Coraline: Neglectful Parents, Under-stimulated Children, & Grooming

Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster movies and psychoanalyze them.
My name is Bernie Brownfield and I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by
Ben Stover, individual therapist, Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists. We're
all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists who practice out of Chicago.
Even though we are licensed mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for entered
him and purposes and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture in all forms.
Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists, we aren't
your therapist. If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find a
local mental health provider. Hi. Welcome to our spooky season episodes of twenty
twenty two. Today we're going to be talking about one of my personal favorites,
core Line, and so before we do that, I want to throw
to our special guests today, Eric Wesselman, if you could introduce yourself,
Yes, Hello, thank you for having me. I'm doctor Eric Wesselman.
I'm a social psychology professor, Delinois State University, lifelong nerd, and just
thrilled beyond belief that I can find ways to connect what I do for a
living with my passions and we're thrilled to have you. And for those of
you watching, especially those of you who know me, Eric is one of
us and wearing a death clock shirt, so be sure to find him on
social media and appreciate all the awesome work he does because doctor Eric is awesome.
And we actually we run in the same circles as you with the conventions
we've gone to and sort of the panels. We've all been a part of
the psychology panels of the conventions in Chicago, like Wizard We're all that's now
fan Expo and C two E two, which is so it's been fun to
get to know you and all the other people that kind of run around in
that same community. Yeah, so today we're talking about Coraline. I'm so
exshdarn. We're gonna be talking about some heavy topics though unfortunately we say a
lot on this podcast. Watching movies again as a therapist, especially one is
one of your favorite movies is a true gamble because it can really make you
think about some dark shit and not ruin it. Because Coraline's not ruined for
me, but four abouts I'll talk about today. Buckle up. So if
you listen to this podcast with your kids, especially if you wanted to listen
to it with them, because it's about Coraline, which is a kid movie,
we're gonna be talking about some dark stuff. So we're gonna be hitting
upon the dynamic between Coraline and her parents, so touching upon sort of the
neglects that we witnessed there because they're working so much, her only child dynamic
kind of being an understimulated smart kid parents who work from home. We're also
gonna be talking about grooming, which is the part where you might have your
kids exit the listening if they're listening, because we're touching upon how grooming is
displayed within this movie. It's pretty class book example of grooming. So just
very briefly, Coraline is about a girl named Coraline who moves to a news
like across a few states from Michigan to Oregon, I believe, with her
parents, who are writers who work from home, and so the movie covers
only a few days where she is bored wandering around. She finds a tiny
door in her new home. She wanders through it to a parallel universe.
Where she finds another mother and another father who are way more attentive and loving
and receptive. But very slowly it turns and they're actually turned out to be
quite monstrous. So that's kind of the general plot of this movie. So
let's get into the family dynamic, which we see almost immediately in this movie,
is the dynamic between Coraline and her parents, specifically her mom. Yeah.
Absolutely, we see a very clear message given to the audience into Caroline
herself that she is less important than anything her parents have going on, that
she is expected to entertain her So she is given nonsense missions by your parents,
and it is pretty clear she is longing for a close connection with them
and they are not giving it to her. Well, one thing I guess
we could highlight before we jump too far into it, which Eric, you
brought up before we started recording, is that we're only seeing a few days
in the life of this family, and there's a lot of circumstances we're not
too aware of. One thing is that we don't know why they move,
like almost across the whole country, Like why did they move so far away?
Was it for work? They're doing a catalog for a local store,
but do they have to go across the country to do that. There's been
a recent car accident that has left her mom in a neck brace, which
is pretty intense, and she alludes a little bit that it might have been
Coraline's fault, and that's part of their iciness because I can remember exactly what
Coraline says, but she basically says, almost apologize about the car accident.
Her mom's like I know or whatever. So I feel like there's a lot
of things that we don't know about where they're currently at. Because another thing,
too, is because you're right, like, these parents seem agitated right
from the start. I wrote that they were miserable three or four times.
I think I even wrote miserable parents create miserable children. And they just seem
like they're at their wits end. The dad seems like he hasn't seen sunlight
in about eighteen to thirty six months, which is odd for a gardener.
Yeah, and yeah, it seemed to specialize in gardening. Maybe I don't
know, Yeah, it seems like it certainly like it that like the house
that they moved into, right, I mean, they're they're sharing it with
a lot of other folks, I feel like there's a couple of moments where,
at least in Coraline's room, the house is leaking, you know.
There there is that time when she's in the store and they're buying clothes and
the mother makes some often comment about well, maybe we can buy these for
you after the catalog is done, after we get paid, or something like
that. So I guess I just see. I really wonder they're under a
deadline. Financial stress is going on there that which is probably intensify any icines
or rough dynamics they already have. Absolutely, and if Brittany, if your
hypotheses are correct that there's been something that's happened that whether or not it's Coraline's
fault, my wife is Caroline. So I'm going to do what Caroline I
am absolutely about. I know, I know, I'm gonna echo with you
of the movie of like discarding her identity, but in my case it is
actually my wife's name. So this is gonna be hard for me all day
if I'm going to punish myself out and everyone else will seeing sweet Caroline every
time I do it. But but anyway, I think, Brittany, of
your hypothesis is correct and like understanding of right, this is only a few
days. This is definitely if there's something that's happened or that mom got hurt,
it is because she felt like her daughter was distracting her. This is
definitely not adequate time to have processed that yet and to have dealt with the
feelings and that she might be feeling a little bit frosty yet. And like
you said, Dad looks like he not only hasn't seen the outside, but
he hasn't seen his pillow in a couple months either. He looks rough as
well. He looks ill. He looks ill, He looks like he is
not well. He is not well, That's what I feel like. It
looks like he's like hunched over too, Like he just looks like like he's
melting like a candle. He looks waxing, like, yeah, kind of.
One of the other things that I was thinking about when I was watching,
just like the opening scene, is, you know, sometimes I talk
to people that I work with about what were some of the silent rules,
okay, unspoken rules. What was an unspoken rule in your family? Were
there any unspoken rules? And I feel like one of them in this that
I saw right away is that children should be seen and not heard. Go
into it whatever you're going to do. We're busy, and that that gets
kind of repeated over and over and over again in a way that I feel
like makes that seem true, and that sometimes that's a part of what can
be confusing for kids. I think one thing I guess I want to clarify,
it seems like a good thing to note, is that we're very much
getting this whole story from core Line's perspective, and that we don't really know
anything that core Line does not know. So if there is stuff going on
with her parents, we truly don't know what that is because we don't see
anything in the movie that she's not present for. So we don't know what
the parents are talking about, the extent of their distress, why they're living
like this. We're really thrown in in the middle of this situation where it's
like why did they move across country? They do seem like you're kind of
insinuating eric like maybe down on their luck, and where they're living, where
it seems like everybody that lives in that apartment building, well that house,
is someone who is I can't think of a better word than phrasing down on
your luck, like their past their prime, they're struggling financial are just trying
to make it work with maybe a fixed income, especially the older people,
And we don't really have enough information on the parents benefit for where their stress
might be coming from. Because I think something I was also trying to pay
more attention to this watch is if they are you kind of said it already,
but if they are, they not buying things like food because they're strapped
for money or because parents are so caught up in their work that they're truly
neglecting everything in the household, even food shopping. Because mom keeps saying we'll
go food shopping. Eventually she brings it up like twice and then she finally
goes. And I was wanting to give her more of the like thinking as
an adult that you wouldn't tell your kid ideally if you were thinking about them,
that you can't afford food, because that's such a scary thing for a
kid to know, and it's not appropriate for them to know unless they need
to know. And so it does make me respect the parents more if I
go with my head cannon that they can't afford food right now, and so
they're making do with these weird vegetables and condiments. And then the more negative
viewpoint is that they're truly so not connected to Coraline's experience and they're so up
their own butts that they are truly forgetting that their child does not have enough
food to eat. So there's kind of two ways to view it. Either
way, they are not communicating it effectively to Coraline and letting her create this
narrative where her parents just don't give a shit about her. Is where she
because she says, at one point, no one ever listens to me,
And like you said, Ben, at the beginning, her parents are repeatedly
messaging to her to shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of our
faces, and they're saying it energetically pretty close to that, feeling like they're
not really sugarcoating it at all. Her dad a little bit more at first,
but then he quickly goes to you need to let me work, like
he very quickly goes into the same energy that mom has towards Coraline. Yeah,
I think you're right, and I think that looking at what you see
between the mom and the dad's energy is dad is so close to looking like
he wants to give up on life, and Mom is so so bitter and
angry and resentful of everything. I don't think she's specifically resentful of Coraline.
