Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

"I see dead people..."

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily returns to M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 masterpiece The Sixth Sense. The film was a pop culture phenomenon when it debuted, and all everyone could talk about was the last ten minutes of the plot, when Bruce Willis's Malcolm Crowe (and the audience) realizes that his situation is much different from what he had believed. And to give Shyamalan his due, this plot twist uses masterful storytelling, playing by the rules and giving the audience all the clues necessary to connect the dots.

The problem is that pop culture as a whole and Shyamalan in particular grabbed onto the idea that the twist is what made the film great, rather than the storytelling, psychology, relationships, and acting. As Emily remarks to Tracie, The Sixth Sense is a remarkable film that happens to have a twist ending, not a remarkable film because of its twist ending. The result is that a promising young director became a bit of a pop culture punchline as Shyamalan kept trying to recreate the twist rather than leaning into his remarkable storytelling and directorial abilities. Which is a damn shame.

Throw on your headphones to hear two live sister podcasters making each other laugh over this film!

Mentioned in this episode:

Roger Ebert’s review of The Sixth Sense

Tags: deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, storytelling, psychology, mental health, film, classic movies, bruce willis, m night shyamalan, 80s and 90s movies, movies, movie reviews, haley joel osment, toni colette, analyzing film tropes, millennial nostalgia, film analysis, cultural commentary, ghost story, plot twist

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Whether you like it or not, you're in the middle of a war that has been raging for the better part of a thousand years.

Tracie returned to the 2003 film Underworld to find a delightful – but maybe not very good – vampire and werewolves version of the Matrix. Starring Kate Beckinsale as Selene in skin-tight leather, Underworld is a visually beautiful, blue-tinged movie that marries some of the ideals of feminism with the same sexist tropes that feminism has been shining a light on since the invention of movies. Because so much of our storytelling requires badass women to fall in love with "chosen ones" rather than simply be the protagonists on their own.

The sisters also unpack an explicit fantasy allegory about interracial relationships that is well-meaning but perhaps not as effective as the movie-makers intended: race is made up, but the difference between werewolves and vampires is visible under a microscope. Sex and sexiness are also key topics of conversation, because vampires. And Kate Beckinsale. (Even though the feminism of a sexy Kate Beckinsale in skintight leather is definitely suspect.)

Though we cannot predict the future, the consequences of this episode will reverberate through 54 minutes of listening pleasure. So put on some headphones and stay out of the shadows.

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, feminism, women, fantasy, film, movies, storytelling, allegory, underworld, kate beckinsale, michael sheen, vampires, werewolves, race, analyzing film tropes, cult classic, cultural commentary, pop culture, film analysis, psychology

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal.

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily revisits one of the most unhinged pieces of Gen X pop culture: the 1986 cult classic film Highlander. Starring French-American actor Christopher Lambert (who didn't speak English prior to being cast) and noted Scot Sean Connery (who was playing an Egyptian character with a Spaniard's name), the movie's surface storytelling is about immortal beings decapitating each other over the centuries.

But director Russell Mulcahy (himself a gay man) offers some pretty unsubtle queer subtext throughout the film--including the homoeroticism of the training montages between Lambert and Connery and AIDS metaphors that would be abundantly clear to any LGBTQ audiences of 80s and 90s movies. Mulcahy created a pop culture phenomenon that deeply resonated with everybody's dad (and specifically Tracie & Emily's stepdad) in the 1980s, even though the cultural commentary about the American queer experience of living through homophobia, the AIDS epidemic, and societal indifference and hostility, all while trying to remain open to romance, sailed RIGHT OVER THEIR HEADS. Because swords are cool. And where else you gonna get your decapitation fix in the average piece of pop culture?

There can be only one...podcast episode to listen to over the next hour. So throw on your headphones and get started!

Mentioned in this episode:

Highlander: Love, Violence, and Sword Metaphors

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, cult classic, cultural commentary, storytelling, 80s and 90s movies, romance, analyzing film tropes, queer lens, film, film analysis, gen x childhood, gen x nostalgia, mental health, movies, nostalgia, psychology, sci fi, women, sean connery

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

The Big Apple needs a worm like Fielding!

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily revisits a favorite television comedy from her Gen X childhood: Night Court. Not only did the Guy sisters watch this workplace comedy in syndication in the afternoons starting in elementary school (despite the fact that much of the humor was very much not meant for children), but it was also part of the Must See TV lineup on Thursday nights that Tracie and Emily watched with their parents.

Showrunner Reinhold Weege (and yes, that's really his name) created a true laugh-a-minute comedy that also offered well-meaning storytelling that was surprisingly progressive about trans acceptance, mental health, and racial equality. But the treatment of women in the show, especially how John Larroquette's Dan Fielding constantly hit on every woman indiscriminately and Markie Post's Christine Sullivan in particular, feels much slimier now than the writers intended. While Fielding was always the butt of the joke and made to pay for his sleazy ways, Night Court is a pop culture reflection of the belief that unwanted male attention was the price of being a woman. The fact that Larroquette still managed to make Dan likable is a testament to his acting skills and the strength of the ensemble cast, headed by Harry Anderson.

