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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Ever had something you love dismissed because it’s “just” pop culture? What others might deem stupid shit, you know matters. You know it’s worth talking and thinking about. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, two sisters who think a lot about a lot of things. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, and wherever pop culture takes us, come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast
Poltergeist: Deep Thoughts About the Feminine Archetype in Pop Culture, Dubious Parenting Decisions, and Respect for the Dead
They're heeeeere!
In a moment that would echo through the 42 years that followed, Tracie and Emily's father let the girls watch the 1982 film Poltergeist on TV sometime in 1983, when the sisters were only 7 and 4 years old. This classic of pop culture horror drew the Guy girls in because of 5-year-old Heather O'Rourke, the adorable blonde-and-blue-eyed actress who played Carol Ann, who is sucked into the TV by the poltergeists. By the time the truly terrifying stuff appeared--including a tree that tried to eat Carol Ann's brother and a clown doll that came to life--Tracie and Emily were too scared to leave the room and their Dad was too invested to turn off the film.
This week, Emily finally revisits this traumatizing pop culture phenomenon, and finds a lot to enjoy. Not only does she recognize a number of movies that were influenced by this film--which was penned by Steven Spielberg, who again shows off his storytelling chops--but it offers a fascinating and feminist examination of the relationships between women and the roles of mothers and daughters. Although, some of the behind-the-scenes information she learned about the film makes it clear the filmmakers really didn't understand the film they were making.
You don't need to hang back. We won't jam your frequency while you listen in!
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
I want to talk about how influential this film was. Watching it now, I could see like, oh my goodness, ghostbusters was influenced by this and Nightmare on Elm Street was influenced by this, and the Sixth Sense was influenced by this, and, wowza, so much has taken from this film that traumatized me as a four-year-old.
Speaker 2:Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters, you know what's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.
Speaker 1:I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I'll be sharing my deep thoughts about the 1982 film Poltergeist with my sister, tracy Guy-Decker, and with you, let's dive in. So, trace, I know you've seen this movie because it was a traumatic event from our early childhood. It was the uh, just the father of the year award to our dad in somewhere around 1983. Do you want to tell the story of how we both saw this movie for the first time?
Speaker 1:I feel like we've even talked about it on the show before, like it was on cable, and we're like, oh, it's a little girl like us and we started watching it, and this was back in the day when, if you didn't have a TV guide, you didn't know what it was you were watching, if you missed the beginning.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, and then, and so we started watching and like by the time we realized that it was a horror movie, like dad was invested and and wouldn't let us turn it off and we were too scared to leave the room by ourselves. It was 83. Then I was like seven or eight.
Speaker 2:I was four, I was four years old, okay, so I was seven. Yeah, yeah, wow. So I have to say I haven't seen it since then, but I have pretty strong memories. So in my head, the furniture that's in my brain about poltergeist is that they built a house on top of a native american graveyard and the ghosts, or the spirits of the dead were like came through the television, I think they sucked the little girl into the television and lots of hijinks ensue and a dude like pulled his face off in the in the mirror and there was like static snow on the tv and like voices underneath of it. And that's what's in my head. And it scared me so bad that I am now 49 years old and no, thank you, I don't want to watch that movie. Thank you, I don't want to watch that movie. So that's what's in my head about this movie. But I have to ask, like it was so traumatic, like why did you want to go back to it? Why are we, why are we talking so?
Speaker 1:I wanted to revisit it, in part because of my experience watching Nightmare on Elm Street. Like that was the like oh dear god, no movie of my childhood and I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I really enjoyed watching it and I have become a horror fan as an adult and I knew I could handle it. Now, you know so. For years after that all you had to do is say the word poltergeist and I would climb the walls and I, if I recall correctly, I wouldn't go into any room, even the bathroom, by myself. I had to have an adult with me at all times.
Speaker 2:For a little while, yeah, and for years and years and years. Snow static on a television would freak me the hell out.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to revisit it in part to exorcise the demon, so to speak. I wanted to revisit it in part to exercise the demon, so to speak. Yeah, and also because it is listed as, like, one of the best horror movies ever made. And I'm also a little bit curious. That was not a parenting decision. I could understand that Dad made Like I get getting invested in a movie. I also get the fact that it was a lot. Get getting invested in a movie. I also get the fact that it was a lot harder to come by a movie and yes, and like back then, with the cable like they would, you know when they rerun it all the time, like if hbo was showing the movie, they would show it again.
Speaker 2:Your daughters are terrified. And four and seven little daughters are terrified. And four and seven, your tiny little daughters are terrified.
Speaker 1:So part of it was like what was it about this movie that dad found so compelling?
Speaker 2:That he was willing to risk our well-being for it. Fair, fair and listeners, our dad is not around anymore. We cannot ask him.
Speaker 1:I really I wish I had thought to do that, Although I kind of feel like dad would do this thing where he would kind of deny the not super great.
