A Christmas Story with Brandon Bird

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Speaker 1: On the dol Cast. The questions asked if movies have women and are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands? If do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best start changing it with the beck del Cast. Hi, Welcome to the Beck Deel Cast. My name is Jamie and my name is Caitlyn. Did I forget? Did I just want to make it suspensefult into the narrative you just presented as way. I was like, no, she's sick and what is my identity? That's fun? Well, isn't that just the age we live in, the age of identity. We're all trying to figure out No, I know that I'm Caitlin. Okay, well, then that's good. I was just trying to I don't know why, but I was trying to create suspense. I like that. So this is the Backdel Cast. This is our podcast about how women are portrayed in movies and how hey usually not very good. Another good suspense moment by Yeah, Yeah, that's good. This is a spook suspenseful episode. It's December about a Christmas movie. Spooking the scariest month of all because you have to see people you do not fucking lie. Oh man, we're spending Christmas together. It's just like we've spent Thanksgiving together. We're basically domestic partners. We are a common one married and yeah, I think when this episode comes up, I'll be with my family, and I mean they'll never hear this podcast, which just about sums up how we're all doing. Okay, So this is our our podcast about women and movies. We use the Beck Dol test and men and by Alison back Dol as a yard stick, which requires let's see how it took a year, but maybe I can do it requires two women in a scene with names talking about something other than a man for exactly two lines of dialogue. Does a movie do it? For some reason? Holiday movies fair very poorly with the Beck Dol test. Just based on what we've been doing recently, can into it? Get into that? We'll get there? Is that all our business up top? I think? So let's introduced our guests. Wonderful. He's an artist, he's a nice guy. We love him. It's Brandon bird High. Thanks for being here, thanks for having me. It's December. For crying out loud, whiz, It's actually here's here's a little peak behind the curtain. It's actually November. November, so it's it might as well be December. Yeah, I mean this is one of those long Christmas seasons because there there are five Thursdays in November. Christmas season, which is usually just December is now it was like extra long, lucky us. Yeah. Wait what are you? What are you doing for the holidays? Um? Well, my my business. You know, I sell princes of my artwork online at Brandon Bird dot com, the store dot Brandon bird dot com. So this month is usually if things go really well, it's just people ordering stuff and you're just constantly mailing things. Very nice. Uh So we're here to talk about a Christmas story now, Brandon, tell us your history with this movie, your your relationship to tell us everything. Yeah, get into it. Okay, Well, my relationship starts with my uncle Therb Therb. I think his full name is sergeant Therber What WHOA? That was a journey You don't have a journey name. Uncle. Is his name sergeant or is he always a sergeant? In the which is my grandpa's name too, it's not, it's spelled differently. Okay, So your uncle is not a sergeant, but his name is sergeant. Sergeant. He goes his name president, like, can you it's spelled differently, it's like a name. Anyway, they called him Therber or Therb. So were you do you have a cousin named sergeant or was your generation just ripped off with this generation? My generation we all got normal names. Brandon normal, I don't think sergeant. Okay, so you're so so Uncle Herbert introduced, Yeah, he had. He was like an early VHS adopter. He would buy movies when they were like a hundred dollars in three dollars, so he like bought Star Wars, like the first time Star Wars. But we borrowed a Christmas Story from him and we watched his like look at me, like this is the funniest thing we've ever seen. This crazy movie we've never heard of. And then you know, like ten years later everybody was like have you heard of CRUs Story? Oh man, I'm like, yeah, we borrowed Uncle's right, because this movie was not like it was. It was like it became a big deal as I recall, like the end of the nineties kind of yeah, like went like not until they were chowing on incessantly, which is weird, Like, yeah, I was. I was reading back some of the original reviews and there, you know, fine, they're middling. It was just this movie could have really cheap. So they were like, hey, let's that's all. This a good point, which is what happened with It's a Wonderful Life. Like it was not that acclaimed or popular of a movie back when it was made, and it wasn't until TV stations were like, oh, this movie is like so cheap to sir. And then I mean, there's not a lot of big, big, big budget Christmas movies that I can think. I mean, there's I think they're trying to turn like Elf into a thing. Yeah, But what I what I did want to say is that if there's any big budget Christmas movie that deserves funding, it's mine. The one that I wrote called Santa University. If anyone out there wants to give me about fifty million dollars to build an entire college campus and flooded with people dressed as Santa. They're killing each other. It's violent. It's also a musical, so we're gonna need big budget for that. Lots of Elves, there's a lot of different Santa. There's Santa. There's Dan Santa, there's Cool Santa. Not as cool as Cool Santa. You gotta you gotta check out this. So if any, if any big wigs with three million dollars and about four years of production and to just devote to this, I'd like to be flown out to I don't know, to Barbados for a couple of months, just to mill over Santa and in the most Anta like environmental Barbados. Yes, of course. Okay, what movie we're talking about. It's a Christmas story. Okay, let me preface what I'm about to say with I don't like Christmas. I don't like the Christmas season. I don't like the holiday. Just recite