Transcript - BSFC Super Special #2: Baby-sitters' Summer Vacation
Brooke Suchomel: 0:07
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: 0:24
And I'm Kaykay Brady. I'm a therapist, and I'm new to the books.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:28
And I'm going to start off this episode with our first correction. In our last episode on Claudia and the Sad Good-bye, I said that book was published in July 1989. And I was wrong. It was actually published in August 1989, which explains why Mimi was still alive in the book that we're discussing today. Lesson is, double check your sources kids. Anyway...
Kaykay Brady: 0:52
Lesson is, mistakes are okay.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:55
Yes, they're okay.
Kaykay Brady: 0:57
We're modeling this.
Brooke Suchomel: 0:58
I'm modeling it to say, you know what, y'all? I fucked up, and it's okay. We're still going to proceed by looking back at the approximate time of publication of the book for this episode in August 1989. Because we can't skip over that month, because there was some delightful things happening that month.
Kaykay Brady: 1:18
Oh, so excited.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:20
Have you heard of the Moscow Music Peace Festival?
Kaykay Brady: 1:23
I have not.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:24
Okay. So this was a concert that was put on in Russia, hence the title. The headliners were Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Skid Row, your favorite, Skid Row played at this show. It was organized by the music manager of these bands, a person whose name is Doc McGhee, who also happened to be a convicted drug smuggler. And part of his sentencing was committing himself to youth drug use prevention, so he created a foundation and put on a rock concert in Moscow via this foundation. So the look on your face, Kaykay, can you vocalize the expression that I-
Kaykay Brady: 2:13
Why Moscow? Is there some organized crime connections here? Is this a Trump situation?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:20
So this was before the so called fall of the Iron Curtain. The Berlin Wall was still up. We were still in hardcore Cold War status.
Kaykay Brady: 2:30
Elton John wrote a song about this, "Nikita," one of the best songs of all fucking time.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:37
There was another song that was written about this. So do you know the Scorpions song, "Wind of Change?"
Kaykay Brady: 2:43
Yeah, there's a podcast about this, right? About how the CIA wrote it or something?
Brooke Suchomel: 2:50
Yeah. Have you listened to it?
Kaykay Brady: 2:52
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 2:52
This is the month that that happened. There is this great podcast about this concert called Wind of Change. It's by investigative journalist Patrick Radden Keefe, and it explores this rumor that the concert was a CIA op that included writing the Scorpion's song, "Wind of Change," which was then used as an anthem to the fall of the USSR, etc. And there is a long history of the CIA getting involved with the arts, because...this is a huge reason why we talk about looking critically at words and at media and at popular culture, because it shapes your perception of the world around you. It doesn't just reflect the world around you, what you consume shapes your understanding of the world around you. And obviously, your intelligence agencies understand that.
Kaykay Brady: 3:49
Yeah, and it's kind of adjacent to psych ops.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:52
Yeah, exactly.
Kaykay Brady: 3:53
You know, using psychology on the populace rather than violence.
Brooke Suchomel: 3:57
Physical violence is not the only way to control people. You can control the way that they think by controlling the information that they consume and the manner in which they consume it. Anyways, I just highly recommend, if any of this sounds interesting, which, if you're listening to the show, I hope it does, because it plays into everything. The whole, let's look back at the 80s, what was going on. Let's look at, you know, not just popular culture, but also historical events that were happening at the time. We talk a lot about Bon Jovi and Skid Row, because at this time, they're always on the charts, and Kaykay loves herself some Skid Row.
Kaykay Brady: 4:36
And it was my first tape.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:38
Hell yeah!
Kaykay Brady: 4:39
So it lives in a special place in my heart.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:42
As it should. Just like the Cocktail soundtrack has a special place in my heart.
Kaykay Brady: 4:47
That's right, the two copies you had in your bunker.
