0:06

Hey, this is Annie and you're listening to Steph. I've never

0:08

told you. Our

0:20

guest today are the co host of

0:23

The Bechdel Cast, Jamie and Caitlin.

0:25

Jamie and Caitlin, thank you so much for joining

0:27

us, Hi, thanks for having us.

0:30

Men. We

0:33

are a big, big fans

0:35

of yours. As our listeners know, we love love, love

0:37

love love digging into pop culture

0:39

and looking at it through a feminist lens,

0:41

hopefully in a fun, enjoyable

0:44

way. Could you tell us a

0:46

bit about yourselves and your

0:48

show. Well, we

0:50

were both comedians, yes, Um,

0:53

we're both writers. Um,

0:55

we host the Bechtel Cost as

0:57

you said, which is a

1:00

show where we examine

1:02

the portrayal of women in movies

1:05

through an intersectional feminist lens.

1:08

Um. And yeah, I mean, I mean we

1:10

we made the show both because we

1:12

didn't think that there was a

1:14

show like it out there. Most

1:16

of the movie podcasts were just like, yep,

1:19

it's awesome, and it

1:21

was dudes saying that movies by

1:23

dudes. There's

1:26

actually nothing wrong with it, and and

1:28

it's and and to like kind of like keep

1:31

ourselves accountable and make us

1:33

better writers and people.

1:35

Yeah, that was the idea. Didn't work

1:37

out. Well,

1:40

that's a really important thing on this show is UM

1:43

constantly growing and trying to

1:45

become better and more aware.

1:48

So I definitely encourage

1:50

listeners to check out your

1:52

show. Recently, you guys

1:55

had Alfred led on there. I

1:58

love it. I want the shirts oh

2:00

badly, very Oh

2:03

please send me one. That was a ploy

2:06

for this whole podcast collaboration.

2:08

UM and most listeners probably

2:11

know what the Bechdel test is, but as

2:13

a primer, would you mind giving us

2:15

a brief rundown? I mean, they could just check out

2:17

your podcast because you have a wonderful intro song that

2:19

explains it. But yeah, just to get

2:21

everybody on the same page. Yeah, we So.

2:24

The Bechdel Test is a

2:26

media test metric invented

2:29

by UH cartoonist Alison

2:32

Bechdel, and for our purposes,

2:34

we require that there be a scene in

2:36

any piece of narrative

2:38

fiction that as two named

2:40

female identifying characters who talk

2:43

about something other than a man for more

2:45

than two lines of dialogue. Yes,

2:47

gather different variations of it, but that's the one

2:49

that we use, and as

2:52

we often point out on our show, it's

2:54

a low bar. You wouldn't think it would

2:56

be that hard for two named

2:59

women to peak to each other about something

3:01

other than a man, And yet

3:03

it does not happen that often,

3:05

and when it does happen, it's usually like it

3:08

just like barely squeaks by,

3:10

or the women are telling each other how much do

3:12

they hate each other? Or they're

3:14

like calling each other up like it's you

3:17

know, it's it's a flawed metric. But it wasn't

3:19

meant intended to be used as intensely

3:22

as it is used. It was originally in

3:25

uh comic that Alisa Bechdel

3:28

wrote in the eighties. Right,

3:31

it was kind of more of a almost

3:33

a joke pointing something out right. Exactly

3:36

right, but yes it is.

3:39

It is a low bar and yet a

3:41

lot of movies, especially as I've gotten

3:43

older and become feminists,

3:46

like, really accepted it and embraced its.

3:49

Surprising how many movies I've had to go back to that

3:51

were favorites of mine and say, well, main

3:56

theme of our podcasts

3:58

either women who are the love

4:00

interest or women just providing exposition

4:02

about the male protagonist. Yep,

4:06

I guess that's what we're for. Yeah,

4:12

I mean, I'm a pro. And the

4:15

the idea that you pitched was

4:17

you wanted to talk about, um,

4:19

the betrayal of women in movies in general,

4:21

but maybe with a particular focus

4:24

or a starting off point with Disney

4:26

movies. Correct, yes, yes,

4:29

And I immediately, because

4:32

I'm a big nerd, I was like, wait, which

4:34

which Disney movies are we talking about? Are

4:36

we talking about the princesses? Like Black Widow?

4:38

Does she count? Princess Leiah? What about her?

4:41

Because Disney owns everything

4:44

they Oh yeah, they are just conglomerate,

4:47

those swallowing ass whole Yeah,

4:49

but yeah, we were thinking

4:51

more along the lines of like the

4:54

classic Disney princesses,

4:56

your snow Whites, your Cinderella, the ones on

4:58

the backpacks. You're your

5:01

classic backpack princess, your Bells,

5:03

your Jasmines. Although Mulan

5:05

is never on the backpacks and that always was upsetting

5:08

to me as a child. And now because Disney

5:11

is racist and Mulan is

5:13

the bet I argue I still think

5:15

Mulan is the best princess in terms

5:17

of uh, like from

5:20

using a feminist bar and just like she's

5:22

the cool Yeah, and the songs are

5:24

great in that movie? Yeah,

5:26

yeah, was that? Do you do you each

5:28

have a favorite when you're a kid, which was your favorite

5:31

Disney princess? Hmm.

5:34

I don't know if I had a favorite Disney princess, because

5:36

my favorite Disney movie when I was a kid was The Great

5:38

Mouse Detective. Oh yeah,

5:41

I would say

5:44

my favorite movie that has a Disney princess

5:47

in it when I was a kid was probably

5:50

probably Aladdin. Um

5:52

today it is Mowanna. My

5:55

favorite. My favorite when I was a kid

5:57

was definitely Belle and Beauty and the Beast, I think

5:59

strictly big. She had brown hair,

6:02

uh and could read, which

6:05

at the time was like, oh she can read

6:07

amazing. Um.

6:10

So I was like, brown hair can read.

6:12

Well, I feel seen that

6:14

a and her child we can read.

6:17

Um. And then yeah, now

6:19

these days it is a tie.

6:22

I think Mulana is my favor, but

6:24

Milana is also incredible. Milanna

6:27

yeah pretty great. Um

6:30

mine was. And I love looking back at this now

6:32

because mine was the Princess

6:34

Aurora from The Sleeping Beauty and she pretty much spent the

6:37

whole movie set. So

6:40

I'm like, why did I Why was she my favorite?

6:42

I don't know. I think I really liked Maleficent.

6:44

And also they said hell in that movie, which

6:46

as a kid, I was like head,

6:49

Oh my god, moleficent

6:52

Is and I mean like as

6:54

a just the way that character is designed

6:56

is was the scariest person

6:58

in the world to me when I was a kid, because

7:01

she was like, yeah, so she looked

7:03

really sharp. I remember that was like my specific

7:06

fear, like she looked like, yeah,

7:09

the scariest for me was Ursula and

7:11

Little Mermaid I wanted

7:13

to bear. Yeah,

7:16

she was pretty frightening too. But okay,

7:19

let's let's get into this discussion

7:22

around the betrayal of

7:24

of women in movies, and particularly

7:27

of Disney. And it sounds like we're talking about

7:29

Disney princesses right now. I

7:32

mean, it's pretty

7:34

pretty well understood, especially

7:37

as I've gotten older, that it's not great

7:40

the because it's

7:44

been the whole movie. Like success

7:46

in these movies is finding your prince

7:49

charming and getting

7:51

married. That is like your entire

7:53

goal in life, right,

7:56

because a lot of them are based on existing

7:59

fairy tale that. Yeah, the

8:02

narratives of those are always like,

8:05

oh, damsel in distress and then

8:07

she gets rescued by her prince Charming

8:09

and then they live happily ever after. Something

8:11

I think is like interesting that we're

8:14

we're we're gearing up for a

8:16

Little Mermaid episode right now, so we're kind

8:18

of thinking a lot about it. Is

8:20

that especially like once you hit the Disney

8:22

renaissance, so like a Little Mermaid and on

8:25

um, there's like such a specific

8:27

formula that all the Princess movies

8:30

follow, i think with the exception

8:32

of a Laddin, because Jasmine is not the main character.