the book very I am Ebenezer, Scrooge and thern fused into one sour posts of of a gal who hates holiday cheer. I found spending a holiday with you to be Are you enjoyable? Thank you? Well? We didn't really do much to I mean, did Christmas movies and ate a lot of food. We went to Denny's like in the Santa Claus. It was a blast and that was fun. Yes, it's fun, But are you going to do the Santa Claus? I wanted to, but I don't think this year. Yeah, I don't think it's in the cars this year, like a whole month of the trilogy, the God the Claus month. What a trouble hast Caitlin's don't let Me do the Master of Disguise. The fact that I was able to so early in the podcast is maybe the biggest miracle that will ever happened. Yeah. So I don't care for Christmas and I don't celebrate Christmas. I celebrate Winter Solstice. Brag and even not that. I don't like anything feeling so hard yourself because you're you're fun and a holiday we've exchanged games. I mean, I don't know. I just I hate the Yeah, I love the Rigamar role. Well, first of all, I'm addicted to the Righam role. I'm literally obsessed with the Rigamar role. I always get I have like seasonal effective disorder, so I always am very depressed around this time of year. I don't like all, like the commercialism and the consumerism. Well we got to buy a bunch of gifts and the la lah and I don't know, I just don't like it. See Santa with here's a fun throwback to we don't need to talk about the movie. What does talk about Christmas out there? Do you remember around this time last year, maybe a few weeks out where I was late to a different episode of the back And it's hard to remember because I'm late to a lot of them. But I was late because I was looking for Santa's all day. Oh I do remember this. Ye, that was a fun one. Yeah, there was last year I got. I went to like seven different malls and found as many Santas as possible. Yeah, I remember it. Come with me this year. I can't not do that now. Once you do it once, you have to look for as many you have to top last year's goal. Seven full Santas. Hey, okay, so Christmas Story. Um, I did not grow up with this movie as many people did. I did not see it until probably college. Yeah, I got a late start on it, and I until you know, yesterday, I had only seen it that one time. I will get into how I feel about the movie, but based on what you know about how I feel about Christmas, Jeremi, I saw this movie for the first time, I want to say, when I was probably around ten, which was when I was first aware that they were really broadcasting this movie on a loop, and I associated with being in my grandma's house in Brockton, Massachusetts, go boxers with my second least favorite uncle just hurting all the children in a room saying hey, look at this and then shutting the door because that is where the children's table ended up being, and they didn't want anyone going to hang out with the adults. So he'd be like, hey, look at this movie as a trick, and then he'd trap us with the movie and would take the remote so we couldn't change the channel. We had to keep watching the movie until Christmas was over. I hate this movie. This movie reminds me of prison. Yeah yeah, and all my cousins that that stink. Yeah. I also don't care much for it. Well, let me do the recap. So A Christmas Story is about a little boy named Ralphie and Christmas is just right around the corner and he's like, I want this fucking baby gun, you guys, that's all he wants, all he wants, and he tells his family and his mom's like, no, you'll shoot your eye out, Brandon. You're allowed to interrupt as much as you want during the recap, but never again after that it's well then okay. So then Ralphie has this like hallucination where he's like, oh look, wow cool, I'll be if I have this baby gun, I can protect my family. And he's very spiffy and everyone's any It's like it's exciting. He's wearing like a silver, sparkly cowboy outfit, and I think he is a queer icon in that scene. He has a queer icon in that scene. You're right, Actually they cut this is a bit of trivia. They cut another fantasy sequence where he's like with Flash Gordon in space. Interesting. Okay, so some other stuff happens. Like it's very episodic. Yeah, I mean it doesn't really have like a it's not super cohesive. His father verbally abuses a furnace. What's his job? Is he an old mobile salesman? Is he a furnace repairman? I don't know. This is why you don't make a movie based on a book of essays? Is that what it is? A book of essays? We can get into it. I found the book in a trash pile once and then tried to read it. That's where you find a lot of jenks. Well, that's where Christmas stuff belongs to trash pile. You're you're I like our great Cindy lu who vibe We've got I am and I'm just like I've got some Christmas story trivia. I want to hear it. I am the sergeant in the War on Christmas, Sergeant Therb. I am coming in full force and taking Christmas. But Sergeant Christmas the analogy that doesn't want to love the whole of Jeane Jeane Shepherd. He was a Jean Shepherd fan. I think so because because many people do not know is that they're like a bunch of sequels to this, to this movie. Yeah, the Christmas Story, because like it's like one of those things where like you know, like they're different adaptations of like different stories. They did like TV movies that had Matt Dylan as like a teenage Ralphie. I didn't do anything, and it was like this weird experience where in the late eighties there was like this PBS special for some reason, we taped it for Uncle Therpy's Like my mom was like, how he wants to tape this thing? All the hop noodles, Haven of Bliss and we're like watching it and we realize that these are all the characters from a Christmas story. What is it called All the hop Noodles Haven of Bliss? So noodles was in the title? Okay, yeah, like have these like kind of dumb big titles like that, right? I like? I like. I don't hate Jane Shepherd's work. I became aware of him via his old He used to have a column and Playboy back in the day. He wrote some some fun little ditties. He's got a fun writing