Splash: Deep Thoughts About Mermaids, Male Masturbatory Fantasies, and How Pop Culture Created the Name Madison

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

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

All my life I've been waiting for someone and when I find her, she's... she's a fish.

When Tracie and Emily saw the 1984 Ron Howard film Splash as little girls, they fell in love with the badass mermaid played by Daryl Hannah. She was smart, determined, and romantic--and she had a gorgeous tail she could unfurl in Tom Hanks' bathtub. But on revisiting the movie this week, Tracie found some rather ugly and sexist assumptions bundled together with the romantic notions. Madison the mermaid learns how to be a human woman by shopping and her devotion to Allen makes very little sense. But like Disney's The Little Mermaid, it's possible to look at Splash as a trans allegory, which makes their romance and Allen's decision to join her in the sea a much more subversive story.

Sit back, relax, soak your fins, and take a listen!

Mentioned in this episode:

Why Magic Pixie Dream Girl Movies Are Uncomfortably Dark

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

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

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

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Kapitel

1. Introduction to Splash Analysis (00:00:00)

2. Plot Synopsis: From Childhood to Adult (00:08:13)

3. Madison's Emergence and Integration (00:18:44)

4. Gender Dynamics and Relationship Analysis (00:31:03)

5. Feminist Elements and Trans Allegory Reading (00:42:51)

6. Final Thoughts and Upcoming Episode (00:49:48)