Little Women | 15
Show Notes:
Little Women, written by Louisa May Alcott, published in 1868, follows the lives of the four March sisters as they come of age and has never been out of print since its debut.
On this episode host Julia Washington discusses the 1994 and 2019 film adaptations of the book. She's joined by Carly Adams (from Season 2 Episode 9 - Moxie) Sarah (from Season 1 Episodes 20 & 22), the fabulous duo from It's My Screen Time Too, Katie and Deborah (from Season 2 Episode 3) , and our resident Marvel Guru Shy (Too many episodes to list!)
Let's Get Social:
The Show - Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous
The Host - Julia Washington
Guests - It's My Screen Time Too, Tidy Revival
Transcript:
Julia: Hey friends. Welcome to Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous. And I'm your host, Julia. And today we are discussing Little Women and we have lots of guests here to talk about it.
Carly: Josephine a hundred percent.
Sarah: I was Jo,
Deborah: is it weird that Beth is the character I most identified with?
Katie: So Beth was always the one that I identified with.
Shy: I very much related to Beth.
Julia: Those are the voices of Carly Adams from our Moxi episode, Sarah, from our summer Gossip Girl recaps, the dynamic co-hosts duo of It's My Screen Time Too Deborah and Katie, and our resident Marvel guru Shy.
For as long as I can remember, the 1994 version, starring Winona Ryder as Josephine, March played a part in my movie watching life. Every December, I'd cue up my VHS tape and watch as Jo felt the love and growing pains of her family and life. I remember thinking Laurie was so handsome and wanting to fall in love with a man like him one day.
Eventually I traded my VHS for a DVD. As I grew older Jo's frustrations of feeling stuck and trapped became more real to me as a writer, she needed more in life to fuel her, the restrictive world and a marriage proposal from Laurie pulled at her making her desire for more even stronger. She wasn't ready to be a wife. She hadn't lived yet.
In 1994, I was 10, still full of idealism and dreams. No one had truly crushed my spirit yet. The movie is more than nostalgia. It formed who I became. So in 2019, when the new version by Greta Gerwig was set to release, I had a very negative emotional response. Now, nearly two years later, I love both films for different reasons.
And so I couldn't help, but wonder if there were others like me, here's Carly.
Carly: I think that in 1994, you know, this is like, going into middle school for me. And so you're at that age where you don't really know what to expect from adulthood and getting older. I like that this book is very coming of age and I know I shared this with you too, but this was, I got the book.
As a gift from my grandmother when I was little. So I read it before I saw the movie and I think Josephine was just always such a free spirit. And she pushed boundaries, especially for what women were told they could and couldn't do. And in the book and the 1994 version and the more recent version, um, I feel like that that theme really holds true.
At a time when I didn't know what it meant to be an adult and was really looking forward to learning more about that. As I grew older, she just seemed really amazing that she was just carving her own path and to see even that as a concept, being a possibility I gravitated towards towards women, like that.
Julia: I love that. I think that when I reflect on movies of the nineties, there's so many that helped create who I am today. Winona Ryder's Joe really did that.
Sarah: I felt like Joe, like I was Joe, I had all this ambitions that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up and I, um, you know, wanted to get out of the town that I lived in and I just really identified with her plight, like with her storyline. And, um, of course in the movie, it's largely narrated by her. She's clearly the main character. And of course, when you're 10, you're the main character in your life that matters .Whenever a character's internal monologue is how different they feel than everybody else and how the stranger from the world around them, how they, they know they're, they should be something more.
That's the character that I, I feel like. You're naturally drawn. She definitely felt not in her space. And so I, at 10, I already really had that identified with that.
Deborah: I was like a hardcore Angela Chase, stan. And so I loved anything the Claire Danes did. And so I really wanted to play be Beth. I, she plays the piano.
I played the piano. Her death is like so tragic in a really modlen adolescent way.
Katie: As one of four daughters in a family, I am like way too affected by birth order. That was always the one that I identified with because she was the third. And I mean, Claire Dane's cry face in this movie is just doing all the things. It is so peak. Angela Chase. It's beautiful.
Shy: 1994, I was. 11. 11 year old, me was a lot different than 38 year old me. I was very shy and very quiet and like a bookworm. So I very much related to Beth. Like she was my person. Now my nickname is Shy, but back then everyone called me Shyrene and it wasn't like a joke that I was a shy Shyrene because. I was, I was like super introverted and quiet and I always had a book on me. So I was like in the corner reading all the time.
Julia: Oh, I love that.
In December of 2019, I went to see the new Little Women in theaters with my mother and Sarah. I went back again by myself. Because I needed to. I felt very drawn to Jo in such a deeply emotional way.
