The Baby-sitters Fight Club
The Baby-sitters Fight Club
BSFC #10: Logan Likes Mary Anne!
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In February 1988, four Jamaican athletes not named Yul Brenner raced a bobsled in Calgary, Salt-N-Pepa commanded the world to push it real good, and Logan Damn Bruno crashed the Baby-sitters Club. Brooke and Kaykay discuss all of this, plus the nature of art and the self, the insidiousness of 80s & 90s teen magazines, and the bravery of gender non-conforming insects.
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Welcome to The Baby-Sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the Baby-Sitters Club series of books by Anne M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel.
Kaykay Brady:And I'm Kaykay Brady.
Brooke Suchomel:And this week, we're traveling back to February 1988. When the number one songs of the month were Tiffany's"Could've Been," which I dropped a few bars for y'all a couple of episodes ago.
Kaykay Brady:I think of it often.
Brooke Suchomel:This is its month to shine. Yeah, it's your ringtone, right? When I call you?
Kaykay Brady:It's now my ringtone.
Brooke Suchomel:Excellent. Excellent.
Kaykay Brady:Actually, I rigged my doorbell. So, when someone drops off a package.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. And then we also had "Seasons Change" by Expose, which is a song that you don't remember until you hear it and then you know every word of the lyrics.
Kaykay Brady:Oh yeah, I think I remember it. It's like, "Seasons change. People change."
Brooke Suchomel:That's it. Expose, I think, is like the peak 1980s and early 90s band that you've completely forgotten about, but you hear their music-
Kaykay Brady:And you know every word.
Brooke Suchomel:- in a dentist office or something like that and you know it all. And then George Michael's "Father Figure," so those were the big songs of the month.
Kaykay Brady:Oh classic. Homo party.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, it was like, "What a shock!" when he came out, right?
Kaykay Brady:I know. People were as shocked when George Michael came out as my friends were when I came out.
Brooke Suchomel:All of those songs will be on our playlist for this month. But the most important song of that month, the most lasting song of that month, did not hit number one. It came in at its peak at number 19, but this was Salt-N-Pepa's"Push It."
Kaykay Brady:Oh yes!
Brooke Suchomel:It was their shining moment on the charts this month.
Kaykay Brady:"Working up a sweat!"
Brooke Suchomel:So great. At the box office, Good Morning, Vietnam and Three Men and a Baby were still huge, as was Moonstruck. Not so big at the box office, but much like Salt-N-Pepa's "Push It," probably having a bigger impact on pop culture, Hairspray, the original John Waters version, was released in February '88, too.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, I didn't realize that there was any kind of drag culture happening in the 80s.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. Which is amazing to think about, because if you go back and you watch some of the classic documentaries of the time, like Paris is Burning, there was a huge drag scene in the 80s.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, that's when it was really blossoming in New York City.
Brooke Suchomel:Totally. It just wasn't in, you know, the public lexicon at all. And so it seems like Hairspray is really when it broke through at some level.
Kaykay Brady:You know what I also didn't realize? I didn't realize the extent to which disco came out of the black scene and came out of the gay scene.
Brooke Suchomel:Same!
Kaykay Brady:And you know how you grow up with white dudes telling you that disco is terrible, but in your heart of hearts, you think disco is fucking amazing?
Brooke Suchomel:Right!
Kaykay Brady:But you feel like you can't stand up to the white dudes? Now I understand everything that was happening.
Brooke Suchomel:Okay, you're in my mind, because I had the exact same thought just a couple of days ago. I was listening to like Sirius XM or something like that, and I was just listening to an 80s station and some disco came on and I was like, "God, this music was so legit good."
Kaykay Brady:It's so dope!
Brooke Suchomel:It's the only good music of the early 80s.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, it's so good.
Brooke Suchomel:Until you hit, like, 1983 and the way that pop music really starts to change when you get the trifecta of Michael Jackson and Prince and Madonna coming onto the scene, changing the game in pop. Until that happens a little later on, I mean, think about it. Like, even 1980. Michael Jackson's Off the Wall is a straight disco album.
Kaykay Brady:Yes.
Brooke Suchomel:That's disco.
Kaykay Brady:And fantastic.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah! Growing up, disco was looked down upon. It was like "disco" was a slur, and I legitimately had no idea how straight up racist it was.
Kaykay Brady:Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel:Like, by design, the whole quote unquote"Disco Sucks" movement was a backlash to the way that, once again, a black cultural movement was becoming mainstream.
Kaykay Brady:Exactly. And the whole Comiskey Park shit where they collected disco records and blew it up and then there was a riot of white men.
Brooke Suchomel:Yep, sounds about right.
Kaykay Brady:Anyway, I'm so glad you're with me because I just had this revelation three days ago. Did we have the revelation on the same day?
Brooke Suchomel:Oh my god, I think I had it three days ago!
Kaykay Brady:Holy shit.
Brooke Suchomel:That's creepy!
Kaykay Brady:Makes me happy.
Brooke Suchomel:We've got the disco gods, like some gay god somewhere in the spiritual realm...
Kaykay Brady:You mean The God?
Brooke Suchomel:Right!
Kaykay Brady:You mean God?
Brooke Suchomel:Right. Well, see, I'm more, you know, of the Greek mythology, like there's multiple gods, right? And one of the gay ones came and spoke to us at the same time, like, "You guys gotta talk about disco in the intro to Logan Likes Mary Anne!" So we're coming through.
Kaykay Brady:I love it.
Brooke Suchomel:Heading back to what was going on in February of 1988, on TV, America's Most Wanted premiered.
Kaykay Brady:A classic.
Brooke Suchomel:The start of the true crime in pop culture phenomenon that we see today. And then the Calgary Olympics were held this month, at the end of February 1988. This is the Olympics that was featured so prominently in one of my favorite movies of my childhood, Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican bobsled team of 1988. But I was very sad to discover in my research for this episode that the team actually consisted of Jamaican Air Force members, and none of them were named Yul Brenner. So I feel a little bit betrayed.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah! How devastating.
Brooke Suchomel:I was really hoping Yul Brenner was an actual participant in these Olympics, but...someday. So, all of that was going on in February of 1988, and the 10th Baby-Sitters Club book, Logan Likes Mary Anne, exclamation point, was released. It's time for some back cover copy.
Kaykay Brady:My favorite part!
Brooke Suchomel:And I quote,"It used to be that Mary Anne had to wear her hair in braids and ask her dad before she did anything. But not anymore. Mary Anne's been growing up, and the Baby-sitters Club members aren't the only ones who've noticed. Logan Bruno likes Mary Anne! He has a dreamy Southern accent, he's awfully cute, and he wants to join the Baby-sitters Club. The Baby-sitters aren't sure Logan will make a good Club member. And Mary Anne thinks she's too shy for Logan. Life in the Baby-sitters Club has never been this complicated, or this fun!" End quote. So there's a lot of gender dynamics that come into play in this book, I think this book is probably the most overt that we've seen so far that really digs into the gender dynamics that are at play. I mean, I think it's interesting that even the
Kaykay Brady:No doubt. title, with the exception of Claudia and Mean Janine, each of the titles have only had one named character, right? And so far, all of the named characters have been either members of the Baby-sitters Club or, with Janine, the sister that is established. Here, we have Logan, a male character, another character mentioned in the title. Logan comes first. So it's not "Mary Anne Likes Logan." It's "Logan Likes Mary Anne," exclamation point. Good point.
