The Bechdel Cast - Harriet the Spy with Jenna Ushkowitz

Episode Date: June 18, 2020

Jamie the Spy and Caitlin the Spy chat with special guest Jenna Ushkowitz about Harriet the Spy, featuring a special segment with Vanessa Lee Chester (@vanessalchester on Instagram)!(This episode contains spoilers)For Bechdel bonuses, sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com/bechdelcast.Follow @JennaUshkowitz on Twitter. While you're there, you should also follow @BechdelCast, @caitlindurante and @jamieloftusHELP  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Bechdelcast, 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 effing vast. Start changing it with the Bechdel cast. The time has come, the woman said to the other woman, to talk of many things, of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and queens. Wow, Caitlin. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have jeans to rhyme with queens. Jeans.

Oh, I was like, is that a feminist thing? Jeans instead of wings? Seems more restrictive than wings. It just needed to, that's true. And that's, you know, that's my bad. Jeans are a prison for all genders. And so in that way, it's a very inclusive piece of restrictive clothing. Right.

That's true. In conclusion, I liked your poem. Thank you so much. It is from today's movie. But before we get there, hello and welcome to the Bechdel cast. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is our feminist movie podcast where we examine the representation of women in film. And we use something called the Bechdel test.

Jamie, what is that even? Well, I think I remember. Here's what, if memory serves, here's what it is. The Bechdel test is a media metric invented by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test, that requires a piece of media do the following. There has to be two female identifying characters with names for our purposes who speak to each other about something other than a man for two lines of dialogue or more. Most movies can't make it happen absolutely can't whiz i just

watched that new movie with chris hemsworth on netflix and i have to say it doesn't pass and anything it doesn't pass the good movie test it doesn't pass the bechdel test it doesn't pass the i finished the movie test a lot of movies don't pass the I finished the movie test. A lot of movies don't pass it. Which one's that? Extraction? Extraction. More like I want to extract myself out of this movie watching experience. Swish! Love it!

I haven't seen it yet. Eh, don't bother. But today's movie, I feel like today's movie will do okay on the Bechdel test, not to spoil. It would be, imagine how deeply, gut-wrenchingly disappointing it would be if this movie somehow did not pass the Bechdel test. Right? It would be devastating.

Well, we're covering Harriet the Spy. And before we even introduce our guest, who we are very excited to have on the show we wanted to jump to a quick conversation that we had with friend of the show she played Janie in the movie Harriet the Spy it's Vanessa Lee Chester hi Vanessa welcome back hi I'm so excited to be back I honestly when I got Caitlin's email I was like what is going on because I had just been thinking about you guys and I was like I had yeah you posted something on guys and I was like I yeah you posted something on Instagram and I was like she's so fucking funny and I literally was like I had such a great time chatting with you guys and all my friends who like listened to the episode were like this is

such a fucking legit show and I was like I know right and so when you guys hit me up I was like they like me we love you welcome back I'm excited. So we're covering Harriet the Spy. And I guess we just like wanted to start by talking to you about like your experience on that movie. How do you how do you remember that time in that shooting experience now? It was fantastic. Like, I can't speak for a lot of other child actors, but I loved being on that set so much. I feel like of all the characters that I've ever played, I feel like the most similar to Janie. Like, she's weird. She's very expressive in the way that she dresses and that denotes so much of her character she's passionate about science which is something

that you don't see a lot in young women and I'm obsessed I swear that Bill Nye is my friend but we've never met and it was just like in my mind like Neil deGrasse Tyson is my uncle and then his best friend is Bill Nye and we're just all this huge great family family. But yeah, like working on that set was just so fantastic. I feel like the story is just, it's like everything a precocious, curious kid wants to live out and then getting a chance to actually bring it to the big screen was such an honor. Like I loved every moment of it. Oh, that's the best. Yeah. I'm still like like i'm still friends with everyone like greg and i talk yes greg is like my boy like i he will have a special place in my heart for the rest of my life oh that's so fast yeah and then so now um years later what for you or or just based on you know because i'm sure that people talk to you about it uh fair amount. What is, what is the legacy of this movie sort of like

become over time? Um, I feel like that's a really difficult question because I feel like there's something really special about this movie, but it resonates in different ways for everyone. I got a really sweet DM. I want to say at the end of last year from this lady on Instagram. And I'm only saying her race because it's important to the story. And she happens to be white. And she was like, hey, you know, I just wanted to reach out to you and see if there was any way you could possibly send me an autograph for my sister. She's adopted, and she happens to be Black.

And we used to watch Harriet the Spy all the time when we were little because we were like, Janie and Harriet are basically sisters. And we looked at it like us, like two little girls who are, you know, outcasts but are completely grounded in who they are. And I was like crying reading the DM, you know? And I sent her like like I sent her an autograph copy of my DVD and like a poster and I was like this is for you your sister and your brother because like you guys are basically Janie Harriet and sport that's the best yeah it was really sweet

like we're friends on LinkedIn now which is so random I'm like do you think i actually have like a dope job i'm an actor trying to like be on more movies it always surprises me when i hear from fans of harriet the spy and just how it resonated for them and i feel like a lot of girls who i've heard some women from the lgbtq community say that like i kind of felt like harriet may have been like the first lesbian that i read about you know and, and I was like, whoa, that's something that I've never thought on. And we were trying in our research to figure out if the Janie character was specifically written as black, and we couldn't find anything out about that. So we were wondering if you knew about that, or if maybe the character was just written kind of ethnically ambiguous, and they cast... No, it's really interesting that you

brought that up. I'm glad that you said that because I was going to bring it up myself um once you guys asked me to do this I started I picked the book back up and I was like I need to like refresh myself and see what this is about and in I want to say the second chapter when Harriet is going back to school, they're describing all of the kids and they describe Janie and they're like, Janie is a shy, meek girl with freckles and like doesn't really like making eye contact with people. And I was like, whoa. I mean, freckles could be any race, but they're generally, you know, associated with people who happen to be Caucasian. And I was like, whoa, you know, and it kind of made me think likeian. And I was like, whoa, you know,

and it kind of made me think like, I feel like Janie might have been white, but the director didn't want that. And I remember auditioning and they were like, we want you to be bold and we want you to be like charismatic and have a lot of confidence. And like, I loved it. I was like, she's wild. Like, this is the version of me that I wish I could bring to school every day. But it seems as if Janie in the book is actually a little bit more questions herself a little bit, which I thought was an interesting adaptation. Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. Janie in the movie definitely feels like an aspirational, like character, like you want to be like her. my gosh I remember like I knew I was getting paid but I didn't really care I was like but how can I have Janie's entire wardrobe that's what we

really need to talk about like I get it like I'm gonna go to college with this money that I'm allegedly making but what about those suspenders that you guys made I want those. Did you get to keep anything? I don't remember, to be honest. I'm sure I did. And who knows? Justice for the overalls. Gotta find them. They're like in some type of like, it's a wrap type of thrift store in Burbank. And I just gotta find them.

