Harriet the Spy

[00:00:04] Speaker A: This Film is Lit. The podcast where we finally settle the score on one simple Is the book really better than the movie? I'm Brian and I have a film degree, so I watch the movie but don't read the book. [00:00:15] Speaker B: And I'm Katie, I have an English degree, so I do things the right way and read the book before we watch the movie. [00:00:22] Speaker A: So prepare to be wowed by our expertise and charm as we dissect all of your favorite film adaptations and decide if the silver screen the or the written word did it better. So turn it up, settle in and get ready for spoilers because this film is lit. There are many ways to live in this world as there are people in this world and each one deserves a closer look. It's Harriet the Spy and this film is Lit. Hello and welcome back to this Film is Like the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books we have. Do we have a guess? We do not. We do not. [00:01:10] Speaker B: There were a couple little, but they were like not good characters. Okay, so. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Well, we have every other segment. Plenty to talk about. We're gonna jump right in. If you have not read or watched Harriet the Spy, we're gonna give you a brief summary of the film. [00:01:23] Speaker C: Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. [00:01:27] Speaker A: This summary is sourced from Wikipedia. 11 year old aspiring spy and writer Harriet M. Welsh lives a privileged, privileged life in New York City with her parents, Violetta and Ben, and her nanny Catherine Olgali, in whom she confides. Harriet and her best friends Simon Sport, Roque Rock and Janie Gibbs are enemies with a snobby classmate, editor of the sixth grade newspaper, bully, and class president Marion Hawthorne. One night, as Harriet's parents are out, Golly invites her friend George to dinner, which she burns. The three go out for dinner and a movie instead. Upon arriving back home, Harriet and G realize that Violeta and Ben have returned early. Violeta is enraged at G for taking Harriet out without her knowledge and impulsively fires her. Gali concedes that it is time Harriet was on her own. Before leaving, Gali encourages Harriet not to give up on her love of spying and observing people, promising to be the first to buy a signed copy of Harriet's first novel. Depressed and withdrawn, Harriet breaks into the mansion of Agatha Plummer and is caught hiding in her dumb waiter. After school, Marion discovers Harriet's private spy notebook. She begins reading aloud Harriet's comments about her friends and peers, such as how she suspects expects Janie will grow up to be a total nutcase and criticizing Sport's father's low earnings. Sport and Janie shun Harriet and her classmates create a spy catcher club to torment her. When Harriet begins neglecting her schoolwork, her parents confiscate her notebooks and ask her teacher, Ms. Elson, to search her for new notebooks. Daily during art class, Marian and her friends pour blue paint over Harriet as revenge for writing things about them in her notebook. Harriet responds, slapping Marian in the face, and flees the school. She exacts revenge in several ways. By exposing that Marion's father left their family for his secretary. By cutting off a chunk of Laura's ha. By sabotaging Janie's science experiment and humiliating Sport with a picture of him in a maid's outfit. This causes her classmates to alienate her further. Harriet's parents send her to a psychological evaluation. The doctor assures them that Harriet is fine. Harriet gets her notebook back, and in a surprise visit, Gali tells her that to make things right again, she must do two things that she will not apologize and lie. Harriet says it's not worth it. To which Gali disagrees, saying Harriet is worth it. Harriet is worth it as an individual, and her individuality will make others nervous. She adds, good friends are one of life's blessings. Don't give them up without a fight. Harriet tries apologizing to Sport and Janie, who initially reject her before accepting her apology. After finally coming to their senses and consequently quitting Marian's bully group due to her mistreatment by. Due to mistreatment by her. Much to Marian's dismay, Harriet opines to Ms. Elson that Marion's appointment as editor was done unfairly. And Ms. Elson opens it up for a vote. Harriet is voted in to replace Marian as editor. She writes an article apologizing to the class, all of whom, except Marian, accept her apology. The opening of the sixth grade pageant. Janie, Sport and Harriet set off a stink bomb as all the student teachers and audience danced to James Brown's Get up off of that Thing. That is how it ends. That's correct. [00:04:14] Speaker B: Kind of how. Yeah, [00:04:15] Speaker A: yeah, we cut a little bit. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Moderately out of order, but sure. [00:04:19] Speaker A: It's mostly there. All right, I got some. Some questions. Let's get into them. In. Was that in the book? [00:04:24] Speaker D: Gaston, may I have my book, please? How can you read this? There's no pictures. Well, some people use their imagination. [00:04:31] Speaker A: So. One of the things that I realized upon watching this, I have seen this movie before, probably when it came out when I was 8 or whatever. [00:04:37] Speaker B: I had definitely also seen this movie. [00:04:39] Speaker A: But I remembered basically nothing about it. But one of the things I know I remembered and had a very vivid memory of was her opera glasses that she uses to spy with. We only mainly see them in the beginning, but they're always on her belt. I think as a kid I just assumed they were binoculars and didn't realize they were opera glasses. But I wanted to know if Harriet had opera glasses. And beyond that she has a whole spy belt of gadgets which was a thing was very. I remember, I believe Burger King released like, [00:05:07] Speaker B: did they have like tie ins [00:05:08] Speaker A: toys, toy gadget, tie ins where you could get like the opera glasses. And like I think I feel like I remember getting some of those. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Probably like a magnifying [00:05:16] Speaker A: glass. Yeah, like other stuff, like other like of her spy gadgets were like the toys at Burger King for a while when the movie came out. Anyways. Does she have the opera glasses and beyond that, the other spy gadgets that she uses? [00:05:29] Speaker B: So there's no mention in the book of her having opera glasses or anything similar to that. I went back and looked because I was like how maybe she has binoculars or something. But there's no mention of anything like that. She does have spy tools, all of which she has hooked to her belt to create her sort of spying utility belt that she has. And those consist of a flashlight, pouches for her notebook and pens, a water canteen and a Swiss army knife. I like the movie's decision to give her the opera glasses. I think that's a reasonable thing to assume that a kid like Harriet with wealthy parents who don't really pay attention to her would be able to acquire. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Yeah, Makes perfect sense for her to have. Absolutely. And it is definitely spy. Yeah, spy stuff. So for [00:06:18] Speaker B: sure. [00:06:21] Speaker A: So we are then introduced to Rosie o' Donnell's character, Catherine o'. Golly. [00:06:29] Speaker B: Ol Golly is her name in the book and they seem to just call her Golly [00:06:34] Speaker A: in [00:06:35] Speaker B: this. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Yes, Golly pretty much consistently. And she is the nanny. She is Harriet's nanny. And she. Very quickly it becomes clear that she is like a very wise individual who imparts wisdom into Harriet and kind of giving her little nuggets of life advice constantly. And she has one line early on that I wanted to know if it came from the book because I thought it was a good line and it was a great teaching moment. And Gali is very wise and the line is knowing everything. Because Harriet says she wants to know everything. She wants to know everything. And Gali says to her, knowing everything only helps if you use it to put Beautiful things into the world. True or false, and asks her that as a question. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. That exchange. [00:07:16] Speaker B: Yes and yes, ish o golly, is a font of little wisdom nuggets. Throughout the first part of this book, this particular one, I do recall being from the book. And I initially wrote, although maybe not word for word as it is in the movie. I did find it in my notes. And the line in the book is, it won't do you a bit of good to know everything if you don't know what to do with it. [00:07:41] Speaker A: Little more general advice and not so much about. It's a little more broad advice and not specifically about, like, being kind and good, like putting beautiful things into the world. But on that note, yes, it is very similar. So. Okay. But, yeah, so she is her wise. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Yes. [00:08:00] Speaker A: Mentor. [00:08:01] Speaker B: Yeah. She. She really does be speaking in little fortune cookie notes. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, a lot of the stuff in the movie, too. At times she's quoting. [00:08:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. She quotes, like, po. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah. She quotes kids and stuff. Yeah. I don't think that specific line is a quote, or if it is, I've never heard it, but it could be. And then obviously I have to ask this because it's the main thing in. And I assume this is in the book, but does Harriet have a private notebook that she writes everything down in that she scribbles on the front? Private. This means you don't read. Private. This means you or whatever. [00:08:37] Speaker B: She does have a private notebook that she writes everything down in. And I do believe it does say private on the front. Fun fact about me, I also wrote almost exclusively in composition notebooks from sixth grade onward because of this book. [00:08:54] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah. So as we learn more about Harriet, one of the things we discover about her that they introduce as a little character quirk early on is she's getting ready for school one day and she's making lunch, and she is making the same thing. Her mom says she has eaten every day for, like, five years, which is a tomato and mayo sandwich. [00:09:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:09:16] Speaker A: And we see her making it herself. She's, like, cutting it with a butter knife and just, like, smushing the tomato. But then she. In the movie, she, like, smushes all of the inside of the tomato out. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:31] Speaker A: And then, like, puts the. The skin and the outer part. The tomato [00:09:36] Speaker B: gets rid of the, like, seed part. Yeah. [00:09:38] Speaker A: Like the pulp part. And then just, like, puts. Which is crazy. And then puts the. Even, including with, like, the stem part still on. On, like, some bread and then smears some mayonnaise on the bread and makes that sandwich. And that's what she has for lunch. And I wanted to know if that came from the book, because. Wow. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Okay, So I have a lot of thoughts here. So, first off, Harriet's love of tomato sandwiches does come from the book. [00:10:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:07] Speaker B: We know she's eaten one for lunch every day for, I think, as long as she's been in school, is what they say in the book. There's also a very similar conversation about her commitment to that sandwich between her and her mom, where her mom's like, you don't want to try a different kind [00:10:24] Speaker A: of. Different [00:10:25] Speaker B: kind of sandwich? And she's like, no, I want a tomato sandwich. However, in the book, it is the family's cook who makes the sandwiches and not Harriet herself. So there is no insane scene of her trying to cut a tomato with a butter knife and just, like, hollowing it out [00:10:41] Speaker A: first. She's like, okay, well, the knife isn't working. She's struggling to. Cause [00:10:44] Speaker B: it's a [00:10:45] Speaker A: butter knife or whatever. And she makes a note about, like, if you'd let me use the big knife, this [00:10:48] Speaker B: would be easy. [00:10:49] Speaker A: Easier. [00:10:49] Speaker B: You should use a serrated knife to cut tomatoes [00:10:51] Speaker A: or. Or just even a sharp Whatever. But. Yes. Yeah. Not a butter knife. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:55] Speaker A: But more importantly, she then even regard. Disregarding that, she then still smushes out all of the middle of the tomato. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Right. [00:11:03] Speaker A: In a way that is just. I guess the idea is that, like, she doesn't like that part. Or [00:11:07] Speaker B: maybe [00:11:08] Speaker A: crazy. [00:11:09] Speaker B: I don't [00:11:09] Speaker A: even. And. But again, leaves the. [00:11:12] Speaker B: The stem. The [00:11:12] Speaker A: stem part off, and I'm just like, what is happening here? I guess the idea is this is the kid who doesn't know what they're doing. But, yeah, it's just. I thought that was crazy. [00:11:22] Speaker B: So I moved one of your odds and Ends notes up here so that we can talk about it now, because I think this is a good. It's [00:11:29] Speaker A: a good place to talk about it, because I had the same thought here with this moment. [00:11:34] Speaker B: So your note was actually from much later in the movie where she has a line. [00:11:40] Speaker A: Her mom takes away her notebook, and she tells her mom, my notebook is how I experience things. Yes. Her [00:11:45] Speaker B: mom's like, oh, you can't just be scribbling in your notebook. You have to actually experience things. And she says, my notebook. Notebook is how I experience. And [00:11:53] Speaker A: I wrote, yeah, she's definitely autistic. And I was pairing that with the. I eat the exact same tomato sandwich every day for lunch for five Years. Yeah. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Now, I am pretty sure that I read this book as a kid. Now, having read it as an adult, I am shocked that I have never seen any discourse. [00:12:14] Speaker A: Surely there must be [00:12:15] Speaker B: Harriet. Surely there must be. I'm just saying I've never seen any about Harriet the Spy as autistic representation because she seems to be very clearly autistic. She has her safe foods, she has her routines. I'm going to read a little excerpt from the book because this was. This was on page 35. And this was the thing that really tipped me off. In the book, Harriet said, okay, and then goodbye and ran toward the house. It was time for her cake and milk. Every day at 3:40, she had cake and milk. Harriet loved doing everything every day in the same way. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:12:56] Speaker B: And I don't think that that exact line that you quoted from the book. [00:13:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:03] Speaker B: About her, like, after her notebook being taken away. I don't think that that appears in the book. But after she has her notebook taken away from her. There is a long section in the book about how she struggles to think without her notebook to help her process her thoughts. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, also a big. And thing you don't have here, but another big, like, thematic point or plot point in the film is the idea that she has to learn that she can't just say everything about everyone that she thinks. Like, she shouldn't just write down everything. Like, now she's writing it down. Instead of [00:13:38] Speaker B: saying it to them, she's writing it down. And it is supposed to be private. But she still does have to learn that, like, hey, if you say that kind of stuff, people are not gonna be happy with you, even if it feels like the truth. [00:13:50] Speaker A: Yes. And that is kind of a big. And we'll get into how effectively the movie does that later, but that is like a big plot point, which is, I think, again, from my understanding, a fairly common kind of thing that autistic people can struggle with is that idea of like, well, this is the true thing. This is the truth. I should just be able to say that and then wire. Of [00:14:09] Speaker B: course. Autism, famously a spectrum. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Yes. Yes, we are. Yes. Speaking broadly, [00:14:15] Speaker B: there are. Or [00:14:17] Speaker A: specifically about a Broadway. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Seemingly a lot of hallmarks here that I would say would make her autistic. Somewhere on the [00:14:27] Speaker A: spectrum. [00:14:27] Speaker B: Somewhere on the spectrum. Now, this book was written in 1964. Based on what I know of our medical understanding of autism, especially in Girls, Louise Fitzhugh was probably not intentionally writing her as, like, autistic. [00:14:41] Speaker A: I would. No, almost assuredly not. [00:14:42] Speaker B: Almost assuredly. Not, but. But I think that makes it even more fascinating evidence of autism having always been a thing. And I would place a heavy bet that a lot of Harriet's quote unquote, eccentricities are things that Fitzhugh herself probably experience. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Feel very. [00:15:01] Speaker B: I feel very confident about. [00:15:03] Speaker A: That's very likely. I had a note, a similar note later that we'll get to about. There's some element of the story that feels like stuff. Some of the elements. Again, the thing about telling the truth and whatnot that we get to later that we'll talk about. Very much to me, felt like the author writing their own again, assuming it comes from the book kind of writing. Not a defense of themselves, but like. [00:15:28] Speaker B: But like a little. [00:15:29] Speaker A: A little bit of, like, kind of explaining and defending their, like, experience and mindset and why they are the way that they are in a way that I felt like. Felt. Yeah. Felt very apparent personal. [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:42] Speaker A: So we're introduced to all the students in her school. She kind of goes around and tells us who all these other kids in her class are. And one of them is Marion Hawthorne, who is. They don't like because she is snobby and she's the snobby rich kid. That. That. And they partially hate her because she's snobby. But they also reference the fact that, like, she goes horseback riding and. And like, that she's. Well, she dresses very fancy and, like, clearly is, like, wealthy. [00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:09] Speaker A: And I thought that was interesting because Harriet is very clearly also wealthy. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Yes. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Like, very, very clearly her family is also wealthy. And the movie does not shy away from that. In fact, it does become a point. And I was like. I wrote. Surely this ends up being the point. It's not really like, they never really readdress it in terms of. In regards to her animosity towards Marian and, like, the way they criticize her for, like. It's clearly like part of what they're. They don't like about her is that she not only is wealthy, but, like, kind of flaunts her wealth and is. And then that sort of thing. Whereas Harriet is, like, just oblivious to the fact that she's rich, seemingly, which I think is itself. And the movie never really reckons with that. Again, it does give her a little bit of a reckoning with regards to her wealth disparity to sport her other friend, which we'll talk about. But I wanted to know if the element of why they hate Marion Hawthorne, part of that stemmed from seemingly her wealth. When I thought it was a little ironic that Harriet's also clearly wealthy. And that never was fully. They never fully came back to that. In terms of like. [00:17:25] Speaker B: Like in regards to Marion specifically. [00:17:27] Speaker A: In regards to Marion specifically. And their dislike of her. I don't know, it just felt like an interest kind of dangling thread. And I want to know if it came from the book. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Harriet and her friends do dislike Marian Hawthorne in the book, but I wouldn't say it's because she's rich. That was not really a vibe that I got while reading. I mean, I think that's. [00:17:50] Speaker A: It's the same thing in the movie. [00:17:52] Speaker B: It's kind of part of it, but I feel like it's in a more tertiary way than what the movie presents. Because what we get in the movie is a very 90s kids movie depiction of [00:18:03] Speaker A: a [00:18:03] Speaker B: rich kid where specifically the horseback riding. [00:18:06] Speaker A: Horseback riding. [00:18:07] Speaker B: And then the fact that she wears, like. She almost looks like she's wearing, like, a fancy school uniform, like a [00:18:12] Speaker A: private school uniform, [00:18:12] Speaker B: and the rest of the kids are just, like, dressed normally. [00:18:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:16] Speaker B: In the book, they dislike her because she's snobby, which is like a tertiary wealth thing, I think. Yeah, she's snobby, she's bossy, she's prissy. And perhaps, I think most notably for the time period, she adheres to traditional femininity, whereas Harriet and Janie not only don't, but they, like, are actively rebelling against that kind of traditional femininity. There's a whole plot point where their mothers want to. Want them to go to, like, dance classes, to, like, learn. I don't know, not ballet, like, waltzing or, like, country club, like, type dancing. And Harriet and Janie are both like. Yeah, we're not doing that. [00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So that movie doesn't present that because, I mean, it is very much in the movie. The case is. Is their. Their primary dislike of her is the fact that she's snobby, bossy, prissy, mean girl kind of thing. But that is all tied into her aesthetic and [00:19:22] Speaker B: the fact that she is filtered through the fact that she is [00:19:25] Speaker A: the rich girl. [00:19:26] Speaker B: She's the rich girl. Yeah. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah. And they. They also mention that. That stuff. Yeah. And they don't really. The movie doesn't really make. There is the dichotomy between, like, she does represent a more traditional femininity, whereas Janie and. And Harriet don't necessarily in the movie, but they never really talk about that. It never comes up in the movie at all, really, to my memory. [00:19:47] Speaker B: And Harriet's family is also pretty clearly very wealthy in the book. But I think like you kind of mentioned earlier, she's kind of just unaware of it in a way that kids sometimes are. I think also that Gali has been a grounding force for her in regards to that. [00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is good. I don't know. It's interesting because there's an element of it where it's almost more obnoxious that she's unaware that she's. Well, which again, the movie actually does. And I didn't have a question about whether or not that scene with Sport is in the book or not where she pays for. [00:20:22] Speaker B: It's not, it's [00:20:23] Speaker A: not okay. She helps him pay for some groceries when she sees him struggling. And that is the movie kind of dealing with the fact and making her realize again, they don't really do much too much with it after that. And she doesn't then go on to have a realization necessarily about like Marion in that regard. And like, oh, maybe I, maybe she's not like rich. I don't know. Like there's. Doesn't go beyond Sport really. But she does realize and come to terms with the fact like, oh, I have. My family has a lot more money than Sport and there's like some class disparity there and she kind of has to at least somewhat deal with that. Speaking of Gali, we then get to kind of the big, one of the big incidents early on, which is that Gali invites her boyfriend over, George, who appears to be like 30 years older than her. Not really. I don't know how old Rosie o' Donnell is supposed to be or was filming this, but the guy she's dating looks older than her to me. Like I assumed she was supposed to be like in her 20s and this guy looks like. [00:21:20] Speaker B: I have no idea. [00:21:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I have no idea. But her boyfriend comes over, George and they're like having dinner and she burns dinner and so they have to go. They end up going for dinner and, and to a movie and they end up coming back home and her parents have already arrived back home and they, her, her mom freaks out when they arrive back home and is like, where were you? We came home and you weren't here and we didn't know. And she's like, she fires golly, golly on the spot. And I was like, this makes literally no sense. Gali is her live in nanny. [00:21:52] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:21:53] Speaker A: like she lit like it's. [00:21:54] Speaker B: And we see Gali take them, take her places earlier. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I was so like, what makes no sense. I, again, I. Now I think the idea. Because this is the movie sets it up a little bit, but I don't think it properly explores this or gets all the way. There is that her mom is, like, jealous of Harriet and Golly's relationship and feels not guilty for not being there and is kind of punishing Golly in the moment for, like, her own resentment and that sort of thing, because she does immediately. Then when they go inside, is like, [00:22:25] Speaker B: yeah, she immediately [00:22:26] Speaker A: backtracks and is trying to not follow fire her. And. And Gali ends up being like, no, I'm going to go anyways, because it's better for Harriet. She needs to be on her own, or whatever. But I wanted to know if that all played out similarly in the book, because, again, the idea that she would fire her for that, again, I guess the idea, like I said, is more so. Not so much the infraction as it is the other stuff, but the. I like, I. If I was Golly in that moment, I'd be like, you're. You're firing me for taking the child that I am, like, basically a legal guardian of to dinner? [00:22:59] Speaker B: Because you guys are never around. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Because you were like, what are you talking about? Like, it's crazy. [00:23:04] Speaker B: So this basically does happen in the book. There are a couple other elements that are presented as the reason why her parents are initially so upset. One of them is that they don't end up getting home until midnight, so they're there pretty late. And then the other thing is that her parents are upset that there's a strange man with them, which is. Is fair. [00:23:25] Speaker A: I guess that's fair to some extent, but I [00:23:29] Speaker B: actually. But it. But it plays out very similarly where, like, her mom, like, fires her on the spot. And then when Gali's like, yeah, okay, I should go. And she actually, in the book, gives the excuse that her and George are going to get married. So her mom immediately then tries to, like, backpedal and be like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You don't actually need to go. But I actually like the movie's explanation of her mom's behavior. [00:23:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it [00:24:00] Speaker B: is [00:24:00] Speaker A: there. Yeah. [00:24:01] Speaker B: Because we get. There's a scene of, like, a brief little moment shortly before this where her mom asks if Harriet wants her to tuck her in for bed. And Harriet's like, oh, no, I want Gali to do it. And there's a brief shot of her mom looking, like, a little hurt by this. I completely agree that this could have been better fleshed out, but I like the movie at least attempting to inject that into the narrative. Whereas in the book I didn't really feel like her mom ever seemed to realize that maybe she hasn't been that great of a mother. Which [00:24:38] Speaker A: makes sense for the time period in the 60s. The vibe that I get. I wasn't alive, obviously, but then parents were a little less introspective about their parenting than they were. Especially we're in like the 90s and now, like, as time has passed, we've gotten more and more introspective about how we parent and the ways we parent and what is good and bad parenting. [00:24:59] Speaker B: And particularly in 90s kids media, that was something that was very prevalent was [00:25:05] Speaker A: like [00:25:05] Speaker B: parents reflecting on like their parenting style and whether or not they were doing a good job. [00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And maybe they did reflect on it back in the 60s and stuff. They just reflected on it poorly and were like, yeah, no, I'm doing great. I'm crushing it. Like, I. I don't know. But like, that is the vibe you get, at least from media from those time periods is that parents never weren't really thinking about parenting in the same way. It was just a thing you did. [00:25:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:29] Speaker A: And however you did it was how you did it. And. [00:25:32] Speaker B: And let the chips fall, [00:25:33] Speaker A: Merriwig. They may. Whereas in modern day, you know, again, from like maybe the 80s on, we. We got much more. More academia kind of like evolved around parenting and, and good ways to parent and all that sort of stuff. And it became much more of a. An active thing that parents participated in versus just a thing that kind of you did. One of the characters, Janie, is a fun character in this movie. She is like Harriet's best friend for much of the film until the falling out. Here that comes shortly is that is Janie and she wants to be a scientist. She's super into science. She has science experiments in her room all the time. She. She's constantly getting up into hijinks. She talks about science stuff all in physics and scientists and stuff all the time. She has Einstein on her wall in her bedroom. And at one scene they're like, I just thought it was funny because I thought it was a good joke. Is that they're talking about. They're coming up with themes for the fall or the Christmas pageant or whatever, the end of the year, sixth grade pageant where they put on a play or whatever. And they're trying to come up with themes for it. And Janie suggests the Manhattan and that she could be Oppenheimer. And I thought that was great. [00:26:52] Speaker B: I love. She's pretty. Like, she's like, I'm pretty sure I can Make a mushroom cloud. [00:26:55] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure I can make a mushroom cloud. Yeah. And I wanted to know if that came from the book and more broadly, does Janie wanna be a scientist? And more specifically, is she a black girl? Because I think that felt to me like a very like 90s update. Like we're making her best friend a black girl who wants to be a scientist. This is like woke point. Yeah, [00:27:16] Speaker B: it's 90s woke. [00:27:17] Speaker A: Yeah, 90s woke. The very infanc of woke in our modern day parlance, where. Yeah, we had. Yeah. And so I was. I was curious about all of those things. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Janie does want to be a scientist. However, in the book, her suggestion for the pageant is the curies and not the Manhattan Project. She's not a black girl in the book. A change that I think is indicative of. Right. The time period. [00:27:42] Speaker A: Yes, for sure. [00:27:43] Speaker B: Book written in the 60s movie made in the 90s. [00:27:46] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think the Manhattan Project's a better suggestion. You got more people, more characters. The curies, it's like, okay, well, we got the curies. And then I guess there were probably like lab assistants and stuff, but like [00:27:57] Speaker B: somebody could be the skeleton in the X rays. [00:28:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure there are other people involved, but the Manhattan Project, you got a lot of people involved. So. Yeah. Scene I mentioned earlier is that Harriet, during one of her spying sessions, she spies at this local Chinese market or grocery store. It's like a local family grocery store run by a Chinese family. And she's looking through the window one day and she sees Sport in there buying some groceries. And he grabs some stuff and it comes up to like 650 and he pulls the money out of his pocket and he doesn't have quite enough. And so she ends up coming in and handing him a dollar and is like, oh, you dropped this out front so that he can pay for the, the groceries that he's buying. And then they have this exchange. And I don't know if it's actually right here, but it's a little later on. Later on, but they have an exchange about money in reference kind of to this where they're talking about. And Harriet says she hates money. She's like, I hate. I don't ever like, pay attention to money. I hate money. And Sports says to her, you'd like it a lot more if you didn't have any. I liked it. Again, it's actually a good moment where they do force her to kind of reconcile with the fact that, that she is wealthy and not everybody is. And I wanted to know if that came from the book. [00:29:14] Speaker B: Yeah, this exchange is basically the same, just very slightly updated for the times. So Sport is explaining to Harriet how he manages his dad's money. He basically is his dad's accountant. [00:29:27] Speaker A: Yeah. He tells her. Yeah, I think that's the scene in the movie, too, is that he's like, I do the books or whatever. Yeah. [00:29:33] Speaker B: And Harriet is like. Like looking at it and she says, I hate money. To which Sport replies, well, you jolly well like it if you didn't have any. [00:29:42] Speaker A: They updated the language. They [00:29:43] Speaker B: updated the [00:29:43] Speaker A: language jolly [00:29:45] Speaker B: well. [00:29:46] Speaker A: All right. [00:29:47] Speaker B: Also, Sport is crazy parentified. Yes. Somebody calls CPS for that kid. [00:29:52] Speaker A: He is essentially. Yeah, he's being. He's the wife, he's the mom in the relationship, basically. He does all of the cooking, cleaning. The cleaning. [00:30:01] Speaker B: His dad is basically useless, [00:30:04] Speaker A: a starving artist who, yeah, just writes and apparently sucks it and fails to write or whatever for most of the story. So after school one day, they're out playing tag in a field, and as they're playing tag, they're all, like, carrying their stuff, and Harriet ends up dropping her books, including her notebook with all of her burn book with all of her secrets in it. And Marion ends up picking it up and then reading it. And this is how everybody gets to see all of the awful stuff that Harriet wrote about everybody, and they all turn against her. And I wanted to know if that was how it went down in the book. [00:30:43] Speaker B: So this starts out exactly the same. All the kids are playing tag. They're playing bumper tag, the point of which seems to be to, like, knock each other's stuff out of their hands. [00:30:53] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:30:54] Speaker B: Which is how she then loses track of her notebook. However, when we get to the point where she sees everyone huddled around reading from it, it's actually Janie [00:31:06] Speaker A: doing the [00:31:07] Speaker B: reading and not Marian. Now I can see why the movie made this change, and I don't even necessarily disagree with it. Marian had already been set up as the mean girl, and narratively, she's going to continue being the mean girl. [00:31:23] Speaker A: They have a rivalry, so she has motivation to. [00:31:26] Speaker B: She has motivation. [00:31:28] Speaker A: Crack it open. And, [00:31:29] Speaker B: yeah, we've already established her as, like, a ringleader, bully kind of a person. I think the movie also wants its audience to be able to empathize with both Harriet and Janie at different points. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker B: So I totally understand this change. However, as a girl who went through middle school, I think there is something so horribly true about your best friend turning on you in the blink of an eye. It's so real, like, reading it made my stomach drop because I've been through similar kind of drama. You expect a bully to be mean, but at that age, it's kind of an all bets are off environment. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. Which I thought the movie did a good job capturing. In fact, even in that scene, I think they kind of capture that because Janie does, [00:32:19] Speaker B: she does [00:32:20] Speaker A: very quickly, immediately turn on her once she reads what she wrote about her and is like, oh, oh, my gosh. And then joins in with the other kids in kind of tormenting Harriet. So I, I, I was actually kind. I did think the movie broadly captured that. But it is Marion. [00:32:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's, it's a little different in that the initial betrayal does not come from Janie. [00:32:41] Speaker A: Right. [00:32:41] Speaker B: In the movie. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. It's after she hears everything else and then they're like, oh, she wrote something about you. And then she. So then Harriet has to deal with being bullied for a while, as everybody now hates her because of all the stuff she wrote. And during one of the classes, they around a note, like, laughing about her, and she ends up getting the hold of the note that just says, harriet M. Welsh smells or stinks or something like that. And then she ends up going to the bathroom and, like, washing herself, like, [00:33:10] Speaker B: in [00:33:10] Speaker A: the sink. [00:33:10] Speaker B: Washes her armpits. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Yeah, she's like, washing her feet and her armpits and stuff. And boy, that was too. I don't, I don't. Not that that specific thing ever happened to me, but that kind of neurosis, childhood neurosis of like, oh, my God, do I st. I have no idea. Like, she doesn't know. She doesn't really. Has never really thought about it, but just like, see, seeing that, and obviously it's just a childish insult, like, I'm sure, like, who knows, you know? But she just immediately takes it to heart and it's like, oh, God. And like, goes to the bathroom to do something about it was just very well done. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book. [00:33:41] Speaker B: That does happen in the book. Yeah, that plays out exactly the same. [00:33:45] Speaker A: So then she has now kind of despondent from everybody picking on her, and school's not going well. And so her parents, in an attempt to kind of hopefully rectify things, they end up taking away her notebook, her notebooks that she writes in because they want her to focus on school or whatever and not use this notebook. And I wanted to know if that happened in the book. [00:34:05] Speaker B: Yes. Eventually her parents do take her notebook away from her Although it happens a little later in the book than, like, the point that it happens in the movie. [00:34:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So then in another class, there's a scene they're in, like, art class and they're doing some sort of painting project. And again, the kids are all still bullying Harriet because they all hate her. [00:34:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Ongoing torment. But in this particular one, two of the girls who are the main two mean girls, Marion and then her. [00:34:33] Speaker B: Rachel. [00:34:33] Speaker A: Rachel, who is, like, her second in command or [00:34:36] Speaker B: whatever. She's Gretchen Wieners. [00:34:38] Speaker A: Yes. She's the one who wants to be Marion. She. They dump, like, blue paint all over her. And then there's a kind of a deeply upsetting scene where I was like, what a teacher? What the fuck are you doing? [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Where they're, like, all come over and they're like. [00:34:52] Speaker B: They're, like, [00:34:53] Speaker A: assaulting her with. With paper towels, those brown paper towels to, like, wipe the paint off. And [00:34:59] Speaker B: she's very clearly. [00:35:00] Speaker A: She's very clearly screaming and like, stop it. Stop it. And the teacher's like, no, no, no, no, we'll help. And I'm like, what are you. You're the worst teacher ever. That teacher sucks, by the way, in this whole movie. [00:35:09] Speaker B: She really does. [00:35:10] Speaker A: She's an awful teacher. She just allows all this bullying to, like, happen. [00:35:13] Speaker B: I feel like there was an attempt to update the, like, I guess, ethos of the parent characters in [00:35:21] Speaker A: this [00:35:21] Speaker B: book, but not to similarly update the teacher. [00:35:25] Speaker A: Yeah, like, she just. [00:35:26] Speaker B: She's still, like, out of the 60s. [00:35:28] Speaker A: Yeah. She's just completely oblivious and, like, seemingly, like, just allowing all of this to happen in her class. Particularly, like, [00:35:35] Speaker B: the scene where she, like, frisks her, looking for a notebook in front of her. [00:35:38] Speaker A: And all the kids are, like, laughing, and they're all laughing, and she doesn't say