Episode 242 - The Boyfriend School

[RyanSz 3140]

Paul, June, and Jason discuss the 1990 romantic comedy The Boyfriend School aka Don’t Tell Her It’s Me starring Steve Guttenberg, Shelley Long, and Jami Gertz. They talk about Guttenberg’s bad Kiwi accent, the sensuality instructor, the purpose of the “shack dance,” brothers and sisters being too close, and more.

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[RyanSz 3140]

I am halfway through this movie and already feel that Shelley Long is the worst wingman in movie history. Why would you not preface trying to set your brother up with someone by mentioning the hardships that he just got over, because his appearance will clearly create some questions in the person that you're trying to hook him up with, thus saving them saying something like "he has no hair" to the point where you give them the riot act for the various procedures he went through.

Also it is amazing how Kyle MacLachlan can do a character as interesting and nuanced as Dale Cooper and in the same year basically read a book titled "what 90s yuppies are" and shart that out onto the screen.

[pscudese 701]

Let's all just agree... Shelly Long's character is THE VILLAIN of this movie!

The whole idea of transforming Gus into Lobo only comes after Shelly is upset that Gertz is not interested in Gus. 

Gertz tells Shelly she is not into Gus and kind of involved with someone. But Shelly will not accept that and gets angry with Gertz, even saying, " right, you'd have fallen for Gus like a ton of bricks if he'd been devastatingly handsome and treated you like shit." Gertz denies this, but to add further proof why Shelly is the VILLAIN... in the next scene, all you hear is Shelly essentially saying how it's bullshit when people are saying looks aren't important. 

Do I think Shelly cares that Gus eventually finds love? Yes, but when Shelly feels denied by Gertz's honesty... all Shelly cares about is making Gertz eat her words and USES her brother as a toy in her game of deception!

Prove me wrong!

(ps... i love all of you)

[pscudese 701]

So I was the guy that sent copies of the VHS copy to Paul, and what's crazy is... at the very end, there is an after credits gem!

I’m a kid of the 80s who was an avid VHS renter. So was this an actual thing?

Paul… In that you worked at Blockbuster, were you aware people could write-in for a refund if not satisfied with their rental?

[Cameron H. 23786]

Paul is correct in that Romance Conventions typically don’t have cosplayers; however, it is relatively common for publishers to hire models as part of their marketing strategy during these events. These people will dress in genre dress for convention goers to take photos with and provide ambiance. So you might have models dressed as Highlanders, Cowboys, Motorcycle Club (of which “Lobo” would have been an example) etc. wondering around throughout the event interacting with attendees. During the scene in question, as the group of “Dolly Partons” pass, you can hear an announcement on the PA for the “Country and Western harlots” to report to the green room, presumably for some kind of exhibition being staged by Loveboree. 

 

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

3 hours ago, pscudese said:

Let's all just agree... Shelly Long's character is THE VILLAIN of this movie!

Definitely, she's a persistent liar and manipulator. The whole first scene I'm wondering why she can't just get off her brother's back about dating . . . he literally just finished cancer treatments and you're hounding him like crazy! Maybe if she stopped talking about how terrible it is that he lives alone he wouldn't be so damn miserable.

[grudlian. 4725]

17 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Definitely, she's a persistent liar and manipulator. The whole first scene I'm wondering why she can't just get off her brother's back about dating . . . he literally just finished cancer treatments and you're hounding him like crazy! Maybe if she stopped talking about how terrible it is that he lives alone he wouldn't be so damn miserable.

Let's not discount Steve Guttenberg as also being a villain. How many stalkers and "nice guys" claim they fell in love at first sight and follow the person around?

Steve seems genuinely charming in this movie once he gets healthy again but he still goes along with this plan. This isn't some spur of the moment choice. He puts on makeup and contacts and an accent. This is six months and exercise (which I guess he would have done anyway once he finished cancer treatment but still...). He isn't the mastermind, but he's still going along with the villainous plan.