Her ache of wanting more in her life, her ache of wanting Laurie, the balance between. What she wants and what her publisher wants. Also, Gerwig had fleshed out all the other characters and made them more likable, more redeeming, more relatable. And yet at 35 years old, I still saw myself as Josephine March.
So did my friends feel the same way about their childhood characters too. Here's Carly:
Carly: Jo was always my favorite. You'd think I'd be a Meg. I, oh, I should mention that
Julia: Why because you're the oldest of four girls?
Carly: I really liked Meg's speech in the 2019 version. She had to kind of come to terms with what her life was and wasn't according to the choices that she made, but you really saw her, um, It wasn't resigned herself to it, but it was more embrace it.
Like she's like, what am I going to do? Be rich and sad. Like, no, obviously I want my life with you here. And even when Jo offers her the house for a moment, like, you sure you don't want to live in this, she's like, I can't manage this giant house. Like, what am I going to do with this gigantic house? I'm like, fill it with more children.
I don't know. Like. How fun
Julia: Isn't that what you're supposed to do in 1865? Is.
Carly: Yeah. Yeah. And Meg was like, well, you know, it's so much to clean. Like not for me. And I just, her, her love for her husband and her family. It was just so sad. And wonderful. And I really liked that. I, my husband and I joke a lot that we didn't obviously like didn't marry for money because we met when we were in college and didn't have any money.
So I get, I get that too. Like it's not, it's really, really not about the money
Sarah: I'm in a different place in life. And so I. I identified with Meg in ways that I had not. I always, I always of thought Meg was a throwaway character in a way. So, and there were things about Meg and her storyline that I felt like she married for love. And, and she wanted to marry him and she wanted to marry John and she loved him. And I think that's wonderful. And she made a choice based on love and not on finances and,
Julia: um, which in 1860, whatever's bold.
Sarah: Yes. And it was, and she's a stronger character than I gave her credit for. And when I was 10, it was, oh, she's marrying for love. Oh, I want to marry for love too.
Julia: I was, I was in Jo's camp about their marriage. He's boring. He's dull. Oh my God. Like why?
Sarah: But what I loved about the 2019 version and I related to, in a way, I hope my husband doesn't hear this and take this in a bad way. Is the resentment and regret she had. And not that she would change it necessarily.
It was harder than she thought it was going to be. And it was, and it did take away from her identity and having children. At a young age, she wasn't necessarily ready for it. She wasn't ready to, to see her friends and see people move forward in a way that was no longer attainable for her, or maybe it was never attainable for her.
Julia: She probably thought it was attainable, but then realized it's not attainable. And that is a different type of grief.
Sarah: And, and I think that seeing her actually grieve it and B I'll be at over material for a dress and she feels. Guilty about buying expensive material. It's a story of a different type of strong woman that I don't think I appreciated at a young age.
And so while Jo's ambition speaks to me and very much so spoke to me at 10, Meg being so strong in so many other ways that go unnoticed was very, very. Relatable.
Julia: Yeah. I definitely feel realized that I probably haven't grown up in the way that I should have, because I still pine after like Jo's freedom from, and
Sarah: Definitely.
Julia: But like, not in the same, I mean, there's like a level of like, oh, I can still do that. Right. Like for me, there's still because I'm not married to anybody and my child. I'm going to be an empty-nester soon. So I feel like there's still a point where I can go off and do the Josephine March, find yourself in New York city or whatever city, but then. There's an, there's a new version of guilt that exists that you don't find out about until you get to that point, which is why would you leave the home that your child grew up in?
Why would you not have, you know, the grounding of your home...
Sarah: For your child,
Julia: for your child?
Sarah: Because they need to come back.
Katie: I think in answer to your question about who I related to most in the new one. I think it's Amy, just shockingly. I was so surprised to find any commonality there.
Julia: Mmmhmm
Deborah: I liked the fact that they cast the same actor for Amy in the 2019 version, because in the 1994 version in your head, you know, you're supposed to be like de-aging and all the other characters, but it's still really creepy when Kiersten Dunst and, uh, Laurie are having that like romantic moments and he's like, I will kiss you someday before you die.
And she's like 10. Found myself really identifying with Marmee a lot more in the 2019 version, maybe just because I am an old lady middle-aged mom now and see things through that lens. Um, and I found myself. Uh, more drawn to Jo also, if we're picking from the four sisters, then I was in, when I was like watching the 1994 version as a teenager.
Julia: Yeah.
Katie: I think at one point in the 2019 version, Marmee played by Laura Dern actually mentioned that she's around
40
Julia: years old, which that really hit me. Yup. I was like, Hey girl, no, we can't. This is not, I'm not ready. Yep.
Katie: Please. I want to identify with the sisters as long as possible.
Julia: Actually I would
Shy: probably say.
