greek culture. Yeah, things like that.
<v Speaker 1>And at the time I was I was kind of pondering,
<v Speaker 1>is this same reaction to maybe like guilt for like,
<v Speaker 1>because I'm like a third generation immigrant technically, so like
<v Speaker 1>I feel very far removed from.
<v Speaker 4>All this kind of stuff, And.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder, like, was is he feeling guilt for like
<v Speaker 1>leaving his country, And so there's like this overcompensation for
<v Speaker 1>bringing up Greece all the time. It's like, you know,
<v Speaker 1>but Greek is the best, and even though I left Greece,
<v Speaker 1>like they're still the best at everything, and like needing
<v Speaker 1>to make that known all the time. But now as
<v Speaker 1>we're talking about it, I also wonder if there's also
<v Speaker 1>a bit of there's such a pool in American culture
<v Speaker 1>to assimilate understandably, so, yes, and I wonder if that
<v Speaker 1>is him also kind of trying to battle that with
<v Speaker 1>his children of like, you will want to assimilate, and
<v Speaker 1>I'm trying to remind you that like that's not necessarily
<v Speaker 1>the best option assimilating. We come from a great culture
<v Speaker 1>and you don't have to assimilate to be proud of
<v Speaker 1>yourself to feel good.
<v Speaker 3>Well, of course, it's the struggle that all immigrant families
<v Speaker 3>go through. You eventually run into the reality that you
<v Speaker 3>did leave. You do still have family connections that are
<v Speaker 3>back there. In some cases you are doing quite a
<v Speaker 3>bit better than they are, And there is guilt and
<v Speaker 3>grief and a sense of loss of your own culture
<v Speaker 3>that you are trying to resist and that people struggle with.
<v Speaker 3>And I think Gus probably does struggle with that and
<v Speaker 3>still wants people, especially his children, who aren't going to
<v Speaker 3>know Greece like he does, having not ever lived there.
<v Speaker 3>Although oftentimes people are from Greek families are do a
<v Speaker 3>lot of vacationing with family in Greece, but they still
<v Speaker 3>will never have the experience of being Greek from Greece,
<v Speaker 3>and the parent is always going to have that as
<v Speaker 3>part of their identity. The person who emigrated will always
<v Speaker 3>be where they are from first, and so long as
<v Speaker 3>that's making up their identity, they're going to resist changes
<v Speaker 3>that make them step away from that. Everyone does. Not
<v Speaker 3>Speaking English is difficult in America, yes, and if you
<v Speaker 3>don't have people that also speak the language you do
<v Speaker 3>to consult on how to emigrate here, you may get
<v Speaker 3>difficult answers, like on the culture of Chicago, especially downtown
<v Speaker 3>area where Greek Town is just to the west of
<v Speaker 3>downtown that's just off South Loop, and where Gus would
<v Speaker 3>have struggled moving here is encountering that had he had
<v Speaker 3>a question or anythink, he would have encountered people being
<v Speaker 3>like why the fuck are you talking to me? As
<v Speaker 3>their immediate basis. They may have gotten past that, but
<v Speaker 3>it wouldn't have been friendly faces of do you need help?
<v Speaker 3>That It would be a vast minority of Chicagoans that
<v Speaker 3>would do that for him, and leaning into other people
<v Speaker 3>who are of his culture, he would have been able
<v Speaker 3>to learn what he needed to do to navigate this complicated,
<v Speaker 3>ridiculous bureaucracy of America.
<v Speaker 1>I also imagine with what you're saying about Gus in
<v Speaker 1>Chicago that like the people that are finally like I'm
<v Speaker 1>finally being seen as part of the end group here
<v Speaker 1>in Chicago. So don't come over here with your Greek
<v Speaker 1>accent fuck my shit up, like you stay over there
<v Speaker 1>like that protective nature. Unfortunately, that happens with like assimilating
<v Speaker 1>into a culture like America.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, I think that generally happens. I'm not aware of
<v Speaker 3>that happening to Greek, but that also is because I'm
<v Speaker 3>not Greek, so no one would have told me that story.
<v Speaker 3>I'm sure they exist. I've heard lots of the Italian ones, yeah,
<v Speaker 3>but the and Polish and others. It's true that you know,
<v Speaker 3>once people get a foothold it, you know, the assimilation starts.
<v Speaker 3>But that that's too where that guilt that you're mentioning
<v Speaker 3>comes in is people still want to maintain a connection
<v Speaker 3>to what feels like home and what feels right to them,
<v Speaker 3>because everywhere in the world has a different way of
<v Speaker 3>doing things, and no one's right or wrong. It just is.
<v Speaker 3>But if it's right to you, you're going to it,
<v Speaker 3>and it will feel weird to you to let it
<v Speaker 3>go because you'll be abandoning what is your home.
<v Speaker 1>So why don't we take another break here and we'll
<v Speaker 1>be back with consequences of enmeshment. As much as we've
<v Speaker 1>sort of been like doing a lot of justifying and
<v Speaker 1>understanding why the family is enmeshed, we've also been talking
<v Speaker 1>about how there's a tipping point where this community togetherness
<v Speaker 1>starts to outlast its use, its function, if you will,
<v Speaker 1>And this will happen in what we see with like
<v Speaker 1>Tula and Nick, because as you mentioned before, it's recording
<v Speaker 1>Ben Nick's pretty well, it's not his story. Maybe it
<v Speaker 1>was a Nick's story, we would see more Nick, but
<v Speaker 1>it's Tula's story, so we don't see as much of Nick.
<v Speaker 1>He's kind of in the periphery all the time. But
<v Speaker 1>this idea of you can't let your child become their
<v Speaker 1>own person outside of what the family has sanctioned appropriate
<v Speaker 1>and so because of that, how can you develop as
<v Speaker 1>an individual if you aren't allowed to even be curious
<v Speaker 1>about your interests and what maybe makes you and not
<v Speaker 1>even different than the family, just what makes you unique.
<v Speaker 1>And like with Nickots's art and with Tula, I don't
<v Speaker 1>know does she figure out what makes her unique other
<v Speaker 1>than like doing computer classes with the travel agency and
<v Speaker 1>meeting Anne.
<v Speaker 3>And she's clearly smart and she likes smart. She likes
<v Speaker 3>to modernize things, and she wants to take lessons in
<v Speaker 3>computer classes. And she also has felt two thousand and
<v Speaker 3>two right, and she's felt like pretty consistently kind of
<v Speaker 3>on the outskirts of the cultures or her you know,
<v Speaker 3>meeting somebody that will accept her for her.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, well, yeah, you're making a great point, which is
<v Speaker 1>that a consequence for someone like Tula is if you
<v Speaker 1>don't fit in yep, to the family that you're in
<v Speaker 1>mesh within. But that is her big sin, that's her
<v Speaker 1>uniqueness which is fucking her up, correct, is that she's
<v Speaker 1>not conventionally Greek hot like her cousin Nikki. Mm hmmm, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so she isn't dating, She isn't like I mean, the
<v Speaker 1>amount of times they talk about her appearance. Everyone in
<v Speaker 1>this fucking movie has a fucking opinion about how she looks.
<v Speaker 1>And not only the opinion about how she looks, Tula,
<v Speaker 1>but they also the amount of times that they say
<v Speaker 1>that she's not attractive.
<v Speaker 3>She looks old is the most common one they give.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, the amount of times that they but the
<v Speaker 2>amount of times that everybody makes a comment about that
<v Speaker 2>or everyone is like worried about it, and everyone's talking
<v Speaker 2>about it, and meanwhile Tula is just meant to what
<v Speaker 2>not absorb any of those thoughts or feelings.
<v Speaker 3>How she clearly does, and.
<v Speaker 2>She clearly soaks them up because we can tell that
<v Speaker 2>she doesn't feel good, she doesn't look happy, she doesn't
<v Speaker 2>feel like she she also doesn't feel like she knows
<v Speaker 2>who she is.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, she's When we first meet her, she's doing nothing
<v Speaker 3>to accentuate the features that she could feel good about
<v Speaker 3>herself about. People tend to highlight the features of themselves
<v Speaker 3>that they feel good about, and she does none of
<v Speaker 3>that until later in the movie, where she starts feeling
<v Speaker 3>secure enough in herself to go like, you know what,
<v Speaker 3>I am smart and I can do this, and I
<v Speaker 3>am kind of pretty. If I make myself look this way,
<v Speaker 3>and then well look at that, I look way better
<v Speaker 3>and I feel good and I'm shopping in buying clothes
<v Speaker 3>that don't make me look like I'm wearing hand me
<v Speaker 3>downs from nineteen eighty three.
<v Speaker 1>She just really dresses like she's she is stuck in time,
<v Speaker 1>like the outpha she wears in the very first like
<v Speaker 1>cafe scene, yes, where she's serving coffee, she looks great, Like,
<v Speaker 1>I'm just like.
<v Speaker 4>Girl, who what ben.
<v Speaker 2>In?
<v Speaker 4>Who's relatives house? Did you get this clothes?
<v Speaker 3>I mean you already know the answer to that.
<v Speaker 1>You're probably one of your aunts or like an older
<v Speaker 1>cousin her mother. But yeah, this is what's so enraging
<v Speaker 1>about this movie when I was watching it, is like
<v Speaker 1>you guys are so preoccupied with how she looks and
<v Speaker 1>her being confident if you will, yet no connecting dots
<v Speaker 1>in your brains about the fact that, like, the way
<v Speaker 1>you're treating her is why she feels like this.
<v Speaker 3>Like cutting her down at every opportunity.
<v Speaker 4>You're cutting her down. You're not.
<v Speaker 2>But they're also not supporting her learning anything about herself.
<v Speaker 2>They're not supporting her until and only until she already
<v Speaker 2>does the work on herself. Then they begin to support her.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, because if she's told her whole life, because it
<v Speaker 1>seems like she's been told since she hit tween years,
<v Speaker 1>maybe not even puberty, about how she looks, Like, then
<v Speaker 1>you're just going to accept at a certain point, I
<v Speaker 1>guess I'm just ugly of how my family or how
<v Speaker 1>the culture talks about beauty. So if I've decided I'm
<v Speaker 1>just ugly, then I will just not do anything to
<v Speaker 1>not be ugly.
<v Speaker 4>What's the point.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, So her also leaning into not taking care of
<v Speaker 1>her physical appearance makes sense to me from someone who
<v Speaker 1>at some point just gave up. You know, I'm not
<v Speaker 1>going to meet the standards of this family. I'm just
<v Speaker 1>not naturally Baba boom in the way that like my
<v Speaker 1>cousin Nikki is or my aunts are or whatever.
<v Speaker 4>So who cares what I look like?
<v Speaker 1>I can't be what they want, So I'm just going
<v Speaker 1>to give up, which is so much of what we've
<v Speaker 1>been talking about. You could also define as like rigidity
<v Speaker 1>in this family, like it's very all or nothing. Either
<v Speaker 1>you're fully in or you're you're betraying us. Yes, what
<v Speaker 1>does he say when she wants to say the commuter class,
<v Speaker 1>why you want to leave me?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Because she wants to take a community culture class, and
<v Speaker 1>so there's this idea that like you can't there's no nuance,
<v Speaker 1>there's no grayer of anything. So I think how choseo
<v Speaker 1>Fortula is she's given up on how she looks, she's
<v Speaker 1>given up on being marriageable. She's really taken on the
<v Speaker 1>mantle of not even like a late bloomer, like it
<v Speaker 1>never was.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah.
<v Speaker 3>And the consequences of enmeshment are that unless you can
<v Speaker 3>meet the pre established criteria, then you are constantly reminded
<v Speaker 3>of what you do not meet and aren't built up
<v Speaker 3>in a way that allows you to meet any markers
<v Speaker 3>of growth that are possible for you.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, And I think what her family. What I want
<v Speaker 1>to distinguish as well when this comes up with the
<v Speaker 1>clients I work with, which is that there is nothing
<v Speaker 1>like that. Don't think's being through close to your family.
