SPEAKER_04 0:16

Hello, and welcome to most likely to teen movie, the podcast where you watch, analyze, and celebrate the canon of teen movies. Like, what if you're uh boy in the 60s who owns a muscle car? Like, that's really, really normal.

SPEAKER_05 0:29

And my name is Eric Marlin. My pronouns are he, him, his. I am a playwright, a theater artist. And at my eighth grade winter formal, I was uh voted most likely to win an Oscar. I have not won an Oscar. I'm not expecting to win an Oscar, but it's so nice to know that my eighth grade classmates believed in me.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

And I'm Luke Daniel White, he and pronouns. I'm a dramaturg. And if you don't know what that is, you should look it up. And a theater artist, and in high school, I was president of my school's improv club, which was a cool thing that I did.

SPEAKER_04 1:02

I'm Seamek Smeaker. Uh I'm my pronouns are they, them, and I'm a playwright an essayist, and I sometimes call myself a writing medium polygamist or polyamorist if I'm feeling spicy, and I was unremarkable in high school. Eric, do you want to kick us off about what we're doing here?

SPEAKER_05 1:22

Yeah, why are we here? Why have we gathered in this virtual space to talk about teen movies and American graffiti? Why do teen movies matter? Why are they important? I was particularly interested about how teen movies sort of create and reflect back what teen life is supposed to look like. It seems to me like that in a really profound, deep way, there is a serious feedback loop between what teen life actually looks like in reality and what teen life looks like in the movies, and how the movies shape the life and the life shapes the movies, et cetera, et cetera. So it seems to me that the idea of what a teenager even is is so bound up in what we see in movies and television, which is why it feels so uh important to me. The category of a teenager in the United States really didn't emerge until the like uh early to mid-20th century. Before then, you were either a young person or you were an adult. In the 20th century, compulsory education became a major part of how the United States' academic world functioned. We also had a post-war economic boon, which turned teens into major consumers in a marketing demographic. And most importantly for this movie, the car was invented, which gave teens a whole new kind of freedom. So all of these sort of elements came together in like I said, the sort of thirties and forties to start to create this new social category of the teenager, which was a category that people were fucking obsessed with trying to figure out, diagnose, understand what is going on. And I brought a present to all of you today because obviously we're talking about what makes a teen movie, and really to think about what makes a teen movie, we have to think about what makes a teenager. So I would like to read for you all the Teenager Bill of Rights, which was uh created by the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies in 1945. And this Bill of Rights was published in the New York Times in 1945. In 1945, that is when this was published. And it is uh the New York Federation of Jewish Philanthropies slash New York Times' attempt to define what is a teenager and how are they distinct from just a child, and what do they have the right to demand of us? The right to let childhood be forgotten, the right to essay about his own life, the right to make mistakes, to find out for himself, the right to have rules explained, not imposed, the right to have fun and companions, the right to question ideas, the right to be at the romantic age, the right to a fair chance and opportunity, the right to struggle towards his own philosophy of life, and the right to professional help whenever necessary. And honestly, I think that is a pretty excellent encapsulation of sort of what is at the center of teen movies themselves. So I offer this teen bill of rights to you.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

I feel like I have so many thoughts. Um, not least of which is that it sounds very much like um a whiny boy of like, please don't impose a rule, just only explain them to me. Just explain it, man.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah, it's sort of like young man, you are in charge of your own destiny.

SPEAKER_04 4:37

So, in this conversation that we've been having about why teen movie, why what is a teenager, and what makes a teen movie versus a movie with teens, there is something about this that I think is really central in the film that we're gonna talk about today, but also when I think most of the films that we've picked, which is about what is a teen theme? What is a problem that only really teens are going to face? And how are they going to deal with it in a teen way? And specifically, like one of the things I think about because writing medium polyamorous, like I'm I'm also working on a YA novel, and one of the big things they say there is like, don't have adults fix problems because that's just not how the genre works. And so I've been thinking about that a lot as we've been going through these movies. Um, is just like, oh yeah, I think that's also like a key tenet here is that it's about kind of engaging in some stupid ass behavior and trying to get yourself out of the trouble.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

I think that there is something also in that, you know, a bunch of adults gather together to write that bill of rights and you know, sort of retroactively think through what perhaps these men had wanted, desired from their own teenage years. What I'm interested in with the teen movie is, you know, these are pieces of media that are exclusively made by adults, so there is always a looking back inherent in them and a sort of like wish fulfillment or uh like a healing that is being undertaken by the creators and offered up to the audience as well. That framing is is like always inherent in what we're discussing as the teen movie.

SPEAKER_05 6:12

One of the things that we'll kind of see across the movies we're gonna be looking at in this first season is the tension and difference or overlap between movies that are specifically marketed to and designed for teenagers in the present day and movies that are more about a kind of looking backward from the filmmaker towards their own teen life. The movie we're gonna be looking at today very much falls into that second category, but I think those two modes are really at play kind of constantly throughout this question of what is a teen movie. All right, y'all. It is time for the morning announcements.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Listen, uh I don't think I'm gonna be going tomorrow. Come on, what are you talking about? I was thinking like a way here in a moment to go to city.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Take it. We're leaving in the morning, all right? We're leaving in the morning.

SPEAKER_05 7:39

So, morning announcements are when we will provide for you a little bit of the basic info on the movie we're gonna be looking at, as well as why the person who brought in that movie chose that movie. So, here are today's morning announcements. We will be discussing American graffiti, directed by George Lucas, written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz, and Willard Hook, and premiering in 1973. According to IMDB, this movie is about, quote, a group of teenagers in California's Central Valley spend one final night after their 1962 high school graduation cruising the strip with their buddies before they pursue their varying goals. And if we're wondering why I decided to choose this movie, for me, American Graffiti really sets the template for a lot of the teen movies that we're gonna be looking at over the course of this season. It really establishes some of the basic ideas of the hangout movie as our kind of basic structure that we're gonna be looking at. This is a movie that is a series of vignettes focused on these kids fucking around and getting into trouble and getting into hijinks. And I think that that is gonna be really key to a lot of the movies that we're gonna be looking at. It's also pretty obsessed with the question of how all of these teens perceive one another and what their relationship within the social hierarchy of their high school is. And because it's in 1962, although it's not one of the like earliest teen movies we have by any stretch, it is on the earlier side of the culture of teenagers in the United States, which is why I think it makes it a useful jumping off point for us this week. And those were the morning announcements. And now let's go to Locker Chat. We are here to talk about what our first impressions were of this movie. I have seen this movie a couple of times before we came in and watched it for this podcast specifically. Luke, what about you?

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Uh yes, I first saw it in a recent American US history course in college. And Meeks, how about you?

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Uh no, I'd never seen this film. Not at all. So I have like some really big, broad bucket thoughts. And so my first one is um about how we're defining teen masculinity. This movie is really fascinating for them. And I will say to somebody who, you know, ended up watching it, I think, three times, because the first time I watched it for fun, I was really, really high. So then the second time I watched it for fun, I decided to not be high. And then I watched it again this morning um and took notes. Um and, you know, I think that there's like a lot that is saying about masculinity that I would really that I'm really excited to talk about. I'm also really excited to talk more about Carol, the little girl in it who's 13, mostly because, and I'm gonna look at Luke to see if he knows this. Do you know who she becomes?

