The Bechdel CastThis week, little rascals Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Tariq Ra'ouf head to their clubhouse and discuss The Little Rascals (1994)!
Follow Tariq on social media at @tariq_raouf
On the Bechdel Cast.
The questions asked if movies have.
Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands, or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
I call this meeting of the the man Hating Bechdel Cast Club.
To order, O tay otay. That was my takeaway. That was my takeaway. Welcome to the bechel Cast AKA. Some critics would say the man Hating Club, O tay.
My name is Jamie Loftus, my name is Caitlin Droonte. This is our show where we examine movies through an intersectional feminist lens, using the Bechdel Test simply as a jumping off point. It's not the focus of the show. We just use it to launch bigger conversations about little boys who hate women.
And little boys who like women but are a shame.
Yes. The Bechtel Test, of course, being a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test, it has many versions. Ours is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is their conversation about something other than a man. Ideally, we like it when the conversation is like narratively relevant and not just like throwaway dialogue. We'll figure out if the he man women hating characters of this movie past the Bechdel test. But yeah, today's episode is The Little Rascals nineteen ninety four, directed by Penelope Spherus.
Yes, I think our second Penelope Spherus on the show because we also did Wayne's World.
M we sure did. Today we have a wonderful guest with us to discuss the movie. We're very excited. He is a writer and journalist. It's Tarak rove Hi. Welcome. Hello, you brought us this movie. Tell us about your relationship, your history, et cetera with it. I love how we start ours by being like, you brought us this movie.
So why why.
Why did you make me watch this?
Well explain yourself.
Uh, you know, it was really fond of it for such a long time. I remember watching it as a kid. I remember watching it just being in awe and like, I specifically remember the pickle scene, like remembering the pickle scene as a kid, being like I love pickles, I love the pickle dance. And like it just was a fun time and I and I was like, I haven't seen the Little Rascals in years. So I was like, I saw that on your on your most requested list. I was like, m hm, yeah, let's let's do it, especially because I I kind of remembered that they were in a club and it realized quite how women hating their club was. Until I was watching, I was like, oh, okay, I thought it would be a really fascinating movie to dissect from this lens it is.
I also didn't remember the extent to which like gender politics plays into this children's movie. It's yeah, wild, Yeah, I have to be honest like that.
I went into this viewing being like, this is going to be a breeze. It's a kid's movie, eighty minutes long, amazing, great, and then you know, within the first two minutes you're like, oh, I have to lock the fuck in, like this is this is a text.
So this was a big movie of your childhood tark right.
Yeah, I mean, like I think I was, like I was probably I was born in ninety one, and I don't remember when this movie came out, but I was like roughly around like the same age as these kids, I think when it came out, so.
Yeah, I came out. I remember this being like a very popular like VHS pick. This came out in ninety four.
Yeah, I was ninety four.
Yeah, so I was like I was definitely like in the age range of like Alfalfa. Like when I watched it, I was like, oh, I like this.
Right, Well, some of the kids are like they seem to be like like Buckwheat and Porky are like four maybe five years old Alfalfa and some of the older kids are like nine. But yeah, because I'm the same age as like the actors who played Alfalfa and Waldo and a couple of the other ones, I.
Made the mistake of being like, what is Alfalfa up to today?
Oh, yeah, don't do that, don't google him.
Really, I mean, well, just I don't want to. Let let's say that, I don't want to talk about it. It's a long story short, it's a bumber. It's a bummer bug hall Man.
Bug a Hall.
I was like, what a fun name. Wonder what he's up to. Don't recommend, don't recommend finding out when he's up to anyways, we'll.
Circle back, sure for sure, But Yeah. This was also a big movie of my childhood, and I watched it a ton as a kid, probably from like you know, ninety four to ninety seven, and then that's when Titanic came out, so I pretty much only was watching that for many years. Same, but I rewatched this movie recently, kind of apropos of nothing. I was like, oh, that's on a streaming platform. This is a movie I used to love as a kid, and I rewatched it probably like a year ago. It's pretty recently. Did not remember most of it. I do very distinctly remember the scene where the I guess it's four kids, two of them are stacked on the shoulders of two others. They go into the bank to try to get alone. Did not remember it was from mel Brooks.
Which is kind of the I mean, as we'll talk about the cameo situation. This movie really runs the gamut of kinds of cameos. Some age great, one really doesn't.
One does not know because he's not our fascist dictator of America.
Yeah.
Yeah, my jaw dropped when I saw him.
I was and unfortunately at the time I can see why it made perfect sense. You're just like, fuck, that was in our lifetimes. Anyways, Well, he.
Made a few cameos in different movies alone too, and then he's also in Zulander. As we discussed recently.
Right inescapable. But baby, Raven Simone, you're just.
Like, yes, I love that. I had to pause. I was like, what I know.
It's like all the famous trousers of the day. I was like, wow, they got they got the they brought it in the heavy hitters. Although I will say so none of the cameos have names. But for some reason, Raven Simone is credited as Steimy's girlfriend at the club, which makes it sound like she's twenty five and not a little bit the clerb.
Like, no one's gonna no one's gonna clock this. But the little sister from Smart House was also in this, which I recognized her. She was like very tiny.
Yeah, oh my god, well spotted because we've covered we've covered Smart House.
And I didn't wow.
And then yeah you got you got Riba Riba in her second best cameo after Barbin Star go to Visa del Mar. Oh my gosh, right, that's her best one.
You've got WHOOPI Goldberg.
Yeah, it's a great one. Daryl Hannah, who I didn't recognize as Daryl Hannah, but then I realized and I smiled.
Wow the end, I feel like maybe that's why we remember this movie so well. As partly it's just because like we remember all the stars and we were like in awe from it, and then we didn't remember any of the plot.
Yeah, totally.
No.
I again, I didn't remember the they were in a he man woman haters club and that that was like a huge focal point of the movie.
Really, I was curious if okay, so that is.
Not that did not stick with me.
I'm a little ashamed to say that. As I was watching this film, I thought to myself, I was like, this movie's really bad.
Okay, I thank you for some light defenses of this movie. I will you know it does does it fix feminism the way it tries to claim that it does at the end, I would say, no.
Didn't work for bug Hall. He's a member of the he Man Woman Hating Club to this day.
Yikes, which is ironic because Alfalfa is the only boy in the club who loves women.
Well.
But also I have but I have some thoughts on Alfalfa and his little boner haircut. Oh my god, how many boner drugs are going to be in this movie? Starring seven year old?
It was still a little uncomfortable. It was a little Reba McIntire saying like like, are you is that a hair? A hairla? Or you just happy to see me?
Was like.
Years old.
It was a child, you're speaking to me?
Read the room. A lot of the jokes.
Though, in this movie are like comedy gold. The joke writing in this movie is largely very fun. I like Penelope Spears as a comedy director. There's lots to discuss, but yeah, we'll get there. I love it.
I feel like Kaitlyn, you're rarely the defender of the movie. This is exciting. So this is a childhood favorite of yours that you recently revisited.
Yes, and Jamie, what about you?
I had not seen this one. I don't know why. I've found that I mix it up constantly with the Sandlot because the posters look very similar. But no, I hadn't seen it before, and it's like it's a weird little movie. I didn't hate it, and I didn't hate it. I guess that's my review. I didn't hate it. I think it is like pretty fucking impressive that Penelope Spheeris pulled off a movie this like vast with a cast this young, because like the kids are doing okay, I mean, you're not gonna get a star every time, and in this case, I think they're kind of batting.
Oh for ten.
No offense to the kids, except actually the fancy the fancy little kid, I like Stymy and the fancy boy. I was like, they they were they were cooking.
Oh you mean Waldo Alo Wishous Johnston the third.