8:35

But where at the they

8:37

always start out okay, where

8:39

there's always that song in the beginning, like in

8:41

The Little Mermaid and in Beauty and the

8:43

Beast, where it's like there's some sort

8:46

of like intellectual longing from

8:48

the princess character who's

8:51

like, I wanna, you know, bust out of

8:53

my normal life. I want to go out in the world

8:56

and I want to learn things and all this stuff.

8:58

And then immediately after that song

9:00

it's always derailed by like and

9:02

the only way to do that is boyfriend

9:06

or large dog if it's speedy

9:08

in the Beast like and so

9:10

it's just always it's frustrating because those

9:12

are always the best songs movie usually,

9:15

and the topic

9:17

of it is generally like vague

9:19

enough of like wanting to learn, and

9:22

then it's

9:24

well, even with Aladdin, even though she doesn't

9:26

have a jasmine doesn't have a song about it.

9:29

Her driving desire in

9:31

the first chunk of the movie is to like

9:33

escape the palace life and

9:36

because she doesn't want like her father deciding

9:38

her future for all that stuff, so she like has

9:40

a drive to like go out

9:42

into the world and live her own life. But then

9:44

immediately she's like, well, what if

9:46

I met Aladdin though and married him?

9:49

Literally it's always literally the first person

9:51

she meets upon

9:53

going into the like Ariel like goes to

9:55

the surface and is like, oh boy, and

9:59

like I'm I guess Bells is a little more

10:01

complicated because she like trades

10:03

her body for her bad inventor

10:06

dad, Like there and the daddy issues, Like

10:08

what, that's the whole thing too, But it's

10:11

the something that because your

10:14

your is like the criticism

10:16

surrounding Disney princesses are

10:19

so like well

10:21

known generally now

10:23

that it's it's almost like

10:25

okay, fine, another person saying, like

10:28

Ariel trade her legs and her voice to

10:30

get a boyfriend. But there's

10:33

there are good parts hidden in there,

10:35

and it makes it even more disappointing that those

10:38

are kind of buried by all these

10:40

like normative, boring

10:42

stories. Yeah,

10:45

it's a couple of years ago.

10:47

I have a friend who, um,

10:50

we we would just stay up and discuss all

10:52

kinds of things, and somehow or another, the conversation

10:55

became which Disney princess

10:57

do you think is the most problematic? Like

11:00

that's how well known, it's just so

11:03

classmatic, and

11:06

we I think she said Belle and

11:08

I said Ariel. But this was years

11:10

ago, so I'd have to revisit, revisit

11:12

the question. I think. I

11:14

mean, Sleeping Beauty is an easy choice,

11:17

just because she's not allowed to do

11:19

anything the whole movie.

11:22

But I don't know. I mean, Ariel seems to be the popular

11:24

choice for I mean, that's the most

11:27

egregious example on the

11:29

on the surface at least. Wow.

11:34

Um, I would I mean, I would maybe

11:37

take it all the way back to the original

11:39

Disney Princess of snow White,

11:41

who is no one's favorite, but

11:45

she sucks. That movie sucks.

11:47

And yeah we're saying it,

11:49

but hot takes. I

11:52

don't take it back. You're

11:55

sticking by it. Yeah, mm hmm.

11:58

It has been a while since I've seen is No White and

12:00

and something you said earlier, I hadn't really considered

12:03

because, Um, in the second half

12:05

of this discussion, we're going to look at

12:07

the treatment of mothers in

12:10

in Disney movies, but I haven't really thought about

12:12

like daddy issues and fathers

12:15

in Disney movies. Hyeah.

12:19

Yeah, there's i mean the

12:24

majority of Disney princesses,

12:26

and this has like gradually changed

12:29

over time. Like I think by the time you hit Frozen,

12:32

there's two living parents

12:35

parents. They will they die shortly after

12:37

we meet them. They are killed immediately,

12:39

but at least there's you know, gender parity

12:42

in who dies. Um.

12:44

But in most of

12:46

them, especially like the Disney Renaissance

12:49

once it's like a part of the formula that

12:51

there's no mother and in

12:54

it like in some it's i

12:56

mean not really in any as it referred to

12:58

were Ariel has King

13:00

Triton, who's just like this, you

13:02

know, he doesn't understand his teenage daughter

13:05

and he destroys everything she owns

13:07

because he's confused. Uh,

13:10

And then the story ends with her

13:13

still needing his permission to

13:15

live the life she wants to live because he's the only

13:17

one who can alter her body permanently

13:20

and give her over to another man.

13:22

So that's not good. Um,

13:26

it's I mean, and then Belle's father

13:28

is a huge portion of

13:31

beauty and the beast Pocahontas

13:35

has another I mean kind

13:37

of closer to King Triton, like a

13:39

powerful father who doesn't get it,

13:42

uh kind of figure. Uh.

13:44

Mulan has a mom, but she's

13:46

not as important in the narrative as the dad.

13:49

Uh. So it's all all the

13:51

princesses sort of have some

13:54

patriarch type

13:56

figure. Um who

13:59

gets to deter and what happens to her life? Because

14:01

even though Mulana as a mom, it's her father who

14:03

tells her that, you know, she

14:05

has to live out this, you

14:07

know, being married off life

14:10

instead of going off to fight like she wants

14:12

to. Same thing with um Frozen,

14:14

even though we meet both parents and

14:16

even though they are killed, it's

14:19

shipwreck. I think, um

14:21

the mother in that movie, while

14:23

she is on screen, I don't think has any lines

14:26

or only says like one or two things.

14:28

And then it's the father character who is

14:30

making all the decisions, calling all the shots,

14:33

like pushing the story forward

14:35

in any significant way. So like the

14:37

mother may as well not even be there because

14:40

of how unimportant she is to the story. Yeah,

14:43

it seems like almost an empty response

14:45

to like Disney princesses never have moms.

14:47

It's like, well, we rendered one, but

14:49

we didn't hire anyone to voice her. She

14:53

was there briefly. Yeah, yeah,

14:56

I don't know. Yeah, and then you storry. I mean

14:58

it's subverted later on. I know that

15:00

the Rapunzel has

15:03

I mean she has an evil mother figure

15:06

and Tangled villain slash mother.

15:08

Yeah, so if women are on screen, they

15:10

can't be. But with Molanna, she

15:13

has both a mother that

15:15

she talks to and who supports

15:17

her, and it is grandma and

15:20

grandmother who is killed. She is killed,

15:22

but at least from old age and

15:24

not from like some violent death which

15:27

the mother characters, as I think, are we're

15:30

supposed to assume that they die or like with the

15:32

least with like Frozen, there's Frozen.

15:34

There's like a whole bizarro

15:36

theory that Frozen, the Little Mermaid

15:39

and Tangled are all connected

15:42

and that uh,

15:46

the parents in Frozen die

15:49

on the way to Ariel's

15:51

wedding or something. Yeah,

15:54

there's a lot of wild theories out there, and

15:57

I believe all of them. Of course, I

16:00

went on a deep dive about how all

16:02

of the Pixar movies are connected

16:04

in the universe. There seems

16:07

to be a lot of water to that one. I don't

16:09

know. There seems to be credibility.

16:12

Yeah, that is definitely. I mean, if you're looking

16:14

for a fun or probably not fun at

16:16

all time, get me drunk and

16:18

put me in front of a Pixar movie and I

16:20

will explain how they're all connected

16:23

in the most conspiratorial way.

16:27

Um. But I was

16:29

thinking about going back to Sleeping Beauty, which,

16:31

again I haven't watched it forever, but it was my favorite

16:34

as a child. I guess she did. She

16:36

had those like three fairies

16:39

women that she she lived with. Yeah,

16:42

that's true. And then Cinderella

16:44

had the fairy godmother. Yeah

16:48

but in the but in both of those stories,

16:50

I feel like those characters are introduced only

16:52

because the princess

16:54

character doesn't have enough personality.