SPEAKER_02 10:28

Oh yes, we we found this out earlier on the interwebs.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Okay. So yes, so she's um, you know, she's in the Mamas and the Papas. Uh, she also became then like the mom on So Weird, which is what I first like met her as on a Disney Channel team show.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

That's what I thought you were talking about, not Mamas and the Papas. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_04 10:48

So the Mamas and the Papas is a very popular music group. And so when I started getting so weird when I was in high school, my mother was like, oh, that's from the Mamas and the Papas. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about? Because I had never heard of them, but I was like, she's just the mama and so weird, and she's a singer. What are you talking about? She's like a famous musician who had a very famous drug problem. So we get to see her at 13, and I'm very curious to talk about her, you know, her character and like what that goes through. But I think the big thing, and and maybe it kind of already alluded to this, that I'm really interested in talking about in teen movies in general, but specifically with American graffiti, which, having never seen it before, but loving very similar styled teen movies like Can't Hardly Wait and Dazed and Confused, you know, what I'm really most excited to talk about here is how we define risky behavior for teens and like what that looks like in this context. This is one night where we're goofing off and doing that, doing like a bunch of shit that nobody can control us, but what is risky behavior and what does it look like and why is it important to teens? Why is that important for teen stories? Because there's so much risky behavior in this, and I'm in it, I'm I'm in here for it. Um, what about you, Luke?

SPEAKER_02 11:56

I, like I said, saw this movie for the first time when I was uh in my 20s and this course in college, and it was being taught by a professor who I assume had more or less lived this movie, um, and I think was sort of sharing it in a spirit of nostalgia. I also have pictures of me and my family taking photos in front of Mel's Diner at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, and that was way before I even knew what that was in reference to. I really love this film as a time capsule of the 1960s. A lot of the movies that take place in the 60s were made in the 60s, uh, like put this like squeaky clean polish on it. And what I love about American Graffiti is that it is so gritty and real and dangerous. Uh watching it, I think that this is sort of the closest in, you know, look at what my grandparents' teenage life would have been like in the late 50s, early 60s. All of that just like really comes together for me uh in this like fun, like looking back slice of life moment that we don't often see in in in other teen movies. Uh Eric, what about you?

SPEAKER_05 13:13

Uh so as I said, I've seen this movie a couple of times, although relatively recently I saw it for the first time only in the past year. So I'm coming to this relatively newer as well. I don't have as long of a relationship with it. I find it particularly fun for personally, I think for similar reasons as you, Luke. Uh for me, I look at this movie and I very much see probably what my father's uh teenage years were like. Because he would have been like exactly a teenager at the time that this movie is set. He would have basically been Carol's age, actually, at the time that this movie was set. And uh for me, actually in particular, this is a movie that really captures a version of Southern California that is really no longer around. I am originally from Southern California, born and bred. And this movie to me really conjures a version of California car culture that already by the time I was born in 1991 was long gone. And we'll be talking a little bit about that. But that for me is what I find most like immediately grabs me about the film. I think also it's a film I feel probably some amount of ambiguity and tension around the question of gender and how everyone's gender is being navigated in this film. And it is a genuinely complicated one. I think there are ways in which this film is really pushing against a lot of cliches about particularly like how bad boys and girls relate to each other in teen movies. And there's other ways in which it's like deeply, deeply like upholding them. And I think those two elements are kind of both equally at play for me there. Uh-oh, that bell means it's time for class. So every single week, whoever is running our conversation, and in this case that is me this week, we will be bringing in three classes that we will be attending to discuss three different aspects of the film. And our first class we'll be going to this week is shop class.

SPEAKER_02 15:14

Weird. I was not expecting this one.

SPEAKER_05 15:16

Who could have possibly foreseen this? Okay, so shop class, which means obviously we're here to talk about cars. What the fuck do I know about cars? Not even a little bit. Every time everyone was talking about their engines in that movie and what kind of gauge they were getting or whatever the heck, no idea. It was all gibberish to me. However, what I can talk about and what I am interested to talk about is the idea of the car as being central to teen life. So this movie, um, to give us all a little bit of background, George Lucas grew up in the Central Valley of California. And he has explicitly said that this film was based on his own experience as a teenager growing up, participating in what is called cruising. Now, because it's a bunch of queers on this podcast, we all have a slightly different definition of cruising.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

Wait, what? Are y'all okay?

SPEAKER_05 16:06

I know. No, sorry, sorry, sorry. For two queers and one deeply, deeply straight, non-binary person.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

Yeah, yeah. Check yourself.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Wearing the Lavender Menace t-shirt right now, for those of you who can't see.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

I'm just saying some of us maybe aren't as queer as the that's not a lie. Never mind.

SPEAKER_05 16:26

Just to help us define our terms here, because we are in school and that's so important. So when we're talking about cruising, we're referring to the behavior of young people driving down main roads on Friday and Saturday night as a way to socialize. So what we see in the film are it's not just that like the teens are all driving or even that they're hanging out in their cars, but specifically that they are socializing on the road across the cars. And the idea of uh cruising is also where we get things like the idea of going to Lover's Lane as a kind of concept around the teenagers participate in. Because that's also something that you can only do if you have a car to drive yourself to Lover's Lane. This is also at the height of things like the drive-in movie theater and the drive-in diner. We obviously see Mel's Diner, which is a drive-in diner as well. Those were also considered usually sort of central aspects of the cruise, quote unquote. So if teenagers were going to spend a night cruising, there would probably be a couple of main streets in town that would be known as the main circuit and you would ride that. You'd probably pause and occasionally drop off at your drive-in diner or your drive-in movie theater so that you had other places to go. You might hang out in certain parking lots, you might hang out at Lover's Lane. But all of these elements are really, really, really, really present. And uh it is also what I find so fascinating fucking bananas behavior, because these kids, God bless them, are menaces to society. And in fact, most towns in in California ended up banning cruising as a specific activity, and it's actually only been uh undone in the last few years. And we're starting to see some reversals of the ban on cruising. But at the height, it was considered this like insane problem that teens all around the country were participating in. It got most sort of popular in Southern California because it was so much at the center of car culture, but certainly was not confined to it.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Wait, so why is California just now b repealing their cruising bans?

SPEAKER_05 18:28

I think it's because the people who participated in it are now in their 70s. And they're like, nobody does this anymore. Exactly. And it's like, and if anyone's going to do it, like no, no actual young people today are like, what we're gonna go do now is go drive around Main Street town aimlessly. It seems to me like really what it is is that it's no longer considered an actual threat. And in fact, some towns in in California, I can I can only speak to California because that's what I know about, but I know some towns have done like sanctioned cruising days now. There's some towns where like once a year there will be like a cruising day and like everyone's invited to come participate.

SPEAKER_04 19:04

There is nothing quite like, you know, state-sanctioned blessings for a scary activity for teens to come flocking.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

And I did look up in preparation for this that Modesto, California, where uh this is meant to take place and where George Lucas grew up, does have an annual uh graffiti day. I would assume that they needed to repeal that law to allow for the graffiti day where people do cruise up and down the main street of Modesto.

SPEAKER_05 19:33

It's a really fascinating moment in time, and I think it really captures the way in which having a car is so much a part of the kind of teenage life that we uh think of, especially when we think about the 20th century. You know, I'm thinking about how it has become a kind of rite of passage for you to be able to get your car and how much your ability to participate in teen life is also based around your ability to drive to wherever you're going. And I think we see that in the film, in particular with like the way that all of the cars are like salivated over. I mean, everyone, everyone in this movie, men and women alike are so horny for cars. They've I've never seen a group of people hornier for cars.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

I love that first scene right out the gate in the film where Toad is sort of given the keys to Steve's car for uh the semester that he's gonna be in college. Uh you can see like a young man who I assume is not getting a car uh on his own. And so like being handed over the these keys is like his rite of passage, like his his golden ticket to now himself be able to participate in this ritual each night. And it's everything. And it so I for Toad in the film, it's like this is his journey, is like his first night being able to cruise, and like how will he survive in one piece?