Brooke Suchomel: 4:50
I want to know if Kokomo was a CIA op. Kokomo is a CIA op about dominating the diaspora in the West Indies. That's what it's all about. I want a podcast that digs into that. Anyway, check out Wind of Change, great limited series podcast that talks about the Moscow Music Peace Festival, which happened in August of 1989. Other music happening in universe. August 1989, number one on the charts, my favorite, Prince's "Batdance" was number one. We had talked about this previously, but this is the month that "Batdance" was ruling the world.
Kaykay Brady: 4:56
Ruling your heart. Rocking a little Brooke's universe.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:16
And a big Brooke's universe. I mean, it's never left my heart.
Kaykay Brady: 5:38
All Brookes.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:38
Right, all variations. It's the theme for my life. It was knocked off the charts by Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting."
Kaykay Brady: 5:48
Fuck that. I just gotta come out strong and say that.
Brooke Suchomel: 5:53
You get two sides of the 80s coin on the music charts in August 1989.
Kaykay Brady: 6:00
Sometimes life hands you a "Batdance," sometimes it hands you a Richard Marx.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:06
Movies wise, the number ones, just like in July '89, it was all copaganda, in August '89, it was all about dysfunctional family comedies.
Kaykay Brady: 6:18
Ooh, Parenthood?
Brooke Suchomel: 6:20
Yep. It's interesting, I say "dysfunctional family comedy," and you immediately were like, "Parenthood."
Kaykay Brady: 6:25
Sure. I mean, I remember that this was, I don't know, it sort of seemed like a change in the culture about how much dysfunction could be in a movie about a family. So I remember this being a bit of a culture shift.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:40
One of the existential crises at the heart of Steve Martin's character in Parenthood is that his son has to go to therapy.
Kaykay Brady: 6:51
I didn't remember that. I feel like in my mind, I thought the son was gay or something that felt a lot bigger than therapy.
Brooke Suchomel: 6:58
It's equally traumatizing to a father in '89, is "your son needs to go to therapy."
Kaykay Brady: 7:06
Oh, wow, what an interesting reflection on what the attitudes were about therapy back then. I mean, it really was, you were a freak show if you had to go to therapy. You didn't share it with your neighbors, your family. Maybe it was something shameful you would share with your sister if your child had to go to therapy, but how times have changed.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:27
Yeah, thank freaking god.
Kaykay Brady: 7:29
Thank freaking god.
Brooke Suchomel: 7:30
In that sense. We're still seeing people rebelling against the normalization of tapping into your emotions, etc. Not everybody's cool with it yet, but more people are and that's a good thing. So Parenthood was number one, and that was knocked off the number one spot by another dysfunctional family comedy, Uncle Buck. Did you watch Uncle Buck with John Candy?
Kaykay Brady: 7:53
Yeah, John Candy. Doesn't he come to stay with them over Christmas?
Brooke Suchomel: 7:58
He comes to stay, he's the sort of strange
Kaykay Brady: 8:00
I'm starting to remember this. uncle, comes to watch over his nieces and nephew. This was the Macaulay Culkin movie where he kind of made a splash and then
Brooke Suchomel: 8:08
Part of that conflict is resolved by him got the attention of Chris Columbus, who cast him in Home Alone because of his performance in Uncle Buck. But he comes and stays when the parents have a family emergency out of town, and they are in a new town and they have nobody who can stay. So their like, ne'er-do-well brother comes and stays with them. He has a huge conflict with the 15 year old girl who is the oldest child. throwing her boyfriend in a trunk of a vehicle. And that's played for laughs. So...
Kaykay Brady: 8:49
80s justice. Damn.
Brooke Suchomel: 8:51
80s, it wasn't great. I'm sure it's on Netflix or something like that, if you want to take a trip back. Looking at the stuff that was portrayed as like, "Ahahaha, this is so funny!" And this is like, righteous humor. Looking at it from a modern lens of, Oh, shit. This was actually supremely fucked up.
Kaykay Brady: 9:15
Oh, yeah. I mean, you would be reported to Child Protective Services, tout de suite.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:18
I would hope that you would be arrested and charged with kidnapping, at the very least.
