Speaker 1: Hey, Sminty listeners, Bridget here your favorite parces. It's a
Speaker 1: birthday coming up and guess what, y'all are all invited.
Speaker 1: I'm hosting a birthday party in Washington, d C on Sunday,
Speaker 1: March eleven, to benefit Thrive DC, an organization that fights homelessness.
Speaker 1: Want a party with me? All you need to do
Speaker 1: is to bring a box of heavy flow or overnight
Speaker 1: maxipads or tampons to donate to a d C woman
Speaker 1: experiencing homelessness. Look out for more deets on this Sminty Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: and Instagram channels, and I hope to see all there. Hey,
Speaker 1: this is Bridget and you're listening the stuff I'm ever
Speaker 1: told you, and yes, it does sound a little bit
Speaker 1: strange to be saying that alone. First, a little housekeeping,
Speaker 1: I want to thank all you sminthy listeners for speaking
Speaker 1: with us during this transition. Emily will be missed so much.
Speaker 1: In the spirit of radical transparency, I want to let
Speaker 1: y'all all know that we're working on putting together something
Speaker 1: great and people all love it going forward. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: we're doing some experimenting here. It's Minty. You'll be hearing
Speaker 1: from some new voices, some old voices, in a mix
Speaker 1: of everything in between. So please let us know what
Speaker 1: you think, what you like, what you don't like. It
Speaker 1: will take it from there, and I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you are taking this journey with us. Speaking of voices,
Speaker 1: if mine sounds a little bit nervous right now, that's
Speaker 1: because I'm about to be joined in studio by none
Speaker 1: other than miss Yard Lee Smith, who you might know
Speaker 1: a little better as Lisa Being Simpson. That's right, y'all,
Speaker 1: we've got Lisa s in the studio. In our series
Speaker 1: Fictional Feminists, M and I unpacked some of our favorite
Speaker 1: fictional feminist characters on the small and big screens, and
Speaker 1: y'all really couldn't get enough of talking about Lisa Simpson.
Speaker 1: If you didn't listen to that episode, here's a little
Speaker 1: taste of how it went down. Right, Growing up, Lisa
Speaker 1: was this figure who was allowed to be political and
Speaker 1: activisty and um, but still was this like sweet, precocious
Speaker 1: little girl. And it was sort of subtle the way
Speaker 1: the writers wrote her in right. They didn't pigeonhole her
Speaker 1: as an activist, but she her activism sort of came
Speaker 1: out in everyday exchanges in a way that it truly
Speaker 1: does in real life, you know what I mean. It's
Speaker 1: just like having a woke kid. Yeah, you don't. People
Speaker 1: don't really, at least people that I know, don't really
Speaker 1: walk around, you know, um proclaiming they're that they're involved
Speaker 1: in some sort of activist crusade. It just comes out
Speaker 1: when you talk to them. And I think over the
Speaker 1: years that we've gotten to know Lisa, it's just sort
Speaker 1: of whether it's her, you know, vegetarianism. You know, when
Speaker 1: Friends with Salad, Emily, is that a Lisa, that's a
Speaker 1: Homer quote? You know, when Friends with Salad? You know,
Speaker 1: when Friends with Salad? This is that you can unpack
Speaker 1: as a vegan, you can unpack that whole episode. Are
Speaker 1: you Gonna Marry a Carrot? Oh my god, You're pulling
Speaker 1: all these like great quotes that I'm not picking up
Speaker 1: at all. This is like my this was this is
Speaker 1: a microclass of my whole life quoting the Simpsons and
Speaker 1: people looking at me like I have three heads. Growing
Speaker 1: up in Washington, d C. Yardley Smith was to tease
Speaker 1: because of her voice. She got her first big break
Speaker 1: when she was cast in the Broadway production of Tom
Speaker 1: Stoppard's the real thing. When she auditioned for The Simpsons
Speaker 1: in n she initially read for the role of Bart,
Speaker 1: but the casting director thought her voice was too high,
Speaker 1: giving her the part of Lisa instead. That's something I
Speaker 1: can really identify with the Distinctiveness of Yardley's voice means
Speaker 1: that all other voice actors on The Simpsons voice several characters.
Speaker 1: Smith is actually banned from doing so because her voice
Speaker 1: is just too specific. Like many women, Yardley saw her
Speaker 1: professional pursuits as a means of achieving perfection and personal fulfillment.
Speaker 1: She hoped that success would quiet the growing chorus of
Speaker 1: her own internal insecurities, which she once called a bottomless
Speaker 1: pit of wanting global adoration. I can just get the
Speaker 1: world to adore me. Then I will feel better about
Speaker 1: myself and all my insecurities will go away. Everybody will
Speaker 1: adore me, and that must mean that I'm worthwhile, she
Speaker 1: told Vanity Fair last month. Yardley's career has been unquestionably successful.
Speaker 1: She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Voiceover Performance
Speaker 1: in but despite her massive success, Smith didn't always feel
Speaker 1: fulfilled by her voice over work. As much as she
Speaker 1: loves being Lisa Simpson to Smith, being a voice actor
Speaker 1: wasn't being a quote real actor. It was his acting
Speaker 1: from the neck up, as she put it. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of women, Smith struggled with bolimia and in security
Speaker 1: around her looks. In the nineties, she spent more than
Speaker 1: forty dollars on plastic surgery, which he hope would help
Speaker 1: her get more acting work. This really sounds like a
Speaker 1: difficult time for Smith. She was aging out of playing
Speaker 1: the daughter roles she had spent so much of her
Speaker 1: career on, but her youthful voice and looks made mother
Speaker 1: roles a challenge to Growing older helps Smith break out
Speaker 1: of her cycle of self doubt. Turning forty helped her
Speaker 1: let go of the arbitrary timeline of achieving her ideal
Speaker 1: of success by a certain age. You know that classic
Speaker 1: Simpsons episode when Lisa is devastated that her substitute teacher
Speaker 1: and Mr Burnistrom is leaving. At the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: Mr Burnistrom was getting out of train. Lisa runs alongside
Speaker 1: the train to catch up with them to say goodbye.
Speaker 1: He hands her note I'm gonna miss you. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what whenever you feel like you're alone and there's
Speaker 1: nobody you can rely on this school. You need to know.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. You are Lisa Simpson. The note reads,
Speaker 1: Yardley told Vanity Fair that she actually never understood this
Speaker 1: iconic scene until she understood herself. Your identity isn't your work.
Speaker 1: Your identity isn't who you are professionally. Who you are
Speaker 1: really comes from what's inside. Yardley says, I went, Oh,
Speaker 1: my god, Oh you need is already inside of you.
Speaker 1: To actually admit that it is such an admission of
Speaker 1: the fact that I obviously didn't feel and still struggle
Speaker 1: with the notion that everything I need is inside of me.
Speaker 1: After this quick break, we'll hear from Yardly about this
Speaker 1: AHA moment and about her work breaking everyone's favorite fictional
Speaker 1: feminist to life. So Yardly, we're so so happy to
Speaker 1: have you here today in studio, and we were just
Speaker 1: talking about how Lisa Simpson really did sort of change
Speaker 1: the lives of a lot of girls, con generation of
Speaker 1: women and girls who could finally see themselves reflected on screen.
Speaker 1: What is it like to have people tell you that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd like to say, at least I don't
Speaker 1: feel completely responsible because I always maintained and I'm thirty
Speaker 1: three and third percent of the success of Lisa Simpson,
Speaker 1: the other two thirds per site coming from the writers
Speaker 1: and the animators. But I completely get it. Is really
Speaker 1: all I can say. She's certainly one of my favorite
Speaker 1: characters of all time, and I I would truly say
Speaker 1: that even if I didn't UM give voice to her.
