December 1989 brought an appropriately dramatic end to the 1980s: The month kicked off with Dad Bush and future Pizza Hut spokesperson Mikhail Gorbachev announcing an end to the Cold War; ended with a piano scarfed David Hasselhoff rocking Berlin into the 1990s; and saw the debut of The Simpsons and the reign of "We Didn't Start the Fire" in between. Optimism was the general vibe, though there's little evidence of this to be found in the 3rd Baby-sitters Club Super Special. OOF.
Brooke and Kaykay discuss the problematic treatment of racism and fatphobia in the final BSC book of the 1980s, with digressions on WASP colonial cosplay, MORE PEE WEE (!!), and Young Kaykay's close encounter with the Moonies.
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December 1989 brought an appropriately dramatic end to the 1980s: The month kicked off with Dad Bush and future Pizza Hut spokesperson Mikhail Gorbachev announcing an end to the Cold War; ended with a piano scarfed David Hasselhoff rocking Berlin into the 1990s; and saw the debut of The Simpsons and the reign of "We Didn't Start the Fire" in between. Optimism was the general vibe, though there's little evidence of this to be found in the 3rd Baby-sitters Club Super Special. OOF.
Brooke and Kaykay discuss the problematic treatment of racism and fatphobia in the final BSC book of the 1980s, with digressions on WASP colonial cosplay, MORE PEE WEE (!!), and Young Kaykay's close encounter with the Moonies.
Visit us at our website, and follow us on:
[00:00:00] Brooke: Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead, you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.
[00:00:24] Kaykay: And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist, and I am new to the books.
[00:00:28] Brooke: And this week, Kaykay, it is our last Most Eighties Moments episode.
[00:00:36] Kaykay: Oh my god!
[00:00:38] Brooke: I know!
[00:00:39] Kaykay: We're leaving the eighties. I'm having feelings.
[00:00:43] Brooke: What are those feelings? Tell me about your feelings.
[00:00:46] Kaykay: I'm having feelings of sadness to leave the eighties, and also maybe happy feelings to leave the eighties.
[00:00:53] Brooke: Right. I think all eighties children have very complicated feelings about the eighties.
[00:00:59] Kaykay: Yeah, it's very representative of having lived through the eighties.
[00:01:02] Brooke: Right, the nostalgia that we have is not like pure uncut "everything is great" nostalgia. It's also like plenty of "can you believe how fucked up this shit was?" mixed in.
[00:01:15] Kaykay: It contains multitudes.
[00:01:16] Brooke: Exactly.
[00:01:17] Kaykay: Which, this is a fitting book to be leaving the eighties, cause there's fucked up shit in this book. What?! WHAT?!
[00:01:26] Brooke: It's a little bit of a preview. For the record, listeners, when we got on for this call to do this recording, I said, we're not going to talk about the book until we hit record because we want this to be-
[00:01:39] Kaykay: We can't, there's too much bursting. There's water bursting out of the dam.
[00:01:44] Brooke: Before we get into that, let's talk about how we wrapped up the eighties by looking at the events of December 1989, which is when this book was published.
December 3rd is when you get the quote-unquote "end of the Cold War," when Dad Bush and Gorbachev got together and said, "We're gonna work together now instead of fighting each other."
[00:02:10] Kaykay: Whenever you say Dad Bush, I just, I go into this surreal place where I'm not thinking about George Bush. I think about a person with dad bush.
[00:02:22] Brooke: Who's to say that that isn't George Bush?
[00:02:25] Kaykay: Every time you say dad Bush, I'm just like somewhere else for like five minutes.
[00:02:29] Brooke: Think about that in the summit in Malta with Gorbachev as they end the Cold War. A dad bush brought an end to the Cold War.
[00:02:36] Kaykay: It's like a dad bod, you know?
[00:02:38] Brooke: Yeah, exactly.
[00:02:38] Kaykay: It's dad bush.
[00:02:40] Brooke: And it's funny looking back at that, I went and I listened to the announcement, that like joint announcement they made together. And I remember watching this on TV, and literally the very first thing that Dad Bush said for why they need to work together to tackle problems, is the environment. Spoiler alert, they didn't. But at the moment, there was this idea that we were going to enter this peaceful time now.
[00:03:07] Kaykay: Yeah. All the problems were over.
[00:03:08] Brooke: Yeah. Yeah, like in the American-based geopolitical sense, everyone was so focused on Russia and the Cold War and all of that. And it was like, "Oh, now we're going to be friends, and Gorbachev's going to be in a Pizza Hut commercial," which is a thing that really happens.
[00:03:25] Kaykay: Wait, Gorbachev was in a Pizza Hut commercial?
[00:03:27] Brooke: He was.
[00:03:28] Kaykay: Am I remembering something where his birthmark is found out to be sauce? Or am I just creating this live right now? So that wasn't the commercial?
[00:03:37] Brooke: No, but I love that that's what you think.
[00:03:41] Kaykay: I was pretty convinced, but no, my mind just created that, which is, I don't know what to think of all that.
[00:03:46] Brooke: Okay. So this was filmed in the nineties. Gorbachev, he's at Pizza Hut with his granddaughter, and people in the restaurant are looking and like sort of arguing at the table about whether or not Gorbachev was good or bad.
And they're like, "Because of him, we have political instability!" "Because of him, we have freedom," blah, blah, blah. And then at the end, the mom's like, "Because of him, we have many things...like Pizza Hut."
[00:04:15] Kaykay: What?! I'm so confused.
[00:04:19] Brooke: So they're like, "No matter what, you really can't knock Gorbachev, because if it wasn't for him, we wouldn't have Pizza Hut," and then they all agree. And they do like a pizza toast, like we see in the Baby-sitters Club Netflix show, where they do a pizza toast. Apparently it's from the Gorbachev Pizza Hut commercial. They do that as like a gesture of goodwill towards Gorbachev, and Gorbachev smiles like, "You're welcome. No matter what you think, I brought you Pizza Hut, so I can't be bad." And everyone agrees.
[00:04:51] Kaykay: I like my commercial better.
[00:04:53] Brooke: I do too, because this nonsense is... my head hurts.
[00:04:56] Kaykay: It's pretty garbage.
[00:04:57] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:04:57] Kaykay: That's pretty garbage.
[00:04:58] Brooke: If it wasn't for December of 1989, we never would've got Russia becoming unified under Pizza Hut, you know? So that happened. And then on December 31st, do you remember David Hasselhoff at the Berlin Wall? I teased it in the last episode.
[00:05:15] Kaykay: I think so. Yeah, I think so. Did he do a number or something?
[00:05:19] Brooke: He did. It is the definition of camp.
[00:05:23] Kaykay: In my mind, there's a butt waggle. Am I pulling up a butt waggle?
[00:05:28] Brooke: Yeah, I mean, sure. It's David Hasselhoff. You're like, "I immediately think of butt waggle when I think of David Hasselhoff."
[00:05:34] Kaykay: You're like, "Fair enough."
[00:05:35] Brooke: In my memory, he was performing it on top of the Berlin Wall.
[00:05:40] Kaykay: Yeah, same.
[00:05:40] Brooke: Like, strutting down the Berlin Wall.
[00:05:42] Kaykay: That's where the butt waggles are happening.
[00:05:44] Brooke: Yeah. He's not on the Berlin Wall, actually. He's like on a cherry picker, hung out over this crowd on the Berlin Wall. And he is wearing a light-up leather jacket and a piano scarf. It is so camp. And he just like leans over, like you see him get in the moment and he's not even focused on the TV. This is for their New Year's celebration, so it's like the equivalent of the ball dropping, right? He is just focused on the crowd there. As he's leaning over, someone lights a fucking firecracker and throws it at his head and it just misses him.
[00:06:20] Kaykay: Holy shit. How does he react?
[00:06:22] Brooke: He keeps going. He is like so into it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as in the moment as David Hasselhoff was, performing at the Berlin Wall.
[00:06:31] Kaykay: Consummate professional.
[00:06:32] Brooke: He is like a legend there for that. The Washington Post, back in 2019, covered him going back. So he still tours in Germany. He's still a big singer over there. Kind of like a nostalgic act now, but intensely nostalgic, where people were like crying, talking about what David Hasselhoff meant to them. His performance, comparing it to like Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, and Reagan's "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" speech, and David Hasselhoff's performance of "Looking for Freedom." Like, the Germans that they interviewed were like, "It's the same."