<v Speaker 1>And there's a difference between being really up each other's
<v Speaker 1>butts and being unconsiderate, inconsiderate, and unkind. There's also a
<v Speaker 1>certain level of like normalized criticism in this family. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>I would even say normalized meanness. Yeah, that's different than
<v Speaker 1>being close, and that is to me where it really
<v Speaker 1>turns into more like toxic enmeshment because a lot of
<v Speaker 1>enmeshment because it's so we're allowed to have opinions about
<v Speaker 1>each other. There is this like freeness about how you
<v Speaker 1>talk about each other to each other's face a lot
<v Speaker 1>of the time.
<v Speaker 4>And that's okay.
<v Speaker 1>The way that I'm allowed to have an opinion about
<v Speaker 1>myself that's not kind. If I also view Hannah as
<v Speaker 1>my arm, then I'm also allowed to talk to her
<v Speaker 1>in an unkind way that I would talk to myself.
<v Speaker 1>And so that's where it starts to veer from just
<v Speaker 1>like we're really close knit family to we are in
<v Speaker 1>mesh in a way that's not.
<v Speaker 3>Healthy, or that we say it within earshot, yes, because
<v Speaker 3>we pretend that somebody won't hear it, or that somebody
<v Speaker 3>who will tell them it was said won't tell them,
<v Speaker 3>and it's neither of those are ever true. I'd go
<v Speaker 3>back to Thomas Pain on that one. The only way
<v Speaker 3>three men can keep a secret as if two of
<v Speaker 3>them are dead, Yes, that before that is true. And
<v Speaker 3>looking at like these things with enmeshment, you see is
<v Speaker 3>like a lack of confidence, a feeling of I can
<v Speaker 3>never be good enough, I can never be enough. And
<v Speaker 3>there was a study done on how people and animals,
<v Speaker 3>in particular how animals respond to punishment. With the dog
<v Speaker 3>on an electrified floor, where they would rotate around where
<v Speaker 3>the food was, where the safe sun was. There's four panels,
<v Speaker 3>four quadrants of electrified floor, and they would mix up
<v Speaker 3>when the dog would get a shock, where where it
<v Speaker 3>would step, and then when it could get food so
<v Speaker 3>it could get a reward. They found when the dog
<v Speaker 3>could figure out when the dog was going to get shocked,
<v Speaker 3>you'd just hang out wherever he wasn't going to get shocked,
<v Speaker 3>and whether the food was present there or not. He'd
<v Speaker 3>wait until he wasn't going to get shocked to go eat,
<v Speaker 3>and he'd figure out the pattern and be okay with it.
<v Speaker 3>When the dog couldn't figure out when he was going
<v Speaker 3>to get shocked, he wouldn't move. When he got shocked
<v Speaker 3>for doing anything, he wouldn't move. And when you see
<v Speaker 3>someone like Tula giving up because no matter what she does,
<v Speaker 3>she's not good enough. Yeah, she's not gonna try, or
<v Speaker 3>she'll believe she's just stupid and her ceiling has already
<v Speaker 3>been met because her purpose has been fulfilled. According to
<v Speaker 3>her family. Oh wait, no, sorry, we're talking about Tula.
<v Speaker 3>That's Nick. Nick feels like he's reached his ceiling because
<v Speaker 3>everyone's probably kind of told him, Yeah, Nick's kind of
<v Speaker 3>a fuck up. Nick's kind of dumb. I don't know.
<v Speaker 3>I don't know Nick Wood does. But Nick is clearly
<v Speaker 3>a gifted and talented artist. But that's not seen or
<v Speaker 3>reinforced or rewarded by the family because it's not seen
<v Speaker 3>as something that has value to the family, to the
<v Speaker 3>point that even something that would have value is rejected
<v Speaker 3>because it wasn't Gus's idea.
<v Speaker 1>And when you have these very specific boxes you're allowed
<v Speaker 1>to be in that if you can't fulfill those boxes,
<v Speaker 1>you will feel like a failure.
<v Speaker 4>Like there's e.
<v Speaker 1>Einstein quote right of like if you judge a fish
<v Speaker 1>by how while it rides a bicycle, I think it's
<v Speaker 1>fucking stupid, basically, yeah, And so I think, thank you,
<v Speaker 1>he would have liked it.
<v Speaker 4>And so with Tula, she.
<v Speaker 1>Is very smart and and maybe even like ambitious, right,
<v Speaker 1>And that's not a characteristic that you're allowed to be
<v Speaker 1>as a woman in this family. So she is judging
<v Speaker 1>herself by how while she rides a bike basically, and
<v Speaker 1>that ain't good. And so she just thinks that she's
<v Speaker 1>a failure. Similar to Nick, if he was allowed to
<v Speaker 1>be curious about all the parts of him that could
<v Speaker 1>be intelligent and strong, he would feel better about himself.
<v Speaker 1>But no, you're only allowed to judge yourself based on
<v Speaker 1>these like very narrow traits and very narrow roles. And
<v Speaker 1>so if you just if you're just unlucky enough basically
<v Speaker 1>to just not be able to fulfill those roles, well
<v Speaker 1>you're fucked. And that's also where a lot of this
<v Speaker 1>judgment can come from, where it really is like luck,
<v Speaker 1>like her older sister Athena just happening to check all
<v Speaker 1>the boxes within the family system, that's just luck, Nikki
<v Speaker 1>being like conventionally attractive, that's just luck within their narrow
<v Speaker 1>view of.
<v Speaker 3>It, within the genetic lottery, it's luck.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And it's also luck to like intelligence wise, to be
<v Speaker 1>interested and intelligent in the very narrow interest pool that
<v Speaker 1>you're allowed to be interested in. And it is stifling,
<v Speaker 1>it's truly stifling, and people will just stop growing.
<v Speaker 2>Especially because they can't even think about their wants or
<v Speaker 2>needs at all. They're not allowed to have them. So
<v Speaker 2>if you're not allowed to have them, you're not allowed
<v Speaker 2>to voice them. Then what's the what's the point.
<v Speaker 4>Or do you even know this? Things exist?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if you're in such a close, closed system, how
<v Speaker 1>would you know if you're good at art unless you
<v Speaker 1>happen to come across something that inspires you, or good
<v Speaker 1>at something like technology and computers. I think one of
<v Speaker 1>the great things about I guess the Internet is that
<v Speaker 1>it's exposed a lot of people to more ideas like, Oh,
<v Speaker 1>I didn't realize like that could be something you could do,
<v Speaker 1>and I think that's something I could be good at.
<v Speaker 1>And prior to that, unless you were resilient enough to
<v Speaker 1>go out there and look for it, if it wasn't
<v Speaker 1>shown to you, you wouldn't even realize that it is
<v Speaker 1>something that's a positive, like a strength.
<v Speaker 3>Why would you?
<v Speaker 4>Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>And the deeper that goes into our sense of self,
<v Speaker 3>I'm not good enough becomes a core belief yes, and
<v Speaker 3>then it becomes the way they view themselves in the
<v Speaker 3>world all the time. And if no matter what I do,
<v Speaker 3>I won't be good enough comes to be a core
<v Speaker 3>belief for a person, they don't have any more internal
<v Speaker 3>reason to try because they've already decided, because they've been
<v Speaker 3>shown and told that they're not enough, that you can't
<v Speaker 3>be enough, Like, why can't you just be prettier? Anybody
<v Speaker 3>else been successful at that?
<v Speaker 1>Ever, the way that they're treating how Tula looks like
<v Speaker 1>she's doing something wrong. Yes, right, Because what I do
<v Speaker 1>like about this movie is that even when she quote
<v Speaker 1>unquote like makes herself over, she still looks like her.
<v Speaker 4>She hasn't gotten a nose job.
<v Speaker 1>She hasn't like gotten like, she hasn't done that horrible
<v Speaker 1>thing where they put there in like a fat suit.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, and she loses a bunch of weight.
<v Speaker 1>Like she really just starts taking care of her She
<v Speaker 1>gets a curly hair routine that works for her, She
<v Speaker 1>pulls her hair away from her goddamn face, probably starts
<v Speaker 1>finding a good skincare routine, and maybe starts wearing clothes
<v Speaker 1>that she.
<v Speaker 4>Picks out herself. Yeah fit her.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And that's really all that she does differently is
<v Speaker 1>she just starts taking better care of herself, But she
<v Speaker 1>doesn't change how she looks.
<v Speaker 3>She couldn't wear a cool tracksuit like Joey Fatone, so.
<v Speaker 4>You know, swishing swishing, swishing everywhere you go?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, are we talking about windexer tracksuits?
<v Speaker 4>Both if you're lucky.
<v Speaker 1>And what I do appreciate that about this movie is
<v Speaker 1>that she does all that before she meets Ian. That also,
<v Speaker 1>it wasn't this thing where an attention from a man
<v Speaker 1>made her finally start taking care of herself better. That
<v Speaker 1>as she got more confident she disagree with me.
<v Speaker 3>Then partially it was I disagree.
<v Speaker 4>With you, disagree with my chip, I disagree with ben Oh.
<v Speaker 4>I'm just saying that.
<v Speaker 3>Just the same because she was rejecting it. But Ian
<v Speaker 3>paying attention to her though she like, I'm not saying
<v Speaker 3>he's the cause of her change, her getting confidence in
<v Speaker 3>like realizing she did a step up in the world.
<v Speaker 3>I'm not crediting like a man paying attention to her
<v Speaker 3>as her change. But I think the story hinted for
<v Speaker 3>her that her believing somebody could possibly be interested in
<v Speaker 3>her nonspecific to Ian, somebody that looked like Ian being
<v Speaker 3>interested in her genuinely no qualmed about it. The way
<v Speaker 3>Ian was presented as like smiling at her, looking at her,
<v Speaker 3>being tuning into her, that was the catalyst for change
<v Speaker 3>in the story of Like seeing that change. I don't
<v Speaker 3>think that's the psychological reason why Tula changed. I think
<v Speaker 3>Tula realized that she isn't working for Tula here.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, that's what I kind of read it as. More
<v Speaker 4>is like that was kind of her final straw. Yeah,
<v Speaker 4>where she was like, this isn't working, like I'm not
<v Speaker 4>getting anything I want in this life.
<v Speaker 3>Well like this and right, and the man that is,
<v Speaker 3>the one man that is showing attention to her wasn't
<v Speaker 3>Greek and therefore wasn't available. I think that dynamic produced
<v Speaker 3>the change of realizing I can't play this game and
<v Speaker 3>win no matter what I do. Like this man who
<v Speaker 3>looks perfectly fine, This is a handsome man who's interested
<v Speaker 3>in me, and I can't even I couldn't even have
<v Speaker 3>him in the fay I wanted to because he's not Greek,
<v Speaker 3>so I can't win against my face. I think that's
<v Speaker 3>where she realized I am playing a game that is
<v Speaker 3>a trap, and then I like, fuck this shit. I
<v Speaker 3>need to do the things that work for me.
<v Speaker 1>And I think what she does, which is very masterful
<v Speaker 1>and insightful, is she's just pushing a little, like she's
<v Speaker 1>still trying to evolve within the framework of her family,
<v Speaker 1>Like I'll just work at the travel agency, you know
<v Speaker 1>what I mean, Like Yeah, she's not trying to go
<v Speaker 1>full I don't know, like teenager, full rebel fuck you guys,
<v Speaker 1>like I'm gonna be goth and I'm gonna go to
<v Speaker 1>art school and you guys gonna fuck yourself. She is
<v Speaker 1>still trying to please them in a way, which is
<v Speaker 1>something else I wish they'd appreciate more in this movie.
<v Speaker 1>Like she's she's being very appeasing. Still, she wants to
<v Speaker 1>be close to you guys. She's trying to make it
<v Speaker 1>work in a way that doesn't make her die on
<v Speaker 1>the inside.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, she's not running in and being like so hard
<v Speaker 3>like a prop mawk and you know, disrupting everything.