Kaykay Brady: 9:24
At the very least!
Brooke Suchomel: 9:25
Bare minimum. Good Lord. And then on TV, this was the month that Saved by the Bell premiered.
Kaykay Brady: 9:34
Big classic show.
Brooke Suchomel: 9:35
It was a classic show. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say it was not a favorite of yours.
Kaykay Brady: 9:40
I don't think I ever watched it. I think I watched it later when it was in syndication and I was in my 20s, back from college, wasting time on a Sunday or something. How about you?
Brooke Suchomel: 9:53
No, this is why I was like, I feel like it was not a show for you, because I'm like, if it wasn't a show for me, a straight girl in Iowa...
Kaykay Brady: 10:00
It was not a show for Kaykay.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:02
It was not a show for you. However, the reboot on Peacock? Fucking spectacular. It's so good.
Kaykay Brady: 10:10
All right!
Brooke Suchomel: 10:10
It's really genuinely good, and it also talks a lot about the importance of feelings and emotion.
Kaykay Brady: 10:18
Wow!
Brooke Suchomel: 10:19
It's not just focused on the rich kids that was sort of the focus of the original show.
Kaykay Brady: 10:24
Yeah, the super privileged kids.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:26
The main cast of children is heavily focused on kids from an underserved community whose school is closed and they're bused in to the school, and sort of the culture clashes that they have.
Kaykay Brady: 10:38
Interesting. This is a lot like the Baby-sitters Club reboot, where all of the troublesomeness has now been reinterpreted in a much more healing and progressive way.
Brooke Suchomel: 10:50
Yeah, it's very clear eyed about what the show was, what it said, trying to rectify some of that. I mean, the show was created by a millennial woman, just like The Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady: 11:05
Cool.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:05
The original audience for this, a representative of that is the one who is reimagining what this could be.
Kaykay Brady: 11:12
Yeah, who consumed it in the developmentally impactful time.
Brooke Suchomel: 11:17
Yeah. And it's really, really good.
Kaykay Brady: 11:19
All right!
Brooke Suchomel: 11:20
If you like this show, I really suspect that you would like Saved by the Bell, the reboot, even if you didn't like the original, which I assuredly did not. So that is my endorsement of the reboot, so check that out. And, in August '89, the second Baby-sitters Club Super Special, Baby-sitters' Summer Vacation, celebrated its one month pub date anniversary. So it's time for some back cover copy and I quote, "What could be more fun than going to summer camp for two weeks with your best friends? Nothing! This summer, the baby-sitters and a whole bunch of the kids they sit for are going to Camp Mohawk, with the girls as counselors-in-training and the kids as campers. It'll be just like babysitting...in the woods! The baby-sitters soon discover that camp isn't just nature walks and making lanyards. Dawn gets lost in the wilderness overnight. Kristy learns how to use mascara." That's one way of putting it. "And Mary Anne gets caught sneaking over to the boys' side of the camp. Stacey spends the two weeks with poison ivy, and Claudia falls in LUV with a boy CIT. This is one summer vacation that the baby-sitters will never forget!" End quote. So Kaykay, the first...
Kaykay Brady: 12:42
Wait. I just have to stop you, and start this episode by saying, "Hey, lady. You, lady, cursing at your life. You're a disconnected mother, and a regimented wife." Fuckin' Charlene! There's a character named Charlene! I've been dreaming of singing this to you for days. Days I've imagined just this!
Brooke Suchomel: 13:14
Yeah, I got real excited when I saw Charlene as a character. Charlene is there for a moment, and then she leaves. And it's funny because Charlene is kind of like the cool counselor, right? Everybody loves Charlene.
Kaykay Brady: 13:28
There's a lot of cool counselors. Fuckin' Jo with a mohawk!
Brooke Suchomel: 13:32
We needed more time with Mohawk Jo!