They have a picture of him on the cherry picker in like the Berlin Museum, and he gets all choked up and emotional talking about how important it is. Like you can tell that moment that he was singing, it was like the high he's been chasing his entire life. And then you can tell that a lot of the fans that are there to see him again so many years later feel the same way. It's like everyone has this nostalgia for him, because that was a moment where I think people felt just unbridled optimism, like literally anything was possible. They associate him with that moment, and so he is just this icon over there still.
It made me think about the kind of nostalgia that we have, even for things that are like, you look back like, "that actually wasn't that good." Or "that was actually kind of problematic."
[00:08:04] Kaykay: Like the eighties.
[00:08:05] Brooke: Yeah. Like everything about the eighties. But because you encountered it at this moment of optimism, of feeling potential, of feeling like things are going to get better and you haven't gone through any sort of setbacks yet, like you're just at that moment of potential. What you see what you're around then just imprints on you. David Hasselhoff has had that impact, that moment on December 31st, 1989, in that piano scarf and that light up jacket in a cherry picker, is that moment for a lot of people over in Germany.
[00:08:39] Kaykay: You say something so interesting about optimism and your memories, and it makes me think of the way that people get nostalgic for the past in that way, because they felt very optimistic. Maybe they felt younger, you know, maybe they felt this hope. And it can be really hard for folks to hold the bad things, you know, as well as the good things, because it's like, "No, it's this feeling that it was all good," right? But that feeling actually might be your own optimism and your own sense of hope.
[00:09:10] Brooke: Right. The blinders that you had on at the time, or the things that hadn't happened yet, it captures a moment in a way that is uncomplicated.
[00:09:18] Kaykay: Yeah, or maybe your innocence. Maybe your innocence, right?
[00:09:20] Brooke: Yeah. That's David Hasselhoff for the Germans.
[00:09:23] Kaykay: Brilliant! I mean, I'm going to go out and get a piano scarf.
[00:09:26] Brooke: Everybody needs a piano scarf. Whenever shit gets hard, just throw on your piano scarf and just strut like you're David Hasselhoff at the Berlin Wall.
[00:09:35] Kaykay: It's kind of like "Dance like no one's watching." When things get hard, just throw on your piano scarf.
[00:09:41] Brooke: Yeah, problem solved.
[00:09:43] Kaykay: Fuck it all.
[00:09:43] Brooke: So his song "Looking for Freedom" was the number one song of 1989 in Germany. Speaking of number ones, in the US, the number ones were, this was Billy Joel's, "We Didn't Start the Fire."
[00:09:57] Kaykay: I loved this song when it came out.
[00:09:59] Brooke: It was like rap.
[00:10:00] Kaykay: Definitely white people rap.
[00:10:01] Brooke: Dad rap. White dad rap. Have you ever contemplated the lyrics?
[00:10:06] Kaykay: Not in a minute, but I probably could recite all of them.
[00:10:10] Brooke: It's just a bunch of nouns. You know? It's like somebody threw like nouns of the 20th century into like a Yahtzee thing, and they just spilled out and Billy Joel is just like, "Huh-nuh-nuh, huh-nuh-nuh, noun, noun, noun, noun, random fact, noun, noun, and another noun here." Like, that's "We Didn't Start the Fire."
[00:10:33] Kaykay: It's kind of brilliant, cause it's, it's like a Rorschach test. There's just nothing in it other than nouns, so it almost makes you feel like it's so deep because you're only bringing your own thoughts to the table about it.
[00:10:44] Brooke: Yes, that's the secret.
[00:10:46] Kaykay: It sort of feels like a computer wrote it, like you taught a computer just to write a song of nouns.
[00:10:50] Brooke: Oh, completely. It was just one of those things, like when you can like feed a bunch of stuff into a bot and then have it spit stuff out.
[00:10:57] Kaykay: Yeah, it's like a neural network.
[00:11:01] Brooke: It's like they just fed a bunch of headlines of the 20th century into a bot and it just spit shit out.
[00:11:08] Kaykay: Yeah.
[00:11:09] Brooke: It's like, "Harry Truman, Doris Day. England's got a new queen! Random word, random word, and we say thalidomide." and that's how I found out what thalidomide was, thanks to...
[00:11:18] Kaykay: "Children of thalidomide!"
[00:11:25] Brooke: Such dad rap. Oh my God, I love it. And then the final number one of the eighties, which became the first number one of the nineties, was Phil Collins' ode to homelessness, "Another Day in Paradise." At the very beginning of the nineties, there were several sort of socially conscious songs that came out that were pretty pop, like Janet Jackson's "State of the World." I mean, frankly, all of Rhythm Nation is conscious and political in that way. You had a lot more of that coming in, and then it just kind of went away. It's like, "Oh, we don't have to actually solve homelessness as long as we have a song about how homelessness is- not even sad, it's just there. Problem solved."
But then also that month, two songs in the top 10 that have held up better than the two number ones that we've mentioned, Soul II Soul's "Back to Life," and Technotronic's "Pump Up the Jam."
[00:12:20] Kaykay: If there is a song of my soul, it's "Pump Up the Jam."
[00:12:23] Brooke: Yeah, you just pumped up your arms.
[00:12:25] Kaykay: Yeah. My whole body was a jam being pumped. It's like adrenaline raced through me, just thinking of it.
[00:12:31] Brooke: This playlist that we have for this month is pretty good, so check that out on Tidal. Our playlists are now on Tidal, no longer on Spotify. Tidal has a free version now, if you do not have a subscription, so you can find "Back to Life," "Pump Up the Jam," "We Didn't Start the Fire," all that good stuff. Movies, number ones at the box office were War of the Roses and National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation.
[00:12:58] Kaykay: Aww.
[00:12:59] Brooke: Is that a favorite of yours?
[00:13:01] Kaykay: Yeah, I enjoyed it. I love that Elaine from Seinfeld is like the evil yuppie neighbor.
[00:13:06] Brooke: Yeah. She's so unreasonable that she doesn't want to have trees come crashing through her bedroom window. Such a bitch!
[00:13:13] Kaykay: Or open sewage being pumped into the public water system. What a fucking bitch!
[00:13:20] Brooke: Yeah, politics of that one doesn't hold up well. But just like we said, nostalgia can be complicated.
[00:13:26] Kaykay: Yeah, it's a good example. All of the National Lampoons are a very good example of a complicated eighties look back.
[00:13:34] Brooke: And then also released, we had She-Devil. Do you remember She-Devil with Roseanne Barr and Meryl Streep? Talk about another really-
[00:13:44] Kaykay: Are you telling me She-Devil is problematic?
[00:13:46] Brooke: Yeah, yeah.
[00:13:47] Kaykay: I'm shocked. I'm shocked! I don't remember much about She-Devil other than Meryl Streep is the new wife, right? The husband leaves Roseanne Barr for Meryl Streep and then Roseanne Barr systematically destroys Meryl Streep. Do I have that right?
[00:13:59] Brooke: Yes. She like makes it her mission to destroy Meryl Streep and to destroy her ex-husband, and then at the end it's like, well, he's redeemable, but Meryl Streep is not redeemable because she's flirting with someone else. And so basically it's like, it's horizontal oppression.
[00:14:18] Kaykay: I was just going to say, a hundred percent horizontal oppression.
[00:14:21] Brooke: Just vindictive, misogynistic with a toxic "you go girl" sheen.
[00:14:25] Kaykay: Welcome to the nineties! We're not fixing nothing.
[00:14:27] Brooke: Nope.
[00:14:27] Kaykay: We're going to be trash, just like the eighties.
[00:14:30] Brooke: TV, The Smurfs ended.
[00:14:33] Kaykay: Aww.
[00:14:33] Brooke: We spoke about Saturday morning cartoons in our last episode. Was The Smurfs a part of your Saturday morning repertoire?
[00:14:42] Kaykay: It was. And I don't know if I've told this story, but we lived at an apartment complex that was right next to the Moonies. You know the Moonies?
[00:14:52] Brooke: I do.
[00:14:53] Kaykay: Okay, so they were in Westchester-
[00:14:54] Brooke: Wait, I'm sorry. We've been friends for more than 15 years, and you've never told me you lived next to the Moonies?