SPEAKER_04 21:03

I yeah, just to keep talking about like this salivation on on cars, I do think that like there's something. So I don't know about you, Eric and and Luke. I don't know if you've seen this or not, but there was a lot of the Zeppo um from Buffy, that particular episode where Xander is cruising around. Like, there's a lot of uh of overlap there. Just in terms of how horny we're getting about cars in this film. I don't know anything about cars. And I'm gonna tell you why I really also maybe was not the target audience for this, because it wasn't until my third watch um until I realized why Richard Rufus ran towards a car with two people make announcements. Um, because I was like, Well, that's none of his business. Why is he doing that? And it took me into the third watch to be like, oh, he thinks the woman's in that car. That must be the car she's driving. It's very noticeably a T bird that she's driving. They say it 40,000 times. I did not track it. It's also Suzanne Summers. And let's also maybe note that maybe she's not real. I don't know. Um seems kind of made up to me. But Yeah, I don't know. There's something about that, like this idea of of teen independence, the idea of like being horny and having a car, and also the amount of like sex that is like driven by this idea of car, or like maybe not sex itself, but just this idea of like, oh, you've got like like it's car is penis. Everybody's car is a penis, even the women's cars. Like everybody's car is a penis, and it's like that we're not hiding that at all in the film. Like it's it's blatant in there. It's definitely how George Lucas feels about cars.

SPEAKER_05 22:27

You know, even when like Toad is, for example, talking about his friend Milner, who is our fake James Dean character. Very hot. So hot. First of all, so hot.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

That's the really most important thing, Eric. I think we have to go back to really establish that John Milner in this film is the reason to watch this film. It's him and Harrison Ford, really. Like, I mean, they're both very, very hot in this film.

SPEAKER_05 22:46

To be so clear, the like bad boy bullshit that Milner is pulling off here would have worked on me like gangbusters at 16. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Would have been towed, like drooling, hanging on for everything he has to say.

SPEAKER_05 23:02

Well, that's the thing. I don't listen, I think George Lucas is, God bless him, a deeply heterosexual filmmaker, right? Like I do not think that there is anything about this film that is meant to, on purpose, be read as queer or like particularly gender fucking. However, I would argue that Toad is so horny for Milner's car and Milner's capacity to drive well. That is so for me to expand on the idea of the car as a penis, even like amongst the boys, right? Like there's a kind of homosocial quality to how they all obsess about one another's cars, which is kind of like a little bit of a stand-in for obsessing about how they fight.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

And there's even sort of like a hometown pride around it. Like this newcomer, Falfa, is come with his black 55 Chevy, and you know, even the other boys in town are like, well, you you better you better hold your ground, uh, Milner. There's a camaraderie to that relationship.

SPEAKER_04 23:59

What I also really just uh uh I appreciate so much about this car's penis, it's that um he also has to tend to his penis before he goes to war because he has to like go and remove the thing, right? He has to go remove the things that make them quiet that he takes off when he's not racing because he doesn't want the police to be mad. He's in his garage taking that off. And then he comes out and his car is 10 times louder. And then he runs into the guy who's filling the station being like, You took off the whatever, I don't remember what it's called. And he was like, Yeah, I did, because I gotta go defend my honor against Falfa, who I guess is my best friend's girl. I don't know. I mean, he doesn't know this at the time. But yeah, it was it was all just very funny of this, like, yeah, I have to go tend to my penis before war. I have to go make sure it's the loudest penis on the planet before I go race. And then he's so worried that he was losing. And I was like, you never were losing that race. He immediately runs off the road. Like, it was actually fine, Milner. I guess this is why I'm so curious about it too, is because there's sensitivity and comfort with these boys about their cars, too, which is really confusing in a very hyper-masculine film. But it's also, as you say, Eric, not like homoerotic. Like the only thing that's homo that you could even possibly read that way is Toad and his and his obsession with Milner's car. But not Milner himself, just the car.

SPEAKER_05 25:16

I would say like it's a very homosocial film, but not a very homosexual film, just to be extra pretentious about it.

SPEAKER_04 25:23

Extra pretension is allowed and required on this podcast.

SPEAKER_05 25:27

I think it's also just worth explicitly calling out. We've referenced the Milner as a kind of James Dean figure, which is said in the film specifically. But I also think it's worth noting that not it's not just about how he looks. Milner is definitely meant to hearken back a bit to James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, which is arguably one of the very first genuine teen movies that ever was made. I'm not gonna go out here and say like it's the official one, because that's I'm I'm I'm not a historian and I'm not going to make such claims, but without a doubt, it is one of the mo the earliest and most iconic of them. And that is also a movie that is built around a car race and is built around obsession with cars in Southern California. And the race that they do out of town is very much been to uh conjure our memory of like the chicken race that they do in Rebel Without a Cause Off the Cliff. So even here, even in the 70s for a film set in 1962, we already have some kind of referentiality to the teen movie genre and already a kind of explicit calling out in the movie that this movie is built on another teen movie a little bit to some extent.

SPEAKER_02 26:32

There's also, you know, within that a similar kind of um question of what uh it all comes down to. I mean, Rebel Without a Cause is this interrogation of like what is this attitude of young teenagers about what is it responding to? It's uh adults kind of like scratching their heads at it. And I think that uh George Lucas is is also doing a similar kind of questioning here with what we'll get in the epilogue of this film, which was a very iconic move of this film to include this you know brief epilogue where we see the the fate of our four young men that we're tracking, and that Milner, as we know, is going to die not racing, but by a drunk driver in a cruel twist of irony. I think that there is a kind of reckoning with on the part of the creator, George Lucas, in this film, to say, like, there's a real danger underneath all of this, and what does it amount to? Nothing.

SPEAKER_04 27:31

Yeah, that's part of the reason why we have that great scene with him and Carol in the graveyard of the cars, right? Like understanding the cost of what it means to be cool, what that actually looks like. And then um, specifically, too, with John's character throughout the film, what's interesting about it, especially because of this conversation that I'm interested in having about masculinity, is that we do get to see him grow emotionally in that very like crazy ex-girlfriend way. We grew emotionally while we were in high school. John didn't. Um, like literally, John did not grow emotionally when he was in high school. He's still stuck. But by the end of the film, we do see that there is some growth. He is understood. Like the fact that he gets paired up with Carol, somebody who is significantly younger than him, that he can have, that he he realizes he should have no sexual interest in. And yet he still cruises for, you know, 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds, and that's also very problematic, John. You're at least a good year, like, you know, seven years older than these people these kids. Um, it seems like anyway. But he ends up by the end of this film really seeming to question like a lot of a lot of what he has done in a way that makes us think maybe he will grow and move beyond this. But then, yeah, those fate cards at the end, which I think are so cheesy and possibly the stupidest part of the film, um, tell us. I hate them. I hate them. I also hate that Lori's not in it, you motherfucker. How dare you? Carol's not in it? How dare you? And I looked it up. He didn't want to add it because it would cost too much money. And then a fucking female film critic critic called him a chauvinist. And I was like, yeah, correct, he is one. Like, like, let's not mince words. He told, he told Carrie Fisher that, yeah, in space, the women don't wear bras. Like, like he's he was a fucking chauvinist. We don't have to deal with this like in this way. But my point is, what's interesting is like John Milner does grow because in some ways he reckons with what risky behavior actually means. Because there is like a good amount of risky behavior that I do think all teens should engage in. I really do. I think it's one of the ways that we figure out who we are and how we create boundaries. And also there's a limit. There's something about shady creaming somebody's car, which is way different than like, let's go race and do something stupid where one of us should be dead. How is anybody walking away from that crash at the end?