Brooke Suchomel:There's a lot of gender issues that are discussed in this book. So I was curious in your take on this, Kaykay, as somebody who works with adolescents, what was your take on the portrayal of the gender dynamics that you saw in Logan Likes Mary Anne?
Kaykay Brady:Such a good question, but it's really hard to answer because I don't have a great sense of how kids are mixing gender wise. So in other words, I feel like it really depends on the kid. Some kids have a lot of mixed gender friends, and some don't. Mm hmm. And I don't know, I feel like the mixed gender friendship groups that I hear spoken of are much more comfortable than the ones that have been outlined in the book. Because in the book, the whole thing is so uncomfortable. Like, they invite Logan to the meeting, and then, what, somebody mentions a bra strap or something?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, Claudia starts laughing. It's at a moment where nobody really knows what to do. Like, it's clear that they're not used to, in that particular space, this is in Claudia's room for a meeting of the club. It's the first time that a boy has ever been there. And we know that Claudia and Stacey have been used to being in mixed gendered company because they used to eat at a lunch table-
Kaykay Brady:Which, by the way, what kind of bullshit is that? Your friend doesn't eat lunch with you?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah!
Kaykay Brady:Who said that? Mary Anne said that, right? She said, "Oh, last year, they chose not to eat with us." And I was like, "What?" When you're 12 years old, what do your friends do other than eat lunch with you?
Brooke Suchomel:Right. I always thought that was interesting. So that was the way that they dealt with lunch their seventh grade year, and my god, lunch is so frickin' stressful in middle school. Like you said, it's like that is where you communicate to the world-
Kaykay Brady:Who your tribe is.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, exactly. This is our tribe. The tribe all congregates together at lunch. And so Claudia and Stacey had already been sitting with this group of girls and boys, and Kristy and Mary Anne were with another group, which was just the girls, right? So it's interesting that Mary Anne... I think Ann M. Martin does a really good job at communicating the impact of eighth grade, for them to change it up. For Claudia and Stacey to choose to sit with Mary Anne and Dawn and Kristy. I actually tabbed this because it felt like a really important moment.
Kaykay Brady:I agree.
Brooke Suchomel:Where she says,"When we returned to the table with our trays," "we" is Kristy and Mary Anne, "we were surprised to find Stacey and Claudia there with their trays. Since when had they decided to eat with us? We were good friends, but last year, they always thought they were so much more sophisticated than we were. They like to talk about boys and movie stars and who was going out with whom. Had Stacey and Claudia changed, or had Kristy and Dawn and I? I almost said something, but I decided not to. I knew we were all thinking that eating together was different and nice, and also that we weren't going to mention that it was happening."
Kaykay Brady:Hmm. Yeah, I was so struck by that.
Brooke Suchomel:What struck you about that passage?
Kaykay Brady:I was really struck by the fact that they didn't eat together the year before, and they remained friends. Because again, you know, it feels like a really important thing when you're in middle school who you're eating with. So I was pretty struck by that.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, my take on it was in seventh grade, it seems like Claudia and Stacey weren't so much close friends with the other girls as they were colleagues.
Kaykay Brady:That's a good point. They always say that in the previous books, too, that they were the close friends, and then Mary Anne and Kristy kind of have their own best friendship.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. They associate because they're in business together. And, you know, it's not like they disliked each other, but just that they were in different places.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, that's a good point.
Brooke Suchomel:And now, it's like whether it is, you know, just growing closer after a year of working together-
Kaykay Brady:And being abused together.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. Good Lord.
Kaykay Brady:As nurses and teachers and therapists.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. We've all been exploited together, and so that bond that we have so strong. But I think also, you see in this book that it's talked about how Mary Anne got a bra, and so now Kristy is the only one in the club who doesn't have a bra.
Kaykay Brady:They talk so fucking much about bras.
Brooke Suchomel:This is a bra heavy book, yeah.
Kaykay Brady:It's a bra heavy- and I think they've talked about bras in other books, too.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. But this one, bras come up repeatedly.
Kaykay Brady:Yes. At least three times, I would say.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. The fact that Mary Anne gets a bra, and Kristy doesn't have one and she seems pretty self conscious about that.
Kaykay Brady:I was thinking of Bronx Beat. "Tell ya mother to take ya to Kohl's, get a bra-er." Shout out to Bronx Beat, my favorite SNL skit of all time. Yeah, all right. So I hear you, but I can't get behind those topics. Barf! What is it? Stars, who's dating whom? Vomit!
Brooke Suchomel:What Claudia and Stacey wanted to talk about? Well, and it's interesting too, as I was reading it out loud just now, "boys, movie stars, and who was going out with whom." But they mentioned that one of the things that you don't talk about with boys is other boys, right? They were at the table with other boys. So perhaps it's not super consistent, but it's a way of signaling that they were, frankly, further along the puberty spectrum than the other kids were. They saw themselves more as young teenagers, as opposed to older children, and I think that was sort of the divide. And I wonder, just looking at the structural standpoint of this, stepping back and sort of taking an academic view looking at the symbolism in these books, how much Dawn is the character that comes along to bridge that divide?
Kaykay Brady:Hmm, interesting.
Brooke Suchomel:Because you had the split when it was the four, there was this even split of like, Mary Anne and Kristy are seen as babyish, and then you have Claudia and Stacey seen as sophisticated. But then you have Dawn, who is in neither of those camps and doesn't give a fuck.
Kaykay Brady:Ah, you're really blowing my mind, and let me tell you why. Because there's something that's been kind of itching at the back of my brain about this topic, and it's just coalesced for me, which is they're really setting up this idea that in order to mature you need to eventually come along to clothes and boys and all of these heteronormative things. And it just really strikes me that it's sort of like that insidious cultural pressure, when you're a queer person, it's really hard to mature. Because you may not find those things interesting. And the larger culture sort of doesn't give you entree into that world, and so you're really infantilized for a really long time because somebody like Kristy, maybe in the book they're going to have it be that she does get interested in those topics. But, you know, if this really was a queer character, it's very possible she would never be interested in talking about boys or stars or who's dating whom. You know, she possibly wants to talk about other things.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:Lanyards. Golf.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, those are the top two topics of conversation. That's what I'm picking up on, right? I just want to make sure that I'm able to maintain a conversation with The Queers.
Kaykay Brady:Backpacks. Visors. I'll give you cheat sheets.
Brooke Suchomel:Okay, thank you.
Kaykay Brady:You're like, hold on, I've got a notebook.
Brooke Suchomel:Right."Lanyards."
