Short Circuit: Deep Thoughts About Robots, Romance, and "Acceptable" Racism in 80s Movies Artwork

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

80s and 90s movies and early 2000s tv may be called stupid shit by some, but you know it matters. So do we. We're Tracie and Emily, sister podcasters who love well-crafted fiction and one another. In this comedy podcast, we look at the classic movies of our Gen X childhood and adolescence, analyzing film tropes to uncover the cultural commentary on romance, money, religion, mental health, and more. From Twilight to Ghostbusters, Harry Potter to the Muppets, comedy to drama to horror, we use feminism, our super smart brains, and each other to uncover the lessons lurking behind the nostalgia of pop culture. Come overthink with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about stupid shit.

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Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Comedy Podcast

Short Circuit: Deep Thoughts About Robots, Romance, and "Acceptable" Racism in 80s Movies

July 07, 2026 • Sister podcasters raised by 80s and 90s movies: Tracie Guy-Decker, lover of animation, Muppets, comedy, and feminism & Emily Guy Birken, storytelling nerd, mental health advocate, and pop culture aficionado • Episode 143

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I am standing here beside myself.

For this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie returns to one of the beloved movies from her and Emily's shared Gen X childhood: Short Circuit. The sisters remembered the charming robot Number 5 who gained sentience, the romance between Newton (Steve Guttenberg) and Stephanie (Ally Sheedy), and the funny malapropisms from Ben, the Indian character played by Fisher Stevens--a white actor in brown face. Even though brown face in pop culture was never "okay," for some reason it was "acceptable" in 1980s-era movies. In Short Circuit, the racism puts a pall over this otherwise life-affirming comedy. While the comedy of Stevens' Ben is mostly based on his humorous misuse of the English language, Tracie discovered that Ben was originally written as an Eastern European character. Which means making the white actor into an Indian caricature for both Short Circuit movies--Ben returned as the hero of the sequel--was entirely superfluous.

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Pop Culture Still Counts

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The big ideas were actually asking questions about what it means to be alive. It was asking questions about how is a creature insold? Is it through blood or is it through sentience? Like it was asking actually philosophical questions that are really important. They were important in the 80s, and they're very important now with all the people who think they're in relationships with their AI assistants. You know, I used to joke that ChatGPT was my boyfriend, but I always knew it was a joke. 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 it'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. I'm Tracy Guy Decker, 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 1986 film Short Circuit with my sister, Emily Guy Birkin, and with

Why Short Circuit Now

SPEAKER_02 1:05

you. Before we dive in, listener, if you haven't already, please take a moment and follow the show on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. On Apple, it's a plus sign. On Spotify, a button that says follow. It's free for you and it helps us a lot. Thanks. Now let's dive in. Em, I know you've seen this movie. I'm pretty sure we watched it together when we were kids, probably multiple times. But tell me what's in your head about Short Circuit. And now we're just talking about Short Circuit 1, not the sequels. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

So, Johnny 5, the robot, who I don't really remember exactly what he looks like, because in my head, he now looks like Wally. Yeah, they're they well, they look very similar. So I I imagine there's there's a lot of uh overlap. I remember that Allie Sheedy's in it because people used to tell me I looked like Ally Sheedy. I remember Fisher Stevens plays an Indian character, and I know that Fisher Stevens is a white man. I remember there's a song, Who's Johnny? She said. I remember that the Johnny 5, like, there's this like Johnny 5 alive sort of thing, and that reminds me a little bit of the movie The Iron Giants. Because this is a it's an idea that we come back to over and over again on The Iron Giant and the Wild Robot, uh, the idea of a machine that was built for war having some sort of sentience and deciding I'm not a gun. I am not a killing machine. I remember there's a romance between Ali Sheedy and Steve Gutenberg, which feels like the most 80s sentence ever said. That's basically what's in my head about it. I couldn't tell you anything about the plot, but that that's that's about what's in my head. So tell me, why are we talking about Short Circuit today?

SPEAKER_02 3:17

You know, one of one of my partners like reminded me of this movie because he listens to the podcast and he was like, you know what 80s movie I loved? And and I was like, oh my God, I forgot about that movie. This was like months ago. So I put it on the list after he said the name. And then right now, I mean, it's 40 years in, so that the timing is good since it's an 86 film. But I also I just I kind of wanted to return to something that was like light. So that was kind of like why it was on the list right now, just something a little bit different. Um, but I I remember adoring it. I'm pretty sure that we watched it with our cousin Chris because I kind of remember him like repeating some of the lines actually from Stevens' character, Ben. Like I can kind of rem hear our cousin Chris's voice in my head saying some of the like malapropisms that that that Stevens' character says. And so I have this like fondness in my heart for this film, and I I wanted to go back and see what's actually there. So that's that's what's at stake and and why now it's not not hugely meaningful, but but there you go. So before I remind you of the plot, because you remember a lot of like vignettes, but but before I remind you of the plot, let me give you some postcards from the destination of what we're gonna talk about. So we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about Fisher Stevens in Brown Face, I think.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