<v Speaker 1>She's not like moving to a different town or going
<v Speaker 1>away to college. She's just trying to like make a
<v Speaker 1>little corner of their world that she can fit in
<v Speaker 1>and be herself ish without ruffling too many feathers. And
<v Speaker 1>even that isn't good enough until the well it gets there.
<v Speaker 1>But but I think another consequence I did want to
<v Speaker 1>make sure to bring up though, with the Tula thing
<v Speaker 1>and with Nick two, is that when you have a
<v Speaker 1>family that's this close, that's enmeshed, when someone isn't having
<v Speaker 1>a good time within that system when the system isn't
<v Speaker 1>working for them, so they start branching out.
<v Speaker 4>What do they do? They start keeping secrets?
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>And so Nick is keeping his artistic endeavor secret, his
<v Speaker 1>artistic desires at least, and then Tula is keeping her
<v Speaker 1>whole relationship with Ian secret.
<v Speaker 4>She's making up.
<v Speaker 1>That pottery class. She's like full blown, like having a secret.
<v Speaker 4>From a completely secret experience from her family.
<v Speaker 1>And what does her dad say? Why is nobody telling
<v Speaker 1>me nothing?
<v Speaker 4>Why the fuck do you think? Asshole? Which is this?
<v Speaker 1>This is also when I work with families that have
<v Speaker 1>this stuff going on. This is the unfortunate side effect,
<v Speaker 1>ironic consequence of being sold up each other's asses is
<v Speaker 1>that then when your kid or whoever your loved one
<v Speaker 1>wants to do their own thing, saying, they will ironically
<v Speaker 1>tell you.
<v Speaker 3>Less, not ironically naturally right, Well, yeah, they don't naturally
<v Speaker 3>tell you wrong or tell you less because you haven't
<v Speaker 3>made it safe to tell them a goddamn thing. Because
<v Speaker 3>anything anything Tula does, any single thing she does, is
<v Speaker 3>used against her because some way, shape or form, her
<v Speaker 3>dad is going to find some way that it is wrong,
<v Speaker 3>and then everybody else in her family is going to
<v Speaker 3>hear about it, and they're going to tell her it's wrong,
<v Speaker 3>and she's wrong. She's always been wrong. She's more wrong
<v Speaker 3>than she's ever been, and she's always wrong.
<v Speaker 1>This is the ironic thing that I try to emphasize
<v Speaker 1>to families in this kind of situation, is that, especially
<v Speaker 1>when I work with parents and teenagers, if you let
<v Speaker 1>your kids, if you let your loved ones have some privacy,
<v Speaker 1>I would argue boundaries, Yes, they are more likely to
<v Speaker 1>ironically tell you more counterintuitively tell you more. Like I said,
<v Speaker 1>it goes back to that all or nothingness. Either we
<v Speaker 1>know everything or I can't tell you anything.
<v Speaker 4>And so if you.
<v Speaker 1>Let people feel like they're allowed to keep seecrets, allowed
<v Speaker 1>to have private information, then they are more likely to
<v Speaker 1>feel like they can tell you something, especially in the
<v Speaker 1>situation like you were saying, Ben, where if I tell
<v Speaker 1>one person this fucking family, by midday, my second cousin
<v Speaker 1>knows what's going on, yep, and everyone has a fucking opinion.
<v Speaker 1>It's like living with like a fucking Reddit board that's
<v Speaker 1>screaming in your face, you.
<v Speaker 4>Know what I mean.
<v Speaker 1>And so part of that too is there might be
<v Speaker 1>things that you just want to tell your mom, you
<v Speaker 1>just want to tell your dad, your cousin, your brother
<v Speaker 1>without telling everybody else. And so this is a byproduct
<v Speaker 1>of this leaky faucet communication where everybody gets where everything
<v Speaker 1>that gets told to anybody gets kind of put up
<v Speaker 1>on the wall for everyone to see and read and
<v Speaker 1>comment on. Is that then people just keep things to themselves?
<v Speaker 1>I fundy this family is a ton.
<v Speaker 3>Of secrets, guarantee.
<v Speaker 4>Oh for sure, more secrets than they have they were unenmeshed, yes.
<v Speaker 3>And they spend a lot of energy faking, and they
<v Speaker 3>create parts that fit into their family, and then other
<v Speaker 3>parts that the parts that fit in their family have
<v Speaker 3>to reject in order to operate, which is really tricky
<v Speaker 3>for people. But it's it's always interesting to see how
<v Speaker 3>many pregnant teenagers drop out of Catholic school. Only people
<v Speaker 3>who don't have sex go there.
<v Speaker 4>Right right, you're making the.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you're pretending like the narratives being upheld upheld by
<v Speaker 1>just rejecting what doesn't comply correct. And I think, going
<v Speaker 1>back to what you're saying of the parts part, are
<v Speaker 1>we finally ready to talk about the neck analogy?
<v Speaker 2>Her mother says that she is the neck and that
<v Speaker 2>she she has control.
<v Speaker 4>Over which way the head turns.
<v Speaker 1>The woman controls the moves the head or whatever she says,
<v Speaker 1>turns the head.
<v Speaker 3>The man is the head, Yes, the man is the head,
<v Speaker 3>but the woman the.
<v Speaker 1>Woman, which I feel like is what you're saying, Ben,
<v Speaker 1>which is trying to legitimize the position therein which is
<v Speaker 1>I'm stuck as a woman. I'm stuck in this powerless
<v Speaker 1>position because we are in a system that adheres to
<v Speaker 1>very specific conservative gender roles. Yes, and so in order
<v Speaker 1>to feel unimburdened by that, or just in denial of that,
<v Speaker 1>I create this idea that I actually, well, I do
<v Speaker 1>have more power. Actually, it's like in the House of
<v Speaker 1>the Dragon, which Ben, you still have not watched, when
<v Speaker 1>one woman says to the other woman, you are trying
<v Speaker 1>to build a window in your cell. I am not
<v Speaker 1>trying to be a prisoner at all. When the mom
<v Speaker 1>said that, I was like, I know what you're saying,
<v Speaker 1>and I also know what you mean. And you're trying
<v Speaker 1>to make meaning out of this position you're in. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>And then and.
<v Speaker 2>You're joining also trying to give yourself and your daughter
<v Speaker 2>hope by using while using that language of like you'll
<v Speaker 2>have control over someone's neck. At some point you'll be
<v Speaker 2>able to have more flexibility in your life.
<v Speaker 4>And it's like, no, bitch, I don't want to be
<v Speaker 4>someone else's neck. I don't want to be someone else's neck.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, last I checked, the neck is still under the head.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, exactly. That would be a good comeback to that.
<v Speaker 1>But yeah, and it's the that's all, that's the whole thing.
<v Speaker 1>When they were doing the whole like where her aunt
<v Speaker 1>came in and they were talking to her gusts and
<v Speaker 1>trying to make the computer thing seem like his idea. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>it's that idea of Like then they can kind of
<v Speaker 1>pat themselves in the back, like see, like we really
<v Speaker 1>run the world women behind these men.
<v Speaker 4>But it's like you still don't have power.
<v Speaker 2>You still don't have power. You still had to convince
<v Speaker 2>him of something that wasn't true. You still had to
<v Speaker 2>lie about where it came from, You had to lie
<v Speaker 2>about your ambition for it.
<v Speaker 3>You had to.
<v Speaker 4>Pretend that only what that, only what Gus.
<v Speaker 1>Could see, was acceptable because in this specific family system, culturally,
<v Speaker 1>the male ego is the most important, and so that
<v Speaker 1>by definition, will create a situation where the women in
<v Speaker 1>this system are under not under well, under the thought,
<v Speaker 1>but also stifle.
<v Speaker 4>The stifles a great way to put it.
<v Speaker 3>Actually, it's an important way to look at what felt
<v Speaker 3>like an empowering moment in the movie, but it wasn't. No,
<v Speaker 3>you know, and it's it's the mom thinks she's being empowering.
<v Speaker 1>The mom says a few things where she thinks that
<v Speaker 1>she's being empowering, Like she says, like, we gave you
<v Speaker 1>a life so that you could live it. And it's like, really,
<v Speaker 1>you say that, that's a nice thing to put on
<v Speaker 1>a pillow.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, but are you living that?
<v Speaker 3>Nope?
<v Speaker 4>Are you showing that to your daughter or your son,
<v Speaker 4>or your other daughter or anybody anybody?
<v Speaker 3>She has a short to her No, oh.
<v Speaker 4>God, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but you're making a great point because also, like
<v Speaker 1>with the thing with the mom and all these like
<v Speaker 1>gender roles in this movie that are so adhered to,
<v Speaker 1>is there also she is saying to her daughter, I
<v Speaker 1>give you a life. I give you a woman's life
<v Speaker 1>so you can live it to a point, and you
<v Speaker 1>have to find the man that actually lets you live
<v Speaker 1>life through and you have to get power through the man.
<v Speaker 1>So then if you can't get a man.
<v Speaker 3>You can't have power.
<v Speaker 1>You're powerless. You are a nothing burger. You are a
<v Speaker 1>piece of furniture on the wall that we have to
<v Speaker 1>kind of like work our way around.
<v Speaker 3>Less than you're like that, like shameful painting that like are.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, she's Charlotte Lucas, babe, she's twenty seven, and she's
<v Speaker 1>a burden on her parents.
<v Speaker 4>You know what I mean?
<v Speaker 2>Yep, yep, yeah, already a burden on my parents.
<v Speaker 4>So she fucking says, and I'm scared, Lizzie.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, but those are the things that you see as
<v Speaker 3>a consequence. For sure. It's like you look at that
<v Speaker 3>and go like, oh see, you thought you were providing
<v Speaker 3>me like a statement in powerment like this is. But
<v Speaker 3>this is just how it is, is how you have
<v Speaker 3>to operate the culture. And in some respects, there are
<v Speaker 3>things about any culture that are bigger than any of
<v Speaker 3>us and that to be accepted we have to follow. However,
<v Speaker 3>that doesn't mean that the children of the next generation
<v Speaker 3>are going to have to find their way the same
<v Speaker 3>way you had to find yours, because you gave them
<v Speaker 3>that life to live. And there's a Hebrew proverb about
<v Speaker 3>that that I discovered that I think I really I
<v Speaker 3>could probably talked about it before, but is don't confine
<v Speaker 3>your children to your own learning, for they are of
<v Speaker 3>a different time. Yeah, and I feel like Mom did
<v Speaker 3>not pass that test with this lesson.
<v Speaker 2>That is her reality the same way that Tula doesn't
<v Speaker 2>escape it when she says to her daughter at the
<v Speaker 2>end of the film, you still have to go to
<v Speaker 2>Greek school, but you can marry whoever you want. But
<v Speaker 2>she still can only be married. She still can only
<v Speaker 2>have worth in the same fucking way that Tula has worth.
<v Speaker 2>She can't even give her her daughter the flexibility of
<v Speaker 2>not going to Greek school, which she fucking hated, or
<v Speaker 2>even just like you could.
<v Speaker 4>Be whoever you want.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, gotta go to Greek school, but then you can
<v Speaker 1>do whatever you want, yeah, instead of just you can marry.
<v Speaker 1>Thank you for that, for that millimeter. Yeah, closer to feminism.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah right, but I still get married. But he could
<v Speaker 1>be he could be anybody. He doesn't have to be Greek. Wow, crazy,
<v Speaker 1>Thanks mom? Right.
<v Speaker 3>You know where I've seen the best example of that ever,
<v Speaker 3>And I'm gonna say this before we take a break here,
<v Speaker 3>because we do is in Bluie Blue. Repeatedly in one episode,
<v Speaker 3>as they're taking out garbage. Bins starts talking about all
<v Speaker 3>the things she wants to do, and she asked her dad, Dad,
<v Speaker 3>do you think one day I could be at astronaut?
