Episode 219 - Drop Dead Fred: LIVE! (w/ Casey Wilson)

[DannytheWall 196]

Ah, I enjoyed the episode-- such passion on both sides of the aisle, LOL. Despite it being all over the place

I think it was Paul who pointed out that this was essentially a modern day horror movie. YES yes YES. That was the vibe I got several times throughout the movie, in particular at the end of the movie with the creepiest girl ever. Get Jordan Peele on this remake! 

Like Us's dopplegangers, Fred is both autonomous and bound to his creator. It's a kind of monstrous take on a Tulpa. (Standard disclaimer-- i say "monster" for entertainment purposes of this post, as it springboards from actual Tibetan Buddhist religious practice.)  A Tulpa is created from the thought-forms of an individual, but becomes its own being. If you want to get really mystical, modern-day occult stuff might label Fred as an Egregore, a kind of Tulpa born from a collective group consciousness, which maybe explains why Fred is born from Elizabeth but can interact with all kids' imaginary friends and can then "leap" to another girl. 

Freddy Krueger for kids, indeed! 

Forget Tom Cruise's Mummy! The Universal Dark Universe should have been launched with Drop Dead Fred! 

 

[gigi-tastic 2322]

I'm not going to lie there was a moment or two when I thought to it's "... Oh no can Drop Dead Fred Get It? I'm going to have to bury whatever this feeling is deep inside of me because I'm not emotionally capable of dealing with the ramifications of this." Is Drop Dead Fred the new Bad Ernest you guys?!

My therapist and I WILL be discussing this movie don't you worry. It's been a slow week for me and frankly this movie left me rattled. I can't be attracted to Drop Dead Fred I REFUSE. It's gonna be this and the fact my friends are buying fanny packs and it's confusing me because I'm not filled with loathing. So maybe not such a slow week after all?

[joel_rosenbaum 1269]

7 hours ago, doxrus said:

 Really, are we to believe that June has based her entire career on this film? 

I can't speak for June but I'm pretty certain that was a joke.

[Cockney Mackem 514]

2 hours ago, gigi-tastic said:

I'm not going to lie there was a moment or two when I thought to it's "... Oh no can Drop Dead Fred Get It? I'm going to have to bury whatever this feeling is deep inside of me because I'm not emotionally capable of dealing with the ramifications of this." Is Drop Dead Fred the new Bad Ernest you guys?!

My therapist and I WILL be discussing this movie don't you worry. It's been a slow week for me and frankly this movie left me rattled. I can't be attracted to Drop Dead Fred I REFUSE. It's gonna be this and the fact my friends are buying fanny packs and it's confusing me because I'm not filled with loathing. So maybe not such a slow week after all?

Rik Mayall was a good looking fella

 

[questionmarks 18]

I’m currently on a vacation in a tiny town on the coast of Morocco, and I’ve created a forum account so I can post about this movie because this episode got me all riled up. (I assume I’m breaching some forum etiquette, for which I’m sorry—I’ll learn for the future.) I have a lot to say. And, to put my cards on the table right off the bat: Team Fred. I have a few relatively small corrections to June and Jason’s comments—I agree with them implicitly, but in the heat of the moment I think they missed a few things that help explain why Team Fred is the right interpretation—and then a few more serious comments about the deeper dynamics of the discussion. It’s obviously insane that I’m writing this whole big long thing, and I’ll of course understand if it slips everyone’s notice or folks choose not to read this diatribe, but I hope you have a look. It’s not a lark. If anything, skip to the last two paragraphs.

First, regarding the gladiolus: This little girl is allergic to one single type of flower and her dismissive control freak mother nevertheless insists on growing them in the backyard and bringing them into the house. Notice that Fred treats the impending sneeze as a very grave situation, but nothing ever really comes of it. He’s not an actual physical being, so the bouncy trip the sneeze sends him on doesn’t do anything, and a moment later he’s perfectly fine—the gravity is about what the flowers represent. (More on this in a moment.) 

