Speaker 1: On the Bell Cast, the questions asked if movies have
Speaker 1: women in them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy? Zef in best
Speaker 1: start changing it with the bec Del cast. The time
Speaker 1: has come, the woman said to the other woman to
Speaker 1: talk of many things, of shoes and ships and ceiling wax,
Speaker 1: of cabbages and queens. Wow, Caitlyn, and why the sea
Speaker 1: is boiling hot? And whether pigs have jeans to rhyme
Speaker 1: with queens jeans? Oh, I was like, I was like,
Speaker 1: is that a feminist thing? Jeans instead of wings? Rest
Speaker 1: just needed to That's true, and that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: my bad. Jeans are a prison for all genders. Um,
Speaker 1: And so in that way, it's a very inclusive piece
Speaker 1: of restrictive clothing. In conclusion, I liked your palm. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Um. It is from today's movie. But
Speaker 1: before we get there, Hello and welcome to the Bechtel Cast.
Speaker 1: My name is Caitlin Darante, my name is Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 1: and this is our feminist movie podcast where we examine
Speaker 1: the representation of women in film, and we use something
Speaker 1: called the Bechtel test. Jamie, what is that? Even? Well,
Speaker 1: I think I remember. Here's what if memory serves, Here's
Speaker 1: what it is. The Bechtel test is a media metric
Speaker 1: invented by cartoonist Alice and Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel
Speaker 1: Wallace test, that requires a piece of media do the following.
Speaker 1: There has to be two female identifying characters with names
Speaker 1: for our purposes, who speak to each other about something
Speaker 1: other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more.
Speaker 1: Most movies can't make it happen, absolutely can't. I just
Speaker 1: watched that new movie with Chris Hemsworth on Netflix, and
Speaker 1: I had to say, it doesn't pay and anything. It
Speaker 1: doesn't pass the good movie test. It doesn't pass the
Speaker 1: Bechtel test. It doesn't pass the I finished the movie test.
Speaker 1: A lot of movies don't pass it. Which one is
Speaker 1: that extraction? Extraction? More like I want to extract myself
Speaker 1: out of this movie watching experience. I haven't seen it yet.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, but today's movie. I feel like today's movie
Speaker 1: will do okay on the Bechtel test. Not to not
Speaker 1: to spoil it would be imagine how deeply got wrenchingly
Speaker 1: disappointing it would be of this movie somehow did not
Speaker 1: pass the Bechtel test, right, it would be devastating. Well,
Speaker 1: we'recovering Harriet the Spy, and before we even introduce our guest,
Speaker 1: who we are very excited to have on the show,
Speaker 1: we wanted to jump to a quick conversation that we
Speaker 1: had with a friend of the show. She played Janey
Speaker 1: in the movie Harriet the Spy. It's Vanessa Lee Chester. Hi, Vanessa,
Speaker 1: welcome back him so excited to be back. I honestly,
Speaker 1: when I got Caitlin's email, I was like, what is
Speaker 1: going on because I had just been thinking about you guys,
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, you posted something on Instagram
Speaker 1: and I was like, she's so fucking funny. And I
Speaker 1: literally was like, I had such a great time chatting
Speaker 1: with you guys, and all my friends who like listen
Speaker 1: to the episode, we're like, this is such a fucking
Speaker 1: legit show. And I was like, I know, right, And
Speaker 1: so when you guys hit me up, I was like,
Speaker 1: they like me, we love you, welcome back. I'm excited
Speaker 1: so so recovering Harriett the Spy, and I guess we
Speaker 1: just wanted to start by talking to you about, like
Speaker 1: your experience on that movie. How do you how do
Speaker 1: you remember that time and that shooting experience? Now, it
Speaker 1: was fantastic. Like I can't speak for a lot of
Speaker 1: other child actors, but I loved being on that set
Speaker 1: so much. I feel like, of all the characters that
Speaker 1: I've ever played, I feel like the most similar to Janie.
Speaker 1: Like she's weird. She's very expressive in the way that
Speaker 1: she dresses, and that denotes so much of her character.
Speaker 1: She's passionate about science, which is something that you don't
Speaker 1: see a lot in young women, and I'm obsessed. I
Speaker 1: swear that Bill ny is my friend, but we've never met,
Speaker 1: and it's just like in my mind, like Neil degrass
Speaker 1: Tyson is my uncle and then his best friend is
Speaker 1: Bill n I and we're just all this huge, great family. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Like working on that set was just so fantastic.
Speaker 1: I feel like the story is just it's like everything
Speaker 1: a precocious, curious kid wants to live out and then
Speaker 1: getting a chance to actually bring it to the big
Speaker 1: screen with such an honor. Like I loved every moment
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, I'm still like I'm still friends with everyone.
Speaker 1: Like Greg and I talked, Yes, Greg is like my
Speaker 1: boy like I he will have a special place in
Speaker 1: my heart for the rest of my life. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then so now you're later what for you or just
Speaker 1: based on you know, because I'm sure that people talk
Speaker 1: to you about it, Uh fair amount? What is what
Speaker 1: is the legacy of this movie sort of like become
Speaker 1: over time? Um. I feel like that's a really difficult
Speaker 1: question because I feel like there's something really special about
Speaker 1: this movie, but it resonates in different ways for everyone.
Speaker 1: I got a really sweet d M I want to
Speaker 1: say at the end of last year from this lady
Speaker 1: on Instagram. And I'm only saying her race because it's
Speaker 1: relative to this it's important to the story. And she
Speaker 1: happens to be white. And she was like, um, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I just wanted to reach out to you
Speaker 1: and see if there was any way you could possibly
Speaker 1: send me an autograph from my sister. She's adopted and
Speaker 1: she happens to be black. And we used to watch
Speaker 1: Harry at the Spy all the time when we were
Speaker 1: little because we were like, Janey and Harriet are basically sisters,
Speaker 1: and we looked at it like us like two little
Speaker 1: girls who are you know, outcasts, but are complete grounded
Speaker 1: and who they are, and I was like crying reading
Speaker 1: the d M, you know, and I sent her like
Speaker 1: I sent her an autograph copy of my DVD and
Speaker 1: like a poster and I was like, this is for you,
Speaker 1: your sister and your brother, because like you guys are
Speaker 1: basically Janey, Harriet and Sports. Yeah. It was really sweet,
Speaker 1: like we're friends on LinkedIn now. We're just so random
Speaker 1: and like, do you think I actually have like a
Speaker 1: dope job. I'm an actor trying to like be on
Speaker 1: more movies. It always surprises me when I hear from
Speaker 1: fans of Harriet the Spy and just how it resonated
Speaker 1: for them. And I feel like a lot of girls
Speaker 1: who I've heard some women from the LGBTQ community say that,
Speaker 1: like I kind of felt like Harriet may have been
Speaker 1: like the first lesbian that I've read about, you know,
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, That's something that I've never
Speaker 1: thought about. And I just think that that's cool that
Speaker 1: like it's almost up for interpretation, but you can see
Speaker 1: yourself in it regardless for the best. I love it.
Speaker 1: Um A quick question I had because neither Jamie nor
Speaker 1: I have read the book that the film was based
Speaker 1: on and we were trying in our research to figure
Speaker 1: out if the Janey character was specifically written as black,
Speaker 1: and we couldn't find anything out about that. So we
Speaker 1: were wondering if if you knew about that, or if
Speaker 1: maybe the character was just written kind of ethnically ambiguous,
Speaker 1: and they cast it's no, it's really interesting that you
Speaker 1: brought that up. I'm glad that you said that, because
Speaker 1: I was going to bring it up myself. Um, once
Speaker 1: you guys asked me to do this, I st I
Speaker 1: picked the book back up and I was like, I
Speaker 1: need to like refresh myself and see what this is about.
Speaker 1: And in I want to say, the second chapter, when
Speaker 1: Harry is going back to school, they're describing all of
Speaker 1: the kids and they described Janey and they're like, Janey
Speaker 1: is a shy, meek girl with freckles and like doesn't
Speaker 1: really like making eye contact with people. And I was like, WHOA.
Speaker 1: I mean, freckles could be any race, but they're generally,
Speaker 1: you know, associated with people who are going to be Caucasian.
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa, you know, and it kind
Speaker 1: of made me think, like I feel like Janie might
Speaker 1: have been white. But the director didn't want that, and
Speaker 1: I remember auditioning and they were like, we want you
Speaker 1: to be bold, and we want you to be like
Speaker 1: charismatic and have a lot of confidence, and like I
Speaker 1: loved it. I was like, she's wild, Like this is
Speaker 1: the version of me that I wish I could bring
Speaker 1: to school every day. But it seems as if Janey
Speaker 1: in the book is actually a little bit more questions
Speaker 1: herself a little bit, which I thought was an interesting adaptation.
Speaker 1: Oh that's cool. Yeah, yeah. Janey in the movie definitely
Speaker 1: feels like an aspirational like character, like you want to
Speaker 1: be like her? Oh my gosh. I remember, like I
Speaker 1: knew I was getting paid, but I didn't really care.
Speaker 1: I was like, but how can I have Janey's entire wardrobe?
Speaker 1: That's what we really need to talk about. Like I
Speaker 1: get it, like I'm gonna go to college with this
Speaker 1: money that I'm allegedly making. But what about those suspenders
Speaker 1: that you guys made? I want those? Did you get
Speaker 1: to keep anything? Um? I don't remember. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I'm sure I did. And who knows? Justice for the
Speaker 1: overalls I got to find them. They're like in some
Speaker 1: type of like it's a wrap type of thrift store
Speaker 1: in Burbank, and I just got to find them. Um,
Speaker 1: do you have any other kind of final thoughts that
Speaker 1: you want to share, any thoughts at all about your
Speaker 1: experience being in the movie or just with the story itself,
Speaker 1: for anything along those lines. Well, now that we're chatting,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to revisit the book and just read
Speaker 1: it now that I'm older and like have a different
Speaker 1: type of analytical eye, because you know, when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I remember starting the book and just dropping it because
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, like, I don't even want to
Speaker 1: read the rest. I just want to get a notebook.
Speaker 1: And I thought it is really funny because I was
Speaker 1: actually in the movie. I had just finished shooting it,
Speaker 1: and I went back to school with a notebook, And
Speaker 1: I think it's really funny as an adult looking back
Speaker 1: on Heat. How even though I knew that I had
Speaker 1: filmed this entire spectacular movie, Like my imagination was so
Speaker 1: sparked by what she was doing. All I wanted to
Speaker 1: do was like run on roofs and spy on people.
