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

Deep Thoughts about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

• Tracie Guy-Decker & Emily Guy Birken • Episode 20

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Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination…and capitalism

This week, Emily shares her deep thoughts about the 1971 classic film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. She loves Gene Wilder’s funny and menacing portrayal of Wonka that still manages an undercurrent of sweetness, and the cinematography is a masterclass in how to make unwrapping a candy bar an edge-of-your-seat scene. But Roald Dahl’s hierarchical attitudes toward class, gender, money, and worthiness–not to mention his personal bugaboos about gum chewing and television–really undercut the magic.

Oompa loompa doopity dissen
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Mentioned in this episode

From the ‘chocolate factory’ to vet med
Gene Wilder died of Alzheimer’s. His family explains why they didn’t disclose his diagnosis
Roald Dahl himself made changes to the Oompa Loompas
Roald Dahl's family apologises for his antisemitism
Ian Fleming and Roald Dahl’s friendly rivalry
Quotations and Literary Allusions spoken by Willy Wonka
Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
Roald Dahl’s letter about losing his daughter to measles

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/

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Emily Guy Birken:

I'm Emily Guy-Burken and you're listening to Deep Thoughts about Stupid Shit, because pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head? On today's episode, I will be discussing the 1971 classic Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with my sister, tracy Guy Decker, and with you. Let's dive in.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Have you ever had something you love dismissed because it's just pop culture, what others might deem stupid shit? You know matters. You know it's worth talking and thinking about, and so do we. So come over, think with us as we delve into our deep thoughts about Stupid Shit. This show is a labor of love, but that doesn't make it free to produce. If you enjoy it even half as much as we do, please consider helping to keep us overthinking. You can support us at our Patreon there's a link in the show notes or leave a positive review so others can find us and, of course, share the show with your people.

Emily Guy Birken:

So Trace, this is a shared movie from our childhood. It actually came out before either of us were born and was already a classic in the 80s by the time we were watching it. But can you tell me what you remember about this version of the story, because there's been multiple ones, and this is the classic with Gene Wilder, there was the remake with Johnny Depp that really kind of missed the mark, and now there is a new prequel out with Timothy Chalamet. So we want to go back to the basics, back to the original. So tell me about your experience with this movie.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, it, definitely. This is one of those like building blocks of my childhood, our childhood for sure. I have very distinct memories of watching it at Grandma's house, grandma Betta's house, mm-hmm, I think the things that come up first for me is the music, actually, with Gene Wilder singing about pure imagination, with the sort of scary one when they're on the boat, the scary song. Those are some of the things that come up first, and then immediately actually from Ted Lasso, which I don't think you watched yet. You should watch it, you'll enjoy it.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But from Ted Lasso there's like a brief interaction about this story where one of the characters, leslie, says to Rebecca something like, oh, and all those children died in that factory. And Rebecca is like, no, that's not what happened. And Leslie like Rebecca I'm sorry, those children are dead and like something about like Leslie is a man and he's just like very earnest and like sweet and something about his delivery. I was like, oh, my God, he's right, those children are dead, and like it's just totally like colored my thinking about it. So there's I'm sure there's lots more. There's lots of like moments that I remember, as like the snapshots of them that kind of bubble up as memories.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But I don't need to get into those. I'm sure that some of them will come up and I know there's a lot there. Like, roald Dahl has become sort of a controversial figure. He's the guy who wrote the book in the first place for various good reasons that I expect you'll get into. And yeah, there's some less savory things. I have a feeling hiding underneath the fun songs about imagination and the Oopaloopas judging us. But yeah, tell me what's at stake. Why are we talking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory today?

Emily Guy Birken:

So I loved the film as a kid, really really loved it. I'm sure I know I saw the film before I read the book, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory became one of the books that I read over and over, and over and over again. It's one of the early ones I can remember just always wanting to pick up and reread, which has become a habit of mine over a lifetime. I did that also with James and the Giant Peach, but I think I like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory even a little bit more, so for me there's like a personal connection to this story. It also I got to be the eight year old going, oh, the book's better, which I appreciate it, which is actually one of the reasons why, when the 2005 Tim Burton film with Johnny Depp came out, I was not immediately horrified because I was just like, oh, ok, well, it'll be closer to the actual book Because there are quite a few changes. Some of them had to do with the fact that it's not an easy story to film with 1971 technology, and then some of it just had to do with the changes that were made in the process. But so, like originally, I was just like, yeah, I'm excited to see the Tim Burton version because you know I might be closer to the book and it was but I'm not a fan of that version. In any case, it was an important part of my literary DNA, my childhood.

Emily Guy Birken:

I recently rewatched it with my kids. They both loved it, and what is amazing to me is how well this movie is made. So the scene when Charlie finds the golden ticket, it is a huge thing. It is a child unwrapping a candy bar, and the directorial choices, the camera choices, the acting choices they asked Peter Ostrom to do. The boy played Charlie, the music, all of that. They do such a good job that you are on the edge of your seat watching a little boy unwrap a candy bar. And so that is part of the reason why this film has remained beloved for over 50 years now and why, even very close to the end of his life, jean Wilder was still getting like it's Willy Wonka from people as he went out and about. So like. The film is a masterpiece and it is one that I am very glad to introduce my kids to.

