The Bechdel Cast - A Christmas Story with Brandon Bird

Episode Date: December 7, 2017

Is Scut Farkus a feminist icon? Listen to this week's episode about A Christmas Story with guest Brandon Bird to find out! But also, he's not.(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast. Follow @Brandon_Bird on Twitter! While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @hamburgerphone  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdel cast, the questions asked if movies have women in them. Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effin' vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Hi, welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name's Jamie. And my name is...

Oh, no! Did I forget? Did I just want to make it suspenseful? I fully bought into the narrative you just presented us with. I was like, no, she's sick. Anyways. What is my identity? like, no, she's sick. Anyways. What is my identity? Ah!

Oh, that's fun. Well, isn't that just the age we live in? It's the age of identity. We're all trying to figure it out. I know. No, I know that I'm Caitlyn. Okay, well, then that's good. I was just trying to, I don't know why, but I was trying to create suspense.

I like that. So this is the Bactelcast. This is our podcast about how women are portrayed in movies. And how, hey, usually not very good. Another good suspense moment by you. Yeah. That was good. This is a spooky, suspenseful episode.

It's December. About a Christmas movie. The spookiest. The scariest month of all because you have to see people you do not fucking like. Oh, man. We're spending Christmas together. Yeah. Just like we spent Thanksgiving together.

We're basically domestic partners. We are common law married and I'm fine. I think when this episode comes out, I'll be with my family. And I mean, they'll never hear this podcast, which just about sums up how we're all doing. Okay. So this is our just about uh sums up how we're all doing okay so uh this is our podcast about women in movies we use the bechdel test invented by allison bechdel as a yardstick which requires let's see how it took a year but maybe i can do it yeah requires two women in a scene with names talking about something other than a man for exactly two lines of dialogue.

Does a movie do it? For some reason, holiday movies fare very poorly with the Bechdel test, just based on what we've been doing recently. But we'll get into it. We'll get into it. We'll get there. Alright. Is that all our business up top? I think so. Let's introduce our

guest. Wonderful. He's an artist. He's a nice guy. We love him. It's our guest. Wonderful. He's an artist. He's a nice guy. We love him. It's Brandon Bird. Hello. Hi, Brandon Bird. Hi. Thanks for being here.

Thanks for having me. It's December, for crying out loud. Oh, gee whiz. It's actually November. Here's a little peek behind the curtain. It's actually November. November 28th. So it might as well be December.

Yeah. I mean, this is one of those long christmas seasons because there are there are five thursdays in november so the christmas season which is usually just december is now was like extra long lucky us yeah wait what are you what are you doing for the holidays um well my my business you know i sell prints of my artwork online yes brandonbird.com or store.brandonbird.com. So this month is usually, if things go really well, it's just people ordering stuff and me just constantly mailing things. Very nice. So we're here to talk about a Christmas story. Now, Brandon, tell us your history with this movie.

Oh, wow. Your relationship to it. Tell us everything. Yeah, get into it okay well my relationship starts with my uncle thurb oh god it's like we're short for thurber i think his full name is sergeant thurber what whoa that was a journey well you don't have that was a journey of names uncle sergeant wait is his name name Sergeant or is he like a sergeant in the armed forces? Sergeant, which is my grandpa's name too.

It's spelled differently than the rank. Okay, so your uncle is not a sergeant, but his name is Sergeant. Can't you just name your kid President? It's spelled differently. It's like a name. Anyway, they called him Thurber or Thurb. So do you have a cousin named Sergeant or was your generation just ripped off with this my generation my generation we all got normal names uh brandon normal i don't think so please

leave i wanted sergeant bird here so okay so you're so so uncle thurber right uh thurb we call him uncle thurb. Thurb. Cash. Introduced you to this movie. Yeah, he had, he was like an early VHS adopter. Sure. He would buy movies when they were like $100 and $1983. Right. So he like bought Star Wars, like the first time Star Wars came out.

Thurb. But we borrowed a Christmas story from him. Wow. And we watched it as like little kids and we were like, this is the funniest thing we've ever seen. This crazy movie we've never heard of. And then, you know, like 10 years later, everybody was like, have you heard of A Christmas Story? Oh, man. And I'm like, yeah.

We borrowed Uncle Thurbs' tape. Right. Because this movie was not like a big deal. It was not. It became a big deal, as I recall, like the end of the 90s kind of. Yeah. Like not until they were showing it on TV incessantly. Which is weird. Like, yeah, I was reading back some of the original reviews and they're, you know, fine.

They're middling. It was just this movie could have very easily disappeared. It was probably cheap to license. So they were like, hey, let's throw this on. That's actually a good point. Which is what happened with It's a Wonderful Life. Like it was not that acclaimed or popular of a movie back when it was made. And it wasn't until TV stations were like, oh, this movie is, like, so cheap to air.

Yeah, let's just put it on. And then everyone's like, it's a big movie. I mean, there's not a lot of big, big, big budget Christmas movies that I can think. I mean, there's. I think they're trying to turn like elf into a thing. Yeah. But what I, what I did want to say is that if there's any big budget Christmas movie that

deserves funding, it's mine. The one that I wrote called Santa university. And if anyone out there wants to give me about $150 million to build an entire college campus and flood it with people dressed as Santa. They're killing each other. It's violent. It's also a musical. So we're going to need a big budget for that.