Speaker 1: And my mom was like, don't try that ship, do
Speaker 1: not even try it. Like I went to school with
Speaker 1: a notebook, Like basically pretending I was Harriet before the
Speaker 1: movie came out. Like that's amazing. I had the same
Speaker 1: experience where I saw the movie as a young child
Speaker 1: and was obsessed with Harriet and her notebook spy gear,
Speaker 1: and I just like I wanted to be Harriet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's what's so amazing about it, Like we all
Speaker 1: wanted to be Harriet, you know, like it just there
Speaker 1: was something so courageous about her, Like that's what we
Speaker 1: all want to do, is like pretend we're older and
Speaker 1: like that. The thing that I find to be very
Speaker 1: endearing about Harriet is a lot of young kids, we
Speaker 1: all feel like we're adults. Like I remember telling my
Speaker 1: mom I could run the country, attend like I was
Speaker 1: confident that I would be a better president than all
Speaker 1: the people that I saw on TV. And maybe I
Speaker 1: was right. I mean, are you wrong? I know I was,
Speaker 1: like you're still out, who knows? Like I was a
Speaker 1: pretty woke little nine year old whatever. But it's amazing
Speaker 1: how mature Harry is. And like in the book, they
Speaker 1: denote the parts that are specifically her writing in her
Speaker 1: notebook with a different font, so you know that those
Speaker 1: are her thoughts. And there's a part in the book
Speaker 1: where Old Golly says to her, like you need to
Speaker 1: write down everything. You don't need to like sugarcoat it,
Speaker 1: write down things in the way that you see it,
Speaker 1: you know. And as you guys remember the movie, like
Speaker 1: her friends see the notebook and everyone loses it. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, when I was little, I used to be like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Harriet's so mean, she's so messed up.
Speaker 1: But like now that I'm older, like she's a child,
Speaker 1: and children are amazing because they're so honest. Like she
Speaker 1: wasn't actually trying to be malicious. She was just documenting
Speaker 1: and writing down what she saw without trying to impress anyone,
Speaker 1: because she didn't feel like her thoughts would be out
Speaker 1: in the public. You know, I don't know, it's just
Speaker 1: a thought that I had, No totally I have. I
Speaker 1: have the same feeling. Yeah. Yeah, Like he's like Janey's
Speaker 1: weird and might blow up the world. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: had a friend who was like always talking about blowing
Speaker 1: up the world at ten, you might be a little
Speaker 1: skeptical a little there. That That's why, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: like part of what I really love about the movie,
Speaker 1: like is that it makes like friendships with kids like
Speaker 1: it takes their friendship seriously and they're like complicated, but
Speaker 1: they're also like, yeah, of course a kid would say
Speaker 1: that if they were I mean, and yeah, if they
Speaker 1: didn't think anyone else would ever see it. So you
Speaker 1: can feel for her but also be like you can't
Speaker 1: do Janey like that. I mean, that's a really great point,
Speaker 1: is like it definitely brings like a drama that's like
Speaker 1: that's their world, and you know, we're sitting here, we're like,
Speaker 1: you're in sixth grade, it'll be fine, but like sixth
Speaker 1: grade is everything when you're in sixth grade, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that point, Jamie, that's really legit. Well, Vanessa,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for contributing, for giving your amazing
Speaker 1: thoughts and firsthand experience of being in the movie. And
Speaker 1: thank you for being in the movie. Yes, you guys
Speaker 1: are so amazing. Thank you so much for inviting me back.
Speaker 1: This has been such a great little piece of joy
Speaker 1: during what we're all going through. Um being able to
Speaker 1: discuss one of the projects that I've been in that
Speaker 1: I absolutely adored being a part of, and I cannot
Speaker 1: wait to hear this episode and how you guys break
Speaker 1: it down because you guys kill it and I know
Speaker 1: you're going to do with justice. Yes, thank you again,
Speaker 1: and we'll have to have you back for like a
Speaker 1: legitimate episode, like a full episode. Yeah, like don't don't
Speaker 1: play me. I will stock you if you don't know
Speaker 1: that it's all on. We've got it documented. We accept
Speaker 1: the challenge. Love it all right. You guys are awesome
Speaker 1: you to talk to you. Thank you so much, have
Speaker 1: a good day. Yay, thanks again Vanessa for chatting with us.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to our wonderful guest for today's episode.
Speaker 1: She is a podcast host, a producer, and actress best
Speaker 1: known from Glee. It's Jenna Ushkowitz. Hello, what's going on
Speaker 1: you guys? So excited to be here. Oh, we're so
Speaker 1: excited to have you. Love a good Quarantine record. You
Speaker 1: know it? You know it. Oh yeah, it's a good
Speaker 1: time to watch lots and lots of movies. It's true.
Speaker 1: It's full on escape Zone. I love it. Right. Tell
Speaker 1: us about your relationship and your history with Harriet the Spy. Well,
Speaker 1: I loved Harriet the Spy. This is totally like we're
Speaker 1: similar in age. Michelle Tractonberg and I and when this
Speaker 1: came out, I was like, finally a girl who can
Speaker 1: wear jeans and sneakers and doesn't have to wear dresses
Speaker 1: all the time, and like somebody who kind of like
Speaker 1: is wearing what I would want to wear. It. That's
Speaker 1: the first thought I had when I when I saw
Speaker 1: Harriet the really cool little yellow raincoat. And I started
Speaker 1: acting when I was really really young, and I would
Speaker 1: do voiceovers a lot, and I got a call to
Speaker 1: do some looping, which is the background voices throughout the
Speaker 1: film that they need to fill in like a playground
Speaker 1: or at school or whatever. And so I went in
Speaker 1: to do looping for Harriet the Spy. So in some
Speaker 1: of these scenes, I'm actually like whispering, like especially in
Speaker 1: the carry like blue paint scene, I whispered like into
Speaker 1: the girl's ear and it was so cool, that's your voice.
Speaker 1: And so I still get these like mini checks from
Speaker 1: Paramount for ten cents um from Marry the Spot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: every once in a while it'll be like sixty cents.
Speaker 1: You're like we're going out and uh yeah. And Michelle
Speaker 1: and I actually modeled together a lot growing up. We
Speaker 1: were just, you know, we kind of like cross paths
Speaker 1: a lot in the business so um. But I love
Speaker 1: the film and I actually also loved it so much
Speaker 1: that I got a note a marble notebook, and I
Speaker 1: you know, duplicated the private on it and I wrote
Speaker 1: all these like crazy things about my family in them.
Speaker 1: And one day my walking my room, my mom's like
Speaker 1: what is this. She's like what did she write? And
Speaker 1: she's like, this movie is no good for you? And
Speaker 1: I was it was like all made up stuff, but
Speaker 1: she was like, I was like, you're reading my diary.
Speaker 1: Parents have an interesting relationship with this movie because they're like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, I'm sure. That's such an amazing connection to
Speaker 1: this movie. That's so cool. Yeah, your voice has a
Speaker 1: press since life in the movie. Yeah. I very vividly
Speaker 1: remember standing in like this big voiceover room and like booth.
Speaker 1: It was a really big booth though, and the movie
Speaker 1: was like in this on this massive screen on the
Speaker 1: wall and they would just start and then you would
Speaker 1: you have to play and like being a playground with
Speaker 1: like other kids. It was like the most fun. That's
Speaker 1: so cool. That's so fun, Jamie. What's your relationship with
Speaker 1: the movie. I have a very complicated relationship with this
Speaker 1: movie in that I was not allowed I was. I
Speaker 1: was pretty I was like I was like three or
Speaker 1: four when this movie came out, so I didn't see
Speaker 1: it when it first came out. But I wasn't allowed
Speaker 1: to watch it when I was little because I had
Speaker 1: like I had. I was like a full on undiagnosed
Speaker 1: o c D child, and so I took a notebook
Speaker 1: literally everywhere, and I would get in trouble at school
Speaker 1: about it because I did this thing from I first
Speaker 1: remember doing it in First Raid. But I had this
Speaker 1: like real child O c D fixation on writing down
Speaker 1: when everyone in a room was wearing and saying for
Speaker 1: no reason. Like it was unlike Harriet. I had no
Speaker 1: end game. There was no objective or career goal attached
Speaker 1: to my notebooks. But I just did it compulsively and
Speaker 1: I would get in trouble for it all the time,
Speaker 1: and people were like, this is this makes me uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Why should she keep writing down that I'm wearing a
Speaker 1: yellow shirt? And so it was like such a chronicle
Speaker 1: problem for me that my mom was like movie about
Speaker 1: girl with notebook, we can't have it in the house, like,
Speaker 1: so I didn't get to see it, and I'm so
Speaker 1: bummed because now now that I've seen it, I'm like,
Speaker 1: first of all, my mom was kind of right, and
Speaker 1: it definitely would have made made my notebook problem a
Speaker 1: million times worse and it was already pretty bad. Uh.
Speaker 1: But second of all, it's such a good movie and
Speaker 1: it's so like, I don't know, I just like I
Speaker 1: love it in every single way. I love movies that
Speaker 1: let kids be like complicated and kind of messy but
Speaker 1: not fall into that like precocious child trope that is
Speaker 1: so annoying. And I don't know, I don't think it's
Speaker 1: so well done. I love like the direction style of it.
Speaker 1: It seems like everyone in the movie is like having
Speaker 1: the time of their life. And I just wish I
Speaker 1: could have seen it when I was younger. But um,
Speaker 1: I'll hand it to Jill. She was probably right not
Speaker 1: to show it to me. Jim. Yeah, Jill being a
Speaker 1: good parent, which, well, she's just like, I don't want
Speaker 1: my kid to get bullied at school for her horse
Speaker 1: notebooks anymore than she already is. Uh. What's your experience
Speaker 1: with this movie, Caitlin. I did watch it when I
Speaker 1: was a youth. I was deeply impacted by this movie,
Speaker 1: But what I remember way more than the movie it'sself
Speaker 1: was what I did in response to the movie. Like
Speaker 1: I think I probably saw it maybe only once or twice.
Speaker 1: It came out in nine I was ten, um, so
Speaker 1: I was like kind of the exact right age for it.