Joe the most try to make her own place in the world, um, do her own thing and you know, not like have to live by society's rules. I always feel like I pull a lot from each character. Cause each character is so different from each other. If I had to pick one character overall, I would
Julia: have to say. The themes and little women are timeless, but as a young girl, I didn't fully understand some of them.
I, Sarah mentioned as an adult woman, and now as mothers, we have a better understanding of the depths of Meg's limited choices. So again, I wondered how my friends related to the story now, compared to when we were young idealistic girls, here's Carla.
Carly: Watching it from being, you know, I guess the first time I watched it, I was probably like 12.
And so this second time watching it today, I'm going to be 39 soon. And, um, you know, now I very much know what to expect and adulthood, and I think the thing that resonates for both of those, those time periods is just. Wanting to be the type of woman who pushes boundaries and doesn't. Fit into a certain mold, just because it's more comfortable for people and looks at the world as a bunch of possibilities, versus just given expectations that, and that's, that's the road you're going to go down because people told you that these other things aren't acceptable for you or possible for you.
There's so many times when. Has to really push, not push down her own reactions, but really be selfless in a way, like in the newest version when, um, her reaction to Amy getting married, you know, and then her going back and taking the letter and throwing it into the river, like that was deeply emotional.
But you knew that she was making that, that personal sacrifice because she saw how happy everybody else was. And she knew that she needed to just like close that chat. And it's it's selflessness. For good reason, not selflessness to be a martyr. I don't know. There's just so many great takeaways for what it, what it is to be like a kind person, what it is to be a brave person, what it is to defy expectations and push boundaries and, you know, Take the patriarchy and just
Sarah: burn it to the ground.
The Wynona writer version, the Susan's random version because we were 10 when it came out and I processed it as a ten-year-old and then it became an instant classic comfort film, holiday film. Um, there were feelings that I did not have. 'cause I was not old enough and mature enough or developed enough to have thoughts and feelings the way you do as a 30 something year old woman.
Um, so there were a lot of moments during the Greg rendition, where it had me thinking more about. The characters, not just in the moment of the film, but also like, um, socially and, and putting it in context to the time in which it's supposed to take place and how their lives would have been. So there was a lot more empathy on my part and wondering about what's outside the storyline.
I think it's more related to. Especially the older you get, it's more relatable because in 94, I had not yet felt the pain of actually coming of age and becoming an adult and all of the worries and the heaviness of becoming a woman in society that is not built for women versus being a woman and having already gone through that, that large arc, that very important quarter-life.
We all have I heavily related to the characters in a way that I had not before it got it, made the story fresh and allowed me the space to actually think about their lives Amy's relatable and the choices that she made are relatable. As an adult to house the brokenness of society.
Julia: Yeah, because when we were kids, you don't realize how hard it is for your mom, our moms, we didn't know how hard it was for a moms.
We didn't understand that at 10. Right? Like that's not a thing. But then when we added add those 20. Well it's years later, you're just like, fuck. Yeah. Like that, like, nobody warned me, like all of this Hoole hoopla that goes on about how women do they're doing better now with actually talking about statistics and like bringing out the data behind it.
But when we were in high school, none of that information was really shared or discussed. And I feel like we really weren't prepared for just how imbalanced society was. And then, so you walk into. Is, and then you walk into, you know, a job with a certain type of expectation and they knock you down anyway.
And you're like, wait, I'm totally qualified. This is bullshit. Like what? Or like you get overlooked for promotion, even though you're the best player on the team. And like, just shit like that. There's like, there was nothing to prepare us for that. So I don't know about you, but I'm definitely fucking bitter as a mid to late thirties person about how.
Hard. It has been to get to the point where I'm just barely out of poverty. I did not
Deborah: remember that Meg has twins for some reason, and I have twins. So I really loved that part, especially because like the time period in which they lived, like that is not even a plausible thing to have two babies at once and live.
Yeah. Everybody's live and then it's so cute. And like the baby is in the mood. So cute. I just, it's such a long movie. I kind of thought it was over. And then I had this pleasant surprise towards the end.
Katie: I spent a good part of the movie really disliking John Brooks. That's his name? Right. And one. Only shining moments.
I thought in the 94 Virgin watching it this time around was when Meg said, I don't know how you did this four times Marmee. And Jen says yes, but never two at once. My darling. And I was like, there you are. I remember I liked you
Julia: once upon a time, once upon a time. Why didn't you like him so much prior to that?
Like what was different. I think
Katie: what I still like about this version of the movie has more to do with minus stall Joe for being that young and watching it so many times back
Julia: then,
Katie: because it is just such a straight ahead, straightforward retelling of the book. Um, it's not reinventing the wheel. Lovely and it remains lovely, but, um, Hey, I just don't think it hits me emotionally on a plot level, in the same way at once did,
Shy: oh, I find it way more relatable now that I'm an adult, but I also like relate now more to Marmies character than I ever did before.