Emily Guy Birken:

In terms of how to tell a story, what choices can be made to raise stakes for something, particularly when there are things that don't make much sense if you think about them logically, and my love for Jean Wilder comes originally from this film. There are many others that I love him in, but this was how I was first introduced to him, and he is amazing, magnetic, magical, mysterious, terrifying all of those things. And there is a core of sweetness under it all, even under the terrifying aspects. So this is an important movie.

Emily Guy Birken:

You know, it's an important movie for me, it's an important movie for our culture, but there are some really ugly undersides to this and I think that we can trace them directly to Roald Dahl and some of them, like there's some, some dark undercurrents that are just, I think, good storytelling. You know, the fact that Willy Wonka is not entirely trustworthy as a character is not necessarily a bad thing about a children's movie. The fact that terrible things happen to children is not necessarily a bad thing in a children's movie. But there are other aspects of the story that I think deserve our scrutiny and that we should really really be cautious about what that lesson is, that we're taking in, that we're imbibing and we're teaching our children without looking at it closer.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

All right, let's catch everybody up. I mean, it's an over 15 year old movie. As you say, it's important to the culture, so I think a lot of our listeners have probably seen it. But let's just do the quick, like what happened in this movie.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, quick, quick thumbnail. So this movie is about Charlie Bucket. They changed it to Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, even though the book was called Charlie and the chocolate factory. So Charlie lives in the same town as the Wonka chocolate factory, which has been closed to factory workers for some period of time, like 15, 20 years since, longer than Charlie's been alive and he's about 10. But it still is producing chocolate and nobody knows how. Charlie is extremely poor. He lives with his mother and his four grandparents, Grandpa Joe, oh yeah, all in the same bed.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

All in the same bed, grandpa, joe, grandma.

Emily Guy Birken:

Josephine, grandpa George and Grandma Georgina.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, yeah, much a narcissistic grandparents Married people with their same name. Yeah, okay, yes.

Emily Guy Birken:

So he lives with them. We don't know where in the book his father is there as well, but in the film presumably he's dead because his parents are still living with them. His mother works as a in a laundry or something like that, and Charlie has a paper route to bring some money in, because otherwise all they eat is cabbage soup. There is a major announcement that Wonka will be opening up the factory for five lucky individuals who find a golden ticket in one of the candy bars, and so first half of the movie is basically about the first four people who find tickets. There is Augustus Gloop, who is a child in Germany who it is made clear that he is kind of a glutton, as are his parents. Then there is Veruca Salt, who is the British daughter of a man who has a nut factory. He has, like this huge production line of people who shell peanuts for him, and he puts the production line at work to open candy bars to find the golden ticket for Veruca. There is Violet Beauregard, who is actually an American gum chewer, but she puts the gum aside for a little while until she can find a golden ticket. She is from Montana. Then there's Mike TV who, if I remember correctly, is from Arizona, who is a kid who loves television. His mom actually says he's never eaten a meal at the dining room table because he always eats it in front of the TV. People are led to believe that the fifth ticket has been found. Charlie happens to find money in the street. He buys a chocolate bar for himself with the money and he's starving because of how little he gets to eat. He just swallows it down. He's about to take the rest of the money because he found a dollar the other 90 cents to go home to give to his family. He decides you know what? No, I'm going to get a chocolate bar for Grandpa Joe. He gets a chocolate bar and learns as he's walking home that there is one ticket left. He opens his candy and finds it there. On his way home he is stopped by Slugworth, who was the main rival to Willy Wonka, who offers him money beyond his wildest dreams and security for his family if he can give him an everlasting gobstopper from out of the Wonka factory, despite the fact that he has been in bed for 20 years.

Emily Guy Birken:

Grandpa Joe, as soon as he has a reason to get up, gets up and dances around because we've got a golden ticket. He does stumble a little. He does stumble a little. They end up on the factory tour which is the very next day we meet. When we meet Willy Wonka, he comes out of the factory on a cane and is like kind of stumbling his way to the front gate. His cane at one point stops, gets stuck in the cobblestones. He kind of stumbles a little bit and then does a forward flip and jumps up. Apparently Gene Wilder insisted on that. He wanted it to be clear from the very beginning that you can never know if you can trust anything from this character. The reactions of the children were genuine because they did not know how he was going to enter. They come in and they start seeing the crazy, weird, wild stuff in the factory, starting with the main chocolate floor, which is actually a river of chocolate through a candy meadow.