Speaker 1: But I think I saw it few enough times that
Speaker 1: I don't remember what the story was at all. But again,
Speaker 1: it impacted me so much that the movie made me
Speaker 1: want to be a spy. I had my mom get
Speaker 1: me a notebook just like Harriet's, one of those like
Speaker 1: marble notebooks. I put together this little like kit of
Speaker 1: spice stuff, anything I could get my hands on, which
Speaker 1: was mostly just like a magnifying glass and like a pen.
Speaker 1: But it was like, I'm going to be a spy.
Speaker 1: And I started eating mayonnaise sandwiches because I didn't like tomato,
Speaker 1: but so I didn't want to eat the tomato part
Speaker 1: of the tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches that Harriet makes, but
Speaker 1: I liked mayonnaise, so I would just eat just plain
Speaker 1: mayonnaise sandwiches. I would do this thing where I would
Speaker 1: slurp soup very obnoxiously and then say good soup like
Speaker 1: Harriet does in the movie. Like I had I picked
Speaker 1: up all these habits from the movie, but I rewatching
Speaker 1: it to prep for this episode. I realized that I
Speaker 1: had no idea what this movie was about. I like
Speaker 1: had completely forgotten everything about the story. Um so, but again,
Speaker 1: it really it really had a major impact on me
Speaker 1: when I was a child. So that's it's it's iconic.
Speaker 1: It really is. It had such a like it's so
Speaker 1: interesting and had such an effect even though you didn't
Speaker 1: even get to see it, Like it was really impactful
Speaker 1: and like finally seeing a girl who's not so dainty
Speaker 1: and like wanting to have a notebook to write things down,
Speaker 1: Like I just I think it was impactful in like
Speaker 1: a positive way, even though parents probably had a very
Speaker 1: toward relationship with the film for their children. Um but
Speaker 1: I feel the same way. I definitely made those sandwiches,
Speaker 1: and I definitely like I felt very like I just
Speaker 1: wanted to be her. I wanted to replicate her. I
Speaker 1: wanted to be her. She made it really cool, like
Speaker 1: she she was really cool. Totally. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this movie is good representation for people who
Speaker 1: double down on disgusting sandwiches, and I include myself in
Speaker 1: that community of someone's like Yeah, this is the worst
Speaker 1: food you could possibly eat every single day, and I'm
Speaker 1: doing it proudly. You're like, all right. I mean it
Speaker 1: also just speaks to and I'm sure we'll talk about
Speaker 1: this a lot, but it just speaks for the need
Speaker 1: for representation of movies about little girls like doing cool
Speaker 1: things and doing things that like other little girls or
Speaker 1: little children as viewers can aspire to, because there's just
Speaker 1: isn't much of that still, and the fact that this
Speaker 1: movie exists and was so impactful for so many people
Speaker 1: just like speaks to that need. Yeah, and just being
Speaker 1: like reflective of what a sixth grader's interests actually are,
Speaker 1: because I feel like movies for like targeted at young
Speaker 1: girls and and sometimes young young boys as well, is
Speaker 1: like eleven year olds that are like there's a crush
Speaker 1: narrative that's a it takes up a ton of real
Speaker 1: estate that like, I don't know, there's so many like
Speaker 1: sixth graders are weird and their interests are weird, and
Speaker 1: their friendships are like intense, and I like that this
Speaker 1: movie kind of reflects all of that for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: should we talk about the story and then go from there?
Speaker 1: I say, yes, Okay, couldn't hurt. Okay. So we meet Harriet.
Speaker 1: That's Michelle Tratchenberg of course. Um. She is a young
Speaker 1: girl who wants to be a writer. She learns everything
Speaker 1: she can and she writes down everything she sees in
Speaker 1: this private notebook that she always carries around. And that's
Speaker 1: why she's a spy. She's a spy because she's gearing
Speaker 1: up for a career as a writer. Um. We cut
Speaker 1: to her at school. She and her best friends Sport
Speaker 1: Gregory Smith and Janey of course, played by Vanessa Chester
Speaker 1: who you just heard there in sixth grade, and Harriet
Speaker 1: is nominated for class resident along with her arch nemesis
Speaker 1: Marian Hawthorne. And the best perk of being class president
Speaker 1: is being editor of the sixth grade newspaper, which is
Speaker 1: a weird thing that was I was like, wow, what
Speaker 1: a strange two powers to connect. It seems like the
Speaker 1: president shouldn't edit the newspaper. Yeah, that would be like
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump was like the head of all news.
Speaker 1: Right now he's the head of some news. Yea. All
Speaker 1: had to say, it seems like a conflict of interest
Speaker 1: to me. I agree. Also, I don't know about like
Speaker 1: your schools, but like We didn't have a sixth grade newspaper.
Speaker 1: There was no journalism of any kind is for me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like high schools when school newspaper, right, okay,
Speaker 1: just just making sure before that it's just all you
Speaker 1: just trust what you hear over the loud speaker and
Speaker 1: if that isn't a totalitarianactly. I was very envious of
Speaker 1: those classes where you'd see, like they have the morning news,
Speaker 1: where you got to be like a newscast, because I
Speaker 1: would have totally been that girl, but like I didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't have that. Yeah, I didn't have that. We
Speaker 1: had like a teenager that went to the principal's office
Speaker 1: to do the announcements every day so the principle wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to. We just had the principle outsourcing their job
Speaker 1: to children. Rude. Yeah. Well, unfortunately for Harriet, Mary and
Speaker 1: her enemy wins class president. Then after school, Harriet goes
Speaker 1: off on her spy route. She spies on this guy
Speaker 1: who has a bunch of cats, um, dozens of cats.
Speaker 1: And now it's a great time to mention cats. Facts
Speaker 1: with Caitlin. Cats have eight nipples and there were many cats.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many cat nipples there were but
Speaker 1: there's a lot. Anyway. I was counting my cat's nipples
Speaker 1: the other day and I couldn't. I couldn't get to eight.
Speaker 1: Some of them don't have that many. My fact is
Speaker 1: actually spread because that's what Google told me. The one
Speaker 1: time I looked it up. Fakeness canceled me. Cat Fax's
Speaker 1: fakeness anyway. Okay, So Harriet's on her spy route. She's
Speaker 1: looking at the guy with a bunch of cats, and
Speaker 1: she spies on the Hong Fat family at their supermarket.
Speaker 1: She spies on the delivery guy who she thinks is
Speaker 1: stealing vegetables, and she's writing all of this down in
Speaker 1: her notebook. Then we meet Harriet's nanny, Golly, played by
Speaker 1: Rosie O'Donnell. She is a very important figure and mentor
Speaker 1: in Harriet's life. She's like, she's a better parent than
Speaker 1: Harriet's parents, Right, who are these kind of upper crusts
Speaker 1: don't seem to spend a lot of time with Harry.
Speaker 1: I think her dad is like a comedy screenwriter or something.
Speaker 1: There's that exchange of dialogue where he's like, I'm the
Speaker 1: funny man. I do the comedy. Do you other guys
Speaker 1: are the money men. I like to think this is
Speaker 1: commentary on how most male comedy writers are actually very
Speaker 1: uptight and not funny at all. Yes, I agree, what
Speaker 1: an interesting choice of job for this upper crust family. Right,
Speaker 1: what were you writing on, sir? Yeah? Is he like
Speaker 1: what show? Because this show kind of like, well, part
Speaker 1: of what I love about the aesthetic of this movie
Speaker 1: is like it could kind of happen basically whenever, Like
Speaker 1: they do that cool thing where there's not any dated
Speaker 1: tech really included in the story, so you can kind
Speaker 1: of project it to be whenever. But yeah, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what what if he was like, I'm a Seinfeld writer
Speaker 1: and you're like, no, that canonically, what is he supposed
Speaker 1: to be writing? That's really I was kind of thinking that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: who knows. Anyway, one night, Golly invites a date over
Speaker 1: and it turns out to be the vegetable Steeler guy
Speaker 1: and they go out for dinner in a movie and
Speaker 1: they're like getting back to Harriett's house and when they return,
Speaker 1: Harriet's mom is super worried because she's like, where I
Speaker 1: didn't know where Harriet was? So she fires Golly um
Speaker 1: but then like immediately takes it back. But even so
Speaker 1: this all transpires to Golly deciding to leave. She's like,
Speaker 1: it's time for me to go. Harriet has grown up
Speaker 1: enough now and I'm gonna peace out. Also, Harriet's mom
Speaker 1: was being very unreasonable in that situation. Yes, like this
Speaker 1: woman is raising your child for you. Can you chill? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, well, women be lashing out, so, you know,
Speaker 1: good things. She has her comedy right, her husband to
Speaker 1: keep her in check. It's like, what anyways here? His
Speaker 1: parents are weird? Yeah they are. But Golly leaves and
Speaker 1: her parting words to Harriet are you know, keep being
Speaker 1: a by and keep writing. So she does. Um, she goes.
Speaker 1: She does her normal spy root with the cat guy
Speaker 1: and the hung fat market, and then she sees her
Speaker 1: friend Sport struggling to pay for groceries, and she pretends
Speaker 1: that he dropped a dollar outside so that she can
Speaker 1: help pay for his groceries. And then she snoops around
Speaker 1: Eartha Kit's house. What a treat? What a fun treat?
Speaker 1: Because you hear Eartha Kit before you see her, and
Speaker 1: so I was just like, no way, what what what?
Speaker 1: And then she it's it's her, and it's just it's
Speaker 1: clear that she was on set for five hours, and
Speaker 1: then I was so what a treat? So happy to
Speaker 1: see Oh yes, But it's at Eartha Kitts house that
Speaker 1: Harriet gets caught, and good spies never get caught, so
Speaker 1: she's super down on herself for having been caught. So
Speaker 1: the next day, instead of doing her usual spy route,
Speaker 1: she decides to play with her friends. She's like, I
Speaker 1: don't deserve to be a spy. I'll do normal kids stuff.