16:57

We don't know her well enough to be

17:00

to be able. We're not supposed to believe that she could

17:02

do it on her own. Uh. With like

17:04

Cinderella, like, I know she's

17:07

upset, but she could walk

17:10

out of the house, you know. Like but

17:13

but it's like, no, she needs this

17:16

Matt, she needs magic to to leave

17:18

the house, or like sleeping Beauty

17:20

needs magic to not be dead

17:23

basically, or snow White

17:25

needs the magic

17:27

of necrophilia to bring her back

17:29

to life. Well, isn't a lot of

17:31

these. It's like true love's kiss that like

17:34

breaks whatever spells

17:36

kiss from a man of course, Like it's it's

17:38

always this heaterformative story, which

17:40

I mean the like I

17:43

mean it's but the the whole consent

17:46

thing with true love's kisses, Like

17:48

the prince in snow White fully

17:51

thought she was dead when

17:53

he when he really laid

17:55

one on her. But then

17:57

he's like, oh, you're alive, sick, live,

18:00

but she was asleep and therefore could

18:02

not give consent, right, uh,

18:05

And you can never give consent when you're dead,

18:09

That's true. We always say on

18:11

the show it's our main

18:13

cat, which

18:16

sounds vaguely threatening. And

18:19

I didn't mean you can't keep it's

18:26

just a fact, yeah,

18:33

a panic attack. And

18:36

then when we do this is especially

18:38

true of the earlier Disney

18:40

Princess movies. But if we do see a mother

18:42

figure, it is often an evil

18:44

stepmother. So it's villainizing

18:47

another woman for

18:50

reasons that you could maybe

18:53

argue are justified. But the

18:56

way the narrative sets it up like usually

18:58

not it's usually like the snow white just

19:00

this woman who's so petty that she's not the

19:02

prettiest woman in all the land. And

19:04

then it's kind of the same deal with the

19:07

evil stepmother who is

19:10

just like my daughter's look

19:13

Weirdrella, and yeah, sorry,

19:15

Cinderella, and Cinderella doesn't

19:17

look weird, and so she will be and

19:20

like an unpaid worker forever and

19:23

she's just like their intern permanently.

19:26

Um it's bad. Yeah,

19:29

it's weird. Yeah, I don't

19:31

know. And it's not to say that the father figures

19:34

that are presented, they're usually

19:36

complicated, and but they're not

19:38

villains. They're allowed to be complicated

19:41

in a way that like female characters

19:43

are Like, no, they're evil. But

19:46

Triton, who like destroys everything

19:48

his daughter cares about, Uh,

19:51

he's just confused.

19:53

And like Chief Powton, who's

19:56

like threatening, I mean and Chief out and it's

19:59

different because he's kind of trying to like get

20:01

rid of people who are actively trying to like

20:04

eradicate everything

20:07

that you like Native American called indigenous

20:09

people. So he's got like better

20:11

points. And then those

20:14

fathers are both like redeemed by

20:17

the end, whereas like the Evil stepmothers

20:19

at least in snow White falls

20:21

off a cliff or kids bolder land

20:24

on top of her. Maleficent is she killed?

20:26

I don't, I've only ever seen sleeping Beauty.

20:29

Why. Yeah, I'm pretty sure she gets

20:31

she turns into a dragon and gets stabbed.

20:36

She gets slain Maleficent

20:39

And uh, this is just a fun little

20:41

fact I learned. Maleficent

20:43

and the Evil Stepmother are. If

20:45

you look at the characters side by

20:47

side, it's like the exact same build

20:49

of a character. They just like recycled one

20:52

in making the other. And they're also

20:54

voiced by the same person. Oh

20:57

well, that that would be a fun like these

21:00

worlds are connected type thing too. I'll have to

21:02

think about that. Only one evil

21:04

lady. Yeah, she's just got around marrying

21:06

a bunch of men who already have daughters

21:09

and being the evil stepmother to all of them.

21:11

But Malifficent is I

21:13

think like she's also petty

21:16

jealous of Aurora, but she's

21:18

a little closer connected to Ursula.

21:21

I think of like, she is upset

21:24

that she's been cast out of the

21:26

Royal Um, out

21:28

of like the Royal in circle

21:32

um. And then you know comes back

21:34

to punish a teen for

21:36

some reason instead of the

21:38

person who wronged her always

21:42

like their teen daughter that

21:44

she targets leverage. Yeah,

21:48

M I recently watched

21:51

I don't know if either of you ever saw The

21:53

Black Cauldron. I've

21:56

never seen it, but it's I'm

21:59

I'd be interested to see it. Yeah.

22:01

Yeah, I remember when it came

22:04

out. Um, it was build

22:06

in this way of like it was a movie that

22:08

was too dark for Disney to release.

22:11

It has no songs in it, um,

22:13

And as a kid, I was like, whoa this?

22:18

And it's obviously a little different because

22:20

it's based on that book,

22:22

The Black Cauldron. Um,

22:24

but I yeah,

22:27

it's still like a princess one

22:29

one female character. There are three witches

22:31

later, which is very similar to Sleeping Beauty. Yeah,

22:35

it's interesting that it seems to be

22:37

a very similar story, just

22:39

told in different ways. Yeah.

22:43

Yeah, it's like Bill, It's all it's most

22:45

of the time, it's like, here's a

22:47

very similar story with some elements changed,

22:49

taking place in a different Western European

22:52

country. Like that's usually

22:55

until more recently, what it's

22:58

always been. But it's because there are a opting

23:00

the same European fairy tales over and over

23:02

and not really exploring much

23:05

outside of that region.

23:09

I wonder why why

23:13

I wonder. I know we it

23:16

probably goes without saying, but we've done an

23:18

episode on action figures, and

23:20

so many executives have said one

23:23

of the reasons that, um,

23:26

the princesses, they make so

23:28

much money that they

23:31

don't think that they have to make

23:33

new content for young

23:35

girls because they're already selling

23:38

so much with princesses, so

23:41

they don't. Entire movies have been written

23:43

by by that like

23:46

mindset of thinking, I want to sell toys

23:48

to boys, so I'm going to

23:50

make movies with boys in them, with men

23:53

and them to sell action figures to boys because

23:55

they would never buy an action figure of

23:57

a female character. So

24:00

and these girls already have the princesses, so

24:03

we'll focus on like this category

24:05

of selling toys to boys.

24:08

That's how entire stories get written. What

24:10

a what a gift? And that

24:13

I mean that makes total sense, and it's so frustrating

24:15

that, um, you know,

24:17

the same princesses are still kind

24:20

of like the princesses from the nineteen

24:22

fifties and nineties are still the ones most prominently

24:24

featured on all the princess merch, but

24:27

it is, it's it's weird. It feels like a catch

24:30

twenty two to some extent of like, I

24:32

guess if you're a business

24:34

person lacking a moral compass, which is all

24:36

of them, uh, you would just

24:38

be like, well, if this sells, this doesn't cost me any

24:41

money to come up with new I p evil.

24:45

Yeah, real bad. But then every once in a while you do

24:47

see like a character that, um,

24:51

I don't know. I think like Ray from Star Wars is a good

24:53

example of like a female character

24:55

who appeals to boys and girls and

24:58

hopefully, I mean would

25:00

be the type of action figure and the type of

25:02

protagonist that would appeal to all

25:04

kids and isn't so intensely

25:08

gendered to like a

25:11

comical degree that all the all the princess

25:13

characters are. But do you remember the

25:15

controversy around that from a few years

25:17

ago, where like they were selling I forget

25:19

which toy company it was, but they were selling

25:21

like a pack of little action figures from

25:24

The Force Awakens and Ray,

25:27

who is the main character of the

25:29

movie, was not included in Wait, I didn't

25:31

know that, that's crazy. The idea

25:33

was like, oh, boys, aren't gonna want to buy

25:36

this if a woman's in these

25:38

among these toys, and it's like character

25:42

did the story that's insane.

25:45

Yeah. It was also they took a financial

25:47

gamble that failed because turns

25:50

out kids did want that toy Ray

25:53

And they had all of this excess of Kylo Wren,

25:55

who they thought was going to be the big selling toy, the

25:57

male character, like, we need more out

26:00

the Driver dolls, and

26:02

parents were like, my kid wants this Ray doll,

26:04

and toy sellers were like, we don't have to

26:06

make it. Yeah,

26:09

that has happened over and over again. Like they

26:11

did that with the monopoly of the Star Wars monopoly.

26:14

They didn't feature her. Um T shirts

26:16

with like group pictures of Star Wars characters

26:18

don't feature her. Didn't they do

26:20

that with like wasn't there like a black widow?