Oh my god, fancy McCaulay culkin is how I refer to my notes. For a second, I was like, is it no? But McCaulay culkin played Ritchie Rich around the same time.
So I also found.
It interesting, like looking back at because I knew that the Little Rascals had history. I didn't know it was like over one hundred years of history. So I have some some notes on that.
But it's you know, I think it's.
Like an interesting way to adapt it for the nineties. I like that these like little Newsy kids live in la in nineteen ninety four and that's just cannon Like it's sweet. Yeah, it didn't really solve feminism, but I think it's nice that it thought it did.
It was it was trying for something.
Does I think it solves feminism? Is that when the movie stands, you think.
I don't actually think so. But at the end when they're like, yeah, women, you're allowed in our club in which we hate women. You're welcome here now.
But I'm like, I don't see them getting leadership positions anytime soon.
I'll tell you what they're basically framed is like the girlfriends now, which I have a whole shpielan. We'll talk about it, but.
Well, yeah, Stimey's girlfriend at the club. Yeah, and the club we all vam or what is the thing is that it? No, wait, I don't know. I don't I know what you're talking about. It's just funny to hear it from you and the clerb.
We all sam.
Yeah, anyway, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. And we're back. We're okay. Here's the recap of the Little Rascals nineteen ninety four. A little boy named Spanky. The names in this incredible.
Yeah we got we gotta bring that back.
Kids name Spanky, kids named Froggy, kids named Porky and Buckwheat and Alfalfa and wim.
Yeah they all have Looney Tunes names.
Okay, So Spanky sends a note around town via pd the Dog to announce an emergency meeting of some sort. This note is seen by a kid named Stymy when he's playing baseball. Then a kid named Froggy at his house. I guess that's his name because he has a very like raspy froggy voice.
Which I no offense to Little Rascals defenders. I found so obnoxious and distracted it hard to listen to. Not the kid's fault, but I was like, Okay, yeah, not my favorite.
I loved it.
I do like I hope that this is the movie that breaks the podcast. I hope the little I hope the Little Rascals do us end.
This episode is going to end in blood and tears. No swee be Froggy.
Uh.
Then Pete goes to two kids who are fishing, Porky and Buckwheat. Then eventually the boys the Little Rascals gather at their clubhouse for a meeting at the Clerb At the Clerb House, uh huh, for a meeting for the he Man Woman Haters Club they recite their oath, which states, I do solemnly swear to be a he man and hate women and not play with them or talk to them unless I have to, and especially never fall in love. And then it goes on about what the punishments are and blah blah blah. A character named uh huh who seems to only say uh huh, takes minutes from the meeting. Meanwhile, outside to bullies who are not allowed in the club.
Oh my god, having great great bully names.
Yeah, butch and wom And I'm like, is that like worm but in a.
In like baby noozies?
I think?
Get right.
The two bullies talk about how they're looking forward to beating the Rascals in an upcoming go kart race with their go kart, which is called the Beast. Meanwhile, the little Rascal's go kart, the Blur, is their club's pride and joy. They pay respects to it and to their hero, their idol, a race car driver named A J. Ferguson, and they're like, he's the best race car driver that ever lived. Then they select a name out of a hat to see who's going to drive the Blur in the upcoming go kart race and the name that they select is Alsalfa, who is not there at the meeting. They discover that Alfalfa is secretly spending time with his girlfriend, Darla, because, unlike the other members of the he Man Woman Haters Club, Alfalfa is sensitive and romantic and he loves women. And Darla is like, well, then why the fuck are you in this ridiculous misogyny club.
I love Darla. I love Darla so much. Darla takes no nonsense from these little boys. She has no time for them. I love it.
She doesn't very grown.
Yes, she's so grown, despite being like four years old when production started, so little.
She's so tiny and you can just hear I don't know. Like the blooperrial was so cute because you're like, God, these kids are these kids are are just like hanging on by their little fingernails trying to remember these sentences.
It's so cute. And Darla's little blooperrial segment at the end.
Is like, stop looking at the camera.
Yeah, so cute. I have a whole spiel about the age difference between her and her various love interests, but we'll get we'll get to it. Wow, okay. So Alfalfa tells Darla that he's going to take her on a picnic, and she suggests they have it at his clubhouse so that he can prove that he's not ashamed of her and that he's proud of her. So the next day, Alfalfa goes to pick up Darla, he's attacked by a dog that belongs to Waldo. Aloisious Johnston the Third, a rich kid who absolutely sucks.
Unfortunately, he's so funny, and I hate it. It is it feels very nineties that they make a little social statement with what a piece of shit he is. Like, they go out of their way to be like he's a mini oil baron and you're like, what a detail, what a detail to just have there. I kind of loved it.
And produces a great joke where yeah, he's like, my dad just bought the local oil refinery and Darla's like, that explains why you're so refined in Alfalfa and why you're so oily.
That's hilarious as those are good. The jokes are good, the good jokes, Thank.
You, thank you. Okay, So Waldo sucks, but he takes a liking to Darla to Alfalfa's dismay. Alfalfa and Darla go on a candlelight picnic the clubhouse the clubhouse, but the little rascals sabotage it by putting a whoopee cushion under Alfalfa. They put kitty litter in their sandwiches, all this kind of stuff, and then they start like banging on the door. So Alfalfa hurriedly shoes Darla away and tries to clean everything up, but he accidentally doesn't blow out one of the candles, so the clubhouse catches fire. The kids try to put out the fire, but the clubhouse burns down.
I love this sequence when they're the little baby firefighters.
It's so cute, cute.
I like the entire time, I'm just like, where are any of the adults? The adults like they they they just don't exist in this worl These.
Kids are never home.
I kind of love the like just lot because it's like, because I was worried that they're gonna like single out specific kids, but it's just like, this is a world with no parents, except at the end when you see that they do have parents and they look exactly like them, but bigger and I liked that joke a lot, Like these parents are are bad at their job, but I love that. I feel like it is like this like fantasy for like people of our generation to be as loose as the little rascals are.
Do whatever you want, live life without a care in the world, without any adults. You know, you can't do that.
Your parents have no idea. You've organized a hate group.
Underground.
They didn't used to know these things, right, And these kids.
Are like not going home for what seems like days at a time. They're just sort of like sleeping out at the club house.
Maroon Alfalfa fishing out on a lake on their own.
I like that.
Yeah, it does feel like this. This takes place in the South one hundred years ago, but also in Los Angeles in the nineties, and both reads are correct.
Yeah, absolutely, for sure. It's great. Okay, so the house is burnt down. Meanwhile, because Alfalfa had tried to hide Darla, she realizes that he is ashamed of her, so she dumps his ass and leaves with that rich prick Waldo.
Hie.
Yeah, yeah, it's I wrote down. This is very specific, but it reminded me of when Jane Fonda divorced her activist husband and married Ted Turner. Wow, Jane Fonda heads will well know.
Are they still married?
No, she divorces ass too. She's I mean, she's the best, but she was married to Ted Turner.
Which is why suspicious truly.
Yeah.
In any case, the rascals put Alfalfa on trial and then on probation, and his punishment is to guard their go kart the Blur day and night, and he can never talk to, or see or think about Darla ever again. So that night, when Alfalfa's guarding the go kart, all the boys join him for a little sleepover in a tent and they're talking about why they think girls are gross. Meanwhile, Darla is having a sleepover with her girl friends and they're talking about why they think boys are gross. It's a really fun like intercut scene. The next day, the boys get to work on rebuilding their clubhouse, but they don't have the money for lumber, which they try to buy from Norm from Cheers, so a few of them go into a bank. This is the scene that I distinctly remember from watching this as a kid. They're like stacked on each other's shoulders and they try to get a bank loan from mel Brooks, which he denies them. Meanwhile, there's a scene where Alfalfa writes a love note and then has Buckwheat and Porky deliver it to Darla. But it's this whole comedy of errors situation where Darla ends up even more mad at Alfalfa because there's like, yeah, the misinterpretation of what happens.
