Speaker 1: Hey, this is Bridget and this is Annie, and you're
Speaker 1: listening the stuff Mom never told you. Now, today we
Speaker 1: want to dive into a topic that you probably already
Speaker 1: have some firsthand knowledge of. You probably seen it on TV,
Speaker 1: seen it in movies, or at least heard about those movies.
Speaker 1: And that is stalking. Now, we all know stalking is
Speaker 1: no joke. But then why do we always see stalking
Speaker 1: in romantic comedies or in lighthearted movies and it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be portrayed as funny or sweet or endearing. Right,
Speaker 1: it is such a common troupe and it's it's common
Speaker 1: as a problem, a real life problem in the United States, right, Bridget, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is really common. According to John Carol University, one
Speaker 1: in six women and one in nineteen men in the
Speaker 1: United States have experienced stalking during their lifetime, and about
Speaker 1: of stalking victims so that they went to the police
Speaker 1: at least once regarding the stocking. Yeah, and unfortunately it's
Speaker 1: really difficult to report or prosecute no matter where you are.
Speaker 1: Of American women just accept being stalked as a fact
Speaker 1: of life and a three per to report their stalker
Speaker 1: to the police over fifteen times and nothing gets done.
Speaker 1: The effectiveness of restraining orders is up for debate too,
Speaker 1: because specifically in cases of stalking, the stalker might see
Speaker 1: it as a challenge or a betrayal, and up to
Speaker 1: sevent of the time they violate the restraining order, the
Speaker 1: stalker does. And I'm not saying don't get one by
Speaker 1: any means, I'm just saying that, unfortunately they're not as
Speaker 1: successful as you might hope they would be. And also
Speaker 1: they can be difficult to get. They can be expensive.
Speaker 1: If the stalker is from a different state, you might
Speaker 1: have to go to that state and go to that
Speaker 1: court um to get the restraining order. It's just it's
Speaker 1: really complicated and unfortunately difficult problem to solve. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that I think makes it
Speaker 1: that much more complicated is that we are constantly being
Speaker 1: that these messages that give us a signal that stalking
Speaker 1: is cute or funny, or acceptable, or romantic or sympathetic.
Speaker 1: And so, as you just pointed out, we don't take
Speaker 1: stalking seriously as a crime, and it can be really
Speaker 1: really hard to do something about it if you're being stalked.
Speaker 1: But that can also be because we are being taught
Speaker 1: to see it as something that's really not that bad.
Speaker 1: And the data is pretty clear that by consuming these
Speaker 1: movies and these messages all the time, it does warp
Speaker 1: how we see something that's really scary and really serious. Yeah, especially,
Speaker 1: I feel like we have a lot of phrases for it, like, um, oh,
Speaker 1: he's just being persistent, or he just had to wear down,
Speaker 1: Like there's this idea that your hard efforts will be
Speaker 1: ordered if you just keep trying. She's gonna see the light.
Speaker 1: She is the woman. It's usually a woman being stalked.
Speaker 1: Um is a prize to be one. And this is
Speaker 1: a plotline we have seen over and over again, and
Speaker 1: people do kind of consider it romantic. It normalizes it
Speaker 1: in a normalizing is definitely the word I would use.
Speaker 1: And even beyond that, there are so many real life
Speaker 1: examples of this. Last month, when a Maryland seventeen year
Speaker 1: old shot and killed his high school girlfriend, there was
Speaker 1: a headline that called him a quote love sick teenager. Now,
Speaker 1: in this headline, they weren't actually quoting like a bystander
Speaker 1: or a classmate. This was an editorial choice to label
Speaker 1: him as love sick. And you know, he committed a crime,
Speaker 1: a violent scary, terrible crime against a young girl. And
Speaker 1: to say that he was love sick. I think kind
Speaker 1: of romanticizes behavior that should not be romanticized. It's very
Speaker 1: serious and very wrong and very troubling. But yet when
Speaker 1: they do that, it since the sig know that it's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that reminds me. Um. Up until the nineteen nineties,
Speaker 1: there was no official legal definition in the United States
Speaker 1: of what stalking is, and it was called, among other things, um,
Speaker 1: love sickness, or infatuation, which sounds much nicer than what
Speaker 1: it really is. And perhaps we should back up a
Speaker 1: bit and um talk about what we do define as
Speaker 1: stalking here in the US. Yeah, that's a good idea.
Speaker 1: So according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, they defined
Speaker 1: stalking as making unwanted phone calls, sending unslicited or unwanted
Speaker 1: letters and emails, following or spying on the victim, showing
Speaker 1: up at places without a legitimate reason, waiting at places
Speaker 1: for the victim, leaving unwanted items, presents, gifts, flowers, and
Speaker 1: posting information or spreading rumors about the victim on the internet,
Speaker 1: in public places or by word of mouth. Yeah, none
Speaker 1: of that sounds good. Or romantic. Doesn't none of that
Speaker 1: sounds good of romantic. But yet those exact, exact, exact
Speaker 1: scenarios play out in movies that are meant to be
Speaker 1: romantic or funny or sweet all the time. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: are you a fan of real m comms romantic comedies?
Speaker 1: Bridget Oh what a good question. I want to be
Speaker 1: the kind of person who says no, But I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not above them. I think I like some of them.
Speaker 1: I like them when they're um like I love ten
Speaker 1: things I hate about you, I like some of them.
Speaker 1: I think I'm not someone who is like watching them
Speaker 1: all the time. Um, I love um Nancy Myers movies
Speaker 1: you know, think you know those movies where it's like
Speaker 1: Diane Keaton is wearing an oversized sweater and she's divorced,
Speaker 1: but she wants to get back out there. Like those
Speaker 1: kind of movies. I love the host, but she's always
Speaker 1: wearing like a like a nice like beige tunic. And
Speaker 1: you know, I'm getting a real sense for like the
Speaker 1: fashion style you aspire to. Yeah, Diane Keaton divorced and
Speaker 1: getting back out there is my fashion, like mood board
Speaker 1: that is such a specific and beautiful fashion I hope you.
Speaker 1: I hope you make this board and call it that
Speaker 1: me too. So do you like romantic comedies? No, not really. Um,
Speaker 1: I have a lot of friends that do, and I
Speaker 1: find I just get kind of bored watching them, or
Speaker 1: I don't really care. I like a very specific type
Speaker 1: of tragic romantic comedy, I think where they never end
Speaker 1: up together, like Five Days of Summer. Yeah. Um, it's
Speaker 1: been a while since I've seen that. I'm thinking more
Speaker 1: of like, um, weird horror shows specifically, like TV they
Speaker 1: just kind of never have because there's zombies, like you
Speaker 1: want a date but work, there's some vampires involved kind
Speaker 1: of things. Well, your question actually makes me think because
Speaker 1: when doing research for this episode, a lot of movies
Speaker 1: that I actually I am a big fan of do
Speaker 1: you have these troubling aspects. So I don't want to
Speaker 1: make it seem like, oh, I've I've never enjoyed this movie.