Think of the skirts: Phoebe Cates is not literally looking under these women’s skirts. We see where she is in space in relation to them. She is thinking about what’s under the skirts. But when you grow up in a repressive context, certain thoughts and ideas that are perfectly normal and natural nevertheless feel unacceptable, so we sometimes concoct excuses for them. Fred’s vantage gives her the excuse to think about, joke about, fantasize about, judge what’s going on under these women’s skirts. The logic—the “rules”—have nothing to do with world-building, it’s just the logic of Phoebe Cates’s psychology and imagination.

So then let’s get to the one moment when we see the sneeze result in a real-world effect. Put yourself in her shoes. From the jump, her cheating husband is represented as gaslighting her. The first thing we see him do is manipulate her, tell her she said something she didn’t, and use it as an excuse to bully and control her. Gaslighting—and this is very similar to the scenario after which the term was coined—is psychological abuse. So we know from the beginning of the movie that this man is an abusive, controlling bully (just like her mother, by the way), and now, very shortly after they’ve gotten back together after her encounter with Annabella, he’s in the next room—doing what, exactly?—while she has to prepare a salad... again, Fred’s imaginary vantage point gives her an excuse to think thoughts that she is afraid to claim. She (for good reason) suspects Charles is up to something, but she cannot bring herself to consciously own the suspicion. Team Sanity wants to say, “But how does Fred hear what Charlie is saying?” He doesn’t! He “listens in” and tells Phoebe Cates to have a look. We hear what Charles is saying. Fred doesn’t say, “He just said Annabella’s name!” He just tells her to do what she wants but is afraid to do (and afraid even to want to do). Her trauma, and Charlie’s abusive behavior, makes it terrifying for her to just bolt in and say, “What’s going on?” Fred gives her the excuse to pursue her implicit, well-earned suspicion. 

Team Sanity seems insistent on taking imagination literally. Take the little girl at the end. Now, here is where Jason’s disclaimer about not defending every move the film makes comes into play. I have to take an interpretive leap to explain what’s going on with the little girl. The interpretation flows very naturally from the characters, but the movie could’ve helped us connect these dots. In any case, recall Mickey’s obsession with Phoebe Cates. He is so smitten with her, and with his memory of her effect on him as a child, that he sees her unstable behavior and finds it charming. He’s basically treating her as a would-be Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Only—this isn’t his movie. He encounters Fred’s return to her life and vividly remembers encountering him, albeit indirectly, in their childhood. Do you really think he’s not going to mention this figure, “Drop Dead Fred,” to his daughter when they’re playing? He’s not going to say, when she’s being mischievous, “You know, I just saw an old friend of mine who reminds me of you. She had a friend,” etc., etc., all while wistfully hoping he’ll get to wind up with Phoebe Cates? There is no need to imagine that this little girl has come upon the name “Drop Dead Fred” out of nowhere, or through the intervention of some mystical being. We have a very straightforward character arc to explain the connection: childhood Mickey’s crush on Phoebe Cates and excitement about Fred, and then adult Mickey’s resurgent affection for her and encounter with Fred’s return, and his close relationship with his own daughter who he says reminds him of Phoebe. 

There’s no reason to take any of the imaginary things literally. I had an imaginary friend named Bombo when I was a kid. In my mind, Bombo had a life outside his relationship with me. When I saw him, it was like an old friend visiting from out of town. But every time he showed up, the implicit presumption was that he had come from somewhere. I didn’t know where, I didn’t ask, I didn’t really care. But the point is, for some kids part of the sense of the reality of their imaginary friends is the implicit assumption that they have their own lives. Why wouldn’t these poor kids—hauled into this crank’s office, being given some bizarre pills that do who knows what—imagine their imaginary friends playing with the other imaginary friends that they know are there in the room? Fred isn’t literally interacting with other imaginary friends because he is imaginary, but his engagement with them—apart from helping us to understand the stakes of the green pills—fairly straightforwardly represents the sense children often have for the fullness of the lives of their own imaginary friends.

