Transcript - BSFC #17: Mary Anne’s Bad-Luck Mystery
Brooke Suchomel: 0:19
Welcome to the Baby-sitters Fight Club, where the first rule is, you don't talk about Fight Club. Instead you talk about the battles fought and the lessons learned in the Baby-sitters Club series of books by Ann M. Martin. I'm Brooke Suchomel, an editor who's revisiting these books after 30 years.
Kaykay Brady: 0:34
And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist and a Baby-sitters Club newbie.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:39
This episode, we're discussing book 17, Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery, which was published in October 1988. So as we always do, let's start by putting this book into some historical context with a little pop culture history from October 1988. So the music that you were listening to at the time, you had a range of music at number one, including everything from Phil Collins' "Groovy Kind of Love" and Def Leppard's "Love Bites," to UB40's "Red Red Wine," which is hard to say and was ubiquitous at the time. Do you remember "Red Wed-" "Red Wed, Wed Red-"
Kaykay Brady: 1:17
It's hard! It's hard.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:17
"Red Red Wine"?
Kaykay Brady: 1:18
Yes, I remember it. And I remember being extremely annoyed by the music video where he's clearly drinking beer, and they color it red. And I was like, Do you think I'm a fool? I may be 12 years old, but I see that that's a beer. I'm an Irish person, you can't fool me. Was it foamy? No. I mean, it looked like a flat beer, but it's like a stein of beer. Watch it again. It's clear.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:42
He's supposed to be drinking red red wine in a stein? That's really hard, "Red red wine in a stein."
Kaykay Brady: 1:51
Red red wine in a stein. Red red wine in a stein. Red red wine in a stein. You gotta go fast. I just figured it out.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:56
Yeah, it's like "red leather, yellow leather." Like, that's the new one. Clearly, this is what people were doing to warm up in improv groups in 1988, "red red wine in a stein."
Kaykay Brady: 2:07
So of those three songs, you know, I think "Red Red Wine" stands the test of time. The other two, ugh. Just a little fart, they get little farts.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:16
Little fart at number one. There were lots of farts at number one in the 80s, you will find, and the gems are to be found further down the charts.
Kaykay Brady: 2:24
Good point.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:25
And so that one in October '88, and I'll be interested to hear if you have the same reaction that I do, was New Kids on the Block's "Please Don't Go Girl."
Kaykay Brady: 2:34
Ah. I don't know, what's your reaction? I'll withhold mine. I don't wish to offend.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:40
You didn't withhold your reaction. It's impossible. That was revealing your reaction, very clearly.
Kaykay Brady: 2:47
I'm too gay for them. I just thought they were stupid. I know. My sister was obsessed with them, and I know our friends are obsessed with them. So we might have to delete this so I still have some friends after this.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:59
No, it's fine. It's fine. We welcome people of all races, creeds, religions and perspectives on New Kids on the Block. It's okay.
Kaykay Brady: 3:08
We're gonna write that into the diversity guidelines.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:11
Right. It was the first single from Hanging Tough, though, so this was their first commercial hit. Came in at number 10. It was sung by Joey McIntyre, who was the young one, and so he was the non threatening one. I had such a crush on him. I had his New Kids on the Block little figure, like the Barbies that they made.
Kaykay Brady: 3:32
I didn't know, that's so great.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:33
And I remember that his favorite drink was water. I had the New Kids on the Block interview book, where they ask them just totally brain dead innocuous questions. No one’s favorite drink was water. So I remember reading that and questioning my affection, but then I overcame it. I was like, it's okay. He can love water. I love him.
Kaykay Brady: 3:38
I thought you were gonna say you had the New Kids on the Block flavored water. Which I would believe you if you told me it existed.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:02
Yeah, no, at that time, what would that have been, like New Kids on the Block branded candy cigarettes or something? That seems more 80s.
Kaykay Brady: 4:08
I loved candy cigarettes!
Brooke Suchomel: 4:10
Candy cigarettes are the shit.
Kaykay Brady: 4:11
You had to get the ones that puffed. There were the shitty ones that just looked like a cigarette, but nothing happened. But there were ones that actually puffed, like you could puff the sugar out.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:21
Oh, really? Shit. We didn't have those.
Kaykay Brady: 4:26
Iowa didn't have those?
Brooke Suchomel: 4:28
No.
Kaykay Brady: 4:29
Well, now I know what to get you for your birthday.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:32
Thank you.
Kaykay Brady: 4:32
Joey...what was his last name?
Brooke Suchomel: 4:34
McIntyre.
Kaykay Brady: 4:35
A Joey McIntyre oversized sweatshirt, and candy cigarettes that puff.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:40
Oh God, I will be the coolest girl in my neighborhood.
Kaykay Brady: 4:46
Even more so than you are now.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:47
I mean, for real. I can't wait for that. The movies were a little bit of a bummer. I didn't see anything that was really light and fun, although I did see Mystic Pizza came out.
Kaykay Brady: 4:59
Oh yeah. I love Mystic Pizza.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:00
Okay good, cuz I've never seen it in my life, so I have no opinion on it whatsoever.
Kaykay Brady: 5:04
It's very Baby-sitters Club.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:06
Really?
Kaykay Brady: 5:07
Well, because it's sisters. They all have, you know, unique different personalities, desires in life, and it's sort of them trying to navigate, I think they live in Mystic, Connecticut, which is kind of lower on the socio economic spectrum. And all the rich people come to visit and they serve them pizza. But yeah, Mystic Pizza was great. And it was, um, what's her name from Pretty Woman?
Brooke Suchomel: 5:34
Julia Roberts.
Kaykay Brady: 5:35
Yeah, Julia Roberts. And I'm so brain dead, I can't remember any of them. Anyway, there was like a tomboy one there.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:42
Lili Taylor.
Kaykay Brady: 5:43
Yeah. So worth watching. It was definitely an HBO special. It was on HBO all the time.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:50
So that was one side of the movie theater in October '88. On the other side, you had The Accused.
Kaykay Brady: 5:58
Ah.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:59
Have you seen The Accused?
Kaykay Brady: 6:00
Definitely. Triggered.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:02
Tell me about that, the look that you had on your face...
Kaykay Brady: 6:05
Well, it's, uh, Jodie Foster, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 6:07
Yeah. She won the Oscar for it.
Kaykay Brady: 6:09
Hideous sexual assault.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:11
Yep.
Kaykay Brady: 6:12
Nuff said.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:13
I found this really interesting, and this is why I was like, okay, so I know that this is dark. But I think it's worth talking about, since we're taking a look back at, how did we get where we are today in 2021? Like, kind of looking at these books as a time capsule of America at that time, and so reading this book in the context of this movie that had come out, that was extremely controversial when it came out. It was so controversial because, you know, as you mentioned, it had a really graphic rape scene. It was like the first movie in wide release, really, that had a frank depiction of rape. That didn't look away from it, or sanitize it, or try to make it like a quote unquote, "ideal victim," you know. The filmmakers were deliberately trying to portray a reality of what sexual assault is like and the impact that it has on the victim.
Kaykay Brady: 7:10
Yeah. And wasn't the big gist of the plot, also, was this trauma of the trial, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 7:15
Exactly, yeah. It's all about the trauma. It's not like, Okay, this is something that you just overcome. No, like, let's really take a dive into this. The producer, Sherry Lansing, who was a groundbreaking woman in film, she said that the early test screenings of this had the lowest scores in the history of Paramount, who made it, because the audience said that the character deserved her rape. So they were just gonna put it on the shelf, because the audience was like, Oh, who cares that she got raped? She was drunk at a bar. She deserves it.
Kaykay Brady: 7:45
Cuz she's dancing and drunk in a bar.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:51
Right, exactly. This is America at the time. This is America in the 80s. And this is still America in a lot of places today. Like, you know, you brought it on yourself. So this movie was going to be shelved, because of all of these audience members saying, Who cares? She got what was coming to her. And so she said, Look, I want to do another screening. And it's women only.
Kaykay Brady: 8:14
Damn!
Brooke Suchomel: 8:14
No men are allowed in this screening.