She's not seeming to show that. But she's also not doing anything to communicate
to Coraline that the resentment that is oozing out of her is not about about
Coraline. It's not about her. It's not her fault, it's not your
fault. We're in this nasty house that we're currently you know, experiencing food
insecurity, and that we're living in a lifestyle that is not comfortable for any
of us, and it doesn't seem like we see any effort to communicating that,
and that allows Coraline's imagination to run wild. There was one moment that
I did find interesting well, that she has moments both her parents. You
know, there's when when the mom takes her clothes shopping and they kind of
have some friction there, but there's you know, the dad is attempting to
show her her affection at one point and she's embarrassed by it, which I'm
maybe I'm thinking about this now because my older kids are starting to get into
that tween era they've convinced themselves they're teenagers when they're not quite there yet,
right, And exactly just thinking about my own like, you know, my
parents kissing my forehead or whatever, and now I kiss my kids foreheads and
they're like dad, right, And you know, I'm sure I probably need
to figure out how to adjust my affection to them in one a way that
will be least embarrassing. Oh. I will confess that there are sometimes where
I purposely like, if I hear my kids kind of go oh gross,
and I think I said I love you to my wife, they're like yeah,
and so I'm like, oh, well, maybe I'm just gonna go
kiss your mom a little bit more now, and so right, Yeah,
you know, and some of that is just general family dynamics, but I
don't know. I was just really struck by that moment where it's like,
Okay, there is a reaching out here, at least on the part of
the dad missing her. Yeah, the filmmakers chose to put that in there,
So what are they trying to communicate to us? Yeah, there are
some moments where you see the dad try to insert some joy and either mom
shuts it down or Coraline shuts it down, like I was it really.
I was struck by the scene at dinner time earlier in the movie where he
tries to joke about his writer's rash on his butt and he was being silly
and trying to be with Coraline and joking around, and Mom basically says,
shut up, go do your work. Shut up. And part of it
could be if we're going to give them a benefit of the doubt on the
resentment piece, because she was like, I need to edit your pages.
Mom might be holding the stress for both of them in this way, and
it really bummed me out that the one of the few times that you see
the parents trying to engage with Coraline is immediately just annihilated by Mom. And
I think in the example I think you're thinking of when they drop him off
in the town when they go to gig clothes, he also brings something up
that he thinks she likes, and she says, I haven't liked that for
a while, which she's also at that tween age. I don't think they
ever really say her name, but I'm guessing she's about like eleven or twelve.
Where it did make me curious if that was kind of a tiny sign
that parents have not been paying attention to her for a while, and dad
only remembers things that's about her from like five years ago, when maybe he
was the last time he knew what her favorite thing was, or the last
time he paid attention to what her favorite thing was, and maybe not paying
attention to how she's growing up and what she currently likes. And that does
make kids feel. For kid, it already is feeling neglected and not seen,
and then it's like your parents just keep corroborating it by not paying attention
to even what you like and then wanting cookies like brownie points for remembering something
you like five years ago, like I would. I would carry a bit
of a fucking energy around that too. I think though, it is important
on the side of their parents to also highlight that sometimes tweens at that age
stop sharing as much and start seeking validation and closeness that they once got from
you with their friends and their classmates are their teammates, and they sometimes start
shutting you out and don't give you the same windows into their life that you
used to have. And I have a four year old right now, so
I'm still in Daddy is the best days, and I'm going to hold onto
those as long as I can. Yes, cling to them for dear life.
She keeps getting bigger's wearing a size eleven shoe now, like what is
happening? She's cool shoes though, I get yells of kids shoes and stores.
I want them to make them in adult sizes for me. Why is
everything for these children? Like, I'm right, I wanted a pair of
Heale's inn adult size for so long. But I Benjamin, Now that was
the universe protecting you from yourself. Yes, oh my god, I imagine
how hurt you would have got. I would love to see you roll up
to me on Healey's though, because I feel like I could push you really
easily and you'd fall down, like very top heavy and heales from what I
recall from people who wore them. Yeah, no, I would. I
think. Yes, You're right, it is the universe protecting me from myself.
I get hurt doing nothing, so I hurt myself. I think.
Going back to the movie, though, I think what's tricky about the limited
window we have is that you do see in the scenes. We do get
that she is actively trying to give their attention. She's talking to her mom,
she's going into her dad's room, and she's doing the thing kids do
when they need attention, where they kind of annoying because they're wanting to just
get like. She's just making noise because she wants you to look at her
and know that she's there, not because she's actively trying to bug the shit
out of you. But I think, right maybe where we don't know enough
is that they just moved away from a town in which she had a lot
of friends, or at least two close friends. So we're also could be
seeing a kid who this could be slightly different than how she acts because she
went from having a lot to do and people to hang out with to now
nothing to do and nobody to hang out with. Right, So, if
we combine those two kind of points of view with kids and parents, it
is quite possible that the dynamic is shifting for both of them at the same
time. Where I have come to learn, I don't think Neil Gaiman does
anything by accident and in his writing, so the point that these friends keep
showing up over and over in these pivotal scenes, I think is communicating to
us that she is longing for a closeness that she once got from them,
and now that her parents are there and the friends aren't, she's trying to
reconnect to them. So I think there's some awkwardness for both and for people
in real life situations where they are or are not monsters. I think the
jury's out on that, but that looking at the changes that come when you
make a massive shift and are likely to produce symptoms of adjustment disorder for everyone,
is everyone's gonna be go all throne at the same time, and it's
going to be hard for everybody, and they're going to be growing pains and
seeing this just happen over a couple of days there nobody's figured out what to
do or how they feel about it, and everybody's not addressing the elephant in
a room that hey, we're down on our luck right now. We don't
have a lot of money. Things are going to be really tight. We
kind of shot the moon and trying to get this deal, and we moved
out here to get it done and because we had to, and now we're
all uncomfortable, but let's not talk about it ever. I like that point
you make Doun about the sort of shift for both of them, and it
kind of made me think about what we're talking about before the show that when
I watched this, I experienced this from sort of a post COVID I'll say
post and put that in scare quotes. Still at a real established that good.
Yes, yeah, but like so far, just me personally, you
know, my family had a dynamic setup where I work a lot, but
I work at I work in my office at school, and then when I
come home, I'm home right and I had this sort of nice delineation most
of the time, deadline's notwithstanding. But then when we you know, have
something like COVID where places shut down or there's this shift to school at home
and work at home, and those boundaries become very thin. And so like
if I'm working here in my office and I have this breakthrough on the paper,
you know, and my spouse is trying really hard during my work hours
to keep the kids away, but you know, my kids of whatever age
come in and they're like daddy, Daddy comes snuggle with me, or watch
this or look at my drawing. I got to stop this role I'm on
to do that. And so I have these sort of conflicting impulses like I
want to attend to my kid, but damn it, I've got these other
responsibilities. And this wasn't an issue before our world views were completely offended,
right, And so yeah, I guess I'm just curious how folks like myself
who see this movie for the first time after this socio cultural shift would experience
this compared to folks beforehand. So I'll throw that out there for it.
Yeah, I think that's a great point. Something I've said a lot when
the prime of COVID, when kids weren't going to school, and I was
working with a lot of families and parents during that time, and something I
would always try to just validate for everybody is that, in quote unquote normal
times, when a kid chooses, our family chooses for their child to do
school from home, there's a very specific disposition of both the kids and the
parents for that to be effective and to work well. And then we got
to this, But then we got to this situation where everybody was doing homeschooling
pretty much no matter what your disposition was, and that is really rough.
And so we could be seeing that in this situation where they haven't had to
work like this before they have maybe they worked in offices back when they used
to work wherever in Michigan. You know, she was probably in school or
you know, run around town with her friends, and so we could be
seeing sort of a microcosmic example of what families went through during prime lockdown,
when no one was attending school and barely anyone was working out of the home.
I can echo that because for me, this is my first time seeing
this movie. I've never seen it before, and I liked it, Brittany,
I liked it teaser, but I think the way it hit hit different
because watching it now as someone who started. My child was one and a
half right when the pandemic hit. Is having that change from having a child
in daycare, and we've been in daycare for three weeks before everything closed,
and just finally reached a point where we'd gotten some breathing room where we could
operate in the balance, like the sweet spot between parent and professional. And
I just started a new job that was pretty intense, and it was a
big culture shift from community mental health and learning a whole bunch of things all
at once and having some space to do that, and then having that all
collapsed so fast. It was a lot. So I think this movie may
have hit totally different having that not been the case and having no reference point
for being unwillingly stuck in a situation where everybody's at home and trying to figure
it out. Because now I have a reference point for it, and I'm
like, oh, I have empathy for the parents and I don't think I
would have before. Yeah, And I feel like there's so many different things
that affected families during COVID, but that one of the things that's still affecting
families. People who have kids around the age Ben that you were saying,
you know, are the age where they would go to daycare and how if
they get a sniffle. You know how much kids get sick when they go
to daycare, especially their first year, right if they have they if they
have a runny nose. Now they have to they have to not go.
They have to get a COVID test and get the COVID test and have a
negative COVID test before the kid can come back to school. So also,
I'm having parents who even though everything is you know, back open and you
can get some child care support, they're still experiencing a lot more having to
it's still not quite where it can be balanced for anybody, because your kid
is sick, and then you get sick, and then and then it's like
which, which is a natural thing that happens in families anyway. But I
think it makes a lot a sense to hear both of you talk about that
in terms of how big of a change it is. And it did really
make me think about a part of this really would be how do we help
the parents better be able to communicate about what's going on right instead of kind
of having this just leave me alone, I have to work. Just leave
me alone. I have to work right and I and I immediately, you
know, I thought of like four different ways they could have said that.
Yeah, just kind of in general, and also knowing that no one is
ever We're not ever going to be always be able to be our best selves,
and parents are not always going to be able to be their best selves,
and that's okay, And this is more about how are we good enough?