[00:15:02] Kaykay: Yeah. We lived in an apartment complex in Irvington, New York, after we moved out of the Bronx. And the Moonies were literally next door and there was a fence between us and the Moonies, and one day I was playing Smurfs with my friends. And for some reason, I don't know why, I was a Smurf in distress, but I was like rolling around in the woods, like "Help me! Help me!"
[00:15:25] Brooke: You were pretending to be Smurfs. You weren't playing with Smurf toys, you were just pretending to be a Smurf.
[00:15:30] Kaykay: Correct. We were LARPing before LARPing was a thing. But of course, no makeup or outfits because our parents were not going to invest in that.
[00:15:37] Brooke: You were just like, "I am a Smurf."
[00:15:39] Kaykay: Hundred percent eighties child imagination. I was just a Smurf.
[00:15:42] Brooke: Were you a specific Smurf?
[00:15:44] Kaykay: I probably would have been Brainy, even though I wasn't brainy. I think I liked his glasses.
[00:15:48] Brooke: Oh, got it. Okay.
[00:15:49] Kaykay: And maybe I picked up like the coded queerness and like took it, took it as my own. Anyway, I was some Smurf and I was a Smurf in distress, and I was rolling around like, "Help me! Help me!" And a guard came over with like a semiautomatic rifle, and was like, "Are you okay?"
[00:16:08] Brooke: You were like, "Not now!"
[00:16:11] Kaykay: Correct! I was like, "I'm just playing Smurfs." This is what I said.
[00:16:16] Brooke: And he was like, "Oh, carry on."
[00:16:18] Kaykay: Exactly. And then he was like, "okay," and he turned around and he left. So there you go.
[00:16:22] Brooke: So that is not the story that I expected to hear when I asked if you watched The Smurfs.
[00:16:29] Kaykay: This brain, it's going to go strange places.
[00:16:32] Brooke: I love it.
[00:16:33] Kaykay: I love that we've been friends so long and I still surprise you, that I lived next to a spy, that I lived right next to the Moonies.
[00:16:39] Brooke: Right, that a Moonie guard like held you at gunpoint as you pretended to be a Smurf. You know, everybody has that moment in childhood.
[00:16:48] Kaykay: C'mon, that didn't happen to you when you were a kid? You don't immediately think of the Moonies when you think of the Smurfs? What's wrong with you?
[00:16:55] Brooke: Well, that was delightful. I wonder if you have a story about the show that debuted that month, which was The Simpsons. So The Simpsons started as The Smurfs were ending.
[00:17:06] Kaykay: One childhood classic for me bleeding into the next. Because I loved The Tracey Ullman Show. Oh, did I love The Tracey Ullman Show. And I remember when The Simpsons premiered on Tracey Ullman, and I was like, we'll see where this goes, because it was, it was weird on The Tracey Ullman Show. It was very different, you know, not as illustrated as well. And Homer was more like an old man. The characters hadn't really found themselves.
[00:17:30] Brooke: They were just short little segments and it was more like, angry.
[00:17:34] Kaykay: Yeah. It was kind of like Penny from Pee-wee's. It was like the illustrated part where you kind of went and got a soda.
[00:17:40] Brooke: You were not a Penny fan.
[00:17:42] Kaykay: I thought Penny was okay, but I was really in it for Pee-wee. So I was like, why are you wasting my time? Similar to Tracey Ullman where I was like, ah, I guess this sketch is okay, but why are you wasting my time? I'm here to see Tracy Ullman.
[00:17:54] Brooke: That's how I felt about the King of Cartoons on Pee-wee. Like, I don't want to see this old creepy cartoon from like the 1930s. Like, it weirds me out. I want giant underwear.
[00:18:05] Kaykay: I mean, obviously Penny is going to be above King of Cartoons, but Pee-wee's above Penny! So there's a clear hierarchy.
[00:18:11] Brooke: Everybody knows that hierarchy.
[00:18:13] Kaykay: You think I'm a fool? Come on. Stop with this filler and give me what I came for. I don't have time. I've got to go play Smurfs in 20 minutes to get held up by gunpoint.
[00:18:21] Brooke: Right, you got things to do, you got people to be held at gunpoint by.
[00:18:25] Kaykay: I gotta be LARPing in the woods as Brainy Smurf. I'm not fucking around with you.
[00:18:30] Brooke: Well, did you become a bigger fan of The Simpsons when they were on their own show and not interrupting your Tracey Ullman?
[00:18:36] Kaykay: Yeah, I loved it.
[00:18:36] Brooke: Okay.
[00:18:36] Kaykay: Exactly. Once it was its own show and I was showing up for that, I loved it. And of course I loved Bart Simpson, and I had a giant Bart Simpson night shirt that said "Cowabunga."
[00:18:47] Brooke: He was skateboarding, I'm sure.
[00:18:49] Kaykay: Yes, he was. How did you feel about The Simpsons when it came out?
[00:18:53] Brooke: Well I loved The Simpsons, but I was not really allowed to watch The Simpsons. My mom did not like The Simpsons. I still remember so vividly something with Grandpa Simpson, and he said something about "the family jewels," and my mom was like, "I hate this show" and she didn't want me to watch it, because Grandpa Simpson said something about the family jewels. And I didn't know what the family jewels were.
[00:19:15] Kaykay: I mean, it's kind of a little Golden Girls-y with, you expect it to be a cartoon and then, dirty stuff, complicated stuff.
[00:19:21] Brooke: They've had over 700 episodes and it's been renewed through episode 750. The fact that that is still enduring is pretty fricking remarkable.
[00:19:32] Kaykay: It is.
[00:19:34] Brooke: Big things coming out in December '89, including the third Baby-sitters Club Super Special, Baby-sitters Winter Vacation.
So it's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, "A week of skiing, skating, and snowball fights. Why can't homework always be like that? Every year, Stoneybrook Middle School (the whole school!) gets invited to Leicester Lodge in Vermont for a week of winter adventure! This trip sure isn't like any other! A busload of little kids unexpectedly needs baby-sitters. Mary Anne uncovers a ghost lodge. Claudia and Stacey both fall in love with handsome French skiers. Kristy is helping her team win the winter war... while California Dawn can barely stand up in her skates. And if it doesn't stop snowing, SMS may be snowbound until spring!" End quote.
So we didn't talk about this at all. Kaykay, gut reaction. How did you feel about this book?
[00:20:40] Kaykay: I wanted to like this book. And for most of it, it was the most bearable super special to me because the topic was fun. It reminded me of my first ski trip around this age, which was the first time I ever tried skiing. I was thinking about the East Coast and New England, and there was just a lot of nostalgia for me. So I wanted to like the book, but ah, there was some real shit in it where I was just like, ouch...
[00:21:10] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:21:10] Kaykay: And it's bookended. It's like one problematic thing is pretty early in the book and is a thread through. And then one just like punches you right in the fucking face on like the second to last page.
[00:21:20] Brooke: Yeah. I have a feeling. I know what that last one is. What's the first one?
[00:21:24] Kaykay: Yeah. Well the first one, how do you even describe this? It's the author, I don't know if it's, um...
[00:21:33] Brooke: Apparently it's Ann M.
[00:21:35] Kaykay: Ah!
[00:21:36] Brooke: Which to me is shocking.
[00:21:37] Kaykay: It's a real gut punch. I mean, maybe she was having a bad week, but anyway, there's a plot unfolding where there's a kid on the ski trip, a younger kid named Pinky, and she's being very mean to Jessi.
And Jessi is basically like, wow, this kid is really being mean to me for absolutely no reason. And in my experience, if I'm treated mainly for absolutely no reason, historically, there's been racism in it and prejudice. So she sort of puts two and two together and says, maybe this kid is prejudiced.
And then it gets sort of shown to us through the book that no, like, the kid is not prejudiced at all. It's just, the kid is missing home. And in fact, there's a question raised, is Jessi the prejudiced one? Because Jessi would make some sort of assumption based on her experience. It was so creepy. I was kind of crawling out of my skin.
[00:22:28] Brooke: The white feminist nonsense in this that is represented through Mallory. Mallory is like, "Oh, I disagree with you that Pinky is prejudiced." They're like, "Pinky's an asshole to everyone," but not in the same way at all. She accuses Jessi of cheating when they're playing a game. She asks Jessi, she's like, "Do you know how to play poker? And Jessi's like, "No."
[00:22:53] Kaykay: "I assumed you would."
[00:22:54] Brooke: She's like, "I assumed you would."