anything, like, [00:35:42] Speaker B: do that out in the hall. [00:35:43] Speaker A: What's wrong with you? It's crazy. I guess. Not that. That wouldn't happen in the 90s. Stuff like that should happen, but, like, beyond, like, to me, the scene worth the paint where she's like. The girl is, like, screaming, and it's like, get off me. Leave me alone. [00:35:57] Speaker B: Other kids to stop. And [00:35:58] Speaker A: she's like, yeah, yeah, like, tell the kid. What are you doing? It's just insane. Yeah. But she. She gets. She's very upset by this, obviously. And Marion comes over and then also, like, first the girl. One girl pulls paint on her, and then Marion comes over and dumps a bunch more paint on her. And. And Harriet stands up and just slaps the out of her. And I was like extremely justified in that moment. And I wanted to know if that happened in the. [00:36:23] Speaker B: Yes, this scene plays out really similarly with the small difference that it's blue ink in the book instead of paint. [00:36:31] Speaker A: That's worse. [00:36:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Reasonable update. [00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:34] Speaker B: And yes, that slap was super satisfying in both the book and the movie. Cause Marian deserved that slap. [00:36:42] Speaker A: Yeah. And then Harriet goes scorched earth on everybody. She's like, all right, it's time. And she. Some great moments of her. Scrawling, scratching. Everybody [00:36:54] Speaker B: carved their names into her desk. [00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah. She has a. A kill list in her. Scratched into her desk. A desk with a compass. That is fantastic. And as she gets revenge, she scratches their name out. [00:37:07] Speaker B: Another thing that should have really concerned the [00:37:09] Speaker A: teacher. Oblivious to her just scraping kids names into her desk for hours. Like it's. It's not. She's not hiding it. Yeah, yeah. Again, that's one of those. And then that's broadly the whole thing with the teacher is like. Well, for the plot to work, we kind of need the teacher to not like clamp down on this immediately. Or else. Like it doesn't really work the same way. So I get. But still. Yeah. Another moment. Yeah. Where the teacher is failing horribly and. But so she starts getting revenge. She's like cutting girls ponytails off and scratching eyes out of the pictures in their lockers. And she posts a picture of sport in a maid. I don't know where she got that. Did she take a photo? She [00:37:47] Speaker B: watched that earlier. I [00:37:48] Speaker A: remember when he was there in that. And I didn't remember her taking an [00:37:51] Speaker B: apron and dusting. And she takes a picture with like a Polaroid camera. [00:37:55] Speaker A: I didn't remember her taking a picture. I did remember that scene. But yeah. So she has this photo of him that she spreads everywhere of him like in a maid costume. Like how he's gay. Get it? And so like. Yeah, all this sort of stuff. Very mean stuff across the board. Although that one girl who got the eyes in her magazine scraped off in her. In her locker got off easy. Like compared to that. [00:38:14] Speaker B: I had a note here too that some of those kids got it [00:38:17] Speaker A: way worse than others. Crazy. The [00:38:19] Speaker B: difference, she. She messes up Janie's science experimen. Yeah. Which is kind of. Which is mean. [00:38:25] Speaker A: But it's not. It doesn't even seem like. It seems like a. During classic [00:38:27] Speaker B: cuts, another girl's ponytail [00:38:29] Speaker A: cuts. Her entire ponytail. [00:38:31] Speaker B: Ponytail. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Yes, brother. That's assault. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's crazy. But does all that. Does that stuff happen in the book? [00:38:40] Speaker B: There is kind of a similar montage of her getting revenge on each person individually. It's not like the exact same stuff, but similar idea. [00:38:50] Speaker A: Does she cut somebody's pony? I think she [00:38:51] Speaker B: does. Yeah. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Yeah. That. That. That actually feels like a 60s thing. That's like a thing in the 60s that we would not. And even in the 90s that we would not have viewed as bad as it actually, like. [00:39:02] Speaker B: Right. You would get like, ISS [00:39:04] Speaker A: Slap on the wrist maybe. Yeah. It's like a. And these days we're like, yeah, that's. That's like assault. Like, we're [00:39:09] Speaker B: going to have to call the police. [00:39:10] Speaker A: Criminal charges for you cutting off like a foot of somebody's hair in the middle of class. Like you need to. Yeah, that's like very crazy. Yeah. Anyways. Yeah. And then the spreading the picture of. Yeah, [00:39:20] Speaker B: that's like. Especially because sport, I feel like was the least. He [00:39:25] Speaker A: didn't really do anything. Yeah. I mean, he was involved. He was involved [00:39:29] Speaker B: with the other kids, but I feel like to a much lesser [00:39:32] Speaker A: degree [00:39:33] Speaker B: than. Than this vengeance appears to have deserved. [00:39:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Especially in comparison to one kid just got her pictures of teen heartthrobs slightly messed up in her locker. It's like, okay, well, that girl's like, woo, got off easy on this one. She didn't. She didn't light me on fire like she did that other kid. So. Well, then we get to the big climactic moment. And boy, do I not climactic moment, but one of the big climactic moments. And this is when I liked a lot about this movie. I think it's cute. I think it has moments at work. And I think broadly the message they're going for makes sense. But Boyd is the delivery. And like, the. The. The specifics of it are. Don't really work. And this is a big moment of that where all of this goes down. And then they take her to the. [00:40:18] Speaker B: They take her to like a shrink [00:40:20] Speaker A: who's like, you're fine. And I'm like, is she. I don't. I don't think she. It. Whatever. Okay. She seems like [00:40:24] Speaker B: she cut a girl's ponytail. [00:40:26] Speaker A: She cut girl's ponytail off, but whatever. They take her to a like, psychiatrist and stuff and he's like, yeah, you're fine. And then they end up. Golly comes back. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:35] Speaker A: And they [00:40:36] Speaker B: call in the big guns. [00:40:37] Speaker A: They call in the big guns. So call. Golly can talk to her. And she basically. They have this conversation about everything that's gone down. And she says to her, you wrote down the truth in Your notebook and your friends saw it. And so now you have to make amends. Blah, blah, blah. This is where she says, like, you have to apologize and you have to lie. And I was like. And I wanted to know if this was in the book the same way, because I was like, so, like, it wasn't really the truth that she wrote down, though. It was like her opinion about people. That's why people are mad. It wasn't that she wrote down, like. And then Janie did a crazy science experiment, [00:41:12] Speaker B: right? [00:41:13] Speaker A: She wrote she might be a total nut case when she grows up. That's different than the truth. Like, what are you talking about? And I, I. And this is where I felt like the messaging didn't fully work. And this is another moment where it felt to me like the author explaining why people have hated her throughout her life. This is a little bit of self insert, like, people couldn't handle the truth. I was telling them. [00:41:38] Speaker B: I've just been spitting facts. [00:41:39] Speaker A: I've just been doling out the truth about people. And they get, they get very offended and upset by that. And so now I have to apologize. I do need to apologize, but I also need to lie and not tell the whole truth all the time because that's what gets you in trouble. It's like, no, no, no, that's not the problem here. And that's what the movie seems to make the problem be. And I felt a little crazy and I wanted to know if that. Because again, the problem isn't that you're telling the truth. The problem is that you're then saying mean things about the truth. You're observing. It's not just [00:42:11] Speaker B: right. [00:42:11] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:42:12] Speaker B: yeah. So this is also an issue that I have with the. Because Gali's advice is pretty much exactly the same in the book as it is in the movie. I don't know if it's directly word for word, but it's pretty much exactly the same little monologue. And I think that both the book and the movie do an equally bad job of explaining what it is that makes Harriet's quote unquote observations so mean spirited. [00:42:40] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:42:41] Speaker B: like, like it is true that Sports dad doesn't make a lot of money, but it's Harriet's opinion that that's a negative thing [00:42:50] Speaker A: and that he's like a loser and blah, blah, blah. [00:42:53] Speaker B: She's being extraordinarily judgmental and neither medium really calls her out for [00:42:58] Speaker A: that. Yes, that was my huge problem was like, okay. And that was where it felt really author self insert Y of like, I have been a truth teller my whole life. They can't handle the truth that flows from my pen high. It's like, look, I am but a vessel that the truth spills forth from, and it's all of your fault. I have to lie to protect you all from that. That's not. But that is a bit of [00:43:24] Speaker B: what [00:43:26] Speaker A: I was just like, okay, that's not really the problem. The problem isn't the truth. The problem is that you're an asshole. So then that takes us to the climactic moment that I have another big problem with in the movie, which is that. So Gali tells her, okay, well, you have to apologize and you have to do the blah, blah, blah. So she goes into school, like, seemingly the day or whatever. And during class, she basically petitions the teacher. Hey, when we. When. When Marian was made the class president, she also just automatically got to be the editor. I don't think that's fair. I think we should have a vote for who the editor is. It shouldn't just be tied to who the class president is or whatever. And the teacher's like, sure, let's have a vote. And then some random kid. I can't remember his name. [00:44:12] Speaker B: That's because he doesn't have a name. Oh, [00:44:14] Speaker A: does he? [00:44:14] Speaker B: With the purple socks. [00:44:15] Speaker A: Okay. Yes. All right. The boy, the purple soc. Socks, like, nominates her to be the editor and gives this big, impassioned speech about how he would like to hear what she has to say, because blah, blah, blah, and none of this. And then everybody else agrees, and, like, they all, like, [00:44:31] Speaker B: votes for [00:44:31] Speaker A: everybody. We get this. The music swells, and we get this very, like, emotional, like, look, the class is all voting for her. They're going to. [00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:40] Speaker A: And. But. And it's like this big, heartwarming moment. But why in the world would any of these kids vote for her? Nothing. Nothing has happened. [00:44:48] Speaker B: Yeah, nothing has happened. [00:44:49] Speaker A: She hasn't done anything to make them like her, want to vote for her, give her this opportunity. It made literally no sense to me. And I was very like, we're missing some pieces here. That something is. So is that how it plays out in the book? [00:45:05] Speaker B: Okay. So I wrote down almost the exact same note as we were watching the movie. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Okay. I [00:45:10] Speaker B: was like, why? Why on earth would they vote for her? [00:45:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:13] Speaker B: At this point. Because she has not yet earned their [00:45:16] Speaker A: forgiveness. She's done nothing. [00:45:17] Speaker B: And we. I, like, we could play on the idea that, like, well, they just don't like Marion. [00:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah, [00:45:23] Speaker B: but we. We got, like, one little scene with Marion being bossy and annoying. Right. Before this, [00:45:28] Speaker A: it wasn't even that bad. They were sitting around eating cake, and they're like, this is boring. [00:45:32] Speaker B: Not really enough. [00:45:34] Speaker A: No, [00:45:34] Speaker B: I don't think to warrant the reaction that happens here. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:38] Speaker B: So in the book, it does play out a little differently. [00:45:41] Speaker A: Okay. [00:45:42] Speaker B: In the book, what we find out is that Harriet's parents went and talked to her teacher, who then decided that there would be a change in how things were done. And instead of the class president also being the class newspaper editor, that students who showed an aptitude for writing would instead take turns doing this. Okay. So she says, so Harriet is named editor for the remainder of that semester, and then in the next semester, another student is going to take over. So this comes down from on high in the book. Now, Marian does protest at this, and their teacher does then say, well, we can put it to a vote. At which point Harriet does win by a hair, by, like, one vote. But she assumes that everyone who voted for her, which includes Janie in sport, just didn't want to read Marian's writing anymore, which. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Which they all comment on how it's bad. Like, I love how they're. Like, it's so tedious and boring. Like, they're, like, all become literary critics when her. When her magazine. [00:46:43] Speaker B: But it's. It's nothing like the big, dramatic, emotional moment that we get in the movie, which, again, doesn't make sense narratively. [00:46:52] Speaker A: Makes no sense. [00:46:53] Speaker B: It's. It's very unearned by the narrative. [00:46:55] Speaker A: I have the fix. I have the script doctor fix based on what you were talking about. Give [00:46:59] Speaker B: it to [00:46:59] Speaker A: me. Well, I. I don't know exact. I don't have the full. Full thing, but I think you have to have some. I think you need to do basically what the book did, but just change it. Tweak it slightly. Where. Don't do the vote at all, because the book you said still has the vote. Don't do the vote at all. What you do is you have something happen. And I don't know. This is where. I don't know the step here. If it's the parents, go talk to the teacher. Or maybe you have Golly talk to the. Maybe Golly was a former student and she talked, I don't know, something like that. And the teacher makes this decision, but she springs it on everybody. She comes in to class and goes, like, I have an announcement. And whatever. However she says it, basically she announces, like, we're gonna be changing how we do the new magazine editor. I think it'd be good for More voices to be heard. Something like that. Instead of just the class president. And so for our first new editor is going to be Harriet. And everybody looks at her and is like. And everybody hates it. Right? Everybody is furious about it because they all still hate her. Blah, blah, blah. And then she uses that up and she's weird about it. She's like, oh, my God. And she has all this pressure, blah, blah, blah. But then she uses that opportunity to then write what she does in the movie, basically, and apologize and do the [00:48:11] Speaker B: apology [00:48:12] Speaker A: and do all that stuff and [00:48:13] Speaker B: print a retraction. [00:48:14] Speaker A: Yes. And then people are like, okay. And then they forgive her and that sort of thing. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:48:20] Speaker A: that's like a small change to just make it work way better versus this weird thing where they just already forgive her prior to her doing the apology. It doesn't. Yeah, it's dumb. Final question. Is this a little thing that I thought was kind of interesting is that we saw earlier and I called. I knew that maybe I remembered this from watching this when I was 8. But we saw this moment earlier where George seemed to be. She's like. Thinks he's stealing food. He works at the. He's like a delivery. He's a [00:48:43] Speaker B: delivery boy. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Boy for the. The Chinese grocery that he works at. And she sees him, like, passing stuff out the back door, like, food out the back door early in the movie. But she doesn't see who he's passing it to. And she assumes he's, like, stealing it. [00:48:56] Speaker B: Yeah, he's a food thief. [00:48:57] Speaker A: Food thief or whatever. And then later she, like, looks again and sees. She, like, moves a little bit and reveals that he is handing bread and food to, like, street urchins. I was dying to, [00:49:08] Speaker B: like, Dickensian street [00:49:09] Speaker A: urchins. Literally. It was like fucking Oliver was there. I was like, what is. The newsies need some, like, what is happening? What year is it? I was cracking me up, but I wanted to know if. And so that's one of the things she learns is like, you can't take everything at face value. There's more to the story than maybe [00:49:30] Speaker B: sometimes you have to look again. [00:49:31] Speaker A: Yes. You have to look again from a different angle or whatever. And so that's part of what she learns, which is good. But I wanted to know if that little button on that story happened in the book. [00:49:42] Speaker B: Okay, so this is based on something from the book. In the book, one of the people that she spies on is a delivery boy named Little Joe Curry. I cannot explain the name. Don't ask me to try. He does eat a Bunch of food from the grocery store. So technically he is like a grocery thief because he's eating a bunch of their food. But she also, early on in the book sees him giving it away to street urchins. He ultimately gets fired for stealing food and then rehired somehow. And then the wife of the grocery store family catches him giving food to the kids and is overcome with generosity, which is like the happy ending wrap up for his kids, which is similar [00:50:25] Speaker A: in the movie. We see the owner lady, like helping George give the food out to the kids. [00:50:32] Speaker B: I do think this was a pretty strange plot point in both the book and the movie. I don't really know how to make a judgment call here. This was a weird one. [00:50:40] Speaker A: I thought it was fine. I liked it. I thought it was good. Again, I liked it for the setup and pay off of the lesson for her about [00:50:47] Speaker B: and to be fair, not making [00:50:49] Speaker A: snap of judgment on [00:50:50] Speaker B: stuff. And the book doesn't really have that kind of like setup and payoff to it. So I guess I'll call that one better in the movie. [00:50:56] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. I do have a couple short little questions that I want to talk about in Lost in Adaptation. [00:51:02] Speaker E: Just show me the way to get out of here and I'll be on my way. Was it Lost? Yes. Yes. And I want to get Unlocked as soon as possible. [00:51:11] Speaker A: I couldn't figure out what. And maybe it's on. You know, it's intentionally left vague. But in the movie, what her dad's profession was. We hear overhear a conversation at one point and it's. He's talking about. He's the funny man. He's like, I'm the funny one. They're not the funny ones. And I. And he's. It seems. I was like, is he a comedian, an actor? A. I think he might be a screenwriter. It kind of seemed like he was a screenwriter and he's like arguing about, yelling about producers with. Was like my guess. And I wanted to know if that was in the book or if we. If there. If it's similar in the book. Because that felt like a modern thing maybe of like. And like an inside joke, like we'll make him like a screen. Like that felt like a movie thing. Like we'll make a screen. The [00:51:52] Speaker B: screenwriters went ahead and made him a screenwriter. So he definitely works in the entertainment industry in some capacity. But I don't think the book ever explicitly states what he does. I'm going to page 137. He comes home from work and Harriet is having a conversation with him, she says, what you do today? Daddy finked around with a lot of pictures. Got any movie star pictures for me? Harriet M. Welsh, I have no movie star pictures for you today. If I have one good thing to thank the Lord for today, it is that I did not have to gaze upon the jowls of an aging movie star. Anyway, those finks have given me such a low budget that I doubt I'll ever see another movie star. So I don't know if he's. He [00:52:43] Speaker A: sounds more like a producer. [00:52:45] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe he's a producer or. [00:52:47] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:52:48] Speaker B: I don't know. I mean, we know they have quite a bit of money. [00:52:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:51] Speaker B: So he does something that earns money. [00:52:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:54] Speaker B: In the entertainment industry. But I don't know what. [00:52:56] Speaker A: That's about as nebulous as what we get in the movie. Again, I actually get a little bit more in the movie because again he says something about, about like them not being the funny ones. He's the funny. Like he's. [00:53:06] Speaker B: Which does sound like [00:53:08] Speaker A: to me sounds like [00:53:08] Speaker B: poo poo on a producer. [00:53:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I was like, well, is he like a comedian? But that wouldn't really make sense because like who would be giving notes to like a stand up or something. And also the money that. It just doesn't really make sense. Actor doesn't really like if he was an actor, I feel like we would get more context. I was like, I think he must be like a screenwriter. I think is the idea which kind of fits. Also makes sense for her. She wants to be a writer. Maybe where she gets it from a little bit, that sort of thing. So. Yeah. Okay. And the other thing I had a question about because I wasn't really sure and, and like what the story there was like she. We see her, goes on this route where she spies on like all their neighbors and stuff. [00:53:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:42] Speaker A: One of them is this old guy with like cats and he builds these fancy bird cages. The, the, the Chinese grocery store and their whole like family dynamic and everything going on there. And then one of them is this woman played by Eartha G. And I don't remember her name in the film, [00:53:56] Speaker B: but her. Oh my gosh, [00:53:58] Speaker A: Barbara or something or I don't remember. But [00:54:00] Speaker B: yeah, it [00:54:01] Speaker A: doesn't [00:54:01] Speaker B: matter. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Anyways, this older woman who's like lives in this mansion and in one of the scenes in the movie she like breaks into the mansion to like go spy on her. And I don't know what her deal was. I don't know why she broke into her mansion. Obviously it was the spy on her. But, like, I didn't know the context. I got all the other ones, like, what was going on with them. Them. I didn't really understand what was going on with Eartha Kit's character. And. And is there. Is that character in the book and what's [00:54:28] Speaker B: going on? Yes, that character is in the book. And I don't think we get, like, her whole backstory, but she's like this fabulous, like, independently wealthy older woman who lives in a private house. And Harriet views getting into a private house as a challenge because they're much harder to sneak into than apartment buildings. So really is, like, itching to, like, let me see if I can just break into a little light. Breaking and entering. [00:54:59] Speaker A: A little beanie. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Yeah. In the book, she's actually able to get into the dumbwaiter from outside. Instead of running through the front door, which I thought was a little silly. She runs up and [00:55:09] Speaker A: sticks a pencil in [00:55:10] Speaker B: there. Yeah, she, like, just runs. Right. Like, somebody would see you, I feel like. But anyway, so we get the whole dumbwaiter scene, which we talked about earlier this year when we did the Westing Game, I believe, because we had a vague memory of a dumbwaiter scene. And we were like, I think it's from Harriet, though. And it is. [00:55:29] Speaker A: There you go. Yeah. All right. That was all I had. It's time now to find out what Katie thought was better in the book. You [00:55:37] Speaker F: like to read? Oh, yes, I love to read. [00:55:41] Speaker E: What do you like to read? [00:55:45] Speaker F: Everything. [00:55:46] Speaker B: One of the first things in the movie, the entire scene at the, like. Like, art installation garden. [00:55:53] Speaker A: Yeah. I wasn't sure what was going on [00:55:54] Speaker B: with the spraying soda. [00:55:56] Speaker A: She has these soda bottles hanging [00:55:58] Speaker B: from, like. And then they, like. And [00:55:59] Speaker A: then they drink them. It's very strange. [00:56:01] Speaker B: And it felt, like, just so extremely entrenched in the 90s and like, 90s Nickelodeon, specifically, in a way that I don't really know how to explain. [00:56:14] Speaker A: It's a pretty good character moment. It does some good character work because they all, like, make wishes is about, like, their future or whatever. [00:56:23] Speaker B: Right. And that part, I don't mind. [00:56:25] Speaker A: And we get the. Specifically, on top of that, the moment I really like, there's a very. I thought was a very, like, deft character writing moment was that they all, like, take a little swig and then it gets to Harriet and she says her wish and she, like, drinks the whole bottle. [00:56:37] Speaker B: Yeah, she's chugging. [00:56:38] Speaker A: She chugs the whole thing again, setting up the idea that she is maybe a little more too preoccupied with her dream. A little selfish, a little preoccupied with her dreams because everybody kind of looks at her like, hey, chill out. And a little bit too, like, obsessed with this, like, pursuit of becoming a writer. [00:57:01] Speaker B: Right. [00:57:01] Speaker A: That she was like, I'll chug the whole thing to prove or to. To make the wish work better, whatever. And I thought it was a very [00:57:08] Speaker B: clever little [00:57:09] Speaker A: character. [00:57:09] Speaker B: Character moment. I. [00:57:11] Speaker A: But. But I'm not even disagreeing with you. I'm [00:57:13] Speaker B: just [00:57:14] Speaker A: saying I like that moment. They could have been done wherever, however. But [00:57:16] Speaker B: now the book. Book opens with Gali taking Harriet and Sport to visit her mother with her. And I don't think that that would have been a good scene to replicate because it's kind of an odd. They go to meet Gali's mother and her mother is, like, very, very fat. She's a very large woman and also appears to have some kind of, like, mental, like, [00:57:47] Speaker A: yeah, [00:57:47] Speaker B: I don't know, [00:57:48] Speaker A: something. [00:57:49] Speaker B: Something going on there. And I don't think that that would have been a better scene to do for a lot of reasons, but this particular scene in the movie felt a little shallow in a way that I was not super enjoying. [00:58:03] Speaker A: My. My issue with it was mainly that I. And maybe I just missed context, is that it felt like that we needed a little bit more. More background on what's. This place is [00:58:13] Speaker B: like [00:58:13] Speaker A: it's like a friend of Golly's or something [00:58:15] Speaker B: like that [00:58:15] Speaker A: who's like an artist [00:58:16] Speaker B: because we don't ever actually talk to them. Yeah, we just see her in the [00:58:19] Speaker A: dis. And that's the thing we see. We come back to it later and like, Harriet sees her in the distance and kind of like, nods at this woman who's like, dua does this art installation thing. My issue is, I guess it's just supposed to be kind of like broad, like, background world building of like, maybe Gali's like. Like maybe it's just supposed to be kind of characterization for Gali. Like she has these [00:58:39] Speaker B: interesting artist friends [00:58:41] Speaker A: or something. I don't know. Because I agree with that, that it left me a little clamoring for context on what this was. I like the actual scene, like, that happens there, but the context of why we're there, who these. Like, what's. And again, the fact that it comes back later was a little confusing to me. Almost like we were missing maybe like one scene from there or something, which maybe could have been like, something. Something cut. Like. Yeah. I don't [00:59:04] Speaker B: know. To me, more than anything, it felt like an excuse for them to all spit Soda on each other. [00:59:09] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. [00:59:10] Speaker B: Which again, just felt like, so entrenched in. [00:59:15] Speaker A: In [00:59:15] Speaker B: the moment of 1996 and like Nickelodeon in 1996 specifically. [00:59:20] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree. [00:59:26] Speaker B: I liked Golly's explanation of a high pressure job better in the book. I can't remember now exactly what says in the movie, but as soon as she said it, I was like, I think the book's version was better. [00:59:37] Speaker A: I felt crazy. Okay, go ahead. [00:59:39] Speaker B: And what she says when the book is, it means he's not allowed to do exactly what he wants to do with the job. And what he is allowed to do, he isn't given enough time to do it. And I don't. [00:59:50] Speaker A: I feel crazy because I swear that's, like, almost word for word exactly [00:59:55] Speaker B: what she says in the movie. [00:59:56] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure that's what she says in the movie. She's in the back bathtub and she says, what? Your dad has a high pressure job. She says, what's a high pressure job? And she says something along the lines of, it means he isn't allowed to do what he wants, and when he is allowed, [01:00:08] Speaker B: that part is the same. The second part says something different. [01:00:11] Speaker A: No. And she says he isn't allowed to do what he wants, and when he is allowed, he doesn't have enough time to do it, is what she says. [01:00:17] Speaker B: All right, [01:00:18] Speaker A: I. I swear that's what she said. I swear. It's, like, identical. It might be. The wording might be slightly different, but I swear the second part is he doesn't have enough time to do. He doesn't. Yeah. I thought I could be wrong, but I. I thought [01:00:29] Speaker B: a little thing in the book is that as part of Harriet's spy disguise, she wears these big, like, thick rimmed fake glasses with no glass in them, which I loved because it took me right back. Remember when everybody was wearing the 3D glasses with the. In, like, the early 2010s, like, the 3D glasses with the lenses punched out? I don't [01:00:52] Speaker A: remember. [01:00:53] Speaker B: I don't remember that. I [01:00:54] Speaker A: don't remember that, like, being a thing that everybody did. I'm [01:00:56] Speaker B: sure. No, I mean, not everybody, [01:00:57] Speaker A: but I don't really remember that. But I'll take your word for it. I don't know if I ever saw anybody do that. I'll say [01:01:05] Speaker B: I did. [01:01:06] Speaker A: Okay. [01:01:08] Speaker B: The movie also entirely leaves out the Robinsons, who are another couple that Harriet spies on, who at one point purchase a giant statue of a baby holding a tiny mother in its hands. [01:01:24] Speaker A: Sweet. [01:01:26] Speaker B: A couple highly relatable Little quotes. Highly relatable to me. [01:01:31] Speaker A: I'm just saying. This one is. Yeah. [01:01:33] Speaker B: From Harriet thinking about her schoolwork. This is as she's trying to do her homework. She hated math. She hated math with every bone in her body. She spent so much time hating it that she never had time to do it. And then a second later, her mom starts trying to, like, show her how to do a math problem. And she thinks they could show and show and show and show show, but it would never make a bit of difference. And I was like, ooh, too relatable. Too close to home. The book also actually has a really nice scene between Harriet and her parents when she's trying to make up her onion dance for the pageant. Oh, [01:02:12] Speaker A: I didn't ask about that. That's from the book. Yeah, that is from the book. The whole Thanksgiving [01:02:15] Speaker B: feast thing. Yeah. And she gets cast as an onion, and she has to, like, make up her own dance to indicate that she's an onion. And she's trying to do this at home. And her parents also start pretending to be onions to try to help her. And there particular quote that I like from her dad, he says he's rolling around on the floor and he says, I'm trying to feel like an onion. The closest I can get is a scallion. Pretty good. [01:02:44] Speaker A: That's pretty good. All right, let's go ahead and see what Katie thought was better in the movie. [01:02:48] Speaker G: My life has taught me one lesson, Hugo, and not the one I thought it would. Happy endings only happen in the movies. [01:02:57] Speaker B: I really liked the movie's concise, tight introduction to all of her classmates. I thought that was a good way to get started introducing everybody. [01:03:05] Speaker A: Yep. [01:03:07] Speaker B: Her spy outfit was actually pretty spot on, but I liked the addition of the yellow jacket. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it definitely makes her more visual. [01:03:16] Speaker B: A fun, like, visual piece. Yeah. So we get the Chinese grocery store in the movie. That is changed in the book. It's an Italian grocery store. I. I don't know if this is, like. It's not really better or worse, but I thought it was, like, an interesting indication of the time period. [01:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Potentially. Or just like, just being a. Yeah, [01:03:35] Speaker B: because I like my. I [01:03:37] Speaker A: think also the idea was to make it a little bit more foreign, for lack of a better term, is to. Is to kind of have her spying on more unique characters versus an Italian family. [01:03:47] Speaker B: Well, and that was kind of my thought, too, was that in the 60s, an Italian family was probably considered more exotic than it would be in the [01:03:54] Speaker A: 90s. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. Yeah. I was dying. I didn't have a note about it, but we see the grandfather, the patriarch of the family getting, doing cupping. Yes, yeah, well, and, and [01:04:07] Speaker B: acupuncture. [01:04:07] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, the cupping was cracking me up. [01:04:10] Speaker B: The movie that they go see that I, I hope I'm not about to mispronounce the name of this movie. Mata Hari. [01:04:16] Speaker A: I think that's how it's pronounced. [01:04:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:19] Speaker A: Real person. [01:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's not the movie that they go to see in the book. But Golly and Harriet do talk about that movie in the book. So I thought it was a good like reference. [01:04:30] Speaker A: I, I, if people don't know the story of Matahari, it's really interesting. [01:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:04:34] Speaker A: Have you, do you know I looked [01:04:35] Speaker B: it up afterwards. [01:04:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I did too. I added the movie to the. Although the movie apparently is not, not remotely historically accurate in any way. [01:04:42] Speaker B: Right. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Yeah. But the, the actual story is really interesting and if it they. I, I don't know how accurate the Wikipedia article is about Matahari, but that is a story that is dying for a, A like modern adaptation. Like a more, a more maybe Trudeau history adaptation of. Because there are some incredible moments. I don't know if you read, [01:05:06] Speaker B: I didn't read the [01:05:07] Speaker A: Wikipedia article article, but they talked about. So just to explain for people so you don't have to go find it on your own. Mata Hari was the stage name of this Dutch actress who was like a courtesan and an entertainer. Basically like a burlesque performer of the time period in, in like the early 1900s, right around the time during and right before the First World War from the Netherlands. Mainly existed in like France and Germany and the UK and Britain and stuff. A bit little, little bit. Was like very popular entertainer, went around dancing and all this sort of stuff. Made friends with a lot of very prominent and famous politicians and blah, blah, blah. Because she was this well known again courtesan. She was, she was a prostitute to some extent maybe, you know, whatever. But if nothing else, she was, she was on the arm of very like famous men and stuff. Ultimately ended up being accused of spying for the Germans during the war and executed for it. She was killed by a firing squad in like 1917, like after the war ended. Supposedly there's the modern day kind of. And it seems mixed but the modern day kind of historians seem to think that maybe very likely she was not spying necessarily and was maybe killed for other like more just like broad like as a scapegoat kind of thing of like we need like the French are doing Poorly. And it was the French who convicted her and killed her. And it was basically the French being, like, looking for escapes of go for why some of their failures in the war happen and this sort of thing. But there's some great moments in the Wikipedia article, assuming they're not apocryphal, assuming they're actually true. One of them is that she refused a blindfold during the execution. And apparently the last thing she did was blow a kiss to all of the. [01:06:49] Speaker B: Nice. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Again, that's like, straight out of a movie. Again, I have no idea how, but this is. It's in the Wikipedia article and stated as, like. It didn't say it was apocryphal, but there was another thing. Oh, during her trial, famously, she supposedly said, like, they were, like. When she was defending herself at one point, the quote was a harlot. Sure. A traitoress. Never something like that. Which is a great line. And I don't know. Again, supposedly true. Actually happened. So. Point being, I feel like there's meat on the bone for an interesting story there. Kind of. I'm sure there's a feminist take on that. That could be interesting. I don't know all the specifics, but look up Mata Hari. Also problematic. She was pretending to be Middle Eastern or something like that. And she was a white woman from the Netherlands. But that's a whole different can of worms to get into. [01:07:40] Speaker B: I thought the scene where Gali left had way more emotional impact in the movie than it did in the book. [01:07:46] Speaker A: It's a great scene. I had a note about it later in Odds and Ends, but. But Michelle Trachtenberg, during that scene, does an incredible job. The acting she does in that. Both of them do. Roseanne Barr does. Or Roseanne [01:07:59] Speaker B: Barr. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Rosie o' Donnell does too, in that particular moment. I think they both do a great job, but it is very emotional. It is very well acted and written. And. Yeah, I thought it. I thought it was good. [01:08:11] Speaker B: We mentioned the scene where Harriet gives Sport a dollar when he's trying to buy groceries. I liked that addition. Thought it was a good addition. Her classmates showing up like wheelies. Return to Oz. Yes. Yeah. When they're all bullying her and she's trying to go on her spy route. And everywhere she goes, they just, like, materialize [01:08:35] Speaker A: hubcaps and pots and pans to themselves and just beat them [01:08:38] Speaker B: everywhere on Rollerblades and they're, like, chasing her around like that. [01:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fun. [01:08:45] Speaker B: There is a scene in the book where she's, like, at the park and they are. They march around her like. Like they're in a parade. Which is similar, but the. The movie's take on this was so much more fun and chaotic. I liked the scene where Harriet made some very solid points about her parents and their vices. Not very good parents overall. [01:09:07] Speaker A: She's like, you have martini every day when you get home. Why don't you. You give that up. Yeah. [01:09:14] Speaker B: I like that the movie actually brings Gali back to visit instead of having Harriet receive a letter from her. Yeah. What happens in the book. But I mean, obviously you're gonna bring. She's like your big star in this, right? You're gonna bring her back for another scene. [01:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah. That was actually a surprise for me that she leaves so early in the movie. And it's like not most. Not in it for most of the movie was actually. I wasn't expecting. Expecting that. [01:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I did not remember that she left that early. And I thought that the movie did a better and more concise job of showing Harriet use her power as editor to get back in her classmates good graces. It felt a little muddled in the book. She also wrote a lot of gossip in her tenure. And I'm. I was just not sure how that [01:10:01] Speaker A: would. Okay, this is. You're still kind of doing [01:10:03] Speaker B: the thing. Still kind of doing it, girl. Like. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I thought that was good. I also really like the scene in the movie. It was a great little moment that almost felt like maybe a later addition or something. But there was a nice moment where she writes something about Marian and she has a thing about how like, oh, and I was wrong. Just because your parent, Your dad's far away or your parents are far away doesn't mean that they don't love you or something. Because she said that to Marion at one point. And while that. While they're. That voiceover is happening. Sport and Maran like, look at each other and he kind of smiles and they like share a moment showing that. That Marian is also included in this. [01:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:43] Speaker A: Kind of happy ending. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:46] Speaker A: All right. That's going to do it for that part. Let's find out what the movie nailed. [01:10:54] Speaker H: As I expected, practically perfect in every way. [01:10:58] Speaker B: Quite a bit actually. And I'm going to try to run through these pretty quickly. Marion Hawthorne does win class president over Harriet. Harriet has her spy route after school every day. She spies on Harrison Withers through the skylight. And that's the guy who has a bunch of cats and also builds bird cages. [01:11:18] Speaker A: There was a really cool shot. There's a fair amount of cool shots in this. But one of my favorite shots was there's this wide angle shot from the ground with his birdcage going up. This giant. Giant, like eight. [01:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:31] Speaker A: Foot, ten foot tall bird cage. He's sitting kind of in the foreground. The bird cage is going up, and then Harriet's looking through the skylight. Really cool shot. And there was a handful of those throughout the movie that had moments of like, man, that's cool. [01:11:43] Speaker B: The grocery store family does have an argument about the son borrowing their truck. Golly. Doesn't invite her boyfriend over for dinner. The boyfriend's backstory is also very similar where he, like, used to have a high power job and then he, like, gave it up [01:11:59] Speaker A: to. [01:12:00] Speaker B: To be a delivery boy. Probably a good call to also leave out that he also had a kid that he abandoned in the midst of this. [01:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:09] Speaker B: But maybe. Good choice. On the movie's part, the health department does take all of Harrison Withers cats. At one point, the grocery store son also crashes the truck. [01:12:21] Speaker A: I missed that. Oh, we didn't see it. I don't. We [01:12:23] Speaker B: see it, like. We see it, like, crunched up. [01:12:25] Speaker A: Okay. I was about to say. And [01:12:26] Speaker B: then he comes in and he has, like, a cut on his [01:12:28] Speaker A: head. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But we don't actually see the crash. No. Yeah. Yeah. [01:12:32] Speaker B: Marion's holiday pageant idea is the dinner. And Harriet does get cast as an onion. Eartha Kit's character, whose name I cannot remember now. It's Mrs. Something. Her line that she's discovered the. The best way to live your life or whatever. She says you simply crawl into your bed and you never, ever leave again. [01:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:57] Speaker B: And when I read that in the book, I literally wrote in my notes, I was like, this better be Eartha Kids character. [01:13:04] Speaker A: Yeah, she. It's great. I was just cracking up because all I could hear was, what's her name? From Emperor's new. [01:13:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:13:13] Speaker A: Ms. Plum. Mrs. Plummer. [01:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. The specific line. After all of the kids are reading out of Harriet's notebook, Marian says, harriet, sit over there while we decide what to do with you. You. She comes to school the next day with a new notebook with, like, a fresh notebook. And I read that and I was like, actually kind of a power move to just, like, show up with a new notebook. Her classmates do build a fortress and start a spy catchers club. The. The scene where Harriet goads Marion about her father being gone is very close. A lot of the lines are there, there. The big difference is that it's actually Rachel that she does this to in the book. The Movie kind of mixes and matches Marian and Rachel a little bit when she goes to see the psychiatrist. The line, don't you have to. Don't you have toys at home? And then Harriet says, yes, but I'm 11. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah. She's like, you have toys? And he's like, don't you have toys at home? Yes, but I'm 11. [01:14:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And then also their exchange about mean notes versus ordinary notes. And also he gives her a notebook to write in while she's there. She does try to go see Janie and accidentally causes her to spill chemicals on her floor, and it eats away at her floor. Also the scene where she tries to go see Sport and him and his dad are celebrating his big paycheck. And then his dad invites Harriet out to dinner, and Sport, like, slams the door in her face. That's all from the book. And finally, Harriet, in her. Her power as the editor of the newspaper [01:14:49] Speaker A: speaks truth to power. [01:14:50] Speaker B: Speaks truth to power. And calls out the school for not paying her teacher enough. There [01:14:54] Speaker A: you go. Actually, honestly, they're probably. They need to fire that teacher based on what we saw in the movie. But, yeah, fair enough. All right, let's get to a few odds and ends before the final verdict. There was an incredibly sick Harriet the Spy 90s jazz hip hop song playing during the opening credits of this movie that I kind of adored. I thought it was fantastic. I actually like the score for this movie a lot. It's very, like, jazzy, like, which makes sense because it's like a spy thing. Yeah, [01:15:31] Speaker B: yeah, yeah, yeah. I. I am normally an opening credits fan. Again, I didn't love these ones. I thought this. The song was fine. [01:15:39] Speaker A: Yeah, I love this. [01:15:40] Speaker B: But I. I thought they went on a little long. And I did not like the motif of randomly cutting to images of the grocery store produce. [01:15:47] Speaker A: It made no sense. It made so confused, like, what it was like. We would cut to, like, four frames of, like, some vegetables. Yeah. And you're like. And then we'd go back to, like, the animated, like. [01:15:57] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:15:58] Speaker A: it's like a spy glass. I'm like, I don't [01:16:00] Speaker B: know whose call that was. It [01:16:02] Speaker A: doesn't. [01:16:02] Speaker B: It was a bad one, [01:16:03] Speaker A: I guess. Like, I get the idea is, like, we're, like, cutting. Cutting back to, like, setting up the first scene that we're gonna see, but it's not effectively done. And they're so short that you're like, what? Why? [01:16:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's just like, why [01:16:13] Speaker A: is [01:16:13] Speaker B: there. It's like two frames of carrots. [01:16:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And you're like, What. What's happening? It's very strange. I had the same. Same feeling during that. I was like, very strange editing choice. [01:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought it was really interesting that it sounded like, to me, like all the characters were saying Gully [01:16:29] Speaker A: all the time [01:16:29] Speaker B: instead of Golly. [01:16:30] Speaker A: Yes. They all said [01:16:31] Speaker B: Goalie. Yeah. And I wondered if that was on purpose to make it sound more like a real name. [01:16:36] Speaker A: I don. Because did they ever explain. I don't remember. [01:16:39] Speaker B: I think Golly's her last name in the book because her first name is Catherine. [01:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I meant in the movie. Do they ever say, like, her full. Does she. Do they say, like. You know what I mean? Do they ever say her full name in the movie? Or, like, do we hear, like, that's Golly. She's. Her real name's Catherine, but she's my nanny or, you know, or anything. [01:16:55] Speaker B: Like, when the boyfriend shows up, he calls her Catherine. [01:16:58] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, I. I had the same thought. I was like, why are they all say Gully? [01:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, [01:17:04] Speaker A: sure. Janie in the movie is played by an actress named Vanessa Lee Chester. And I was like, I knew I recognized her. She was one of the little girls in A Little Princess that we just did. As well as she plays, which I mentioned this. In A Little Princess, she plays Jeff Goldblum's daughter in Lost World, Jurassic Park. She's also. I bet I mentioned when I was like, I recognize her from somewhere in A Little Princess. I bet I would have to go back and listen that I looked it up and I said, oh, she was in Harriet the Spy. I saw that when [01:17:33] Speaker B: I was a kid. Probably. Yeah. [01:17:35] Speaker A: We probably went both ways on that one. [01:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I, I. As soon as she showed up, I was like, I know her face from somewhere. I had to go look. I don't know if she did. [01:17:44] Speaker A: Not wanting to be an actress. I don't think she did too much stuff, like, as she got older, but I think she was really good in, like, all [01:17:49] Speaker B: of [01:17:50] Speaker A: these movies. I think she does a really good job. [01:17:52] Speaker B: The thing that, like, triggered my memory really hard and made me realize that I had definitely seen this movie as a kid was Janie's mom's bra exploding with green goop. [01:18:05] Speaker A: H I. That was not. I don't know [01:18:07] Speaker B: why. I don't know why, but we saw that. And I was like, oh, I've seen that before. I've seen that bra explode with green goop. [01:18:17] Speaker A: Yeah. So my next note here is cracking me up. So I actually had this realization watching the Trailer. Because it's in the trailer. I think I even put it in the prequel episode. I can't remember because it was cracking me up so much. But there's. During the scene where George is there and they're having dinner before they. They're having a soup before their main course, I guess, which is what goalie golly burns. But they're sitting there, and she's very. She doesn't like George because she thinks he was stealing or whatever. So she's very suspicious of him. And while they're sitting there talking, she is slurping her tomato soup or whatever. And I remembered this. This is one I had a memory of. But she slurps her soup very loudly because, again, she's trying to be obnoxious because she doesn't like this Jordan guy. And she slurps her soup. And then she goes, good soup. And I was like, what? And I, like, pointed at the screen because we're currently. We haven't actually got to the scene yet, but I'm aware of the meme. We're currently watching Girls. We're in, like, the fourth season. I don't know. I think that. I assume that's later because he's. He looks more like Kylo Ren. So I think it's towards the end of the run in. In the scene. But in Girls, there's a famous memed scene where I think it's their breakup scene. Maybe. The context seems to be from the little I know of the scene where Adam Driver and Lena Dunham are at a restaurant and he's. They're, like, eating and he has some soup and he, like, slurps it and goes, good soup. [01:19:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:19:39] Speaker A: And it's become like a meme or whatever. And I was like, did. Was Lena Dunham referencing Harriet the Spy? Or maybe Adam Driver. [01:19:48] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe Adam Driver was referencing Harry at this point. Or [01:19:51] Speaker A: it could just be a complete coincidence. Obviously, it's not like it's that outlandish of a thing, but it just cracked me up that. The slurping and then the good soup. I was like, holy, that's the Adam Driver meme. And I don't know if anybody else has ever made this connection or noticed that or if I'm the first one. But there you go. Another fun, random connection that I looked up because I thought I recognized the guy who played George Gully's boyfriend. I did not. I don't think, because I looked through a bunch of stuff and he. I think he just looks like somebody else now. Maybe. But one thing he did do that I thought was very funny, is that he was the voice of Rocky the puppet in the last episode in [01:20:32] Speaker B: Goosebumps. Night [01:20:33] Speaker A: of the Living Dummy 3. [01:20:34] Speaker B: That's crazy. [01:20:35] Speaker A: He was the voice of Rocky. [01:20:37] Speaker B: That's a crazy, random connection. [01:20:39] Speaker A: Super crazy and random, but there you go. I was like, well, okay, I guess it makes sense. Nickelodeon productions like, it's overlap and stuff like that, but still, [01:20:53] Speaker B: I just want to say again that I think Eartha Kitt is. Was genius casting for Mrs. Plummer. Genius casting. Also on the topic of Janie, they kind of cool this down a little bit for the movie. But in the book, she's like constantly talking about how she wants to blow up the school. [01:21:13] Speaker A: Yes. She's like, I'm going to kill every kid in the [01:21:16] Speaker B: school. Specifically, I wrote down in the book, she says, one day I'm going to come in here and blow this place sky high. [01:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:21:27] Speaker B: And I was like, file Janie under Characters that could not exist today. [01:21:31] Speaker A: The dialogue could not exist the same way. Yeah. There's a classic. There's a scene in the very beginning of the Three Ninjas movie. Good Lord. I've watched the Three Ninjas movie, the first one, so many times. It was like my favorite movie when I was a little kid. And in one of the early scenes of that movie, they're driving like, they're like riding home from school or. So I don't remember the context and I could be wrong about this, but my memory of it is that they are singing like a made up version of the song on top of Spaghetti, but they sing on top of some spaghetti all covered with blood. I shot my poor teacher with a.44 stud like a gun. [01:22:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:12] Speaker A: They're singing like a funny, jokey song about shooting their teacher to death. And I'm [01:22:17] Speaker B: like, oh, my gosh. What was. What was the one we used to sing in school? Something very similar, but it wasn't on top of Old Smokey. I'll think of it later. [01:22:28] Speaker A: Yeah, [01:22:29] Speaker B: I'll think of it later. I will. I'm gonna yell randomly from the couch. [01:22:33] Speaker A: But that's the classic thing. And another classic sign of the times is that our main character, our protagonist of the story, says a situation is R worded. [01:22:42] Speaker B: Yes, [01:22:43] Speaker A: this is. And I'm like, oh, yeah, no, that's the night. 