Speaker 1: These are movies that I don't like and I'm taking
Speaker 1: a stand against them. What actually makes it sort of
Speaker 1: more pervasive is the fact that I think of myself
Speaker 1: as someone who is critical of the media that I consume.
Speaker 1: Yet movies that I enjoy have these really toxic gross
Speaker 1: depictions of of stalker ish behavior. So let's break down
Speaker 1: some of these movies that maybe have some troubling or
Speaker 1: toxic behavior kind of masked as as sweet fun. Um,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen the movie? Say anything? No, but
Speaker 1: I know exactly what seen that everyone knows from that movie. Okay,
Speaker 1: so say anything. It's probably my favorite movie when I
Speaker 1: was in junior high high school if you've never seen it. Basically, Um,
Speaker 1: John Cusack is Lloyd Dobbler. He's this sort of new
Speaker 1: wave sensitive guy. You know, he wears a trench coat,
Speaker 1: he's into music. I think he does kickboxing anyway. He's
Speaker 1: in love with Diane Court Diane Court Woe as she
Speaker 1: sometimes named in the movie. But she's sort of bookish
Speaker 1: and sweet and a little bit shy and they date
Speaker 1: for while. Um, she calls things off with him, and
Speaker 1: he tail spins the same the way that you might
Speaker 1: expect in any movie. There is a montage where he
Speaker 1: is driving around the city talking into a tape recorder,
Speaker 1: presumably to her, And so there's there's like twenty minutes
Speaker 1: maybe a twenty minute scene where he's driving around talking
Speaker 1: into a tape recorder being like, you know, I I
Speaker 1: gave you my heart, you gave me a pen, because
Speaker 1: when she breaks up with him, she gives him this pen,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking, like, wait a minute, is he gonna
Speaker 1: mail her this box of tapes he's made creepy? So
Speaker 1: that's one. So you haven't even seen the movie. When
Speaker 1: you think of saying anything, what is the most iconic
Speaker 1: scene that comes to mind? Guy in a trench coat
Speaker 1: standing outside boom box over his head in your eyes
Speaker 1: playing that's right exactly. So you haven't even seen the movie,
Speaker 1: but you know that scene because it's so iconic because
Speaker 1: on the poster. I used to have that poster in
Speaker 1: my room when I was in middle school. So basically
Speaker 1: what's going on in that scene is they break up.
Speaker 1: So at Peter Gabriel song is the song that's playing
Speaker 1: when they first are intimate together. So after she calls
Speaker 1: things off, he drives to her house and holds up
Speaker 1: a boom box playing that song and it's meant to
Speaker 1: be this, and you in the scene, you see her
Speaker 1: react to this like she looks very She's not like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is so lovely. She looks she
Speaker 1: doesn't look happy about this. You know, I grew up
Speaker 1: with that poster on my wall, idealizing that as the
Speaker 1: perfect expression of desire and love and romance. And really,
Speaker 1: if someone did that in real life, I would be
Speaker 1: calling the cops at Yeah, that's a that's a bit
Speaker 1: much for sure. Another big one that I ran into
Speaker 1: love actually, that you also noted. Okay, so Love Actually,
Speaker 1: I've actually only seen once and I only liked If
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, it's several storylines happening simultaneously, and
Speaker 1: I only liked the one with Bill nih in his agents. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's like this washed up singer and his agent is
Speaker 1: trying to get him back back into business by getting
Speaker 1: him to sing a Christmas song. It's the least romantic
Speaker 1: of the bunch um arguably. But there's one that you, again,
Speaker 1: even if you haven't seen the movie, you're probably familiar with.
Speaker 1: Where um the guy who's in The Walking Dead. Now
Speaker 1: he shows up outside I believe Kira Knightley's um apartment
Speaker 1: and she's with she just got married and so she's
Speaker 1: with her husband, who happens to be Walking Dead guys
Speaker 1: best friend, and he she opens the door, she hear's
Speaker 1: not here. Knightley opens the door and here's the Walking
Speaker 1: dead guy. He's got like a series of big note cards,
Speaker 1: and the first one it says something like don't say anything.
Speaker 1: And he goes through them and it's entirely inappropriates like
Speaker 1: I'm in love with you and I would do anything
Speaker 1: for you. I can't remember exactly what it says, but essentially, Annie,
Speaker 1: to me, you are perfect. That's like the lap card. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and her husband, this guy's best friend is a room
Speaker 1: away and it's just kind of creepy, and she gives
Speaker 1: him a kiss on the cheeks. She smiles. It's a
Speaker 1: strange kind of rewarding of this, in my opinion, very
Speaker 1: unsettling behavior. Perhaps inappropriate a good word. Yeah, Okay, So
Speaker 1: I could do an entire podcast series on how much
Speaker 1: I Hate Love. Actually, maybe I should, because it's a
Speaker 1: terrible movie for so many reasons, not the least of
Speaker 1: which is the fact that this guy is creepiest. Also,
Speaker 1: earlier in the movie, he is supposed to be taking
Speaker 1: video footage of her wedding, and when she watches all
Speaker 1: the tapes, she realizes that the only footage he got
Speaker 1: was close ups of her face, so he kind of
Speaker 1: ruined her wedding by my like ruining the wedding, not
Speaker 1: to mention the fact that Alan Rickman's character in that
Speaker 1: movie gives Emma Thompson a Joni Mitchell CD invites his
Speaker 1: his like secretary and necklace. There's so much going wrong
Speaker 1: in that movie. Um, Laura Lenny is framed as this
Speaker 1: like terrible monster for having the audacity for wanting to
Speaker 1: take care of her disabled brother. You know, that's terrible
Speaker 1: pers weird stuff around women in that movie that women
Speaker 1: are you know, it's a bad movie, But the point
Speaker 1: is is that it's also very stockery. And yeah, at
Speaker 1: the end when he does the bit with the cards,
Speaker 1: the audience is not meant to say, Kira Knightley might
Speaker 1: want to call the police. You're meant to say, oh,
Speaker 1: he's so he's loved lorn. This is really you know,
Speaker 1: he's been carrying a torch for her and he had
Speaker 1: to watch her get married to his maid, and oh,
Speaker 1: you really root for him? No, I mean, this is
Speaker 1: not a healthy depiction of how adults deal with things
Speaker 1: like this. And it's the fact that we and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I hate love actually, but I remember watching
Speaker 1: the movie in the theater and understanding that we were
Speaker 1: meant to feel sympathy and you know, root for this character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because if he has such strong feelings, then he should
Speaker 1: therefore be entitled to some kind of reciprocal feelings from
Speaker 1: a woman. It's kind of I always got that that vibe. Oh,
Speaker 1: and here's another one I haven't seen. Clearly, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen any rom coms. But maybe you could talk about
Speaker 1: The Notebook. Oh, could I talk about The note Another
Speaker 1: movie that I feel like when I saw it, I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: this is cute, but then when you think about it,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is weird. Okay, So in the Notebook,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen it, you're you're probably it's you,
Speaker 1: probably just you and like one of the persons that
Speaker 1: I've seen it because it's on TV constantly. But The
Speaker 1: Notebook is these two characters, um Ali who's played by
Speaker 1: Rachel McAdams and Noah, who's played by Brian Gosling. And
Speaker 1: so basically they meet Ali is dating somebody else, I think,
Speaker 1: engaged to somebody else, are about to be engaged to
Speaker 1: somebody else, And when they meet, they meet a carnival.