Right. Do you have any other kind of final thoughts that you want to share? Any thoughts at all about your experience being in the movie or just with the now that I'm older and like have a different type of analytical eye. Because, you know, when I was younger, I remember starting the book and just dropping it because I was like, oh, like, I don't even want to read the rest. I just want to get a notebook. And I thought it was really funny because I was actually in the movie. I had just finished shooting it and I went back to school with a notebook. And I think it's really funny as an adult looking back on how even though I knew that I had filmed this entire spectacular movie, like, my imagination was so sparked by what she was doing. All I wanted to do was like run on roofs

and spy on people. And my mom was like, don't try that shit. Do not even try it. Right. Like I went to school with a notebook, like basically pretending I was Harriet before the movie came out. That's amazing. I had the same experience where I saw the movie as a young child and was obsessed with Harriet and her notebook, spy gear. And I just like, wanted to be Harriet. Yeah. And that's what's so amazing about it. Like, we all wanted to be Harriet, you know, like, it was something so courageous about her. Like, that's what we all want to do is like, pretend we're older. And like, that's the thing that I find to be very endearing about Harriet

is a lot of young kids, we all feel like we're adults. Like, I remember telling my mom, I could run the country at 10. Like, I was confident that I would be a better president than all the people that I saw on TV. And maybe I was right. I mean, are you wrong? I know. I was like, you're right. Still out. Who knows? Like I was a pretty woke little nine year old, whatever. But it's amazing how mature Harriet is. And like, in the book, they denote the parts that are specifically her writing in her notebook with a different font. So you know that those are her thoughts. And there's a part in the book where O'Golly says to her, like, you need to write down everything. You don't need to, like, sugarcoat it, write down things in the way that you see it,

you know. And as you guys remember the movie, her friends see the notebook and everyone loses it. And I'm like, when I was little, I used to be like, oh my God, Harriet's so mean. She's so messed up. But like, now that I'm older, I'm like, she's a child and children are amazing because they're so honest. Like she wasn't actually trying to be malicious. She was just documenting and writing down what she saw without trying to impress anyone because she didn't feel like her thoughts would be out in the public. You know? I don't know. It's just a thought that I had. No, totally. I have I have the same feeling. Yeah, yeah. Like, he's like, Janie's weird in my blow up the world. Yeah,

if you had a friend who was like, always talking about blowing up the world at 10, you might be a little skeptical, a little nervous that's I mean that's like part of what I really love about the movie like is that it makes like friendships with kids like it takes their friendships seriously and they're like complicated but they're also like yeah of course a kid would say that if they or I mean anyone would say that if they or I mean, yeah, if they didn't think anyone else would ever see it. So you can like feel for her, but also be like, you can't do Janie like that. I mean, that's a really great point is like, it definitely brings like a drama that's like

that's their world. And you know, we're sitting here and we're like, you're in sixth grade, it'll be fine. But like, sixth grade is everything when you're in sixth grade. Right. So yeah, I love that point, Jamie. That's really legit. Well, Vanessa, thank you so much for contributing for giving your amazing thoughts and firsthand experience of being in the movie. And thank you for being in the movie. Yes. You guys are so amazing. Thank you so much for inviting me back. This has been such a great little piece of joy during what we're all going through. Being able to discuss one of the projects

that I've been in that I absolutely adored being a part of and I cannot wait to hear this episode and how you guys break it down because you guys kill it and i know you're gonna do it justice yay yes thank you again and we'll have to have you back please for like a legitimate episode like a full episode yeah like don't don't play me i will stalk you if you don't invite me back so just know that it's all on we've got it documented we accept the challenge love it all right you guys are awesome you too talk to you soon thank you so much have a good day yay thanks again vanessa for chatting with us and that brings us to our wonderful guest for today's episode she is a podcast host

a producer an actress best known from glee it's's Jenna Ushkowitz. Hello. What's going on, you guys? I'm so excited to be here. Oh, we're so excited to have you. Love a good quarantine record. Oh, you know it. You know it. Oh, yeah. It's a good time to watch lots and lots of movies. It's true. Yes.

It's a full-on escape zone. I love it. Right. Right. Tell us about your relationship and your history with Harriet the Spy. Well, I loved Harriet the Spy. This is totally like we're similar in age, Michelle Trachtenberg and I. And when this came out, I was like, finally, a girl who can wear jeans and sneakers and doesn't have to wear dresses all

the time and like somebody who kind of like is wearing what I would want to wear that's the first thought I had when I when I saw Harriet the really cool little uh yellow raincoat and I started acting when I was really really young and I would do voiceovers a lot and I got a call to do some looping, which is the background voices throughout the film that they need to fill in like a playground or at school or whatever. And so I went in to do looping for Harriet the Spy. So in some of these scenes,

I'm actually like whispering, like especially in the Carrie like blue paint scene. Yeah. I whispered like into the girl's ear and it was so cool. That's your voice. And so I still get these like mini checks from Paramount for 10 cents. Um, from Harriet this, but yeah, yeah. Every once in a while it'll be like 60 cents. You're like, we're going out. Uh yeah and Michelle and I actually modeled together a lot growing up we were just you know we kind of like crossed paths a lot in the business so nice um but

I love the film and I actually also loved it so much that I I got a note a marble notebook and I you know duplicated the private on it and I wrote all these like crazy things about my family in them. And one day I walk in my room. My mom's like, what is this? She's like, what did you write? And she's like, this movie is no good for you. And I was it was like all made up stuff. But she was like, I was like, you're reading my diary.

Parents have an interesting relationship with this movie because they're like sure that's such an amazing connection to this movie that's so cool yeah your voice has a presence a life in the movie yes yeah i very vividly remember standing in like this big uh voiceover room and booth. It was a really big booth though. And the movie was like in this on this massive screen on the wall and they would just start and then you would have to play and like be in a playground with like other kids. It was like the most fun. That's so cool.

That's so fun. Jamie, what's your relationship with the movie I have a very complicated relationship with this movie in that I was not allowed I was I was pretty I was like I was like three or four when this movie came out so I didn't see it when it first came out but I wasn't allowed to watch it when I was little because I had like I had I was like a full-on like undiagnosed OCD child and so I took a notebook literally everywhere and I would get in trouble uh at school about it because I did this thing from I first remember doing it in first grade but I had this like real child OCD fixation on writing down what everyone in a room was wearing and saying for no reason.

Like it was unlike Harriet. I had no end game. There was no objective or career goal attached to my notebooks, but I just did it compulsively and I would get in trouble for it all the time. And people were like, this is this makes me uncomfortable. Why should you keep writing down that I'm wearing a yellow shirt? And so it was like such a chronicled problem for me that my mom was like movie about girl with notebook we can't have it in the house like so

I didn't get to see it and I'm so bummed because now now that I've seen it I'm like first of all my mom was kind of right and it definitely would have made made my notebook problem a million times worse and it was already pretty bad uh but second of all it's such a good movie and it's so like I don't know I just like I love it in every single way I love movies that let kids be like complicated and kind of messy but not fall into that like precocious child trope that is so annoying and I don't know I just think it's so well done I love like the direction style of it it seems like everyone in the movie is like having the time of their life and oh I just wish I could have seen it when I was younger but um I'll hand it to Jill she was probably right not to show it to me yeah Jill being a good parent yeah yeah well

she's just like I don't want my kid to get bullied at school for her horse notebooks any more than she already is uh what's your experience with this movie Caitlin I I did watch it when I was a youth I was deeply impacted by this movie but what I remember way more than the movie itself was what I did in response to the movie. Like I think I probably saw it maybe only once or twice. It came out in 96. I was 10. So I was like kind of the exact right age for it. Yeah. But I think I saw it few enough times that I don't remember what the story was at all. But again, it impacted me so much that the movie made me want to be a spy. I had my mom get me a notebook just like Harriet's one of those like marble notebooks. I put together this little like kit of spice stuff,

anything I could get my hands on, which was mostly just like a magnifying glass and like a pen. But I was like, I'm going to be a spy. And I started eating mayonnaise sandwiches because I didn't like tomato. So I didn't want to eat the tomato part of the tomato and mayonnaise sandwiches that Harriet makes, but I liked mayonnaise. So I would just eat just plain mayonnaise sandwiches. I would do this thing where I would slurp soup very obnoxiously and then say, good soup, like Harriet does in the movie. Like I picked up all these habits from the movie, but I rewatching it to prep for this episode, I realized that I had no idea what this movie was about. I like had completely forgotten everything about the story. Um, so, but again, it really, it really

had a major, uh, impact on me when I was a child. So, oh, that's so, it's, it's iconic. It really is. It had such a, like, it's so interesting. It had such an effect, even though you didn't even get to see it. Like it was really impactful. And like finally seeing a girl. Who's not so dainty. And like wanting to have a notebook. To write things down. Like I just. I think it was impactful. In like a positive way.