style. Why was this movie made to me? Unclear? But there so. Yeah, as you said, it's very it's like episodic. There's not a whole lot of like it's not a super cohesive story. But the basic story is that this kid, Ralphie wants a b begun for Christmas and everyone keeps telling him he's going to shoot his eye out with it. Some other stuff happens. He has some friends at school. Sometimes they get bullied. Somedays they like a pole. Sometimes yeah it's crazy. Sometimes one of them wants to go down on a pole perform some pole Connell Angus and just and it doesn't work out for him. Um, they go get a Christmas tree. There's the leg lamp there's pajamas. There's pajamas, a lot of layers at one point, and that's a fun another um when he puts on the Bunny the bunny pajamas, another queer icon moment. I think there's there are a lot of moments in this movie that like are I feel like the people who have never seen because before watching it all the way through yesterday, I was genuine I'm like, I'm not sure that I've actually ever watched this movie all the way through because it does play on a loop during very traumatic family events. So I'm like, I've for sure seen vignettes of it, but I think in my head, I'm like, well, for sure this story there's an overarching story, but turns out there's note I I mean, that's why you can watch it like that, because it's just like a little The movie itself is just little chunks. Yeah, it's kind of designed to be like watched in between arguments. That's why they show it so much. I mean, what little semblance of story there is is that he wants this be begun. He asks his mom, he writes an essay about it at school, he goes to Santa and he asked for every single persons like year, we'll shoot your eye out. And then finally Christmas morning comes. Yeah, he thinks he doesn't get the B begun, but then it turns out he does it again. Suspense what I'm all about. I love you know, a good suspenseful moment in a Christmas movie, and he fires. He does end up getting the B begun. The first thing he does with it is shoot his eye out, sort of hits his glass like the Little Babe hits his glasses. And then he has to make up this story about how an icicle hit him in the face. Everyone believes it, and then dogs come in. They eat the Christmas turkey. His dad's like, let's go out for Christmas and then they go to a Chinese restaurant where a very sustain unfolds and the movie ends. So yeah, that's pretty much the story. Also prominently featured, I think relevant to what we discuss. The most prominent the Chekhov's gun of this movie isn't a disembodied female body part. Yeah yeah, yeah, that you can plug into a wall and it like that. Just it felt worth mentioning because I was like, oh, what are you like that? You know, the few images that are that you associate with this movie. And the disembodied female calf is way up there in terms of what not just a calf, it's a whole, it's a thigh, it's everything. It's my apologies to all you a Christmas story heads out there, but yeah, it is like probably the most iconic image of the whole movie. But but we will say, as we have sort of taken to doing this, I would say female leg lamp neither feminist icon nor a queer icon. Definitely not. And we are the authority. It's yes, because you know that a man saw the ladies leg. Yeah, that's that's a real human leg that was turned into a lamp. O new fan theory. Okay, here's my fan theory, you know. Okay. In Titanic seven, there's I like to say that the year as if it's a part of the title. In Titanic, directed by James Cameron, there's this scene we will watch that on Thanksgiving. There's a scene where Jack Dawson is like showing Kate Winslet his drawings right, and he's like, she was a one legged also prejudice because he's like, oh, I didn't fuck her. Look, she only has one leg, and it's like, well, what's wrong with fucking people with one leg? As someone who's only fun people with one leg? That would be fun. Though maybe it's her leg, that's what I'm saying. Maybe it's Jack Dawson's French prostitutes leg become lamp interesting fan They jamie, thank you, thank you, thank you, no thank you? Right, Okay, So I thought this movie was gonna be worse to its female characters than it is. Me too. I thought we were going to have sort of like a stand lot situation happening where it's just like girls, how gross and awful and have some like weird. It's weird because I feel like the exchanges that girls just like, instead of there is a prominent female character and she's constantly abused, there's just not really a prominent female character besides his mom. There's the school teacher. The teacher and get a little bit of screenplan like it's it is weird that there's no like all his friends are boys, right, I mean that makes sense for the agent. Yeah, I mean nine. But but you're right, there's not that like a lot of those movies that try to like, let's do a movie childhood they try to do the like boys against the girls, and there's nothing. And there's also not that like a lot of movies made at the same time, they were like boy centric and they were about the boy like really needing to get laid or like, and I'm really glad that's not I was glad that neither Old Boy was not trying to fun. Yeah. I mean, I mean like if it had been like it would have been like a nightmare. Yeah yeah, yeah, and said it's still like this very innocent like all they wants is to be begun, right right, there's I did kind of assume that there would be more negative portrayals of women to talk about, but I think the inverse, which we do find kind of often is that there's just really not that much to talk about because there's not that many female characters. Sure, I mean, so the mother is definitely the female character with the most screen time. She starts out, I assumed because I didn't super remember this movie from the first time I watched it, so rewatching it, I was like, right at the beginning, I was like, oh, she's a shrew. Like she's yelling, She's like get down here and put on your clothes. And eat your breakfast and blah blah blah, and she seemed, you know, a bit