Speaker 1: Noah hangs off of the railing of the ferris wheel
Speaker 1: and jokingly but also very seemingly seriously threatens to kill himself,
Speaker 1: threatens to let go of this railing if she doesn't
Speaker 1: go on a date with him, and everybody is like,
Speaker 1: go on the date, go on the date, just so
Speaker 1: that he, you know, doesn't do this, And again that's
Speaker 1: meant to be sort of funny, and that that's the matter,
Speaker 1: is she does not seem that keen in the beginning
Speaker 1: to be interested in him. And you know, we could
Speaker 1: talk all day about the dynamics of heterosexual dating, but
Speaker 1: in these movies, that's that that seems to be a tenant.
Speaker 1: That's the woman is expressing this interest, and rather than
Speaker 1: the guy accepting that and like dropping it and finding
Speaker 1: somebody else and moving on, tries and tries and tries again,
Speaker 1: kind of weighs her down. And that's exactly what happens
Speaker 1: in the Notebook. Eventually she becomes engaged to someone else
Speaker 1: and he writes her a letter every day for a year. Um,
Speaker 1: I think her mother is intercepting these letters and so
Speaker 1: she doesn't actually get them. Don't quote me on that.
Speaker 1: I might have that it's been a medicine. I've seen it,
Speaker 1: this romanticizing of a guy not being able to let
Speaker 1: it go and not being able to move on. And
Speaker 1: you know, I get why that's supposed to be romantic.
Speaker 1: I get that, you know, I just supposed to think, oh,
Speaker 1: he's pining for her, But in actuality, this is someone who,
Speaker 1: for a year for someone he didn't really know that well,
Speaker 1: kept I kept this, kept this alive in a way
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem very healthy. He boy, he buys and
Speaker 1: restores a house for her, gets his picture in the
Speaker 1: paper with this house specifically to sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: impress her. All of these things that spanned a year
Speaker 1: for someone he doesn't even really know that well. Like,
Speaker 1: that's my kicker that if in real life you had
Speaker 1: an encounter with someone that didn't that lasted for a
Speaker 1: couple of days and then they they you know, drifted
Speaker 1: out of your life, it would be not okay to
Speaker 1: continue pursuing nowm for a year. But that's what he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: My facial expressions were a roller coaster there because I
Speaker 1: don't know what happens. And it's one of those things
Speaker 1: that if you just hear you don't have the context
Speaker 1: of acute Ryan Gosling and all the music telling you
Speaker 1: to feel a certain way that sounds terrible. That sounds
Speaker 1: frightening someone buying a house and writing a letter and
Speaker 1: like threatening to kill themselves if you don't go on
Speaker 1: a date. That doesn't sound very romantic. Well, you know
Speaker 1: what it sounds like those tenets of stocking that we
Speaker 1: started it. Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: And yeah, just because you put some some you know,
Speaker 1: violins and some you know shots of people looking very
Speaker 1: dapper in their like nineteen twenties get ups and you
Speaker 1: know it's by a lake, doesn't doesn't make it less
Speaker 1: what um? You used a phrase that wear her down?
Speaker 1: That's also in the Big Bang Theory. One of the
Speaker 1: characters said, eventually she got married to one of the
Speaker 1: other characters because he just wore down in the studio
Speaker 1: audience laughs and laughs. It's like, is that great? So well,
Speaker 1: that's not even romantic, I know. I mean, who wants
Speaker 1: to think of That's the thing I think these movies
Speaker 1: they repackage things that are not romantic, things that are
Speaker 1: sad or pathetic or scary in ways that are meant
Speaker 1: to be sweet or lighthearted. Because yeah, if you were
Speaker 1: with someone and they've said, oh, I'm with this person
Speaker 1: because not because I love them, but because eventually I
Speaker 1: just lost. I just got tired of fighting it, and
Speaker 1: so I said yes, wouldn't you be hurt? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: not a that's not a romantic thing. No, And it's
Speaker 1: kind of a repackaging of rejection, of not being able
Speaker 1: to accept no as an answer and then feeling like you,
Speaker 1: if you just keep keep pursuing this person, you're meant
Speaker 1: to be together. She just doesn't know, and I know
Speaker 1: how I know it. Unrequited love quotes for me personally heavy,
Speaker 1: heavy crushed will say, I know what that feels like,
Speaker 1: and it's miserable. And you think, if only we had
Speaker 1: this right opportunity, I know this other person would see
Speaker 1: that we're meant to be. But no, probably not. Like
Speaker 1: if you care about someone at all, you have to
Speaker 1: appreciate that they have their own boundaries and they're free
Speaker 1: to make rejection and it sucks, but that's life for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we maybe shouldn't be giving out all these signals
Speaker 1: that the proper and healthy way to deal with projection
Speaker 1: is not letting it go, and is to send a
Speaker 1: letter every day for a year or to you know,
Speaker 1: you know, show up outside of our room with a
Speaker 1: boom box, right, Like, say, anything would probably be a
Speaker 1: less good movie if when Diane Court says I don't
Speaker 1: want to see you anymore, Lloyd Dobbler is sad for
Speaker 1: a couple of days and then you know, moves on
Speaker 1: and find someone else, Like it wouldn't be Maybe it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be as good of a movie, but that's a
Speaker 1: healthier way to depict these kinds of things. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: And we still have a plenty of examples, including another
Speaker 1: movie I've Never seen Something about Mary. Yeah, yeah, let's
Speaker 1: talk more about that after this quick break and we're back.
Speaker 1: So you've never seen Something's Something about Mary? No? Okay,
Speaker 1: Well this actually surprises me because I would feel like
Speaker 1: that's a movie that you would have seen. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a goofy like UM comedy seems
Speaker 1: like um. I mean again, it's it's when you unpack it,
Speaker 1: it's very toxic. But it was like a very like UM.
