I love the podcast but I have to comment on the D&C episode. It’s genuinely puzzling how every panelist - aside from Josh who doesn’t quite leap to defense - completely misreads this film. D&C is not about “the cool kids”, nor is it celebrating coolness, nor is it expressing fascist views about popularity and class structure. It’s a movie about kids caught in a fugue of adolescence. Some of them are more aware of themselves than others, some are dimwit teenagers. What the movie does extremely well is lay out a casual observation about a generation in a weird cultural shift. I think Vietnam and the 70s hangs all over D&C and that the commentary is about the aloofness and uncertainty of not having a real threat or real
Ambition - something that critics argue are endemic of GenerationX. D&C’s characters are not all “hopelessly cool”. None of them, save maybe Adam Goldberg’s character actually have enough self awareness to be cool. Parker Posey’s bully isn’t cool. Mitch is on the border of cool - shy, nerdish, but plays sports and has a cool older sister so is able to be a chameleon. Ron and Michelle are not cool but easily dismissible druggies who people tolerate because of their harmelessness. Wooderson and O’Bannon are certainly on display as the opposite of cool. And no one has any opinion of “the token black kid” because he is an athlete, gigantic, and fits in with the haze of purposeful friendly threat. That’s what Mitch sees: wanting to be both apart from and accepted by everyone, like Pink. We are following this interconnected group specifically because they all are just a little bit different - or famously the same. As to the outrage over the lack of consequences for the abuse and the property damage…uh, I grew up in semi-rural PA in a deep football culture in the 80s and 90s with an older sister, high school70’s and early 80s. Property abuse, hazing, bullying, random violence, drug use, Woodersons…these were all touchstones of my childhood. I immediately recognized each if these characters. And they weren’t the cool kids. People love D&C (i’m 80% on board) because it actually gets a lot right. The reasons stated for why it is fantasy are a little more subjective and silly than I tjink the panel is capable of admitting. This is one case in which I think the film is being unfairly assessed by agenda rather than merit.
