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Are You There, God? It's Us, Gen and Em.
30 Plays1 month ago
Join us as we discuss this month's book and movie: Judy Blume's 1970 masterpiece Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Book Club, the Movie, the Podcast'
00:00:01
Speaker
Two nerds went to college and found each other in the English department basement and became instant friends. Eight years and three degrees later, they're reunited.
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Speaker
You're listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast.
00:00:38
Speaker
Hello everyone, and welcome to Book Club, the movie, the podcast, where we read, watch, and discuss books and their film adaptations. I'm your host, Jen.
00:00:48
Speaker
And I'm your other host, Em. We hope you read the book. But if you didn't, here's the summary. Caution, spoilers ahead.
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Speaker
In 1970, Em's
Synopsis of 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret'
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Speaker
mother turned two years old and Jen's mother turned 14. The Environmental Protection Agency was created and Judy Blume published, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
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Speaker
Our protagonist, Margaret, is an 11-year-old girl living in New York City with her parents when her life is suddenly upended by a big move out of the Big Apple and into suburban New Jersey.
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After moving, Margaret quickly becomes aware that she is growing up, if not a little bit slower than she would like. She joins a friend group, and together they become obsessed with boys, first kisses, first bras, and most importantly, first periods.
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Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret is about growing up, friendship, religion, and what it means to be a young person in our big world.
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Speaker
I
Judy Blume's Impact and Controversy
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Speaker
actually, i didn't read a lot of Judy Blume my friend Julia actually just assumed that I love Judy Blume because I have a Beverly Clary tattoo on my arm and those are the same person to her, I guess, because she's from Australia or something. i don't know if that's the reason.
00:02:13
Speaker
Uh, but she did suggest to me ah to watch the documentary Judy Blume Forever. and I mean, I'd only like read a couple of books from Judy Blume, and I think I didn't really identify that much with them. It was like super fudge or something. I kind of missed out on all of the stuff that makes her really cool. Like a lot of her books have been ah banned from schools and like libraries and stuff because she writes a lot about sexuality and like what it means to grow up. She's really clear and honest in the way that she does this, especially with
Personal Reflections on Growing Up
00:02:41
Speaker
this book. But I think Watching that documentary definitely gave me a greater appreciation for her. And i kind of wish that I'd, you know, read more of her books as a kid. does seem like a pretty cool lady. I mean, she was born in the late 1930s. So she's in her late 80s now.
00:02:56
Speaker
Looks like she was born on the East Coast. This is an East Coast book for East Coast children. Starts in New York City and moves to the New Jersey suburbs. hmm. I think I really I mean, even as 30 something a year old lady, ay i still identified with this book because reading it, it just it brought up a whole bunch of like memories of myself as an awkward tweenager. Yeah.
00:03:24
Speaker
which, you know, both the best times and the worst times of my life, I think. It's definitely simpler. Yeah, it's it was it was simpler, but but so complicated, i think. I mean, just the things that that were so important to me then...
00:03:39
Speaker
are still kind of important now, but they seem just that much sillier. And dang, the girls in this book are ah or just silly little gooses. Yeah, they are. This book, i it's it's so different from other children's books because it is so honest with the ridiculous things that these...
00:03:58
Speaker
you know, 11, 12 year olds were doing to try to figure out what it means to be a human. right And they weren't like, it wasn't taught i wasn't written about in like a shameful way or no or anything like that. It was just like truly honest to the experience. Very honest. And just the methods that they were, ah the different forms of theft, whenever they steal the anatomy book and then they just...
Sex Education Experiences
00:04:23
Speaker
Oh, I don't remember what they said. but They were talking about like their, you know, their boobs. And I know. Yes. With the Playboy magazine that they, and it it was just, even, even in the movie, as they were talking about Playboy, like it was just such a, yeah, my dad has Playboy. And I feel like growing up in the Midwest, I would never have known if my dad had a Playboy subscription. That's not a thing.
00:04:47
Speaker
It was just, you know, that, she got the mail and brought it up. She would have had other opportunities to see this magazine, I think. But, oh my God, it was Gretchen in the movie.
00:05:01
Speaker
ah This is my favorite line out of the whole thing. They were looking at the centerfold in Playboy and her boobs and Gretchen said, ah look how round they are.
00:05:12
Speaker
Mine just look like little wizard hats. We called them nubbins. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just felt like I had little triangles for most of like, and like until I really hit like puberty.
00:05:25
Speaker
i i was a little chubby little girl. So I had like boobs kind of early ish. Did you even have like sex ed? i didn't even have sex ed. We just glossed over that. it in middle school.
00:05:39
Speaker
We had it like in, ay like all the information was in like our health class textbook, but we just skipped that chapter. switched schools after sixth grade. So I don't know if they did sex ed in sixth grade or not.
00:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, we had sex ed seventh, eighth and ninth grade. It was not.