[Cameron H. 23786]

Personally, I wouldn’t classify Long’s character as a villain as she lacks malicious intent. While she may come off as pushy, she’s genuinely trying to help her brother. And not just to hook up, either. She sees that he is “in love” with Gertz and is doing what’s in her power to make that relationship come about—which she 100% does!

Yes, she is trying to prove a point to Gertz as well, but there’s never any antagonism. If she didn’t think they’d be good together, she probably would have let the whole thing slide. I also think Gus’ more radical transformation was more to circumvent Gettz’s preconceived opinions than to set up a long con. Long knows that despite how much he’s changed physically, Gertz will never be able to fully see Gus as anything other than the shy, chubby guy with the terrible toupee. She needs to completely erase that image from Gettz’s mind before they can truly have a second chance.

 

[grudlian. 4725]

4 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

Personally, I wouldn’t classify Long’s character as a villain as she lacks malicious intent. While she may come off as pushy, she’s genuinely trying to help her brother. And not just to hook up, either. She sees that he is “in love” with Gertz and is doing what’s in her power to make that relationship come about—which she 100% does!

Yes, she is trying to prove a point to Gertz as well, but there’s never any antagonism. If she didn’t think they’d be good together, she probably would have let the whole thing slide. I also think Gus’ more radical transformation was more to circumvent Gettz’s preconceived opinions than to set up a long con. Long knows that despite how much he’s changed physically, Gertz will never be able to fully see Gus as anything other than the shy, chubby guy with the terrible toupee. She needs to completely erase that image from Gettz’s mind before they can truly have a second chance.

 

Sure, villain is too strong but she's definitely doing a bad thing. I'd 100% cut that person out of my life if they did this to me.

If you want to get them together, maybe have a party and invite them both. Seat them together at an event so they actually get to know each other instead of a six month minimum plan to get get brother married and justify her career as a romance writer.

[Greg T 48]

The dance they were doing was supposed to be the Shag, which people have been doing in the Carolinas since the 1940s.  Of course, there version of the dance was about as accurate as the Southern accents that no main characters bothered with despite apparently being born and raised around Charleston.  If it wasn't for a couple minor characters, this could have been Chicago.

[Greg T 48]

25 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Let's not discount Steve Guttenberg as also being a villain. How many stalkers and "nice guys" claim they fell in love at first sight and follow the person around?

Steve seems genuinely charming in this movie once he gets healthy again but he still goes along with this plan. This isn't some spur of the moment choice. He puts on makeup and contacts and an accent. This is six months and exercise (which I guess he would have done anyway once he finished cancer treatment but still...). He isn't the mastermind, but he's still going along with the villainous plan.

Not only does he go along with a clearly manipulative plan, he sleeps with a woman who isn't actually giving consent to Gus.  This goes beyond fluffing up your image to get with someone.  He knows, or at least has reason to believe, she wouldn't sleep with him if she knew who he was and still goes for it.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

52 minutes ago, grudlian. said:

Let's not discount Steve Guttenberg as also being a villain. How many stalkers and "nice guys" claim they fell in love at first sight and follow the person around?

Steve seems genuinely charming in this movie once he gets healthy again but he still goes along with this plan. This isn't some spur of the moment choice. He puts on makeup and contacts and an accent. This is six months and exercise (which I guess he would have done anyway once he finished cancer treatment but still...). He isn't the mastermind, but he's still going along with the villainous plan.

Oh yes, my theory is that this movie is just meant to reveal that everyone in a rom-com is actually insane. Shelley Long's plan is insane. Guttenberg is insane for going along with it and for becoming obsessed over a woman he has only briefly met. Jami Gertz is insane for ever again wanting to spend time with this man (who impersonated a biker Kiwi just to get in her pants) or his meddling sister.

As for villainy, I'm not sure that a villain has to have evil intent. Some villains THINK that their plan is best for the world but are severely misguided. See: Magneto. Shelley Long is the Magneto of this movie.