I thought it was interesting that that whole gag is predicated on you have to be able to read to understand, and I was like, I don't think the target audience of this movie can read yet. Well.
I mean, let me say I was eight when the movie came out, and I knew how to read at age eight.
That's free.
But also, I don't remember that joke at all, and I don't remember ever knowing what that letter said, so I don't know if I ever even understood what was happening in that scene.
I mean, you can like cut this. This is a movie based on vibes. She ends up mattering absolutely, yeah, I want to show this movie to my niece, but I don't know if she reads well enough yet to get the joke.
She's five. Yeah, Well, it turns out you won't get any of the jokes when you're eight or maybe even ten, so who knows. I truly was like, oh, there are like a dozen jokes that I never understood as a kid that I had to wait till adulthood.
It's just like Shrek in that way.
Wow makes you think, That makes you think really really hard. Okay, So Darla's even more mad at Alfalfa. So Alfalfa goes to Darla's ballet recital to try to clear things up, but Spanky insists on going with him to ensure that Alfalfa breaks up with Darla once and for all. Meanwhile, the two bullies Butch and Woim distract Buckwheat and Porky, who are guarding the Blur in this moment, so that they can steal the go kart, but the little rascals had set up a like Rube Goldberg pickle trap, so they are unsuccessful at stealing the Blur. Back at the recital, Alfalfa and Spanky dress as girls in like wigs and tutus in order to hide from Butch and Womb, and then while they're still in like little girl drag, Alfalfa and Spanky talk to Darla, who doesn't realize she's talking to these boys, and she's like, oh, here, take my handkerchief. Oh yeah, I remember Alfalfa. He took the best years of my life. Hilarious joke. And then she also says like I couldn't resist his singing voice because that's gonna all pay off later. Then Alfalfa and Spanky get shuffled in with the other ballerinas who are about to go on stage. They perform in the recital, they ruin it, which infuriates the instructor aka Leah Thompson aka Lorraine from Back to the Future. She chases them out, but oh no, the bullies are waiting for them, so they start chasing Alfalfa. He's in his underwear, by the way, because there was like a frog in his tutu. This the whole thing.
I'm like, YadA YadA, frog twuto you know.
You know, And I'm like, why are we making kids run around in their underwear on screen? Anyway, he runs into Darla and Waldo, who are like lounging by the pool drinking cocktails. They're getting fucked up in.
The hot tub with umbrellas and like, like, what are you drinking?
It's it is funny, but it's also just goofy as hell, and they see him naked. They see Alfalfa naked and it's weird. Meanwhile, the other little Rascals head to a fair to try to raise money to rebuild their clubhouse. Then back at the burnt down clubhouse, Alfalfa finds the checklist that his friends were using to sabotage his picnic with Darla, and Alfalfa realizes that they and especially are to blame for Darla hating Alfalfa, so he takes off in the blur to confront Spanky at the fair. Back at the fair, Buckwee and Porky have scammed people into paying admission for a free talent show.
Listen. I would have paid for the four foot tall man eating chicken.
Also such a good joke because you think it's gonna be eat a chicken who eats men men?
But if I gotta scammed out of that, I'd be like, you know what, you it exactly? I was.
I was shocked at how long it took me to figure out what that choke So funny, it's really funny.
Okay, So this is when we see Darryl Hannah. She is like the coordinator of the talent show, named Miss Crabtree. She discovers this ruse and reprimands the boys, although Spanky makes a suggestion for what to do with the money, which is to award it to whoever wins first place at the upcoming go Kart derby. Then Alfalfa arrives at the fair where Waldo and Darla are singing a duet in the talent show. Alfalfa also performs a song, knowing that Darla melts when she hears his singing voice, although Waldo sabotages the performance by putting like dish soap into Alfalfa's glass of water, so he's like blowing bubbles and Darla's like, you suck Alfalfa.
I remember this part too, and I'm being like, wow, so cool.
Look when you're five, it is so cute. It's cute.
Yeah, and maybe you want to drink dish soap and burn.
Honestly a lot of things. I was like, I want to build a Rube Goldberg pickle machine.
I also wanted an etch A sketch because of how well they drew that at there in that car.
Yeah, okay, So meanwhile, the bullies butch and Wims steal the Blur while it's parked outside the fair, and then after Alfalfa's performance, he and Spanky get in a huge fight and Alfalfa storms off and all the little rascals are sad, but then they eventually make up and all the boys reconvene and get to work on building a new go kart for the Derby. The Blur Too colon the sequel, or as I like to call it, an extremely blurry gok kurt.
Yes exactly, exactly, yes, and.
They build it out of like a trash can and washing machine parts and other random little do dads. Cut to the Derby, Alfalfa and Spanky are together in their new go krt, the Blur Too, an extremely blurry go kart. Several other drivers are there, such as Butch and Woim in the stolen Blur with a new paint job. Waldo and Darla are in like Waldo's rich kid go kart. By the way, Darla is starting to realize how much Waldo sucks. Yeah, Reba McIntyre is there, is the announcer. She makes a boner choke to a child and we're like.
Was that normal in nineteen ninety four or was it weird then too? If we don't know, I think it was.
More normal back then. Also, as we mentioned, our fascist American president slash dictator Donald Trump is there as Waldo's father, what Pe Goldberger's there. The race begins, There's some confusion and for a while, like Alfalfa and Spanky and the bullies and Waldo and Darla accidentally go the wrong way and get separated from the other racers. Waldo tries to sabotage Alfalfa and Spanky's go cart, so Darla is like, fuck you, Waldo, I'm done with you, so he pulls over to let her out of the go kart. Then the bullies try to sabotage Alfalfa and Spanky, but then it seems like Waldo helps them, but we can't super tell because they're wearing a helmet that obscures their face, so we don't know exactly who it is, but we think it's supposed to be Waldo.
My gosh, and then get ready for a classic trope.
Then the race is almost over. They're almost across the finish line, and Alfalfa and Spanky win by a hair literally because it's Alfalfa's little spike thing that crosses the finish line first, and then they realize that the person who helped them was not Waldo because they take off their helmet and it's.
Darla, good good, good, good girl.
Oh my goodness. The person you thought was a man because they're doing a traditionally masculine activity is actually a woman. Astonished, I can't believe it.
The joke here is that a girl, well kid drive right.
So Darla has forgiven Alfalfa after realizing his devotion to her. Also, Alfalfa and Spanky win the five hundred dollars cash prize, which means that they can finally rebuild their clubhouse. They also learn that their idol, A J. Ferguson, is a whoa whoa whoa whoa woman.
I know, great twist from Riba.
And because of all of this, they make an amendment to their club. They are still the he Man Woman Haters Club, but now they allow women to join. We see the Little Rascals along with Darla and her friends along with the Raven Simone.
Raving Simone Stany's girlfriend at the.
Club exactly, and they're now coexisting in harmony because the Little rast Gals fixed misogyny question.
Mark or just made it more inclusive. They're like, we are now, I mean it kind of is like a lot of like right wing movements right now. We're like, we're also allowing the targets of our hatred to join the group. And you're like, okay, do.
They also become women haters?
Unclear? Well right, like many such cases internalized misogyny, which you know a lot of girls, especially in this era, were you know, socialized to have so could be.
Do they become TERFs?
Oh no not, I don't. I don't want to know what happens to these kids when they get older.
I have.
I just feel like they're headed down a dark road.