Emily Guy Birken:

We start to lose the children one by one. First is Augustus Glup, who is drinking the chocolate out of the river, and he gets sucked into the river and then up through a tube into the marshmallow room, I think. Next is Violet Beauregard who tries a gum that Willy Wonka has made that creates a full meal. It works until she gets the blueberry pie when she turns into a blueberry. Then is Ruka Salt, who wants one of the geese that lays golden eggs. She jumps on top of the scale that determines if it's a good egg or a bad egg, and is determined to be a bad egg, she gets shoved into the garbage chute. Miketv decides to go through the TV. They use a huge chocolate bar that they then send through the TV that you can reach into the TV and take out. Mike wants to do that too, so he goes from being a normal kid to being six inches high. Meanwhile Wonka's workers, who are oompa-loompas, which is a fake people, who are only about knee high, according to the book sing about what the children have done wrong and otherwise don't really interact with the kids.

Emily Guy Birken:

By the end of the tour it's just Charlie. In that time there was one point where his grandfather convinced him to try a fizzy lifting drink, even though they were told not to. Charlie says well, can I have the lifetime supply of chocolate now? Wonka says you get nothing because you broke the rules. Grandpa Joe says we're leaving and if Slugworth wants his everlasting gobstopper, he's going to get it. Charlie returns it to Mr Wonka, who puts his hand over it and says so shines a bright deed in a weary world, and he then says you've won. You've won everything, charlie. And he reveals that this entire stunt was to find an heir. He wanted a child to take over for him because he wants to keep making chocolate in the same way, with the same magical way, and an adult would have their own opinions on things. So he wants a child who he can teach, and the film ends with him going in the great class elevator which goes up through the ceiling of the factory and floats over the over the city, and that is the end of the film.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah that's a lot, so let me start with Roald Dahl, who was a hell of a writer. It's interesting that he's known for his children's stories, so Matilda, charlie the Chocolate Factory, the BFG, james and the Giant Peach, charlie and the Great Class, which was the sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, because he did not like children.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

He didn't.

Emily Guy Birken:

And he made it from Charlie.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, I have read some of his short stories that were intended for adults that have very similar kind of bloodthirstiness with endicoding. So for instance, there's a. One of his most famous short stories is about a woman who murders her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. She's just just done done with him, and so she clubs him over the head with a frozen leg of lamb, then she puts it in the oven and serves it to the police officers who come to investigate the murder. So similar kind of like playfulness and menace in there. There's quite a bit of that kind of like irony and playful menace.

Emily Guy Birken:

So I have immense respect for his abilities. I also have immense respect. He lost one of his children to I can't remember if it was the measles, something that there is now a vaccine for and there was not when she died and he was very vocal about the fact that her life would have been saved by these vaccines, because vaccine denial is something that has happened every time we've come up with vaccines throughout history. So I have a great deal of respect for that. Dahl, however, would not like me because he was an anti-semite. He actually said, yeah, hitler may have been a stinker, but he kind of had a point about the Jews.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Whoa.

Emily Guy Birken:

And that's the word stinker Like.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, that's the word that I want to use for the man responsible for 11 million deaths. So ew Was he American.

Emily Guy Birken:

No, he was British, very British. Yes, he knew Ian Fleming Like I think they served together in the war. The guy who wrote James Bond yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So, like Willy Wonka and James Bond, Like we share a cinematic universe. Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And I think a lot of the negativity that I see, the things that I find very distasteful about Willy Wonka and the books that I imbibed and loved as a child, stem from Roald Dahl's early 20th century Britishness.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

In a lot of ways.

Emily Guy Birken:

He was very much an imperialist, whether or not he described himself that way. So let's talk about the Oompa-Lompas.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

So the Oompa-Lompas are Willy Wonka's workers who he rescued from Loompa land where they were menaced by horrible creatures like verminous knids and wang doodles. And in the addition that I read, there were illustrations of the Oompa-Lompas and they were clearly shown to have brown skin and were intended to look like Africans or maybe South Asians South Asians, yes. So when they made the 1971 film, it was already like oh, we can't do that. And I believe there were other editions where even Roald Dahl was like maybe we should change the illustrations. But they gave them the orange skin and green hair to make it clear that they are not humans.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Right.

Emily Guy Birken:

But the way that Wonka talks about them is he doesn't have to pay them because all they want is chocolate or cocoa beans Cocoa beans, yeah yeah, which kind of sounds like oh yeah, we paid for the Isle of Manhattan with beads. You know, this is like that's really uncomfortable. And there is this like white saviorism of like Willy Wonka saved them from this horrible place and brought them to a factory where they don't see the light of day.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Right when they work for no pay. Work for no pay or pay in food?

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, and where? Considering the fact that Wonka knows he's not going to live forever or he chooses some random kid to be his successor, rather, than who is white, rather than one of the Oompa Loompas who have been working for him for years and know the entire process already, and our adults, and can teach others, and I mean, and should be rewarded for their work as well. So, yikes, that's worrisome.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Even the way that, even within the Gene Wilder movie, to the way that the Oompa Loompas interact with Wonka right, like he has that weird little flute that he plays, that they then show up, and then there's it's very, it's very differential. The hierarchy is very, very clear.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, and so the fact that you know all five of the children who find the golden tickets. Now, when I was a kid, I remember being like why is it all kids who found golden tickets? You know that just doesn't make sense to me Like grownups, like Candy 2. As I got older, I was like, why are all five of them white and speak English, with the exception of Augustus Gloop? I mean, he does speak English, but he's got a German accent. You know, like what's going on here. And then the fact that the one that Willy Wonka chooses is the blonde, blue eyed kid. No, I don't remember how Charlie was described in the book. So that's casting decision.