Speaker 2:Totally, he would have totally denied it. He would totally have denied it and, like I think he would have convinced himself that this didn't actually happen, I can remember when my older son was two years old, we were in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 1:We met with dad in Pittsburgh sometime around Christmas. We could spend a little time with him. We got an Airbnb for everybody and so there was a Pittsburgh so hilly. There was a car stuck at the bottom of the hill that couldn't get up because it was so icy and it was a mom and grandmother and a little baby like about my son's age in the back seat and both the mom and grandma were smoking and like he said to them, like he helped them get the car going, and then said to him like shouldn't be smoking in front of that baby, and I was just like you, hypocrite, you smoked with me in the back of the car. Now, you didn't know better in 1983, but you did it, and the only reason he stopped was because he almost died of a heart attack.
Speaker 1:It wasn't for our well-being Anyway let's get to Poltergeist, so that's why I was thinking about it. So there's some things I want to talk about that I find very interesting, partially because I love haunted house stories. I love the lore behind Poltergeists, in part because the lore behind poltergeists, in part because the lore behind poltergeists surrounds adolescent girls in particular, and it is a oh, yeah, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had no idea. The mythology of poltergeists is that they occur specifically when a girl basically reaches puberty and it's Huh, they're like menstrual ghosts. Um, and it's this sense that, upon reaching that kind of maturity, there's this, like it sends off this right, energy, energy.
Speaker 2:There's this power that cannot be contained. So, which is just, absolutely. Wasn't the child in the in the, isn't the child? In the movie like our age though.
Speaker 1:Like seven at the time. We'll get there, okay, cool. So that's one of the reasons why I want to talk about it, but there's a lot to go into it. Now. This story was written by Steven Spielberg and my God, that man does story construction right. He does such good story construction. I didn't know that. Yeah, spielberg movie, he. It's unclear how much he had to do with the directing of it, because, oh, he's a screenwriter and the he's one of them, he, the story is by him, and then he was the screenwriter with like two other people toby hooper is the director who had directed the texas chainsaw massacre, but spielberg was on set and like, definitely threw his weight around, so it's his movie, huh.
Speaker 1:so there's that aspect to it. There's a lot about like family and suburbia and like the fear of technology, specifically television, and there is this question of respect for the dead, that part that you remembered of what happened, why they were being haunted. The idea of mothers and daughters in particular, and not necessarily biological mothers and daughters. There's this really interesting through line of mothers and daughters. And I want to talk about how influential this film was. Watching it now, I could see like, oh my goodness, ghostbusters was influenced by this, and Nightmare on Elm Street was influenced by this, and the Sixth Sense was influenced by this and, wowza, so much has taken from this film that traumatized me as a four-year-old.
Speaker 1:So, considering you don't really remember it, I'll kind of give you the plot. Yes, please do so. It takes place in oh, I've forgotten the name of it, but it takes place in this planned community. It's not Queso Verde, because that would be green cheese. It means Green Hill in Spanish. I looked it up but I don't remember the word because I don't speak Spanish. It's this planned something.
Speaker 1:Verde Planned community. All the houses look exactly the same. It's this, you know, 1980s suburban wonderland.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, Exactly Kachunka houses we used to call them.
Speaker 1:And so we meet the Freeling family. There's the father, steve, played by Craig T Nelson, who, my goodness, was a handsome young man. I did not know. Huh, yeah, that's a surprise. The mother whose name is Diane, played by Jo Beth Williams, who is phenomenal. There's the eldest daughter, played by Jo Beth Williams, who is phenomenal. There's the eldest daughter, played by Dominique Dunn. Her name is Dana. The middle child is Robbie, played by I cannot remember the actor's name, and then the youngest child, so Dana is 16, Robbie is 8, and Carol Ann, the little girl with the blonde hair and blue eyes, who is adorable. She is five and she's played by Heather O'Rourke.
Speaker 2:She was, she was right between us.
Speaker 1:So she was very much like we saw her. We're like Landsman.
Speaker 2:Mishpocha One of us, mishpocha.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the blonde blonde girl. She was Mishpocha. So in the very first scene Steve has fallen asleep in front of the TV. Blonde blonde girl in the morning. So Steve has fallen asleep and we do this again. Spielberg or this might have been Hooper does this amazing thing where the dog comes and tries to see if there's any snacks left in the chair where Steve is sitting. Then he goes up and visits everyone in the house. So you get to be introduced to everyone in the house through the dog.
Speaker 2:Through the dog's travel. Oh my God, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1:I love it, and it's hilarious because Dana, the teenager, has an entire bag of chips under her pillow. I have a teenage girl in my house that tracks, wakes up and comes downstairs and sits at the television, puts her hands on it to the static and starts talking to it, saying I can't hear you, I can't hear your name, and then starts answering questions Five, yes, I don't know. And then she starts shouting, which wakes the whole family up and they come downstairs.
Speaker 2:I remember that, those hands on the TV screen.