I that we need to talk about not just sort of the brown face, but also like the way that like there are things about the character that I need to talk about. That yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, and yet, wow, that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

Yeah, and and what what we'll get to is that the way I read one commentator say it that I like a lot is that brown face was never okay, but it was accepted, and we've stopped considering it acceptable. But even the brown face aside, like even if an Indian actor had been playing this character, there are things that are problematic about this character. And he's also very, very funny. And so, like, kind of I I want to I want to unpack those different things about this one character. I actually want to spend a little time talking about the philosophical questions that this movie like raises that are related to, like you brought in some some comps with these, with the animated films, but also just the questions about what is it to be alive, uh, that I think are very active right now in the age of the emergence of agentic AI. Part of that conversation will be a conversation about gender, because Johnny Five is very much male. And so I want to like talk about like that and and and why in 86 we felt the need to make this machine gendered. You named sort of the theme of this war machine gaining sentience and deciding that it does not want to be an agent of war. And so I want to talk about that message, that sort of pacifism, and whether it's effective in this film. And then I want to talk about like what is family-friendly a little bit, because some commentators I read had some objections to this film that I was real I'm reading it and I'm thinking, really, that's what you object to. So I just want to talk about that a little bit. There's some other things that I probably won't get to, like the romance between Gutenberg's Newton and Sheedy's Stephanie. I'll save that probably, probably I will save that for the shit we forgot to say, that will be a patrons-only exclusive. I also we we maybe we'll talk a little bit more in that about whether or not this technology was prescient, although we might get into this, this science fiction of the 80s, whether it was a question of Asian Tic AI or not. Okay, so that's

Plot And Best Bits Recalled

SPEAKER_02 7:24

where we're going. But first, let me remind you what happens. So this film starts with sort of close-up of like a machine, a this robot being constructed, and it's, you know, top-of-the-line technology for 1986. And it has this cool synth music going on in the background, and and they go through all the steps. And so it you buy into this the fact that this is a very high-tech thing. And then we see a demonstration where uh tanks and and jeeps and stuff get blown up by the robots in a meadow. And it it at first we don't know it's a demonstration. At first, we just see like a meadow, and then these tanks come and we're like, oh gosh, what are those? And then the robots with laser beams destroy all these things. And we see like bodies flying, but then the camera zooms in and we realize they're mannequins, and then we realize it is a demonstration of this defense contractor. And after the demonstration, there are five prototype robots all together and they just go by their numbers, number one through five. After the demonstration, there's like a party and they're serving cocktails. But one of them, number five, is still hooked up to a generator, which gets struck by lightning. And they think he's okay because he's he seems to be functional, but like he's not. Like he's something's wrong with him. He ends up through a series of like shenanigans. Shenanigans. Yeah. He ends up leaving the compound and lands literally on a food truck driven by Ali Sheedy's Stephanie Speck. So Stephanie is an animal lover. She's kind of kooky. Um, she's got like dozens of cats and like a skunk and ferrets and like bunnies. Like her house is like an animal shelter. And so she she takes in strays, basically. And when she finally actually encounters number five, she actually initially thinks he's an alien, like an extraterrestrial. And she's like, I knew they would choose me. And so she invites him into her house, and he keeps saying he wants input, input, need input. And so he speed reads her entire encyclopedia and dictionary and all the books, and then he watches TV overnight. And so he starts his dialogue as a lot of like repeating, like mimicking lines from the TV that he's been watching. So, like John Wayne, but also commercials all and all kinds of things. And meanwhile, the guys back in the lab who invented him, Steve Gutenberg's Newton, I can't remember Newton's last name, and Fisher Stevens' uh Ben, and he has an Indian last name that starts with a J. They changed it actually between the two movies, apparently. Anyway, they are communicating with him through a dot with Johnny, with number he's still number five at this point, number five through like a dot matrix computer who keeps saying like malfunction, need input, won't, and he won't return. So the military's freaking out because the laser is armed. So this like killing machine is now like out in the countryside in Oregon. Nova Labs is the name of it. They're trying to get him back, including G.W. Bailey as uh Captain Scroder, who's he's the guy he was in the police academy movies as like the top guy. So like this is like he's playing that same guy. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That same character again.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

The the the Lasard guy, like the like the white-haired one. Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

No, no, not Lasard.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

He was the mean one.