Speaker 1: She is so funny and she's so smart, and one
Speaker 1: of my favorite characteristics about her is that is her resilience.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if you know the show, you
Speaker 1: know they put Lisa Simpson through so much. They constantly
Speaker 1: give her things and then by the end of the
Speaker 1: episode twenty two minutes later, she doesn't have them anymore,
Speaker 1: and there it's a pony or friends or um you know,
Speaker 1: some fantastic achievement, and so she really has to draw
Speaker 1: on these inner resources in a way that UM I
Speaker 1: struggled with as a kid. And so if you know,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're lucky enough to be in a
Speaker 1: position to set a great example like that through your work,
Speaker 1: then UM, I do think that you have a tremendous
Speaker 1: responsibility to honor that. Yeah, one of the things I'm
Speaker 1: so interested in when it comes to representation is that
Speaker 1: the data is very clear that if young women and
Speaker 1: girls can't see themselves reflected on screen, then they almost
Speaker 1: don't see their own experiences and sort of stop believing
Speaker 1: in the power of their own their own agency. And
Speaker 1: you know, so few characters on screen are girls and women,
Speaker 1: so few of them, and you know, having a character
Speaker 1: likely said who is flawed, who is struggling, who gets things,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the episode those things are
Speaker 1: taken away, it really can show girls that you know,
Speaker 1: we're here, we exist, our stories are important, our lived
Speaker 1: experiences are important and have value, and that even if
Speaker 1: you don't often see them reflected on screen, they're still
Speaker 1: really important. I think that's really well said. And certainly,
Speaker 1: as you know, I meaning the last six or nine months,
Speaker 1: there's just great. Hopefully it's a movement that sustains itself
Speaker 1: where I wouldn't say women are finding their voices, but
Speaker 1: our voices are finally being heard. And but you're right
Speaker 1: to your point that there haven't been a lot of
Speaker 1: female heroes on screen in particular, and certainly not ones
Speaker 1: that are truly flawed and still survive and thrive even
Speaker 1: and can make you feel like I'm can make you
Speaker 1: feel like I identify with that, and that is awesome
Speaker 1: and not so we somehow need to be fixed. I
Speaker 1: think that as women, we we do two things really well.
Speaker 1: We apologize needlessly for almost everything, yes, and we take
Speaker 1: it upon ourselves to try to fix ourselves when perhaps
Speaker 1: there really isn't anything broken, Which isn't to say that
Speaker 1: you shouldn't know is strive to improve yourself or learn
Speaker 1: something new, or um, stay curious about people in the world,
Speaker 1: but the notion that you are inherently broken in some
Speaker 1: way somehow less than um. I think it's there's generations
Speaker 1: and generations of terrible, terrible messaging going on. I completely
Speaker 1: completely agree, and that's one of the reasons why I
Speaker 1: feel like people connect with Lisa so much. So often
Speaker 1: as women and female characters were on this binary where
Speaker 1: you're a good girl or a bad girl, or you
Speaker 1: know you're you're always one or the other, and I
Speaker 1: think Lisa shows that you can be smart and driven
Speaker 1: in ambitious, but also jealous and petty and have struggles
Speaker 1: and up and all of that and still be this authentic,
Speaker 1: multifaceted person that we all are. I feel like women
Speaker 1: on screen don't really get the benefit of being multifaceted
Speaker 1: people were either sweet and good or bad and slutty,
Speaker 1: or bad and vengeful. And Lisa shows us that we
Speaker 1: can be that we that are, we exist on a spectrum,
Speaker 1: that we can be all things, we can exist in multitudes.
Speaker 1: I completely agree, it's really beautifully said. Absolutely nothing to
Speaker 1: add to that. As of our girl, I love that
Speaker 1: you call her our girl. I mean, what's what is
Speaker 1: your like? Do you look up to Lisa? Do you
Speaker 1: admire her? Absolutely? And I also have this have a
Speaker 1: very um quite I think unique relationship to the character.
Speaker 1: And as far as because she doesn't look like me, um,
Speaker 1: although oddly I do see myself in some of her
Speaker 1: facial expressions, you know, but obviously she's bright yellow, she
Speaker 1: has four fingers, she you know, she has her hair
Speaker 1: is you can't tell her hairline from her complexion. Um,
Speaker 1: and she has this massive overbyte and yet she couldn't
Speaker 1: be cuter. But I do feel like Lisa Simpson is
Speaker 1: so well formed that and and has been part of
Speaker 1: our culture for so long now we just started recording
Speaker 1: season thirty um this week, and that she really exists
Speaker 1: quite separately from me, that she exists so successfully on
Speaker 1: her own as her own little being. And I think
Speaker 1: that if and if she didn't, I would maintain that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have hashtags on Twitter that say Lisa Simpson
Speaker 1: suggesting that she should run for president in like, if
Speaker 1: she was just a character that you sort of that
Speaker 1: you didn't attach to, you would never get something that
Speaker 1: goes viral in that way. Absolutely, And I think that's
Speaker 1: a testament to not only your brilliant work as voice talent,
Speaker 1: but the writers who give her life. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: clear that Lisa is someone on the show who I
Speaker 1: don't want to say she's beat up on the show,
Speaker 1: but she's someone who up right, I mean, you just
Speaker 1: you see they put her through hell they do. They
Speaker 1: hold her feet to the fire like like nobody else
Speaker 1: I feel, and then they expect her to, um to
Speaker 1: recover from that, and of course she always does. But
Speaker 1: I always think, oh god, if she ever gets past
Speaker 1: the age of paid that girls it's sub serious therapy,
Speaker 1: Well maybe she'll teach the therapist for all you know,
Speaker 1: she can be a therapist herself for sure. Um. And
Speaker 1: I just think that that really to me, and you
Speaker 1: can correct me if I'm wrong. It speaks to the
Speaker 1: talent of you know, not only the writers, but the
Speaker 1: you know, the amazing, the amazing voice talent that you
Speaker 1: have on the Simpsons, so many of whom are female.
Speaker 1: I actually didn't know that the first episode of the
Speaker 1: Simpsons was written by Mimi Pond, a woman. Um and
Speaker 1: you know, initially appeared on The Tracy Ullman Show, which
Speaker 1: you know, amazing female powerhouse driven show. So what is
Speaker 1: the what is the situation like in terms of gender
Speaker 1: in the cast and croup the Simpsons is that the
Speaker 1: you know, voice talent is certainly full of amazing female talent.
Speaker 1: But what does the writer's room look like? The writer's
Speaker 1: room is mostly male, actually by a lot like male.
Speaker 1: I think we have we have quite a large staff
Speaker 1: because everybody who writes on the Simpsons, um, they they
Speaker 1: will because you've written on the Simpsons and you know,
Speaker 1: the standard is set very high there. They then go
Speaker 1: off and right for somebody else. And then they realized,
Speaker 1: oh crap, we get nothing but studio and network notes,
Speaker 1: and they all come back in some capacity to work
Speaker 1: on The Simpsons again and and so. And that reference
Speaker 1: is that in our writer's room when James L. Brooks,
Speaker 1: our executive producer, made the deal with Fox too transfer
Speaker 1: the Simpsons to a half hour series. He said, I'll
Speaker 1: let me do it if we get no studio or
Speaker 1: network notes, which is almost unheard of. But because he's
Speaker 1: James L. Brooks, you know, Mary Tyler Moore and Bob
Speaker 1: Newhart and um, terms of endearment and so many like
Speaker 1: the guys. Just he's got walls and walls of of
Speaker 1: trophies from our industry and um, so he's obviously incredibly
Speaker 1: well regarded. And at that time I also have heard
Speaker 1: that twentieth century Fox was like, sure, give the guy
Speaker 1: whatever he wants. The show isn't gonna last more than
Speaker 1: thirteen a half hour episodes, so falket who cares? And
Speaker 1: then of course we hit so big and we're still
Speaker 1: on and so but that um, you know, did a
Speaker 1: fine print on his contract that says no to your
Speaker 1: network notes still exists. So um. And the other one
Speaker 1: of the other things he did actually, which was cool
Speaker 1: as a little side bought as he said, he wanted
Speaker 1: the music for the show to be scored by a
Speaker 1: live orchestra. So every week for dpiece orchestra scores the
Speaker 1: Simpson's music. There's nothing canned about it. It's it's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 1: Um that never happens. Um So, But to that point,
Speaker 1: the we have, most of the writers in that room
Speaker 1: are men. And the other thing I've heard, and I
Speaker 1: have actually recently heard confirmed, is that Lisa Simpson represents
Speaker 1: all of those guys. She's there alter ego as well.