Speaker 1: It came out around the same time as a bunch
Speaker 1: of other kind of like broy comedies. You know, you're
Speaker 1: like your Tommy Boys and your Adam Sandler movies things
Speaker 1: like that, So it was like a big blockbuster movie
Speaker 1: when it came out, I remember that very really Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you haven't seen it, basically, Cameron Diaz is
Speaker 1: this lovely girl that everyone loves, everyone get. Everyone who
Speaker 1: meets her falls in love with her, and basically Ben
Speaker 1: Stiller met her in high school and I think they
Speaker 1: went to prom together. But in the end, I don't
Speaker 1: want to spoil it, but something very very unfortunate happens
Speaker 1: to him on prom night and they're never able to
Speaker 1: consummate their love or you know exactly. I don't want
Speaker 1: to give it away. If you haven't seen it, let's
Speaker 1: just say that it involves a zipper, like a pants
Speaker 1: zipper in the bathroom, and it's a it's a very
Speaker 1: intense scene, we'll put it that way. And so basically
Speaker 1: this happened when they were in high school and they've
Speaker 1: both grown up blah blah blah, and he's never forgotten her,
Speaker 1: so he hires a private investigator who's played by Matt
Speaker 1: Dillon to track her down. Matt Dylan ends up falling
Speaker 1: in love with her as well, and so because he's
Speaker 1: a private investigator, is basically also stalking her. And later
Speaker 1: it's revealed that another character has been basically it's it's complicated,
Speaker 1: but later it's revealed that another character has also been
Speaker 1: stocking her, and it's basically created a fake persona that's
Speaker 1: more to her liking in order to be around her.
Speaker 1: And so obviously this is a very convoluted plot, but
Speaker 1: the audience is meant to root for Ben Stiller because
Speaker 1: he's supposed to be the good guy, the guy who's
Speaker 1: like love is pure when you compare him to Matt Dylan,
Speaker 1: who is who outwardly appears more creepy and appears to
Speaker 1: be more of a gross person, but the reality is
Speaker 1: both of them are doing something that's really up right,
Speaker 1: Like it's up to meet a girl in high school
Speaker 1: ten years later higher a higher a private investigator to
Speaker 1: track her down like that is not okay. But yet,
Speaker 1: because he is compared with someone who is more explicitly
Speaker 1: creepy and gross and weird, we're meant to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: Ben Stellar actually loves her. Yeah, it's kind of similar
Speaker 1: to the nice guy troupe when you think about it, Um,
Speaker 1: did she end up? Wasn't the like ending of that movie?
Speaker 1: She was dating Brett farve Y. Yeah, I spoiled it
Speaker 1: for her, But I knew that, and I haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: And this movie also came out like that's true. Ago,
Speaker 1: if you haven't seen there something about Mary, you're probably
Speaker 1: not going to see it, and like you deserve to
Speaker 1: have it spoiled. You've had a long time, right, And
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it, and somehow I knew that. So um.
Speaker 1: The Graduate is another good example of this. M Passengers.
Speaker 1: Did you see Passengers? I didn't see it. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see it because the trailer made it seem lighthearted
Speaker 1: and you know, there's a robot butler, which I thought
Speaker 1: was but then when I read reviews and actually unpacked
Speaker 1: what's going on, I was so grossed out that I
Speaker 1: that I did not want to see it, And in fact,
Speaker 1: that are called thinking how did they market this movie
Speaker 1: in such a lighthearted, playful way. I remember the trailer
Speaker 1: saying something like it's the sexiest movie you'll see all season,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I see a sexy movie.
Speaker 1: And when I read the actual breakout of the plot,
Speaker 1: I was horrified. Yeah, I watched it on a plane,
Speaker 1: and I remember having this kind of disjointed because I
Speaker 1: could tell I was supposed to want them to end
Speaker 1: up together. But I just couldn't get behind it. I
Speaker 1: was so furious that Chris Pratt's character had done this thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: so for those of haven't seen it, breakdown what happened.
Speaker 1: So spoiler alert if you haven't seen Passenger, Yes, um,
Speaker 1: Chris Pratt. It's I don't know how many people. It's
Speaker 1: a lot of people are on this ship in space
Speaker 1: going somewhere on a journey, and Chris Pratt wakes up
Speaker 1: like a hundred years before you're supposed to because they're
Speaker 1: all in hyper sleep or whatever you call that when
Speaker 1: you put to sleep in space so that you don't
Speaker 1: age for the duration of the journey, wake up at
Speaker 1: the same age you were when you went to sleep. Um,
Speaker 1: so he wakes up super early. No one else is awake.
Speaker 1: He can't fix the problem, so he's just hanging out
Speaker 1: with this robot butler that she mentioned. He's getting drunk
Speaker 1: with vodka every night, he's growing a beard. He is
Speaker 1: super lonely. So you're supposed to and you do. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's terrible. But he has a robot butler. He does.
Speaker 1: But I guess the robot butler I can only get
Speaker 1: you so far. I remember liking the robot butler um.
Speaker 1: But so he he starts to explore the passengers because
Speaker 1: you can pull up UM information about them, data about them,
Speaker 1: and he finds Jennifer Lawrence's character, who's an author, and
Speaker 1: he goes through all of her her files and he decides,
Speaker 1: I really would think I like this girl, and you know,
Speaker 1: I bet she'd like me too. I think we'd fit.
Speaker 1: And he wakes her up, and this is ten years
Speaker 1: in so she's going to he's gonna be ninety years
Speaker 1: before they get there. She's going to die before they
Speaker 1: get there. And at one point the movie, I remember
Speaker 1: her saying, you've murdered me. This is a death sentence,
Speaker 1: and I thought, yeah, kind of. And eventually they fall
Speaker 1: in love and I just would never get over it.
Speaker 1: That's mm hmm. So that almost seems to be like
Speaker 1: a mix of a lot of these different tropes, right,
Speaker 1: nice guy who does something creepy but out of pure love,
Speaker 1: you know, wearing her down, because if you're on a
Speaker 1: spaceship forever with someone would be eventually you're like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: what do you do? Be mad forever that he's basically
Speaker 1: giving you a death sentence. Yeah, and you've got no
Speaker 1: one else to talk to except for that robot Butler.
Speaker 1: That's true, and I believe I remember they would they
Speaker 1: had separate times when they would visit the robot Butler
Speaker 1: because they were mad at each other for about thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of a two hour films. I want to spin
Speaker 1: off with the robot Butler where he doesn't kill anybody
Speaker 1: and he has he has healthy relationships with other women
Speaker 1: or mad and robots whoever you a robot gender by
Speaker 1: an area up in here. A movie where you know,
Speaker 1: he has a relationship with a robot another robot, and
Speaker 1: that robot decides it's over, and he, you know, deals
Speaker 1: with it in a healthy way. It's a better movie.
Speaker 1: We should make this movie. I'm sure Hollywood would be
Speaker 1: all about getting that produced. I agree, But Hollywood had
Speaker 1: no problem producing a little film slash book series. You
Speaker 1: might have heard of Twilight, and Twilight is a very
Speaker 1: good example of stalker as love. Yeah. So I haven't
Speaker 1: seen Twilight all the way through. I've seen it in
Speaker 1: chunks when it's on TBS and I'm over like in
Speaker 1: the middle, and then I saw the end, and then
Speaker 1: I may be the first part of a different Twilight too.
Speaker 1: I feel like all together. I get the gipsy, I
Speaker 1: would say, you probably did. Um, I have. I tried
Speaker 1: to read the books and then I couldn't get through
Speaker 1: the first one, which is very rare for me. Um.
