Queer Projection
This is a movie podcast about finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Hosts Alethia St. Joan and Danny Carroll share a 30+ year friendship that has been bound together by a shared love for movies. A trans woman and a gay man respectively, Alethia and Danny explore what these movies meant to them while they were young and closeted, and what revisiting these movies means for the actualized, arguably maladjusted adults they’ve become. It’s a heady, often crass and sometimes crude blend - part nostalgia trip, part queer theory, part film criticism. Check it out!
Queer Projection
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
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We're back, and Season 3 kicks off with one of our childhood VHS holy grails: Steven Spielberg's E.T. Just in time for Disclosure Day and more of his alien shenanigans, we're digging into the queer nature of loving a slightly drunk extraterrestrial with your whole chest. Join us as we reflect on the legacy of phoning home while doing our level best not to sexualize the kindest little star-traveler the galaxy has ever known.
I want to set up some precedence for season three. You know, we're growing, we are leaning into ourselves a little bit, so it's very important to me for this episode that we try and not sexualize E.T. because we've already done that a few times in the past.
SPEAKER_04Well, Danny, you're you're bringing this on me now without any kind of prep E.T., the great sex and queer icon of my life. I mean, you you know the painting I have hanging in my bedroom.
SPEAKER_03Sexy E.T., ladies and gentlemen, that is a real thing. There is a sexy E.T. painting hanging in Alethea's bedroom. Let's just go ahead and get into it. Like we said, today we are doing E.T. The Extraterrestrial by Steven Spielberg. Let's go. Let's do it.
SPEAKER_00And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation. AT was the gift that came from the heavens for me. I was in Tunisia making Raiders of the Lost Ark, and we were setting up a shot, and I was picking up f fossils in the desert, which used to be the bottom of the ocean millions of years ago. And we were out there in the Nephtha desert. I was picking up uh and I was remembering the end of Close Encounters when Richard Dreyfus goes up into the mothership, and just before that, the little alien comes down and does the hand signs to Francois Truffaut. And it just hit me out of the sky. I thought, what if the alien has stayed behind on Earth? What if he didn't? What if it was a kind of a foreign exchange? Dreyfus goes away and the alien stays, and it suddenly this whole story hit me like a ton of bricks. Which was really a story about my mom and dad when they got divorced and how I felt as a kid wanting a friend like that to fill the void in my life. And and and all these things came pouring in, and I actually put the story together in a couple of I think a couple of days. And then it happened to be that Harrison Ford's wife, Melissa Matheson, who had written the I code written the Black Stallion, was on the set with Harrison. And I just want to get this thing written, and I love Black Stallion. So hey, hey Melissa, you want to write this? She said no. And then Harrison talked her into it, and then she said yes eventually, and and she did a tremendously wonderful screenplay. I don't I don't think aliens should be taller than people. You know, I I I like the idea that they're like children, and and that was they were small and they were certainly small in close encounters, and I in fact use little girls in costumes to play all the different E.T.s in Close Encounters. Trevor Burrus, Jr. And I it it's easy for kids to relate to because it's one of them. E.T. came into Elliot's life and and after after you get to know them, after they start to bond with each other, you know, uh they're kind of inseparable and they're both like children who both have needs. Elliot has a need that E.T. can fulfill, and E.T. has a need that Elliot can help him with to get home. And Elliot also needs to get home. So it's kind of these these two s very similar stories on the same path. Elliot doesn't have a father. His father has divorced his mother and is off in Mexico with Sally. And he's uh he's he's a he's a lost child. He's he's gonna fall off the face of the earth if if he does if he's not rescued. This is a rescue movie. I always thought E.T. was a movie about a double rescue. E.T. saves Elliot, Elliot saves E.T.
SPEAKER_03Alright, let's jump to it. Alright, welcome.
SPEAKER_04Welcome back. I'm I I'm good, Dan. Welcome back. Season three already. This is pretty crazy. We've had a bit of a break. As George Harrison once said, it's been a long and lonely winter.
SPEAKER_03It has. Uh, but I am so happy to be back here with you. This is truly a labor of love, just talking about our favorite movies. If you are first joining the podcast, or if you just need a little refresher, this is Queer Projection. It's a movie podcast about finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Alethea and I have been best friends since we were in fourth grade. Uh, many, many years, nigh on decades now. Uh our friendship has been bonded by the movies we watched, and so what we do is we go back and we re-examine some of our favorite movies from our uh childhood and adolescent years, and we revisit them from our queer perspective as queer adults. Uh it's part nostalgia trip, it's part queer theory, it's a little film criticism, although I don't know if we're very good critics. But overall, it's just a loving good time. And talking about love. This is a movie about love, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, this is a movie about love and and like all its facets, love and the lack of it. Um but god, where to even begin? I mean, what do you say about E.T.? It's like to it's like trying to talk about the Wizard of Oz. Everybody knows the movie Inside and Out. I think we could triangulate kind of. But just want to say one thing. I love that you said uh Labor of Love, which uh, you know, has been obvious from the start, but coming back into it in the past, you know, six or eight weeks, however long it's been since uh we've taken a break between season two and three, for me personally, there has been a lot of labor, but very little love. So it's very, very nice to be back in the arms of our splashy little program here.
SPEAKER_03Okay, alright. Wow, wow, wow. But yeah, no, I miss you, and uh, you know, you you're having a little bit of a spring day over there in New York, and I am having having a hot day here in LA. It is brunch weather. Yeah. But okay, no, you want to know how we get into ET. I think we can triangulate a little bit in space and time. We ha I had this at VHS in my household, and this was a staple VHS, so we've watched this many times. It was the VHS with like the green thing on it, remember? So it couldn't be duplicated. And it falls into that category of like good movies, because I didn't have that many good movies in my house, so it was probably one of the rare films that we would watch a few times at my house.
SPEAKER_04Your mom, I remember her talking about how powerful she found E.T. like several times when I was young.
SPEAKER_03Oh, no, this is there's a reason why I I fully expect to weep at this movie. Because again, okay, so for me, this one of the things we do in this podcast is I am usually less familiar, you know, in time chronologically with whatever movie we're watching. For me, I haven't seen E.T. in probably five, six years, maybe. So, you know, I've seen it as an adult, and I I had, of course, completely new reactions, but the thing about a movie like this, especially a Steven Spielberg movie, it reveals new things about where you are in your emotional journey every time you watch it. You know, I'm I'm I'm I'm ready to have it be revealed where I am in my emotional journey when E.T. makes me cry.
SPEAKER_04I want to ask you, do you remember like first seeing this? Like like sitting down and watching this as a little kid, like all the way through? Because I don't really.
SPEAKER_03I don't either, and I I feel like this is one my mother had me watching early because they did try to sort I think they tried to like test my limits every once in a while. We were watching Beetlejuice, and apparently I made it all the way through to the end of that movie until the moment the head spun, and then I totally lost my shit because it was just like, oh okay. Enough That's a solid solid 35 minutes into the film. It's like the end of the movie.