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

Also Shelley Long is evil because of her devil spawn child

[Cameron H. 23786]

32 minutes ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

As for villainy, I'm not sure that a villain has to have evil intent. Some villains THINK that their plan is best for the world but are severely misguided. See: Magneto. Shelley Long is the Magneto of this movie.

Yes, but since Gus and Gertz end up happily together in the end, she is proven right. Based on your analogy, that would be like the last X-Men comic ending with the human race enslaved, and everyone agreeing that was for the best.

I would say a better literary analog for Long would be a trickster like Loki, Puck, or Coyote. Mischievous but not necessarily malicious.

 

[RyanSz 3140]

After finishing the episode I am amazed that the people the crew compared Gutt's look to was Dee Snyder and Dog the Bounty Hunter, which while are apt, are nowhere near the perfect mullets that belong to Billy Ray Cyrus or Lorenzo Lamas in Renegade.

[pscudese 701]

2 hours ago, sycasey 2.0 said:

Definitely, she's a persistent liar and manipulator. The whole first scene I'm wondering why she can't just get off her brother's back about dating . . . he literally just finished cancer treatments and you're hounding him like crazy! Maybe if she stopped talking about how terrible it is that he lives alone he wouldn't be so damn miserable.

I will say, for a cancer survivor he should not be eating all that microwave crap!

Also was I wrong or didn't Shelly mention something that before he got sick he wasn't really taking care of himself?

[Cameron H. 23786]

While I get a lot of the cynicism leveled at this movie and the character motivations within, it’s pretty faithful to romance novel literary conventions, which I feel is kind of the point. In romance novels, people fall in literal true love at first sight. Most characters in romance novels end with the characters getting married after knowing each other for a week or two. Romance readers don’t wants “realism” in romance. Nobody wants to read a book about a relationship that slowly deepens and develops over a series of dinner dates over the course of a couple of months. Everything needs to be heightened. Everything has to feel urgent. What’s important is that the reader/audience believes that the protagonist’s intentions are pure. In this case, Gus is constantly reaffirming that he is “in love.” In fact, I think the movie almost does this too much as I believe Gute’s acting conveys that pretty well on its own. The thing is, if you don’t believe he is acting in good faith, then the whole thing doesn’t work. And in all honest, I don’t believe the movie ever gives the viewer a reason to not believe that Gus is on the up and up. 

While far from perfect, you have to look at the entire movie as an adapted romance novel. It hits all the beats. It’s got a star-crossed couple, duoche-y ex, wacky side characters, and a series of escalating misunderstandings all set against a romantic back drop. That’s pretty much the formula across the board, and for the most part, I think the movie nails it.

[pscudese 701]

1 hour ago, Cameron H. said:

Personally, I wouldn’t classify Long’s character as a villain as she lacks malicious intent. While she may come off as pushy, she’s genuinely trying to help her brother. And not just to hook up, either. She sees that he is “in love” with Gertz and is doing what’s in her power to make that relationship come about—which she 100% does!

Yes, she is trying to prove a point to Gertz as well, but there’s never any antagonism. If she didn’t think they’d be good together, she probably would have let the whole thing slide. I also think Gus’ more radical transformation was more to circumvent Gettz’s preconceived opinions than to set up a long con. Long knows that despite how much he’s changed physically, Gertz will never be able to fully see Gus as anything other than the shy, chubby guy with the terrible toupee. She needs to completely erase that image from Gettz’s mind before they can truly have a second chance.

 

But when someone tells you they are not interested and seeing someone... shelly should move on. Also Shelly saw a car full of women go Ga Ga over "normal" looking Gus. So there are more fish in the sea in the end.

In the end, Shelly is the one who kicked this off with Gertz. If doing a soft re-write, the first Gertz character could have been a "non-important" character that initiates the transformation for the next / true love. IDK. 

All problematic.

Also... hey cam! 