It's dark. Guts are fucked up. So that's the movie. Let's take another quick break and then we'll come back to discuss.
And we're back back. Should we just start at the he Man woman haters? Clumb I was curious, so the rundown, I mean there is truly if you're a true Little Rascals head, like going back to the very beginning.
Literally there's not enough time.
The longest Wikipedia page to ever exist is the Little Rascals page, because oh yeah, because they began as these theatrical shorts called Our Gang. The franchise began in nineteen twenty two.
During like the Silent era.
Yeah, so, like the Little Rascals have been around with us for basically as long as movies have, give or take like a decade or so. And they've changed over the years, which I can't speak to every single change. But the He Man Woman Haters Club, as far as I could tell, goes as far back as nineteen thirty seven. Because I was curious if this was an invention of the franchise or this movie specifically to try to have some gender commentary, but it's it's canon. It goes back to nineteen thirty seven. There is a lot to be said for what I can tell about Our Gang or the Little Rascals or Hal Roach's Little Rascals.
Over the years.
This page is insane.
It's so long.
I've got to say I scanned it. But like hal Roach is like a big I remember him coming up in like film school because he also created the Laurel and Hardy series. Like, he's very influential in early movies. There's a lot to be said, and I know that we'll talk about it later in this episode. With regards to this movie. But this series relationship with race, as maybe you could imagine because it started in nineteen twenty two, is all over the place. It's extremely fraught.
You know.
As far as the early shorts go, there have always been young black actors in Our Gang or the Little Rascals, which in the twenties was polarizing for different reasons because many black audiences felt correctly that the kids were being heavily racially stereotyped in the roles they were casted. And then there were a lot of white audiences that were just angry that there was a black character at all. So there's a lot to be said about that. But from what I can tell, the characters have been pretty consistent. They would be you know, throughout the twenties, thirties, and forties, they would be recast like they would just put a child in the garbage and then be like this is the new Alfalfa like and that would happen every couple of years. It was a big way to like launch your career in the studio system back in the day. It's one of the reasons that there's now more labor rights for child actors because most of the kids who starred in them, didn't go on to have like an enduring Hollywood career, and also didn't get any residuals or anything, even though the series, you know, the shorts were shown over and over.
So you're saying, this is like the Doctor Who of Old America where you can regenerate and get a new alfalfa.
Exactly, yes, kind of yeah, like I and this is like to be clear, I did not know a bar of this before this morning. So thankfully the Our Gang wikia was also very helpful to me because the he Man Woman Haters Club has its own page. So the he Man Woman Haters Club goes back to the thirties in the short male and female but male spelled m ail, which I'm sure is a hilarious joke in text. Don't really know, so I'll tell you that three times the he Man Woman Haters Club come up in the series. The first is in nineteen thirty seven, kind of a similar story from the nineties. Okay, Spanky had I'm quoted here from the Ourgang dot fandom dot com.
Wow scholarly journal. Yeah, which whoever is?
I'm like, who is this for? But I guess us? Okay, Spanky had founded the Exclusive Club as a defense against girls and Valentine's Day, but Alfalfa's heart was just.
Not in it.
His love for Darla keeps him from taking it seriously, but Spanky soon forces him to realize the bonds of brotherhood. Spanky later restores the club as an act of revenge after none of the boys get invited to the Makilla Cutty Girls party, and institutes Alfalfa as president. However, when Alfalfa learns the club rules to never fraternize with the girls again, he is forced to rush back and get a love note he sent to Darla, later trapping the club members there, but he gets busted when the love note is discovered. So like, there's similarities, right. There were adaptations in the eighties as well. I believe most of them were cartoons. But this is where in the eighties the he Man This is so much I'm sorry, guys, the he Man Woman Haters Club comes back around over sixty years.
Into the Gang's run. So wait, let me pause you for one second. Yeah, so it's only in one episode slash one short film that the he Man Woman Haters comes up in the original run of this series. Is that right?
I cannot confirm that for sure. I was only able to find that it's very relevant to the plot in exactly one short from nineteen thirty seven. Okay, okay, so I can't say that for sure, but it seems like this is just something that's planted. And then when they go back to it in the eighties, they find this episode and they're like, oh, let's bring back the Misogyny Club. That was fun, right right okay, which which is congratulations, So whoever the fuck did that? So okay in the eighties version, you can all see like shadows of what's going to happen in the nineties, Spanky refounds the club and installs himself as president. Darla briefly considers starting her own club, the She Woman Man Haters Club. However, in an attempt to cheer Darla up for losing the town beauty pageant, the boys make Darla queen of their club. Darla's response to her role is, I guess anybody can be a beauty queen, but not everybody can be Queen of the He Man Woman Haters Club. So that's how they tackle it in the eighties, and which is like, somehow worse than the first time. And then there's the reference to this one in the nineties.
So are there threads of the little rascals that don't include a misogyny club?
That is a really good question, not that I've been able to tell.
I mean, misogyny really is just timeless, isn't it.
It's everywhere, It's always.
So my understanding is, yeah, it starts as silent films, it goes into the sound era. The kids are recast constantly, but it basically is released like seasons of TV before TV existed, so they would be shown before kids movies and stuff like that. And yeah, it's relationship with race is very complicated and it's been around for over one hundred years wild and for what. But let's talk about it a lot.
So the way the He Man Woman Haters Club is represented in the movie, this nineteen ninety four movie is I feel like, very emblematic of the vibes when you were if you were a kid in the nineties, it was just like no girls allowed, you know, boys thinking that girls were grossed and awful because.
They maybe this is why I'm gay. Girl.
Ninety's misogyny made people gay. No, but like but little boys were little boys like hated girls simply because they were conditioned to think that they were supposed to and that they were told that like, you know, quote unquote girly things were bad and they were synonymous with like weakness and other negative qualities. And clearly the kids in this movie, like kids that young, haven't given much or any critical thought to why they hate girls and women, partly because they don't have the like cognitive capacity to do that type of critical thinking because they're just simply too young. But like they're just like, yeah, I hate girls because I'm supposed to because I'm a boy. You know, it's just like right, senseless reasons, and so that was very common. I remember like growing up as a kid, like being excluded.
From I mean, I think it's still a thing.
Yeah right, yeah, and yeah this movie is just like and let's have that. But you know, you have one this kid, Alfalfa, who belongs to the club for some reason, even though he is a self proclaimed male feminist or something.
But he's also like I feel like he's like a closet feminist because it's not like he's he's not a feminist when it counts when he's around his voice.
I'm not like those other kids. Darlin like, yes, I'm in touch with my feminine side.
I do love the little boat.
It's cute. And he's like, I'm a sensitive male. I'm into sharing, caring, feeling and healing. And then so you know, you have this kid who's like secretly at odds with the misogyny club, but he does nothing to like challenge them really, and then you have this arc by the end where after you know, realizing that their race car Idol is actually a woman and realizing that the person who helped them in the race was a little girl and not a boy like they thought, They're like, maybe girls aren't so bad after all, let's let them into our hateful club. And the arc of the story you're like, it's a start question where right? I did enjoy this scene although it's you know, just referring to a bunch of stereotypes, but like the sleepover scenes that are like juxtaposed against each other, where the girls are like, girls get along with each other, boys stand up for themselves. Girls care, boys take what's theirs. Boys won't listen. All girls want to do is talk. They'd ever shut the fuck up. Boys like tomon girls and they're like, no, we don't as if they're like having a conversation with It's so funny. But yeah, they're just like going on and on about like, oh, stereotypically girls like this and stereotypically boys like this, and you know, it's it's I don't know. I thought it was.
