Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

...And that's how I found out there was no Santa Claus.

Today, Tracie returns to another one of the movies that traumatized her and Emily in early childhood: the 1984 film Gremlins. Written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Dante, the film was advertised as a fun family fantasy, with the adorable mogwai Gizmo (described by Roger Ebert as a cross between a Pekingese, Yoda, the Ewoks, and a kitten) as too cute for little kids to pass up. What the 1980s movie going audience didn't know was that this film was playing with storytelling and fiction tropes and really tap-dancing on the fine line that separates comedy from horror. Columbus and Dante created a film about their love of movies, using Gremlins as an opportunity to recreate some of their favorite scenes, characters, and moments from classic movies. And then, like one of the eponymous rampaging gremlins, they stuck it all in a blender and hit frappe.

The result is a fun, weird, scary, bizarre, and sometimes offensive mashup of movies and messages and lessons and metaphors that don't entirely make sense all together, because making sense was beside the point.

Put on your headphones and take a listen. Just don't turn your back on any nearby Christmas trees.

Mentioned in this episode: https://www.cracked.com/article_38101_sexual-anxiety-racism-the-vietnam-war-no-one-knows-what-gremlins-is-a-metaphor-for.html

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi:

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around.

This week, Emily brings her deep thoughts about the first of two Christmas movies the Guy Girls will be covering for the 2025 holiday season: Richard Curtis's 2003 romcom Love, Actually.

While both sisters thoroughly enjoyed the 10 interlocking stories of romance, parental love, heartbreak, dubious comedy, and even dubiouser feminism when the film debuted, Curtis's storytelling style hasn't exactly aged well. Not only does Love, Actually lean into the ubiquitous early 2000s culture of fat shaming despite Curtis trying write pointed cultural commentary about how ridiculous that was through the story of Martine McCutcheon's character Natalie, but the women in the movie are consistently treated as objects and prizes to be won, rather than fully formed people. But as Tracie argues, if Curtis believes in True Love, which can happen At First Sight (with the capitalization of those romantic ideals implied), then of course he paints himself into the corner of love based on physical attraction, which means young, slender, beautiful women--and it something we see repeatedly in his movies.

There are still plenty of laughs and poignant moments in this film, so no shade on anyone who puts this in their rotation of Christmas movies to revisit each year. But it definitely works as a time capsule for where we were in 2003.

If Christmas is all around you, put in your earbuds to get it out of your head for once!

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.jezebel.com/i-rewatched-love-actually-and-am-here-to-ruin-it-for-al-

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

Hang out with us! 12/16/25 7:30 ET | 6:30 CT Zoom Hang Outs happen monthly, as a benefit of membership in our Patreon tiers, AND, everyone gets one free invitation! (Honor system, please.) It'll be fun! We might give away some merch!

You'll need the password to get in, so RSVP at guygirlsmedia.com/ha

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely.

This week, Tracie brings her deep thoughts about the 1988 Don Bluth animated film The Land Before Time. Although both Guy girls were a little too old to appreciate this staple of Millennial nostalgia when it originally came out, Tracie loved the hand-drawn animation, the way Bluth's storytelling offered a kid-friendly meditation on grief, and the pop culture trope of found family when she watched the film repeatedly while regularly babysitting dino-obsessed kiddos. There's still a lot to love in this gorgeous animation, even if you discount the technical skill of the artists. The story offers kids a framework for understanding loss and death and the long-term mental health challenges that can remain after experiencing grief. Considering how often children's movies don't allow their protagonists to feel sad for more than a scene, this is truly remarkable.

But as much as the animation doesn't talk down to its audience in regards to Littlefoot's grief over his mother, it also underestimates kids' ability to understand what's happening on the screen and their ability to handle anything other than a MegaHappy ending.

(Also: those dinosaurs lived millions of years apart. Tracie and Emily feel kind of hypocritical that they don't care.)

Throw on your headphones and join us for a scientifically inaccurate but artistically beautiful prehistoric adventure!

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

A life lived in fear is a life half lived.

On this week's Deep Thoughts, Emily brings her analysis, nostalgia--and quite a bit of drool--to the 1992 Baz Luhrmann comedy Strictly Ballroom. Though this indie film, which was Luhrmann's directorial debut, may have gotten lost among the 80s and 90s movies that were bigger blockbusters, the comedy offers an incisive skewering of the insular world of amateur ballroom dancing in regional Australia.

And yet, Luhrmann's direction, the beautiful choreography and dancing by the leads, and the pure joy of Paul Mercurio's Scott Hastings refusing to adhere to arbitrary rules about strict ballroom steps and his willingness to learn from Tara Morice's Fran about the traditional Spanish dance steps brings the viewer along on the journey. As we watch, the film goes from a comedy that exposes the entire ballroom culture as a ridiculous tempest in a teapot to the place where Scott and Fran must make a stand for creativity, art, bravery, romance, and costumes that don't look like someone bedazzled your head.

Unlike many 80s and 90s movies, this one holds up beautifully in 2025 and is delightful from start to finish. If you haven't watched it, please do check it out, possibly before listening to this episode's spoilers. For once, Tracie and Emily's nostalgia was not misplaced!

There's no need to master the bogo pogo before listening in. Just throw on your headphones and let the rhythm move you.

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Well, that was absurd, let's eat dead bird!