Kaykay Brady: 8:15
I was gonna say, who the fuck did they put in the screening? So you're saying it was gender mixed.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:20
Yep. So then when it was women only, it was
Kaykay Brady: 8:21
Yeah, no trauma informed anything. off the charts positive. And 18 out of 20 of the women who saw
Brooke Suchomel: 8:25
Right. And she had been, a few years before. it said that they had experienced with rape. Either they were raped or somebody that they knew was raped, and so it was them being able to see for the first time, Okay, this is And so she was like, "I didn't know what to do, so I just actually a realistic depiction of this. It was really groundbreaking. And Jodie Foster goes on to win the Oscar for her performance. It was really controversial where Kelly McGillis, who plays the attorney, when she was doing press, and this is the thing in the 80s, and even in the 90s, and even today, people would just be like, "Oh, have you been raped? What do you know about rape?" answered honestly." And it was like, scandalous. People were like, Oh, she's just trying to get attention for herself. Everything around this movie is such a time capsule of rape culture in America. You know, when we're reading these books, I think it's important to understand what was going on in the culture as a whole. It's not like, you know, you're an eight year old kid, you're watching The Accused.
Kaykay Brady: 9:39
I was. Or maybe I wasn't 8. When did it come out, in '88?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:46
'88, yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 9:47
Well, I was probably 11 when I saw it.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:50
You know, but no matter what, this is the culture that you're living in. These are the messages. These are the conversations that you're having, even if it's like not people in your house that are having it, there are a handful of channels, you're going to be hearing about it in the news somehow. So whoever was reading this book at the time, that is the sort of, as you always say, the soup that they're swimming in.
Kaykay Brady: 10:11
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:12
So that was an important note for how women were perceived in the movies. And then on TV, we have some other groundbreaking and also interesting time capsules happening. So first of all, Roseanne premiered. Do you remember the talk about Roseanne when it came out?
Kaykay Brady: 10:32
I remember my dad's talk of Roseanne when it came out.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:35
What was your dad's talk of Roseanne?
Kaykay Brady: 10:37
You know, he just thought she was horrible, and like, a gross fat pig. Dad, I hope you're not listening to this, but I do remember you called Roseanne a gross, fat pig.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:47
It's not like he was unique in that. That was kind of the common thing was like, how shocking, like Roseanne was shocking when it came out.
Kaykay Brady: 10:56
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:57
Because, you know, nobody in the cast adhered to typical beauty standards. It wasn't glamorous. For me, you know, you were saying a couple episodes ago, watching Annie and reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, you're like, "This is my family. Is this special?"
Kaykay Brady: 11:13
Oh wow! That's Roseanne?
Brooke Suchomel: 11:15
Yeah. Not so much my family dynamics per se, but definitely like, my friends, the environment, the culture that I was in. Working class, Midwest, you know, smaller community. Everybody worked, and the work that you did was not glamorous. Everybody is just trying to earn a paycheck, living paycheck to paycheck.
Kaykay Brady: 11:39
Hanging on a combine, managing a Dairy Queen, if you're lucky.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:43
Exactly!
Kaykay Brady: 11:44
Rocking a call center on your happiest days, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:47
Think about the shows that had working moms before that. You had, what, One Day at a Time?
Kaykay Brady: 11:52
Yeah, some of those 70 shows, absolutely.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:54
You had some of it. But then it was always kind of like, "look at them striving," and uplifting, and kind of like they're the pure center. And Roseanne was like, it just didn't seem like anybody in that show, until later seasons, was striving for something better. Because there was really not much better to strive for. Like, you had Darlene, who wanted to get out, but you don't have a lot of examples of that.
Kaykay Brady: 12:17
God, you're really blowing my mind with this take on Roseanne, because if you think about most shows, they're all trying to peddle that sort of "work harder, strive strive strive" American Dream type thing. And like, how cool to have a show where that's not really front and center.
Brooke Suchomel: 12:35
No, it's just people getting laid off. Like, you can try to break out on your own, I remember Dan started like a motorcycle shop or something like that, and it went under. You know, you're working in a factory, and then toward the end, it completely jumped the shark where they won the lottery or some stupid shit like that.
Kaykay Brady: 12:51
Then they moved to LA, like the Beverly Hillbillies?
Brooke Suchomel: 12:54
Yeah, obviously, it's unfortunate that she completely lost the plot. Because it's funny, you know what she was vilified for at the time, I remember like how scandalous it was when the first prime time lesbian kiss was on Roseanne. It wasn't on Ellen.
Kaykay Brady: 13:10
Was it the sister?
Brooke Suchomel: 13:11
I don't think it was two central characters. Sandra Bernhard was on a lot.
Kaykay Brady: 13:15
I don't I remember this.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:17
I dunno.
Kaykay Brady: 13:18
You think I should. I probably blocked it out. I was too young. I was so in the closet. If I saw it, I probably went blind for a few days.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:26
You were like, "Ladies kissing? Ew!"
Kaykay Brady: 13:27
Oh, no, I was such a homophobe when I was little, because that's what you are first, when you're terrified of who you actually are inside.
Brooke Suchomel: 13:35
Right. She has certainly jumped the shark as a person, and that show jumped the shark later on, but it was really groundbreaking. Being a mom and working and not being perfect and struggling to get by. To have a show about that was really controversial, but it was a smash hit. It was the number two show in its first season. Cosby Show was number one, followed by Roseanne.
Kaykay Brady: 13:59
Yeah, and you point out something so powerful, too, is the non traditional beauty standards. Like, what a fucking revolution that is, just having a fat character on a show, and the ways that that challenges patriarchy.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:14
Right. And it wasn't, like, about her body. Her body was just her body. It wasn't about like, Oh, she needs to lose weight. We're gonna make a ton of jokes about it, you know. It just was what it was, and so people just went on about their life. So yeah, it was really groundbreaking. So you had that show coming on and holding up the mirror to a part of reality in America that wasn't really seen too much on primetime. And then the same month, you had unreality that people thought was reality, that was highlighted in primetime, because NBC aired a two hour special this month called "Devil Worship, Exposing Satan's Underground."
Kaykay Brady: 15:01
Satanic Panic!
Brooke Suchomel: 15:02
Satanic Panic, that was hosted by Geraldo Rivera. And let me tell you, this is a real piece of shit. So I watched the entire thing.
Kaykay Brady: 15:17
You are committed, my friend. If I ever doubted your commitment to this podcast, all doubt cast aside.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:24
My husband's very frustrated that now when I go to YouTube, my YouTube algorithm is all like, "Would you like to watch more videos about Satanism?"
Kaykay Brady: 15:38
"Why, yes!"
Brooke Suchomel: 15:40
But I mean, the through line from the Satanic Panic... '88, this is like peak Satanic Panic, right? Do you remember Satanic Panic?
Kaykay Brady: 15:52
Definitely. I mean, I guess I just remember it being in the news all the time. And I don't know, I grew up Catholic. We live in Satanic Panic. So who fucking knows, it could have just been normal Catholic Satanic Panic.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:06
Right. But my husband, he was like, "What are you doing?" He comes home and I'm on part 10 of this Satanic Panic documentary from Geraldo Rivera.
Kaykay Brady: 16:18
"Are you worried about me? I can't imagine why."
Brooke Suchomel: 16:21
I know, I know. And I'm like, you know, what's so fucked, in high school civics class- Civics! The course where you're supposed to learn how to be an American. So my civics class was taught by our football coach.
Kaykay Brady: 16:39
I shouldn't throw shade. I mean, maybe he's a scholar and an athlete. What do I know?
Brooke Suchomel: 16:43
No no, the shade is warranted. Our civics class was pretty much watching movies in between his diatribes that he would go on, and we watched Satanic Panic primetime specials in civics class.
Kaykay Brady: 16:59
Damn.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:00
This is mid 90s. This was actually after the Satanic Panic had gone away a little bit, but the Satanic Panic never went away. It just morphed, right? Now we have it as QAnon and the Illuminati.
Kaykay Brady: 17:15
Yeah, "pizza shop pedophiles."
Brooke Suchomel: 17:17
Exactly. In a lot of ways, I think you can go back and point to this as being like, this is where the country jumps the fucking shark.
