Episode 300: If We Only Had A Brain

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they? The Queen!

[00:01:07] Very Bad Wizards. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, I'm not a physicist or a metaphysician, but do you think our main segment will cause the podcast to implode or collapse within itself, taking us along with it? Well, obviously. I was thinking about, like, the right metaphor here. Yeah. Like, are we hopping down a stack? Like, is it safe? Is it safe to just, like, get this level of meta?

[00:01:37] Is it an inception kind of situation? Yeah. Or is it really implosion in self-destruction? I think it might be annihilation. Matter, anti-matter. Yeah. And where there's no evidence that we ever existed. It just gets scrubbed from the internet. Yeah. Yeah. So, the main segment, this is our 300th episode, so we were trying to think of a fitting topic, and we had been thinking about it in the backs of our minds for months, and we just never came up with anything.

[00:02:06] We were terrible at this. And then I said to Eliza, like, any suggestions? We have to come up with a topic for the 300th episode. Eliza's my daughter. And she's like, how about The Wizard of Oz? And I was like, oh, interesting. Why The Wizard of Oz? Like, I didn't even get the connection at first. Like, I was like, I mean, great movie. Amazing movie, actually. But why? And then she looked at me, and I was like, oh, right. Of course.

[00:02:34] That's funny. Nikki had that same reaction. She's like, why are you guys doing The Wizard of Oz? I was like, because of the... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very bad. Yeah. And it's so funny when I watch the movie, and it's like, now I can't see that last scene in this... Or not the last scene, but you know what I mean, where The Wizard... Totally. I was wondering if that happened to you, because I know I have to hear the song, because what I do for the podcast is I add all the stuff together. And so I'm always listening to the song.

[00:03:03] And so I was like, oh, it's surreal now. Like... It's just like, and I listen, like, I know the song, like I know any song. And so when she says, you're a very bad man, I'm just like, I don't even view it as the movie anymore. Yeah. Totally. So thanks, Eliza. Eliza's also doing some assistant editing for us. So we'll get that in the main segment. But first, we're going to do a little, what, navel gazing?

[00:03:29] Yeah. A little jerking off to ourselves. Yeah. Putting like centerfolds of ourselves up there and jerking off to it. No, we're going to, you know, we're going to reflect a bit. Talk about some of the things we're most proud of from last year. Yeah. So I had originally been like, oh, let's pick our best episodes of the 300, our favorite episodes of 300.

[00:03:55] And we both quickly realized, as has come up in our Ask Us Anything segments, we barely remember like this year's episode. I know. Totally. There was, like, we're not going to sit and listen to like. This is 13, almost 13 years at this point, like of episodes. And I just have no idea. So in terms of what we're most proud of, we're going to stick to last year. Although there is something that takes into account the whole trajectory of the podcast.

[00:04:20] We'll also talk about what we're looking forward to or hope for, for the upcoming year. And then we'll talk about also how the podcast has changed since its inception. Ooh. Inception. Inception. I got it. Okay. So start with what we're most proud of from last year. Yeah.

[00:04:44] So I have episodes and I have intro segments that I'm most proud of. But I'll start by saying something different from those two, which is our Ambulators podcast. We, as many of you know, for our Patreon subscribers, our bonus episodes, we just decided to do a whole deep dive into Deadwood and it finished. So like it started, I guess, more than a year ago, but we wrapped it up this year and now it's a thing. And I'm very proud of it.

[00:05:13] I am too. You know, it goes up there with, but obviously it was a lot more work in episodes, but it goes up there with the Brothers Karamazov as a separate series that we've done that I think is just good. You know, like I don't like to say our stuff is good, but like, I think it's kind of undeniable. The Ambulators was great. And it was partly or mostly because of the material that we were talking about.

[00:05:39] But that's a good one that was obviously on my list, too. And I hope we can do more things like that. Not necessarily TV shows, although we'll talk about another one of those, but just standalone things. This is actually one of the things I'm most proud of. This isn't on my list, but like I do feel like there are some podcasts that I love, but it really just you have to listen to them when they come out or near when they come out. And I think that in general, that's not at all true of our episodes.

[00:06:08] Yeah, I think that's totally right. Most of the podcasts I listen to, the episodes are useless two weeks later or whatever. It's just certainly like six months later or yeah. Yeah. So I was looking at last year. This was fun. You know, I didn't know what I would expect to find necessarily. So here are a couple of features that I thought from last year. A lot of Borges stories. I think we did three at least, possibly four Circular Ruins, Death in the Compass.

[00:06:36] I actually think that might have been just those two because we did one in December of 23. Yes, we ended with the Aleph, but then we did Circular Ruins. We didn't do any other ones besides that? We did Death in the Compass and Circular Ruins. And like I think 2024 really started with our last episode of 2023. All right. Fine, you're in. Okay, fine. Borges. I think this is right, even if that wasn't right.

[00:07:05] We did a lot of movies. So we did a two-parter on Burning. We did Old Boy. We did The Shining. We did the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And we did top three existentialist movies. Obviously, I love that. And like of those, I think they were all super fun. But I think my favorite might have been Burning just because of how incredible the movie is. And unlike some of the other ones, I haven't seen it over and over again.

[00:07:32] And so it was just really fun to go really deep into that. And that's a movie that digs into your psyche without you knowing exactly what it's doing or how it's doing that. But actually a little Wizard of Oz, I've kind of felt that way as well a little bit. Yeah, totally. So really liked the Burning episodes. I was very happy that we had the Weird Studies guys on to talk about a cool Edgar Allan Poe story. That was my list too. That is right.

[00:08:01] Mad Mask episode 280 with the Weird Studies guys. I really liked that podcast. It was just fun. You know, I always wonder because I think you have different worldviews. Yeah. And I'm more kind of in the middle of you and the Weird Studies guys. But I thought it was like a really good combination. Yeah, I was a little worried. And then it turned out to be really fun. I'd totally be down to have them on again. Yeah. All right. Do you have any other things you're proud of from last year? Yeah.

[00:08:29] So I had the Death in the Compass one was one of my favorite episodes we did. Fearful Symmetry episode 282. But I also liked and I think I enjoyed more than you did because you bore the brunt of the burden on this. But the Plato's Cave episodes I thought really turned out well. And I think people liked them. Yeah, I have that too actually on my list. First of all, just the idea of a classics in philosophy and psychology series. We inaugurated I think last year.

[00:08:58] And the first one was the Plato's Cave, right? Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, it was another two-part episode. It was a lot of work in one sense for me because I did the bulk of maybe talking about it or analyzing it. But I'm also so familiar with it and you're coming at it for the first time. Right. So I thought that dynamic worked really well also. And it was really fun. I want to do more of those. I can't wait. The back two basics. The number two. That's right. Back two basics. All right.

[00:09:27] When I was thinking of at least my favorite, I can't remember what happened before September or something. But like my favorite top to bottom episode of the last few months was our episode on Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find. And then the opening of that was the cyclists being dehumanized in that insect dehumanization scale.

[00:09:51] I thought that kind of sums up where we are right now, that episode, in terms of like what we have to offer. Like it or not, for better or for worse. That's one I would point people to. Mock social psychology and do a great short story. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't have a top to, well, I mentioned my favorites already, but I did want to mention a couple of favorite intro segments. I know it's a recency bias maybe, but I really liked the humility opening that we did.

[00:10:21] I thought that was main segment worthy. Turns out. Yeah. And I think like we knew it had to be given that the main segment was the ambies. Right. You're right. But then I just remember having so much fun doing the AI necklace friend. Yeah, me too. That was great. I meant to look up like, is that thing out? I think it's, I looked it up on YouTube and it's gone. It's just that. I think we might have like stamped out the last remaining embers.

[00:10:50] Someone dry snitched to the creator on Twitter. Like they tagged the creator with our episode. That was fun. I would say like the ambulators, it benefited from great source material. Like that thing was so much like that. That was easy podcasting right there. But I agree. That was one of my favorite opening segments. Maybe we've ever done. You can still preorder it. Look. Do they still have the video on YouTube? No. It's gone. It's gone.

[00:11:19] Those poor actors, you know. I'm telling you that I saw a look of despair in a female actress at the end of it. That she was really questioning all her decisions and what led her to that moment. All right. I think that's it for proud for me. Yeah, me too. Everything else we're deeply ashamed of. We wish would go away. Yeah. All right. So what do you look forward to or hope for next year? Okay. A few things.

[00:11:48] One is having an actual listener meetup slash live show. I'm hoping we can make that happen. Some of you have asked. We had all the good intentions, but intentions don't mean shit. So we couldn't get it done before the 300th episode. Yeah. Turns out that's harder than one would have thought. Yeah, I agree. I would like to do that. I think we've proven that we might need help. We've been such a two-man operation.

[00:12:17] Assistant editors occasionally and now more stably because it's my daughter and I can just text her stuff. But like, all right, I'm looking forward to more classics in philosophy and psychology. Back to basics. Yeah. I think we have one that we're going to do somewhat soon, right? Perception. Yeah. Top-down perception versus what? Bottom-up baby. Bottom-up baby.

[00:12:47] Yeah. Yeah, totally. And I think we're open to suggestions for some classic material. Absolutely. Okay. I really like the Plato ones like you. I will say the induction one, which I was personally was mixed about, but it seemed like a lot of people really liked that. Yeah. The Humes problem of induction. Yeah, I don't know why you were so fucking negative about it. I was kind of negative about it. I don't know why. Like, you know, sometimes you forget. I think about this when I used to write and be able to write.

[00:13:16] Like, the things that you have done to death, you know, I'm sure you come across this in your stuff too. The things you think are just stupid and like cliched at this point or tired or everyone knows it. You forget, not everyone is part of the academy and taking courses and teaching and doing all this stuff that keeps you. So, yeah, maybe that's what it was.

[00:13:39] I always notice that in intro psych, if I get to talk about the trolley problem and I ask a fairly large class, how many of you have heard of this? And I'm always shocked at how few, but, you know, they're 18-year-olds or whatever. Yeah, that's a great example because every time I teach the trolley problem, like in my intro class, I apologize immediately. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I know this has been done to death. I do feel like a lot of them know it, but maybe not. Maybe they just are lazy to raise their hands. That is definitely true.

[00:14:09] That's a problem with otherwise admirable Gen Z group overall. You just can't raise your fucking hand. What's wrong with you? Yeah, too cool. Does AI not raise your hand for you? Like, do you need chat GPT to raise your hand? You need Claude to, like, lift up your arm.