I thought it was like it's it's so like, I don't know, it's it's a tricky needle to thread right where. I like that they are they are they're clearly like parroting things they've heard from other people and not standing at his fact. Like the movie is to some extent trying to push back on these assumptions, but it never pushes quite far enough because it seems like in every version of this story, best case scenario, the girls join the girl hating group, right, So it's weird.
I don't know. And this was like the spiel that I was gonna give about it, where like at the very end, when the girls are present at the misogyny clerb and we see like we see a few quick cuts of the girls and boys like sharing interests, their interests with each other, like dolls and lizards and sticking pencils up your nose. But then also we see like the boys kissing the girls a few times, which felt unnecessary, both from a like can we not have children kiss each other in movies? That just feels like a very weird, grossicky, like thankfully outdated thing that I don't think really happens anymore, but it also just seems to suggest, like, well, a big reason that the boys are now allowing the girls to hang out with them is because the girls are becoming objects of the boy's romantic affection, and that's the main function of women in a patriarchal society. So those like little kisses at the end, I was like, hmm, don't like the implications that I.
Agree, yeah, And I luckily don't think that that. I hope that that wouldn't happen now.
I'm like, ugh.
One thing I noticed was like this movie was very reminiscent of like the problematic over sexualization of children in the nineties and how no one really ever thought about it and they just make all these awful jokes, and like there was no need for Alfalfa to be swimming in white briefs in a pool and be naked, and like it was tasteless, it was just like, why is this even here?
Like I really like it's so yeah, it's gross. I know that we'll touch on Bug Hall really quick. Bug Haul. I have not watched the video, but I know that he has spoken out on feeling that he was mistreated in Hollywood as a child and that that really affected his life. He he continued to act through like up until a couple of years ago, had some addiction issues, but most relevantly, I guess to the content of this movie. So I do want to acknowledge that he and again I don't know the details of it, but says that he was mistreated as a kid. I don't know how severe the allegations are or anything like that, but he also hates women to this day. This is from scholarly journal Wikipedia. In twenty thirteen, Hall converted to Catholicism, later leaving Hollywood. In twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, Hall stated that he and his family had moved to a farm in the Midwest so as to undertake a vow of poverty. In December twenty twenty two, Hall was temporarily banned on Twitter after posting tweets in support of marital debt and corporal punishment of minors. Regarding his two daughters, marital debt is like your wife is legally obligated to have sex with you when you.
Want to have sex with her. Oh my god.
He followed up on the band through his Instagram, saying, the truth will always be unpopular, the truthful will always be persecuted, but eternity will always be sweet. Remember twenty twenty four, Hall was criticized for referring to his daughters as dishwashers in an ex post regarding the birth of his first son, who he called his heir. So boo boo to wow, we'reas I mean, there's a lot of these kids didn't work very long in Hollywood, so I can't follow everyone's career. But interestingly, Alfalfa, our hero turns out to be a real life villain. Meanwhile, Waldo our villain villain, Blake McIvor Ewing is a queer icon and has he's gay. He's gay, Oh my god. He's like done work for the It Gets Better project. He's been in La Go Go Dancer and like has been a huge advocate for gay rights for a very long time.
So I need a book, a flight to La.
Get over here Blake's waiting, but it's really I was. I was like, yeah, it's so it's the bug Hall stuff through me for a damn loop.
Yeah. I did not encounter that in my research. Yikes.
Yeah, this this film really like doesn't really hit you on the head enough with like it's if its intent was to be like, well, like, actually women are like equal and like we should like these are all stereotypes that we fight and that we should be combating like that, it doesn't really do that at all. It like really elevates a lot of that stuff.
Right, which is weird because I felt like, well, I don't know what what y'all think, but like I felt like in nineteen ninety four you could get away with doing that, but especially in a movie that is like I mean, I'm I love Penelope Spherists and who knows, you know, I'm sure this movie was like noted in studio Notes to Death. But I do wonder if there was ever if that was ever even like floated.
Like having it be more like more feminist in its approach.
Yeah, yeah, I just wonder if that was ever even like on the table, like.
So, actually I just watched TUTSI the other day, which is really funny because I saw it on your list and then my husband had it in our library and I was like, oh, let's check this out. And that movie was made in the eighties, and that movie does a really great job at like talking about gender equality and like expectations of women at the time in the eighties, and I'm like, that was in the eighties, so like this was like ten years later. Like they absolutely could have gone way further with it.
Especially in a movie for kids, where it would be extra valuable to include those values. And I don't know, it seems like they built out, you know, Darlaw's world a little bit more, but her her world is still very like stereotypically feminine, and it's like ballet and sleepovers and tudas, and the world of the boys is very stereotypically masculine. I liked the drag sequence was kind of fun, so I thought it was sweet.
I don't know, there were a couple like moments of sort of like queer phobia where, for example, because of the girls who are talking to the two boys in Tutu's in wigs and everything, and they don't realize they're talking to boys. They are talking about Alfalfa as if he's not there, and I think it's Spanky goes, well, I heard Alfalfa dresses in girls clothing, I e. In this exact moment, right, and then all the girls are like shock and maybe discussed very dated. And then there's like a no homo joke where.
Like they're eight like that I'm doing right, They're like weird.
No, the girls see the boys again, not realizing they're boys, and they say, oh, are you fairies and they're like, no, we're not fairies, as if like eight year old kids understand that euphemism, and then they're like, no, we mean like, are you sugar plum fairies because they're about to like do scenes from the Nutcrack and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, we're sugar plum fairies.
So it's just I mean this, I think, and I'm sure it has to do with its like age, but this like franchise has just struggled with equality conceptually. It seems like at every stage of its existence, the.
Best thing it has going for it are it's cameos.
Truly, yes, and I've like that that firmly places this movie in the nineties, where the characters are from nineteen forty for some reason, but they know Reba, so how bad could it be? Yeah, I guess I was curious because there this is a I guess for a nineteen ninety four movie, more diverse than I expected. And I also didn't know that that is canonical to the series going back one hundred years. But we don't really know anything about the black characters, and almost everything they do is to support Alfalfa or Spanky.
It seems like right it is a predominantly white cast, but as you mentioned, Jamie, I guess the inclusion of the two black characters who are among the main cast, between Steami and Buckwheat, it is kind of pulling from the original series from the twenties, thirties, and forties, which was considered to be groundbreaking because it was like one of the first and few pieces of media at the time that was portraying black and white children interacting as equals in the Jim Crow era. As you also said, the black characters were basically just racial stereotypes and that there were various like very racially charged gags that were just absolutely disgusting throughout the series, which was also further complicated.
I'm trying to think of I forget what movie we talked about that had a simpler legacy where the actors who played these parts in the original shorts were sort of like later kind of defensive of the arguing shorts where I guess that Eddie Murphy performed as Buckwheat on SNL in the eighties and the original Buckwheat's family reached out and was like, fuck you, Eddie Murphy.
It's a whoa.
But it sounds like I haven't seen the sketches, but it seems like the sketches were built around like, yes, this was a black character on TV, but how like how racist were they being to this character?
Right? I mean, as many people have pointed out when it comes to inclusion in media, just because a marginalized person is represented on screen doesn't mean that representation is thoughtful or responsible. Because going back to the nineteen ninety four movie, of the main cast, it is predominantly white. There are a couple black characters who are given some characterization. There's an Asian character who doesn't speak at all, because there's like I don't know, a dozen or so little rascals that are just extras, like they're in the club, but we don't ever meet them or anything like that. I'd say, at the very least, the very offensive racial stereotyping from the original series doesn't carry over into the black characters in the movie. But that is such a low bar and it is not an accomplishment.
It just feels like there's still a deeply reduced role as a results for sure. Yeah, and that I think the only like young black girl that we see is raven In passing.