SPEAKER_04Uh when his head spins?
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_04There's that's not no, that's like when they first meet him.
SPEAKER_03Oh, okay. Maybe maybe I'm forgetting which part of the head spins. Okay, future future episode Beetle Jizz.
SPEAKER_04We'll cover this.
SPEAKER_03Future episode, future another queer icon. Hong Kong.
SPEAKER_04I don't know about you, but later in adolescence, when my when my identity as a film, you know, nerd and just Spielberg fan like really started to ramp up, I became obsessed with E.T. And I do think it's his best film and it's my favorite of his films, but I remember it being on and seeing parts of it, or maybe I saw the whole thing, but I just I remember having like very anxious like impressions of the film because I recall like the visual style and the general mood and just like the way the house looked and the way the interiors were lit. It all seemed like very smoky and gloomy and melancholy and you know, not too dissimilar from you know the environments that I was growing up in. And I remember it had like a very strange, not quite scary, but just like anxious and like leaning towards sadness kind of feeling to me. Until I actually like really like saw it when I was old enough and you know was captured by it as a story instead of just a lot of impressionistic kind of things.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. I it's funny that you talk about that you know, that specifically those sort of like dinner scenes with the steam and the the way that's lit. Yeah. Just the way their house Especially their beautiful. Oh, it's gorgeous. But like the the style of the eating and gathering area. I know for me this was probably my first encounter with like the visual styles of California. And I I I think I like the house and just sort of everything about that place was just very foreign to me. Yeah. I didn't understand so much of the geography. And now having lived in California and just being an adult, it all makes a lot more sense. But it was very like this is another like very much another place from where I'm growing up. One of my goals for this season is to to really examine suburbia as a location and and sort of our you know milieu for receiving these movies and and this stuff. And I I think that's very apt that you know in Clifton Park, especially when we were growing up, there was a housing boom, but the two of us were not living in those housing boom neighborhoods. We were living in the older neighborhoods.
SPEAKER_04Well, we were surrounded by developments under development, like nothing was really finished, and that's very much how it appears in E.T. and and poltergeist. So even so, even though in a lot of ways the you know, coastal, you know, Southern California aspects of it were alien to us, the the generalities of the location, the you know, uh early suburbia early suburbia under construction kind of vibe was very much what we grew uh up in and around, and we spent a lot of time in our bikes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It is kind of crazy that I spent so much time on my bike with my like walkman listening to the Back to the Future theme, powering down the hill. Just absolutely sure I was gonna hit 88 miles per hour. Oh my god, that's that's just pure bliss, what you're describing to me. Pure bliss. Alright, so let's pivot away from the navel gazing. You know, we're gonna try and keep our initial, you know, the first parts of our episodes kind of short this season. I want to talk about where this is for Steven Spielberg, just sort of in his career, because we do love him on this podcast, and I think it's been mentioned before that the mother character, and I think the mother character is really poignant to adult viewers, is sort of based on on his mother and sort of her behaviors and the way she was in their household growing up.
SPEAKER_04A little bit. Steven Spielberg does say this was his first like truly autobiographical film, and um, and he says that people uh mistakenly kind of assume that Close Encounters was, and it was in sort in certain ways, and also the fact that he wrote and directed it lends credence to that notion, but he said the first, really, really personal film in his canon is E.T., even though the family dynamics of the characters that we're uh looking at in this family here uh don't reflect, I think, what he grew up with. It's more of a fantasy vision of suburban life as maybe he imagined it when he was growing up in the, you know, more problematic, realistic, difficult day-to-day version of that that we kind of see in the Fablemans. But it's autobiographical in the sense that it deals with the sense of loss and confusion and alienation that I think he felt growing up, and it's also based on an imaginary friend, I believe, that he had to supplement, you know, the the uh human interaction that I maybe he felt he was lacking when he was growing up.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So it's not like one-to-one autobiographical, but it's emotionally autobiographical to quite a profound degree.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I just tonally, I think, very like raw and vulnerable. I don't know. For its time period, I know there was a lot of like hope and aspirational stuff at the time, but there it still feels sort of like Okay, so to get into queer themes where I think they exist in this movie. Okay, so thematically there is a statement being made about the terror of intimacy and intimate feelings when you are a child, and the sort of othering of an intense obsession with something or someone, or just sort of like you know, you know you love your parents, you know you love people, you know, you have this like basic understanding of like what like a a real deep hard emotion can be. But then as you get older, especially start creeping towards adolescence, those feelings just start getting so weird, you know, and so much stranger, and you find yourself discovering new things and latching on to them in a way that you never did when you were younger and just sort of floating around. So I think there's something inherently queer in that, not just from like a sexual identity point of view, but from a like malehood point of view, and how there's something sort of uh like uh against the heteronormative for how much this boy actually loves his alien friend, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god, that picture of uh E.T. and Stevenspiel, right at the end of the research I gave you is so fucking funny. I saw a tweet one time that had that picture, and then it just said, This picture is, I think, 70% too sexy.
SPEAKER_03Who is like? I mean he was pretty famous. He Oh my god, there's one. What was the look he was going for there? Oh yeah, but they're like touching fingers, but they're not touching fingers like they touch in the movie. It's it's E.T.'s hand is laid across Steven Spielberg's chest. And Steven Spielberg's it looks like thumb and middle finger are just lightly touching.
SPEAKER_04Steven Spielberg's look, it's the m it's the most like I fuck every night that Steven Spielberg has always has ever left.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. This is that meme of the like the couple who is like, we saw you from across the bar. We like your look.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so yeah, that's all good, Dan. But uh let me also just say queer shit that E.T. gets up to. First of all, we see him wearing a depression robe, fucking day drinking, eating all the food in the fucking fridge. Okay, cracking cores, getting wasted, watching a little John Wayne and getting like getting all into it. And then Elliot comes home and E.T.'s dressed in drag, and he's very, very comfortable. And the fucking spaceship leaves a rainbow in the sky at the end.
SPEAKER_03E.T. does at home alone what I do home alone when I know I'm gonna be alone.
SPEAKER_04You are E.T. I when I when I click at the potato salad and then throwing it as a oh yeah.
SPEAKER_03When I know there's no chance of anybody walking in on me, I just I I I will have a I will have a whole beer stain down the front of my shirt from the first one. Just like the first one, just cracking it open with as little care as possible so that it just goes everywhere because who the nobody who the f anyway. But it's also he's like a manic pixie dream girl in that like nothing really gets E.T. down, but it does make him panic. Like E.T. experiences fear and sadness, but like I don't think he exhibits anxiety until he's like actively dying. Again, I haven't seen the movie in a long time, so that could be one of those things that but like uh uh again, the the like you're bringing into your friend group somebody who's just like really effervescent, but also just like really strange, and you're like not entirely sure how to place this person in your social life, but you know some people are really gonna love them and others are really not gonna know what to make of them. And like, I don't know, E.T. special guy.
