I know that I’ve talked to you about this privately, Christien, but here the subject has come up indirectly, so I’ll just chime in and say that I can’t listen to the podcast with my wife either, because women (especially young hot women) are routinely called chicks. I understand that many people find that word to be neutral. That’s not the point of my comment here. The point here is that my wife finds the word dismissive and therefore distracting to the point of being hurt by it. So I am on my own as a listener.
She still helps me with 3x3’s! She just doesn’t want to hear women called chicks. Neither do I, but I listen anyhow. It’s my favorite podcast ever. The other night, I almost spewed a mouthful of hamburger onto the windshield when Kelly read the letter that said, “Hoo-eh, hoo-eh, hoo-eh…” and you and Tom asked him to repeat it.
I know we’ve talked about this before, Dave, at length. And I will not be dismissive of how your wife reacts to that word. I just don’t quite know where the line is, so forgive me for venturing into this territory again.
Can the word ‘chick’ not be analogous to ‘dude’ in some way? Because I know, for sure, we’ve talked about guys like Channing Tatum as being hot or sexy dudes on the podcast. There is certainly a different impetus, and maybe we blush a bit when we’re saying it, but is there a difference? I ask this in earnest.
Is it the objectification aspect of the word, or the spirit behind it? Is it that sometimes we go all “rowr” over a female actor–like I did when Kelly brought up Vanessa Angel during a recent 3x3–or is it specifically that word? I don’t find it derogatory, but that’s not up to me. As with things like sexual harassment, it’s up to the person who takes the offence to set the terms. So again, I’m curious about that. In this case because, again, I hate the fact that you can’t listen to us with your wife, because I think both of you are super cool.
Yes! We’ll give an update every week from now on about which movies are in the running, in order of how many votes they have. Sharing that with you guys is half the fun.
Since I know which pick you want to change and that you want to change it because of Dave Perkins, I’m going to say no. :)
Kidding! Of course you change it. Anyone who wants to change a pick can email me.
She doesn’t have any moral problem with “rowr” stuff. People are attractive and hot, and you guys never stray into the “I would stuff my penis inside Laia Costa and I want the world to know it” territory very often (segues to the 3x3 occasionally a rare exception to this). Fact is, you guys “rowr” over women about ten times as often as men, though, so the podcast is definitely drenched in male hormones. But you’re three guys, so that’s fine!
But did anyone call Laia Costa a “chick” during the Victoria podcast?
No. And I submit that the reason is because you respect and admire her. Does that seem true?
If you hadn’t answered the question for me, I would not have been able to myself. Now that you say so, I can kind of hear in my head the way we talked about her (I’m bad at remembering a lot of the conversation after the fact). I do recall Tom saying how pretty she was and what star power she had, and me trying to figure out the Audrey Hepburn thing (and me trying to work in an Always joke/reference but failing) by finally linking her and Audrey Tatou with the word “pixie” by way of explanation. Which I don’t think really worked.
Anyway, I don’t think it has anything to do with respect and admiration. I have no doubt someone on the podcast has used that word in reference to someone we respect and admire. Like Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow for instance. I don’t know that that example would actually pan out, but I can see it in my head.
Thank you for your reply, as well, Dave. I always appreciate it when someone like you (or mono) expresses thoughts about something like this, rather than just calling us jerks and stomping off. I mean that sincerely. I don’t truly understand your (plural) objection with that word, but that is kind of on me, since you’ve gone to great lengths to try to explain it in other threads (with analogies and whatnot). I respect that.
Again, I’m sorry you can’t listen to the show with your wife. As you know I hold her in high esteem.
Actually, no, it does not seem true. If no one called her a “chick” – and I’m not sure whether that’s true – it’s because we knew the name of the actor and her character. “Chick” is a non-specific term, exactly like “dude”. When we’re talking about Force Awakened, we talk about “Han Solo” or “Harrison Ford”, not “that dude”. When we’re talking about Dwayne Johnson, we say “Dwayne Johnson” or “The Rock” or “the actor who is better at acting than Harrison Ford”, not “that dude”.
That said, Laia Costa and Victoria are both chicks, to my mind. And I intend that to be 100% descriptive and 0% dismissive. You are certainly welcome to object to the use of a term, but it’s unfair to assume intent that simply doesn’t exist.
No one called Laia Costa a chick during the podcast. I was listening for it.
I accept and believe that when you call someone a chick, you (Tom) are being purely descriptive. But when I hear a guy at the weight room refer to a woman as a chick, I assume that he’s a dickhead. I don’t know him, though, so I don’t trust him. I do trust you.
Michelle echoes this, too. She said that she really wishes that she could meet you and Christien, although she worries that she would bore you to death because she doesn’t know jack about movies or games. But she said that with a bit of a wink in her voice. She knows that you’re intelligent as all get out, and appreciates you a lot. She laughs when I play her parts of Kelly’s synopses.