Speaker 1: So during a game of bumper tag, Harriet drops her
Speaker 1: notebook and her nemesis, Maran Hawthorne picks it up and
Speaker 1: starts reading it to a group of kids, and it
Speaker 1: becomes clear that it's basically a burn book where Harriet
Speaker 1: is just saying pretty mean stuff about all of her classmates,
Speaker 1: including her best friends Janey and Sport. So now that
Speaker 1: this is all out in the public, everyone hates her
Speaker 1: and her friends ignore her, and the kids at school
Speaker 1: are like passing around notes saying that Harriet smells. And
Speaker 1: they build a clubhouse for catching spies and just a
Speaker 1: it's a cool clubhouse. It's I want that clubhouse, right,
Speaker 1: They duck tape it together. It's it's a it's built
Speaker 1: the way that kids would build a clubhouse, and I
Speaker 1: appreciated that. Then her parents are like, you're obsessed with
Speaker 1: being a spy and it's not healthy, and they make
Speaker 1: her give up her notebook. And then there's an incident
Speaker 1: at school where Marian and her friend's dump blue paint
Speaker 1: on her and she freaks out. She goes home, she
Speaker 1: rips her notebook up. It's a very big fat liar.
Speaker 1: Even though this movie came out before big fat liar.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh, yeah, PAULIATI got blue painted too.
Speaker 1: It happens. Oh yep, I haven't seen that. Why is
Speaker 1: that a children's movie trope? Just getting dumped on by
Speaker 1: blue paint by blue paint, blue paint? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know, alright, I think peace on it, please.
Speaker 1: And then Harriet decides to get revenge on her classmates
Speaker 1: for doing this, and she carves like a hit list
Speaker 1: into her desk and she gets revenge by cutting off
Speaker 1: a girl's ponytail. She ruins various school projects. She tells
Speaker 1: Mary and that her dad doesn't of her. Pretty traumatic
Speaker 1: things like that, very rebellious, very rebellious. Yeah, she's listen.
Speaker 1: Harriet's a flawed character. It's true. We'll talk all about it.
Speaker 1: And then there's like there's little moments too where like
Speaker 1: I love Harriet so much, but I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she's also a rich brat where sometimes she'll do things
Speaker 1: where I'm just like, oh, you just like have so
Speaker 1: much privilege you can't see. She lives in an enormous apartment,
Speaker 1: really nice and the Upper East Side, but I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean so much it boggles the mind. And it's
Speaker 1: also such a cool movie house. It's rank controled you
Speaker 1: guys there they pay seven a month to live there.
Speaker 1: She inherited it from her grandma's grandma. Okay, it's like friends, right, right.
Speaker 1: So her parents are like, oh, something's happening with our daughter.
Speaker 1: She's really lashing out. So they take her to a
Speaker 1: child psychologist. And this is when she's maybe starting to
Speaker 1: realize that what she was writing in her notebook was
Speaker 1: kind of nasty and it hurt people's feelings. So her
Speaker 1: parents give her notebook back and Golly comes back for
Speaker 1: a visit, and Golly is like, here's the thing. You
Speaker 1: need to apologize, and you need to tell some white
Speaker 1: lies because white lies are okay, and also maybe try
Speaker 1: writing something other than notes. In your notebook. So then
Speaker 1: Harriet goes to apologize to Jane and sport. They're still
Speaker 1: sour at first, and then in class, Harriet suggests that
Speaker 1: people besides just the class president should get to write
Speaker 1: the school newspaper. So the kid with the purple socks
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, I agree, and Harriet is a really
Speaker 1: good writer. I nominate her to be the editor of
Speaker 1: the newspaper. It's kind of incredible how much the kid
Speaker 1: in the purple socks ends up coming through and having
Speaker 1: narrative significance in right, and they don't see it coming,
Speaker 1: don't see it coming. And this is someone who Harriet
Speaker 1: said should hang themselves. It's really and he really gets
Speaker 1: over it. He this is the thing piece I want.
Speaker 1: The kid with the purple socks went home and was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, sticks and stones may break my bones,
Speaker 1: but good journalism is good journalism that he advocates for her.
Speaker 1: He sure does. So everyone else is like, yeah, Harriet,
Speaker 1: you're the new editor of the newspaper. So then she
Speaker 1: writes a retraction, apologizing saying the things that she had
Speaker 1: written before weren't fair. She was too quick to judge
Speaker 1: people and jump to conclusions. And then The movie ends
Speaker 1: with her class dancing around during their winter pageant, like
Speaker 1: in a gravy boat. In a gravy boat, Harriet is
Speaker 1: an onion. I think they're The costumes are pretty fun.
Speaker 1: It reminded me so much of does anyone remember that
Speaker 1: episode of Hey Arnold? Were their fruits in the play? Yes,
Speaker 1: that's another like fun children's media troupe, like we got
Speaker 1: to dress up the kids like food. People love it.
Speaker 1: It's so good. Uh, And that's the story. So let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and then we will come right
Speaker 1: back to discuss uh where where to begind um with Harry?
Speaker 1: I mean, should we just start by by talking about Harriet?
Speaker 1: I suppose so? Um. I think there's no better play.
Speaker 1: The first thing I want to say, I think is
Speaker 1: that because I didn't remember what the movie was about,
Speaker 1: like my ten year old brain just comp really forgot.
Speaker 1: I assumed that this story was going to be kind
Speaker 1: of like a Nancy Drew type story, where like Harriet
Speaker 1: would have to like solve a mystery because she's a
Speaker 1: spine and she comes across a thing that she needs
Speaker 1: to figure out. Interesting, But I think what happens in
Speaker 1: this movie is way more realistic to what an eleven
Speaker 1: year old girl would get involved in, rather than like
Speaker 1: somehow being able to solve this like this mystery. So
Speaker 1: I thought that was actually really cool because as I
Speaker 1: was watching it, I was like, what's what's the missy?
Speaker 1: When's the mystery going to happen? When are they going
Speaker 1: to establish And I'm like, oh, wait a minute, that's
Speaker 1: not what this movie is about. It's about her. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like that she like they make it clear that
Speaker 1: she's like devoted to what she does and she is
Speaker 1: good at it. But you're also like, but like what
Speaker 1: is she doing? Which is how all of us when
Speaker 1: we were eleven did things Like we were just like yeah,
Speaker 1: this is important and this is cool, and then at
Speaker 1: the end they're like, well what did you accomplish? You're
Speaker 1: like nothing, nothing, I got into a fight with my mom.
Speaker 1: Harriet is such a cool, complicated character. Where I was,
Speaker 1: I was really like kind of like really impressed with
Speaker 1: how this movie just like goes there with like parent
Speaker 1: conflict and um, the like subtleties of like communicating that
Speaker 1: Harriet's parents are like kind of have like failed her
Speaker 1: in some ways and that there has to be a
Speaker 1: conversation about how they have failed her in some ways
Speaker 1: and how they just don't really understand her. And there's
Speaker 1: like class stuff tackled in this movie where like Harriet
Speaker 1: doesn't clear I mean clearly to demonstrate through how she
Speaker 1: treats sports, like doesn't understand class really at all, um
Speaker 1: and like has to learn that and she like fox up.
Speaker 1: But it's still I don't know. Yeah, it's like the
Speaker 1: movie tackles so many different things that are all like
Speaker 1: stuff that affects kids, but it does it in a
Speaker 1: way that is still appealing to kids. It's like it's incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they do a good job because it's it's Nickelodeon. I
Speaker 1: think it was one of the first movies that Nickelodeon
Speaker 1: had released, And I was reading about it because I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that the book by Louise fits You
Speaker 1: is has been banned. It's on banned books lists for
Speaker 1: different like school like children's libraries and school libraries and
Speaker 1: things like that. Yeah, I don't remember ever seeing it
Speaker 1: in a school library, which is like because it goes
Speaker 1: back to the thing of like our you know, parents
Speaker 1: probably have this weird toward relationship with the movie because
Speaker 1: it's like the parents failing and they're not, you know,
Speaker 1: failing their child and not being there for her. But
Speaker 1: I like the idea of like the power of words,
Speaker 1: like teaching the kids what the power that they have
Speaker 1: with their what they say and what they think and
Speaker 1: how they express it. I also was thinking about like
Speaker 1: sweet little Gali Um and her relationship up. I love
Speaker 1: that that relationship between the two ladies. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this is how I'll be able
Speaker 1: to teach my kid about how to white light and
Speaker 1: how that's okay. I was like, I'm gonna take that even.
Speaker 1: I mean, like that scene is such a cool, like
Speaker 1: big swing of like I don't know, like just like
Speaker 1: that just shows how seriously the like writers of this
Speaker 1: movie take their kid audience of like they don't doubt
Speaker 1: that that will like, you know, resonate with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think like the whole way through with Harriet,
Speaker 1: like she is flawed. So I go back and forth
Speaker 1: and like, am I supposed to be cheer like rooting
Speaker 1: for her this whole time? Where am I supposed to
Speaker 1: kind of I'm learning things as a thirty four year
Speaker 1: old woman from Harriet Um. But you know, at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, like with that sweet scene at
Speaker 1: the end, it's like sometimes you have to lie, but
Speaker 1: to yourself you must always tell the truth, Like that's it,
Speaker 1: you know. So I think there were really really great
Speaker 1: messages along the way for a nuggets for these kids
Speaker 1: to actually take even though you know, our tenure o
Speaker 1: brains were like I want to be a spy, you know.
Speaker 1: And then but like having uh these like nonconformist women
Speaker 1: at the helm of a film where you go like, oh,
Speaker 1: I you know, the underrepresented is represented in a way.
Speaker 1: I love her relationship with Golly. I think like her
Speaker 1: relationship with Golly is so beautiful and cool, and I
Speaker 1: feel like a really good model of like how adults
Speaker 1: can treat children not with kid gloves and it can
Speaker 1: be like a very like that that's just like how
Speaker 1: you should treat a kid generally. Um. I love like
Speaker 1: that scene where um, Golly like listens to Harriet, she
Speaker 1: cares about her interests, she supports what Harriet's interested in,
Speaker 1: and then also like does that cool thing where like
Speaker 1: it's like an adult takes you seriously and then tries
Speaker 1: to like spanned your knowledge where she like brought her
Speaker 1: to see that movie about Mata Hari and she knows
Speaker 1: about Josephine Baker and like all these female spies or yeah,
Speaker 1: I think like Golly is such a cool character and
Speaker 1: and the fact that we also get a little look
Speaker 1: into her personal life and her interior life, because they
Speaker 1: feel like in India's movies that mostly hang out in
Speaker 1: like the upper crust class, the only poor characters you
Speaker 1: see have no interior life that we're made aware of.