SPEAKER_04Also, E.T. E.T. is genderless. E.T. is a plant, according to Steve.
SPEAKER_03Oh, that's that's canon? Yes. Yeah. He's a f like a he's like a fungus with eyes. Yes.
SPEAKER_04Um, no, I yes, I've always loved this film, and uh the older I get, the more kind of heart and value I place on the things that I loved when I was younger. Whereas a significant chunk of my early adult life was sort of defined by rejecting a lot of those things.
SPEAKER_03I remember that period. You know what just to my main theory being I I think we overload young children with the like peace, love, joy, everybody's special stuff, that it feels like just sort of the norm in a way that the only way to be different is to reject positivity for a little while. I don't know that I ever went through that, but I was also a bit of a cowardly child.
SPEAKER_04So do you want to just talk quickly through what the movie is, what it's a what it's about, the story?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It's very basic premise. I think everybody understands conceptually what's going on in E.T., and even if you haven't seen it before. I guess what's probably more interesting is like where it where it exists and just sort of the history of film, because it is, you know, in the grand Steven Spielberg era, but there are also, I think, a lot of innovative special effects in this.
SPEAKER_04And the sp special effects are the pu the E.T. puppet is still fantastic. Some of the matte work and everything is janky looking to, you know, to modern eyes, but charming in its in its way. You know? Like the like the bikes flying and stuff is is very I I I don't think would pass muster in you know to the eyes of s you know a young kid who's like you know raised on Marvel movies and shit. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03No, uh that it makes sense. But it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_04The special effects only have to be so good because you have what Steven Spielberg called the greatest special effect of all, John Williams' music.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah. And and just uh the the emotion in it. His best score, in my opinion, right? Yeah. One of the things I I think, you know, uh Steven Spielberg has always, I think more than anyone out there, had a talent for evoking the most interesting performances from child actors. And this is uh like an utmost achievement with so much. I will say, though, the brother, the bret the older brother character looked all for my for so much of my life looked like such an adult to me, you know? And I just looked at this photo of him and I'm like, oh my god. Like he looks 15 in the movie.
SPEAKER_04He's perfectly such a great character, though. Like there's so many like cliched turns they could have taken with that character, but he's just su he's just such a great character at the end of it.
SPEAKER_03Right. Oh yeah, and I'm sure there there are specific moments in this movie where they tee him up to be antagonistic and bullying, and you just expect the wrong reaction out of him, and he instead surprises you with tenderness. And that's what the movie meant new movie's about, you know.
SPEAKER_04But you know, we're set up for that too, because early on when Elliot like discloses that their dad's in Mexico with Sally and upsets the mother, like he he gets fucking pissed off at Elliot and he's like, why don't you fuck he he doesn't say fuck him, he's like, Why don't you grow up? Like, you know, he he lets them have it. Yeah, it's it's just wonderful. You you get the sense that that kid in the last year or so, with everything that's going on with their dad, has had to grow up pretty quickly. Even though he still appears very teenage boyish in a lot of in a lot of scenes. But he he drops that quickly and kind of shows up for his family and and for E.T. without, you know, any issue. He just does what he has to do.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04One of my favorite lines in any movie, and I think it's just one of my favorite lines in any script, and it just says so much about the character and the film and everything, but it's right before the initial chase when they're uh leaving the house that's been quarantined with E.T. in tow after everybody else thinks he's dead, and he and and suddenly the authorities are like aware that they're trying to plan an escape, and they have to just drive away, and Michael just screams and says, I've never driven forward before, and then slams on the gas. Because we see him, we see him practicing backing out earlier, and he's not great at it. And then he just suddenly has to do it, and he does, and it's so good.
SPEAKER_03Uh God, I'm so excited for that, you know, the invasion scene when the government goes into their house and turns it into a laboratory. Like what a uh what a provocative thing, and just like it's it's the movie really takes a turn in a in a way that uh the the audiences must have been like, whoa, this got grim, you know. I thought this was gonna be Reese's pieces munchin the whole time.
SPEAKER_04But that but that only lasts about 10-15 minutes, and then it emerges so triumphantly from that. It's like, oh, you know, it's regarded as like a sad movie, even though it ends happily, quote unquote, even in a melancholy way, because E.T. survives, but he has to leave. And I I engineered correctly because it was a box office hit, right? It was a total smash. I believe it was number one for six weeks in a row, and it actually made more money with like every no, no, uh, it was number one for six weeks in a row, and then it would go back and forth between being number two and number one for like a number of months afterward.
SPEAKER_03That's so crazy.
SPEAKER_04And like I think its biggest day was like months into its release or something. Maybe that's Titanic. I might be thinking of Titanic. Um but yeah, but E.T. played in theaters for like a solid year. Pretty wild. Do you remember when we went to see the the the ill-conceived 20th anniversary version?
SPEAKER_03Why was it what do you mean ill-conceived? Just because they edited out the guns and put the Well, they put the horrible CGI in there and stuff.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. They took it out of certain Spielberg uh Spielberg uh about a year after that said he regretted it and he like Asked his fans, he's like, wouldn't he just asked him if they, you know, want that version out, and they said no, and he took it out of circulation. All subsequent releases on Blu-ray and 4K and stuff are just the original. He doesn't fuck with the other version. That CGI looks awful now.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I I think some, you know, just more interesting stuff here is like, did weren't they s originally supposed to use MMs in this movie for that iconic scene?
SPEAKER_04And MMs were like, this movie is not gonna make any money. Then Reese's pieces became like the biggest selling candy. Yeah, some executive, some executive at Hershey got fucking fired after that.
SPEAKER_03Or or failed upwards. You know, you never know. So one last thing I want to kind of visit before because I kind of want to play this into my thinking, like about the movie, if this was anything that ever happened. But apparently there was gonna be a sequel where Elliot and his friends. I can tell you all about that. I can tell you all about that. Tell me about the sequel.
SPEAKER_04Uh okay, so there was a uh sequel commissioned. They wanted to do a like a scary alien kind of thing. So it's it's a little money because uh there's technically two projects that I think Spielberg's looking at with this similar theme. One called Night Skies, which uh was written by John Sales and is um a lot like Signs and War of the Worlds-ish. It's about like a farm family like dealing with evil extraterrestrials like invading their home.
SPEAKER_03I'm pretty sure it uh eventually became his series Falling Skies that he briefly had for a while, TV show. Really? I'm not aware of that. Um I think that was him. I'm pretty sure I might be wrong. Falling Skies? Spielberg? We'll fact check me after the break. Do you mean the sci-fi channel alien show? No, no, no, hold on, hold on. Skies. I've never heard of Falling Skies. Falling Skies is an American post-apocalyptic science fiction television series created by Robert Rodat and executive produced by Steven Spielberg. Oh yeah, Robert Rodat wrote Saving Briver Ryan. Yeah. Uh as a former history professor, but it's basically about all these like hometown people staving off in an alien invasion.