Like having to juggle my daughter and my household and. Staying alive in a tumultuous time. I think I definitely really a lot to Marmee, but I do still feel connected to all four girls. Little women's always been one of my absolute favorite books. I have not read it in a really long time, but just talking about this makes me feel like I should delve back into it, but the movies.
Always been a huge part of my life. I watched them constantly, even when it's not like I, for some reason in my head, I consider them Christmas movies, even though like they have like two Christmas scenes in them. It's not Ms. Movie, but I still associate it with Christmas. So I
Julia: always watch it during that time.
Cause I feel like they always really, like, I feel like 94 was released at Christmas time in 2019 was definitely released at Christmas time.
Shy: It made me realize, like the struggle of being a woman is, has basically not stayed the same since 18 hundreds, but it sure feels like, you know, like we're still struggling and we're still trying to get our place at the table.
And it just, as much I felt like then that the new version did a really good job of modernizing it a lot. Like, I mean, it still felt very true to the time, but like, um, some of them. The conversations that they had. And some of the points that they made in the movie were definitely aimed more towards like modern day women.
But I, I always just feel like a wave of nostalgia when I watch little women, it's just always been like one of my comfort reads. So. Nostalgia empowerment, because it is such a beautiful story about a bunch of women. I feel like I'm wearing like a blanket when I watched that movie. Like, it's just so comforting and so like familiar.
And I just
Julia: love it when I reflect on little women, what sticks with me is like, Lori's love free tricks. Love the love the sisters have for each other. The story with all the themes that can be pulled from it. The one that I can't deny is love, and I'm a sorry, sucker for. If you've been listening to the show for a while, you know, that I love love.
And if you're new, just know that I am a hopeless, romantic, stuck in a cynic's life. So whenever I see Joe reject Laurie, it hurts. He was a person who would accept her for who she is. Family for what they are. He not only loved their company, but enjoyed it too. I want that. I want someone who wouldn't be.
Burdened by my enthusiasm and will love my quirky family, Joe and Lori push each other and challenge each other. But it's different. Joe pushes Lori because she's unable to achieve the things he's allowed. Lori wants to give Joe more, allow her to blossom to be herself, but that's not what she needs. When Joe meets Friedrich, I realized he challenges her and grounds her in ways.
Lori never could. And I want that too. I need both idealism and grounding. I love that she finds free drag, but for me, there's something different about both loves. And so naturally I asked my guests. Their thoughts too. Here's Carly.
Carly: When I first watched it as a kid, I was like, he's you got like, why can't you just, yeah, it's perfect.
I didn't understand it. I think as I got older, I mean, I get that the spark has to be there, but at the same time, A lot of things, fade in marriage and friendship is really the basis that you want to go off of. So like Y Y um, I was, yeah, I was tearing up. It was really hard. It was really, really hard. I felt really sad and shocked just like you.
I was thinking it's going to be different. I was thinking it's gonna be different in the book. And, and he was just like, he was in all the plays and like, and they had such amazing chemistry too. Like, it just seemed very like a wonderfully natural fit, but she had her reasons. So, I guess we just had to trust her.
I can never
Julia: remember her reasons. Cause to me, they all felt superficial when she was rejecting him. Like all the reasons why she was giving him reasons that she could not marry him, did not feel substantial enough to me to not be together. Maybe these are all the reasons why he loved her.
Carly: The only part that really, I mean the whole, like we're going to fight all the time, blah, blah, blah, this and that.
It's like, whatever you guys fight all the time as it is, who cares? Yeah. But the only part that felt genuine as far as like a reason for saying no, is that she's like, I just don't love you like that. And I mean, she knows him well enough to know. It's not like. Like she would know by now if she did, but I felt like every other reason was a dumb reason.
Julia: I disagree. I don't know if she would've known by now because they have very limited life experience at that. Or at least Joe does because they have true left Cambridge. They don't really have the luxury of, you know, being educated the way that Lori does, you know, they're not traveled in the way that Lori was, you know, hadn't gone
Carly: to New York yet.
Julia: She hadn't gone to New York yet. And I think
Carly: that wasn't that she homeschooled.
Julia: Yeah. I mean, so she really only,
Carly: we're only really knew like two people. Like to man and then her sister got with John. So it's really just the one,
Julia: right?
Carly: That's an excellent point.
Julia: So I felt like it was premature for her to reject him and to think that she didn't feel that way about him, which is why
that
Julia: scene in the 2019 version with the letter is so deeply emotional because it makes me think that Greta Gerwig also had a similar idea.
'cause then she goes off and she realizes, and she meets and she does, she lives a little bit. I mean, granted there's Friedrich at that point, but she comes home and there's something about coming home that makes you appreciate
Carly: things differently. Yeah. And she's re-evaluating at that point, everything happens with that.