Sure. Lots of elves. There's a lot of different Santa. There's goth Santa. There's Dan Santa. There's cool Santa. All Santas are pretty cool. Not as cool as cool santa

though you know you gotta you gotta check out this so if any if any big wigs with 300 million dollars and about four years of production to just devote to this i'd like to be flown out to i don't know to barbados for a couple of months just to mill over Santa in the most Santa-like environment of all, Barbados. Yes, of course. Okay. What movie were we talking about? It's a Christmas story. Okay. Let me preface what I'm about to say with I don't like Christmas. I don't like the Christmas season. I don't like the holiday. Just recite the book. I am Ebenezer Scrooge and the Grinch fused into one sourpuss of a gal who hates holiday cheer

I found spending a holiday with you to be very enjoyable thank you, well we didn't really do much to we watched Christmas movies and ate a lot of food we went to Denny's like in the Santa Claus it was a blast are you, like in the Santa Claus. It was a blast. And that was fun, yes. It was fun. Are you going to do the Santa Claus?

I wanted to, but I don't think this year. I don't think it's in the cards this year. You should do like a whole month of the trilogy. Oh, God. The Santa Claus month. What a troubling... Pass. Caitlin's don't let me do the Master of Disguise.

The fact that I was able to eek Geely through so early in the podcast is maybe the biggest miracle that will ever happen. Yeah, so I don't care for Christmas. I don't celebrate Christmas. I celebrate winter solstice. Brag. And even not that, I don't like anything about Christmas. Caitlin, I feel like you're being so hard on yourself because you're fun on the holiday. We've exchanged gifts.

I don't know. I hate the... The rigamarole? I love the rigamarole. Well, first of all, I'm addicted to the rigamarole. I'm literally obsessed with the rigamarole. I always get... I have like seasonal affective disorder, so I always

am very depressed around this time of year. I don't like all like the commercialism and the consumerism of, well, we got to buy a bunch of gifts and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know. I just don't like it. Do you want to go see a Santa with me? Here's a fun throwback to, we don't need to talk about the movie. We'll just talk about Christmas out there.

Do you remember around this time last year maybe a few weeks out where i i was late to a different episode of the fact and it's hard to remember because i'm late to a lot of them but i was late because i was looking for santas all day oh i do remember this yeah that was a fun one yeah there was last year i got i went to like seven different malls and found as many santas as possible. Yeah, I remember it well. Come with me this year. I can't not do that now. Once you do it once, you have to look for as many.

You have to top last year's goal. Last year's seven full Santas. Hey, okay, so a Christmas story. I did not grow up with this movie as many people did. I did not see it until probably college. Wow. Yeah, I got a late start on it, and I, until yesterday you know, yesterday,

had only seen it that one time. I will get into how I feel about the movie, but based on what you know about how I feel about Christmas. You loved it. It really changed your mind. I saw this movie for the first time, I want to say,

when I was probably around 10, which was when I was first aware that they were really broadcasting this movie on a loop. And I associate it with being in my grandma's house in Brockton, Massachusetts, go boxers, with my second least favorite uncle, just hurting all the children in a room saying hey look at this and then shutting the door because that is where the children's table ended up being and they didn't want anyone going to hang out with the adults so he'd be like hey look at this movie as a trick and then he'd trap us with the movie and would take the remote so we couldn't change the channel

we had to keep watching the movie until Christmas was over. I hate this movie. This movie reminds me of prison. Yeah, yeah. And all my cousins that stink. Yeah, I also don't care much for it. Well, let me do the recap. Sure. So, A Christmas Story is about a little boy named Ralphie.

And Christmas is just right around the corner and he's like i want this fucking baby gun you guys that's all he wants all he wants and he tells his family and his mom's like no you'll shoot your eye out brandon you're allowed to interrupt as much as you want during the recap but never again after that it's well then true okay so then ralphie has this like hallucination where he's like, oh, look how cool I'll be if I have this baby gun. I can protect my family. And he's very spiffy. Everyone's horny.

It's like, it's exciting. He's wearing like a silver sparkly cowboy outfit. And I think he is a queer icon in that scene. He is a queer icon in that scene, you're right. Actually, they cut, this is a bit of trivia. Oh, wow. They cut another fantasy sequence where he's like with Flash Gordon in space.

Oh. Interesting. Okay, so some other stuff happens, like his... It's very episodic. Yeah, I mean... It doesn't really have like a... It's not super cohesive. His father verbally mean. It doesn't really have like a. It's not super cohesive. His father verbally abuses a furnace.

What's his job? Is he an Old Mobile salesman? Is he a furnace repairman? I don't know. I'm clear. This is why you don't make a movie based on a book of essays. Is that what it is? A book of essays?

Well, we can get into it. Yeah. I found the book in a trash pile once and then tried to read it. That's where you find a lot of June Shepherds. That's where Christmas stuff belongs, a trash pile. I like our Grinch Cindy Lou Who vibe we've got going. I am. And I'm just like, I've got some Christmas story trivia if you want to hear it.

I am the sergeant in the war on Christmas. Sergeant Therb. I am coming in full force and taking Christmas down. But Sergeant Therber loved A Christmas Story. The analogy doesn't work. He loved the whole oeuvre of Gene Shepard. He was a Gene Shepard fan? That's so interesting. I think so, because what many people do not know is that there are a bunch of sequels to this.

To this movie? Yeah, to A Christmas Story many people do not know is that there are, like, a bunch of sequels to this. To this movie? Yeah, the Christmas story. I did not know that. Because, like, it's, like, one of those things where, like, you know, like, there are different adaptations of, like, different stories. Yeah. They did, like, TV movies that had Matt Dillon as, like, a teenage Ralphie. Oh, Matt Dillon. Hey, he'll do anything.