SPEAKER_05 29:44

It's also worth noting, I don't have a ton of like deep research on this topic, so I don't want to pretend like I do, but uh just in the background, that's something I have been thinking about is that cruising in Southern California specifically in part grew out of the uh sort of habit of like lowrider cars, which was a big thing specifically within the Mexican-American community in Southern California. And actually a lot of the early anger about cruising was connected to the lowrider car, which was connected to race in a very specific way. So there is also something interesting to me about the demographic of teens in this movie who get to get in trouble and shake it off. And to be clear, I I don't need the movie to be about something it's not. And I think to some extent the film actually is cognizant of that. I'm not saying super cognizant, but like I do think it is at least aware of the ways in which these are a specific group of kids who get away with fucking around because of class positionality, because of race positionality. I don't know, to me, connecting with your uh conversation meeks about like bad behavior and like teen recklessness, I do think there's also even if the film doesn't really talk about it explicitly, I think there's a sort of implicit racial dynamic to that that is absolutely here as well. I would also say, like, and not nothing, because we get we get a little bit of presence of like racial politics through the presence of Wolfman Jack in the movie as well.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

And the pharaohs.

SPEAKER_05 31:08

And the pharaohs, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

But let's be clear, those are very small moments, and I do have feelings. I have feelings about Wolfman Jack in particular because this is something that I'm I'm curious for us to track through other teen movies, is the mystical adult who's like not like other adults who comes and like is the advisor. It's a very common trope, and it's one that bottoms even pulls out eventually, but it's in a lot of a lot of these teen films, right? Where it's like, again, parents most certainly can't solve your problem. Like if a parent is solving your problem in a teen movie, you're in the wrong movie one. But a random adult who has mystical powers, which is kind of like how Wolfman is built and how many of these others are as well. That was the way that these two teens viewed this particular disc jockey Wolfman, was like as this mystical figure who could fix their lives, which feels very true to teenageism, but also does fall into some pretty inky territory considering we only have racial representation in like the form of gang and you know, magical man on mic. So definitely some some racial politics to question there. But it could have been worse. I don't know. That seems like a really bad band-aid to put on it.

SPEAKER_05 32:18

Before we leave our auto shop, I think we're gonna be naturally transitioning into our next class soon, but I just want to also specifically call out as our other horniest car person in this movie, which is Debbie, who is also my second MVP personally. I love Debbie so much. I think she's the best. I think she's a little bit the Cordelia of this movie, where she is at first comes across as kind of like a ditzy girl. And then one of the positive things about the film is I do think that she is without a doubt one of the most aggressive about going after what she wants. And she like knows what she wants to do and she knows what she wants to get up to. And oh my god, every other line from Debbie is about cars. One of my favorites was I just love it when guys peel out to talk about driving out fast.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

I love her line reading of um, oh, he's just horny with like seven R's. I just love it.

SPEAKER_05 33:12

And I think it's uh an interesting wrinkle in the kind of masculinity of obsession with cars in the movie because Debbie is really knowledgeable too, right? It's not just like your car's pretty. It's there's a real emphasis on like she knows her shit, she knows what makes a car strong, she's really interested in high-quality cars. And I think that that creates like a really fun wrinkle in that kind of part of the film.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

What I appreciate so much about Debbie as well is that she uh comes on screen and because she's got this bleach blonde hair and it's perfectly bobbed, it's you you think that you know this person and that she's gonna be this like incredibly vapid creature, but she is so along for the ride at every turn with Toad, and at the end of the movie is perfectly fine with the fact that Toad doesn't actually have a car and will happily go on his little Vespa with him, uh, because it's quote almost like a motorcycle. Girl has layers.

SPEAKER_04 34:13

She has layers, but I will say she says it. But the moped's in the background, and he could give her a ride home on it, and she definitely takes a ride with other boys who have cars. So there is the button on it. Yeah, I think that she's really fun. But I also appreciate that she's a fun, dumb blonde in the sense that, like, you know, Toad starts throwing up and she tells the bystanders, no, he's really used to drinking, because that's what he said. Um, you know, he says that he has another Jeep and that he sold his horses to get the Jeep, and she's just like, oh, well, don't worry, we'll just go get your Jeep when the car gets stolen. There's something so fun about being the straight man in those situations. And and like she's just she's like, Well, I just believe what what you're telling me. I'm taking it at face value. You say that you know how to get booze. I I have presumed that you do know how to get booze, and and therefore, if you don't know, hopefully you will tell me. Nope, you got it, great. And then, oh, you want a dollar? Geez, you know, men are supposed to pay.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

It's sort of her like, call it dumb, call it blind faith. It does egg on Toad in a way that allows Toad, I think, to actually succeed in all of the challenges she sets forth for him.

SPEAKER_05 35:20

I just want Debbie and Carol and Lori to go have their own spin-off movie.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

My god, I'd watch the fuck out of that film. Feminist icon Lori. You can throw Peggy in the mix there because Peggy's a girl's girl. Peggy, who was like, sure, you can dance with my man, and then immediately tells Steve, so you struck out there, big college man. And I was like, fuck yeah, yeah, yeah, Peggy. You go be that girl's girl for Lori, because Lori needs to make it very clear to Steve that he ain't shit without her, because he's not.

SPEAKER_05 35:48

I think this is a great opportunity to move on to our second class, which is gonna be sex ed. I wanted to go to sex ed class because I wanted to talk about how gender is working in this film. We've talked about it a little bit, but I think that the film is both progressive and regressive on the topic of gender politics. The progressive and the regressive are really bumping up against each other. One thing I think is worth also throwing into the mix here is that when George Lucas was making this movie, he really, really wanted it to feel as gritty and authentic and real as possible. And I guess there was an early version of the script that he was given by a different writer who has no longer worked on it that was like a real like cars and babes kind of movie. You know, it was like guys riding fast cars and hot rods, picking up hot babes, and he really, really hated it. And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, I want everyone to be real. And so it's a weird thing where, like, for a teen movie of the time, for a movie kind of about like young men coming of age, the women are pretty full and like have a lot to say and do. And also, there are moments where I'm like, ugh, why is the movie making the women do this bullshit? And the big thing is that for me is that they're I'm so cranky that the women don't get to be in the final montage. That to me is the one is actually probably the most egregious part is that they are. Because I think if you want to make the argument to be that the women are not fundamentally subservient to the men's uh stories, then they would have to be in that final flash forward moment. But because they're not, it really tells me that the film ultimately views them as people who are facilitating the men's journeys. So those are my initial thoughts about how gender's working in here. Class, what do you have to say?

SPEAKER_02 37:37

100% that's how the film is set up. I mean, we're we're watching the four boys on this one night and asking is Kirk gonna get on the airplane the next day? Is Miller gonna be the other guy in the race? Is Toad gonna like survive the state? And is Steve gonna like reconcile with his girlfriend? But it the the women unfortunately are like not the drivers of the story, even though they are so necessary to the story at every single level. It really is unfortunate that they're not given their due at the end.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Yeah, I mean, okay, so I have a lot of feelings about the gender in this movie, unsurprisingly. It's the background characters, too, that make it very clear where the film's politics are. Because there's a villa, there's a version of this, right, where we can make an argument that, like, as teenagers, nobody's fully woke, nobody's fully aware, nobody's gonna be fully gender perfect about like how we approach the world because we're all learning, and like that argument be fun and juicy to have because I think the teens fuck up in some very fun ways. But then we also have almost all of these like really egregious little moments in the background that just make me go, my God. Like the gender politics of the film itself are still fucked. Mostly because it acknowledges that almost every single woman walks around being yelled at from a car at all times, and that she just has to wait until one is acceptable enough to pick her up. This is how we get introduced to Debbie. This is how we like when Carol runs away, it was happens to her instantly, and she's 13, wearing a fucking t-shirt and jeans and looks 13. It is ridiculous. Um, and then we have the fucking teacher, the teacher that Kurt idolizes, who's telling him to come experience life man, and then who's like fucking all of his, his, his students and is pretending like he's not. That's just like a handful, but there's a lot that are happening in the background that make it very clear what the film's gender politics are, even I think if the characters, you know, do have muddy feelings sometimes about it. Like I really do appreciate the scene with Steve and Lori in the car when when he's like, just give me something to remember you by, and she's saying no and just like goes completely limp. And then he's like, Well, I don't want to do it that way. I appreciate the film for that. But then also, I don't know if y'all picked up on this, but almost all of the women threaten themselves on behalf of the men. Did you all notice this? Lori says, Go on and hit me a few times. And Carol basically is like, I know you're gonna probably hurt me and rape me and whatever, like a bunch of times. And these are just like how, like, like it's happens with a lot of those characters where they just basically threaten themselves on behalf of the men. It's just in the background there constantly. And I'm talking about it, it's like putting my hairs up on end because it's just like, yeah, it's a fun film. I really can't get past it. It's just even watching it the third time, I was like, yeah, e-gots, this is horrible. They're doing it for you because they know that you could hurt them at any point in time.

