...And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.
Today, Tracie returns to another one of the movies that traumatized her and Emily in early childhood: the 1984 film Gremlins. Written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante, the film was advertised as a fun family fantasy, with the adorable mogwai Gizmo (described by Roger Ebert as a cross between a Pekingese, Yoda, the Ewoks, and a kitten) as too cute for little kids to pass up. What the 1980s movie going audience didn't know was that this film was playing with storytelling and fiction tropes and really tap-dancing on the fine line that separates comedy from horror. Columbus and Dante created a film about their love of movies, using Gremlins as an opportunity to recreate some of their favorite scenes, characters, and moments from classic movies. And then, like one of the eponymous rampaging gremlins, they stuck it all in a blender and hit frappe.
The result is a fun, weird, scary, bizarre, and sometimes offensive mashup of movies and messages and lessons and metaphors that don't entirely make sense all together, because making sense was beside the point.
Put on your headphones and take a listen. Just don't turn your back on any nearby Christmas trees.
We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.
We both have super-serious personas in our "day jobs." No, really. Emily is a Finance writer who used to be a classroom teacher. Tracie writes and consults on social justice and mindfulness and works as a copywriter and project manager for non-profits. If you really need to see the bona fides, please visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
For our work together, what you need to know is that Tracie is older (3 years), Emily is funnier (by at least 3 percent), and we're both hella smart, often over-literal, and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction and murder mysteries, good storytelling with liberal amounts of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find there.
Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video version, and early access to Deep Thoughts by visiting us on Patreon.
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