Speaker 1: But it's like Golly has a life, and she has
Speaker 1: interests and she and she advocates for herself when like
Speaker 1: Harriet's mom, you know, like treats are like ship She's like, no,
Speaker 1: I'm out of here. I don't I don't need to
Speaker 1: put up with this. I also love the fem Fatale
Speaker 1: uh movie theater. Like I was like, okay, yeah, because
Speaker 1: they went to like a fem fatale like film festival,
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah yeah, and then they like saw think
Speaker 1: it was a real movie that was like based on
Speaker 1: like Mata Harris adventures. And I don't know, these were
Speaker 1: like women that I wrote a like a report on
Speaker 1: Mata Hari when I was a kid, like oh, spies,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, their relationship is great and it made
Speaker 1: me cry when Colly left the first time. It's really
Speaker 1: like maybe I'll travel. You know, You're just like I
Speaker 1: want to go with Golly, right right. Some other things
Speaker 1: that I like that we've already touched on, but like
Speaker 1: I guess in terms of um, Harriet's friend group, so
Speaker 1: you know, you you you heard what Vanessa had to say.
Speaker 1: But the fact that, um, you know, Harriet's two friends
Speaker 1: are Janey, who is a woman of color in STEM.
Speaker 1: It's so rare to see little black girls doing science
Speaker 1: on screen or having an interest in science in any media.
Speaker 1: That that was really remarkable. And and it also doesn't
Speaker 1: like make a big I feel like a big thing.
Speaker 1: There is also just like normalizing it and not making
Speaker 1: it this like big focal point. It's like, yeah, Janey
Speaker 1: likes science. This is what she does, this is how
Speaker 1: she acts, blah blah blah, and like it just is.
Speaker 1: She's also has like a fascination with very destructive science.
Speaker 1: She's like, I love the h bomb crowd, Manhattan Project,
Speaker 1: Let's do it. And we're like, she's obsessed with laser
Speaker 1: beams that would like disintegrate people. She'll work it out
Speaker 1: in therapy later. Right, all these kids are in therapy, like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, yeah, Janey is awesome. And I was also, um,
Speaker 1: kind of just based on other movies that we've covered
Speaker 1: in like tropes that we've noticed over the years. Um,
Speaker 1: I think I'm thinking of the craft where yeah, normally,
Speaker 1: you know, in a movie where there's only one person
Speaker 1: of color, and usually specifically a black character, you don't
Speaker 1: get to see their home life or their home life
Speaker 1: is kind of excluded from the narrative. And that again,
Speaker 1: it's just like not the case for Janey, and it's
Speaker 1: done in a very like just a normalized way of
Speaker 1: like you see her mom, her mom's like stop blowing
Speaker 1: things up, and you're like, all right, cool, there we are. Um,
Speaker 1: you get a peek at the home life and and
Speaker 1: like I guess to be fair, not in the same
Speaker 1: amount of detail that we get for Harriet and for
Speaker 1: Sport Um, but you do get to see her home life,
Speaker 1: her relationship with her mom, and it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: like a meaningful part of the story. And then I mean,
Speaker 1: speaking of Sport, I also like that the movie normalizes
Speaker 1: girls being friends with boys, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of media targeted to children would try to emphasize a
Speaker 1: divide between girls and boys, and like how girls were
Speaker 1: turning in to like a crushed narrative too. But they're
Speaker 1: just you know, platonic friends. There's no indication, at least
Speaker 1: in the movie that any of them have any you know,
Speaker 1: little crush on anyone else. You know, they're busy, if
Speaker 1: they're too busy being spies and you know, making spores
Speaker 1: in their bedroom and stuff like that. And then with
Speaker 1: with Sport, there is, like you said, Jamie, um, some
Speaker 1: attention is drawn to class because you know, Harriet comes
Speaker 1: from a well to do family, whereas Sport I mean
Speaker 1: to say the least, I mean her dad, Larry David, Like,
Speaker 1: how is a comedy writer having that house? Who knows? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sport comes from a poor family who his dad is
Speaker 1: also a writer. But you know, there's that line where
Speaker 1: Harriet says something like, my dad would call guys like
Speaker 1: your dad a starving artist, get a real job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why want Harriet's dad staff sports Dad? If he's the
Speaker 1: showrunner of Seinfeld, give Sports Dad a job on the show. Right,
Speaker 1: But like, but if he's a shitty writer, um, that
Speaker 1: could be it. Well, he does sell something for ten
Speaker 1: dollars at the end, so that's true. That's that's something.
Speaker 1: I like the sweet little scene where she climbs up
Speaker 1: and she's spying on Sport and like she sees Sport
Speaker 1: with his uh with his dad and they're running around
Speaker 1: like with you know, having this like grand old time
Speaker 1: with a chicken hat or whatever. That thing was. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I think it also shows that like happiness
Speaker 1: comes in different forms and being fulfilled in a different way.
Speaker 1: For children to kind of understand that, like that you
Speaker 1: don't need money to have a happy family was also
Speaker 1: like pretty pretty powerful, I thought for sure. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's definitely an existing trope where children from poor families
Speaker 1: or just poor families in general are miserable, and often
Speaker 1: there's like this idea that like, oh, earns of a
Speaker 1: poor family are abusive or negligent or you know any
Speaker 1: any manner of like really negative stereotypes, and we don't
Speaker 1: see that at all with Sports family. Well, I will
Speaker 1: say just a little bit that like Sport, I guess
Speaker 1: I think that sports Dad is kind of weirdly written
Speaker 1: in some moments of like he's not a good parent.
Speaker 1: He's not written to be a good parent, because like
Speaker 1: Sport is the one who is like doing the cooking
Speaker 1: and like buying groceries because his dad is depressed to
Speaker 1: write his shitty book. So I feel like it is
Speaker 1: not like entirely like I don't know a fair point
Speaker 1: that yeah, I feel like I mean this, this movie
Speaker 1: and this story goes out of the way to give
Speaker 1: kids a lot of agency, but like Sport is literally
Speaker 1: seems to be running the house and he's yeah tenor
Speaker 1: a weaven, I mean, which does mean we see a
Speaker 1: little boy doing a lot of like domestic chores, which
Speaker 1: we never see the context of it. Though I don't know.
Speaker 1: It doesn't like is I don't I mean, yeah, it
Speaker 1: seems like he has, you know, a depressive parent, but
Speaker 1: then it's like that thing where they're like, well, depressive
Speaker 1: equals art, so best not to deal with it. So
Speaker 1: I don't know. I was a little concerned for Sport
Speaker 1: even when things started working out for the family, uh,
Speaker 1: because I'm just like, are we does does sports still
Speaker 1: have to cook tonight? Like? Can this dad learn how
Speaker 1: to make a box of mac and cheese for his son? Please?
Speaker 1: I was just worried about Sport. There there is an
Speaker 1: exchange of dialogue that I thought was really powerful, and
Speaker 1: I think would have been especially powerful to see if
Speaker 1: I had remembered it as a child when I saw it.
Speaker 1: But you know, Harriet says something like I hate money,
Speaker 1: and Sport replies with, you'd like it a lot more
Speaker 1: if you didn't have any, which is such a like,
Speaker 1: you know, Harriet's coming from this really privileged place, so
Speaker 1: of course, like she gets to hate money because money
Speaker 1: doesn't a lack of money isn't affecting her, Like she
Speaker 1: doesn't have to worry about that. She's never had to Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's never had to really think about it. Um. One
Speaker 1: of the things where I feel, okay, so Harriet. I
Speaker 1: like that the that there is some like class diversity
Speaker 1: in in this movie as well. And one of the
Speaker 1: I think cool things that Harriet does as a little
Speaker 1: rich New York kid um is that she gets to
Speaker 1: go to therapy. And I was kind of like when
Speaker 1: this scene came up, I was like, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like nineties six. You don't really know which way
Speaker 1: this is going to go because I feel like, especially
Speaker 1: during this time, there is still like significant stigma against
Speaker 1: any kind of therapy, and you would sometimes see therapy
Speaker 1: characters made out to be kind of like cookie and
Speaker 1: like kind of like snake oil salesman, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're like, how are you feeling, and they don't actually understand,
Speaker 1: they're not actually listening. But I I really love the
Speaker 1: direction that this movie takes it, which is that it
Speaker 1: is helpful for Harriet, like and and the fact that
Speaker 1: she went to therapy even though she herself was skeptical
Speaker 1: of it, um ends up improved. I mean no, I
Speaker 1: mean like really improving her parents understanding of her more
Speaker 1: so than her understanding of herself. But I was happy
Speaker 1: to see that therapy and like mental health stuff was
Speaker 1: not made a joke of because I feel like that's
Speaker 1: an easy joke that you kind of see a lot
Speaker 1: in movies in the like nineties early two thousand's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you have a long way to go with
Speaker 1: therapy still and mental health, even though we're moving in
Speaker 1: a forward motion. But I I'm actually we're watching Sopranos
Speaker 1: for the first time right now, where I think they're
Speaker 1: doing a really wonderful job with the way in that world,
Speaker 1: like you know, handling and approaching the topic of mental health.
Speaker 1: But like they bring their son to you know, their
Speaker 1: sons not paying attention. They think he has a d D.