[00:14:29] Okay, one of the things I'm looking forward to, as you briefly alluded to, is doing a Severance series, which we've, I think, pretty sure we've successfully hooked Paul Bloom to be a regular to discuss Severance. But as it comes out, or at least as every other one comes out. Yeah. We're planning to talk about two episodes, like the last two episodes that have come out.

[00:14:54] This will be for our beloved Patreon patrons, our next bonus episode series. So, yeah. We could do, like, our first episode as a wrap-up of season one, but I think, like, we already did that with Paul Bloom. We have an episode. I forget what number it is, but just that you could look it up. And we did an episode about season one. So, check that out. And then we will, on Patreon, be doing, yeah, that's obviously on my list, too. I'm excited about that. Yeah.

[00:15:24] Another thing that I hope we do, and I don't know, for Patreon, but maybe even more, hopefully, for main episode, is, like, another series. Like, I guess the Denial of Death episodes were two parts. Was it two parts? I think it was two parts. It was two parts, yeah. Like, something like that I would love to do again. Like, a book like Blood Meridian, which I'd never read, although I'd started a few times.

[00:15:52] But something that I just knew would get us talking and also, like, traveling to areas that we're not fully used to. And that's one of the ways and things I love about the podcast is when we can dive into something we might be a little unfamiliar with. I thoroughly enjoyed both diving into it into such detail.

[00:16:18] We ended up extending it to three episodes, but then also just our conversations about it. That was so fun. Yeah. Accidental series, as you mentioned, David. We really thought we were going to do one episode. And they were like, okay, no, no, no, we got to do two episodes. And then there was that moment. I think this led us to stop doing ads where we were like, if we're going to do this right, let's do three episodes. It was that we had stopped doing ads and we felt the freedom to do it. Yeah. I think we had decided that we were going to do it.

[00:16:47] But one thing I thought of is, like, when we're not doing ads anymore, we don't have to care just how many people download. Because usually if we ever divided stuff into two parts, never mind three parts, the second part would get a lot fewer downloads. Because if people were out on whatever it was we were discussing, they're certainly not going to just download the second part. Yeah. That actually is something I had on my list, which I realized could have been in the things we're proud of. I am proud of.

[00:17:16] I don't know if proud is the right word, but I'm happy that we have moved away from ads and we're doing Patreon. In some ways it's more work, but it's at least the kind of work that we enjoy. It's doing more of what we love rather than doing a little bit of what we don't love. So I have, for what we hope, like in that theme, like I would like to keep growing. Like our Patreon numbers are good and we're very proud of our community.

[00:17:45] But hopefully we can grow it. Maybe we should set some goals, which we never do. We never set a single goal. I agree. I want to grow it. I want to figure out other ways to, because there's such a good community. I'd love to figure out ways to express our gratitude in tangible terms. So. More tangible ways. In more tangible ways. All right. Last category for this opening segment. How do you think the podcast has changed since its inception?

[00:18:15] Episode one. So the first thing I wanted to say about this is surprisingly, it hasn't changed all that much in terms of the structure or, I don't know, our vibes. Yeah. And I'm kind of proud of that. It's not shocking aside from maybe audio quality, which is on my list. Hopefully the quality of the audio has improved, but it's not shockingly different as some podcasts might be from episode one till 300 later. Yeah.

[00:18:45] I mean, maybe. Although I think a lot of my favorite podcasts are kind of like that, too, where, you know, I think that's a weird thing about podcasts. They don't change that much. Yeah, maybe. But going on what we said earlier, many of the podcasts I listen to, I would never listen to episode one. Right. So, okay. But that aside, one of the things that I think even our listeners have realized is we just have fewer guests now than we used to. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of that is just the work of it. It's just much harder to schedule.

[00:19:14] It's much harder to edit. It's harder to make sure you have the vibe. I do think we were burned a couple times, including a couple episodes that never saw air. And once we realized, oh, even though you love this person's work, their, I don't know, their vibe might not be right for the show, then it's like, why even take that chance? Right. It's a big unknown for many people.

[00:20:05] Yeah.

[00:20:11] And then we realized that we were going to do a movie, which we did pretty early on, Unforgiven.

[00:20:37] And then we realized that we had a lot of connections with psychology and philosophy of identity and like psychoanalysis. And you said something like, you know what? You've won. Like now I didn't even feel the need to justify that we were doing a movie by connecting it, you know, to something. So, so movies, you know, that was obviously something I'd always dreamed of. But one thing I was surprised, though, short stories, right?

[00:21:01] Like that is something that we, I think the first one we did was on the Library of Babel by Borges. Yeah. And that's number episode 144. So that's almost halfway into the podcast that we did like a work of fiction like that, I think. I'm not sure. I didn't like look at all the other ones. I think that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think we would have done another short story. We would have started with Borges and that's definitely the first Borges story that we did.

[00:21:29] And now I feel like that's fundamental to the show that we do fiction, you know, obviously with connections to philosophy and psychology. But it's so central to what we do. It's like as central as, you know, making fun of a social psychology article or talking about free will or moral responsibility or punishment or something like that. Yeah. You know. It's on my list, too. I just had broadening of topics. And part of it is just logistically.

[00:21:56] Like there's only so much like articles that we were going to do like every other week. So this I think choosing to do more short stories and movies has lengthened the life of the podcast. I think we would have burned out a little bit earlier. I mean completely. Right. Because originally we would even do topics, not even just do revenge. We wouldn't have to tie it to an article.

[00:22:21] But there's not 300 topics like that that you could say new things about. It was just getting increasingly hard. Yeah. That's one of the things that it's the unseen work because I think you can get a sense of the need for preparation, right? When we're talking about something, you maybe get a sense of how much went into it because of the length or the details. But you don't know how much like work goes into just choosing these fucking things.

[00:22:49] Like that's the primary psychological burden. Yeah. I think. Because once we decide, then it's just like, all right. Time wise, I think it's not. It's the psychological burden. It's this thing hanging over you. That's right. Although the prep, I feel like, is harder than it used to be. Because we're often going into areas that we don't know like the back of our hand. And so it really does take longer than it used to. And I'll say this.

[00:23:15] Like early on, I had this deep fear that when we went into something that we weren't like experts in or whatever, which is a very limited range of things, that we'd sound stupid. Our audience would be like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? And our audience has been really kind about that. Like even when people are experts in something that we talk about, they're pretty charitable to us. Yeah, absolutely. I always feel like, like not in general, but episode to episode.

[00:23:44] Like I sounded stupid about that. Like that's how I think that's how I thought about the induction. Like I sounded like an idiot about that. You know, this is supposedly my thing. Like I'm a philosopher. I should know, like I should have smarter things to say about this. Well, there's also like you have a different psychological burden. Which I experienced doing the podcast with Paul, which is that you have to listen to the entire conversation in detail in order to edit.

[00:24:10] And I am like so relieved that I don't have to re-listen to the things that I said before we publish this. Because I would probably be doing so much editing because I thought I said something stupid. Yeah. Yeah. Now that falls to me, unfortunately. Yeah, exactly. It's great. And now Liza knows exactly how stupid both of us are. Both of us are. Yeah. So, yeah. I had one more, which is I don't even know which way it goes, but we're older. Yes.

[00:24:40] Like there's one of the things that's just the most noticeable to me going from like early middle age to late middle age. Yeah. Like aging happens faster. Totally. It's a completely different time of our lives. Yeah. In fact, sometimes when we run into people at like who are fans of the podcast and they think of us more as the, and they're like, what do you mean you're going to bed now? You know, like what do you mean you're not doing this fifth shot or whatever?

[00:25:07] You know, it's just like, yeah. Last couple of things I want to say that I just love in general. The opening I just think is a stone cold classic and I don't know how you did that in like a day. Thank you. It's just so good. And I don't often listen to it again, like with the opening quotes, but I know that's another thing that you do that. And whenever I do hear it, it's great. And then the beats. So I love that. Thank you. It's incredibly fun.

[00:25:34] And I will say, like, I'm glad that I haven't gotten so sick of our intro song. Like I don't get sick of it. It's kind of amazing, actually. I know. It's a banger. It goes hard every time. And then, yeah, the listeners and the emails that we get from them. This has been true from the beginning. There are more now than there used to be.

[00:25:54] But I just find that, and we've said this a million times, but I find that to be something that, I don't know, like keeps me energized for this. And I'm so grateful. Absolutely. Like I've been brought to tears by emails multiple times. Yeah. Not because they were insulting me. Yeah. But that's just mostly Reddit. One thing I didn't say about what we're proud of, our friendship. Oh, yeah.

[00:26:21] It's kind of amazing that we've maintained not just a working relationship, but a friendship over 13 years and 300 episodes. And we've said many times, I think on this podcast, like we talk to each other more than we talk to many family members and friends and our own wives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I 100% agree. Like the friendship that really just grew out of the podcast.

[00:26:47] Like you and I thought of each other as, oh, that's a fun person to hang out with if you happen to be at the conference. But, yeah, I always remember when you sent me that you had bought my book, The Very Bad Wizard, the original Very Bad Wizard book. It's so funny. I was just in that same bookstore over break in that same section. And I had this vivid memory of taking a picture and sending it to you. And that like weirdly formal email.

[00:27:15] And this is probably too navel-gazy and maybe we'll cut this out. But like I also just think like we've seen eye to eye on so many things that I think would like break up partnerships. Just in terms of like when we don't want to do ads or how we want the podcast to evolve in, you know, and what we, you know, in our attitude towards guests and our attitude. Like we just have been on the same page and so we haven't had to have like the kind of conflicts.

[00:27:44] I think most people, if they're starting a project or a business, like it feels like it's gone smoother between the two of us given that we kind of do everything. And both of us, like I was going to say, equal level of commitment to it. Because I've known people who are in a podcast with somebody else where like one person is just like they have to be kind of dragged into it more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Again, it sounds like you're talking about a marriage. Like I'm doing all the work here. I'm planning the dates. Like I'm just.

[00:28:13] You get on top this time. Yeah. Yeah, we've been very good about that. You know, nobody has to be the permanent bottom. Switch it up. Keep it fresh. All right. We'll be right back to talk about the Wizard of Oz. And this could be it. Could all just vanish. And just see us going down a drain, stretched like those black hole animations. Yeah. Where we're just like taffy, like pulled apart until we.