SPEAKER_04Oh, so it's an aware. Okay. Um maybe. Uh I know a lot of elements. Maybe. I know a lot of the more gruesome elements of that script, I think, went into like some of the imagery and gremlins. But yeah, there was supposed to be an E.T. sequel where an evil race of aliens like kidnapped Elliot and his family, and then like E.T. has to rescue them or whatever. I've read, I have downloaded the 10-page treatment for it. Actually, I can send this to you that they did for it. And it's it's very, it feels very rushed, it feels very incomplete. You can tell like they didn't get very far with it. But Spielberg decided very wisely that he's he didn't that the movie it was one story and it only needed to be one story. It didn't need any more expansion. He said he didn't want to rob the original of its virginity, which I would have chosen a different way to describe it, maybe. Right. But um well that and also so the construction of the ride and the narrative that you kind of go through in the ride is sort of the de facto sequel to the film.
SPEAKER_03Oh. What is the what is the story of the ride?
SPEAKER_04Don't you remember the ride is like when you get to E.T.'s planet, it's like kind of like Munchkinland? Oh, I do.
SPEAKER_03And it was like one of the first I mean, maybe not the first, but it was my first encounter with a ride that really made a point of making the long line that you stood in be a certain experience.
SPEAKER_04It was an app, yeah. I loved that when when the line, when the experience of the line was like uh just like an opening like mood setter for the ride. I loved that. Yeah. You know, they actually there's a smell to the line in that ride that everybody that is very distinct and that people really remember, and they actually sell it as like like candles and shit like that.
SPEAKER_03That's wild. Yeah. I remember that just the t the like air quality in there was sort of like cool and balmy. Like they just really transported you. We're at about 30 minutes. I think we can just dive in. Yeah, let's let's watch it. I'm excited. I've got some folks staying with me, so I think I'm gonna subject them to a viewing. So we'll see if any of these people have never seen E.T. before. And we'll see if we can make any of them cry. All right, folks.
SPEAKER_04We will see you after the break. We're gonna phone home and then uh call you back. Oh, bye-bye.
SPEAKER_05Melissa, what was uh uh I understand there's a there's a funny story with uh what you originally thought ET looked like and then the day that uh he was first shown to you. Did you imagine him as you wrote the story?
SPEAKER_02He looked like what I thought he was gonna look like. He went through a few really ridiculous stages. Uh one time he had toes. Yeah. One time he had a little rear end. Really horrible. Extremely suspicious. The first time that I saw him, I just Stephen and I hugged him because he was made out of clay at the time. And the girl who uh who had sculpted him, I said, I know this is ridiculous, but she says, No, I do it every day. So everybody hugged him, he was just he wanted to hug him the second you saw it.
SPEAKER_05What were the point of the in the little kind of duck feet? I mean, was there uh was there an evolutionary design there?
SPEAKER_02There is way back there, there is total logic to E.T. We have a whole chemical breakdown for him and everything. And and he was a semi-aquatic. And so he had little web top.
SPEAKER_05Is that why he ends up in the in the creek at one point? Yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he's searching for water. Uh but he he gravity everything. We figured he was squashy. He was had it all worked out. If we just make up the logic of why he looked the way he did.
SPEAKER_05This is uh this is the second movie you've had in uh just about a a year. Uh isn't it? Raggedy Man it came from. Um which one was more difficult to work on, uh Raggedy Man or E.T.
SPEAKER_01I'd say uh I think E.T. you had to do more. Oh yeah, but in Raggedy Man, it was kind of tough because you know it was supposed we had to uh walk out in the um to the outhouse in our underwear. Oh, that's right. When it was uh almost thirty degrees outside.
SPEAKER_05Get hazard pay for that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No. But in ET it was hard because I had to laugh a lot.
SPEAKER_05Even when the joke stopped being funny after uh twenty days or something.
SPEAKER_01Uh yes.
SPEAKER_05Are you gonna work on another film now?
SPEAKER_01Maybe uh after this summer.
SPEAKER_05Director Steve Spielberg was uh was saying that he has a very hard time these days, you know, dealing with uh, you know, graphic violence and things like that. And um his other film, Polterguy, switches out, uh, you know, uh shoes and he does that. And E.T.'s pretty much the same way. I assume you should have.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, no, it's pointless. Yeah. It's not I don't think it's entertaining.
SPEAKER_05So we were um uh we got into that, we were kind of searching around for the elements of what really makes a broad mass appeal picture and whether or not it's uh it it would seem with films like this that it really does have to capture the imagination of children and the child imagination still left in adults. Um and perhaps that uh excludes uh some of the more gory uh elements that are curious.
SPEAKER_02Kathy Kennedy, the producer, says that she figures anybody who leaves and doesn't like E.T., the person E.T., there's something seriously wrong with it. And that's my feeling too. If you don't like it, you're never gonna like it. It's just if you want the other thing, that's it. But I think that um that part of the success is that that the audience becomes you become a co-conspirator in the movie. It's like it's your room, it's your closet, it's your E.T. and you're in on it.
SPEAKER_05Henry, what was your favorite favorite movie the last year, other than Raggedy Man?
SPEAKER_01I liked uh Raiders.
SPEAKER_05How many times did you see it?
SPEAKER_01At least uh four or five. I saw it on the times in um I like Star Wars better than Empire.
SPEAKER_05You did?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh I like Yoda and Empire in the fight, the sword fight between North Vader and Melissa, what are you gonna work on next now?
SPEAKER_02Uh I'm working on something, but Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Top secret. Right. I wish you the best of luck. Melissa Matheson and Henry Thomas uh E.T.
SPEAKER_03Okay, got it. Okay, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Um right now I am looking at Alethea holding up the very painting of uh sexy E.T.
SPEAKER_04Yes, I I have this painting that was personally uh done for me. It's it's a painting of um E.T. looking uh very, very thirsty with his glowing finger like he's blowing into the barrel of a gun with the sexiest come hither eyes you've ever seen. It's really, really quite something. In some ways, it is uh a vision of my sexuality. Yeah, mine too. We're both weirdos. We know that. It was painted by a uh friend uh a friend of the pod, Kate, and we're gonna we're going to have a picture of it on the show notes. Just to get us off on kind of a nerdy foot here, I brought a few. I want to do a little merchandise spotlight real quick. A couple of E.T. related items that I have. All right, let's see them. First and possibly mo most pathetic is my E.T. uh. lunchbox and thermos.
SPEAKER_03No, that's not pathetic. Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_04Lunchbox is in thermos. That's gotta be. And it also contains a collectible booklet and of course the 4K Blu-ray of E.T., so it's not just a lunchbox in thermos.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so this isn't this isn't so this is like vintage E. It's not actual vintage. This isn't like 80s still in the box.