Speaker 1:Stuff of nightmares. It's the weekend. That must have been a Saturday night. The next day is Sunday. Steve is watching a football game with several of the other men in the neighborhood. Right there in his living room, Diane is cleaning the house and she finds that Tweety, the pet bird that lived in Robbie and Carol Ann's house, has died. And she says oh, Tweety, couldn't you have waited for a school day?
Speaker 1:That's so real. So she initially wants to just flush it, but Carol Ann catches her and so they end up burying it in a box. And they have a very cute thing where Carol Ann says like it smells bad, tweety doesn't like how it smells, and her mom's like Tweety can't smell anymore and we'll put a flower in it. And then she puts licorice in in case he gets hungry, and like a little napkin in for bedtime and a picture of the family from case he gets lonely. And so they bury the box in the backyard while Robbie is climbing the tree right next to where they're doing it and making fun, and Dana is kind of making fun too. But as soon as they've buried Tweety, caroline goes can I have a goldfish now? So really like got the family dynamics down Tracks, tracks. So at bedtime that night Carol Ann has two new goldfish. They're going to bed. There is a clown, which, let me tell you, this was the thing that I remembered most from this movie.
Speaker 2:There's a clown in this film.
Speaker 1:It's a clown doll yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so there's, a clown that sits in a chair in the bedroom, and so diane puts the kids to bed. There's a storm coming. Robbie's a little worried about it and diane's like, no, no, it'll be fine. So they, uh, put the light on in the closet because caroline insists on that and then turns off the light in the in the their, in their quiet for a little while Robbie's getting freaked out about the clown so he throws his jacket over it. Smart move, rob, smart move.
Speaker 1:And we see Steve and Diane just kind of talking. They're smoking a joint together in bed. Kind of talking. They're smoking a joint together in bed.
Speaker 1:And Diane is reading through a book on psychology, talking about how nocturnal somnambulism, sleepwalking, may be genetic. And she tells a story of how she went sleepwalking when she was 10 years old and went like three blocks and ended up falling asleep in the back of the car of some guy. She just got in and then went back to sleep in there and the guy didn't even realize she was there until he got to work and then she started screaming and yeah, it's this whole story. So and it's like, okay, so that's what's going on with carol ann is what they're thinking. And so then she says oh my god, what happens if she like falls into the the pool, and so that's how it's introduced to us that they're thinking. And so then she says oh my god, what happens if she like falls into the the pool, and so that's how it's introduced to us that they're putting a pool in the backyard. Oh, based on what I remember, that's bad news so and steve is is reassuring her.
Speaker 1:it's fine, that's nothing, that's not gonna happen, and they're like giggling and stuff like that. Robbie comes in scared because the storm seems to be getting stronger and Steve takes him back to his room, tells him like when you see lightning, count until you hear the thunder and if you have to count longer each time, it means the storm's going away. I learned that from.
Speaker 1:Poltergeist, holy cow, and Robbie also says he's really scared about the tree that's right outside the window. He's like it knows I live here. It's like reaching for me. And Steve says like well, yeah, it is a very old tree and we built the house right here because it's a wise old tree and it does know us because it's been here so long. But that's why I built the house here and so that's how you learn that Steve has something to do with this development. The next day some weird stuff happens, like a glass shatters when it shouldn't have some silverware, like kind of bends randomly. And then the two older kids go off to school and Diane has told all the kids like please push the chairs in at the kitchen table because the dog will get into the food if they don't. And she told them to do that. They'd been pushed in. And she comes back down after you know, running around doing whatever, and all the chairs are pulled out and she turns to Carol Ann and says oh gosh, that's right.
Speaker 1:Anyway, she turns to Carol Ann and says did you do that? She says no and she turns around for a second to go like she's pushed all the chairs in. She's turned around for like a second, comes back and the chairs are piled on top of the table in a way that would have been impossible. That ain't for anybody to do. For any one person to do, oh Like it was so quick.
Speaker 2:Because it was so quick, yeah, yeah Well, that ain't creepy, it's super creepy.
Speaker 1:Something I've forgotten. The storm got stronger and so the kids ended up sleeping in the parents' bed and in the middle of the night they had left the TV on. Tv's constantly on in this house. They'd left the TV on. The static is going. Caroline got up and, you know, did the thing again and as she's watching, like a hand comes out of the TV, flies around and then like goes into the wall and then there's like an earthquake and then caroline goes. They're here. Do you remember that?
Speaker 1:oh my god, my blood pressure just spiked so anyway, chairs are weird, doing the weird thing, and Diana's actually delighted by this, so she thinks it's really cool.
Speaker 2:She doesn't know what genre movie she's in obviously we see Steve at work.