Even though parents probably had a very. Torrid relationship with the film. For their children. But I feel the same way. I definitely made those sandwiches and I definitely like I felt very like I just wanted to be her I wanted to replicate her I wanted to be her she made it really cool like she she was really cool totally I feel like yeah I this is this movie is good representation for people who double down on disgusting sandwiches and I include myself in that

community of someone's like yeah this is the worst food you could possibly eat every single day and I'm doing it proudly you're like all right I mean it also just speaks to and I'm sure we'll talk about this a lot but it just speaks for the need for representation of movies about little girls like doing cool things and doing things that like other little girls or little children as viewers can aspire to because there's just isn't much of that still and uh the fact that this movie exists and was so impactful for so many people just like speaks to that need yeah and just being like reflective of what a sixth grader's interests actually are because i feel like movies for like targeted at young girls and and sometimes young young boys as well is like 11 year olds that are like there's a crush narrative that's a

that takes up a ton of real estate that like i don't know there's so many like sixth graders are weird and their interests are weird and their friendships are like intense. And I like that this movie kind of reflects all of that for sure. Well, should we talk about the story and then go from there? I say yes. OK. Yeah. Couldn't hurt.

OK. So we meet Harriet. That's Michelle Trachtenberg, of course. She is a young girl who wants to be a writer. She learns everything she can and she writes down everything she sees in this private notebook that she always carries around and that's why she's a spy. She's a spy because she's gearing up for a career as a writer. We cut to her at school. She and her best friends sport Gregory Smith and Janie, of course, played by Vanessa Chester, who you just heard. They are in sixth grade and Harriet is nominated for class president along with her arch nemesis, Marion Hawthorne.

And the best perk of being class president is being editor of the sixth grade newspaper. Which is a weird thing. And the best perk of being class president is being editor of the sixth grade newspaper. Which is a weird thing. That was I was like, wow, what a strange two powers to connect. Right. Seems like the president shouldn't edit the newspaper. Yeah. That would be like if Donald Trump was like the head of all news right now.

Well, he's the head of some news. Right. Yeah. All I have to say, it seemed like a conflict of interest to me. I agree. Also, I don't know about like your schools, but like we didn't have a sixth grade newspaper. There was no journalism of any kind for me. Until like high school. Yeah.

Yeah. It was like high school is when school newspaper hits. Right. Okay. Just making sure. Yeah. Before that, it's just all you just trust what you hear over the loudspeaker. And if that isn't a totalitarian regime.

Exactly. I was very envious of those classes where you'd see like they have the morning news where you got to be like a newscaster because I would have totally been that girl. But like I didn't, we didn't have that. Yeah. I didn't have that. No. that girl but like i didn't we didn't have that yeah i didn't have that no we had like a teenager that went to the principal's office to do the announcements every day so the principal wouldn't

have to we just had the principal outsourcing their job to children wow well rude yeah well unfortunately for harriet marion her enemy wins wins class president. Then after school, Harriet goes off on her spy route. She spies on this guy who has a bunch of cats, dozens of cats. And now's a great time to mention cat facts with Caitlin. Cats have eight nipples. And there were many cats. I don't know how many cat nipples there were, but there's a lot. Anyway, I was counting my cat's nipples and uh there were many cat i don't know how many cat nipples there were but there's a lot anyway i was counting my cat's nipples the other day and i couldn't i couldn't get to eight some of them don't have that many make it my fact is actually not a fact well because uh that's what google told me the one time i looked it up fake news yep cancel me cat facts is fake news anyway okay so harriet's on her spy route she's looking at the guy with a bunch of cats then she

spies on the hong fat family at their supermarket she spies on the delivery guy who she thinks is stealing vegetables and she's writing all of this down in her notebook then we meet harriet's nanny golly played by rosie o'donnell she is a very important figure and mentor in harriet's life she's like she's a better parent than harriet's parents right who are these kind of upper crusts, don't seem to spend a lot of time with Harriet. I think her dad is like a comedy screenwriter or something. There's that exchange of dialogue where he's like,

I'm the funny man. I do the comedy. The other guys are the money men. I like to think this is commentary on how most male comedy writers are actually very uptight and not funny at all. Yes. Agree. Yeah. how most male comedy writers are actually very uptight and not funny at all yes agree yeah what an interesting choice of job for this upper crust family right yeah what were you writing on sir i'd like to know yeah is he yeah like what show because this show kind of like well part of what

i love about the aesthetic of this movie is like, it could kind of happen basically whenever like they do that cool thing where there's not any dated tech really included in the story. So you can kind of project it to be whenever. But yeah, I'm like, what? What if he was like, I'm a Seinfeld writer? And you're like, no, that canonically, what is he supposed to be writing that's really interesting i was kind of thinking that yeah who knows anyway one night uh golly invites a date over and it

turns out to be the vegetable stealer guy and they go out for dinner and a movie and they're late getting back to harriet's house and when they return harriet's mom is super worried because she's like where i didn't know where Harriet was. So she fires Gali, but then like immediately takes it back. But even so, this all transpires to Gali deciding to leave. She's like, it's time for me to go. Harriet is grown up enough now. And I'm going to peace out.

Also, Harriet's mom was being very unreasonable in that situation. Extremely. Yes. Like, this woman is raising your child for you. Can you chill? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, women be lashing out.

So, you know. Good thing she has her comedy writer husband to keep her in check. It's like, what? Anyways, whatever. Harriet's parents are weird. Yeah, they are. The whole thing is weird. Yeah.

But Golly leaves, and her parting words to Harriet are, you know, keep being a spy and keep writing. So she does. She does her normal spy route with the cat guy and the hung fat market and then she sees her friend sport struggling to pay for groceries and she pretends that he dropped a dollar outside so that she can like help pay for his groceries then she snoops around eartha kitt's house what a treat what a fun treat because you hear eartha Kitt before you see her. And so I was just like, no way. What?

What? And then it's her. And it's just, it's clear that she was on set for five hours. And then I was so, what a treat. So happy to see her. Oh, yes. But it's at Eartha Kitt's house that Harriet gets caught. And good spies never get caught.

So she's super down on herself for having been caught. So the next day, instead of doing her usual spy route, she decides to play with her friends. She's like, I don't deserve to be a spy. I'll do normal kid stuff. So during a game of bumper tag, Harriet drops her notebook and her nemesis, Marion Hawthorne, picks it up and starts reading it to a group of kids. And it becomes clear that it's basically a burn book where Harriet is just saying pretty mean stuff about all of her classmates, including her best friends, Janie and Sport. So now that this is all out in the public, everyone hates her.

And her friends ignore her. And the kids at school are passing around notes saying that Harriet smells. And they build a clubhouse for catching spies. It's a cool clubhouse. It is a cool clubhouse. It's a really cool clubhouse. I want that clubhouse for catching spies. It's a cool clubhouse. It is a cool clubhouse. It's a really cool clubhouse. I want that clubhouse. Right?