[Cameron H. 23786]

As a point of disambiguation, there are many different sub-genres of romance, and what Paul described reading in the podcast, and what June described as essentially “porn for women,” sounds more like erotica rather than straight romance. It’s the idea that all romance novels are just “dirty books for woman” which has allowed people to perpetuate the idea that romance isn’t a valid literary genre and has been repeatedly used as a means to censor female voices.

Erotica is absolutely a popular sub-genre, but people too often conflate it with the entire genre. Many romance novels don’t even involve sex at all. In fact, Long’s character specifically mentions in the movie that her characters cannot be together until the very last page.

If I were to classify this movie, I would say it was a BCD (“behind closed doors”) or “sweet” Romance. Which is to say, there is sex, but it is literally off the screen/page.

[Cameron H. 23786]

10 minutes ago, pscudese said:

But when someone tells you they are not interested and seeing someone... shelly should move on. Also Shelly saw a car full of women go Ga Ga over "normal" looking Gus. So there are more fish in the sea in the end.

In the end, Shelly is the one who kicked this off with Gertz. If doing a soft re-write, the first Gertz character could have been a "non-important" character that initiates the transformation for the next / true love. IDK. 

All problematic.

Also... hey cam! 

Hi Pete  

But Gertz isn’t as assertive as that. She’s always like, “I’m kinda seeing someone. It’s complicated.”  We are also meant to believe that Shelly Long is preternaturally attuned to people’s emotions and desires. From the moment they meet, she is able to intuit Gertz isn’t happy in her present relationship, and I believe this is also confirmed later when  Gertz explicitly tells her so—although, I could be wrong about that. Regardless, we, the audience, know her boyfriend is a scum bag, so while it isn’t something I’d recommend in real life, in the movie, Shelley Long’s instincts prove correct.

Shelly Long also fixates on Gertz is because she truly believes Gus in love with her, and to her there’s nothing greater in the world. Yeah, there are other fish in the sea, but he’s *in love.* Compared to Gertz they’re all a bunch of sad, lumpy blob fish.

[RyanSz 3140]

The one thing I was wondering the whole time was Long's deadline that was just in her head. She was pushing Gus to keep up with this plan because as she said Gertz was going to be unhappily married sooner rather than later. How the hell did she figure that? Nowhere in their conversations did she mention the next time she finds some hot dong was she going to put a ring on it, she just said her relationship is odd at the moment and what she was into when looking for a guy, which also kind spits in the face of Gertz's own words as when she tells Long what she's looking for, it all gets pushed to the back burner for a hot/mysterious guy like in one of the romance novels or what she's been going for her whole life. I get having fun in life, but if you have a ideal person or characteristics, don't you kinda want to slow down and see if a new person in your life is that person? When she meets Gus she's basically like "nah fuck that tubby baldy" and runs back to MacLachlan the next day. Also am I the only one thinking there would have been more buildup to the reveal of the scheme? In most rom coms the scheme takes place usually near the end of the 1st act leading to the reveal and the end of the 2nd, with the 3rd being the big makeup scene. This one they spent so much time on the prepping for the scheme that they really only had time to have 1 1/2 dates, sex, and then instant reveal, followed by a quick turnaround for Getz to realize she really does love Gus.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

3 hours ago, AlmostAGhost said:

Also Shelley Long is evil because of her devil spawn child

I mean, I can see why that kid didn't want to talk to anyone except her uncle.

[sycasey 2.0 2301]

2 hours ago, pscudese said:

I will say, for a cancer survivor he should not be eating all that microwave crap!

Also was I wrong or didn't Shelly mention something that before he got sick he wasn't really taking care of himself?

It's fine if she wants to check up on his health. She might be overbearing about it, but that's pretty normal.

The obsession with his dating life is bizarre.

[AdrianFlynn 68]

I dont trust brother and sister that get along 

[Cameron H. 23786]

They touched on it in the episode, but one of the moments I really enjoyed was when Shelly Kong’s husband says he recognized that “Lobo” was foreign because of his BO. What I particularly loved was the thought that a badass, illegal immigrant biker would be just cruising around town in a tourist t-shirt from his home country.