SPEAKER_04No, no, no, no, no. I believe it's a redo of a a vintage box from the 80s. Got it, got it. But it's still awesome. The thermos has phone comb and it shows shows ET in his in his day drinking robe holding holding the communicator. This is a podcast. Let's keep this going. Let's keep this. What else you got? All right. I also have two pairs of E.T socks. Oh, E.T. socks. E.T. socks, very nice. Love it. And finally, my favorite t-shirt. I wore it to bed just last night, so let me undo it. Okay, so this shows E.T. ready to party. Can of course in hand. And it says E.T. wanna party on it. It's pretty awesome. E.T.
SPEAKER_03wants that is unbelievable. Where did you get that? I think I'll have Instagram back when I had Instagram. Yeah, we need to put that image up too. Yeah. I'm not wearing it right now, but I do have my own ET shirt that you and I were together when I purchased at Universal Studios, a children's extra large.
SPEAKER_04I believe we were we we had just drunk some of that Simpsons beer, so we were a little tipsy and spindy. But yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, yeah. I mean, let's cut to it because I am emotionally devastated, as usual, by this film. I'm really upset. This movie it so, I mean, I was looking at some of the stuff you you send me, and so I I this was an absolute rock star hit when it came out. Oh yeah. It just I mean it hits such a glancing blow off of everybody's heartstrings. I don't know. I don't I don't think there's any other movie like this. Like I I think it really stands alone in the way that in how it how effective it is in just breaking your heart, you know?
SPEAKER_04But not in an in an unmendable way. It's still happy in a sense.
SPEAKER_03Right, but at the same time, I don't know, maybe just because of the way my brain works these days. But I just I was left thinking, like, God, what is the rest of Elliot's life like now?
SPEAKER_04Like, Well, if we look at it realistically, they're all in deep shit.
SPEAKER_03They are, yeah, they are, they are. But like, best case scenario, he ends up as like a diplomat at the UN because he's like been touched by this piece between worlds vibe. Worst case scenario, he is a meth addict, you know?
SPEAKER_04Like, that what uh what do you do? I mean, I th I think maybe Spielberg would say he grew up to be Steven Spielberg or somebody like that, you know? I forget. I just listened to a podcast about this recently. Maybe it was three watchables or something like that, but um, one of them brought up the point that, you know, there's a universe where this is just a story about a guy who's been trying to um contact UFOs his whole life and his entire life's work is destroyed by a couple of kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Also, uh, and just to I I think what the biggest thing that struck me in this viewing was kind of the realization, like, so ET is so delightful and magical and stuff, but you kind of get the feeling that even on his spaceship, he's like the dipshit. You know, like that, like he is less than.
SPEAKER_04I want to see inside when they're taking off, they're like fucking E.T. like or no, his name's like Zork or something based on the ride.
SPEAKER_03It's definitely the captain of that ship's like brother-in-law's like sister's brother. Like, you know, he it's somebody he who he has a professional obligation to, but who's just gonna be terrible. And who they just like, maybe they left him behind on purpose. And then they got the like, when they got the call, he was like, guys, you left me behind. They're like, shit, how did he figure out how to do that? God damn it, now we gotta go back. No, there's a record of that shit. Oh god.
SPEAKER_04No, in the end of the movie, as soon as the spaceship door closes, it's just the other ET slapping the shit out of him. Very easily.
SPEAKER_03He's instantly demoted and like exiled on his planet. But okay. But you know what? I don't think there's something not to that because E.T. has a personality. And let's let's get into talking about the film. Again, this is gonna be one of the ones where when I refer to it as a film, it's gonna feel weird to me because this is a hardcore Capital M movie. But you know, let let's go through the let's go through it with E.T.'s experience, you know. So uh astonishing cinematic work with the opening shots in the forest.
SPEAKER_04Oh, this has some of my favorite cinematography of any of his films, Alan Davia, who um he did a short film with when he was young called Amblin, and then they didn't work together again until this movie, and then he also did uh Color Purple and Empire of the Sun, I want to say. You know, yeah. So these three very, very visually beautiful films.
SPEAKER_03And the way that that Spielberg manages to make this forest in California feel alien. Just the way he's looking up into the treetops, you know, like you you really it feel you you get the sensation that E.T. is feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, like being sort of astonished and like wow, but also just like it's creepy and scary and not what he's used to.
SPEAKER_04And I remember so vividly as a kid just just how evocative and transporting the images of E.T.'s hands, like pulling the little plant out of the grass, and then it shows the the rabbit sort of watching him quizzically and then sort of going away, and then the gigantic trees with the tiny little E.T. body just walking through. Like that was all very powerful imagery that I didn't fully understand, but I f I felt like that creature. It made me feel like I was I don't know, it was it was very powerful.
SPEAKER_03I think right now, you know, again, if we're gonna mirror this to the queer experience, like you've got him stranded alone in the forests, okay, he's instantly othered, he's away from his people, and you know, suddenly the man is coming for him, you know, the state, the people with the devices and the vehicles. And you know, it it is so interesting that you see E.T. immediately make the choice. It's like, well, whatever this is, that warm-looking, glittering thing down there is probably better, you know? Which is again just an instant tender choice, being like it and and and so sad in its darkness because it's it's what alienated people do. They're like, all right, well, you know, there's no chance that this is any better for me, but it has the promise of warmth, so I'm going towards it. Instantly heartbreaking, if you you know, frame it that way, which I think you're supposed to. And so, okay, we can talk about the family dynamics and stuff, but you know, I I I again think that the queer stuff is latched uh in tightly on E.T.'s experience. Not just, you know, the fractured family stuff that we talked about at the beginning. Like, you know, then the encounter with Elliot, the first one. When he throws the baseball out of the shut? Yeah. The I guess what you know the the the w weirdness and intense strangeness of E.T. that Spielberg somehow manages to make as strange as possible without ever once feeling menacing. And you know, you're supposed to feel like, okay, there's a little hint of menace from Elliot's experience. You know, you see E.T. framed in the light from the shed, and it's it's just this silhouette, and it's it's weird looking.
SPEAKER_04Um when he's approaching first, though, right before he returns to the Reese's Bees, and he's just like, I don't like coming at him in the middle of the night, that really scared me as a kid. Oh yeah, of course. And it's meant to. And now it makes me laugh because I'm like, oh, he's so cute.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think you know, one of the key themes in this movie is radical acceptance. And and instantly, you know, the demonstration here, the lesson being taught, if if that's what Spielberg is trying to do, is being like, hey, let your curiosity out, like go before your fear. You know, Elliot is scared as hell by this strangeness, this weirdness that has now entered his life, but it is person-like.
SPEAKER_04And so It's a story about you know becoming an ally by falling in love with another individual. Yes. You know, like take like, for example, like somebody who doesn't know a trans person might find it very alien and sort of scary based on kind of whatever has been presented to them. The second they meet somebody and they they develop human feelings for them and see them as a human being, suddenly this thing goes from a goblin to a spaceman. He's not a goblin, he's a spaceman, you know, there's humanity.