naggy and shrewish, but later as the movie progresses, their sort of a shift a complexity to her. Yeah, I mean it is, yeah, you know, like she kind of stands up to kind of protect the kids from like their dad in certain times, to just be like like she's like a good mother. The scene that I was like, oh, wow, okay, I like this character is when, although I hate this scene because it makes me want to throw up, when she's trying to get his little brother Randy to eat and she's like me like a piggy and he's like it's like oh the sounds and the like just the imagery of him like shoving his face and a plane and mash Like I feel sick just thinking about it. But you see her being like fun and just like having this cute little moment where she's like trying to get her son to eat, so she like is kind of playful with him, and I like that. I was like, Okay, so she's not this just like very one dimensional shrewish character. She also takes revenge on the leg she does. Yes, yes, that was that I think the closest to any sort of like whoa, okay, that that was a little bit of like fun release for a female character as we get to in this movie. Yeah, And I think some people would argue like, oh, she was just jealous that there's like this hot leg, just hot floating leg around soary for this non existent leg. She can't stand it, like come on. I think that she destroyed it because she recognized that the leg was neither a queer icon nor a feminist icon, and she's like, I don't need this ship in my house. Yeah. So the mother character is yeah, a little more complex than she appears at first glance, at least. Um. The other thing about her, though, is that she's sort of presented as kind of the main obstacle throughout the movie, where Ralphie keeps being like, oh my god, I want this bebacon. That's all I want, and she's always saying like, no, you can't have that. That's too dangerous. You'll shoot your eye out. So she's sort of like the big obstacle and the source of conflict. I feel like the Dad was more the actual like antagonist. I think, yeah, you know, like like he wasn't he was kind of neither for nor against the gun, but he was like the presence that could swoop in and kind of end everything, like the terror in the back of everyone's mind kind of thing. That's sort of something that I think. It's it's fascinating that, you know, it's a movie about the kids, and both of the adults are the essentially the bad guys, which I think. I think that more often than not, the more we do the show, often when there's not a lot to talk about in terms of, wow, there's really just not a lot of female characters in this movie. That's often because a lot of what's being dealt with, whether it's explicitly stated or not, is like hyper masculinity and men teaching other men how to be men, and that is I think what we witness, you know, Ralphi's dad trying to do at some points, but it's you know, he's I don't I don't know that it necessarily works, but there there's like a few lessons imparted from father to son here that's like, oh yeah, he's trying to pass on a very antiquated idea of like this is what a man does and this is how real boy acts. And all and all that ship. I feel like maybe I just wasn't paying a cluss of attention. I don't know if I saw a whole lot of that. There is like a moment where Ralphie and that kid, Scott Farcus get in a fight and um Scott, Ralphie kind of like beats the crap out of him because he's been bullied by him throughout the whole movie and he's had enough. He flips a table and he's like no more so Farcus. He's swearing and he's beating him up. And then Ralphie's mom shows up and she's like, come on, get home, and Ralphie's crying. So one I like that. You see like little boys crying in this movie a number of times, and at one point his dad says something like, I'll give you something to cry about. But I feel like there's not a whole lot of like hyper masculine and you're trying to be passed on from father to son. And again, maybe I'm just kind of forgetting about some specific details, but I do like that you like see a little boy crying and he's worried, and he's like, oh, I got in a fight, and then his mom says something like she's telling his dad what happened, and she's like, you know how boys are, which sort of is a different way of saying boys will be boys. But I don't think that just trying to diffuse the situation, like like you don't need to know the details, just it's kind of over now. Yeah, I think because she was kind of trying to like shield him from the dad's anger, right, Like, it's very strange in the movie that dad is presented like this very like angry force, but you never see it directed at the kids, Like it's not like the dad beat us sort of like but it's still it feel it's like it's like this subtext that like the kids know they could be the force of this anger, and the mom knows because she tries to shield but but it's never like this explicit like you're still allowed to kind of like the dad, Which is why, Yeah, I think this movie has the potential to kind of be worse and more toxic than it is. But but then I think that that like speaks a lot to what the mom's role is in the movie, is like she is sort of directing her very angry husband's attention elsewhere a lot of the time, or you know, saying you know, I agree with you, I agree with you, but I'm going to be the one to carry out the punishment because she's trying to protect her kids, which I think with the you know, soap in the mouth thing is that's kind of like emblematic of that. I don't know, like the dad's soapen the mouth is so weird because this is a tangent, but that, like the prop soap looks so unlike any soap I've ever seen. Yeah, I was just like, it's blood soap. It looks like a chunk of like rounded plastic. Yeah. And I was like, is that special punishment soap they had in right? This is you know it did soap change. There's jailed blood and the blood of children. Post war America. They're like soaps white now war is over, no more fancy blood red soap. I don't know. That's interesting to me because I I remember one of the few things that did carry