Kaykay Brady: 17:25
True.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:26
With this particular quote, unquote, "documentary," which was a special, it was really controversial at the time, because this was recently after they did the signing of Geraldo Rivera, but they signed him to the entertainment division and not the news division.
Kaykay Brady: 17:40
Infotainment.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:41
This was all produced by Entertainment, and so it was not held up to the standards of their news division. So NBC refused to promote it. The Today show was like, No, we're not going to promote that, it doesn't meet our standards. Tom Brokaw said in an interview at the time, "We feel very strongly about the need to protect the integrity of our product and of this network. I think that opening that kind of door to quasi news programs cheapens the genuine news product."
Kaykay Brady: 18:06
Way to go, Tom.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:07
And how right he was. So this is just an absolute shit show of a special. He straight up says, "We know what's going on in this country. Our big question tonight is why."
Kaykay Brady: 18:22
It's that psychological phenomenon I was telling you about, where you start with an assumption that is not an assumption at all, and then you go further. And that's how it gets solidified.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:32
Exactly. So it's like, "We don't have to think about this critically, we just know that this is true. This is true." And so then it's like, your listener doesn't go, "Well, wait a minute. How do we know this is true?"
Kaykay Brady: 18:39
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:40
How do you know this is true? It's like, "No, no, no, you can't question it. It's just true." It's this blind faith, right? So the whole thing is he's talking about, "Why are satanic crimes so underreported? Why aren't the cops coming out and acknowledging that this is satanic?" Because it's not satanic crimes. Like, there's a really obvious answer there. Maybe they know it's actually not satanic shit! Maybe you're just trying to stir stuff up. For instance, immediately after they air footage of these concert attendees saying straight up, "Satanism has nothing to do why we're in a mosh pit. We're just here to have fun. We're not coming to this music to be preached at about Satanism. It's just heavy metal music that we're just moshing around to," one of the kids that they talk to actually is like, "The parents are the ones who are fucking up. We're fine. We're just here to have a good time." You know, immediately after that, Geraldo goes, "Whatever the connection, there is no doubt that teenage satanic activity in this country is increasing dramatically."
Kaykay Brady: 19:34
Damn.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:36
He interviews Ozzy Osborne. He interviews convicted murderers who killed people when they were teens, who are on death row, who claimed Satanism as a defense. It was just these defense attorneys trying to get these kids off by being, "Okay, say it was that so that you can get not guilty by reason of insanity, get out." And he has one who is on, he's talking to this kid and he's like, "What did Satanism have to do with your murder of your parents?" And he's like, "Well, how the way it was... that's a good question...," like, he can't figure out how to answer. All of a sudden you hear somebody interrupt and go, "Oh, well, let me explain this to you. It's because he had broken all of the other Ten Commandments." It's this guy who wrote a freaking book about Satanism, who is literally sitting there and putting words in his mouth, and so they pan over to him. And then he immediately jumps to asking if satanic possession is possible to a priest, who is, quote, the Chief Exorcist of the Archdiocese of New York. I plug his name into the Google. Has this man been credibly accused of sexual assault? He sure fucking has.
Kaykay Brady: 20:45
It is so amazing that you're saying that, because as you're talking about this I'm thinking, the parents are all losing their mind over this nonsense. And like, what about priests molesting kids? I actually thought of that, like, what are the real threats? Maybe somebody in the family? We know, most kids that are assaulted are assaulted by someone that they know.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:04
Yep. And same thing with kids who are trafficked, right? It's not like they're being kidnapped off the street and shipped across the country or the world in Wayfair things by Tom Hanks. It's close to home, but people can't acknowledge it. That's too scary.
Kaykay Brady: 21:18
Yeah. And it's such a beautiful pure example of projection, right? The psychological concept of projection where you don't actually want to see what's really happening, and so you're going to project it into something else, so that it's defendable, less scary, less messy.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:35
Yeah. And it's how people who do seek to do harm, they know that and they can use that. Get real close to it and say that you know what's going on. Something bad is going on, and you know who's doing it. It's that person over there. And so it's that "look over there, look over there" to you, so that you're looking in the other direction while they are the ones doing it. So this person sitting on the stage, who is the first person that Geraldo turns to in this special for confirmation that satanic possession and, you know, causing the sacrifices and everything is a real thing, is a person who is doing that. You are talking to the actual perpetrator of these crimes that you're trying to get them to handle, and asking that person for their thoughts on what's going on. Of course they're gonna lie to you.
Kaykay Brady: 22:26
And it's just so amazing to think, you know, he's literally wearing a costume of the opposite of satanic, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 22:35
Yeah, so, "You don't have to worry about me, look."
Kaykay Brady: 22:36
The hypocrisy of it is unreal, and the psychological vulnerabilities of human beings are just so laid bare in this example, it's tremendous.
Brooke Suchomel: 22:47
And you see it throughout. I was alternately enraged at what was going on, like, the rhetorical techniques that were being used, the way that people were being manipulated, that viewers were being manipulated, that they're just pumping this fucking nonsense into their heads and the fear, like, "This is everywhere. This is in your town," you know. So these techniques that you see today on Fox News, it was really starting to ramp up in the 80s. You get a lot of references to witchcraft in this.
Kaykay Brady: 23:17
Yeah! Shout out to the book!
Brooke Suchomel: 23:19
The evidence for Satanism, things to look for, is if your teenager starts to withdraw from family activities and doesn't even want to eat dinner with you.
Kaykay Brady: 23:28
We call that developmentally appropriate.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:31
We call it being a fucking teenager. So the thing that's horrifying is, first of all, they interview all of these kids from daycares. You know, this was when they were saying like, basically...
Kaykay Brady: 23:40
Yeah, all these daycares were getting shut down. People were getting arrested. It was crazy.
Brooke Suchomel: 23:44
People spending decades of their life in prison, on testimony of kids who were like, "He flew through the air and he made me eat a baby." Clearly they're just making shit up. Like, people don't fly through the air. "Oh, the baby was flushed down the toilet." That's silly. Obviously, that's not real. But people are just going with it, because for the first time, people were actually believing that, "Okay, when kids say that they were molested, maybe we should listen to them." People haven't found the boundary of like, are you planting this in their head? Are you jumping to assumptions? Like, yeah, believe kids, but it doesn't mean that literally every kid out there is getting molested.
Kaykay Brady: 24:26
Yeah. The good thing that came out of this, I believe, was that they started to think about human psychology and police interrogations. Because all of this was getting planted with these kids who were basically trying to please the interviewer, and feeling like, "Oh, this is what they want me to say." And so I think it was the first time that a critical lens was brought to like, Okay, how do you interview kids in a way where you can get the truth and hear their voice, and not give them the impression that you want them to say something in particular?
Brooke Suchomel: 25:01
Right. So what ended up happening was just horrifying. But it was still going on at this time, and so they were taking it all as gospel. They're interviewing these parents that are leading these charges and the things that they're saying, all tie directly to QAnon right now, are all just silly. The thing that was really disturbing is that they were showing these kids in this with their faces, with their names at the bottom, like, you've got a four year old and you're showing that in this quote, unquote "documentary," which was just propaganda garbage. They showed what they said, "This is proof," and it was a kid's drawings of what happened.
Kaykay Brady: 25:39
Ohhh...
Brooke Suchomel: 25:40
So you say "Ohhh" until I tell you what the drawings were, because they're fucking hilarious. There's this one. So it's a tombstone that says RIP, there's a dancing skeleton next to it. There's Pac Man ghosts. They're literal Pac Man ghosts coming out. That's proof that's presented as proof that there are satanic rituals going on. It's an obvious, like, kid drew a picture of Halloween. Yes, no, Pac Man ghosts are real. Come the fuck on people.
Kaykay Brady: 26:09
I would listen to an entire podcast of you excoriating Geraldo.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:13
There's a podcast called You're Wrong About that's really, really great. One of the hosts of that is actually like, Satanic Panic, she's doing a ton of research, she's writing a book on it. They've got an episode from 2018 that gives a good overview of this, so I'll link to that. Also, there've been a couple of different bloggers who have gone in and just eviscerated this particular Geraldo special.