Yeah, and it was, like, this anything yeah and in the in the it was like this weird experience where in the the late 80s there was like this pbs special for some reason we taped it for uncle thurby's my mom was like oh he wants us to tape this thing ollie hop noodles haven of bliss and we're like watching it and we realize that these are all the characters from a Christmas story. What is it called? Ollie Hop Noodles, Haven of Bliss. So Noodles was in the title. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All Gene Shepard stuff had these kind of dumb big titles like that.

Right. I don't hate Gene Shepard's work. I became aware of him via his old, he used to have a column in Playboy back in the day. He wrote some fun little ditties. He's got a fun writing style. Why was this movie made? To me, unclear.

So yeah, as you said, it's very, it's like episodic. There's not a whole lot of like, it's not a super cohesive story. But the basic story is that this kid, Ralphie, wants a BB gun for Christmas. And everyone keeps telling him he's going to shoot his eye out with it. Some other stuff happens. He has some friends at school. Sometimes they get bullied. Sometimes they lick a pole.

Sometimes, yeah. And it gets crazy. Sometimes one of them wants to go down on a pole, perform some pole cunnilingus, and it doesn't work out for him. They go get a Christmas tree. There's the leg lamp there's pajamas there's pajamas a lot of layers at one point and that's a fun gag too another um when he puts on the bunny the bunny pajamas another queer icon moment i think there's there are a lot of moments in this movie that like are i feel like to people who have never seen because before

watching it all the way through yesterday i was genuine i'm like i'm not sure that i've actually ever watched this movie all the way through because it does play on a loop during very traumatic family events so i'm like i've for sure seen vignettes of it but i think in my head i'm like well for sure this story there is an overarching story. But it turns out there's not. Barely. So maybe I have. It's just that he...

I mean, that's why you can watch it like that, because it's just like little... The movie itself is just little chunks. Yeah, it's kind of designed to be like watched in between arguments with your loved ones. Maybe that's why they show it so much. I mean, what little semblance of story there is, is that he wants this BB gun. He asks his mom. He writes an essay about it at school. He goes to Santa and he asks for it.

Every single person's like, you're able to shoot your eye out. And then finally, Christmas morning comes. And he shoots his eye out. He thinks he doesn't get the BB gun. But then it turns out he does. Again, suspense. What I'm all about. I love, you know,

good suspenseful moment in a Christmas movie, and he finds... You're a suspense head. Yeah, I love it. He does end up getting the BB gun. The first thing he does with it is shoot his eye out. Sort of, it hits his glasses, like the little BB hits his glasses, and then he has to make up this story about how an icicle hit him in the face.

Everyone believes it, and then dogs has to make up this story about how an icicle hit him in the face. Everyone believes it. And then dogs come in. They eat the Christmas turkey. His dad's like, let's go out for Christmas. And then they go to a Chinese restaurant where a very racist scene unfolds. And then the movie ends. So, yeah, that's pretty much the story. Also prominently featured, I think uh relevant to what we discuss the most prominent the checkoff's

gun of this movie isn't a disembodied female body part leg yeah yeah yeah that you can plug into a wall and it lights up uh just it felt worth mentioning because i was like oh what are like the you know the few images that are that you associate with this movie and the disembodied female calf is is way up there in terms of what not just a calf it's a whole it's a thigh it's everything it's my apologies to all you a christmas story heads out there but yeah it is like probably the most iconic image of the whole movie but but we will say as we have sort of taken to doing this i would say female leg lamp neither a feminist icon nor a queer icon definitely not and we are the authorities because you know that a man sawed a lady's leg off yeah that's a real human leg that was turned into a lamp oh oh new fan theory okay here's my fan

theory you know okay in titanic 1997 i'm familiar there's i like to say that the year as if it's a part of the title uh in titanic 1997 directed by james cameron there's the scene we watched that on thanksgiving of course there's a scene where jack dawson is like showing kate winslet his drawings right and he's like she was a one-legged also prejudiced because he's like oh i didn't fuck her look she only has one leg and it's like well what's wrong with fucking people with one leg as someone who's only fucked people with one leg that would be fun though maybe it's her leg is what i'm saying maybe it's jack dawson's french prostitute's leg become lamp interesting fan theory jamie thank you thank you thank you no thank you

right okay so i thought this movie was gonna be worse to its female characters than it is. Me too. I thought we were going to have sort of like a Sandlot situation happening where it's just like, oh, girls, how gross and awful and have some like weird moments. It's weird because I feel like the exchange is that girls just like instead of there is a prominent female character and she's constantly abused. There's just not really a prominent female character and she's constantly abused. There's just not really a prominent female character besides his mom. There's the school teacher. The teacher.

She gets a little bit of screen time. It is weird that there's no... All his friends are boys. I mean, that makes sense for the age. Yeah, yeah. Which is nine. But you're right. There's not that...

A lot of those movies that try to like let's do a movie about childhood they try to do the like boys against the girls and there's nothing right and there's also not that like uh a lot of movies made at the same time they were like boy-centric and they were about the boy like really needing to get laid or like. Right. And I'm really glad that's not in this movie. I was glad that nine-year-old boy was not trying to fuck. No, no, no. I mean like if it had been, if Ralphie had been like 13, it would have been like. Oh God, this would be a nightmare.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Instead it's still like this very innocent like all they want is a BB gun. Right, right. I did kind of assume that there would be more negative portrayals of women to talk about, but I think the inverse, which we do find kind of often, is that there's just really not that much to talk about because there's not that many female characters. Sure.