[00:28:47] Here we go now.

[00:29:30] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time of the episode where we'd like to take a moment and thank all of our listeners for getting in touch with us. And tell you about the different ways you can support the podcast. And I'm going to keep this short because we've already crawled up our own asses enough in the opening segment. If you'd like to email us, you can email us at verybadwizards at gmail.com. You can tweet at us at peas at Tamler at verybadwizards.

[00:29:56] You can follow us on Instagram, on Facebook, even Blue Sky Now. And you can subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and give us a rating there if you could. That always helps other people find the podcast. If you would like to support us in more tangible ways, you can go to the support section on our website. And especially, you can join our Patreon.

[00:30:22] Right now, we're in this transition phase where we're moving from per episode to monthly. They've hit a couple technical snags on their end. Everything is the same. You won't have to do anything once the change has happened. Once you become a member, you have access to a whole archive of bonus episodes, including The Ambulators, which we just wrapped up.

[00:30:46] All 38 episodes, a breakdown of every single episode, the movie, and then a final awards ceremony. There are lots of different levels, including the highest level where you get to ask us a question every month, and we will answer your question in a video for you and audio for all of our bonus tier listeners. And we have a winner for the Patreon listener-selected episode. I can announce that right now.

[00:31:15] Now, it is Joseph Campbell, his Jungian ideas about archetypes, and maybe especially the hero's journey, which leads in nicely to the discussion we're about to have with The Wizard of Oz. So let's get to that right now. Thank you so much, everybody, for all your support, for all your interaction. We really, from the bottom of our hearts, appreciate it. All right, let's get to our main segment.

[00:31:39] This is the 1939 Victor Fleming, quote-unquote, directed Wizard of Oz. Quote-unquote. I don't think this is controversial, that it is by far the most influential American movie of all time. Like, there's no movie that has dug as deep into the vast majority of the American population as The Wizard of Oz.

[00:32:08] It's part of film language, but as we were texting briefly about it, it's also just part of the English language now, like the vernacular. And I think it's just because everybody's seen it. It's almost like you show it to your kids because you're supposed to. It's referenced. There's so many of the quotes and the tunes and the phrases. So even if you haven't seen it or haven't seen it since you were a kid, you just know, like, the yellow brick road. Follow the yellow brick road. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

[00:32:37] And then, like, one that I couldn't believe was from this is, oh, hey, oh, oh. Like, there's just so many things like that. You know, we're not in Kansas anymore. And think about the way it's held up, right? Like, how many movies made in 1939 would a child ever want to see? No, that's right. It's, like, incredible. It's held up. The effects have held up. That's actually one of the things I want to talk about is, why are the effects so good in this? And I think it's like you said in the intro,

[00:33:05] it hits some part of your psyche. Like, there is the repetition, and we can talk about this, but one of the reasons that it had such cultural impact is because it was reliably shown every year on TV since whatever the 50s until, like, 1998. Is it not anymore? I'm sure it is. It's just that, like, in the days of network TV, I apparently every single year reliably on this. Yeah, this and Wonderful Life. Yeah. But it also just taps into something, something deep in there. Yes.

[00:33:33] It's very, like, young Ian in that way. Yeah. Like, I think it has, well, I mean, you know, and Joseph Campbell, who we're going to be talking about, who I'm excited for, but, like, this is the hero's journey to go out and then come home. To go out and face a lot of, you know, crazy adventures and monsters and then come home and then realize that maybe you've never left home, you know? Yeah. But I think you're right. And I also think the kind of things it taps into being a kid,

[00:34:01] the things that you were worried about as a kid, the ways you understand the outside world and the ways you understand the people that are close to you, I think it taps into, you know, your feelings as a kid really well. And as I was watching it this time around, I realized how much it must mean to you, given that the dog is saving the dog and the dog being at risk and the dog doing smart things is such a central theme. All right. So here's where I'm going to zag a little bit.

[00:34:31] Oh, okay. And I have a take, like, a scalding take, especially, as you said, for someone like me who's such a dog lover and, you know, dog luster. I don't think Toto's that cute. Oh, well, he's, yeah. I mean, I am surprised to hear you say that because you love all dogs. But that's not my favorite kind of dog either. Yeah. And I think it's a good dog performance. It's just aesthetically the dog itself. It's not my favorite kind of dog.

[00:35:00] But speaking of dogs, like, you know, when I say that this is the most influential American movie, when I think of all the movies that this has influenced, like every David Lynch, everything he's ever done is influenced by it. He's talked about it. There's a documentary called Lynch Oz, which is just about the connections between Lynch, Lynch's movies and his work in The Wizard of Oz. But then, you know, when you think of something like Stalker and you think of someone like Tarkovsky, you see that, like, that plot and the structure,

[00:35:30] the plot of Stalker, like, starting in a sepia world, it's kind of drab and you need to get out of it. You want to go over the rainbow. You go in to this place and there's color. And then you come home and you come home in Stalker's case with a dog, which is what made me bring it up right now. Like, that's crazy how much, you know, you go from black and white to color and then back to black and white or sepia. But it's like, it's different now. You know, something has changed.

[00:35:59] And this idea of returning home after you've gone to this strange, mysterious place is just something that, you know, Star Wars, there's a lot of Star Wars and Wizard of Oz comparisons. He starts out on his home, you know, which is kind of boring. And he wants to get out. On a farm. Yeah, on a farm. With his aunt and uncle. Oh my God. Like, I didn't even think of it. Yeah. I don't know. Like, it's just, it's built into the DNA of American film,

[00:36:28] but even, I think, international film. Yeah, I think so. Just reading when I was doing prep and reading critics' takes on it, like, there were multiple people who were like, this is what got me interested in movies. Right. Seeing this as a kid in The Magic of it. And I'm sort of surprised just from this conversation that this was like a studio production. It was, like you alluded to, there were like three different directors, you know, like who knows who was involved?

[00:36:58] It was definitely just when the heyday of studios. Yeah. So there's not like a singular creator that you can say, like this was their work of genius. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure somebody's genius was involved, but it was, seemed to be a lot of people, like the makeup, the cinematographers, the set designers just came together. So my understanding of the research I did is that it started out with someone who I don't have their name in front of me. Then they brought in George Cukor, who's a great director, did The Philadelphia Story,

[00:37:28] among other great movies. But he didn't really shoot anything. Then Victor Fleming came in, who's the credited, or one of the credited directors, along with King Vidor. And he shot most of it. Not all of it. Cukor then went, this is very funny actually, he went to go direct Gone with the Wind, which is also credited to Victor Fleming. But he, I think Cukor did most of it, at least from what I read, they brought in Victor Fleming to Gone with the Wind at the end,

[00:37:56] just to like slap Clark Gable around, because he was being too much of a diva. And so he ended up getting the credit for both of these. But I think Cukor did a lot of Gone with the Wind, which came out the same year. So, and then I guess King Vidor got it to the finish line. But that's, like, I don't think anyone exactly knows. And it's like you said, this was a studio thing. This is everybody, all hands on deck. But producing something that you would think, this has got to be an auteur. You know, like this has got to be like a singular vision.

[00:38:26] And it's just not at all. Yeah. Maybe the source material was just that good. Did you, have you ever read the book? No. My understanding though is that the idea that this was a dream was something that was imported into it later. They thought if it's just a fantasy, people aren't going to care. They'll think it's stupid. And so they wanted to ground it, at least possibly in her dream when she's in Kansas. It's also pretty dark, the movie at times. Yeah. Like it's scary.

[00:38:56] It gets under your skin in that way too, even though it's a kid's movie. I mean, the flying monkeys are just nightmare material. Like they're just... Totally. No. The scarecrow getting disemboweled. Yeah. No, totally. Maybe we can talk about interpretation later, but just in doing my research, there's just so much, you know, there's primarily of the book, like a big political interpretation, which I'm sure we can touch on. I didn't know about it. Oh yeah.

[00:39:25] It's just, you know, like the workers. Of Oz. Yeah. And there's a whole take on whether it was speaking about... Like a revolution. Yeah. But then also like beliefs that it was an allusion to the gold standard versus the silver standard versus the greenbacks. So the yellow brick road, the silver shoes, they're not ruby in the book. Right. And the Emerald City. So there's a lot of that. But then I saw somebody's take on this as a primarily atheist work. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense, right?

[00:39:54] Like all the gods are all false in this story. And that's like... Which I want to talk about because aside from Glinda is something. Yeah. No, sure. Yeah. So there are two other things. You mentioned childhood. And to me, this really does read like a coming of age movie for Dorothy. Yeah. Where she's dipping her toes into adulthood.

[00:40:17] And her coming back home to the farm, to Kansas, to me feels like, okay, I got a taste of adulthood. Let me enjoy this childhood for a little bit longer before I have to take the full dive. She saw behind the curtain. She saw what life will be like. But she gets to spend a little more time with Aunt Em and Uncle Henry. Interesting. I think that's a very optimistic reading of the end. Yeah.

[00:40:45] It's like, I'm just going to postpone a little bit going out into Oz. There's certain things at the end, the way it's, you know, things that she says that makes it seem like it's not just postponing. It is, I am going to stay in sepia land. Right. And get gaslit. And get gaslit by my family who are stuck with me. And I'm like, sure, Dorothy. But I like that, actually. Yeah.

[00:41:14] I mean, I guess the thing that I've mentioned is the hero's journey and this idea, like, which I think is pretty modeled on the plot of the Odyssey or like Gilgamesh. And this is where I think the Jungian things come in. And it's like, this is the story. Right. Like, but the Odyssey is what I'm most familiar with. So you leave your little rugged, boring island to go find glory, like to go over the rainbow.

[00:41:40] You meet all these crazy monsters and friends and hazards. And then you return home and you return home with a new appreciation of like the home. Right. Yeah. So I think that's a clear, like obvious, like on the surface understanding of it. But then I see this like maybe Buddhist, but also I still think Jungian idea that we never left home. Like all those people are the same people. Right. Yeah. Home is always within us.

[00:42:08] And we can return any time. And, you know, there's a lot of explicit things like that. She could have gone home all along. She just had to realize that home was somewhere that not just that she could appreciate, but also in some sense, something that you never can leave, even if you think you've left it. And then there's just a couple of things at the end of the movie when we get there that I just like I don't understand like what she's Dorothy is saying. And it's supposed to be like the message of the movie.