<v Speaker 3>And he just looks at her and goes, if you like, dad,
<v Speaker 3>maybe one day I'll be a police officer. What do
<v Speaker 3>you think about that? If you like just that gentle
<v Speaker 3>little reminder, that's how you encourage curiosity, that's how you
<v Speaker 3>override that. You give people the space to you don't
<v Speaker 3>offer an opinion on just if that's what you'd like
<v Speaker 3>to do. Cool, We'll accept you, We'll love you, you
<v Speaker 3>will have all that you need, Your family will not
<v Speaker 3>leave you if you dare go to college. Why don't
<v Speaker 3>we take a break here and we'll move into the
<v Speaker 3>next topic.
<v Speaker 1>All right, So obviously give this the FLLA nine d
<v Speaker 1>A episode. We wanted to make sure for at least
<v Speaker 1>five minutes to talk about Ian and Tula's relationship, as
<v Speaker 1>that is the reason why I was on this poll
<v Speaker 1>to begin with.
<v Speaker 4>And so.
<v Speaker 1>What sticks out to us in terms of everything we've
<v Speaker 1>talked about so far, because we wanted to make sure
<v Speaker 1>to talk about and meshment up top because obviously all
<v Speaker 1>the things we've discussed Trickle into the Ian Tula relationship,
<v Speaker 1>because he isn't just marrying her, he is marrying her
<v Speaker 1>family and.
<v Speaker 4>The opposite of his yes by a mile by about
<v Speaker 4>every way you could be, every way he could be,
<v Speaker 4>which he seems to be quite happy about.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, he doesn't seem to have fetishize it. I think
<v Speaker 3>he just accepts her and all that comes with it.
<v Speaker 3>At least that's the way he's portrayed. I mean, I'm
<v Speaker 3>sure there's more to you know, a real person who's
<v Speaker 3>not a snapshot.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, he's astoundingly easygoing.
<v Speaker 2>He's very easy going, he's very flexible, he's very kind.
<v Speaker 2>He doesn't really buy into the family's enmeshment when the
<v Speaker 2>whole thing happens where they find out about him and
<v Speaker 2>he comes to talk to Gus and get to get
<v Speaker 2>permission to date Tula, and basically the dad says no,
<v Speaker 2>because of course he does, and he just kind of
<v Speaker 2>like okay, walks into thegether room and said I'll see you,
<v Speaker 2>I'll see you tomorrow. Like he doesn't start to a
<v Speaker 2>fight with the dad. He doesn't. He's just like, I'm
<v Speaker 2>not gonna be a part of this. This is unnecessary
<v Speaker 2>I'm gonna go talk to the person that I really
<v Speaker 2>give a shit, who's what they think of me? And
<v Speaker 2>then I'm gonna walk the fuck out of the room. Like,
<v Speaker 2>I think Ian is a much more stable partner in
<v Speaker 2>this relationship than Tula is because I think Ian knows
<v Speaker 2>a little bit more about who he is.
<v Speaker 4>Well, Ian's a grown up and Tula is a teenager.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like that is the consequence of being a late bloomer. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>is that she's having her first relationship at thirty, and
<v Speaker 1>the way she's engaging with him because of the enmeshment
<v Speaker 1>nature of her family is very adolescent making out in
<v Speaker 1>the car and for her parents' house, the fact it
<v Speaker 1>doesn't have her own.
<v Speaker 4>She doesn't even have an apartment. Yeah, she lies with
<v Speaker 4>her parents, you.
<v Speaker 3>Know, so we can't go to his because you know,
<v Speaker 3>they'll know.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, so it requires her to engage in a lot
<v Speaker 1>of teenagery behavior with him. Mm hmm, which continues the
<v Speaker 1>infantilization of her within her family system.
<v Speaker 4>YadA, YadA, YadA.
<v Speaker 1>But you're right, like Ian kind of comes in, he
<v Speaker 1>almost sort of models for her how to be an
<v Speaker 1>actual adult. Yeah, who just listens to your values and
<v Speaker 1>morals and he can recognize like these rules that Tula
<v Speaker 1>you feel like our laws within your family, they're just
<v Speaker 1>made up. They're just like I don't have to get
<v Speaker 1>your dad's permission to date you if you want to
<v Speaker 1>date me, because I think what he does really well
<v Speaker 1>is sent to her.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, as he should.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, yeah, he feeds into none of her neuroticisms. He's
<v Speaker 3>just like nah, yeah, whatever, I'll do whatever you need
<v Speaker 3>where everything's fine, We're going to be fine because I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna I'm just I'll do the things. I don't care.
<v Speaker 3>I'll do the thing. What does it take, I'll do it.
<v Speaker 4>Mm hmm.
<v Speaker 3>Like that's a big energy from him, is like whatever
<v Speaker 3>it's going to take, I'll do.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>He just wants to help her and make her happy.
<v Speaker 1>And so if like she doesn't care about getting dad'spproval,
<v Speaker 1>like like i'll see you tomorrow. Yeah, that scene like
<v Speaker 1>that is him just saying like, well, it doesn't matter
<v Speaker 1>if you want me to date your daughter. She's the
<v Speaker 1>only person who's allowed to have an opinion about me
<v Speaker 1>dating her or not. And as long as I'm in
<v Speaker 1>her good graces, it's good. And he only gets like
<v Speaker 1>converts all the stuff because she needs that and she's
<v Speaker 1>asking that of him. Yeah, because of what's important to
<v Speaker 1>her with her family. He does a good job, like
<v Speaker 1>they do do a good job this movie of demonstrating
<v Speaker 1>that the nuance ironically with what we've been talking about
<v Speaker 1>I kind of said ironically eight hundred times this episode,
<v Speaker 1>but that.
<v Speaker 3>I'm gonna call you Alanas.
<v Speaker 4>She does fine. I love that city.
<v Speaker 1>She does find this middle ground of picking your battles
<v Speaker 1>with her family. Yeah, and like I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>reject them, I don't want to not be a part
<v Speaker 1>of them. I literally just want the house next to them,
<v Speaker 1>Like I want to be a part of this culture.
<v Speaker 1>She doesn't with my own space. Well, she doesn't pick
<v Speaker 1>the house. The dad buys the house next That's a
<v Speaker 1>great point. That's actually a great point. She does not
<v Speaker 1>choose that house.
<v Speaker 4>Do you feeling about that, Hannah, You have a lot
<v Speaker 4>of feelings about that, A lot of feelings about it.
<v Speaker 3>I want to have them starting in with Nope.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah exactly, and get the fuck out of here. And I
<v Speaker 4>want a house. I don't want to live next to you.
<v Speaker 3>Fuck you.
<v Speaker 2>Also, you're trying to buy my affection after you were
<v Speaker 2>a fucking asshole this whole time.
<v Speaker 4>Get fucked.
<v Speaker 3>Tell us how you really feel, Hannah.
<v Speaker 4>But yeah, but I think they're so.
<v Speaker 2>I think you're absolutely right in talking about how Tula
<v Speaker 2>is an adolescent compared to Ian. For sure, there are
<v Speaker 2>some things about their relationship that I like. In terms
<v Speaker 2>of the other Valentine's Day movies that we've done, I
<v Speaker 2>think Ian might be the most the nicest, genuinely kind,
<v Speaker 2>genuinely kind male role that we have had in a
<v Speaker 2>romantic movie that we have done. He is the most
<v Speaker 2>likable by far. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's nice to see.
<v Speaker 2>That was nice to see somebody like that. And I
<v Speaker 2>think with Tula, her kind of responding as an adolescent,
<v Speaker 2>kind of gatekeeping her family, almost of not really answering
<v Speaker 2>his questions, not really telling saying anything about herself to him,
<v Speaker 2>until he finally is like, hey, like I want to
<v Speaker 2>I really do want to know. I really do want
<v Speaker 2>to know this about you, and then she's able to
<v Speaker 2>kind of talk about it a little bit, but still
<v Speaker 2>doesn't have much insight into why she feels the way
<v Speaker 2>she does about her family other than they're crazy. Other
<v Speaker 2>than they're crazy.
<v Speaker 1>No, I agree that he is very kind. He's very thoughtful,
<v Speaker 1>and I think, yeah, she's doing that thing that teenagers do,
<v Speaker 1>and there's people who aren't very confident. Yeah, where I
<v Speaker 1>can't let you see all of me because you won't
<v Speaker 1>like me if you see all of me, Like if
<v Speaker 1>I let you see the garbage fest that is my family,
<v Speaker 1>m you'll reject me, which I understan makes sense that
<v Speaker 1>she feels that way because she's been told by her
<v Speaker 1>whole family, her whole life.
<v Speaker 4>That she's like ugh, yeah.
<v Speaker 1>So I could also see her being like, oh my god,
<v Speaker 1>this tall, cute man who's really put has a shit
<v Speaker 1>together is interested in me, which is a you know,
<v Speaker 1>a novel experience for her, and then feeling really precious
<v Speaker 1>about it.
<v Speaker 4>I could see.
<v Speaker 1>Why she wants to keep him for herself. It's going
<v Speaker 1>back to like it's like I want to keep this
<v Speaker 1>good thing good, and I don't trust my family and
<v Speaker 1>that they will not ruin it by getting their hands all.
<v Speaker 3>Over it because it's what they do.
<v Speaker 1>Because it's what they do, And so I can't just
<v Speaker 1>let this thing be something I love that I enjoy
<v Speaker 1>and so being super protective of it, but then not
<v Speaker 1>knowing how to navigate that well with Ian, Yeah, because
<v Speaker 1>all she knows is I either tell you everything or
<v Speaker 1>I keep secrets. Once again, like they're not being this
<v Speaker 1>middle ground because there isn't any instruction or modeling on
<v Speaker 1>how to have like a nuanced conversation about anything. And
<v Speaker 1>I think he does try to teach her that, And
<v Speaker 1>I think what is cool about their dynamic is that
<v Speaker 1>once they get through that moment, what I really like
<v Speaker 1>is the scene in the limo after the wedding. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>and she obviously looks bonkers with her outfit and her
<v Speaker 1>hair and her makeup, and he acknowledges that she looks bonkers.
<v Speaker 4>Like they feel like friends. Yeah, you know what it is.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, We've watched so many few rom coms or romantic
<v Speaker 1>movies where the two people feel like fucking friends that
<v Speaker 1>also are in love with each other.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And so the fact that she even talks about like
<v Speaker 1>I had this really horrible pimple, Like she isn't feeling
<v Speaker 1>self conscious about constructing herself like this beautiful woman so
<v Speaker 1>that this man will like her.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, and she can be as in the sheets, which she.
<v Speaker 4>Clearly is by the way she attacks him on the
<v Speaker 4>couch in.
<v Speaker 1>His apartment, has a lot of pent up horniness. Yes
<v Speaker 1>she does, it's in that hair, she's coming out with it.
<v Speaker 1>But oh, I know, I'm pretty sure he was her
<v Speaker 1>first time, right, Yeah, I would imagine's a virgin Bob
<v Speaker 1>doesn't know anything about touching herself sexuality, so it's.
<v Speaker 4>All pent up shit, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And I do love that she doesn't feel like she
<v Speaker 1>has to put on this persona to keep him. That
<v Speaker 1>actually she feels like she can be very open with him,
<v Speaker 1>and she doesn't have to play fucking games with him
<v Speaker 1>the way that her that's also part of the whole.
<v Speaker 1>Like the woman is the neck of the head is
<v Speaker 1>basically saying, like a certain a certain degree of your
<v Speaker 1>relationship is playing games, yeah, and gaming each other and
<v Speaker 1>never letting your husband know what the right hand's doing,
<v Speaker 1>and not being able to have clear direct communication ever
<v Speaker 1>that you can't, Yeah, you can't talk clearly to a
<v Speaker 1>guy because he will get offended. Yeah, you know, like
<v Speaker 1>you can't have honest So I love the fact that
<v Speaker 1>with Ian she does have to. She actually gets this
<v Speaker 1>very The most wrong comming thing about this is how
<v Speaker 1>like magical and miraculous their relationship is that he's able
<v Speaker 1>to model all these really healthy relationship, even not even romantic,
<v Speaker 1>like just relationship stuff with her, and that she has
<v Speaker 1>such a good, positive experience in her first relationship.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, it's what makes this such a compelling fantasy is
<v Speaker 3>that a guy like Ian exists, a.