Kaykay Brady:But it's just really interesting. And I'm imagining myself as a young queer reader, what that might have felt like, and it reminds me of the ways that I used to have to pretend to be interested in things that I could not give less of a fuck about to get entree into adult worlds and worlds of power and privilege.
Brooke Suchomel:Your point makes so much sense, when you said that it's kind of like you're infantilized until you start talking about boys. Because I remember that too, when I was a kid, it was like,"Oh, one day you'll like the boys," you know. And it's just like, when that happens-
Kaykay Brady:Then you've arrived.
Brooke Suchomel:That is the signal that you are no longer a young child anymore. You're no longer even, like, a child. Once that happens, you're on your way to, like, Young Womandom.
Kaykay Brady:Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel:If that is the marker, you're right, what doe that mean for a queer child who has always been told, "When y u're older, you'll understand"? That implication of "older" eq
Kaykay Brady:And "more mature" equals... als "more mature."
Brooke Suchomel:That's when you will start to be attracted to the opposite sex, when you're more mature. And so if that's the message that you're getting, and then you're just like, "I'm not attracted to the opposite sex, does that mean I'm immature?"
Kaykay Brady:Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel:I never thought about that. That's such a good
Kaykay Brady:It really creates this sense of a void for you, point. where you don't really know how to grow up. You're very lost, because the dominant paradigm is not interesting to you at all, but nothing really else exists. That's why it's so exciting today to look at the culture that queer kids are growing up in, where, you know, kids get to watch Drag Race and stuff. And I'm like, man, can you imagine little kids being able to watch Drag Race in the 70s or 80s? You know, yes, there was Hairspray, if you were plugged in enough to know that it was even happening and were able to find it. Or you lived in New York City or something like that. But for the vast majority of kids, you know, they were just living in this kind of stultifying, suburban, heteronormative...
Brooke Suchomel:Oh yeah. In the Midwest, I saw none of this.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel:There was none of this. Like, I knew that Hairspray existed, but I also knew that it was like, quote unquote, "weird," right?
Kaykay Brady:Yeah. Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel:Which made it more intriguing to me, but I also knew that it would not be culturally acceptable for me to express that interest.
Kaykay Brady:Of course.
Brooke Suchomel:So you just don't. Right? And I think that everything that you're saying, it really speaks to, and I don't know if Ann M. Martin is doing this deliberately or not, but I noticed throughout this book, Kristy is not engaging in these conversations.
Kaykay Brady:Great point! She's really just kind of a void in this book.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. You know, she comes up when they're talking about the bras. And you know, Mary Anne is like, "Oh shit, that means that Kristy is the only one of us that doesn't have a bra," and she just kind of sits there. She's not engaging in these conversations.
Kaykay Brady:And they say her mouth is agape at one point, surprised that Mary Anne has a bra.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, but she doesn't want to talk about it. And then the only conversation that she has with Logan is business related. When they're talking about, you know, the whole bra strap conversation that scandalizes everyone, So again, I wonder if that is deliberate? Or
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, I'm just so desperately interested in where Kristy is silent. Kristy does not partake in these if that is perhaps a subconscious choice on Ann M. conversations. It's such a good point. Ann M. Martin was in her life when she was writing these Martin's part, but it definitely wasn't lost on me. books. I mean, I'm really trying not to armchair psychoanalyze, but I'm so curious.
Brooke Suchomel:I really don't see how you could read these books and not think about that.
Kaykay Brady:I agree.
Brooke Suchomel:As I mentioned in earlier podcasts, these books felt more empathetic to me, and more focused on the true female perspective without being written for a male gaze. There are issues in these books, for sure, as with anything that was written 30 years ago.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, you can't avoid it.
Brooke Suchomel:Culture moves on!
Kaykay Brady:Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel:Like, what is advanced for 1988 is likely going to be retrograde for 2020. And that's a good thing!
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, it's kind of like, when you know better, you do better. It just is what it is.
Brooke Suchomel:Exactly. It's an indication that society itself has progressed.
Kaykay Brady:Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel:So I'm not knocking that, except to point out as an explanation, that seeing it laughed about how a boy snaps a girl's bra strap, and that's just what this boy is known for doing because it's funny, and the girls are laughing about it. How reading that as a child, when you read that, then you sort of internalize, "Oh okay, I guess I should find this funny."
Kaykay Brady:Yeah!
Brooke Suchomel:You know? You do that.
Kaykay Brady:It's horrifying. Yes, and it's so true. It's a perfect example of the way, you know, you get sort of brought along in the oppression.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. Almost desensitized to it.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, and it's not only non threatening, it's funny somehow. Like, "Oh, you're actually supposed to laugh at this." Whereas no fucking way, they'd get a punch to the face. I would not be feeling that.
Brooke Suchomel:So there are ways that I think, going through this now, if I was Ann M. Martin's editor, there are ways that you could change this where the story is the same and the voice is the same, but the way that is communicated, what the reader picks up on can change dramatically. So instead of it being, like, Claudia would laugh and say, "Ahaha, this is so funny," that Pete Black reaches behind Dorianne Wallingford at the movies and snaps her bra strap, because there are girls who will laugh at that. Because it's buying into the whole Cool Girl concept, that truly cool girls will find misogynistic acts funny and be able to laugh it off, because they don't take it so seriously, without seeing the pervasive ways that that sneaks into your own psyche and is detrimental to it. But I think that there are little changes that you could do where, you know, Mary Anne thinks,"Well, Pete was always doing that just to be mean." So it's good that it says "just to be mean."
Kaykay Brady:At least that's expressed.
Brooke Suchomel:"He was doing that to be mean" is better than,"He was doing that to be funny." I think Dawn would be the one in the situation to be like, "That guy's a jerk."
Kaykay Brady:Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel:You know, something like that. So that it's not just, like, Claudia thinking that it's funny, Mary Anne internally thinking, "Oh, that's mean," but then everybody else just being awkward, not that that happened, but that this was mentioned in front of Logan. That is where the shame comes from. So the shame is not- not even shame. Like, that shouldn't be shame. It should be irritation, for somebody to express irritation that this is something that a boy would do. To verbalize that. But instead it was like, "Oh my God. Now this boy heard us almost say the word bra strap."
Kaykay Brady:It's shame on shame.
Brooke Suchomel:Doesn't even say "bra." The "a" isn't stated, so it's just a "br."
Kaykay Brady:Just that "br." I mean, but it's so 80s, the shame on the shame.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:On the surface, it seems like a sort of innocuous story of kids being kids, or whatever. But you know, once you peel back that surface, you see this is a perfect example of the way that women are expected to deal with these indignities daily, laugh about them, and then they're actually too shameful to even share. You might be able to share them with other girls, but you don't share them with boys. You could replace this with sexual assault and the dynamics would be the same. So it's really interesting to look at, and it's so 80s.
Brooke Suchomel:Absolutely. As you're talking about that, I'm thinking about the symbolism of the bra. Again, bras just come up over and over and over again. How, much like you're told, when you start liking boys or start being attracted to the opposite sex, that's when you are growing up. In the same way, it's like, once you get a bra, that's when you're growing up. But once you get a bra, that's when you have a bra strap that boys can snap. Right? And even just that act, the snap of the bra strap. It's like, what is the point of that, except to demonstrate, "I know you're wearing a bra. I know that I can use that to like, physically hurt you." It's not like a snap of a bra strap feels good. It freakin' stings!