[00:42:36] But I also think this is one of the great things about the movie is the moral of it, like literally almost like I get it. And then like I've learned something today like thing. And then she says something that I just don't understand what it means. And I think that's the thing that keeps us either subliminally or consciously coming back to this movie is like what is exactly it trying to tell us about home versus out in the world and adventure?

[00:43:03] And it's not clear, you know, I felt the same way with her. Her. What did you learn? And then she says something like what? What? What does that mean? I mean, should we just go to it right now? I wrote it down. Yeah, sure. Oh, will you help me? Can you help me? You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas. I have. Then why didn't you tell her before? Because she wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself. What have you learned, Dorothy?

[00:43:34] Well, I think that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Anne. And it's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Is that right? That's all it is. But that's so easy.

[00:44:00] It's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Like, what the fuck? What does that mean? I don't know. But I feel like this is telling me, like, if it's not there, then it's not anywhere, maybe is what it's saying. Well, you can't lose something that you didn't already have. Yeah. Yeah. I guess. Let's come back to that. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:44:30] All right. Should we start talking about some of the stuff at the beginning? Yes. I am embarrassed to say. So my history with this movie, obviously, I saw it as a kid. I don't have a memory of how many times I saw it, maybe more than once. But I had such a poor memory for the movie that re-watching it the twice that I watched it for this episode, I was like, holy shit. Like, I'd forgotten large swaths of the beginning part. I remember the tornado.

[00:44:58] I didn't remember all of the stuff that led up to it. But I either never knew as a kid or completely forgot that it's all the same people. Yeah. That's wondering. Yeah. That dawned on me. Like, as I was watching, I was like, oh, wait, these are the same exact actors. And it's not subtle. Not at all. It's like they all talk about, like, the brain, the heart. Yeah. There's foreshadowing there, but it's also something else. So that's my history. You talk about yours before we dive in.

[00:45:27] Yeah, so, like, I don't consider it, like, a meaningful movie for me as a child. Then showed it to Eliza kind of, like, honestly out of obligation. Well, we got to see The Wiggy Pause. But I probably wasn't paying full attention to it. Liked it. Like, I was kind of like, you know, we'll talk about the munchkins. And, like, all of that is, I thought it was very funny. But, you know. And then I started to realize, like, as I got more into movies, like, oh, this is kind of seminal and important.

[00:45:57] In some sense. And so probably pretentiously I watched it again to see what that was. But I remember, like, the main thing was that documentary, Lynch Oz, which coincided with my movie palace. And so in preparation for watching the documentary, obviously I love David Lynch. And I know how influenced he is by the movie. So I watched The Wizard of Oz.

[00:46:20] And, like, for the first time, I think, fully appreciating what it was without trying to take, import anything into it. Just wanting to watch it. And then I was like, this is an amazing, puzzling, mysterious, like, incredible movie. You almost take for granted, like, how influential it is. But, like, now I feel like I get it more. Yeah.

[00:46:43] One of the things I wanted to say about the beginning and my realization of the characters being the same actors is that it was obviously foreshadowing when they're talking about, like, courage and brains. But it's also how, and Nikki was pointing this out to me, it's also just how dreams work. Like, that you get this little snippet from your daily life that works its way into the dream. And that's just how it sort of, if it is a dream, that's how it worked its way. Which is, I think, a cooler way of thinking of it than just heavy-handed foreshadowing. For sure.

[00:47:13] Like, it might be that those people aren't, you know, focused on their heart or their brain. But just that conversation put that into our head. Absolutely. I also wanted to say in themes, and I don't know how much you thought of it, but from what you said, it sounds like a little bit. That the characters are telling Dorothy that she doesn't have courage or to use her brains or whatever. In this opening scene? Yeah.

[00:47:39] And that really this is intra-psychic journey into maturation. And for me, of, like, flourishing virtues. Like, in an Aristotelian way, this is like a story about finding virtue. Yes. It's very, I put down in the wizard speech at the end, it's very Aristotelian, I think. And finding the virtues that are already within you. But you're right. Right. They say that about her, but then she projects it back out onto them in the dream. Yeah.

[00:48:07] And they kind of have those traits in the beginning. You know, he's kind of afraid. Yeah. Great vaudeville kind of performances from those three, I think, throughout. The lion's New York accent made me have to look up. I was like, is that... I haven't got the... No, that's just the way he talks. Yeah. Oh, that's the way he talks? That was just his accent. Yeah. It's perfect. One thing, having just watched the beginning of Lynch Oz, it's like a series of five video essays.

[00:48:35] Amy Nicholson has the first one. And she points out that at the beginning of the credits, like, where you get the Wizard of Oz, is you get the wind, but the wind is a sound of humans, or it's like a hundred people going, woo.

[00:49:04] And obviously then wind plays into getting to Oz. But then when you first go into Oz after that period of silence, you also have that same sound. It's digging into us also in the same way that what you said, those things that the guys say to her get into her psyche. I think that also works with us. Yeah. And it's just like movie magic. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about that tornado effect?

[00:49:29] As I've mentioned before, I think I love watching videos about special effects, and there's a particular channel that talks about special effects, and they'll dive into old movies. And oftentimes what they'll do is they'll just show each other old movies and make the other visual effects artists try to guess how it was done. And so there's one episode where they're talking about this tornado effect, and they're just perplexed. Like, what did they do there?

[00:49:55] And that's where I first heard of the tornado is just a big piece of muslin cloth being coiled with like this fine dust sprayed on it. But then the wind, the actual wind in the foreground sells it so well, too. It's just like, it's so good. It's so good. That's the movie magic part of it. And the all hands on deck part of it. How are we going to make this a really scary tornado? You know, like, how are we going to make this something that you feel, Dorothy, when she can't get into the shelter?

[00:50:25] Oh, man. I feel her panic, you know, because it just seems like things are flying around. Then it gets comic once she's knocked out and, you know, the house takes off and you're all of a sudden in like silent movie territory seeing the old woman in the rocking chair and like people in a car. But like before then, it's just fucking scary. It's scary. And it taps into, I think, again, what kids are super scared.

[00:50:53] I mean, adults, too, but that your dog is getting taken by an adult. None of the adults are listening to you like about your fear. You know, you're really not getting paid attention to. And then just a natural disaster and you find yourself alone. That's fucking scary. They've let you down. They've shut you out. They won't let you into the shelter. They won't protect. Yeah. And Judy Garland, she brings this vibe to this performance that's very innocent, non-ironic

[00:51:23] and just she's not trying to steal scenes. You know, they had talked about different actresses playing this role. And if they had gotten a bigger stage child who was trying to like belt out these tunes, it just wouldn't give you that same feeling of being small and being unsafe and being scared. Yeah. How old do you think she's supposed to be in it? I don't know, but she was 16. Which is amazing. But I figure she's supposed to be 14, 15 or something. Yeah.

[00:51:51] I mean, in the book, I think she's younger, like 11 or something, but she doesn't track as 11. Like that's not, I don't see that. But I agree. I think she's supposed to be about 13, 14, like cusp of, look, can we talk about some of those early scenes? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's already in a tizzy at the beginning of the movie because Mrs. Gulch, her Toto's apparently been into the garden and chasing her cat and got attacked.

[00:52:19] And that leads into the scene with the three guys that we've talked about. And like the Over the Rainbow song, which is so iconic that like, but I don't know, like I know you're not a big musical fan. Yeah. I was going to say that's like, I still had to get over that a little bit. I'm getting bored. That she's. Some of the musical numbers. But that one? But not for that one. Not at all for that one. Totally. Which is just like, I obviously knew that that song is from this picture, but it still shocked

[00:52:47] me when I first saw it come up. Oh yeah. Like, holy shit. This is the song. I love that you call movies pictures now. That's like, you know, like you're Martin Scorsese. No, totally. That's, I mean, first of all, that song is so definitive of like what one of the clear themes of it is. It's like, oh, I'm on this shitty farm with the, like a grumpy old woman who apparently owns half the town. And I don't even know, like my parents are, who knows?

[00:53:17] And I want, I dream of someplace beyond the horizons that I can see. So it's great that way. The scene I want to talk about, which you alluded to, when Mrs. Gulch comes over to take Toto and the aunt and uncle are there. And like, she says, I have a note from the sheriff because obviously there's a law that just grants one citizen the right to take another citizen's dog.

[00:53:45] If that dog has been class warfare. And the aunt and uncle are like, ah, well, you know, I can't fight the law. We can't go against the law. Like what the, like that is again, being like in terms of tapping into fears as a child, like being just completely abandoned by your surrogate family like this without very much like, you know, it's not like she had the sheriff there.

[00:54:10] She had a piece of paper that like of some fake law and they just let her take it. And the worst part of it, this is the thing that they got me actually pissed off is auntie M then like kind of insults her or says like, you can't get away with this. I'm not going to tell you what I think of you. You know, she's kind of rude to her. Cause I'm a good Christian woman. Cause I'm a good Christian woman. And then the Miss Gulch looks over at the husband and he just kind of smiles like they,

[00:54:38] like they got the better of her. Meanwhile, she's going off with Toto in her basket, which is all fucking Dorothy cares about. He doesn't care. She doesn't care about whether the aunt like yells at her or something like that. And it just seems like she, like Dorothy's on her own there. Yeah, absolutely. Abandoned. Yeah. Abandoned, which she feels and then runs away. Yeah. I love, love professor Marvel. Yes.

[00:55:04] Um, when she's so, so Dorothy is basically running away and she comes upon like, he looks like a traveling psychic, you know, in his trailer. And he does this, like it captures so well, the bullshit of psychics, the cold reading, like making general statements that Dorothy is just eating up gullibly and then sneaking in some information, which is called a hot reading. Like when you have some access to information that they don't know you have and like incorporating that.

[00:55:33] And she just buys it hook, line and sinker. And you're just like, fuck this guy, man. Well, except that, by the way, like, I assume, you know, that that is the same actor who plays the wizard. Yes. Yeah. You didn't mention, you didn't mention that. Well, you know, spoilers. Spoilers. Um, I think he's doing all those tricks. And the funny thing is he doesn't even need to like do like a complex version of it. Cause she's so naive about it.

[00:56:00] Like she's like Auntie M and he says, who I think is named Emily. And she's like, yes. Why yes. But he's doing it to make her go home. Like she, he clearly realizes that she's run away. He's not like getting money from it. He has a, her best interests in heart when he's doing it. I think. Yeah. He also is kind of like, get out of here, kid. You're not coming with me. But it also captures what many psychics believe that they're helping.