SPEAKER_02 40:28

It's kind of tough to suss out the George Lucas's feelings on it. I mean, uh the thing that stuck out to me was that when we are introduced to the teacher and see that he, you know, has this sort of weird flirtation with the girls, and then a girl comes and finds him and he walks her off. It is in like a dark corner of the parking lot and in shadow. That to me signifies that this is not like an endorsement of that behavior, that this is something that necessarily needs to be in the shadows, but there's sort of an acknowledgement that this is there, this is in the world, this happens. But yes, I mean when we're getting the moment of dialogue after dialogue of the women sort of putting themselves into that position, that to me signifies uh perhaps a kind of attitude that, like, well, boys will be boys, and this is the world we're living in. That's fucked.

SPEAKER_05 41:24

For me, like the moment that always and I felt this way every time I watch it, the moment that really always jumps out as the most is the moment when when Carol says, like, I'll tell them you raped me. And mostly because I simply don't buy that she would have that that's how she would think about something like rape. I think the film wants us to view that moment as she doesn't understand the implications of what she's saying, which is a sign of her immaturity. But to me, it just still raises like a really uncomfortable specter to have this young girl who frankly is kind of is the most vulnerable in this world that we're watching, and is like very specifically framed as vulnerable multiple times. I don't know, it just like really sits with me every time I see that that moment. And it's such a bummer because I love Carol as a character so much. I love her so much, and she's uh just so funny and she's so sharp and she knows what she wants, and I love all of those things about her. But me because I agree with you, like the the sequences where we're seeing like the men hooting and hollering at the women from their cars is is so squishy. As part of my like digging into this, I was flipping, I would did a little bit of poking into a book called Um, let me pull it up for you. Machines of Youth, America's Car Obsession by Gary S. Cross, which is a history of teen car culture. And uh in his chapter on cruising, he talks a bit about the gender politics of actual cruising in real life. And this was more or less how it did all play out, which was generally speaking, women did not drive the cars, and actually a common thing that women would do is essentially they would walk around with the purpose of getting picked up. But with all of that said, I think there is also a question of how the film frames all of those moments, right? There's a way to portray that where it's that's simply like how the dynamic plays out. But because the women are kind of like seen from afar and we're not really given any sense that what they're experiencing might make them actually uncomfortable or actually crosses a boundary, it feels like it's another kind of beat of like Boys will be boys, we're just having fun. I don't need the film to not have that dynamic because I think, like I said, as best I can tell, it seems like it's an accurate dynamic. I just wish the film was more curious about how the women felt about it.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

I think that's really my big thing. And I'm glad you pointed out the moment with Carol. I just kept thinking, why don't you say kidnap? Kidnap gets you the same thing because she's using it as a negotiation tactic to get him to apologize for being an ass, which hey, I get it. I'm an ass all the time. But you know, whatever. Like you want somebody to apologize, you're gonna hold over something their head. But yeah, kidnap would have worked just as well without it being so weird, especially because. We'd get that moment at the end where his trick to get her to tell him the address is to pretend to come on to her. Now, I respect the fuck out of this actor because that that could have been a very creepy ass little scene. And it's still like not great, but it's so clear to the audience that he is not serious. But her terror at it is the cut they used. And I will say she looks damn frightened about it that he is proposing sex to her and that he's gonna take it if he wants it. That is like the real threat that's on the table. And though they have a very fun little interaction at the end, I can't believe that they chose to pick a cut where she looked scared. If they wanted to make that moment work, they could have done a different thing. But you know, like I guess that's where I still stand with like the gender politics just being weird. And I just really do wish that there was, as you said, Eric, more question about the interiority of the women and what it would be like to have that be your fate of like you're gonna go walk around until somebody picks you up and you should feel lucky to be called at and shouted at from a car to be picked up.

SPEAKER_02 45:02

Calls to mind too the fact that Lori's resolution in this film is basically that she doesn't die in this car accident and cut to her holding Steve outside of the airport. There's no attempts to untangle all the really terrible behavior that Steve has put her through, all the really terrible behavior that he's demonstrated over the course of the night. I mean, Steve is like a certified jerk in this film. I don't like him. And yet, because she didn't die, they're gonna live happily ever after, and he's gonna be the insurance agent. And I guess she's gonna be a stay-at-home wife.

SPEAKER_04 45:39

Wait, hold on though. Did you know they made a sequel of this?

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_04 45:42

Okay, I didn't see the sequel either, but you just saying that made me go, I have to tell you the part I did see because I was like, what do you mean they made a thing? So I watched the trailer, and the trailer shows Ron Howard, who plays Steve, yelling at Lori over the phone because he's trying to like have a party at the house. He's got on an apron and he's taking care of two kids, and he's yelling at her into the phone. Men aren't supposed to be stay-at-home wives. Wives are supposed to be stay-at-home wives. My mother was happy to be uh the housewife. Why aren't you being a housewife? And she's just sitting at a desk, like smoking a cigarette and hangs up on him, which made me interested to see it, but then the rest of the trailer did not make me interested to see it. I mean, it just, I mean, all of it just seems really bad. I just don't think the politics are gonna get better. But yeah, Ron Howard's character, Steve, is the absolute fucking worst. I was like, how I know he's like, but like the film doesn't know he's the worst. The film thinks he's the good guy, I think.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

It's so smart that they cast Ron Howard, who brings this good ol' American boy in a sense into his performance that sort of allows you to forget that he's behaving awfully at every turn. If he if he didn't have that boyish face, it would all fall apart.

SPEAKER_05 46:51

I would maybe argue that of the men, like, and this is not a great comment on how the women are written, but like I would argue that probably the the the gender relationship that troubles me the least is Kurt, our protagonist, and Suzanne Summers, who he never meets. And obviously, rough that I'm saying the the version of womanhood that I think is most successful is the one where we never get to meet the woman. Bold take, Eric. Bold take. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:17

I think feminism is when no women uh put it next to, like, just give a little asterisk there of quoted by Eric Marlin and then the date.

SPEAKER_05 47:27

Yeah, okay, great. Let's just make sure we get that out there.

SPEAKER_04 47:29

I just want to make sure we can cancel you as soon as this podcast is.