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Tracie brings her deep thoughts about the 1995 "romantic" comedy Home for the Holidays. Although the dysfunctional dynamics of the Larson family makes for realistic and funny storytelling, the romance between Holly Hunter's Claudia and Dylan McDermott's Leo seems to imply that women are just lacking a handsome man's tongue down their throat, no matter what they claim. (To be fair, Leo was simply following pop culture expectations of romance of the mid-1990s, but his actions seem pretty gross when analyzing film tropes in 2025.)

Still, the film offers lovely commentary on the nature memory, joy, and family connections. Tracie and Emily conclude that even the actions of the biggest asshole in the film--Tommy, played by Robert Downey, Jr.--make sense within the context of his family's homophobia. The naked polaroids ain't cool, though, dude.

Whether your family is more or less dysfunctional than the Larsons, throw on some headphones and listen in!

Mentioned in this episode:

https://womenshealth.obgyn.msu.edu/blog/memory-telephone-game

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

On today's episode, the Guy sisters welcome Emily's friend and co-author Joe Saul-Sehy, co-host of the wildly popular Stacking Benjamins podcast, to talk about the 1987 Oliver Stone film Wall Street. Even though it has had an enormous impact on the culture of finance (and Emily has written in the realm of finance for 15 years), neither of the Guy girls had seen the film, which Joe first watched in the theater as a teenager.

While Oliver Stone's storytelling offers pointed social commentary about the lack of morality and ethics on Wall Street, his masterful directing of Charlie Sheen, Michael Douglas, and Daryl Hannah also makes the culture of insider trading seem not only understandable but even glamorous to the audience. Sheen's Bud Fox follows the hero's journey as he learns that the high-flying life of immoral wealth he thinks he wants is nothing more than a fantasy--and it's not worth selling his soul to be accepted into Gordon Gekko's culture of greed.

Slick back your hair, grab those red suspenders, and take a listen!

Find Joe at stackingbenjamins.com

Check out the book Joe and Emily wrote! Stacked: Your Super-Serious Guide to Modern Money Management

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licen

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

Hang out with us! 12/16/25 7:30 ET | 6:30 CT Zoom Hang Outs happen monthly, as a benefit of membership in our Patreon tiers, AND, everyone gets one free invitation! (Honor system, please.) It'll be fun! We might give away some merch!

You'll need the password to get in, so RSVP at guygirlsmedia.com/ha

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

You mean I'm gonna STAY this color?

On this week's episode, Tracie shares her deep thoughts about the 1979 Steve Martin film The Jerk, a comedy that never failed to delight the Guy sisters' father, no matter how many times he watched it. And for good reason. Martin's broad physical comedy and cultural commentary rooted in racial stereotypes conceals multiple layers of storytelling and humor in the tale of dim-witted Navin R. Johnson. Not only does the film follow Joseph Campbell's hero's journey from the world of fantasy, but the comedy works on so many levels that you can laugh at something different every time you watch it. (Although holding a dog in front of your crotch as you run naked down the street after the love of your life is always funny.)

Whether you can tap your foot to the beat or not, we'd love for you to listen in!

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

Hang out with us! 12/16/25 7:30 ET | 6:30 CT Zoom Hang Outs happen monthly, as a benefit of membership in our Patreon tiers, AND, everyone gets one free invitation! (Honor system, please.) It'll be fun! We might give away some merch!

You'll need the password to get in, so RSVP at guygirlsmedia.com/ha

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

We're releasing this episode (109) four days early in honor of Halloween!

There are certain RULES that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie.

In December 1996, teenaged Emily learned to love horror movies when she saw Wes Craven's Scream in the theater. Twice.

Unlike most pop culture specifically created for her demographic, Scream offered feminism, cultural commentary, badass women as protagonists and antagonists, a banger of a murder mystery, and plenty of comedy--all while simultaneously analyzing film tropes, leaning into them, and subverting them all at once. It's no wonder it lit Emily up so much she convinced her scaredy-cat big sister to go see the film, too.

But there's a reason Emily hadn't watched this film for nearly 25 years even though it had once been one of her favorites. The murder of peer while she was in college brought home to her the fact that pop culture makes violent death into entertainment. And despite the superb storytelling, rewatching Scream as a 46-year-old mother of teenagers only highlighted the tragedy behind the perfectly-constructed fiction.

But even with her misgivings about the film's violence, Emily is still grateful to director Wes Craven, screenwriter Kevin Williamson, and actor Neve Campbell for giving her Sidney Prescott as a pop culture role model for setting sexual boundaries. Sidney has complete bodily autonomy and agency, and neither the film nor any of the non-homicidal characters shame her for her sexual decisions--even when she trusts the wrong man. This was a message that millions of teenagers took in with the quips and scares without realizing it. Nice work, Scream team.

Listen in--but

Podcasts only work one way. Let's change that! Our Patrons receive all kinds of perks, from early access to episodes to exclusive bonus content to discounts on merch to invitations to our monthly live calls. Deep thinking shouldn't be done alone! Come overthink with us and other listeners! Learn more and join at patreon.com/guygirls

Hang out with us! 12/16/25 7:30 ET | 6:30 CT Zoom Hang Outs happen monthly, as a benefit of membership in our Patreon tiers, AND, everyone gets one free invitation! (Honor system, please.) It'll be fun! We might give away some merch!

You'll need the password to get in, so RSVP at guygirlsmedia.com/ha

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!