[00:56:27] No, but I think like, I got the sense that he is, he was benevolent in that scene. And especially with the tornado coming in. Well, that's interesting because when thinking about the character of the wizard of Oz himself, Nikki said something interesting to me where she's like, it's so black and white, you know, there's just like good versus evil. And I was like, no, but Oz is kind of a gray character. Right. And that's, I think that's what you're saying about Professor Marvel, which I totally agree with. He's like actually a nice old man, but it's chicanery. Yeah.

[00:56:55] And he makes his living kind of fooling people and pretending to be something he's not. And it's kind of interesting, like, because it's a very long scene. This is totally not something I remembered from childhood that he was even in it before. But he'll use things like, I need to be better attuned with the infinite. So he like talks in these grandiose kind of transcendent terms. Yeah. But ultimately for, I think, a fairly concrete and probably, probably good. Yeah.

[00:57:25] And one of the things that like isn't fully accounted for as we go into the tornado, like, why are they locking themselves into the tornado and not looking for Dorothy? I know she does yell out like, where's Dorothy? She's out in the storm. Yeah. But then they just go. They go in and she bangs on the door and is not let in. I think they just don't hear with the loudness of the storm. They must think it's just other shit banging around, you know. But yeah, they're not worried at all.

[00:57:53] But still, they should like, they should have their ear up to the door at the very least, if not like go out and actually try to look for her and brave the storm because that's probably what she's doing. Yeah. It is interesting that Professor Marvel is like the only adult who actually listens to her in this whole opening. Yeah. She's completely alone. And in this is the culmination of her being this alone. Like she's completely abandoned. This is another thing where I was like thinking of the Odyssey.

[00:58:22] There's this point after he leaves Cersei's island, his crew has all died and he's at sea and Poseidon is pissed at him. And he's just completely at the mercy of nature and fate and danger. And he's all alone. That's what I think Dorothy is right now. And it's super interesting that in her dream, she creates these three as loyal friends who don't leave her side. Yes. You know, explicitly won't let her go. That's right. See the wizard alone.

[00:58:49] And who will overcome their issues to try to save her. Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, once the dream starts, if we think it's a dream, we can talk about that. But like once the dream starts, it's almost like the tone of it shifts. It's been this kind of really terrifying, I'm all alone, abandoned. And now it's like, oh, people are waving at me as they pass by. And Mrs. Gulch is still biking. But she, well, I guess she does turn into a witch. Yeah.

[00:59:17] But mostly it's like things have taken on a warmer tone already. Like a more comic tone at the very least. Yeah. She's not in the clear danger that you would be if you were actually circling a cyclone. Which is very cool. Just the model of the house going. Yeah. Totally. Yeah. And then when it lands, and this is something I credit because I think I only noticed this unconsciously, but this is something Amy Nicholson talked about.

[00:59:45] There's like 10 seconds of just pure silence. After all the like noise of the storm and the noise of the movement of the stuff, there's like 10 seconds of silence. Not even like ambient noise, just silence as she walks and then opens the door. And then that is just one of the most amazing things. Incredible. It's not until she opens the door and sees the color and sees Oz that the sound picks back up again. That's just so good.

[01:00:14] I had not explicitly noticed that. Yeah. Either. It's so cool. And it is movies. That's movies right there. And in 1939, like there's no color TV. There's very few colored movies, period. African-American. What? Wait. He said there's no colored movies. Color movies, I think I said. You know, reading that the first few times that it got shown on TV, it was all black and white. Right. It's kind of hilarious.

[01:00:45] Like, what is this movie in black? I almost think as a kid, you don't appreciate what a big deal that is, you know? Because- Well, we didn't, for sure, because we had color. At least I did. But- I did too. It might have been invented in the 70s. That's something that hasn't changed over the course of the podcast. Yeah. Our big age difference. Our very small, almost minuscule age difference.

[01:01:15] You know, I have read and was reading more about the technicolor process. And it was a big deal. You know, I mean, there had been things filmed in technicolor before. And there had been, over the years, that process had been developed to the point where this was like the most advanced technicolor process. But it required these special cameras with three strips of black and white film that were each filtered with a different color. And the film was slow. And so you needed these like incredibly bright lights.

[01:01:45] And they said that the set would get to like 100 degrees. And I mean, among the horror stories of the production here, like just the makeup, the people who were heavily made up had to be constantly hydrated because of that. The original Tin Man was like poisoned from the makeup. And they had to bring in a different actor. I mean, we should talk about the production at some point because it's like one of the most storied and also like kind of legendary.

[01:02:15] There's certain things you don't know what's true and what's not. But definitely the Tin Man. Also, the Wicked Witch of the East got seriously burned from the second time they shot her disappearance. I had to leave the set for a while. Like, you know, Judy Garland, like you said, she's 16, but was apparently plied with cocktails of barbiturates and Benzedrine, which sounds kind of awesome, but probably shouldn't be given

[01:02:43] to a 16 year old to keep her being able to do the movie. And I read again, who knows, but that the munchkins were often drunk and like would grow Yeah, I did too. Yeah, that they were a little like hellions on the set because they're all vaudeville performers. They're like in from Europe, like normally doing carnivals and traveling circuses and stuff like that. And I love the idea also that there's because there's also like eight or 10 little kids mixed in the munchkins.

[01:03:13] And I love the idea that they're just out there like pinching all the women's asses. And then there's some like 10 year old kid that's just watching. It's like, oh, okay. Yeah. Oh, you know, one of the things that I just forgot, aside from the flying monkeys, which I always remember is very creepy, is just the creepiness of so much of it. And like the munchkin costumes and like the weird lollipop guilds. Oh my God. Voices. I love that. It freaks me out.

[01:03:42] Oh my God, man. They look so weird. Oh man. I mean, I guess it probably speaks to like different traumas that we face that we might not know about. But to me, the creepy thing is Glenda the good witch. Oh yeah. She's not creepy to me at all. Like when you said that the first time I was like, oh, she's like very nice. I think that's, yeah, that's, that's interesting. Cause like, to me, it's like, she's way scarier than the wicked witch of the East who's kind

[01:04:11] of a, I don't know, at least at this point, a cliche almost of a witch. And the way she appears in that bubble and the way she talks, it's kind of always extremely patronizing. She has that tone. I don't know. It's just very godmother-ish to me. I, yeah. So the, the, I guess they put out a call and had for the munchkins, like mostly dwarfs from a lot of these vaudeville traveling shows and a lot of them coming from Europe and then

[01:04:40] also midgets. And they, you know, it was a long shoot. So they're all just hanging out together. And they've, I remember coming across this, like, this has never happened in the history of the world, this gathering of this many little people. So for them to just be around each other and be able to like hang out and drink must have just been awesome, you know? And yes, they're probably a little inappropriate on the set, but. I mean, what else were they going to grab? It's right there. Exactly.

[01:05:10] It's like, I, and, and, you know, you don't know about these stories cause there's no definitive version, but it sounds like they were pretty drunk and had to be kind of corralled every time they would do a scene. But those scenes, I'm telling you that the thing that I remember from watching it, like just with Eliza out of feeling like we have to show her Wizard of Oz was those scenes. Like I thought they were hilarious. Just the mayor and his severe kind of like priest. It looks like.

[01:05:39] Like, I think the voices do it for me too, because, you know, these were all, they were all dubbed. Like you said, they were European. They had heavy accents. So they recorded full grown people singing and, and talking slowly, like on slow tape. And then they sped it up to normal. And so you get this helium sounding effect to the voices that adds to the creepiness to me. I guess. Yeah. Like to me, it's not creepy. It's just so funny.

[01:06:05] Like the way they talk, you know, like we thank you very sweetly and the whole ding dong, the witch is dead, which is another iconic thing. Ding dong, the witch is dead. We didn't even mention, but I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. Now I know we're not in Kansas anymore. That's just part of it. Forever screwing everybody who's from Kansas who goes to another state or anybody named Dorothy. But it's kind of the perfect state to do it with maybe, you know, cause it's, it's, it's neutral state. Well, yeah.

[01:06:32] That's another thing we didn't mention is very, it's dust bowl-y too. Yeah. The conditions of the farm are very grapes of wrath. Yeah. I guess that's true. But Oklahoma wouldn't work as well. I don't think. Cause Oklahoma has a kind of charge one way or the other, which like probably negative where I think Kansas is just fully neutral and like driving through it. It's like just flat all around, you know, like there's nothing, but yeah, like the munchkins,

[01:06:59] like when they get the guy with the death certificate, she's not only really dead. She's really most sincerely dead. That is funny. But it's so funny that you said the lollipop guild was your, like creeps you out. Cause to me, they're my absolute favorite thing in the whole movie. That little thing where they, we represent the lollipop guild. Like I have that in my head as an earworm since I've watched this movie and I just love the performances. Also they're a union.

[01:07:29] Exactly. Clearly. They're working class members. You know, they're organized. They thank her and they welcome her and they're all very warm. I mean, you know, cause she killed the wicked witch of the East by landing on her. Yeah. Both times she kills the witch. It is a very funny thing that they're accidental and she's getting praised for it. You know, if there was a moral psych angle, that would be, that would be a praise without intentionality. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

[01:07:57] And she's trying to convince them of that. Right. Right. She's not pretending that she is some huge heroine. That's again, a part of her character that is childlike in that she's not trying to claim credit for things and actually seems to feel a little bad at first, but she's convinced based on what everyone's saying that it must be a good thing. But then when she realizes she doesn't have any way home and they talk about the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road.

[01:08:25] That is, I think one of the more psychedelic scenes in the movie with the spiral yellow brick road starting and the music, the way, you know, like as she starts on it and goes around. I love how she's just doing it literally. Okay. Yeah. Like I have to actually fall. Yeah. That's the psychedelic part of it. And it's like, it reminded me of Vertigo with the spiral. Yeah. Right. Like a couple of Hitchcock movies after actually, uh, with the spiral and it's very cool.

[01:08:53] And then the, yeah, the munchkins are like following the yellow brick road, you know, it's like, it's so good. That whole thing, ding dong, the witch is dead, which is a really long song that encompasses all these different things to me. Yeah. I think is actually probably my highlight of the whole movie. Yeah. It's great. It's also creepy, but it's great. I didn't realize or remember or whatever that I'll get you my pretty from this either. Yeah. My pretty. I was like, oh yeah. Yeah. My pretty.