Speaker 1:He is basically a realtor for this development. We later learn he's responsible for 42% of all sales and we see that every single house is literally exactly the same. So he gets home from work and she meets him outside. She says Steve, come with me very quickly. I need you to see this. Don't say anything. Remember back in our distant past when you had an open mind. And so she takes him to the kitchen. She's like drawn some things on the floor like a circle and arrows. She puts one of the kitchen chairs in the circle. She's like, drawn some things on the floor like a circle and arrows. She puts one of the kitchen chairs in the circle. She's like just wait, just wait, just wait. And then it pulls away and she's like isn't that amazing? So then she has like a bike helmet that she puts on Carol Ann and she puts Carol Ann on the circle and then Carol Ann gets pulled to the other side and she has like Steve, catch her.
Speaker 2:And so.
Speaker 1:Diane describes it. It's like this itchy feeling that pulls you Because Diane has done it too.
Speaker 2:Diane has done it too. We just don't see it.
Speaker 1:Oh, they go to their next door neighbor, like have you had any disturbances? Nope, nothing. We have seen that day. The crew is coming and has dug just the hole for the swimming pool. So that's just hanging out back there, just a giant pit.
Speaker 1:That night there is another storm and again Diane is like isn't it amazing, like there's things we don't understand about this world. And this is the other thing. It was the clown. And then the other thing the tree breaks into the room and grabs Robbie out of his bed and is trying to eat him. That scared the absolute shit out of me.
Speaker 2:So I vaguely remember, like the gnarled branches, as like hands.
Speaker 1:So the parents run in and see him being pulled out. Carol Ann is still in her bed. The parents and Dana run outside to try to get to Robbie. They're like freaking out trying to get to Robbie. As that happens, things start swirling and being pulled into the closet in the kid's bedroom and being pulled into the closet in the kid's bedroom and Carol Ann has this headboard that's like. It's like this decorative headboard and she's holding onto it and being pulled horizontally and calling for her parents. But because they're screaming for Robbie and terrified for their son, they're not hearing.
Speaker 1:So they are like fighting to get, get robbie back. He's like halfway down the gullet of this tree thing, there's a tornado coming. So they manage to get robbie out. The tornado takes the tree up and away and they they go oh crap, where's carol ann? And so they go up into the room. At that point the beds even are up against the door to the closet because they've been pulled that way, but nothing's being pulled anymore. So they go into the closet and they're like oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. And they find a figure that's covered in a blanket going like is she okay? What's going on? And they pull the blanket off and it's the clown. So they start looking everywhere. Steve won't let Dana or Robbie go into the kitchen because he's freaked out about what was going on with that. Robbie is very traumatized. He's covered in muck and cuts and bruises and stuff and he wanders into his parents' room where the TV is still on and he can hear Carol Ann's voice coming through the TV.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's in the TV. I remember her being in the TV coming through the TV.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's in the TV. I remember her being in the TV. Next scene, Steve has gone to a university and is consulting with three parapsychologists there's Dr Lesch, Marty and Ryan. Dr Lesch is a woman played by, oh, her last name is Straight Brenda Straight, I think and she's amazing. And so they take his information and she's like well, you know, we may not be able to find out what's going on. He's like we don't care, we just want our little girl back. And she says can you keep this from the media? He's like we don't want to tell anyone about it because all we want is our daughter back. We haven't even gone to the police because we know they won't believe us. So they go to the house and they are telling them like, well, we do have some experience with this. You know I got Ryan was saying like I got film footage of a matchbox car traveling on its own about seven feet.
Speaker 1:And he's like, oh, okay. He's like, yeah, it took about seven hours. Like what do you mean? It took seven hours, Well, to get from one end to the other the seven feet. And he's like, oh, okay, he's like, yeah, it took about seven hours. Like what do you mean, it took seven hours, well, to get from one end to the other the seven feet. But if you look at it from time lapse, it's amazing and he's like uh-huh. And so then he opens the door to the kids room where everything's floating and moving around and like all three of the parapsychologists are like we're not prepared for this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that definitely sounds like Ghostbusters. Ray the sponge has migrated about three feet.
Speaker 1:So they set up cameras and everything. They are now everyone's sleeping downstairs. They've closed off that room. They try to contact Carol Ann and are able to speak to her. She responds most to Diane. She says there's a light and she's scared of it. And Dr Lesh says do not go towards the light. And so they are basically waiting to see what happens overnight, because things are happened much more after dark.
Speaker 1:So the kids go to sleep. I think Dana goes to a friend's house to sleep, robbie stays there with his parents. They're all sleeping there in the living room and Dr Lesh and Diane have this conversation. That is just amazing about what it is they're doing. How terrified Dr Lesh is. She has a PhD in psychology but she's spent her life on this hobby of hers, because nobody can get a PhD in parapsychology, and that she never actually anticipated seeing this. And Dr Lesch kind of explains her belief, which is that ghosts are people who either don't realize that they have died, and so they feel jealousy and anger towards the living because they can't enjoy the things that the living enjoy. And so Carol Ann has this amazing life force and they're drawn to that and so they're not letting her go and they need to go to the light to be able to move on.