Speaker 1: So if you consider that all of these male writers,
Speaker 1: and maybe although I feel like the female writers, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of one in particular, Caroline o'mine who's been there
Speaker 1: a really long time. She's such a phenomenal writer, and
Speaker 1: she's an incredible woman, and I would say like she
Speaker 1: has such a strong sense of herself, so maybe this
Speaker 1: theory doesn't apply to her. But what I was going
Speaker 1: to say is all these men when they were in school,
Speaker 1: high school, and then they went to all these Ivy
Speaker 1: League colleges, and um, I think when you're incredibly academically gifted,
Speaker 1: as they were, it sets you apart from your peer group.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you're gifted at anything, whether it's sports
Speaker 1: for me it was school drama, um, whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you're better at that most of your classmates, it
Speaker 1: will bring you praise and jealousy all at the same time.
Speaker 1: And certainly as a kid, when you're growing up, all
Speaker 1: you want to do is belong And so these writers
Speaker 1: who were also gifted, and some graduating from college when
Speaker 1: they were sixteen kind of thing. You know every bit
Speaker 1: what it was, what it's like for Lesa Simpson to
Speaker 1: be the black sheep of her family and even in
Speaker 1: her town. And so I think they get to to
Speaker 1: write out a lot of the angst that they experienced
Speaker 1: as young people. In our Little Lisa Simpsons, she's a
Speaker 1: vessel for a lot of things. I can definitely see
Speaker 1: how that plays out on the show. But again, I
Speaker 1: think that is such a fascinating part of the character
Speaker 1: that it's true if you grow up being good at something,
Speaker 1: particularly as a girl, it may be a blessing in
Speaker 1: your life, whether it's drama or sports or academics, but
Speaker 1: it also will be something that maybe sets you apart,
Speaker 1: that makes it hard. And I'm happy that on the
Speaker 1: show we see Lisa grappling with that, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's not always going to be easy for a little
Speaker 1: smart girl who is precocious or is really into something
Speaker 1: or very ambitious about something. You might get teased, you
Speaker 1: might be a loner, you might be ostracized. But on
Speaker 1: the Simpsons we see that it's okay, it's okay, Like
Speaker 1: she's not she's you know, compare her to the character
Speaker 1: of Martin, who is so smart never, you know, never
Speaker 1: lets a chance go by to let people not see
Speaker 1: that he is smart and talented, and you think like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is someone who's going to be you know, bullied
Speaker 1: his whole life whatever. Through LISTA, you see that it's okay.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be something that consumes your entire identity,
Speaker 1: that you're good at something or smart or ambitious, but
Speaker 1: that you can it can exist within you, that you
Speaker 1: can be a normal, happy, well adjusted person and also
Speaker 1: be good at saxophone and be good at math, be
Speaker 1: good at whatever. Yes, I agree, And I also think,
Speaker 1: what are the things that so inspiring about Lisa's that
Speaker 1: even if those talents, her academic prowess and her being
Speaker 1: a saxophone prodigy, um, even as those things don't necessarily
Speaker 1: win her any friends, she never ever gives up on them,
Speaker 1: like she she never is. There's that one episode called
Speaker 1: Summer or four ft two where she does pretend to
Speaker 1: be one of the cool kids who isn't um a brainiac,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, Bart outs her right.
Speaker 1: He tells those school kids when they go to Flanders's
Speaker 1: beach house and they have this weekend and she meets
Speaker 1: these kids and she's like, oh my god, I think
Speaker 1: they liked me. And she's so excited by that, and
Speaker 1: Bart is so jealous that he then goes to them
Speaker 1: and says, you know, my sister is actually a super
Speaker 1: straight a student, and she's you know, nerdy and all
Speaker 1: the things that you guys aren't, and they have them.
Speaker 1: They pause for a moment, and at the end of
Speaker 1: the episode they end up liking her just for who
Speaker 1: she is, and of course that's the best message of
Speaker 1: all times. But even as Lisa has a moment here,
Speaker 1: she of course expresses her rage to bar which I
Speaker 1: always love, and but she I don't think my recollection
Speaker 1: is that she never it's apart from that initial idea
Speaker 1: that if I don't tell them who I am, they'll
Speaker 1: still like me, she never doubles down on thinking I
Speaker 1: need to figure out how to change myself entirely. She
Speaker 1: tries to. Instead, she approaches it as though I need
Speaker 1: to see if I can hang on to who I
Speaker 1: am and still have friends who get me and who
Speaker 1: I get something from in return? Yeah, And that's that
Speaker 1: episode is so poignant because she does kind of come
Speaker 1: to this realization that she's okay. She doesn't have to
Speaker 1: change herself to get friends to be popular. I see
Speaker 1: that in another great episode, the episode where she decides
Speaker 1: she has a crush on the school bully um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, she tries to make him become sort
Speaker 1: of like her version of a successful mate, like putting
Speaker 1: him in a sweater vest and having him eat fig bars,
Speaker 1: and by the end she realizes, one, this isn't gonna work.
Speaker 1: Isn't who he is. He's always going to be the
Speaker 1: guy who wants to take a poop in Principal Skinner's
Speaker 1: bird bath or whatever. And then that's okay, Like she's
Speaker 1: it's okay that she is never going to be the
Speaker 1: kind of girl that he likes, and she still likes
Speaker 1: herself and that at the end of the episode they're
Speaker 1: not in relationship and that's okay, right, but she still
Speaker 1: really likes him, you know she. I do always feel
Speaker 1: as though since that episode, Lisa and Nelson kind of
Speaker 1: have a lasting affection for each other, even if they're
Speaker 1: not going to be a couple. There's another episode further
Speaker 1: on after that one where it's an episode about microfinance
Speaker 1: and Nelson turns out to be really good at fixing bicycles,
Speaker 1: and Lisa supports his business anonymously. And what I love
Speaker 1: about her is that again, I mean, she knows Nelson,
Speaker 1: she knows him quite well, and she knows they're nothing alike,
Speaker 1: but she is all about supporting that, saying that he's
Speaker 1: good at that she doesn't know anything about, but the
Speaker 1: fact that he's good at it, and then it might
Speaker 1: give him confidence, might give him a leg up even
Speaker 1: in his own standing, is meaningful to her, And so
Speaker 1: she's all about it. I mean, come on, you can't
Speaker 1: have a better ole model in that. And and on
Speaker 1: the flip side of all of the sort of all
Speaker 1: of the things she does that are wise beyond her years,
Speaker 1: she still has a fantastic sense of humor. She still
Speaker 1: thinks that Issue and Scratchy is the funniest thing she's
Speaker 1: ever seen, and that I think is super important element
Speaker 1: in creating the character. If he just made her really
Speaker 1: precocious and this now at all, she becomes pretty insufferable
Speaker 1: as long as you don't forget that she's always eight
Speaker 1: and needs to have some childlike characteristics that are very
Speaker 1: much like an eight year old like her, you know,
Speaker 1: loving of the issue and scratchy cartoons. Then you create
Speaker 1: a really successful balance. I think, Yeah, I agree. Something
Speaker 1: that you had said that to jump out at me
Speaker 1: is that, you know, for a show that is notable
Speaker 1: for a sort of showing toxic, dysfunctional romantic relations and
Speaker 1: ships and friendships as well. You know, you've got the
Speaker 1: Homer who was often choking bird and Homer who can
Speaker 1: be sort of like not the best husband to marche
Speaker 1: Lisa kind of presents this this interesting healthy model for
Speaker 1: like what healthy relationships can look like, where you know, hey,
Speaker 1: even if we didn't work out as a romantic couple,
Speaker 1: I still support your I still support you. You know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting I didn't think about that until you just
Speaker 1: mentioned it, that her relationships really do illustrate what healthy
Speaker 1: relationships can look like, even if they don't work out
Speaker 1: the way that we have planned. I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: because way back in the day, back in the early nineties,
Speaker 1: when we first went into a half hour, it was
Speaker 1: George H. W. Bush who said, we need more families
Speaker 1: like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons and everybody.
