Mrs. Doubtfire: Deep Thoughts About Cringe Comedy, Feminist Backlash, and Hairy Leg Appreciation

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It was a run-by fruiting!

Revisiting the beloved 1993 Robin Williams film Mrs. Doubtfire this week was a reminder to Tracie that you can never go home again. Though she was expecting some early nineties transphobia (and was mostly pleased at its absence), she was horrified to realize the film's plot relied on a kind of men's rights activist feminist backlash, where every woman and girl in the movie represented a different feminist stereotype, from the humorless social worker to the ball-busting workaholic wife. Tracie had also forgotten how much of the film's humor came from cringe comedy, which both Guy sisters find unbearably painful, making the rewatch more of a squirm-fest than she anticipated. There are still some sweet moments and genuine humor underneath the regressive hijinks and heavy makeup--just recognize how deep you might have to dig for them.

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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
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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.