Throw on your headphones and take a listen...and we'll consider the case of The People vs. The Podcast Listener dismissed!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, comedy, gen x childhood, storytelling, sitcom, television, night court, john larroquette, markie post, harry anderson, women, mental health, pop culture, gen x nostalgia, cultural commentary, society, new york city, criminal justice, slapstick, 1980s pop culture

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor.|
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

The Guy Girls' neighborhood is full of nostalgia this week as the sisters return to the gentle, sunny television show that helped raise millions of American children: Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Tracie shares how Fred Rogers' plan to go seminary was changed when he was horrified to see people throwing pies at each other on his parents' brand new television set in the 1960s. (One can only imagine how upset Mr. Rogers would be by 2026 pop culture.)

Instead of becoming a minister right away, Mr. Rogers developed his countercultural television show that made intentional choices about everything from pacing to storytelling to word choice to help protect and develop the mental health and growth of his audience. With every decision Fred Rogers made, he considered the psychology of children, believing them capable of handling straightforward conversations about difficult topics.

Our collective nostalgia for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is well placed, whether you were among the youngest baby boomers watching in 1968 or the eldest Gen Z watching in 2001: Fred Rogers was an authentic, humble, and deeply thoughtful man who really was singing directly to us. His intentionality in creating a program that fed our minds and spirits as children means we can go home again to this neighborhood as adults. It's nostalgia that actually pays off.

Hi, podcast neighbor! We're glad we're together again!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, nostalgia, television, pop culture, storytelling, mental health, psychology, fred rogers, mr rogers’ neighborhood, cultural commentary, religion, public broadcasting, children's television, childhood, land of make believe, king friday, 80s nostalgia

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie and Emily welcome Tanesha Myles to discuss the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. Like Anne Hathaway's Andy, Tanesha worked for a stylish, demanding, and overwhelming boss, who she describes as a "Black Miranda Priestly," referring to the character played by Meryl Streep. Both women bosses saw themselves in their employees and pushed them to their limits. But as Tanesha shares with the Guy sisters this week, both these women bosses also taught their protégées how to take up space in a world that expects women to make themselves small, perform niceness, and cater to men.

But Miranda's mental health definitely suffers from her way of living, as Andy realizes over the course of the film. She doesn't want to emulate her boss's approach to romance or friendship, even if she learns to take up space from her Prada-wearing "devil" of a boss. And as Emily (who has never seen the film!) points out, Miranda is sometimes kind even if she is never nice. That distinction is an important one.

By all means, move at a glacial pace. Whenever you put on your headphones and listen, you're in for a treat!

Tanesha Myles is the mind behind Her15Minutes. You can find her at instagram.com/herfifteenmins/

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, women, romance, film, feminism, movies, anne hathaway, meryl streep, cultural commentary, pop culture, classic movies, comedy, film analysis, mental health, psychology, fashion, prada, storytelling

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Experience has made me rich / And now they're after me

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily and Tracie discuss Madonna's 1985 music video Material Girl in front of a live studio audience. As a six-year-old child, Emily did not recognize how Madonna's video was intentionally in conversation with Marilyn Monroe's performance of Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend from 30 years prior. Both women are singing about the importance of financial security, although Monroe's cultural commentary is more of a practical guide for navigating misogyny than rallying cry for feminism and women owning their financial and sexual freedom. What a difference 30 years makes.

Of course, baby Emily was unaware of this pop culture homage within Madonna's video. She was much more concerned by the storytelling intercut within the music video, wherein a rich producer woos Madonna by pretending to be a poor suitor. It bothered the budding financial expert that the producer spent more money trying to look poor than he would have paid for expensive gifts, and it truly annoyed her that Madonna seemed to be taken in by his fakery. Women with her level of financial and sexual agency should be savvier than that!

Ultimately, Emily and Tracie are glad they had Material Girl as an example as little kids. It helped them recognize that boys needed to give them proper credit...or they'd just walk away.

We are living in a material world…and you are a podcast listener!

Note to listeners: We teased Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for next week, but we’re actually welcoming guest Tanesha Myles to come talk about The Devil Wears Prada instead! We’ll be sharing our deep thoughts about Fred Rogers the following week.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.emilyguybirken.com/post/everything-i-know-about-money-i-learned-from-pop-culture

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, women, feminism, pop culture, madonna, marilyn monroe, cultural commentary, storytelling, gen x childhood, gen x nostalgia, money, romance, nostalgia, music video, material girl, diamonds are a girls best friend, mtv, psychology, comedy, comedy podcast

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!