They duct tape it together. It's built the way that kids would build a clubhouse and I appreciated that. Exactly, yeah. Then her parents are like, you're obsessed with being a spy and it's not healthy and they make her give up her notebook and then there's

an incident at school where marion and her friends dump blue paint on her and she freaks out she goes home she rips her notebook up it's very big fat liar even though this movie came out before big fat liar i'm just like oh yeah paul giamatti got blue painted too it happens oh yep i haven't seen that why is that a children's movie trope just getting dumped on by blue paint by blue paint blue paint i don't know i don't know i'll write a think piece on it yeah please and then harriet decides to get revenge on her classmates for doing this and she carves like a hit list into her desk and very scary right wow she gets revenge by cutting off a girl's ponytail she ruins various school projects she tells marion that her dad doesn't

love her pretty traumatic things like that very rebellious very rebellious yeah she's listen harriet's a flawed character it's true we'll talk all about it and then there's like there's little moments too where like i love harriet so much but i'm like oh yeah she's also a rich brat where sometimes she'll do things where i'm just like oh you just like have so much privilege you can't see she lives in an enormous apartment really nice in the upper east side housework like a budget i i mean i mean so much it boggles the mind and it's also such a cool movie house it's rent controlled you guys they're they pay 700 a month to live there she inherited it from her grandma's grandma okay it's like friends right right so her parents are like uh-oh something's happening

with our daughter she's really lashing out so they take her to a child psychologist and this is when she's maybe starting to realize that what she was writing in her notebook was kind of nasty and it hurt people's feelings. So her parents give her notebook back and Golly comes back for a visit and Golly is like, here's the thing, you need to apologize and you need to tell some white lies because white lies are okay and also maybe try writing something other than notes in your notebook so then harriet goes to apologize to janie and sport they're still sour at first and then in class harriet suggests that people besides just the class president should get to write the school newspaper so the kid with the purple socks is like yeah i agree and harriet is a really good writer i

nominate her to be the editor of the newspaper it's kind of incredible how much the kid in the purple socks ends up coming through and having narrative significance at the end. You don't see it coming. You don't see it coming. And this is someone who Harriet said should hang themselves. It's really. And he really gets over it. He does.

This is the thing piece I want. Right. The kid with the purple socks went home and was like, you know what? stones may break my bones but good journalism is good journalism and then he advocates for her he sure does so everyone else is like yeah harriet you're the new editor of the newspaper so then she writes a retraction, apologizing, saying the things that she had written before weren't fair. She was too quick to judge people and jump to conclusions. And then the movie ends with her class dancing around during their winter pageant. Like in a gravy boat.

In a gravy boat. Harriet is an onion, I think. The costumes are pretty fun. It reminded me so much of, does anyone remember that episode of Hey Arnold where there are fruits in the play? Yes. That's another like fun children's media trope. Like we got to dress up the kids like food people love it a million percent it's so good and that's the story so let's take a quick break and then we will come right back to discuss hey i'm gianna pradenti and i'm jamae jackson gadsden we're the hosts of let's talk offline a new podcast from linkedin and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions like,

how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed? Or can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Sanner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself. Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career

without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The only Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right. The queen of comedy herself. Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhardt in you. Oh, my God. I would love it.

I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, you have to. No, I know. I'm so behind. Katherine Hahn can sing. Oh, I'm really good at karaoke. What's your song? Yeah, what's your song?

Oh, I love a ballad. I felt Bjork's music. I just was like, who is this person? I got to hawk this slalom, Ludie. Not hawk the slalom. I absolutely love it. It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous.

Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Where to begin with Harriet? I mean, should we just start by by talking about Harriet? I suppose so. I think there's no better place. The first thing I want to say, I think, is that because I didn't remember what the movie was about, like my 10 year old brain just completely forgot I assumed that this story was going to be kind of like a Nancy Drew type story where like Harriet would have to like solve a mystery because she's a spy and she comes across a thing that she needs to figure out interesting but I think what happens in this movie is way more realistic to what an 11 year old girl would get involved in rather than

like somehow being able to solve this like this mystery right so i thought that was actually really cool because as i was watching it i was like what's what's the miss when's the mystery gonna happen when are they gonna establish and i'm like oh wait a minute that's not what this movie is about it's about her yeah I like that she like it they make it clear that she's like devoted to what she does and she is good at it but you're also like but like what is she doing which is how all of us when we were 11 did things like we were just like yeah this is important and this is cool and then at the end they're like well what did you accomplish and you're like nothing nothing I got into a fight with my mom right Harriet is such a cool complicated character where I was

I was really like kind of like really impressed with how this movie just like goes there with like parent conflicts and um the like subtleties of like communicating that Harriet's parents are like kind have like failed her in some ways and that there has to be a conversation about how they have failed her in some ways and how they just don't really understand her and there's like class stuff tackled in this movie where like Harriet doesn't clear I mean clearly demonstrate through how she treats sport like doesn't understand class really at all and like has to learn that and she like fucks up but it's still I don't know yeah it like the movie tackles so many different things that are all like stuff that

affects kids, but it does it in a way that is still appealing to kids. It's like, it's incredible. Yeah. They do a good job because it's, it's Nickelodeon. I think it was one of the first movies that Nickelodeon had released.

And I was reading about it because I think it's interesting that the book by Louise Fitzhugh is, has been banned. It's on banned books list for different like school, like children's libraries and school libraries and things like that. Yeah. I don't remember ever seeing it in a school library. Oh, which is like, because it goes back to the thing of like, our, you know, parents probably have this weird relationship with the movie because it's like, the parents failing and they're not, you know,

failing their child and not being there for her. But I like the idea of like the power of words, like teaching the kids what the power that they have with their, what they say and what they think and how they express it. I also was thinking about, I like sweet little golly, um, and her relationship. I love that, that relationship between the two ladies. But, you know, I was like, oh,

this is how I'll be able to teach my kid about how to white lie and how that's okay. I was like, I'm going to take that. I mean, like that scene is such a cool, like big swing of like, I don't know,

like just like that just shows how seriously the, like writers of this movie take their kid audience of like I don't know like just a like that just shows how seriously the like writers of this movie take their kid audience of like they don't doubt that that'll like right you know resonate with them yeah I mean I think like the whole way through with Harriet like she is flawed so I go back and forth I'm like am I supposed to be like rooting for her this whole time or am I supposed to kind of I'm learning things as a 34 year old woman from Harriet um but you know at the end of the day like with that sweet scene at the end it's like sometimes you have to lie but to yourself you must always tell the truth like that's it you know so I think there were really really great messages along the way for and nuggets for these kids to actually take even though though, you know, our 10 year old brains were like, I want to be a spy, you know, and that's it.

But like having these like non conformist women at the helm of a film where you go like, oh, I, you know, the underrepresented is represented in a way. Yeah. I love her relationship with Gali. I think her relationship with Gali is so beautiful and cool. And I feel like a really good model of like how adults can treat children not with kid gloves. And it can be like a very like that. That's just like how you should treat a kid generally um i love like that scene where um golly like listens to harriet she cares about her interest she supports what harriet's interested in and then also like does that cool thing where like it's like an adult

takes you seriously and then tries to like expand your knowledge where she like brought her to see that movie about Mata Hari and she knows about Josephine Baker and like all these female spies or I yeah I think like Gali is such a cool character and and the fact that we also get a little look into her personal life and her interior life because i feel like in in these movies that mostly hang out in like the upper crust uh class the only poor characters you see have no interior life that we're made aware of but it's like golly has a life and she has interest and she and she advocates for herself when like harriet's, you know, like treats her like shit. She's like, no, I'm out of here.