26:23

Yeah? And and then even

26:26

the princesses. It's as the princesses

26:28

slowly become you

26:30

know, they're representing more realistic

26:33

body types, They're representing something

26:35

other than unrealistically

26:37

proportioned white lady.

26:40

Uh, there's still like I

26:42

don't know if anyone remembers when the Merida

26:45

from Brave Um when

26:47

she was released as part

26:49

of the Disney Princess Gang. They changed

26:51

her appearance to make

26:53

her skinnier and change

26:56

her hair from being messy to being very

26:58

like quaft and aunty, and they

27:00

put makeup on her, even though that character is supposed

27:02

to be very young, and they

27:04

gave her the princess treatment, even though part

27:07

of the point of the movie she was

27:09

in was to subvert

27:11

that. And that was a big

27:14

issue because that the women who wrote

27:16

that character was like, no, you can't

27:18

do that. That was I was trying. Yeah,

27:23

but they'll always try. Man always try.

27:27

Mm hmmm hmm. I

27:29

was gonna say that. That's another thing worth mentioning

27:33

about the way these

27:35

Disney princesses have been animated

27:39

and drawn and just they're esthetic

27:42

is that they often have these

27:46

body types that I mean, there's very

27:48

little differentiation among them.

27:50

They are these like and

27:53

especially I'm thinking of Jasmine and

27:55

Aerial, where they have these microscopic

27:58

wastes. They have these

28:00

like very

28:02

revealing outfits. And these characters

28:05

are supposed to be like teenagers, like Aerial

28:07

is sixteen sixteen

28:10

basically or somewhere Jasmin unclear,

28:12

but like young and

28:15

you know, they're wearing these like tiny skimpy outfits

28:17

and like if if people want

28:19

to wear outfits like that, that's fine, But

28:21

also they're like really over sexualizing

28:25

young teen girls and

28:28

showing these body types that, according

28:31

to the movie, is like presenting

28:33

this ideal standard of beauty and all

28:35

that. Like little girls are going to see this and they're

28:38

thinking, oh, this is you know, this is the body

28:40

type that gets me the prince charming,

28:42

So I have to try to strive for that. And it's

28:44

just like placing these really and

28:46

there's always this moment where in

28:49

a lot of the Disney Princess movies where

28:51

all of a sudden, you know, you start

28:53

out and I still think most of the

28:55

Disney Renaissance Princess movies at

28:58

least start out in okay place of

29:00

like she's your everyday

29:02

girl, except she's a princess.

29:05

But there's a moment where she gets

29:07

not exactly like a makeover, but you

29:10

know it's like Bell comes out in a dress and

29:12

all of a sudden, she's romantically desirable

29:14

in a way she wasn't when she was in her

29:17

everyday clothes. Or that happens

29:19

with ariel Uh and Eric

29:21

sees her in a pink dress and it's like, oh,

29:23

I like her, and you

29:26

know it's so it's so ingrained,

29:29

or the second you know, Jasmine takes off

29:31

that she's she when she meets a lot and she's

29:33

wearing this sort of like potato potato

29:36

sack and then she takes it off and he's like, oh,

29:38

you know, it's it totally

29:41

catering to the male gaze and

29:43

and just kind of sells out the work that they do at

29:45

the beginning to be like, no, she's not like the

29:47

other girls. But then they spend the rest

29:49

of the movie treating her exactly like

29:51

the other girls. Yeah.

29:55

Yeah, the Magical Movie Makeover. And

29:58

I there's studies after studies that show

30:00

that young girls take in those

30:02

messages at such

30:05

an early age and to see

30:07

this like, here's the ideal beauty

30:09

standard. Your entire

30:12

goal in life is to find

30:14

a man and get married, and

30:17

your value is only in your looks.

30:19

Um. Yeah, you get that stuff

30:22

really early and it sticks with you.

30:24

What affected me the most when I was a kid

30:26

was definitely like the unrealistic

30:30

bodies like that really

30:32

resonated with me as a kid. And then I

30:34

think, god, this is probably two years ago

30:36

now, when they started to release barbies

30:39

with different body shapes. Um,

30:41

there was a long feature published

30:44

about the focus groups

30:46

of having like very young kids playing

30:49

with barbies with different body ships

30:51

or maybe four or five years old, and already

30:54

they had seen enough princess

30:57

movies and and and taken in enough media

30:59

to be critical of different

31:02

body shapes, uh, and

31:04

saying like, you know, like hearing out of a four year

31:06

old mouth, like that's not what Adell is supposed to look like, and

31:08

like she's ugly and all this stuff, and it it

31:11

gets to you so young, Like that

31:13

I was taken aback

31:15

by like how young the kids were when they

31:18

had already internalized that's not how

31:20

a doll or an ideal looks,

31:24

which just means that they there

31:26

needs to be such a huge reversal

31:29

in the way that movies

31:32

and other media consumed by children

31:35

needs to present its characters

31:37

and like show display like many

31:39

different body types and show

31:41

them all as being um romantically

31:44

appealing and and it's think not that

31:47

that's the most important thing, but like, because

31:49

that's what's we're also conditioned

31:51

to think, like, you know, that's at least one

31:53

of the messages that needs to get across right,

31:56

and it's like it takes so long and is

31:58

to some degrees impossible

32:00

to fully untrained those

32:03

thoughts. It's like, you know, it's like we're all

32:05

trying to do the work and untrained.

32:07

But there's like times where I have to catch myself

32:10

in something like that because that's how I felt

32:12

since I was three, right, you know. So

32:14

it's like, well for anyone to

32:16

I mean, hopefully there could be a generation that's

32:18

completely untouched by that

32:20

kind of stuff, but they're not currently

32:23

living apparents, so we've

32:25

all been conned by the patriarchate guess

32:28

in the capitalists and all the yeah

32:31

do works. One

32:35

thing another thing that I

32:37

I have realized through

32:39

this show and that I already sort of knew,

32:42

but um, is how so

32:45

many of these princesses they're always

32:47

in the passive role. And

32:50

um. I went back

32:52

and I used to write a lot as a kid,

32:54

and every time I would write something, the main

32:56

character was male. And I was always

32:59

kind of confused by that, because you would

33:01

think I would write someone who

33:04

was female like I was. Um, And

33:06

I think it's because I wanted this like active

33:09

character and almost all of the female

33:12

characters I had saw and consumed through

33:14

media were passive. Um.

33:17

Yeah, and that's something that I have a lot

33:19

of friends that have echoed that, that statement, that they

33:21

would write things and the main character

33:24

would be male. And it was just kind

33:26

of a strange realization for me that I

33:28

had. Again, it's another thing that I had just taken

33:30

in and had become a part of, like

33:33

myself. Yeah, you don't realize

33:35

how much it affects

33:37

you're subconscious until you're

33:40

an adult and you're like, oh no, I've

33:42

been tricked, and

33:44

it truly happens to like everyone

33:47

even Yeah, it's god,

33:50

I don't want to read what I wrote. I was like,

33:54

that's very brave of you. I

33:57

had a good time. I had a I mean, I

34:00

had a long way to go, we shall say, but I

34:03

I enjoyed it greatly. I

34:05

used to write a character and I was a kid.

34:07

Her name was Neptune Starlet. Oh

34:10

my gosh, she was. She was

34:12

really tall like me, and

34:15

she I think her thing was that

34:17

she was a singer,

34:19

but also she was good at chemistry, and

34:22

she would use chemistry. She created

34:25

some potion to make everyone thinks she was

34:27

a good singer. But she wasn't. So she was

34:29

a woman in stem. She was a woman in stem,

34:31

and she was a mediocre artist, so

34:33

she kind of contained multitudes. Yeah,

34:36

I like it. Yeah, she would

34:39

pick it up again one of these days, I

34:42

would read it. I

34:45

recently was watching um the

34:47

new MST three K three

34:51

whatever it is. Oh yeah, yeah, And

34:53

there was a movie on there, and I know they picked

34:55

bad movies, but there's a movie on that it was so bad,

34:57

like I was getting angry. I can't

35:00

which one it was called, but it was the one that was

35:02

obviously a knockoff of Star Wars. No

35:05

way, you could not see it. And

35:08

the main character, like all of the women, if

35:10

they were young and of a certain body type,

35:13

they wore essentially like leather straps

35:16

um and then old women wore potato

35:18

sacks, and then the men got to wear like actual

35:21

real clothes. But the main character,

35:23

who is ostensibly that

35:25

the lead character, the strongest. She was

35:27

some commander. She was well known. She

35:30

got captured like six times,

35:33

and she had to get saved by

35:35

like three different dudes and a robot. All

35:38

the time she's in these like leather

35:41

straps that make no sense. She was

35:44

just spent the whole movie. I couldn't understand.