Speaker 1:So in the middle of the night, that thing with the peeling the face off, so Marty goes into the kitchen to get something to eat. In the middle of the night he pulls out an entire steak out of the fridge like he's going to cook it for himself. But it's just like visual shortcuts I get, but it's just like it should have been wrapped in something Anyway, and he's chewing on a chicken wing or something. He finds a chicken wing and he's chewing on that, and so he puts the steak just straight on the counter, nothing underneath of it. He didn't care about food safety in the early 80s, apparently, and this is the other thing that's very Ghostbusters. The steak starts moving across the counter.
Speaker 1:And then like it explodes with like putrescence and then, like he freaks out and like opens his mouth, the chicken wing falls and like it's covered in maggots and then he goes into like there's like a sink, like a utility sink, in another room, and he like throws up into it and then he's got blood coming out of his face and he starts clawing his own face and then all of a sudden his face is normal again and it's been this like hallucination.
Speaker 2:I remember that scene vividly. It was very disturbing to seven-year-old me.
Speaker 1:It was very disturbing to seven-year-old me. He goes back into the living room where Ryan is listening to music and so is not realizing that something's going on. And there are these ethereal spirits coming down the stairs and they're beautiful but also terrifying. So they managed to catch all that on camera. And then that's the end of the night. So the next morning Dr Lesh says I have to go, I will come back. Marty's not coming back with me, he's not okay, ryan will come back and I'm bringing help.
Speaker 1:Steve's boss shows up, mr Teague, and says come take a ride with me. Steve has said that he has the flu, that's why he's not coming in and he looks like shit. So it looks correct. The boss is afraid that Steve is trying to find another job, so he takes him up to the top of this hill where you can see the entire valley, where Issa Verde or Que Soverde is, and we know that they are already starting phase four and Steve and Diane's house was part of phase one. And so they're at the top of the hill and Mr Teague says like imagine if this were your view. And Steve says well, that would be great for the person living up here, but not so great for the people in the valley. And Mr Teague's like well, you don't have to live in the valley anymore, you could live here. He's like we should have made you partner three years ago. You're responsible for 42% of the sales and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:And then Steve turns around and there's this giant cemetery behind him and he says I don't know if this is the right place for housing. Mr Teague says it's not, like it's an ancient burial ground and we've done it. Before Phase one there was a cemetery there and we moved it. It's five minutes down the road. Who's going to complain? And Steve's like seems not okay, but I guess if nobody's complained. So that evening dr lesh brings tangina I think tangina baron, played by zelda, zelda rubinstein, who is this tiny little woman with this very high voice who is so freaking badass. Do you remember her?
Speaker 1:oh, I, she's a she's, she's older like like middle-aged or like like maybe 60s or early 60s.
Speaker 1:Yes, I remember and so steve thinks she's completely delulu and so she heads upstairs. She's like you're jamming my frequencies, like you know, give me, give me some space. She heads upstairs and she calls down like so, what was in this locked room? And so Steve is like not answering her and Diane's like what are you doing? He's like I'm answering her in my mind. And so they get him to it's where my son and daughter slept. And then they're like yelling at him like hey, why are you not? But whispering like you shouldn't be doing that. And he's like well, I just don't think you know she can actually read mind or whatever. And then she calls from the top of the stairs like no, I heard you. I just don't like trick answers. So like so she proves herself right. Then she says I can get your daughter back.
Speaker 1:There are spirits that need to move on. You need to do everything I say. But in addition to the spirits, there is a beast. The beast has made itself seem like a child and your child has made itself a playmate for your child and she's in danger. But we need to go through that closet to get her.
Speaker 1:So they set up there's a portal basically between the closet to the living room and somewhere in between there is the in-between place where everything is. So they send a couple of tennis balls through to test it and then they send a rope through that is like tied at both ends so that it can be followed. And then Tangina was going to go to get Carol Ann, but she's a five-year-old girl and Diane says no, no, no, you don't know her, I have to go. And Steve offers and she's like you're the only one strong enough to hold the rope. So Diane goes through, tangina is telling him don't let go, don't let go, you know, don't pull her back, whatever. And then the beast appears and is like roaring at steve and he freaks out like let's go of the rope so it has enough slack so that she can fall down. And in the living room is diane holding carol ann covered in gook.
Speaker 2:it's very like birth coated uh, uh-huh and like ectoplasm, like Ghostbusters yeah it's ectoplasm.
Speaker 1:So they take them to the bathtub and clean them off and they start breathing. Everything seems to be okay. They are packing the next day to leave. I guess Steve has to go quit. He's already told his boss go to hell, but he won't take that for an answer. So Diane says what are you going to tell him? He says I'm going to give him directions. But the plan is they're sleeping at the Holiday Inn down the road that night. But they've packed up the moving truck and you know like if the kids conk out, that's fine, let them sleep. But we're going to gather everyone up, get in the car and go.