SPEAKER_02 11:09

The mean one.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Oh, so and he was also in Mannequin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

He was Captain Harris in Police Academy.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah, he was also in in mannequin, right? I don't know. I don't remember mannequin well. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

Okay. But he's playing that same character as Captain Harris. And so they're trying to get him back. So this important scene happens where number five has the like this input, input. There is a wonder. He has wonder. I'm gonna use gendered pronouns because the movie indicates that he is male. And so like he sees a grasshopper jumping and he gets excited and he starts jumping too and ends up accidentally squashing it. And he says, Oh, disassembled. And Stephanie's like, Yeah, you squashed it. And he says, Reassemble, Stephanie. And she's like, I can't. Once you're dead, you're dead. And so now number five understands death. He does not want to go back to Nova Labs to be disassembled because he wants to stay who he is. He wants to stay alive. And so the rest of the movie is him with Stephanie's help trying to elude the Nova Labs people who are in sort of parallel tracks with Newton and Ben, Steve Gutenberg and Steve Fisher Stevens, trying to like get him back to like figure out what happened, and then uh Captain Scroder, GW Bailey, and a bunch of soldiers trying to destroy him effectively. And that's what the rest of the movie is. Eventually, Stephanie is able to Stephanie and and number five are able to convince Newton that number five is in fact alive, that he has gained sentience and is in fact alive and should be protected. Um, because alive is not a malfunction. That's the like tagline kind of a thing. So now, you know, they're trying to protect him. And the the final scene, everybody catches up to them, um, both uh the all of the soldiers and Captain Schroeder, and also the president of Nova Labs, who's played by Austin Pendleton, who's like a very you would know him if you saw him. He's a character actor. He plays sort of like a nebishy kind of nervous, you know, authority figure. But he is also a a doctor, a researcher. So he and and Steve Gutenberg's character we learn had been working together for a long time, but now he's the businessman. And so they're all there together, and um, there's a big truck that Allie Sheedy, Steve Gutenberg, and number five are all in. Sheedy and Gutenberg get out. So, so so Stephanie and and Newton have gotten out, and they're talking to this mass of weapons and and people and saying, like, look, I can prove it. Please don't kill him. I can prove he's alive. And Pendleton's character, whose name is Marner, he's like kind of listening, but he's skeptical, but he's kind he's like, he's kind of listening. But Captain Scroder's not listening at all.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

He doesn't care, and he sends guys around, and five, we think, like gets out the back and is like running for his life effectively, and gets blown up by a helicopter.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

And then the final scene, Newton and Stephanie are driving away, and they're like, What are you gonna do now? And Newton has lost his job. Um, and he says, You know, my dad left me some land up in Montana. I think I might go out there and just restart. And then we hear Johnny's, we hear number five's voice and he says, That's a great idea. So he had made a decoy out of all the spare parts that were in the back of the truck. So that's what got blown up. So the movie ends. The three of them are gonna go to uh Newton's land up in Montana and like, I don't know, live happily ever after. So that's the like overarching gist of the movie. In the middle, there's a bunch of shenanigans that many of which are actually quite funny. Where so the other robots, three of them are trying to capture number five, and he manages to um incapacitate each of them and then reprogram them so that they are the three stooges, and they're like hitting each other and doing things like three stooges. Yeah, I remember and even like like decorates them like uh Larry Moe and Carlin. And there are, you know, there's a moment where he's watching Saturday Night Fever and he gets really excited and he starts dancing like John Travolta, like the robot dances like John Travolta, which is really interesting on the treads that he's got. So there are actually a lot of quite amusing moments in this film. One other sort of moment that wasn't that amusing now, though I probably was in 1986. The Stephanie asks to speak to Newton. This is actually number five's idea to convince Newton that number five is alive, and then Newton can convince everybody else. So she has to speak to just him, and they meet at a bar and whatever, they have a little conversation, and of course, the Nova double-crossed them and squirters there and and sort of captures them. But after all of that, Ben, Fisher Stevens, picks up Newton and they're talking, and he says, What was she's a girl? Like, like, what was it like? And and Ben says, Did you did she stick her tongue in your mouth? And Gutenberg's Gutenberg's Newton was like, No, no, nothing like that. But her hands almost touched. And then, and then Ben says, I am sporting such a woody right now, or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Like, I was like, oh my God, did he actually just say that? Anyway, I mentioned that because I think we do need to. That's a piece of the like Ben's character that I need to talk about. But that's the gist of it with a couple of little like clearer postcards from inside, vignettes from inside. There's a lot more.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

I will share them if I need to as we come up.

unknown 17:33

All right.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

So let me start.