Kaykay Brady: 13:36
There's a counselor, it's a female counselor named Jo with a mohawk. I'm assuming this is a take off on Facts of Life Jo, and I'm here for it. I'm living for it. And I would have loved to have seen way more Kristy and Jo time, versus like, Kristy being forced into some gender
Brooke Suchomel: 13:51
Hoo, yeah. That was the storyline that I figured norms. we're probably going to spend a fair amount of time in this episode talking about, for sure.
Kaykay Brady: 13:58
But I cut you off. What was your opening question?
Brooke Suchomel: 14:01
Well, real quickly, if anybody is like, "What the fuck was that song about? And what did it have to do with Charlene?" So if you're not familiar, there is this classic, I don't know if I'd call it classic...
Kaykay Brady: 14:11
It's pretty classic.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:13
It's camp.
Kaykay Brady: 14:13
It's classic in the queer community.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:15
It's a camp classic.
Kaykay Brady: 14:16
Yeah, camp classic.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:18
By an artist named Charlene, that's called "I've Never Been To Me." If you've seen Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, it is the opening performance that you see. I play it on the piano.
Kaykay Brady: 14:31
I sing it at karaoke, exclusively.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:34
If you want to dig into some gender norm bullshit...
Kaykay Brady: 14:39
Here you go.
Brooke Suchomel: 14:40
Oh my god, check out "I've Never Been To Me" by Charlene. Basically, the whole song is like, "I've lived a very full, rich life, all over the world. But I didn't settle down and get impregnated, and I am really sad about that."
Kaykay Brady: 14:57
"So I'm empty inside."
Brooke Suchomel: 14:58
Yeah. And of course the song is written by men. Of course.
Kaykay Brady: 15:03
Yes, of course.
Brooke Suchomel: 15:04
The way the song makes sense to me, because the singer is just walking up to a stranger who is out in public with a child.
Kaykay Brady: 15:14
Right, that's true. The whole song starts with her like, "Hey, lady. You! Lady!"
Brooke Suchomel: 15:19
"Cursing at your life..."
Kaykay Brady: 15:21
"You, at the Safeway."
Brooke Suchomel: 15:22
I always see this song as a woman is in the grocery store with her toddler who's throwing a fucking fit and having a meltdown in the grocery store. She's like, losing it, and this glamorous woman just swans up to her and start singing the song to her, and said glamorous woman is the mistress of the woman who's having a meltdown's husband. And he is the one who wrote the song. It's his fantasy.
Kaykay Brady: 15:56
Right. He's imagining the sad sack life of his mistress, which cannot possibly be fulfilled because she has not received his seed.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:05
Yeah, it's like the lady who was cursing at her life, it's like, "Why are you cursing? You had this man's child. It's all that you need."
Kaykay Brady: 16:14
Yeah! Listen to the lyrics, dude. And the lyrics of the mistress who's supposedly unhappy, she's rocking it on yachts, has a very fulfilling sex life, she seems very liberated. I don't believe it.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:27
She has been to Georgia and California, okay? She has been to Georgia!
Kaykay Brady: 16:33
Do you think she means like Atlanta, Georgia, or like, Georgia, the country?
Brooke Suchomel: 16:37
I don't know.
Kaykay Brady: 16:39
It's an age old question.
Brooke Suchomel: 16:40
She's "been to crying for unborn children that might have made me complete." Literal lyric. Anywho, Charlene.
Kaykay Brady: 16:52
It's worth checking out. And if you're ever doing karaoke, and there's any queer people in the room, it's a barnburner.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:00
Oh, yeah. You won't have to buy a drink for the rest of the night.
Kaykay Brady: 17:02
Yeah. I've had that experience multiple times where I hit out of the park with Charlene. I was surrounded by a bevy of gay men for the rest of the night, just willing to do whatever I needed.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:13
This has been our karaoke tip of the day.
Kaykay Brady: 17:15
We should have a podcast that's just us doing karaoke.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:17
That sounds fun.