SPEAKER_05 47:33

I'm so excited. Um But I think that that is a part where the film actually is very aware of the immaturity that Kurt is bringing to his relationship with women, right? Like it is so fundamentally silly that this kid is running around town all night after a girl that he saw for 10 seconds because he's she's the most beautiful and he's leaving tomorrow and he has to find her tonight. That all feels accurate to a kind of teenage ridiculousness that feels like the film is not endorsing and is actually just saying and it actually is constantly reminding us of like this is sort of silly. But again, it's like I hate that the time when I feel like the gender politics are able to play out most successfully or is when the woman is basically absent. That really comes back to my original complaint of like lack of interiority. It like really comes down to that. I think the women as they are written are interesting, fascinating, flawed figures. I just wish the film was more curious about them.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

Ugh. Can we just like have that be about stories in general? Any male creators, I just wish you were more curious about your female characters, your queer characters. There should be more homoerotics in a film with this many cars, fight me. There is so much more potential here.

SPEAKER_02 48:45

If we were curious about people who were not ourselves, we're gonna have to jump forward a few decades to get what you're you're asking for here. We will get that in this season of our podcast.

SPEAKER_05 48:56

Yeah, we will. Yeah, I'm very excited. Just like a little plug for our viewers: if you if you do want a 50s slash sixties car movie about teenagers with explicitly homoerotic energy, go watch Rebel Without a Cause because that movie is gay as fuck. It is actually like one of the things I love most about it is that that film is actually very aware of teen boy masculinity as a place also of like homoerotic appeal.

SPEAKER_04 49:23

Part of that, too, is that um Rebel Without a Cause was made under the Haze Code, which somehow made the gayest movies we've ever seen in our lives without ever actually using the words gay.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

That's what happens when you taboo something.

SPEAKER_04 49:36

It is, and we're definitely gonna talk about it more because this is definitely a post-Hays Code movie, because the Haze Code ended around like 64, 65. I'll look it up. It ended somewhere in the 60s, it had very little power by then anyway. It was mostly done by I think '59, um, but it was still technically kind of like people. We'll talk about it with Catholics because we're gonna have a lot of Catholic stuff this season.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Um Haze Code ended in 1968.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

There we go, 68. All right. So I'm curious then too about how that kind of made films less queer. Because it just did. It really made films less queer. Like uh, not that I want the Haze Code to return, but I think like that's like that that is also what we get because this is also the time of what was that, free rider? Like all of these fucking macho movies with fucking my penis is the thing that I ride. Oh, yeah. Like that's what we get in this era, and that's not gay, which is weird. Yeah, I don't know. This time of Hollywood is bizarre.

SPEAKER_02 50:33

I'm so glad that you brought in the fact that the Hayes Code didn't end it, because I was thinking about that as we watched this, that just that we had progressed to a point where you could have a movie of teenagers talking about actually having sex in the backseat of their cars, that you could have a movie where the threat of rape is so pervasive throughout the entire film that we're actually going to call out that aspect of life that affects teenagers in a real way. I mean, we could talk about the way that that's framed, but the fact that it's there at all, I think like is some form of realism that it, you know, it has not uh existed prior to this moment in filmmaking.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

You know, just to say the the realism, I think just like another little piece of information to to throw out there, because we've sort of been talking about this as well around our discussion of like this moment in Hollywood. It's also worth noting, strangely for this kind of movie, this really kind of exists within the context of like 70s New Hollywood, where all we had all of these like young male directors who were auteurs who were really coming to the forefront. George Lucas certainly was like a part of that in general. Also worth noting that the producer on this film was Francis Ford Coppola. There's also a way in which this movie is like is meant to sort of be a kind of auteur's representation of this, which is very different from like a kind of schlocky movie made for teens by a studio for QuickBook. I think that that how personal that film is and how much uh George Lucas got to control the film is like both where we get the positives and negatives of the film. You know, it's like both where the film really comes alive and gets to feel really particular and human, and it's also then where there is not a lot of reason for him to maybe question some of these other dynamics that are built into the film.

SPEAKER_02 52:26

I have to ask, based on uh what we were talking about earlier with uh Milner and Carol, how old do we think Milner, the character, is? Uh from the script, and I think that he is supposed to be in high school.

SPEAKER_04 52:40

He's not supposed to be in high school because he says at some point he's in junior college, but it's a lie.

SPEAKER_05 52:45

He's definitely post-high school. I had read him as like 21 or 22, like a few years removed.

SPEAKER_04 52:52

My range was like 22 to 25. Like basically, you are still young. You you could be having a different life right now, but you're still holding on to high school. But he's not fucking um Matthew McConaughey and dazed and confused. He's not quite that bad.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

I think he's kind of meant to be on the edge in terms of where socializing with high school students is still a pro, you know, in the way where, like, if you know, when you first graduate from high school and go off to college or not, but like when you turn 18, 19, I don't expect any like 18-year-old to be like, and now I forsake all of my 16-year-old friends, because now they are I feel like the film is situating him in that space where it's like he's should be starting to move on, but it's not so crazy that he might still have some ties to these to the kids from high school, that it's on the surface bananas, unlike Matthew McConaughey and Dazed and Confused, who is like very explicitly like the town loser who's hanging out with these high school kids.

SPEAKER_04 53:48

I think at some point Toad says that that Milner has been the reigning um driving champion for something like five years. So for me, that would check out then in terms of like if he, you know, if he peaked when he was 17 plus five years is a number that I know.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

Or like five years from like when he starts driving in the desktop.

SPEAKER_04 54:08

Right.

SPEAKER_05 54:08

I think we can say that that was actually a little detour to math class.

SPEAKER_02 54:14

I also want to put into math class a kind of math for teen movies that I think uh is always interesting to note, which is how old are the actors playing teenagers? And for American Graffiti, I think that it is somewhat more successful than a lot of teen movies we're gonna see, which is that uh Richard Dreyfus was a little bit older, 25, but Ron Howard is 18, Toad is 19, Carol, played by Mackenzie Phillips, was 13. We are getting a lot of actual teens in this teen movie, and I think it shows, and I would also say in the crowd scenes, like in the dance at the school, those are like those are teenagers.

SPEAKER_04 54:55

How old was the actress who played Lori? Do you have that up?

SPEAKER_02 54:58

Lori was 25 at the time of filming.

SPEAKER_04 55:02

She felt older. Yeah, she does.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Yeah. Richard Dreyfus, also 25. Paula Matt, who plays Milner 27, and Harrison Ford was 30.

SPEAKER_03 55:11

Yeah. He was so hot at 30, and I don't care. I don't care. Oh my god, he's just so hot.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

It's rough. Something I love in this film is that it shows that he's actually like the character he plays Falfa is so lame. Like when Lori's in the car and she he's like singing opera to her. That is Chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_04 55:32

He's not singing opera, he's singing um some enchanted evening. Some enchanted evening. And I'm South Pacific. I wrote down, I wrote down Harrison Ford is such a dork, and I love it. Like, because you know that was like a rev. Like it had to have been a riff where he was like, So this guy, this is all he does, this is what he does then.

SPEAKER_02 55:55

Something that is so interesting about this film that I really see like George Lucas trying to peel back all the layers of this world, specifically like those sort of tertiary figures. Uh, I would put Harrison Ford's character Falfa in that the adults, you know, the like owners of the arcade who are the moose men, uh, and and the radio people too. There's like such an interesting attempt here to like figure out how this world worked. This that he was probably, George Lucas was probably oblivious to when he was a teenager, but is now like approaching it with this retrospect and like trying to understand like how all of these adults actually propped up and made this world possible.

