Switched on Pop - Introducing Galaxy Brains

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

Today we’re sharing something a little different - a new TV and film show from the Vox Media Podcast Network that we think you’ll like called Galaxy Brains. On Galaxy Brains, entertainment writer Dave Schilling and Mystery Science Theater 3000’s Jonah Ray explore a big, mind-expanding question raised by a TV show or movie, and take it way, way too seriously. In the preview episode we’re sharing today, they explore why the once-panned musical comedy Josie and The Pussycats may have actually been a sharp critique of capitalism that was well ahead of its time. It’s weird. It’s funny. We’ll hope you’ll give it a listen, then go follow Galaxy Brains on your favorite podcast app. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Switchdown Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding. And today I have a special episode from our friends over at Polygon and the Vox Media Podcast Network. It's from a show called Galaxy Brains, hosted by entertainment writer Dave Schilling and Mystery Science Theater 3,000 host Jonah Ray. And every week, they bring on an expert guest to explore a single, thought-provoking question about the TV show or movie everyone's watching. You come to Switchdown Pop for your deep dives into songs and artists, and Galaxy Brains has a similar approach to film and TV. The episode you're about to hear, Dave and Jonah question whether Josie and the Pussycats, a movie loaded with product placements, is actually a subtle critique of the cool kid industrial complex. Join by the writing and directing team behind the film, Deborah Kaplan and Harry Alphant, they explore the ways the movie uses music and pop culture references to turn a teen movie into a dystopian nightmare about capitalism. Give it a listen, then follow Galaxy Brains wherever you find your podcasts. New episodes come out every Thursday. I hope you enjoy this one. Play it looks something for me, would you? It's the 20th anniversary of Josie and the Pussycats,

an iconic musical comedy about pop music, low-rise jeans, and the perils of sponsored content. An iconic musical comedy based on an Archie comic. An iconic musical comedy about friendship. I don't care if we're Josie and the Pussy Cats or Valerie and the Pussy Cats or whoever in the Pussy Cats. It doesn't matter as long as we're together. Well, what if Josie and the Pussy Cats was about soulless teen culture?

Actually, Josie and the Pussy Cats was the greatest musical comedy takedown of capitalism ever made. People dressing alike, buying the same stuff. I sold it to them. I'm a trend pimp. This is Galaxy Brains, and today, our plate is crash landing in Riverdale for Josie and the Pussycats. Welcome to Galaxy Brains, the podcast for movies, TV, and overthinking collide. I'm Dave Shilling. And I'm Dave's punk rock prom queen, Jonah Ray.

And each week on the show we start with the logical brain, advance to the critical brain, question everything with the interrogation brain, and of course, arrive to the blessed state of the galaxy brain. Today we're revisiting Josie and the Pussycats on the occasion of the film's 20th anniversary. Can you believe this movie is 20 years old? And wouldn't you know it, we're joined by the writer-dire director team behind the seminal satire, Deborah Kaplan and Harry Alphant. But first, you youngsters out there might be wondering,

what the heck is a Josie and the Pussy Cats? Glad you asked. Josie and the Pussy Cats is a live action feature film adaptation of the Archie Comics character all the way back from the 1960s about an all-female rock band that solves mysteries in their spare time. Josie and the Pussy Cats is notable for responding to the first Saturday morning cartoon ever to feature a permanent black character. Josie was dusted off and resurrected for a movie back in 2001, which starred She's All That's,

Rachel Lee Cook as Josie, Tara Reid as a band's drummer melody, and a you. young Rosario Dosson as bass player Valerie. Being that it was the early 2000s, the movie is super meta, full of self-referential in jokes, like a cameo by Tara Reid's then-boyfriend, MTV Vijay, Carson Daly, and a subtle undercurrent of parody. Let's get into it, Jonah. It's time for critical brain, the part of the show where we expand our minds to the absolute breaking point.

The villains and Josie and the Pussy Cats, Parker Posey and Alan Cumming, are an evil record company duo that wants to use Josie and her band. to brainwashed teenagers around the world with songs laced with subliminal messages. From this command center, we control the most influential demographic of the entire population. We decide everything.