Kaykay Brady:It hurts.
Brooke Suchomel:This girl is just sitting there, watching a movie with a boy, you know? So she's like, "I'm on a date," probably. And then just out of the blue, boom, snap.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah. And something about your sexuality, gender is inherently to be mocked.
Brooke Suchomel:Yes.
Kaykay Brady:And not to be respected.
Brooke Suchomel:And to be used to hurt you.
Kaykay Brady:Right. Yeah, I'm imagining, as you're talking about this, rewriting the book, and Dawn jumping in and being like, "Don't you compromise her bodily autonomy, you patriarchal dick!" I hope they do that in the Netflix series.
Brooke Suchomel:Dawn is that character. So that's why I wonder if Dawn is the reason why they sit together. Dawn is that outsider. She literally comes from the outside. You know, Stacey comes from New York, but New York isn't that far.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, it's close enough. Everybody knows it.
Brooke Suchomel:She goes back and forth a lot, so it seems like there's some sort of connection. Whereas California is something that, like, it seems like people can't even comprehend it. It's like it feels so foreign and exotic.
Kaykay Brady:And the whole health food thing really appears to be Ann M. Martin's way of having this person fight against culture a little bit, right? Where everybody else is just kind of, we might have issues with this too, but the portrayal of everyone kind of eating thoughtlessly as the larger culture. And then Dawn comes in says, "No, I'm into healthy food. I think about this, I'm thoughtful about this." So I think you're totally right, that she is that figure that comes in and can make those kind of statements.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. And explicitly in this book, where Ann M. Martin just does a fantastic job representing the nervous energy of a new school year.
Kaykay Brady:It was great. It was great.
Brooke Suchomel:Where it's like, "Where am I going to sit? Are any of my friends going to be in this class?" So you're nervous, but you're also a little excited.
Kaykay Brady:And the dread and the hope of August, where you know it's coming.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. And you've got all of your new supplies, and, like, the satisfaction that you take in your new school supplies. You know, Mary Anne talks about how she has her brand new binders filled with fresh paper, she's got the new dividers in it, she lays out how she has everything sort of meticulously organized. With the new school year, you feel like you have a chance to start fresh in a way. Even your persona can be a little different.
Kaykay Brady:Exactly. I remember this so well, this feeling of starting fresh, the sort of hope for the new year. It's like you get reborn in the summer, to a large degree.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. So you see that in this book, one of the things that they do is Kristy and Mary Anne are like,"Now that we're in eighth grade, we have to start getting lunch from the lunch line." Like, they have to get hot lunch from school.
Kaykay Brady:It's time for gross hot lunch.
Brooke Suchomel:Yes, and they hate it.
Kaykay Brady:And they stuff it down.
Brooke Suchomel:Kristy takes glee... There's so much in this book that you're like, "Oh my god, Kristy is so obviously queer." She's queering things throughout this book. The way that she describes the school lunch, she is not trying to couch it. She's like, "This is like an old sweaty gym sock or blah blah blah blah," and she's saying it while they're eating. And then Mary Anne is like, "Oh, dammit," but Kristy is like,"Okay, I'm just gonna call out what this is."
Kaykay Brady:My favorite part was, they're talking about shopping for the school dance, and she's like, "Let's go to sporting goods!"
Brooke Suchomel:Yes! Yeah, I have that too.
Kaykay Brady:She's like, "What about a nice sweatshirt?" That made my day.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, I was like, yeah, she knows what she's doing here. Ann M. Martin definitely is being deliberate with that. But how Kristy and Mary Anne, even though they despise this lunch, they're gonna continue to get it and just hate it. Just choke down the food that they despise because it "looks babyish"-
Kaykay Brady:To bring your lunch.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. So they are going to not do what they want to do. They're literally going to consume garbage, which Dawn calls out explicitly as,"That's poison." Dawn is the only one sitting there, she's like, "I'm gonna bring my lunch."
Kaykay Brady:You go.
Brooke Suchomel:And she's like,"I'll tell you, that garbage that you're choosing to consume because you think that you have to? That's poison."
Kaykay Brady:She don't give a fuck.
Brooke Suchomel:And I love her for it.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, she's a strong character.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. So there's a lot of symbolism there. And I know that it is frowned upon, or at least when I was in graduate school and even in undergrad, it was like, you are not to read into any work of fiction anything that could possibly be autobiographical from the writer.
Kaykay Brady:Horseshit.
Brooke Suchomel:That was like gospel, right? And I remember really struggling with that with some of my stuff, because one of my favorite pieces of literature of all time, you know, I really love short fiction, and I love Babylon Revisited by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And you can't read that story and separate it from F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, you can't. It's so dumb. It's so dumb, and it also really shuts out... Okay, so we can do two things, right? We can either embrace the fact that people that create things and study things bring themselves to it. We can acknowledge that, and we can use that knowledge to have a deeper understanding of where they're coming from, their blind spots, their great insights, right? We can go down that path, or we can pretend that it doesn't exist.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:And we can lie to ourselves and pretend that we don't bring everything that we are, all of our biases, all of our perspectives, to things that we create. And we can all just sort of fight against personal insight. It's so stupid.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. I mean, it really requires you to say, yes, artists are simply a vessel for a muse. They're just a channel. Artists aren't bringing anything of themselves to what they create. You certainly shouldn't say, oh, this author is only trying to tell their own personal story for verbatim. I'm not thinking that Ann M. Martin literally grew up in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, and, you know, created a babysitters club with her friends, and their names have simply been changed.
Kaykay Brady:Right.
Brooke Suchomel:I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying that you cannot escape what authors bring to the written word that they create. Their perspective, all of it, shows up on the page, whether it's conscious or subconscious.
Kaykay Brady:Right, and what do you gain by trying to block it?
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:What does that possibly give you?
Brooke Suchomel:I don't know, it's like, "You should only focus on the thing itself and not the creator." Okay, but then you're missing so much of the context of the thing. Like, a thing, in and of itself, I don't think has inherent value. What has value is what that thing represents. And you can have a different take, I'm not saying Ann M. Martin is deliberately trying to say X, Y, and Z, what I am getting from it, but I am saying that you can't separate somebody's lived experiences from the work that they create. You just can't. It also brings richness to the conversation and understanding to the art. And, you know, it reminds me of therapists. Because there used to be this perspective, the Freudian therapists pretended like they didn't bring anything into the therapy room. They were not biased. They were like medical professionals, they just saw things scientifically, like one plus one equals two. And in the process, they really kind of oppressed a huge number of people with their bias and whatever they were bringing Then the new wave of therapists, the humanist therapists, they fully admit, "Hey, I'm a human being too, and everything I'm bringing into this room is affecting this conversation. And let's invite it in because we can actually learn a lot from it." Right.
Kaykay Brady:And I think it applies here with authors, too.