Speaker 1: Of course he was on the show of For one thing,
Speaker 1: it made our show even more popular, because anytime you
Speaker 1: have to be really careful of about how you're going
Speaker 1: to do something. Um. But what was really um emblematic
Speaker 1: about that comment was the Simpsons, despite their dysfunction, really
Speaker 1: genuinely care about each other. So even if they're not
Speaker 1: really even if they're not expert at expressing it, even
Speaker 1: if they're they don't always do the right thing, and
Speaker 1: they often don't, their intention is pure. And even if
Speaker 1: at the end, at the beginning it seems as though
Speaker 1: the intention is not even pure, they always come around,
Speaker 1: as you say, like the Simpson realizing Nelson is never
Speaker 1: going to be like me, but I still can like
Speaker 1: Nelson for who he is. And that's of course a
Speaker 1: universal lesson that to appreciate somebody's differences. Even if you
Speaker 1: don't necessarily the I to Y, or you're not going
Speaker 1: to hang out seven days a week, that's all okay.
Speaker 1: They could still be a really interesting occasional friend. They
Speaker 1: can just be They can hold that point on the
Speaker 1: circle that you will never hold. So anybody who who
Speaker 1: says the Simpsons is a bad influence. I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I was steel sort of sad, as though you've actually
Speaker 1: you've missed the larger point of this family. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean growing up. Not not to make it very too personal,
Speaker 1: but growing up, we planned family meals around when The
Speaker 1: Simpsons came on TV. So when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: came on at seven, So we had family meals around
Speaker 1: the Simpsons. And you know, I I've talked on the
Speaker 1: show about my family, and my family is great and
Speaker 1: I love them very much. But we were the big,
Speaker 1: loud family that was always involved in something. It was just,
Speaker 1: you know, we didn't have that cookie cutter family that
Speaker 1: you saw on The Brady Bunch where everything was happy
Speaker 1: and nobody ever screamed and nobody ever did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: We had a real family and my parents worked, they
Speaker 1: were cranky, the kids were, the kids lied, we were stealth.
Speaker 1: We got that great. It's like all the things that
Speaker 1: happened in normal families. And I would often feel so
Speaker 1: alienated watching these perfect families on TV, and I have
Speaker 1: would think, gee, what are we doing wrong? Like what's
Speaker 1: wrong with our family? That doesn't look like that? And
Speaker 1: The Simpsons was a show that reminded me, Hey, families
Speaker 1: don't always look like the perfect happy Huxtables. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: looks like the Simpsons. And sometimes your house is a mess,
Speaker 1: your parents are cranky, your kids are you know, they're
Speaker 1: good kids, but they live, they get into scrapes, they
Speaker 1: get into trouble, and that doesn't mean they don't love
Speaker 1: each other. And that show was so was such a
Speaker 1: big part of my understanding of my own family and
Speaker 1: help families look and behave you know, large and I
Speaker 1: think you know, to your points, certainly back in if
Speaker 1: we we sput off in a half hour show, uh
Speaker 1: in January, Well, the first actually the first half hour
Speaker 1: episode was December rating nine because it was a Christmas
Speaker 1: special where they get a little helper, and um, I
Speaker 1: think at that time to your point, there were most
Speaker 1: of the shows were reflecting the family that was much
Speaker 1: more pristine than what the Simpsons was about to um
Speaker 1: reveal and so, and you either loved it or you
Speaker 1: hated it. You either wanted to buy into the we
Speaker 1: need to be more like debit Brady Bunch or you
Speaker 1: were willing to go, oh, crap, awesome, look at that,
Speaker 1: there's a family just like ours. And maybe you're a
Speaker 1: little bit worse. I think we're doing okay, you know, UM,
Speaker 1: so it's great. You know, always to um have a
Speaker 1: mirror held up in a wider sense, I think is
Speaker 1: always incredibly important and valuable, as like you were saying
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the interview about girls not seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of um flawed but still ambitious and uh successful,
Speaker 1: but not outrageously not not unrealistically so not having a
Speaker 1: lot of role models like that On television. You often
Speaker 1: hear um people of color saying I didn't see anybody
Speaker 1: like me in movies and television, and hopefully that conversation
Speaker 1: is changing now. But you know, as a white woman
Speaker 1: with blue eyes grew up in a middle class family
Speaker 1: in the United States, I have no idea what that's like.
Speaker 1: I certainly knew what it was like as a girl
Speaker 1: not to see that many role models. But but if
Speaker 1: there were girls on film and television, they were probably white.
Speaker 1: So at least I had one thing that I could
Speaker 1: identify with, right and UM, imagine growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't obviously imagine growing up as somebody who doesn't
Speaker 1: see anybody who looks like them, sounds like them, acts
Speaker 1: like them, lives like them anywhere in entertainment, which is
Speaker 1: somehow supposed to reflect all of our lives. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: you kind of grow up feeling like your own experiences
Speaker 1: just aren't validated because they're not seen. And you, you know,
Speaker 1: the studies have been very clear that it's so important
Speaker 1: to have your own experience is reflected back at you,
Speaker 1: to have that agency and that grounding, and to feel
Speaker 1: like you are, you know, part of the conversation. So
Speaker 1: I want to switch gears really quickly. Um. Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: there was a really poignant Vanity Fair piece that just
Speaker 1: came out called Why Lisa Simpson Matters, And if folks
Speaker 1: haven't read it, they should totally read it. It's very
Speaker 1: very poignant. But one of the things I found so
Speaker 1: great about that piece was you really are very candid
Speaker 1: about your own struggles with perfection and an industry that
Speaker 1: often expects women to be you know, the best looking,
Speaker 1: the most talented, all of that, and that's something that
Speaker 1: I see Lisa struggle with quite a bit. There's an
Speaker 1: episode where she gets an eating disorder when she's doing ballet,
Speaker 1: and I wondered, like, what, like, what made you want
Speaker 1: to be so candid about your sort of struggles with
Speaker 1: trying to you know, be this perfect, you know, perfect
Speaker 1: looking person. I think, certainly, the while not a calculated
Speaker 1: move to talk about those things that I for me,
Speaker 1: it's always it was a cautionary tale that there was.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of pain in trying to somehow
Speaker 1: fix something that I perceived as being broken and it's
Speaker 1: not working. So you know, the takeaway from for instance,
Speaker 1: having um LIFEO suction or dieting or there was. I
Speaker 1: put a lot of emphasis on my appearance because I
Speaker 1: wasn't five not still not five ft nine, um, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred and five pounds soaking wet. I'm I'm athletic,
Speaker 1: I'm super strong, I am what I am right. But certainly,
Speaker 1: as I was growing up and never ever ever cast
Speaker 1: as the pretty girl, and people made fun of my
Speaker 1: looks when I was growing up and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: all the things that every girl goes through, but I
Speaker 1: took it really personally, and so I did these things
Speaker 1: and hopes that it would make me feel um better
Speaker 1: about my appearance, more successful, more acceptable in the wide world.