From what clothes are in style to what slang is in vogue. There's logos, advertisements, and product placement throughout this movie, which makes it feel even more like a big joke at the expense of the cool kid industrial complex. Jonah, I wouldn't say that you and I were ever cool kids.

Is that fair to say? That's completely fair to. say. And I think that you and I have been trying to make up for that for the rest of our lives since then. I didn't like it when I was younger when it came out, because this is a cult classic. This was a movie that did not do well at the box office. But I subsequently found it as an older person. And I really related to that need to wear the right clothes and like dress the right way with those clothes and have a good haircut and cool glasses and listen to the right music. Like this is a movie that really pokes a hole and all that BS that we fill our minds with.

day. Well, for me, you know, I was a punk rock kid growing up. And so I kind of didn't really appreciate the movie for what it was doing because I felt that it was like, oh, is this a movie about some indie band that sells out? I didn't really understand the context of it. When I was younger, I kind of just wrote it off as another pop bubble gun movie, which is exactly the idea of the movie. I think it's worth pointing out this is a movie about marketing with a bad marketing campaign when it came out. There's something to be said about movies that do this kind of stuff. They loaded up with product placements and advertisements and marketing and stuff like that. But then they just, they clunk and they bomb at the box office.

Is there anything to that? I would say so. Yeah, it's hard for studios to wrap their minds around a movie that is not what it seems to be. That is purposefully constructed to be kind of an illusion, you know, to have this veneer of it being one thing, but then it's saying something else. Starship Troopers is exactly in that mold because it's a movie that is marketing. and looks like a dumb action movie, but it's parodying not only dumb action movies, but also why we like them

and what the intellectual undercurrents of those movies are, which is promoting very negative right-wing fascist ideas about the world and how it should be run. But it's these Trojan horse movies. At this time in movies, you know, Scooby-Doo stuff was coming out, all these kind of takes of like reappropriating the nostalgia culture. But this was a Trojan horse that was brought in

to just show kids like, hey, yeah, it's just like a thing. with these cute girls and there's all these MTV personalities, but it's also saying, don't buy. It's like, yeah, the whole movie is just saying, like, maybe you should just be listening to Fugazi. Or whatever the heck you want. I think that's where this movie is at, too.

It's like, just be yourself. You don't have to fit in. You don't have to conform. So what's the moral of the story here? Freaks should date other freaks? No, I think the moral of the story here is you should be happy with who you are. But let's talk about how this movie goes about its satirical mission. and it starts with such a terrifying scene.

It feels like a Romero horror film. At the center of this pop culture horror scene is du jour, a boy band clearly echoing the backstreet boys in sync, led by Seth Green and a feather boa. The film kicks off with them about to embark on their private jet to start their world tour, and they're surrounded by swarms of just these grotesque, felini-esque faces of teenagers who desperately want their autographs or just to kind of touch them for a second,

Just a little bit. Also, great use of a super wide angle lens to really make it seem like they're just charging at you with their intensity. It really puts you in an uncomfortable position when you see the ferocity of their fandom. Yeah, it's scary. But at the same time, you've got this ridiculous song, Backdoor Lover, the du jour, the band, is singing or lip syncing. So that you get that first musical stinger in a movie that's full of great songs. This is a soundtrack that was produced by Babyface, Kenneth Babyface Edmonds, and also Adam Schlesinger, who was the lead singer of Fountains of Wayne, wrote the songs for

That Thing You Do and sadly passed away last year from COVID. One of the great pop songwriters of all time, I think. Yeah, definitely. And also Ken Haley from Letters to Cleo was the voice of Josie in the movie. There was a period of time late 90s where there were a lot of female-fronted rock bands that played up tempo sort of pop punk music. But that was on the way down when this movie came out. This came out in 2001, the height of the boy band craze when you've got Backstreet, in sync, 98 degrees, all competing for your affection. And this movie really takes aside. And it says

that guitars and drums and authentic expressions of art are significantly better than pre-packaged, pre-produced, auto-tuned music. No, very, very true. But the thing is, that's what was happening when the movie came out. There was the retaliation of the pop sensibilities of the Britney Spears, Christine Aguilera's, Backstreet Boys, all that kind of stuff. I don't know if you can overstate how important that was as a turning point in American youth culture.