35:48

I knew it was supposed to be bad, and I was still

35:50

getting Those

35:52

are my favorite kinds of hate watches,

35:54

where you're just like multiple so

35:57

many people could have stopped this from happening,

35:59

and there were so many

36:01

people who were involved in anything. But

36:04

also like, yeah, that that sounds

36:06

like a horrible, like B movie

36:08

that we can easily make fun of,

36:10

But that's also what happens in

36:13

like high budget Hollywood mainstream

36:16

A movies, where like women

36:18

are so hyper sexualized and objectified,

36:21

they are put in positions where they

36:24

have no agency constantly need to be

36:26

saved, Like this happens all the time in

36:28

like just regular Hollywood

36:31

action movies. Yeah, I mean, like two

36:33

of our favorites that we've covered on the show are

36:36

when Kirsten Dunst is literally

36:39

caught in a web and is like

36:42

a mobile for the entire climax

36:45

of Spiderman Too, Like she's there

36:47

but she just can't participate, she has to watch.

36:50

Uh. And then it's which

36:52

character in Pacific Rim gets launched out

36:54

of the climate. It's

36:56

so like it's Macae Morey.

36:59

I couldn't. I did like that movie, but then but

37:01

it was like so agreed because

37:03

she was a well characterized like she

37:05

we we knew a lot about her. But then when

37:07

it came down to the final battle, I

37:10

forget how it was made clear

37:12

in plot, but they put her in like this

37:14

too be thing and they were like, sea,

37:17

it's not safe, and they launched her out

37:19

of the climax of the movie. I was like, are you kidding,

37:22

same thing happens with Ariel, where

37:24

like, yeah, well she's she's I

37:27

don't know. I thought she's like more of an example

37:30

for me, as like someone who's allowed to

37:32

be like, oh, she can fight and

37:34

do one thing, but she never gets to win

37:36

that like Eric wins the battle, but

37:38

she's she's there and like doing stuff,

37:41

but she doesn't get the Like is

37:44

the most crazy thing because she is

37:46

the protagonist of the movie. Like any

37:49

good story telling class

37:51

will teach you that the

37:53

protagonist of the movie is the

37:55

one who drives the narrative

37:57

and determines the outcome and is

38:00

participating in the climax of the story. So

38:02

for her to be completely sidelined

38:05

and for Eric, the love interest, to

38:08

like come in and save the day, like that's

38:10

that's bad storytelling. That's like horrible,

38:15

it's bad side,

38:18

it's yeah, it's frustrating. It's

38:20

frustrating that in these

38:23

things that are sold to young

38:25

girls that the main characters supposedly

38:28

the the young female character, they

38:31

still don't get like they're not It's

38:34

almost like they're not the main character, right,

38:37

Yeah, Yeah, that's annoying. Yeah.

38:41

Um, well, we do have some

38:43

more discussion around all of this, but

38:45

we're going to possibly a quick break for word from our sponsor

38:52

m H and

38:58

we're back, Thank you sponsor. So

39:00

I wanted to come back to

39:03

this conversation around women and

39:05

I've been talking around women around stepmother's

39:08

because I've been talking about it for a long time. I've

39:10

been building it up because I kind of went on

39:12

this on the other podcast

39:14

I do Um Savor. We

39:16

do this series called Food fairy

39:18

Tales where we do dramatic

39:20

readings of fairy tales that have food

39:23

in them, and we found

39:25

one, Um it was pretty dark about

39:28

a stepmother murdering

39:31

her stepchild and blaming

39:34

it on the other child, um,

39:36

and then feeding the child to the

39:39

family. It all works out in the

39:41

end, O good. But

39:44

I got me thinking about

39:46

this evil stepmother trope.

39:49

And I I went on a

39:51

research I just wanted to read everything

39:53

I could about it, and so I thought i'd

39:55

include some of this, some of the stuff

39:58

I learned, and this pisode

40:00

because as we've been talking about, if

40:03

you look at Disney movies, especially the old school

40:05

classic ones, the evil stepmother

40:07

trope and the idealized

40:10

perfectly maternal mother trope is

40:12

so prevalent in

40:14

all of them. And as I was doing this

40:16

research, I tried to think of a

40:19

Disney mother who isn't absent, dead

40:22

or evil, and I thought of Brave

40:26

the Incredibles toy story.

40:28

I guess she's like there, And

40:30

I mean these are like pis are Disney.

40:33

Yeah, Yeah, Princess

40:36

and the Frog, although when I was reading about

40:38

that, she her mother is there, but the

40:40

story again is more like about her

40:42

relationship with her dad. Yeah, Molanna,

40:47

And these are all newer examples. You'd

40:50

be hard pressed to name one from

40:53

the like older from

40:55

the nineties and before. Yeah. I

40:58

recently saw ralph To,

41:01

which was fun because they hadn't seen

41:03

the first one um. And also they're

41:05

not on the Internet, so I'm sure that a lot of that went

41:07

over their head. But it's even a joke and wreck it Ralph

41:10

too that like none of them

41:12

had mothers almost that

41:15

was my favorite. There's

41:17

two scenes and this isn't a spoiler for

41:19

anyone who hasn't seen um Ralph Breaks

41:21

the Internet, but because one of them they

41:23

were using as like a trailer

41:25

for the movie basically, but there are two different sequences

41:28

in the movie where all the Disney

41:31

princesses are like hanging

41:33

out, and in

41:35

the first one that they've viewed, they used as like promo

41:38

for the movie. They

41:41

what's her name? Penelope Yes,

41:43

and little Sarah Selverman she

41:47

finds herself among all these Disney princesses

41:50

and they're like questioning

41:52

the validity of like her being

41:55

a Disney princess also or like or something

41:57

like that, and they're like, wait, are you

42:00

only identified by your relationship to a man?

42:02

And oh, do you have an evil stepmother?

42:04

Like all this different stuff. So they're like, that's

42:07

calling it having it both ways,

42:09

because it's like, Okay, you're calling

42:11

out like all our most popular

42:13

properties are problematic. It doesn't mean

42:15

they're not going to stop making a jillion

42:18

dollars off of it. They're just referencing their own

42:20

properties and like using that

42:22

to seem cool and make more money.

42:25

It's like when I don't know, like a lot of times

42:27

on like shows on and

42:29

this is more like adults media, but like

42:31

on TV when they

42:34

let the show like when The Simpsons pokes

42:36

at the Fox Network, it's supposed to

42:38

be like, hey, yeah, we're an evil

42:40

corporation that enables

42:42

the horrible president, but we're like in on

42:45

it, and it's like, well, so

42:48

what like then stop doing that? You

42:50

know. I don't know. I used to think

42:52

that was like really edgy and cool and

42:54

like, oh wow, the people who

42:56

are like doing horrible

42:58

stuff like no it, but that's worse.

43:02

I don't know. I was like, oh,

43:04

cool, so they know it and it's

43:06

fine. They're still capitalized. They're still like,

43:08

yeah, we're not going to like stop

43:11

promoting rape culture, but we're

43:13

like aware we're doing it. You're like, okay, that's

43:16

terrible. Cool. Yeah, yeah,

43:19

that was That was an interesting thing of that whole that

43:21

scene of the Disney Princesses in Ralph

43:24

breaks Internet of um

43:27

yeah, being aware, And I mean I guess a few if

43:30

the criticism is enough that it is just generally

43:32

assumed that these characters

43:34

are problematic. Um,

43:37

what do you do but

43:40

poke fun at it? But it is odd

43:42

because it's like you're still doing

43:45

it though. And I know

43:47

several listeners have written

43:50

in and said that they like the new

43:52

the newer Disney princesses,

43:54

but they're afraid that it's like almost too

43:56

much of a course correct of

43:59

liked humanizing princess

44:01

things that are kind of coated as feminine

44:04

and being like, oh, I hate all of these girly things,

44:07

which yeah, yeah, it's interesting. I hadn't really

44:09

considered it in that way. Um,

44:12

because most of the new princesses, Yeah, I really

44:14

I don't want to be a princess. I hate all this stuff.