[01:09:20] I think like if I had to pick my favorite part of the movie, it starts at the beginning of the tornado into the tornado into ding dong, the witch is dead and Glenda and all that. Yeah. And they kept the magical, wondrous thing. Like it's good that they use the munchkins at that beginning scene, right when she's in Oz and they're hiding and it just adds to the, cause you know, the other stuff is obviously fantastical, but not like this. Like just tons and tons of little people all singing in makeup.

[01:09:49] And the world had never seen that. Nevermind like a movie, you know, like, and you're right. That's a perfect place to do it. Like, because it's our introduction to Oz. And makeup. Like, I get, apparently foam makeup had never really been used. Like the, the person who did the makeup was this pioneer in this stuff. It's funny. You can kind of tell in high def, you know, you can see the seams. Yeah. You know, you can see the makeup very clearly.

[01:10:15] It always is walking the line between clearly artificial, stylized artificial and real. Some parts of the tornado are like, oh, this seems like there's actually wind happening. And other parts are just like completely stylized and reveling in its artificiality. I feel like Oz is often tipping into just, yeah, we know that that's a painting. Like, we're making very clear to you where the set stops and where the painting begins.

[01:10:44] And we're also making very clear to you that a lot of this is made of foam or plastic or whatever. Like, this is a fantasy. We're not trying to pretend that this is real. I totally agree. If it were done today, they would try to make CG of the whole Emerald City and the background. And there is something that is so magically storybooking about the very clear matte paintings in the background.

[01:11:09] I think Roger Ebert, I think it was his review that I was reading where he says, you know, if you had made the yellow brick road a lot longer and bigger, it just wouldn't have the same effect like as it does fading into those matte paintings in the background. There's just it's created this world. Like you say, like the makeup doesn't take me out either. Yeah. Yeah, it's very clear. But it's just grown men in makeup. Like, you know, supposed to think it's a lion. Like, you don't want to do like the CGI Lion King piece of shit that they did a few years ago.

[01:11:36] It reminded me of 2001 in that, like, it established something. It set a bar that like people have tried to do it different ways and mostly now with CG. But it's never fully been like we haven't advanced. And in a lot of ways with the CG, if you feel about it like you and I do, it's actually we've gotten worse. Because we've lost the ability to try to find that perfect balance between artificiality and reality. You know? Yeah.

[01:12:03] It's interesting because as somebody who's like a little bit obsessed with the special effects, it's less that we haven't progressed. It's more that the limitations brought out creativity that you just don't get so much anymore. And that's why these modern visual effects artists love watching these old movies to try to figure out, you know, like these old Buster Keaton movies or Charlie Chaplin where you're just like, how the fuck did they do that with what they had? And it was always like they had to come up with a super creative solution to do it.

[01:12:32] And now, you know, some teenager can whip up like the latest Twister movie. The tornadoes look much more realistic. So in that sense, we've advanced. But it's not magical in the way that some of this stuff, the old stuff. Yeah. And I think it also sometimes it may look more like a tornado, but it doesn't give you the feeling of a tornado. It often with the CG, it makes you feel I haven't seen the Twister movies, but like it gives you the feeling of like you're playing a video game, you know?

[01:12:59] And then there's I think because you're like like they're not trying to pretend. Oh, no, this you're actually watching a real tornado or a yellow brick road or a garden full of poppies. Like it just it brings you in there more. It's a really interesting. Yeah. It's not uncanny. It's not uncanny. Because it doesn't try. It doesn't try to get so close to human that it fails or to real that it fails. OK. Now I feel like the movie settles in, you know, and there's still a lot of cool stuff.

[01:13:26] But now you're getting the if I only had a brain heart, you're getting that kind of hammered into your head that and she meets all the different people. Do you have something you want to say about? Only that. I wonder if this would bother you at all. But there is something and I can't put my finger on it. There's something that always bothered me that the brain and the heart are clearly like both the physical organism and the metaphor for the thing. But courage is what? So what is he getting? Yeah.

[01:13:55] Like, what is he asking for? You can imagine like the tin man's like, knock, knock, like it's hollow. There's no heart in there. Or look, there's no brain in here. But where is the courage? They're different, right? They don't get affected by the poppies because they're not like organic creature. Yeah. That's what's interesting about them. And I think like, as I understand the movie's just surface plot, they still do have a brain in the way that like a straw, what's it called? Straw man.

[01:14:25] Wait, what do you call them? Scarecrow. Wow. My brain. I need like a new brain. The metallic man. It's very clear from the start that the scarecrow is actually kind of smart. He figures out how to get the trees to throw them apples because they're hungry. Yeah. And the tin man is crying from the very beginning. But like, yeah, you're right. Yeah. It's just that courage is like a not, it's an ineffable.

[01:14:53] It's not a thing the way that a heart and a brain are. Yeah. But I think it's because he's an organic creature. So, of course, he has a heart and a brain because he is a lion and like he's a mammal. Right. I see what you're saying. So I think it is a little different for him. But it's interesting that you have those three and they're treated as completely the same, you know, except in the poppy scene. And even that's not explicit. It's like, hey, like you kind of wonder why isn't this affecting the scarecrow and the tin man? Yeah. I do like the tree scene.

[01:15:23] That's very cool. It's super cool and clever to get them to throw it. Yeah. That's when you're like, oh, he might be a little smarter than he thinks. And then lions and tigers and bears. Oh, my. The Cowardly Lion, that actor, is such a classic screwball, like 1930s vaudeville kind of performance. I love it. He sounds like, what's that cartoon? Like the guy that goes, heavens to Margaret Troy. Apparently he came up with that. That actor. Oh, my God. Yeah. And, you know, come on, put him up.

[01:15:52] Yeah. Yeah. Put him up. Yeah. And yeah, like you said, that accent without the women vive. Fate I don't deserve. Like all of that. I just love that. I eat all that stuff up. Like all those performances are great. You know, it's a little bit the movie slows down. It's been on such a high. And now you are going to get like meeting all these people, learning about them. It is a little scary, though. Like the tin man is, you know, completely immobile. The scarecrow is hung up by his back. Yeah.

[01:16:21] And he looks like he has a noose around his neck. Yeah. It's kind of really. Yeah. The scarecrow actually really, you know, when he gets torn apart, when he's just hanging there, like. Yeah. Like put it back in me. Yeah. And then you get our first scene of the monkey and the witch, which is like very scary, actually. The monkeys in general, but then also that kind of, I guess that's her bottom monkey. Like her head. Yeah. I guess. Yeah. Should we just go to the poppy scene? Yeah, sure.

[01:16:49] So that kind of goes into she plans to poison them with something pleasing to the eye. And they all run. They see Emerald City. They've been following. They're all gathered together. The gang's all, you know, gathered together. It's like a heist movie in that way. And then they are running through the fields. And then all of a sudden Dorothy gets tired. The other three look like they're OK. But then the cowardly lion also gets down. Toto's out.

[01:17:17] I don't know why this scares me even now. You know, it's like all of a sudden she just starts passing out. And I'm like, whoa, whoa. Also, it's poppy's like it's opium. Like she's overdosing. I agree. This is one of those that gets into you, that digs into you in ways that you don't understand. Because this is terrifying, I think. Where she just kind of passes out. And again, it's kind of like she's at the mercy of something. Before she was all alone. She's not all alone now.

[01:17:43] But she is completely at the mercy of something that is trying to kill her. And something that also appears to be something it's not, as the witch says. Like something you think is beautiful. I don't know how it's come this far where we haven't talked about the dark side of the moon. Which you first told me about on the podcast, I think so. I think. And then I did that. I didn't re-watch that for this. But do you remember what's the song in the poppy scene? No.

[01:18:12] Yeah. So then you get this like cool fade of Glenda. And this is something Lynch like completely just took and imported into Wild at Heart. Of her kind of hovering over in the bubble. And she makes it snow, which apparently cures her. Although it's not totally clear why. No. I know. I was wondering. I was like, what's the story? Like it's not clear why the poppies were killing her and also why the snow makes it better.

[01:18:42] I have no idea. But it's cool. It's cool. I mean, she's creepy though. I know you love her. I love that this journey, like this part. Well, one, I love that the three guys are supporting each other. Yeah. But like it's just great to see her actual journey of like kind of becoming the unwitting leader of this group.

[01:19:06] It is one of those things that they say about, you know, virtues is until you're put in a position where you have to practice it, you don't know that you have it. Right. So this is her being put in these positions and she emerges as somebody who unifies and leads. Yes. That's actually really good. Like those other ones are very compartmentalized as to one specific trait. And for her, it's just becoming virtuous in general, becoming a leader. Yeah. And confident. Yeah.

[01:19:33] And that way it's very much coming of age. By the way, the poppy is clearly the sirens, right? Yes. Yes. Yeah. I think so. Yes. But without the like, you know, he kind of figures out a way to get out of the, and in this case, it's a good witch ex machina or whatever. Yeah. He's clever. Yeah. He binds himself. But absolutely. It is a hundred percent that. It is this thing that lulls you by its beauty into dying.

[01:20:03] It's like cocaine. Yeah. In the old days. In the old days. But so what I want to ask you about, and actually this relates to what you just said in ways that I didn't. There are these voices as they get up and continue to Emerald City. And at first you think it's the score because they're like, oh, you know, it's like kind of singing voices that sound like, oh, we're going to Emerald City, maybe voices. But the Tin Man kind of looks up and clearly hears it. So it's like, it's not just part of the score.

[01:20:33] Like they use the score in the other parts of the movie. So it's a very interesting case of where the score becomes part of diegetic. Diegetic. Exactly. That's not a word we threw around before. Back in like 2012. Right. It's in universe. Diegetic and liminal. I hadn't thought about this, but are we to believe that it might be the beginnings of the echoes of Dorothy's family? Maybe. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't think of that.

[01:21:03] Yeah, maybe. Like it seems more tied, like the sirens thing is very cool. So it makes me think, oh, like the sirens. But it does seem tied to Oz. But maybe as this is part of her awakening, it is the beginning of her hearing the call of home. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. I think I had just assumed in the movie that it was something to do with Emerald City. But yeah. Yeah. So then they go in. Yeah, it's very cool being introduced to Emerald City. The color scheme completely changes.

