Romancing the Stone: Deep Thoughts About White Feminism, Fiction Writers, and Forgivable Plot Holes You Can Drive a Bus Through

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

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Okay, Joan Wilder, write us out of this one.

On this week's episode, Tracie revisits the 1984 film Romancing the Stone. Both Guy girls loved this film in their childhood, enjoying both the romance and comedy of seeing Kathleen Turner's Joan Wilder go from hapless writer to confident and capable badass. Baby Emily, as a budding writer, especially loved how the storytelling made it clear working as a novelist translated to practical life skills.

While the film is just as fun and easy to enjoy as it was 40 years ago, the feminism written into the fiction is only for white women. Joan Wilder is a dynamic, proactive, and delightful character, but Colombia is nothing more than a stereotypical backdrop for her story. Every character in Colombia--other than the white love interest played by Michael Douglas and the bumbling white villain played by Danny DeVito--are either menacing, drug dealers, or background villagers. And Joan doesn't actually need her love interest to save herself and her sister by the end.

Still, there's a lot to love in this film, as long as you remember that Colombia is a real place full of real people, and not just the flattened set piece full of cardboard cutouts used in this film.

Throw on your headphones, keep an eye out for Devil's Fork, and listen in!

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.splicetoday.com/moving-pictures/the-romance-of-imperialism

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're having a party, please come! A Zoom happy hour, Tue, 11/18, 7:30 ET / 6:30 CT. (THERE WILL BE PRESENTS!) So get ready to pour your favorite beverage, overthink some Thanksgiving-themed pop culture, laugh, and feel a little bit smarter.

It’s free, but please register at guygirlsmedia.com/happyhour, so we can share the zoom info with you! (Also, who doesn’t like knowing who’s coming to their party?)

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. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.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.

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!

챕터

1. Forgetting Plot Holes in Romancing the Stone (00:00:00)

2. Joan Wilder: Romance Novelist and Reluctant Adventurer (00:08:09)

3. Becoming Capable in Colombia's Dangers (00:17:29)

4. The Problematic Romance and Imperialism (00:26:57)

5. Feminism vs. "Fixing Bad Men" Trope (00:35:38)

6. Storytelling Techniques and Real Human Bodies (00:44:45)