Speaker 1: And I went to see the first movie when it
Speaker 1: came out in theaters with my friends who were into it,
Speaker 1: and I remember clearly laughing at one part that I
Speaker 1: was not supposed to laugh at in this little girl
Speaker 1: in front of me turned around and said, got you Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't mean this pariage. Um, it's not my thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And there is some very creepy undertones in it. I
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I the author, Stephanie Meyer, wrote a
Speaker 1: prequel slash happening at the same time as the first one,
Speaker 1: but from Edwards point of view. Book. I can't remember
Speaker 1: it's called. But there's a scene where he's watching Bella sleep.
Speaker 1: You know, as you do, Edward, Yes, Edward the vampire
Speaker 1: you're on Team Edward. Do you know you want him
Speaker 1: to get with Bella? He's watching her sleep and he
Speaker 1: thinks to himself, you know this is creepy, that's kind
Speaker 1: of stalkery. I shouldn't do this, but he keeps doing it.
Speaker 1: Nine after night and then um, one night bellow wakes
Speaker 1: up and she's kind of flattered by it. Oh you
Speaker 1: watching me sleep? It is creepy and weird. Um. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was talking with Bridget earlier there's this whole
Speaker 1: thing I want to talk about another episode of women
Speaker 1: following it and falling in love with monsters that kind
Speaker 1: of represents like sex and your sexual desire being this
Speaker 1: monstrous thing if you haven't gotten the memo already. I
Speaker 1: really like horror movies, books, and I have a lot
Speaker 1: of thoughts about them. But um, not that Twilight is
Speaker 1: particularly scary. Apart from the stalker. Um, there's also Angel
Speaker 1: and Buffy. Um, that's one that I I like that
Speaker 1: it's toxic when really, when you think about it, yeah,
Speaker 1: when you break it down, it's a little bit not cool.
Speaker 1: What's funny to me is that oftentimes if you reverse
Speaker 1: these tropes and it's a woman doing the same behavior
Speaker 1: that the men do, it's not romantic at all. It's creepy.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite genres of movie is movies where
Speaker 1: and it's so cheesy and campy, and I know it's awful,
Speaker 1: but movies where like a woman, you know, stock like
Speaker 1: she wants to kill another woman because she like she
Speaker 1: stole my I want to still her family. She sild
Speaker 1: my family, like single white female. I've seen it a
Speaker 1: hundred times, unforgiven, unforgettable. Um really, any movie where it's
Speaker 1: a woman who was like trying to take the take
Speaker 1: the place of another woman, I'm in. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. I'm so there for it, and I'm
Speaker 1: I've seen them all in the theater, like alone on
Speaker 1: a Tuesday. I'm so into it when that behavior is
Speaker 1: displayed by a woman, Like if a woman is watching
Speaker 1: a man sleep like the guy was doing in Twilight,
Speaker 1: the audience would be meant to understand this is disturbing.
Speaker 1: And I think it's interesting how the same behavior in films,
Speaker 1: when it's displayed by a woman is pretty much universally
Speaker 1: accepted as scary or she's she's unhinged, like something's wrong
Speaker 1: with her, but when it's a man, it's then able
Speaker 1: to be packaged as romantic, right, And I think that
Speaker 1: has something to do with, um, the norms of she's
Speaker 1: the woman doing a stalker thing, is she's breaking the
Speaker 1: norms And it kind of reminds me, on a lesser
Speaker 1: serious note of I had a friend who was very
Speaker 1: aggressive and pursuing this guy that she had a crush on,
Speaker 1: and not in like a I would say, not in
Speaker 1: a creepy way, but she was just very bored with
Speaker 1: her um romantic intentions. And I remember overhearing said guy
Speaker 1: talking to his friend and say, like, she's too aggressive,
Speaker 1: she's too forward. I don't like that. In my mind,
Speaker 1: she was just breaking the norm and that same behavior
Speaker 1: from him would have been like proper courtship behavior. But
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of amplified here and the same thing,
Speaker 1: and it's not just um in in movies or TV.
Speaker 1: Walmart had a shirt that read um. Some call it stalking,
Speaker 1: I call it love a couple of years ago, which
Speaker 1: is very creepy and um there. It's in songs too,
Speaker 1: including one of my Ley's favorite songs of all time,
Speaker 1: The Police Every Breath You Take. I hate song. It's creepy.
Speaker 1: It is so creepy. I think it's meant to be creepy.
Speaker 1: But then they used it in Top Gun as a
Speaker 1: very romantic for for a very romantic scene. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really creepy. And I actually looked up what the song
Speaker 1: was about and what what the you know, what was
Speaker 1: going on when Steing wrote the song. Basically, Sting says
Speaker 1: that he wrote this song after breaking up with someone
Speaker 1: and then starting to date this person's best friend who
Speaker 1: lives next door, and how kind of weird that was.
Speaker 1: But he actually says it sounds like a comfortable love song.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize at the time how sinister it is.
Speaker 1: I think I was thinking of a big brother, surveillance
Speaker 1: and control, so romantic, you know what, I what I
Speaker 1: think surveillance, Yeah, you know, I thought was a romance novel.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's every it's every girl's dream. It's every
Speaker 1: girl's dream. So we've talked a lot about kind of
Speaker 1: examples of this and sort of how how pervasive it is.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about why this is so important that
Speaker 1: we unpack this and what the implications are for consuming
Speaker 1: this media all the time. Let's say a quick break
Speaker 1: can do that in romax. We were just talking about
Speaker 1: all these different examples of songs and movies and TV
Speaker 1: shows where stalking and creepy not okay behavior is normalized
Speaker 1: as cute and funny in whatever. But it's important to
Speaker 1: keep in mind that this isn't just you know, like
Speaker 1: a movie review, these have actual real world implications. So
Speaker 1: one study actually suggests that these movies make this kind
Speaker 1: of behavior seem like a normal part of dating, and
Speaker 1: that things that are super scary become easily normalized as romantic.
Speaker 1: According to the study by Julia Lippman, a post doctoral
Speaker 1: fellow at the Department of Communication Studies at University of Michigan,
Speaker 1: she had a group of four d and twenty six
Speaker 1: women each watch six movies that have been edited down
Speaker 1: to half an hour or romantic comedy where a man
Speaker 1: pursues a woman and it is depicted positively. So some
Speaker 1: examples of this might be there's Something about Mary or
Speaker 1: management a movie where a man pursues a woman romantically
Speaker 1: and it's depicted as scary, so you might think of
Speaker 1: that is enough, or Sleeping with the Enemy and a
Speaker 1: nature documentary like March of the Penguins or Wing in
Speaker 1: Migration as the control. Although I mean, who knows that
Speaker 1: these penguins are, you know, stalking. I mean, we don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know what's up with penguins, and that could
Speaker 1: that could be somebody's jam. It could it could. So
Speaker 1: after the greeting, each of the women took a survey
Speaker 1: ranking their agreement with several quote stalking myths, such as
Speaker 1: many stalking victims are actually people who played hard to
Speaker 1: get and then change their mind afterward, or someone who
Speaker 1: goes to the extremes of stalking mustn't really feel passionately
Speaker 1: about his or her love interest. Those who saw the
Speaker 1: scary stalking movies were less likely than the control group
Speaker 1: or the romcom group to endorse these myths. So basically,
Speaker 1: the people who saw these cute, see romantic movies that
Speaker 1: had someone going to these extremes to pursue a love interest.