In one second. Yeah. I also think it's interesting that, like the nineties idea of racial diversity is like mostly white people and then a few black people, other racial identities never heard of them, especially, so like I mean whatever, I'm not saying anything that we don't know already, but like, especially because this is canonically in LA, which has like always been a very very diverse place, like updated or don't pick a lane.
Yeah, it's like they sought out to like recreate this like classic story and they're just like, let's just tell a fun little gig and let's not actually make it meaningful in any way.
Right, And you're like, well, then yeah, why not do something like why not do a different story in that case? Because I just don't see the point of like, I mean, this still happens obviously all the time, but like why redo it if you have nothing new to say? And the answer is money, So I guess that's the answer, you know.
And that's that's a really curious thing to bring up, is like how many like like how many people love The Little Rascals like from the eighties or like grew up with this this stuff or like were like, oh, I want to be in this like remake of this thing that I grew up with or that my grandfather father like loves. Like I wonder how large The Little Rascals was because I'm just like, how do they get all these celebrities to get to be in this really weird movie?
Like right this ip from early Hollywood to people, well, like Penelope's sphere being like present enough. It was like I watched these growing up, and that's part of why I was hired to direct it.
But I think that they were like fairly enduring throughout the year because they would like reair on TV and stuff too, so it wasn't like they only aired in a void. I think that they were rebroadcast a fair amount, But I don't know. I also feel like it has to do with like weird nostalgia cycles, like how I feel like it was a couple of years ago now, but how like every Kid series took place in the eighties, the second Stranger Things did well because people who are kids in the eighties are now old and think, you like, that'll happen to the nineties, like it happened, It comes for us.
All happening. It's currently happening to the nineties, and it's It's the terrifying thing is it's you can start seeing it happen with the two thousands as well.
Oh no, oh no, we're not even the most recently old people.
So scary.
It's actually kind of I feel like it's kind of a relief now that it's like, oh, now kids who were born in the early two thousands feel old and I can just be old forever. But yeah, I mean, it seems like because this is like around the time the McCauley culkin Richie Rich movie comes out, too, which is also this like old timey thing, Like I wonder if this was just a nostalgia cycle that was taking place for parents in the way that a lot of stuff is happening now in the nineties and two thousands.
Right, it's like the era of Richie Rich and Home Alone in like blank Check, yes.
All the Macaulay Culkin.
And like Cheaper by the Dozen.
I feel like was one thing I didn't know when I was a kid that Doctor Dolittle or Cheaper by the Dozen had already been done a trillion times. I thought it was a new, awesome idea, and I think so did every kid that saw the Little Rascals. They were like, whoa who what are these?
What is these?
This fresh news story that takes place one hundred years ago.
Same thing with Flubber being an adaptation from the whatever fucking thing Absent Minded Professor?
Maybe yeah, I mean I'll never watch The Absent Minded Professor because Flubber has all.
I need in a movie. I mean, hello, it has the Flubber mambo, it.
Has the Flobber mambo, it has the dance and go.
I'm like, it has a.
Robot that has a crush on Robin Williams. What else do I need?
Nothing?
Yeah, this film is like reminiscent of like Hollywood's obsession with IP and like its inability to think of something new. And then also it's like it's Oh, I forgot what the second point is, but it is it really is truly just an obsession with the IP and like the refusal to come up with new creative stuff because it's too much of a risk.
Too whiskey to make money.
I'm just realizing I have it in my notes that this was the same year that the like the Flintstones live action movie came out, so there was just like this big wave of nostalgia content that was coming out of varying degrees of goodness. I think I remember.
Loving the flint Stones movie, but nus I watched it for the first time kind of recently, and I think it would be a very fascinating episode for us to cover. Yeah, I was also thinking about the Okay, and this might be me being a fool. Is the Adams Family based on IP from like it was a cartoonis or seventies or something? Okay, it was like a newspaper cartoon, right, because this was also around the time the Adams Family's movies were coming out. So yeah, Hollywood just does this time and time again for money reasons. And speaking of money, I want to talk about how the movie handles class because yes, the kids all seemed to come from you know, either working class, middle class families. One of the villains, because we have like villains in the bully kids who also seem to come from like, you know, a more working class background. But one of the bullies is this rich bitch, Waldo, whose dad is literally Donald Trump. There's a really funny joke toward the end where Waldo's on the phone with his dad and then Trump says, you're the best son money can buy. And I'm like, that's a funny joke. Obviously credit to the writer and not to fucking Trump delivering it, but.
It wasn't it wasn't delivered.
Well no, but I appreciate that, Like there's this villainization of you know, extreme wealth, and this is also pulling from the original series where you know, most of the kids were poor and they were at odds with snobbish rich kids. So I appreciated that because there are there have been a lot of movie, like just media from decades past the glorified wealth and that like featured pretty much exclusively you know, upper class families and kids. So I appreciated that this movie didn't go that route.
Yeah, this the kids are so I know that they like date back to earlier than this, and also the original cast. I think they were just pulling the names from the actual children, Like the original Darla's name was Darla.
Oh like that.
I think because they were Yeah, I think because they were so young that they were like.
It'll confuse them. Her name is Darla. We're calling her.
Darla because she was like two originally, because old Hollywood is terrifying where they're like, just I don't know, find a baby, put it in a movie. It kind of remighted be of in Massachusetts, there is that like the on Zoom. Did I or if you watched Zoom growing up on PBS? No, Oh my gosh. It was this show on PBS where it was like the only show made in Boston that starred kids. So every kid was like, I'm going to be on Zoom and then I'm going to be famous across the country. And our friend Taylor Garron was on Zoom because when I met him.
Oh is that when she's okay? Okay? When I met her later.
I was like, you're famous and she was like, I yeah, it's true because she was on Zoom. And it seems like Argang was the zoom of its time, where every little kid in La was like I want to be an argang. A lot of the actors were like plucked out of East LA, like they were all local kids that did this and then proceeded to make uh no money. But the just circularly by just a fact I thought was fun was the original. Buckwheat later went on to become like a film editor and was one of the editors on Jaws.
Isn't that weird?
Oh? Yeah, that's cool.
Wait the kid.
Not No, not in the movie in the original.
Oh, I was gonna how did this?
How did a four year old kid.
Back in time, you know, like someone who was a kid in the thirties was later an editor would Okay, that makes much more sense. Yeah, sorry, I should I was not being clear enough.
No, I should have used one speck of logic to understand what you must have meant. Well, good, good for good for that actor turned Jaws editor. Yeah, there's there's a lot of like fascinating production stuff around this movie. I want to talk about Penelope Sphearist a little bit. We also discussed her to some extent on our Wayne's World episode, but she directed this movie. She co wrote the screenplay. There's a lot of like credited writers as far as like story by credits, and then there's three credited screenwriters. But she had a pretty big creative role in this in the sense that she was a co writer and director. Of course, just a little bit about her career. She started out directing music videos and music documentaries, mostly about punk and metal and rock and roll, including a trilogy of documentaries called The Decline of Western Civilization that kind of like put her on the map as a filmmaker.
She's so cool.
By the early nineties, she was directing big studio comedies like Wayne's World, like Beverly Hillbillies, like Black Sheep. She was one of only a handful of women directors during that time, directing mainstream studio movies in the US, and particularly like broad comedies, because almost no women were directing those at the time.
Yeah, especially ones that were not centered. Because I feel like this to this day, it's like women can direct comedies, but they.
Better be about other women.
Like the fact that she directed this, you know, not even I mean, I wouldn't call Wayne's World a hyper masculine movie, but just around two guys.
It's very cool, right, because like, if women were directing comedies around this time, they were almost always rom comms. I'm thinking of, you know, like Nora Ephron and.