SPEAKER_05 56:40

I'm gonna take us now to our last class, which is art history. Okay, what is this? So for our art history class, I want us to focus in on the production design of this film and particularly how it's being used to conjure this time period and where nostalgia is or is not a presence in the film. One of the a couple of the things that were kind of floating in my brain as I was thinking about this, one of which is that this film is only set 10 years before it was made. You know, like I think in my head, I sometimes will think of it as like a much, much uh farther back look, but it's only a decade. So actually the nothing that's happening in this film, in theory, was crazy far away from the day-to-day lives of the people who would have been watching it when it first came out. And yet, I think it is clear that the film is very much trying to capture a specific moment in time very intensely with a kind of a specific undercurrent of, and this world no longer exists. I think the film also, to some extent, sometimes wants to make that world feel anew and feel alive in a way that kind of shakes off the nostalgia, and then other times very much wants to kind of like cozy up in the nostalgia. Um, and that's for me reflected in like the cars, the design of the town, especially the music. I mean, I think the music is huge in terms of where that's all showing up.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

I I I found interesting in the research that uh George Lucas thought about filming in the desto where he grew up and where this film is supposed to take place, but felt even in those 10 years that it had already uh changed in some ways and no longer looked to him like it did when he was at that age cruising up and down its streets. So they changed the film location to another town called San Rafael, uh, also in California. You know, in that decision, I think they're uh we see his like insistence on getting it as accurate as possible, you know, in terms of like the look of it. And I think that uh San Rafael with like its strip of neon and huge fluorescent storefronts, uh, I think they really like hook into a world that like I've never known as someone born in 1992. And I I think that I certainly come at this movie and and and soak all that up and and feel like a kind of nostalgia for it. I can only imagine that people watching this film in the 70s would have already started to feel similarly if you know that kind of whatever it was that made Modesto no longer look like Modesto to George Lucas was probably happening elsewhere.

SPEAKER_04 59:27

I think that you've both brought up some really interesting thoughts about the way that nostalgia works in it and and like this idea of like uh even 10 years removed, it's no longer the place I grew up in. Um, and I think about this because like especially because we're talking about the act of writing these films as an adult, looking back on your teenage years and what that means in the same way that when you visit your old high school, everything looks smaller, right? Because it just does. Because in your memory things are completely different now. But I don't think I picked up on anything like particularly uh I mean, I think it's it's really nicely done. I think the the thing for me about the production design is that I didn't notice it, which is a good thing. Like, you know, like ultimately it was a good thing, but I I love the details that I do notice. Like I do love Milner's hot rod with like the see-through little glass on the top of it. I love that they actually have the sock hop with socks on because you know, I think that's correct. Like that's really fun, and that that we see the bleachers of the of the girls who have taken off their socks because they just want their feet to calm down and like there's you know, that's pretty fun. I think that the nostalgia of it for me more functions on a script level where you get to do the things that you never really got to do before, like stand up to the teacher that tells you what to do, and you're like, oh yeah, Mr. Whatever. Yeah, okay, you're gonna suspend me. Well, you can't, because I don't go here anyway. Like, like it's like for me, that's nostalgia factor of it, the wish fulfillment of being a teen and being able to get one over on the adults because now you're an adult too. And they talk about this a lot. Like they talk about like themselves as adults um and what that means for this moment for them in time. And I think that, yeah, for me, that's the part that's the most nostalgic, as opposed to the production design itself, which I didn't notice because it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Maybe about halfway through or two-thirds is the moment that we are introduced to the pharaohs. Right before, immediately before we're introduced to the pharaohs, we are also uh is also the um junkyard scene. So this like moment where real danger is being like introduced to the world, upping the stakes, and you know, those two things are gonna kind of propel us through, you know, the final act of the film. What uh stuck out to me is that uh how we're introduced to the pharaohs is that Kurt is uh leaning over their car unbeknownst to him, but he is uh doing so and peering into this window, shop window of TV displays, and they're all black and white little 1950 uh 50s, 60s TVs. And it it struck me that this film already is looking back uh from 1973 to 1962. By 1973, color TV is already becoming much more widely available across the United States. That to me was like a moment of clear nostalgia. And I'll also say, too, that that junkyard scene is an incredible moment of production design. Uh, it is like really stark and haunting to see those junked cars um piled up, uh, which like kind of just turns the whole film of like this, you know, salivating car adoration on its head.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:42

To piggyback on that, I will say that the junkyard, the graveyard, whatever we want to call it, this sea of of destroyed cars, that scene is what actually makes the movie work for me. Because if it wasn't there, it would just be a boring movie about a bunch of dudes that I don't care about, because it's true I don't, aside from them, some of them being very attractive. I just don't care. But it's that graveyard scene that again like gives John Milner some depth that's interesting. And that's like, oh yeah, like you're wrestling with this actual like adult idea now of what it means to die, which is a teen, you're not thinking about. And if you are thinking about it, it's because something really traumatic happened to you and it sucks. Um, but usually you're not thinking about it as a teen at all. Um, and so I think that that's what really works in that scene. And then the other thing I was gonna point out based on what you're talking about with the TVs, Luke, is um the other really big point of nostalgia is the fact that Kurt's big dream is to shake Kennedy's hand, right? I just imagined like how that line would have hit people, knowing that this was supposed to be set in '62, which was like a year before he died, was assassinated. It's it's interesting too, like that level of nostalgia, too, of what we're trying to evoke even 10 years after this. We are a we are a world now that is reckoning with war that we didn't know was ha was going to be happening in 1962, and like what that promise of tomorrow actually is. It's very different and reads very different when we're releasing it into the 1972 audience that is, has been in the Vietnam War for years and doesn't feel like it's gonna get out. And on top of that, like the other nostalgia points in here that, like, sorry, this bringing the Vietnam War just also like released for me. The drinking age in here was interesting because the drinking age and voting age changed in between 1962 and 1972 because of the draft. That's when we get the voting age lowered to 18, and in many states, because they felt it was fucked up to send people to war who couldn't drink, were like, hey, you can also drink in a lot of states. So there's a lot of nostalgia in here that's baked into the story itself, but these are just these small nuggets that like really actually make it kind of really poignant in a way that in 1972 it really had to hit differently, what had changed in 10 years.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:55

You know, it's like worth putting in this in relief to something, which is that within a year of this film coming out, Happy Days is gonna premiere. Also starring Ron Howard, set in the 50s. When I think when we tend to look back and think about the kind of image of 50s and early 60s life as a kind of cliche, Happy Days is absolutely one of the things that like creates it. Like it's worth noting that we have like just reached the point where culture is starting to create an idea of what this time period was like in a way that like is not the same when you're living in the time period or right afterwards. It's like we just are finally starting to get enough distance. And to think about something like this, which both does play into a lot of the visual pleasure, but uh arguably works within a more realistic world than something like happy days. It's just interesting to think about these as sort of two different competing Ron Howard vehicles of the 50s, early 60s. And like the, you know, just like the the things that we associate with it, right? Like the greasers and the cars and the drive-ins and like all of these sort of visual Shorthands that are gonna actually become more codified the farther away we get from the 50s and early 60s.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:07

I just want to point out, too, that I founded the research, which is funny, is that George Lucas cast Ron Howard in this film because he saw the unerred, unbought pilot of Happy Days. And I think it's also like worth pointing out in this like conversation about how we're looking back. Ron Howard's casting is also interesting because he was on the Andy Griffiths show as the young boy. Now we're putting this now young man at the forefront of this, someone who, you know, America kind of feels like they've now watched grow up. So like the just really kind of smart casting.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:43

Well, an Andy Griffiths show was in particular a nostalgic show about a different time. You know what I mean? Like, so it's like a it's like a self-reflect, like reflecting mirror. It's an infinite loop of of nostalgia of like the man, that previous generation just was better than what we have now. Um, it's just a lot of that. Um, which is so funny because of course, one of the reasons that I love like a lot of teen movies is because they feel very much like 90s love and like that's you know when I grew up. Yeah, I don't know. There's just a very interesting conversation around nostalgia, I think, to continue to develop as we move forward through these films for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:16