Speaker 1: And it didn't work. And that is my only regret
Speaker 1: in doing those things that I tried every which way
Speaker 1: I possibly knew to fill up the inside from the outside.
Speaker 1: And so whatever your modus operandi is, whether it's this
Speaker 1: relationship will fix me, this job will fix me, this
Speaker 1: award will fix me, this plastic surgery will fix me.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you shouldn't pursue any of those things.
Speaker 1: Just know why you're pursuing them, and don't assume, don't
Speaker 1: ever assume that doing those things will fill that hole
Speaker 1: inside of you. It might start of coat it with
Speaker 1: a little lining, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you're going to have to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: fill it up from the inside, which and even having
Speaker 1: said that, it's sort of almost a daily struggle for me.
Speaker 1: I have in no way mastered this, but at least
Speaker 1: there's some awareness that, okay, okay, all those things I
Speaker 1: did before, I know it's not going to work the
Speaker 1: way I wanted to. I still wanted to, but at
Speaker 1: least I've learned that it doesn't work. So really, if
Speaker 1: you could say, you know, I guess it comes down
Speaker 1: to if I could save one person from doing something
Speaker 1: for the wrong reason and again do it if you
Speaker 1: want to do it, then that that would have it
Speaker 1: was worth it too to bear my soul. I think
Speaker 1: it was definitely worth it. You could count me among
Speaker 1: that one. I'm sure it's plenty of women, but I'm
Speaker 1: definitely one of the one of the one women for
Speaker 1: whom that will make it worth it. Um. I think
Speaker 1: as women, we so often feel like we have to
Speaker 1: measure up to this imagined ideal of what success looks
Speaker 1: like for me. I always think, if I can just
Speaker 1: get published in this one outlet, or if I could
Speaker 1: just get this one professional goal or just have this,
Speaker 1: I would finally feel like I had quote made it right,
Speaker 1: I finally feel successful. And you know when I if
Speaker 1: I ever reach those goals, I would still feel empty.
Speaker 1: And I think it's one of those things where you
Speaker 1: have to come to realize making X, what meeting X,
Speaker 1: y Z goal isn't actually the end all be all.
Speaker 1: It's the process, It's the journey. It's how we get
Speaker 1: there that really kind of can be fulfilling, and that
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if you get published an X outlet
Speaker 1: or if you can X award or whatever. If you
Speaker 1: if it isn't going to be what actually makes you
Speaker 1: feel fulfilled. Right well, and I would say I think
Speaker 1: you should give yourself the credit where credit is due.
Speaker 1: That of course it matters. You could get published in that,
Speaker 1: in that um publication, whatever that goal is for you.
Speaker 1: But if you think just because you get published in
Speaker 1: whatever that thing is, that that's going to be the
Speaker 1: end of your trying to attain goals, You've got another income.
Speaker 1: And that's what I learned. Have learned. You know that
Speaker 1: even if if I when I drove onto the Fox
Speaker 1: slot and where we record the Simpsons and saw they
Speaker 1: have all these skillboards at the entrance of course rights
Speaker 1: advertising shows and films that they own and that they're
Speaker 1: that are on their channels and that they produced. And
Speaker 1: let's say I drove in onto the Fox slot and
Speaker 1: saw Yardley Smith starring in blah blah blah whatever it was. Um,
Speaker 1: if I think that, that's like, Wow, that's it. I've
Speaker 1: made it now, I couldn't retire. I'm good, I'm good
Speaker 1: to go. That was the like, that's just not who
Speaker 1: I am. So if you are a person who is
Speaker 1: always trying to set the bar higher, then it's a
Speaker 1: really delicate balance. And I again, I I haven't mastered it,
Speaker 1: but for many many years, at the beginning of my career,
Speaker 1: I equated my value and my identity with my successes.
Speaker 1: And of course success is a matter of perception, and
Speaker 1: so is failure. So if you know at the age
Speaker 1: by the age of twenty five, I hadn't won an oscar,
Speaker 1: that felt like a failure to me. Whereas people are like, well, jus, yardly,
Speaker 1: that's an incredibly lofty goal, I'm like, yeah, well, why
Speaker 1: wouldn't you set a lofty goal? But the precarious part
Speaker 1: of that is if you don't achieve that goal, does
Speaker 1: that mean that you end up missing all of the
Speaker 1: great things that you have done along the way, but
Speaker 1: just because they weren't on your checklist, you don't count.
Speaker 1: And that was the set of rules that I had
Speaker 1: set for myself. What do you say that you're someone
Speaker 1: who would call yourself a perfectionist? Yes, yes, um, certainly
Speaker 1: less so now, Oh it's been a really hard one battle.
Speaker 1: But I was tortured by my notions of perfection growing
Speaker 1: up and well into my twenties, probably even I'm like
Speaker 1: I'm fifty three now, so probably into my mid thirties,
Speaker 1: I would say, um, so that would under that same
Speaker 1: umbrella would be the plastic surgery, would be the holding
Speaker 1: myself to somehow assuming that when I went to an
Speaker 1: audition and got down to UM went to network. As
Speaker 1: we used to say, we don't do it so much anymore,
Speaker 1: but when you go to the network on a pilot,
Speaker 1: you that means you've passed all You've jumped through all
Speaker 1: the various hoops. This is the last stop. You're going
Speaker 1: to audition for the network executive, and in that moment
Speaker 1: they will decide whether or not you get the job.
Speaker 1: And that was for television pilots. And so I was
Speaker 1: really good at it. I was. I was a strong auditioner.
Speaker 1: I had nerves of steel, which is not to say
Speaker 1: I was fearless. I was. I really am sort of
Speaker 1: afraid of everything, but I just have this overbundance of
Speaker 1: courage and that carried me through. And so, but it
Speaker 1: came to the point where I would blame myself for
Speaker 1: not being able to basically control their minds. Right, if
Speaker 1: I didn't get the job, I would think, well, what
Speaker 1: did I do wrong? And that was it. There wasn't
Speaker 1: anything else I could do. I hadn't done anything wrong.
Speaker 1: I had done all of my homework. I was super
Speaker 1: super prepared in those situations. Always UM and for whatever
Speaker 1: reason they decided they wanted to go with six ft
Speaker 1: two in blonde, or they decided to make the part
Speaker 1: in uh something for a man, or you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, there were so many factors beyond my control,
Speaker 1: but because I wasn't able to control them somehow, that
Speaker 1: was my fault. And that that's when perfectionism, I think,
Speaker 1: really becomes a zero sum game. Again. I think it's
Speaker 1: everything to have goals and to strive for them, but
Speaker 1: you have to be nimble along the way. And I
Speaker 1: think I was certainly never a person who was interested
Speaker 1: in the journey. I was only interested in the destination. Um.
Speaker 1: That's how I was brought up to achieve at a
Speaker 1: very high standard. And it didn't include necessarily what you
Speaker 1: had learned along the way, or if it did, that
Speaker 1: was an implied success. But because it's never spoken about,
Speaker 1: it didn't you know, it didn't mean anything to me. Um,
Speaker 1: So I've kind of had to arrive at that on
Speaker 1: my own, and I go back and forth. Still I'm
Speaker 1: by no means the zen master in this. I mean, seriously,
Speaker 1: Bridge check back tomorrow and be like, so, yardly, how
Speaker 1: is the journey today? I'm like, but yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like a meta thing because it's it's your
Speaker 1: It's like a large version of you learning or or
Speaker 1: figuring out again and again that it is the journey,
Speaker 1: not the destination. Right that you know tomorrow you might
Speaker 1: be in a different place. And that's okay because ultimately
Speaker 1: it isn't about where you're at, it's about how you
Speaker 1: get there. Absolutely, And I think something that you said earlier,
Speaker 1: I do my sense of it is is that accepting
Speaker 1: the journey is harder for women because and and maybe
Speaker 1: obviously there are men who like, dude, I never accepted
Speaker 1: the journey. It was all about the goal. But I
Speaker 1: feel as though when when women share their share their journey,
Speaker 1: that it can often be perceived as oh, oh, you
Speaker 1: haven't made it yet. Oh well that's too bad, dear.