with me from past viewings of this movie into my most recent viewing is even though he doesn't explicit do anything wrong, and intense dislike of the father character because it does seem like he's just always being held back from doing like it never seems like he's like I would never do something awful. It's just like, well, try to stop me before I do something awful, like and that I mean, again not too psychologically, but like that. I mean there's you know, everyone has an uncle that sort of is maybe like that, a little bit of just like, well, this isn't a good guy, but there's a lot of people around him who are trying to make sure he's a good guy. Like and and that's what the dead character always reminds me of. And it just I don't know, yeah, it really bugs me that character. There's another scene where you see little brother Randy crying in a cupboard. Randy feminis on Randy, Randy is crying. This is later on in the movie. Their mother like opens the little cabinet door and she's like, why are you crying? And he's like, cause, dad, he's gonna kill Ralfie, right. She says, like if there's a loom. But back to the point that I like, do you see like little boys crying? It's never like stop crying and man up. You don't really see that in this movie, which um I think it's kind of unusual and refreshing. Well, perhaps let's let's give Jean Shepherd to a point. Maybe that that is one of the pros of adapting an essay about someone's actual life is you don't maybe get the opportunities to know if it's from his actual it really just sapricated liket to forty. Somewhere in there, the Wizard of Oz exists. Jean Shepherd born. Yeah, so if this happened to him he was like old, maybe that's a screenplay adapt I mean, they just kind of fudge that's it's like a little weird. It's like a writer not being completely honest about everything. I didn't realize that there was that date descripancy, but were meant we're led to believe because Gean Shepard is the adult narrator that he is old Ralphie. Can we also just talk about how there is really this influx and then this movie is not is by far not the worst of them of movies about like white male childhood that is narrated in a very egregious, lazy way, as opposed to setting up a story that doesn't require voice over narrage. I just bog like this movie started it like you wouldn't have The Wonder Years without a Christmas story, which is fine by me. I'm a hard pass on the one. I've had multiple Chod boyfriends like ya, God, I want it's Ben Savage is big brother. It's like, I can't what air of reference there? Well, that's my favorite, but it's Ben Savage's brother, whereas like generalread, Savage is fread exactly wrong wrong these Corey from Boime's World brother like care Care for Crime outline. Yeah there. I I hate movies about childhood with voiceover narration, particularly fits about boys and that, which I think I just hate. I mean, I hate this hand lot, I hate it. I hate it. The worst movie of all time. There's too many movies just about white male childhood period without narration, late boyhood. Let's let's stop making these. Oh god. But another thing I did want to point out is that Ralphie's favorite radio program is Little or Finnanny. Even at one point he says something like I don't have time for smugglers and pirates. Get this small larchy off radio. I do. Like he was talking about Little Orphan. Yeah that was a show. Yeah, that's what I'm saying that he likes a narrative about a little girl, but not about He doesn't like the pirate show. Little Franny is the pirate show? Wait? What Little Orphany was all about pirates and spies? And because the yeah, the comic and like the radio show. It was like the story we're familiar with is all about her transition from orphan to adoption. But the bulk of like the comic and the radio show and all that was all the adventures she and Daddy Warbucks then went on because he's like a bazillionaire and he'll be like, what's let's go to the jungle. Now, check out my diamond mind. And then like somebody would kidnap little or Fanny and and they'd have to get out of the scrape and find Daddy Warbucks. So I haven't we seen that movie at a bit? That's that's what it was like. This like adventure. Okay, I used to see a movie about domestic adjustment. Yeah, boring. I thought that it was like the show about like is Annie gonna get adopted or not? And he loved that, but he hated rates and stuff. An adventure character who knew, well, that's even cooler. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to point out that, oh, how how nice that his his favorite shows about this little girl, which is like, you know, something that maybe little girls might be more interested in listening to, whereas you know, pirates and smugglers something a little boys. Okay, got it, Well that's my point. My point is invalid then, but I am fascinated to learn that that's what little or Fanny was to look that up. Amazing. Uh. Something I did want to also talk about is guns and masculinity because this movie is about a little boy who is desperate for agun and I researched some statistics about gun violence. So, um, get ready for some exciting everyone ready, So episode a murder. There is an article that I recommend in Time magazine by Jill Stein. Okay, hang on me. I always say that when people are talking about my mom, my mom's name is Jill, it's like I was talking to Jill like Stein. No, it's a Jill Philippo vic. I've probably mispronounced Jill Um. She writes an article in Time magazine. It is called one Undeniable factor in gun violence colon men. So in the article, it cites some statistics that since nineteen sixty six there have been a hundred thirty four mass shootings. I believe that's confined to the US. I don't think that's worldwide. Of those of those thirty four mass shootings, one have been perpetrated by men, only three by women. Of murderers are men. My point being men's fascination with guns is maybe not good. You heard it here first on the Bechtel cast. Maybe guns aren't great. But she writes, if you were to extrapolate like the events of the film, like the