Why did you assume that she would know how to play poker? You assume that she's gambling or something? Like, that message was not good.
[00:23:05] Kaykay: And also, you know, the whole time I was like, and as if both of those things can't be true at once, right? As if it's not possible that she's missing home and she's prejudiced, but it's sort of like the zero sum game of experience, right?
Like, first of all, I'm not going to listen to you. I'm going to doubt what you're telling me. And I'm going to only allow one reality to live in my mind. And my reality trumps yours.
[00:23:30] Brooke: Right. She might be in a shitty mood because she's missing home. But the way that she's choosing to vent that frustration is on the one black person that she is encountering in very racially coded ways.
[00:23:46] Kaykay: Ordering her to get her sodas and stuff in ways that we don't see her doing with white characters.
[00:23:51] Brooke: Anybody else.
[00:23:52] Kaykay: We don't actually see that at all.
[00:23:54] Brooke: We just see Mallory, who is supposedly Jessi's best friend, just really dismissing Jessi's perspective. And it's like, well, maybe listen to the person who experiences racism about what that experience is. Like, maybe Jessi knows a little bit more about racism than you do, Mallory.
[00:24:16] Kaykay: Yes. You know, I've been trying to put my finger on this since the jump, which is the way that the sort of white straight woman is controlling the narrative so completely. And that has always seemed problematic to me with the people of color.
[00:24:33] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:24:33] Kaykay: It's always felt to me like this is a white person who is actually not listening to people of color, or engaging in research in like what the experience might be like, but making a lot of assumptions based on what she's seeing.
It's always kind of bothered me a little bit that the racism that Jessi's experiencing in Stoneybrook is always sort of been shared as like, "well, it happened and then it was fixed" or like "it was only a small percentage of people." Like it's like a constant gaslighting that I've picked up in the books, but it's been so subtle.
It really has come to a head for me in this book where there's an overt expression of, I'm literally ignoring the experience of the person of color. And the only thing that can step forward is the thoughts and experiences of how the white woman is going to interpret that.
[00:25:20] Brooke: Right. And interpret it in a way that is self placating.
[00:25:24] Kaykay: Yeah.
[00:25:24] Brooke: Like, "Oh, it's something that was a problem, and it's not a problem anymore." Which is, at least in my experience, 100% the way that race was discussed in school. You know, it was always, "This was a thing of the past. Isn't it good that no one in this room is impacted by these things that happened in the past, and that none of us have any sort of responsibility about this?"
It's almost like we talk about it in a way to make us feel good about ourselves, and not in a manner of, you know, we are right now in the time where just a few days ago, Maus was banned from a school district in Tennessee. And the justification that they had for banning it was, there's nudity.
Yeah, there's a drawing of a naked mouse. You know, hiding behind like nudity and like, "Oh, they say damn a few times." That's the excuse to get out of portraying the actual horrors, like the way that things truly were, and the way that the mentality that led to that is something that still resides, that potential still resides in everyone.
That's why, like, I'm not German, I wasn't raised in Germany, I can't speak to this in the way that-
[00:26:48] Kaykay: What?!
[00:26:48] Brooke: I know, shocking. Um, I certainly can't speak to this in the way that somebody who, you know, actually was, I'm sure there's things that I don't know, and I'm sure it's not perfect, but I do know that they are not like, "We're going to sweep this under the rug."
They talk about what happened with the Nazis, how it came about and what was actually done, as a means of ensuring that it doesn't happen again. So it's, we have to be honest because we know how horrible this was and we know like, it's like you always see in books, you always see these horrors represented in black and white, and that's deliberate. Even though there were plenty of color photos around at that time, but it's like, let's always show it in black and white so that people will think it happened a really long time ago.
[00:27:34] Kaykay: Yeah. It gives a little distance.
[00:27:36] Brooke: Gives you that distance.
[00:27:37] Kaykay: In your mind.
[00:27:38] Brooke: Right. That sort of distancing makes you feel like, "Oh, why are you bringing up the past? It doesn't matter anymore."
[00:27:46] Kaykay: "Maybe you are the problem, because you won't let this go."
[00:27:50] Brooke: Right. And not, "Hey, maybe there's something that's still going on that we haven't addressed that we need to address," because then that makes people uncomfortable. And we can't have that now, can we? And so you see that in this book with Jessi. And I think that's the way that racism was presented to us, when it was presented as a topic at all. And pretty much every book that we were given to read, in terms of like what was available to us, the books that were published was very white washing of these things, and very like, I think you're right. It's, it's a matter of the microphone isn't being given to the people that have something to say.
[00:28:32] Kaykay: Or to the marginalized people.
[00:28:35] Brooke: Right, exactly. And that's deliberate, right? If you are a white person who's only learning about racism from other white people, who were using as sources content that was written by other white people, you don't know shit. You don't know anything. And that's what made me really bummed about this part where it's like, "I think maybe I need to have a talk with my parents and with my sister about, maybe it's me. Maybe it's not them, it's me." And it's like, goddamn it, Ann M.
[00:29:07] Kaykay: It was really painful.
[00:29:08] Brooke: Bad message.
[00:29:09] Kaykay: You know, it's funny, in some ways, this book to me, there was something very satisfying because something I've been feeling all along got very, like- I've been feeling all along like, this Jessi character, she seems like a vehicle for Ann M. to feel better about race relations. I like the character, but since jump there's been something where I'm like, I don't know. It's like finally I feel that a real bias has been unmasked. And I feel the same with the second piece, which is the blatant fatphobia.
[00:29:39] Brooke: Oh my God.
[00:29:40] Kaykay: I've also felt, you know, very subtle fatphobia being woven in, mostly through Jessi and Claudia. Not that Claudia is in a bigger body, but just like constant sort of griping about food choices and stuff like that. And also Jessi being like, "Oh, well I need to like watch my figure for ballet."
[00:29:57] Brooke: Always described as like, long legs. Like, people always described in context of their physical appearance.
[00:30:03] Kaykay: Great point. Yeah. That's an even better way to describe it, but just like, it's been such a like subtle weaving through, and then we get this very overt scene of the boys, you know, basically torturing a fat kid on the bus, singing a song to her.
And then the most terrible part is that the author then says, "Oh, it probably wasn't great that these boys were singing the song, but then it didn't stop the fat kid from eating three Snickers on the way home."
[00:30:32] Brooke: In a parenthetical aside, for no reason.
[00:30:34] Kaykay: Hello, like blatant messaging of like, "Fat people deserve exactly what they get."
[00:30:39] Brooke: Right.
[00:30:40] Kaykay: Like, "They have brought it on themselves. They are morally inferior and they deserve every fucking torturous thing that they get." So again, an unmasking of a very like subtle flavor I've been feeling through the books, but it's never been blatant. I don't know what, like Ann M. needed a Snickers, I think. Some of her biases are really shining through here and I'm like, I wonder what was happening that it's this book, what, 30 books in? Where we're getting a tone shift.
[00:31:07] Brooke: Yeah, that's the thing that was so jarring to me, because it's literally on page 227, and there are 230 pages in this book.
[00:31:18] Kaykay: That's what I mean, it's like a real punch to the gut on your way out.
[00:31:22] Brooke: Seriously. Like, for no reason. It's a character we've never met before. Of course, gives her the name Ethel, is described as "this fat girl on the bus." That's the entire personality that this character is given.
[00:31:36] Kaykay: I'm laughing so I don't cry. It's so sad.
[00:31:37] Brooke: And then the boys are singing that "she's got legs like tree stumps, a neck like a baboon, she can't fit down the hole." It's not even like, "That was mean." It says, "They didn't have a finish to this version, and it probably was just as well. However, the song didn't prevent Ethel from eating three Snickers bars on the way home." As, again, a parenthetical aside, and then, "Anyway, we finally reached Stoneybrook."
Like, nothing is done with it. This is the thing, it's like we're supposed to laugh at it. It's like this is supposed to be funny.
[00:32:06] Kaykay: It's kind of like meaningless fun. It's like comic relief.
[00:32:10] Brooke: Right, and it's just abject cruelty.
[00:32:13] Kaykay: Yeah.
[00:32:14] Brooke: And it is observed and not commented on, except in the context of making kind of like a wink, wink, nudge, nudge joke. And given that this is being read by kids who see themselves, again, these are kids that are about the same age. These are young impressionable kids. You know that there were fat kids reading this book.