Speaker 1: That there's um, there's just a different there's a double
Speaker 1: standard that you that either you won't make it because
Speaker 1: of course the phrase glass ceiling means something to all
Speaker 1: of us, and that if you're still on the journey,
Speaker 1: you must not be doing something right. And um, it's
Speaker 1: and it's not always imposed. I'm not saying that men
Speaker 1: are holding us down. I think we work against ourselves
Speaker 1: as women. Um, there's a very different social structure for
Speaker 1: men and women. I think men, for instance, obviously are
Speaker 1: much better at the romance UM, and women I think
Speaker 1: if we're successful, we contend to divide and conquer instead
Speaker 1: of banding together. Again, I think that narrative is changing
Speaker 1: and hopefully permanently um as we go forward for where
Speaker 1: we are now. But when there's a movie that's all
Speaker 1: about women and we call it a chick flick. But
Speaker 1: when there's a movie all about men, we don't call
Speaker 1: it a man flick. It's just a movie, right, right.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that we've always been encouraged to
Speaker 1: band together, and when women do, it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just a bunch of women getting together
Speaker 1: doing a thing, as opposed to a bunch of people
Speaker 1: getting together doing a thing who all happened to be
Speaker 1: the same gender. Yeah. I think that's so true. And
Speaker 1: something that you said that resonated so well with me
Speaker 1: personally is this idea that for women, it almost seems
Speaker 1: like we have to have this facade that we have
Speaker 1: it all together all the time, that we know exactly
Speaker 1: what we're doing, and that when women kind of Women
Speaker 1: are not given the same leeway as men to show
Speaker 1: their flaws, their vulnerabilities, and we have to sort of
Speaker 1: pretend that we have it all together lest we look
Speaker 1: like complete screw ups, because like, there's something worse than
Speaker 1: being a woman who like doesn't have it all together.
Speaker 1: Men are given the latitude to be these eccentric geniuses
Speaker 1: who are complete messes but still get it together and
Speaker 1: like produce awesome stuff. Women, on the other hand, don't
Speaker 1: get that leeway. And I'll never forget the first time
Speaker 1: that a woman that I really professionally admired admitted like
Speaker 1: one of her biggest, most crucial work mistakes, and I
Speaker 1: thought she this was someone who I thought was so perfect,
Speaker 1: never messed up, blah blah blah, And she was like,
Speaker 1: you you think that about me? I mess up all
Speaker 1: the time. And it made me realize, Oh, I have
Speaker 1: this idea in my head that if a woman has
Speaker 1: made it, that means she has never up, She's never
Speaker 1: made a mistake, she has always been on her game
Speaker 1: all the time. And that's the story that we tell
Speaker 1: ourselves about successful women is not true, right, And there
Speaker 1: was that movement way back in the I probably started
Speaker 1: in the seventies, um, where there was this notion that
Speaker 1: women could have it all, that you could be a
Speaker 1: career woman, you could be a mother, and you could
Speaker 1: be a wife, and you would do all of those things.
Speaker 1: Seen a slee without any stress, without one ball, without
Speaker 1: any of the balls being dropped and rolling under the sofa.
Speaker 1: And of course the revelation over the last forty years
Speaker 1: has been like, oh, wait a minute, that's impossible because
Speaker 1: there are still only twenty four hours of a day
Speaker 1: and that that balancing act. Um. I mean, and I
Speaker 1: don't have any kids, so I don't even know firsthand,
Speaker 1: but that's like, but I from women that I am
Speaker 1: friends with who have tried to do that, is like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's impossible. There will be this some something is going
Speaker 1: to suffer, and it's usually, uh, the self care. Of course,
Speaker 1: we'll hear more from Yardley after this quick break and
Speaker 1: we're back. Let's get back to Yardly. So I want
Speaker 1: to switch gears again here, um In one of the
Speaker 1: ways that you are very similar to Lisa Simpson is
Speaker 1: that Lisa, one of the ways that her feminism comes
Speaker 1: through is that she always feels very empowered to you know,
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on in the world around her,
Speaker 1: whether it's solving the mystery of who shot Mr Burns
Speaker 1: or figuring out what this you know, what this weird
Speaker 1: angels skeleton thing that was found in her in her community.
Speaker 1: Mall like what that was about? Is it really an angel?
Speaker 1: Is it something else going on? I love that Lisa
Speaker 1: is always feels empowered to know more than the adults
Speaker 1: around her, and like completely runs with that. And so
Speaker 1: you sort of have done that a little bit yourself
Speaker 1: with Small Town dis your true crime podcast, Oh nice
Speaker 1: Gangue their break kid um. Well, I will say one
Speaker 1: day one of my other favorite qualities about Lisa Sinton
Speaker 1: is she has a very strong sense of justice. Lisa
Speaker 1: has it an absolutely unshakable moll center as in terms
Speaker 1: of and not a whole elier than thou kind of motality,
Speaker 1: but uh, we are all equal and we need to
Speaker 1: be treated equally and so and I love that about her.
Speaker 1: She's she's always for the underdog, and I like to
Speaker 1: think I share that with her. And I've always had
Speaker 1: a love of true crime, and I feel as though
Speaker 1: for me, if there was something really comforting and optimistic
Speaker 1: about the good guys winning, I really I get. I
Speaker 1: get a visceral fire of rage in my gut when
Speaker 1: somebody gets away with something bad or something they've done
Speaker 1: something wrong and nobody's calling them out on it, or
Speaker 1: they just haven't gotten caught. And it can be anything
Speaker 1: from uh, somebody who you know lies to their best friend,
Speaker 1: to somebody who has committed a murder or um inflicted
Speaker 1: some terrible crime or harm on somebody else. And so
Speaker 1: this true crime podcast that we've started, that we launched
Speaker 1: in September and has had massive success. We're so thrilled.