I don't I don't need to put up with this. I also love the femme fatale movie theater. I was like, OK, it's great because they went to like a femme fatale like film festival. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then they like saw I think it was a real movie that was like based on like matahari's adventures and i don't know these are like women that i remember i like wrote a like a report on matahari when i was a kid because i'm like oh spies like it's yeah their relationship is great and it made me cry when collie left the first time it's really she's like maybe i'll

travel like yes i know you're just like all right i want to go with golly some other things that i like that we've already touched on but like i guess in terms of um harriet's friend group so you know you you heard what um what Vanessa had to say, but the fact that, you know, Harriet's two friends are Janie, who is a woman of color in STEM. It's so rare to see little black girls doing science on screen or having an interest in science in any media that that was really remarkable and and also doesn't like make a big i feel like a big thing there is also just like normalizing it and not making it this like big focal point it's like yeah janie likes science this is what she does this is how she acts blah blah blah and like it just is she's also has like a fascination with very destructive

science she's like i love the h-bomb i love the mushroom cloud yeah manhattan project let's do it and we're like all right she's obsessed with laser beams that would like disintegrate people she'll work it out in therapy later right all these kids are in therapy oh yeah yeah Janie is awesome and I was also um kind of just based on other movies that we've covered in like tropes that we've noticed over the years um I think I'm thinking of the craft uh where uh normally you know in in a movie where there's only one person of color and usually specifically a black character, you don't get to see their home life or their home life is kind of excluded from the narrative. And that, again, is just like not the case for Janie. And it's done

in a very like just a normalized way of like you see her mom her mom's like stop blowing things up and you're like all right cool there we are um you get a peek at the home life and and like I guess to be fair not in the same amount of detail that we get for Harriet and for sport um but you do get to see her home life her relationship with her mom and it's you know it's like a meaningful part of the story and then i mean speaking of sport i also like that the movie normalizes girls being friends with boys because i think a lot of media targeted to children would try to emphasize a divide between girls and boys and like how oh girls or turn it into like a crush narrative too yeah yeah but they're just

you know platonic friends there's no indication at least in the movie that any of them have any you know little crush on anyone else no they're busy they are they're too busy being spies and you know making spores in their bedroom and and like that. And then with sport, there is, like you said, Jamie, some attention is drawn to class because, you know, Harriet comes from a well-to-do family, whereas sport. I mean, to say the least. I mean, yeah. Is her dad Larry David?

Like, how is a comedy writer having that house? Who knows? it like how is a comedy writer having that house right who knows yeah sport comes from a poor family who his dad is also a writer but you know there's that line where harriet says something like my dad would call guys like your dad a starving artist get a real job yeah why won't harriet's dad staff sports dad if he's the showrunner of Seinfeld, give sports dad a job on the show. I know, right? But what if he's a shitty writer? That could be it. Well, he does sell something for $10,000 at the end.

That's true. That's something. I like this sweet little scene where she climbs up and she's spying on sport. And she sees sport with his uh with his dad and they're running around like with you know having this like grand old time with a chicken hat or whatever that thing was yeah um but yeah it i think it also shows that like happiness comes in different forms and and being fulfilled in a different way for children to kind of understand that like that you don't need money to have a

happy family was also like pretty, pretty powerful, I thought. For sure. I mean, there's definitely an existing trope where children from poor families or just poor families in general are miserable. And often there's like this idea that like, oh, parents of a poor family are abusive or negligent or, you know, any any manner of like really negative stereotypes. And we don't see that at all with sports family. Well, I will say just a little bit that like sport, I guess I think that sports dad is kind of weirdly written in some moments. Like he's not a good parent. He's not written to be a good parent because like Sport is the one who is like doing the cooking and like buying groceries

because his dad is too depressed to write his shitty book. So I feel like it is not like entire, like, I don't know. Yeah, fair point. I feel like, I mean, this movie and this story goes out of the way to give kids a lot of agency. But like sport seems to be running the house and he's, you know, 10 or 11. Right.

That's fair. I mean, which does mean we see a little boy doing a lot of like domestic chores, which we never see. The context of it, though though i don't know it doesn't like is i don't i mean yeah it seems like he has uh you know a depressive parent but then it's like that thing where they're like well depressive equals art so best not to deal with it so i don't know i was a little concerned for sport even when things started working out for the family uh because i'm just like are we does does sport still have to cook tonight like can this dad learn how to make a box of mac and cheese for his son please right i was just worried about sport there there is a an exchange of dialogue that i thought was

really powerful and i think would have been especially powerful to see if i had remembered it as a child when i saw it but you know harriet says something like i hate money and sport replies with you'd like it a lot more if you didn't have any right which is such a like you know harriet's coming from this really privileged place so of course like she gets to hate money because money doesn't a lack of money isn't affecting her like she doesn't have to worry about that right she's never had to yeah she's never had to like really think about it um one of the things where I feel okay so Harriet I like that the that there is some like class diversity in in this movie as well. And one of the I think, cool things that Harriet does as a little rich New York kid, is that she gets to go to therapy. And I was kind of like when this scene

came up, I was like, Oh, you know, it's like 96. You don't really know which way this is going to go. Because I feel like, especially during this time, there is still like significant stigma against any kind of therapy and you would sometimes see therapy characters made out to be kind of like kooky and like kind of like snake oil salesmen and you know they're like how are you feeling and they don't actually understand they're not actually listening but I really love the direction that this movie takes it, which is that it is helpful for Harriet. And the fact that she went to therapy, even though she herself was skeptical of it, ends up improving her parents' understanding of her more so than her understanding of herself but I was happy to see that therapy and like mental health stuff was not made a joke of because I feel like that's an easy joke that you kind of see a lot in movies in the like 90s early 2000s true yeah I think you still have a

long way to go with therapy still and mental health even though we're moving in a forward motion but I I'm actually we're watching Sopranos for the first time right now where I think they're doing a really wonderful job with the way in in that world like you know handling and approaching the topic of mental health but like they bring their son to you know their son's not paying attention they think he has add he's gonna get tested it's like i i want to see people go who don't have major overlaying issues meaning that like you have to go to therapy because just because of that like i we always see kids being brought to therapy because they're troubled rather than just being able to say like therapy's okay for everybody true you know and it's ultimately in this case it seems like harriet is being part of the reason rather than just being able to say like therapy is okay for everybody. True. You know. And it's ultimately in this case, it seems like Harriet is being,

part of the reason Harriet is being sent to therapy is because her parents are not doing the work they need to do to understand. Right. It's just as much of them, like they should also be in therapy. And I hope that they are. Right. Right. Well, the movie kind of frames it that golly leaving is the

catalyst for trauma yeah yeah it's it's it's Harriet's trauma and it's why she sort of lashes out and because like what happens is that people find her notebook where she has said all these you know perhaps truthful but still mean things about all of her classmates yeah and then they they retaliate against her because they're like you can't say this horrible stuff about us that's mean and they kind of shun her but she retaliates against them again for having been shunned really doubles down she doubles down and it's like but like that's also a realistic thing that I think a lot of 11 year olds would do. I honestly watching this.