[00:32:38] Kaykay: Of course.
[00:32:39] Brooke: Who now, just at the end of this book, feel so fucking shitty about themselves. And I don't understand, what the fuck, how an editor let this get through. Like, why Ann M. came up with it, how an editor let it get through. It just shows you how dehumanizing the eighties were and still are, but I think that today I could see something like that-
[00:33:02] Kaykay: There might be a little more space.
[00:33:04] Brooke: There would be a little. There would be some commentary on it at least.
[00:33:07] Kaykay: I mean, "fatphobia" wasn't even used back then.
[00:33:10] Brooke: Right.
[00:33:11] Kaykay: You at least would have somebody calling that out for what it is, whether or not people would then come back at you with the same fucking healthism nonsense.
[00:33:18] Brooke: Right. So, yeah, it was a blow to be hit with that. Like, I read this book previously. There's another Baby-sitters Club podcast called The Baby-sitters Book Club that I was on an episode of, and we covered this book. And so I've read this a while ago and haven't said anything to you because I was just like, oh man, I want your real reaction. I want you to be unprepared for what's to come, you know, get your uncut feedback. But I just remember many times I had to put it down and I just was like, Kaykay is going to fucking hate this.
[00:33:52] Kaykay: Oh, you're sweet, you thinking about me. Yeah. I mean, it's so perfect for the eighties. And you know, to be honest, like fatphobia is still a topic that even in like super progressive spaces, there is so much hate and bias against people in bigger bodies. That's still true to this day. And I do agree there's much more like discourse around it, but like, the eighties was like a wasteland. The fat jokes were like, everyone feels safe making fat jokes, not a single person challenging it.
And the harm, the harm that it does to people to feel like something is wrong with their bodies. It sort of strips you of any sense of humanness or personness. It's like, "Oh, you're the fat kid on the bus." And then also the ways that it strikes fear in the entire populace of, "You don't want to be like them. You must consume in order to not be like them."
[00:34:49] Brooke: Right. As you're talking, it's making me think about the fact that we see it throughout that Claudia, Claudia probably ate three Snickers on the way home, right?
[00:35:00] Kaykay: But she's not fat.
[00:35:01] Brooke: But she's not fat, so it's okay. So it's like, we'll look at your actions differently if they have different outcomes. So the same action with Claudia, it's like, "She loves junk food. What a quirky personality trait!" Because she's skinny, so it's okay for her to love junk food. But Ethel loves junk food and she's fat, "she sucks." You know what I mean?
[00:35:24] Kaykay: Yeah, and "She deserves to be fat. She deserves to be tortured."
[00:35:29] Brooke: Yeah. And that it's Mary Anne who is the one making this observation.
[00:35:33] Kaykay: Oh wow, you're blowing my mind! I didn't realize this was through Mary Anne's eyes.
[00:35:38] Brooke: Yeah. This was Mary Anne who wrote that in the epilogue.
So tell me what you thought about the framing of this. The first book was a gift that they were writing. The super special, remember, is like a gift that they were putting together. The second one was, Stacey is like, "Fine. I'll come, but you all have to write down what happened and like, I'm going to make you all document this shit." And then this one is Mary Anne. It starts off, "A book for low.
[00:36:09] Kaykay: Yeah, she's writing a book for Logan, who's in Aruba.
[00:36:12] Brooke: Right, the premise of this is, the trip that they're on is a mandatory outing ski trip. Logan is the only one in the school who is allowed to not go on this trip because his parents had already planned, during the semester, his parents had already planned this vacation to Aruba. So he doesn't get to come on the trip because he's in Aruba and every other student has to go. It is required.
[00:36:41] Kaykay: Nonsense. Come on. Come on! No. No way. No way can you require all kids to go on a ski trip.
[00:36:50] Brooke: For five days, in another state. So the whole premise is that she wants to document this for Logan and makes all of her friends join in. So it's a book for Logan, and then she's like, this is dedicated to her friends, who aren't going to get this book. So she's dedicating this gift to her boyfriend to her friends.
So the premise is pretty whack, to be honest with you. But the concept is that there is this wealthy benevolent couple.
[00:37:20] Kaykay: Yeah!
[00:37:21] Brooke: Who owns a lodge.
[00:37:23] Kaykay: Owns a school bus.
[00:37:24] Brooke: And a school bus.
[00:37:25] Kaykay: The school bus is the last thing I would take out in a winter storm. Get a Land Rover! What the heck?
[00:37:31] Brooke: To go rescue this busload of elementary school, children who were in an accident. These kids won a readathon. Unlike the typical "here, you get a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut" that is the Book-It experience.
[00:37:47] Kaykay: That I missed, and that I regret every day.
[00:37:47] Brooke: I'm so sorry you missed that. It was so glorious.
These kids get an all expenses paid trip to a lodge with two teachers. And those two teachers hike two miles through the snow to try to get them to rescue, and they both collapse. And they just like left these kids back in this bus, that is like turned over on its side, with a bus driver that has a broken leg, and the kids think he's dying. They're like, "We're gonna leave," the two adults who are actually functional, "We will both leave all of these children."
[00:38:21] Kaykay: What I remember about Yellowbirds is they had ham radios in them.
[00:38:25] Brooke: Oh yeah.
[00:38:26] Kaykay: For like, exactly this reason.
[00:38:27] Brooke: The whole premise is just, is silly. Right? It's just so silly.
[00:38:31] Kaykay: This is really in line with the super special nonsense. The super specials are just like an explosion of weirdness.
[00:38:38] Brooke: So I have a theory about the super specials.
[00:38:40] Kaykay: Oh, great.
[00:38:41] Brooke: Now, that explains this, because it's like, they're so jarring to me. Because it's not only that the format is different, you know, you get each character writing a chapter over and over, or they're in a different situation, all of that. But like, they act completely counter to how we see them act everywhere else. They're just different. They're always like, fighting.
[00:39:06] Kaykay: There's no joy.
[00:39:07] Brooke: There's no joy!
[00:39:09] Kaykay: I was really struck by the lack of joy in a fun trip.
[00:39:13] Brooke: Right. My theory is that it's like, fan fiction. The super specials are Baby-sitters Club fan fiction. You know? It feels like what somebody who is just sort of tangentially familiar with these characters, it's like they've heard of the concept of the Baby-sitters Club-
[00:39:31] Kaykay: Yeah, and then they just let it spin.
[00:39:32] Brooke: And they're just writing.
[00:39:33] Kaykay: They use their own imagination to let it spin.
[00:39:36] Brooke: Yeah. Because we see these characters acting in ways that we're like, but that's not how they, like, Claudia is this champion skier?
[00:39:45] Kaykay: I know!
[00:39:46] Brooke: Like everybody knows that Claudia is this amazing skier, so she's like super athletic. And I'm like, wait. Okay?
[00:39:53] Kaykay: Claudia?
[00:39:54] Brooke: Sure, Claudia. All right. You've got Mary Anne being completely insensitive to like, the needs of others.
[00:40:01] Kaykay: She's up her own ass the whole time, just kind of obsessing over Logan.
[00:40:04] Brooke: Yeah, fat shaming. Like, that's not what Mary Anne would do. Dawn is super like afraid of what other people would think about her, she doesn't want to be embarrassed.
[00:40:15] Kaykay: And she's like falling over a lot. And I don't know, she seems very awkward in a way that Dawn usually doesn't get portrayed.
[00:40:22] Brooke: And then she's like, "Well, I'm not going to do this again," because she doesn't want people to like laugh at her or something. And that's not Dawn.
Like, we hear over and over again about Dawn when you get the rundown of like, "and here's what you should know about each of these characters," it's that Dawn doesn't care what other people think about her. She's a quote unquote "individual." And we see this book, where Dawn just sort of like holds herself up and doesn't really do anything at all.
She's just kind of like a non-entity because she is worried about what other people think of her. Like, it just doesn't make any sense. So for me, it's like, it's somebody who is just vaguely familiar with these characters, putting them in wacky situations where they behave in ways that we would never expect them to behave. And it's just very confusing to me.
[00:41:14] Kaykay: Yeah. I think that's probably a really fair theory and makes a ton of sense. But then you say Ann M. wrote this?
[00:41:20] Brooke: She did, which is why it's very confusing to me.
[00:41:23] Kaykay: Yeah, something's not adding up.