Kaykay Brady: 17:18
Why not?
Brooke Suchomel: 17:18
Yeah. So Charlene was there...
Kaykay Brady: 17:21
A lot of good characters, Charlene one of them, Jo with the Mohawk...
Brooke Suchomel: 17:24
Yeah. So we were not super fans of the first super special.
Kaykay Brady: 17:31
No, we were not.
Brooke Suchomel: 17:32
Which was an advertisement for the Disney Corporation and Carnival Cruises. Kaykay, what was your reaction to the second super special?
Kaykay Brady: 17:45
You know, I'm going to be honest, I'm not a fan of super specials. I found this so tedious. It really seemed to sort of lack perspective that I feel like the regular books have. And, okay, just to get right to what I thought they were fighting, I basically thought they were fighting to have any semblance of free will in the face of peer pressure.
Brooke Suchomel: 18:11
I had pressure to assimilate, which is basically the same thing.
Kaykay Brady: 18:15
Yes. Just scene after scene after scene of their wants, their desires, their needs, their agencies, their identity being compromised, and having that be portrayed as either neutral or okay. So like, I was annoyed. I was annoyed at the message that I picked up through the book that basically, boundaries are to be constantly railroaded. And then also, I had a problem, well, it just was hard for me, the switching perspectives of the super specials. I find that really hard. And, you know, it might also be supporting the struggle I had, with there being any perspective, because it's harder to have a perspective with every chapter's a new person.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:01
Right. So much like with the first super special, you switch off perspectives throughout.
Kaykay Brady: 19:07
Yeah, every chapter is a different babysitter.
Brooke Suchomel: 19:09
Fortunately, we don't get any chapters written by Nicky Pike or anything. Unfortunately, we have chapters written by Logan.
Kaykay Brady: 19:15
Logan...
Brooke Suchomel: 19:16
Who reinforces "Logan sucks" throughout.
Kaykay Brady: 19:22
Dude, the "feeb" shit? I was...flames. Flames on the side of my face. Breathless, heaving...
Brooke Suchomel: 19:28
Right.
Kaykay Brady: 19:29
What the fuck? They're calling Mary Anne a "feeb," to be short for "feeble minded," because she sends Logan a stupid love note that they think is dumb. And Logan does not act as I would hope anyone who is even a passing friend would act, which is, "Say that shit about my friend one more time and see what happens."
Brooke Suchomel: 19:49
Right, never stands up for Mary Anne.
Kaykay Brady: 19:51
No!
Brooke Suchomel: 19:51
In fact, when he gets the note in front of the other campers he's with, when he gets that note at lunch, which they imply that they deliberately handed Mary Anne's note, the head counselors or whatever, to shame him and Mary Anne, because Mary Anne tried to sneak across to the boys' side of the camp. Again, boys and girls have to be completely separated at camp.
Kaykay Brady: 20:18
Yeah, they're literally separated.
Brooke Suchomel: 20:19
Right. They're literally separated by a lake at camp, except for when they are brought together for a movie night and a dance. So it's like, you can only come into contact with the opposite sex if it is like, part of mating ritual grooming, effectively. Why can't you be riding horses or archery or whatever with members of the other sex? It makes no sense. Anyway, separation of the sexes is pervasive in this book, and the ramifications of that? Not great. Because Logan hands this note over. He's like, "Oh, the other kids..."
Kaykay Brady: 21:02
"Oh, I'm busted," he says.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:04
Yes. Like, "He took the note from me because I let him," and I'm like, "Fuck you, Logan!" He says that he gets respect back, so he loses respect because his girlfriend sends over an overly and deliberately obnoxiously gushy note because Mary Anne is doing this to try to impress the other girls...
Kaykay Brady: 21:28
Yeah, she's showing off for the girls in her cabin, who don't believe that she has a boyfriend.