Emily Guy Birken:

Peter Ostrom did an amazing job and one of the things that I most appreciate about Peter Ostrom is that he refused to sign a deal to make multiple movies. He made the one and then he was done and he is a large animal vet now. Wow, yeah, I don't know how he came to that decision. Don't know if that was his parents or if he just was a very, very preternaturally wise young kid who was like, yeah, this was fun, but I don't need to do this anymore. But yeah, and I'm reminded of I don't know if you remember this, but I know Dad was horrified by, like the way child actors are exploited. But you need children in movies, like you can't make movies without child actors, at least sometimes. And he's like they should only be allowed to make one film and then that's it. What's an option of coming back when they're 18. Yeah, I remember him saying that.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I think actually Drew Barrymore is the one that when I that I remember him saying that about, I think he saw us, and Drew Barrymore because she's about my age, yeah, yeah, and so, like I think that's the one that I remember the most and so like I feel like Peter Ostrom is like the template for that.

Emily Guy Birken:

So, in any case, the racism, colonialism, imperialism, like white saviorism, just inherent in the idea of Willy Wonka finding these people telling them oh, your homeland is awful, Come with me and be my slaves, basically yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, kind of horrific. And you cannot remove the Oompa Loompas from the story of Willy Wonka, like that is an integral part of it and that's something to kind of fix it in the Timothy Chalamet version. I haven't seen it yet, but I've read some articles about it. I'm not super interested in it as a story but in terms of imagery it looks gorgeous Like that that I want to see. But the explanation they give is that like the Hugh Grant as Anupalumpa would steal people's chocolate and so like part of what the Timothy Chalamet's Wonka is doing is like oh, ok, I'll give it to you so you don't have to steal it and you know if you work for me. I don't know if that makes it better. Is he the only? I think he's the only one in this, but I'm not sure I mean.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I think a singular actually does make it better. Yeah, I'm not saying it makes it OK, I haven't seen it yet but there's a does feel like a big difference between, like, taking an entire people from their homeland, rescuing them with air quotes in order to serve you in your factory, versus one individual. That does feel different.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, yeah. So there's, that's big, big, it's a big ugly.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, that's a mark in the hole. That's a structurally ugly Like. That's a piece of ugly structure in the storytelling. It's not like a yeah, it's not just a layer.

Emily Guy Birken:

that you could sort of wipe away.

Emily Guy Birken:

So that gets to another aspect of this that I definitely did not catch as a kid, and that is how weirdly pro capitalist the story is and pro ruling class. So we find out when Charlie refuses to sell the everlasting gobstopper that slug worth isn't actually slug worth. He's someone who his name is Mr Wilkins and he works for for Wonka and this part I don't believe was in the book, I believe this was added for the film when Charlie returns the everlasting gobstopper and is like I'm not going to sell your secrets, that shows how pure of heart Charlie is. The thing is based on Charlie's understanding of what's happening.

Emily Guy Birken:

That is objectively the wrong thing to do. His family lives in poverty, he is constantly starving, his grandparents share a single bed, his mother is works backbreaking labor and this one piece of candy from a man who has been cruel to him could ensure that the security of his family for life. And once I saw it that way, I couldn't like. That blew my mind because you know I was, you know, gold star achieving rule follower as a kid. And so of course Charlie does the right thing. Of course he does the right thing of giving that back.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, that's the message of the movie as well. Yes, I mean that is absolutely. He gets rewarded for it. Absolutely. That is the message we are given. Is that this?

Emily Guy Birken:

is the right thing to do.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

But you're right he's. He is respecting the intellectual property of a cruel man over the needs of his own family. Yes, and it's the intellectual property as well. He's not actually like he's not stealing from Wonka, right?

Emily Guy Birken:

Exactly.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

He's stealing intellectual property, but it's not as though he is keeping Wonka. He's not even keeping Wonka from making money in the future, right? So he's not even stealing from Wonka's future, yeah, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And boy, that's a mess. Now it's a good thing that Charlie did return it, because Slughworth wasn't real and they wouldn't have had the security. But he didn't know that, just as he didn't know that, like at the end of the tour, he wasn't going to get what he was promised. The other aspect of it is, by choosing a successor the way that he does, wonka is hoarding generational wealth instead of sharing it with his workers, and he is ensuring that there is no change or innovation or anything like. He is going to mold Charlie in his own image, which is deeply disturbing.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, there's also in terms of the pro capitalism message, like by shuttering the factory to workers, Wonka has decimated this town Right and as viewers we're meant to sympathize with him for that. We're meant to think he has made the right choice by enslaving these obliquas so that he doesn't have to pay the folks who live around the factory.