SPEAKER_03Right. There's no real question being directly asked at any point in there about like why isn't Elliot disgusted? You know, and the answer is kind of very easy because the audience isn't disgusted either, you know, because E.T. has already been set up as something sort of adorable. So even in its strangest moments, you know, we we have already have a built-in affection for E.T. that we are happy to see Elliot move in on as well.
SPEAKER_04That that scene where you first sees him in the corn too and they both like scream at each other, did that scare you? That scared me when I was a kid, but it makes me laugh so hard now.
SPEAKER_03It's so funny. But it but it's like I think anytime we see E.T.'s weirdly human teeth is when he's had his nice little jumpers. He's got some like or excellent orthodontic work, you know? Like those are the whoever made that puppet, I am sure those are like real benchers.
SPEAKER_04Carlo Rambaldi, baby. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03But now, okay, so and I also have to say I I think they're they're Steve Spielberg is really good about keeping things sort of like vulnerable and intimate the whole time, too. Like again, his his work with kids and like how kids live and how kids exist in the world, just how Elliot in that whole sequit is just wearing his full long underwear outfit. And he and that long underwear outfit returns, you know, later on. And yet, I don't know, I don't know if you notice this, but like the costume department sort of extended it to make it sort of sci-fi looking. Anyway, like his shirt is longer in that sequence than it is in the first one. And I don't know what the choice was there, but it makes it look very sci-fi. Anyway, I didn't maybe I didn't clock that. Maybe I'm crazy. But also it's the way he's wearing this big puffy coat. And you know that just like the kid's skinny legs. He in that silhouette sequence, he himself looks like an alien creature, you know, which I think is very smart and and he's and he's like E.T.
SPEAKER_04He's he's outside he uh he has presented in initially as being sort of outside of the circle, both with his brother and his friends and even with I mean his own mother, uh like at that first dinner table thing, uh first dinner table scene. Absolutely. When we first meet Drew Barrymore, who's just so fucking funny in this movie. Yeah. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03Uh again, un like uh you you will never find better performances from child actors outside of a Spielberg movie. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_04The two best child performances of all time are is Henry Thomas in this and Haley Joel Osmith in AI.
SPEAKER_03Definitely.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah. The older brother, too, who did who didn't really go on to do much. He's he's fantastic, and the wonder and the character is so wonderfully written and drawn.
SPEAKER_03I was watching it with some friends and what's the name of the with them. After a while, somebody looked up the brother now, and they were just like, ooh, Twink Death hits hard. But so, okay, so so we have the and then I it it's funny in my memory, I forget how quickly his siblings are brought into this sort of conspiracy. You know, like almost right away, he's like, hey, I have this thing, which makes sense narratively.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we have the next day he stays home from school, we have the whole sequence where he's introducing him to all of his Star Wars toys and stuff, which is a beautiful sequence, but also it's very funny because Spielberg and Lucas were like best friends. So they used to like do that stuff to each other all the time. It is really funny. Yeah, and and then oh, oh, in that sequence we get the first hints that actually it's the second hint that they have a psychic connection because we see the night before E.T. like almost kind of I guess puts him to sleep a little bit. Because it's like he's pretending to sleep and then Elliot falls asleep and then his eyes open back up and he just kind of studies them. A little creepy.
SPEAKER_03Well, no, I was I was actually sort of very curious about the mechanics of that in this. Because again, it isn't really it doesn't die, it isn't you don't dive into it in any way. It isn't really explained explicitly.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it just happens and you accept it. But the second time is when he's getting food out of the fridge and E.T. in the other room opens that umbrella and then it scares him, but Elliot in the next room is also scared, even though he didn't witness it.
SPEAKER_03My sensation from this from this viewing is that it's like a feedback loop they're both sort of locked into from the get-go. And if we're gonna come from like a sci fi place where it's like, oh, these aliens have this skill where they can sort of like lock onto the brainwaves or another creature, like if they come across. You know, human brainwaves for the first time. Maybe they sort of like ac maybe this is an accidental connection. Maybe E.T. has no conscious intention in sort of wrapping himself up and into the consciousness of this boy. Maybe it's just something that happens, you know? Like, I don't know. Like that, like it's just you can't you like you can't help but breathe the same air as the people you're standing next to. It could be something like that, you know? And I think that's kind of magical because i if you the I think if you really sort of uh look at it from E.T. sort of consciously manipulating anything more than just getting this device together to message home. Like if he's puppeteering these people to do his bidding, I I don't think that's what's going on here, you know?
SPEAKER_04I only thought that because he has the ability to, you know, control objects and levitate things and stuff. So that's maybe why I thought there was more intention there.
SPEAKER_03Well again, that's like if if this is just something that is as natural as breathing to this alien species, may you know we we don't know. Our understanding of human ESP and science fiction and things like that is always just like, okay, focus your mind, focus your mind. Maybe free ET doesn't have to do it that intensely. I don't know. I don't know. Again, that it is so clearly not what the movie cares about, you know, in terms of what it wants you to look at. So let's let's let's go into the I think this is a good opportunity because we're coming up on the Gertie dressing ET and drag sequence to talk about the gender stuff and this article you sent me.
SPEAKER_04Well, after he after he gets drunk gets drunk watching TCM during the fucking day. Right. Which is very much part of my queer experience.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Um yes. I feel like there's a lot to talk about in that you know frog dissection scene. Is that Harrison Ford's voice?
SPEAKER_04No, it is not. I thought for a long time that it was, and it does have like a similar kind of quality to it. Um Harrison Ford had a cameo scene as the principal of the school that Elliot has to see after causing the disruption, but they cut it because um Spielberg felt even though you didn't see his face, you you could tell it was him. He felt it was too distracting and took you out of Elliot's point of view. Which I think was wise. I mean, and also I've seen the scene, it's kind of it's kind of dumb. It's like Harrison Ford's got his back turned to him and he's like lecturing him, and E.T. is somehow levitating Elliot from home, and E uh Elliot's chair keeps going like up and down, up and down. Oh yeah, that is silly.
SPEAKER_03And also like not informed by the storytelling. Like, why would that be happening? Where everything else seems like it's a little bit I don't know.
unknownI don't know.
SPEAKER_03But so yeah, so you you gave me this article making E.T. perfectly queer, The Alien Other in the Science Fiction of Sexual Difference, um, by Brooke M. Beloso. Bello Beloso. I hope I'm saying that correctly. This is an article from Butler University Libraries, very, very interesting. But, you know, I think one of the first things it zeros in on is how deliberately sexless, you know, E.T. is. I think canonically he is a fungi, right? He's a plant, yes. He's a plant.
SPEAKER_04And if you look like his glowing heart and all that, his his insides are very kind of plant-like. Right. But I think it's interesting that we say his only because that's how they refer to him in the movie.