And you know, her sister's a left, like Meg moved on and started the next chapter in her life. Amy moved on with the next chapter. Um, Beth moved on in a tragic way, and then she is left all by herself to like figure out, um, what's next for her. Something that I just thought about too, is that when he asked her the first time thinking about it from a.
Hasn't experienced life perspective. It's actually really good that she said no, because she never would have gone to New York. She never would have probably tried as many things as she tried. Um, and really, and would have been as surefooted about being self reliant. 'cause she wouldn't have had to, she would have just married, wealthy, and then had things taken care of it.
And she could have continued to write, but she wouldn't have had to pitch herself and make money type of thing, which is different.
Julia: And, you know, even the Laurie said, well, let's go to London and we'll do all these things like that. You don't know if that's actually gonna happen.
Carly: I
Sarah: have always been in the camp that lorry, although he loves all of the March girls, I don't feel like he actually romantically loved. I feel like he was young and he loved her family because he was always lacking a family.
His mother was an opera singer and his dad
Julia: was a.
Deborah: What did his dad, I
Carly: don't even remember
Sarah: their business.
Julia: Do they even talk about them in the book? I don't even remember if they talked about, I've read the book three times and I still have no idea what his
Sarah: dad. I just thought that his parents, he didn't have a traditional upbringing.
He didn't have a family surrounded by siblings and a dog and a
Julia: line from. Okay. It isn't true. You grew up around artists and vagrants and the theater where you born there.
Shy: She's
Julia: just, so
tell me everything.
Sarah: So look at that gossip. I feel like he wanted a family and he saw a family and he loved their family. Okay. He was closest to Joe. That was the one he was most like, and that's his friend. And so he, I think he confused it with romantic love. I think he loved her family and he loved her.
He loves her, but more like a sibling. And he just doesn't realize that because he'd never been close to any, his proposal was out of fear of losing them. And fear of the life that was expected of him, which is another side of, you know, misogyny that he's expected to go off and learn the business that is
Carly: until
Deborah: surely I'm with Joe on her side.
And I admire her very principle. Way in which she rejects him, but you emotionally, I'm like, why not marry her
Sarah: best
Carly: friend
Deborah: that you
Julia: love
Deborah: and that you have so much fun with and like, as portrayed on screen, like she doesn't have the same type of relationship, comfort to bowl relationship that she does with anyone else.
So it's like heartbreaking that she rejects
Julia: him.
Katie: I think it was a lot harder to accept with Winona Ryder and Christian bale, because they were both demonstrably adults when they were filming the scene and Timothy Shalla may looks like he will permanently be a child. And like, I would probably reject his ill thought out marriage proposal to you looks like he's 12 years old.
He hasn't thought it through and he's not ready to have a family or adult responsibilities period.
Julia: That's a really good point, Katie really good point. And you know what? You kind of hit something for me because I don't know if I like his Laurie and maybe that's why, because he looks so young. I mean, he's like 25, I think, but he's a, he's a young looking 25.
Katie: I did notice something interesting watching the 1994 version. Cause I just did it this morning. They do a lot of work to try and make Gabriel Byrne it's Gabriel Bird, right. That plays Friedrich and the, okay. They do a lot of work to try and parallel some of his mannerisms when he's first meeting Joe and kind of courting her with like her early interactions with Laurie.
It was really interesting there specifically the scene where he's like chasing the little girls that she's governess to around downstairs and the knees and even the way he is moving on all fours is like an exact mirror of how Christian bale did it when they were kids.
Deborah: That's very interesting. I didn't pick up on that.
Julia: Neither did I. Wow.
Katie: All that to say it was still wildly unsuccessful and he seems inappropriately old for.
Julia: Yeah, that was a hurdle for me as a child watching it. I was just like, I don't understand. He looks like a dad. Like, why would you reject Lori? Who is so cute, so handsome, the right kind of in my mind, the right kind of moody.
And he can play the piano and he thinks, and he re like, oh my God, how sexy is it when men read and like all these things. And then you have, yes, all these qualities about. Are great, but also he, he looks like a dad. I was glad that
Katie: they aged him down for the new movie. I think it worked a lot
Julia: better. Well, I feel like the
Shy: 94 version me when I watched it, I felt mostly like sadness and be wilderness because I didn't understand why.
And I felt like the wind, no, no writer reaction was more in sadness than the social Ronan version, which I felt was more like exasperations and kind of anger, but it made me feel like, oh, I, I get why she's doing this. Like as an adult, I feel like I get why she's like, no, I can't settle myself down. I don't want to get married.
I don't know. I want that life for me. Um, but I thought they did. I liked that it wasn't exactly the same. Like I felt like the version, the two different versions are very different from each other, but I just feel like later on that Amy and Lori are so perfect for each other. That I'm glad it doesn't work out.
I like Joe with Friedrich. So I dunno, I feel like it all happens.