Emily Guy Birken:

Well, the reason why he shuttered the factory was because Slughworth and other candy makers were sending in spies as workers. So it wasn't that he didn't want to pay the workers, necessarily. No, I understand.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I understand, but nevertheless, that is the impact, regardless of the intention. And, as I said, like so your competitor has a similar product. Yeah, that's the way markets work.

Emily Guy Birken:

That's also like, that's kind of the like, the pro deregulated capitalism, it's pro monopoly really is what it is.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

That's what it is. It's pro monopoly because ultimately that is how markets work If you have a product that has a market share and competitors can recreate it, even approximate it. That's how capitalism works. The demand somebody is going to supply, mm, hmm, mm hmm.

Emily Guy Birken:

Well, and it's. It always struck me as really weird that the everlasting gobstopper was the thing that Slughworth wanted, because that is not going to be a moneymaker. It's the one that it's for children. Very little pocket money because it lasts forever. None of that makes sense. That's the wrong one. Yeah, yeah, I'm like. You're not going to buy more than one of those, right? I?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

mean the opposite of plan obsolescence yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And that that I really feel like is so much of that Like there are aspects that were not necessarily in the book, but so much of it is, I think, representative of Roald Dahl. He was a product of his time. I think he really did believe in hierarchies of people and believed that it's a meritocracy, while at the same time setting up rules to make sure that he got all the merit.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, let's talk about that, because there's a lot of judgment on these four, the four other kids that we see. So let's let's talk about that hierarchy of people and judgment and meritocracy and like what is meritous and what is not yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, so I want to start with Ruka salt, because I love her. She is an icon I want the whole world yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

That's, and it's funny because I don't remember how it came up, but I was talking to my spouse about the fact that I am reevaluating Ruka salt now as an adult, and he's like, oh really, and I'm like that, that, right there, that's exactly why I'm doing it, because it was a spoiled little girl, not a spoiled little boy. And there is the inherent misogyny within that, like, how dare a girl or a female coded person want things? Yeah, absolutely. And yes, she is a brat is the best way to describe it.

Emily Guy Birken:

It is very clear that her parents have never said no to her, so she has learned that this is what one does. This is how, like, she has adapted to the world she lives in. But you also see, when she sings that song about I want it. Now there's a point where she kind of like goes into this frenzy and then she kind of like smooths her dress and calms down, smooths her hair, and so there is also this like idea of performance. Same thing when she first she wants to be the first one in the gates and she like performs being a sweet child because she's been taught that's what she's supposed to be. So I'm not saying that I have any particular affection or affinity for kids who don't, who can't handle being told no, but the fact that she is so well adapted to this world that she has been given there's something just like iconic about it, and the fact that she unapologetically wants what she wants when she wants it, when women are taught not to do that makes me kind of love her.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I'm thinking about the fact that in men it's men and boys it's sort of received as ambition and in women it's received as entitlement. Yes, yeah, and I mean I feel like that's the case regardless, like that, that sort of like I don't know why I don't quite like her. You know about ambitious women. In fact, I think I was recently reading Glennon Doyle in Untamed. She talks about that, about the fact that and that she talks about investigating in herself when she reacts badly to to other women. Yeah, I think that's exactly it.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

And men it's. It's received as ambition and we like it. And we celebrate it. Yes. Or like he's driven, he's goal oriented, whereas women are seen as entitled and overreaching.

Emily Guy Birken:

And the way that her father is portrayed. He is portrayed as like this harried hen, pecked like Massaculated. Partial man yeah, he's emasculated by her wants. Yeah, when all he had to do was say no, so I think that's the case.

Emily Guy Birken:

So I find I find her portrayal very, very interesting. I think it's is very much reflection on Roald Dahl, who I believe was was a misogynist. I mean, I don't think he went out, I was like I hate women but I really do. The way that he treated women in his stories, even when he subverted, so like the story I was telling you about with the leg of lamb there, that was a subversion because no one believed this sweet woman who was feeding all the police officers could do anything like or so awful yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

He was subverting it. But there's still, like, this sense of like. You know well, you know there's something wrong with this woman because she couldn't do that, yeah, so there's that. And then there's the the, the way that women and girls have always been treated in 50 years ago, what was just a given in in making a film. And in fact she gets one of the least gruesome ends of the four children. She just falls into a trash, shoot Now they. The furnace is fired every other day, so there's the possibility she's going to be burnt to a crisp Right and her father jumps in right after her.

Emily Guy Birken:

That is something I also never really appreciated as a kid. Like he doesn't say good riddance to bad rubbish. He's like Varouka, honey, I'm coming. He loves his daughter. He's really bad at loving her. He thinks that loving her is giving her whatever she wants, and many people have that make that mistake. And he happens to be rich enough that he can. And the you see one scene with her mother where her mother is saying like a happy child brings, brings joy to a home, or something like that. It's clear they're, they're, they're not a bad family.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

They're doing their best.

