This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily returns to M. Night Shyamalan's 1999 masterpiece The Sixth Sense. The film was a pop culture phenomenon when it debuted, and all everyone could talk about was the last ten minutes of the plot, when Bruce Willis's Malcolm Crowe (and the audience) realizes that his situation is much different from what he had believed. And to give Shyamalan his due, this plot twist uses masterful storytelling, playing by the rules and giving the audience all the clues necessary to connect the dots.
The problem is that pop culture as a whole and Shyamalan in particular grabbed onto the idea that the twist is what made the film great, rather than the storytelling, psychology, relationships, and acting. As Emily remarks to Tracie, The Sixth Sense is a remarkable film that happens to have a twist ending, not a remarkable film because of its twist ending. The result is that a promising young director became a bit of a pop culture punchline as Shyamalan kept trying to recreate the twist rather than leaning into his remarkable storytelling and directorial abilities. Which is a damn shame.
Throw on your headphones to hear two live sister podcasters making each other laugh over this film!
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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