Brooke Suchomel:Absolutely. To that point, it's interesting for me to think about the portrayal of not just gender dynamics that you see here, because a queer person can obviously talk about the gender dynamics between what we've considered to be "gender." Not just at this time, but like, specifically in the 80s, it was like you had "boys" and "girls."
Kaykay Brady:Correct.
Brooke Suchomel:There was a gender binary and that binary was firm.
Kaykay Brady:Oh, yeah. It wasn't even questioned.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. So, you know, the fact that it's a queer author portraying these gender dynamics, and that it is about first love?
Kaykay Brady:Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel:And when I read it the first time, I probably would have been reading this sometime later on in 1988. So I'm reading this and I think,"Oh, this romance is ideal." Right? It seems like this is idealized, so it really sort of sets hold in my mind of what that should be. And reading it now, I do not see it as ideal. And I wonder, did Yeah, it's formative.
Kaykay Brady:I know, I'm so curious too.
Brooke Suchomel:Was this her trying to think about what this Ann M. Martin have experiences like this? relationship might be? You know? I don't know, but I do thin And if that queer first love was portrayed b that there's interestin questions to dig into. In m ch of the same way that I woul be like, okay, what if it was a a straight person, you know would tha-- and unfortunately at that time, of course, it woul n't have been. Like, you woul n't see a queer first love por rayed in a children's book.
Kaykay Brady:Of course. You would not. Well, that's why I think it's so interesting that, okay, so not only are you seeing the portrayal of the first love, you're also seeing a lot of the sort of machinations that the kids are going through trying to reach this new identity and growth. So this sort of meta understanding of, "Oh, these kids were like babies, and then they started to be interested in boys, and now they're like grown ups." I think just the fact that she's calling that out sort of shows her queer perspective. Because, you know, this is something that had to occur to her.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:Versus, you know, a straight person that might not even contemplate it. Because it's just like, "Oh, here's the story of a girl falling in love with a boy," and they wouldn't even have the sort of knowledge of those bigger meta questions at play.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, to me as I was reading it, I just felt... I'm worried about Logan. I don't know if you had that take.
Kaykay Brady:Lay it on me, girl. Um, I didn't contemplate- you know, like a true lesbo, I didn't have many thoughts about Logan.
Brooke Suchomel:That's why I'm like, okay, I wonder if we have different takes on this. To me, it felt like love bombing.
Kaykay Brady:Love bombing!
Brooke Suchomel:Do you know what I mean? You know, the way that cults will try and suck people in by just bombarding them with affection.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, they lay it on you.
Brooke Suchomel:As I'm reading this, I'm like, Jesus, it just feels like he's love bombing her. On page 96, this was the paragraph where I was like, okay, this is making it very clear what is making my spidey senses tingle a little bit with the way that he was. So this is again from Mary Anne's perspective. They went to the dance, and then he calls her the next morning, says, "Do you want to go watch the JV football game?" He sits with them at lunch Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday he sits with Mary Anne at lunch, just the two of them. Thursday, he invites her to go to the movies the next day. He just immediately inserts himself into her life in a big way, in a way that seems at least as significant as, if not more significant, than these friends that she's had for so long.
Kaykay Brady:That's such an interesting fact. You know, you're talking to a lesbian here. So in Lesbian World, that's moving slow.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, right. Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:You know?
Brooke Suchomel:There's no U-Haul.
Kaykay Brady:Insert U-Haul joke.
Brooke Suchomel:There's no U-Haul here.
Kaykay Brady:Does he bring a U-Haul to the second date? Then they're moving slow.
Brooke Suchomel:But she says, this is verbatim, the paragraph that follows that, "Needless to say, I was ecstatic. We still had a little trouble talking sometimes. But Logan always seemed so interested in me and in everything I did or said. It's hard to be shy around someone who thinks you're wonderful."
Kaykay Brady:It is a little creepy.
Brooke Suchomel:Am I meant to feel like this is coming on really strong?
Kaykay Brady:It's a great question.
Brooke Suchomel:Or is this just, you know, Ann M. Martin trying to write about the"insert U-Haul joke," right? Trying to translate the speed of a lesbian relationship into the speed of a teen heterosexual relationship? I don't know.
Kaykay Brady:Or some other version of that, which is, you know, maybe it's Ann M. Martin trying to imagine what that sort of "perfect" straight first few days, few weeks, looks like. Maybe with knowledge, maybe without.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:But I agree with you, it seems, in a series that is really incredible at showing the reality of interpersonal dynamics, it doesn't feel very realistic. It feels kind of fake.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. Because it's like, well, why does he like her so much?
Kaykay Brady:It's a great question. Why is he so curious about her?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. And I would perhaps be less concerned about it if it was any other character than the character who is known to be the quiet one, the shy one, the mousy one. So I'm not saying Logan is a potential abuser, but these are sort of the red flags you look for. Right? She seems like she would be the easiest target for control and manipulation.
Kaykay Brady:Wow, you're blowing my mind. No, you're totally right, and I missed it. Because I was just like, straight people, straight people, moving on. You know, I kind of glaze over. And I'm like, I guess this must be what it's like.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. I don't think it's what it's like.
Kaykay Brady:Well I will say, teens do, especially in first relationships, they do have a tendency to really kind of jump right in and obsess.
Brooke Suchomel:Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady:I don't know exactly why. But it is something that you kind of learn as you get older, that this is a feeling you're going to have again.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:You know, it's lovely and it's beautiful, and it feels like you've just met God on earth, but like, you really haven't.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, because especially back then, it was, there's "The One," right? The concept of "The One." Like, capital T, capital O.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, that was a very strong cultural trope.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, which is ridiculous.
Kaykay Brady:Princess Bride would be a perfect example of this at its most powerful.
Brooke Suchomel:Which had just come out a couple of months before, right? So this is definitely where the culture is. It's quite possibly just completely innocuous, but reading it 32 years later, you pick up on things that aren't so innocuous.
Kaykay Brady:Your red flags go up.
Brooke Suchomel:Did you notice that there is a place where gender dynamics get completely reversed? I got so goddamned excited.
Kaykay Brady:Oh, please share.
Brooke Suchomel:Jackie Radowsky's grasshopper.
Kaykay Brady:Elizabeth.
Brooke Suchomel:The boy named Elizabeth. Yes.
Kaykay Brady:No, the grasshopper named Elizabeth, right?
Brooke Suchomel:Right, but he said-
Kaykay Brady:Oh, it's a boy grasshopper.
Brooke Suchomel:It's a boy grasshopper. Yeah, yeah.
Kaykay Brady:I loved it. I loved it.
Brooke Suchomel:So again, how do you know it's a boy? You know, just checking the gender of your grasshopper. I'm not sure exactly how that works.
Kaykay Brady:Giant pendulous nuts. Clearly, we've all seen that.
Brooke Suchomel:Just the swinging grasshopper balls?
Kaykay Brady:The swinging nuts on grasshoppers.