Finally, and most importantly: Team Sanity seems intent on centering the perspectives of the men in this movie (including the literally imaginary one). Paul, for example, talks about it like it’s a romcom where Phoebe Cates ends up with Mickey in the end. That’s not this movie! They don’t kiss, they don’t hold hands, they don’t go on another date—she doesn’t express any actual romantic interest in him apart from trying to engage with him on their one date. But Paul—you focus on his perspective, on what is happening to him, to the extent that you imagine how good of a step-mom Phoebe Cates will be to his child. As silly as it may be to argue so passionately about a silly movie, June and Jason both spoke eloquently about misogyny and patriarchy, and I think Paul and everyone on Team Sanity (and, I mean, really all of us and especially all of us men) should listen carefully and take that aspect of the discussion very seriously. Toward the end of the podcast, in response to one of the questions, Paul snarkily asks June: “Is this young girl [i.e., Mickey’s daughter] in danger?” Yes, Paul, because in our fucked up world, all girls are in danger, serious, constant danger. (The brief riff on Weinstein was, in this sense, almost ironic.) I don’t care whether you come to appreciate or like this movie or agree with Team Fred’s take(s) on it, but I do care that you recognize that you are centering the male characters in this film. The fact that it’s called “Drop Dead Fred” doesn’t mean it is his story, it just means it centrally concerns him. (It’s also a much better title than whatever Phoebe Cates’s character’s name is...) We all perpetuate patriarchy and misogyny to some extent or another. But it’s not often that we get to see ourselves doing it in subtle, seemingly mundane ways. But that’s the opportunity Paul (and Team Sanity) has right now. You are centering the male perspectives (and the mom’s—women perpetuate patriarchy, too) in a story about a traumatized, abused woman’s journey to come to recognize and accept her own being, her own body, her own mind, thoughts, feelings, in a hostile world... The fact that Paul thought the reveal that she had shut up her emotions and tried to hide her true self from her mother from a very young age, was an unearned twist, suggests that he never really took her character’s perspective seriously. He was convinced by the controlling, bullying, manipulative behavior of her mother, and her cheating, gaslighting husband. (And yes, by the way, her own absent father failed, as well.) 

A book I’d suggest is “Down Girl” by Kate Manne, which is about the logic of misogyny, the relationship between misogyny and patriarchy, and the effects these ideologies have in our world. It’s a work of academic ethics, so it can be a little heady here and there, but it’s  very well written and well researched and thought out, and you can kind of skim over the occasional jargon if you like. There’s plenty more out there to read. The point is that we should all take as imperative the need to educate ourselves about patriarchy, one of the oldest and most pernicious ideologies on the planet. We won’t loosen its grip on us—or on our interpretations of strange movies—so long as we’re ignorant to it, but it is pervasive enough to seem perfectly normal and natural. Listen to June, Paul! This isn’t really about Fred at all. 

And I should note, obvious though I hope it is, that being Team Fred doesn’t mean being a feminist and being Team Sanity doesn’t mean being anti-feminist. Not at all. It’s just that being Team Sanity may happen to involve, for some folks, an instance of patriarchal thinking.

[starri 116]

This episode is EXHAUSTING to listen to.  I've had to follow June's philosophy of breaking it into 10-minute chunks.  I'm only halfway through, and I'm not sure I'm going to finish it.  I usually listen to lighter-themed podcasts at the gym (unless I want to rage lift and get my dander up), but I was getting so frustrated, I had to stop.

I know a lot of their reactions are exaggerated for comedic effect, but everyone taking it so very seriously just drained all of the fun out of the exercise.

