Deep Thoughts about The Fifth Element

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It mu5t be found…it being a realistic portrayal of women

For this episode of Deep Thoughts, Emily dives into the valiant, vulnerable, and very very sexist portrayal of “perfection” in the 1997 Luc Besson film The Fifth Element. Milla Jovovich’s Leeloo is the poster child for the trope of Born Sexy Yesterday, wherein a childlike but fully adult woman who is both profoundly wise and unutterably naive needs the protection and guidance of an ordinary man. But the weird gender values don’t stop with Leeloo. Tracie and Emily also talk about the hyper-masculinity of Bruce Willis’s Korben Dallas and the “unmanning” of virtually every other male character. 

Also: How exactly did Plavalaguna plan to get the stones out? REALLY?

Grab your Multi-pass and your headphones and take a listen with us.

Mentioned in this episode:
https://youtu.be/0thpEyEwi80?si=hV0MKtjaSnNrOduI

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

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

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.