And this movie is a time capsule of that about a record company that is using subliminal messages to control teenagers. And that record company is run by the fantastic Parker Posey. You should kiss my cellulite free ass for all I've done for you. What a performance in this. Absolutely cast to type perfectly here. She's mean and snoddy and snobby and in control. And just hilarious, too.

She has that monologue when they go underground the record company and you see the complex where they control pop culture. Just incredibly hilarious. And of course, Eugene Levy shows up in that instructional video about why and how they're doing this. Kids don't have bills to pay. Fact, they don't pay taxes. But they do babysit and hold minimum wage jobs that earn them wads of cash as thick as, well, my body of work. The movie's so smart because it really does know what it's talking about when it comes to just music being a product.

It's one kind of product being used to sell other kinds of products. The musical knowledge of the movie is also pretty great because when they are planning on killing the band DeJure when they ask questions about these subliminal messages in their music, Alan Cummings goes to the pilot and says, was it, take the Chevy to the Levy? Yes. He says, take the Chevy to the levy, which is a reference to the song American Pie about how three of the biggest rock stars of all time in their time died in a plane crash. You got the big bopper, you got Richie Valens, you got Buddy Holly.

So he comes out and just has the code word Chevy to the Levy, and the pilot immediately knows it's time to put on the parachutes and have it make it look like they died in a plane crash. And then later on, there's another code that Alan Cummings has when there was a freak thinker girl, a grunge girl. And she's like, I don't listen to anything that shoved down my throat by the corporate. He's like, oh, that's so interesting. And then he does the little code into his phone. Smells like Teen Spirit. And then she's taken away to like not influence anyone else. And Dave, I'll tell you this. I love the recurring joke of using famous song lyrics as code for taking out rock stars. But I feel they could have done a little bit more of it. So I took the liberty of

identifying some other lyrics that they could have used in their nefarious. various plotting against pop idols. And I'm going to list them right now. Is that okay? Oh, please. Go right ahead. Okay. Couldn't stop you if I tried. All right. I don't practice Santoria. That's when they have to do a fake overdose. Cut my life into pieces. That's what Alan Cumming says when a band dies in a meat grinder accident. It happens all the time. People just fall into meat grinders constantly. It's really sad. Exactly. If Alan Cumming opened up his phone and went,

that's when you would find that an artist has come down with a mysterious sickness. He would come down with the sickness. That is disturbed what you're saying, Jodda. There's also a Pet Cemetery is when they would revive an artist with a hologram for Coachella. And of course, I am the Walrus. It's when they replace a member of the band without anybody wondering what happened like they did with Paul McCartney. That was fantastic work. Thank you. Let's save that for a movie that we write some time down the line. Yes. But like, let's get back to the idea that this movie is an attack on big business, essentially. And when Eugene Levy shows up, he says the line, what's good for the economy is good the country, which is something we've heard a lot in the past year and a half about whether or not

to open up the country to commerce. Yeah, it's weird how prescient this film was in terms of the relationship between the government and the economy and the government and major corporations and how public policy is made based on whether or not the stock market is going to fluctuate. That, to me, is one of the most interesting parts of this film is that it's saying that, That it is very explicit about the United States being a consumer culture. This is a movie stuffed with product placement. There are logos for companies that still exist like Target. There's logos for companies that I haven't thought about in a decade or more like Motorola that just keep popping up and they're everywhere.

They're on everything. There's a beluga whale tank that is sponsored by Evian water. That is a waste of delicious water. I'll tell you that right now. We see New York City, which is the same New York you know, except there are ads on every building. This is a dystopian nightmare science fiction movie about capitalism. This is the Wayne's World scene about having a corporate advertiser made into an entire movie. Yeah, it's just nonstop.

Krispy Kreme shows up. It's everywhere. Is this an anti-capitalist movie? Is this a movie that says, oh, no, we shouldn't do advertisements? Yeah, this movie is entirely anti-capitalist. Dave, Josie and the Pussycats is a socialist masterpiece. It's no accident that Josie and the Pussycats live together, share everything, and ultimately end up rejecting the very idea of there being a single star in the band. Yes, I know. It's a movie about friendship. No, Dave, it's about so much more than that. It's about egalitarianism. It's about equal division of labor and profit.