Speaker 1: I started it with my best friend, who's another actress
Speaker 1: named zb Allen, and our two friends, these identical twin
Speaker 1: detectives named Dan and Dave, and Dan and Dave. We
Speaker 1: we never say their last names because Dave Dana has retired,
Speaker 1: but Dave is still a working detective. And we also
Speaker 1: wanted the premise of the show is the big time
Speaker 1: crimes are happening in small towns everywhere, just not with
Speaker 1: the frequency that they happened in say Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. But the level of depravity and evil is
Speaker 1: in no way diminished because the population is smaller. And
Speaker 1: so we were Zibbie and I were fascinated by this,
Speaker 1: and so we were we were um all together having
Speaker 1: drinks one night at Christmas, and we were like, we
Speaker 1: should do a podcast. Oh, like yeah, And then three
Speaker 1: months later we were like okay. And we all had
Speaker 1: always loved listening to Dan and Dave's stories about the
Speaker 1: cases that were breaking in because and they were the
Speaker 1: ones who had worked the cases. We got incredible detail
Speaker 1: and we were so fascinated by the actual process of
Speaker 1: how do you break a case, And so that's sort
Speaker 1: of how the podcast was born. And we decided we
Speaker 1: would only have detectives on the show who actually investigated
Speaker 1: the cases they're talking about, and we've been able to
Speaker 1: stick to that. So now we go around the country
Speaker 1: interviewing detectives about cases, and we also try to get
Speaker 1: cases that are lesser known. A couple of them have
Speaker 1: had national attention, but by and large, um, they aren't
Speaker 1: the things that you always read about on Wikipedia. Because
Speaker 1: for us it was many fold. We wanted to highlight
Speaker 1: really stellar police work, of which there's a lot, and
Speaker 1: we wanted the criteria for the detective is just tell
Speaker 1: us about a case that you're proud of. So it
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be the glorious murder that you ever
Speaker 1: came across, uh Dan. For instance, there's an episode in
Speaker 1: season one Grid Dan tells a story about breaking them
Speaker 1: this case wide open of a home invasion robbery, and
Speaker 1: the only clue he had was um, uh, two ice
Speaker 1: tea bottles that were unopened, so no d n A
Speaker 1: and an unmarked plastic grocery bag that said thank you
Speaker 1: for your business. And through the series of just some
Speaker 1: good old fashioned detective work, Dan figured out where the
Speaker 1: bag came from, who had bought it, uh, where they
Speaker 1: got on the bus because he knew that they didn't
Speaker 1: have a car, um, and on and on and on,
Speaker 1: and then linked them to several other burglaries. So and
Speaker 1: that stuff like, it's such a win, it's such a
Speaker 1: win for the good guys, and we love that. And
Speaker 1: on the foot side, we have some really really dark
Speaker 1: cases where um, there's a case about child abuse that
Speaker 1: ended up changing the law and this state and the
Speaker 1: way they do welfare checks on children in this date
Speaker 1: and that one's really hard to hear, but we did
Speaker 1: get the detective is quite some time ago, in the eighties,
Speaker 1: eighties or early nineties. Um, we got the detective who
Speaker 1: worked in that case to talk about it, and we
Speaker 1: just we can't get enough of it. But we're getting
Speaker 1: all these five star reviews, and so we're on iTunes
Speaker 1: and we're now we're on the Stitcher premium too, UM,
Speaker 1: Google play anywhere you like to listen to your podcast.
Speaker 1: And I think that you brought a clip for us
Speaker 1: to hear. Oh yes, I did. So we put together this.
Speaker 1: We just launched season two, UM in the middle of February,
Speaker 1: so before that we wanted to We have recorded all
Speaker 1: our episodes, we hadn't edited them all because we're we're
Speaker 1: a super small team bridget we are. We have means
Speaker 1: to be doing the editing, and then we pass it
Speaker 1: on to our two actual editors who know not how
Speaker 1: to work pro tools and all that. UM. And that's
Speaker 1: the team, Thank you very much. UM. So we have
Speaker 1: our own equipment, so we pack it up in um
Speaker 1: palaquint cases and go to the small towns. But so
Speaker 1: we wanted to put together this trailer of clips from
Speaker 1: season two and it's fantastic. There are a couple of
Speaker 1: calls in there, UM, some sound bites from the some
Speaker 1: of the detectives that we talked to for a season two.
Speaker 1: I think it's a really great compilation and of what
Speaker 1: you can look forward to. Let's hear a bit now.
Speaker 1: I just witness to man driving a vehicle intoxicated. It's
Speaker 1: got a star of child screaming and running in the
Speaker 1: car chase. Really, it almost immediately turns into a pretty
Speaker 1: significant car chase. We can't let this guy get away.
Speaker 1: This guy gets away. This little girl's dead. I have
Speaker 1: never in my ten years of doing this, seen somebody
Speaker 1: that on first glance looks so dead. I remember he
Speaker 1: put both hands on my shoulders and he looked me
Speaker 1: in the eye and he said, Yardley. He repeated my
Speaker 1: name three times, Yardley, Yardley, Yardley. I wanted to call
Speaker 1: you last night and tell you I love you and
Speaker 1: I'll take care of you and don't worry. She was
Speaker 1: a very religious person, and so she really felt like
Speaker 1: it was her purpose to save Mark. One woman described
Speaker 1: her coming to work with marks on her arm to
Speaker 1: show emergency who shot her. The investigator says, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you need a lawyer. Did you kill your wife?
Speaker 1: Doesn't answer, just kind of looks away, and then he says,
Speaker 1: I think I should get a lawyer. Well, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I hope that folks check it out. I've listened to
Speaker 1: a few episodes and it's really really compelling stuff. And
Speaker 1: I've got to say it is a little bit interesting
Speaker 1: to hear who I think of as Lisa Simpson talking
Speaker 1: about these are very grisly crimes. Do people tell you
Speaker 1: that we do? We have we have heard that where
Speaker 1: people are either really kind of pickled by it or
Speaker 1: slightly unnerved by it. Um. Luckily, I actually to be
Speaker 1: and I by no means to do most of the
Speaker 1: talking in our podcast. We really are. We're sort of
Speaker 1: the we're the audience obviously, and I think some of
Speaker 1: the best feedback we get UM is from fans who say,
Speaker 1: I love this podcast. One of my favorite things is
Speaker 1: that the ladies asked the question that I would have asked,
Speaker 1: right when I would have asked it. And that's the
Speaker 1: purpose that we serve. That we're there to draw out
Speaker 1: the details that these detectives, because they live with these cases,
Speaker 1: either feel like that's that important or maybe not that interesting,
Speaker 1: and they're wrong about all of that. It's all important
Speaker 1: and it's all interesting, and so Zaber and I are
Speaker 1: there sort of the Greek chorus to go, hey, what
Speaker 1: about that? And it's really been so rewarding. I I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I don't know that we had any
Speaker 1: expectations when we started it. Really. I people like, well,
Speaker 1: what did you hope to get out of it? I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's just some really great stories because
Speaker 1: I love true crime and I love the good guys
Speaker 1: to win UM and it's just in many ways been
Speaker 1: so much more than that. It's interesting. I've actually found
Speaker 1: that most of people that get drunk and say let's
Speaker 1: start a podcast, it actually does end up being kind
Speaker 1: of cool, so you're you're in good company. My theory is,
Speaker 1: and this obviously everybody won't agree with this, but I
Speaker 1: think you have to approach everything that you do with
Speaker 1: a huge measure of passion. Like if you think, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this because it's a money making scheme
Speaker 1: other than the fact, and I'm not talking about jobs
Speaker 1: that you need to take in order to make your
Speaker 1: mortgage or buy your groceries, like those are jobs. But
Speaker 1: if you're going to initiate something UM from scratch and
Speaker 1: you don't do it because it moves you in some way,
Speaker 1: then I think that your success will be more difficultly one. Um,
Speaker 1: I think when I because I had a shoe company
Speaker 1: for five years and I and I started the shoe
Speaker 1: company literally on a whim, because my my motto is
Speaker 1: sort of screw it, let's do it. And I didn't
Speaker 1: have a lot of clothes, but I didn't have any
Speaker 1: beautiful shoes that were comfortable enough to carry me through
Speaker 1: my day. And I'm like, well, that I can be
Speaker 1: part of this solution. So without knowing anything about designing shoes,
Speaker 1: but knowing a lot about what I like, I founded
Speaker 1: a company called Marsha Vu in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: and I made the shoes in Italy. And I would
Speaker 1: go to Italy twice a year to visit the factories
Speaker 1: and the tanneries and take my materials. And I had
Speaker 1: a woman who was a graphic designer, and I would
Speaker 1: tell her what I wanted and she would draw the
Speaker 1: sketches for the specs and give those to the factories.
Speaker 1: But my point is, if I didn't have my heart
Speaker 1: in and if I didn't really think this is really
Speaker 1: exciting for me. I'm learning all this stuff. I had
Speaker 1: never started a company before. There were so many other
Speaker 1: things that it entailed that I didn't realize would be
Speaker 1: part of the process when I started it, but that
Speaker 1: I ended up really loving. Then it would have felt
Speaker 1: like the tremendous failure, I think when at the end
Speaker 1: of the day after five years we still hadn't made
Speaker 1: a profit. We had made money, but not a profit,
Speaker 1: and I sort of started to really get to lay
Speaker 1: the end of the big market shot company. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a racket, which is fine, UM, And I realized,
Speaker 1: you know what, it takes as much courage to say
Speaker 1: no to something as it does to say as to something.