Brooke Suchomel:They can't hop as high, because they're being weighed down by their giant swinging balls just being
Kaykay Brady:They just crawl. They just kind of crawl, like dragged along behind them. army crawl on the ground. " lizabeth, the grasshopper with giant ball
Brooke Suchomel:I just love that Jackie's like, "I gotta show you guys my grasshopper. His name is Elizabeth." And Logan goes, "You've got a grasshopper named Elizabeth?" And Mary Anne's the one who's like, "A boy grasshopper?" And Jackie's like, "Yep! I'll go get him."
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, Jackie!
Brooke Suchomel:You know? So that made me pretty happy.
Kaykay Brady:I was pretty delighted with Elizabeth, too.
Brooke Suchomel:Elizabeth, the boy grasshopper. Every word that is in a text is deliberate.
Kaykay Brady:Agreed.
Brooke Suchomel:Every word in a text is deliberate.
Kaykay Brady:You know, it's so funny that you say this, because I used to write reading group guides for paperback books when I was in the publishing industry. And I had a couple of cases where the authors would actually write me emails and say, "You've pointed things out in my texts that I didn't even know I put in, and now I realize I put it in really purposefully."
Brooke Suchomel:Yes.
Kaykay Brady:So just to your point, like, even an author might not know why they're putting something in or what the significance is to their own life, but your brain is your brain. And the things coming out of your brain are meaningful.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. And to be clear, with my whole argument that you can't separate the author from the text, I'm also not saying that what the reader takes away from the text is what the author is intending them to take away. I am not saying that at all. What I am saying though, is that every word, every punctuation point, everything that goes into a text is 100% deliberate, whether the author is aware of it.
Kaykay Brady:Conscious or not.
Brooke Suchomel:Or not. So the fact that there is, in this book that is so centered on gender dynamics that you actually get two separate gender characters mentioned in the same title, for the first time ever, including a boy character we've never met before. Like, he just drops in, and he is so important that his name is the first name in the title. This is the backdrop of this random aside. Even though they make it clear that he is your sort of stereotypical rambunctious young boy character, Jackie is a gender neutral name.
Kaykay Brady:Very gender neutral.
Brooke Suchomel:Even that stereotypical rambunctious young boy-
Kaykay Brady:He's just a red blooded American male with a grasshopper named Elizabeth.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, male grasshopper named Elizabeth. But that he's like, "Yeah, it's his name." In a way that today, it's just like if somebody is trans or non binary or whatever, okay, just don't mention their dead name. Mention their chosen name. That's their name now. He's sort of like, "Okay, my grasshopper. Yeah, it's Elizabeth. That's his name. Got a problem with it?"
Kaykay Brady:Deal with it.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, get over it.
Kaykay Brady:Love it.
Brooke Suchomel:So that made me happy.
Kaykay Brady:I'm so glad you pointed that out, because I had that too.
Brooke Suchomel:That was an advanced take.
Kaykay Brady:And you had way more smart things to say than I had. I just had, "Love the grasshopper named Elizabeth!" That's all I had written down.
Brooke Suchomel:And his giant, giant balls.
Kaykay Brady:Can't forget those!
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:All right, so what about 80s moments?
Brooke Suchomel:The gender dynamics. In particular, the"what do you say to a boy" speech at the beginning. That aside about, you have to choose your topics more carefully, and you can't talk about bras or cute guys you see on TV. You can talk about school and movies and animals, like grasshoppers, and sports, if you know anything about sports. That advice reminded me of some of the advice that I would read in the teen magazines that I got as a kid.
Kaykay Brady:Oh, is that what they were like?
Brooke Suchomel:Mm hmm.
Kaykay Brady:So they're not quite teaching you how to give blowjobs yet.
Brooke Suchomel:No.
Kaykay Brady:That's older.
Brooke Suchomel:That comes later. That's Cosmopolitan.
Kaykay Brady:Okay.
Brooke Suchomel:That's when you move up to Cosmopolitan.
Kaykay Brady:This is "How do you engage his mind?"
Brooke Suchomel:There was a lot of "How do you get boys to like you?" And then there was a lot of "How can you be popular?" That was sort of the central focus of the teen magazines of the day, which was my other big Most 80s Moment was Mary Anne's excitement, at the beginning of the book, at getting her copy of Sixteen in the mail.
Kaykay Brady:Sixteen magazine.
Brooke Suchomel:Sixteen magazine, which is an obvious stand in for Seventeen magazine. So I had subscriptions to Teen, and to
Kaykay Brady:Yeah. YM. Those were the two magazines that I subscribed to. They were monthly, and I remember every day I would get home from the bus, my bus would stop right at the mailbox, and I would check the mailbox when I was on my way in. And when I got my copy of the magazine, it was like,"Yes!" Because it was something for me. Something that spoke to me. It was for me, it was for nobody else. When you had a hard day on the combine, you knew that Seventeen magazine, that was for you!
Brooke Suchomel:Right. Which my mom would like me to make sure everybody knows it's not a combine, it's a detasseling machine. Sorry, Mom.
Kaykay Brady:So I'm gonna give you three guesses of what my favorite magazine was.
Brooke Suchomel:Sports Illustrated.
Kaykay Brady:No. That's a good one.
Brooke Suchomel:Okay...
Kaykay Brady:It was Mad Magazine.
Brooke Suchomel:Oh yeah. No, Mad was awesome.
Kaykay Brady:I was so fucking obsessed with Mad magazine.
Brooke Suchomel:So, I couldn't get Mad magazine because it was like-
Kaykay Brady:What?!
Brooke Suchomel:Well, I know that it wasn't necessarily the kind of- the gross out humor wasn't as appreciated in the household.
Kaykay Brady:Oh, it was totally crass and terrible.
Brooke Suchomel:It was fantastic!
Kaykay Brady:I think my parents never even looked at it, was the only reason- I wasn't even allowed to watch Three's Company! But somehow I was allowed to get Mad magazine. I think they didn't even look at it.
Brooke Suchomel:Nice. So you subscribed to it?
Kaykay Brady:Oh yes.
Brooke Suchomel:So it came in the mail to you. That's amazing.
Kaykay Brady:And I was so filled with joy when, like, the little- you know, it came in a brown wrapper.
Brooke Suchomel:Like it was a Playboy or something?
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, like a Playboy.
Brooke Suchomel:Wow!
Kaykay Brady:I loved Spy vs. Spy, there were these crazy multi page things where you folded them over to make a picture.
Brooke Suchomel:Yes. Those are so awesome.
Kaykay Brady:You remember that?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, those are so cool.
Kaykay Brady:Anyway. I didn't mean to sidetrack you from your wonderful Seventeen magazine.
Brooke Suchomel:I love that though, because, you know, when that copy would come in the mail, I just remember running inside and I would hole up i my room and just read it. Becau
Kaykay Brady:Ah. Great point. e it was probably the equiva ent of the social media of the ay.