And I wish and in the situation that I wish that the parents had
a little bit more knowledge about that, and the other thing that I was
thinking too. I know we've been talking a lot about a lot about how
it's a short amount of time because we're looking at But the other thing that
I don't see. So if this was, let's say that the rest of
Coralines experience of being a child has been very loving and very supportive and all
the attention that she needs and she gets all of her needs met. If
that was the case all the time, like if that had already always been
her experience, then she would probably be having like full blown tantrum like behavior
and she doesn't really, So I feel like like she is. She is
coming into the room and kind of like trying to get their attention, saying
wacky stuff like I think I almost died yesterday. I think it almost fell
down a well, I mean she started says that she starts definitely trying to
get their attention in a dramatic like she's trying to get a dramatic pull from
them. Who But that's a good point, because a kid that's used to
getting their needs met suddenly not would be losing it, losing it right like
they were. Why my parents acting like this and like maybe crying and yeah,
like just having a such a hard time. That was one of the
things that I wanted to just point out that that's not what's happening, and
she actually seems again, while I think this change in their family is definitely
more uncomfortable than they've experienced, but she doesn't seem she's not frazzled, she's
not crying, she's not why don't you love me? I'm like, she's
not, like, I'm so confused. Why are you mad at me?
I don't understand what's happening. I don't know why you can't pay She doesn't
me? She really she So it does It does seem like, regardless of
of the time that we have with this, with this family, that it
is common that she is not listened to, even though we hear her say
that a lot. I think that that seems to be and it sounds like
it's a common experience for her, just over her interactions with her parents in
general. I think that's a really good point, Hannah, And that's that's
a good thought point. And I think the next thing that bridged for me
from that, since I'm at least presently anyway raising an only child and I
I married an only child, and I am knew you We're going to talk
about this like we done, like eighty eight episodes of the show or something,
but the and been friends for like seven years. I didn't a Yeah,
I'm sure you figured it out, but like, wow, watching watching
an only child and marrying an only child, seeing the absolute difference in mentality
and ability to self entertain. That would have been my brothers and I doing
something together, like finding a way to play or irritate each other or fight,
depending on what age we were at. But looking at the way,
my child can just pop off and disappear and go play by yourself and start
a whole imaginary play session just with her toys and'd be fine. Where I'm
wondering with Carlin being an only a child because Hannah, like you, like
me and Brittany, none of us are our only children. So watching an
only child to operate feels lonely to us. Yeah, it does, You're
right, but it might not to her. That's a good point. And
she also, as something many of you kind of suggested earlier. Whatever needs
she wasn't getting met by her parents in terms of affection, right, she
had reorganized that with her friends, right, so she perhaps reached some optimal
balance of Okay, this is what I need from them and this is what
I need from them, and now the one support is taken away. Right,
So like in my life, I know, just in terms of friends
and family, who I can go to for practical social support when I need
to get shit done, and I know who I need to go to when
I need empathic, person centered listening. Sure, right, And it took
some time to get that, but that's the sort of organization that I've I've
fostered for myself, right, And if one is then taken away, you
of course flounder and have to reorganize. So I mean, is it quote
unquote good that that was Coraline's distribution of emotional labor? We of course could
argue whether or not it is or not, but but that was her system
and then that was taken away. Yeah, And I think that would also
makes me It makes my empathy for parents a little tough, and that they
don't seem to be cognizant or even like or maybe they're just not able to
be cognizant right now because they're so stressed that that she doesn't have that she
doesn't have her friends anymore, she doesn't have siblings, you know, she
doesn't have kids to hang out with in this apartment building, and they're not
thinking about they're not even mentioning, they don't even whisper that acknowledgement of I
know right now you don't have anyone to play with. I'm really sorry that
we had to move. And now we're here and your board and I need
your father and I just need a few days to like head down write this
thing, and then after those two days, we'll do this. We'll do
this, We'll do this. Because the thing that's missing, kind of even
going back to what you were saying, Hannah before, the thing that's missing
from the parent child dynamic that makes me want to go a little harder,
be a little more judgmental towards her parents, specifically her mom, is that
there's no repair work that gets done. Nor does Mom seem phased at all
by the way that she's talking to Cora line. Mom, She's not like
she loses it on core line and then later in a later scene and she's
like sorry. The only time we kind of see that is when she's going
to go food chopping and she's like, let me make it up to you,
and Coraline says, that's what you always say. It seems like there's
a pattern of mom and maybe dad too, acting this way, not really
ever doing repair work around it, and then trying to make up for it
as like an afterthought. And so she's pretty jaded, you know, kind
of what we're talking about. What she's not throwing fits or anything. She
seems like a kid who's pretty jaded. And also it made me laugh ish
is you can tell her mom is so fed up with her mouth and she
has the same exactive mouth as her mom, And how parents get so fed
I think when I have family sessions and parents will mouth off, and then
I have to find creative ways as a family. Thereist to be like,
you know, we have to be mindful about how we model communication to our
kids, and that we don't ask kids to be more mature and thoughtful than
the adults in their lives. Because I could see her mom complaining about Coraline
like she's such like a smart ass, or she's like she's got such a
mouth on her. But the way she what they talk just to like I
wanted to say, like she's giving you the same attitude that you're giving her,
like when they're in that clothing store. I was really noticing like them
kind of sparring back and forth, and I'm like, I bet you if
we got to see the young version of her mom, that personality wise probably
not too far off from Coraline. Brittany. I love that you use that
word modeling, and it made me think of something Hannah you brought up earlier
about parents not always being their their best selves right and to what degree I
mean that that's I think something we all deal with right and absolutely so.
I would be curious, like if we had sort of our way to rewrite
this right in the way that we would like to, you know, what
would be the sort of come together moment at the end where they all sort
of sit down and be like, Okay. The parents could be like,
you know, yes we haven't been our best. How can we model to
you that you will also? There will be times where you will not also
be your best. But but this is our family unit. We can be
vulnerable with each other, give ourselves some grace and work together. Okay,
Yeah, I think yeah, I think that's great. And what occurs to
me is we did an episode prior to recording this one on a very very
similar or plotline that came out in inside out, watching the parents pull an
only child and take her oa across the country with little choice in the matter,
and seeing the amount of effort and repair work that the parents are capable
of once they reground that we don't see these parents do, and I think
it's easier to feel judgmental against where they're at than the other parents because we're
missing two things. Is one, we don't see a cute little emotions running
around inside of their head. We don't, and we don't see their parts
talking to each other. And what we also don't see is the genuine closeness
and efforts to play that we saw with Riley's family, where they make efforts
to play together, because when you do have an only child, parents have
to become playmates sometimes and replace some of that role that siblings take on.
And I, you know, with my child, I see all the time,
like Danny can play with me, and it either gets to play with
me and I buck up and figure out, like whatever I'm tired about or
ten thousand things on my mind, if I got to put that away and
be a child or a dog one of the two to play with them play
with her, And I don't see any of that with these parents, I
know, like it's distinct, takes over a place over like a weekend,
I think, But looking at it, we don't see any efforts to play
or break out of the parent child role or come into a shifting dynamic relationship.
They don't have any of that. It's all very rigid, very set,
very cold. Yeah. Yeah, So there's an art there where they're
affection at the beginning, it falls apart, and then they're affection to get
the end, and in coral line from Jump, it's like there's no affection
groundwork. But anyway, we're gonna say, Hannah, I'm just gonna say
that one of the things that is really helpful to clarify with kids and also
to just let them know like you are also a human and apologizing to your
kid and saying and even like I would even have been happy with them sitting
next to her on the bed and saying it has I know that it has
been really stressful, and I know that I have been really stressed, and
I can't imagine what it must be like for you. But I just want
to let you know that I really appreciate you your flexibility with me, and
I want to be able to have more flexibility with you two. And but
I am genuinely sorry about how this transition has not been going I think the
way that any of us had really thought that it would. Yeah, it
doesn't have to be something that's a paragraph long or like this deep intense talk,
you know, Like it can just be like, hey, I fucked
up, I'm sorry, and what can I do to make it up to
you? Or like what is something that you've been really wanting to do in
this new town or that you've been really thinking about, Like maybe we should
see if there's a zoo. There's so many close ups the Detroit Zoo snow
globe, like maybe we need to find the local zoo, Like would that
be fun? Again, It's not so much that you have to explain every
single thing, because we know that kids don't really absorb that shit anyway.
They're kind of like in it whatever, But saying but saying something as simple
as like I'm sorry these last couple of days have been so stressful, and
I'm sorry that it feels like I've been taking it out on you, and
I just want to let you know that that sucks and I'm sorry that that's
happening, go ahead night. It makes me really curious because there was an
opportunity at the end of this movie to do that and they kind of swerved
away from it, which I was really paying attention to watching at this time
around. And when they are at that it's sort of garden party that she
makes them throw. There's a little bit of some some movement on her parents'
behalf of trying to be engaged doing other things, getting back into gardening that
kind of thing, but there's still this sort of iciness, especially coming from
her mom, of like, well, I guess this isn't horrible is her
energy, and it does make me really want to pick the brain of the
filmmakers and or Neil Gaiman about why they made that choice to still have parents
not really have a character arc in this movie the way that I feel like
in most kids movies there is a character arc around that where they want kids
to have the comfort of things are going to be different from here on out,
and there isn't really that guarantee. At the end of this movie,
they're kind of a little bit better, but I think it really is because
they don't remember what happened, and so there isn't this acknowledgment of we really
let things slide to the point that you left us and then someone took advantage
of you leaving us, and so they didn't really learn a lesson parents in
this, But that would have been the time even if they didn't remember.