Speaker 1: He's going to get tested. It's like, I want to
Speaker 1: see people go who don't have major overlaying issues, meaning
Speaker 1: that like you have to go to therapy because just
Speaker 1: because of that, Like I we always see kids being
Speaker 1: brought to therapy because they're troubled, rather than just being
Speaker 1: able to say, like therapy is okay for everybody, true,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's ultimately in this case, it seems
Speaker 1: like Harriet is being Part of the reason to Harriet
Speaker 1: is being sent to therapy is because her parents are
Speaker 1: not doing the work they need to do to understand,
Speaker 1: like it's just as much of them, like they should
Speaker 1: also be in therapy, and I hope that they are right. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: the movie kind of frames the Gali leaving is the
Speaker 1: catalyst for trauma. Yeah, it's it's it's Harriet's trauma, and
Speaker 1: it's why she sort of lashes out and because like
Speaker 1: what happens is that people find her notebook where she
Speaker 1: has said all these you know, perhaps truthful but still
Speaker 1: mean things about all of her classmates, and then they
Speaker 1: retaliate against her because they're like, you can't say this
Speaker 1: horrible stuff about us, that's mean, and they kind of
Speaker 1: shun her, but she retaliates against them again for having
Speaker 1: been really doubles down. She doubles down, and it's like,
Speaker 1: but like, that's also a realistic thing that I think
Speaker 1: a lot of eleven year olds would do. I honestly,
Speaker 1: watching this, I'm like I anytime I see a movie
Speaker 1: where kids like kind of act out in a funny way, like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I was I wish I was like a
Speaker 1: bolder child, and I like recognize at the time and like,
Speaker 1: this really isn't going to have that much of an
Speaker 1: effect on my life. I should just do some fucked
Speaker 1: up weird stuff. She gets like there, she really doubles
Speaker 1: down in a way I would not have been brave
Speaker 1: enough to attempt as as an eleven year old. It's inspiring, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I think maybe a movie that had a lesser
Speaker 1: understanding of like children's behavior and psychology would just to
Speaker 1: have it so that her book got found all of
Speaker 1: her you know, mean notes were revealed, and then she
Speaker 1: would just be like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Everyone better now. But like, no, that's not It spirals
Speaker 1: out of control and I could like totally see myself
Speaker 1: like me, I don't think I ever did anything quite
Speaker 1: like that. But like you know, when you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you don't know how to hold yourself accountable for
Speaker 1: any misdeeds you did, you're gonna keep lashing out because
Speaker 1: you just don't know how else to process anything. I
Speaker 1: had a really embarrassing thing like not I mean not
Speaker 1: as it wasn't a mean thing, but when I was
Speaker 1: in fifth grade, I left an open document at the
Speaker 1: computer lab saying that I was like trying to I
Speaker 1: don't know anyway. My teacher was Mr Brewster, and I
Speaker 1: had typed the words Mr Brewster hot, and it became
Speaker 1: a thing that was you know, it was not an
Speaker 1: easy time to have been the girl that typed Mr
Speaker 1: Brewster hot, because I meant it as a question, not
Speaker 1: as a statement, not that anyone would believe me. I
Speaker 1: meant Mr Brewster HoTT, but the punctuation wasn't there, and
Speaker 1: so and and and and I just doubled down in
Speaker 1: saying that it was a question and not a statement,
Speaker 1: which made the whole thing worse. And being a child
Speaker 1: is a full full fledged nightmare. It's traumatic, you really,
Speaker 1: I think about it all, like, even thinking about it
Speaker 1: now just still puts a pit in my stomach of like, damn,
Speaker 1: should have just pressed backspace, like it would have been
Speaker 1: so easy. That's basically the plot of Love Simon. By
Speaker 1: the way, I yes, I was. Uh, it's actually based
Speaker 1: on me and Mr Brewster story. They licensed it from us. Incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and then we'll come back
Speaker 1: for more discussion and we're back. There are some as
Speaker 1: as well as this movie does at exploring the intricacies
Speaker 1: of what it's like to be an eleven year old
Speaker 1: girl with abundant resources and um parents who don't seem
Speaker 1: to be able to keep track of where their daughter
Speaker 1: is most of the time because she's off doing spy
Speaker 1: stuff and a New York version of New York that
Speaker 1: is very safe, very safe, and quite white. Um, which
Speaker 1: brings me to some of the issues that the movie has.
Speaker 1: So one of her spy targets is the Hong Fat family,
Speaker 1: and she says something like, oh, they have a son, Frankie.
Speaker 1: He's cool American style, and then the parents are cool
Speaker 1: Chinese style, and then she like makes a comment about
Speaker 1: how the parents would rather have Frankie working in the
Speaker 1: store selling milk and bread and lizards. So it's this
Speaker 1: joke made at the expense of like this immigrant family
Speaker 1: and like, oh, this thing they do that's unfamiliar to me,
Speaker 1: it must be gross or it's weird, it's other does
Speaker 1: not age well, especially because it's like there's no I
Speaker 1: mean that's the end of there's no commentary. Like it's
Speaker 1: just like there's so many things and it sucks because
Speaker 1: I I wanted to believe better of this movie. Of
Speaker 1: there are so many things in this movie that Harriet
Speaker 1: is wrong about and then she learns that she's wrong
Speaker 1: and get some perspective on it. And you would think
Speaker 1: that this would be a great opportunity for you to
Speaker 1: be like, no, you're like a rich little white girl.
Speaker 1: You don't know what you're talking about here, Like, but
Speaker 1: it just it never comes for this um storyline. No,
Speaker 1: it does, unfortunately, not, does it not? UM. I was
Speaker 1: also kind of bummed that, um, I don't even she
Speaker 1: they give this character a name, but Marian's I guess,
Speaker 1: like sidekick. Yes, her name is Rachel. Yeah. I don't
Speaker 1: love how that character is treated as one of the
Speaker 1: only like non white students that we get to know,
Speaker 1: and that she's kind of like relegated to this sidekick role,
Speaker 1: and I also felt, I mean, Marian's character in general,
Speaker 1: I don't know how. I well, I guess I don't
Speaker 1: know how. There's another weird class thing happening here because
Speaker 1: we've got Sport who was very clearly from a low
Speaker 1: income family. We've got Harriet who is rich, but then
Speaker 1: Marian is even richer, and so she's the villain. It's
Speaker 1: like it's right, and it's like, I don't know, I
Speaker 1: know that like rich people technically have feelings that we're
Speaker 1: supposed to really care about it, but it was just
Speaker 1: that whole story a lote. I was just like, what
Speaker 1: is this like? Because it's like I don't want to
Speaker 1: It's just like a rich girl being mean to another
Speaker 1: rich girl and then being like, actually I should have
Speaker 1: thought more about the richer girl. And there you're just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, who care about any of this because
Speaker 1: it's like demonizing extra extreme excessive wealth and marrying because
Speaker 1: they like have her say these really goofy things like, oh,
Speaker 1: horseback riding if you can afford it is a super
Speaker 1: fun activity. And then her idea for like a fun
Speaker 1: game that all the children can play is let's role
Speaker 1: play buying a Volvo. You'll pretend to be the rich couple,
Speaker 1: and you'll pretend to be the car salesman, and everyone's like, boo,
Speaker 1: you're an idiot. Um, so it's like kind of hates her, like,
Speaker 1: but then it's like, Harry, you're also rich, Like what
Speaker 1: do you like? She's like, I guess slightly less rich
Speaker 1: than Mary, and so Harry, it's like cool by everyone else.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like I ended up just kind of
Speaker 1: shrugging because I'm just like, I don't I guess that
Speaker 1: we're I made to an extent, we're supposed to like
Speaker 1: just be like we love Harriet no matter what. But
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, Harriet, like check yourself a little bit here.
Speaker 1: You're like you're in You're a three per center and
Speaker 1: Marian's a one percent er. What's the fucking difference? Everyone
Speaker 1: to relax. Also, during that scene where like all the
Speaker 1: children are pitching games that they might play, someone says
Speaker 1: something and then Harriet says, no, that's our word. She
Speaker 1: says the R word, which, again a very nineties thing
Speaker 1: to do, even a very like two thousand to some
Speaker 1: degree two thousands tens things to be like that word
Speaker 1: was being used very casually. It's still kicked around to
Speaker 1: this day, to our infinite frustration. UM, yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: That was I like jumped. I was like, no, no, there,
Speaker 1: how did you get here? How did you get in here?
Speaker 1: Can we talk about the queer reading of this story? Please?
Speaker 1: So I was doing. I've been known to do a
Speaker 1: little context corner myself every once in a while. Um,
Speaker 1: not to step on your toes, Jamie, I know. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry. Don't worry, don't worry. But I was doing
Speaker 1: some reading and um, full disclosure, I have not read
Speaker 1: the book that this is adapted from. It was banned.
Speaker 1: It was, it was, it was so the author, Louise
Speaker 1: fitz Hugh, was a queer woman. The book has a
Speaker 1: pretty substantial queer following the way, and I think it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the way Harriet was
Speaker 1: described in the book and just various actions and behaviors
Speaker 1: of hers throughout the story. I wanted to read an
Speaker 1: excerpt from an article that I found from The Guardian
Speaker 1: entitled Harriet the Spy Helped Me come to terms with
Speaker 1: my queer identity by Cat Patrick. Quote Harriet the Spy
Speaker 1: blurred the lines between right and wrong in a way
Speaker 1: that liberated my nine year old brain as a kid
Speaker 1: who already felt left out by the mechanisms of femininity
Speaker 1: that everyone around me seemed to adopt with ease. Harriet
Speaker 1: was the blue denim baby Butch I needed among the
Speaker 1: endless Balderina narratives. Back then, I didn't have the words
Speaker 1: for what I felt fizzing through my inside, and even now,
Speaker 1: fifteen years after coming out, I'm only just learning to
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with how I present non binary Butch end quote.
Speaker 1: I recommend reading this entire article because the writer goes
Speaker 1: on to offer a queer reading on Harriet's spy route,
Speaker 1: the idea of having to tell you know, little white
Speaker 1: lies to survive, but also remaining true to yourself. All
Speaker 1: of these themes that are explored. Queer listeners. Let us
Speaker 1: know how the movie resonated with you and the book,
Speaker 1: if you've read it, if you could get your hands
Speaker 1: on one, if you can even get your hands on it.
Speaker 1: I think, I mean, as far as the movie goes,
Speaker 1: and we're we always want to know more about what
Speaker 1: our our queer listeners think and what your read is.
Speaker 1: But I think that like a strength of the movie
Speaker 1: is that it doesn't force heterosexuality on its child characters,
Speaker 1: like they're just being kids. There aren't like those constructs aren't.
Speaker 1: There's no external pressure for that really coming from any direction,
Speaker 1: which is very I didn't realize. I mean I didn't
Speaker 1: even I was like so refreshed by it. Then I'm like, wow,
Speaker 1: this really does happen in every other kid's movie because
Speaker 1: it just like is it makes create so much room
Speaker 1: in this story for interpretation and just doing other things,
Speaker 1: um by by not taking up too much real estate
Speaker 1: with like boy girl crushes, which is also just boring
Speaker 1: and bad writing. Yes, um, I have some context stuff
Speaker 1: on the production, please, yes, this movie there, I mean
Speaker 1: I pretty much love all of it. Uh So this
Speaker 1: was directed by a woman, A pretty young women as well.
Speaker 1: I think she was like twenty eight or twenty nine
Speaker 1: when she directed the movie. It was her first big production.