I'm like, I anytime I see a movie where kids like kind of act out in a funny way. I'm like, I wish I was. I wish I was like a bolder child. And I like recognize at the time. I'm like, this really isn't going to have that much of an effect on my life. I should just do some fucked up weird stuff. She gets like there she really doubles down in a way i would not have been brave enough to attempt as as an 11 year old

it's inspiring yeah because i think uh maybe a movie that had a lesser understanding of like children's behavior and psychology would just have it so that her book got found all of her you know mean notes were revealed and then she would just be like oh my gosh i'm so sorry everyone better now but like no that's not harriet it spirals out of control and i could like totally see myself like me i don't think i ever did anything quite like that but like you know when you're a kid and you don't know how to hold yourself accountable for any misdeeds you did, right, you're gonna keep lashing out because you just don't know how else to process anything. Right. I had a really embarrassing thing. Like not I mean, not as it wasn't a mean thing. But

when I was in fifth grade, I left an open document at the computer lab saying that I was like trying to pass. I don't know. Anyways, my teacher was Mr. Brewster and I had typed the words Mr. Brewster hot. And it became a thing that was, you know, it was not an easy time to have been the girl that typed Mr. Brewster hot. Because I meant it as a question, not as a statement, not that anyone would believe me. I meant Mr. Brewster hot. But the punctuation wasn't there. And so it and, and I just doubled down in saying that it was a question and not a statement, which made the whole thing worse. And being a child is a full full-fledged nightmare it's traumatic you really I think about it all like even thinking about it now just still puts a pit in my stomach of like don't you damn should have just pressed backspace like it would have been so easy that's basically the plot of

Love Simon by the way I yes I was uh it's actually based on me and Mr. Brewster's story. They licensed it from us. Wow. Incredible. Yeah. Let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for more discussion. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadsden. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline, a new podcast from LinkedIn News and iHeart Podcasts. When you're just starting out in your career, you have a lot of questions. Like, how do I speak up when I'm feeling overwhelmed?

Or, can I negotiate a higher salary if this is my first real job? Girl, yes. Each week, we answer your unfiltered work questions. Think of us as your work besties you can turn to for advice. And if we don't know the answer, we bring in experts who do, like resume specialist Morgan Saner. The only difference between the person who doesn't get the job and the person who gets the job is usually who applies. Yeah, I think a lot about that quote. What is it like you miss 100% of the shots you never take? Yeah, rejection is scary, but it's better than you rejecting yourself.

Together, we'll share what it really takes to thrive in the early years of your career without sacrificing your sanity or sleep. Listen to Let's Talk Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. your podcasts. one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state.

And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. This is Matt Rogers. And Bowen Yang.

We've got some exciting news for you. You know we're always bringing you the best guests, right? Well, this week, we're taking it to the next level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Las Culturistas. That's level. The one, the only, Katherine Hahn is joining us on Lost Culture East. That's right, the queen of comedy herself.

Get ready for a conversation that's as hilarious as it is insightful. Tune in for all the laughs, the stories, and of course, the culture. I feel some Sandra Bernhard in you. Oh my God, I would love it. I have to watch Lost. Oh, you have to. No, I know, I would love it I have to watch Lost Oh, you have to No, I know, I'm so behind Katherine Hahn can sing

I'm really good at karaoke What's your song? Oh, I love a ballad I felt Bjork's music I just was like, who is this person? I gotta hawk this slalom, Rudy. I'm not going to hawk this slalom. I absolutely love it.

It was somehow Shakespearean when you said it. It was somehow gorgeous. Yee, my slok, you hollum. Listen to Las Culturistas on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. There are some, as well as this movie does, at exploring the intricacies of what it's like to be an 11-year-old girl

with abundant resources and parents who don't seem to be able to keep track of where their daughter is most of the time because she's off doing spy stuff and a new york a version of new york that is very safe very safe and quite white um which brings me to some of the issues that the movie has so one of her spy targets is the hong fat family and she says something like oh they have a son frankie he's cool american style and then the parents are cool chinese style and then she like makes a comment about how the parents would rather have frank Frankie working in the store selling milk and bread and lizards. So it's this joke made at the expense of like this immigrant family and like, ooh, this thing they do that's unfamiliar to me. Right. It must be gross or it's weird. It's other does not age well. Especially because it's like there's no I mean,, that's the end of, there's no commentary.

Like, it's just like, there's so many things. And it sucks because I wanted to believe better of this movie. There are so many things in this movie that Harriet is wrong about. And then she learns that she's wrong and gets some perspective on it. And you would think that this would be a great opportunity for you to be like, no, you're like a rich little white girl. You don't know what you're talking about here. But it just, it never comes for this storyline.

No, it doesn't. Unfortunately not. Does it not. I was also kind of bummed that, I don't even, they give this character a name, uh marion's i guess like sidekick yes her name is rachel yeah i don't love how that character is treated as one of like the only like non-white students that we get to know and that she's kind of like relegated to this sidekick role yeah and i also thought i mean marion's character in general i don't

know how i will i guess i don't know how i there's another weird class thing happening here because we've got sport who is very clearly from a low-income family we've got harriet who is rich but then marion is even richer and so she's the villain it's like it's right and that like i don't know i know that like rich people technically have feelings that we're supposed to like really care about it but it was just that whole storyline i was just like what is this like what because it's like i don't want to it's just like a rich girl being mean to another rich girl and then being like actually i should have thought more about the richer girl. And you're just like, I don't know how to care about any of this.

Because it's like demonizing extra extreme excessive wealth in Marion because they like have her say these really goofy things like, oh, horseback riding, if you can afford it, is a super fun activity. And then her idea for like a fun game that all the children can play is let's role play buying a Volvo. You'll pretend to be the rich couple and you'll pretend to be the car salesman. And everyone's like, boo, you're an idiot. So it's like, kind of hates her. Like, they love to hate her.

But then it's like, Harriet, you're also rich. Like, what do you like? She's, I guess, slightly less rich than Marion.

So Harriet's like, cool by everyone else. I don't know. Like, I ended up just kind of shrugging. Cause I'm just like, I don't, I guess that we're, I mean, to an extent,

we're supposed to like just be like, we love Harriet no matter what. But it's like, yeah, Harriet, like check yourself a little bit here. You're like, you're in, you're a three percenter and Marion's a one percenter. What's the fucking difference? Everyone relax. Also during that scene where like all the children are pitching games that they might play, someone says something and then Harriet says, no, that's our word. She says the R word, which again, a very 90s thing to do.

Even a very like 2000s, to some degree, 2010s thing to like that word was being used very casually it's still kicked around to this day to yes our right infinite frustration yeah um yeah i was that was uh i like jumped i was like no no there's 1996 how did you get here how'd you get in here can we talk about the queer reading of this story please so i was doing i have been known to do a little context corner myself every once in a while um not to step on your toes jamie i know i'm so sorry don't worry don't worry but i was doing some reading and um full disclosure i have not read the book that this is adapted from it was banned it was we couldn't read it it was banned access to it it was banned so the author louise fitzhugh was a queer woman the book has a pretty substantial

queer following uh the way and i think it has a lot to do with the way harriet was described in the book and just various actions and behaviors of hers throughout the story i wanted to read an excerpt from an article that i found from the guardian entitled harriet the spy helped me come to terms with my queer identity by Kat Patrick. Quote, Harriet the spy blurred the lines between right and wrong in a way that liberated my nine-year-old brain. As a kid who already felt left out by the mechanisms of femininity that everyone around me seemed to adopt with ease, Harriet was the blue denim baby butch I needed among the endless ballerina narratives. Back then, I didn't have the

words for what I felt fizzing through my inside. And even now, 15 years after coming out, I'm only just learning to feel comfortable with how I present non-binary butch, end quote. I recommend reading this entire article because the writer goes on to offer a queer reading on harriet's spy route the idea of having to tell you know little white lies to survive but also remaining true to yourself all of these themes that are explored queer listeners let us know how the movie resonated with you and the book if you've read it if you could get your hands on one, if you can even get your hands on it. Um, I think,

I mean, I, I, as, as far as the movie goes and where we always like want to know more about what our, our queer listeners think and what your read is. But I think that like a strength of the movie is that it doesn't force heterosexuality on its child characters.