Speaker 1:This evening Diane has gotten gray in her hair overnight so she is like dyeing it and taking a bath and dyeing it. And she asks Robbie. And Tangina has declared the house is now clean. So she's asked Robbie and Carol Ann to put themselves to bed. She's going to take a bath and they go to bed.
Speaker 1:And that's when the clown comes alive. And that's when I was just like I really did watch this whole goddamn movie, because this is the thing that scared the crap out of me. Dandina was wrong, the spirits had left, but the beast had not. So the clown comes live and, wrapped it like, leaves its chair and then wraps its arm around Robbie and is pulling him under the bed. The closet door opens and is pulling the kids. At this point Diane is out of the bath, she's in her nightgown and she starts being pulled up the wall. So this is what was very Nightmare on Elm Street. She fights her way down and is trying to get to the kids and the house is like pushing her out. She ends up in the backyard. She can't get in, falls into the pool, the pit and coffins and dead bodies.
Speaker 1:She manages to get out with the help of the neighbor. She goes back in. Just barely managed to get the kids out. Steve returns with Mr Teague. At that point Dana is on a date we know and is going to get a ride home from her date. And now bodies are falling everywhere and Steve has to try to fight to get to his family. They run around to the backyard and see all the bodies and Steve says oh my God, mr Teague, you moved the headstones but left the bodies. You built this neighborhood right over those bodies. They managed to get the whole family into the car and get out of there and the house like sucks into itself.
Speaker 2:Like gets imploded down into the ground.
Speaker 1:Just as Dana shows up, they get in the car and run and meanwhile he's saying don't look back, don't look back to the whole family. They get to the motel, they get into the room and the last thing you see is him wheeling the tv out and leaving it outside, in the hallway or in the.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's remarkable how much I remember these 42 years later.
Speaker 1:It was traumatic.
Speaker 2:This movie was.
Speaker 1:PG. I cannot believe that this was before PG-13 existed, but still, holy moly, all right. Okay, let's start with Bechdel, because we always do so. Listeners, as a reminder, the Bechdel test asks three questions. Are there at least two female characters with names? Do they talk to each other, and do they talk to each other about something other than a man or a boy? Passes with flying colors. Diane talks to Dana and Carol Ann. Dr Lesh and Diane talk, tangina and Diane talk about everything, all kinds of stuff. It's amazing. These are all well-wrought, fully formed female characters. Carol Ann is a five-year-old girl, so like yeah, sure, but she's a five-year-old girl.
Speaker 1:So in some ways it does gender really well. Also, this is Diane's movie. She is the protagonist. She is the hero of this movie, even though the first person we see on screen is Steve.
Speaker 2:She's the one who saves her daughter, though, and she knows that she's the only one who could, and she genuinely. I mean that tracks to me when I think about when my daughter was five, like she's not going with anybody else, not even her other parents, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then, specifically, the moment when she's in the pool, surrounded by these bodies and terrified. What she's really terrified for is her children. Like, yes, it's horrifying what's happening to her, but the second she's out of the pool because the neighbor has pulled her out and they're going. Oh my god, what's going on, what's happening, what's happening. She's like I have to get to my children so she does not take a second. And when steve shows up, like there's something seriously going wrong at the house and like he stops and like stares and is like awestruck sounds positive, but like stricken and it's just like get a move on, steve. What the fuck is wrong with you? Diane wouldn't pause. So that is really really cool. There's something really weird about this, though, in part because of, like what I was talking about, with what poltergeists are associated with Right, so they were there for the older daughter, dana.
Speaker 1:No, Now, this film clearly makes it clear that it's about Carol Ann. However, when the workers are there to dig the pool, Dana is leaving for school and they start doing the not just ogling like hey, pretty, like love you, I love you. They're catcalling the 16 year old girl in her backyard at her house. Oh, that is nasty and so she like, playfully, does, like this thing where she she like one hand, one hand, one hand, one hand, and then gives him the finger Listeners who you couldn't see.
Speaker 2:My sister just do that. It was like the Macarena.
Speaker 1:And Diane is witnessing this through the window and just kind of like smiles yes, it was the cost of being female, and like you get the impression of like, ah, she handled it well, mm-hmm, yep, and so like there's a couple other things. So when Diane tells Dana, hey, we're going to be spending the night at the Holiday Inn on Route 74. And Dana says, oh, I remember that one. And Diane says you remember that Holiday and why? And then Dana distracts her by talking about her gray hair. And when Dana gets back from her date she's got a hickey on her neck. So there's this tension about sexuality. The other thing that's really weird is they ask Steve when he interviews the three parapsychologists. They ask him for everyone in the house and their ages and he says, well, there's my wife, diane. She's 31. No 32. Dana is 16.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Good point, so like ew. They were high school sweethearts.
Speaker 2:She got pregnant when they were in high school.
Speaker 1:And nothing is commented about that. No one says anything about that.
Speaker 2:And nothing is commented about that. No one says anything about that, but I personally, if I were the 32-year-old mother of a 16-year-old girl, probably be a little worried About your 16-year-old who's getting hickeys and going to the motel.