[CaseyChasem 3]

I have to say- “Team Sanity” you guys are taking sides with a mom... who drags her adult child to a pediatrician, THE DOCTOR DOESNT EVEN SEE HER. The mom goes in and meets with him ALONE (she gets to spin whatever BS narrative she wants) and comes out with PILLS that the ADULT daughter doesn’t even know what THEy are WTF drugs are they? If not illegal that’s at the very least totally unethical right? She’s totally disconnected from her mental health recovery and her mother’s insecurities are fostering it. 

[Rollo Tomasi 22]

45 minutes ago, CaseyChasem said:

I have to say- “Team Sanity” you guys are taking sides with a mom... i

I’m not sure how serious Paul and Casey were being in their defenses of the mom, but it definitely isn’t necessary to side with the mom to be Team Sanity.  The main reason (in my view) to be Team Sanity is that whatever interesting ideas or noble intentions the filmmakers had, they didn’t execute them well.  The movie wanted to be a broad zany grossout comedy and an empathetic exploration of the difficulties of childhood (and how those difficulties bleed into adulthood), but for me those two goals undermined each other and made for a strange and unpleasant movie.

[doxrus 54]

20 minutes ago, Rollo Tomasi said:

I’m not sure how serious Paul and Casey were being in their defenses of the mom, but it definitely isn’t necessary to side with the mom to be Team Sanity.  The main reason (in my view) to be Team Sanity is that whatever interesting ideas or noble intentions the filmmakers had, they didn’t execute them well.  The movie wanted to be a broad zany grossout comedy and an empathetic exploration of the difficulties of childhood (and how those difficulties bleed into adulthood), but for me those two goals undermined each other and made for a strange and unpleasant movie.

Team Sanity is not siding with the mom, or Charles, or anyone. We think the film is crappy, and is not actually presenting any of the themes Team Fred says it does.

[PollyDarton 1807]

The Letter:

Ok guys - When Lizzie and her mom return from Lizzie's makeover they find a "letter from Charlie" under the door. It's dripping with romance and Lizzie runs off to find Charlie.

If you're team Fred, then you are honestly saying that Lizzie wrote herself this letter, planted it as though Fred wrote it, acted as if you never saw it before, deeply believed it was a genuine article (to the point where she showed it to Carrie Fischer)... then the only conclusion from this alone is that Lizzie is completely insane. This isn't the action of someone working out their childhood problems, this is a deep break from reality.

The only other explanation is that Fred, in this universe, is a real entity.

[PollyDarton 1807]

1 hour ago, CaseyChasem said:

I have to say- “Team Sanity” you guys are taking sides with a mom... who drags her adult child to a pediatrician, THE DOCTOR DOESNT EVEN SEE HER. The mom goes in and meets with him ALONE (she gets to spin whatever BS narrative she wants) and comes out with PILLS that the ADULT daughter doesn’t even know what THEy are WTF drugs are they? If not illegal that’s at the very least totally unethical right? She’s totally disconnected from her mental health recovery and her mother’s insecurities are fostering it. 

Absolutely not. The mom is a monster. She says terrible things like "I don't think I love you as much as I used to."

I am capable of saying she is a monster and also that I feel for her when Lizzie and Fred destroy the dining room. I'm not one who gives a shit about fine china and white carpets, but anyone who has to actually clean that mess has my sympathy.

[PollyDarton 1807]

3 hours ago, questionmarks said:

Team Sanity seems insistent on taking imagination literally. Take the little girl at the end. Now, here is where Jason’s disclaimer about not defending every move the film makes comes into play. I have to take an interpretive leap to explain what’s going on with the little girl. The interpretation flows very naturally from the characters, but the movie could’ve helped us connect these dots. In any case, recall Mickey’s obsession with Phoebe Cates. He is so smitten with her, and with his memory of her effect on him as a child, that he sees her unstable behavior and finds it charming. He’s basically treating her as a would-be Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Only—this isn’t his movie. He encounters Fred’s return to her life and vividly remembers encountering him, albeit indirectly, in their childhood. Do you really think he’s not going to mention this figure, “Drop Dead Fred,” to his daughter when they’re playing? He’s not going to say, when she’s being mischievous, “You know, I just saw an old friend of mine who reminds me of you. She had a friend,” etc., etc., all while wistfully hoping he’ll get to wind up with Phoebe Cates? There is no need to imagine that this little girl has come upon the name “Drop Dead Fred” out of nowhere, or through the intervention of some mystical being. We have a very straightforward character arc to explain the connection: childhood Mickey’s crush on Phoebe Cates and excitement about Fred, and then adult Mickey’s resurgent affection for her and encounter with Fred’s return, and his close relationship with his own daughter who he says reminds him of Phoebe. 