<v Speaker 1>Guy like Ian exists, a guy like he and could
<v Speaker 1>see her before she could see herself. That he goes
<v Speaker 1>for one hundred once she's able to go in with him.
<v Speaker 3>And he is willing to do whatever it takes to
<v Speaker 3>meet all of the conditions of her family. And that
<v Speaker 3>he just happens to come from potato people.
<v Speaker 4>Like he is.
<v Speaker 1>He doesn't really have a strong cultural connection connection himself,
<v Speaker 1>because it'd be one thing, yeah, if he was like
<v Speaker 1>Jewish or Catholic, you know, or he had his own
<v Speaker 1>strong cultural background, Yeah, that he had to walk away
<v Speaker 1>from yeah, to be with her.
<v Speaker 3>But instead he comes from generic wasp people who have
<v Speaker 3>no culture.
<v Speaker 4>It's a blank kindness they have.
<v Speaker 3>They have internalized epluribus unum to the point that they
<v Speaker 3>have no identity they have.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, they have assimilated to nothingness, which.
<v Speaker 3>Is what Gus is afraid of. True, which is fair,
<v Speaker 3>but the Yeah, it's what makes this I think, as
<v Speaker 3>with any I ran comm It makes it a examination
<v Speaker 3>of a fun reality to imagine that there is such
<v Speaker 3>a human out there that is so completely into you
<v Speaker 3>that they're willing to just be like, yeah, I don't
<v Speaker 3>have anything I feel strongly about anyway, so whatever you want,
<v Speaker 3>or even just.
<v Speaker 4>That this is her first relationship, because the other part
<v Speaker 4>of this, the other outcome of enmeshment, is that it
<v Speaker 4>would be much more likely that she would end up
<v Speaker 4>in a relationship where there's someone who exhibits a lot
<v Speaker 4>of control.
<v Speaker 2>She would be way more fucking likely to end up
<v Speaker 2>in that kind of relationship because that is the kind
<v Speaker 2>of relationship that has been glorified in her family yep.
<v Speaker 2>Versus being able to accept Ian's love and Ian's thoughtfulness
<v Speaker 2>and Ian's kindness. That is, that is the miraculous part
<v Speaker 2>of this fucking movie, which is the fact that she
<v Speaker 2>is able to accept openly and lovingly everything for me Ian,
<v Speaker 2>instead of her feeling so self conscious that she can't
<v Speaker 2>even yes, consider that Ian would be in love with
<v Speaker 2>her and actually mean it. Yeah, Like in a more
<v Speaker 2>realistic version of the story, she would self sabotage with
<v Speaker 2>him probably yeah, or really want to or do a
<v Speaker 2>lot of like reassurance seeking stuff of like, but you
<v Speaker 2>really like me.
<v Speaker 4>You do think I'm attractive, you know what I mean?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and and yeah, you're exactly right, Like I think.
<v Speaker 4>What is so.
<v Speaker 1>Like the dark, dark, dark underbelly of this kind of
<v Speaker 1>family system is that what you are encouraging without really
<v Speaker 1>realizing it, is like obedience and loyalty for good or
<v Speaker 1>her bad. Yeah, and you just are assuming that that
<v Speaker 1>will always be a positive thing when in actuality, someone
<v Speaker 1>like Tula is more ripe to be sought after by
<v Speaker 1>someone who will take advantage of that obedience and that loyalty.
<v Speaker 3>You mean, like all those guys that her family brought
<v Speaker 3>in as acceptable Greek men for her to date.
<v Speaker 4>Oh my god, what a nightmare.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, just like people that will take advantage of her.
<v Speaker 1>They were all so much older than her, which is
<v Speaker 1>so gross. And there's only one that was maybe age appropriate.
<v Speaker 1>He was a fucking slime ball.
<v Speaker 3>I would like to see that six figure a pathological
<v Speaker 3>slime ball as defined by the following criteria.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, yeah, because that's what happens when you raise a
<v Speaker 1>child to not think for themselves. Is that than anyone
<v Speaker 1>can be their leader, anyone can be their star.
<v Speaker 4>If you will.
<v Speaker 1>And what is like really just also miraculous about Tula
<v Speaker 1>is she has enough like a little spark of resilience
<v Speaker 1>within her, an actual confidence within her of like I
<v Speaker 1>can sort of do my own thing, like even though
<v Speaker 1>no one's encouraging me to, even if it's doing my
<v Speaker 1>own thing in the travel agency.
<v Speaker 4>She's doing her own thing.
<v Speaker 1>When Ian comes across her as much as she thinks
<v Speaker 1>she can do her own thing, and they're very She's
<v Speaker 1>very lucky. The family is also very lucky that Ian
<v Speaker 1>is so nice, you know, because I feel like with
<v Speaker 1>if I work with someone like Tula in real life,
<v Speaker 1>which I'll talk about treatment, like she would need a
<v Speaker 1>lot of help navigating like the red flags. Like it's
<v Speaker 1>just a lot of like normalizing red flags in relationships. Yes, romantically, yes,
<v Speaker 1>like it's okay for your husband to tell you what
<v Speaker 1>to do or your boyfriend tell you what to do.
<v Speaker 1>You know, you just need to look cute and you
<v Speaker 1>just need.
<v Speaker 4>To figure out how to like work him if you can,
<v Speaker 4>or you should just be really grateful of that he
<v Speaker 4>wants anything to do with you, And what a relief
<v Speaker 4>that you're getting married? Who cares? Who would say anything.
<v Speaker 1>As long as it's a nice Greek boy, even if
<v Speaker 1>he even sees like a piece of shit, And so
<v Speaker 1>those messages that said sense of Tula is so dangerous
<v Speaker 1>and there is a horror movie version of this story.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely you should write it. I'm sure it probably exists. Actually, well,
<v Speaker 1>it's like how people in these kind of like people
<v Speaker 1>who leave cults and stuff like that, like people who
<v Speaker 1>go from like one situation like this right to another,
<v Speaker 1>which I'm sure has happened a lot in this family system,
<v Speaker 1>which is you know, you go from your parents to
<v Speaker 1>your spouse's house with no one between, to be an
<v Speaker 1>actualized person and to practice boundaries because then for someone
<v Speaker 1>like Tula, you don't build any like specific as a woman,
<v Speaker 1>you don't build any agency. So that if Ian ended
<v Speaker 1>up being like a bad guy abusive, how should.
<v Speaker 3>I know what ther story version of this is? And
<v Speaker 3>you're gonna get mad at me.
<v Speaker 4>Is it a Batman reference? No, you gotta try to
<v Speaker 4>make it one right now, like Harley Quinn.
<v Speaker 3>It's Harley Quinn. Yes, I guess at first, and it's
<v Speaker 3>it is scary and it is dangerous. And you look
<v Speaker 3>at the the way that this story plays out as
<v Speaker 3>such a fantasy.
<v Speaker 1>But I think with Tula situation is you know, she's
<v Speaker 1>rife to be financially abused, Yeah, to be abused period.
<v Speaker 1>And then depending on how their family feels about divorce,
<v Speaker 1>if she needed to leave him, what her family take
<v Speaker 1>her back? I think this family would, especially if something
<v Speaker 1>really bad was happening to her.
<v Speaker 3>No no, no, no, no, no believe you're talking about like
<v Speaker 3>foundationally against God too far, too far? Nope.
<v Speaker 1>Probably get encouraged to stay with your husband, Yeah, for sure.
<v Speaker 3>Yet no, people people get cast st out of families
<v Speaker 3>for for divorce sometimes yeah.
<v Speaker 2>No, no, no.
<v Speaker 3>No, nope, yeah, too far. We don't know that.
<v Speaker 1>Well, I guess I'm I. I'm sticking with the tone
<v Speaker 1>of this movie, which is very disney Ish, So you
<v Speaker 1>wouldn't want to think that would happen with this family,
<v Speaker 1>but who knows.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah, some my friends who are of this culture of
<v Speaker 3>no no no, no, yeah no no, but things, things
<v Speaker 3>against the church are bigger than you, like, yeah, god, God,
<v Speaker 3>that's a you know kind of a thing that it's
<v Speaker 3>in this movie pretty pretty clearly laid out that the
<v Speaker 3>family is not going to tolerate what is against what
<v Speaker 3>they're supposed to do. In the eyes of the religion.
<v Speaker 3>So no, but the like the difficult spots that that
<v Speaker 3>puts her in, and like the lack of actually arming
<v Speaker 3>your child against the world and selling them on this
<v Speaker 3>idea that well, the truth we've been telling you is
<v Speaker 3>the whole truth. That is the danger The truth we've
<v Speaker 3>been telling you is the whole truth, even though it's
<v Speaker 3>not and we all know it's not. But if you
<v Speaker 3>do it correctly, you'll be living in the whole truth
<v Speaker 3>we've told you exists, even though we know it doesn't exist. Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>it's dangerous.
<v Speaker 4>And it's the way.
<v Speaker 1>Also, they think that the older generation projects wisdom onto
<v Speaker 1>the younger generation, like you don't know, like you don't
<v Speaker 1>know what they don't know about life, especially in these
<v Speaker 1>situations where maybe you immigrant from other country. There might
<v Speaker 1>be like street smarts, common sense stuff like things that
<v Speaker 1>you've learned through trauma. Unfortunately that your kid doesn't have necessarily.
<v Speaker 3>And doesn't pertain to their reality because the factors that
<v Speaker 3>made that relevant information for you don't exist, don't exist anymore.
<v Speaker 4>M hm.
<v Speaker 3>And the other thing that ignores is one of my
<v Speaker 3>professors here to put it this way, in my think
<v Speaker 3>psychology of learning, classroom development something in undergrad of like,
<v Speaker 3>have you ever asked yourself why you yell like your
<v Speaker 3>dad when you get mad and you sit there andre like, fuck,
<v Speaker 3>where's this going on? Like this, and it's you haven't
<v Speaker 3>just learned good things? Yeah, he learned everything from your parents.
<v Speaker 3>You learned everything. You learned how to win when you
<v Speaker 3>have the power and lo and behold, you will mimic
<v Speaker 3>that shit when you have the power and need to
<v Speaker 3>win and don't feel like explaining yourself because it's exhausting,
<v Speaker 3>and you will use that power in a negative way
<v Speaker 3>to win the same way you saw it demonstrated, whether
<v Speaker 3>it was used against you or used against your siblings
<v Speaker 3>or your mom or whoever, but you will have seen
<v Speaker 3>it and internalized it. And people who are holding people
<v Speaker 3>to the standards of a culture like this, not like
<v Speaker 3>of Greek but like it's being shown in this movie,
<v Speaker 3>we see it generally work out. But there are lots
<v Speaker 3>of examples that I think we're like alluding to where
<v Speaker 3>trying to hold someone to standards that aren't exist, that
<v Speaker 3>don't exist, that aren't real, create a narrative inside of
<v Speaker 3>them that they have to do it that way in
<v Speaker 3>order to be good enough, but they also realize that
<v Speaker 3>they can't, and that creates traps for them because now
<v Speaker 3>they can't be good enough and they can't be accepted
<v Speaker 3>if they aren't, so then they have to keep secrets
<v Speaker 3>and they have to hide things. Fortunately, in this movie
<v Speaker 3>we see the other side of it, where oh no,
<v Speaker 3>the person who I chose is actually just genuinely like
<v Speaker 3>the nicest human that exists.
<v Speaker 4>The nice understanding, rolls with it.
<v Speaker 3>And it has like no qualms about nothing.