Julia: Variation in the 25 year gap between Wynonna and searcher playing Josephine March, the world changed dramatically. And what wasn't possible in 1994 now is though there are still some restrictions. While an obvious choice to discuss would have been Josephine's negotiations with the publisher.
That didn't fascinate me as much. I don't know why not. And anytime someone brings it up, I happily engage in dialogue about. What I focused on was Amy speech to Lori while in Paris, a completely different type of plea and appeal compared to Samantha Mathis and Christian bale. And the changes in Joe's chase to catch Friedrich.
I asked my podcasting pals about these changes and here's what they had to do. First step Carly.
Carly: I loved Joe chasing Friedrich with like, get the horses I liked the whole family was there. I liked that Lori was there. I liked that. Wasn't his uncle there. Like everyone was there and it became this group activity and the whole family was like your in love.
And she's like, what are you talking about? And they're like, no, you're straight up in love right now. It reminds me of two things. One is the scene from nodding hill at the end, when they're racing across town and they're driving all crazy, like all the tiny car, and it just becomes this group thing. It was like that combined with just the sister energy and like getting somebody ready, really quick, brief list of stories.
My sister came home one time and she had like a band competition and then came home and then had to get ready for a dance. 20 minutes. And as a group, we were like, you got this. And like, she, she, um, you know, was doing the dress and one sister was doing the hair and another was doing the makeup and we made it this really big group activity, but it had that same energy of like the giggling and it's silly and it's ridiculous what's happening, but everyone's doing this stuff like out of love to like get them to where they need to be on time.
And. It really, really warmed my heart in a big way. I loved that change. And then it did have me reflecting on the last version. Cause I was like that wasn't what happened before. And I was like, oh, she just ran after him, which was beautiful. I love that. And then the, the line where he says like, my hands are empty and she's like, you know, maybe like, not anymore, like they never will be.
And then like puts her hands on that and then, you know, waterworks. So yes, I loved that change. It thrilled me to no end.
Julia: I love that. I love that team. It's so beautiful. So pure. And they're just like that line where he's just like, I'm just, he's basically saying I'm just a humble man who loves you ish.
Carly: It's beautiful. It's beautiful. It's just like nodding. Hell. I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy asking her to love, asking him to love. And you're like,
Sarah: I love Amy's speech. I think that that might be, that might be, I'm going to assume that's pretty universal. And it made, like you said, it made her redeemable a lot of her thoughts and actions redeemable.
Julia: Offline about how Amy's just a crap character in the book, in my opinion. And in the 94 version, she's also kind of a crap character and Greta Gerwig did everything she could to give her redeemable qualities that also feel very valid and timeless. Because if you think about it, like the reason why this book has never gone out of print is because these themes are still heavily relevant.
Yes.
Sarah: Yes. And so Amy speech. Spot on she, she had a choice and she had to make a choice and it's, it's not, um, it's not a matter of romance for her and love for her. There is a lot of thought that goes into. In her position in life, marrying anyone, she does make the decision to marry Lori and not Fred Vaughn.
And I always felt like that was also a redeemable quality because she said when she was young, she was going to marry for money. She makes that very clear. So she chose compatibility and somebody, she could actually see herself spending her life with some money with money, but, but also like she made, she made a sound choice.
Like that was a solid business choice. Amy, like you, you went well, your friend Vaughn, he has a lot of money, but he's boring. And that's a whole thing too. Right? He's boring. And Laurie points that out to her. Drywall. He's like, he's so boring. So she makes the decision. This is a person I'm comfortable with.
I've known my whole childhood. Um, I trust, um, he owns property near my family
Julia: and you know, he's going to love whatever children they have. He's
Sarah: going to be a good bargain. Um, she makes a very sound choice and I like seeing the process of her choice instead of just, she suddenly realizes she's always been in love with Lori.
Like she made a choice and just like Meg made a choice. She was making a choice and, and her choice was heavily influenced by the society she lives in, but she didn't fully make it just for society. She still made it for herself. And I feel like that. Um, huge. And, um, I still, and I will never like that they did that.
They eloped and that they did not, she did not, well, not even the wedding. It's not even the wedding. She did not talk to her sister before she did it. Unless there is an assumed long-term conversation going on, but there's an estrangement between Amy and Joe from childhood. So I don't imagine that there was ever a conversation about how Joe maybe felt the feelings that I feel about Laurie, or maybe had other reasons, but she did not consult her sister and say, Hey, I just want to make sure.
Yeah, you're my sister. And you come first because you're my sister, you know, bonds that are, she waits until after she's already married him. And then it's like, what does it matter, Amy? What are you going to do? Divorce him in 1870? No, you're not
Julia: happening. So, and also PSU still burned my
Carly: manuscript
Sarah: bitch.