Like they're just being kids. There aren't like those constructs aren't, there's no external pressure for that really coming from any direction, which is very, I didn't really, I mean, I didn't even, I was like so refreshed by it that I'm like, wow,

this really does happen in every other kid's movie because it just like is, it makes, creates so much room in the story for interpretation and just doing other things by not taking up too much real estate with like boy-girl crushes, which is also just boring and bad writing. Yes. I have some context stuff on the production of this movie. I mean, I pretty much love all of it um so this was uh directed by a woman a pretty young woman as well i think she was like 28 or 29

when she directed the movie it was her first big production her name's bronwyn hughes everything i've read about her i love she still still is directing mostly like prestige TV now. She directed a Better Call Saul episode this year. Like she's out here. But this was her first movie. And I just was like really interested in how she was able to direct kids in a way that feels so organic. Because Caitlin and I have like joked around before of like the way that some child actors are directed. It just does them no favors.

And the way that some child characters are written does them no favors. But like Harriet the Spy feels like this big outlier. And so I wanted to learn more about her was that they were just like she just had like the highest energy and she was like dancing with the kids all day. And so like takes what happened right after like Michelle Trachtenberg was like dancing around and then Bronwyn Hughes would be like, OK, now go. And that would like bring the energy into the scene. So here's a quote from Michelle Trachtenberg about it she says I don't remember her not dancing on set and music was always playing it was really cool and in terms of performance art she was pretty ahead of her time it was also a great way to direct

children and keep things alive and so I I just I don't know I ended up finding a new director that I really want to see like more of her work just based off of and even like the pacing of it has like such a cool like jazzy kind of pacing and some of the shots you're like oh this is like kind of like art school for for a kid's movie I like it right totally yeah that just the colors and like the tone of the whole thing is like it's a like a little quirky but yet still like a little gritty at the same time like has tone of the whole thing is like it's like a little quirky but yet still like a little gritty at the same time like has that New York grit to it and I agree I just wanted to know more about her because I thought she did like a fabulous job and it's really hard

to direct kids I mean I'll tell you like when I was a kid they would always just like there would be really good directors and really bad directors um and I I recently had to direct a child he's a bit younger so that was even harder but like it's it's a it's a big mighty task to take on yeah and she just like kills it and brilliant and and you have to imagine that having a female director on this movie made a big difference too and just like how do we see the kids and so there's also two credited writers on this movie one is a man named douglas petrie um who has done a ton of mostly tv writing but on shows with a pretty good reputation for representing women you have he was like a staff writer on buffy the vampire slayer Forever he wrote on Angel he's written a

lot of well-regarded female comic book characters I don't know shit about comic books don't at me and then the other writer is Teresa Rebeck who is famous for she's like a legendary female mystery writer and is known for writing like mysteries that have like a feminist character at the center so it seems like they just really brought together a really solid team of majority women to make this movie happen and it's it feels like a great example of like a great product that you can get if you just kind of get some at least some of the right people in the room I wonder how passionate they were in in finding the director and finding Bronwyn like how passionate they were about finding a female director for this film because I think it could have been completely different film without a female director and a female perspective. And like, you know, nowadays, it's a requirement for a lot of films.

And so I would just be curious in that time, you know, how much of a stickler they were for it or if she was just the right, you know, pick. Like who was pushing for it. It's interesting because I feel like, especially in this era, like Nickelodeon has kind of a better track record with how its females characters are written and treated than it you know if you're going pound for pound against Disney which you

know their history with women is maybe not so great I was also kind of surprised that this movie was not particularly well reviewed it was not at the time and and a lot of this i will chalk up to especially in the 90s older white male film critics being like but i didn't see any this wasn't for me and then just kind of being like see ya right but yeah it seems like it was a movie that was misjudged in its time as well which is which was just guess, kind of strange to me because I've truly never heard a bad word about this movie before going back to the original reviews. And I disagree with all of them.

They're like, where's the mystery? She didn't even solve a mystery. I'm pissed. Oh, no, I had that same thought. Am I bad? You're double canceled. I'm double canceled. But in any any case it's definitely i think a movie that's reputation has really like solidified over time apparently what it didn't in in the moment i mean it has to be a bit of a cult following right

like a little bit and i i think tonally those weird know, that art feel that I think you mentioned earlier, it's like some people get it and some people don't. And the tone of this is really quirky, a little off kilter. And I feel like if you're not the blockbuster that they're looking for or the mainstream, it's not going to be well reviewed, but other people will get it. Yeah, I feel like the core, the intended audience of this movie got it yeah and like it wasn't written for old guys and so they perhaps did not get it i also wanted to mention just because i'm like this is interesting theresa rebeck she wrote the screenplay for the Halle Berry Catwoman movie.

Oh, wow. And you're like, oh my goodness. Cinematic masterpiece, Catwoman. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, people contain multitudes. They sure do. I wanted to touch a little bit on some of the adults in the movie. Yeah.

One, I appreciate that the teacher was not villainized the way that a lot of kids movies will villainize educators sure she was maybe made to seem a little oblivious perhaps but she wasn't this like mean authoritarian teacher the way that a lot of again like kids movies will be like teacher bad um bad. And I understand that. Well, yeah, from like the kids' perspective. From a kids' perspective, sure. Teachers suck. Or sometimes they're hot.

Something to consider. Hot, question mark, or not, question mark. The teacher also magically disappears after cleaning up Harriet with the blue paint, which also gave me a slight panic attack. I was like, everybody get off of her. She just disappears. Yeah. She's like, let's clean Harriet up. And then, you know, Marion's like spill. And then where's the discipline? But yeah, that was just a quick little thing I had. And then another quick, very quick moment in the movie but i appreciated this it's after harriet has tormented

her entire class and cut their hair off and strung a bra up on the flagpole and like all this stuff she is at home and her parents come in and they are trying to figure out like what's happening why did she do this and her dad comes in and he says something like, I used to mess around in school too. He's like trying to make light of the situation. And then her mom says something like, you always do that. You always make jokes. And then I have to come in here and be the grumpy one, which like, it's not what this movie is about at all. It's like this tiny little moment that you would probably blank and you miss it kind of thing but i just appreciate that small attempt to show that it is in a like mother father household it

is often the mother who has to bear the kind of emotional burden and the emotional labor of like being the disciplinarian whereas the dad gets to be like, oh, I'm goofy, I'm fun. I don't know how to discipline my kids. It's not my job. I think we talked about this a lot in the Mrs. Doubtfire episode. And that's also true of, I mean, every family show I remember watching as a kid

was like, you know, shrewy mom that occasionally has a scene that's like but i love you and then like goofy dad right it's canon it made i remember my dad used to get really mad about it he's just like i don't i mean it's not really a fair of like who cares but he was just like not all dads are stupid. I'm like, yeah. How does it feel to be negatively portrayed in media, dad? I just a bit like just the mom acknowledging that and like acknowledging that frustration of like, you get to be the fun one and I have to come in here and be the grumpy one. Like I found that

just to be a little a little sliver of something I enjoyed. Just a nugget. Just leave it there. Yeah. And I liked that you do get a scene with Harriet and her mother where like Harriet, I mean, we as an audience already know that Harriet's parents are very flawed parents that don't really understand their child because they haven't spent time with her and listened to her. Like if they had spent the same kind of time that golly had they would have a better understanding of her and i like i mean

it's just like another shade of gray that this movie shows you with like how kids relate to people in their lives that i thought was really nice of like her mother admitting that she was wrong and that she doesn't always understand her daughter and that like that can be true and she can be trying to be better and you know you hope that moving forward that like I don't know it's it's nice that Harriet got because Harriet does does like deserve an apology from for how her parents treat her and it would have been nice for it to come from both parents but I did like that mother-daughter scene where you even though I'm like this mom needs to get it together you're also like well okay she acknowledges that she you

know has work to do and that both parents have work to do and I thought it was handled you know pretty well yeah for sure there's another one last little thing is the and this is like hardly anything but there are two different scenes in the movie where the kids are watching like you're developing bodies going through puberty this is how it's gonna be like old really old videos right so they're like from the 60s or something yeah um and then like the fact that harriet pretty much body shames one of her classmates for like having grown boobs over the summer is again not something that we admire or recommend children do but it is again just such a a realistic thing

because like you know as young kids their bodies are changing they're going through puberty they don't know what's happening they if they see someone else going through puberty first they think it's weird and gross and like again every basically everything that Harriet does and and her thoughts well some of them are like pretty violent and I don't condone at all, like the, like the kid with the purple socks should hang himself. That other girl, someone should just kick her.