Emily Guy Birken:

They're doing their best. They just don't have a good sense of how to do it, which then brings up would Charlie be a good person if you weren't poor? Right Like is is the only thing that makes him good the fact that he has nothing which is, which is another weird sort of like pro capitalist. Well, and fetishization of, like the worthy poor, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the other three kids.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So Augustus Gloop that yeah, let's, let's talk about poor Augustus.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, the fat, and child doll was a fat child. She was a small and cute housewife. It was called the Jack and the Jack Jamer. In James and the Giant Peach there were two awful aunts James is too awful, aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. On Spiker was like a skinny and on Sponge was fat, and they both were bad women and the their shapes represented the ways in which they were bad. Aunt Spiker was too sharp, yeah, and wanted everything for herself.

Emily Guy Birken:

So it is not at all surprising that Roald Dahl wrote Augustus Gloop as a glutton, as someone who, despite the fact that there is candy everywhere, the eye can see that he can eat anything he wants, but goes for the chocolate in the river which he's not allowed to have. You also see when the news media is interviewing the Gloop family, mr Gloop, they're eating and they put a microphone into Mr Gloop's face to say, like, what do you think about this? And he eats the cover of the microphone because ha ha ha, isn't it funny when fat people eat? And it kind of reinforces the idea that excess adipose tissue comes from overeating and not having control of yourself.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I mean that's what the Oompa Loopa sing about, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, so you know again, completely understandable why, where that comes from, particularly from a writer who was writing in the early mid 20th century and a movie that comes out in 1971. But poor Augustus did not deserve that. Nor did Mrs Gloop, right, she's made fun of. When she's like, oh my god, he's gonna be made into fudge, and Wonka goes like, oh no, of course that would never happen. That goes to the Marshmallow Room, right? So, like well, how dare you be concerned about your child who just got sucked up into a tube?

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, so we still haven't spoken about Violet and Mike TV.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, and in both cases those to me seem to be Roald Dahl's specific bugaboos and the way that they made it in the film was that they're both know-it-alls Because Roald Dahl thought gum chewing was disgusting. That's that that was his moral judgment. Like chewing gum is gross. And in fact they, in the 2005 update they made it that Violet Beauregard was competitive. She was a competitive gum chewer and it was about the like wanting the gold star. Being competitive is what was being lampooned rather than the gum chewing, and there is a bit of like the know-it-all aspect of it. There was the American-ness of Mr Beauregard, who was a used car dealer. Right is another aspect of it, which I, frankly, I don't blame Roald Dahl at all. There are some American stereotypes that are I'm perfectly happy to have lampooned, but just that the gum chewing is as a moral failing is just weird.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

It's in particular since Wonko was working on gum Like, her mistake was not chewing gum, it was chewing gum that wasn't out of R&D yet. Yes, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And then it's basically the same thing happens to Mike TV, who he is really excited to get I don't know sent through the television.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Beamed through the TV without any thought for the consequences.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Right, he also does it before, right before it's out of R&D.

Emily Guy Birken:

Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. His is actually makes even less sense because, like with Violet, it's like oh, I know gum, I'm trying this gum. With this it's like okay, I just saw something I've never seen happen before and a giant candy bar became a normal size candy bar. So I want to do that why.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, yeah. My recollection too is that he says he wants to do it again and then and his mom is like you won't be exist if you're already like whatever sanctioned, yeah, and Wonko says he's going to send him to the taffy room to have him stretched out. Mm-hmm.

Emily Guy Birken:

And that's actually so in the book and again in the 2005 version. They do show the four children leaving. They do survive. They do stretch mic out because little boys are remarkably rubbery, which kind of that fits with. Like my spouse and I joked when the kids were much younger that, like you know, they don't have bones when they're little. Yeah like they, they. They insert the bones at some point during a well child visit, while the parents doing power paperwork. Yeah.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, they are definitely more bouncy when they're little.

Emily Guy Birken:

So, yeah, all, all, all four kids survive according to the book, and you know, of the four, like Ruka Salt has the least terrible thing happen to her, because she's just covered in rash. Yeah, but the the, the judgments of children as being left wanting and, you know, worthy of an entire song about their moral failings.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, and the families? Right, Because I remember, like we know, who's to blame the mother.

Emily Guy Birken:

The mother and the father. Yeah, yeah, to be fair. And gosh, I wish I'd had time to reread the book. I'm curious if the adding the mom and dad as being to blame is new in 1971 compared to the the book, because I wouldn't put it past all to just be like, yep, these children are rotten through and through. So it's, it's a mixed bag. I do want to say. I want to talk a little bit about Gene Wilder's performance and the addition of poetry to the script. I love that.