[01:21:31] It's now mostly green except for the poor horse. Of a different color. I was reading about the book and that this was a scene that the wizard basically makes everybody look through green colored glasses to fool them into thinking that it's an Emerald City.

[01:21:52] And that this is something that Baum got, the author, got from a real life example of using green filters for horses so that they think they're eating fresh grass. Oh, wow. Interesting. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. But here it seems like it is, right? It is. Yeah. Totally. And the horse really does change color in every shot.

[01:22:13] It's funny because they're welcomed in pretty warmly at first, even though, you know, who we later find out is the wizard is very wary of outsiders exposing the facade. Is he supposed to be the wizard in that scene? Or is he the same actor playing a different role? I always took it as he is. Like, he does all the things that, you know, might require. So it's a one man show.

[01:22:40] It's not that he has like another assistant who just happens to be being played. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's clear or explicit because I don't think we ever got the sense. But that's how I interpreted it. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And then the thing of, you know, going through and I don't know what they did to the horse. I think it was some kind of jello or something. But having the horse change color literally every shot, you know, that they cut is kind of cool, but also kind of creepy.

[01:23:04] They all get, I don't know, like they're all taken care of, you know, like oiled, more straws put into the scarecrow. There's a lot of like beautiful women at that point, like in Oz. And they're all kind of giggling. Yeah. Favorite Oz sex worker. My mind wasn't quite there. But, you know, with the girls working on the cowardly lion and he's flirting with me, like I feel like that, like that took me back to dead. You know, like the whole union.

[01:23:38] It's funny because it's not like if the wizard is a facade and a charlatan, what is this city? You know? I don't know. Like, is it just that he's convinced everybody? Is it, you know, if we're to follow the sort of God analogy, like God, the idea of God inspired people to build cathedrals? I mean, it's a real question. Like if we're starting to talk about the reality of Oz, there's a lot of questions like that you can ask. Yeah. Why? Like, so it really has magical horses that change colors. Are there really flying monkeys?

[01:24:05] What was the witch doing in the first place to make everybody's life so miserable? Yeah. Interesting. Not at all. We don't know at all. And maybe that's why Wicked flips the script. Right. You're more familiar with Wicked than I am. I don't. I'm not at all. That's the only thing I know. I thought it would have been funny to say, to text you that I think we should go see Wicked in preparation for this. So then they go meet the wizard, right? Yeah.

[01:24:32] And the wizard says, and I'm like, what's his deal here? He says, I will grant you your wishes, but only if you get the broomstick from the Wicked Witch of the West. Does he just think that's impossible and now I'll get them out of my life? I think so. I always thought that. Yeah. It is like, again, the way this gets into your subconscious, there's something very frustrating about they got there. They followed the yellow brick road. They traveled there and now they have to do something else.

[01:25:00] Like even though the whole thing has been building towards you getting there, it's not done quite yet. So they have to go back out. And then this is one of the scariest parts of the movie. Like you go out and they, the owls, the owls freak me out. Owls in general. Super creepy owls. Yeah. And also very cool effect of the owls. Yeah. Again, one of those cases where the fact that they don't look so much like real owls, they look like somebody's creepy dream of an owl.

[01:25:29] Yeah. Those eyes. That's right. Like it's like someone's creepy dream of an owl. This part, like this is the flying monkeys. This is all so cool. Like, I don't know how they did it. You probably looked into this more. I didn't look at all about the flying monkeys. I was wondering the same thing. But what's so cool is the mixture of the foreground monkeys that are, you know, and then like whatever it is, drawings of monkeys in the background that are moving or something. Animation, is it? Or is it like, I have no idea. I don't know.

[01:25:56] But it lends to this effect of like these hundreds if not thousands of monkeys. And the foregrounded ones, it just seems like there's a lot of them. And I assume it's like some kind of strange. But like there's so many of them. I know. I wonder if they were the munchkins repurposed as monkeys. Well, there's also like they did with the munchkins and intermixing like a few kids within them. There's also like one monkey, I think. Like one actual monkey that's with all the other ones.

[01:26:24] So it's really just fucking with your sense of what's real and what's the facade, what's artificial. Some actors were jockeys. Jockeys. That makes sense. Yeah. They look like jockeys. So I don't know. Like this is all very cool. I don't have a ton to say about it. It is kind of funny the way she defeats the Wicked Witch of the West or East or whichever one she is. Yeah. The West. Yeah. I love that the Scarecrow's only fear is a lit match. Right.

[01:26:51] So she seals her own fate by trying to set him on fire and then gets melted. I don't have a lot to say about it either other than general questions about what you were alluding to. What is this Wicked Witch that's been other than just being like evil personified for a young girl and just representing maybe the adults who are treating her like. What's her name in the beginning? Mrs. Gulch. Yeah. And obviously played by the same actress as Mrs. Gulch. And like it's very clear.

[01:27:20] Like she has the same basket as Mrs. Gulch. They don't even try to hide this. They don't try to. Yeah. I don't think they really try to hide any of them. But definitely not this one. Like she we saw her earlier. Mrs. Gulch in the tornado turn into the. Yeah. Turn into the witch. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, like at this point, like the Scarecrow proves again that he's has a brain. He's smart. He's clever. The lion summons up the courage to go in.

[01:27:49] The Tin Man has been like emotional about everything. I will say that like, yeah, so she cements her own fate by lighting the Scarecrow on fire, which is scary. Like the Scarecrow has suffered enough. He was ripped apart by the monkeys before. But like, yeah. And then she by accident trying to help. She does something trying to help the Scarecrow actually kills the Wicked Witch.

[01:28:14] Which, you know, my first more literal side would be like, if you can be killed by water, maybe don't leave like buckets of full of water lying around your lair. Right. Like that doesn't seem smart. If that will be like the only thing that can kill you. And she's like, who would have thought that stupid little girl could destroy my beautiful wickedness? There's something in there that. I guess I feel this tension with the unwitting nature of Dorothy's accomplishments here.

[01:28:43] It's not like a typical thing where she musters up the courage or whatever to do the right thing. This was just an accident. She was rescued. She was the damsel in distress. Yeah. With the, oh, the sand. I was thinking that might've affected you. The sand and the hourglass. Oh, yeah. The pink hourglass. Yeah. This is how long you have to live. Yeah. And it's almost spoken like to the audience. Like we all have one of these hourglasses hanging over us, you know?

[01:29:13] These are the days of our lives. Yeah. And then I like the sepia in her crystal ball of Auntie Em. Yeah. Like you see the sepia in there. It's very cool. Totally. Also like when they rescue Dorothy, there's the great gag of costume switching, you know, where they get the soldiers and they go back under the rock and like fight, but you don't see this. And then all of a sudden they come out as soldiers. That's like Star Wars did that exact scene.

[01:29:41] I feel like as did like, like a lot of Looney Tunes and stuff like that. But I feel like Star Wars did that exact scene with Luke and whoever, where it's like, oh, you go back, you don't see what happened. Then all of a sudden they're dressed as stormtroopers or something like that. Right. Yeah, they do. But I like that. It's a great gag. It's a classic gag of like a lot of fighting and you don't know what happens. And then all of a sudden. You save money on stuntmen. Just put some sound effects or whatever. Yeah, no, you're right. I didn't think at all about that.

[01:30:10] Star Wars is exactly what they do. Yeah. And then, yeah. And it's just funny that the Wicked Witch of the East can be killed that or West can be killed that easily. It's like a kid with a peanut allergy or something like that. The irony. Yeah. I guess the monkeys need a drink. Yeah. So maybe that's why the water is there. Sure. All right. So then they go back to Oz. I don't know what his, I guess he didn't have a plan for them coming back with the broomstick. Right. He's just surprised. And it's funny, like what?

[01:30:39] Like I don't get this character exactly. Why doesn't, given that he can grant these people the wishes, like why doesn't he? So I don't know. I don't get the character either. I feel like he improvised the gifts at the end because he just wanted to give them something. Right. And he's like, hey, yeah, that's the ticket. You had brains all along. But here's a diploma. I think there's two separate questions. There's what he gives them, which I actually find to be kind of interesting.

[01:31:08] And this is where I thought it was kind of Aristotelian or at least something virtue character based is, you know, part of becoming virtuous is understanding what you have already within you. Yeah. And then there is his character, which I don't fully get. And maybe we're not supposed to get it. You know, he's kind of a charlatan.

[01:31:30] But then, you know, not just because of the podcast, but because it's a strange line where she says, you're a very bad man, which I can't think of and not think of the opening. And he says, I'm a very good man, just a very bad wizard. Like, in what sense is he a very good man? Like, what does he mean by that? Yeah. I think he means that his intentions are pure in the way that like most people who aren't that good think that about themselves. I don't know. This is just my guess.

[01:31:59] He's been eaten up by the artifice. Maybe he's been like his character has been so consumed by preserving this illusion that he's forgotten that he's actually a kind of a good person at heart or something, too. Maybe it's like that. Right. It's also funny that he decides to go home. Yeah. It's like on the spot. Then. Yeah.

[01:32:20] So the one thing that I was thinking about this scene consistent with the kind of coming of age is that I know I've brought this up on this podcast before. But when I took a course on adolescent development, there was this concept that the professor gave to us. And it came from watching films on coming of age. And he says that there is always a film in every coming of age movie that he called the scene of mandatory disillusionment where you realize that adults aren't in control the way you think they are. They're not great. They're not all powerful.

[01:32:50] They're not benevolent. They're just imperfect people. And that a lot of what you think is their greatness or grandiosity is a facade. And this is definitely an archetype of that. So if you look at it from Dorothy's perspective and not from the motivations or character of the wizard, it makes a ton of sense. Right. And if it's, you know, it's intrapsychic. Like I tend to see it. That is the insight that she gets at the end.

[01:33:18] And it's not the fake insight about home that she says she got. It's that like you can't trust these adults. Yeah, exactly. Even Glinda is creepy kind of. Yeah. But then I also think there is something kind of heartwarming and I don't know if it's corny. But like you have the brain in you. Yeah. But you do need, sometimes you need it to be acknowledged.

[01:33:42] You know, like I think of that sometimes as part of our role as teachers is these kids have more in them than they think. And sometimes all they need is some kind of external acknowledgement. And I feel like that's what the doctor of thinkology or the ticking heart or the certificate of bravery or whatever that he gives. Or what is it? A medal? It's a medal that he gives to the lion. Like you could think these things are just more artifice, more bullshit. But I think they're not.

