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It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood
A beautiful day for a neighbor.|
Would you be mine?
Could you be mine?

The Guy Girls' neighborhood is full of nostalgia this week as the sisters return to the gentle, sunny television show that helped raise millions of American children: Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Tracie shares how Fred Rogers' plan to go seminary was changed when he was horrified to see people throwing pies at each other on his parents' brand new television set in the 1960s. (One can only imagine how upset Mr. Rogers would be by 2026 pop culture.)

Instead of becoming a minister right away, Mr. Rogers developed his countercultural television show that made intentional choices about everything from pacing to storytelling to word choice to help protect and develop the mental health and growth of his audience. With every decision Fred Rogers made, he considered the psychology of children, believing them capable of handling straightforward conversations about difficult topics.

Our collective nostalgia for Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is well placed, whether you were among the youngest baby boomers watching in 1968 or the eldest Gen Z watching in 2001: Fred Rogers was an authentic, humble, and deeply thoughtful man who really was singing directly to us. His intentionality in creating a program that fed our minds and spirits as children means we can go home again to this neighborhood as adults. It's nostalgia that actually pays off.

Hi, podcast neighbor! We're glad we're together again!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, nostalgia, television, pop culture, storytelling, mental health, psychology, fred rogers, mr rogers’ neighborhood, cultural commentary, religion, public broadcasting, children's television, childhood, land of make believe, king friday, 80s nostalgia

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on me

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

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

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

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 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!

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

Florals? For spring? Groundbreaking.

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Tracie and Emily welcome Tanesha Myles to discuss the 2006 film The Devil Wears Prada. Like Anne Hathaway's Andy, Tanesha worked for a stylish, demanding, and overwhelming boss, who she describes as a "Black Miranda Priestly," referring to the character played by Meryl Streep. Both women bosses saw themselves in their employees and pushed them to their limits. But as Tanesha shares with the Guy sisters this week, both these women bosses also taught their protégées how to take up space in a world that expects women to make themselves small, perform niceness, and cater to men.

But Miranda's mental health definitely suffers from her way of living, as Andy realizes over the course of the film. She doesn't want to emulate her boss's approach to romance or friendship, even if she learns to take up space from her Prada-wearing "devil" of a boss. And as Emily (who has never seen the film!) points out, Miranda is sometimes kind even if she is never nice. That distinction is an important one.

By all means, move at a glacial pace. Whenever you put on your headphones and listen, you're in for a treat!

Tanesha Myles is the mind behind Her15Minutes. You can find her at instagram.com/herfifteenmins/

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, women, romance, film, feminism, movies, anne hathaway, meryl streep, cultural commentary, pop culture, classic movies, comedy, film analysis, mental health, psychology, fashion, prada, storytelling

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 content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

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

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

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 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!

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

Experience has made me rich / And now they're after me

On this week's episode of Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily and Tracie discuss Madonna's 1985 music video Material Girl in front of a live studio audience. As a six-year-old child, Emily did not recognize how Madonna's video was intentionally in conversation with Marilyn Monroe's performance of Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend from 30 years prior. Both women are singing about the importance of financial security, although Monroe's cultural commentary is more of a practical guide for navigating misogyny than rallying cry for feminism and women owning their financial and sexual freedom. What a difference 30 years makes.

Of course, baby Emily was unaware of this pop culture homage within Madonna's video. She was much more concerned by the storytelling intercut within the music video, wherein a rich producer woos Madonna by pretending to be a poor suitor. It bothered the budding financial expert that the producer spent more money trying to look poor than he would have paid for expensive gifts, and it truly annoyed her that Madonna seemed to be taken in by his fakery. Women with her level of financial and sexual agency should be savvier than that!

Ultimately, Emily and Tracie are glad they had Material Girl as an example as little kids. It helped them recognize that boys needed to give them proper credit...or they'd just walk away.

We are living in a material world…and you are a podcast listener!

Note to listeners: We teased Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood for next week, but we’re actually welcoming guest Tanesha Myles to come talk about The Devil Wears Prada instead! We’ll be sharing our deep thoughts about Fred Rogers the following week.

Mentioned in this episode:

https://www.emilyguybirken.com/post/everything-i-know-about-money-i-learned-from-pop-culture

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, women, feminism, pop culture, madonna, marilyn monroe, cultural commentary, storytelling, gen x childhood, gen x nostalgia, money, romance, nostalgia, music video, material girl, diamonds are a girls best friend, mtv, psychology, comedy, comedy podcast

This episode was edited by

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

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

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

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 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!