44:17

But then what about like the kid who's

44:19

genuinely feminine and enjoys

44:21

that. Yeah, right

44:23

right, it's tricky. Yeah, I

44:25

mean it does seem like movies in

44:28

general. And I don't dislike this at all,

44:30

but they're leaning kind of hard on

44:32

again. It's kind of like a different version of than

44:35

not like the other girls, trump

44:37

of like, oh I don't like feminine stuff.

44:39

I'm not like the other princesses. And

44:41

it's I mean, it's not the princess's

44:44

fault. It's the fault of the story. Yeah,

44:46

princesses are, and but people love to blame

44:49

women for things

44:51

easier to make it the princess as fault did

44:53

they was see is Utopia. Yeah.

44:56

I feel like that was an

44:59

interesting kind

45:01

of deviation from a

45:03

Disney movie, but like in no way

45:06

Disney princess. And also like they're all animals,

45:08

so you know, but

45:10

also you know, it's a female character. She's a cop.

45:13

She's like hell bent on like

45:15

justice and stuff like that. So if

45:19

I shouldn't say hell, but she's if

45:23

they say if they could say

45:25

in Sleeping Beauty, you

45:27

can say it. We

45:31

recently did an episode on tabletop

45:34

games, and there

45:36

are two studies that confirm that

45:39

you're more likely to find a

45:41

farm animal on the cover of a tabletop

45:43

game than a female character. Oh

45:47

that's cool. Yeah right,

45:51

well we all love farm animals, so that

45:53

makes sense. Yeah, nothing

45:56

against the farm animal community,

45:58

right, So all your farm animal listeners,

46:01

we don't mean to age, but

46:03

like, who's playing the game's farm

46:05

animals? Come on? Come

46:08

on? All right? But I went on a tangent

46:11

here. Let's get back to your stepmother's

46:13

stepmothers.

46:17

I do have some Disney history that I would

46:19

like to share it because I found it really interesting. But first

46:21

we're going to pause for a quick break for word from our sponsor,

46:33

and we're back, Thank you, sponsor. So let's

46:35

get back to it. When Walt Disney

46:37

first started making money after this success

46:40

of Snow White, he purchased a house for his parents, and

46:43

within a month, Disney's mother complained

46:45

of a leak in the furnace, and

46:48

Disney sent someone out to fix it, but still

46:50

Disney's mom, she voiced these concerns.

46:52

In a couple of days pasted and the housekeeper found

46:55

his parents unconscious. His

46:57

dad survived, but his mom did

46:59

not, unfortunately, and he never really

47:01

spoke about it, but I would say his guilt

47:04

over it shown through into a

47:06

lot of his works that he was involved in um

47:09

which was most of them, most Disney

47:11

movies up until his death. And I'm not the only one

47:13

saying that. I'm not a scholar by any means, but I

47:15

read that more than one place. And

47:18

if you I I love this. If you take into

47:20

account our children's movies and movies in general

47:23

work, you've got about eighty to ninety minutes

47:25

to tell the story, and then you

47:27

really have to get your audience invested quickly

47:30

and often at the heart of it, Disney movies are

47:33

about growing up and the quickest way to catalyze

47:35

growing up is to remove the parents.

47:37

It raises the stakes of the story and it

47:39

makes the character more sympathetic.

47:42

Um. So the evil

47:45

stepmother represents so

47:47

much and she she ups the drama.

47:49

The protagonist believes they have

47:51

some solace, someone that the that will comfort

47:54

and care for them as their mother would have, but

47:56

instead they get the opposite. And

47:59

it's another lesson in the way of growing up to that

48:01

you can't trust everybody kids. It

48:04

deepens the emotional investment too, because

48:06

evil done by someone you know that should care

48:08

for you is more dramatic storytelling

48:11

when we're talking about this genre of film

48:13

than evil done by some some random,

48:16

not not connected person. Um

48:19

and it does go work great for hard movies that I gotta

48:21

say, like the random villain is terrifying.

48:24

I feel like there is a subtext there too that

48:26

like has to do with There is such

48:29

a strong vibe in uh

48:32

most kids movies that like the love of

48:34

biological parents is the purest,

48:36

truest form of love. And then when it's one step

48:38

removed and it's like more of I mean

48:40

not that like a stepmother is like an adoptive role,

48:43

but not a direct biological connection. It's

48:45

somehow like sinister or removed

48:47

or like not as possible to be as

48:50

like true and powerful because you didn't

48:52

like breastfeed on them or something.

48:55

You can't trust anyone that you didn't

48:57

breastfeed on advice

49:00

of the episode and Jamie, that's

49:02

why I don't trust you. I didn't breast

49:05

fed. I don't trust anyone that's

49:07

a formula baby. I

49:10

do think and we've talked about this a lot,

49:12

that kind of what touching

49:14

on what you were saying earlier, that um,

49:17

the father figures get to be more complex

49:20

and they get to have this redemptive arc, whereas

49:23

like mother figures and stepmother figures do not.

49:25

Like we just in general have a

49:28

real anxiety around um,

49:31

basically anything in between the

49:34

perfect mom and a bad mom. Like

49:36

we have this bifurcation of it's either

49:38

this or this and there is nothing in

49:41

between. And I think it's

49:43

easier to villainize an

49:46

evil stepmother. It's like a way to deal

49:48

with that anxiety, sure,

49:52

which isn't fair. First and

49:54

and Jamie. You might have brought this up in different

49:57

episodes that we've done, usually on Disney movies,

49:59

but like that's the way like villainizing

50:03

divorced almost or just like the idea

50:05

of like parents splitting up and then you

50:07

know, getting remarried and introducing like

50:09

step parents into the scenario

50:12

and it's like a way to be like, no, divorce

50:15

is bad and you know you should stick together.

50:18

It's nuts to me that there isn't more

50:21

divorced parents and even

50:24

like amically divorce divorce parents because

50:27

there, I mean, it's that's more

50:29

kids than not have divorced parents, and

50:31

you never see that. And it's like once

50:34

we see uh, divorce parents,

50:36

that we can get into sub sects of divorce parents

50:38

of like you know, some are

50:41

more difficult than others others or just become

50:43

a co parenting thing. And it's just like, yeah,

50:46

the the way parenting is represented in

50:48

all these movies, Like it's easier

50:50

for a writer to kind of like where

50:52

you were saying, get the parents out of the way

50:55

to raise the tension. But it's like, no parents

50:58

are tense there. That's true,

51:00

there's a lot of come from there um

51:03

or you could go full Jimmy Neutron and

51:06

have the kids take over the world. Jimmy

51:09

Neutron, Jimmy Neutron Stand I Love

51:11

Jimmy Neutron on

51:13

an all female reboot of Jimmy

51:15

Neutron, Jamie Neutron, Jamie Neutron,

51:20

I can get behind that um.

51:25

And another thing that you

51:27

you both mentioned earlier is um.

51:30

A lot of these are these Disney movies are based

51:32

on Gram's fairy tales, and

51:34

most of those stories were orally

51:36

translated, transcribed and published,

51:39

and sometimes the grand brothers.

51:41

They made these serious creative decisions, and

51:44

most of them were moral like

51:46

based in their morals, their personal morals. So,

51:48

for instance, in the oral stories of Sleeping Beauty

51:51

and Snow White, there was not an

51:53

evil stepmother. It was an evil biological

51:55

mother, but Graham changed that. It has

51:57

been that way ever since. At

51:59

the time when these stories were being

52:01

transcribed, marriage was less

52:03

about romantic love and much

52:05

more of an economical decision. If

52:08

you were lucky. There was romance

52:10

too, but it was the secondary thing. And

52:13

since women for the most part had no way

52:15

to make money or to own property, marriage

52:18

was their only option in the world.