Like those obviously are not okay. And there's no justification for them, but other ones, I'm just like, of course you think that because that's such an 11 year old understanding of bodies or of like socioeconomic class and, you know, just different things like that. So while some of them were quite troubling and violent, other ones, I'm like, I mean, I don't like that she said this, but I understand because it's super realistic. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like it's complicated. It is complicated with Harriet the the spy you know why that just speaks to like it's so refreshing to see like a complicated depiction of a little girl of any female care i mean we like yeah female characters are so often written to be so flat and stock and stereotypical that it is nice to i mean we talk about like women should be allowed to be mediocre in movies women should be allowed to like fuck up and make mistakes and like that's really most of what Harriet is doing is like having to learn major life lessons having to apologize

for various misdeeds things like that and And yeah, I think it's actually very refreshing to get to see like a little girl go through that arc. It's true. This movie is fun. Yeah, kudos to the, you know, like Nickelodeon for, because they're saying like age nine is like the common sense age. And like most would be too pure, you know,

and not allow any of these issues to really uh come to the forefront of the film so like yeah i i really yeah it's i'm like it's very hard to imagine a like disney in 1996 taking a female protagonist this seriously so i'm glad that harriet was out there for us does anyone else have any final thoughts about the film? I don't think so. The last thing I want to say is feminist icon, Agatha K. Plummer, AKA Eartha Kitt's character,

who we only see. Is she supposed to be like Agatha Christie? I was like, is this an Agatha Christie reference? What is Eartha Kitt doing in there? I don't know, but one of the few lines of dialogue she has is she's talking on the phone with someone and she says i have the secret of life you simply crawl into your bed and never ever leave it again which in the quarantine is

something that i have been doing so thank you you. Aspirational. For that. Agatha K. Plummer. Agatha K. I'm just like, I feel like it's an, especially because it's like a female mystery story. I'm like, this has to be some weird

Agatha Christie, at least reference. I'm guessing. Yeah. Maybe. Don't know. Shrug. Does Harriet the Spy pass the Bechdel test by any chance yes

yeah all the time lots of different combinations of characters harriet talks to golly to janie to her mom to her teacher to marion yeah lots of different combinations of characters and they're taught they're not talking about boys or men hardly ever and there's also non-harriet combos too like janie talks to her mom and marion talks to rachel and there's yeah there's a lot of good this this handily passes the test absolutely let's rate it on our nipple scale zero to five nipples based on its representation of women i would i would give this i think like a four um i'll take some points off for the very 90s punching down humor and language that we see here and there especially because i read that in the book it's an italian family that she spies on

it's the de santi family um so the adaptation deliberately changed it to the hung fat family um and then made harriet be kind of racist so you know you don't get a nipple for that you don't get a nipple for that also just like i mean even though the movie does address class it is still like and here's this you know wealthy white girl and her story because that's the story that you know we feel needs to be told more than other people's stories so you know not not a perfect film or story, but I do think it... But much closer than most movies we've covered. For sure.

So I'll give it four nipples. I'll give one to Janie. I'll give one to Janie, the character, and I'll give one to Vanessa Chester. Thanks again so much to her for chatting with us and giving her input. I will give one to your voice, Jenna, that is present in the playground or the, you know, the various scenes. And I'll give one to Harriet. No, actually, I'm going to give my fourth nipple to Eartha Kitt and her just wanting to stay in bed for the rest of her life. Can relate. Yeah, I'm going to go with four nipples on this, too. nipple to earth a kit and her um just wanting to stay in bed for the rest of her life can relate

uh yeah i'm gonna go with four nipples on this too i think for 1996 this movie does very well but it still has i mean as we discussed it has its shortcomings it has its datedness and it has uh as most children's media a fixation on a rich white family above any other family. It loses the nipple for that. But in terms of creating a fleshed out, not hyper-sexualized female character that makes mistakes, that learned from those mistakes, maybe not as many mistakes as we would have liked, but more than I expected, to be honest. Yeah, just like has a full life and is allowed to fuck up and learn

and have interests that are not hyper feminine and and eat mayonnaise sandwiches and shit like it's all great. And I do generally I like the small class commentary. I mean, you know, probably could go a little further, but it's a great movie. I really like it. I feel like it super holds up in most ways. So I'll give one nipple to Jenna's omniscient voice. I'll give one nipple to Michelle Trachtenberg,

one to Vanessa Chester and I'll I'll complete Eartha Kitt's set give her give her another nip incredible Jenna what about you yeah I would give it four nipples one nipple definitely does not get given any any attention yeah for you know the little uh i don't want to call them slip-ups but the shortcomings with the you know socioeconomic class and this young girl really who has quite a lot of privilege but i do i do want to say like i i give the four for the representation for kids and females to be specific young girls who like Harriet have sort of found their purpose in the world in a way like as a writer and is just trying to figure out where it fits in the world and to have a kid who has purpose I think that's why we you know as kids

related to her I at least I did as a young girl who had a purpose to or I wanted her purpose in that moment in time and I think that was not and still is not represented enough um in media so I definitely give the nipples to Rosie to uh Jake Cameron to Michelle and to Vanessa awesome Jenna thank you so much for being here, for joining us today. This is a blast. Thanks for having me. It's so much fun to break down Harriet the Spy. Absolutely. What would

you like to plug? Yeah, I'm mainly on Instagram at Jenna Ashkowitz and my last name is spelled U-S-H-K-O-W-I-T-Z. Yeah, we have I have a podcast called Showmance. It's a Glee recap podcast. You can find it wherever you find podcasts on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Podcast One.

And yeah, that's pretty much it. Awesome. I didn't mention before, but I am a Glee stan. I have seen all of Glee, and I love it. All of it. I think so. You were the one viewer seasons were there six oh yeah i lied i think i only made it to five i'm so sorry so you were part of the problem pretty good no no no that's that was pretty good thank you that it started long before that

oh that's awesome thank you so much oh of course i you can follow you can follow us on twitter and instagram at bechtel cast you can subscribe to our patreon aka matreon by going to patreon.com slash bechtel cast and subscribing for five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes yeah it's a good deal plus our entire back catalog of bonus episodes just hefty uh we and we you can get our merch at tpublic.com slash the bechdel cast if you feel like we're in stuff and thank you for listening oh and thanks again to vanessa chester for taking the time to talk to us be sure to follow her on social media and go back and listen to our episode with her on the movie book smart she's the best yeah and with that and the spy so with social distancing

that's kind of what spying is it's true it's just observing people at a distance spying is hot right now. The original social distancer. That's right. All right, bye-bye. Bye. Hey, I'm Gianna Pradenti. And I'm Jemay Jackson-Gadson. We're the hosts of Let's Talk Offline

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