Speaker 1: The people who saw the movies were that's depicted as
Speaker 1: normal and funny. I thought, you know, yeah, sometimes people
Speaker 1: who are being stocked artists playing hard to get or oh,
Speaker 1: if you stalk someone, you must really be in love
Speaker 1: with them. And the people who saw the movies like enough,
Speaker 1: where it's really scary and it's treated as a serious
Speaker 1: scary thing, We're less likely to agree with those stalking myths. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But also the control group was more likely to agree
Speaker 1: with those stalking myths, which I think is an indicator
Speaker 1: of how deep we have kind of accepted this, probably
Speaker 1: because we see it all the time and It's just
Speaker 1: that's just how it goes. That's just the courting game,
Speaker 1: isn't it exactly? Exactly Something else from the study I
Speaker 1: found really telling with what's the fact that grand gestures
Speaker 1: of rom coms, like hiring a private investigator to track
Speaker 1: down your high school prom date, like and there's something
Speaker 1: about Mary, we're often framed as quote an equivocal signs
Speaker 1: of true love lipman rights in the study. Indeed, they
Speaker 1: may be seen as reflecting one of the great cultural
Speaker 1: nous of our anti glove that no matter how big
Speaker 1: the obstacle, love will conquer all, Love will conquer all.
Speaker 1: And so that, yeah, it just goes to show how
Speaker 1: pervasive these films are, that they're kind of when you
Speaker 1: watch them, they kind of get into your bones and
Speaker 1: get into the get into your head about how you
Speaker 1: think about relationships in real life, even if you're watching
Speaker 1: it saying, I know it's a movie. I think the
Speaker 1: study demonstrates that it's a bit difficult to do that.
Speaker 1: I can say I had I had someone do a
Speaker 1: very grand romantic gesture once, and I was furious, I
Speaker 1: felt like trapped and that I now was obligated to
Speaker 1: be nice to him and a lot of people were around,
Speaker 1: and they were you know, um, so I felt this pressure,
Speaker 1: but we the relationship was doomed from then on because
Speaker 1: I couldn't get over to It felt like emotional blackmail. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: don't do that to people. I actually it's I won't
Speaker 1: say scarred as a very strong word, but it impacted
Speaker 1: me so much that now any get anytime I start
Speaker 1: dating someone, I tell them up front, I do not
Speaker 1: want a big public engagement. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen if this ever happens. And the guy's like,
Speaker 1: whoa Like he's like, ma'am, this is a Starbucks. I
Speaker 1: asked your order, ma'am. I just wanted you to know
Speaker 1: in case you had any thoughts going on at day,
Speaker 1: good day. You know. I once saw a public public
Speaker 1: proposal go wrong with the woman. He did it, and
Speaker 1: then this is at a baseball game. He did it,
Speaker 1: and then the woman was like, She just kept saying
Speaker 1: in a low, monotone voice, can we talk about this
Speaker 1: in private? So who knows, maybe they did get engaged,
Speaker 1: but the fact that she was not, you know that
Speaker 1: she was just like, can when we talk about this?
Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, I think it's I think, but again,
Speaker 1: films can make us think that this is what people want.
Speaker 1: People want a grand romantic gesture. If you break up,
Speaker 1: she actually is waiting for you to rush to her
Speaker 1: wedding and bang on the glass I'll have a graduate
Speaker 1: while she's walking down the aisle, right like that's what
Speaker 1: she wants. She's waiting for you to do this. And
Speaker 1: I think that we have a lot of films that
Speaker 1: demonstrate this. I actually this is kind of a weird example,
Speaker 1: but the show Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there's a plot
Speaker 1: line where the character Charlie is obsessed with this waitress
Speaker 1: that he's been obsessed with. He's like stalking her, like
Speaker 1: he's explicitly stalking her. It's it's there's no bones about it.
Speaker 1: And there's one episode where he produces a play where
Speaker 1: he says, you know, please come to this play. Please
Speaker 1: come to this play. And it's like this romantic play
Speaker 1: where it's you know, he's the lead character and that
Speaker 1: he is, you know, courning this princess. And then at
Speaker 1: the end it's like this beautiful scene where he says,
Speaker 1: I was the main character and the princess was you,
Speaker 1: and you're you know, you're thinking that the woman who's
Speaker 1: being stalked is going to be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful. When she's like are you are you done?
Speaker 1: You know she's not, she's not impressed. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that we culture does tell people that women want
Speaker 1: a grand, romantic gesture and a lot of times we don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and sometimes we do. But I think, especially in the
Speaker 1: case of an engagement, just talk about talk about that
Speaker 1: first if they If you've been broken up with though,
Speaker 1: that's that's different. If you're in a relationship, discuss However,
Speaker 1: if you're broken up with someone, I personally don't think um,
Speaker 1: showing up outside of the moon Box playing Peter Gabriel
Speaker 1: is a it's a smart, slash respectful thing to do. No,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not. Yeah. And another thing about these
Speaker 1: films is that not only do they trick us into
Speaker 1: thinking that these kinds of behaviors, you know, showing up
Speaker 1: that side of someone's house with a boom bus is romantic,
Speaker 1: they actually are getting signals to people who are stalkers
Speaker 1: as well that make them think that this is the
Speaker 1: kind of behavior that women want. According to a study
Speaker 1: from Victims of Crime dot org, two hundred and forty
Speaker 1: one undergraduates describe their experience with unrequited love both as
Speaker 1: pursuers and as love interests. So, in this study, two
Speaker 1: dred and forty one undergraduate students describe their experiences with
Speaker 1: unrequited love both as a pursuer or an actor and
Speaker 1: as a love interest or a target. As expected, targets
Speaker 1: and actors feel pretty differently about how they experienced the situation.
Speaker 1: So basically, this study found that the people who were
Speaker 1: doing that pursuing, they vastly overstated the positive interests the
Speaker 1: people they are pursuing. And so basically what that means
Speaker 1: is they thought, Oh, this person wanted this or liked this,
Speaker 1: this behavior that is actually unwanted. The people who are
Speaker 1: doing this creepy behavior actually over reported the person who
Speaker 1: was on the other end of that behavior their feelings
Speaker 1: bad as they thought, Oh, she's enjoying this this you know,
Speaker 1: there's attention. I'm showing her this grand romantic gesture I'm making.