I mean, so the mother is definitely the female character with the most screen time. She starts out, I mean, so the mother is definitely the female character with the most screen time. She starts out, I assumed, because I didn't super remember this movie from the first time I watched it. So rewatching it, I was like, right at the beginning, I was like, oh, she's a shrew. Like she's yelling. She's like, get down here and put on your clothes and eat your breakfast and blah, blah, blah. And she seemed, you know, a bit naggy and shrewish. But later as the movie progresses, there's sort of a shift.

There's a complexity to her. Yeah, I mean. There is, yeah. You know, like she kind of stands up to kind of protect the kids from like their dad in certain times to just be like, like she's like a good mother. The scene that I was like, oh, wow, OK, I like this character is when, although I hate this scene because it makes me want to throw up. When she's trying to get his little brother Randy to eat. And she's like, eat like a piggy. And he's like.

It's like, oh, the sounds and the like, just the imagery of him like shoving his face in a plane. Like, I feel sick just thinking about it. But you see her being like fun and just like having this cute little moment where she's like trying to get her son to eat so she like is kind of playful with him and i like that i was like okay so she's not this just like very one-dimensional shrewish character she also takes revenge on the leg yes she does yes yes that was that's i think the closest to any sort of like, whoa, okay, that was a little bit of fun release for a female character as we get to in this movie. Yeah, and I think some people would argue like, oh, she was just jealous that there's like this hot leg, just this hot floating leg around. Her garbage husband's so horny for this non-existent leg, she can't stand it.

Like, come on i think that she destroyed it because she recognized that the leg was neither a queer icon nor a feminist icon and she's like i don't need this shit in my house yeah so the mother character is a little more complex than she appears at first glance at least agree um the other thing about her though is that she's sort of presented as kind of the main obstacle throughout the movie where ralphie keeps being like oh my god i want this bb gun that's all i want and da da da and she's always saying like no you can't have that that's too dangerous you'll shoot your eye out so she's sort of like the big obstacle and the source of conflict. I mean, sort of. I feel like the dad was more the actual antagonist.

Yeah. You know, like he wasn't, he was kind of neither for nor against the gun. But he was like the presence that could swoop in and kind of end everything. Like the terror in the back of everyone's mind kind of thing. That's sort of something that. I think it's fascinating that, you know, it's a movie about the kids, and both of the adults are essentially the bad guys.

Which I think is pretty common for kids' movies. When you're a kid, yeah. I think that more often than not, the more we do this show, often when there's not a lot to talk about in terms of, wow, there's really just not a lot of female characters in this movie. That's often because a lot of what's being dealt with, whether it's explicitly stated or not, is like hyper masculinity and men teaching other men how to be men. And that is, I think, what we witness, you know, Ralphie's dad trying to do at some points but it's you know he's

i don't i don't know that it necessarily works but there's like a few lessons imparted from father to son here that's like oh yeah he's trying to pass on a very antiquated idea of like this is what a man does and this is how a real boy acts and all in and all that shit. I feel like maybe I just wasn't paying that close of attention. I don't know if I saw a whole lot of that. There is like a moment where Ralphie and that kid, Scut Farkas, get in a fight. Kevin's icon, Scut Farkas. Kevin's icon, Scut.

Ralphie kind of like beats the crap out of him because he's been bullied by him throughout the whole movie and he's had enough. He flips a table and he's like, no more. No more. No more Scut Farkas. He's swearing and he's beating him up. And then Ralphie's mom shows up and she's like, come on, get home. And Ralphie's crying.

So, one, I like that you see like little boys crying in this movie a number of times. And at one point his dad says something like, I'll give you something to cry about. But I feel like there's not a whole lot of like hyper masculinity trying to be passed on from father to son. And again, maybe I'm just kind of forgetting about some specific details. But I do like that you like see a little boy crying and he's worried and he's like oh i got in a fight and then his mom says something like uh she's telling his dad what happened and she's like you know how boys are which sort of is this different way of saying boys will be boys yeah but i don't think that that's just trying to diffuse the situation

like right yeah like you don't need to know the details. Just, it's kind of over now. Yeah. I think. Because she was kind of trying to, like, shield him from the dad's anger. Right. Like, it's very strange in the movie that the dad is presented as, like, this very, like, angry force. But you never see it directed at the kids. Mm-hmm.

Like, it's not like, the dad beat us. Or, like, oh, yeah. But it's still. Right. It feels like a looming threat. It's like this subtext that like the kids know they could be the force of this anger. And the mom knows because she tries to shield them. But it's never like this explicit, like you're still allowed to kind of like the dad. Which is why, yeah, I think this movie has the potential to kind of be worse and more toxic than it is but but then i i think that that like speaks

a lot to what the mom's role is in the movie is like she is sort of directing her very angry husband's attention elsewhere a lot of the time or you know saying you know i agree with you i agree with you but i'm going to be the one to carry out the punishment because she's trying to protect her kids, which I think with the, you know, soap in the mouth thing is that's kind of like emblematic of that. I don't know. That soap in the mouth is so weird because this is a tangent, but that like the prop soap looks so unlike any soap I have ever seen in my life. Yeah. It's like straight up red. It's like bright red. Yeah, I was just like, what? Straight up red. It's blood soap.