Like what you're asking, Eric, is that one of the time for parents
to say, like, this has sucked since we moved out here, and
we know that it sucked, and we know that we haven't been around,
so moving forward, the deadline's done, let's do this differently. And that
didn't have to be like super flouncy. It could have just been like,
like I feel like her mom's disposition. I feel like it would have more
been like we've both been kind of acting like bitches the past few days,
and yeah, I'm sorry, but well let's try better here on out,
and let's do this next week. But also I think for kids that get
that in every other movie, the kids that don't get parents who to make
adjustments to them need to be seen too. And I think, yeah,
this writing, very much like Stephen King writing, is going to cover it
from the darker or less explored angle, and that this is a kid's movie
not for little kids, but for older kids who might very well be aware
that their parents. You know, not everybody gets good parents. Just yeah,
yeah, And I think that's a great point. And Neil Gaiman is
a much more He's why I love him so much is that he writes such
high concept fantastical things, but he makes them so grounded in like real human
experience, when Stephen King does that well, which is why I love him
too. And that's a great point. And maybe I could definitely see him
writing a book and choose the end of like that, because he's like,
this is for the ones whose parents don't come around, And I'm totally up
there on asses forever. And yeah, I would love to know more about
why they only had one kid. Is did they have one kid because they
wanted that kid to be like self sufficient and kind of be another adult that
kind of walks around behind them. They didn't parentify her because she doesn't have
other siblings to be of the parent too, but she feels very adultified,
which can also happen if you just happen to only have one kid for whatever
reason. Is that they're around a lot of adults all the time, and
so they're a bit more attuned to talking to adults and take care of themselves
like an adult wood more, but they still are a child, which I
think is what gets miss and what we keep talking about is you have to
make sure that you're not expecting an eleven year old who might be very smart
and can talk very smart, to be able to not have still the emotional
needs of an eleven year old. Well, I can speak from personal experience
there with just the diversity of kids that I have, and I know my
older daughter in particular, was a very early talker and was telling social stories
much earlier than developmentally most kids seem to, and so it was easy to
forget and still is easy to forget that she's only the age she is,
Yeah, just because of the ability that we can have these very high level
conversations. But then when she hits an emotional wall, I'm like, how
are you? Oh wait, no, no, I know how old you
are. But I think that's a great point because my actual specialty in my
master's program was gifted kids, and that's a common occurrence that comes up and
I still see as a child therapist, is that because the kids really smart
intellectually, we can unfairly ascribe other characteristics to them that match that IQ age
and not their actual age. Or even sometimes the smarter you are, the
more emotionally delayed you can be too, and socially delayed. And so sometimes
when I'd work with parents, I would do age mapping where I would just
make a like a graph of very minimal of this is your kid's intellectual age.
And maybe they're nine and they are sixteen intellectually, or maybe even older
emotionally. Are they three? Are they soil throwing tantrums? Socially? Are
they five? And so when they're having emotional needs and social needs, you
have to meet them at that age, which could even be younger than their
chronological age, and not get hung up on the fact that they can say,
you know, discombobulated. And we do kids a disservice. Sometimes when
they are smart, we overestimate them. And I could see Corline's parents doing
that because I will make an assumption that because they're writers, they're more intellectual
types, and so maybe she's also an intellectual type because of that, and
so there could be more of an assumption that she can take care of herself
and just entertain herself, which she probably she can't. We see her do
that in the movie. She's very imaginative, but that doesn't mean she still
doesn't need things from them emotionally, right, and she does, and she
has so many needs that are going unmet emotionally that the monster, the villain
of the story, created a foil of her mother to be a loving,
beating, empathetic person that her mother is not like to think about that in
the writing, and any question we have about what story was trying to be
told here is that the monster created a trap because it could see that her
mother was so absent, her parents were so absent, that a loving,
connected mother was what she wanted. And also the monster echoed the manipulation of
and dominance of Mom in the family dynamic, showing how she really sees Dad
as someone who is a puppet. Two moms command like notice we never see
dad. We'll almost never see Dad outside of doing something. Mom has assigned
him a task to do yeah for me. Even when Corline asks if she
can go outside and play and she goes in to ask her dad and he
says to her, what did the boss say? Yep, that's how.
So he is also modeling that like he is pointing out that dynamic and agreeing
in his role of that dynamic by saying that to her, Well, it
sounds like we're about to slide into our next topic, so before that,
let's take a break, all right, So right where you were jumping off,
then great segue is that because of all these things we've been talking about
so far, unfortunately, it makes core aligned very vulnerable to be taken advantage
of by someone who is demonstrating classic examples of grooming. So first off,
we could define what grooming is. Well, grooming is basically how I tend
to think of it is a frog boiling in water, which is that when
someone who is preying upon someone else. A lot of times we talk about
grooming, it's usually the power dynamic of like an older person and a younger
person, but that's not always what it is. Is they are slowly ingratiating
themselves into that person's life, usually in ways that are more normal quote unquote
ways to interact with that person, and then they slowly start getting more and
more like is it ingratiated involved and giving them things they're not getting from other
places, and validating them all that on paper positive things Because they're getting them
right, they're grooming them to then engage in a behavior with them or relationship
with them that is therefore inappropriate and so in predatory. And so in this
movie, it's the classic thing of she butters up coraline, butters up coraline,
butters up coraline, until there's the big ask, which is put buttons
on, like replace your eyes with buttons. And in more real life examples,
you know, trigger warning here, it would be, you know,
let's do some hugging I said on my lap, like let's go hang out.
I'll get you ice cream and spend time together, until the big ask
is more like let me touch you there, and let me touch you there
and let's do this together, or you know, let's run away together,
And so it can happen in that more like textbook predatory relationship. I know
a lot of times how grooming is using now more in like the TikTok space
is relationships with big age gaps, specifically teenage girls who get in relationships with
men in their like twenties and thirties, and so that kind of more grooming
is a little different, and that you are still preparing, you're still normalizing
relationship that in retrospect was not appropriate for whatever reason. With a grooming relationship,
some of the things that are important to highlight that we haven't said yet
are that the frog boiling in water is an important component. That there's a
slow and steady intrusion upon normal boundaries and a slow exclusion and creating of an
exclusivity with inappropriate trust breaches at inappropriate times as a tactic to make the person
who's receiving the inappropriate trust too early feel special and feel like a need is
being met, so that they get guilted into keeping secrets they wouldn't normally because
now a person with power has revealed their weakness to them and now made there
that the victim's responsibility to hold the weakness or feigned weakness of the predator and
keep it from other people. And that creates a sense of responsibility and duty.
And this kind of oversharing, inappropriate sharing always sets up the big ask.
Yeah, before the big ask comes, there's always steady breaches of trust
earning, and then that trusting starts to turn yeah, and then you've just
totally lost perspective, you know, as the person says happening too, So
that by the time the big ask occurs, you don't realize you have less
perspective on how inappropriate it is. I think in this movie we see core
Line have a huge reaction to the big ask, and I wonder if that's
also because it's happening at hyperspeed, like it's happened over like three nights.
Yeah. I'll leave that there, but yeah, I don't know if you
want to add something, Hannah, I was just going to say that grooming
part of you know, A big part of grooming is the power dynamic.
Who has the power, who doesn't have the power, And it's more it's
so subtle. Yeah, it's so subtle. And also a lot of times
the person who is being groomed, they don't think they can say no.
Yeah it like, yes, it is a part of them getting to the
big ask and doing all the things. But it's also that the person in
that position won't think that they that they can say no to something, or
they'll feel like they should say yes because this person has been so nice to
them and so there's something or there's something like on the table that they don't
want to lose exactly, and that there are and that when we're talking about
in terms of what predators are looking for. They're looking for kind of how
we you know, kind of how we've been talking about the dad. They
look for somebody who's maybe like a loner, someone who isn't really talking to
anyone, someone who maybe doesn't smile very much, a kid who's kind of
by themselves. Those are some of the things that predators would be looking for.
Now we don't really have that because Corline isn't really out in the world
except for at the house. Well, the doll, because she says,
the children say, you get the doll because it is a way for Bedlam,
which is the other mother's real name, to watch you and to see
how unhappy you are, basically scouting you to decide if you would be a
good victim, right, and so you know, you guys are describing in
a in a grooming relationship, which we did an episode on this and we
did not cover the grooming done. So now I feel like I have to
have to mention it is finding someone who's less powerful than you, more emotionally
disregulated, and starting to show them a different power and different trust. Is
precisely the dynamic we see between Rosa gul I know you're gonna Oh I knew
you were going to make it, but I couldn't figure out how. I
couldn't figure out how well. And so that's interesting because when you look at
what you're all saying resonates with what you see in the cult literature as well
as the some of the research on radicalization. So most of my research is
on the need to belong and then what happens when that's threatened, when you
feel socially excluded, and both of those areas are starting to connect these things
more directly and looking at either interpersonal exclusions the people who are chronically excluded by
friends, family, etc. Is some of the research, for example,
on former cult recruiters who have sort of you know, been deep you know
deep program themselves if you will, and are now sort of going out and
sort of attacking trying to dismantle this problem. They talk about how they were
being positioned in places of authority in like college campuses for example, maybe working
in student services centers, etc. Where they would look for people who are
dropping a bunch of classes or sitting by themselves, and you know, and
it's like, for example, someone is dropping a bunch of classes, they're
probably having other sorts of problems, and then you sort of target them.