next day or the weeks months, I always imagine that like Ralphie never used his BB gun again, you know, like that was kind of the impression that he got it. He used it, and then it was not in any way, shape or form like what he thought it would be. I hope that that's the case. That was just kind of the impression I got. Well, could we get the impression from because like he doesn't he like you know, dings his glasses and then he has to go inside, and then like he leaves the gun out there, doesn't he has to go back, right and he even says something like, oh but my guns still out there, And she's like you can get cleaned up and go get it later. And I don't think we ever see that happen because instead they go at the Chinese restaurant. I think you see him at the very end. I think he might be sleeping with it. I think you're right, Yeah, we're but it is for most of the movie we see Ralphie and Randy. Neither of them are like agro children, right, They're they're being bullied. They're not hyped children there, They're regular kids. And so it is. And and basically all the information we have about Ralphie would not lead you to believe like, oh, this kid's gonna fucking be weirdly into his toy gun, which leads me to believe that like, oh, this must symbolize something too in his head of either status or you know, like overcomings whatever adverse, like as opposed to actually wanting it and thinking, oh, this is a toy I will have fun times because they like why it's important. It's just the thing he's obsessing about, right, Like it's a symbol more than it is, like because like a theme of the film is these very small like a kind of losses of innocence or like things that don't turn out how you think they're going to turn out. And that's kind of how he took the gun obsession. It was like he's really into this, and then it's not really quite what he wants right after after all the hullabaloo. Yeah, well you do see that sort of vision that he has very early on, where are these like bad guys come and he has his gun and he's protecting his family. So it's this sort of like oh, to be sent right. Yeah, So it's sort of like perpetuating this idea where it's like, oh, I'm he's a man and he needs to be the protector of his family and you know, exert this like machismo over people, which like, I mean, I can't even pretend like I understand all of the psychology behind people who are obsessed with guns, and I'm I'm a guy, I should love guns, And I don't get I mean, sorge, I mean, I've only got like four or five guns. Were the one I keep in my car and then a couple under my bed. I mean, you're I don't think that's about the gunpoint for the duration of the episode. But I don't I don't get that. I don't get these other people who are like really super into guns. Yeah, like you have to have one in both of your hands at all times than that? Why? Why? Right? So the point I'm trying to make is, Okay, first, I want to say that I don't think all people who own guns are bad. I do, I do, I do. I do think that all guns should be thrown into an active volcano and then we shouldn't have guns anymore. That sounds like that would actually be pretty dangerous. I think they'd like melt instant, Yeah, they would. I think they wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they go off. I think maybe throwing them into like a pile of fireworks might be dangerous, but a volcano volcano is generally like in clothes used kind Yeah. I thought a lot about this, and that's why I picked volcano. Jamie. Just come over to my volcano and we can throw in all the guns into that. I want to go to a volcano. Okay. So the point that I want to make is it's just peculiar to me that this whole story is about this kid being obsessed with getting a gun and whether or not he kind of abandons it after the fact or not. We don't really know because the story ends and we can only sort of speculate. But the fact that this whole movie is about this kid with getting a gun sends a message that like, little boys like guns and guns or maybe something to want for and and I think that helps create some problems in society. Well, I think I think the reason that I assumed that he just ended up not being thrilled by the gun was like the little Orphananey scene where he gets he's been super psyched about getting that Dakota and then he gets it. He's like, this would be so awesome. I'm totally in the club now I'm gonna get these messages and he's just like a commercial. Sure, I feel like that was like kind of foreshadowing, like these these very small like losses of innocence to being like, oh wait, this gun is kind of stupid, like right, okay, but I feel like there's less of a definitive like where when he doesn't, he doesn't end up having any fun with it because he immediately immediately right, I mean, he's trading about it because he got the thing he wanted. His quest is fulfilled, even if the reality of it doesn't match up. He's still and that's a lot of holidays for kids. It's like, well, I got the thing I kept screaming about. Now what how does it work? Versus Randy, who didn't seem to have any Christmas preference. I'm just totally fine with that. Zeppelin Randy, what an icon. Love him. Also, be sure to drink your Oval Tea in This podcast is sponsored by ovalte But I just okay, I'm going to stop talking about gun violence in a second, but I have some important things to say. These are quotes from the article The Reality of American Men and Guns is as much about hyper masculine fettization, fetishization, fet of murder toys as it is about tribal identity, a deepening identification of self and clan that radicalizes marginal views and magnifies personal entitlement and social distrust. This is a communal masculine ideology, not an individual one. And then she goes on to say about how I like, there's no lone wolves. It's like hack mentality. So it's just talking about hyper masculinity and toxic masculinity and how it perpetuates this idea that guns are cool but they're not they should be thrown in a volcano. The other quote I wanted to say goes, almost half of the world's civilian owned guns