She doesn’t boycott the movie podcast over this word. She just wishes that no one would use the word, including you. I wish the same, that’s all.
I don’t think that the word dude is equivalent to chick, but it’s interesting to ponder. If I heard weight room guy say, “Did you see that hot chick in the front row of Ethics class?” to his friend, then what could I say to him that would be equivalent? I don’t think “dude” would do the trick. A dude is tough. A chick is something to fuck. At least, coming from this hypothetical douchebag.
Christien, I was listening for you guys to call Emily Blunt a chick when you discussed Edge or Sicario. It didn’t happen. All women may in theory be chicks, but I’m guessing that the more you see a woman who you respect and admire in movies, the less likely she is to be a chick in your minds.
Like, maybe if you discussed Looper, Emily Blunt might have been referred to as a chick? I can’t remember. But if there’s a transition from chick to not-chick as a woman becomes more familiar to you, it makes me wonder if there’s something in the word that isn’t purely descriptive.
Just thinking out loud. Thank you both for discussing!
My knee-jerk is to say you’re wrong, but that may be because I don’t really use the word all that much. And because, weirdly, it has a proprietary nature in our house hold because of Tom’s name. I think it’s natural for him to say it, and I know it carries none of the connotation of your douchebag friend above. As I thought about this I suddenly thought of how cool and tough I think the word is, in direct opposition to “A chick is something to fuck” that you say above as well. As in, I can see thinking of Charlize Theron in Mad Max Fury Road as a kick-ass chick. Or of Emily Blunt as that. I just don’t see the word in the derogatory way you seem to, as you listen for us to use it.
I hate to be crass, but maybe it’s as different as how we use the c-word and Brits use the c-word. Could it be that?
Anyway, while my knee-jerk is to say I think you’re wrong, I’m happy to keep discussing and considering that I am wrong in how I view this. Because, again, your wife finds it particularly grating and when something is offensive to that degree, I need to know why. Especially when it is someone I respect.
I could very well be wrong about that weight room guy. He might be calling the unknown woman a “hot chick” because she asks great questions and he’d like to talk to her because he admires her.
Michelle isn’t accusing you guys of anything. She thinks that referring to women as chicks is generally a downgrade in the level of discussion. It’s your podcast and you do it for free and it’s awesome in so many ways. You three have amazing repoire and your comments about films are so cogent that I listen to them all even when I have no plans to ever watch the movie myself. I just wouldn’t recommend the podcast to a woman for whom words like chick and noises like “rowr” and jokes about sex are off-putting.
Side note: can you imagine me going to class tomorrow and asking if any of the chicks could summarize the reading?
No. But I can’t imagine Tom going into a college as a guest lecturer and using the word there either. We all understand that language has situational properties.
Thank you for making those points, and thank you for the kind words about the podcast. FWIW, I know at least one woman with strong feminist views who has no problem with any of those things. So there’s that.
Don’t hesitate to tell us stuff that bothers you about the podcast, btw. Doesn’t matter that it’s free. I’d rather know things that bother you and your loved ones than lose you. And I mean this for all listeners.
Yeah, exactly! Tom wouldn’t call my students chicks because it sets the wrong tone for that venue. The language used by you three in the movies podcast sets the tone in YOUR venue, and it happens to be a tone about which Michelle is like “yeah, not really my scene”. On top of that, she doesn’t understand enough of the references that you guys make to be an informed listener.
I only brought this topic up again because (a) someone else mentioned the Bae Ling accent, and (b) I thought it was interesting that nobody called Laia Costa a chick. At least, aloud. I wondered if any other listeners had stuff to add. In any case, I appreciate you both (Christien, Tom) reflecting on this with me, even though it’s for a second time.
Now, back to the business at hand. I called this podcast “free” but you’ve come up with an exceedingly clever and audience-friendly way to raise a bit of money to support you, and I am going to participate to the tune of FIVE AMERICAN DOLLARS. My movie choices will be:
Runaway Train - A movie that made a huge impression on me when I saw it at age 16. I didn’t know who Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, or Rebecca De Mornay at all. I love their faces. Voight’s look with his sweet moustache is great, but I really love Roberts and De Mornay’s faces in this movie:
Aw dang, someone dropped by and talked to me for an hour, and my movie list has to be cut short. I know that I still need to submit the entire list when I donate, but I just wanted to share what movies I was picking.
You can split the votes right? I want to make them watch more Tyler Perry just because why stop a streak, I want to make Tom suffer through a grandpa movie just because he’s so obnoxiously dumb about them, and I want to make them tackle some really weird outsider art just bcause. (Granted, Perry is kinda there already, although his movies make too much money.)