Brooke Suchomel: 21:32
Right, so she writes an overly flowery and affectionate note, and Logan feels like he's lost respect for that. And how does he get respect back? He gets respect back by starting a food fight. He says, I've gotten the respect back from that, and he then says that he has to hurry up and end his entry that he's writing about this. Because if any of the boys discover that he's keeping a diary, he'll lose any respect that he's gained. Like, Logan sucks.
Kaykay Brady: 22:05
"Writing and insight, so gay. Ugh, you're a homo."
Brooke Suchomel: 22:10
Seriously. So yeah, Logan sucks. In his like, letters home, so the whole framing that we get for this is that instead of starting each chapter with an entry in the Baby-sitters Club notebook, in their handwriting like is done in a typical book, that's where the other perspectives come in. In this, every new chapter starts with a postcard home to family members or whatever, and Logan's is in all caps when he writes to his younger siblings, and he threatens them. He's like, You better be behaving for mom and dad, because you know what happens to little brothers and sisters who don't like tickling. It's like, Ew! Threatens them with unwanted physical contact. I do not like Logan. I don't like him, Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady: 23:05
Logan is trash. I mean, he's just trash. I do think Logan put a soupcon of crap on the whole book...
Brooke Suchomel: 23:12
As he's wont to do.
Kaykay Brady: 23:14
As he's wont to do, and it was just crappy boundary violations all over the place. Stacey doesn't even want to go to camp, and they just harangue her for weeks, letters, phone calls, guilt trips, and finally she goes to camp. Hey man, if you don't want to be off in the woods, and that's not your thing?
Brooke Suchomel: 23:35
Totally fine.
Kaykay Brady: 23:36
Totally fine! Like, do your thing in New York City, go to some Broadway camp, I don't know, do something dope that you'd like to do. Kristy is literally harangued daily for being babyish. All the CITs are picking on her and forcing her into gender norms that she's not comfortable with, and she's sort of forced to go to a dance. I mean, the whole book is just filled with this, and it was especially hard to read as a person who, my upbringing in sort of a hardscrabble working class Irish family, there's not many things that I will say it benefited me. The one thing that it did do for me is I never let anybody push me around or do things that I wasn't comfortable with doing. Somebody tried to put makeup on me, I'll tell them to go shit in their hat. No doubt. Especially at fucking camp, where I could go ride a horse, I could go do archery, ah, so many fun things to do at camp. So it was very hard for me to read of Kristy's experience, which also to me, maybe because I was more like this, I was more like Kristy and I really never let girls ever push me into this horseshit. I was kind of like, really? You know, Kristy puts up no fight at all toward this, and I suppose like, there's something interesting about it because it shows the power of peer pressure and especially the power of like, gender normed peer pressure. But yeah, it was hard for me to read because I was just reading it the whole time being like, Come on Kristy, go find Jo.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:07
Right. Well, it's funny because I'm about to say, I think the reboot of this book would have Kristy reacting in a very different way. But we already got a reboot of this book in the way that it was updated in the TV show.
Kaykay Brady: 25:22
Yeah, good point.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:23
There were some things that carried over, like Stacey being sent to the infirmary with poison ivy. That is the main thing that was consistent between the Netflix show and the book.
Kaykay Brady: 25:37
The fact that the owners of the camp are named Meanie, that carried over.
Brooke Suchomel: 25:41
And then like, Kristy does archery, you see that briefly. It wasn't a big deal in the book, it wasn't a big deal on the TV show, but there's little winks and nods throughout where you're like, they clearly are paying homage to the original book in what they're doing in the TV show. But there's so much that is different. For instance, in the TV show, these girls are not counselors in training. That's what Kristy is pushing for, and Meanie's like, "You're 13, you're too young." And it's only when they get to the very end, where they're like, "We'll make you junior counselors in training," so effectively the role played by Jessi and Mallory in this book. The responsibilities being put on these kids. In this book, they have responsibility. It's funny, they say, "Be a CIT," counselor-in-training, they abbreviate it as CIT, "Be a CIT, because you get all of the fun of being a camper, plus extra privileges, plus extra blah, blah, blah." And it's all like, you get all of these additional things, but it doesn't say, you also have responsibilities in exchange for those privileges. That isn't brought up, but you do. In the TV show, they don't have those responsibilities. Kristy is fighting to get responsibilities, but it's not the role that they're meant to play there. And that's taken even further in this book where you're just like, "Oh, that's too much to ask of kids," when Dawn goes missing. They are going on an overnight camping trip...