You bring them in and you love bomb them, and when they start to
pull away, you pull the love away. And it's the sort of one
of you had mentioned earlier, this idea of what's going to be removed if
you say no to that person. Radicalization literature is looking at this very similarly
for individuals who also feel excluded at the systemic level as well, you know,
some aspect of their identity is marginalized. And there's this really great Ted
talk Christian Piccolini I believe it's his last name, who was originally one of
the sort of major movers in the American neo Nazi white supremacist movement in the
nineties and has since had a redemption arc, if you will, that has
now founded organizations to try and deradicalize people who have been sucked into these organizations.
And when he tells a story like in this Ted talk, he talks
about he was a disenfranchised youth and someone reached out to him and indoctrinated him
into this white supremacist ideology. He had no reason to go other than he
had very low socioeconomic status, very few friends, and here was a hand
reaching out to him and that's all it took to sort of bring him into
that world. And we see that, We see that so much, and
it echoed in literature over and over like of course I will tell you anything
I can to Batman detrol him and Brittany um. But also this is exactly
the dynamic that we see Henry slash one slash Vecna try to pull eleven into
oh m, yeah, that was a good example of Also that kind of
grooming um you see him do with her. Yeah, yeah, love bombing
is something that's getting more and more mainstream. That term um, specifically more
in the dating world. Is where I heard a lot um and we see
that here. It's it's how it sounds like immediately Corline goes into the other
world and she's get oodles and oodles of personalized love and affection because it's not
just I'm being affectionate and loving period, it's like it's specific to you.
So mom is making her delicious food that's exactly what she likes to eat.
Her dad is not just paying attention to her but writing songs for her.
Everything is about how much they love her and how devoted they are to her,
and you know, I mean they have a poison ivy on her hand
or poison oh, and they treat that like. They're being so attentive.
Everything they're doing in the beginning at face Valley, which is why grooming and
this shit is so fucking sneaky is like I said, on paper, just
sweet and caring and affectionate and not inappropriate. They're just being so honed in
on her. Which is the point of this story, is that at face
at first, you're like, oh, these people are amazing. Her real
parents suck and these people are great, you know, And so you do
except for the buttons, which are an eerie detail and really great is you
were all in and you would be in agreement with her about how much she
takes to them and wants to keep going back to their world. It's very
classic love bombing. And then kind of going back to what you were saying
Hannah about how grooming is not just ingratiating yourself but also excluding everybody else,
is that there are these little ways in which the mom, the other mother,
starts to do that. Like the quote I wrote down is she says
something like, go get your father and she says, you mean my other
father, and she goes, no, I mean your better father, and
so she's but she says it very throwaway, like it's not like a huge
moment. She's just like and then she goes back to cooking. And so
it's these little ways where the other mother and the other parents start to slowly
devalue her relationship to her actual parents and pump up their relationship to her.
Yeah. Absolutely, and it's just I'm trying to think of other well.
I also thought was interesting this is more just like a like something I was
I noticed more this time around is that at first the other mother tries to
look a lot like her real mom, dressing like her, acting like her
besides the positive nice stuff, and then slowly, slowly, like almost like
one piece of clothing at a time, starts looking more and more like her
true self, until finally, at the end of the movie she's that big
old spider monster. And that was also even though we're seeing a sped up
version of grooming like that is also an interesting honest portrayal of it too,
of how first they're trying to seem very familiar and un alarming and then slowly
changing until piece by piece, until you're at a point where you didn't even
you like look up almost and you're like, oh, you're a totally different
person than where this started. And I couldn't even tell you how that happened.
Yeah, absolutely, yep, And that it always happens. It happens
fast, and in the turn to switch from loving to anger happens very quickly
upon the first refusal. Yeah. Yeah, And I think Eric, I'm
glad you mentioned love bombing and listen, because those are typical things we see
in people who get into relationships with people with narcissistic traits or personality disorders.
Is they will love bomb, they will be your fantasy, they will bring
you everything, they will give you so much attention. And I have had
people who have been utterly destroyed by those people because they come into life so
quick and they just drop out with nothing and for almost no reason. So
people are left stuck processing guilt and manufacturing situations by reanalyzing every single step they
made with that person to see what they did wrong that they blew it with
their dream partner. Yeah, because someone's manufacturing a level of intimacy that is
not real. Right. But then much like much like our friend Race comes
back around and tries to loop Bruce in over and over again. And I'm
using Race, not ros Now because the one of my Race is one of
my favorite villains and him constantly, constantly, constantly, no matter what,
always coming back to offering Batman and Olive Branch, so much so that he
gets him to produce a grandchild with his daughter that becomes a Robin. But
that's a we'll cover that later. But the never Wail Damian Wayne appears in
a movie. But anyway, well, watching, watching, how persistent the
person who has been loved, bombing or offering all of these doting behaviors comes
back around with it. They take it away, Like the cult leaders are
talking like they'll they'll give it, They'll take it away, and then they'll
come back and offer it again after they punished you enough. Yeah, and
we hear that from the ghost children. They say, you know, she
was everything we wanted. She knew we were unhappy, and then she said
like, in order for us to stay and this, which says to Alied
too, you have to give yourself up. You have to give yourself away
and let us eat you, which is what the ghost children say, they
eat us up, and so I think that is the classic part of this
too is it's also yeah, is like you give all the good things first
you then you throw them on their back feet by switching up your attitude.
And that's also so confusing as well. Like what we're all talking about in
different ways too is even if we go and the absolutely we talked about sort
of the abuse cycle as well is and like more of the domestic violence cycle
is when someone has seen the good parts of it, when things get bad,
it's so confusing, and your part of you is still like, but
I know that they we have good times together, So I know that version
of this life exists, and I'm not ready to give that away because what
I'd be returning to maybe it's worth it to stay here for the good times,
because my assumption is with the ghost children that they might have had tougher
lives and so maybe they were more vulnerable than Coraline, which also kind of
goes back to our speculation of like what her parents and her relationship might have
been like outside of the timeline of this movie. Because she does she pushes
back and fights back and all this it's going to like immediately in a way
that speaks to a kid who might feel more grounded in their real life.
Well, and so the points you make about Brittany about connecting it to the
interpersonal relationship abuse domain, it also makes me think about some of the points
you're all making about how there was this subtle devaluing, right, And when
you look at at least some of the research I'm familiar with, some of
my mentors in graduate school did lot of work on what was called the commitment
model of relationships. So this is used to look at a lot of different
relationships, romantic or otherwise. But some of the early work on it really
was an attempt to understand why folks would stay in abusive relationships, why they
would be committed. And there's different factors that were sort of predicting that.
One is satisfaction, you know, what are the outcomes that you're getting?
Are the good outweighing the bad? Then what would be your alternatives after that?
And but the early work was like, well, folks who are in
these relationships the alternative being alone would be better than what they're currently getting,
So why are some folks will staying? And then they added to that was
investments, right, and so when the textbook abusers would slowly but surely make
you know the victim dependent upon them. And I think we were talking about,
you know, sort of devaluing the other social support. So father,
no, your better father, right, and friends, family, anybody who
could provide resources to help that person leave are slowly but surely stripped away,
so that even if your satisfactionism is down, your alternatives will be better.
Those investments keep you there. Right, That was sort of just what you
were talking about. Maybe think a model from graduate school, which is great.
And yeah, the other thing to add on top of that. The
more I think about this, the more I think about how masterful all his
writing is in general, but looking at how it was depicted in this is
part of the turn when the big gass comes and if it's denied, is
that the other thing besides devaluing your other supports is they have been secret sharing
with you and gaining leverage, and they use right almost always, they find
something to do to turn that leverage on you and usually create some kind of
thing that involves you embarrassing your family or them telling and how they start tying
shame into the bigger picture of we'll think about what everyone would say or think
how embarrassed your family would be, or how your parents would lose everything.
And in this movie, the leverage for sacrificing herself to become eaten, which
she knows are the stakes, is that the monster knew she wanted her real
parents back, and the monster took the parents. It always finds the thing
that they always find the thing to gain leverage over whatever it is, to
be able to break through your walls and resistance points in every way that they
can, so that you are utterly helpless against them. And they did that.
The monster Bedlam did that with this by actually coming for her parents and
making her actually see what it would feel like to be isolated in a weird
place with just these circus performing neighbors who you just met, who are all
you know, they've retired circus performers, basically, and realizing how alone you
are so you have to turn to me. Now, Yeah, I mean
that's a great well. The movie does literally what usually happens metaphorically, which
is we take your parents from you, We take your relationship with your parents
away from you. And it's all the language that the abuser uses. There's
a lot of I'm your family. Now, there's a lot of there's a
lot of you don't need anybody else. Why would you need anybody else besides
me? Like I thought that we were I thought that you were committed to
this. Like there are so many different parts of the language that go along
with just shaming the person in general, and also that eventually, you know,
when we talk about the domestic abuse cycle, is that eventually the honeymoon
period doesn't happen anymore and it's just bad all the time. Like that's what
that's Yeah, they eat you, Yeah, Like that's what ends up happening.