Right, which is like, you know, they're not knocking those whatsoever, right classics, But but yeah, like she is kind of an outlier in that way for sure.
I kind of like the way that this movie had a Matilda esque vibe where it was just cartoonish enough, where like things were like a little out there, but like like cartoonishly weird.
Yeah, like with the.
Hose and like riding the hose and when they're trying to put out the thing, and then like the the the two villain kids getting like splattered with paint and they're like shadows around the van. Like I thought it was like really really fun, Like it took the absurdity of the film to a next to another level, And I just kind of wish they wrote that a little bit more and just even more absurd with it, you.
Know, I have a live action cartoon.
Yeah, especially when it's like like this movie feels so clearly for kids, which is obvious, but stay with me. I feel like there's a lot of movies of the past whatever decade or so except for Minions movies have been I think it's just like because Pixar movies do so well and there's always this like profound message and like the villain is exposed to have this like Freudian problem that is resolved by the end of the film, and it is nice to go back and watch a kid's movie that you're like, this is just silly. This is a silly billy movie for silly billy's. The good kids are good, the bad kids they suck. We're not interested in like Waldo's trauma. We just want him to get the fuck out of the movie by the end. Like I just, I don't know. It made me feel very nostalgic for dare I say, a simpler time.
But you mentioning Matilda reminds me of how few movies there were from this era that focused on little girls. Because Little Rascals is one of many that's about either a group of little boys, such as The Sandlot, which you mentioned earlier, Jamie. There's a lot of other like little boys doing sports or like little boys just hanging out, and there were so few, it's a handful.
I was like, I think the ones that come to mind are Harriet the Spy, ri Ip, Michelle, and a Little Princess is the only and obviously Matilda, but those are kind of the only ones that come to mind.
Yeah, yeah, there's more, we know, but like, yeah, it just was so much rarer to see little girls featured in a movie from this era.
I just wish the girls in this film were not just the objects of men.
That would be nice. That would have been Where's Little Rascal, Little girl Rascals, or just little rascals starring girls, little rast lets, you know, like, yeah.
I want to see a movie about a woman, like a man hating club of women that like sabotaged these little boys lives and like they just like I would love that.
And the movie ends by them doubling down and being like we were right, we were right exactly.
You were not welcome in our club.
Ever, because the fuck miss andry is a response to misogyny. It's not like, you know, girls and women are like also men are bad in a vacuum. It's just like, no, we don't like men because they hate us. They hated us first.
What I what I learned this fairly recently when I was like I had to do a very unfortunate project on the Manisphere on my other show, and I learned that the term miss Andrey was little really made up by misogynists to be like, oh, I know you were, but what am I? So it's like it's barely a thing, because you're right. It's just like a logical response, which is why the word didn't exist.
Right.
Going back to Penelope Speirrus for a moment, so you know, she was one of a few women directing mainstream Hollywood movies in the early nineties. Her career eventually took a turn. There's an interview with her in The av Club from twenty nineteen. I think we referenced this a little bit in Our Land's World episode, but she basically describes her last studio movie, something called Senseless from nineteen ninety eight. It was a box office flop, and because she's a woman, that was enough to put her in like quote unquote director jail, because, as she points out in the interview, women don't get a second chance in Hollywood after they make one flop, while men get infinite chances. She also says that working with Harvey and Bob Weinstein, which she did on that movie Senseless, was a tipping point that made her realize that she didn't want to work in Hollywood anymore. To Penelope Right, a few choice quotes from her from this interview. Quote, you have no friends in Hollywood. Hollywood is a lonely, lonely desert, especially as a woman. Quote If they don't hire me because I'm a woman, because I'm an older woman, If they don't hire me, I don't give a shit. And quote I don't need them. I really don't. Especially now, what am I going to do work for a year on a movie and make fifty thousand dollars. They can blow me. That's a quote you can print that.
I love her. I love her.
That is incredible.
But then you read on in this interview and you find out that she owns six houses and she's a landlord, and then you're like, oh shit.
I honestly, I mean, yeah, landlord evil. But it also makes me. It makes me sad in more than one way, because I'm like, Wow, they used to pay people that much to do a job here, because the tules exist, Like.
In the nineties, she would she made like nearly three million dollars directing. I think it was senseless. And then she's like and then now if I do something, I will get basically no money. Yeah. Yeah, So that's that's all I had on the director. I wanted to just say a few kind of stray thoughts. Oh the age difference between Darla Drag Them Them and the boys that love her. Okay, So we've talked about the common occurrence of older men being paired with a much younger woman in a romantic storyline in media, which often carries the implications of like older women or romantically desirable or you know, women should be valued for their youth and things like that. Obviously, usually we see this in adults, but it happens in this movie with these kids.
So eight year old girl would be simply too old for Alfalfa.
Too old for these eight year old boys. So Darla is played by an actor named Brittany Ashton Holmes. She was four years old at the beginning of the production. She turned five part way through. Alfalfa and Waldo, played by Bug Hall and Blake Ewing, respectively, were both eight when the production started, and they turned nine part way through. They all had birthdays in this like four month shoot. So these boys are like twice the age yucky of her, like, obviously a four year age gap is not a big deal if you're an adult, but when you're that young, like those years really make a developmental difference, and it's.
Just two of your life.
It's so it was I never picked up when this as a kid, but as an adult, I'm like, she seems so much younger than them, and it's because she is. And it was just really gross to me that these boys were lusting after a little girl who is basically still a toddler.
Who doesn't know to not look at the camera. You shouldn't be making that kid kiss someone she doesn't.
Know the camera.
So icky, the way that heterosexual people sexualized children, and then it's always the queer people that get that get blamed for it, Like it's ridiculous, it's horrendous.
Every time I go into like every time I walk through like a greeting card aisle, you're reminded at still how over sexualized little kids are. Where I don't like I was looking for like my friends got engaged. I was trying to buy an engagement card, and so many of them are like little kids kissing, and you're like, why.
We're doing that, Why are we making them do that? Get over it? Yeah. The one thing I'll say about kids kissing on screen in this movie is that at least we see an example a boy asking a girl for consent to kiss her.
The King of Consent, Alfalfa Alfalfa says, Darla, would you think me forward if I asked you for a big wet one and she's like what, and he's like a kiss and she's like okay, And so he asks for and then receives consent.
The fact that we see them kiss then completely unnecessary. But I guess at the very least we see an example of someone asking for consent. Yeah, so there's that. Let me see if I had any other straight thoughts, Oh, just that this was like probably the first example I saw in a movie of the trope of like someone who's doing something that's consent that are traditionally masculine, and we assume it's a man, but we can't tell because they're wearing like a mask or a helmet that obscures their face. Twist it's a will woa woman or a girl. Yeah, we get like kind of two examples of that between yeah, back to back. Aj Ferguson turns out their Idol, their race car driver. Idol is a woman, and then with Darla taking off her helmet. So yeah, whenever I see that trope like this movie is the first thing I think of because I'm like, oh, I think I saw it there for the first time.
I don't remember where I saw it for the first time. But it's never the last time. It's all I know.
I know it never never, and it will never. It's gonna still happen twenty twenty five.
That's what I mean. One of the many downsides of fascism is that this shit is gonna roll back and back and back. Where to see tropes we haven't seen in thirty years popping up in movies. It's but no, our podcast fixed it. I wanted to add. I wanted to add a quick just like a fun nineties kids fact that the voice of Froggy is Eg Daily aka the voice of Tommy, Pickles and Bubbles from Powerpuff Girls. She's a legend. She's also in Peebe's Big Adventure, Big eg daily Head, eg daily Head fans Unite.
I'm so you know, I'm actually a little bum. That's not his real.