Brownface And What It Signals

SPEAKER_02 17:36

As I said that I would wear, I think we need to spend a lot of time, which is with Pischer Stevens and Blackface, b brown face, I should say. So, you know, a lot has been written about this. So I don't think we need to like, I don't we don't need to like reinvent the wheel. Exactly. But I think it's worth noting, like the way that I said it in the postcards, right? This was actually an acceptable, it was never okay. I don't want to suggest it was ever okay, but it was an accepted practice in '86. And today, like I read an interview where the director, um, whose name is Batam, John Batam, who also did War Games and maybe Saturday Night Fever. Like he's he has quite a filmography under his name. And and I read a place where he and Gutenberg both kind of talked to remember the movie like 20 or 25 years later. And Batham says, like, we made the decision to make this character Indian after we'd already cast Fisher Stevens. And looking back, we should have cast an Indian actor or not done this. Like, yeah. Yes, you should have. But this is what what they did in 80 in 86. It's interesting to me that originally the guy who played the cousin from Perfect Strangers. Do you remember Perfect Strangers? Yeah. Uh, what is that guy's name? I know exactly who you mean. His name was Bronson Pinchot. Yes. So Bronson Pinchot was originally well, actually, Stevens was cast and then lost the job to Pinchot. And then Pinchot went off to do the the TV show. And so Stevens, they they rehired Stevens. And so they had originally envisioned this character more like Balkie. So like a white European, Eastern European. And then at some point, like in production, they decided to change it. And in fact, when I watch the film with that in mind, like there's only one moment that's actually like explicitly Indian, which is where he says something like it was nice to meet you Namaste, or have a nice life, Namaste. But the word Namaste is the only thing that's actually Indian about anything that Ben says. In fact, when at one point Newton asks him where he's from, he says, I don't remember the name, but like a town in Oregon, because they're in Oregon. And Newton says, No, but I mean your ancestors. Like, where are your ancestors from? And he says, Oh, them, Pittsburgh. And, you know, that was sort of the joke. But like it's it's interesting to me that there was nothing actually except for this like fake Indian accent and the brown face.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

There's nothing about this character that needed to be Indian.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 20:34

He could he, in fact, it was, it sounds like it was written to be someone from sort of the Balkans, potentially. But the whole shtick for no, not the whole, the bulk of the shtick for Ben's character is the malapropisms. So he tries to use American idioms and gets them wrong in funny ways. And they and they are often funny. And the thing that I remember our cousin saying is um at one point they're sort of dumbfounded by something that that number five does. He chooses the name Johnny in that final, final scene when they're going to Montana, by the way. Okay. Okay. He's so he they're surprised by something. Newton and and Ben are both surprised by something that that that number five is doing that he shouldn't be able to do. And he says, I am standing here beside myself. I'm not going to put the accent on. And I can kind of remember our cousin saying that.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:29

But I think maybe I remember Balkie saying that too. From Perfect Strangers, which we should probably put on the list, come to think of it.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Because we definitely watched that show. We watched that show, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

Anyway, in some ways, like recognizing that fact that this character, there was nothing inherently Indian about this character that they put a white man and brown face to play. Makes it even more upsetting. to me. Yeah. Because then it it was it was just for the sort of racism piece of it, kind of you know, like to to make this Indian person the butt of the joke. And and so I don't I don't have anywhere else to go with that specifically to my, you know, analysis here, but I I think it is worth noting.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Like it's it's not a thing that it would it doesn't change the story in any way, shape, or form.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Exactly. And therefore it's a it's just egregious. It's gratuitous. It's gratuitous brown.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Pornographic.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

And I won't mention, I'm not gonna go into detail on it because again, it's out there for listeners who want to find it. But I in my research for today, I found that short circuit two, which I did not rewatch, is all about Ben. He is the main character. And Fisher Stevens comes back as Ben again. Apparently they changed his last name between one and two. I don't know why. Anyway, the comedian Aziz Ansari, who has his own controversy around him, which I think we've even talked about on the show before from the Me Too movement, but is a, you know, of relatively famous American actor of Indian descent, talked has talked about how when he first saw Short Circuit 2, it was like mind-blowing to him that this Indian man would be the star and not the comedic sidekick and also have a romantic interest, be the lead with a romantic interest who happened to be a white woman in in Short Circuit 2 and how important that was to Ansari and how devastating it was to him when he realized that it was a white man in brown face. And as an adult, once he had some fame, Ansari actually sought out Stevens and they had a conversation which has been documented about how the decisions were made and what happened and where Ansari is, you know, after that conversation like Stevens was a a work an actor who needed work.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:05

Right. Yeah. And so he did what they asked him to do. So I think that's if if this is an interesting question for listeners, I encourage you to go find that. It's it's a little tangential to our conversation because it really does focus mainly on short circuit too. But I did I did want to mention that on the air. So let me let me talk a little bit more about the character even like removing the fact that they put this white man in in brown phase.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

Like the malapropisms are funny.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

They are and Stevens has pretty good timing. Like I I enjoyed that piece of it.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

He he's he's a talented actor I've seen him in other things and so your comment about he he's a working actor that's anyway just continue.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