But see...  You have to build an entire event to happen off screen to explain away things that are implicitly shown in the movie.

When the little girl talks about Drop Dead Fred, we as the audience SEE Drop Dead Fred. He is there abiding by the few rules the movie gave him, that the child he is attached to is the only one who can see him. That coupled with the information that the other IFs have moved on to new kids (those kids in the waiting room weren't all 30 years old) it is laid out plain and simple. Fred got a new kid because he exists.

Yes, I am aware that imaginary friends don't actually exist, but in the universe of this movie they do. If those two scenes did not exist then I might be able to agree with you, but they do. We of Team Sanity did not conjure them up... the shitty shitty filmmakers put them in.

[HowDidThisGetSpooled 1]

Anyone else think that Fred was Beetlejuice as performed by Paul Bettany's Charles in A Beautiful Mind?

[CaseyChasem 3]

I guess everyone has their own interpretation of the "Teams" here. I'm not team fred because I liked the movie. oh no. I thought it was an ineffective mess. I'm team fred because Paul and Casey's explanations of the motivations of the characters didn't sit right with me.. I found myself agreeing WAY more with what jason and june were saying about everyone overall. I find Fred to be a chaotic good in the end, (regardless of real/imagined ID status) while still at the same time finding his character annoying and overdone. Just an aside- team fred seems willing to accept all the claims of insanity coming our way. team sanity not so willing to accept the burden of the horrible mom that paul and casey offered pretty consistent defenses of... 

 

[PollyDarton 1807]

15 minutes ago, CaseyChasem said:

I guess everyone has their own interpretation of the "Teams" here. I'm not team fred because I liked the movie. oh no. I thought it was an ineffective mess. I'm team fred because Paul and Casey's explanations of the motivations of the characters didn't sit right with me.. I found myself agreeing WAY more with what jason and june were saying about everyone overall. I find Fred to be a chaotic good in the end, (regardless of real/imagined ID status) while still at the same time finding his character annoying and overdone. Just an aside- team fred seems willing to accept all the claims of insanity coming our way. team sanity not so willing to accept the burden of the horrible mom that paul and casey offered pretty consistent defenses of... 

 

Fully Team Sanity. Fully Team mom is a monster.

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

[Mattrix 17]

I truly believe the poll should be black and white.  “Is the movie good? Yes or No” 

Team Fred has made some compelling points, but they also have seemed to align themselves with this movie being good. I cant allow myself to be on a team that is seemingly synonymous with enjoying the movie 

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

1 hour ago, PollyDarton said:

Fully Team Sanity. Fully Team mom is a monster.

I think one problem we've run into here is that the *teams* (teams are stupid, btw ... in this board and in most IRL cases) have become cemented by what the cast have said. Specifically, Team Sanity has become the de facto mom apologists just because Paul and Casey defended her, which is dumb. Fred is real, and the mom sucks ... more than one thing can be true.

Buuuuuuuut ... I'm going to go out on a limb and defend Polly, the mom. Not to say she's great -- she sucks as a person, generally -- but she is also presented to us as a more complex figure that anyone here gives her credit. She's snobby, materialistic, and generally unpleasant. 