It's about killing your ego, man. And you're starting to sound like my... college econ textbook over here. Dave, Josie and the Pussycats isn't just a satire about capitalism. It's very clearly pro-socialism. Okay, I wouldn't exactly say this is Battleship Potemkin. You're right, Dave. It's better than

Battleship Potimkin. Oh, no. Oh, no, the forbidden door. It's opening. We've achieved Galaxy Brain. The spice must blow. When Bernie Sanders over here is done handing out pamphlets.

We'll be back with Josie and the Pussycats filmmakers, Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfond. But first, an ad from our benevolent corporate benefactors. Thank you, thank you, more money. Welcome back to Galaxy Braids. We like to speculate, ruminate, and theorize about movies and TV shows on here. But for this very special episode, we decided to go straight to the source. To answer our burning questions about Josie and the Pussycats,

we've called upon the big brains behind the film, writers and directors, Harry Elfant and Deborah Kaplan, to patiently hear out our wild theories on their classic film. First of all, thank you for joining us, Debra and Harry. This is a treat, I think, for anybody listening who's a huge fan of the movie, but especially for me and Jonah. So thank you for coming on and joining us today. Thanks for having us.

I think it's the first time anybody has talked about us and this movie is you're having big brains. Well, I'm just telling the truth. Well, I'm going to dive in. to the big question of this episode. And hopefully we can enlighten ourselves in this moment. Is this a movie about friendship or is this a movie about a socialist feminist collective? Can it be a friendly socialist feminist collective?

Exactly. Can it be both? I think it can be. Absolutely. Was that the socialist aspect of it, the fact that they live together and there's no front person? Was that on your mind that kind of like collectivist feeling? Look, first of all, I mean, I don't want to be the asshole. It says like, whatever you take from the movie is right.

But whatever you take from the movie is right. But, I mean, I can tell you the things we talked about more, it was much more non-conformist. You know, we definitely talked about like consumerism. But it definitely felt more to us. It was non-group think. I mean, she says at the end of the movie, you know, think for yourselves. It's cool if you like it.

It's all right if you don't. Just decide for yourselves. That's kind of the message. It's a very basic message. in the movie. But yes, it certainly has grown into it. You know, has this reputation for being an anti-capitalist film, which I'm good with. I mean, I remember my friend saw it before me and he goes, and he's like a punk kid. I know he's just like, it's an anti-capitalist movie. I was like, wait, what? No, no, no. It's Josie and the Pussy Cats. And he's like, no, no, it's deeper than

you think, man. I want to know how they even got him into the theater with the marketing campaign. He worked at the theater. So. had no choice. He had to watch it. Oh, if only everybody had to watch the movie. Well, now we're all doing it by choice. It has become this cult classic, this movie that I think people, me and Jonah's age, saw at a time when we were very impressionable, and it made an impact on us. It reinforced our feelings about standing out. But I think one of the interesting tensions in the film is it is about like being yourself standing out, not being a part of the group. But it also has this familial like sticking together thing. And I think sometimes American movies have this problem where they

can't decide if you're supposed to go it alone and be this individualistic hero or you're supposed to stick close to home and be a part of a friend group or be a part of a family unit or, you know, be a part of a collective. Do you think that there's not specifically just about your movie, but in general, like this problem that American movies have where they can't decide if you're supposed to go out and be Luke Skywalker or if you're supposed to stay home on the farm. I feel like that's a bit of a male perspective versus a female perspective. This sort of the lonely rider has to go out and be a man and take care of business and women. It's just, I think we've always operated from a perspective of the village, stronger

together. You know, we needed backup. Maybe because we weren't allowed to go out alone and we get raped and murdered. I don't know. That's a great point. Yeah, this is a movie that really does center women and give them the chance to be not only the stars of the film, but also to talk about issues that are very unique to women. And I think that that's another reason why it works as well as it does is because it has that very strong center and that very strong perspective and the female gaze is very clear in this movie. Well, and explored a bit of that, which I think has sort of been put on us by men, which is there's only one woman at the table. You know, once they got successful, it became cutthroat.