Kaykay Brady: 26:34
Well, thank god it took Geraldo down. Thank god.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:37
Oh, yeah yeah yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 26:38
Thank god we don't have to deal with him anymore.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:40
Right, exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 26:41
I mean, do you remember that stupid, uh, Al Capone's vault? I watched that whole thing.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:48
I remember watching it too.
Kaykay Brady: 26:50
It was like a phenomenon.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:52
Right, and it was literally nothing.
Kaykay Brady: 26:54
It was like, Oh, here's a shitty old bottle that probably is from 10 years ago. That's what I remember.
Brooke Suchomel: 26:59
NBC saw that and they were like, "You know what? This is the guy to actually investigate what's going on with satanism in America."
Kaykay Brady: 27:07
"Time to hitch our wagon to this star."
Brooke Suchomel: 27:09
Right? So sponsors wouldn't air commercials, but the National Enquirer ran two, and it was a huge ratings hit. 20 million people watched it. This was bigger than Monday Night Football when it aired.
Kaykay Brady: 27:22
That's so sad.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:23
So this is the world in which the 17th book in the Baby-sitters Club series, Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery, was released, and it's relevant! So it's time for some back cover copy, and I quote, "Mary Anne should never have thrown away that chain letter she got in the mail. Ever since she did, bad things have been happening, to everybody in the Baby-sitters Club. With Halloween coming up, Mary Anne's even more worried. What kind of spooky thing will happen next? Then Mary Anne finds a new note in her mailbox. Wear this bad luck charm, it says, or else. Mary Anne's got to do with the note says. But who sent the charm? And why did they send it to Mary Anne? If the Baby-sitters don't solve this mystery soon, their bad luck might never stop!" End quote. So that's how this book is described in the back cover copy. Kaykay, were there any other key plot points that you think were overlooked?
Kaykay Brady: 28:21
Yeah, the Logan horseshit! The Logan total nonsense.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:27
What's the Logan total nonsense horseshit?
Kaykay Brady: 28:30
So it turns out that the person that gave the charm to Mary Anne is someone who wants to get with Logan, and her friend. And then they ask Mary Anne to go to a graveyard, and they're gonna like, try to make her look like a loser in front of Logan. They tell Mary Anne she has to go to the graveyard in like creepy serial killer cut out letters, like people who kidnap people do.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:57
Ransom note.
Kaykay Brady: 28:58
Ransom note. Yeah, exactly. They do a ransom note letter.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:00
Reading it now you're like, Oh, it's My Favorite Murder. Very My Favorite Murder logo.
Kaykay Brady: 29:04
Yeah, yeah, exactly. It looks just like that. And then they also invite Logan and Logan's like, "Why not? I'll go to the cemetery some random stranger's inviting me to."
Brooke Suchomel: 29:16
Logan's from the south. Ann M. Martin goes out of her way to be like, Logan sounds like Foghorn Leghorn, where she spells out what he's saying phonetically.
Kaykay Brady: 29:27
The mom is even better, hold on. "You two look wonderful. It's just that I've never driven anywhere with cat people in the back seat." That's Mom talking about their costumes. It's also Halloween. There's a lot going on.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:44
Because they dress up for the Halloween Hop.
Kaykay Brady: 29:46
As cats.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:47
It's Return of the Halloween Hop, but they both went to Cats, the musical.
Kaykay Brady: 29:51
And were so impressed by it.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:52
I have a theory about Logan. But go ahead.
Kaykay Brady: 29:55
Anyway, and then it turns out the Baby-sitters Club get wise to it before it actually goes down, and they get to the cemetery first, and they scare these two girls and make them look stupid. So that's the nonsense that's not included in that.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:13
Yeah, normally these books, again, as we'll say, for most of the books, there's multiple sort of plots going on. There's different things happening. There's like a deeper context.
Kaykay Brady: 30:24
Yeah, and they all kind of intertwine thematically.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:27
Right, and the plot that is described on the back is sort of like a surface level plot. But in this book, it really is basically everybody just spiraling because of their fears of this threat of "beware of evil forces," literally.
Kaykay Brady: 30:44
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 30:44
So there's not much else going on.
Kaykay Brady: 30:46
It is very like... I said what they were fighting was, you know, fighting forces well beyond their control. Mm hmm. All right, so what's your Logan theory?
Brooke Suchomel: 30:55
Oh, Mary Anne's his beard.
Kaykay Brady: 30:57
Yeah. You're like, "Duh! Do I really need to spell this out for you?"
Brooke Suchomel: 31:03
Yeah. I mean, Logan...he's this breed of toxic masculinity where, for instance, he'll wear a matching costume with his girlfriend, but he won't go into a store to buy fabric on his own. He has to have her go in too, because boys can't buy fabric.
Kaykay Brady: 31:22
Right? It's a little "thy doth protest too much."
Brooke Suchomel: 31:25
Exactly. Fabric, because they both went to the Broadway show Cats, and both want to dress up as cats from the Broadway show Cats, together.
Kaykay Brady: 31:35
I mean, right there.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:36
I just have questions, that's all. But it's the same thing, where it's like, he will hang out with his girlfriend and her friends and speculate about what this bad luck charm is, and all of that, but it's a step too far for him to go to the library with them. Basically, he can't be seen in public doing things that aren't hypermasculine.
Kaykay Brady: 31:58
Good point.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:59
It's that perception, so kind of like you were saying, how, if there was anything that was like, "Oh, girls kissing, I can't see that!" Because you feel like you need to really prove how...
Kaykay Brady: 32:11
Yeah, you have to be hyper aware of that and hyper protective.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:15
He seems hyper aware and hyper protective, is what I'm saying.
Kaykay Brady: 32:18
Yeah. And you have to do that not only for other people's perception, but your own sort of repression as a dual purpose.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:26
Exactly. And then he's also just a dick. So at the end, when they're in the graveyard doing this Scooby Doo shit, like it's very Scooby Doo.
Kaykay Brady: 32:39
Very Scooby Doo.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:40
At Old Man Hickory's. The explanation is that the girl who likes him, Grace, said that they wanted to make Mary Anne look like a jerk and have Logan get fed up with her. And Logan goes, "Fay-ed up?" Again, she spells it out, "'Fed up?' Logan repeated, only he really said, 'Fay-ed up?'"
Kaykay Brady: 33:02
"Fay-ed up?"
Brooke Suchomel: 33:03
And the girl responds, "Yeah, you spend most of your time with Mary Anne and the girls in the Baby-sitters Club." So, you know, being noticed as spending a lot of time with girls. "There are other girls at Stoneybrook Middle School, you know." Logan, "'Of course, I know,' replied Logan." She doesn't write this out in Foghorn Leghorn, so just translate it. "I'm not blind. And when I see anyone I like as much as Mary Anne and her friends. Maybe I'll do something. But right now Mary Anne is, is my" dot dot dot, he doesn't say girlfriend. "Plus, I like babysitting." And this is supposed to be charming? Sweet? Like, Mary Anne is what I've got right now until I find something better? Directly in front of her.
Kaykay Brady: 33:47
It's terrible.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:48
I mean, there doesn't seem to be any real affection or connection there. When Mary Anne talks about why she likes him, at the beginning, it's because he looks like a boy that she has a crush on in her magazines. That's really it.
Kaykay Brady: 33:59
Yeah. And he has a very, I mean, he's portrayed in some perfect light, right? Or purportedly. Like, we're to believe that he's perfect, which gives a lot of distance, you know what I mean? He doesn't seem human. He doesn't seem real. And I feel like that also lends weight to what you're talking about.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:19
Yeah, cuz you don't know why he likes her.
Kaykay Brady: 34:23
Exactly. It's very, it kind of comes out of nowhere and is so intense. And the perfection that, you know, is being presented as him is also very intense.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:33
Yeah, he just like latches on her right away, and again, that's why I was like, okay, my alarm bells were going off in Logan likes Mary Anne, because it's very intense very soon, and she's so passive. And it's something that Ann M. Martin refers to a lot. So it comes up again in this one, where it's like, why is Mary Anne the one with a boyfriend who won't even call her his girlfriend? On page five, this is my first red flag of book, because I think it's highly problematic the way that it's couched. She talks about how, you know, Dawn is self assured, and Kristy is outspoken. And she's quiet and shy, and so, "Why am I the only one of my friends with a steady boyfriend?" It's always that juxtaposition.