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, we zero in on Elliot very firmly asserting that this alien is a boy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and he's like a little put off by the drag, so I think Elliot needs to like mature a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Isn't that so funny that at that moment when he goes, ah god, and like leans against the door frame when he sees him in drag? That was the only moment in the movie where I was like, oh come on, Elliot. I know do better. But then again, like what a funny thing for us.
SPEAKER_04But he hates girls too, so it's a whole misogyny thing.
SPEAKER_03He does yeah. Does he hate girls? I mean, he resents his mother, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_04Well, but he also he's well, maybe maybe I'm confusing that because um it's also said that Henry Thomas was was uh in his girl hating phase and therefore found the kissing scene that he had to do with that blonde girl really, really difficult. I get it. Don't you kind of think she should have come back in the end? She should have been part of the bike chase and stuff like that. It's weird that she just leaves the movie.
SPEAKER_03Missed opportunity for that character, but then again, I think for the times everybody would have been like, hey, this super feminine pretty girl setting her up to then be in the bike chase sequence. Like that's very stranger things. Well, right, but that's like that's what Stranger Things was trying to do. You know, like do a redemptive version of these stories where more, you know, well, you know what?
SPEAKER_04Maybe maybe I will have to give Stranger Things one point for doing that.
SPEAKER_03Let's give it a point.
SPEAKER_04Anyway, if that's one nitpick I've got to do.
SPEAKER_03Stranger Things again. But what do you what are your feelings on this? How when they what do you I mean this article kind of tries to point us towards an Oedipal reading of why E.T. has to be male to Elliot. But what do you think that is from your point of view, you know?
SPEAKER_04I think it's a projection of self onto on onto E.T.
SPEAKER_03Right. And maybe maybe it's even locked into that psychic thing where like now that E.T. is imprinted with Ellie's brainwaves, he's imprinted with male brain waves or something like that. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I think in you know, in service of this sort of radical acceptance idea in the movie, I think it's sort of delightful how just sort of like, yeah, let's roll with this. E.T. being dressed in drag is.
SPEAKER_04You know, you know, and that's another thing that I hate about the 20th anniversary thing where they like animated his facial expressions a lot more. In that scene when Elliot sees him, there is a palpable look of embarrassment and shame on E.T.'s face. Really? They animate that on his face.
SPEAKER_06Oh.
SPEAKER_04That is dude. Yeah, fuck. That version sucks, and I I I'm very glad Spielberg realized that and took it out of circulation.
SPEAKER_03I mean, it just I mean, my god, it completely undermines the theme themes. Like, come on, E.T. is not supposed to have any sense of shame. Oh, for God's sakes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Alright.
SPEAKER_04It's kind of like in Toy Story 2 or whatever, they have like two like weird, weirdly just so out of place, like anti-gay kind of jokes. It's very strange in an otherwise like perfect movie. People still want to tell them uh hey, I love a good anti-gay joke. But so I'm trying to think in sequence. E.T. has already concocted his plan to start making the communicator. He's begun gathering his materials, and he comes up with the idea by it's I believe it's a Flash Gordon cartoon in the newspaper while an ATT fucking commercial is playing. And we get the famous scene where he says E.T. home phone, and then Drew Barrymore changes it to E.T. phone home. And then they figure out, you know, the main thrust of the story that they have to uh call E.T.'s ride and get him to come back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, I don't wanna again, we don't want to go too long on the tooth here. So I think it's important to talk about the the shift the movie takes from the moment we find uh E.T. you know in the riverbed. Like again.
SPEAKER_04Well, I think we would be remiss if we jumped all the way to that because what we're jumping over is like the most famous part of the movie, the Halloween sequence, and then when the bike flies across the moon and stuff like that, and then they get the communicator going. Right. But I don't know that that well, sure. But that is that is such and he sees someone dressed as Yoda and he goes home and starts chasing him. I know, right? Love that. And you will notice like, what? Okay.
SPEAKER_03And and you and of course we know that in what uh epis in in The Phantom Menace or something like that, their little ETs. Yeah, they're in the Senate scene. Do kind of love their little buddy friendship, their I know, two billionaire buddies. Two billionaire buds. But you know what? I think that you're right, that is a big sequence. But in terms of what we're talking about here in the in in the podcast, there's not it's it's it's it's film spectacle in that moment. It might be the moment from the film, the poster moment.
SPEAKER_04No, you know what that is? What is it? That is that is the mounting fear, anxiety, release, and then overwhelming, soaring joy of coming out. You going over the cliff on your bike, dipping down, and then flying into the sky is coming out of the closet and living your new life, your true life.
SPEAKER_03That is so true. Yeah. All right, I was wrong. Stand is so correct.
SPEAKER_04That is beautiful. Maybe that's why I connected to it so much when I was young. Like I'm the only fucking person to have connected with E.T. for Christ's sake.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah. This is this is a very special movie to me. Yeah, okay. But okay, alright, alright, alright. So I'll give you that. But I mean I think it is important to talk about the devastation of this this third act stuff when again the state and the man comes comes you know pushing into their lives.
SPEAKER_04And just the And it's just like the atmosphere that just starts getting to E.T., right?
SPEAKER_03Because Earth is gross and I I think we're led to believe that. Or I think there's an even more kind of beautiful reading of this in that, you know, these creatures have these psychic connections. They seem to be some sort of hive mind, and if they are far from the rest of their people, they slowly die, just like an ant away from its colony will slowly succumb. You know, that's right. No, yeah, I think yeah, that's what that is. Or or it could be microplastics, because we do live in a cesspool, you know. That's true. That's one of those things. It's true. Yeah. But so when he's dying and you have these scientists trying to deduce the nature of their connection.
SPEAKER_04All real doctors from USC, by the way. You could tell. Yeah, that's cool. You could really tell. Except for Peter Coyote as Keys, who his speech to Elliot, when you you come to understand that the the big scary man and all of the big scary adults are really just ET are are really just they were once kids like Elliot. And and they want they're they're they're not menacing. They want to they want to help. They're just not kids, and they have adult concerns, you know? Right.
SPEAKER_03And adult methodologies and adult resources and an adult's inability to to really connect in the way that Elliot does with this creature. Well, you know, uh okay, let's take a step back. You know, from an anthropological sort of xenobiological standpoint, there is a lot of malpractice going on here. Like they just I don't know. I I I I just feel like it was really authentic in those in those scenes where they're operating or or trying to save E.T.'s life, but like it it it must be understood that absolutely everything being done there is total guesswork. They have zero idea whether his biology is even remotely close to ours. I know, it's crazy. Yeah, like the that the fact that they're even trying anything.