Another part of the language that an abuser would use is also that but
I did this for you last week, Like I just got you flowers and
we just went on this thing, and like, what are you talking about?
I thought that you said that you were in this for the things that
were good. Like there's so many there's so much of that that essentially they
completely shape your reality. And that's a part of what's so hard to get
away from. And when you only have one voice and that's the only voice
you're allowed to hear, it's hard to believe, to believe anything. That's
because it gets into your it starts where then you start doubting yourself. And
once we start doubting ourselves and not trusting ourselves, well, you don't really
feel that way though, right because that's not what you said last week.
Like there's like there's so much of that. It's like so so repeated and
just happens for such a long time, and I feel like I feel like
one of the things that's really that I really love core Line, which is
why I'm probably not going to talk about her too much in treatment, is
because she's pretty fucking resilient. And this woman comes at her and she not
only figures out like right away what she needs to due to win, but
then doesn't like there isn't there'sn't a well I don't know, yeah, my
parents do suck. Sometimes she's like, no, I don't want to do
this. I don't yeah, yeah, like I don't like, yeah,
the first time was cool, but you guys are freaking me the fuck out.
Well, the movie does a good job of showing from the very beginning
that she's a pretty spunky, confident, rascally kid and and she doesn't have
any problem getting in people's faces and you know, being very fire sign esque
and those become strengths for her. I mean they always kind of probably are,
but they've become a really become strengths for her at the end of this
movie, because she's a kid who will you know, God bless her mom,
I guess getting her getting a parent's face, and you know, she
doesn't have the rules around her. That's that can actually make kids victims too.
Of can aid with grooming, which is where she's not really concerned about
being respectful or being polite. I think the movie does a good job of
establishing that in the beginning two of like this is the kid who will be
like, oh, you know whatever, and has no compunctions about being seen
as like a good, well behaved kid. He does not, as you
guys have been talking Hannah and Brittany, you know that thing that I do
or my brain starts spinning and then it clicks on something and I make you
both really mad at me. But then it's going to spark discussion. I
knew what was happening. I knew what was happening. Go ahead, I
have a very very important debate question to ask in thinking about Coraline and how
she behaves and how the bedlam kind of turned really quickly. Had a different
person asked Coraline if she had ever heard the tragedy of darth Plagus the wise,
would she become a scythe or not. I don't think I'm qualified to
answer that question. I don't always used to learn those terms. Yea to
know what you're talking about. No, you're not you did an episode,
You're not too cool face lightning fingers right, No, that's not no.
Yes, he's the one who says that to the dorc the emo dork.
Right, say that again, pizza face lightning, fingers, lingers, Grand
Titan. What's that dude's name? Yeah, there we go. My brain
refuses to absorb this information. I know, I know, I never remember.
I will I will fully have amnesia around Star Wars information. So,
because I know Eric knows, I'm just gonna ask Eric, if Eric,
do you think someone is completely competent at manipulation as Palpatine would have been able
to turn Coraline because he would have been more patient and more deliberate. So
we're mixing universes here, we are. Um. I would say that this
kind of gets at the point that we sort of one of the points that
we've kind of been coming back to that we're only getting a couple of days,
right, and so had Bedlam not turned up the speed, right,
and had they played a more long game, maybe Coraline wouldn't have picked up
right. And so to sort of transition that Palpa team is playing a game
over nine movies, right, I mean, I mean apparently apparently that's what
we're being told. That's what is happening. If we ignore the fact that
he was resurrected in the most recent trilogy. Um, if we just so,
we would just forget that movie exists, if we just focus on the
first six Yeah, he is playing the long game, right, Um so
I it's apples and oranges. But sure, let's go with it, right
Grand Teton Emperor. Yeah, what's the sense If anybody could do it,
the force is strong with him. I think I would need to know.
These are such weird questions, such a tangent, but I would have to
know if Coraline is a plays team sports or joints club, or if that's
not her jam and she does her own thing with her own friends, if
like she is almost like that only child independent vibe where she doesn't need to
belong to like or I'm sure you know this more than me because your research,
or she's not told that she's special the way that that dork Emoi dork
Anakin is so. Also, I think that she doesn't have that going for
her in a positive way. I feel like the easiest answer I can say
is no, I don't think she would come as. I don't like she'd
like fuck around with Yoda and be like this seems fun over here. I
like to get weird, and I don't think she would has a little swamp
land and like Fragle Rock or wherever he lives, Fregle Rock. It definitely
is out in that motherfuck swamp. There's absolutely no doubt. But I really
feel like she I don't think she would want to be in something where the
rules are so rigid. That's what I mean. Like does she played team
like? Is she? Yeah? Yeah? Like I think your questions about
that, does she like to run around and do her own thing? Are
the rule being a sith that rigid? Oh? There you go on that
note, I think we should go to treatment. Hold on, I'm doing
my vest yea, I know you are. I mean, I'm just gonna
ahead and uh, I think that they're rigid. I think that they're rigid
in terms of there's someone that is always the boss of you. There's always
someone that you have to be, you have to bow down to, and
in some way, there's always someone who has control of your emotional well being.
I think that it's rigid in terms of as this young person that we're
seeing as she develops into a full adult, I don't think that she would
want to be in anything that is that rigid, where there is a supreme
whatever, like I don't. I just don't see that for her. I
just hope that she would be like sounds like a bunch of nerds over here,
a little clubhouse, and I don't want to wear black all the time.
So I think she's a color girl. She has so much many different
colors she is. I think for me, the only reason why I find
a question interesting is because Bedlam was only competent for a very short time.
She was extremely impatient and wanted what she wanted because she was hungry. And
yeah, you know, like Geric was talking about, is that Palpatine plays
slow. He plays the long game of definitely yes, similar look too pretty
much. That's a good point you make about Bedlam being hungry, because they
do make a point in the beginning of the movie. Why Be says to
Coraline, I'm surprised you're here because my grandma hasn't let children live in this
house for a long time. So you're right, she probably is like starving
because she because the ghost children all we were in like old timey clothing,
and she probably hasn't had a meal for decades. And whyb's the only possible
knack. And he says, my grandma will not let me in that house.
He hasn't. She hasn't anyone in a while. So as much as
I would love to continue down this sith hole, I will pivot back because
you make a great point about the grandma hasn't let any kids live there,
Then why is the grandma broken that rule? Now? I was very curious
about that too. I was very curious about that. Maybe she thinks it's
been long enough that maybe I don't know, I don't know. There's a
lot of like that is a big plot hole in the movie in my opinion
of why that happened well, And I wonder if it's something that's flushed out
in the book because I was thinking about it could also be, like the
way that we've been talking about the people in this film possibly being lower scs
in general. Maybe it's she just got to a point where she had to
rent it out and the only people that were interested was this couple and they
happen to have a kid, and they happen to have a kid, And
she was like maybe, I mean, like that's that's a lot of assumption
making. But yeah, but also this point, she's living off circus money
rent pretty much, right, and it's you can see ybe that he's got
circus or to him even more mean, the parents didn't talk about her,
so they didn't know. Could be I think that is a fascinating plan.
The ethical question of that has been bothering me and definitely was one of the
questions that stuck out in my head too of how did this grandmother that lost
her sister to this house now suddenly break the containment she had on it,
the quarantine on it, if you will, people that had children, to
some of that had children, and now that child, that child solved her
biggest loss, the biggest mystery of her life that she's obviously been aware of.
But she did nothing to one said child to not fall into the monster's
trap. There are some serious ethical questions there. I think that's what I
mean, like the limitations of having a story that's so aggressively from the standpoint
of a child, where we really do not see anything. We get information
that would not be known by coraline, like absolutely none. All right,
so we will swerve into treatment now, but before that we will take another
break. All right. So I know, Eric, you are joining us
from a different perspective. You're not like a practicing therapist, I don't believe
like the rest of us, so I didn't know. I'll give you the
option if you have any thoughts based on your research that you think would be
handy here, or even your personal variance. But if not, that's okay
too. Or if there's a question that you want us to answer about we
haven't done that before. I like that. Well. I kind of throws
a couple out earlier with how would the we would rewrite the ending, But
we'll just see if what comes up as you talk. I may just throw
something out there. And as a non practitioner, well, so then,
Hannah, I know that the treatment that you and I had in mind for
this kind of alliance with that question, so I can throw it to you
first, all right. So when I was thinking about treatment for this film,
I was thinking a lot of out because we were talking so much about
grooming. I was really thinking about how do we help parents have more awareness
of how to educate their children about not necessarily about something like this happening,
but what is a good way to give education that is meaningful and helpful for
a young person, but also for the parents to give us a chance where
the kid will feel comfortable telling us if something does happen. And so just
a couple of things that I wanted to just bring up and talk about for
parents in general, as a couple of different things that that can really help
if something does happen, that your child will be able to come to you,
and that because you have already set up a series of Basically, it
comes down to a couple of different things. One is something that's really important
for your children to know is if any adult asks you to keep a secret,
let me know right away. You don't have to keep a secret.