Yeah, it looks like a chunk of like rounded plastic. Yeah. And I was like, is that special punishment soap they had in like 1940? Right.

Or did soap, this is bad boy soap. You know, did soap change? I, they used to use congealed blood and, you know, the blood of children This is bad boy soap. Did soap change over time? They used to use congealed blood. The blood of children the fathers killed?

Like in post-war America, they're like, soap's white now. War's over. No more fancy blood red soap. I don't know. That's interesting to me because I remember one of the few things that did carry with me from past viewings of this movie into my most recent viewing is even though he doesn't explicitly do anything wrong an intense dislike of the father character because it does seem like he's just always being held back from doing like it never seems like he's like i would never do something awful it's just

like well try to stop me before i do something awful like and that i mean again i'm not too psychologically but like that i mean there's you know everyone has an uncle that sort of is maybe like that a little bit of just like well this isn't a good guy but there's a lot of people around him who are trying to make sure he's a good guy like there's a lot of people around him who are trying to make sure he's a good guy like and and that's what the the dad character always reminds me of and it just i don't know yeah it really bugs me that character there's another scene where you see little brother randy crying in a cupboard i love randy if i'm gonna psych on randy uh randy is crying this is later on in the movie their mother like opens the little cabinet door

and she's like why are you crying and he's like cause daddy's gonna kill Ralphie and she's like no he's not it's a looming threat but back to the point that I like that you see like little boys crying it's never like stop crying

and man up you don't really see that in this movie which um i think is kind of unusual and refreshing well perhaps let's let's give gene shepherd a point maybe that that is one of the pros of adapting an essay about someone's actual life is you don't maybe get the opportunities to know if it's from his actual is it really like the movie just fabricated the movie says in i think 1940 yes like 38 to 40 like somewhere in there it's from is actual is it really like the movie just fabricated the movie is set in i think 1940 yes like 38 to 40 like somewhere in there it's like the wizard of oz exists gene shepherd born 1921 yeah so if this happened to him he was like oh yeah he's a little bit too old maybe that's a

screenplay adaptation yeah i mean they could have just like kind of fudged fudge some details that's it's like a little weird. Interesting. A writer not being completely honest about everything? I didn't realize that there was that date discrepancy. But we're led to believe because Gene Shepard is the adult narrator that he is old Ralphie. Can we also just talk about how there is really this influx and this movie is by far not the worst of them of movies about

white male childhood that is narrated in a very egregious, lazy way as opposed to setting up a story that doesn't require voiceover narration. I just bogged down. I think this movie started it. You wouldn't have The Wonder Years without A Christmas Story.

Which is fine by me, honestly. I'm a hard pass on The Wonder... I've had multiple chode boyfriends be like, you gotta watch it. It's Ben Savage's big brother. You're just like, I can't handle this. What a weird frame of reference. Well, that's my frame of reference.

But no, no. It's Ben Savage's brother, whereas my generation is... Ben Savage is Fred Savage's brother? Exactly. Wrong. Wrong. He is Cory from Boy Meets World's brother. I'm like, I don't care.

I don't care. For crying out loud. Yeah. I hate movies about childhood with voiceover narration, particularly if it's about boys. And that, which i think i just hate i mean i hate this hand lot i hate it oh yeah i hate it it's the worst movie of all time there's too many movies just about white male childhood period with or without narration let's get rid of them let's stop making these God. But another thing I did want to point out is that Ralphie's favorite radio program is Little Orphan Annie.

Yes. And even at one point he says something like, I don't have time for smugglers and pirates. Get this malarkey off the radio. I do like the Ace of Slams. Yeah, he was talking about Little Orphan Annie. Yeah. That was a show. Yeah.

Yeah. That was a show. Yeah, I know. I'm saying that he likes a narrative about a little girl, but not about, he doesn't like the pirate show. No, no, Little Orphan Annie is the pirate show. Wait, what? Little Orphan Annie was all about her transition from orphan to adoption but the bulk of like the comic and the radio show and all that was all the adventures she and daddy warbucks then went on oh because he's like a bazillionaire and he'll be like let let's go to the jungle now. To pirates? Check out my diamond mine. What?

And then like somebody would kidnap little orphan Annie and her dog. Unbelievable. And they'd have to get out of the scrape and find Daddy Warbucks. Why haven't we seen that movie adaptation? That sounds way better. No, that's what I mean. It was like this like adventure thing. I want to see a movie about domestic adjustment.

Yeah. That's boring. I thought that it was like the show about like, is Annie going to get adopted or not? No, no. And he loved that, but he hated pirates and stuff. No, no. So I was going to be like, wow, how cool.

Yeah, Annie was an adventure character. Who knew? Not me. Well, that's even cooler. Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to point out that, oh, how nice that his favorite show is about this little girl, which is like, you know, something that maybe little girls might be more interested in listening to,

whereas, you know, pirates and smugglers, something that little boys. It hit all demographics. Okay, got it. Yeah, that's a crowd pleaser. That's a crowd pleaser. Four quadrant kick. My point is invalid then, but I am fascinated to learn that that's what Little Orphan Annie was about. Yeah, I gotta look that up. That sounds amazing.

Something I did want to also talk about is guns and masculinity. Because this movie is about a little boy who is desperate for a BB gun. And I researched some statistics about gun violence. who is desperate for a BB gun. And I researched some statistics about gun violence. So get ready for some exciting, Everyone ready for the exciting holiday episode about murder. There is an article that I recommend

in Time Magazine by Jill Stein. No. Okay. Hang hang on let me i always say that when people are talking about my mom because my mom's name is jill right like i was talking to jill like stein and they go no it's uh jill philippovic I've probably mispronounced that. Femina Zygon. Femina Zygon. Jill. Filipovic. We'll call her. She writes an article in Time magazine.