Speaker 1: And again, I think that it really comes down to
Speaker 1: these movies and these films giving people the wrong I yeah,
Speaker 1: about how we relate to each other. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: believe in that study it also said that it was
Speaker 1: most men were more likely to overreport this positive interaction
Speaker 1: and women were more likely to not under report but
Speaker 1: be like no, no, I wasn't really interested. Um and
Speaker 1: there I mean, there's so much to impact. There's so
Speaker 1: much there. Because if you see those things over and
Speaker 1: over and you do think they're normal, then yeah, even
Speaker 1: as a woman, you might think maybe I do want this,
Speaker 1: or maybe I should settle down. It's just very complex
Speaker 1: and how many how many facets it touches, and how
Speaker 1: many other things are at play as well. Completely. I
Speaker 1: know I've said this before, but we are just talking
Speaker 1: about movies and the abstract that we watched these movies
Speaker 1: and we think, oh that was creepy and then it
Speaker 1: just goes away. These things are pervasive and they have
Speaker 1: real world consequences. I was actually shocked to find that
Speaker 1: in Australia a man was basically charged with stalking and
Speaker 1: went to court, and its lawyer argued that because this
Speaker 1: guy watched a lot of Bollywood films, and Bollywood films
Speaker 1: are kind of known for men who are very aggressive
Speaker 1: and in their pursuit of women romantically, because he had
Speaker 1: watched so many of these movies, he didn't understand why
Speaker 1: what he was doing wasn't okay because in the movies,
Speaker 1: the women like it, they get together with the man.
Speaker 1: In the end, his lawyer successfully argued that it was
Speaker 1: quote quite normal behavior for Indian men to obsessively target
Speaker 1: women without obvious signs of their affections being returned, because
Speaker 1: male characters and colorful romantic Bollywood movies are often seen
Speaker 1: determinedly pursuing their female counterparts until they finally acquiesced into
Speaker 1: a relationship. And this work. He was able to get
Speaker 1: off on these charges because of these movies. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: stalking is a very large problem in Indiana and specifically
Speaker 1: in Delhi. I believe Deli was unfortunately named the stalking
Speaker 1: capital of the world. Um, And until it wasn't taken seriously,
Speaker 1: it wasn't seen as a as a problem that needed
Speaker 1: to be solved, even though I believe it was. Four
Speaker 1: out of five Indian women reported some kind of behavior
Speaker 1: that made them uncomfortable. And there's instances of women being
Speaker 1: stabbed with scissors in public. Um, A man set himself
Speaker 1: on fire and hugged this this I think she was
Speaker 1: a schoolgirl and set her on fire. And these were
Speaker 1: all instances where the stalking had been reported and just
Speaker 1: sort of ignored, or maybe just they didn't know how
Speaker 1: to take care of it. I'm not sure, but those
Speaker 1: I it's the fact that someone in a court used
Speaker 1: that as an excuse. WHOA the sid in Bollywood folks,
Speaker 1: it's it's acceptable, right, is kind of shocking and very
Speaker 1: clear indicator of how I think we've said pervasive several times,
Speaker 1: but clearly experience. Yeah. I think when it comes to
Speaker 1: Bollywood movies especially, it's important to keep in mind that
Speaker 1: these movies are showing something that's just ingrained in our culture.
Speaker 1: So it's not like an India problem necessarily, because clearly
Speaker 1: we're still figuring this out in America, and so it's
Speaker 1: more like a romanticized depiction of something that we are
Speaker 1: struggling as an entire society to figure out how we're
Speaker 1: going to deal with. I was really interested to find
Speaker 1: that this Indian actor, siv Kartha can I hope I'm
Speaker 1: saying that correctly, but he during a talk with film students,
Speaker 1: acknowledged that one of his previous roles this movie, in
Speaker 1: which he dressed as a female nurse to pursue a
Speaker 1: woman who was not interested in kind of wore her down,
Speaker 1: could be actually depicted stalking, and so in this conversation
Speaker 1: with college students, he said, I'm not going to really
Speaker 1: do movies like that anymore because my careers evolved, and
Speaker 1: he does seem a little bit salty about it. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of thick of taking these questions. But I
Speaker 1: think if you have more and more actors, more and
Speaker 1: more talent, saying I'm not going to participate in making
Speaker 1: a movie that portrays a toxic, harmful version of something
Speaker 1: that is really scary. You know, I think that would
Speaker 1: be really good. Yeah, I do as well. And um,
Speaker 1: I kind of went on a I was gonna self
Speaker 1: of the route of this and I thought, I wonder
Speaker 1: how much of it comes from Victorian courtship rules. So
Speaker 1: late last night I was on the Google just searching
Speaker 1: for where where did all of this come from? And um,
Speaker 1: there are some rules like a woman should never dance
Speaker 1: with a man at a ball more than three times. Um,
Speaker 1: you couldn't. You couldn't be seen with a man unless
Speaker 1: you had a chaperone as a single woman. You couldn't
Speaker 1: talk to a man without an introduction first, and you
Speaker 1: can't have a man over you're a single woman. Um,
Speaker 1: basically you couldn't be with a man alone until you
Speaker 1: got married. Um. And to a lesser extent, engaged you
Speaker 1: could do a couple of things like holding hands in
Speaker 1: public engaged and Um, this all has to do with
Speaker 1: the church, and I can't wait to do an episode
Speaker 1: on it. But I wondered if it's these dating roles
Speaker 1: of women are kind of supposed to be resisdent. There
Speaker 1: the pursued, or if you take a darker tone on it,
Speaker 1: they were the prey and the men or the predator.
Speaker 1: That maybe that plays into it. But also there's entitlement. Um,
Speaker 1: you put in all this time and effort and the
Speaker 1: woman therefore owes you something, especially if you're a nice
Speaker 1: guy and you you really do feel for her right um.
Speaker 1: And then the double standard women face of being labeled
Speaker 1: easy or sluts. Maybe it devalues you if you say
Speaker 1: yes right away. Um. Not believing women when they say
Speaker 1: what they want. I mean, she can't poss a you
Speaker 1: mean she doesn't she doesn't want to be with me?
Speaker 1: How could that be? There's so many songs about that.
Speaker 1: Is that justin Beevers song which one what do you mean. Oh,
Speaker 1: And of course blurred lines, um women being a price
Speaker 1: be one that's all the time, like that's the eighties
Speaker 1: and video games. So many things are tied up in that,
Speaker 1: and just the gender roles of um being. You want
Speaker 1: to be desirable as a woman, because you're taught that
Speaker 1: that's your value, that a man desiring you in this
Speaker 1: heteronormative world, that that is your whole goal is to
Speaker 1: be desired by men and to have them to want
Speaker 1: to pursue you. Um, and your ultimate success is if
Speaker 1: you land a guy. I think there's so many weird
Speaker 1: things tied up in this, and that's why it's so difficult.