Kaykay Brady: 35:17
It's the same thing you were talking about last time.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:18
Yeah. Outspoken girls don't get that affection. Self assured girls don't get that affection. Who gets the affection? Quiet, shy, retiring, non threatening, you know, she says, maybe it's because she's sensitive. People are always telling her she's sensitive. And she's defines that as meaning caring and understanding. So...passive. Right? And so it's like, you find someone who is not going to push back too much, she's probably going to go along with things, who's going to feel honored, that you're willing to spend time in their presence, and then just latch on to them, because that's somebody that can be controlled.
Kaykay Brady: 36:01
And also, I think we can assume that Mary Anne, given the strict family she's come from, is unlikely to want to engage in sex.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:11
Exactly. You know, if anything, there's slow dancing, but it's like, hands on the shoulders and just kind of swaying.
Kaykay Brady: 36:17
It's so interesting, because we know that Mary Anne is Ann M.'s, you know, the character that she resonates with and relates to the most. And I'm like, I wonder if Ann M. ever had a beard.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:28
Are these two queer characters sort of finding each other in a time where neither one of them really understands what it is, but they see something analogous in each other. Even if that's the only thing that they have in common, at least there's that. I don't know. That's just my read.
Kaykay Brady: 36:46
I think it's a great read. And I can totally see that. 100%. And I didn't even see it!
Brooke Suchomel: 36:53
Really?
Kaykay Brady: 36:54
I mean, he seems so fake to me, I think I don't spend a lot of time thinking about him. He just doesn't register in my mind.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:01
Well, and that's what makes it so weird. Because he's such a blah nothing except for, like, when he's a dick, you know?
Kaykay Brady: 37:08
Right. And by the way, I felt that this book, you know, unknowingly did a really good job of just showing how much power Logan has. A whole flock of girls trying to compete for him, please him. It's really fucked up. And there's almost like a patriarchal, you know, he's almost like a father figure in the graveyard, kind of chiding them for being stupid and stuff. There's just a very clear power dynamic with the gender that I'm not sure would be so strong today.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:38
Right. Laughing at them for being scared.
Kaykay Brady: 37:41
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:42
Dawn is like, "Somebody better explain what's going on." And Cokie, one of the girls is Cokie. The sort of main mean girl is named Cokie.
Kaykay Brady: 37:52
Cokie!
Brooke Suchomel: 37:53
Cokie. So she says she's not going to explain, and Grace, the girl who likes Logan, isn't going to explain. So then it goes, "'Then I'll talk,' Logan cut in." Do you know what I mean?
Kaykay Brady: 38:02
Fuck right off.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:04
"I just stumbled upon here. But a penis has arrived. So the penis will take charge of the situation, even though I have no idea what's going on."
Kaykay Brady: 38:14
Yeah, exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:15
"So everybody else be quiet."
Kaykay Brady: 38:17
You're hitting what I'm saying. Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:20
I'm just like, okay, so the voice told him to go to some grave in the cemetery at midnight tonight, if he wanted to see something really amazing...
Kaykay Brady: 38:28
He's cruising! Oh my God!
Brooke Suchomel: 38:28
He's totally cruising!
Kaykay Brady: 38:33
Brooke, I can't believe you got to this before I did. Holy shit, he thinks he's cruising!
Brooke Suchomel: 38:39
Right, and he goes, "Well, I'm curious and I like a little adventure, so I decided to go."
Kaykay Brady: 38:44
Oh yeah you do!
Brooke Suchomel: 38:48
He's cruising. He's fucking cruising.
Kaykay Brady: 38:50
That's where Stoneybrook cruises, is the cemetery, clearly.
Brooke Suchomel: 38:54
He shows up, and then he just goes and puts his arm around Mary Anne's shoulder and turns to the other girls and goes, "Boy, are you cowards." Fuck you, Logan!
Kaykay Brady: 39:04
He's an asshat.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:06
Logan sucks. And again, won't even call her his girlfriend. So everybody else says that "Mary Anne is your girlfriend," he will not call her his girlfriend. And then one of the girls who kind of was behind all of this says, "Oh, you're not going to tell anybody about this, are you?" And Logan just says, "Maybe. Maybe not." And "smiled smugly."
Kaykay Brady: 39:30
Eww.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:30
Fuck you, Logan. So Logan's like, "I've got the power."
Kaykay Brady: 39:33
Yeah, total power.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:34
"This is because of me. Look at you guys going through all of this stress and drama because of me. I just can saunter in, make fun of everybody, and then hold the power about whether anybody finds out about this."
Kaykay Brady: 39:47
I'm feeling so triggered right now.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:50
I'm sorry.
Kaykay Brady: 39:52
Because that does not sound unusual from a cis white male. I'm not gonna go too hard down this path because we'll probably lose listeners, but...shit!
Brooke Suchomel: 40:03
No, no, no, no, no, if we lose listeners who are terribly offended by us being unfair to cis white men, you can go. Goodbye.
Kaykay Brady: 40:10
You probably have the wrong podcast.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:12
You have the wrong podcast. Joe Rogan is that way. You know? Um, so yeah, I mean, ultimately, that's kind of what I saw that they were fighting.
Kaykay Brady: 40:24
Cis white men?
Brooke Suchomel: 40:26
Right. And honestly, this leads back to the connection with what I was talking about when we had sort of this extended discussion of this Satanic Panic special that I guarantee you, if you were a kid in America at that time, one of your parents or one of your friend's parents watched that documentary. Probably still has shit in their head that this is the way that the world operates because of that kind of nonsense. So ultimately, it was like they're fighting superstition and confirmation bias, right? Where it's like, when you're always looking for something, like bad luck, you're gonna find it. So they go around, you know, they get this thing saying, Okay, you've got this thing in the mail. If you don't do this, you're going to have bad luck. Mary Anne says at one point, she's the one who tempted fate because she threw away a chain letter. And then she says, "I was sent a bad luck charm, which I was forced to wear, or else. Not knowing what that quote, "or else" meant, was the only thing that kept me wearing the charm. Or else death? Death and destruction? Death, destruction, and the end of civilization as we know it? Claudia was afraid it could mean the end of junk food." Womp womp. "Who knew? We weren't taking chances. We've done enough of that already."
Kaykay Brady: 41:48
Wow.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:48
So it's that paranoia, that fear there are these evil forces in the world.
Kaykay Brady: 41:54
Well, you know what's so interesting too, as you're reading it, the part where you say, "or else," the kind of ambiguousness reminds me of Logan. Reminds me of everything Logan was saying. And it's, it's this sort of like, we don't have any power. And so all we have left is superstition, because we can't believe that we are powerless in this dynamic in this society in this culture. Instead, we need to believe that we do have power, and it's over fucking nonsense.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:21
Exactly. And that you can control things. Later on, even after all of this is shown, first of all, Mary Anne's no Encyclopedia Brown, because you could tell on page 91...
Kaykay Brady: 42:35
You're no Encyclopedia Brown, sir!
Brooke Suchomel: 42:37
There's 140 pages in this book. Page 91 is when Cokie says to her, "Nice bad luck charm," which she's never described, so how would Cokie know that it's a bad luck charm? That's page 91. They don't figure it out for another like 30 pages. But she says, this is at the end, after they know what all happened, you know, they're wondering who sent the chain letter. Cokie said she didn't send the chain letter. Well, chain letters went out in the 80s, I think that it was probably somebody in the post office looking to raise funds, right? Because send a chain letter everybody, so you have to buy a bunch of stamps and everything. But she's, you know, "So if they didn't send it, who did?" So it's like this belief that there's no such thing as coincidences. This belief that like, quote, unquote, "everything happens for a reason." No it fucking doesn't. The world is chaos, we're just trying to make the best of it. But people can't handle that. And so, you know, if they didn't send it, who did? And Mary Anne goes, "A better question is, would Cokie and Grace have done what they did if I hadn't broken the chain? I mean, maybe there is good and bad luck. After all, maybe Cokie and Grace were my bad luck. If I hadn't broken the chain, maybe they'd never have sent the necklace to me or tried to trick us into anything." They keep going down this rabbit hole. They don't break themselves of it. It's like, this was just a prank. It can't stop at just people manipulating you to get what you want, there has to be some bigger context to it. Because if there isn't? Shit!