He's a working actor and it was an acceptable practice it was an accepted practice at the time. So like my my fire at him is mitigated. Yes. It's not not gone, but it is mitigated.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Well the 80s is gave us soul man as well to remember exactly I for listeners who are uh too young to remember that that was uh C. Thomas Howell who is a white actor played a white character who put on blackface to get into a historically black college. Or no no it wasn't a whose it was to take advantage of a scholarship for black students I think was something along those lines.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Something along those lines anyway sorry I I'm getting distracted but I also it was interesting to me in my research like Stevens's brown face was convincing enough that Indian Americans mistook him for a famous Bollywood actor and thought that this Bollywood actor was making a break into Hollywood film. Yeah and and then the the the Indian actor like a few weeks after the movie was released was like guys that's not me so yeah yeah so Stevens's brown face was convincing and like even to to Indian folks. So anyway that's an another aside where I want to go I want to go to the character of Ben even if we take the sort of brown face out of it. The malapropisms were funny. It was the same shtick and and yet it was funny over and over again because it was different malapropisms and and his timing was good and all those things. The things that weren't good is like this sort of stereotypical like 80s the 80s stereotypical sex obsessed nerd and what that then what then then happens the misogyny that then is baked into that right like he they when they first meet when Ben and Newton first meet Stephanie she's with number five and they spent you know almost 24 hours together. She's totally comfortable with this robot she doesn't know it's a war machine and she's like in like you know five feet away from it and they are freaking out because it's a war machine and so Ben's like girly girly move move girly and you know so he calls her girly he's and then later like they're face to face and he says like are you a girl? And you know she's like last time I checked which that language is no longer acceptable either like I mean she's not my age she's in her 20s but like still no she's not a girl she's a woman come on she's a woman yeah she's an adult anyway and then like he thinks she's kind of crazy. Like he makes it clear she's kooky uses all like words like that like kooky, zany crazy. And then as soon as Newton says, but she's kind of pretty right like I think she's pretty then all of a sudden she's a sex object and he wants to know about like did she put her tongue down your throat and he talks about having an erection. And so like the the switch and the juxtaposition from like crazy person to sex like another commentator that I read sort of pointed that out and once they said it I was like oh damn like I was already uncomfortable with the way that Ben spoke to and about Stephanie. But once I read this this essay about short circuit and they said that I was like oh yeah oh it's even worse than I thought because of that because of that switch right and the leaning on that sort of sex obsessed nerd that yeah just requires a level of sexism and that can and often does fall all the way into misogyny.

SPEAKER_03 28:56

Where she she's not a human she's just either an obstacle to getting what he wants or a vagina with legs.

SPEAKER_02 29:08

Mm-hmm and that it hurts a little right because the sweetness of the I'm standing here beside myself yes exactly exactly the sweetness of I am standing here beside myself is just totally tainted by I am sporting a woody right now or such a woody right now something like that.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

It actually feeds into why like my my issue with Aziz Ansari in that like I don't think Aziz Ansari needs to be like I hate the term canceled, but uh like so those those of you don't remember there was a a woman who uh by the name of Grace who wrote an essay um about her date with Az Aziz who she was in her early twenties and he was in his mid-30s so and he was famous she was not uh and so there was already a power differential there and he basically tap danced on the consent line and used what he knew about consent and feminism to try to get her to give in so he never actually crossed the line but he tap danced on it. Yeah and and and it made her uncomfortable made her uncomfortable and she did things she didn't want to do. And there were people who judged her because like you know oh she clearly just wanted a famous boyfriend. I'm like well why is that a bad thing? Yeah you know like it's not a bad thing to want that. Yeah. And he kept saying he kept saying things to make her comfortable like he'd push and then make her comfortable so that she'd stay and then push again. So I'm bringing this up because the sweetness of I'm standing here beside myself is part of how the misogyny proliferates and that nerd culture that we grew up with where like oh they can't help it. They're just sweet nerds that we grew up with is like the driver of so much misogynistic behavior because we were taught to see these nerds as like you know just so out of their element and out of their depth and like oh my goodness girls that is definitely the way that these two characters like and you know the fact that like Aziz Ansari was so struck by this character and and so taken by this character. And like my biggest beef with Ansari is the fact that he was a self-proclaimed feminist and like like wore the the the pins and the badges and like claimed to be one of us but then in behind closed doors was weaponizing the language when he had the power. So and I'm sure he believed he was a good guy. I mean everybody believes believes that everybody believes that or they just don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

And I really I truly hope that he has done some soul searching since then but like I don't anyway. I don't I don't care. Well I do care because there are other people he could he could abuse.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Well okay sure but like I feel that way about every like any ab like I don't care about him in particular as an abuser.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Aaron Ross Powell Well the reason why I do is because he wrote a book called True Romance before all this came out he could write another book and I think that that could make a difference is why I care.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

So anyway with him saying girly girly get away like I'm thinking about how someone who truly sees women as people would probably say ma'am ma'am you know which like and anything that you call to get a woman's attention is fraught. Yeah ma'am is fraught missus fraught fraught like anything is fraught but there is a level of respect in I I mean even just like hey you in the blue dress like but it doesn't there's yeah yeah girly girly is not there is no level of respect in girly but excuse me ma'am there is there is respect in there even though it is fraught because that is something at least you know someone taught that person that that is the the a respectful thing even if you don't feel like it if you see what I'm saying like I yeah nobody nobody uh self-identifies as girly yes yeah yes yeah while we're here with the sweetness hiding or or glossing over kind of misogyny I want to talk about number five and the fact that he is a he.