Emily Guy Birken:

Gene Wilder is Wonka that is what he is best known for like and even as a very old man. And actually one of the reasons why he kept his Alzheimer's a secret and did not go out much as he got closer to the end of his life is he didn't want to ruin the magic for children, which just makes my heart clutch. It's just, it's just lovely. He apparently I found something this morning as I was doing a little research. Someone asked him how he, how he felt about working with the kids and he said four of them are fantastic.

Emily Guy Birken:

I want to want to throttle so what he brought to the character, which is different from how he is written in the book. In the book. He's just a little bit different In the book. In the book he's kind of like a manic pixie dream capitalist. He brings a gentleness and like the core of sweetness, as well as a more overt menace. Not that that's dolls, wonka wasn't menacing, but he was a little more like all over the place. He was kind of ADHD, whereas this Wonka he's not distracted, he knows what he's doing at all times and he does not suffer fools and is. You know? There is something, there's an undercurrent of menace there.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, there's this. I my sense, like in my memory, is exactly what you're saying about the calculating, because there's even there are the moments where we see, like when Augustus has his hands in the river and he's like, no, don't stop.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Like he says the words, but it's, it's clearly the message is is clearly the opposite of what he's saying there's also, I feel I feel like there's a pathos to Wilders Wonka, in that final moment that you have described, where Charlie puts the gop stopper on the desk and Wilder puts his hand over it, and there's this pause and there's this shift from having, when he was short and barking and like you did this and you broke the contract and the whatever, and then into the sweetness where, taken as a whole, we see he was hurt. There was, there was pain in the earlier cruelty. That then has been addressed in Charlie's kindness, which is what we're meant to think. I mean, is it in fact kindness? I don't know, but that is, that's the way Wilder was playing it. That is part of what made him so sympathetic.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, yes, yeah, that that the pathos, that's. That's exactly it. There's that you also believe the like. You know, I know I'm not going to be around forever. There is that that, like I've built this wonderful world and I realize I have no one to share it with, is kind of what's in there as well.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Which then comes back around to like the, the normalizing of the Obaloomba's aren't people? Yes, they're there, they're no one, mm. Hmm, because he's already sharing it with him.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, I will never not love Let me say I will always love Wilder's performance as Willy Wonka, and in fact there have been times where I have because it's on Netflix or something you know it's streaming somewhere where I'll just fast forward to the parts with him in it, because he is magical and part of that is that magic is not all good, magic is not all beneficial. There there is like a price for magic and he is real clear about that, and so you know, that's something that I just find really captivating about his performance. Yeah, and I don't think I mean Johnny Depp seemed to be channeling Michael Jackson. I think he actually said that I'm like I, so it was just deeply unsettling his portrayal. And I have I don't know much about Timothy Chalamet, but like you're not going to be Jane Wilder, you're not going to be able to have, because even when, when he played like young Frankenstein and stuff like that, he managed to have that like over the top Performance and pathos when he was bloom in what's that called the producers. There's pathos in that ridiculous performance, which is one of the reasons why I tried to watch the the version with Matthew Broderick in Gene Wilder's role and I was like. It just doesn't work for me because you're not bringing that like that core of sadness in there that needs to be there for me to believe that my blue blankie, I really appreciate that, considering role doll was an anti-Semite, that Gene Wilder, who was raised in the Jewish neighborhood a couple blocks away from where I live right now in Milwaukee, is synonymous with dolls character forever. Like that makes me very happy.

Emily Guy Birken:

The other thing that I think that the movie does so well that is completely absent from the book is the poetry. There are a number of different lines of poetry throughout the film and it came about because originally doll was contracted to write the film, the script. He apparently just kept referring people back to the book. Oh, for this section, look at the book. And so he has the sole writing credit, even though someone else really wrote it. They had written the script and it felt like it was missing something, and the person who wrote it who's I'll have to link in the show notes because I can't remember his name decided like this needs more, and so he added like lines of poetry. So the one that I can remember always off top of my head is when someone asks about like butter, rum butterscotch and he says. He says Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker, which is that very short poem by Ogden Nash which is on breaking the ice, is the title of the poem Candy is dandy.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I thought that was Dorothy Parker.

Emily Guy Birken:

No, that's not a Nash. I once wrote down all of the not going to be able to find it wrote down all of the poetry in the film there's. There's another poem that he says during the tunnel scene, when they're in the boat. Wonka says it. Yeah, wonka says it, with one exception. All the poetry comes from.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Wonka.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, the one exception is when Charlie is outside the gates of the factory there's like a tin man, like a guy with tin shears and stuff like that comes by and recites a poem in a way that feels like menacing to Charlie and he runs away. But other than that it's all Wonka, which again adds a different flavor to who Wonka is and that just Wilder nailed it. He nailed that, that the delivery and the just charming menace and sweet pathos.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, we've been talking actually for a while, so maybe I can see if I can reflect back to you some of the some of the analysis that you brought. So, though, you will always love Jane Wilder's performance in this really magical movie, there's some kind of ugly underbelly stuff here. So I heard about sort of an imperialist kind of colonialist kind of white supremacy, white saviorism vis-a-vis the Oompa-Loompas. I heard a very pro capitalist and like pro unregulated capitalist sentiment that puts capital and property, and even intellectual property, above the needs of human beings. I heard about some unpleasant judgment about kids in particular, around bodies, body shaming and fat shaming around, especially a girl in Veruca, salt, wanting things and being unashamed about wanting those things and saying it out loud. And I think it's significant that this is a girl. You pointed out and we talked about the fact that if, if Veruca had been a boy, if it had been Victor or something, we would have received him differently. Still a brat, but not, as he's going places yeah, going to take over his father's factory.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