52:20

Which is this story that we're seeing in Disney

52:22

play out over and over again with these princesses. And

52:27

another thing to consider is that at the time,

52:29

the mortality rate of childbirth was really

52:31

high, and it wasn't uncommon to grow up without

52:33

a mother and for a stepmother to enter the picture,

52:36

and if the stepmother had a child of their own, they

52:39

might prioritize that child to make sure that they

52:41

got some inheritance or just make sure they

52:43

got some inheritance themselves. Um

52:46

so, yeah, I remember it was a financial thing.

52:49

Yeah, that's true. But the

52:51

fact that these Disney movies introduced

52:55

romance into the

52:57

narrative where you know, in airy

53:00

tales there might have been and might

53:02

not have been. You can also, like when

53:04

you're adapting things what which is what

53:06

Disney has often done.

53:09

You can change the source

53:11

material and like make adjustments to it

53:13

and you know the era it's

53:15

being released in, and like introduce

53:18

mothers and back into the picture and

53:20

stuff like that, which they do, but it's

53:23

like very selective the things that they

53:25

do to Like, the happy

53:27

ending in most Disney movies is not an

53:30

adaptation of the text, like The Little Mermaid

53:32

ends with the Little Mermaid a

53:35

coded suicide where she turns into

53:38

ocean foam because

53:40

she can't be with the prince. So

53:42

it's it's not that they're not there, that

53:44

they're like, no, we have to be loyal to the text.

53:47

There they're disloyal to

53:50

the text, which is which is fine.

53:52

But it's like, well, if you're going to change

53:54

it to like the happy ending

53:56

in the marriage and the whole bit, then like change

53:59

others f t like it's nine

54:02

for crying out out currently today I

54:04

think it's Yeah, I

54:07

think that's correct. Yeah,

54:09

I mean yes, so much of the

54:11

violence of the grim fairy tales they did

54:14

change, but not

54:16

the other things, not

54:19

the women you're needed to get married. But um

54:22

Also, children were treated differently

54:24

at the time, too much less affectionately. They

54:26

were seen as like a source of labor.

54:29

And if you look at the case of Cinderella in the context

54:31

of when it was written from the eyes of the evil

54:34

stepmother, the only chance her daughters had for

54:36

success was to marry into money. And so

54:38

when the ball comes around with the chance

54:40

to marry a prince which Cinderella

54:42

is too young to go to, of course the stepmother

54:44

is going to say no. And of course Cinderella

54:47

isn't gonna like that, and of of course

54:49

it's not an excuse for abusive behavior.

54:52

But I did find a really interesting essay

54:54

looking at Cinderella from the stepmother's

54:58

perspective, and it was a

55:00

fund read. A fund read. Also

55:02

that story posits that perhaps Cinderella

55:05

will one day be a stepmother herself,

55:07

and her journey will begin a new I'd

55:11

be down. I'd be down for that adaptation

55:13

of like can she break the cycle or

55:15

will she just perpetuate the boxic cycle

55:18

that has taken up her family? And

55:20

that's another movie where you

55:22

know, Disney changed a lot of this

55:25

source material or made it less violent, because

55:27

like in the original one, that's like the

55:29

step sisters are like song off

55:31

their toes so that they can fit

55:33

into the glass slippers and stuff like that

55:36

are weird, Just

55:39

like, oh god, I forgot

55:41

about that. Yeah, yeah, honestly,

55:44

like they were

55:46

trying to they had a goal, trying

55:48

to get the call accomplis. Kudos

55:50

to them, you know, Yeah, I love

55:53

there. I'm sure that there's been I

55:55

mean, there's been plenty of like, you

55:58

know, what's the word I hate?

56:00

Oh jeez, I'm going

56:02

to use a word I hate and I can't even remember what a

56:04

post modern geez louise horrible.

56:08

But like the sort of things where it's

56:10

like wicked or you know, a look

56:12

back. It's just why Gregory McGuire

56:15

is a bazillionaire, but like a look

56:17

back, like all the bad ladies

56:19

who actually were bad asses,

56:22

And it's like, al

56:25

right, sure, I mean it's like a step in the

56:27

right direction and like analyzing,

56:31

you know, oh, the way these stories are originally

56:33

written or adapted or whatever. We're

56:36

reductive and we're villainizing

56:38

uh, female characters usually for just

56:41

being female characters,

56:44

or you know, amping up stereotypes

56:46

and all that. Uh. Although

56:49

you know I would I'll

56:51

say, I don't need any more Gregory

56:53

McGuire's takes on why the

56:55

bad girls were actually good. I'd

56:58

prefer more

57:00

of like the moan attack of just creating

57:03

a new female character that

57:07

instead of you know, going back a hundred years

57:09

and continually because the more you like,

57:11

whether you're making a good point or not, the more you talk

57:13

about uh stuff

57:15

like this, you're still giving them staying

57:18

power to some extent. By uh

57:21

So it's just like, yeah, if you ignore people,

57:23

they eventually become irrelevant or angry

57:25

if they have money.

57:29

Another thing I read when I was doing

57:31

all this research is uh that

57:34

four children blended families can be more

57:36

difficult for them to figure out

57:38

if you're watching it from a young age um and it

57:40

involves these nuanced, complex

57:42

feelings and conflicting emotions. And

57:45

it kind of reminds me that argument about some people

57:47

I know say that that's why so many people

57:49

love zombie movies is because

57:51

they think that it's simpler, Like

57:53

it's more I don't have to worry

57:56

about getting money. I just have to worry about

57:58

surviving. Perhaps that's just me. I

58:00

watch a lot of horror,

58:05

but it didn't remind me of that that kind of like, well,

58:07

it's it's simpler to dislike

58:10

the step mom. And these these

58:12

fairy tales that Graham was the

58:14

grand brothers were transcribing did represent

58:16

anxiety's children had, like wondering

58:19

where their next meal was coming from and handling Gredel

58:22

subconsciously wanting to be rid of the parent

58:24

when reaching adolescence. This

58:27

makes the story more authentic emotionally

58:30

to a child. I feel like I did a whole I

58:32

could do you teach a short

58:35

lecture on how to write movies for children

58:37

one oh one. The point worth

58:39

making is they weren't meant for children originally,

58:42

but when they were repurposed four

58:45

children, it did it

58:47

translated well, those parts of

58:49

it. And while modern

58:51

movies have made strides and having a

58:53

positive mother figure as part of

58:55

their stories, these trips are still

58:58

everywhere finding emo.

59:00

For instance, the mom dies in like two minutes,

59:03

and it's used as a way to showcase

59:05

how great the dad is because

59:07

he becomes the main character um

59:10

and our society laud's

59:13

men for being a great dad. And it's just

59:15

sort of expected that women will be mothering

59:19

a child in their care, and

59:21

like any imperfect mothering is

59:24

immediate villain, where

59:26

like perfect fathering is so tolerated

59:29

and almost expected in

59:32

the like You're tritons and potents and all

59:34

in all one

59:36

article I read about this whole thing positive

59:39

that a single father ups the drama

59:41

because in a probably subconscious

59:43

part of our brain, we expect him

59:45

to fail and to mess up, whereas

59:47

a single mother we subconsciously

59:50

think is too capable and we'll be able to figure

59:52

things out. Again, I read

59:54

this, it isn't a point I'm making but I did find

59:57

it an interesting point worth including

59:59

in here. Yeah,

1:00:01

and that's tricky because it's like, yeah, women

1:00:03

are askedome and we're good at things,

1:00:05

and men's stink and are bad at

1:00:08

things. But like, I mean that's a

1:00:10

huge oversimplification. Yeah,

1:00:13

Like, yeah, it is. It's

1:00:15

not okay that these like, um,

1:00:19

these standards are placed on men

1:00:21

and women and and moms and dads and

1:00:23

and how it's like, yeah, if you're a

1:00:26

parent who's a woman, you're a

1:00:29

You're automatically expected to be like the

1:00:31

best mother in the world, whereas

1:00:33

like if a father puts in

1:00:35

like a tiny bit of extra effort,

1:00:37

we're like, wow, good job,

1:00:39

daddy, You're the best dad in the

1:00:41

world. So

1:00:45

yeah, it's weird. Yeah,

1:00:48

And something else we kind of touched on earlier

1:00:51

is this whole like woman versus woman thing,

1:00:54

because I do think it's interesting

1:00:56

that in a lot of these examples, the villain is a woman,

1:00:58

even though well, yeah, and the

1:01:00

protagonist is a woman too, and the villain

1:01:03

is usually an older woman who envies the protagonist.