Speaker 1: I think it's going to take a lot two show
Speaker 1: healthier relationships. Hollywood make movies about healthier relationships. Well, I
Speaker 1: think you hit it right on the head, Annie, because
Speaker 1: I don't think it's about just a handful of movies
Speaker 1: or a handful of songs that are creepy. It's about massive, radical,
Speaker 1: systematic culture change. And that's hard, and that's scary, and
Speaker 1: it sounds very very big, right, like the idea that
Speaker 1: we could completely reshape our culture where these things are
Speaker 1: not seen as romantic when they're actually really scarier. That
Speaker 1: women don't feel like they're worth is related to how
Speaker 1: many people they sleep with, or who they sleep whether
Speaker 1: who they date or who they marry. All of that
Speaker 1: needs systematic change. And so I don't want to make
Speaker 1: it seem like we're just talking about a handful of
Speaker 1: movies and a handful of songs, because this is a
Speaker 1: wider and pervasive cultural issue like worldwide. But even though
Speaker 1: these issues are really big and scary and vast and
Speaker 1: it seems like one of those things that we probably
Speaker 1: will never tackle, people can still take that or step.
Speaker 1: If you're an actor or a filmmaker, you can say
Speaker 1: I'm not going to work on movies that portray relationships
Speaker 1: in this way as if these things are funny or
Speaker 1: healthy when they're not. If you're a movie goer, I mean,
Speaker 1: I honestly think that with the movie that you mentioned earlier, Passenger,
Speaker 1: I think if that movie had come out even fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, people would not have rightly called it out
Speaker 1: as creepy. And so it just takes one, it just
Speaker 1: takes all of us to say when I see movies
Speaker 1: that are presenting something that I know is not okay
Speaker 1: in a way where it is okay saying that. And
Speaker 1: I think that slowly but surely, I think that Hollywood
Speaker 1: will get the message. I think that filmmakers will get
Speaker 1: the message. I think that people who might have inclinations
Speaker 1: to have this kind of behavior might get the message.
Speaker 1: But I think it really starts with all of us
Speaker 1: being willing to say, Hey, that's actually not cute, that's
Speaker 1: actually not funny, that's actually not romantic, it's not okay,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't be saying it's okay, even if it's
Speaker 1: quote just a movie. Yeah. Um, I totally agree. I
Speaker 1: think we're slowly making progress. And I remember reading an
Speaker 1: essay I can't remember wrote it, but it was a
Speaker 1: male screenwriter from the eighties and he was saying, um,
Speaker 1: we need to get more um women writing, which totally agree.
Speaker 1: But he was also saying there was this kind of
Speaker 1: nerd we were starting to get power, and we want
Speaker 1: to show because a lot of these times it's the
Speaker 1: awkward guy you connect with, right, Oh, he can get
Speaker 1: the girl. So they were all of these guys were
Speaker 1: writing these scripts that showed kind of their fantasy of
Speaker 1: attaining this unattainable perhaps in real life girl. And we
Speaker 1: just need to get more stories in there, written by
Speaker 1: different people from different perspectives, and yeah, move away from that,
Speaker 1: because I remember John Oliver, I can't remember the exact quote,
Speaker 1: but he said something like, Nerd, you've you've got the
Speaker 1: you've inherited the earth now, so you can't keep showing
Speaker 1: these stories where you you're so downtrodden. Yeah, and also
Speaker 1: just that we we that story. I think that there
Speaker 1: was a point where, you know, the awkward, sensitive, bookish
Speaker 1: nerd getting the unattainable girl. There was a point where
Speaker 1: that felt novel. It doesn't kill novel anymore, Like that's
Speaker 1: that's Taylors all this time. We get it like that.
Speaker 1: I'm a big I'm a big proponent of they're just
Speaker 1: being more stories out there, just like you're saying, and
Speaker 1: I'm out. I'm not down with pretending like the narrative
Speaker 1: of bookish guy who's awkward and unpopular gets you know,
Speaker 1: is put like it is picked on then gets the girl.
Speaker 1: I'm not down to pretend that that is not a
Speaker 1: story that we see a lot. What about awkward girl
Speaker 1: gets hot guy or like I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: I'm I'm we live, I feel like we are I'm
Speaker 1: kind of going off the rails a little bit bad.
Speaker 1: But let me get on my soapbox anyway and say
Speaker 1: that I think that we have reached a point where
Speaker 1: he have seen that story told again and again and again,
Speaker 1: and we are still sort of prompted to believe that
Speaker 1: story is not often told, but in fact, the story
Speaker 1: of awkward guys, nerdy guys and they're dating challenges like
Speaker 1: we are. That's that story is everywhere, like everywhere. That's
Speaker 1: like all dudes write about, Like like I think about it,
Speaker 1: about it right, Like how many you know? As someone
Speaker 1: who studied literature, and when I was in grad school,
Speaker 1: when we read books by men, so many of the
Speaker 1: themes came back again and again to you know, women
Speaker 1: are awful. This woman broke my heart and that's why
Speaker 1: I drank. I went to war to get away from
Speaker 1: this woman. Like it was always the same story, kind
Speaker 1: of repackaged, and I'm just, yeah, we need more stories.
Speaker 1: And I do remember how I met your mother is
Speaker 1: probably Barney. One of the characters was saying the difference
Speaker 1: between a stalker and love it is just whether or
Speaker 1: not you have feelings for the other person, which kind
Speaker 1: of reminds me of the number one rule of Reddit
Speaker 1: is be attractive. I mean, listen, I don't care if
Speaker 1: you're Brad Pitt or whoever. If you show up that
Speaker 1: ouside of my house with the boom box, Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be healthy. Pay you don't do it. Anyone out
Speaker 1: there listening, don't don't out of Bridges Department. She will
Speaker 1: not be happy, noted, Um, and I wanted to leave
Speaker 1: close out at least with this one quote. Um. It
Speaker 1: was an Onion headline from a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: and it read romantic comedy behavior gets real life man arrested.
Speaker 1: You know, as it should. As it should, Yeah, And
Speaker 1: one of the quotes from the article was, she was
Speaker 1: supposed to hate me at first, but gradually be won
Speaker 1: over by my incredible persistence, telling me that no one
Speaker 1: has ever gone to such wild links to win her love,
Speaker 1: Marzano said, But for some reason, her irritation never turned
Speaker 1: to affection. I love it. I think that's a good
Speaker 1: place to to end it. Don't make a grand romantic
Speaker 1: gesture to someone that you're not in a relationship with,
Speaker 1: and even if you are, maybe talk about it before
Speaker 1: you do it. And Stalky isn't funny and it's not romantic,
Speaker 1: so don't do that either. Yeah, that's the last of
Speaker 1: the episode. Don't stop, people, don't stop. It seems so
Speaker 1: simple and yet and yet, and we're still working it out,
Speaker 1: so it's meant to listeners. What do y'all think? What
Speaker 1: are some films that we've left out, because I'm sure
Speaker 1: there are a lot. Have you seen this playing out
Speaker 1: in music and movies? Let us know. You can find
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and stuff I've Never Told You, on
Speaker 1: Twitter at mom Stuff podcast, and as always, via email
Speaker 1: at mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.