That ambition is going to serve him well, we might have said as opposed to having him be deemed a bad egg and sent to the trash. And then Dahl's weird bugaboo about gum chewing and TV viewing as judgmental. Oh, we also spent some time talking about Dahl and his kind of early 20th century Britishism, which then brings with it, unfortunately, anti-semitism and, in his case, in his case in his case, and very much hierarchical thinking and the idea of a meritocracy which is set up structurally to ensure that people like Mr Dahl have merit.

Emily Guy Birken:

And that's why Charlie is the successor is because he is a diamond in the rough. He is like Wonka and Dahl. He just happened to be born to poor parents and we'll fix that.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

He doesn't deserve poverty, unlike those other people those other poor people who do deserve it. Yeah, you also pointed out, in terms of the on the positives column, you pointed out some of the really lovely cinematographic choices, such that the audience can be on the edge of our seat watching a child unwrap a chocolate bar, which is remarkable. There's a lot of magic in this film and in particular, gene Wilder's performance, which has a combination of magic and menace and pathos. What did I?

Emily Guy Birken:

forget. I don't think there's anything else in there. The one thing that I do kind of want to underline is why it disturbs me so much that Charlie's respect for Wonka's property is a problem. And it's because of the reactions that I saw from friends of mine who have never had to go without in their lives in the wake of the uprisings after George Floyd's murder, when there were gas stations and CVSs and stuff like that that were destroyed during those uprisings. And the response I would hear from these friends is like I totally understand why people are upset, but don't destroy other people's things. And on the one hand I was like well, it's not necessarily the protesters who are doing that. A, b, that's why God invented insurance.

Emily Guy Birken:

When you are comparing the death the extrajudicial and extraordinarily painful and upsetting, horrifying death of a person and the destruction of property, how can you compare them? How can you say like oh, I understand why you're upset, but don't go breaking windows Like I don't know. Broken windows seems appropriate and an appropriate level of upset to me, and that's why I kind of want to underline and that's part of the reason why it was such a revelation to me to be like oh, my God, charlie's not doing the right thing right here because he is putting property above the lives of his family. And we so often imbibe that message in so much of our media, including this beloved gem of our childhood, that we don't even think about it. We don't even think about, like, what is this compared to people's lives, so that we're able to pare it back, the idea like, well, yeah, it's understandable, they're upset, but you know why are you throwing chairs through windows, like because it's that level of upset? This is not. I am peeved.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah, I mean also like if people don't respond to your inside voice, you got to use your outside voice. Yes, yeah, yes.

Emily Guy Birken:

So and I remember talking to these friends and kind of like helping them get around that corner and like, oh okay, yeah, oh okay, I get it because they just never had. And they never had because of messages like this, which make it clear that the property of wealthy people is paramount.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

And we must respect it.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Childhood ruining.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

I feel like that could actually be the subtitle of this show.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yes, deep thoughts about stupid shit will ruin your childhood.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Tracy and Emily ruin your childhood, yeah.

Emily Guy Birken:

Ruinning childhood since 2023. But again, there is. There is much to love in this film, and that's I don't ever want to be like, so don't watch it, right? That's not. That's not what we're saying. We're saying when you watch it, recognize what you're, what you're being told.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Well, I think that the thing is to like. Those lessons are in your head whether you're examining them or not, so let's examine them so that we can respond to them instead of reacting with them.

Emily Guy Birken:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

So next time, next time.

Emily Guy Birken:

I think you're going next time.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Yes, next time I am going to share my deep thoughts about Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. I have a feeling you're going to ruin my childhood. It's entirely possible. I'm really looking like, I'm really looking forward to this one. I don't think that I've watched it again since I, you know, did my undergraduate and graduate work in religion, so that piece of it I'm kind of excited about. It's like a minor piece of it.

Emily Guy Birken:

But there I do know that there was a brief time where you and I were doing Torah study together and we got to the section describing the Ark of the Covenant. I'm like, oh my God, they did a really good job.

Tracie Guy-Decker:

Hey you, yeah you. You're a deep thinker, I can tell. Let's make it official. Head on over to our website, guygirlsmediacom, and make sure you don't miss a single deep thought. You can get me and Emily in your inbox every week. What are you waiting for? Thanks for listening. Our theme music is Professor Umlaut by Kevin McLeod from incompetechcom. Find full music credits in the show notes. Until next time, remember, pop culture is still culture, and shouldn't you know what's in your head?