Speaker 1: And so I closed the company and started a new company,
Speaker 1: sort of went back to show business, UM, which is
Speaker 1: what how small town they started. I have a development
Speaker 1: company with a my partner, Ben Cornwell, and we developed
Speaker 1: projects in all mediums at their very earliest stages. And again,
Speaker 1: that's really exciting to me. To be able to be
Speaker 1: the people who get to say yes first. UM is
Speaker 1: a unique position and something that's really meaningful to me
Speaker 1: because somebody gave me a chance way back in the day,
Speaker 1: and now you get to give that chance to others.
Speaker 1: You get to be the person that says yes, the
Speaker 1: decider yes so I can and pay you to write
Speaker 1: a script. I'm not I don't have to ask you
Speaker 1: to write it on spec and I don't know what's
Speaker 1: going to happen with it. Even if nothing happens with it,
Speaker 1: we both invested something in it. You invested you know,
Speaker 1: your blood, sweat and tears, and I invested money, and
Speaker 1: together we were able to move the needle in some way.
Speaker 1: I love that. That's that's so powerful. This is my
Speaker 1: last question, um, So, I have to ask. Last week,
Speaker 1: Ted Cruise said this about Lisa Simpson. I think the
Speaker 1: Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and Republicans are
Speaker 1: happily the party of Homer and Bark and Maggie and Marge. So, Yardley,
Speaker 1: what do you think about that? You know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was surprised that the guy he's Ted Cruises talking
Speaker 1: at two at at t Peck says before that, um
Speaker 1: for Ted Cruise says Lisa's sent as a party of
Speaker 1: the Democrats, that Ted Cruiz is a huge fan of
Speaker 1: the show, because I feel like if he was really
Speaker 1: a fan of the show, he wouldn't say he wouldn't
Speaker 1: include at least Marge and Maggie as being Republicans, because
Speaker 1: that seems ridiculous to me, at least, not Republicans who
Speaker 1: aren't completely inclusive. They would have to be moderate Republicans,
Speaker 1: and I don't necessarily consider Ted Cruz a moderate Republican, um.
Speaker 1: But what really struck me about that comment when I
Speaker 1: heard it, because I actually hadn't seen it, and then
Speaker 1: of course, you know, my text messages blew up and
Speaker 1: the Twitter feed blew up, like Yarderie, Ardie, what are
Speaker 1: you gonna say about this? And so I watched the
Speaker 1: clip and I think the thing that was most striking
Speaker 1: to me is that although he was sort of he
Speaker 1: sort of tried to, you know, pass it off as
Speaker 1: a joke, Ted Cruz said that Lisa since as the
Speaker 1: party of the Democrats with so much disdain and so
Speaker 1: that was a bad thing. And I thought, this is
Speaker 1: absolutely indicative of the way the government is, um not
Speaker 1: functioning at the moment, that there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 1: any um business, seem to be a lot of reaching
Speaker 1: across the aisle. And I'm not saying that, um it's
Speaker 1: just on the Republican side, and certainly the Democrats have
Speaker 1: dug their heels in, but I do feel that because
Speaker 1: the Republicans are the party in power across the board,
Speaker 1: the burden falls more heavily on them to reach across
Speaker 1: the aisle and say, hey, how can we reach a compromise,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, government is compromised.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about how difficulties to get
Speaker 1: four friends to decide where to eat dinner on any
Speaker 1: given night, you get like ten different suggestions. Right, you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna get what is it, you know, between
Speaker 1: the House and the Senate people to agree on one day?
Speaker 1: That's ever going to happen. People, Everybody's gonna have to
Speaker 1: give something up. So um, I I was quite disappointed,
Speaker 1: but of course I had to answer, and I also
Speaker 1: had to be in people what I did tweet Cruise
Speaker 1: back although he didn't tweet it, he said it, but
Speaker 1: I crafted tweet um saying, hey, take CRUs you say
Speaker 1: that Lisa Simpson is the Party of the Democrats like
Speaker 1: it's a bad thing. But I'm sure what you mean is,
Speaker 1: even though she sits across the aisle from me, I
Speaker 1: look forward to working with her on gun reform, um,
Speaker 1: l G B, t q I, equality and saving the planet.
Speaker 1: Smiley place that's perfect also that's a classic Lisa Simpson response, like,
Speaker 1: that's exactly exactly what she would have tweeted. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, in this moment, we actually do have young, precocious, smart,
Speaker 1: badass young people leading the charge on this issue. And
Speaker 1: so I think Lisa Simpson is kind of this. This
Speaker 1: can be thought of as this sort of torch leading
Speaker 1: the way of young people who are you know, being
Speaker 1: the voices of reason in this debate. It's so exciting,
Speaker 1: it's and clearly the only thing that has gotten these
Speaker 1: mostly white middle aged men to sit up and take notice,
Speaker 1: because God knows they're they're not listening to anybody else,
Speaker 1: including each other. By the way, so um, hats off
Speaker 1: to those survivors of the Parkland massacre. And what a
Speaker 1: tragedy that it has taken the events that transpired to
Speaker 1: affect that change. I mean, really, it's going to take
Speaker 1: that I find it. I mean, you if you, if
Speaker 1: you think about it for half a second, you can
Speaker 1: really get into how discouraging that is. But I think
Speaker 1: it's probably better to take the optimistic view and and
Speaker 1: cheer them on and join them in their fight. That's
Speaker 1: exactly what at least the would do that's what we're
Speaker 1: doing here on stuff Mom never told you. Um terly,
Speaker 1: I can't thank you enough for this. Uh just in
Speaker 1: terms of you know, here at stuff I've ever told you,
Speaker 1: we're trying to be all about radical transparency. So for
Speaker 1: our listeners out there that are thinking, oh, bridish, it
Speaker 1: sounds a bit strange today. One it's because I'm talking
Speaker 1: to one of my literal heroes. Uh too, It's because
Speaker 1: a little behind the scenes info We had done an
Speaker 1: entire interview earlier this week that was unfortunately lost in
Speaker 1: the sauce, and Yardley was nice enough to talk to
Speaker 1: us again, and I honestly could not be more thrilled.
Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up watching The Simpsons, idolizing the
Speaker 1: Simpson finally feeling like I saw myself in a small
Speaker 1: way reflected on screen. And you were such a big
Speaker 1: part of that for me, And honestly, I'm so sure
Speaker 1: that you were such a big part of that for
Speaker 1: a generation of young women and girls. And so from
Speaker 1: the bottom of my heart, I thank you for talking
Speaker 1: to me today. I thank you for all of your
Speaker 1: amazing work really shaping our culture. I would say, Rachett,
Speaker 1: that's such a tall order what what an enormous compliment
Speaker 1: and really such a privilege always to hear that my
Speaker 1: work in some way has inspired in or comforted um
Speaker 1: anyone anywhere, and so to do hear that firsthand from
Speaker 1: you makes means the world to me. I really appreciate it. Well,
Speaker 1: Smithy listeners, if you can't tell, that was pretty much
Speaker 1: the coolest thing that has ever happened to me. And
Speaker 1: I need to sign off so I can cry tears
Speaker 1: of Joey, not really, but maybe a little. I want
Speaker 1: to know what did you think of what Yardley had
Speaker 1: to say? Can you identify with her quest for perfection?
Speaker 1: Was Lisa Simpsons someone that you looked up to growing up?
Speaker 1: Was your family more Simpsons than it was Huxtables or
Speaker 1: Brady Bunch. We want to hear from you. Find us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at stuff bomb ever told you, Find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and as always I
Speaker 1: love getting your email. Else at mom Stuff at House
Speaker 1: of Works dot com. M