On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily shares her analysis of the 1993 film Jurassic Park, a pop culture phenomenon that offers a surprising level of feminism.
Emily describes the social thrill of being the target audience for a summer blockbuster (she was 14 when it came out) and her discomfort with how Michael Crichton's original book portrayed the only two female characters as an annoying child and a cardboard cutout with breasts. She and Tracie talk about how the film that teaches us that life finds a way makes for an unexpected (and unintended) allegory for the importance of reproductive autonomy. And Emily explains why Muldoon’s final words of “Clever girl” are her favorite movie moment.
Throw on some headphones and listen to the adventure 65 million 31 years in the making!
Note: We had some technical difficulties during recording and lost a couple minutes of recording but Tracie mentioned some of the missing information in her synthesis. Specifically, in the missing section, Emily talked about Dr. Sattler saying “Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth” and about Spielberg’s desire to cast Joseph Mazzello as Tim, which affected the ages of the children in the film compared to the book.
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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