Voice, right, It was like that, I mean, it would have been a hell of a beforeance, but it is.
I'm like, damn, that kid's got pipes, Like did they make him speak like that?
In the entire time, I was wondering what sort of like voice modifying situation was happening there. But it's like a voice actor.
It wasn't. It's just a voice actor who very frequently voiced little boys like such as Tommy Pickles. I love eg daily. She's like, so, she's incredibly awesome.
She's great. Does anyone have anything else they'd like to discuss?
I'm so sorry for making you watch this film.
No, I had there so much to talk about there really was.
I had a great time revisiting this again. There's so many hilarious joke Like the comedy writing in this movie is really on par with some of the best comedy movies out there. For example, Spanky, how do you plead Alfalfa like this? And then he proceeds to show how he begs for mercy, and then Spanky's like, and now you're sentenced to execution at dawn? Hilarious Buckwheat and Alfalfa trying to call nine one one, but they're like, what's the number to nine one one? How should I know? And then pan over and they're right next to a fire station that they just walk past because they don't realize that that would help them. Oh, Alfalfa and Darla drink disgusting grape juice, and Alfalfa says, must have been a bad year, as if it's why that's pretty, that's good comedy. Alfalfa, we're singing a duet Waldo, how redundant. That's funny in and of itself. And then Alfalfa says, thank you if he's receiving a comedy.
Kayla, you're defending this movie with your life. It's so fun to your life. Your body's on the train tracks.
Look, okay, well we'll get tone. I mean, let's let's get to the Bechdel test. The movie does not pass. Darla and her friends do talk to each other, but it's always them either like fawning over Waldo or talking about how gross boys are at the sleepover, which I think actually might be an exception to the Bechdel test, but that's just me.
I feel like spiritually that exchange passes, but technically it doesn't. I don't think this movie is doing I think in the movie that ends in all the girls joining the woman Haters Club. I don't. I think it doesn't pass there, I said it.
I really wish that they had changed the sign. Yeah, and that it was like the Woman Tolerators Club. They're not going to go straight into you know, intersectional feminism, but the woman Tolerators Club woman.
Yeah, I don't. I don't. I don't really think this test, this movie passes the test at all.
No, I have something to say about a man that I forgot to mention earlier.
Oh no, please, Yes.
Did you know that Norm from Cheers is Jason Sedeikus's uncle?
What I did discover that in my research? I didn't.
I was like stealth nepotism. I did not know that.
That's my favorite no idea, the like aunt uncle, Like that's you don't see that one coming. I know, because it's like that kid, that Wahlberg kid from the Dora movie is Mark Wahlberg's neewa. Emma Roberts is Julia Roberts's niece.
Like it's but she's also Eric roberts daughter, you know, so like she is.
True proper nepotism. Yeah, But as far as our nipple scale goes, the scale where we.
Okay, I'm so sorry. How does how does this work? This nipple scale?
Yes, okay, but don't you worry. So we've got you covered. It's a scale where we rate the movie zero to five nipples based on examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. So a movie that does horribly would get zero nipples, like zero or one. The most feminist like intersectional feminist movie of all time would get five nipple. We almost never award five nipples.
Just yeah, and if we do, we almost always take it back later.
We regret it later.
Okay, So that's fantastic. I love that.
I'm going to give this. I'm kind of between like a one point five and a two because it does try to address gender and it tries to address misogyny, and the lesson at the end is the boys learn that their misogyny was based in nothing and that women can contribute to society. The movie does this on a very surface level, but it does make an attempt, and that's more than most movies from the nineties were doing. That's more than most kids movies from the nineties were doing, especially ones that feature a cast full of boys. So with your two.
Nipples, Jamie's face right now is so great, the tight lipped smile.
Just like I. Because this is a movie. I don't even think I owned this on VHS, but this is one that we would We rented so many times from the video store that it would have been way more cost effective if my mom had just bought it, because she spent so much money on like me, insisting on renting it all the time. Yeah, so I saw You Know on repeat a lot as a kid, and so I do have an attachment to it. And again, the jokes in this movie are fire, most of them. So yeah, two nipples. It does try to do something, it doesn't do it successfully. Two nipples is still two out of five. That's an f that's forty percent, But it's trying.
I'm gonna go one nipple because I bravely think this movie is not trying and it did just as bad, if not worse, than it did in the eighties. I don't see enough of a meaningful difference in between nineteen twenty two and this movie in terms of how women and girls are her trade. But I love Penelope Spheares. I think she's punk rock, She's very very cool. I love Wayne's World, and I won't hold it against this movie too much, but this was I mean, it was a really fun episode to put together because I just like did not know how much there was going to be to talk about Sorr.
I should have warned you.
No, I mean it was good.
It was.
I don't know.
We've covered so many movies from this span of time, but we have never covered a movie quite like this.
So I enjoyed it.
I yeah, it's a fun movie to watch, but I don't think it's really trying to do very much other than you know, have women joined the misogyny Club nineteen ninety four. I mean, like you were saying earlier, talk like there were movies that coming out decades before this that were doing more so one nipple and I'm giving it to Darla, Oh, my friend, talk how about you?
I'm sorry? Are we assigning characters nipples?
You can award them? Yeah, like so I forgot too, But I'll give my two nipples, one to Pedi the dog and the other one to oh I forget the monkey's name. But I like to give myn I think number yeah Olmer.
Yeah, I'm also gonna give it. One nibble is a zero nibble, Like is that.
Even like a do as little as sometimes we give negative nipples.
I would say a one nibble because of the cameos. The cameos really they really make it stand out. I agree with you. I think they didn't try nearly hard enough. I think they went in for a flimsy, little fun movie about kids doing kids stuff, but like they had nothing new to add to the lore or to the to the franchise to like really make it a true sign of its times and the sign of its times, meaning like in the nineties there were there was so much more happening in terms of like trying to get better representation of women on screen, and they could have been one of one of those attempts, and they didn't really try hard at all. So I'm with you, Jamie, And then I would I would award Oh gosh, I guess I would award my no Alter to Elmer.
Because I love that much.
Yeah, Elmer is a cutie pie. I'm like, I I don't believe that Elmer. I think Elmer Petie learned the error of their ways and started a woman tolerators club nearby.
Yeah. Yeah, well now that I'm crying, as was foreseen earlier, no tark. Thank you so much for joining us for this has been a bust.
Thank you for having me on. It was fantastic.
Anytime, come back anytime. Where can people follow you online? Plug anything you'd like to plug?
You can follow me on Instagram turk t A r i Q underscore r A O U F. I'm also on Twitter, which is same, use your name and then like I'm on TikTok to you, but like it's like all the same stuff on Instagram. So if you don't want to be on Instagram, I'm on TikTok to youa same use your name.
I love it. You can follow us on Instagram. At Bechtel Cast, you can subscribe to our Patreon aka Matreon at patreon dot com slash Bechtel Cast.
Where currently we're doing the important work over there. We've recently done a month about insect movies and we just finished doing a month about rats.
So it's roadent timber over there with episodes on Ratatui and The Great Mouse Detective.
Really important disccourse taking place. Don't miss it.
Yeah, yeah, I'm I have fomo not being a part of your matron.
Well, it's only five dollars a month.
So I think the Bratituy episode was was a banger. I think it was really good.
Yeah. I think by the time this episode comes out, it'll either have just been released or it's about to be. Like Yeah, listeners, be on the lookout for Ratatue in front. Don't walk. I like that, we're talking this scurry, scurry your little rat. Pause over to that episode. And with that, I call this meeting of the man hating women and marginalized gender people loving club to an end, all in favor.
Oh Tay tay, Bye, bye, bye, bye bye.
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftis, produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Vosskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit link tree slash Bechdel Cast