are in the hands of Americans, but those guns are not distributed equally. Many are hoarded by super owners, a group of mostly male extremists who make up just three percent of the adult American population but own an average of seventeen guns a piece. So you know, a little more than what you have. And now Brennan has led more guns out on the table so as to demonstrate his dominance. Another sequel set in maybe like nineteen sixty, yeah, the very early sixties, where Ralph is like a grizzled gun nut, like preparing for like the race war that everyone was afraid of it the sixties. The final vignette as the story um. The quote goes on to say, women are increasingly buying handguns for protection, and that seems to be their actual motivation. They own a single gun and they keep it in case of an emergency. One suspects that the imagined assailant they are protecting themselves from is a man. So there's that. Um. The only past I would be willing to give this movie on this particular subject, because I do think it's very it's not a good precedent to have a little boy lusting after a gun toy for the duration of a movie, but at very least the gun toy in question was forty years out of anyone desiring it by the time the movie came out. Because I mean, like, if you think if this was a if a Christmas story was made in the context of its three and this kid really wants this gun toy that you can go out and get right now, like that, that somehow makes it a billion times worse. I'm just trying. I remember at the time the movie came out, like you could get like the Sears catalog or whatever, and they would have like BB guns and maybe other kinds of like sporting rifles, like they're in the catalog there. Yeah, I mean that exists. Yeah. I remember being a kid and you know, like my older brother, my older brother's friends like being kind of excited, Oh they're guns. Cool. But it was still this very abstractly. I don't know anybody who like had a BB gun. No, I never did. I I knew that they existed somewhere, but exactly like by the time I like friends, I knew in the neighborhood I had fake guns. They were I mean, they did have them, and my mom was very like hard on, like she were in a daycare and if you had a fake gun, you couldn't bring it to her daycare. But but they're like all the ones that existed made laser noises. It was no longer people people. They were like like I still remember before, like you can still get like like a water gun to look like a real gun. Before they did all those laws like the orange tips. Yeah, because they're like a couple shootings, like they made those laws because they're like kids were killed because the cops were like good and like um. But yeah, if I if I if I were at ralph us Age and I asked for a BB gun, I think my mom wouldn't They would say no. But they wouldn't be because like you're still you're out there just be like that's a really weird request. It's like that was torturing animals. What's wrong with you? Ye? Yeah, yeah, it'd be like this is I know, because it goes against social norms because but but then I mean, even so he loves after this gun, but does experience at least a fairly large consequence of he does hurt himself, but then he makes up a whole story. He's not even willing to attribute it because he knows if he says, oh, yeah, I shot myself in the eye's gonna get taken away. So he has to fabricate this whole story about an icicle hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses and stuff like that. Winter is the real feeling of hyper masculinity. It's winter, so I feel like he's trying to protect his gun the way his mom has to protect her kids from the wrath of their father. We're going to add in this early sixties vignette. Yeah, yeah, just like the Grizzled gun Nut Ralphie. It still goes by Ralphie though still yes, is there a party going hap? I'm not sure if you can hear some chatter in the background in some music, we weren't invited, That is all I know. Let's talk about the teacher a little bit. Another person who, yeah, the one other female character with pretty much any lines. She is also sort of depicted as a shrew at the beginning um and then kind of softens a little bit as the movie goes on. But there is one point where Ralphie's having another vision I like to call them. I think he's tripping on acid this whole movie and he's having a hallucination. But I think he has just gotten his paperback talking about what he wants for Christmas, and she's given him a C plus. So he envisions her as like this witch, wicked witch type character. So he sees her as a mean little bee and it's really, hey, maybe takes some responsibility for your own writing. You earned with the plus, not her fault. Seems very poorly written. So for just judging by his voiceover, like, come on, you've gotta you've gotta build on your ideas there, Ralphie, jeez, he becomes a guy who writes a lot of short things for money. You know what. That's that's evidence that Ralphie is not. That's okay, okay, Yeah, he doesn't have he doesn't have the touch. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I would say, Scott parks feminist icon. I think that's my last, my last major thought on this film. Let's talk about whether or not the movie passes the spectral test. I am going to argue as much as I don't want to do. I think that it does. And one tiny, tiny scene where students are filing in and giving miss Shields, the teacher um little Christmas gifts. There's a name exchange, is there not? One student puts something on her desk. She says thank you Heather. Heather says Merry Christmas. The teacher says, Merry Christmas. Rats, rats we know her name were interesting. This movie passes better than Pirates of the Caribbean The Curse of the Black Pearl does God damn It, which is apparently inspired by Little or Finanny, because it's about pirates damn it. I mean, it's like the Bear Bear Bear minimum as we never see that Heather character. Again, we don't see her speaking. She has no significance in the story. Well and and so as we often I would say, of the movies that passed the Backtel test that we have covered on