Gendering Johnny 5 And Ogling

SPEAKER_02 34:32

So there is a scene he has he has like escaped left so he's off on his own Stephanie has this that I didn't even talk about in the synopsis she has this horrible ex-boyfriend who like it's dangerous. Like he's bad news like he's gonna hurt her. Anyway he has seen on the news that there's a reward for this robot and that she's involved and so he wants to try and get the reward. So she sends him off and then she's taking a bath and she thinks it's him coming back and she's freaking out because she's in the tub it's number five and he comes in he opens the bathroom door and he's holding a branch in front of him and he says camouflage. Anyway she's in the tub and so he says something like you changed color and she's like I'm in the tub and then he I don't remember the words I wish I had written them down because it feels important now that I'm talking about it. But he basically says that she's beautiful and like praises her naked body and it is not platonic and watching it I was like this is not okay and like in the 80s we probably were like oh but but now I'm like oh my God this ew this is not okay that and like why I mean I already know the answer but I'm gonna ask it anyway like they make a point over and over again that this is a machine. Like Newton has a a phrase that he says so often that people around him repeat it with him. The robots don't feel the robots don't have opinions the robots don't whatever the robot just does the program that it's programmed to do or does what it's programmed to do, something like that. And the final line does what it's programmed to do like other people repeat it along with him. And he says it over and over and over again. And like I mean the whole point of the movie is that he does he is alive. He does do those things but like why did they have to make sexuality and gender a part of that and like I know the answer. And I'm still going to ask it of them anyway, right? Because I I think they it undercuts some of the big ideas of this movie. Right? The big ideas, the big questions that this fluff movie, which actually was a pretty good blockbuster I mean a pretty pretty good box office success, but the big ideas were actually asking questions about what it means to be alive. It was asking questions about how is a creature insold is it through blood or is it through sentience? Like it was asking actually philosophical questions that are really important. They were important in the 80s and they're very important now with all the people who think they're in relationships with their AI assistants. And like you know I used to joke that ChatGPT was my boyfriend, but I always knew it was joke. Like you read some of the things that like have become available like people really are captivated by this idea that this movie was asking or at least like unpacking a bit 40 years ago. Did the gender and the sexuality and having number five ogle Ali Shidi Stephanie did that actually contribute to the conversation I don't think it did.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

I think it was just titillating so that the audience could sort of feel justified in ogling her.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

So I often look at things through an LGBTQ lens and one thing I I've been thinking is that like it is kind of like transaffirming that Johnny 5 is male in that he has no genitals. Yeah. But he is male and so that one could say that that's like you know that is part of his soul I I actually think that would have been an interesting question if that's actually kind of what they were unpacking. Mm-hmm they were more I it felt But they were more interested in oggling a woman. Yes and like I mean him saying she's beautiful but he that there they wouldn't have done the same if uh Steve Gutenberg had taken a bath well and they did it earlier.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

He calls her beautiful one other time. She shows him a sunrise it's important to her she wants him to see the sunrise and he says it's beautiful and he says something else is beautiful and then he says Stephanie beautiful and that moment I that didn't set off any alarm bells for me. That actually did feel quite sweet. Mm-hmm so doing it again when she is in the tub then actually was gratuitous. Yeah yeah I I actually hear you and I don't disagree like having him be gendered could be a part of the like a live conversation. Could be I don't think that's why they did it.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

I think they did it so they could justify goggling. Well I mean like making him male it's clear that the idea of male is like and I'm sporting quite the woody right now. Yeah it's not heterosexual yeah it's it's heterosexuality it's compulsory heterosexuality it's not yeah yeah but it is a very interesting way of looking at it like a different lens yeah yeah I agree.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

Yeah okay I'm gonna shift us now because I want to talk about what is family friendly.

What Even Counts As Kid Friendly

SPEAKER_02 40:36

So I was reading commentators on this film and more than one sort of said this is supposed to be for kids but I don't see how because like within the first five minutes Gutenberg has like this robot arm he's programming give uh Ben the finger like in the first few minutes gives him the finger how is that for kids? And like there was something else that they pointed out and I was like well in the first 30 seconds like things are being blown up and we see bodies flying. Why aren't you mentioning that as why it's not for kids you know I didn't even notice he also there there's some cursing um not a lot but like at one point like Newton says holy shit and five goes shit I don't see shit no shit so it's like like it was like a Rorschach test. Mm-hmm and and so commentators also complained about that like the obscenities in it that make it maybe not as family friendly as but but it's also not for adults because it's so silly. And I just was like wow you and I have very different understanding of what's for kids and what's for adults you know I just was really struck by that I didn't even notice the obscenities they did not register for me because it's just normal because you know I mean we named our we named our show with the word shit in the title so like obviously I am not bothered by so-called bad words. But having another commentator point it out, I was like yeah no that's that's not it. And before we hit record, you reminded me that there's a reason that I feel that way.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

Yeah when when we were growing up our parents had no problem with us watching R-rated films that were rated R because of sexuality or coarse language but they would not let us watch R-rated films that were R-rated because of violence. Yeah. That made perfect sense to me and I was very very confused by my friends whose parents had the opposite rules like I was like what?