It is called One Undeniable Factor in Gun Violence, colon, men. So in the article, it cites some statistics that since 1966, there have been 134 mass shootings. I believe that's confined to the U.S. I don't think that's worldwide. Of those 134 mass shootings, 131 have been perpetrated by men. Only three by women. 90% of murderers are men. My point being, men's fascination with guns is maybe not good. You heard it here first on the Bechdel cast.

Maybe guns aren't great. True. But she writes. If you were to extrapolate, like, the events of the film, like, the next day or the weeks or months later, I always imagine that, like, Ralphie never used his BB gun again. You know, like, that was kind of the impression that he got it, he used it, and then it was not in any way, shape, or form

like what he thought it would be. I hope that that's the case. Like that was just kind of the impression I got. Well, could we get the impression from... Because like he doesn't, he like, you know, dings his glasses, then he has to go inside, and then like he leaves the gun out there, doesn't he? He has to go back and get it.

And he even says something like, oh, but my gun's still out there. And she's like, you can get cleaned up and go get it later. And I don't think we ever see that happen. Because instead they go to the Chinese restaurant. I think you see him at the very end. I think he might be sleeping with it. Oh, that's dangerous. I know his little brother is sleeping with the Zeppelin toy.

I think you're right. Yeah. But for most of the movie we see Ralphie and Randy. Neither of them are like aggro children. Right. They're being bullied. They're not hyper masculine children. Right.

They're regular kids. And so it is. And basically all the information we have about ralphie would not lead you to believe like oh this kid's gonna fucking be weirdly into his toy gun which leads me to believe that like oh this must symbolize something to in his head of either status or you know like overcomings whatever adverse like as opposed to actually wanting it and thinking oh this is a toy i will have fun times well yeah because they never explain like why it's important it's just the thing he's obsessing about right like it's a symbol more than it is like because

like a theme of the film is these very small like uh kind of losses of innocence or like things that don't turn out how you think they're gonna turn out sure and that's kind of how he took the like gun obsession it was like he's really into this and then it's not really quite what he wants right after after all the hullabaloo yeah well you do see that sort of vision that he has very early on where these like bad guys come and he has his gun and he's protecting his family. So it's this sort of like, and, you know, exert this like machismo over people, which like, I mean, I can't even pretend like I understand all of the psychology behind people who are obsessed with guns. Yeah. I mean, I'm a guy.

I should love guns and I don't get it. I mean, Sarge. Come on, Sarge. What I mean to say. I've only got like four or five guns. Oh, weird. I know the one I keep in my car and then a couple under my bed. I mean, you have been holding us both at gunpoint for the duration of the episode.

I don't get these other people who are like really super into guns. Yeah, like you have to have one in both of your hands at all times. But other than that, why? Right. So the point I'm trying to make is, okay, first I want to say that I don't think all people who own guns are bad. Of course not. I do. Hot take, Redbird.

I do think that all guns should be thrown into an active volcano and that we shouldn't have guns anymore. That sounds like that would actually be pretty dangerous. No, I think they'd like melt instantly. Yeah, I think so. They wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they'd like melt instantly. Yeah, they would. Yeah, I think so. They wouldn't go off. I'd be concerned they'd go off. I think maybe throwing them into like a pile of fireworks might be dangerous. Yeah.

A volcano is fine. A volcano is generally like enclosed kind of. Yeah. That's true. I've thought a lot about this and that's why I picked volcano. Jamie, just come over to my volcano and we can throw in all the guns into that. I want to go to a volcano. Okay, so the point that I want to make here is it's just peculiar to me that this whole story is about this kid being obsessed with getting a gun.

And whether or not he kind of abandons it after the fact or not, we don't really know because the story ends and we can only sort of speculate but the fact that this whole movie is about this kid being obsessed with getting a gun sends a message that like little boys like guns and guns are maybe something to want for and and i think that helps create some problems in society well I think the reason that I assumed that he just ended up not being thrilled by the gun was like the little orphanage scene where he gets the, he's been super psyched about getting that decoder. Right. And then he gets

it and he's like, this is going to be so awesome. I'm totally in the club now. I'm going to get these messages. And then he's just like, like a commercial. Like what? Be sure to drink your own. So I feel like that was like kind of foreshadowing like these these very small like losses of innocence to being like oh wait this gun is kind of stupid like right okay but i feel like there's less of a definitive like where he doesn't he doesn't end up having any fun with it because he immediately immediately

right i mean he's happy about it it because he got the thing he wanted. His quest is fulfilled, even if the reality of it doesn't match up. He still... And that's a lot of holidays for kids. It's like, well, I got the thing I kept screaming about. Now, how does it work? Versus Randy, who didn't seem to have any Christmas preference. I'm just totally fine with that Zeppelin.

Randy, what an icon. I love Randy. What an icon. I love him. Also, be sure to drink your Ovaltine. This podcast is sponsored by Ovaltine. It's true. But I just want, okay, I'm going to stop talking about gun violence in a second, but I have some important things to say.