this podcast, at least of them are a barely passed like this, like you know, you get it on a technicality. It was almost definitely an accident that this happened test because at no other point in the movie does it even come close to passing. In fact, it's mostly boys talking to each other or boys talking to their mother. Ye, so well, I agree with you. I was, I was this is this is a weird experience where I was almost disappointed that it has that. I was like, I guess they get it. I guess I didn't even notice it until my second viewing. I was like, oh wait, hey, wait, there's two women talking. I jotted it down in dismay m same. So let's then rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we write the movie based on its portrayal of women zero to five nipples, and then you can describe the nipples or give them away to anyone you want. A character in the movie. Character, but I mean one of your loved ones, if he's so comfortable today, So give one to give one the sarge. Yeah, sargebis therpist yeah, therbist. Okay. So I'm gonna give this movie a It's probably gonna be like a one and a half. I do like that the two main female characters, the mother and Miss Shields the teacher, aren't as one dimensional as they kind of grow. There's a little arc there. The mother seems like a good mother and she's not just like this one dimensional shrew that we are led to believe in the first few scenes. But other than that, just the idea that the movie is about a little boy desperately wanting a gun and all of his little adventures that he has with feminist icon Scott and then his friends named Flick and Schwartz was like, if you don't name your your kids Scutt, you're crazy. But it gets a one and a half nipples, and the nipples belong to the leg lamp, which may I think maybe have a nipple or two or one and a half. I'll give it one and a half as well, because I mean, obviously, this movie is about white male childhood, or as it was known in childhood. And it's weird because it's like, this movie does not abuse that premise as much as I assumed it did, except for that last scene in the Chinese restaurant, which was very uncomfortable. Yes, I mean, well, this is a white, white, white, white white movie. There are a few students of color in his class, although they get no lines, very little screen time, and it is predominantly and extremely white. It's a white white All that said, I do think that yeah, there there where. I hate to reward a movie for not making its female characters shrews by default and giving them character by default. But the two female characters we do manage to see in this movie, although they would never be permitted to speak to or view each other, um, they do both have more depth than you would assume, especially seeing through the eyes of a little boy. So in that way, I liked it. I liked them Mom character quite a bit, and I feel for her. So I'll give one of my nipples to Mom, and I'll give it half enough to Scott. Great, Yeah, how about you, Brandon. I might go a little higher, like maybe an even two nipples, just because I feel like this is a weird thing to say, but I feel like it gets some points for I guess omission rather than like because a lot of movies there are quote unquote classics from the same period are like unwatchable now because you're just like, oh wait, this movie is actually about some gross kid trying to get late take again and take every opportunity to make that joke over and over and over. Yeah, and and this is sort of like, oh, they just that's just not part of the content, right. I Mean, it'd be great if they were like more actual characters, but there also aren't you know, like girls as just objects of like Ralphie and his friends either like derision or desire, right, Like they're the female characters we do manage to see are not being overtly abused over and over and over, which is again, yeah, like the the omission thing. But for a movie you're I mean, I think we were all kind of bleainly surprised. There's a ton there's a lot like the you know of that period, like kind of like meatballs and like all those like yeah yeah things, whether it's about like you know, let's have a scene where the boys like find a playboy like that kind of like and I hate to keep going into the sand lot, but that movie is that all over where they used the whole like oh well it is at different times. So everyone was looking disgusting and with the rape and kid like it was just like discuss like awful that yeah, and then they were like you're a girl because you're kind of displaying some signs of weakness and like that's the worst insult Everdence movie does not doesn't doesn't do it. No, there is a scene where they like just a quick little scene where um, they're all sitting down to dinner and Dad is like, got up and get me this. I want seconds and she's like okay, and then she's about to eat again, and then Ralphie's like, actually, can I have some more too? And then she has to put her fork down, get up, and like the voiceover said something like, my mom hasn't had a hot meal for herself in fifteen years. But that's really all it does to acknowledge that, like they don't have bad so that I was just like, poor mom. Well, Brandon, thank you so much for being here. Thanks really need to talk about my favorite movie. Where can we find you on the world wide Web? Well, you can go to Brandon Berg dot com just in time for the holiday season to buy some prints, greeting cards, Christmas bobbles. Well you got I didn't know you had, babbles, lots of fun stuff. Hey. You can follow the Beachel cast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook to pick up on that. I was just pausing for for Suspend and signed up for our Patreon where you can get two extra episodes a month at patreon dot com slash past it's only five dollars one a gift to yourself to yourself to your friend, give yourself a gift, Give your friends, your mom, your dad, anyone in your family. We don't care. We're starving, all right, Well you can find us there, yes, indeed, And happy holiday, Happy freaking holidays, everybody, all right, goodbye, bye,