Kaykay Brady: 44:02
Well, then you're vulnerable.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:03
Exactly, exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 44:05
Then you're vulnerable.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:05
So it's a way to channel that into something that seems like you can't point fingers at anyone close to you, because it's an evil force in the world. Right? It's not human beings acting in their own self interest, that sometimes means that they want to inflict harm upon you for their own benefit.
Kaykay Brady: 44:25
Yeah. And also a system in which you are disenfranchised, given your gender and your age, right? So they're young, they're female, they have a couple of categories that disenfranchise them from power.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:40
Absolutely. So they feel like they can't fight that system. Like ultimately, the biggest threat in this book, reading this book with an honest take on what life in the world is like, the biggest threat in this book is Logan.
Kaykay Brady: 44:55
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:56
Logan's an asshole. I mean, you know, he's a kid, whatever...
Kaykay Brady: 45:00
But you know, in our reading, he's also not being honest, right? For whatever his own struggles might be, he's not coming forward, in our read of it, genuinely. Which we can have a ton of empathy for, and also see the ways that that could potentially hurt Mary Anne.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:19
Exactly. So not to say that Logan, you know, Logan in the real world doesn't have his own things for us to empathize with him about, but looking at this from, what is the danger posed to Mary Anne...
Kaykay Brady: 45:34
Of course.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:35
The danger posed to Mary Anne is not evil forces that are, you know, supernatural. It's frickin patriarchal bullshit.
Kaykay Brady: 45:44
You're blowing my mind? And like, let's also talk about the dad.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:48
Yeah. You know how I feel about him.
Kaykay Brady: 45:50
Right, but thinking about this read...okay, I have been watching the Woody Allen documentary, so possibly take this with a grain of salt, but I'm like, is the dad a threat? You know, he is so domineering of her, and so controlling of her. It's creepy.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:07
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 46:08
And, again, I just think your read is so strong about, you know, these sort of outside threats versus inside threats. And what are the real threats to Mary Anne? I think it's, you know, mostly the males in her life right now.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:21
Yeah. And I think it always has been the males in her life. She talks a lot in this book, and in earlier books, about how her dad's better now. Like, her dad went out on a date with Dawn's mom, and then magically transformed into a reasonable human being. Although she still has to, like, polish the silver.
Kaykay Brady: 46:44
Yeah. And just the conversations they have between them are disturbingly domineering, I can't remember what...
Brooke Suchomel: 46:51
Is it that 10 minutes, you can only talk on the phone for 10 minutes part?
Kaykay Brady: 46:55
Yeah, it was that, and then there also was just some dialogue, where, you know, she was so subservient to him. And he was so dominating that it just gave me the creeps.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:06
No, he's a definite creep. And I think that that's something that people who might want to manipulate other people can sort of sniff out. Like, is this somebody who's used to being subservient to another male figure?
Kaykay Brady: 47:19
Exactly. Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:19
"I want someone to be subservient to me, so this person has already proven that they're capable of doing that." That is the threat. Not evil, you know, again...
Kaykay Brady: 47:30
Chain letters.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:31
Stop looking at the supernatural, because you've got bigger problems to deal with that are right in front of your face, that you could actually possibly have an impact on. Like, whether or not you can overturn the patriarchy, it ain't gonna be frickin easy, but you know, when you're definitely not going to do it is when you're too busy indulging it and distracting yourself by fighting with other girls. Because you think that the devil is out for you or something.
Kaykay Brady: 47:57
Totally.
Brooke Suchomel: 47:57
It's just distraction.
Kaykay Brady: 47:59
Yeah. And what you're saying also connects to what I was saying about the power dynamics you can see. It's sort of like the girls are busy fighting each other, they can't even see the real threats or patriarchy, which is pretty typical in marginalized oppressed groups, right? It's called horizontal oppression, where they're fighting each other. And it's like, awesome! If you can keep them fighting each other you get to stay in power with actually very little effort.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:26
Exactly. And if you can cast yourself as, you are the potential savior, like, even better!
Kaykay Brady: 48:34
Oh my god, I'm thinking of that NXIVM ass wipe.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:38
I mean, that's the thing. We have so many examples!
Kaykay Brady: 48:41
Oh, my God. It's absurd. It's absurd.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:43
You say that and immediately you're just like, "Oh, and that and that and that." For me, I immediately think of that priest, the Chief Exorcist of New York who was on Geraldo Rivera's show, and like the first person that he interviews. How this person is considered the Chief Exorcist, and is also the chaplain at a psychiatric center.
Kaykay Brady: 49:03
Ouch!
Brooke Suchomel: 49:04
For 25 years. And so that's a person in a position of power that can do things and then say, "Don't believe them. That person is crazy," right? And, "That person is possessed by the devil. I have the power of God to cast the devil out. So if they say that I'm doing something to them, that's just the devil speaking through them. You know that I wouldn't do that, because I've been blessed by God. I'm God's representative here on Earth, so let me cast that devil out of them by torturing them. And you will pay me for the privilege, and you will thank me for the privilege, and you will bless me for the privilege. And I will be able to go on to national TV and tell 20 million people that Satan is real and is trying to destroy your children." Fuck you, Father James LeBar of the Archdiocese of New York, you piece of shit. And fuck you Geraldo Rivera too, for the record.
Kaykay Brady: 49:58
Oh, yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 49:59
Hey, Geraldo. Go fuck yourself.
Kaykay Brady: 50:03
You heard it here first.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:05
You didn't hear it here first. You heard it here for like the twenty millionth time. You heard it from other people before me. I don't want to take the credit for that one. I'm just repeating something that people have been saying since time immemorial.
Kaykay Brady: 50:19
Brooke Suchomel, the first person ever to start critically thinking about Geraldo Rivera's place in society. It's gonna be in your obituary, my friend.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:29
Oh God. Breaking new ground. But it's amazing. I mean, she shows the power of this, because even the skeptics are converted.
Kaykay Brady: 50:37
Like Kristy.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:38
Yeah! Kristy at the beginning is like, "That's absolute horseshit. Throw that away. This is ridiculous." And she even says so. Page 75 says, "If you'll remember, the chain letter had been met by a lot of skepticism at first. Kristy had been the biggest skeptic of all. She'd had no use for charms or spells or bad luck wishes. She'd scoffed at it all. Now she was as big a believer in such things as Jessi and Mal were. So were the rest of us." And they're all, like, reading up on their spells.
Kaykay Brady: 51:05
I mean, I will say I was very happy that I felt like Kristy was back this book. Like the real Kristy.
Brooke Suchomel: 51:10
In what way?
Kaykay Brady: 51:11
Um, you know, she was just very take charge. Even though she does get converted to the nonsense, she is a voice of reason. You know, it's just like the strong Kristy is back. She really kind of goes away in some books. The other thing about this book, which is really interesting, as we're talking, I feel like some books, Ann M. Martin is like, very...so I feel like she's always doing something complex. And in some books, it's a very conscious, complex thing. But this book, it feels like you could have the most Freudian reads of this book. And I bet if you interviewed the author, she'd be like, "Oh, I just did a Nancy Drew book. What are you talking about?"
Brooke Suchomel: 51:47
Mmm. Yeah, cuz Nancy Drew comes up again.
Kaykay Brady: 51:49
Yeah. So I bet, and this is a theory, I have no idea. And maybe some day she'll come on this podcast. But you know, I'm guessing that's what you would get is like, "Oh, that was just sort of a light hearted, I wanted to touch this topic," but it just feels like under the surface in the unconscious. There's so much playing out here.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:11
Well, you can't escape it.