If an adult asks you to do that, you let me know, because
an adult shouldn't be asking you to keep a secret right off the bat right,
It just shouldn't be. It's something that should be happening. The second.
The second piece is about talking a lot more about consent with children at
all different ages. And I'm not talking about doing something that's inappropriate somehow.
What I'm talking about using the real names for their body parts so that if
something does happen, they can explain it to you based on their understanding of
their body parts. Also, we talk about consent, and consent can be
is any you should have to ask for permission for anyone to touch any part
of your physical body. If someone doesn't ask permission, you don't have to
engage with any kind of physical touching or hugging that you don't want to and
no one deserves your physical touch. You don't know that to anybody exactly,
And I will never make you. I will never put you in a position
where you have to hug someone or you have to talk to someone. This
is about I want you to know that you have control over who who is
allowed to touch your body, and if anybody asks you to do something you
don't want to do again, let me know. Because a part of me
being your parent is helping you have some protection even when you're not with me.
So I feel like those are two. Those are kind of two of
the of the a couple of the big things. So teaching kids about consent,
about touching, about any anything that's happening to their body, talking to
them about keeping secrets from adults, and you, and then you as the
parent, paying attention to other adults taking a special interest in your kid.
Now, am I going to say that every single person who's taking a special
interest in your kid is a greep? No, I'm not. I'm not.
And that is something to look out for. That is something to be
aware of as a parent. The other thing that I wanted to talk about
is a little bit about how can parents take care of themselves? I know,
and I know that it came up we were talking about COVID, how
different things have been for everyone, the difference between having a place that you
go to work getting the work done, having your home be like the place
where you don't have to bring any of that with you. And sure do
some of us all work from home a little bit from our jobs. Yeah,
I think that was always something that was happening, but the huge shift
of that not being a possibility and trying to figure out how do you help
your children understand that this is work and that even though I'm here, these
hours are kind of protected and if it is an emergency, you're always allowed
to tell me, And then we define what is an emergency so that they're
not the ones defining. That's the other part about all these things. We
don't want the kid to have to be the one who's defining what is okay?
Do I have to keep a secret from an adult? You don't want
kids having to make those decisions. We want them to know to already have
something to go with. So coming back a little bit about how to help
parents take good care of themselves. I work with and have worked with,
all different kinds of family systems, all different kinds of people taking care of
other people, having several generations living in the house. I know that the
idea of parent self care feels like what the fuck are you even talking about?
And why are you talking? You're wasting my time, like you're wasting
my time bringing this up right now. And what I want to say is
I'm not talking about getting a massage. I am talking about figuring out either
how to get support from people around you to get a break for yourself.
Every single human being needs a little bit of alone time. And I'm not
saying it has to be four hours every week. It can be twenty minutes
on Sundays. But there has to be a little bit of time to help
bring you back to what are the things that help me distress? And can
I do that for five minutes? Can I listen to a podcast that I
like? Can I just even do a meditation for ten minutes? I'm not
asking because I know that a part of being a parent is so overwhelming and
has been so much more intense than it has been in the last three years
than it had been. There was a lot of support, There's a lot
of things that were set up that were very conducive to the lives that we
were all living. And then COVID happened and that has not been the case.
And I feel like I'm working with more and more parents who are like
I don't have times there isn't any time I don't know what to do,
and really trying to help them look at this as this isn't something that I'm
asking you to do every single day for an hour. All we need is
you need to have a little bit of time for yourself, to take a
couple of deep breaths, to have somebody come over and spend some time with
the kids so that you and your partner can go for a walk together.
Doesn't have to be a date night, doesn't have to be a huge thing.
It could be something where you put a movie on. And how important
it is a to model that it's important to take time for yourself for your
kid, so your kid, your child better understands that and has awareness of
it's okay if you need to be alone. Modeling being able to express when
we need a break or when we need time to do something. Because that's
what's really cool about all these different things is that you're automatically will be modeling
these things for your children. And that's really important because we don't We need
them to know that we're all human and that there are things that all of
us need and that usually we can do something to try and figure out a
way to do something, even if it's only for five or ten minutes,
even if it's only like using your favorite smell when you take a shower in
the morning before you go to work, Like there's so many different ways and
I feel like we really get trapped in the options of what does self care
look like? And it has to look like this spa weekend, or it
has to involve money, and it's not always the case. But how important
it is to take some time for yourself, to have the awareness to take
time for yourself when you're feeling when your number on the scale is high.
That's really important not only for you, but also so that your kid can
see, Oh, mom's feeling stressed. She said she's gonna go lay down
for twenty minutes so that she can feel rested. And that's okay. That
doesn't mean that they're not there for you or whatever, just means that they
need that time, because everybody needs that time. So I feel like normalizing
that will also be helpful so that your kids will also get that idea as
well. I feel like I talked for a super long time. Well I'll
jump next because I'm just gonna grow from what you've already said. One thing
I want to add to what you said the beginning is I think it's good
for parents to tell their kids that an adult will never need your help.
An adult doesn't need you to carry this for them to help them look for
this. You know it'll find my puppy whatever. Like an adult does not
need you to help them do something. Way that adult doesn't need to keep
secrets with kids, that's not real and so to instill that. And then
also an easy way to practice consent early and often with your kids is with
family and the whole Like give your grandma kiss, give them a hug.
That can be a really early way to instill that you are you have radical
autonomy over your body, even with your loved ones. And that does require
some coaching on the of your other family members because that is a radical change
from past generations and it can be seen as very disrespectful and it can just
cause a lot of bruhaha within a family system, especial with older generations to
have that requirement, and it's possible to do and older generation of respects your
parenting will get on board with that if you require it. But is a
that is a safer way to practically practice that consent kind of jumping more on
what you were saying to Hannah, kind of thinking about the family dynamic core
line feels a kid that let's say she did go to therapy and did see
me I feel like the more I would talk to her, I feel like
she'd bitch about her parents a lot, which would make me feel like I
need to get them in the room. And so I think, for better
or for worse, I would end up working with their parents. Her parents
in some regard, and I think because of the dynamic is already a little
hairy with how much they argue and stuff, or just the way they talk
to each other, that I would probably want to talk to her parents without
Coraline present, because I want to be mindful that when I'm giving her parents
coaching around how to do things differently, that I'm also not disempowering them in
front of Coraline, because she's also she's like a smart kid with an attitude,
So I also don't want to give her ammunition to be like, well,
my therapist said that you're not allowed to talk like me like that anymore.
So da da da da dah. So you want to be careful as
a as a child therapist and a family therapist to not disempower the parents in
front of their children by saying, well, you can't talk like that,
or something you know along those lines. And so I'd probably want to meet
with her parents, went on like just the two of them without core line,
and talk about the things I kind of spoke about earlier in the episode
how are we modeling? Because my assumption would be is that her mom would
complain about how she talks and that she doesn't mind them or whatever. When
parents would come into family session and their number one goal would be I want
my kids to listen to me, and I would say, well, that's
not my job to make your kids compliance, So it would be more like,
well, let's talk about how are we all communicating at home. I'd
probably talk to the parents about how are they modeling communication the core line if
they are having opportunities to have positive experiences with her as well, because I
think things can go downhill when there's a lot of negativity at home and a
lot of antagonism is then very quickly everything all every interaction is when you are
disciplining or scolding or something negative like that, and then your kids starts to
realize, which you're already kind of seeing in this movie. But the only
way I can get attention from mom and dad is if I act out,
and negative attention is better than no attention, and so you get caught in
this cycle where your kid's always acting obnoxious or whatever, and then all your
interactions are negative. And so I do encourage parents to, regardless of your
kid's behavior that week, still carve out times to have positive interaction. And
it doesn't have to be splashy, like don't take your kid out for like
a fantastic weekend after they've been acting like an absolute ass all week. Can
still have like let's watch a movie together, let's read a book together at
night, Let's have a positive conversation at dinner, establishing basically conditional regard that
are unconditional regard that no matter how you behave I still want to be with
you, I still want to spend time with you, I still love you.
And then your kid will be more motivated to get that positive attention from
you, and so they will rely less on the behaviors that get them negative
attention. And you just have to be very mindful about flipping that script.
When I work with parents where it's really got to a bad place and the
kid is always in trouble. Sometimes where I'll tell parents to start and I'm
like, it's going to feel so stupid, is when they go to time
out, go see them in five minutes. If they're still in time out
in five minutes, say wow, you're doing such a great job being in
time out. I really appreciate you staying in time out and sort of like
praise them for these small ways that feel silly, Or if you're coming from
an older school, attitude around parenting feel dumb and like it's undercutting the parenting.
But you have to decide as a parent, is the goal of your
relationship domination that your kid feels dominated by you and then is compliant to you
and submissive to you, Or do you want to have a good relationship with
your kid that's built on love and affection and genuinely wanting to be with each
other. And so if you just want your kid to mind you, you
can just keep stepping on their neck. But if you want them to actually
have a positive relationship with you and there for other people, including teachers,
partner's friends, you have to instill this one to one connection that positive behavior
equals positive attention equals affection, love, all that stuff. But you also
want to have opportunities where it's not connected to their behavior, like you're only
good if you mind me, or I only love you if you mind me
that, like I love you no matter what, and we might do extra
fun stuff if you are on your best behavior. So that's just my two
cents and I'll throw it to you, ben sure. So when I watched
this movie, I found myself coming at it from a different of a different
angle than Hannah and Brittany. And it is probably because I work with different
populations than they do largely now. And for me, working with a lot
of people who see a lot of very abnormal and horrible things with regularity,
is that I suspect for Coraline to have parents that did not remember all of
that absolutely bizarre traumatic experience that she went through, that is going to be
life defining for her, is going to be tremendously difficult for her to get
space to process that without being gasolt with anybody but Hybe, and even he
didn't see it because it was his doppelganger that was existed in the other world.