Speaker 1:So which brings me to the thing that I think is really interesting, because I think this story is a lot about mothers and daughters, Mm-hmm. So we do not see either Steve or Diane's mother. She is mentioned because they send Robbie to his grandmother's house. They don't say whether it's Steve's mother or Diane's mother or Diane's mother, but the relationship and the intimacy that Diane and Dr Lesh create together is very mother-daughter, with Lesh as the mother.
Speaker 2:Yes, because Dr Lesh is probably in her 50s.
Speaker 1:Okay, and she is very she's human because her hands are shaking after they see the evidence for the first time. She's very human, but she's also comforting. And so she has this sense of authority, but also like humanity, and so the way that they talk to each other, the way that they draw comfort from each other, is very mother-daughter, and it was an interesting thing to see, because I don't recall seeing stuff like that in movies in the 1980s necessarily.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, that's a good point. Well, women weren't friendly in movies in the 80s. They were only rivals.
Speaker 1:similar kind of like maternal energy. That is just really, really fascinating. And there's a point where she even has diane neal. Now she does it because she's like I'm gonna get whiplash and staring up at you because of how small tangina is. But there is this like hierarchy, but this kind of like sense of supplication, even and seeing how she mothers carol ann through handling tweety's death you see what, what a good parent diane is, but it feels like she's missing a maternal figure in her life diane's missing a maternal figure.
Speaker 2:Interesting, I don't have a solid answer, but my. The furniture that is making itself known right now is the feminine archetypes of the maiden, mother and crown and the ways in which, like lesh and tangina, come in as crones to diane's mother and, I suppose, carol ann's maiden, because it sounds like dana is kind of a little bit absent, yeah from from the storyline so it really ties into, like it digs into what is actually most important in families, because, because at some points they talk about like we worked so hard for this to get these trappings of success.
Speaker 1:You know the suburban house we're putting in a pool, we've got a TV in every room, that's always on, all of these sorts of things but what is actually most important for them is each other. And then you even see that with Dr Lesch, this is something she's been passionate about studying this parapsychology. When she actually encounters it, she is terrified.
Speaker 2:And her primary objective is saving this family and not capturing, not the scientific discovery, but saving this family, yeah, yeah we don't have a lot of time and I'm really curious about what you like, the thing that you told me about poltergeist that I didn't know about this sort of adolescent girl and the sort of almost like the menstrual ghosts thing a question, and then that Carol Ann is the focus, but we have this sexually active teenager at the same time.
Speaker 2:What's happening there, do you think? Because I feel like it's a bit of a subversion in my mind.
Speaker 1:I think some of it is how Steven Spielberg writes movies. An adorable five-year-old blonde and blue-eyed and is just absolutely fetching, is going to get more butts in seats than the typical poltergeist victim, which is a snarky adolescent girl who is really, really hard to parent adolescent girl who is really, really hard to parent right, who also are like of all of like the identities, like as a society we do not mind shitting on adolescent girls which is like part of where the poltergeist mythos comes from.
Speaker 1:It's because we don't like adolescent girls we really don't like as a society. So yes, it a subversion, but I think that it's significant that Dana is in the house, like it could have just been Robbie and Carol Ann, and that the story wouldn't have changed much.
Speaker 2:Honestly, Right, because it sounds like Dana's not actually an actor in the plot.
Speaker 1:So I think that that is like a manifestation of the very discomfort that has brought about the poltergeist myth is why we have this five-year-old girl Now I think another thing that I think is really important to point out people talk about this movie being cursed. Dominique Dunn, who played Dana I think she was about 21 when this movie was filmed she was killed about a year and a half later when her ex-boyfriend strangled her. She was not able to get a restraining order on him, that sort of thing. It was, you know, very typical intimate partner, partner violence. I don't think that that is something we should gloss over, because it is all part and parcel of it being perfectly okay for this film to have construction workers ogling her when she's playing a 16 year old yeah, in her own backyard home and it just we just, it's just, it's played for like, not laughs exactly, but just like.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness. Heather o'rourke, who played carol ann, died about six years later. She got some sort of terrible flu and she ended up having to have surgery for it and she just didn't survive it. That is unrelated to any of this, but it is kind of tragic to think that of the three children in this, only one survived, and it was the boy. Yeah, geez. And that brings me to one thing that I want to talk about respect for the dead. So I, prior to watching it for this episode, I also remembered it as a native american burial ground.
Speaker 1:It's not, but it's not not if they're coughing and headstones and like he uses the term ancient burial ground at some point. So he's like it's not like. It's that meaning like. Maybe that's why it's not like. It's that meaning like Maybe that's why it's stuck in our heads.
Speaker 1:And I think the expectation in the 1980s was that had it been a Native American burial ground, it would have had protection or different kind of protection. So the one thing that I knew about this movie was that Jo Beth Williams in that scene where she's in the pool and surrounded by the bodies it took four or five days to film that and it sounds horrifying and she talked about how she thought that these were plastic skeletons. They were real skeletons.