[00:41:24] Brooke: Where I'm like, is this Ann M's version of fan fiction? Where she's just like, "In the regular series, I'm going to stay true to who these characters are. And then in the super specials, I'm going to pretend that like, these are completely new characters and make them behave in completely different ways." Like, I know that it's not actually fan fiction, but that's how it reads to me.
[00:41:46] Kaykay: Yeah, I totally, totally gotcha. I keep wondering about the author state of mind, because I feel like we pick this up in the Disneyland, where we felt like there were some like two middle fingers up somehow from the author in the way that we were experiencing the texts. Like the author feeling resentful, almost, of having to write it.
And I'm wondering the same thing here. And again, I was saying maybe she needs a Snickers because I was feeling like there's just like a sharpness. And the judginess coming out that feels like, is that really Ann M.?
[00:42:18] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:42:19] Kaykay: And you know, we all have biases, we all have things inside of us. And sometimes we're encouraged towards the better part of our nature, and sometimes we're encouraged towards, you know, the lousy judgmental voices and things in our head.
And maybe, maybe we actually express it without even knowing it because we are feeling something, right? So like your worst parts come out because maybe you're under pressure, you're upset. I don't know, that's where I was taking it. Like, what the fuck was going on for you Ann M, during this?
[00:42:50] Brooke: I was thinking about that too. And I actually, this was something that came up when I was on the other podcast that I was on discussing this, that I was sort of thinking through. And it was like, there's this theme of being homesick, of missing someone.
You know, Mary Anne is missing Logan. That's why this book exists. Mary Anne is isolated, she's off by herself all the time, playing the role of quote unquote "carnival historian," which first of all, that's not a thing. Second of all, that's not a carnival either. There is no carnival to this winter carnival. Where are the rides? Where are there games? There's none of that. Like where is the carnival?
[00:43:29] Kaykay: It's a carnival of pain. Because all they're doing is fighting with each other.
[00:43:33] Brooke: Carnival of judgment.
[00:43:34] Kaykay: It's a carnival of judgment and pain.
[00:43:37] Brooke: The kids can sign up for different roles to get extra credit. Mary Anne's taking the role of, be a historian of the town and stuff for extra credit. It was very weird. Anyway, that's why she's like always off on her own. She's isolated so that she can like do research and write, and she's missing her partner.
And she like has a breakthrough with this teacher who is missing her boyfriend too. There is that sort of theme. And I see that Ann M. dedicated this to the initials of her partner at the time. So I'm like, is this some sort of, "oh, I'm really stressed out by how much time the series is taking," and so it's coming out in that way? You know, not to psychoanalyze, but like that's kind of where it's like, well, maybe that would explain it because it's just so weird otherwise.
[00:44:29] Kaykay: Oh man. Psychoanalysis is so fun, especially with an author that you're riding her brainwaves constantly. You're also making me think, in the book, there's all these themes and instances of the babysitters not being able to be on vacation. No one can actually be on vacation. And in many cases it's presented as a choice, but it's just theme after theme after theme of nobody having any fun, and nobody really getting time for themselves. Them just having to do the same old bullshit they do at home in a new locale. It's making me wonder, you know, does Ann M. need a vacation?
[00:45:02] Brooke: You don't need to wonder. Ann M. needs a vacation. Like, this hot mess? This is how she's closing out the eighties? Ann M. needs to get the fuck away for a while, because this is not her best work. Let's put it that way.
[00:45:16] Kaykay: Yeah. And there's just like a plodding joylessness through the entire book that actually made it a real slog to read. Because it's just all sharp angles everywhere and fights, and everybody having warring needs and a real struggle to come together. It was very exhausting.
[00:45:36] Brooke: Yeah, everyone is stressed.
[00:45:37] Kaykay: Everyone's stressed.
[00:45:38] Brooke: And to your point about how they're back doing the same shit, so first of all, most of them already have other jobs that they have to do for their extra credit for the winter war, right? So it's like, you even have this fight carried throughout in that the students are, there's a red team and a blue team, and they're going for points and all of these different activities that are like hyper confusing. The way that they describe, "here's how you win at ice skating," I still don't understand it.
[00:46:08] Kaykay: I mean, you deserve credit for trying. I just skipped it.
[00:46:11] Brooke: It was very detailed on the rules and how points were assigned for these like tasks of physical ability. And then you also had a snowball fight, and like making a snow sculpture. That counted the same. So like, the amount of credit that Mary Anne gets for being quote unquote "carnival historian," again, neither a carnival nor historian.
It's like very like Coffee Talk, "discuss," from SNL back in the day. But then for Kristy like organizing the entire fucking thing, and then Jessi organizing the entire talent show, and then Claudia for judging the snow sculpture. Like, these are equivalent things.
You get to pick which snow sculpture is your favorite. You get extra credit, just as much as Kristy does for running this entire fucking thing. Well, they all have these jobs they have to do. But then when they're like in the lobby and these teachers come stumbling in like, "We have a bunch of second graders that are in an overturned bus down the road," Kristy is like, "We'll help! Take us!" They're like, "Sure!" And so they like, put all of these --
[00:47:24] Kaykay: They have to add to their list of growing jobs. They are now crisis managers.
[00:47:29] Brooke: So then you've got these Baby-sitters Club members, so you've got these like seven pre-teens that are then tasked with caring for these 16 small children. Not just evacuating them on a rescue mission, so they're like basically ski patrol, "let's go out and save lives," but then they're like, "and then we'll stay with them." So they're like, "Who will stay with the kids?" while the two teachers, the two teachers that they sent for 16 small children, "Who will stay with the kids?" And they're like, "We'll do it!" And then they just end up caretaking.
There was no plan for these children, and so then they work them in. So it's like, "These kids will participate in our talent show. These kids will play in the snow fight. These kids will come to our dance," the dance at the end. It's so weird. And so they're just having to care for these children. And then the benevolent capitalists are like, "Oh, well that's so sweet. We'll pay you." And Kristy's like, "Absolutely not. It will be our honor," and all of the Baby-Sitters Club members agree.
No. That's bullshit. There's no fun. No fun, all work, zero play and no pay. They're adding to the indentured servitude. I do not trust the Georges. The Georges are the people that, the benevolent capitalists, these rich people that apparently have these like giant dorms at this lodge where they just bring in children over and over and over again, to sleep in rooms that sleep 56 people.
It doesn't make sense. There's like four different school groups. So this is a tax scam. I'm guessing in the off season, this is some sort of like, I mean, again, indentured servitude, there are some serious human rights violations going on at Leicester Lodge, I have zero doubt about it.
[00:49:26] Kaykay: Yeah. It just don't make any sense.
[00:49:28] Brooke: No.
[00:49:28] Kaykay: None of it makes any sense.
[00:49:30] Brooke: It was very creepy. And Dawn even describes it as being like The Shining. When she enters, she's like, "Oh yeah, it's like the hotel in The Shining." And I'm like, that's what you think when you step in? This is gonna end well.
[00:49:41] Kaykay: And it didn't.
[00:49:42] Brooke: No, it didn't. It didn't. What did you have for what they were fighting?
[00:49:47] Kaykay: Well, first of all, I said "everything."
[00:49:48] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:49:49] Kaykay: Everything. Everyone was fighting. I also said they were fighting with warring agendas and needs, all over the place. They were also fighting to communicate, and there was like a lot of assumptions being made. That's kind of what I had. What did you have?
[00:50:05] Brooke: Everything we know about their characters to be true.
[00:50:08] Kaykay: Yeah.
[00:50:09] Brooke: For me, I was fighting with myself.
[00:50:11] Kaykay: Oh, next level!
[00:50:13] Brooke: I was in a bit of a battle with Ann M. Martin as I was reading this, because it made me very angry.
[00:50:19] Kaykay: Yeah. It was a hard one. This was a hard one in the canon.
[00:50:23] Brooke: Yeah.
[00:50:23] Kaykay: I mean, at least I had little memories of, I kept running into my school memories. My memories of first ski trips, and also, my school had a red team and a blue.
[00:50:33] Brooke: In what capacity?
[00:50:34] Kaykay: In like, life. You were on the red team or the blue team at school. And through the year there was constant --
[00:50:39] Brooke: Oh my god.
[00:50:40] Kaykay: You have no idea. This school was the most WASPy fucking situation. We used to have something called Revels, where you would like dress up like an 18th century Pilgrim type person --
[00:50:50] Brooke: No.