My point is, is that the speech was important and it gives you a, a bigger thought process into what she might've been thinking in her decision. Okay, great. Um, still bothers me that she. Wait and, and talk to her sister about it because there was no reason why they couldn't be engaged. Do
Julia: you think though, that it has to do because of, uh, aunt March's death and that, you know, in death and grief, you kind of make decisions that you might not have normally
Sarah: made.
I mean, you sleep with people and death in grief, you don't
Carly: I liked the changes, but I feel like
Deborah: the next version of little women has to have some like queer theory. And recognize that Joe is going to like come out. She needs to like move to Paris and meet Gertrude Stein. I don't know if that's the right time
Julia: period or not, but a version of Gertrude Stein, you know, previous group, you know?
Yeah.
Deborah: But it's just, it's unbelievable to me. I think that she really is looking for love and marriage entirely. I don't know, but I do love the conceit with the editor where she's like, W walking through the plot and like, he's like, it has to end in a marriage. So you know that she's partly doing it because the editor has told her that that's the only way to
Carly: sell the book.
Right.
Julia: Yeah. I didn't even think to bring that up, to have a conversation about, oh my I'm so obsessed with love,
but you're not wrong. Like, that's a huge, that's a huge change to the narrative.
Katie: I just can't say enough, good stuff about Amy and her pragmatic streak in this movie and how much it's emphasized. Just the whole turn from Amy, the snob to Amy, the pragmatist, whose job it is to save her family and make the right choices.
Even though they're not necessarily the ones she wants to make. I appreciated that so much. And I thought it was a really beautiful way to take a classic. And think about what makes it special, not just about telling that story that we all know to really go deep into why it's such
Julia: a beloved story. I really got the sense that Greta Gerwig has an appreciation for not just the version we all grew up on, because I think she's like a year younger than me than I am, but also.
The source material, like you could tell, she was very mindful about like which sheet, which scenes she developed, what dialogue she pulled from the book. Like it was just clearly this person has an appreciation and affection for this story. I felt like
Shy: it did a lot of an exposition without taking up too much time, which was nice.
Also I love Lauren's pew and like her ignorant, like her just like frustration in that scene was like really good.
Julia: All my guests love little women. And what I appreciate the most is that they all have different views about the story, but there's one thing we all had in common clinic. Deans Beth, I'm going to let Katie kick us off this time.
Katie: Dan's cry face in this movie is just doing all the things. It is so peak. Angela Chase. It's beautiful.
Julia: Yes. I was having this conversation with somebody else. I was like Claire Danes as Beth is the best Beth ever. Like no one can do better than Claire Danes is Beth.
Carly: Claire dance was just amazing. When Claire Danes cries, I cry.
Yeah.
Julia: The scene where they give her the piano.
Carly: And they like can can't contain their excitement, the scene where Beth
Deborah: gets
Julia: so nervous because there's two new people and he's in, Lori's like very mindful, like these are friends, this is blah, blah, blah, and blah, blah from university. And I'm just okay. Like, and then the speech to the old man gives her about how he should have.
Carly: And then the one at the end where he's like, I just couldn't go in there since she's not there. And like, Joe is like, I know I'm not the same kind of friend, but like, I'll be your friend. And like just there them having that moment. That's really just based on their love for Beth, because she feels like Beth is the best of us.
I'm like
Julia: in the end though, our different takeaways is what makes little women's so great. Here's Carly
Carly: again, there's like this, um, dislike sibling. Forgiveness theme like Joe, just having to let it go about Amy, you know, marrying Laurie, she just had to like, just get over it instantly. She was like this I can't, but you know, she also, there's the whole thing with the book, the book burning, I become incensed with rage during that scene
incensed,
Sarah: the girl version is richer.
There's a lot of points in Greg's version that I feel. Um, not just more relatable, um, but also just stronger storyline. You could
Julia: tell she really does have an affection for
Carly: the story.
Sarah: Absolutely. But maybe if I was a ten-year-old girl today, And I saw both versions. Maybe the other version would live in my heart deeper.
Deborah: I feel like this can be the penultimate little women. I don't think there has to be another remake. I would still
Julia: watch one though. I do
Katie: think it was great that she gave all the girls their own lives in this version. Really just rewatching the 1994 version bag. It's like a nothing character, but. And she gets all these lovely moments from Emma Watson, her dealing with her constant poverty and how that makes her feel.
I just, I think it's such a well-rounded picture of all four of these sisters in a way that we haven't necessarily seen before.
Deborah: Yeah. I do have a quick question for you, Katie. I don't have sisters and Katie grew up with, in a family of four girls. Did you and your sisters ever play a
Carly: little women?
Julia: Not that I
Katie: can remember, honestly.
But yeah, everything I consume with four sisters in it, I made it, I immediately slot all of us into
Carly: those categories.