On some level, the the nostalgia is earned, I think, because of what we get in the epilogue, which I know Meekers already said does not work for them.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:26

But I love the epilogue.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:28

Okay, what okay, can I just ask what we're asking about what the epilogue is? Because the ep, like, are do is there a scene I missed? Because from what I understand, the epilogue is just this like title card with these scores. Okay, just want to make sure I didn't miss a scene. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:40

In that epilogue, I see you know, with the awareness that that film is coming out in 1973, there's two more years left of Vietnam War, all the political turmoil and violence of the 1960s. There's this, there's a real like moment of innocence that this film I think is trying to encapsulate that is destroyed by the 60s, by what those next 10 years are. And I think it's really sharp that that's brought in at the very end. There's a kind of real need for nostalgia, a real like desire to, you know, turn back the clock a little bit before, you know, all the all the stuff went down. I think there's also, you know, probably like a little bit of uh a real frustration on the part of George Lucas and people of his generation at, you know, what they were subjected to. I'm thinking a lot of the Vietnam War. I think it's so important that, you know, he has one of his characters die in the Vietnam War. And I wonder too if Kurt is also implicated, because at the end it says that we are that he is a a writer living in Canada, which immediately made me wonder if he was a draft dodger. That epilogue is like really and the fact that they are shown in the their like class their yearbook photos, sort of like gives the whole thing weight, meaning, context. Meekers looking like they do not agree.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:05

I don't agree. Okay, so like if we were in the room arguing pros and cons for like the movie that George Lucas was trying to make about whether or not to include the epilogue, I could see your argument for why it should be there. Because I do agree. Like there's something that stings very much about that because of the year. Uh, and like knowing that somebody here is gonna, you know, die in Vietnam and then another person's not gonna make it and is gonna die from a drunk driver, and then another person's just gonna become an insurance agent. And then, yeah, I think there is some interesting ambiguity about what it means to be a rider in Canada, what that is a euphemism for potentially. And also, I think that it was putting a hat on a hat. I think that there's something about this particular movie that is more interesting in the sense that like we just watch Kurt take off and we have no idea what's gonna happen to him, but we have to sit with the knowledge that he's about to like figure out if any of his dreams can come true and they likely won't. Like, I think that there's something about that too, in the same way that like the graduates ending is like them sitting in like silence of like, oh shit, what do we just do? Because now we have to figure out what this means for us. I think there's something about that that would have that would have worked just fine and told the and told a very similar story without putting putting buttons on everybody's story. I don't know if it actually makes me like or understand the characters more to know how they end. You know what I mean? I'm not one of those people in fiction, in in theater, in movies. I love an ambiguous ending. I'd much rather let myself fill in the blank than have a little cue card tell me. And I think especially because they get riffed so much, like Animal House is all I can think about when those title cards come up. The silliest fucking like reasons about like what's gonna happen to you, that's what I think about when those title cards come up. And I'm sure that Animal House was intentionally riffing on American graffiti, and I had never seen American Graffiti, but still, that's my association with it first and foremost now.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:55

Although, to the best of my knowledge, I do think that this is like one of the first times that what will become a trope is used.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:01

Yeah, as best I can tell, that is accurate. That like basically anytime we've seen that in future movies, especially like Animal House, I think they do it also in um Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a video gimmick at the front. It's been very explicit, like that American graffiti is the reference point for those movies when they're doing that.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:19

Fascinating. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:20

I am actually like firmly in the middle between the two of you. Although I find some of these like tricky ideas about what is maybe meant by these futures and how that intersects with history interesting. I mostly fundamentally am like unmoved by what happens to our characters after the movie ends because it's not real. Because all that is like fake and not true. In a way that, like, if I wanted to know what hell was in the future for the two of you who are real people, that would be very meaningful to me. It's hard to feel like it's meaningful when I'm so aware that it is basically a writer who's just can just like make up whatever they want for these endings, and there's very little playing out of the consequences of it. And but on the flip side, there's a part of me also that is aware of how this would have read before this became a trope, how this would have read before it became something ubiquitous, and how it does kind of splash some serious cold water over a teenage farce. And there's a part of me that wonders would the general would a general audience read the ending as ambiguous if you didn't have that? Because would a general audience basically be like, he figured it out, he's off to college, everyone had a fun night, and they you know, like I I think there's maybe an argument to be made that uh that moment helps to clarify how to read that ending in a way that most people would probably approach a movie like this because it is such a sort of feel-good hangout movie without thinking about the implications of where these characters are going at the end. So I feel mixed. I I I think I maybe like what it it is meant to do more than how it plays out in practice, but I do uh value what it's aiming for. And I don't know if I would specifically say, like, don't have it. I'm mad that there's no women in it, but we've already covered that. So yeah, I think I think I feel mixed about the ending there. I think that's actually a really great place to end our classes for today. That has been our full day at school, everybody. We are now going to each of us assign a senior superlative to American graffiti. So it can be whatever you want to do, however you want to approach it. Dealer's choice. For American graffiti, I have assigned it the superlative of most likely to hot wire a hot rod. Meeker, what is your superlative for American graffiti?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:57

Mine is um most likely to come and get it for Harrison Ford. He can come and get it. He can get it. He can it it all they.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:08

Anne Milner.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:09

Anne Milner. Yeah, I mean, basically, like if we're gonna have a bunch of boys be, you know, misogynist assholes, at least let them be hot. That's all I ask. You know, have some sex appeal and wear a cowboy hat, maybe, and have a little skull dangling from your little windshield, and definitely have a pack of cigarettes rolled up your sleeve because cigarettes in the sleeve.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

We haven't talked about that.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:37

That's but I mean, yeah, it's hot. It's just inarguably hot. So, yeah, most likely to get it, Harrison Ford and John Milner, whose actor, whose actual actor name I do not know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:47

Uh Paul Lamette.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:48

Great. Paul Lamette in 1972 could come get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:52

Okay, I'm gonna say that my superlative is most likely to give old Carol her bitchin' night out on the town.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:03

And she deserves it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:05

And she deserves it.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:06

Sounds like her parents are a nightmare.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:08

You know, yeah, no kidding. Carol needs to get out of there.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:12

She really needed she needed John to actually be her buddy, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:15

She's gonna be able to brag about this night at the cafeteria lunchroom table for months and months and months. I'm so excited for her.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:24

Yeah, when she eventually grows up and becomes the mom on So Weird, she's gonna have way crazier adventures to be talking about.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:30

So 100%.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:46

And this concludes our very first episode of Most Likely to Teen Movie. Luke, if folks want to follow us and stay up to date with what we're doing uh with Most Likely to Teen Movie, where should folks check us out?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:59

Folks can follow us on our website, mostlikely the teammovie.com. We're also on Instagram and Blue Sky. You can find us there. Also, please subscribe to our podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And you can find me, Luke Daniel White, at lukedanielwhite.com. Meeks, where can folks find you?

SPEAKER_04 1:16:18

Hi, you can find me, CMeeksmeaker, pretty much anywhere on the internet. Um, but you can find me specifically at new play exchange under cMeaker. My essays are out in the world to find and damn me later, and I'm on Instagram and Blue Sky at cmeeksmeaker, and my website is cmeeksmeaker.com. I'm highly Googleable. Google me.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:37

My name is Eric Marlin, and when I'm not watching teen movies, I am writing plays and making theater. You can follow me on Instagram at Eric ConnorMarlin. That's E-R-I-C, C-O-N-N-E-R, and then Marlin Like the Fish. That's my full name. Um, you can also check out my website, ericmarlin.com, E-R-I-C, and then marlinlike the fish again.com.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:59

And that's the final bell. Remember, Susan Summers is a mirage. We'll see you in class next week.