Kaykay Brady: 52:12
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:12
I mean, none of us can escape it. Every one of us, like, the words that we put down on a page, the choices that we make, it all comes from our own psyche. Because you can tell this story of Mary Anne getting a bad luck charm in the mail, and how, you know, the baby-sitters deal with that, if that's the story that you want to tell, you can tell that story in an infinite number of ways. But this is the way that she chose to tell this story. So there's always a deeper meaning behind how you do it.
Kaykay Brady: 52:42
Yeah, and the sort of like psychosexual tension and dynamics you've been pointing out, so Freudian.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:47
Definitely. Not saying that, like, everything has a deeper psychosexual or queer read to it. I just think that this book does. This particular book definitely has some stuff going on. You know, whether or not Mary Anne is his beard or not, Logan is absolutely insecure in his masculinity.
Kaykay Brady: 53:10
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:11
There may be an infinite number of reasons for that. Our speculation, or, you know, it was my speculation, but you seem to be in line with it, is that because of a variety of factors, society's take on queer folks at the time, what we know about the author and her queer identity, you know, that's just us taking a look at it and saying, hey, it looks like this is what's being discussed here. There's other ways that you can look at it, I'm sure, but I don't think you can actually read this book and say Logan is secure in his masculinity.
Kaykay Brady: 53:48
Yeah, definitely.
Brooke Suchomel: 53:49
Because there's stuff that she throws in there that makes it very clear, in multiple chapters, that he's not.
Kaykay Brady: 53:53
Yeah. There's also something, I don't know if you've ever heard of the phenomenon, I think they call it perfect little boy syndrome, where basically gay men, you know, knowing deep down inside that they're gay, they try so hard to be 150% perfect. Because they're so terrified of rejection. And the world has told them that they're garbage and they're dangerous, and they're horrible people and immoral, that they feel that they have to be perfect in all regards.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:26
Which is why you get so many of them going into the priesthood.
Kaykay Brady: 54:29
Yeah. Oh, shit. That's a 10 hour topic. Woof.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:35
Two recovering Catholics here.
Kaykay Brady: 54:38
Can't you tell?
Brooke Suchomel: 54:38
I have a few things to say about that. And I do think that it's funny that, going along with the whole queer read too, there's a little aside in there where Mary Anne says that Kristy only doesn't like boys because she's only known the annoying ones.
Kaykay Brady: 54:55
I saw that.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:56
It's that whole thing with like, "Well you just haven't met the right guy, yet." Or, "You just haven't met the right girl yet. When you do, then you'll know you're really heterosexual!" That's all it takes! Finding the right one, right?
Kaykay Brady: 55:09
I know. You know, it's also interesting, all throughout all of these books, Mary Anne describes the female characters' sort of bodily attractiveness and voluptuousness. I mean, she really talks about a lot. Nothing about Logan, other than like, he looks like a movie star, which again, is very disconnected. It's not like, "Oh, look at his sexy hands," you know?
Brooke Suchomel: 55:29
It's his face. It's the hair. It's that he looks like- that's why she was attracted to him in the first place, is because he looks like an actor that she has a crush on in her magazines. And so it's like, okay, he has this aesthetic beauty that I like, but almost like ethereal, where it's like, "I'm focusing on your face."
Kaykay Brady: 55:51
Yes. It's totally disconnected.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:53
Yeah. Logan could be a floating head and he would be happy with that.
Kaykay Brady: 55:59
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:00
Because he's pretty. She wants a pretty face.
Kaykay Brady: 56:03
Who can blame her? Same, Mary Anne. Same.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:05
You know, when I was writing down what they were fighting, I was able to come up with what they were fighting pretty quickly. But the tool, I didn't...they were just going with it. Like, their tools to fight superstition were going to the library to check out books on witchcraft. So like, they were just leaning into it. They were fighting it by participating in it.
Kaykay Brady: 56:23
Although you could have some sort of deeply feminist read of like, they were dipping into the wellspring of, you know, non patriarchal religion or something.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:33
Wouldn't it be great if this book series went in a completely different direction? It just became The Craft?
Kaykay Brady: 56:39
They just become a coven?
Brooke Suchomel: 56:42
So that's the thing too, there was so much fear at the time. I remember the Satanic Panic, and I remember all of this fear of the occult, but I didn't realize how much they would explicitly talk about witchcraft. And how much they explicitly talked about covens.
Kaykay Brady: 56:59
Yeah, which, come on. We all know what that is a dog whistle for, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 57:04
Absolutely.
Kaykay Brady: 57:05
Fear of the female.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:06
Female power. It's women working together to get power.
Kaykay Brady: 57:10
Well, dude, I was obsessed with another amazing HBO movie called The Worst Witch, which starred the woman from The Craft when she was very little. So basically, JK Rowling, in my opinion, stole this, because it was Harry Potter. It was just a witch, not a wizard.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:26
Interesting.
Kaykay Brady: 57:28
It was dope. And the guy from Rocky Horror Picture Show...
Brooke Suchomel: 57:32
Tim Curry?
Kaykay Brady: 57:33
Yeah. He is like the Grand Wizard, and he has a musical number. If you haven't seen The Worst Witch...
Brooke Suchomel: 57:40
Shit! Is he the Evil Powermaster?
Kaykay Brady: 57:41
No, he's very positive.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:43
Okay. They bring up the Evil Powermaster and I'm like, that's my drag name.
Kaykay Brady: 57:49
Welcome to the stage, Evil Powermaster. No, but he sings a song, it's called, "Anything can happen on Halloween. It's better than a video. Gremlins gonna mess up every cassette from London to Idaho."
Brooke Suchomel: 58:06
Wait. "Every cassette"?
Kaykay Brady: 58:09
I think so?
Brooke Suchomel: 58:10
They take over your tape, like, your Walkman?
Kaykay Brady: 58:12
I think so. That was my guess. But anyway, I had a very positive view of witchcraft, even though I was Catholic, because I had a steady diet of The Worst Witch. You know who else was in it? Mrs. Garrett. She played both an evil witch and her good twin sister witch. So the good twin sister witch ran the school, and then the evil one was trying to take down the school.
Brooke Suchomel: 58:38
She was in Peekskill running a girls boarding school?
Kaykay Brady: 58:42
Yeah, it was a boarding school.
Brooke Suchomel: 58:43
That's how The Facts of Life really ended, they just didn't air the expose at the end?
Kaykay Brady: 58:50
She's like, "You know, this store isn't working out. But I feel that witchcraft is going to be pretty lucrative." Well, she didn't see that coming. Damn!
Brooke Suchomel: 58:59
All of this, boarding school, daycares, like, the fear of all of this is in a change to the stereotypical quote unquote, "traditional" home environment. It's the fear of, women are now in the workforce. You have women with positions of power and authority or responsibility that have nothing to do with their role as wife and mother. It's an additional role that they're playing. And so that means that other people may be taking care of the children, and what are they going to do? And so it's the othering, right? Like, the only safe place is in the home. If you send your kids off to a boarding school, if you send your kids to a daycare, you're putting those kids in harm's way.
Kaykay Brady: 59:50
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 59:51
Woman, feel guilty for putting your children in this position. You are harming your children. So just keep that in mind. Don't get too big for your britches.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:02
It's okay that you work, but just know that your child may have to eat a baby.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:06
Right, and get flushed down a toilet.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:09
NBD. Don't worry about it. No, keep chasing your dreams. Who am I to say?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:15
Yeah, this sort of turmoil that is throughout this book. And you see that they don't tell adults about what's going on.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:25
Great point. They hide it. They, in fact, actively hide it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:29
Yeah, Mary Anne gets the first chain letter and opens it in the meeting of the Baby-sitters Club. They open up that first sort of like ransom note with the bad luck charm in the Baby-sitters Club in the meeting. It's something that they keep within themselves. So again, there's some commentary going on there about, you know, the divide between, how much can you trust your parents?
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:54
Yeah. And where do you feel safe? It's really interesting that they don't really fundamentally feel safe with their parents, right? Because that's what that tells you. If a kid lies, or hides, that's typically what it's saying. They don't feel safe.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:10
Definitely not Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady: 1:01:12
Definitely! Yeah. Good stuff, friend. You brought such depth to this, which I appreciate.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:17
Thanks, Geraldo. You piece of shit.