SPEAKER_02 42:51

Our parents I'm real I'd like this is making me realize our parents were actually quite countercultural by by taking that stance. I mean obviously because the the the way that more than one commentator talked about short circuit in 1986 made it clear that to them it was obvious that obscenities were not for children and they had nothing to say about the violence at all. It it didn't even register. It wasn't worth talking about in the same way that for me the obscenities were not worth talking about. So that was something that like I just occurred to me that I think has broader implications, obviously, than just this film, but became plain to me here that I I wanted to mention.

Pacifism Versus Action Movie Thrills

SPEAKER_02 43:40

So I'm running out of time I would like to talk about what you pointed out as a theme that happens in multiple like this is a thing that that we humans come back to where this this agent of war sort of decides that's not who I am. And there's

SPEAKER_03 44:00

So there's a there's a sort of pacifism in that that I'm wondering about how effective it is in this film. At one point Stephanie says, blow them up with your laser. And number five says, No, but that would disassemble them. And she says, Yeah, do it. And he says, No. And they he actually has a conversation with Stephanie and then again with Newton.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

Why? And number five says, Well, it's wrong. It's wrong to kill. And Newton says, Yeah, I know it's wrong to kill. How do you know who told you?

SPEAKER_03 44:48

And number five says, I told me. And embedded in that dialogue between this robot and its maker is like a fundamental assumption about universal good that is really interesting, I think, if we dig into it.

SPEAKER_02 45:13

And um, you know, much deeper, this is our whole project, much deeper than I think, you know, the average audience viewer of Short Circuit in 1986 was thinking, right? And in some ways, like the the person, putting quotes around that word, of Johnny Five sort of embodies that idea. Great. There's a universal truth and it's But in other ways, like the mechanism of the movie does not support that, right? Because in some some of the like the most exciting scenes are like the action scenes with all the blowing up. And like he uses his lasers, he avoids actually destroying people. He does destroy like he doesn't hurt, like at one point he um he confronts the the bad ex-boyfriend, who is very dangerous, and like uses his laser to like make him dance, like on his feet, and like shoots his belt buckle off so his pants fall down and like shoots his hat off and stuff like that, but doesn't actually like hurt him even, just embarrasses him. And at and uh other points, like he shoots like the tires or things. But those scenes are like super compelling. And so there's a certain degree of like where you put your energy, like where you put your attention is like a value judgment. And so they're telling us our their values with the person, I'm using that term loosely, of number five. But then they're sh showing us slightly different values by where they put their energy and attention. And like this was a film they were trying to make money, and that's what people like. And so, like, I get the reasons, but if we're gonna take seriously the big idea that there is a universal good, there is a universal truth of not killing, like that the commandment was not just like on high, like by people who heard it, but like figure outable by an agentic robot, but then we fill the film about it with all these explosions.

SPEAKER_03 47:31

I just wanted to name that like tension before I let the episode go.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

I've got two things that this brings up. One, the fact that stories need conflict.

SPEAKER_03 47:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

So, like to get to where Totally.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

But there's conflict without there could be there could have been conflict without explosion. True. I think. I mean, it could have just been chase scenes.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

I don't know. True. And then the other is this this also it feels a little bit like the paradox of tolerance. Yeah. And if you're not familiar with the paradox of tolerance listener, that's where people uh society needs to be tolerant of opposing viewpoints. However, if you are tolerant of all opposing viewpoints, that means being tolerant of opposing viewpoints that say that like some people should be killed. Right. So you must be intolerant of intolerant viewpoints. Uh it reminds me of that, where like, you know, the people who want to kill other people must not be tolerated. And that gets to why human society is fucked up. There's a there's a character from uh from one of the books that I've read over and over again who said, like, you know, I'm against violence, but there are some people who will not be who will never be convinced of the error of their opinion unless you hit them as hard and as often as you possibly can.

SPEAKER_02 49:11

I have more to say, but I'm gonna save them for the shit we forgot to say over on our Patreon.