<v Speaker 2>And he's I mean, even when his friend brings it
<v Speaker 2>up to him, like wow, like you're really like all
<v Speaker 2>in with this girl. And he's like, she asks how
<v Speaker 2>high for you to jump in me? And in his response,
<v Speaker 2>Ian literally jumps. He's like yeah, and that's it, And
<v Speaker 2>that's a whole conversation. They don't talk about it anymore.
<v Speaker 2>He's just like, Yep, that's what I'm doing. No, no
<v Speaker 2>big deal, no sweat.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And she's like I said, she's very very lucky. Going
<v Speaker 1>back to what you're saying, Ben about learning that he
<v Speaker 1>can teach her these things that she did not learn
<v Speaker 1>from her parents, and he like is teaching her about
<v Speaker 1>communication and about like all these adult relationship things and
<v Speaker 1>he's willing to take the time to teach it to
<v Speaker 1>her too, and he doesn't judge her for not knowing either.
<v Speaker 3>He is a teacher, so that's probably.
<v Speaker 2>True.
<v Speaker 1>So he probably does have more patience and like understanding
<v Speaker 1>and like flexibility around these things.
<v Speaker 3>And he seems quite intellectual and worldly, and so he's
<v Speaker 3>probably aware of what it takes to because he'sn't a
<v Speaker 3>history teacher or English teacher.
<v Speaker 4>I can't remember.
<v Speaker 3>He's something one of the history teachers.
<v Speaker 4>He's a high school each other.
<v Speaker 3>Right, He's just he's like English, he was teaching about books.
<v Speaker 2>Does he show up at his job, Yes, yes, she does.
<v Speaker 2>She shows up at his job and wants to elope and.
<v Speaker 3>Is making out with him pretty much in the hallway
<v Speaker 3>of a high school. Mm. Which you know, it's always
<v Speaker 3>a good idea.
<v Speaker 4>Yeah, yeah, because she's a teenager.
<v Speaker 1>M M.
<v Speaker 3>Because she's a teenager. But the the thing of recognizing
<v Speaker 3>that he is an adult who's coming from a standpoint
<v Speaker 3>of adaptive, comfortable learning that's not in a position of
<v Speaker 3>taking advantage of these things, because he's seeing that I'm
<v Speaker 3>secure in what I'm going to do and who I'm
<v Speaker 3>going to be, and we're going to be okay, and
<v Speaker 3>I'll do if that's what your family needs me to do,
<v Speaker 3>that's cool. I'll go to the i'll convert, I'll do
<v Speaker 3>whatever it takes to make it easy for us to
<v Speaker 3>have our life. I will pave the way. But not
<v Speaker 3>every human will do that. Some people will be bound
<v Speaker 3>by their own cultural needs to say, like I can
<v Speaker 3>marry you, but we are not Catholic. Well you are
<v Speaker 3>not going to be Greek Orthodox.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, he's a great demonstration of non toxic masculinity. He
<v Speaker 1>does not get caught up in his ego. But he's
<v Speaker 1>also not like I guess what you'd call a pussy.
<v Speaker 1>Like we said, like with the scene with the dad,
<v Speaker 1>he doesn't let the dad rail rode him. He says,
<v Speaker 1>you know what, I'm not going to do this anymore.
<v Speaker 4>So I think he says.
<v Speaker 2>I think he says to the dad, you're but she's
<v Speaker 2>thirty years old. I think that's what he says. And
<v Speaker 2>then he walks by him, Yeah, and goes into the
<v Speaker 2>room and says that to Tula.
<v Speaker 1>But so, like what I mean is like he is
<v Speaker 1>a strong person. He is, you know, very confident, assured
<v Speaker 1>of himself. Like he's all these very positive qualities without
<v Speaker 1>getting caught up in the ego shit that would make
<v Speaker 1>this relationship really difficult too.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah. Yeah, And I think from the relationship with his
<v Speaker 3>parents that he has and who they are portrayed to be,
<v Speaker 3>it's real clear that he doesn't have anything and he's
<v Speaker 3>particularly strongly tied to or required to do than like Satan.
<v Speaker 4>He's a classic wasp.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Well, let's take another break here and be back with treatment.
<v Speaker 1>So who would like to take it first? With treatment?
<v Speaker 1>Should we go to you?
<v Speaker 4>Hannah? Sure, I'd love to go first. That sounds the
<v Speaker 4>most true clenching or a butthole so hard I'm not
<v Speaker 4>at all has never been there. Yeah, okay, sure, are
<v Speaker 4>we recording right now?
<v Speaker 3>Yes, that's great.
<v Speaker 4>Anyway, I'll talk about treatment. That's cool. So I would treat.
<v Speaker 2>I thought about Tula and Ian in terms of the
<v Speaker 2>longevity of their relationship, and there were some things that
<v Speaker 2>I think would pop up with them that as a
<v Speaker 2>couple's therapists, I think I would be able to help
<v Speaker 2>them with. And so some of the things that I
<v Speaker 2>thought that they might struggle with.
<v Speaker 4>One is.
<v Speaker 2>Actual compromises that they'll have to make, you know, something
<v Speaker 2>that something that I tell clients about compromises, is that
<v Speaker 2>we compromise about what kind of food to eat or
<v Speaker 2>what movie to watch. We don't compromise ourselves in any
<v Speaker 2>kind of way. And I think that because Ian in
<v Speaker 2>this first experience that we've been shown, has been so
<v Speaker 2>flexible and so accepting and just all of the good things,
<v Speaker 2>that when there is something that he actually cares about
<v Speaker 2>or has some feelings about, that, I wonder if compromise
<v Speaker 2>would be trickier because Tula is kind of used to
<v Speaker 2>him just accepting something, So I feel like compromise because
<v Speaker 2>compromise is a part of a relationship's longevity period.
<v Speaker 4>So I think that.
<v Speaker 2>That would be something that might be tricky for them.
<v Speaker 2>I also think continuing with family involvement, I would imagine
<v Speaker 2>the family involvement and I have seen the second movie,
<v Speaker 2>but I barely remember it, and I haven't seen the
<v Speaker 2>third one.
<v Speaker 3>I don't think it.
<v Speaker 4>Just came out like two years ago. I don't know,
<v Speaker 4>I don't remember. But I think that would be something
<v Speaker 4>that they would struggle with once they have a kid.
<v Speaker 2>Once they have a kid, Once they have a kid,
<v Speaker 2>the expectations and obligations in the family change would change again. Right,
<v Speaker 2>and so clearly at the end of the film we
<v Speaker 2>see that her little girl has to go to Greek school,
<v Speaker 2>and so I feel like, even in that, I wonder
<v Speaker 2>if that's just something that Ian's just going along with,
<v Speaker 2>or is that's something that they discussed about why they
<v Speaker 2>wanted her to go. So I think that they might
<v Speaker 2>have to learn how to have our successful arguments and
<v Speaker 2>be able to have compromises that feel equable. And then
<v Speaker 2>I also think, and like I said already, the family
<v Speaker 2>involvement and so them really having to continue to talk
<v Speaker 2>about how much do we want to let your family
<v Speaker 2>into your family, into our starting our own family traditions.
<v Speaker 2>A lot of times when you have children, people want
<v Speaker 2>to have their own family traditions with their new little
<v Speaker 2>family for lots of different reasons, and it makes a
<v Speaker 2>lot of sense. They want to have something that's theirs,
<v Speaker 2>they want to have a certain way that they do something,
<v Speaker 2>and so again there would have to be compromised there,
<v Speaker 2>and that would be really interesting to see how the
<v Speaker 2>family involvement feels when they have a child.
<v Speaker 4>So I feel like those would be the two things
<v Speaker 4>that they would struggle with.
<v Speaker 2>I feel like the way that I would help them
<v Speaker 2>is to really just talk about how important communication is,
<v Speaker 2>how important it is to really share how you're feeling,
<v Speaker 2>to not hold on to something and wait until it
<v Speaker 2>blows up, because when it blows up, then nobody's gonna
<v Speaker 2>hear shit and you're not going to be able to
<v Speaker 2>get a solution because it's all going to be about
<v Speaker 2>how you make each other feel, because they're going to
<v Speaker 2>be so in your feelings when you blow up. I
<v Speaker 2>feel like I would also want to talk to them
<v Speaker 2>about and also just talking about family involvement, talking to
<v Speaker 2>them about boundaries. What are good boundaries you want to
<v Speaker 2>set with the family, What are boundaries you want to
<v Speaker 2>have for your own family, What are boundaries you each
<v Speaker 2>need to have individually, right, Because again I think Tula
<v Speaker 2>is pretty new to all of this, and so she
<v Speaker 2>would really have to learn how to have boundaries with
<v Speaker 2>her family. And this is something that I see couples
<v Speaker 2>about in a regular basis. It is a regular thing
<v Speaker 2>to see a couple because they are not getting along
<v Speaker 2>with the in laws. That is a regular reason to
<v Speaker 2>see people. And so I do a lot of work
<v Speaker 2>with people about how do we create this, how do
<v Speaker 2>we create your family? And what are the boundaries your
<v Speaker 2>family wants to have, and so that's how I think
<v Speaker 2>I would help them. Those are the problems I think
<v Speaker 2>they would have.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Like, how are your parents able to just come
<v Speaker 1>into our house without knocking?
<v Speaker 4>I mean they live right next door. I mean that's
<v Speaker 4>a boundary. That's a boundary we'd have to talk about.
<v Speaker 4>Are we never allowed to move from this house? Yeah?
<v Speaker 3>This tiny little house, which is an excellent starter house gift, however,
<v Speaker 3>might not be suitable once we have more than a toddler.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and how is that going to impact the family
<v Speaker 2>when that was the wedding gift that they got? So again,
<v Speaker 2>is that gonna be something where Gus is like, why
<v Speaker 2>are you disrespecting me? Right, there's all kinds of different
<v Speaker 2>things could happen.
<v Speaker 3>I mean, you just need to build it up, like.
<v Speaker 4>You know, keep building additions to it like the Burrow
<v Speaker 4>and Harry Potter exactly.
<v Speaker 1>Anything else, Hannah, No, No, that's all I got. All right,
<v Speaker 1>I can go next then and just piggyback on you.
<v Speaker 1>In that, I was thinking about working with Tula more
<v Speaker 1>irl version of Tula, maybe even like meeting Ian or
<v Speaker 1>starting to meet Ian, like starting to date Ian. In
<v Speaker 1>that this assumption that she'll know how to do everything.
<v Speaker 1>And sometimes my job as a therapist when I work
<v Speaker 1>with someone who is maybe like a late bloomer or
<v Speaker 1>has a lot of confidence issues, or someone in Mesh
<v Speaker 1>family is that part of my job one you have
<v Speaker 1>to be very careful as a therapist that you don't
<v Speaker 1>become a replacement for that dynamic.
<v Speaker 4>Like I have to be very.
<v Speaker 1>Careful with clients I work with that have in Mesh
<v Speaker 1>family systems that I don't give them that they don't
<v Speaker 1>think I'm giving them directive advice that I'm telling them
<v Speaker 1>what to do. Basically, these are clients where I'm have
<v Speaker 1>my foot off the pedal a lot more in terms
<v Speaker 1>of like direct feedback about that kind of thing, because
<v Speaker 1>I want them to learn how to listen to themselves,
<v Speaker 1>and I don't want to be just another authority figure
<v Speaker 1>in their mind that they go to to know what
<v Speaker 1>to do. Like I have to tweak my style a
<v Speaker 1>little bit with clients who come from this family system,
<v Speaker 1>And I think part of what my job too is
<v Speaker 1>trying to find that fine line between respecting their family
<v Speaker 1>and the culture of their family, if that's a component
<v Speaker 1>of it, and then also naming because that's a lot
<v Speaker 1>of our job as therapists is like having that sort
<v Speaker 1>of bird's eye view of like naming dynamics, situations, boundaries,
<v Speaker 1>lack of boundaries that aren't quote unquote normal, that aren't healthy,
<v Speaker 1>and how I determine that is how my client feels. So,
<v Speaker 1>like I said, if my client was really close to
<v Speaker 1>their family and it was all gravy and they genuinely
<v Speaker 1>seemed very happy enough lifted by that or satisfied with it.