Brooke Suchomel:It was written for teenagers, with the things that teenagers were interested in- some teenagers were concerned about. And they were concerned about it because again, society. They were a part of making this the thing that you should be concerned about. Like, you're concerned about being popular because society tells you all the time that you need to be, quote unquote,"popular." So you read the magazines that tell you how to be popular, and that are chock full of ads of things like Sun In. You know, how to be blonder, because the blonder you are, the more popular you're going to be.
Kaykay Brady:Definitely in the 80s.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, and all of those things, but you don't see the complicated side. You don't see how the reading of this is perpetuating your anxieties that you have. And so you keep reading it because you think, "If I read this, it's going to help me overcome the things that I'm anxious about." But it just makes you more anxious about those things, much in the same way that social media does that for a lot of people today, right?
Kaykay Brady:That's so interesting. Yeah, it's really interesting to get your perspective on what those magazines really did to you mentally, because I didn't read them. So I can't have any way of knowing. But my sister read them, and I know so many women read them. And you know, it's really a formative time.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah!
Kaykay Brady:Right? 12, 13, 14. Like, you're really starting to understand the world. And you're so right that there wasn't social media, there wasn't a world where you could just kind of get on your computer and learn. You were really getting it through magazines.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:Where else are you getting that cultural message? That must have had a lot of impact.
Brooke Suchomel:A huge impact. I mean, it gave me a blueprint to my eating disorder.
Kaykay Brady:Mm.
Brooke Suchomel:You know? Because there would be, like, profiles from girls who are skinny and tips that they have on how to stay skinny. It was like, "Oh, are you hungry? Chew gum!" You know, just shit like that.
Kaykay Brady:It was like on The Simpsons, the brochure at the doctor's. "Smoke yourself thin!"
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, I mean, it wasn't far off!
Kaykay Brady:That's what it was.
Brooke Suchomel:It really wasn't far off.
Kaykay Brady:I know. It was so terrible.
Brooke Suchomel:I mean, that's why we start off every episode like, we're going to talk about when this book was published. Kids that were reading this book as it was published, what else was going on in the culture at that time? Because nothing is written or read in a vacuum.
Kaykay Brady:Boom. Testify.
Brooke Suchomel:You're responding to things that are surrounding you at all times. And the more that I'm reading this, particularly as Sixteen magazine has come up a few times now in this series, I'm already trying to find, "Okay, how can I get my hands on back copies of Teen and YM?" Because I do think that there's a lot to explore there. Even in this book, why does Mary Anne like Logan so much? Mary Anne is quote unquote"in love" with Logan because he looks like this celebrity that she has a crush on and reads about in Sixteen magazine.
Kaykay Brady:Cam Newton?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, Cam Newton.
Kaykay Brady:What's his last name?
Brooke Suchomel:Or- no, not Cam Newton.
Kaykay Brady:No, Cam Newton is the quarterback for the Patriots!
Brooke Suchomel:Very ahead of its time. I don't think he was even born yet.
Kaykay Brady:Lesbian alert!
Brooke Suchomel:That would be amazing. Cam, um, Cam Geary. Who, like, I think Cam Geary is a stand in for Kirk Cameron.
Kaykay Brady:Good call. Good call.
Brooke Suchomel:I'm thinking Cam Geary is probably Kirk Cameron, maybe a touch of Corey Haim. And it's like, oh man, if you only knew what was ahead for both of those guys. Yeesh.
Kaykay Brady:What, complete happiness and a stable, healthy life?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, nothing but good things ahead for both of them. Yes.
Kaykay Brady:Well, if there's anything I've learned it's that fame always leads to happiness.
Brooke Suchomel:So true, especially at a very young age, especially when you are objectified. Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:It's like when people die and go to the other side, and there's a bright light and they learn the meaning of the universe. That's what they hear.
Brooke Suchomel:"Be famous."
Kaykay Brady:"Fame." Be famous, all of your problems will be solved.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. Or, if you're a female, "Be popular. Were you popular?"
Kaykay Brady:It makes me think of Arrested Development. "You know, if you're worried about what people think of you, a diet is a good thought." Lucille!
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. I mean, basically. You said that you were wondering what teen magazines were like?
Kaykay Brady:There you go.
Brooke Suchomel:There you go. It was that sentence right there. "If you're wondering what people think of you, a diet is a good thought." YM magazine.
Kaykay Brady:I didn't quite get the quote right, from Lucille. But it was something like that.
Brooke Suchomel:Well, the sentiment, I think, is clear. On the flip side, there was some good fashion in this book.
Kaykay Brady:There's always some fine fashion.
Brooke Suchomel:So there's a lot of negative 80s societal bullshit, but the outfits in this book are pretty fantastic. Did you notice any of them?
Kaykay Brady:You know me. The clothing just goes in one ear, out the other. But I do remember there was a tank top and a big sweater.
Brooke Suchomel:Uh huh.
Kaykay Brady:That sounded pretty cool.
Brooke Suchomel:I thought you might have enjoyed-
Kaykay Brady:Oh, there was palm trees.
Brooke Suchomel:Yes!
Kaykay Brady:Maybe? On one?
Brooke Suchomel:That one. Dawn's "pretty snappy outfit" --"pretty snappy" -- "with hot pink shorts with a big breezy island print shirt over a white tank top."
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, I would wear that. Today.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah!
Kaykay Brady:No doubt.
Brooke Suchomel:Again, Dawn.
Kaykay Brady:No doubt.
Brooke Suchomel:Dawn is, like, I thought she was cool when I read it the first time. Seeing how much cooler she is. Like, Stacey's coolness, going down in my estimation.
Kaykay Brady:And up going Dawn?
Brooke Suchomel:Dawn's going way up. Way up. And then I also had "giving your mom something for her to Xerox at work." That's very 80s.
Kaykay Brady:That's really true. That was so 80s. I had"leaving numbers where you can reach people." I mean, they've done that in other parts in this book, but there was just a scene where they were babysitting, and the mom was like, "Oh, I'm gonna be here, and then I'm gonna be there."
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:And then I just remembered what life was like before cell phones, where it was like, "Well, the house is burning down? Tell your mom about it in five hours." Like,"Somebody's stalking you? There's a burglar outside? She'll hear about it when she gets home."
Brooke Suchomel:Right. What did you have for what they were fighting?
Kaykay Brady:I had that they were fighting to sort of integrate worlds without losing themselves.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:And then I also think, you know, Mary Anne is really fighting to be who she is, right? And who she is, is an introvert.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:And there's really this sense that, you know, there just isn't a lot of space for introverts.
Brooke Suchomel:Totally.
Kaykay Brady:Ad it was really cool for me to read, because, you know, I wouldn't put myself in an introvert category, although I like to be more introverted as I get older. But, you know, to really understand how painful it must be to be an introvert in school in your teenage years. I mean, the whole world is just not built for you.
Brooke Suchomel:No.
Kaykay Brady:And I feel like it's so shaming for people to have that more inward orientation, which is so fucked, because how cool is it to have an inward orientation?
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:And to be thoughtful, and to be really contemplative about the kind of things that you share. I say this as an observer because that does not apply to me at all.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:Was, is, and always have been a ham. But I don't know, I thought it was really cool to read and it kind of opened my eyes a little bit.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. And I think to your point about the pain of being an introvert, that's one of the things that the Sixteen magazine would have been saying to Mary Anne, is like, "That's not okay." Like,"How can we help you get over that?"