1:01:05

Youth and beauty are talents perhaps or all

1:01:07

of that, and that is what drives

1:01:10

her dash really decisions like snow white

1:01:12

mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?

1:01:14

And when the mirror says snow white, that's when her stepmother,

1:01:17

of course, like we'll kill her. Then the

1:01:21

most reasonable response. It's

1:01:23

so fast she does not have to think about

1:01:25

it, and she's like, well, then of

1:01:27

course we're gonna want to kill her. It's

1:01:31

just such a It drives home how

1:01:35

our value as women, the value

1:01:37

of beauty, like that is your power, that

1:01:39

is your value of youth and beauty

1:01:41

that she would just immediately there's

1:01:44

this threat destroy it. Yeah.

1:01:48

Yeah, it's so bizarre. And it's like

1:01:50

that feels like as like

1:01:53

crappy as that is, that feels rooted

1:01:56

in some like sort

1:01:58

of grounded things

1:02:00

that still happen today. Right. I feel like

1:02:02

there's even like a you

1:02:04

know, who's the fairest of them all argument that

1:02:06

could be applied to uh,

1:02:08

female coworkers, where it's like female coworkers

1:02:11

are very frequently put against each

1:02:13

other, um and that

1:02:15

being rooted in that's what

1:02:17

you're told and also rooted in there's

1:02:19

just less space for

1:02:22

women in any marginalized group in

1:02:24

the workplace. So it's like, yeah, all the

1:02:26

white guys in a workplace are usually all friends

1:02:29

because there's always going to be enough room

1:02:31

for them. But it's like a weird it feels

1:02:33

like a weird subtweet of a narrative to

1:02:36

see, like women turn on each other

1:02:38

so quickly, and that's the expectation because

1:02:40

there's only so much room

1:02:43

in the world for us, we're told.

1:02:47

Yeah, And I want to add

1:02:49

in here that in the fairy tale version of snow

1:02:51

White the Stepmother, I

1:02:54

think it's snow White. Um, she is

1:02:57

sentenced to execution and

1:02:59

they put these stone

1:03:02

clogs on her feet and there's

1:03:04

like hot holes in them, and she has to dance

1:03:06

to death as her feet burn vaguely

1:03:09

oh no, which

1:03:12

is brutal, brutal to

1:03:15

death. Mm hmmm. Yeah.

1:03:20

Man, let's just way today

1:03:22

night. I feel that way sometimes

1:03:25

dancing sometimes,

1:03:29

Yeah, on the on the dance

1:03:31

floor, feet just wildly boiling

1:03:34

about Yeah,

1:03:38

yeah, yeah, I think we've all experienced it. We

1:03:40

could also go into a whole thing about

1:03:42

what's seeing this, This story of

1:03:45

the evil stepmother says about

1:03:47

our anxieties around adoption and non

1:03:49

traditional families. I think that is

1:03:52

worth a whole episode. And

1:03:55

these tropes have real world impact.

1:03:57

I read account after account written by stepmother's

1:04:00

about how they see children internalize

1:04:02

these tropes pretty much from the time they can see

1:04:04

Cinderella, and how they step

1:04:06

mothers have had to deal with them, and how it undermines their

1:04:09

confidence as a parent. It's

1:04:11

reflected in our language too. For many

1:04:14

of us, the word stepmother automatically comes

1:04:16

with evil before it. If you just think of stepmother,

1:04:18

it will co locate with the word

1:04:20

evil. Um. In some

1:04:22

languages, stepmother translates to lesser

1:04:25

mother, and in American sign language

1:04:27

it's a combination of the words fake and

1:04:29

mother. And how can that not impacts

1:04:33

how you see yourself and how confident you

1:04:35

are in your ability to be this child's

1:04:37

mother? And what is already a difficult situation? Yeah,

1:04:42

right, that I mean, that's

1:04:45

such. Yeah, I mean divorce and

1:04:47

like introducing you know, new

1:04:50

family members into your family

1:04:52

dynamic is already a tricky situation

1:04:55

to navigate. And then to also like

1:04:57

have all this language that supports

1:05:00

Yeah, stepmothers are yeah,

1:05:03

like evil and in lesser than

1:05:05

and fake and you know, wannabes

1:05:08

and all this stuff. Is that's

1:05:11

not good. We've got to change that. Yeah, it's

1:05:13

like there's yeah, like what we were saying

1:05:16

a little bit of just like yeah, the only pure

1:05:18

form of love is from biological

1:05:21

parents to biological child and

1:05:23

anything. And even within that, fathers

1:05:26

can still be kind of bad at it.

1:05:29

Um, But like the love of a biological

1:05:31

mother, there's no there's no alternative,

1:05:35

right, which is just, I

1:05:38

mean hurtful to a lot

1:05:40

of people. I mean everyone

1:05:43

knows someone who's stepmom, uh

1:05:46

did did more for them than their biological mom.

1:05:49

Like, it's just it just it is the world

1:05:51

sometimes. That was

1:05:53

my favorite part of Frozen was when like,

1:05:56

because I've been wanting them to do that forever, when her true

1:05:58

love was their sister. Yeah,

1:06:01

it was just refreshing finally something

1:06:03

different, right. Um.

1:06:06

And one last note on on

1:06:08

stepmothers is that I also read

1:06:11

because if it wasn't clear, I am not a mother or

1:06:13

a stepmother. So this is through

1:06:16

through things that I read online, Um,

1:06:18

that they often contend with the lack of support, lack

1:06:20

of role models, lack of clarity about their role,

1:06:23

and those higher expectations that we've been talking about

1:06:25

that we place on women as parents.

1:06:27

So we don't need to add all

1:06:30

of these these Disney movies

1:06:33

were the only stepmother we're seeing is

1:06:35

not a good one? Right?

1:06:39

Yeah? Yeah,

1:06:42

well I think we've we've just about

1:06:46

we've covered a lot of a lot of ground, I

1:06:51

think, so, I think. So, um,

1:06:54

is there is there anything else you want to touch on before

1:06:56

we close out here? Thanks?

1:07:00

This was really fun. Yeah

1:07:02

yeah, thank you both so much for

1:07:04

joining us. This has been wonderful. Of course we

1:07:06

had a blast. Yes, anytime

1:07:09

I can. I have said before, I

1:07:11

have like a feminist movie night where I make

1:07:13

my friends and like I'm sorry, we're going to get drunk

1:07:16

and we're going to watch this movie and I'm gonna tell you

1:07:18

all of my feminist thoughts about it. Any

1:07:22

time you want to be on the show, I

1:07:25

am going to just go ahead and throw out there that if you

1:07:27

want somebody as a guest when the Avengers is

1:07:29

coming out, I got it. I

1:07:32

got it. Will be should

1:07:34

because there's a the fourth

1:07:36

Avengers movies coming out I think in April.

1:07:38

Avengers.

1:07:42

Yeah, we'll have you on for that. That'll be

1:07:44

great. Yeah,

1:07:48

so excited. Where can people

1:07:50

find you? You can find

1:07:53

us online across all

1:07:55

of the platforms at back,

1:07:57

delcast, B, E, C, H, D, E, L,

1:08:00

m M, and you can find us

1:08:02

individually. I'm on

1:08:04

Twitter and Instagram at Caitlin

1:08:06

Durante Kate with a se uh

1:08:09

and I'm on Twitter at Jamie

1:08:12

Loft as Help and Instagram at Jamie

1:08:14

christ Superstar Awesome.

1:08:17

Well, thank you again for

1:08:20

joining us. Listeners go check out their

1:08:22

show um and if

1:08:24

you would like to write to us and listeners, you can. Our

1:08:26

email is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot

1:08:28

com. You can also find us on Twitter at

1:08:30

mom Stuff Podcast and on Instagram

1:08:33

at stuff I Never Told You. Thanks

1:08:35

as always to our producer Andrew Howard,

1:08:37

and thanks to you for listening