They wanted to put Josie out in front. There was not room for all three of them. And that's a myth, really. And we also wanted the heart of the movie to be their friendship. You know, there's only one love interest, which is a bit of an afterthought. But it's not like there's a guy for every one of them at the end. It was really about, you know, their relationships with each other was the most important thing. And that was important to us to have that be the center of the story emotionally.

I'm glad you brought up the love interest character because, It does feel like an afterthought. Was there any pressure from either the studio or Archie Comics themselves to, like, reinforce that or make that a bigger part of the movie? What was it like dealing with intellectual property and also dealing with the studio in a situation where you're making a movie that was, I think, ahead of its time and might still be ahead of its time, unfortunately? I think it was very different then from how it is now. We did not get a lot of pushback, certainly no pushback from the studio. I mean, Stacey Snyder, who was the head of the studio at the time, before we went off to make this, she sent us a copy of Putney Swope.

That is maybe one of the most, like the closest analogs for this film. Right. So she was down with the satire and knew exactly what we're... It's not like we pulled one over on the studio. She was game. So I think they were happy to kind of roll the dice with us. They weren't afterwards. But they were before we started. And in terms of the rights holders, you know, we got a...

It was like a couple of pages of things the characters had to be seen doing. It was as simple as like they have to wear seatbelts if they're in a car. And one of them said they have to practice good dental hygiene. So like there's a shot in the opening titles. We have a montage of them just doing stuff in the apartment. They're brushing their teeth. Check. They practice good dental hygiene.

We can make the movie. But there was nothing in terms of like, oh, you have to have Alan and M. and Josie get together. That felt more like if this movie was about a guy, there would be a love interest. And he'd win the battle and that he'd kiss the girl. So let's just do that. Let's just flip it. She wins. And then, you know, the extra bit is she gets to kiss the cute guy that she likes.

Was there anything, you think, inherently satirical about the Josie and the Pussy Cat's comic books or the cartoons when you guys decided to do this film? No, I mean, if anything, to us, it went a little campy. I mean, by the time they took them into outer space, that's just pure camp. And I think in our first instinct was we were going to make a space opera, which, you know, we'd still love to do. but it felt like a bit of an overreach at the time. This came out, I believe, a year or two after The Matrix, and it is a similar story in that there's a world that you don't know about as a normal human being and you are being controlled.

Do you think of this movie as a dystopian universe? We talked a lot about, especially with our production designer, about designing the world to feel like an alternate world. We didn't talk about The Matrix so much. We did talk about Fight Club a lot in terms of kind of, of the anti-corporate, anti-consumerous, kind of, you know, just feeling you're in a slightly different world. And we did talk also about Tim Burton. Like, we really wanted that first shot of Riverdale, where everybody kind of is pulling up to the same house with the same car, wearing the

same thing with their shopping bags. It should feel very inward scissorshands. So thanks for noticing. There's definitely, I think, a big similarity that I remember when Count Henry White came out, me and my friends digging it because it felt like it was its own movie, but also like a commentary on like 80s teen movies, or 90s team movies even at that point. And Josie and the Pussy Gets also felt like it's like, we are kind of poking fun at this genre or this type of movie, but also reveling in that these are actually a lot of fun to watch. We were raised on those 80s and 90s teen films.

I think we both sort of operate from our perspective. I want to be accepted. Fuck you. I don't want to be part of your club. And I think both of those movies reflect that. You know, we're lovingly embracing the trope. but at the same time saying, like, don't go for this. There's quite a bit of subliminal advertising in this movie.

Specifically, of course, there's a graphic that says, Josie and the Pussy Cats is the best movie ever joined the Army. And I guess that worked on me, right? Because now I think it's the best movie ever. And you joined the Army. I did, yes. I spent seven years in Korea and I came back. So were there any things, like any subliminal messages that people have not seen in this movie,

that they just completely missed, that, like, you're like, when are they going to find this thing that's in there? Or is it everything that we're supposed to find we found? We were happy that people found that Can Hardly Wait is underrated message. That was a big one. I'm trying to think, I mean, we spent a long time figuring what was going to go on those scrolls in the main room. And I know our sound designer, when you hear like the kind of garbled weird noise of the mega sound, the kind of brainwashing machine, he told us he put stuff in there. He didn't tell us what it was, but he told us he like hid some thing. in that all that weird sound mix.