00:06:02
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progressive really in what what they taught it was like a program sponsored by put on by a teen pregnancy type clinic oh no like it it wasn't Planned Parenthood yeah it was it was something with like Christian roots and so they what they taught was abstinence not safe sex yeah and also in that kind of maybe gave misleading information you know or were kind of told half truths about sexual education about reproductive organs or like like the act of having sex how painful it would or would not be so i feel like they didn't really give it was i mean if i had a child that's not how i'd want them to learn about sex yeah i think it's
00:06:56
Speaker
It definitely gave me a complex because we we never had it at my school. It didn't
First Kisses and Adolescent Awkwardness
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happen. We learned about like pregnancy, but not how you make the baby. And we learned about all of the STDs and STIs, but not how you catch them.
00:07:15
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We never, ever talked about what had to happen in order for these things to... It was very, very much like in Mean Girls, the... don't have sex because you will get pregnant and you will die. thank coach Like it was, ah yes, from the coach. It was a and it was, our health teacher was also our PE teacher. Like it was the same person.
00:07:38
Speaker
And she, oh, she got so mad at us ah during like one of our review days about all of the STDs. Cause a few years before us, somebody wrote a very silly song about gonorrhea.
00:07:53
Speaker
And it was literally just like, ah oh, God, how did it go? It was like gonorrhea is my STD something, something. And it hurt just me. It was it was very, very silly. And it like described all of like the symptoms.
00:08:06
Speaker
And we were supposed to be ah just sitting like across from somebody and we would list off symptoms. And then they were supposed to say the s STD. And we couldn't think of the symptoms for gonorrhea. So we just said, silly song. And the other person yelled gonorrhea. And she was so mad.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah, no, we did that whole like cup exercise where everybody spits into it. And then when it gets to like the last person in the room, they're like, now would you drink from that cup?
00:08:34
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And they're like, ah no, gross. And then it's like, well, this is what it's like when you have sex with a lot of people. Each time someone's spit in the cup, it's it's another sexual partner. and And I mean, that's really, ah it creates an impact for a seventh grader, an eighth grader.
00:08:53
Speaker
You know, like me personally, I think that's too young to be sexually active. Yeah. In this day and age. e yeah I don't know. I just, it was really gross.
00:09:03
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who Also could not be a thing post COVID. no none No, no, no, no. We're not doing that anymore.
00:09:12
Speaker
So boobs, right? Every girl wants them, but girls, they suck. They're not great. I don't know why we obsess about having boobs or why that matters so much.
00:09:26
Speaker
I wanted them so bad. but i mean, they're just fat glands, really. i know, but they're beautiful fat glands. I don't know. I just I appreciate boobs.
00:09:37
Speaker
I wanted them so bad. And I was just I was a skinny little twiggy gymnast. So I did not have them for a very long time. And God, as soon as we had, we had watched the video in the fourth grade that told us about like what it means to be a lady with your ovaries, et cetera.
00:09:57
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And I really, really wanted the et cetera so bad, just like Margaret and her friends. I wanted it so bad. And me and my best friend ah in elementary, middle school, like that's all we talked about for a very long time. Did you, did you ever do
Body Image and Social Status
00:10:13
Speaker
any exercises? Like, cause you know, they do, that there's this really hilarious scene where they're doing this like weird, ah um They were like, it's like a bench press, but standing. With no weight. Yes. don't really know yeah what that was going to do for them. But, you know, they're like, we must, we must, we must agree our bust. It was like an aerobic exercise for their boobies. But yeah, so the movie the book and movie are kind of set in like the 60s, right? Like the 1960s. So it's a little different, I think, back then, like to be a prepubescent, early pubescent girl.
00:10:53
Speaker
I started wearing a bra in like third grade, but it was like little sports bras because I was chubby. And so I had little little boobies, little tiny boobies, but they needed a little bit of a um cage. I hate bras. I'm not wearing a bra right now. It doesn't matter. I'm in my own home. My first bra was from JC Penney's and it dug into my skin and it was awful.
00:11:18
Speaker
And I was like, this is the price I'm willing to pay because I want boobs. Yeah. So, and it was the, it was the very sheer, like t-shirt-y cotton thing. Zero padding. It was really just...
00:11:34
Speaker
for peace of mind. And it had the teeny tiny little ah like ah like ribbon wrapped pink rose thingy detail right in the very center so that my t-shirt would be super lumpy.
00:11:48
Speaker
Right. With it. uh, yeah, I mostly had like fruit of the loom, no underwire sports bra. You type bras, you know, lots of different colors. Um, but then I feel like when I got to like fifth or sixth grade, um, maybe seventh, well, definitely by seventh.
00:12:07
Speaker
like by seventh grade i was shopping at pink but also seventh grade is when i so switched over to public school like i after sixth grade i moved schools and you know ah i had one of my friends um who was also like in the gifted program whatever so we were two like gifted weirdos like gifted kid weirdos you know like Yeah, if you're a public school kid, you know what that's like. um Hopefully you were cooler or something. But I mean, same. I was also a public school gifted kid weirdo with a public school gifted kid weirdo best friend. Right.