Takeaways Patreon Tease And Next Week

SPEAKER_02 49:16

So let me see if I can reflect back to you the things that we did say in this episode. So 1986, short circuit. Brownface is never okay, but it was accepted in 1986. We no longer find it acceptable. And Fisher Stevens in Brownface as Ben is uh it's the elephant in the room with this movie. It is really hard to, it's hard to see past. Uh, especially since as we as we unpacked in this conversation, it is entirely gratuitous. Like if we if you changed the ethnicity of that character and made him a white, a white character from, you know, from the the Balkan states or from uh some other Eastern European nation, left the dialogue exactly the same and removed that one word namaste, it wouldn't change the movie at all. And so the brown face and this sort of fake Indian accent are are completely gratuitous, which which makes it really egregious. And it hurts. It hurts. That character, too, though, even removing the brown face, has the sort of layering that you named of sort of a sweetness that belies a misogyny that's a dangerous combination in the long term. This this movie has that in in multiple ways. But you sort of named that as kind of like we were taught growing up, like to sort of a reaction to this character, this man, this nerd is like, oh, you sweet soul, you can't help yourself. Right. But then that excuses or perhaps excuses is the wrong word, it it allows entree to some seriously misogynistic behavior. And we see that in this character as well, where from what word he uses to try and get her attention by calling Stephanie girly, to the way that he speaks about her once she has the switch has been flipped from obstacle to sex object, just drips with misogyny. Well, it drips with sexism. I think it then it does, I think it does travel all the way into misogyny. And that is true not just of this character of Ben, but also of number five in particular, who is given a gender, he is male. And there's a wonder to him, like he has a wonder and he just wants to learn, which sort of puts him in that kind of nerd category. But then this like sharpness, where when he encounters her in the tub, there is some ogling that happens, which again, much like the brown face, feels completely gratuitous to the story. It was unnecessary. It just allows the viewer then to also ogle Ally Sheedy.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

So those were some of the like yucky things that I'm seeing on Rewatch.

SPEAKER_02 52:41

We also spoke at some length about what makes something kid-friendly and the fact that our parents actually gave us a quite counter-cultural message. We're realizing, I'm realizing, insofar as they didn't care when we were kids if we were exposed to so-called rough coarse language. They didn't care when we were kids if we were exposed to things that were sp sexual or sexual, you know, sexuality. They did care if we were exposed to things that were violent. And this movie is a sort of a case in point for that, where many commentators sort of say this isn't as kid friendly as I thought that it would be because there are all these obscenities and sexual content, and don't mention at all the violent content that actually is the first, the very first scene post-credits in this movie. Oh, we also talked about the philosophical questions that this raises about what does it mean to have a soul? Like, what does it mean to be alive? Is it about blood coursing through your paints, or is it about sentience, or is there some version thereof, which in many ways is sort of prescient of this current moment where we've been living with generative AI for a couple of years and now agentic AI is coming to the fore. And and so this is these are really important philosophical questions that this movie touches on and starts to unpack.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

I don't know that I don't know that it did it intentionally.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

I mean, I I think that John Batham was interested in these questions. He did war games in the same time period. So he was actually really interested in these questions, I think. Uh, even way back then, he was interested in in the questions of AI. And so I think he was actually kind of thinking that that's under undergirding a lot of what's happening. But then the next step that this movie takes, where this war machine sort of finds the universal truth of not killing as what is right, then, you know, which which we are both shown and told. But then also that's undercut by the the vehicle in which we are shown and told those things, where the explosions are like kind of a key part of like the action of the movie and and are given to us to consume and enjoy. So I I just raise that that tension a little bit. I feel like I'm forgetting something that we talked about. What did I forget?

SPEAKER_01 55:13

I did mention the the fact that number five is male, could could be, yes, uh, if you look at it through an LGBTQ lens, that could be kind of gender-affirming, like kind of a transgender-affirming uh message, except that it's used as like compulsory heterosexuality.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Yeah, it's less about gender identity. In the in the way that we receive this movie, the gender of number five of Johnny Five is less about gender identity and more about sexual, like sexual orientation. They needed him to have a gender so that he could be attracted to Ali Shady rather than gender being a way that we express who we are. Yeah. We also spoke about Aziz Ansari and the ways in which, and I will find the article and link to it for folks about the sequel to this movie that Ansari had conversations about the brown phase. I have other things I want to talk about. So, listener, if you want to hear more about like my thoughts about the romance between Newton and Stephanie and some other things about this movie, please consider going over to our Patreon. You can listen to the shit we forgot to say. Patrons can listen. It's easy and not very expensive to join, and we would love to have you as a part of our family over there. And then next week, um next week I'm bringing you my deep thoughts on Greece. The Travolta and Olivia Newton John.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Olivia Newton John, yes.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

All right, who is not, in fact, married to Ellen John, despite what our father despite what our father tried to claim to tell us. And never has been. Never has been.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

All right, well, I look forward to that conversation.

SPEAKER_02 57:11

See you next week.

Support The Show And Farewell

SPEAKER_02 57:13

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