I'm hoping it wasn't a message saying, do not see this movie in theaters. Wait till it comes out on a streaming service called Netflix. And then when that happens, tell all your friends on the internet. There's something a very, what I like about this movie where it is, it's like cynical but positive.

It's like you're making fun of stuff, but you're doing it in such a fun way. How do you balance that of just not being too mean when you're making fun of like the boy band stuff? because it's still done with such joy. I mean, I think the thing we realize is like, because at the time it felt like all those, there was just like a wave of boy bands.

It felt like they felt like they were, you know, cookie cutters just copies of each other and they kept coming. But at the same time, like, in sync had a couple of really good songs. And I think the thing you realize is like some of this music is actually very catchy and good. So when we went to do the du jour songs, we didn't say like, let's write the worst possible songs. to make fun of how awful these bands are.

It's like, let's try and write a really catchy boy band song. And then it became fun. And the guys who were playing du jour, they had so much fun, like, you know, learning those dance moves. So it ended up being kind of a celebration of how much fun those acts can be, as opposed to, you know, let's just slam them and talk about how just terrible some of that music is. Those might be some of the most fun scenes in the movie, specifically that opening 10 minutes or 15 minutes,

And I always say that those shots of the fans are very felini-esque. Was that on your mind when you were like shooting that arrival or the departure that is of du jour? You mean getting right in the face of some poor teenage girl with a fish-eye lens and distorting her? Exactly. Yes. A lot of that was like you can afford, you know, 25 extras here. And it's supposed to be mob. So you just crunch everybody up in the frame. I mean, we definitely went, you know, we went fish-eye.

It may be too much. But like even with the like kind of the girls from Riverdale who come back to the hotel and scream at them. I mean, we literally got right up in their face with a super wide. And yeah, we like the idea of distorting and making those fans seem kind of scary. Yeah, it is, it is mildly terrifying. It almost feels like like a horror movie that these people have this mania. This thing that they cannot control, like they've been drugged or something. It's very bracing, but also hilarious.

Like there's, it's such a specific tone that you guys hit in this movie. And so, you know, kudos for that. Someone called that a feathered fish, which nobody lets. Oh, well, those people are wrong. Feathered fish are delicious. You just pick the little things out and then you bite into it. It's wonderful. You know, the other tonal reference we talked about a lot,

and I think it informs that question in talking about the tone, is we talked about The Simpsons. You know, again, in 2000, when we made the movie, that was kind of the most popular satire that existed anywhere. And that had that same element. And it was able to tow the line between like really, really biting dark satire and something that everybody in the family can enjoy. And it felt, you know, kind of kid friendly. And we talked a lot about how we wanted the tone of the movie to feel like a live action simpses, which is a lot harder to do in live action.

It's just there's a reason animation lends itself to satire more than live action does. But that is kind of what we were going for. we wanted to be kind of cheery and fun and poppy and also have, you know, a lot of teeth in its bite. Did you ever talk about a sequel? Was there ever a thought to sending them to space, like you said, in a second one? Or better yet, maybe having the pussycats start a co-op in Portland. Was there ever, like, a thought to doing that? Or were you like, let's just make this movie and hope for the best?

I think they would have preferred to send us to space after the box of returns of this movie. There's no talk of a sequel when a movie, makes $3 on its opening weekend. The only talk of a sequel that ever happened was when you do like the press junket after, you know, whether we were promoting the movie, and it's all anybody has to ask you. Like it's literally, it's on the list of questions they ask in any movies. Like, so what about the sequel?