<v Speaker 4>I got no problems.
<v Speaker 1>You want to be up under your mom all day,
<v Speaker 1>every day, and that makes you happy, godspeed. But if
<v Speaker 1>you're saying like I can't tell my mom this because
<v Speaker 1>if I tell her this, she'll have a heart attack,
<v Speaker 1>and then I am so stressed out about that, or
<v Speaker 1>I don't know how to have like how to say something,
<v Speaker 1>how to like say I want something, And so then
<v Speaker 1>my job as a therapist to be like, I understand
<v Speaker 1>your family is a very close and it sounds like
<v Speaker 1>you are engaging in more codependent behaviors, which is that
<v Speaker 1>I can't have an independent persona and or if I
<v Speaker 1>say something that makes you feel bad, I'm responsible for
<v Speaker 1>you not feeling bad that like I can't have emotional
<v Speaker 1>and emotional experience that is disconnected from your emotional experience,
<v Speaker 1>like healthy detachment of like I can be upset, and
<v Speaker 1>I can be upset at you for like a very
<v Speaker 1>understandable reason, but I'm so responsible for managing my upsetness.
<v Speaker 1>I don't want you to feel like you can't tell
<v Speaker 1>me something because I'll be so upset and so like
<v Speaker 1>and so a lot of times, what I'm teaching is
<v Speaker 1>the difference between like enmeshed codependence versus interdependence, that you
<v Speaker 1>can rely on other people, you can have a support system,
<v Speaker 1>you can want to be close to people. You can
<v Speaker 1>be close to people, and you can feel for them
<v Speaker 1>as well, Like if my loved ones having a bad day,
<v Speaker 1>I'll feel that I'll be like oof, like I'm worried
<v Speaker 1>about them, or I'm really thinking about them, like I'll
<v Speaker 1>feel I'll have a stress, I'll have a level of
<v Speaker 1>stress because I love them, versus I can't feel better
<v Speaker 1>until you feel better about whatever is upsetting you, And
<v Speaker 1>so ironically, I will make your stress my problem.
<v Speaker 4>That becomes your problem, which I think it was more
<v Speaker 4>of what happens in enmeshed relationships, codependent relationships and so
<v Speaker 4>interdependent is trying to trying to like find that nuance
<v Speaker 4>for the client, And sometimes I'll have to do like
<v Speaker 4>a bit more self disclosure with those clients that I
<v Speaker 4>might with other clients in terms of like this is
<v Speaker 4>how my dynamic works with my close friends or with
<v Speaker 4>my parents, or like I've had those kind of arguments
<v Speaker 4>before and it went okay, you know you cause, like
<v Speaker 4>you were saying, Ben, like they don't people don't know anything.
<v Speaker 4>When we come into this world. Everything we learn we've
<v Speaker 4>been taught.
<v Speaker 1>And so sometimes my job is to be a bit
<v Speaker 1>more teachery with like examples like real life examples, which
<v Speaker 1>is what self disclosure can be appropriately and guiding them
<v Speaker 1>through the experiential experience that they're having with being an adult,
<v Speaker 1>like finding your first relationship, are you going to tell
<v Speaker 1>everybody in your family about it? So I think with Tula,
<v Speaker 1>if she'd had a therapist and the secret keeping dating
<v Speaker 1>Ian part of the movie, I think my job as
<v Speaker 1>a therapist would be, like, let's find the nuance with this?
<v Speaker 1>Do you have to keep them a secret? What would
<v Speaker 1>it look like to tell your family a little bit
<v Speaker 1>if they push on your boundy? Do you feel like
<v Speaker 1>you can handle that, like trying to get her to
<v Speaker 1>understand like there's a nuance to it versus like I
<v Speaker 1>told them everything or I told them nothing. And then also,
<v Speaker 1>which is son As my job is telling someone like Tula,
<v Speaker 1>So if you want to try this out, you have
<v Speaker 1>to sit in the discomfort of whatever reaction you get
<v Speaker 1>from your parents, like I'll teach you, dear woman, dear man,
<v Speaker 1>I'll teach you, I feel statements like I'll teach you
<v Speaker 1>inter personal techniques that should help convey you clearly to
<v Speaker 1>the person. But as they say, you can't communicate better
<v Speaker 1>to someone who is committed to misunderstanding you. So if
<v Speaker 1>your parents don't want to hear the message you're giving them,
<v Speaker 1>there's no way you can send that message in a
<v Speaker 1>way that will appease them. And so a lot of
<v Speaker 1>times when I work in real life with these kind
<v Speaker 1>of dynamics, I do have to also warn my client
<v Speaker 1>that as you continue to try to self actualize, there
<v Speaker 1>is the possibility that your family won't want to follow
<v Speaker 1>with you, or they won't evolve with you or adapt
<v Speaker 1>to you, and son As my job is to like
<v Speaker 1>kind of hold their hand through that process too. If
<v Speaker 1>that's what happens with Tula. If you were to share,
<v Speaker 1>have you ever asked your mom to keep a secret,
<v Speaker 1>not keep a secret, but to not tell dad? You know,
<v Speaker 1>have you ever said, like lead with like this is
<v Speaker 1>really important to me and it means a lot to
<v Speaker 1>me if you would let me do if you would
<v Speaker 1>accept this, Like, have you ever been concrete with him
<v Speaker 1>about what you need? Because, like we've talked about, there's
<v Speaker 1>so much passive communication in this family, so much game
<v Speaker 1>playing too, feel like the men and the women that
<v Speaker 1>I don't know if she's even knows how to, like forthrightly,
<v Speaker 1>clearly assertively say to someone this is what's important to me,
<v Speaker 1>this is how it makes me feel. This is what
<v Speaker 1>I'm asking of you, and this is how you Adhering
<v Speaker 1>to this ask would help us both, which is a
<v Speaker 1>deer from deer man, and so I would really want
<v Speaker 1>to encourage her to be able to like, how do
<v Speaker 1>we communicate in a way that's appropriate and more middle
<v Speaker 1>ground and defining the difference between interdependent and codependent, especially
<v Speaker 1>as she's dating someone like ian Ord period, it's very
<v Speaker 1>important for her to understand those differences. So that's what
<v Speaker 1>I would do with Tula, just really trying to build
<v Speaker 1>her up and give her a lot of skills. Should
<v Speaker 1>be someone that would give a lot of skills to
<v Speaker 1>and really be encouraging to her of doing a lot
<v Speaker 1>of like pep talkie stuff too, because I think she
<v Speaker 1>would need that.
<v Speaker 4>My job.
<v Speaker 1>My job would be kind of like a coach in
<v Speaker 1>some ways, Benjamin.
<v Speaker 3>So, when I watched this movie, I was noticing how
<v Speaker 3>many times Nick kept trying to get positive attention for
<v Speaker 3>being himself for exactly the same things that Tula is
<v Speaker 3>trying to do, and noticing how close those two actually were.
<v Speaker 3>So I'm thinking that once the dynamic changed where she
<v Speaker 3>started dating in some of their closeness started to naturally change.
<v Speaker 3>Though they remain close and remains their supports for each other.
<v Speaker 3>I think that Nick is going to start struggling a
<v Speaker 3>lot because the family focus is going to turn from
<v Speaker 3>Tula to him, and I think that him having some
<v Speaker 3>opportunity to ride this wave of change, to find a
<v Speaker 3>way to be validated for who he is and to
<v Speaker 3>be seen as more than just the cook yeah yeah,
<v Speaker 3>or whatever role it is that he does in the
<v Speaker 3>kitchen of the family, because he just kind of like
<v Speaker 3>he and the brother in law just kind of pop
<v Speaker 3>their heads out of the kitchen and like, oh, hey,
<v Speaker 3>I'm doing the thing, and then they're around. They're around,
<v Speaker 3>and I know, like you said, it's not his story,
<v Speaker 3>so he wasn't there to be a main character. But
<v Speaker 3>they took enough care in the times we saw him
<v Speaker 3>to see that there are things he wants that are
<v Speaker 3>much more than this, and seeing Tula do those things
<v Speaker 3>inspired him. It was a positive shift to the dynamic.
<v Speaker 3>It's a paradigm shift, and every time that happens in
<v Speaker 3>a family sometimes you have to continue to ride that
<v Speaker 3>wave and move yourself forward once you've got any flexibility
<v Speaker 3>with the conveyor belt that is the family system being
<v Speaker 3>run by each of the cogs. Because now one cog
<v Speaker 3>has been taken out, Tula is no longer functioning in
<v Speaker 3>the system the way she used to. She is going
<v Speaker 3>to be doing her own thing and forging her own family,
<v Speaker 3>And while she will still be part of the family,
<v Speaker 3>it's going to be different. Nick is going to struggle
<v Speaker 3>with that. Nick is already struggling with his identity, so
<v Speaker 3>I think working with him on having similar kind of
<v Speaker 3>work that Brittany's going to work on with Tula, of
<v Speaker 3>understanding Hey, at some point, we need to talk about
<v Speaker 3>how you step into you, helping you become the you
<v Speaker 3>you want to be, what is meaning full to you,
<v Speaker 3>what helps you feel like you're living your purpose. And
<v Speaker 3>it seems like he gets that encouragement, and the second
<v Speaker 3>he gets it, he tells too that you know, I think,
<v Speaker 3>I think I'm going to go to art school at night.
<v Speaker 3>Maybe I won't tell Pap about it just yet, but
<v Speaker 3>I think I think I'm going to do that too.
<v Speaker 3>And he rides this transformative wave. But I think him
<v Speaker 3>having an opportunity to process through whatever guilty has about that,
<v Speaker 3>whatever in excitement he has about that, I think with him,
<v Speaker 3>I would want to use motivational interviewing techniques more than
<v Speaker 3>anything else, which are a really powerful way to help
<v Speaker 3>people create change. Its specifically for substance abuse, but when
<v Speaker 3>you examine change with people, you can recognize that they
<v Speaker 3>get stuck on barriers all the time. Well, like, I
<v Speaker 3>really want to do this, but I can't because of
<v Speaker 3>like a thousand things, of which nine hundred and ninety
<v Speaker 3>eight are not real, but the two that are really real,
<v Speaker 3>and I mean, I can't deal with those. So I'm
<v Speaker 3>gonna name nine hundred and ninety eight other things and
<v Speaker 3>just call it a thousand, But it's only two things
<v Speaker 3>really that are stopping me, and of those two, maybe
<v Speaker 3>only one. But to successfully get someone to buy into
<v Speaker 3>their own ability to change, you have to be able
<v Speaker 3>to encourage them to navigate those barriers without looking at
<v Speaker 3>them going Ooh, I see that barrier. It's really tall
<v Speaker 3>and like nah, Whereas someone like Ian we see in
<v Speaker 3>this movie is really well adjusted and he looks at barriers,
<v Speaker 3>he goes, all right, there's a barrier. We're either gonna
<v Speaker 3>jump over it, we're gonna go around it, we're gonna
<v Speaker 3>go under it, We're gonna run smack through it. I
<v Speaker 3>don't but I am committed to this. I'm committed to you,
<v Speaker 3>and we're gonna go forward and boom and helping people
<v Speaker 3>see that is how you create change. And I think
<v Speaker 3>Nick really needs that. Nick needs to learn that that
<v Speaker 3>you're trapped in a system that doesn't want to change,
<v Speaker 3>but change has found it. Anyway, Dad can't do the
<v Speaker 3>math anymore. His artwork and stuff are outdated. Restaurants need
<v Speaker 3>to refresh their brand every so often. People need to
<v Speaker 3>see new things, new looks, new things new. Uh, art,
<v Speaker 3>new anything. You got to keep it fresh and modern
<v Speaker 3>to keep people coming, or you'll have the same people
<v Speaker 3>and they'll die out and they won't come anymore. They'll
<v Speaker 3>move away attrition, but it we'll set in. Well. The
<v Speaker 3>same thing happens in life all over and at some
<v Speaker 3>point this generation that Nick and Tuller are part of
<v Speaker 3>are going to have to step up and out into
<v Speaker 3>control of the family system because the elders will age
<v Speaker 3>out of being in touch with the world enough that
<v Speaker 3>anyone believes what they say. Yeah, and it's already starting
<v Speaker 3>to help Nick kind of actualize and be able to
<v Speaker 3>be the person he wants to be. I would work
<v Speaker 3>with him through understanding these are all barriers are going
<v Speaker 3>to come up with. Dad's going to say no. Dad's
<v Speaker 3>going to be on bullshit. Dad's going to base level
<v Speaker 3>say no. But you can't take that first no. What
<v Speaker 3>are you going to do when he says that first no?