[00:50:50] Kaykay: And sing wassails.
[00:50:51] Brooke: No.
[00:50:51] Kaykay: Yes.
[00:50:51] Brooke: No,
[00:50:52] Kaykay: Yes.
[00:50:52] Brooke: No.
[00:50:53] Kaykay: Yes. My sister came to this Revels, and she just about shit her pants. She was like, "What was nonsense am I fucking witnessing?"
[00:51:06] Brooke: I can't even picture this. You need to explain, because I have literally no concept besides the fact that what you've just described is fucked.
[00:51:15] Kaykay: There was just closets full of like 18th century dresses and gear. And you had to like pick one and then you had to go and sing like, "Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free. 'Tis a gift to come down where we ought to be." Just like this WASP crazy ass shit.
And then there was like, all the WASPy parents were like part of a choir, like a Revels choir and they would dress and join us. And so it was like the children of the WASPs and the, the parent WASPs getting together, singing these like weird-ass --
[00:51:51] Brooke: In 18th century gear.
[00:51:52] Kaykay: Yes. Yes.
[00:51:55] Brooke: Like, LARPing as colonists.
[00:51:58] Kaykay: Yeah! Hundred percent colonist LARP. Hundred percent.
[00:52:01] Brooke: Dude. WASPism is a cult. What the fuck?
[00:52:05] Kaykay: You should listen to my sister describe this, because I was being indoctrinated. I still thought it was crazy, but...
[00:52:11] Brooke: I was just say, did anybody...?
[00:52:12] Kaykay: At least I was getting indoctrinated daily, but my sister was just back from college, like, "What the fuck?" And my parents from the Bronx? Oh, you can imagine what my parents from the Bronx thought.
[00:52:25] Brooke: Oh my God, I'm picturing your dad's reaction to it and it's very funny. Did he say that everybody involved should go shit in their hats? Did he call everybody shit birds?
[00:52:34] Kaykay: I don't even remember. I imagine for my dad, he used to have this ability where when a commercial would come on, he would just lose consciousness until the commercial was done. And I'd be like, "Dad, wasn't that a stupid commercial?" And he'd be like, "What?" So I think that's what he did. I think he just lost consciousness and disassociated the entire time.
Anyway, this was my school. So they would divide the whole school into red teams and blue teams. And then through the year we had all these like May Day type clashes, wars between the colors. And each team elected a captain, and that was like the class president. I was the red team captain, and I got the red team captain job by rewriting the lyrics to Queen's "We Will Rock You" to...can you guess?
[00:53:20] Brooke: I mean, so many potentials, because it's such a cliche. What you've just said is such a cliche. I've heard this story so many times, I can't narrow down what it could possibly be.
[00:53:28] Kaykay: You don't have to think it. "We Will Rock Blue." "We Will Rock Blue!" It tore the school apart, and I was elected red team captain.
[00:53:35] Brooke: For that, because you basically came up with like a negative ad campaign.
[00:53:40] Kaykay: Also I was like Kristy, and I was really good at sports. So that was the other thing about these WASPy private schools was they really respected brains and athletics.
[00:53:49] Brooke: So wait, was this like feats of strength? What was the red team and the blue team doing? I am so confused.
[00:53:55] Kaykay: Oh yeah, totally. Like, you know, we would do like running games, or like you had to sprint, you had to throw a softball. You had to, I don't know, throw a shot put.
[00:54:04] Brooke: Okay.
[00:54:05] Kaykay: Your face! You're like, "You're not answering my questions." And then there was other games, I'm trying to remember like what some of the other games, it was just sort of a running theme through the year. And then there was like a tally, sort of like Hogwarts, sort of like a house tally, right? I think there was a board somewhere where like all year you kept track of like, which team had more points.
[00:54:26] Brooke: I'm learning so much about American elites right now.
[00:54:33] Kaykay: Talking WASPs, Brooke.
[00:54:35] Brooke: So first of all,
[00:54:36] Kaykay: Wait, Talking WASPs with Brooke and Kaykay! This is a new podcast spinoff, Talking WASPs!
[00:54:42] Brooke: Where you try to explain WASPs to me, and I try to wrap my head around it, because it's very confusing. So the motivation for wanting to do this is confusing, but like, the purpose behind it is not confusing.
So first of all, I love that it's red and blue. Like that isn't fricking carried throughout everything in American society. Are you on the red team or the blue team, like treating politics like it's team fucking sports. But then that focus on being competitive, even for shit that doesn't matter, like who fucking cares how far you can throw? It's not the Olympics!
[00:55:17] Kaykay: WASPs do.
[00:55:17] Brooke: For what? For like their fricking job on Wall Street? Who gives a shit, you know what I mean? Like, you're not going to get --
[00:55:24] Kaykay: They gotta start sorting the wheat from the chaff some way.
[00:55:28] Brooke: It's their way of expressing fantasies that like they have any sort of physical abilities, cause like, they don't express it in any other way. Your job is so non-physical that you have to bring in some sort of physical competition so that you feel like you have value as a man.
[00:55:44] Kaykay: It's so funny. It's definitely, isn't that why football was started? It was started at Harvard, right? They thought the men were getting too soft?
[00:55:52] Brooke: To try to toughen up the men of the WASPs. The WASP boys.
[00:55:56] Kaykay: Yeah, so I think maybe there was a fair amount of, there's no doubt in those WASPs schools, it was like you had to be smart and as important, maybe even more important, you had to be athletic. And I can tell you how much they loved this like trashy Irish woman coming in and kicking all of their asses. They did not love it.
[00:56:15] Brooke: Well that's the thing, they're competing against each other because WASPs, bring your shot putting abilities anywhere out in like the Midwest or whatever. Let's go. Hey WASPs? I have been spending the entire summer pulling tassels off of corn. Okay? Like, let me see you --
[00:56:37] Kaykay: "I've been hanging off a fucking combine, bitch."
[00:56:39] Brooke: Right, that's what I'm saying. It's not even like, practical feats of strength. It's like shit that's just completely pointless, just to make themselves feel better.
[00:56:49] Kaykay: Okay. I know I'm going on a tangent, but this is really connecting with all these thoughts I've been having lately about sort of like the myth of white excellence. This whole concept of like, "We all have the same 24 hours. Get it, get it, achieve!" When like, it's just like white people trying to feel better about their privileges and like proving to each other every day why they should have such comfort and wealth.
[00:57:17] Brooke: Yeah, it's actually feeling very insecure about what you have. Kind of knowing deep down that you have it better than others, and trying to tell yourself that it's because you deserve it and not because you've actually been granted unfair advantages.
[00:57:31] Kaykay: Exactly. And it does make me think about these games. The nonsense of the competition, and sort of like how it keeps you focused on this narrow little world. We could've gone out and been volunteering some time somewhere. Nope! Softball toss.
[00:57:46] Brooke: Yeah. Well, it keeps you occupied. So that way, those 24 hours, if we all have the same 24 hours in a day, but we got to make sure that you're working on your shot put, then you're not going to have that time to actually be encountering others and perhaps growing your perception of the world. So good job, WASP school.
[00:58:09] Kaykay: WASP school! But anyway, I knew you were going to like those stories of the red and the blue team.
[00:58:14] Brooke: Oh my god, that's so weird. When you went on ski trips, was it like, cause that's the thing, like I'm sure it was just like a day out, right? Or did you guys actually stay there?
[00:58:23] Kaykay: Well, this was another crazy trip down memory lane because it was a ski trip just like this, where it was like, I don't know, a week and a half or something, but you had to pay your own way. Of course, no benevolent randos in Vermont are paying your way. You know, you had to like bring your own gear or rent gear there.
And of course every kid at this WASP pool was like a black diamond skier. And I didn't even know what skiing was. My parents sent me in like skinny jeans and a parka and I had to like rent skis there. And these kids couldn't even comprehend that there was a person that didn't know how to ski. So they took me up on the gondola at Stratton. It's like the big place where you would go, at least in the nineties. And they took me up on the gondola, which only exits on black diamonds.
[00:59:13] Brooke: Oh, fun. That's nice.
[00:59:14] Kaykay: Yeah. So I just tumbled down the mountain for hours at a time, and yeah, the WASPs couldn't even comprehend that someone didn't know how to ski. But least on the East Coast, skiing is class-based. You know, like people from New York City, like us, were not going skiing. And I find it really interesting in this book too, that there's no discussion really of class. Because skiing to me was always the ultimate, like, "You're rich."