Deborah: I have to. At first
Shy: I was really confused when I was watching the 2019 version because, um, the way they chunked up the time, I was like, wait, hold on. We're totally going out of chronological order because that's how I'm used to reading the book, how I'm used to watching the 99 84 version.
And I thought it was a really interesting choice, but I really did that. How she juxtapose the past, um, like the past scenes with the current scenes for the characters. And I really loved the ending in the way that I felt like suddenly you weren't watching Joe anymore. When she was dealing with the publisher, you're watching Louisa may Alcott and like dealing how she would have dealt with the publisher.
Like is the, the ending of fictional piece or is that just how, what she wrote to make the publisher happy? Or, you know what I mean? Like a kind of, it kind of threw up some questions that I never really thought about before, after watching the movie. Cause I know that she used is very like autobiography biographical of her.
Like the girls are all parts of Louisa may Alcott herself. So I thought that was a really cool choice to make, but there was also the throwaway line in the book too. Like. W who wants to read about this. And then I think Amy said, well, if you write about it, it will be important to people. And I think that's what Louisa may Alcott did with her book too.
It really resonated with a lot of people. I felt like all of us were those three little girls at the publishing office going, what happens next? You have to finish this story. I liked that they made that choice too, that the publisher was like, nah. And then his daughters were the ones that were like, no, you
Julia: need to give us this.
I agree with you. I like that she added that in there and I think it's, it, it, maybe it wasn't intentional to be a commentary on representation and giving people what they want. But I think that cause Greta Gerwig had a really, she had to fight to be able to not just write the story, but then also direct it because I think she pitched it and like got the opportunity to write it, but then they wanted to hire somebody else to direct it.
And she was like, this is my baby. I'm directing it. And that became like a. I don't want to say a battle, but she definitely had to like advocate for herself to be the director. And I don't think anybody else could have told the story in the way that she told the story. Yeah. I feel like she's a really great storyteller.
What's really outraged when it was announced that they were going to do a remake because the 1994 version is just so well done in my mind. I know other people have different opinions. A lot of purists are, you know, annoyed that they keep it casting fairly attractive women to be Joe, because in the book she's not described as being a beautiful woman, but I was just like the fuck.
Are you doing like, I'm sorry, what? Like I was not, and it was already not in a great place. Anyway, emotionally with my life, because I, and I've talked about this with you offline, and I think I've talked about it on the podcast too, but we're just like, I'm just so irritated that I still live here. And I have basically like pre Joe's life before she goes to Manhattan where it's just like, Listless, I'm bored.
I'm trying to do things and nothing's moving forward. Like that frustration. I, 100% feel that with her. And I think I felt that with her, my entire life, because I feel like I've always wanted to not stay here from the minute I realized that I didn't fit here. And so, so when they're like credit curl wigs, written a new version and all these things, and I was like, Look, we ain't got that kind of emotional, whatever, and don't fuck with my childhood.
Carly: I have to, so I try and check myself with the remakes because my first inclination is rage, but then I try and remember, I'm like, wait, how long has it been? And then it's usually been 20, 25 years. And then I have to remember that I'm just getting older and that's, that's a part of it is that everything gets remade every 20 years.
And then, then I try and let the rage subside, not everything, not everything gets remade, but. When things do get remade it's generally because it's been 20 or 25 years. Yeah. So I think it's, I think it's just part of aging and I think we might just need to let it go so that we're filled with less rage in the future because it's going to keep happening.
Julia: That because it was done. So,
Carly: wow. It was
Julia: amazing sort of like, it was that moment of like, now this is how you do a remake. Yeah.
Carly: The last time I read the book was actually just four years ago. And I remember it specifically because it was right before Corey and I moved and I knew that I couldn't take it with me because we were going to go traveling for a bit.
And I was like, Girl. Like, I cannot take this book. It's half my carry on. So you need to be done with this by the time we're leaving because we're leaving and the book needs to stay. Yeah. And I can't just like leave little women, so, right. So it was, I was power reading through the end and I finished it maybe, uh, with a day to go or something.
So.
Julia: I think that it's going to be a story that's always going to get retooled because it's in constant circulation. The. They're never going to stop. We're always going to be fighting to have a place to fit now more than ever. For me, Josephine marches, one of the few literary characters portrayed on screen, who gave me permission to be wild, creative, and challenge the status quo.
And the 1994 version was a quietly nuanced reminder that women still weren't free to move about. I want to thank my guests again for joining me today for this discussion. Carly Adams, from our Moxy episode, owner of tidy revival, Sarah from our gossip girl, summer recaps, Debra and Katie from it's my screen time too, and shy our resident Marvel guru.
And while I've got you here, be sure to like subscribe, leave a review of the show where ever you get your podcasts. It would mean the world to me. Thanks for tuning in y'all.
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