Kaykay Brady: 27:09
When nobody has camping skills, or map reading skills.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:13
Right, besides the girl who is like the quiet girl who's kind of removed, she just wants to read in her bunk. And it turns out she actually knows how to navigate in the woods, and she's the one that they should be listening to. But that's kind of where it ends, and then it's like, and she doesn't come back to camp.
Kaykay Brady: 27:32
So curious. I didn't really understand where the Heather character, her name was Heather, where the Heather character was coming in.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:40
My take on that was, it was very strange. That was one of Dawn's campers, and Dawn was like, trying to figure out what's wrong with Heather. And actual Dawn that we've seen, the one that's emotionally intelligent, would know Heather's fine.
Kaykay Brady: 27:56
Yeah, she's doing her own thing. Come out of her shell.
Brooke Suchomel: 27:57
She's just an introvert. And she's happy being in her cabin reading. And if that's not a problem for you, then let it go. But I think the role that she's meant to play in the book is to like, try to encourage kids who might be shy to speak up or, you know, whatever. But it didn't really connect right, and I think it didn't connect right because you see the character through Dawn's eyes and Dawn doesn't understand her. But we would expect Dawn to understand her.
Kaykay Brady: 28:31
Yeah, it doesn't track.
Brooke Suchomel: 28:32
It's not confusing. There's nothing concerning about the character. You shouldn't be concerned that somebody wants to read, it's fine. But they go on this overnight camping trip, and their counselor that has replaced the counselor that left is 15. So they send a 15 year old out to lead two 13 year olds and six 11 year olds on a five mile hike through the wilderness, without adequate equipment or training. This 15 year old just fucking got there, and they're like, "Have fun, kids!" And they just set them loose, and they get lost and they get stranded overnight and they don't come back. And the camp doesn't tell anyone. Did you notice that?
Kaykay Brady: 29:22
They don't call the parents.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:23
They don't. They don't tell the other campers. It's like, "We heard rumors that there was some sort of drama, but we didn't know what it was." And Mary Anne is like, "Where is Dawn?" So Mary Anne is freaking the fuck out that she's the only one who apparently is concerned. They still go ahead with movie night.
Kaykay Brady: 29:40
You gotta watch Meatballs. You're not gonna hold Meatballs, just because 10 campers are missing. Come on.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:46
Right. There are 10 dead children on site, but you gotta watch Meatballs.
Kaykay Brady: 29:51
Priorities.
Brooke Suchomel: 29:51
Yeah, so that wasn't super great. And the TV show absolutely did not do that and would not do that, and for that, I would like to tip my hat to the progress that we have made in this country, which sometimes you only notice when you look back at the past.
Kaykay Brady: 30:07
When you look back. Oh, and also some kid breaks her leg, and doesn't go home? A broken leg doesn't get you home? What?
Brooke Suchomel: 30:17
Fell off a horse, and is just gonna hang out in the infirmary for the rest of the summer. It's cool.
Kaykay Brady: 30:21
Ridiculous. Yeah, and it's interesting you're bringing up the Netflix show, because it's making me realize that there also is a sort of theme in the Netflix show where the kids are being pushed towards things that they don't support or believe in. But it's from the institutional level pushing, right? It's from all Meanie, it's from the capitalistic structure of the camp. And they do successfully push back at it, versus the book where all the pressure's coming horizontally from peers and you do kind of get this feeling that everybody somehow loses their ability to push back, and a lot of personality is missing, too. You've called Dawn. I've called Kristy. And I think it's true, you could easily read the book and say, Hmm, you know, it's just not tracking to what we know of the personality of some of these folks.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:18
Right. And I think a big part of that is that they're isolated.