Kaykay Brady: 1:01:23
We should just let it out. Like, we should just have...
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:26
Primal scream therapy?
Kaykay Brady: 1:01:28
We just primal scream "Geraldo." It'll be like the cursing club. We need to make up a cursing club Geraldo song.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:34
Oh, God. I'll be working on that all night now, whether I want to or not.
Kaykay Brady: 1:01:37
You'll feel better. Trust me, you'll feel better. So that's how I dealt with forces out of my control. The cursing club. I highly recommend it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:44
Everybody needs an outlet. And Mary Anne's outlet...so, did you pick up what Mary Anne's outlet was? When she was feeling stressed, what she wanted to do?
Kaykay Brady: 1:01:54
No.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:55
She went to the library, because she wanted to find Little Women. And she wanted to read passages from Little Women that would make her feel better. It's not at the library. Somebody checked out Little Women at the library, and so she's like, "This is more examples of bad luck," as opposed to just, somebody else wanted to read Little Women. It has nothing to do with you.
Kaykay Brady: 1:02:11
It's a pretty popular book.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:12
Right. So she goes home and reads Little Women. And do you remember what scene she turns to, to make herself feel better?
Kaykay Brady: 1:02:20
Was it Beth dying?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:21
Yep.
Kaykay Brady: 1:02:23
It's such a happy...I can't count the days, the number of days I don't pick myself up my reading one of the most tragic death scenes in literature.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:02:34
Right. So that's how she comforts herself. And there's some commentary on that too, which everybody can just kind of chew on. But there was one scene that I couldn't let this go, where it made me feel a little bit more optimistic. So much of this is just, the girls are in the patriarchy and it sucks. And you know, that's ultimately what's going on in this book. But when they talk about the Halloween Hop, so we get Return to the Halloween Hop, and who they're going to go with, and blah, blah, blah. Dawn just goes, "I'll go stag. Who cares?"
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:08
Yeah Dawn!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:10
I'm like, Fuck yeah, Dawn! Doing her thing.
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:11
Fuck yeah, Dawn. She's also wearing, her costume is just, what, witch makeup? Which I thought was pretty cool. She's just painting her face like a drag queen.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:19
Done. What did you have for 80s moments?
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:22
I had, number one, excitement about getting mail.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:27
The potential that you might get a little packet of lotion in the mail?
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:30
Yeah. Or that, like anything came in the mail other than, you know, bills or credit card offers, right? Like, where you actually would get stuff in the mail? Oh, maybe a friend might send you a mixtape in the mail? I mean, that is like, you've hit the lottery.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:03:45
You remember that moment for the rest of your life.
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:47
Yeah! Oh, you're excited for like a week. Also, using the card catalog at the library. And then the last one was, Kristy had a haunted house sound tape, which I had and it was the tits! I used to scare people all the time with it. I was just like, carrying my boombox around and...
Brooke Suchomel: 1:04:06
Well what would you do? So like, describe what was a favorite sound and what you would do with it.
Kaykay Brady: 1:04:10
Well, I mean, it was a lot of wind and howling and doors clanging, that's primarily what you got. I would go and set it under my neighbor's window, play it in the middle of the night. I would sneak out, which, again, they tried to sneak out in this book and didn't manage it. And I was like, "Amateurs." I snuck out like, three nights a week, whenever I fucking wanted to. We all did, you know?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:04:35
Well, you had the Ice Cream Man. So just as they could come in, you can go out.
Kaykay Brady: 1:04:38
The window was already open. There already was a ladder. But yeah, I would just do shit like that. Put it in my sister's room and like, hide under her bed. I was such a dick.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:04:50
Aww, next time you go back and visit her, you should do that again, just for old times sake.
Kaykay Brady: 1:04:54
Oh, you know what I did to her once? We went to a travel camp one year, which basically means you got on a big bus and went to like Amish country and Sturbridge Village.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:05:04
A travel camp?
Kaykay Brady: 1:05:05
Yeah, it was called travel camp. It was cool! Oh, that spy's kids were in the travel camp too, I believe.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:05:11
You guys got on a plane and went to Moscow and dropped off a package and came back?
Kaykay Brady: 1:05:15
Oh wait, maybe that wasn't travel camp! We went to Red Square and they pumped us for details. It was great. No, so we went to travel camp and you know, both my parents worked. We were like latchkey kids. And my poor sister had to, you know, basically make sure that I survived.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:05:34
And Satan was your master, your lord and master?
Kaykay Brady: 1:05:37
Yeah. And I didn't make it easy on her either, at all. But I had this really great idea for a joke. We had to wake up early to go to a trip. And so I changed her clock in the bedroom. It was like two in the morning and I changed it to be eight in the morning. And I woke her up and I was like, "We're late! We missed the bus for the trip." And she like went into a manic frenzy. She jumped out of bed screaming at me. I finally had to go wake my dad up.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:10
To calm her down?
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:11
Yeah. Like, so this is what would happen to the kids in the Baby-sitters Club. There's too much responsibility on this child, is what that story tells me. Anyway, that was the kind of fun sister I was.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:21
Oh, that's awesome.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:22
So what did you have?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:24
I had a lot of ones that you had too. Obviously, Cats. You know, Cats, the musical. And the description that they have of the cats that they were, and why they were each cat.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:37
Oh, like the characters?
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:38
Yeah. Which, you know, Logan was a rough tough tom cat and she was a delicate kitten.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:45
Switch that around. Come on. We know the score here. Switch that shit around.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:50
Then also the fact that bad traffic could lead your loved ones to plan your funeral, basically.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:56
Because you can't call them.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:58
Because you can't call, so when the Pikes were late getting home because they got caught in traffic, Mallory is spiraling, thinking that her parents are dead. That's 80s. Cuz what are you gonna do, you know? You remember when there would be pay phones just like on the side of a frickin highway?
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:14
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:07:15
You know, just in case.
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:16
You could pull over if your car broke down or whatever. Good one.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:07:20
All of that was very 80s. Just wanted to thank everybody for listening to this. Hopefully you enjoyed this look back at the Satanic Panic and how it manifested in Mary Anne's Bad-Luck Mystery.
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:32
And hopefully, you know, if you didn't hate Geraldo before, you do now.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:07:35
More than anything, more than you enjoying this podcast, we hope you hate Geraldo. Thanks for listening. If you like the show, rate, review, subscribe or follow, or whatever the hell the podcast networks are calling it right now, they change it regularly.
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:49
Yeah, smash that subscribe button. That's what I hear. Smash it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:07:53
If you do, you'll be in for a treat with the next episode. Because the next episode, even though she is no longer officially a member of the Baby-sitters Club, Stacey has not left the series. Stacey McGill has re entered the chat.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:08
Shit...
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:08
Because the next book takes place in New York City. We have Stacey's Mistake! The next book has the Baby-sitters Club traveling to New York City to enter Stacey's new world.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:25
I'm so excited for this.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:26
And shenanigans and hijinks go down there, and so, not to set the bar too high. I don't think I'm setting the bar too high when I say I'm sure you're going to be chock full of observations on New York City in the late 80s that we will get to discuss in the next episode.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:41
I sure hope there's breakdancing.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:43
If there's not, we'll add it.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:45
I'll do it. It's a podcast, but I'll do it, and then you'll just tell them what I'm doing.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:48
I'll describe. I'll do play by play.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:49
You're like, "Hmm. She's gyrating her hips. Robot! Now it's the robot!"
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:53
I'll put my play by play skills to use, describing what's happening as you breakdance on Zoom.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:58
That'd be an interesting podcast. You're just describing dance.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:09:02
Dancing taking place in your closet on video.
Kaykay Brady: 1:09:05
It's beautiful.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:09:06
So I can't freaking wait for that.
Kaykay Brady: 1:09:09
Me too.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:09:10
But until then.
Kaykay Brady: 1:09:11
Just keep sitting. [THEME SONG] "Why not? I'll go to the cemetery some random stranger's inviting me to."