And I think the only person who's still present who observed any of what
actually happened was the cat, and that cat can only offer so much social
support to a human being. For a little girl to have gone through something
so massive, and to have saved everyone's life from this horrible monster and have
nowhere to talk about it where she's going to be believed is going to be
incredibly difficult. And I see parallels between that experience and the experience of any
first responder or military person who maybe a little bit differently not necessarily won't be
believed, but doesn't feel like they have a space where they can talk about
what's happened to them that anybody will have any degree of common understanding with.
And it's why first responders and military do better in group settings with other people
who have those experiences with them because the degree of stuff that they see,
they don't have to explain the feelings that you get when you go through something
that intense because they know everybody in the room has also been through that.
And for something like this, where you almost get destroyed by an interdimensional monster,
I think that qualifies it. Probably one ups all of those things.
But as far as you can't really compare one person's experience to another accounts and
I think for me, I would want to deploy a very relational based approach.
Especially when working with a kid, you need to understand what's going on
with the family, and it would be probably all of one session and maybe
eight minutes in before you realize that she has a distant relationship with her parents
where not getting the support that she needs. And I'd want to offer a
really strong relational approach and spend a lot of time relationship building, listening actively
to her, not challenging her experience, and giving her a space to process
what she's been through non judgmentally, and really take on a lot of the
person center techniques here, because this is a person who's going to be struggling
to define meaning and be looking to be seen, and no one is going
to see her, and in fact, they might start ostracizing her because her
stories are so crazy, and I think for her to have a place where
she feels heard and balanced might offset some of that. I hope why he
remembers I think he does, so then at least she is one person.
Well, at the very end, he does save her from the hand.
That's true. That's true. And then he brings his grandma. He already
is in the story, like he already buys into the narrative. Well,
and what I was thinking is, I'm really would be really fucking interested in
hearing the conversation that she's about to have with Wyby's grandmother. Yeah, and
will that be enough for her too, for her to be believed, because
my guess would be that the grandmother would totally would believe everything that she says.
Oh, that's true. I didn't think about her. That is absolutely
correct, and I totally did not consider that that that could be a healing
experience. But that is a good as an excellent point. All right,
So we will take one more break and then we'll wrap up with final thoughts.
All right, So I'm going to have the newbies go first, the
people that this is their first time watching it, So Ben or Eric,
I feel like we've all jabbered a lot, So Eric, maybe we'll start
with you. Yeah. So, I just you know, I really enjoyed
the experience. I'm a big horror fan, so I definitely enjoyed some of
the more creepy moments. My eleven year old was watching it with me,
and he was very engrossed, and so I thought that it was sort of
a perfect age of being able to have some of the the creepier moments,
at least in terms of aesthetics. Right, I don't know if he got
all of the levels of the creepier things going on, although I'm sure that
when the ghost kids talked about being eat he got that. But no,
it was just, yeah, there was a lot to unpack, which I
enjoyed. I think I kind of said, yeah, most of most of
the things that resonated with with me early. Just I look forward to watching
it again. And actually, as you mentioned earlier, Brittany, when you
wanted to pick the brains the creators, I did google and into the twenty
twenty one there was a new version of the Blu ray released that does have
several different commentaries, and uh, there's at least one new one that says
discovering the characters. So I don't know how much of that is visual and
how much of that is actual characterization. She can buy it for me later.
It is like a studio's edition. So, and it's only thirteen ninety
nine on Amazon right now. Not that we're getting any kickbacks here yet.
Go guys, all right, well, I'm so excited that you'll watch it
again, Okay, Benjamin. So I watched it, and I've been kind
of like skeptical to watch this because, as said in the Nightmare four Christmas
that I don't know. Yeah, I don't love Night Before Nightmare Before Christmas.
I just I don't. I people get really into it and have loved
it for years, and it just never did grab me. The thing that
I really enjoyed about this movie is like the art, the animation, all
of it is just incredible. What they achieved with this film is incredible.
With the story itself was engaging. These kinds of stories are hit or miss
with me and the acclaimation ones don't always grab me outside of Rudolph because I
watched it forty thousand times as a kid. But this one did. This
one really did grab me. I really felt pulled into the story pretty quick,
and I thought that it was just an incredibly well done story and it
is the one that I will probably watch again And was thinking about how important
it will be for my daughter to see this, to see a strong,
independent girl who can solve the problems of the world by trusting herself. At
the end of the day, Coraline trusts herself and that she keeps her own
counsel, knowing that I as I am am enough and I hope that I
am able to help shape my daughter into a person who can believe that about
herself at all times and recognize that the power to solve any problem lives within
you, and that you believe in yourself regardless of what monsters try to trick
you off your path of success in life. And I think this movie is
a great way to help teach it. Hey, all right, Hannah,
do you when I go? Yeah, I'll go, so you can go
last. I really enjoyed this movie. I actually this is probably only maybe
the third time I've watched it. I watched it for the first time with
Brittany during the pandemic maybe yeah. And I really it's a beautiful film.
I really enjoy I enjoy all the differences and the animation too. I don't
know if you all realized or recognize that her hair is very stiff and doesn't
move, and by the end of the movie it's loose again, and it
kind of the strands are individual. So I feel like that reminds me of
when we did Bearded Away when you can see remember how I talked about how
it's so cool and they have those lines above their hair or like their hair
is a part of their emotional response. I think that's why I noticed it,
but it was really interesting to see. To me, it made me.
It made me think of like her being like feeling calmer and like having
her family, her parents back, maybe a little bit more to like their
regular place, even though it's not great. But yeah, but I thought,
I think it's a beautiful movie. I'm really excited to encourage my many
nieces and nephews who are tweens and teenagers at this time to watch this film.
So I loved it. I'm really glad that we get to talk about
it, and I will definitely watch this movie again. Well definitely definitely.
Anna has never said definitely. So yeah, I like that you let me
go last, because you all know that this is one of my favorite movies.
I was already like in my early twenties, I think when it came
out initially. But if I had been younger when this came out, the
way this movie would have became my whole personality for a while would have been
intense. If I had been like twelve or nine, like between nine and
twelve when it came out, I like it more. I already do.
I have a funkle pop of her. I've dressed up like her, at
one of the comic cons that we did a panel at, mostly because we
have the same length hair, so that made it easy. No wig necessary,
just blew it up my hair. And I love the aesthetic of it.
I'm very into like spooky stuff and like dark academia and like all that
kind of aesthetic. In this movie I like more than I'm before Christmas.
And I think because esthetically, I like it a lot more, and also
I like the story a lot more. I was shocked by how scary it
was when I first saw it, because I thought it would be pretty mild.
And I know when we were recording our last episode, Ben, you
asked if your four year old daughter co watches with you and Hannah and I
were like, absolutely not, because it does have genuinely scary elements. It
builds to something very scary, whereas on the onset you're like, maybe a
kid could watch this, but a younger kid. But I think it's further
and further it is like genuinely scary, and I think that really impressed me
when I first saw it. Also, I can't get over the full blown
boobs in this movie for children. When the older circus performer women Spink enforceable
are dancing and she's full boobs out pasties on. So and what I think
is really interesting and I was paying very close attention to is they don't move
though the way that boobs actually move, like when she's jumping and doing stuff,
Like they're not like moving up and down, like there's not a lot
of it's kind of like they're in like she's in like at I guess,
yeah, Like they're very stationary. So I wonder I was curious if that
was maybe a part of they were like why I have the bare boobs but
they cannot jiggle? They can't. Yeah, I was just impressed that they
that period would be if it would be well but yeah, But anyway,
I love this movie. I love the storyline. I wish people would stop
thinking this and number for a Christmas for Tim Burton features. It's actually Henry
Sellick and he's actually making a new movie coming out called I Think Wendell and
something along the lines with Jordan Peel, and it's people are kind of already
talking about all it's kind of like not so subtle. F you to Tim
Burton, who has basically said that people of color don't fit the aesthetic of
his movies, which so I'm really excited to see that movie. It's called
Wendell and Something. But anyway, I love this movie. I'll watch it.
It's a comfort movie that I watch like if I'm feeling sick or if
I'm having a like a Sunday afternoon laying on the couch moment. And now
that we're getting into spooky season, it's of course one of my favorites.
So I'm glad I had a reason to watch it so soon. But yeah,
I would love anyone who listens who doesn't want you to check it out,
because, as you can tell from the panel of us here, we
all liked So with that being said, thank you again Eric for joining us.
We will have any information that he's willing to give in the description of
this episode, and then, like always, you can find us on Facebook,
Instagram, and TikTok at Popprint Psychology on Twitter at popcorn Underscore psych You
can always email us at pop Print Psychology at gmail dot com. They have
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If you are a fifty dollars or more patron, you can actually pick
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So thank you again and happy spooky season, y'all.