[01:34:11] Like I think it's what is allowing them to realize their own virtue that was always within them but that they just didn't recognize. And then like you said, with Dorothy, that is just magnified to her whole character, you know? Right. They're all aspects of her character. And it is much like, you know, Professor Marvel, who is a charlatan but kind-hearted enough to try to get her to go back home. That's what he's doing here. He's like, I could never have actually given him a heart.

[01:34:41] But I have the wisdom to tell them that it was there all along. He's not wrong in that. And that's the thing. With them, it was there all along. I think that's pretty clear and unambiguous. You know, when this starts then bleeding into Dorothy was home all along or like that's where things get a little confusing like in that quote. But yeah, like you said, he just decides, all right, well, I've given these people. I've set them up.

[01:35:07] The only way, though, I'm going to actually get you home and it becomes kind of literal. Like I came here and I was part of the Omaha State Fair or something like that. And I got caught here and I built this whole life of fantasy for myself and for everybody else. Now it's time to go back. I guess maybe he's been revealed, you know, and he decides to escape. Yeah. Or just, yeah. Maybe it almost feels like he's relieved. Like it's probably like too much stress. Maybe it's like retirement.

[01:35:34] It's like, you know, I don't have to bullshit everybody constantly anymore. You know, play all these different characters too, you know. One of the best scenes is when Toto pulls the curtain back and he's just flipping levers. Pay no attention. Working hard. To that band behind the curtain. That's just great. And it's like that was the book, right? It was like we pull back the curtain and yeah, it's all gears. It's all biology. It's all, but it still can produce something amazing.

[01:36:03] And that's like film also. A floating head. Yeah, that's right. I read some people saying like, hey, this seems like it's a, some sort of allegory for filmmaking in general. It's like, yeah, there's. That head is freaky, by the way. The floating green head. It's so cool. Like the, like the effects of this are so, so cool. They haven't aged somehow and I don't totally understand it. But like there's, even the, the great silent movies, it's not that they've aged. It's just that they're very, oh, that's cool silent movie.

[01:36:33] It's very much of its era in a way that this like just isn't. Well, yeah. And I think part of it is that when you look at the technicolor process, we don't see movies like that anymore. Like one, it's full color. So it's sound and color mature, right? So like we get that. But also we just like, it's hard to replicate that technicolor look. I don't know that anybody would want to, but it's that super saturated look is just so awe inspiring and we don't see it a lot.

[01:37:01] So it's like a mature movie already in terms of film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's right. And the brightness of it and the just the bursting colors is also on that line between real and artifice that this movie just pulls off like no other. I just love that he's just actually some guy from the Omaha State Fair that happened to come here. Yeah. And then you get the last bit of incompetence where he, you know, he says, I'll take you home with me.

[01:37:31] She gets in there, but Toto runs out and she runs out. The cat, Chekhov's Toto and the cat. Yeah. And he doesn't, he actually doesn't know how the balloon works. He's like, you can't bring it. Sorry. I love it. He doesn't seem bothered by it either. No, not at all. Which is, it adds to the like weird complexity of this character. Like, does he care? Yeah. Okay. So then Glenda comes. Now she feels like she'll never get home.

[01:37:59] And you sort of wonder like why she wants to go home that badly. Right. Is sepia life really that good? Yeah. And then there's that quote where Glenda comes and says, this was the lesson she really needs to learn. It's that if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. Like, A, what does that mean?

[01:38:24] Like, I think that's a very cryptic line, which I don't see talked about that much in, like, I don't think I ever came across it. Yeah. Yeah. It's confusingly written. Yeah. It's just like, wait, you have to really think about it. And in some ways I think it's usurped in our collective memory by there's no place like home. Right. And there's no place like home. So I think the reading I've always had, and I'm not saying I reject this now, is here I thought that for me to live a full happy life, I needed adventure.

[01:38:53] And I need to be out of this butt fuck town that I live in, like shit stained Kansas. I need to go somewhere where there's adventure. I need to go to Paris. I need to go to Italy. I need to go to wherever. And actually everything I wanted was already here. And, you know, with all the ambiguity of that, because it's like, you know, is it though? Like you have this aunt and uncle that won't even step up to protect your dog. Yeah.

[01:39:19] I thought maybe, maybe this is just an old timey, like what you tell a little girl. Home is where the heart is and you don't need to go out into the world. And maybe that was sincere. Maybe it was sincerely like. Sure. Like it is like your hometown. It's meaningful. Yeah. You're loved at home. Maybe you've been taking it for granted. Maybe that's, that's a reading that we're supposed to have that she thought she was being not cared for. But in reality, when she wakes up, everybody's around there giving her love.

[01:39:48] And it's hard for me to read it this way, but maybe it was her own, you know, adolescent egocentrism that was like, while they were really trying to support the farm, like give her a life, you know, save the chickens or whatever. She was so hyper-focused on her own shit. But everybody else is there fixing the cart, whatever, you know, they're dealing with the pigs. And all she wants is attention, but she, she mistakes their inattentiveness for some sort of lack of love. And we're getting this from her perspective.

[01:40:17] So maybe some of the unfeelingness that comes across in the scene with the Auntie Em and Uncle, whoever, they seem like nice people when they take Toto, is like more from her perspective. Because she did let Toto go into this woman's garden and chase her cat and do all these things. Like you can't just do that. And you're right. She's a little self-obsessed there. And one of the things she learns is like, there are other people in Oz that I have to care for. That's right.

[01:40:47] And that's a big lesson of growing up. It's not all about you. And adolescents do go through this sort of regression of egocentrism. The issue with that is it does also sound like telling somebody, like giving them a little opium for the masses, you know, like, oh, this home is this magical place. It might seem dreary and shitty where everybody's just like working their ass off and care about themselves.

[01:41:14] But actually it's awesome and beautiful and you shouldn't want to leave or resist anything that's going on, you know. But then it also just kind of seems more mystical than that. It's like that's that line. It's almost like they're implying she never left, which I guess would be true literally if it's a dream. But it's almost like this is all here. Like Oz is within you already on your Kansas farm. And so there's no need to look any further than your own backyard.

[01:41:43] It's almost like you can't leave. It's like already here. You're already here. Yeah. Yeah. Which, again, to me, like maybe, you know, of course, who knows whether we should even care what the script writers explicitly believed about what they were writing. But it does seem just at odds with the hero's journey and the discovery that she makes about her own courage and intelligence and the regain confidence to just be told, like, find a husband here in BFE Kansas. Yeah.

[01:42:13] We didn't talk about this interpretation, but you can't help but see it as empowering for women as a movie. Yeah, because it's the hero's journey, but it's a 14-year-old girl. It's a 14-year-old girl. And the witches are women, you know, both the good and the bad ones. So to, like, remove it by, as you say, giving her a dose of the opiate for the masses and telling her, it's all here. It's all here. Marry one of these guys. Right.

[01:42:38] Which I think was in some earlier version of the script, like she was having a romance with the scarecrow. Because remember there's that weird thing, but at the end of it where she says, I'm going to, like, she says to the scarecrow, I think I'll miss you most of all. And it's like if you're the Tin Man and the Tower of Divine, you're like, hey, what the fuck? Like, yeah, why did she say that?

[01:42:59] So apparently I think it was because they were going to imply that she and the farmhand that plays the scarecrow were about to have a little relationship. And then they backed off on that on the front end, but they let that line stay on the back end. That's so funny. I did not know that. That's great. But that is the future that you kind of imagine for her. And that's why, like, I think it's both, like, giving that message but also subverting it.

[01:43:26] It's making the difference between Kansas and Oz so stark. And she's so, like, as much as people love her here, they loved her more in Oz. Right. They're worshipping her. And it's so beautiful. And it's always a new adventure, something you've never seen before, that it almost feels like, like, even though that's kind of the, and the moral of the story is, it's at the same time subverting it.

[01:43:53] Unless you take the more mystical reading, which is there's no difference between these two places anyway. We're talking more about something, a home in a more transcendent sense. Right. If they had really wanted to run with the interpretation that actually what you didn't realize was that home had everything that you were looking for to begin with, they shouldn't have transitioned it back to sepia. They should have made the farmhouse also be in technicolor when she woke up.

[01:44:21] And the fact that they didn't feels to me like a real choice to be like, like she's going back to sepia land. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like, exactly. That we're supposed to feel a little disappointed at that. Yeah. Right. She goes, this is my room. And it's still that sepia drab room. Yeah. And then they sort of gaslight her when, I mean, I don't know what they're supposed to say. They're like, sure, we believe you. And she's like, but you don't. And you were there.

[01:44:51] And you and you. That's the thing. Like, they were all there. They're all in Oz already. It's almost like. But yeah, they also don't like explain why they didn't let her in. Can you imagine getting out of a storm and then all of a sudden you see your kid knocked out in the house? Like, I would feel like I had failed my fundamental job as a caretaker. You know? We were looking for you, Dorothy. Were you? Were you? Because I was knocking. Exactly.

[01:45:20] You just left me and Toto out to fucking die. All right. Yeah. Well, we're still here, we think. Unless we're in some other dimension. Yeah. Unless you're not hearing this. If you're not hearing this, then we're gone forever. And we never existed. Anything left to say? Do you think it was a dream? Do you read it as a dream? I feel like the film doesn't leave any room for ambiguity about whether it's a dream. The book, obviously, is different.

[01:45:51] But I like to think that it is just as real, even if it is a dream. It is the realest thing that's happened to you. Absolutely. I think that, too. I think that's what draws Lynch to it so much, too. And there's a beautiful thing where he's doing an interview and doing his normal cagey thing, but then someone mentions The Wizard of Oz, and he says, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about that movie. Like, he gets very serious, and he says that.

[01:46:18] And, like, I think it's because, like, dream and reality is porous in his mind. That's how he understands reality, you know, the world that we live in. And this movie, I think, gets at that. In everything that we've been talking about, too, like just the effects and everything, like real and artificial, is blended together. Yeah. The other day I asked Bella, what odds would you put on that this is currently a dream? Like, that we are right now? Like, just that moment.

[01:46:47] Yeah, that you're currently, that you, Tamela, are currently in a dream. And she was like, 10%. I was like, what? What is your life like? I mean, I think that's fair. Like, you know, 5%. I like that, 10%. All right. Great movie. Good choice, Liza. Thank you, Lai. Join us next time on Very Bad Wizards. Thank you.