90s. Yeah. Absolutely. [01:22:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Shouldn't bring all of it back. [01:22:50] Speaker A: Shouldn't bring all of it back. [01:22:51] Speaker B: There were some great things about the. Great things about [01:22:54] Speaker A: the 90s. Not every [01:22:55] Speaker B: single thing. Not every single thing. [01:22:57] Speaker A: I I really did think that this was a pretty successful. It was clearly trying and succeeding the movie and I assume by extension the book at being a very like real depiction of childhood drama and nonsense. It's. It's super messy. No one's really the good guy. The way the allegiances change very quickly. Where Janie and SP go from being like her best friends to hating her and. And the fact that they're all in the wrong at different times, like initially, like, Harriet is raw. Like the things she does is bad. The things she's writing about people is not nice. Obviously nobody would have seen it if. [01:23:32] Speaker B: Right. [01:23:33] Speaker A: But still she was thinking. And I think there is even truth and this is a whole side thing, but I think there's even truth to the idea that even if you have those thoughts, writing them down and kind of reinforcing those thoughts does. It's a feedback loop of like, kind of makes you into a meaner, worse person to like. It's what everybody has bad thoughts about people and has judgmental thoughts and that's not like inherently a bad thing. But I think writing them down and also like not feeling bad about it ever and just being like, this is the truth, this is blah, blah, blah, I think does kind of just make you a worse person over time. It kind of self reinforces. It makes you a less empathetic, less understanding person, I think. And so all of that sort of stuff. So I think Harriet is like, you know, wrong in a lot of ways in the story. And I think the movie acknowledges that and makes her kind of at least tries to make her come to terms with that, even if it fails a little bit, as we talked about earlier. But at the same time, I think her friends and the bullies, they go too far at different times. I think it just does a good job of. There's not an obviously correct person constantly throughout the movie. In a way, a lot of times a kid's movie like this, like Harriet would just be incorrectly being like picked on or would just be be in the right the whole time. And it's absurd that everybody is being mean to her, but it's like not really like you understand why her friends hate her and stuff. And I just thought that was really well done. [01:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, what was it that the book. What did I say in the prequel that the. There were a lot of people did not like the book. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Oh yes. [01:25:01] Speaker B: When it came out. Because of [01:25:04] Speaker A: something about like, not. [01:25:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah. The characters were flawed and engaged in behavior that wasn't suitable for children. [01:25:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Which like, yes, but it's chill. It's behavior that children [01:25:15] Speaker B: do [01:25:16] Speaker A: engage in. Yeah. And I also think, yeah, there are a lot of elements of this story that a kid would identify with. And I think, again, I wish. That's why. I wish the movie was a little better at landing the plane in terms of, like, the message and, like, why what she did was bad and how she needs to change, because again, it mainly just goes, well, you need to apologize, and then you need to. [01:25:37] Speaker B: You need to work on your white lies, [01:25:39] Speaker A: work on your lying skills so that you just On. And it. As opposed to be like, hey, let's reevaluate the way you think about people and you're really like. And that sort of thing, like, that's the actual message that should be there. And. And so it doesn't quite get to where it needs to be. But at the same time, I do think that it is engaging with, like, the stuff that kids get up to and. And everybody, for that matter, in a way that is real and. And feels like, unflinching in the face of, like, it's not sugarcoating it in a way that I. That I thought was. Again, it's a little maybe exaggerated at times. Like, I don't know how many people had experiences where, like, kids dumped a bunch of paint on a kid and then, you know, like, it's. It's heightened at times. Maybe to some extent, or at least maybe to most people's experience. I think it's true that that stuff like. That [01:26:23] Speaker B: stuff like. Yeah, that stuff like that [01:26:24] Speaker A: happens. It's just. I don't think that everybody has probably had an experience, like, I can't think of an experience very similar to that. [01:26:30] Speaker B: Right. Like, most people, I think, have probably had the experience of, like, having a fallout with [01:26:36] Speaker A: their [01:26:36] Speaker B: friends and, like, not having anybody to sit with lunch, [01:26:39] Speaker A: writing a note that gets. Somebody gets. That wasn't supposed to read it, and it's supposed. Something mean and bl. Yeah, like. [01:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah, but not necessarily, like, some of the more extreme stuff that happens here. Even though that kind of thing [01:26:49] Speaker A: does happen. Yeah, for sure. [01:26:51] Speaker B: That giant turkey baster that they bring out. [01:26:54] Speaker A: I was really worried for a minute. I. When they brought that out, I was so, so worried that one of the kids was going to be dressed as a t. Turkey and they were going to, like, stick. [01:27:04] Speaker B: They were going to, like, baste the turkey. The turkey. And I was like, oh, [01:27:07] Speaker A: no, they don't. They just kind of. They [01:27:09] Speaker B: just, like, hold it. Yeah. [01:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah. But it's still, [01:27:12] Speaker B: like, this is Weird. [01:27:13] Speaker A: And my last note is in that scene. I was cracking up. I don't think this was intentional. But they're playing get on up that thing or what? It's the, the. The James Brown song. Get up off of that thing by James Brown and all the kid. The song is playing and all the kids are like dancing to it and everybody in the crowd is getting into it it. And I was dying is that they're all clapping along, but they're all clapping on the 1 and the 3. [01:27:44] Speaker B: Yes, [01:27:45] Speaker A: the song has claps in it and they are in the 2 and the. On 2 and 4, which is where you would feel those claps in the. And I don't know if it was an intentional joke because it is a crowd of largely white people. There's a few non white people in the. But it is like 98 white people or whatever. And the. The idea. The fact that they're clapping on the 1 and the 3 again literally in a song where there is clapping on two and four was cracking me up. And it's a very good bit. If it was intentional. If it wasn't intentional, it's still hilarious. But it's even funnier in a way. If it wasn't intentional, it was just the editor like Match synced the. The clapping up poorly with the. I don't know either. Either way it's great and I loved it. Before we get to the final verge, we want to remind you you could do us a favor by heading over to Facebook, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, Goodreads, any of those places. Interact. We would love to hear what you have to say about Harriet the Spy. Do you agree with our criticisms of the film? Do you have fond memories of it when you were a child? Did you read the book? Let us know. We'll talk about it on the next prequel episode. You can also help us out by heading over to Apple, Podcasts, Spotify. Wherever you listen to our show, write us a nice little review, drop us a five star rating. That really helps us out. And finally, you could Support us at Patreon.com ThisFilmIsLit Support us there. Get access to bonus content starting at the five dollar level. Every month we put out a bonus episode, talking about whatever we want. Last month we talked about I Saw the TV Glow. This month we're talking about [01:29:17] Speaker B: Punch Drunk Love. Punch [01:29:18] Speaker A: Drunk Love. Just kind of random stuff, whatever. Almost never based on a book. That's the whole point. [01:29:25] Speaker B: Yeah, we usually save those for. [01:29:27] Speaker A: We save those for May episodes. So it's usually just other Random movies that we want to talk about, but yes, they want to watch. So listen to us talk about this stuff at the $5 level and at the $15 a month level. You can get access to priority recommendations. If there's something you would love for us to talk about, support us at that $15 a month level, recommend it and we will put it on our schedule as soon as we feasibly can. Katie, it's time for the final verdict [01:29:52] Speaker F: sentence fast, but that's stupid. [01:29:57] Speaker B: Harriet the Spy is a really good and overall very faithful adaptation. A lot of the changes are just updates from the 60s to the 90s, which is often good and necessary. I think the movie is a lot of fun. It's well acted, super nostalgic, and again, quite faithful to the source material. I wouldn't blame anyone for picking it over the book. However, I think there's really something to be said for the way that the book is able to delve into Harriet's character. She's written with so much unflinching honesty and was actually a very relatable character for me, thinking back on my middle school years. She's asking herself big questions and is really genuinely just trying to figure it all out. The growing pains that you can see happening on the page are very real and very early earnest. I'm not sure if I've ever seen that captured in such a way as Louise Fitzhugh managed to capture it. Michelle Trachtenberg did an incredible job with the character, especially for such a young actor. But for me, it boils down to something we talk about all the time on this show. We just can't be inside Movie Harriet's head in the same way that we can in the book. And for that reason, I'm giving this one to the book. [01:31:16] Speaker A: All right, Katie, what's next? [01:31:18] Speaker B: Up next, we are going to be doing a patron request. We're going to be talking about the Outlaw Josie Wales, which is a 1967 film. 76. 1976 film, I believe. Our first Western, [01:31:35] Speaker A: probably. Unless [01:31:36] Speaker B: I [01:31:36] Speaker A: would have to go back and look. [01:31:37] Speaker B: Unless you count Brokeback Mountain, which Disney. Yeah. Not really. [01:31:43] Speaker A: Not really. [01:31:44] Speaker B: And it's based on the novel Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter, who was not a good person. [01:31:52] Speaker A: I know. Yes, it's fascinating. We're [01:31:54] Speaker B: gonna be talking about that. It's [01:31:56] Speaker A: gonna be very interesting. Very. I'm very excited for this. I've heard very interesting good things about the Outlaw Josie Wales, supposedly a very good movie, I believe, directed by Clint Eastwood. I'm fairly certain he stars in it. I don't think he directed it, but I'm not entirely sure. Very excited for this one because I've heard very interesting things about it. I've actually watched. I didn't realize it's been years since I. A couple years since I watched it. But a YouTube channel I like quite a bit called Attunche did a. A short little like 15 minute video essay about this movie and its depiction of Confederacy, the Confederate soldiers and, and the way it tells that story. And also he talks about Forest Carter. Really interesting video because he approaches it with a lot of nuance in a way that I thought was really compelling. So I'm very interested to see what I think of this film and the story it tells and. And all that sort of stuff. I think it'll be a lot of fun. So come back in two weeks time we're talking about the outlaw Josie Wales. And in one week's time we'll be previewing that. Learning a little bit about Forest Carter. Not his actual name. Nope. If you've done any research about that and seeing what you all had to say about, about Harriet the Spy until that time, guys, gals, non battery pals and everybody else, [01:33:07] Speaker B: keep reading books, [01:33:08] Speaker A: keep watching movies and keep [01:33:09] Speaker B: being awesome.