But then, she has a child who, regardless of Fred's real/figment status, is bringing down large amounts of emotional turmoil and property damage. And let's not forget that, when Fred suggests that they cut the mother's head off, Lizzie is ALL FOR IT. This is, for my money, 100 degrees of magnitude worse if Fred is a figment because that means it's really all just Lizzie wrecking her life and calling for her mom's murder. Plus, if Fred isn't real, it must be Lizzie shouting "Yeah, cut mom's head off" while Polly is in the next fucking room.

This is a nightmare scenario for any parent, and if you're already prone to being shitty, then it is really easy to let yourself say something awful to your child, purely out of frustration. Parents are human. My own child has had stints of sleepless nights and bad behavior, and as much as I love my child, there are a few times where I've said to myself, "This kid is ruining my fucking life right now." Selfish? Perhaps, but human. And my child is, generally speaking, the absolute jackpot of kids, so if an angel can bring a generally even-tempered person to curse their existence, imagine what a maniac child like Lizzie could do to a generally contemptible person like her mom. 

What is really killing me about the Team Fred folks is that, since Team Fred posits that all of Fred's behavior is really Lizzie's, they seem to accept that Lizzie behaves like a complete asshole the entire film, because she's acting this way due to the trauma that she's endured, while being generally unforgiving of anyone else. Assholes like Polly aren't created out of thin air -- she's expressing her own past trauma in her own way. We just don't forgive her for it because her trauma isn't being expressed by a sexy British avatar. That ending, where she tells Lizzie that she'll be lonely if Lizzie leaves -- that's some emotional, heartbreaking stuff if you're willing to see it from a parent's point of view. It doesn't excuse her behavior, but it mitigates her awfulness ever-so slightly, IMHO.

***At this very moment, my child is throwing a tantrum because we're trying to get out the door to go on vacation, and my frustration with her is growing because she's not letting me type a silly post. If she were breaking windows or sinking my house, I might let my tongue run away with me, too. 

 

On 8/2/2019 at 11:32 AM, ChunkStyle said:

The villain of this movie is without question Lizzie's father.  He thinks Marsha Mason is being a terrible mother so his response is to walk out of Lizzie's life forever?  Dude is trash.

This is the most true statement made on the board so far. The father sees the mother treating Lizzie badly and, rather than removing Lizzie from the situation, he just leaves so that he doesn't have to witness it? Bullshit.

If you want to blame anyone for adult Lizzie's regression into childishness, blame the dad. 

[The_Triple_Lindy 2482]

7 minutes ago, Mattrix said:

I truly believe the poll should be black and white.  “Is the movie good? Yes or No” 

Team Fred has made some compelling points, but they also have seemed to align themselves with this movie being good. I cant allow myself to be on a team that is seemingly synonymous with enjoying the movie 

Fully Team Fuck This Movie. It's tearing us apart!!!!

[Cameron H. 23786]

40 minutes ago, Mattrix said:

Team Fred has made some compelling points, but they also have seemed to align themselves with this movie being good. I cant allow myself to be on a team that is seemingly synonymous with enjoying the movie 

Personally, I don’t really think that’s the distinction. I think there’s a difference between enjoying a movie and thinking it’s good. Isn’t the podcast’s raison d'être that the hosts - and us by extension - enjoy watching bad movies? At least, that’s always been my takeaway. I can watch Drop Dead Fred or Lake Placid and get the same enjoyment that I do watching The Seventh Seal or Citizen Kane. I think it’s all valid to some degree. And by that standard, it doesn’t surprise me in the least to hear that Jason liked it or that it was formative for June. It’s part of who they’ve always been.

That being said, I have not had the opportunity to listen yet, and I have not heard the arguments one way or the other. However, based on my experience watching DDF this week, I am fully Team Fred  

[Rollo Tomasi 22]

51 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

Personally, I don’t really think that’s the distinction. I think there’s a difference between enjoying a movie and thinking it’s good. Isn’t the podcast’s raison d'être that the hosts - and us by extension - enjoy watching bad movies? At least, that’s always been my takeaway. I can watch Drop Dead Fred or Lake Placid and get the same enjoyment that I do watching The Seventh Seal or Citizen Kane. I think it’s all valid to some degree. And by that standard, it doesn’t surprise me in the least to hear that Jason liked it or that it was formative for June. It’s part of who they’ve always been.