SPEAKER_04Also, speaking of that, with all the quarantine measures they're taking and stuff, this fucking guy, Keys, when they're out in the woods and he discovers the pile of Reese's pieces that he knows the salient is touched, he fucking eats it. It was sitting on the ground for like days. It's not covered in the streets. So there is wrong with it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. But we're gonna ignore that because the movie's so good. You know, I realize now that the the reason like it's it's not just that the earth is killing and it E.T. It absolutely is because of the psychic connection. Because at the climax of this movie, how else or you know, how else does he come back from the dead essentially? It's true because the they're getting closer. But it's also the love that Elliot expresses for him. Yes, but that's complex. Because what is it? Well, okay, so maybe that's why people have this sort of Jesus Christ reading of this movie. Because like if that is true. Well, yeah, he's in a white robe, he's like this, he's got the burning heart. Right, but like E.T., oh yeah, there is a moment where E.T. like walks out in the white robes where it's just like, okay, that's that's just so clearly figure there. It is overt.
SPEAKER_04But then they crucify him at the end, it's really weird. Right.
SPEAKER_03Passion of E.T. They're whipping E.T.
SPEAKER_04He's carrying the BMX on his on his back up the fucking mountain.
SPEAKER_03But you know, if that reading is correct, that what saved him was just Elliot's love becoming so intense that it just like transcended and managed to save E.T. That is like E.T. had to die. You know, Elliot had to feel the intensity of that grief in order for him to be resurrected.
SPEAKER_04I think it's both, and it's also a thing of timing because Elliot does actually say, Does this mean they're coming when he's resurrected? And E.T.'s like, yeah. So yeah. But I think but I think there's an intentionality to the timing of that happening right after he says, I love you, to it for the first time. Yes.
SPEAKER_03And also, I'm sorry, but that had to have been just sort of so radical to just like I know he's saying it to an E.T. to an alien, and like I know plenty of men throughout history have weepingly told their dogs that they love them without having any of their masculinity besmirged. But there is something immensely open and tender about that I love you sequence, where it it feels like a genuine achievement of the heart, if that makes sense. Like, what was the last like Elliot seems like a kid who, if he hadn't met E.T., probably would have gone the next 25 years without telling anybody he loves them, you know? Like because he's just so sort of injured, you know, sort of like he could have become an incel, but E.T. saved him, you know? Just sort of like slowly letting this resentment towards his mother turn into some horrible misogyny and and slowly letting that become hatred for everybody. You know, like I I I I don't know. It it do you think in 1982 that like that is really taking a sledgehammer to masculine sensibilities? Or are you or are little or are little boys allowed to say I love you and men are not? You know, like I I I'm just trying to wanna I'm trying to because when you're I can't really speak for the 80s in that regard.
SPEAKER_01Come on.
SPEAKER_04I don't know I don't know if there was if it was an intentionally sort of uh sledgehammer you know to masculinity. Perhaps it's uh shining a light in a darkened corner and allowing you know the more wrongfully shameful aspects of masculinity to just come out and be okay, you're okay. Yeah, a gentle coaxing of tenderness. Well Yeah. I I I don't know. I didn't give a good answer. Well I'll I'll cut that out.
SPEAKER_03Okay, well, let's not go, you know, again, let's not go too long in the tooth here. So so let's put a cap on this. You know, I I really do think that this movie did a job on me when I was younger. Meaning it it really there are things in this movie that I forgot that kind of like I got taught by this movie. Or maybe I wasn't taught, but just affirmed just this genuine just gratitude for the existence of other beings, other people, and just being generous and curious and protective, and all of these things being not only important but essential to happiness and joy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And Spielberg said his ultimate goal and the main message of the movie is to not fear the other, to not fear our brothers and sisters, you know, from different cultures, from this and that, but to see their humanity no matter where they're from, and to extend a hand of friendship.
SPEAKER_03I genuinely think that this is one of those stories that is going to whatever happens to humanity, like really survive. Like, you know, like Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, you know, like like this is just one of those kind of. Yeah. It's just it it is gonna be effective on everybody forever, you know, and and I just feel like you can really have a psychological test on people. You know, if you show somebody ET and they are unmoved, get them in a program, you know, like get them to therapy, get them on something that is something you need to catch now before it becomes something that is broad more broadly bad. Like how how how cynical would you have to be in order to not be moved by ET? Yeah. If I became the dictator of a fascist utopia, I would make all of my citizens watch ET and carefully scrutinize their face, and I would exile anybody that was unmoved.
SPEAKER_04What if we had a dictator but but they dictated just the most progressive causes?
SPEAKER_03Would we be okay? That's a different podcast, and in fact, there's a lot of those. So I'm not gonna mention any of them now. Once again, you know, we didn't really go deep into it, but thank you to Brooke and Beloso, writer of Making ET Perfectly Queer.
SPEAKER_04Yes, everybody, everybody, everybody check that out. If uh we'll provide a link in the show notes, but it's a it's a very good and fascinating read. Very well, very well, very well thought out, written, and researched.
SPEAKER_03Yes. And thank you all again for joining us for the start of season three, coming in with a beloved movie. Yeah. Uh we've got some interesting stuff for you. We do.
SPEAKER_04Okay, this is great. This is uh obviously one of my favorite movies. Spielberg's best movie, we gonna say that.
SPEAKER_03No. I don't know. Yes. What do you think is his best? Jurassic? I don't think uh well, I don't think I don't know, I don't know. It's it's Spielberg is just a class onto himself.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And and we have a new Spielberg Alien film coming out soon, Disclosure Day. Which I am highly suspicious of. I just I don't know.
SPEAKER_03I don't know. I think it looks awesome. It it it is they're really burying some kind of lead. I saw a theory online that it's a sequence to closed encounters of a sequel to closing counters of the third kind.
SPEAKER_04That would be really fucking cool. Oh my god, Richard Dreyfus comes back at the end. God damn it! He's just like complaining about the no, he's complaining, he's fucking complaining about trans women or something.
SPEAKER_03Oh no. Let's not go there.
SPEAKER_04All right, everybody.
SPEAKER_03Uh, we'll see you soon. Thanks for joining us. All right, and remember, be good. Be good. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER_04Bye.
SPEAKER_00Adventure. But I'm afraid we don't have much time, so I'm gonna cut right to the chase. E.T. needs your help. Now we've just received an urgent message from E.T.'s teacher Partanicus. Caller 3T comes home right away. See, a big problem has developed 3 million light years away on E.T.'s home world, the green planet. E.T.'s friends are in danger because their planet is dying. Remember what E.T.'s friends look like. Because it's gonna be up to you to help E.T. find them once we get him home. And it's not among the police, because only E.T.'s magic healing touch can save his friends and bring his planet back to health. E.T. must go home, and only you can help him. Ah, E.T. That's right, E.T. So why do you show these people how they're gonna get you back to the green planet? You and E.T. will make you three million light year journey on these bikes, but don't worry, you don't have to pedal. But you will need an interplanetary passport. So before you leave E.T., and your first name to one of our assistants, it'll give you your pass. Oh E.T. Rage girl, so good luck everyone. Remember E.T.'s Calibani, and so am I. It's up to you to save his planet so that he may visit us again.