Speaker 1: Her name's Bronwyn Hughes. Everything I've read about her love
Speaker 1: She still is directing mostly like Prestige TV. Now. She
Speaker 1: directed a Better Call Soul episode this year like She's
Speaker 1: out here. But this was her first movie, and I
Speaker 1: just was really interested in how she was able to
Speaker 1: direct kids in a way that feels so organic. Because
Speaker 1: Caitlin and I have like joked around before like the
Speaker 1: way that some child actors are directed, it just does
Speaker 1: them no favors. And the way that some child characters
Speaker 1: are written does them no favors. But like here the
Speaker 1: spy feels like this big outlier and so um I
Speaker 1: wanted to learn more about her direction style, and everything
Speaker 1: I read about her was that they were just like
Speaker 1: she just had like the highest energy and she was
Speaker 1: like dancing with the kids all day, and so like
Speaker 1: takes what happened right after, like Michelle tracton Berg was
Speaker 1: like dancing around and then Brown when used to be
Speaker 1: like okay, now go, and that would like bring the
Speaker 1: energy into the scene. So here's a quote from Michelle
Speaker 1: Tractonburg about it. She says, I don't remember her not
Speaker 1: dancing on set and music was always playing. It was
Speaker 1: really cool and in terms of performance art, she was
Speaker 1: pretty ahead of her time. It was also a great
Speaker 1: way to direct children and keep things alive, and so
Speaker 1: I I just I don't know. I ended up finding
Speaker 1: a new director that I really want to see like
Speaker 1: more of her work just based off of and even
Speaker 1: like the pacing of it has like such a cool
Speaker 1: like jazzy kind of pacing and some of the shots
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, this is like kind of like art
Speaker 1: school for for a kid's movie. I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thats just the colors, and like the tone of the
Speaker 1: whole thing is like it's like a little quirky but
Speaker 1: yet still like a little gritty at the same time,
Speaker 1: like you had that New York grit to it. And
Speaker 1: I agree. I just wanted to know more about her
Speaker 1: because I thought she did like a fabulous job. And
Speaker 1: it's really hard to direct kids. I mean, I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: Like when I was a kid, they would always just
Speaker 1: like there would be really good directors and really bad
Speaker 1: um and I recently had to direct a child and
Speaker 1: he's a bit younger, so that was even harder. But
Speaker 1: like it's it's a it's a big mighty task to
Speaker 1: take on. Yeah, and she just like kills it and
Speaker 1: brilliant and you have to imagine that having a female
Speaker 1: director on this movie made a big difference to and
Speaker 1: just like how do we see the kids? And so
Speaker 1: there's also two credited writers on this movie. One is
Speaker 1: a man named Douglas Petrie who has done a ton
Speaker 1: of mostly TV writing, but on shows with a pretty
Speaker 1: good reputation for representing women. You have. He was like
Speaker 1: a staff writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Forever, he
Speaker 1: wrote an Angel, He's written a lot of well regarded
Speaker 1: female comic book characters. I don't know about books don't
Speaker 1: at me. Uh. And then the other writer is Teresa Rebec,
Speaker 1: who is famous for she's like a legendary female mystery
Speaker 1: writer and is known for writing like mysteries that have
Speaker 1: like a feminist character at the center. So it seems
Speaker 1: like they just really brought together a really solid team
Speaker 1: of majority women to make this movie happen, and it's
Speaker 1: it feels like a great example of like a great
Speaker 1: product that you can get if you just kind of
Speaker 1: get some at least some of the right people in
Speaker 1: the room. I wonder how passionate they were and in
Speaker 1: finding the director and finding bron Wyn, like, how passionate
Speaker 1: they were about finding a female director for this film,
Speaker 1: because I think it could have been completely different film
Speaker 1: without a female director um and a per female perspective.
Speaker 1: And like you know, nowadays there it's it's a requirement
Speaker 1: for a lot of films, and so I I would
Speaker 1: just be curious in that time you know, how much
Speaker 1: of a stickler they wore for it, or if she
Speaker 1: was just the right you know, like who was pushing
Speaker 1: for it. It's interesting because I feel like, especially in
Speaker 1: this era, like Nickelodeon has kind of a better track
Speaker 1: record with how it's females characters are written and treated
Speaker 1: than you know, if if you're going pound for pound
Speaker 1: against Disney, which you know their history with women is
Speaker 1: maybe not so great. I was also kind of surprised
Speaker 1: that this movie was not particularly well reviewed. It was
Speaker 1: not at the time, and and a lot of this
Speaker 1: I will chalk up to, especially in the nineties, older
Speaker 1: white male film critics being like but and see anything.
Speaker 1: This wasn't for me, and then just kind of being
Speaker 1: like Sia, but yeah, it seems like it was a
Speaker 1: movie that was misjudged in its time as well, which
Speaker 1: is which was just, I guess kind of strange to
Speaker 1: me because I've truly never heard a bad word about
Speaker 1: this movie. But for going back to the original reviews,
Speaker 1: and I disagree with all of them, they're like, where's
Speaker 1: the mystery? Like there, she didn't even solve a mystery.
Speaker 1: I'm pissed. I had the same thought. Am I bad
Speaker 1: you're double campbook. But in any case, it's it's definitely
Speaker 1: I think a movie that's reputation has really like solidified
Speaker 1: over time. Apparently it didn't in the moment. I mean,
Speaker 1: it has to be a bit of a cult following, right,
Speaker 1: like a little bit, and I I think totally those
Speaker 1: weird you know that art feel that I think I
Speaker 1: think you mentioned earlier. It's like some people get it
Speaker 1: and some people don't. And the tone of this is
Speaker 1: really quirky, um, a little off kilter. And I feel
Speaker 1: like if you're if you know, you're not the blockbuster
Speaker 1: that they're looking for or the mainstream, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be well reviewed, but other people will get in. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like the core that the intended audience of
Speaker 1: this movie got it, and like it wasn't written for
Speaker 1: old guys and so they perhaps did not get it.
Speaker 1: I also wanted to mention just because I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is interesting, Teresa Rebec she wrote the screenplay for the
Speaker 1: Halleberry Catwoman movie, and you're like, oh, my cinematic masterpiece, Catwoman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, people contain multitudes. They sure do. Um.
Speaker 1: I wanted to touch a little bit on some of
Speaker 1: the adults in the movie one. I appreciate that the
Speaker 1: teacher was not villainized the way that a lot of
Speaker 1: kids movies will vitainize educators. She was maybe made to
Speaker 1: seem a little oblivious, perhaps, but she wasn't this like
Speaker 1: mean authoritarian teacher the way that a lot of again,
Speaker 1: like kids movies will be like teacher bad um. And
Speaker 1: I understand, like the kids perspective perspective, sure teachers suck
Speaker 1: or sometimes they're hot. Something to consider hot question mark
Speaker 1: or not question mark. The teacher also magically disappears after
Speaker 1: cleaning up Harriet with the blue paint, which also gave
Speaker 1: me a slight panic attack. I was like, everybody, get
Speaker 1: off of her. She just disappears. Yeah, she's like, let's
Speaker 1: clean Harriet up. And then you know, Marian's like spill
Speaker 1: and then where's she? Where's the discipline? Um? But yeah,
Speaker 1: that was just a quick little thing I had. And
Speaker 1: then another quick, very quick moment in the movie, but
Speaker 1: I appreciated this. It's after Harriet has tormented her entire
Speaker 1: class and cut their hair off and strung a bra
Speaker 1: up on the flagpole and like all this stuff. She
Speaker 1: is at home and her parents come in and they
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out, like what's happening, why did
Speaker 1: she do this? And her dad comes in and he
Speaker 1: says something like I used to mess around in school too.
Speaker 1: He's like trying to make light of the situation, and
Speaker 1: then her mom says something like you always do that,
Speaker 1: you always make jokes, and then I have to come
Speaker 1: in here and be the grumpy one, which like, it's
Speaker 1: not what this movie is about at all. It's like
Speaker 1: this tiny little moment that you would probably blanket you
Speaker 1: miss it kind of thing, but I just appreciate that
Speaker 1: small attempt to show that it is in a like
Speaker 1: mother father household, it is often the mother who has
Speaker 1: to bear the kind of emotional burden and the emotional
Speaker 1: labor of like being the disciplinarian, whereas the dad gets
Speaker 1: to be like, um, goofyld fun. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to discipline my kids. It's not my job. I think
Speaker 1: we talked about this a lot in the Mrs Doultfire episode,
Speaker 1: and that's also true of I mean, every family show
Speaker 1: I remember watching as a kid was like, you know,
Speaker 1: shrewy mom that occasionally has a scene that's like, but
Speaker 1: I love you, and then like goofy, Dad, Right, it's
Speaker 1: cannon it maybe I remember my dad used to get
Speaker 1: really mad about it. He's just like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not really a fair of like who cares.
Speaker 1: But he was just like, not all dads are stupid.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, how does it feel to be negatively
Speaker 1: portrayed in media? Dad? I just like just the mom
Speaker 1: acknowledging that, and like acknowledging that frustration of like you
Speaker 1: get to be the fun one and I have to
Speaker 1: come in here and be the grumpy one. Like I
Speaker 1: found that just to be a little, a little sliver
Speaker 1: of something I enjoyed, just a nugget, just leave it there.
Speaker 1: And and and I liked that you do get a
Speaker 1: scene with Harriet and her mother where like Harriet, I
Speaker 1: mean we we as an audience already know that Harriet's
Speaker 1: parents are very flawed parents that don't really understand their
Speaker 1: child because they haven't spent time with her and listened
Speaker 1: to her, Like if they had spent the same kind
Speaker 1: of time that Golly had, they would under have a
Speaker 1: better understanding of her. And I like, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just like another shade of gray that this movie shows
Speaker 1: you with, like how kids relate to people in their lives.