These are quotes from the article. The reality of American men and guns is as much about hyper-masculine fetishization of murder toys as it is about tribal identity. A deepening identification of self and clan that radicalizes marginal views and magnifies personal entitlement and social distrust. This is a communal masculine ideology, not an individual one. And then she goes on to say about how, like, there's no lone wolves. It's like a pack mentality. So it's just talking about hyper

masculinity and toxic masculinity and how it perpetuates this idea that guns are cool, but they're not. They should be thrown in a volcano. The other quote I wanted to say goes, almost half of the world's civilian-owned guns are in the hands of Americans, but those guns are not distributed equally.

Many are hoarded by super owners, a group of mostly male extremists who make up just 3% of the adult American population, but own an average of 17 guns apiece. So, you know, a little more than what you have. And now Brennan has laid more guns out on the table so as to demonstrate his dominance. They should do another sequel set in maybe like 1960.

Yeah, the very early 60s where Ralph is like a grizzled gun nut. Like preparing for like the race war that everyone was like afraid of in the 60s. The final vignette of the Christmas story. The quote goes on to say, women are increasingly buying handguns for protection and that seems to be their actual motivation. They own a single gun and they keep it in case of an emergency. One suspects that the imagined assailant they are protecting themselves from is a man.

So there's that. The only pass I would be willing to give this movie on this particular subject, because I do think it's very, it's not a good precedent to have a little boy lusting after a gun toy for the duration of a movie.

But, at very least, the gun toy in question was 40 years out of anyone desiring it by the time the movie came out because i mean like if you think if this was a if a christmas story was made in the context of it's 1983 and this kid really wants this gun toy that you can go out and get right now like that that somehow makes it a billion times worse i I'm just trying, I remember at the time the movie came out, like you could get like the Sears catalog or whatever,

and they would have like BB guns and maybe other kinds of like sporting rifles like there in the catalog. Yeah, I mean that existed through the 90s. Yeah, I remember being a kid and, you know, like my older brother, my older brother's friends like being kind of like, oh, they're guns. Cool. But it was still this very abstract thing. I don't know anybody who like had a BB gun.

No, I never did. I knew that they existed somewhere, but never where. Like by the time I like friends I knew in the neighborhood had fake guns, they were, I mean, they did have them. And my mom was very like hard on like, she ran a daycare. And if you had a fake gun, you couldn't bring it to her daycare. But all the ones that existed made laser noises. It was no longer a pew, pew, pew. Well, you were, like, I still remember when you can still get, like, a water gun that looked like a real gun. Before they did all those laws, like, add the orange tips and make everything crazy yeah yeah because there are like a couple shootings like they made those laws

because they're like kids were killed because the cops were like that kid's called a good and they'd shoot him right and they were like oh god but yeah if i if i if i were at ralphie's age and i asked for a bb gun i think my mom wouldn't – they would say no. But it wouldn't be because like, you're out. They'd just be like, that's a really weird request. Yeah. It's like, are you also torturing animals? What's wrong with you? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It'd be like, this is – no, because it goes against societal norms. Not no, because you'll hurt yourself but but then i mean even so he lost after this gun but does experience at least a fairly large consequence if he does hurt himself but then he makes up a whole story he's not even willing to attribute it because he knows if he says oh yeah i shot myself in the eye his gun will get taken away so he has to fabricate this whole story about an icicle hitting him in the face and breaking his glasses and stuff like that. Winter's the real villain of hyper

masculinity. It's Winter. So I feel like he's trying to protect his gun the way his mom has to protect her kids from the wrath of their father. Yeah, we're gonna add in this early 60s vignette.

Yeah, just like the grizzled gun nut Ralphie. It still goes by Ralphie, though. Still, oh, yes. Is there a party going on downstairs? Like, what's happening? I'm not sure. If you can hear some chatter

in the background and some music. We weren't invited, is all I know. That sounds fun. Oh, let's talk about the teacher a little bit. Okay, yeah. Another person who,

yeah, the one other female character with pretty much any lines. She is also sort of depicted as a shrew at the beginning um and then kind of softens a little bit as the movie goes on but there is one point where ralphie's having another vision i like to call them i think he's tripping on acid this whole movie and he's having a hallucination but i think he has like just gotten his paper back talking about what he wants for christmas and he's having a hallucination but i think he has like just gotten his paper back talking about what he wants for christmas and she's given him a c plus so he envisions her as like this witch wicked witch type character so he sees her as a mean little b and it's really hey maybe take some responsibility for your own writing yeah you. You earned the C+. Not her fault.

It seemed very poorly written. Yeah. It's like we're just judging by his voiceover. Like, come on. You've got to build on your ideas there, Ralphie. Gene. Geez. But he becomes Gene.

He becomes a guy who writes a lot of short things for money. You know what? That's evidence that Ralphie is not Gene. That's, ooh, okay. Yeah, he doesn't have the touch. Does anyone have any other thoughts about the movie? I would say Scott Farkas, feminist icon. I think that was my last major thought on this film.

Sure. Let's talk about whether or not the movie passes the Bechdel test. I'm going to argue, as much as I don't want to do, I think that it does. In one tiny, tiny scene where students are filing in and giving Miss Shields, the teacher,

little Christmas gifts. There's a name exchange, is there not? One student puts something on her desk. She says, Thank you, Heather. Heather says, Merry Christmas. name exchange is there not yeah one student puts something on her desk she says thank you heather heather says merry christmas the teacher says merry christmas rats rats we know her name we know both characters names this movie pass is better than pirates of the caribbean the curse of the black pearl does god damn it which is apparently inspired by Little Orphan Annie because it's about pirates. God damn it.