00:12:42
Speaker
So she and I decided that we wanted to infiltrate the popular group. And we we actually, in 7th through 8, like, we made it happen. But what that required was the right clothes.
00:12:55
Speaker
And her parents were, like, both well off. and my dad wanted to buy my love. So... A couple months into school, i was like, Dad, i need I need clothes. I need to go to American Eagle. I need to go to Hollister. i need help. And he's like, let's fucking go. Okay, I kid you not. I'm pretty sure he spent like $700 or $800 at Hollister and like the same amount at American Eagle so that I could have the right jeans, the right clothes.
00:13:30
Speaker
like v-neck t-shirt with the right emblem logo thing i was like oh my gosh dedicated that's the like not the one time but throughout my childhood that was like one of the main things where i was kind of like i don't care what the strings are because everything was like strings attached my dad But I was like, I have to be popular. i have to have the clothes. Kohl's is not cutting it. um We have to do Hollister or American Eagle.
00:13:58
Speaker
And so, I mean, I, it was like a pretty woman for middle schoolers situation, no but self done. I mean, like I'm the one who did the shopping, you know, and I got like perfume from Hollister had this little, like, um, like, uh,
00:14:15
Speaker
bobble thing where you would that's how you would squirt it on you ah like okay perfumes yeah they it wasn't just like ouch um but it was like a you
00:14:30
Speaker
and everybody's like you smell so good and i'm like it's hollister
00:14:36
Speaker
Let's talk about Philip Leroy. He's kind of mean In the movie, I feel like they didn't make him quite as crappy and the movie as they did in the book. In the book, like even Margaret even says in the book, like he's definitely the cutest guy, but I don't like him.
00:14:49
Speaker
Like he was a little jerk. Yeah, like she was way more mature about it, I think, than I was at that age. And I know that it's because Judy Blume wrote the book, but that's not the point. Like, I just feel like she made Margaret just a very sensible person.
00:15:06
Speaker
uh because in the book i mean like yeah he's the cutest guy but he she called him a foot stomper because all the boys were like stomping on their on their feet and stuff and like genuinely like trying to hurt these girls but there there was less foot stomping in the in the movie did you ever play like spin the bottle two minutes yeah in seventh grade yeah part of getting in with the popular kids i was invited to this one girl's birthday party we played spin the bottle in her basement and then i think we played two minutes in heaven or seven minutes in heaven i don't know why this has two minutes because they did two minutes and they did like two minutes in the closet that was what they called the game it wasn't seven minutes because i feel like seven minutes is enough to like get pregnant but two minutes is two minutes is just enough to like
00:15:56
Speaker
lose your innocence. I'm pretty sure that we did seven minutes in heaven though. Cause it's seven and heaven. yeah it writes vibe the thing Yeah. So, but I don't remember kissing anyone at that. I don't think I really played. I think I just more like watched. Yeah.
00:16:13
Speaker
And, um, maybe, maybe I abstained because I was like, I haven't had my first kiss yet. And I don't want this to be my first kiss because gross. Like I, I read and watched too many like romantic movies where the first kiss needed to be important. And then my actual first kiss when I was 16 was just on my dad's couch after school one day.
00:16:39
Speaker
Not impressive, but. my My first kiss, my first middle school kiss, we'll call it that. My first middle school kiss ah was with now Felon. He's Felon now. um
00:16:55
Speaker
It's not okay, y'all. Anyway, it was after school. And it was outside of the old band room, which was near the, which was like in our old gymnasium building.
00:17:07
Speaker
And it was so quick and so fast and just a real letdown, if I'm being perfectly honest. Like it was just, I remember it happened and I was just like, huh. That's how I felt about my first kiss, except I was 16. And I was like, that's it?
00:17:23
Speaker
That's all? like wasn't that big of a deal. And it was kind of one of those things where i was like, i don't really know if I want to do this again. And then he's kind of like, let's kiss again. And I was like, m okay, I guess. And it got better, but it was also his first kiss. So, you know, neither one of us knew what we were doing.
00:17:40
Speaker
There's just always so much buildup to it. And I think it's usually letdown.
00:17:49
Speaker
Nancy. Who was your Nancy? Nancy. I mean, I had a Nancy in like elementary school, but then we I left that school in sixth grade and then I went to public school for two years and then she moved over to public school in high school.
00:18:04
Speaker
So for actual middle school, um seventh and eighth grade were some glow up years for me. Like, not going to lie. Seventh grade decided to infiltrate the popular kid group, sit at their lunch table and everything. The friend that I made.
00:18:21
Speaker
she and I did that together and we succeeded and we like lifted each other up kind of thing. Cause she was on like a traveling volleyball team with a lot of the popular girls. So we just kind of had this like agreement where it's like, if one of us gets invited, we'll be like, Oh, well there's room for my other friends. So going to bring her to tell me about Nancy. So in elementary school and then sixth grade, my Nancy, we were frenemies. We were friends one second enemies, one.
00:18:48
Speaker
Um, and she just, she was mean to me. I don't know. Like, um, I went to a small like private school. So there were like 20 kids, 20 to 25 kids in my entire grade.
00:19:02
Speaker
And I think the largest number of girls we ever had was like maybe eight girls. like not enough girls to have. That's not enough girls. That's not enough people. Yeah. So like one, we were outnumbered by boys and two, like there weren't that many girls. So like we could get real catty real fast.
00:19:23
Speaker
We kind of swung between we were on this pendulum in between like being really good friends, like being really, really close. And then. just call me a bitch in the library or like call me fat or something. I'm like, you're not my friend. Oh, good Lord. So it was just really off and on. And I think all of it boiled down to, um, her home life was not stable and not great at that time. And then soon after her parents divorced, her dad like remarried like within a year or two, I want to say, because I remember, um,
00:19:56
Speaker
Her having like, there were these sleepovers and her stepsisters, she had a couple of older stepsisters um who were about the same age as her biological sister. And they were evil. They were so mean.
00:20:10
Speaker
um Not her sister. Her sister was nice, but like the stepsisters were just total jerks. Especially to me, like there was one time I called my mom crying to come pick me up from the sleepover because her older sisters are being so mean.
00:20:26
Speaker
So I think maybe when it was just Nancy at home, maybe they were like that to her. But when she got to when we started going to the same high school, like we only had a couple of classes together here and there.
00:20:42
Speaker
So we did not really like talk to each other much. We didn't hang out. And I was like, I will steer clear of her. I've got enough friends as it is. And we don't need to revisit that from elementary school.
00:20:53
Speaker
I feel like I had a few different Nancys. I don't know. I feel like everybody in my school was just kind of having bad periods of their life and we were all taking it all taking it out on each other. And I'm sure that I was somebody else's Nancy too. I wouldn't, right I, like everybody else was going through it, but I had one Nancy who would like see steal from me all the time constantly our entire life she was constantly stealing from me ah and then I had another Nancy who was like really really growing going through it at home and she was constantly like just trying to remind me that she thought I was ugly and and she was constantly like talking about how big my nose was or how bad my acne was or just I don't know just constantly everybody tearing each other down
00:21:41
Speaker
And I feel like everybody kind of goes through that, but yeah it's just especially bad in middle school. um And I think that, so with Nancy, back to the the movie and book that we're supposed to be talking about, I feel like Nancy was worse in the movie, but maybe that's because we were watching it through our own point of view.
00:22:04
Speaker
Whereas how in the book, Margaret just, Really, really has like rose colored glasses on. Like she's really giving everybody a lot of grace, like way more grace than I think I would have been able to. Yeah. So it's like in the movie, we don't have as much interiority from Margaret.
Religion and Identity in 'Are You There God?'
00:22:23
Speaker
um We do have a little bit of her like voiceover narrating stuff. And that's about it. And then the rest of the time, we're just kind of seeing it play out kind of like a the third person thing.
00:22:36
Speaker
narrator um so you know nancy's behavior kind of speaks for itself and we don't we're not looking at it through margaret's experience and lens kind of thing so religion is a really big theme in both the book and the movie and i feel like it's even i mean We have the interiority of religion with Margaret in the book. We have a lot more like introspective and everything. Whereas how in the movie, it feels more awkward and I get more feeling from it almost just because we're watching it. It's just, it's the same but different. And I did find like Margaret's use of prayer, the the book and the movie, using her prayers to really get more of that information out for us, the reader, the viewer. But I feel like a lot of other books, they use diaries or journal entries or just regular like first person storytelling. But I like the use of religion as both the storytelling element and
00:23:32
Speaker
And as a central theme through both of them. Religion plays a big part in this for Margaret, especially because she's coming from like a, uh, her parents both come from different religious backgrounds and spoiler alert. Like the mom is estranged from her parents. Um, because of her choice to marry someone who did not belong to the same religious faith as her. So Margaret's grandparents on her mom's side just could not stomach the fact that their daughter, a good Christian woman, would not marry a good Christian man and instead choose to marry a Jewish man.
00:24:06
Speaker
and I'm like, my dude, they're not the same, but they're not that different. And even still, love is love. But also it's the 1960s, so different time. I think the reason why I was never encouraged to read this as a child is because as the reader, you really get to see Margaret experience this like struggle with her faith um and what faith is and like what religion she should choose and there's just a lot of her being like a super young person having to figure out really big life stuff And coming from the Bible Belt, you don't get to explore your religion. What you're born in is what you're born in.
00:24:50
Speaker
Right. Coming from the Bible Belt, our house goes to church on Sundays and Wednesday nights. We didn't go on Wednesday. we went on Wednesdays until I started to get really into swimming. That caused a lot of cognitive dissonance for me because how could I be a good Christian if I only went to church once a week? But I needed to go to swim practice on Wednesday nights and...
00:25:09
Speaker
some practices at the same time as like church youth group whatever i mean if i had like because i did marching band and all that stuff so if i had something that made it to where i couldn't go to mass on a sunday i would just go to mass on a saturday instead i could go to church every day if i wanted to but i really really really didn't want to yeah um But I think along with, I mean, just choosing and like having that choice and exploring what it means to have a relationship with God or not having a relationship with God. i think that there's, I mean, Margaret's like really isolated yeah in that way because all of her friends have somewhere that they go.
00:25:52
Speaker
and I think that that's just, that's, this feels like a very like American issue to have where if you don't have religion, you kind of don't have that community. Religion is community here. That's what it is. We don't really have any other like kind of culture. it's not tied to like our ethnicity or anything really. So I feel like it's Margaret wanting to have a relationship with God, wanting to have a religion so that she has an answer to all the other people asking what she is, having that identity. yeah,
00:26:28
Speaker
I get it, you know? I mean, leaving the church and everything is difficult. I don't know what my life would have been like if I hadn't had it at all. Mm-hmm. I think that she definitely felt very othered.
00:26:41
Speaker
Othered, but also nothinged at the same time. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think so. Yeah, she—new school, new house, new community, new friends, and— no place for her to belong. Right.
00:26:56
Speaker
And also, like, let's not take it out of, like, the time period context. Like, this is the 1960s. So what we experienced in, like, early 2000s in yeah Missouri, i mean, they are in New Jersey, which I would think that would be, like, a little bit bigger, a little bit maybe more progressive than Missouri. But still, for the nineteen sixty s to be, like, we don't we don't have a faith. We don't go to a church, a mosque, a temple. Like,
00:27:23
Speaker
We don't do that. That's like weird. It's weird to be the new person on the block and be like, um, thanks for the invite to church. But actually I don't go. I also want to talk about, i don't think my mom would have stopped me from reading any Judy bloom books. And I know that she didn't cause I read like super fudge and ah one other, I don't remember which one it was. um But I specifically read Beverly Cleary and Captain Underpants, etc.
00:27:50
Speaker
um I don't think my mom would have stopped me from reading something that dealt with religion, even though we were at the time very deeply religious. ah She just would have...
00:28:00
Speaker
If she had read it and saw that it might have me questioning my faith, she would have been like, but we're Catholic. Like there just would have been like that little right additional nudge to remain where we are. i wasn't allowed to read Harry Potter books. And I I started reading the Twilight series, I think at first my parents didn't know what it was. My dad never cared about any of this stuff. Actually, my dad actively encouraged me to read Harry Potter and tried to use that as a mechanism to get me to spend more time at his house. He's like, you know, the books are long, so I'll buy you all the books, but you got to stay over here more. my mom and my stepdad, absolutely not on Harry Potter. They also wouldn't let watch the movies, but my dad was like, hey, there's a new movie in the theater. Let's go see it.
00:28:52
Speaker
explicitly because your mom won't let you um so i saw the harry potter movies yeah twilight twilight was an issue for my mom and my stepdad as well because of vampires yeah oh my gosh and werewolves but mostly the vampires i was in middle school when those really became popular Yeah. So I was kind of like, yeah, I'm just going to read it and not tell you.
00:29:14
Speaker
My parents never discouraged books or anything like that's the one thing. My mom has always been so worried that she didn't do a good job. And I actually told her recently, listen, here's the things you did right.
00:29:26
Speaker
She never discouraged music. Wow. Every CD that that woman ever bought me was the unedited version. oh my gosh. Explicit with the print. She was like, I never wanted you to have the edited version. This is the way that the artist made it. So this is the way that you're going to experience it.
00:29:41
Speaker
So let's
Character Development and Family Dynamics
00:29:42
Speaker
talk about Margaret's mother, Barbara. ah love Barbie. You love Barbie? Barbie. That's what I would have called her if I knew her. Barbara. She is played by Rachel McAdams. um and in the movie she does not seem as happy as she does in the book she's so depressed i know we see a lot more of her like being lost walking around the house and like dumping all of her art stuff into like a back room and whatnot like she is yeah do love rachel mcadams what i think is like her natural hair like the hair that they gave her in the the movie because it's like not perfect
00:30:21
Speaker
that's what I want my hair to look like I want my hair to look like that and I think it does but then I'm also like in that yeah stage right now where I'm like it's not curly enough so right I feel like Barbara she had like a very similar kind of arc that Margaret did it's all about finding your identity and your place in the world right I would kind of love to see actually like a sequel to the book but maybe from Barbara's perspective or like yeah like experience what it's like for what it was like for barbara to have this big move to the suburbs and yeah because she's so artsy she was obviously very involved artistically in new york in the big city where all the artists live and then she moved to i don't think a new jersey suburb going to like the guggenheim on the reg No, no, no, no, no. It was very much like a down to earth type of like, like you and me basically like whenever we were in undergrad, like that kind of thing, if that makes sense.
00:31:21
Speaker
Maybe she did more art. in this so No, actually, i think I think they they talk about how she in the city, she had to have a job to for them to afford it. And then like Margaret's dad took this promotion at work. And that mean that meant that they could move and she wouldn't have to work anymore.
00:31:40
Speaker
And so, yeah I don't know that she was really like a part of like the art community. i i don't know what her it doesn't really get into like what her job was in New York in the city. But I think what we see is her yeah having a job and then her like struggling with like, well, how do I feel my time? Like, what do i do if I don't work?
00:32:03
Speaker
That's capitalism, baby. In the book, Barbara's arc is not that like pronounced or anything. But in the movie, I think we get to see this really beautiful thing. Honestly, one of my favorite parts of the movie is at the end when the PTA annoying PTA mom, I think it's actually Nancy's mom. um approaches barbara and is like those stars that you made and it was like way too many stars that she had to make and they didn't even use them all uh-huh and they weren't even used or any of them they didn't use any of them because everything's a fire hazard now so dumb she put all his work into it and had to pick up somebody else's extra stars because her stars thousands yes thousands of them but so nancy's mom is like we're figuring out new committees like um would you be interested and we get to see barbara be like i'd love to but no i don't want to um i really don't want to yeah that sounds awful right And she's like, it's insinuating you know, and that's just like, that's a lot of growth. I feel like there's a lot of women. Yeah. Like our age, a lot of women older than Barbara's age, like in her thirties, forties, whatever. Um, there's a lot of women out there that are like too shy to be like honest about how to feel about something like that.
00:33:26
Speaker
Being like, well, I appreciate the invitation. And that was very nice of you to try to include me, but I'm actually not interested in participating. Yeah. Yeah. I've learned my lesson. We see her It's again, just like how Margaret was trying to find her place. Uh, Barbara was trying to find her place in this new sort of world that she found herself in And she goes from, i think in the movie, they like kind of mentioned that she maybe taught art or something like that.
00:33:53
Speaker
Like she was dude. Again, it wasn't super defined. like a Yeah. yeah she and And then, so at the end, she is at like a local place in New Jersey teaching art there.
00:34:03
Speaker
ah which is lovely and and then it also shows her like finding sparks of inspiration here and there anyway i loved barbara's arc it was beautiful rachel mcadams is just a doll grandparents are obviously like really they got their hands in uh in the mix of like how we're shaped like with religion and It's hard for me to hate Grandma Sylvia because she's played by Kathy Bates. And I love Kathy Bates dearly. She's so just, she's amazing. I just, I love her. I don't know. She kind of reminds me of my mom a little bit. Also named Kathy.
00:34:42
Speaker
Also named Kathy. not short for Catherine. feel like she's a little bit more obnoxious in the book. And I think that we're seeing Grandma Sylvia as just a...
00:34:53
Speaker
Like we're seeing her through a ah specific lens and right and we're just getting little hints at how meddling she's being in the background. Yeah. Here and there. it's She's just a little bit different in the book versus the movie. Just her character is a little bit a little bit different. Like it's the same candy, but different flavor. Yeah. I mean, I think she's being a grandma and she's...
00:35:15
Speaker
I think we are seeing her adjusting to this transition, right, of the of her son, i think her only son, and then her like only granddaughter moving away to the suburb. And that means moving away further from her. And it's a big change for all of them. Yeah, I mean, even in the book, ah Margaret talks about why they might have moved away. And she said, ah she's further away from her grandma. And she says something to the effect of like, we moved away, especially since my mother says grandma is too much of an influence on me. So they're further away from her.
00:35:48
Speaker
And Margaret wonders if it's because her grandma is like being too pushy, you know, and right. But the book and the movie, you just get little hints that there's been a lot more ah infighting and like arguments in the background that Margaret isn't like present for. um i mean, in the I don't remember if it happened in the book, ah but in the movie, after they pick up Margaret from summer camp and then she goes up to the apartment and Grandma Sylvia is just like, you're moving as soon as she walks in the door.
00:36:21
Speaker
and And she was not supposed to do that. She was not supposed to tell Margaret that they were moving. And yes, yes, Sylvia, to be fair, she would have figured it out because Margaret's very smart and they're removing boxes everywhere. But that's not really the point now, is it?
00:36:38
Speaker
Yeah. So that's frustrating. And I think that kind of like just shows a little bit more. Maybe i don't think it was the sole reason for why they were moving. That would be crappy.
00:36:48
Speaker
i think they just wanted, you know, more room than a than an apartment in Brooklyn. I think that information was included just to make everyone feel more relatable, right? Yes. The side yeah comment of um margaret Margaret's voiciness as a narrator in the book being like, you know, it's probably a good thing we're moving because my mom says my grandma's too much of an influence on me anyways. And it's like, I think that's not a bad thing to have a grandmother as, you know, depending on the grandmother, um have her as like another...
00:37:24
Speaker
role model because sylvia is doing everything everything she does is out of love right clearly she's she's definitely setting like a good example for margaret yes um the only thing is potentially like and she wasn't even that pushy right margaret asked to go to the synagogue with her sylvia's like oh yes like judaism has won out and margaret's like no no i'm just like trying out the water she took it and ran with it yeah so and i i like i like grandma sylvia she seems like the kind of person that i would want to live near right she seems she's lovely she's a lot yeah she's lovely yeah
00:38:06
Speaker
So, and I did kind of think that Sylvia was being a little bit, a little bit sneaky. That's my only real thing that I, that I don't like about her.
00:38:18
Speaker
So another really big theme in both the book and the movie is estrangement from parents. Yeah. Going no contact before that phrase was a thing. Which I think would have been a lot easier in the 1960s, actually. Oh, yeah.
00:38:31
Speaker
you You really only have to. Make sure they don't know your phone number. Yeah. Just don't give them your phone number. Yeah. Yeah. Make sure you're not listed or something. Social media. as long as you didn't have like a public facing job or career, like they'd have no way of checking up on you.
00:38:46
Speaker
But yeah, so basically in the book and then also in the movie, Barbara, Margaret's mom, sends her own parents, Barbara's parents, um a holiday card. Just as a she's sending a bunch out and she decides to send them one. And, you know, in the movie, we kind of get to see her like waffle with that decision a little bit. um In the book, I feel like we don't really get to see the like, should I, should I not?
00:39:16
Speaker
Yeah, it it just happened. She didn't really write anything in there. a it was It was her own little just secret thing that she did just to kind of test the waters and see where they were at, basically.
00:39:29
Speaker
Just to remind them that she's alive, i guess. Barbara was a lot more complex in the movie for sure. She was. And I think Rachel McAdams, who plays Barbara in the movie, I mean, she did a phenomenal job.
00:39:42
Speaker
She just really got at the complexity. i just really enjoyed her arc throughout the movie. So, yeah, like I can totally understand the kind of sentimentality. Like I at one point I was estranged from my father, um did not, you know, get married during that time, did not have a child during that time or even like it wasn't even a long enough estrangement for me to have had a child.
00:40:11
Speaker
And then have that child be like going through puberty by the time said child met their grandfather. So i think it's a, you know, My estrangement for my dad was totally different, but he did miss out on some milestones for me. I mean, he missed out on my high school graduation. he missed out on the first three years of college for me. He kind of came in right as the fourth year college was starting. So, yeah, it's just kind of weird to think about. Yeah.
00:40:38
Speaker
and I mean, and I fully understand estrangement, too, because my dad has missed... Everything from high school graduation and on. But he missed my wedding. He missed me almost dying. He missed a whole bunch of stuff. And and he's going to continue to miss out on a whole bunch of stuff. But that's a choice that he made. Right.
00:40:58
Speaker
Yeah. Whatever. ah here I mean, my dad's gone now, so he's missing out a lot, too. He never met. He never met Adam. Yeah. Because he had his fall before...
00:41:11
Speaker
Adam came back to Missouri to meet him. It was like the week before we were, had this big Missouri trip planned. so yeah, so close. I mean, technically they did meet in the hospital, but yeah my dad, it's, it's not the same. Not right in the mind. Yeah. So yeah, my dad thought his name was Frank.
00:41:32
Speaker
And then he was already my fiance when he was just my boyfriend at that time. Yeah.
00:41:39
Speaker
ah Anyway, so um near the end of the movie... and slash the book it kind of stinks that margaret's grandparents whom she's never met like the one time the one week that they can come to the house and meet margaret and meet their son-in-law i guess maybe again maybe for the first time like that happens to be margaret's spring break and when she was supposed to go to florida to be with her grandma sylvia
00:42:14
Speaker
And that's just like, that's really not cool. it's really not fair to Margaret because she had all these hopes built up for this trip to Florida. Well, and like it wasn't even thing that was discussed. There was no discussion. Right. It was literally just like they wrote Barbara back and was like, hey, we will be there this day, this week. This is when it's happening. We've been estranged for at least 11 years. So we're going to steamroll you this week also. Right. And it's like, no, I think I think we can find a better time that works mutually better for all of us. You know, like, yeah, this week doesn't work for us is what they could have said. It could have been a phone call.
00:42:54
Speaker
It could have been so many different things. Yeah, but it could have been just like the entitlement of that. it was It was definitely stressful. And I think we saw a lot more anger from Grandma Sylvia in the in the movie, too. She was a lot more. yeah She just really didn't take. a More attitude. Yeah, more attitude. She did not take anybody's crap.
00:43:12
Speaker
Like, she's definitely the person that you want to have in your corner. Yeah. I think. Like, she might be a bit much, but you know that but she would always be there for you and will drop everything that she has going on to support you.
00:43:25
Speaker
so Sylvia's obnoxious, but I love her. We all have one. Yeah. So we did see a big change from the book to the movie with Grandma Sylvia. Like they really let her be Kathy Bates, I think, in the movie. do you want to talk about that a little bit and her adorable little boyfriend? So she shows up and her boyfriend, Mr. Benhamon, like Cinnamon, show up the same night that Barbara's parents are there.
00:43:51
Speaker
And they're all having this big family dinner. So it's like, what? seven people at the dinner table yeah it was uh it was um grandma sylvia yeah grandma sylvia and her boyfriend and then ah barbara and then i um yeah margaret's dad benny uh played by benny safi yeah it was a big group and you know i mean yep I would be overwhelmed if I was in a family of three and then suddenly there's two adult strangers with opinions sitting at at my dinner table
00:44:30
Speaker
It was stressful. It was a very stressful scene. But for the movie, it was like this dramatic climax because it's where Margaret's parents learn that she went to temple with her grandma. And they're like, what? You didn't even tell us about that? Was this your idea, Sylvia? And she's like, no, it was Margaret. And then Barbara's parents are like, wait, what? You're Jewish? I thought you I thought you were Christian and then Margaret's parents like we're nothing like we are no religion and then Margaret's like she just Margaret feels i mean you can tell and she plays this so well she you can just tell that she feels like she's in the middle of all of these adults who want different things for her and she's like just stop I'm
00:45:16
Speaker
I'm 11.
Margaret's Climax and Conclusion
00:45:18
Speaker
becoming a woman. I don't want to have a religion. This is stupid. And so, yeah, it was just really dramatic. And it was, it was, uh, it was a good scene, but it it wasn't the same as the book. Oh no, it was a lovely scene. I think I love Grandma Sylvia for different reasons in the movie than I do in the book because in the book, Grandma Sylvia only tries to show up. She tries very hard to show up at the same time as ah Herb's parents do.
00:45:47
Speaker
And she misses them by what feels like minutes. ah So there is still the same like climax, similar, a similar climax, I think with both of them, because in the book at the climax of this, of this argument ah in the, in the movie, it's with all the grandparents and Mr. Benjamin.
00:46:07
Speaker
And then in the book, it's only like one set of, of the grandparents and Margaret brings everything to a head. with the quote, I don't even need God in the book, which is heartbreaking, you know, because she talks to him literally every day. She has a great relationship with God, just no religion, right?
00:46:28
Speaker
But then in the movie, she says, I don't even believe in God. And that's so, so heartbreaking because you know that she only said these two things to stop the fighting and to just show that she is her own person and that she...
00:46:44
Speaker
only wants religion for herself. She's not doing it to please anybody else. She is her own. She's her own woman, her own little, little teenager woman.
00:47:06
Speaker
All right. Are you a nerd or buff for this one? Am I a book nerd or am I a movie buff? I don't know. i don't know. On the one hand, I think that I might be a book nerd just because i And this will really tell you where my brain has been. I love reading children's books. I love YA stuff. I do. And I don't know why i decided once I turned 20 or whatever that I shouldn't read them anymore.
00:47:35
Speaker
That's stupid. They're so pleasant. Even whenever they're talking about like these harder... uh concepts and ideas like i love it it's comforting and it's it's helping my brain like retrain itself to be able to read books again i feel like that's something that i really struggle with uh after you know having my phone in my hand for 10 years and and just all the stuff going on in the world i think i kind of really loved the book just because I used to really be a hardcore reader and I'm just not as much anymore.
00:48:11
Speaker
and I finished this in like a day and that made me feel good. Yeah. I think on this one, I mean, I agree that the book was really easy to read and it was like kind of refreshing, honestly, to have like a break in adult reading to read something that's like child appropriate.
00:48:27
Speaker
um But also still like applies to adults. Yeah. And like, it's still interesting. Right. um ah But I, I think I might have to say that I'm a movie buff on this one, just because I feel like the movie came at a really good time.
00:48:46
Speaker
um And I think that they did a great job of like sticking with the the storyline. i mean, I know it's a children's book, so it's like not that long, but yeah, like they didn't have a lot happens. It's like a whole year in her life. Yes. And they didn't really have to cut any of it. Like they were very true to the book.
00:49:09
Speaker
And I just think that they did a really great job in the movie. Yeah. And
Podcast Wrap-up and Listener Engagement
00:49:13
Speaker
it was really enjoyable and pleasant and it was funny. Yes. Oh my God. And I also think that it was like, I mean, I watched it alone as an adult, but I feel like if I was watching with like a teen or ah a preteen, they would find it funny too. Like it's a good movie. Yeah.
00:49:38
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast. Watch for new episodes out the third Thursday of each month. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
00:49:50
Speaker
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Book Club The Movie. You can also find us on Patreon, Facebook, or on our website, bookclubthemovie.com. This podcast was created and produced by Jen Moyer and M. Lord.
00:50:03
Speaker
Our music and mixing is by Jason Lord of Studio Topaz. Voice acted by Ethan Gallardo. And we just want to give a big thank you to our friends and family for your love and support.
00:50:15
Speaker
And thank you, dear listener, for joining our book club. See you next time, nerds. And buffs. Bye.