Speaker 1: That I thought was really nice of like her mother
Speaker 1: admitting that she was wrong and that she doesn't always
Speaker 1: understand her daughter and that like that can be true
Speaker 1: and she can be trying to be better, and you know,
Speaker 1: you hope that moving moving forward that like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's it's nice that Harriet got because Harriet dies does
Speaker 1: like deserve an apology from for how her parents treat her,
Speaker 1: and it would have been nice for it to come
Speaker 1: from both parents. But I did like that mother daughter
Speaker 1: scene where you even though I'm like this mom needs
Speaker 1: to get it together, You're also like, well, okay, she
Speaker 1: acknowledges that she, you know, has work to do and
Speaker 1: that both parents have work to do. And I thought
Speaker 1: it was handled, you know, pretty well. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: There's another one last little thing is the movie and
Speaker 1: this is like hardly anything, but there are two different
Speaker 1: scenes in the movie where the kids are watching like
Speaker 1: you're developing bodies going through puberty. This is how it's
Speaker 1: going to be, like really old videos, so they're like
Speaker 1: from the sixties or something, um. And then like the
Speaker 1: fact that Harriet pretty much body shames one of her
Speaker 1: classmates for like, having grown boobs over the summer is
Speaker 1: again not something that we admire or recommend children do,
Speaker 1: but it is again just such a a realistic thing
Speaker 1: because like you know, as young kids, their bodies are changing,
Speaker 1: they're going through puberty. They don't know what's happening. They
Speaker 1: if they see someone else going through puberty first they
Speaker 1: think it's weird and gross. And like again, every basically
Speaker 1: everything that Harriet does and her thoughts, well, some of
Speaker 1: them are like pretty violent and I don't condone at all,
Speaker 1: like the like the kid with the stocks should hang himself. Um,
Speaker 1: that other girl someone should just kick her. Like those
Speaker 1: obviously are not okay and there's no justification for them.
Speaker 1: But other ones, I'm just like, of course you think that,
Speaker 1: because that's such an eleven year old understanding of bodies
Speaker 1: or of like socioeconomic class and you know, just different
Speaker 1: things like that. So while some of them were quite
Speaker 1: troubling and violent, other ones I'm like, I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't like that she said this, but I understand because
Speaker 1: it's super realistic. Yeah, it's like it's complicated, it is
Speaker 1: coated with Harry at the spot. You know why that
Speaker 1: just speaks to like it's so refreshing to see like
Speaker 1: a complicated depiction of a little girl of any female ki.
Speaker 1: I mean we like female characters are so often written
Speaker 1: to be so flat and stock and stereotypical that it
Speaker 1: is nice to I mean we talk about like women
Speaker 1: should be allowed to be mediocre in movies, women should
Speaker 1: be allowed to like funk up and make mistakes, and
Speaker 1: like that's really most of what Harriet is doing is
Speaker 1: like having to learn major life lessons, having to apologize
Speaker 1: for various misdeeds things like that, and um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's actually very refreshing to get to
Speaker 1: see like a little girl go through that arc. It's true,
Speaker 1: this movie is fun. Yeah, kudis to the you know,
Speaker 1: like Nickelodeon for because they're saying like age nine is
Speaker 1: like the common sense age and like most would be
Speaker 1: too pure, you know, and not allow any of these
Speaker 1: issues to really come to the forefront of the film themselves.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, I I really yeah, it's I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: very hard to imagine like Disney and taking a female
Speaker 1: protagonist this seriously, So I'm glad that Harriet was already
Speaker 1: there for us. Does anyone else have any final thoughts
Speaker 1: about the film. I think so. The last thing I
Speaker 1: want to say is some anist icon Agatha k Plumber
Speaker 1: a k A. Eartha Kid's character who we own she
Speaker 1: SUPs to be like Agatha Chris. I was like, is
Speaker 1: this an Agatha Christie reference? What is Eartha Kid doing
Speaker 1: in there? I like, there, don't know, but one of
Speaker 1: the few lines of dialogue she has is she's talking
Speaker 1: on the phone with someone and she says, I have
Speaker 1: the secret of life. You simply crawl into your bed
Speaker 1: and never ever leave it again, which in the quarantine
Speaker 1: is something that I have been doing, so thank you
Speaker 1: for that. I get the k Plumber, I got, like, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I feel like it's an act because
Speaker 1: especially because it's like a female mystery story, and like
Speaker 1: this has to be some weird I get the Christie
Speaker 1: at least reference. I'm guessing, Yeah, maybe Shrug does Harriet
Speaker 1: the Spy past the Bechtel Test by any chance? Yeah?
Speaker 1: All the time. Lots of different combinations of characters. Harriet
Speaker 1: talks to Golly, to Janey, to her mom, to her teacher,
Speaker 1: to marry In. Yeah, lots of different combinations of characters,
Speaker 1: and they're taught. They're not talking about boys or men
Speaker 1: hardly ever. And there's also non Harriet combos to like
Speaker 1: Janey talks to her mom and Maryan talks to Rachel,
Speaker 1: and there's Yeah, there's a lot of good this. This
Speaker 1: handily pass the test. Absolutely. Let's rate it on her
Speaker 1: Nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its representation
Speaker 1: of women. I would I would give this, I think
Speaker 1: like a four. Um. I'll take some points off for
Speaker 1: the very nineties punching down humor and language that we
Speaker 1: see here and there, especially because I read that in
Speaker 1: the book it's an Italian family that she spies on.
Speaker 1: It's the De Santi family, UM. So the adaptation deliberately
Speaker 1: changed it to the hung fat family, UM, and then
Speaker 1: made Harriet be kind of racist. So you know, you
Speaker 1: don't get a nipple for that. You don't get a
Speaker 1: nipple for that. Also, just like I mean, even though
Speaker 1: the movie does address class, it is still like and
Speaker 1: here's this you know, wealthy white girl and her story
Speaker 1: because that's the story that you know, we feel needs
Speaker 1: to be told more than other people's stories. So, you know,
Speaker 1: not not a perfect film or story, but I do
Speaker 1: think it but much closer than most movies we've covered,
Speaker 1: for sure. So I'll give it four nipples. I'll give
Speaker 1: one to Janey, Okay, I'll give one to Janey the character,
Speaker 1: and I'll give one to Vanessa Chester. Um, thanks again
Speaker 1: so much to her for chatting with us and giving
Speaker 1: her input. Um. I will give one to your voice,
Speaker 1: Jenna that is present in the playgrounds or the you know,
Speaker 1: the various scenes. Um. And I'll give one to Harriet. No. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give my fourth nipple to earth a Kit
Speaker 1: and her um just wanting to stay in bed for
Speaker 1: the rest of her life can relate. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go with four nipples on this too. I think for
Speaker 1: nine this movie does very well, but it still has
Speaker 1: I mean, as we discussed, it has its shortcomings, it
Speaker 1: has its dated nous, and it has, as most children's media,
Speaker 1: a fixation on uh Rich White family above any other family.
Speaker 1: It loses the nipple for that, But in terms of
Speaker 1: creating a fleshed out, um not hyper sexualized female character
Speaker 1: that makes mistakes that learned from those mistakes, maybe not
Speaker 1: as mistakes, many mistakes as we would have liked, but
Speaker 1: more than I expected to be honest. Yeah, just like
Speaker 1: has a full life and is allowed a funk up
Speaker 1: and learn and have interests that are not hyper feminine
Speaker 1: and and eat mayonnaise sandwiches and ship like. It's all great,
Speaker 1: um and and I do generally I like the small
Speaker 1: class commentary. I mean, you know, probably could go a
Speaker 1: little further, but it's a great movie. I really like it.
Speaker 1: I feel like it. It super holds up in most ways.
Speaker 1: So I'll give one nipple to Jenna's omniscient voice. I'll
Speaker 1: give one nipple to Michelle Trachtenberg, one to Vanessa Chester,
Speaker 1: and I'll complete earth the kids set, give her give
Speaker 1: her another nip. Incredible, Jenna, what about you? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: would give it for nipples. One nipple definitely does not
Speaker 1: get given any any attention. Yeah, for you know, the
Speaker 1: little uh I don't want to call them slip ups,
Speaker 1: but the shortcomings with the you know, a socio economic
Speaker 1: class and this young girl of really who has quite
Speaker 1: a lot of privilege. But I do I do want
Speaker 1: to say, like I I give the four for the
Speaker 1: representation for kids and females to be specific, young girls
Speaker 1: who like Harriet have sort of found their purpose in
Speaker 1: the world in a way. Like as a writer and
Speaker 1: it's just trying to figure out where it fits in
Speaker 1: the world. And to have a kid who has purpose.
Speaker 1: I think that's why we, you know, as kids related
Speaker 1: to her at least I did as a young girl
Speaker 1: who had a purpose to or I wanted her purpose
Speaker 1: in that moment in time, and I think that was
Speaker 1: not and it still is not represented enough um in media.
Speaker 1: So I definitely give the nipples to Rosie, to Jake Cameron,
Speaker 1: to Michelle and to Vanessa. Awesome, Jenna, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being here, for joining us today. Thanks for
Speaker 1: having me so much fun to um break down the
Speaker 1: Harry at the spot Absolutely what would you like to plug? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm mainly on Instagram at Jennashkowitz and my last
Speaker 1: name is spelled U s h ko w I t Z. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have. I have a podcast called Showman Pysically Recap podcast.
Speaker 1: You can find out where Refined Podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: um and podcast one. And uh yeah, that's that's pretty
Speaker 1: much awesome. I didn't mention before, but I am a
Speaker 1: Glee Stan I've seen all of Glee and I love
Speaker 1: it all of it. I think you were the seasons.
Speaker 1: Were there six? Oh yeah, I lied. I think I
Speaker 1: only made it to five. I'm so sorry. So you
Speaker 1: were part of the pretty good No no, no, that's
Speaker 1: that was pretty good. Thank you. But it started long
Speaker 1: before that. Oh that's awesome. Thank you so much. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, I you can follow. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. At betel Cast, you can subscribe
Speaker 1: to our Patreon a k a. Matreon By going to
Speaker 1: patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast and subscribing for five
Speaker 1: dollars a month. You get to bonus episodes plus our
Speaker 1: entire back catalog of bonus episodes. Hefty, uh, we and we.
Speaker 1: You can get our merch at public dot com slash
Speaker 1: the Bechtel Cast if you feel like we're in stuff.
Speaker 1: And thank you for listening. Oh and thanks again to
Speaker 1: Vanessa Chester for taking the time to talk to us.
Speaker 1: Be sure to follow her on social media and go
Speaker 1: back and listen to our episode with her on the
Speaker 1: movie Book Smart. She's the best. Yeah. And with that,
Speaker 1: the spy with social distancing, that's kind of what spying is.
Speaker 1: It's true, it's just true. Observing people at a distance.
Speaker 1: Spying is hot right now? He reasonal social distance sir,
Speaker 1: that's right, all right, Bye bye bye