<v Speaker 3>What did you see Ian do? How did that change
<v Speaker 3>the system? What a dula do? What would you like
<v Speaker 3>to learn from that and kind of do in your way?
<v Speaker 3>What would your way look like to respond to Dad's
<v Speaker 3>no with a no, Dad, this needs to change. That
<v Speaker 3>doesn't offend him that doesn't step outside of your cultural bounds.
<v Speaker 3>Because of those thousand things, that is one of those
<v Speaker 3>two that are real. That is the nine hundred and
<v Speaker 3>ninety eight not so much, but that's one of the
<v Speaker 3>two that's real. You're not going to do it, So
<v Speaker 3>we have to respect that as the therapist, not push
<v Speaker 3>him to go beyond what he can't do, but help him.
<v Speaker 3>See what can you do to get somewhere closer to
<v Speaker 3>where you want to go so you can generate enough
<v Speaker 3>momentum that you don't need to push anymore. Your snowball
<v Speaker 3>will just be rolling. That's what Tula did. Hell, that's
<v Speaker 3>what your dad did when he left Greece. Yeah, I'm
<v Speaker 3>sure he had somebody standing there frowning at him, going.
<v Speaker 4>You're gonna give up on grease?
<v Speaker 3>You're not in America? Yeah, what about the family?
<v Speaker 4>Mm hm.
<v Speaker 3>But at some point people need that encouragement, They need
<v Speaker 3>some degree of game planning to overcome the real bearers
<v Speaker 3>because the fear they have that they can't or the
<v Speaker 3>messaging that they've gotten that becomes those core beliefs, becomes
<v Speaker 3>so strong that they tell themselves no before the world does.
<v Speaker 3>And it takes a lot of work with people understanding
<v Speaker 3>the world's gonna tell you no plenty, don't be the
<v Speaker 3>first one to do it. Let the world tell you.
<v Speaker 3>And sometimes even when it does stick, one of those
<v Speaker 3>big middle fingers up and say, nah, I'm just gonna
<v Speaker 3>find another way. That's how I would work with Nick.
<v Speaker 3>I think that's what he needs. He needs to feel seen, validated, heard,
<v Speaker 3>and then empowered. And I think that would there was
<v Speaker 3>a lot of positive change for him, and maybe he'd
<v Speaker 3>be the next one getting married in a big fat
<v Speaker 3>Greek wedding.
<v Speaker 1>I think with Tula and her brother need our friends
<v Speaker 1>outside of the family as well. Yeah, yeah, anyway, we'll
<v Speaker 1>take our last break care and me back with final thoughts.
<v Speaker 4>All right, Hannah, I'll put you on the spot. Sounds great.
<v Speaker 4>I am never gonna watch this movie again.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 4>I hated it.
<v Speaker 2>I hated rewatching it, even though I probably watched this
<v Speaker 2>movie enough times to know the dialogue. Wow, I currently
<v Speaker 2>have no interest in ever watching it again. It was
<v Speaker 2>upsetting how much the just how much I just don't
<v Speaker 2>need more any more reinforcement that women are less than
<v Speaker 2>men in any kind of fucking way, and this movie
<v Speaker 2>really had that in it. And it was very heavy
<v Speaker 2>handed in a lot of different ways, and they Yeah,
<v Speaker 2>So I don't like it, and I'm not gonna watch
<v Speaker 2>it anymore.
<v Speaker 1>I think I have a more tepid final thought, which
<v Speaker 1>is I have this is only the second time I
<v Speaker 1>ever watched it. I think I saw it when I
<v Speaker 1>first came out, and it was a phenomenon, So you
<v Speaker 1>kind of had to watch this movie when I first
<v Speaker 1>came out, and then this is the second time, so
<v Speaker 1>like twenty years later, and it definitely has aged not
<v Speaker 1>great in the in the stuff that you're talking about, Hannah,
<v Speaker 1>Like all the really outrageous misogynistic parts are just so
<v Speaker 1>loud now in a way that in a way that
<v Speaker 1>they were cuter cuter quote unquote before, they're just like
<v Speaker 1>very like hardcore now. And it made me feel so
<v Speaker 1>bad for Tula, like it was hard to like her
<v Speaker 1>and not hate her family. Yeah, and you're supposed to
<v Speaker 1>love them all, and I think that worked in two
<v Speaker 1>thousand and two.
<v Speaker 4>I don't think it works as well now.
<v Speaker 1>The way they're telling the story, which is very like
<v Speaker 1>the tone of it I wasn't a big fan of
<v Speaker 1>is very comedy, sit comedy kind of thing, and you
<v Speaker 1>know spoiler for a future episode this season. The whole
<v Speaker 1>time we were watching it, I just kept saying to Hannah, Oh,
<v Speaker 1>Moonstruck does this better? Moonstruck does it better? Because Moonstruck
<v Speaker 1>is a movie that touches a lot of these same ideas.
<v Speaker 1>It's like a lot of ways, a very similar story
<v Speaker 1>told in a very different way, in a very different tone.
<v Speaker 1>And I'm excited for us to talk about that soon.
<v Speaker 1>But I'll probably never watch this movie again. It just
<v Speaker 1>it was very refreshing though that Ian and Tula's relationship
<v Speaker 1>aged very well, So I won't revisit this movie again.
<v Speaker 1>I don't think this movie's cute the way that it
<v Speaker 1>was cute when this movie first came out, And yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so that's how I feel about it. I feel meh
<v Speaker 1>about this movie.
<v Speaker 3>I think this movie took off the way it did
<v Speaker 3>for a lot of reasons. I think it showed a
<v Speaker 3>really like fun way to poke fun at you know,
<v Speaker 3>a culture, and anytime a movie can bring you inside
<v Speaker 3>a culture, whether it's yours or not yours, and make
<v Speaker 3>you feel like you have a little more understanding of
<v Speaker 3>it can be a really good recipe for success. And
<v Speaker 3>I think this movie did that. Of like like, let's
<v Speaker 3>bring you all into our big Greek family here. And
<v Speaker 3>I have DJ'ed a couple big, fat Greek weddings when
<v Speaker 3>I was in the DJ business, including one for my friend,
<v Speaker 3>and it was there were a few moments where like
<v Speaker 3>I knew I had to play Zorba's dance, like I
<v Speaker 3>just knew I did, and then like the way the
<v Speaker 3>whole place became Greek at that moment was kind of
<v Speaker 3>awesome and like it legit did, and like an eighty
<v Speaker 3>year old man became like twenty immediately and was like
<v Speaker 3>passing bills out and it was it was awesome. But
<v Speaker 3>where this movie also like it came out in two
<v Speaker 3>thousand and two. Yeah, and a lot of things that
<v Speaker 3>we're very different and or true for you know, Generation X,
<v Speaker 3>that aren't true now for us. I get the criticism
<v Speaker 3>where it's like, ooh, see, we almost landed on the Yeah,
<v Speaker 3>your dad's always gonna kind of be that way, but
<v Speaker 3>we don't have to be that way, Like no, you
<v Speaker 3>like you be the neck that turns ahead of going
<v Speaker 3>like or we could be two heads that sit in
<v Speaker 3>equal relation to each other and make life work because
<v Speaker 3>it's hard out here. I don't know, maybe we try
<v Speaker 3>that instead of like just be subservient, but not all
<v Speaker 3>the way. What yeah, yep, I mean, And well that
<v Speaker 3>makes sense from her that the tone of that message
<v Speaker 3>would hit different in two thousand and two than does.
<v Speaker 4>Now for sure.
<v Speaker 3>For sure, Yeah, and I get that. I think I
<v Speaker 3>probably won't seek it out. I don't know how long
<v Speaker 3>this will persevere from this point further in culture, really,
<v Speaker 3>but it's a fun movie. It is nice to see
<v Speaker 3>like a relationship developed kind of from a person who's
<v Speaker 3>recognizing I need to change and I need to grow
<v Speaker 3>beyond what I'm being told I am, and I have
<v Speaker 3>to do things and finding success in exactly that, and
<v Speaker 3>recognizing that she didn't have to give up all of
<v Speaker 3>herself to get that. Though. The major criticism I look
<v Speaker 3>at with it is like Ian is almost a pretend person.
<v Speaker 3>He's completely like whatever, I'll just I don't care about anything.
<v Speaker 1>Well, in real life, the guy who plays his friend
<v Speaker 1>in the movie is the really Ian, So he is
<v Speaker 1>the real husband of the writer and the lead of
<v Speaker 1>this movie.
<v Speaker 4>But I think they're not divorced.
<v Speaker 3>They too.
<v Speaker 4>Take that for what you will.
<v Speaker 3>He's an interesting character in Cougar Town.
<v Speaker 4>I love Cougar Town.
<v Speaker 3>Yes, so've forgotten Jem, but you.
<v Speaker 4>Know, yeah, but his real name is Ian.
<v Speaker 3>Is really yeah, Ian is such like a pretend person.
<v Speaker 3>Is something that felt a little off the mark to me,
<v Speaker 3>that there's basically like no pushback other than kind of
<v Speaker 3>like standing after dad and be like I'm a grown
<v Speaker 3>ass man and I don't give a fuck what you
<v Speaker 3>think about that. But you know, you do see people
<v Speaker 3>convert religions for their partners and things, but usually that's
<v Speaker 3>more of a nuanced, difficult discussion, and I don't like that.
<v Speaker 3>It creates this thing of like, well, I mean someone,
<v Speaker 3>if they love you enough, they'll just change everything about
<v Speaker 3>themselves and their family isn't really like that important, and
<v Speaker 3>you know we can just like kind of mention them
<v Speaker 3>as like Ann the Miller's it is very all or nothing.
<v Speaker 3>And well, I do get that sometimes cultures are that way.
<v Speaker 3>We were like well, i mean we're all Greek now,
<v Speaker 3>or like, well, I mean you join our family and
<v Speaker 3>everybody's whatever we are. But that's not the way a
<v Speaker 3>wedding works. You got to incorporate both sides of the
<v Speaker 3>family and make efforts to incorporate traditions of everything and
<v Speaker 3>for this to actually be successful, either people have no
<v Speaker 3>identity for real and are looking to escape something, which
<v Speaker 3>is okay, what was going to need therapy f yi,
<v Speaker 3>or we're telling a fairy tale and I think this
<v Speaker 3>one tells a fairy tale, which it's rom com so
<v Speaker 3>it's fun, but it still makes me lament a little
<v Speaker 3>bit that you guys could have picked a Knight's Tale
<v Speaker 3>when you had the chance, and you would have seen
<v Speaker 3>a strong female character demand feminist and say to the audience,
<v Speaker 3>I know it was God. And if we didn't want
<v Speaker 3>to talk about feminism so much, pick a movie they
<v Speaker 3>have so minute, Well, we almost.
<v Speaker 4>Got How to Be Single?
<v Speaker 1>That was the second that was the first runner up,
<v Speaker 1>and that movie is how it sounds.
<v Speaker 4>Unfortunately, well that's the pick. So audience, you reckon with that, audience?
<v Speaker 4>Wreckon audience. Why don't you want us to talk about
<v Speaker 4>how to be single? Okay? Anyway, on that note, we'll
<v Speaker 4>wrap it up.
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