Speaker 2:Did they not know what movie they were making? Carol ann has more respect for the dead with her little tweety so I was doing some reading.
Speaker 1:The skeletons were from like a surgical supply in the early 80s. The choices were limited and it was cheaper to get actual surgical skeletons and then they built them up to make them look juicy. But it is so ironic to me that this film is about how mr teague had no respect for the dead and then they're making actual human beings. Remains look juicier for film and now, these were people who donated their bodies to science or whatever, but science, not Hollywood.
Speaker 2:The movie Poltergeist is not science, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I honestly don't know how to think about that. Now, you did bring up poor Tweety. This is why Steven Spielberg is my hero. They bury Tweety in the backyard, in the garden. It's on a Sunday. The next day, monday, is when the caterpillar digger comes in to dig and they turn up the dirt and you see the box with Tweety in it get turned up.
Speaker 2:And it is like visual metaphors are perfect.
Speaker 1:It's just so well done Like, yeah, there's some foreshadowing. So well done Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, I know you have a hard stop, so I'm going to go, even though we didn't quite get to suburbia and the dangers of television. We'll leave that as something that listeners you know. Bring it to us in the comments wherever you're listening, because there's more to say there's a lot to say.
Speaker 2:But we are out of time, so let me try and reflect back to you some of the things that I heard about Poltergeist, besides the fact that it scared both of us and traumatized us. So I heard a lot about story construction and sort of the beauty of story construction and how good Steven Spielberg is at it in many ways. You've spent a lot of time really talking about mothers and daughters, whether literal or sort of found family mothers and daughters relationships, insofar as we see Diane as a very good mother who herself needs to be mothered, and so she's mothered by both Dr Lesh and Tangina. Thank you, I want to say Tatiana, I knew that was wrong. Tangina, and she is, as you said it, the hero of this story. She's the protagonist, she is the hero. We see her do what needs to be done without hesitation. She goes into the goo place and is reborn with her daughter. She climbs out of the terrifying swimming pool full of actual dead bodies and immediately goes to find her children, unlike her husband who stands there like dumbstruck for a moment before he figures out what to do.
Speaker 2:We also spent some time talking about sexuality and female sexuality and adolescent girls and the ways in which society kind of hates them and is scared of them, also wants to control their sexuality and the ways that this movie in some ways subverted that by making Carol Anne the subject of the poltergeist's kind of desire, if you will, but also had Dana in the house and had us witness her being harassed and really like her mom just being like that's how it goes, despite the fact that I just said that her mom was a good mom. Her mom was a good mom but also knew how society worked and that was the cost of being female. So all of that is swirling like the household possessions of the people who live in the Poltergeist House. I was surprised to learn that this movie was rated PG, though it was before PG-13 existed, and you named just how influential it was. That many films that are kind of canonical for you and me are derivative or in some ways influenced, including Ghostbusters, nightmare on Elm Street and the Sixth Sense.
Speaker 2:I'm sure there are others. The last thing was that I remember I'm sure there are others the respect for the dead, that there's this like meta irony maybe irony is the wrong word, but this meta kind of like wrongness. This whole movie is about how we need to respect the dead because there are things that we don't understand. And then Steve and Hooper actually like used legit human remains for this film and like my eyeballs are huge right now oh, I forgot to name it Passes Backdale with flying colors. Many, many conversations about between named female characters, about things besides men. What did I forget?
Speaker 1:Just the why this is a personal film for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, right right, the fact that we saw it when we were seven and four respectively.
Speaker 1:And, like I still remember very clearly some scenes, and as did you, with the clown and the I was sure we must have like turned the film Like I did not think we saw it to the end. I was like, okay, I must have misremembered, like that clown is creepy, but it must not come back in. When it came back in at the end I was just like holy shit, dad. What were you thinking, dad?
Speaker 2:Sorry, we have respect for you, dad, you're dead.
Speaker 1:We have respect for the dead on deep thoughts about. We still do question your, your parenting choices in 1983.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh my yeah all right, so who this? Thank you, this was. This was really fun, I'm oh no, no, that's okay, but I'm I am glad to rehab the, the plot synopsis I really am and the fact that I remember the guy pulling his face off.
Speaker 1:That was the thing where I was like because I think I texted you. This is a lot. This is both less scary and scarier than I expected, and that was the part that was scarier than I expected yeah, yeah, who's who?
Speaker 2:so next week is it me or is it our guest?
Speaker 1:I think it's our guest. I think it's Ryan Cunningham, who I know through my writer's group, who is a director. She's bringing her deep thoughts on Rosemary's Baby. So ooh another scary one.
Speaker 2:Another one I'm scared of.
Speaker 2:See you then See you then. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people. Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Thank you to Resonate Recordings for editing today's episode. Until next time, remember pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?