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, deal with this. You've got a problem.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. This is your quote unquote "shyness." How do we help you get over it? So what I had as what they were fighting is, it's really Mary Anne is fighting her insecurity. All the way around. They all have this insecurity with boys, particularly where Kristy is like, "Can we really ask a boy to join the club? I didn't think about stuff like this. We're not even having a regular meeting. It doesn't feel like it. We're not talking about club stuff." Because everybody's just so like anxious about, like, what do you have to change about yourself when you're in the presence of a boy?
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, it was so enlightening and interesting to
Brooke Suchomel:So they all have that insecurity. But then read that. Mary Anne's insecurity goes, I would say, a little further than that. Where she talks about how Claudia and Stacey, quote,"really stand out in a crowd, and I've always been envious of them." So, you know, she's insecure, and her friends know that about her, which is why there is sort of the back and forth debate about, you know, is it a good thing to have this not even a surprise party. It's just, they bring out a cake. Mary Anne would not be the one to, like, take her to TGI Fridays for her birthday. I'm just picturing Mary Anne running out of a Fridays. You know? Poor Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady:"Running out of a Fridays."
Brooke Suchomel:Just fleeing a Fridays.
Kaykay Brady:I would flee a Fridays.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, you would walk into a Fridays and flee. You're just like, "I can't."
Kaykay Brady:For different reasons.
Brooke Suchomel:Even if they weren't singing to you, the minute they start singing to another table, you just get the fuck out. You're just like, "I just can't be around this shit."
Kaykay Brady:I'd be Irish goodbye-ing that shit so fast.
Brooke Suchomel:Irish goodbye-ing your bill. Dine and dashing, but you just say it's because you're traumatized.
Kaykay Brady:"This this cultural! Do not culturally oppressed me!"
Brooke Suchomel:Totally. But, you know, she's super insecure about that, and I think that she's trying to fight that. And in a way it works. So she's super insecure around Logan. She talks about how she basically has cotton mouth when she's around him. But she puts herself out there in ways that she perhaps wouldn't have put herself out there in earlier books. So she's trying, when she can, to lean into the excitement a little bit more than the fear. That sort of anxiety, it's like,"Okay, is anxiety Exciting Anxiety? Or is it a Fearful Anxiety?" Are you looking at it from a positive way? Are you looking at it from, like, this is different and things can be good, e.g. excitement? Or are you looking at it that this is different and things are gonna be bad? You know, a sort of fear perspective. And it seems like she's trying to take a more excitement approach to it. And throughout the book, you know, sometimes that works, but then at the end we see, and it doesn't. Sometimes it's too far. And she has to extricate herself from that, but that's okay. Now we know what your boundaries are. And maybe she'll push them as she goes along, but you know, she's trying.
Kaykay Brady:She's definitely trying. I mean, the whole book, I'd say every book you get, especially the Jersey Shore book, you also get this sense of, she has a sense that she's not exactly okay as she is and needs to be pushing those boundaries constantly.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:And so I think, you know, that clearly has been presented as the arc of that character, Mary Anne. Moving from sort of the shy baby to something else.
Brooke Suchomel:And it seems like she had, even though we don't see too much of her quote unquote "relationship" with a boy mother's helper in New Jersey.
Kaykay Brady:It's like the boy grasshopper named Elizabeth.
Brooke Suchomel:Right.
Kaykay Brady:The boy mother's helper named, hmm, Jan?
Brooke Suchomel:Jan, sure. Wasn't it like Alex and Toby or something like that? Oh, I think it was Alex!
Kaykay Brady:I think "Alex." Also gender neutral!
Brooke Suchomel:Also gender neutral! Heeeeeey! We see what you're doing, subconsciously,
Kaykay Brady:Heeeeeey! perhaps, Ann M. But you don't see anxiety with that. And perha True.
Brooke Suchomel:It was just like, "This is someone who can s, you know, me just reading i to it, being like, well, ma be that's because it was situ tional. Like, Stacey was leav ng her out in the cold. She n eded some help. She wasn't look Which seems really far. ng at this person as a pot ntial romantic partner. help me." And then she started to, you know, they exchanged rings.
Kaykay Brady:Again, U-Haul.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. But in this one, she sees Logan and she immediately sees him as the object of her affection, because she thinks he looks so much like this actor that she has a crush on. So it sort of changes the way she even approaches him. She never sees Logan as anything but a potential romantic partner, you know?
Kaykay Brady:Yeah. And it is also weird the way, I don't know, there is something so strange about the character. The way he kind of just steps off the screen almost.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:Like I said before, it's a book that does a lot of realism. And this seems like a strange sort of, I'm not sure how realistic it is.
Brooke Suchomel:Right. He immediately has a table full of guys that he's friends with, you know? Like, he's the new kid in town, and he's got a ton of friends already who are like,"Oh, Logan!"
Kaykay Brady:They're punching him in the arm.
Brooke Suchomel:When he goes over to talk to them at lunch. It seems like he's got kind of a, well, I want to say"unnatural" amount of confidence. But at the same time, he's a blonde white male, so maybe it's not unnatural. You know?
Kaykay Brady:He's an attractive, cisgendered, blonde, straight male. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah. I mean, the world is built for you, Logan. This is your world. Everyone else is just living in it. So yeah, you would be more confident. So this particular book was very heteronormative, and as such, we don't see too much of Kristy, sadly.
Kaykay Brady:Right.
Brooke Suchomel:That changes in the next book.
Kaykay Brady:Yay! Oh, is this Kristy's Krushers?
Brooke Suchomel:Oh God, not yet.
Kaykay Brady:Is it coming soon?
Brooke Suchomel:I know, you can't wait.
Kaykay Brady:Why isn't it here yet?
Brooke Suchomel:I'm so excited for when Kristy's Krushers are
Kaykay Brady:90 minutes of softball talk. born. 90 minutes of softball talk, and I cannot fucking wait. I can't wait! But it's not this next book.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah, with Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady:I mean, can you imagine a better podcast?
Brooke Suchomel:I know! But the next book, we get into Marxism a bit, which I'm excited about.
Kaykay Brady:Mm. Is this Dawn again?
Brooke Suchomel:We have Kristy and the Snobs.
Kaykay Brady:Oh yes!
Brooke Suchomel:It's the next book, so we get to explore the class-
Kaykay Brady:Class warfare.
Brooke Suchomel:Right, battles.
Kaykay Brady:Yeah, it's been building.
Brooke Suchomel:Yeah.
Kaykay Brady:It's been building a little bit, with Kristy sort of not liking her neighborhood. Yeah, I'm very excited for this.
Brooke Suchomel:So we get the full on combat in Kristy and the Snobs, which I'm looking forward to. So, until then.
Kaykay Brady:Just keep sittin'.[THEME SONG] Don't you compromise her bodily autonomy, you patriarchal dick!