But yeah, we knew, we knew better at that point. What was your, what was your answer back then? I think the answer was, Josie the pussy gets in outer space. It just felt like the knee-jerk, easy response. You got to wait for nine movies like Fast and Furious. You got to get through nine of it. them and then you send them to space. You have to respect their restraint for waiting nine movies of this franchise before they go

to space. Yeah, the word I use with the Fast and the Furious movies more often than not is restraint. By the way, I think those movies came out. The first movie came out, I think, the same year is Josie the Pussy Cats. Jeez. Such a great film, such a wonderful film. I'm so glad that you guys got to come on here and talk to us. The last question I have for you, who would each of the Pussycats have voted for in the

2020 Democratic primary. And why was it Elizabeth Warren? I suspect they're waiting for AOC to run. I mean, I think Val, Val was definitely a Bernie supporter, but then, you know, she started dating Cory Booker. So she had to get on board with Cory Booker. The idea that at one point we could have had a pussycat in the White House was very, very tempting. That was really, really nice. And I think Melody was probably, like, Melody probably got taken in by the Marianne Williamson, you know, like, let's just believe in love of it all. Absolutely. Yes.

But then she understood, like, statistically Biden had a better shot to win. So, you know, she would have gone for that. And then ultimately, as Melody always does, she wrote in Snoopy. Is there anything you guys want to plug? I know you guys just wrapped an incredibly long and exciting shoot on your show.

Is there anything you'd like to talk about before we wrap up? Yeah. Are we plugging anything? So nothing? You don't want to talk about anything? Oh, oh. I mean, look, we have got a show that's been on YouTube for a couple of years called Lies on Demand. The first two seasons are out.

That's what we got going on. I think that, you know, considering you guys made the best anti-capitalist anti-marketing movie of my generation, you shouldn't be good at this. You should be like, fuck, who cares? We're just going to, no, we're not going to talk about what we're doing. That's great. Thank you. All right.

Thank you so much again. This was such a treat. We'll be watching this movie again and again and again for many, many years. Yeah, thanks for coming. That's a real treat. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us. Each week we wrap up the show with a galaxy brain take from one of our listeners.

Here's one now. Hi, this is Christina calling in with my galaxy brain take, which is that Josie and the PussyCast is the generational eyes of marks for the social media avalanche to come. Plus, Parker Bozy. Not said. The social media aides of March, I mean, that is a term that I have never heard in my entire life. Joe, have you heard anybody use that term to describe social media, like the beginnings of social media? No, I think this is, this is truly a galaxy brain take so large that I don't think we can even fathom the implications of such a phrase. I guess I kind of understand it. You know, this is a movie that is about marketing and being ever present.

And marketing is now literally ever present because we're on the internet and everything is, being promoted at you. People are promoting themselves through social media, if it's Twitter, Instagram, uh, whatever that might be, TikTok, but also just like everything is sponsored. Everything is sponsored. Uh, if it's like individual tweets are sponsored, uh, you know, you're sponsoring, uh, you know, YouTube channels. We're sponsored by a company that makes a cellular telephones. Like, everybody is being sponsored by something and ads are everywhere. So yeah, I think that social media has hypercharged the things that Josie and the Pussycats discusses. So this is a fair point.

I think this is a really good galaxy brain take. Yeah, Josie and the Pussycats is essentially the original Black Mirror episode. It's the pilot episode for Black Mirror. It kind of is. Yeah. I mean, it takes, all great speculative fiction takes a thing that is a problem now and then extrapolates it to its degree. And this is certainly taking music, the music industry, teen culture.

and consumerism and hypercharging it to the point where it is the thing that's controlling everyone in the world. Fantastic Galaxy Brain Take. Yeah, well done. If you want to call in, we'd love to hear your Galaxy Brain take on next week's episode topic. Spiral from the Book of Saw. Guys, Saw is not a book. It's a movie. Our number is 213-570-8069 and is also listed in our show notes.

Give us a call and leave a voicemail with your take, but please make it weird. Colin and let us know if you think Saw is a book or a movie. It's a hard question. That's a wrap on this week's Galaxy Brains. Next week, like we said, we are covering Spiral from the Book of Saw with guest Taylor Lorenz. Galaxy Brains is a production of Polygon and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The show is produced by Kylie Holloway and me, Dave Schilling. Dan Turrick is our engineer with sound and theme music from Galfam Shrickishin.

The show is created by Zach Mack, Andrew Melnizek, and Matt Patches. For more of the good kind of overthinking on your favorite movies and shows, visit Polygon. dot com. Until next time, I'm Jonah. And I'm Dave. Pretend to be nice one more time, Josie. One, two, three. Just pretend to be nice with everything in my life.