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We picked the wrong week to give up horse tranquilizers…

The Guy Girls have fond memories of the 1980 comedy Airplane!–specifically, they remember their dad helplessly snort-laughing at this three-gags-a-minute parody of 1970s-era disaster films. The movie still delivers solid belly laughs, but not everything is as funny four decades later. Tracie examines how jokes about pedophilia, misogyny, racism, and homophobia in the movie punch down instead of skewering the powerful and absurd, and the sisters lament the fact that the Zucker brothers (and Jim Abrahams) question everything–except the idea that a woman is a prize. But credit where credit is due–Tracie is able to make Emily lose it with laughter just by describing some of the movie’s funniest moments.

Surely you’re going to listen to this episode.
I am going to listen–and don’t call me Shirley.

Mentioned in this episode:
The commentator with gag analysis: https://covell.ca/airplane/

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 Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

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You know what the difference is between you and me? I make podcasting look gooooood.

This week, Emily dives into the remarkably subversive 1997 film Men in Black. Despite looking like nothing more than an entertaining summer blockbuster that merged sci-fi and comedy, MiB actually asks the audience to rethink what they know about immigration, xenophobia, race, policing, government, and even the buddy-cop genre. Tracie and Emily truly enjoy revisiting this old favorite that seems especially prescient in the current political climate.

Take a listen and we promise not to use the flashy-thing memory-messer-upper on you!

Mentioned in this episode:

https://collider.com/men-in-black-unconscious-bias/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Screenwriting/comments/hkolix/men_in_black_and_the_art_of_a_racial_subtext_in_a/

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 Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon.

Not ready for long-term commitment but want to support us? Buy us a coffee on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

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Shouldn't you be holding the crucifix? It is the prop for martyrs!

The 1996 film The Birdcage offered a revolutionary portrayal of gay love in a mainstream movie. Not only do we see a stable, loving, long-term relationship between Robin Williams’ Armand and Nathan Lane’s Albert, but the film is a funny and joyous celebration of being queer that doesn’t require a side of tragedy.

But as Tracie shares with us this week, not everything in this laugh-out-loud farce has aged well: Armand and Albert’s son Val is a straight-up villain (see what I did there?) who pressures his parents hide their true selves, Hank Azaria’s portrayal of Agador, the Guatemalan house boy, makes his character the butt of the joke (not to mention the fact that Azaria is a straight, white, Ashkenazi Jewish man playing a queer Latino), and the shortcuts the filmmakers use to show the hypocrisy of Gene Hackman’s Senator Keeley reify racist stereotypes.

The sisters still find a lot to love in this film that asks us to question assumptions about gender performance and family–even if they can never forgive Val.

We are family! I’ve got the Guy sisters with me. Get up everybody and listen!

CW: Discussions of homophobia and the AIDS epidemic

Mentioned in this episode:

The commentator who named Val THE villain of the 1990s:

https://crookedmarquee.com/why-the-birdcage-mattered-and-how-it-came-up-short/#google_vignette

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 Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls