Speaker 1: Welcome to Popcorn Psychology, the podcast where we watch blockbuster
movies and psychoanalyze them. My name is Brinnie Brownfield and
I'm a child therapist and I'm joined by.
Speaker 2: Ben Stover, individual therapist.
Speaker 3: Hannah Espinoza, marriage and family therapists.
Speaker 1: We're all licensed clinical professional counselors also known as therapists,
who practice out of Chicago. Even though we are licensed
mental health professionals, this podcast is purely for nentertainment purposes
and to fulfill our love of dissecting pop culture.
Speaker 3: And all forms.
Speaker 2: Please remember that, even though we are all licensed therapists,
we aren't your therapist.
Speaker 1: If you are struggling with mental health symptoms, please find
a local mental health provider. Hey everyone, So we will
be talking about e T today by Steven Spielberg. We
are going to be talking about the family within the movie,
specifically the separation that occurs with the parents and how
that changes the family dynamics. We'll also be talking about siblings.
We're talking about kids when they're left alone to their
own devices, which is a big component to a lot
of movies of this time period. We're also going to
be talking about how adults respond to kids and empathy
in communication and as always will do treatment and final thoughts.
For anyone who I don't know has been in a
coma for the past thirty years and has never seen
ET or heard ET or anything like that, I guess
would be forty years by now.
Speaker 3: Forty Oh that's so upsetting.
Speaker 2: Forty four years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, ETO, because it was.
Speaker 1: It came out in nineteen eighty two, and I'm going
to be forty four this year.
Speaker 2: And how arymore.
Speaker 1: As beautiful as ever? Fifty almost got to be. Yeah,
so that's you know, she was what six six in
this movie?
Speaker 2: So yeah, forty four plus six is fifty is fifty.
Speaker 3: And that's math corner with Ben Stover. Yep, thanks, not a.
Speaker 2: Corner I suggested follows me too. I am very good
with words, but numbers.
Speaker 1: So for anyone who's not aware, ET is about a
young boy he's ten years old, named Elliott. He finds
a alien in his backyard that he calls ET, and
he slowly gets to know him via different forms of
communicating until he realizes that ET needs to.
Speaker 3: Go home, so he helps him go home.
Speaker 1: While various forms of the government are eavesdropping on their
house listening to their calls, trailing their neighborhood and you know,
slightly antagonistic to their agenda. So, as I said before,
we're first going to talk about the family because I think,
in my opinion, this movie is a lot about a family,
and a lot of the plot points of this movie
I think happen or can happen because they are a
family in change.
Speaker 3: They are a family that's kind of right now.
Speaker 1: We learn pretty early in the movie that their dad
is no longer in the home with them. We don't
really know why exactly. All we know is that he
is not living with them and he's in Mexico with
some woman named Sally, but we don't really know any
other context. We do know later in the movie she
does mentioned that her and her husband are recently separated,
so I assume they're like not even divorced. And it
did kind of feel like a recent thing, Like they
do feel like a household where it is very fresh.
It feels like it's been like maybe like a couple
of weeks at the most.
Speaker 3: Really, Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of experience with divorce and separation
and parents not being together, and so one of them
many times that my parents got.
Speaker 3: Divorced about this.
Speaker 1: Mom really reminds me about like three to four weeks after,
like things have said in that like he's really not
coming back, and you start to and that's when you
start to have to do all the pieces of how
am I going to do this now on my own?
Speaker 2: Yeah, getting out of the dissociated fugue state that not
really processing, just surviving and kind of just following the
motions but maybe having still unrealistic ideas. Are not fully
able to accept all that's happened because you're going through
all the court cases and spending all the money. I
don't know if it cost all of the money in
the eighties like it does now, because getting divorced now
is basically all your money. All of it is gone
to the lawyers clients that I have going through that.
It's outrageous money. I don't know if it was then.
But that fugue state eventually ends and reality hits and
the overwhelm is crushing, And yeah, I don't know how
long I would guess under six months, So I think,
you know, whatever she is processing, she has not processed
yet and is very preoccupied with her anger because every
moment we see her alone, she's muttering to herself, he
doesn't even like Mexico. Like there's little comments throughout this
whole thing about her anger. And there's the moment I
think when she's sitting alone in her Halloween costume, like
she's just sitting and straight talking to herself about like
just that like hashtag arguments I want in the shower
kind of energy where she's not hallucinating, she's not having
any mental health crisis other than processing what the fuck
just happened when her life fell apart.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because if she's saying recently separated, I would also
say that's probably been in the last six months, if
not shorter. And the fact that the dad is already
vacationing with another woman, to me insinuates that they're probably
maybe even with some overlap in the situation. Or you know,
there's a lot of people who and I know this
is kind of a trope against men, So apologies men
is like start having like a partner right away. Like
men don't stay single for long post breakups, post divorce.
Speaker 2: They do not usually, I mean usually, once the relationship
is deteriorating, there's on one side or the other, there's
often seeking companionship, so it seems quite clear that dad
had done that and Mom was busy being a mom
and figuring out whatever she was doing to survive, because
there's no at least mentioned in this film of Mom
having any partner at all.
Speaker 1: Could be really cool like my dad and just go
from one woman's bed to the next. That's why me
and my sister are only five months apart to the day.
We are currently both the same age.
Speaker 2: Which obviously happened with one woman right.
Speaker 3: Right, two ladies.
Speaker 1: But no, I think watching this now is like an
adult woman watching it with an adult therapist's brain. I
was really clocking what you're talking about, Ben, which is
this movie actually does a really good job at writing
a fully flagh parent, like she's fully fleshed out as
a character, even though the movie is not really following her.
It's not about her. And it also I think allows
us as the audience to have a way clear understanding
of like I said, like why these kids, as we'll
talk about later, are left alone a lot is that
she's a mom that is like so frazzled like I
think a perfect example of this is when Gertie tries
to show her et like he's right there, and she's
like there, yeah, honey, Yeah, and she's like in the fridge,
she's trying to get groceries and the phone's ringing.
Speaker 3: Like she is a woman on the edge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's absolutely on the edge, and she's dissociated as hell.
She's I mean, when you do a mental status exam,
preoccupied is one of your options to look at, and
she would absolutely fall into that category. I see no
evidence of psychosis. I see anxiety, I see overwhelm. I
see a clear evidence of adjustment disorder with her, But
I don't see anything else that I find concerning. She's depressed,
she's anxious, she's overwhelmed, she's all of that because of
her circumstances. Outside of that, we don't have any information
on who she was, how she was before, but we
can see clearly the main antagonist in her life is
that she's going through a divorce and she's now raising
three kids that are quite spaced out in age. I'm
assuming they're each about four years apart. That's a lot.
Speaker 3: Mike is fifteen, Elliott is ten, and she is six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so pretty close, yeah, right, And that is having
kids myself that are five point five years apart from
each other. The developmental issues put you in different mindsets
that separate your consciousness a lot. And I have two,
not three and now, and I have a spouse around
to help with that, and she does not. Now all
of a sudden, and keeping yourself in the mentality of
how do I give each of these kids what they
need as appropriate would be immensely overwhelming. And that's what
we see is she's just like there's beer. There's beer
sitting out on the counter, and she's getting a call
from the school like, uh so your kid is doing
some real banana shit and acting intoxicid And she's just
like looking at a beer can and just like cleaning
up all the masks and like looks at the beer can.
Then just she smells it.
Speaker 3: No, well she smells it.
Speaker 1: Actually, like I feel like she is like what like
I feel like too much Like just like we said,
like she is just she's someone who's like trying to
go through the motions as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like she's trying to get.
Speaker 1: The groceries, get the kid, Like you're right. What also
sucks about the kids being a part in age is
you know they're not any of them are attending the
same school at the same time, which she's like picking
up one kid now she's getting called from school about
another before she's even processing the fact that there's like
an empty beer can on the counter, you know, like
things are happening before she's had time to think about
the last thing or the current thing that's happening.
Speaker 2: Right and she's going on like typical parent autopilot of like, Okay,
if I don't put these girls shees away right now
in the thirty seconds that I have to do it.
I mean I can listen to Gertie talk, but also
like if this doesn't get done, I am going to
be behind on all the other tests I got to
do to stay on top of these kids. Like she's
barely listening, she's not paying attention. She's just focused on
the test she has to do while also connecting to
the kids as much as she has mentally available at
that moment, which is not a lot, which is understandable,
but recognizing how that creates a little bit of a
dissociative state where your brain is separated into multiple tests.
Then add personal shit of processing a divorce. That's where
when you look at a mental status exam preoccupied would
fit because clearly she's trying to digest what the fuck
just happened while also trying to be an only parent
in a household with three kids a very different age,
which is a hell of a lot. And then kids
are also having what she presumes are adjustment issues. But
you know, of course there's an alien in the house,
so you know what adult would believe that as their
first effort, like, yeah, there's just just an alien from
outer space, just from another planet in my house that
my kids are interacting with and brought home.
Speaker 1: Everything's fine, honestly, And like her version of the movie,
I'm sure she's like, this is the last thing I
need right now, Like in the scene where she finally
sees et on the ground and she picks the kids
and she's like what the lock Like I'm sure in
her head she's like all this stuff and now they've
brought this dying animal into the house and they want
me to be cool, because I do think we're I
also want to give her a lot of credit, and
I don't know how.
Speaker 3: I do think she's doing this somewhat consciously.
Speaker 1: Is she's she's making an effort not to take out
any of these feelings on the kids, which I think
is really great given how we can see.
Speaker 3: How frazzled she is the whole movie.
Speaker 1: The only time she really raises her voice is one
out of genuine like shock and fear, which the most scenes,
but like when they're all misbehaving when they go out
in the backyard in the beginning and she's trying to
get them all.
Speaker 3: To chill out.
Speaker 1: And what I really like as like a child therapist
and a family therapist is when the Mexico scene happens
in the beginning of the movie, when they finally let
it slip, which also sucks because then that means that
there's some secret keeping going on. Maybe you'll talk about
the siblings, Hannah, but there's some responsibility the kids are
feeling to like not tell mom everything for whatever reason.
And I do appreciate that she gets up and walks
away from the table and goes to the sink, and
she tries to act normal, but she's clearly like upset,
and ye she's crying. They can tell she's upset because
they're all human beings. But I do appreciate that she
even those moments when she's muttering around Mexico she's really
doing that by herself, Like she's not talking really ill
about their dad in front of them, Like she has
the bad moment where she says like, you don't even
like Mexico in front of them, But to me that
felt more like a human moment, Like I do feel
like she's seems to be trying her best to not
spill any of her bullshit onto the kids, maybe because
the dad is doing all this stuff, which I think
is what happens when I work with families or something
like this is going on, is that there's one parent
who's trying to like keep their shit together, usually the
primary caregiver parent and show up well sometimes because the
other parent is doing whatever the fuck they want and
like they're so this I deal a lot with parents
as individual clients where they're really just trying to like
keep everything stable in reaction to the other parent kind
of causing so much disruption in the family. And I
think you're seeing that here too. And so she's also
I think trying to put on a brave face, like
even her dressing up for Halloween, I feel like, is
her trying to put on a brave face for her
kids while she is like tore up inside and we're
seeing it leak out in these moments when she's like Mexico. Like,
are these little beats that I really like that Steven
Spielberg puts in here, which I feel like is the
Spielberg like sauce where he can put these little moments
into movies to make them feel more like special and human.
And I feel like, I really this is like the
first time I really was impressed by the use of
the mom in this movie to do a lot of that,
because I feel like in any other movie the parents'
is not around and you don't know why they're not
around and why the kids getting away with all this stuff,
or like, yeah, like where the parents are just MIAs
usually the lazy storywriting version of this, And I like
with this version that she feels like a full character
and these beats help you understand how plot wise this
is all unfolding. But yeah, like even she lets Elliott
stay home because she thinks he's sick, well, he tells
he's sick. She comes home and his room is fucking wrecked,
and even then she doesn't yell at him. She's just
like this room, what she say, this isn't a room.
This is like an accident.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: So I feel like she's trying to keep her cool
while she's probably just fucking burnout of shit though I
don't even know she has the energy to be like
I can't believe her almost like this, She's just like, well,
and now your room's destroyed.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go have a glass of wine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I feel like this is a I do
feel like she's trying really hard to keep her shit together.
She's trying really hard to not take it out in
her kids, and those are some things that can be
really hard to do when you're at this age of
being separated, but also having all the weight put on
you or all the weight always being on you, and
now being in a position where you absolutely have no
one who can help or no one who can be supportive.
So I feel like it makes a lot of sense.
I have always had nice feelings about the mom, I
think in general, and I think it's because she's not
bad mouthing the dad in front of the kids. But
also my experience of divorce was very My parents are
very unwell people, and so it was very intense all
the time. But even like this common like my dad
would just be gone, and like you just didn't know
when you were going to see him again or if
you were going to see him again. So it was
always like this constant So your parents always in this
constant sense of like just trying to make shit work.
And I feel like that's really where we're seeing her
in this portrayal of her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's really important to connect to the
humanity you see here and that she is, even though
she has some moments where she does not behave optimally
who does? Who can? And especially in circumstances where life
is happening to you right now, in all of the
ways simultaneously, all of the third standard deviation, the most rare,
ridiculous things are happening. The impact and destruction that has
on your your psyche, your sanity, your sense of self.
These little moments like you're saying that Spielberg put in,
we see the devastation, Like she's in her Halloween costume
and she's just sitting by herself.
Speaker 1: That scene makes my stomach hurt. I don't like that scene.
It's too much, it's too real.
Speaker 2: The kids are all old enough that they abandon her.
She's clearly it was like looking forward to like doing
the thing, and I assume she would have done that
with her husband and whatever party they would have gone to,
and does go to a party, she goes somewhere they.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I really feel she's just setting
in her costume at home, which is happening to.
Speaker 3: Herself, I think, to make herself happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she was going somewhere, but I think
she was just really trying to like be the like
happy mom Halloween.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think, I mean, I think all of that.
Speaker 2: And then once the kids are out, I think she
was really counting on maybe taking Gerdye around. But Girty's
part of the plan, and then that's true. Mom is
just kind of by herself. But she gets in a
car and goes somewhere.
Speaker 1: Does she yep, Well, she goes to look for the
kids because they haven't come home. Like she's stomping around
outside by.
Speaker 3: The car and is like where these kids? Where the
fuck are these kids?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's why she gets that's where she's going.
Speaker 3: But no, I don't feel that she doesn't really have
a social life.
Speaker 1: I feel like there's one scene where like off screen
she kind of like answers the phone or calls someone.
It sounds like maybe she's talking to a friend, like hey, Charmaine,
like that kind of tone. But that's it, and so
we don't really know. Yeah, we just don't know a
lot like this movie does a good job of not
worrying about giving us too many details, but enough details
that we get the vibe right because also like thinking
about the time period, you know, and all the truly
I would I'm with you, Ben, like kind of wild
choices she makes with leaving the kids home alone, even
though I know there's a part of that's a little
of the time, but you know, I wonder if she
was working before, like if she had to start working again,
and that's why she's doing things like letting Elliott stay
home sick by himself, Like can she find childcare?
Speaker 3: Does she have childcare?
Speaker 1: Doesn't seem like there's any family around, Like there's nobody
family wise we hear anything about from either side of
the family. They are living in I think Los Angeles
because of that overhead that shot, that famous shot look
out spot shots. So they don't maybe they're transplants, I
don't know, but they definitely feel also like a very
I don't know there is something kind of lonely about
the family, like they do feel like they've got each other,
and that's kind of it. I think that when you
go through a separation like that, that's that is as
unexpected as what it sounds like that.
Speaker 3: I lost my kind of thought, ring ing ing, I will.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think that when a family is going
through a change like this that's kind of unexpected, that
there is a lot of there is a lot of
isolation that I think that the kids feel and the
family feels because it feels like you're not like other families.
It feels like, you know, your parents couldn't figure it out.
I mean, it feels very much like it's really hard
to not feel lonely and isolated, especially if there was
a parent. I mean, we see the one scene with
the with Mike and Elliott. They're talking about something that
their dad used to take them to. I never really
noticed that scene that much before, but that was gut wrenching.
It really was like them remembering doing fun stuff with their.
Speaker 2: Dad and like smelling the shirt and.
Speaker 1: That it doesn't really happen anymore, and that it doesn't
happen anymore, and like they it seems like the kids
don't know when they'll see him again, you know, and
so I feel like there is a sense of isolation.
There's a sense of I feel like also in some
ways there's even a sense of like, is there something
wrong with us the reason that ways why he's not here. Yeah,
there definitely is a mild vibe that like Dad has
ditched us, because yeah, when they're reminiscing in the garage,
I believe smelling his shirt and they're talking about remember
when Dad would take us to the movies and to games,
and they're talking about it as if like remember when,
like they're nostalgic at the age of like ten and
fifteen about the times they used to have with their dad.
And then Mike says that'll happen again one day or
something like that, that'll happen again sometime soon. It's such
a common thing for an older sibling to say, like
I literally remember. We're saying something similar to my siblings
of like, hey, like he forgot this time, but he
won't forget next time. My dad used to do a
lot of forgetting us on the weekends, and so there
was a lot of explanation around that.
Speaker 3: A lot of the time.
Speaker 1: But I literally remember saying something like that to my siblings.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, and I think something interesting along these
lines that I just looked up. I was trying to
figure out when the time period is. So this movie
takes place in eighty two, right, so.
Speaker 1: It came out on June eleventh, nineteen eighty two. I
looked it up because I wanted to know if I
was born yet, So I was not.
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty one was the peak of divorce rate in
the country, so these kids might not have been so
alone in that eighty two was the start of a decline.
But a lot of people would this is this is
right when women could get credit cards and things and
weren't trapped in marriages at the same rate.
Speaker 1: I would argue to say that women are still trapped
in marriages. Well, but you're either here or no there, No,
you're right, like, this is the time of women had
a lot more systemic autonomy.
Speaker 2: Systemic autonomy, right, like at least a way out that
they could get credit themselves, not saying that there aren't
other systemic things that would keep them trapped, because of
course they know that the world is fucked and being
born female comes with the host of problems aren't fair.
We'll just accept that. But the thing that I think
recognizing is that there's probably quite a few of their
friends that are also going through crazy divorce and all
the stuff that's that's happening, and realizing these kids maybe
might not feel it as alone in this as we should,
but also still their world is flying apart, so everything
that they knew, regardless of if other people are also
going through it, is still collapsing in this sadness of
looking at them like trying to remember the way their
dad's deodorant would smell like old spice, and the older
brother cracking that going like nope, that's babreeze or whatever.
The sound of voices and the smells of things disappear
from our mind really fast, but old factory senses are
the strongest and most powerful reactions we have, So that
scene really would call up a lot of responses for
these kids, that the feelings of being forgotten and left
behind and that you'd never have that again, and that
rush of emotion they'd be getting from that smell can't
be replicated by anything else. Smell is our most powerful
react to your old factory smell. And taste, because that's
what keeps us from eating shit that's rotten. It's our
most potent memory. Things smell of a perfume can transport
you through time, and these kids experiencing that was put
in on purpose to be tragic.
Speaker 1: I would say that as much as I agree that
divorce is happening all across the board, it was still
something that was pretty taboo at the time because I
know that.
Speaker 3: We didn't talk to it.
Speaker 1: We didn't talk to it, and I mean that was
probably could also have been just a thing in my
family because there's so much stuff that we wouldn't talk about.
But like we didn't tell anybody what was ever going
on with our family because it was like a big
deal if you got divorced, like that meant something. I
felt like in the nineties when that was when I
was like maybe in like fourth grade, probably it probably
had been divorced twice by then.
Speaker 3: I want to say, maybe three times something like that.
Speaker 1: So anyway, but I just I'm remembering the time and
like it wasn't something that we were talking about with
our friends, Like it wasn't something that came up back then.
Speaker 2: No, No, And the just because it was a historic high,
doesn't mean it would have been something that was socially acceptable.
On being othered is never good in humanity, and feeling
othered and just trying to survive but feeling like all
eyes are on you is not good.
Speaker 1: But I would say that the t shirt smelling scene
or the shirt selling scene does seem to like that
confirms that they haven't seen their dad in a while,
at least not in a way that feels fun like
that or positive like that. And also, though I know
they sort of put a stamp on the dad thing
in the movie by saying he's in Mexico, right, but
I do think there is something somewhat telling that none
of the kids, Michael or Elliott, make any attempt to
reach out to their dad, even in Mexico when all
this shit gets crazy, like when the government comes and
they're quarantined, and like Michael just falls asleep in the closet.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe that was the time you can't do
long distant goals to Mexico.
Speaker 1: Who knows if they even know where he's staying or anything,
but I think it does feel it as if he's
even telling the truth about where he is. In the
first fucking place.
Speaker 2: Well true, and they made a point if like on
the TV to show like the long distance calls being expensive.
I assume that also wasn't an accident. They had a
commercial like, oh, it's Uncle Kenny. It's so far away,
it's so expensive, this must be an important call that.
I don't think that was an accident.
Speaker 1: But I just think it's telling that the Dad is
like a void that you don't really hear the kids
other than Elliott saying in the beginning, Dad would have
believed me, which I think is more him just trying
to make a point with Mom. There aren't really any
conversations happening of like I wish we could call Dad,
I wish Dad was here, Like Dad is a non entity.
His memory is there, but like him as like an
adult in their life that they would feel comfortable reaching
out to when they want him for help, isn't.
Speaker 2: There, right, Yeah, it's clear that they all understand that
Dad sucks right now, if not always or most of
the time, Like Dad has sucked from X time period
except for the time when he didn't.
Speaker 1: He's just not in the equation, Like these kids aren't
thinking of him as part of the equation. At all, really,
And I think that really shows What that really makes
me think of is like Dad has been disconnected from
the kids for quite some time, that it hasn't just
been the six months that he's been gone. The way
that those two kids looked at them looked at each
other when they talked about that shirt and talked about
the fun stuff they used to get to do, that
didn't sound like that happened a year ago. That happened
like it had been maybe a couple of years since
that had happened. So it also feels like they are
also grieving, which is a natural part of this experience
of grieving stuff with their dad. And when Elliott, what
I thought when Elliott said that was Dad would believe me,
is that that just came out of his mouth like
that was the thought he was having in his brain
of like, oh, I bet if I told Dad he
would believe me, like not like yes, maybe to step
on mom's toes, but also just like a natural response.
Speaker 3: He said it the way my braddy ass would have
said it at that age, which is Doubl'll believe me,
like I think he said it to get mom's goat,
which I respect. I'm not gonna. I mean, it was a.
Speaker 1: Braddy thing to say, and I think he said it
on purpose, But I don't mean I don't think he's
thinking hard enough about it at all, because I do
think we're about to slide into the next part, which
is the sibling dynamic. Is there anything else we want
to say more about the systemic change with than the family.
Speaker 2: No, I think we've covered it, and taking a break
here would make sense. So let's do that. Let's take
that break, and we'll come back and talk about sibling dynamics.
Speaker 1: So I think once again we're going to talk about
the dinner table scene with the Mexico conversation where No,
I'm thinking of the one later when I think this
show also does I think this movie also does a
good job of showing how siblings relationships can change too
when there is a system change like this, Because in
that same conversation we been talking about where they let
it spill that Dad's in Mexico, the whole kind of
cascading situation that happens, the beats that happen right after that,
where Mike gets mad at Elliott because Mom's upset in
the corner of the kitchen and Mike is clocking mom
and being like, you're you okay, and holding each other
responsible as the children for Mom's feelings. Even though, like
I said, I give mom credit, I don't feel like
she's trying her best to not make the kids very
aware of what a wreck she is as much as
she's sort of not pulling it off. Is how it
will also change the sibling dynamic, where there's more of
a sometimes a police and going on of what's happening.
I was going to say that I feel like a
part of the reason why we don't hear them talk
about dad is because they're worried about upsetting their mom.
And that's the reason why he feels so distant in conversation,
because that's one of the things that I remember. My
parents were horrible about each other when we were together,
so like they'd both talk shit about each other, say
all kinds of horrible things, and then when we would
come back, both parents did this. When we would come back,
they would ask, what did your mom say about me?
What did your dad say about me? Like that's the
kind of end. Like, luckily that doesn't sound like that
is happening, but it sounds like this is more about
the kids protecting mom than it is about them not
wanting to reach out to dad.
Speaker 2: Which tracks because we see Elliott get shitty and Mom
break down. Dad would have believe me, and then she
That leads to see Brittany was describing earlier. She's at
the sink and clearly weeping, and that tracks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it is always such a bummer, And I
give why kids do it, because I did shit like
that with like my siblings.
Speaker 3: I'm the oldest where we would and I look.
Speaker 1: Back on this, and of course I don't look back
on it fondly in terms of like how I behaved
at times is where we would hold each other accountable
for upsetting our mom and something sort of similar, and
how unfair that is that we as kids will do
that to each other, Like you shouldn't have said that,
or you should been thinking about how mom feels, Like
what does Mike say? Why are you so selfish? Why
you think about other people? And it's like you're all children,
you know what I mean? Like you're gonna say silly things,
You're gonna put your foot in your mouth, like that's
part of being a kid. You shouldn't have to worry
about it. And even though their mom doesn't seem to
be asking that of them, I think it's very telling
that Mike is kind of holding, which is what happens.
The older sibling, who's more aware of how mom is feeling,
is probably more aware of the dynamics of what's going on.
Mike's probably the one who's in the most know with
what's going on with Dad, And just because he has
more knowledge, he's got he's lived more life, he's of
dating age, like, he kind of has more of a
sense of what's going on, and him trying to make
mom feel better by clamping down on the younger kids
in a way that's not fair, and they're not going
to realize how unfair that is until, like, I don't know,
ten twenty years.
Speaker 2: Do you see Mike's friends, He is a year away
from dating age. They're playing D and D and headphones,
riding bikes. I guess he's a year away from dating age.
He's on the football teams. He's got help but like
and like fighting, but nobody what you're saying.
Speaker 1: And he's more aware of like who Sally is to
Dad than the other two siblings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, he knows whats the fus up. He's
like one.
Speaker 1: He probably talks with Mom more privately like it, just
like he probably leans on him more just because he's
he's so much older to like, fifteen is a big
jump from ten, and so he's gonna naturally be asked
to do more and to be more up.
Speaker 3: And he's already doing this stuff like back in the car.
Speaker 1: Out of the driveway, I only know how to drive
in reverse, and so's it's such a real moment when
he gets mad at Elliott, as if Elliot should know better,
and it's like he's ten, He's not going to understand
the nuanced machinations of what's happening.
Speaker 2: Right truly, No, of course not, I mean and when
that's the fun of fifteen year olds is that they
think that they are so grown up in adult and
that they understand the world. But what they don't understand
is that the ten year old doesn't remotely have the
cognitive capacity that you do at all, and he doesn't
see the world the way that you do and know
he shouldn't just know what you know.
Speaker 1: And also, Mike, if you are really that worry about mom,
why are you stressing her up? But ordering pizza without
her permission for the D and D party and causing
so much hubbub and not let Elliott play like they're
also causing your own stuff, which is fine because you're
also fifteen. You're not supposed to be not able to
break the rules and act up a little bit and
act like a teenager, but it is.
Speaker 3: I don't know if I'm going inwhere.
Speaker 1: With that, but I think that that tiny little scene
in the movie is such a good example of how
the sibling dynamic can be impacted by divorce, even if
the parent isn't really asserting that, especially in this situation
where there's the parent that stays and the parent that left,
and how the kids can be very protective of the
parent that stays. Well.
Speaker 2: I know we talked about the idea of a parentified
child a lot in other episodes. I'm not going to
go into that, but I was surprised to see that
Mike only takes a little bit of the parentified child role.
He still kind of feels like older brother, not necessarily
he's been put in charge of the other kids, like
Mom leans on him him a little bit more, but
it didn't feel like she was making him a coping No.
Speaker 1: I agree, which is part of why I reap for
this mom is that I think he's like he's going
to football practice, He's coming in when he's done with practice.
He's not like rushing home because he is to watch
his brother. He's yeah, you're right, Like he still feels
like a big brother in a out of ways who's
just a little bit more keen in and probably has
had to grow up a little bit. But I also
think the eat we haven't even talked about, the fucking alien,
the et of it all, the fucking alien in this movie,
I think that also makes him grow up too, But
he does. He is a very good big brother, Like
I think about him going I mean Jonathan from Stranger
Things is obviously ripped right off of him, but like
him going to get et when Elliott can't find him.
Like they do a really good job, which I think
is also something that happens with siblings when something happens
in their family, is they can also bond together and
get really protective of each other. And I think you
see that happen in this movie, where they do a
good job of like taking care of each other and
like keeping secrets in a way that I think is
not age and appropriate for kids, you know, especially with
something so bat shit as finding an alien. And also
I'm sure there's a part of them that's like, Mom
can't handle this. Mom's got enough going on besides an
alien that I have snuck into our home and I'm
keeping in our closet after she has told me expressly
to leave it alone.
Speaker 3: Whatever's going on outside.
Speaker 2: I mean, And there's there's so much stranger things in ET,
especially season one, but there's there's so much. I thought
that too. I was like, as you're talking about Mom,
I was thinking, like, oh my god, season one, Karen
Wheeler is this mom and.
Speaker 3: Joy Spires too. You get that combo of them both
that too.
Speaker 2: Joyce is, yeah, her like being distressed and stuff. But
I thought about Karen because even though the dead is present,
he's a fucking potato and her managing everything by herself,
even though Joyce is doing that too and frazzled. Joyce
gains a lot more power, a lot faster takes care
in a couple of seasons to gain some power. She's
kind of frazzled and just lost for a while, and
I'm like, I'm going to I'm doing this by myself,
like just oblivious to what's going on, including that there
is a child in her basement that does not belong
to her and she's just totally ripped from this mom.
And I mean, of course it is, but man, the
sibling dynamics. Looking at this, mom must be doing a
pretty good job to keep these kids living kid life,
because none of them seem to be really feeling older
than they're supposed to be. Seems to be keeping them
kind of age appropriate, Like Gerty's still walking around with
a dolly and thinking about being a cowgirl and being
a kid, and Elliott is still more or less operating
like a ten year old, and Mike is operating like
a fifteen year old. He may need to be pulled
aside and be like, hey, bro, I know you got
your your friends here, and like, but bro.
Speaker 1: At some point, well that part of it too made
me wonder, going back to the family dynamic changing, is
mom kind of in this weird period with the kids
where she's like they're like testing her authority a little
bit too, like I told you not to do that,
Like there's no like I'm going to tell your father anymore.
You know, if she was more of the softer parent.
Dad was the harder parent. Then there were some few
moments in the movie, especially in the beginning, where I
was like, Oh, she's trying to assert her authority and
they're not listening.
Speaker 3: And I wonder if that has to do with the
change in the dynamic.
Speaker 2: Maybe, And actually, I actually, as you're talking about this,
I found myself wondering if Mike is reverting a little
bit and he's not maybe even being encouraged to age,
because like, thinking about being a fifteen year old football player,
like the last goddamn place I'd be was in my
house growing up, Like that was the last place I
was trying to be. And then he's there playing games
with his friends, who are all also clearly a little
emotionally regressed. And I wonder if mom's not doing a
ton to encourage him to also grow up that maybe
would have been done had Dad been in the picture.
And that's keeping there more tight knit sibling dynamic present,
which is probably easier for her that she's kind of
the system is requiring him to be around more, which
is keeping him more grounded to his younger siblings than
his older peers. He's got football posters on the wall
and he's clearly wearing a Joe Antana new jersey non
jersey because they didn't license the things to say in them.
But he's connecting to that stuff but not quite yet
hitting the teenage puberty, girl crazy, etc. That we typically
see starting to emerge around this time. It's the crossover time.
So it's an interesting one for him because some kids
figure out like, oh girls exist, sorry, bro right around
this stage, but other times they don't, and they stick
to their pack of friends who maybe need reminders to
shower a little too often.
Speaker 1: Still, yeah, I was thinking a little bit about how
they are. How a part of Mike still being fifteen
and still feeling like he's not being asked to do
a lot of different things is also because I'm curious
if Dad didn't really do a lot and maybe Mom's
always done a lot. And it also made me think
of the pushing back and trying to assert themselves in
a different way because maybe dad. Maybe that's how Dad
treated mom, And sometimes kids can pick up on that
because that's how they see their dad treats their mom.
We don't know that, we won't know that, but it's
just something that popped into my head. Too, because sometimes
the way that we see people interact in relationships is
the way that we also think that relationships should go,
because that's the only kind of relationships we've been shown.
So if dad like walked all over mom a little bit, Yeah,
and maybe the kids walk over mom a little bit too.
Speaker 2: Or just didn't do shit and they leave her to do.
Speaker 3: It, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: But I think you're making a good point about Mike
probably is a little stunted just because also in this
situation where your dad's kind of fucked off and you
have siblings that are so much younger than you, and
you probably don't feel I could see in his position
feeling like I can't go fuck off as much myself
right now, Like I can't go party or just go
off to friend's houses, like feeling more inclined to, Hey,
come play D and D at our house, you know,
trying to maybe spend more time around your younger siblings
in a way that keeps you more Yeah, just keeps
you more stuck in that time, because I could see me,
even if I wasn't prentified, just wanting to maybe be
around more and and just not feeling is able to
like fuck off and do stuff that I wanted to
do because Mom might need me to do the dishes
or something like that in a way that I wouldn't
think of if this change in the family hadn't happened.
Speaker 2: That's all very possible, And it seems like maybe Mike
is not even aware that he's picking up on that,
But Mom does, you know, frequently ask them to like
keep an eye on Gerdy, so they are getting a
bit of that role. I don't find that to be
too much more than I think any parent would ask
look after your little sister.
Speaker 1: Well, and also she's doing it for like can I
watch her so I can take a shower, Like she's
asking them to watch Gerty so she can do basic
at stuff, not so she can like go have fun
with friends or go fuck off you know what I mean,
a fuck off herself. Like she's asking for basic stuff
because well, even though she does leave Gerdy by herself
in the house, which is wild once she goes to
But I guess if you're I feel like if she
was my client, I could see how she would tell
me that I'm like and she would feel shamed about
it like I was, So I could see her reflecting
on them being like I can't believe I did that,
but her being so swept up in like the school's calling.
Like I've worked with plenty of parents that are ragged
like that and they just have to make not great
split decisions in the moment because they don't have support.
But any who, I feel like we're going away from
going back into So I know there'stuff you want to
say about siblings, Sanna, Yeah, so it just really makes
me think of you know, we've been talking a little
bit here and there about how the kids seem really
bonded to each other. The kids really seem like their
own little group, which is really which, like you said,
based on the ages, you know, can be kind of
hard to do. I'm the oldest of the children that
my mother physically had, and I had that big of
age range.
Speaker 3: Me and my brother Nick are ten years apart.
Speaker 1: Me and my youngest sibling Abby are twelve years apart,
and Megan were eleven years apart. So I had a
lot of but I did everything. I mean, I picked
everybody up from school, I took people to school, I
took him to practice, I picked him up for practice,
like I did all the things. So what I don't
think Mike is either a not being asked yet or
maybe his mom really is trying to avoid putting him
in that position the much as much as she can,
you know. So, I feel like what I really like
about the way that the kids talk to each other
is that he does a really good job. Steven Spielberg
does a really good job of showing what kids are
like when they're siblings, and I feel like that's something
I've always enjoyed about his films. And I feel like
the way that they kind of tease each other but
then also have their backs when something's happening right away,
The way that they both talk to Gerty and this
kind of like they understand that she's younger, but they
also try to include her. But she also kind of
knows the rules about like the things she's allowed to
do and not allowed to do in some ways I
feel like with her brothers. And I feel like that
can be really common when parents are getting divorced, because
in some ways, like I said, it kids isolating a
little bit and you.
Speaker 3: Really need to have each other's backs.
Speaker 1: It could also be something where what if mom and
dad fought all the time, something that I would do
as a kid whose parents fought all the time, was
take all my siblings into a room so they couldn't
hear what was happening. So again, it makes me curious
if this family has seen a little bit more of
that maybe, and that's another part of that's another reason
why they're so bonded to each other. But I really
enjoy the way that they problem solve together, the way
that yes, Mike has to see the alien before he
believes that, but also, what fifteen year old brother, What
fifteen year old sibling wouldn't feel the same way if
you're youngest, if your ten year old sibling told you
there was an alien and that they had it proof
in their bedroom, you'd be like, yeah, okay, the exact
way that Mike acts when he's in that room, it
makes a lot of sense. But I think what we're
seeing is that when one parent is gone, it's really
tricky for the family. No matter how involved their dad
was or wasn't, it's really tricky to see who's going
to stand in a different place. As we know, families
all have different roles. Everybody has a different role in
the family, and when one main person is now out
of that group, we all have to readjust and readapt
to how we can now work this dynamic that has
now been completely changed. And that's a big part of
what I feel like I see or talk about with
people who either their parents were divorced when they were young,
or even parents who were even adults who have parents
who are divorcing now, Like, that's a big part of
managing and figuring out how are we going to interact
in the family now, And it can be tricky because
everybody's trying to figure out their place. And so I
also feel like some of the behavior that Elliott has,
some of the behavior that Mike has towards mom, just
makes a lot of sense because their kids and they're
going through something where the person that they thought was
always going to be there is not going to be there,
and maybe we don't know when they're gonna see them
again again. I'm not saying he's dead, but like in
movies in the eighties, dads often just like disappear and
we never hear from them again. So it's like, so
I feel like their closeness makes a lot of sense.
And I was just talking with my brother the other
day and we were talking a little bit about how
close we felt together because we went through so much
together and then we're always together.
Speaker 3: It was always all of us, but we played together.
I cooked for.
Speaker 1: Everyone, like there were all these things that we did
together all of the time. So there's also this kind
of almost like a little bit of like a stronger
connection to each other when you know that something is
changing in your family and you're all gonna and everything's
gonna have to change in one way or another. And
so I feel like the dynamic that we see between
the kids makes a lot of sense, and I think
is very natural and normal for what would happen if
a parent.
Speaker 2: Just dipped become to box card children.
Speaker 1: I uce read those books, and you're right in that,
Like the scene with the T shirt is if nothing else,
like even if you have friends and stuff like that,
and Mike clearly has a lot of friends, that.
Speaker 3: Will that our true rider dies literally.
Speaker 1: Is no one like when you're sibling with someone like
you're the only people that have are in the same
situation as much as the same situation as you can
be in as two individuals.
Speaker 3: And so even those moments.
Speaker 1: Are spelling the shirt are moments where they can commiserate
in a way where like we know what's like support groups.
I know that you know what I know and that
you know how I feel, and that we can commiserate
in a way. And I think it is beautiful into
a lot about how naturally emotional and a positive way
these kids are. That they can have that kind of
conversation with each other that's so like touching and sweet.
And Mike does a good job of reassuring him and
he doesn't do like a toxic eighties guy thing of
like blow him off, And that's something I think that
goes through the whole movie, Like they have those moments
of teasing each other, like threatening to tear apart Girty's
doll and stuff like that. Like they have these moments
that are like true sibling situations worth how truly loving
but also how truly ruthless you can be with your
siblings and just your siblings specifically, And also how much
they care about each other and take care of each
other and support each other.
Speaker 3: Is really sweet.
Speaker 1: Like they do take each other seriously once the aliens
in the mix, Once the aliens in the mix, they
treat each other seriously from jump they do, And I
think It's really sweet that they again, once they see
the alien, everybody is on is on the same page
and understand, Like even Girty understands. I mean, she doesn't
super understand because she tries to show e t to
the mom almost immediately, but but like.
Speaker 3: In some aspects she did understand a little bit.
Speaker 2: So I mean, they do tell her that only grown
ups can or that grown ups can't see them, only kids.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I forgot that they say that to her. Yeah, okay, yeah,
that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1: But I really appreciate the sibling dynamic in this, and
I really appreciate that it felt that it feels so
real and so natural and doesn't make kids out to
be brats or whatever, like we just have three kids
who are trying to ADJUSTI with this to the fact
that they now have an alien living in their home
and also their dad's gone. It is curious though, that
like Elliott doesn't seem to have any friends, and that
even in the end when he needs help, it's Mike's friends,
and so it does make me curious also why that's happening.
And then I do think something that's very older sibling
esque is tolerating your younger sibling kind of hanging around
the D and D table, wanted to be part of
the group. Letting them kind of tag along and have
nicknames with your friends, letting them ingratiate themselves a bit more.
As if you're like, well, my younger brother, for some reason,
he can't fucking make any friends, So having some like loving,
so having some patience with him, even though that patience
also includes being called what do they call him? What
is him and his friend? They call each other back
and forth. No, but when they're in front of the bus,
the school bus, and they're like, oh, he calls them
like something Latin.
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm talking about? I know the scene.
Speaker 1: I the scene, but I don't I can't think of
what they call each other.
Speaker 2: I just keep thinking penis breath and that's not what
they read.
Speaker 1: Well, And that's also something, honestly, like I feel for
the mom too, like she's trying to catch these moments
when they're swearing and like using bad language towards each other.
Speaker 2: Well, they call each other, well, they just like douchebag
and penis.
Speaker 1: And she's stop saying that a douchebag in this house.
That's what she says, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was watching this with me and Caroline and Ava
and Eva is eight and watching this is going like,
oh my.
Speaker 3: God, penis breath. She knows it now, she.
Speaker 2: Knows what that somebody and it's gonna happen, and I'm like, god,
damn it. Thanks eighties movie.
Speaker 1: Well, you have the benefit of her being the eldest siblings,
so she'll learner from movies, whereas a kid like Gertie
is probably already saying penis breath because they've been hearing
that word. Like the scene where in Gertie says, what
you gotta be kidding me or something, but she like
doesn't buy what they're selling. Is such like the youngest
sibling of like much older siblings look a little bit
more wise to it.
Speaker 2: Ava probably has ADHD because both me and her mother
have it, so there's like a zero percent chance she's
not going to And she told me the other day
that she can't hear us when she's focused on something else,
and I just like put my head in my hands
and went like fuck.
Speaker 3: Because I know what that means.
Speaker 2: Well, no suspicions connfirm.
Speaker 4: It's like I can't help, but I get here, like,
uh shit, but her little sister already will say when
we're trying to get her to do something, and she's
two and a half, she's hyperverbal.
Speaker 2: This kid knows so many words, it's amazing. But she's
just like one second and Ava loves to tell us
one second or one minute, and like Emma now does it,
and we're like, a.
Speaker 3: Fuck.
Speaker 2: It annoys the shit out of you with one, but
when the other one does it, and it's just like
uses it perfectly in context because their sibling did it.
You're like the parental brain lights on fire. Your soul
turns into magma, and you try not to light everyone
on fire with your destruction. And it's maddening. And just
think thinking about like, oh my god, his kids are
in here calling each other penis breath and you know,
Elliott didn't invent that. That came from playing D and
D with his friends. And even though Mike begrudgingly doesn't
stick up for him but doesn't object to him playing,
knowing full well the kid wants to play and doesn't
maybe have friends, wants to connect, wants to play, needs
a group, and has a character sheet in his fucking hands.
Mike is like, well, oh no, the turance is to doom.
So we have a little you tool ask him and
other kids like, of course you can play.
Speaker 3: But it's very.
Speaker 1: Much like Mike is both saving face as a teenager
with his friends of like not letting his ten year
old brother play, but at the same time having a
soft for Mike and probably wanting him to not wanting
him to play, but also wanting him to play simultaneously.
It's a tough quander to be in, but also something
about picking up like Gertie picking up on oldest sibling things.
Speaker 3: She calls their.
Speaker 1: Mom Mary once and then and then Mike calls her
Mary later, and so there are moments in which the
kids call their mom Mary, which is very interesting to me,
and I was like, that's such an interesting little like
I think what I love about this movie is that
and the older movies do this better I think than nowadays,
where they say that what they write movies for the
person in the other room, they write movies so you
can be on your phone. Is dropping these little naturalistic
like lore moments that they don't ever explain, like we
never know why the kids will sometimes call their mom Mary.
It's just something that's like lived in in their household,
and I and I wish there was more of that
nowadays without it getting beaten to death online about like
why did the kids sometimes.
Speaker 3: Call her mom Mary. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe Mike does it because he thinks it's funny every
once in a while, and Grudy picked up on it.
I mean, I used to call my mom Elizabeth to
get her attention when I was a kid. Maybe it's
because she's frazzled, so everyone's wanted to call her by
her government name to get her attention, because mom, Because
I think most parents know that at a certain point,
you stop hearing that word when you're in a frazzled
enough state, like mom, mo, mom, Dad, Dad, Dad becomes
like wah wah wah blah whah.
Speaker 2: Maybe and realizing they have to antagonize her to break
her out of her dissociation, like pay attention to me.
Speaker 1: But I feel like, yeah, and it might because of that.
But also, like I said, sometimes I would call my
mom Elizabeth just to like get her attention if she
was like focusing on something basically, if she wasn't giving
me her full attention. After I said Mom fifteen times,
I would switch to Elizabeth to just like kick it
up a notch. I would say her nickname that she
hated when she was younger if I really needed her attention.
But I respect her enough that I will not say
it on this podcast.
Speaker 2: Which seems like it would lend us well into our
next topic. Do we feel like we've covered what we
wanted to do with this? So one of the things
that I wanted to talk about and is really based
more on honestly my experience as a parent, is the
way if kids reach out to an adult for guidance
on something that from their perspective is real and they
know for sure is real and there, and the adults
blow them off, kids will not dismiss it the way
the adult dismissed it. There is a zero percent chance
of that the kids are going to investigate and look
into it, and they're going to try to find the
answers according to their point of view, because the reality
of reality is that it's subjective. There is no collective reality.
There is a collective sense of knowledge. There is a
collective database, a collective unconscious if we're going to go
into Yuni in terms here, but everybody seems to know
what the characters of every story are regardless of culture.
But if you leave a kid alone to investigate a
story and you blow them off when they're like, hey,
I think I'm pretty sure I saw something. Maybe it
was a goblin outside that shit wasn't a coyote. Okay,
that was not a coyote. Whatever it was was some
weird shit. And if you diminish, dismiss, tell them to
not worry about it. Yet Nope, they saw what they saw.
They're not going to adjust to the reality you try
to create for them. They're going to go and investigate
from their own point of view. And I think that's
what leads us to the entire plot of this movie
when we get an alien who still haven't really talked about,
but I mean also he you know, doesn't say a
whole lot. But what we see with Elliott is that
because everyone ignores his repeated insistence that he saw what
he saw and it was fucking weird and it was
so weird that he was perturbed, he goes outside and
sits in almost hallucination dream like state to see this thing,
and no one seems to notice. He just goes outside
and then he encounters this thing and again tries to
appeal to everybody that hey, there's some weird shit going on.
Everyone's like, you're just making this up. Goblins aren't real.
It's a coyote, but what could it be, like a
deformed squirrel or whatever they said. I can't remember what exactly,
but thinking about my kids in moments where we've been like, kiddo,
that's not how it works. It's not how it works.
Like the alarm on our house is Ava's current like
things like that was like, it's the alarm on, like, kiddo,
they call me, but are they going to call the police, Like,
and the police is gonna comes, Like there's gonna be
like a problem if the alarm goes like they call
me first, if theom goes off. Also, I'll show you
how to deactivate it. She's because she's anxious about it.
She's not hearing this. None of my logic is going
to work because it's emotional activation. And in this story,
everyone dismisses Elliott's perspective. So Elliott then tries to figure
it out the way he knows how, and he likes
Reese's pieces, and because he's ten, he's going to be
full on egocentric, which means He's only seeing the world
to his own perspective, which is what all of us
do all the time. But when you're a kid, you
can't connect to the larger world. You only see it
through your perspective. You can't like go like, well, if
I was mom, how it I feel. Nope, you're just
cognitively capable of that. But it's just literally turning on
your frontal lobe is just now at ten developed enough
that you can do this. So what we see is
that Elliott goes outside knowing he saw some weird ass
shit he's never seen before, but also it didn't eat him,
so maybe I should give it candy and let it
in the house.
Speaker 3: I love that.
Speaker 1: Elliott just does the first thing that he thinks of
by using the Reese's pieces.
Speaker 3: I think that's so cute.
Speaker 1: I also was curious, there's a question I wanted to
ask you both, So I was like super paying attention
to this movie today in a way that I feel
like I don't usually pay attention to the movies that
we do.
Speaker 3: No offense anyone, But.
Speaker 1: When when do you think that et imprints on Elliot?
Because I think it happens as soon as they engage
and then we see him staring off into space. I
think that's when they connect. I think that's I think
he is already connected to ET before we get to
like where he where they actually meet and they start
to talk, like, I think it happens before that. I
think that they are connected as soon as they encounter
each other and he yells in his face because they're
both afraid of each other. That's like that it happens
the first time you see it.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 1: I literally is gonna ask the same thing or oh
my god, some idea, which is if we're gonna see
this from like the science fiction lens. Yes, I was like,
does he feel drawn, like what's what I'm looking for?
Does he feel not drawn but like connected? I'm not connected,
like dogged about finding ET because he is connected, like
my heart is connected to your heart. Now, So the
persistence in which he feels like he has to find
I was wondering. I was like, is there a part
of him that already feels ET out there and that's
why he can't give up on it and gets so
preoccupied by it? Now. My psychological interpretation is that he's
a kid whose life feels very out of control and
so he just in pre imprints on something that is
like a project, you know what I mean the way
that I think we, even as adults will do when
something about our life feels out of control, as all
of a sudden, will decide I don't know, I'm gonna
get really into this hobby or I'm gonna really get
into this sport because my life feels out of control,
and then all of a sudden, I'm like super into
this one thing. And but yeah, I also was wondering
watching this now, I was like, how soon are they
is Et?
Speaker 3: How soon is Elliott feeling?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I don't even know why I have to
keep finding this thing or figuring out like maybe there's
something in him that he can't quite understand.
Speaker 2: I think that that's happening passively and maybe organically at
that point, but I don't think that each really fully
makes that connection until they do the where are you
from thing and he's got the little balls in the air.
I think that's when the movie shows us they're fully connected,
because that's the first time Elliott announces feeling his feelings.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to push on it in that when
he brings Et into the house for the first time
they both get tired at the same time and they
both like fall asleep kind of pass on Sims's I
feel it's the first big clue to us as the
audience that they are having the same experience. They're like
they're copying each other, like living in the same experience
at the same time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because sure, because I feel like when Et is in
the room, when they're in the room and they're both calm,
which I think is the big part of it. When
they're in the room and they're both calm, they he starts,
you know, when Elliott starts touching his face and then
Et touches his face the same way.
Speaker 3: I think that's a part of them connecting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So I think that's the passive side, like the yeah, they're.
Speaker 3: Communicating in that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think like whatever capability his species has
connects at that moment, and that's the moment like that
whatever psychic bond I create happening.
Speaker 1: No, I agree with you on that, Like I think
because Et is clearly in his own crisis right that
I can't I do get. I agree with you in
that it's probably more of like a passive like an
accidental maybe psychic link because maybe if this is going
into what I wander about later, but if ET comes
from a place where they communicate empathically or like emotionally,
then maybe he did that without even realizing he did it,
because that's just so the way that we would start
talking to someone without even contemplating if they would under
stand us. Like if I ended up on an alien planet,
I would probably be like, hey, what's up, without thinking
about girl, they don't know what the fuck you're saying,
but I probably just do it well right.
Speaker 2: And also realizing that he's in whatever version of alien
id mindset he's in, he's abandoned because his species, family, etc.
Whatever the cases had to because they had to choose
to leave in the mind as much have been difficult
for them given their heart based connection, that he.
Speaker 3: Is panicked the whole time. He's scared.
Speaker 2: He doesn't know where the fuck he is or what's
going on or what if anything is safe. So he's
in full survival mode. But he's also hungry, and he's,
as you learned, like slowly dying because he's not getting
his needs met and food and everything else. He's hungry.
This person is maybe safe, So I think he's connecting
to the idea like, well, everything else is not safe,
but this is safer than not safe. So I think passively.
But then once Et has decided, oh, he's actually really
trying to to help me and connect, So I'm gonna
go ahead and connect that that happens where in the
transplain where he's from, and.
Speaker 1: I agree too with where you're It becomes more of
an active thing when he shows them his little like socials,
when he shows them his little solar system thing, because
Elliott looks out the window and he says like I'm
feeling scared, like something like Elliott is computing it through
his understanding as a kid. And then Et puts his
hand on his shoulder to kind of be like, we're
talking now, Like now we're talking because you're asking me questions,
So now we're really talking.
Speaker 3: We're in a conversation. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So we've covered quite a bit about when those two
might have imprinted on each other. But we have kind
of on our board here the opportun to explore how
adults respund to kids or empathy and communication. Which direction
we want to go first?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think kind of going off of
what you were saying, about when kids are left to
the oarn device. Well going, well, going back to what
you were saying about how Elliott is trying to get
his mom specifically, but is trying to get engagement from
people about what he's discovering, you know, the goblin outside is.
It did make me think about how I wish that
adults would, and I think they do better now, would
engage in more curiosity with kids like I think nowadays
because there is so much more of a conversation around
therapy and specifically like even getting kids in almost like
preventative therapy. When something like this happens to a family
is I feel like his persistence around this like invisible
friend kind of thing in the yard, I could see
a parent being like, oh God, my kid's going through
something because of divorce. I need to give them in
therapy because they keep talking about this like entity that
lives outside and they're staying out all night and they're
feeding in our food now like all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Well now, yeah, in the eighties, No.
Speaker 3: That's what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like, I think that now we have we're more encouraged
as adults to demonstrate more curiosity towards children, even if
they're bringing up something that to our minds is totally
unrealistic or off the wall, at least being curious about why,
like where they're going with that, Like what's going on
with them? Like they're wanting your attention for something. Maybe
it's not the exact waky, wacky thing they're talking about,
but there's something going on, and that's why this kid
is wanting you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's I think where the first like real
besides the sibling dynamics and the divorce things that we've
been talking about, is the first part of this movie
is definitely shot more like a horror movie, more like
his Jurassic Park, and even something as simple as people
walking through the woods is meant to feel scary, and
it's shot in ways that are scary, and we see
once they reveal Keys, the lead scientist, he's the first
one that's not a kid to actually start compassionately acknowledging
the reality that Elliott is seeing, validating that, Yeah, I've
been looking for aliens my whole life too, talking to
him about it as if what he's seeing is real,
because clearly at this point it's all real. Never mind
that the government just busted in fucking base suits like
NASA and that's terrifying, and hazmat suits like Level three here.
But when he takes all that off, that's a moment
of humanization where it becomes clear that even though the
g men, as it were, are antagonistic and the kind
of the central antagonists from the point of view as kids,
there's no real villains in this movie. They're scientists and
doctors behaving as scientists and doctors do there and the
government of course wanting to know if, like, so, what's
that machine he built doing?
Speaker 3: By the way, is that of a bomb?
Speaker 2: Is that dangerous to like literally everyone, are we all
super fucked? Because can you please tell us? But he
got down to Elliott's level, He spoke to him kindly,
He was sympathic towards him, he was understanding, he was
taking efforts that literally nobody else in that scene, and
like mom was taking care of the other kids. But
Elliott didn't bond to any other adults, even kind of
his mom, except to this other guy. He's clearly like
a foil to Elliott of showing like the difference between
childhood wonder and adulthood reality of like, hey, these things
that you can be interested in also could be dangerous,
and Elliott is not perceiving ET is dangerous at all,
or that Et might not survive until he gets sick
and everybody busts in. But Keys is taking time to
explain what's happening as much as possible with Elliott and
trying to demonstrate compassion, and I feel like it's important,
and that juxtaposition of how mom has been kind of
dismissed until it becomes quite clear that what Elliott is
experiencing is real, and then she works to take care
of her children and be compassionate and empathic to them
and hold Girdy and take her away from what she
doesn't need to see and give her permission to be
scared and not offer answers she doesn't have and bullshit,
and also not interfere with people providing Elliot answers that
are the best answers available. But I think when adults
take time to give kids answers to questions that they
have and not dumb it down, not mute it, not
tell them oh, well, let the grown ups handle this,
but provide age appropriate in maybe even a little beyond
age appropriate answers, but tell kids the truth has been
a long thing we've advocated for on the show. I
know we all advocate it in practice, tell children the truth.
None of the adults except Keys tell Elliott the fucking truth.
In this entire film. Mom doesn't tell the truth necessarily
about what's happened with Dad and what's happening with them,
or even fully acknowledge what's going on once she's completely
overwhelmed by all that's happening. But we do see Keys
could be an older adult Elliott like this is this
is what adulthood does to us. It shows you the
truth of the world, the childhood wonder and connection of like,
but all of this feels okay, So it's okay, and
adult's gonna be like yeah, maybe, But I feel like
they didn't. Movie didn't have to do that. This movie
did not have to show an adult in that kind
of position of power and authority focused on is this
a threat or is this a scientist? Just like it's
just a validation of my entire life. Here, fuck your feelings.
I'm gonna explore this scientifically so we know that there's
life on other planets and I can prove it. Now
I'm gonna be famous because we caught.
Speaker 3: He doesn't do that. He takes care of Elliott's feelings. Well,
I think Spielberg does what I feel like. What Spielberg does.
Speaker 1: I think in all of his movies that our kid
focused is respecting children and respecting their worldview and respecting
their opinions and their experiences. And I think what I
like about that exchange is not so even much that
I hear what you're saying in that Keys is kind
of a grown up Elliott in the sense of there
is realities about the world that make us more jaded
and maybe more cynical sometimes the necessary ways. And also
I like that he respects Elliott and that he acknowledges
that there are some things about children that are better
than adults. When he says I'm glad he found you first,
I think that's such a powerful line in the movie
that I really love, and that always makes me like
kind of tear up. A lot of moments in those
scenes make me tear up in that part of the movie,
and in that one because in that moment he's saying like, well, one,
you took really good care of him, which I think
is always so powerful for a kid to hear especially
when the outcome at that point in the movie is
so bleak that like, you didn't do anything wrong, you
did a really good job taking care of him, and
that also like maybe it was good that he found
a kid with like an open heart, the way that
kids have more curious open hearts than an adult, who,
as we see in this movie, maybe would have like
come at him with a flashlight and like shot him
in the face, you know what I mean, Or like
the way that like the adults in this movie are
seen as more invasive, right, like they literally invade their house,
they're coming after the kids on their cars, Like the
way even the scene of them coming over the hell
over the hill to like quarantine the area. It's just
very much like ironically, like the adults are the invasive
species to this world that's been kept pretty chill up
to this point. And also side note, honestly, I don't
think anything would have changed for the better or the
worse if the adults hadn't gotten involved at all, because
even though et was dying, the scientists didn't save him.
He only came back to life because his machine did
work and they did hear and they did come back.
So if they would have left it all alone. That
probably would have played out the exact same way in
Elliott's house, like Et might have. Foe died. Maybe they
covered up with a blanket. They're like, oh my god,
oh worse a wreck. But then he comes back alive.
They land in their backyard or the pass in the metal.
They take him back there and he goes up to
him and nothing's damaged, nothing's bad. And I feel like
a part of the reason why Et wakes up, which
is also the reason why he got caught. So you know,
in the very beginning of the movie, when he's running
through the woods and all of a sudden, his heart
light comes on because the person at the ship was
trying to connect to him to let him know his
time to leave. And that's why I think he gets
caught by keys, or almost gets caught by keys, initially
because he can't hide anymore once his heart light is on.
Speaker 3: And so I think the thing that brought him.
Speaker 1: Back alive is that they reached him and they got
his message, and so his light heart started beating. They're
Bluetooth connected, they're Bluetooth connected.
Speaker 3: They're paired, they're paired, So anyway, I don't know how
you all feel about all that part of it.
Speaker 1: But I think this is what I wish for Keys,
because even as a kid, I didn't like Keys. You
know why, because he was nice to Eliot, but he
was nice to Elliot to get.
Speaker 3: Information out of him.
Speaker 1: I did not feel like he was nice to Aliot
just because he was like, oh, you're like me as
a little kid. I thought it was being nice to
him because he's trying to get shit out of the
information out of him.
Speaker 3: He was good copping him. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so I have always thought that Keys is the
bad guy of the film since the first time I
saw this movie, and I still feel the same way.
He's the bad guy in terms of he is proof
that adults can't be Yes, he can be nice to
him in that moment, but was the only nice to
him to get information out of him. I've never trusted
that guy and I'm never gonna trust him. Then, and
missus Scorpio corner with Hannah.
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
Speaker 1: I do feel like I do like the points that
you're both making about Keys, and yes, he is in
those moments very kind and very compassionate, and that's nice.
But like I said, I think he's just trying to
get information out of Elliott because.
Speaker 3: He screwed the pooch.
Speaker 1: He knew he screwed the pooch, and he should have
fucking said something sooner to Elliott. That's the part that
I didn't like. What's Hannah is saying is don't get
complacent in front of Uncle Sam, don't you do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Well, this is great is Ari and Reagan's America at
this point? I think? So we're at the end of
Carter and the depending Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because I looked up where president was president when I
was born and it was Carter, So yeah, depending on
I don't really know us history.
Speaker 3: I just know that.
Speaker 2: Depending on where we're at, where e're at, the beginning
of Reagan or end of Carter was seventy eight to
eighty two. So yeah, the uh, I think. But looking
at this like I had a different take on Keys,
like that all of the adults scared all of us
kids as kids. But watching it this time, I took
a minute to watch, like I felt there was a
curiosity that was getting reawakened in Keys, and he softened
throughout the film, and by the end he facilitates and
helps et get home. He didn't facilitate, but he doesn't interfere.
He stops interfering once they get away.
Speaker 1: They all show up at the same time. They drive
him like maniacs, and he's one of them.
Speaker 2: They do, but they also don't do anything crazy once
it's clear the ship is there and he's stopping them,
stopping the rest of the g men, as it were.
But looking at the importance of how adults responding to
kids kind of coming back and remembering that kids don't
know everything that adults know, and they're not capable of it.
But the more you start explaining to things, the easier
it is for kids to digest and understand. And even
though Keys has you know, it looks like he's in
his fifties, maybe mid to late fifties.
Speaker 3: He's probably twenty nine.
Speaker 1: He's probably supposed to be thirty eighties exactly Exeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you want to be depressed, look at
the cast of Cheers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're probably thirty.
Speaker 1: Two, but no, he's probably he's probably the ages on
Cheers are crazy, but I bet you he's probably in
his late thirties, early forties. And I do wonder I
think what I'm getting out of this is how I
feel like how you think of Keys as almost like
a war shock test for where you're coming at personality
wise and maybe your own point of view, because because
I do vibe with what you're saying, and because also
but also how I've sort of read Keys, that speech
he gives or that little TALKI ass Elliott is almost
like and maybe I'm just my Warshop test projecting is
like almost like Spielberg kind of saying like this is
a cautionary tale about growing up. Like when you're growing up,
you start as an Elliott, and if you aren't careful,
your interest will become more like predatory the way that
or more like you've lost your way a little bit,
like like he doesn't have that whimsy anymore, or he's
getting it back and talking about this, but the curiosity
becomes more.
Speaker 3: Dogged and or fear based and cynical, yees, cynical.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1: And I know that a part of what Steven Spielberg
usually does is have some there's some adult who is
actually paying attention to the children. There is some adult
who knows how to speak to them and knows how
to connect with them, but also an adult who has
awareness that they are no longer a child. And that's fine,
but again, get fucked Keys. I'll stop talking about him now.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Scorpio. But looking at I looked at up
Peter Code. Peter Coyote was forty during the filming of this.
Speaker 1: Is that Keys, I'm guessing yes, okay, Ages, I'm so
good at ages.
Speaker 3: Peter Coyote is a dope name. I will back him
up on that, Peter Coyote. That's cool with that face.
Speaker 1: Sure, I don't mind him. Actually, I think it's kind
of handsome. Don't cancel me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's I think recognizing that there is a
lot of softening of the adult's mom is clearly shown
as kind of disconnected, kind of preoccupied. And yeah that
Keys is shown as cynical and focused in like scientific
and detached. I guess scientifically detached. Professionally detached is where
I put him. He's on his mission, but he softens
and mom softens and becomes mom. She's holding her kids,
she's guiding them, and then you know, the Keys gives
Elliott's like, do you need a minute alone with him?
To talk to him? Like a funeral director would not
like a scientist. Science has been like, yep, wrap it up,
he's dead. But he didn't. He didn't.
Speaker 3: He did.
Speaker 1: He did from that chance, but you know why, because
he wanted to see if something happened with E.
Speaker 3: T while he was talking to him.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't take that. I don't care.
Speaker 1: That's what I don't care.
Speaker 2: That was kindness, Hannah, and that was.
Speaker 3: Softening because here's one thing I think is true.
Speaker 2: They thought he was dead.
Speaker 3: I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think what this movie is showing is that adults
really don't know what's going on and through through the
mom in a very literal sense. But I think like
Et is like a metaphor of that in that I
think they think he's dead because the adults don't really
know what's going on. They're not connected on the same
wavelength that a child would be to Et because Et
is from an empathy based culture.
Speaker 3: And so we can talk more about that after this break.
Speaker 2: There's no accidents. In Spielberg movies, they go through painstaking
amounts of detail to show us the cognitive connection between
Et and Elliott, breaking, to show that they understand. The
scientists understand how different ET's biology is and that he
is dead dead dead capital D dead. According to their science,
he is dead. So the adults are assuming their science
now has shown them no.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's an example of like how adults are
missing something important because they're not thinking that way. They're
stuck in their rigidity of adulthood, which is definitely something
that Spielberg is always pointing out. I feel like in
his films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, usually he used Robin to do it, though, with
you know, Getting or Sam Neil. I guess what Robin
Williams like can hook?
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Brittany I did notice think about the hook
thing when she's written Peter Pan and that was kind
of narrating a scene. I was like, Oh, he's been
wanted to do a Peter Pan story for a while.
Speaker 2: But showing keys kind of like letting Elliet have a
moment with them, knowing how close they were and that
that got severed, and that he's witnessing death maybe for
the first time in his life. Are think what we're
seeing is like an opportunity to be compassionate. And I
don't think at that point he was thinking anything would happen.
I think he's just trying to take care of that
kid because he felt connected to the kid. So we're
seeing the impact of ET's empathy based connection. We're seeing
oh right, if humans remember to connect to each other,
we can do kindness things. There's all of that in
the filmmaking magic of that that being shown in metaphor
to us there and then that's all I have to
say about that.
Speaker 3: All right, let's take a break here and we'll be
right back.
Speaker 1: So this is more of the when we like to
go on our little fun hypothetical psychology introduced into wackiness
sections that we do occasionally on the podcast. Because my
brain was really thinking about how obviously a key component
to this movie is the fact that Et communicates to
Elliott via emotions and empathy, which I some I don't
know if I want to say that like interchangeably, because
when he says like he's feeling his feelings, but it
more seems like you're just like aware of each other
in a way that erodes individualism, you know, because there's
the point in the movie when he starts to say,
wee Elliott instead of I or him. We are fine,
We're not We're sick, you know, like he is. It
made me really think about how that would impact us
psychologically if we did think collectively like that and how
I don't know it like really made my brain think
really hard.
Speaker 3: It made me really explore that.
Speaker 1: Idea and then just thinking about us talking obviously, this
is a big part of the movie, right of this
idea that they are feeling each other's feelings and connected
in that way, like what it would do to your psyche?
And I wonder if it works easier on a kid
because kids are also so much more flexible in what
they believe to be possible and more open hearted than
adults are. That's what I love about working with kids.
They're very honest, even when they're lying. It's they lie
in a very honest way where they can't they don't
lie very well, or they lie very obviously, And they're
just more receptive to ideas, And it would I think
it'd be really interesting if we did see a version
of this where et tried to connect with an adult,
Like how different would that be?
Speaker 3: Would that look?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: I don't think an adult would ever have been safe
enough or open enough. It had been too scared and
overwhelmed than not connecting to oh you're also scared. Maybe
if I give you food. I think about how many adults,
but adults connect to ET. I would you?
Speaker 1: I mean, of course I would like to think I would,
But I'm also a child therapist who thinks these thoughts already.
And also he is like, what goes up to my
fucking thigh?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like it might be different if ET was the same
size as me.
Speaker 2: Unless he goes directly up to your belly button and
it happens to have a second mouth, like the alien
queen you don't know, Yeah, see right in your belly button.
Speaker 1: But I think if like a little a little creature
was like like screaming and looked really freaked out, I
think I'd just be more like, please, don't be an animal
that would bite me would be my first thought. But
then if they imprinted on me, I don't know, I'd
like to. I want to believe in myself that ET
could imprint upon me if needed. I want to believe
in that version of myself. And so now we're going
to talk about treatment today. I am just going to
be talking a little bit about co parenting in divorce
situations or separation experiences. And part of the reason why
I wanted to talk about. This is because being in
the field for ten years, I work with a lot
of people who are changing their relationship, ending their relationship,
just doing different things that affect their children, And I
feel like one of the really big missed aspects of
this is, no matter what happens, you're both going to
be the parents to these kids until you're both dead, okay,
which means you have to find a way to act
like a fucking grown up and co parent with someone
else because it's about the children and not about whatever
bullshit you and your partner had going on before when
you had kids. Now that you're not together, it's all
about the children. How are you going to manage that?
How are you going to help them adjust? How are
you going to make sure that the kids have room
and space to talk about what they need to talk
about and not feel the way that Mike and Elliott do,
which is where they have to protect their mom from
information they know about their dad, because, believe it or not,
the other parent will teach them everything they need to
know about what kind of person they are. You trying
to instill that in the children ahead of time is
going to have an impact on your relationship with your
children more than it's going to have an effect on
their relationship with your ex partner. So something that I
want to just make clear, and also something that I
really experienced as a kid growing up just having parents again,
my parents are also almost like they're so effed up
that it's like hard to even it's hard to use
them as a comparison sometimes honestly because of how kind
of unwell people they are. And I had two parents
who were both bad mouthing each other on a regular
basis to us kids, putting us in a place where
now we had to decide how we felt about that
parent in front of the other parent. So just make
sure that even if you're done having a relationship with
this person that you made children with, you will still
have to find a way to get along with them.
It is still your job to help support the children
as they grow up. And yes, past eighteen, all that
shit about oh it's over when they're eighteen, you are
so fucking wrong. You know when it's over when you're dead.
That's the real answer. So please have some insight and
some awareness that you are pulling the rug out from
underneath your children's feet. And if you can't figure out
a way to co parent, you are going to have
a really big impact on the way that your children
see relationship, the way that they communic about communicate about relationships,
and their expectations when they're in relationships with a partner,
and how they would treat their own children. So please
don't be a fucking asshole, because kids really need time
and space to have this big adjustment that we're talking
about that Mike and Gerty and Elliott all have. That's
all I have to say about treatment and to jump
on that. What I wanted to tell people too, is
that there is family therapy you can do that's like
co parenting, Like I've worked with co parents where I'm
just working with them, I'm not working with the kids,
so it's like family therapy without the kids there. And
you can also do like mediation that's more therapeutically and
that's more therapeutic in nature to kind of help mediate
what Hannah's talking about, which is if there is bad
blood because of what happened between the two of you,
or you can't even maybe have like a conversation without
it falling apart emotionally between the two of you, that
there are people who do our job that can do
it in a more structured way that isn't even necessarily
emotional in nature, like you don't have to get into
the what force about your relationship to each other and
like making yourself good with each other necessarily. They can
be more how do we run the business of our
family civilly as like and when I've worked with parents
like that, it is more about like how do I
can we get on the same page with how we're
viewing our relationship to each other and what it means
to be healing our relationship as a couple versus as
co parents, and which is different than also friends, like
do we want to be friends and co parents? Do
we just want to be business partners? Which, depending on
how the relationship ends, it can be different, Like they
can have different opinions too, Like I've worked with divorce
code parents where one of them wanted to be friends
and the other one was like, I'm not interesting because
of how we ended our relationship what happened. And my
job in those situations has been to kind of support
both the parents, but both support the parent who's asking
for that, but also support the other print understanding like
it's Okay, if they don't want to be your friend
right now, you can still be friendly and how you
parent your kids. But for my treatment, I was thinking
about working with the mom, and really all I wanted
to articulate with the mom is I think she would
just do great with just probably good old fashioned talk therapy.
Just having someone another adult that she can just talk
about Mexico, with all those moments where she mutters about
Mexico in the movie, would have been a great if
she'd had an outlet like therapy. Maybe she could go
to therapy and just be like.
Speaker 3: He's going to Betico, Da da da.
Speaker 1: So I think she needs an outlet one And then
but two, I wanted to just put a reminder out
there that there's no like coping skill I could teach
her that will overcompensate for her lack of support system.
So I think what I would also want to figure
out with her early in our work together is what
your support system look like? Could it be better? And
what does that look like? Because also going back to
what we were saying about how divorce was maybe more
common but still pretty socially taboo at that time, or
it was still more like that's your family's business kind
of thing is is she letting people help her because
she's trying to seem fine, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Which I think would be really real.
Speaker 1: Is their family that's far away that she needs to
ask for help with?
Speaker 3: Does somebody to come out and help them?
Speaker 1: So I think I just want to put out there
too that like, you can't out therapize a lack of
a support system and a lack of resources. And so
I think for her, part of what I want to
work on her with is like, do you have friends,
do you have family? Are there people that you could
be sharing more with that you're not that you could
be asking for more help from. Is it okay if
you need to put your kids in latch key? Are
you not using some resources like that because you feel
a type of way about it. So that's something i'd
want to hammer out with her first, as well as
giving her a place to just kind of like talk
and cry. I don't think she needs more than that
in therapy. We'd have to hit those two things and
then go from there. But that's what I would do
with the mom.
Speaker 2: So as I was watching this, realizing that there's a
lot of people who are probably going to need therapy.
I also like honed in on Mom, and the trauma
therapist's side of my brain and grief therapist side of
my brain was looking at This is a person who
is grieving and is stuck and clearly the impact of
what is happening to her and how it happened. There
is a running subtext in her story here. She has
not had time or space. And while I agree that
traditional talk therapy is a method that would certainly work
for her, time and space to talk to another adult
who's there to show to let her be cared for
is huge, and it may not require the specialty things,
but space, empathy, support, non judgment, basic person centered skills
would go really far for someone like her. However, the
trauma therapist side in me wonders with the impact of
an alien dying on your floor and your child also
almost dying because it is psychically connected to this alien,
You being helpless while also having to care, especially for
your youngest child. That would cause some split brain processing
which she's already stuck in. So this is grounds for
complex trauma to exist. And what I mean by split
brain processing is that when we are are overwhelmed by
the circumstances, our survival side of our brain, which is
on the right your amygdalan olympic system turn on to
respond to threat, and you're going to do whatever it
is that occurs to you is the most likely thing
to handle the situation. Clearly, she could not help Elliott.
She had doctors there, they had people there to help her,
like she was trying to comfort him and be with him,
but she couldn't do anything. But she could help Gertie,
so she did. She did what she could do. But
the mom's side of her that's also attached to her
other child that couldn't do anything to help him, is
going to struggle with that later when she has time.
Split brain processing means that survival side I mentioned is
on and responding, but your logical side is recording at
the same time. And processing is the word we use
for when the event is over and those two databases
try to sync back up, and sometimes that happens all
by itself with some time. It's why acute stress event
like this we give people thirty days before we can
assign them a diagnosis of PTSD. Oftentimes these things resolve,
especially if the pearson has afforded space to care for themselves,
a place and a way to debrief and talk about this,
that their emotions are cared for, that they're given some
reassurance that they did the best that they could. Because
our feelings brain is going to know one thing, and
it knows the truth of what we did and didn't do,
and our logical brain knows the why. And there's a
lot of times in therapy like this where the why
and what we did come really close to seeking up
and you can feel someone almost buying into like, Hey,
you did the best you could. You did what you
could and that was all you could do. It's okay
that that's all you could do. That that's the truth,
and they're still going to be liked. Almost get there
and then yeah, but I didn't go like rush to
my child's side. I didn't do it. I didn't do that.
I just didn't do all that I could have possibly
done under all possible theoretical circumstances. Did there were things
I didn't do and they know that. In processing, we
find peace with that, going no, there really wasn't anything
I could do. I did all that I could do,
and I'm not a bad person because of that. That's
just all there was. The emotional side doesn't give a shit,
and it's like, yeah, you weren't the best mom you
could be, so you're terrible. So when I am watching her,
not only is she struggling with whatever happened in her
marriage where and you know, as we assume, it's quite
possible that there was some extramarital activity on the side
of the husband, and that he's moving on awful quick
and going to a place that maybe she would have
liked to go because they live in the valley, and
maybe she wants to crane kick this motherfucker in the
head like Daniel l Arrusso. But maybe she also really
would have liked to go on vacation with him when
they're married to Mexico and do the whole tropical fantasy
thing because the valley is not that. But she didn't
get to do that, and now he's doing it with
another woman, and she's clearly struggling at that. But now
you combine that trauma and that loss with the trauma
and loss of possible loss of her child to space disease.
You can't anticipate respond to protect him from There's nothing
you can do that is ground for complex trauma because
there are multiple layers of things going on in an
already weakened state. So I think, from my point of view,
exploring that and offering care for mom to kind of
reconnect her to her resources, do trauma debriefings and then
work on using EMDR or CPT or somatic experiencing type
techniques all geared at helping her says whatever she could
not physically handle feeling, and help her work through all
of those likely stuck emotions from the horrified, frozen, stuck
place she was where that was really all she could do.
The best thing she could do was get out of
the way, and that's the truth. But the part of
her that's a mom wants to care for her baby.
I care for my child needs care too, and how
permission to have stepped back? So it would take knowing
Mom's character a bit more to give you an accurate
answer of what technique would choose, But I would be
likely floating in and out of techniques helping Mom ground feel,
reassure her, and help her connect to a way that
she can feel everything she needs to feel while also
having any negative thoughts about herself, judgments, shame, and guilt
resolve so that she can give herself permission to process
the rest of it without holding on to guilt of
what she didn't do because she couldn't. So let's take
a break here and we'll go to final thoughts.
Speaker 3: Or who wants to go first with final thoughts?
Speaker 1: I'll go first, and we're back with final thoughts now
that I turned my microphone on.
Speaker 3: So I love ET. I've always loved ET.
Speaker 1: I don't know how old I was when I watched it,
but a part of watching it today was really I
invited some of my younger parts to watch it with me,
just to see, and I felt some like goosebumps at
different parts that I don't remember feeling that I only
remember feeling the first time I watched it, So that
was really fun and interesting. But mostly I just really
enjoyed the relationship between the siblings, and I love the
relationship with Elliott and Et. And also as a fun
silly thing, when I was a baby, I used to
stretch my neck up like Eat he did, and my
mom called me Et because I was brown and fuzzy,
but she said that I would do that. I would
like stretch my neck up like I was ET, and
she would call me that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I really love this movie.
Speaker 1: It's I remember I was very young when I saw
it the first time for sure, don't even remember how
old I was, But I love this movie and I
will definitely watch it again.
Speaker 2: I haven't watched ET in years, but as I watched
it just this weekend and introduced my childhood for the
second time, and she, like her mama, tends to fall
asleep watching movies sometimes, so we're gonna have to watch
the rest of it later. But realizing how scary it
is in the beginning and how how many horror techniques
of Eelberg used to kind of capture the fear of
ET really stuck out to me. And then as we evolve,
watching the growth in all of that, and every thing
isn't what it seems, and if you can learn to
approach things with a childlike wonder, you might see something
different than you thought you were going to. It seems
to be like really the theme of this movie, and
that reconnecting to things with heart can really open you
up to experience the world in a safer, more universal way.
And realizing that living things all feel fear, feel love,
feel connection, and know when they're safe and when they're not.
And if you can create safety, you can find love
and connection in a way that you'd never find before.
If you ever owned a pet, you'll understand that real quick.
I don't speak the same language, but you've got to
convince each other that this is a bond and this
is our best chance for survival. I think this movie
did that in beautiful ways, and it's why it's even
though it's a movie with puppets and weird goofy hands
and some really scary sequences, people have taken to it
for a long time, and I think it's going to
continue to enter because it's a special film and the
Star Wars nerd in me very much enjoys all the references,
especially et looking at the kid that's Yoda, Justice Yoda
and goes like home. And then for later because Spielberg
and Lucas are friends and frequently collaborate, even officially or unofficially,
that later on, apparently Spielberg directed some of the Yoda
versus Palpatine fight in episode three, and we see et
species show up in Star Wars in a couple of points.
So really, what this movie is establishing if we're going
to play the meta narrative back is that a long
time ago in a galaxy far far away is still
connected to our world because if Et exists in our world,
therefore so too does Star Wars Transit of property. Praise be,
but I still enjoyed this movie. It was a It
was a fun watch and watching it from the adult
point of view and catching all those things that you
don't catch during the scary parts of the film as
a kid because they're scary, but watches an adult realize
he goes. It's kind of like what a hospital is,
and what adults do is they operate out of fear
and think that their knowledge is going to be the
key to everything, and it's not. It's hard, just like
being a therapist, technique or relationship which one works relationship.
Speaker 1: I love this movie. I've loved it since I was
a kid. I get emotional every time I watch it.
I get emotional in the scene in the Quarantine when
Elliott's saying like he came to me, when there's all
the confusion going on and ET's dying and Elliot's kind
of starting to die but come back to life. I
also cry a lot in the very end scene when
each says to him like I'll be right here, and
like touches his third eye. And I think it's such
wonderfully sensitive movie. I think it's a really compassionate movie.
I think, like I said, a lot of movies by
Spielberg really respect kids. And I obviously respect kids as
I work with them. And I think it, like I said,
it respects how much that kids can't understand things well
because they're coming at it from a more emotional, open
hearted place. And I think it's a really beautiful movie
about connection and empathy. And I like that it ends
with the Keys, the guy keys, standing back and kind
of letting them have their goodbye and then letting it
t go off. That is more important about like being human,
like showing humanity and empathy versus conquering and power and domination,
all that stuff that kids don't really think about.
Speaker 3: Kids aren't really awkward like that unless.
Speaker 1: They are being raised by adults or around it all
to operate like that.
Speaker 3: And so I love this movie.
Speaker 1: I think every time I watch it, I notice more
parts that are clues to us that Et and Elliot
are connected, like almost right away, like the getting tired.
At the same time, there's all these little moments where
Elliott seems to know psychically obviously that Et is like
hungry or you know what I mean. Like there's a
lot of It's a really well written script that really
answers a lot of questions before you even realize that
they're questions.
Speaker 3: And So I love this movie. I should.
Speaker 1: I should have my little nieces and nephew's watch it soon.
I think they love it.
Speaker 3: My one niece is really into Grumlins right now, so
I think ET would be right in her wheelhouse and
obviously a lot less inappropriate than Grumblins and Grumlins.
Speaker 2: Too, which I need to do.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've watched Grumlins a few times now recently because of her,
and they're ain't much their homie unless you want to
talk about a guy who can't get his dreams off
of the ground, which is the dad of the main
character and Grandmains who keeps inventing different things that go
to shit in his house. It's also a movie about
a really permissive, loving wife who just lets that stuffkeep
opening in our house. But I love this movie. I
think this movie so has a lot to tell the kids.
I saw it the music Box live on a big screen,
which was really cool to see with kids there who
probably sing it for the first time. And I really
this is one of my favorite movies I think of
all time, especially kid movies. So on that note, if
you want to tell us what you think about the movie,
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