That being said, I have not had the opportunity to listen yet, and I have not heard the arguments one way or the other. However, based on my experience watching DDF this week, I am fully Team Fred  

For me, the movies the podcast does fall into two categories:  movies that are fun to watch in their own right despite/because of their logical gaps and insane choices (like Face/Off) and movies that are fun to watch because you know you’re going to get to hear some really funny people break down all the logical gaps and bad choices, but would otherwise be a slog and feel like a waste of time.  For Team Sanity, DDF is firmly in the latter category.

[Hiny Rugburn 25]

A work of art is at it's best when it invites disagreement, discussion, and discernment.

Therefore, Drop Dead Fred is the greatest work of art of the last 1,000 years.

[LTL 154]

This movie doesn't hold up i thought i loved it as a kid ...now i hate it i hate her i hate fred. Team Mom! 

[Omaxem 232]

As someone who sees himself as a major Car Guy, let me say this ( to Paul, because in my mind he reads these, and to everybody else ) 

Ahem:

.

.

.

MINIVANS ARE NICE.

Congratulations Paul, on buying a car that a) makes sense for you and your family; and that b) YOU like.

Fuck that guy. Eww.

[gigi-tastic 2322]

17 hours ago, muttnik said:

::sympathetic internet hug::

I also see myself in this movie, so do some folks on Twitter it appears. Club ADHD, anxiety, depression, and autism spectrum disorder reporting in. My mother was excited to have a daughter and for a while tried to dress me in cute clothes, fix my hair, the pink room with dollies; there were times where my behaviour and other family dynamics obviously frustrated her. Thankfully after a time when she realized I was not that girl at all, she supported me and let me be my own kid. My parents have never had a great relationship, but they're both so off I don't know who else would have either of them if they divorced (and neither are capable of independence). We have always been a very isolated family. My folks wanted me to have friends but never rolled out the welcome wagon to have anyone over. When I wasn't in a bubble of self-involvement I could definitely pick up on their tension and would retreat back into myself. School was great since the teachers loved me, but I never had any long-term friends. Friends either moved away, or I would say or do something wrong and they'd shut me out; one parent flat out told me I was a bad influence on his kids. That's messed up to hear at nine! Never once growing up did I feel normal or confident, and I couldn’t figure out why my life wasn’t what I thought it was supposed to be. I also have a strong logical side but am prone to magical whatifisms that the logical side has to drown out. I know I had at least one imaginary friend but I can't recall for the life of me what they were like. I was the kid playing with myself, talking to myself, tuning out the world. I spent all of my teenage years and twenties studying others and trying to be a different, regular person, to be what other people wanted me to be, and surrounding myself with the wrong people. Only recently have I really been able to be myself and be happy with who I am at my core.

Yeah, I can see that. Honestly, I can see a past where the mother wasn't allowed to be her own person by convention, was pushed into a life she didn't want or wasn't prepared for. She's only working with the tools she has, and they aren't great. I appreciate the moment that the movie lets her be complex and not a cartoony villain.

Uh are we the same person? So many parents hated me! I was also very imaginative and played alone a lot because I also had a hard time making friends . We moved a lot because my mom would get a better job in another pharmaceutical or blood banking company. I think that I only went start to finish in 4 grades without moving. (2,5,6,8th). 

We've always came back to spend a lot of time with my grandparents who lived far out in the country so I guess in a sense we were an isolated family as well.

Thankfully I have always loved to read so I was never that alone and in middle school a girl I originally hated became my friend and we've been best friends ever since. Even though we live in different states ( why must all my friends live elsewhere?!) We talk every day and are going to the Chicago show together! She's new to the podcast and I'm so excited to share this with her.