I mean, it's like the bare, bare, bare minimum. Because we never see that Heather character again. We don't see her speaking. She has no significance in the story. Well, and so as we often I would say of the movies that passed the Bechdel test that we have covered on this podcast, at least 50% of them are a barely pass like this. Like, you know, you get it on a technicality. Yeah. It was almost definitely an accident that this happened.

Because at no other point in the movie does it even come close to passing. No. In fact, it's mostly boys talking to each other or boys talking to their mother. Yep. Well, I agree with you. This was a weird experience where I was almost disappointed that it passed. I was like, I guess they get it.

I guess that they did. I didn't even notice it until my second viewing. I was like, oh wait, wait, there's two women talking. I jotted it down in dismay. Same. So let's then rate the movie on our nipple scale Wait, there's two women talking. And jotted it down in dismay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Same. So let's then rate the movie on our nipple scale, where we rate the movie based on its portrayal of women. Zero to five nipples.

And then you can describe the nipples or give them away to anyone you want. A character in the movie. Usually a character, but I mean, one of your loved ones, if you feel comfortable doing so. Give one to Sarge. Yeah. Sarge sarge yeah sarge what's his name thurbis thurb right yeah short for thurber yeah thurbis okay so i'm gonna give this movie a oh it's probably to be like a one and a half i do like that the two main female characters the mother and miss shields the teacher aren't as one-dimensional as they they kind of grow there's a little arc there the mother seems like a good mother and she's not just like this

one-dimensional shrew that we are led to believe in the first few scenes but other than that just the idea that the movie is about a little boy desperately wanting a gun and all of his little adventures that he has with feminist icon scut and then his friends named flick and schwartz honestly if you don't name your kid's gut, you're crazy. But it gets a one and a half nipples, and the nipples belong to the leg lamp, which I think would maybe have a nipple or two. Or one and a half. I'll give it one and a half as well, because, I mean, obviously this movie is about

white male childhood or as it was known in 1983 childhood and it's weird because it's like this movie does not abuse that premise as much as I assumed it did

except for that last scene in the Chinese restaurant which was very uncomfortable. Yes. I mean, well, this is a white, white, white, white, white movie. There are a few students of color in his class, although they get no lines, very little screen time, and it is

predominantly an extremely white movie. It's a white movie. All that said, I do think that, yeah, there were, I hate to reward a movie for not making its female characters shrews by default and giving them character by default. But the two female characters we do manage to see in this movie, although they would never be permitted to speak to or view each other, they do both have more depth than you would assume, especially seen through the eyes of a little boy. Yeah. So in that way, I liked it.

I like the mom character quite a bit and I feel for her. So I'll give one of my nipples to mom and I'll give a half a nip to Scott. Great. Yeah. How about you, Brandonon i might go a little higher like maybe an even two nipples okay just because i feel like this is a weird thing to say but i feel like it gets some points for i guess omission rather than like because a lot of movies that are quote-unquote classics from the same period are like unwatchable now because you're just like, oh, wait, this movie is actually about some gross kid trying to get laid.

Take every opportunity to make that joke over and over and over. Yeah. And this is sort of like, oh, they just that's just not part of the content. Right. I mean, it'd be great if there were, like, more actual characters, but there also aren't, you know, like, girls as just objects of, like, Ralphie and his friends, either, like, derision or desire. Right. Like, the female characters we do manage to see are not being overtly abused

over and over and over, which is, again, yeah, like, the omission thing. But for a 1983 movie, I mean, again, yeah, like the omission thing, but for a 1983 movie, I mean, I think we were all kind of pleasantly surprised. There was a tiny little scene. There's a lot of, sorry, like the, you know, of that period,

like kind of like meatballs and like all those like Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. raunchy things, whether it's about like, you know, let's have a scene where the boys like

find a playboy, like that kind of like. And I hate to keep going back to The Sandlot, but that movie is that all over, where they use the whole, oh, well, it's a different time, so everyone was fucking disgusting and was raping kids.

It was just awful. Yeah, and then they were like, you're a girl because you're kind of displaying some signs of weakness, and that's the worst insult ever. And this movie does not take those opportunities. It doesn't do that, no. There is a scene where, like, just a quick little scene,

where they're all sitting down to dinner, and the dad is like, get up and get me this. I want seconds. And she's like, okay. And then she's about to eat again. And then Ralphie's like, actually, can I have some more, too? And then she has to put her fork down and get up. And like, the voiceover

says something like, my mom hasn't had a hot meal for herself in 15 years, but that's really all it does to acknowledge that they don't have a pot of food. I feel really bad for making my mom do all that stuff. So that was, I was just like, poor mom. Well, Brandon, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for letting me talk about my favorite movie. Where can we find you on the World Wide Web? Well, you can go to BrandonBird.com. Just in time for the holiday season to buy some prints. You can just add greeting cards. Yeah. Christmas baubles. Whoa.

I didn't know you had baubles. Baubles galore. Lots of fun stuff. Hey, you can follow the Bechtelcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. Oh, was I supposed to pick up on that? No, no, no. I was just pausing for suspense. And sign up for our Patreon where you can get two extra episodes a month at patreon.com slash Bechtelcast. It's only $5.

What a gift. To yourself. To yourself It's only $5. What a gift. To yourself. To yourself. To your friend. Give yourself a gift. Give your friends, your mom, your dad, anyone in your family. We don't care. We're starving.

All right. Well, you can find us there. Yes, indeed. And happy holidays. Happy freaking holidays, everybody. All right. Goodbye. Bye.

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