[00:59:42] Brooke: Right.
[00:59:43] Kaykay: So anyway, in New York it's like a superclass thing. And I found it interesting that, you know, no kind of discussion of that. I mean, I guess maybe like a little bit with these couples having to sponsor kids doing it, but...
[00:59:54] Brooke: Yeah, there's definitely a theme of like, "Rich people are great!"
[00:59:59] Kaykay: "They help!"
[00:59:59] Brooke: Right. "They're so lovely and paternal and, and helpful." And like, I don't know why these wealthy elderly people are hanging out at a school dance. That makes me uncomfortable. But they are. Yeah, I'm sorry, you didn't have the winter carnival experience and were just instead rolling down a black diamond. I've had a similar experience to that myself.
[01:00:24] Kaykay: Aww.
[01:00:25] Brooke: Got a little over my skis. No pun intended. Actually pun intended.
[01:00:29] Kaykay: I love that metaphor.
[01:00:30] Brooke: In Colorado, just kind of rolled down a hill and then went inside into the lodge and stayed there.
[01:00:34] Kaykay: And you're like, this is over now.
[01:00:36] Brooke: Yeah. What did you have for most eighties moments?
[01:00:39] Kaykay: I had that at one point they were talking about books that Mary Anne is reading, and that they were published by small Vermont presses. So that is an eighties moment, where there used to be independent presses and they could be viable and actually published books.
[01:00:57] Brooke: Like physical books that you held in your hand.
[01:00:59] Kaykay: Right. And that they can actually publish a fair amount and even make a little bit of a profit and keep the press going.
[01:01:05] Brooke: Right.
[01:01:05] Kaykay: And I also had, you know, having to walk two miles in the snow with a broken arm instead of every child on the bus, being able to call 911 with a cell phone, very eighties. But again, there would be a fucking radio on that bus, so come on now.
[01:01:18] Brooke: We call shade. We call shade, Ann M.
[01:01:21] Kaykay: We call shade. We hereby call shade on this entire fucking book.
[01:01:26] Brooke: Yes. It's true. It's true. I'm looking forward to putting this one away. Yeah, I had, similarly I had relying on the radio for school cancellation and like delay announcements.
[01:01:37] Kaykay: Yeah!
[01:01:38] Brooke: So at the very beginning of the book, they're very concerned about whether or not the trip will still be on, because there's the potential for snow. But you're going on a ski trip to Vermont in the winter. Like, yeah, that's the whole point. So everybody in town is like having to listen in, and so I remember that. It's not like now where you get text notifications or whatever about what's happening at school. It's like you had to make sure that you were listening to the right channel at the right time to know whether or not school was on or if there was a snow day, what have you.
[01:02:12] Kaykay: In New York that was called 10 10 Wins.
[01:02:15] Brooke: 10 10 Wins?
[01:02:16] Kaykay: Yeah. It was like, "10 10 Wins. Give us a minute, we'll give you the world." That's for my New York people, shout out 10 10 Wins. My dad would smoke his cigarettes and drink his coffee and listen to 10 10 Wins.
[01:02:28] Brooke: Yeah. So I had that, and then I had, Kristy gets the theme from Gilligan's Island stuck in her head and brings that up. And yeah, Gilligan's Island was always on in the eighties.
[01:02:39] Kaykay: Yeah, it was syndicated.
[01:02:40] Brooke: Right. So it's like totally believable that even though, you know, that was something that would have come out 20 years before, again, like if you wanted kids programming, you had to have advanced cable packages to get access to that.
Like even the Disney Channel was a subscription-based thing. It was like you had to pay just as much for that as you would pay for like HBO or something. So most of the time you were just watching whatever happened to be on TV. Which at that time --
[01:03:10] Kaykay: Bewitched, Gilligan's Island, One Day at a Time, Flipper, Murder, She Wrote, fucking Barnaby Jones. Tell me, there's not a kid out here who doesn't want to watch Barnaby Jones..
[01:03:21] Brooke: So that's what Kristy gets in her head. And of course Stacey's like, "Oh, I know exactly what you're talking about," because everybody was watching the same syndicated shit, and you get that in your head. So even though this book was sort of Mary Anne centric, Mary Anne starts and ends this book, and we're going to stick with Mary Anne for the next book.
The next book is Mary Anne and the Great Romance. Fortunately said great romance is not about, which we didn't even get into, Claudia and her much too old ski instructor. That's a whole sidebar on that one.
[01:03:59] Kaykay: You know, there was already so much rage and joylessness.
[01:04:02] Brooke: There's so much.
[01:04:03] Kaykay: We couldn't cover it all.
[01:04:04] Brooke: We couldn't get into all of it.
[01:04:06] Kaykay: We did our best, you know?
[01:04:07] Brooke: I get into it very extensively in the other podcast. It's a much longer show than this one. So if you want to hear my take on how fucked up it is that Claudia is like lusting after her 25 year old ski instructor who kind of reciprocates in a creepy ass way.
[01:04:27] Kaykay: Won't stop putting his hands on her.
[01:04:28] Brooke: Just is very touchy.
[01:04:30] Kaykay: What is with the touchiness?
[01:04:32] Brooke: That fucker is handsy and I don't like it.
[01:04:35] Kaykay: What is happening at the ski lodge?
[01:04:37] Brooke: Yeah, it's not great. So fortunately we're going to leave that behind and go back to Stoneybrook, no creepy ass ski instructor. The great romance that Mary Anne is going to discuss is her dad and Dawn's mom.
[01:04:52] Kaykay: Oh, they've been, uh, they've been planting seeds here and there about these two getting married.
[01:04:58] Brooke: Yes, we get the engagement coming up in the next book.
[01:05:03] Kaykay: Alright!
[01:05:03] Brooke: And hopefully the next one will inspire less bile in us.
[01:05:09] Kaykay: Yeah. Hopefully we won't be so filled with rage.
[01:05:13] Brooke: No, and we will have our very first most nineties moments in the next book.
[01:05:19] Kaykay: Hey! Oh my gosh.
[01:05:21] Brooke: We're getting into the nineties.
[01:05:23] Kaykay: Break out the Cavariccis. Break out the Cavariccis!
[01:05:28] Brooke: Yeah, Cavariccis! Oh my God, I'm so excited to get into 90s stuff. Oh, it's going to be so great.
[01:05:35] Kaykay: Is that the great romance, someone starts wearing Cavariccis?
[01:05:37] Brooke: Right, me and my one pair of Z Cavariccis that I had because I was tired of being made fun of at school for only wearing Arizona jeans, and so I finally convinced my mom to let me get a pair of Z Cavariccis.
[01:05:52] Kaykay: Dang, you were so cool!
[01:05:54] Brooke: Well, I really wanted Guess, but the Z Cavariccis were on sale, so I was able to get the Z Cavariccis. And then I wore them three days in a row, and my so-called best friend made fun of me on the bus for it, and then I never wore them again. So.
[01:06:07] Kaykay: Oh!
[01:06:08] Brooke: We'll get into fun stories like that as we dip into the nineties, and I'm really looking forward to that.
[01:06:15] Kaykay: Yeah, I wonder if we'll have, uh, you know, will the personal stories be more Brooke centric? Because you're a little bit younger than me.
[01:06:22] Brooke: Who knows?
[01:06:23] Kaykay: You know what I mean? Like, I'm a little bit older through the eighties and probably having more memories and more intense resonance than you.
[01:06:30] Brooke: Maybe. I mean, you also, I think it also might not be as connected to the time as it is connected to, how could somebody who just grew up in the same small town in Iowa their entire life possibly have stories that match up to somebody who grew up next to the Moonies?
[01:06:50] Kaykay: And spies.
[01:06:51] Brooke: And spies.
[01:06:52] Kaykay: Yeah. And then had to sing at Revels and then had to go LARP as a WASP.
[01:06:57] Brooke: Yeah. None of those things are things I've ever done.
[01:06:59] Kaykay: I was LARPing as a WASP, kind of. I mean, yeah. That's so funny.
[01:07:02] Brooke: So yeah, I don't know, entering the nineties doesn't mean that my stories will take precedence, because yours are too fucking good to pass up. So I can't wait to get into more of those with you when we talk about the nineties next time, Kaykay. But until then...
[01:07:22] Kaykay: Just! Keep! Sitting!