Kaykay Brady: 31:24
Yeah, great point. Great point.
Brooke Suchomel: 31:25
With the exception of Mallory and Jessi, who are in a cabin together, the rest of the girls are all in a separate cabin. So they're not together, they don't have each other's support. When I said, you know, I felt like what they were fighting was a pressure to assimilate, I saw it specifically in the context of "in new situations, and around new people." And that feeling of judgment. You're encountering people for the first time, and you feel out of place, and you feel like you're being judged. And the impact of that feeling of like, being looked at but not being seen.
Kaykay Brady: 32:07
Seen and not accepted.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:08
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 32:09
Yeah. And also, the natural human pressure when in a new circumstance, where you're off kilter, to judge others. That's why the other campers are doing that because they're also feeling that sense of like, Where do I stand in this hierarchy? What's happening? Who am I? And so quite often, especially with kids, they'll sort of be the first ones to judge, you know, so that they're not vulnerable.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:37
Right. It's weird, the one that does judge others is Dawn.
Kaykay Brady: 32:41
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 32:42
I found that to be very disorienting. Dawn's first chapter was basically her going around, rattling off who is in her cabin...
Kaykay Brady: 32:52
And what do they look like?
Brooke Suchomel: 32:53
What do they look like?
Kaykay Brady: 32:55
Damn, I saw that. Everything was like, "Oh, she's tall. She's short. She's slender. She's chubby."
Brooke Suchomel: 33:02
Says about the other CIT, "She doesn't have as much camping experience as I have. She's not exactly pretty, but she's not bad looking either. Her eyes are kind of close together and her nose is pointy, so she looks like a bird. But she's got beautiful red blonde hair, more red than blonde, and perfect skin. I think she's very smart." "I think she's smart" as kind of like a, Your personality is great.
Kaykay Brady: 33:24
Shaaaaaady, bitch!
Brooke Suchomel: 33:25
Right, and then talks about how Heather's a little pudgy, her hair is limp and hangs in her face. It's like, Who is this?
Kaykay Brady: 33:32
She actually has a pretty face. If she just moved her bangs, she would actually be pretty.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:37
This should be Stacey.
Kaykay Brady: 33:39
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 33:39
If anybody is going to be writing from this perspective, it's Stacey. It's not Dawn. This just doesn't match up with what we've seen from Dawn, so I think there might be that feeling of disorientation.
Kaykay Brady: 33:49
Yeah. And also your theory, though, about, they're in a new place. They don't know where they fit. We've seen Dawn be in this position for the whole Baby-sitters Club books. So to me, it doesn't track because, you know, it's a totally valid theory to say, Well, they're isolated and they're under pressure. They don't know anybody, and so they're walking into a new situation, maybe their personalities change. But Dawn came from California, she didn't know a soul.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:13
Right. I think what makes Dawn different here, the one reason why I'm like, Maybe this is why she is judging, is because she's held up as like, she has the most camping experience. Like, this is some position of authority that she has. So she goes in and she's like, I am the top one here. In a way, she's got this position of power.
Kaykay Brady: 34:35
And authority, maybe.
Brooke Suchomel: 34:36
Yeah. And when Charlene, their counselor, gets sent away because she's been crying for unborn children that might have made her complete or her mom is sick, I can't recall, Dawn is put in temporary charge. So Dawn has this elevated status. And I wonder if that is where the judgment of others is coming from, because she feels like she can make that judgment. She feels like, This is my arena.
Kaykay Brady: 35:04
I'm the person of authority, right.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:06
All of the other girls, going to camp is new to them. And it's not for Dawn.
Kaykay Brady: 35:11
That makes sense.
Brooke Suchomel: 35:12
I think Kristy really nails this on page 91, when she talks about how she's feeling homesick and why. This is a direct quote, she says, "I feel kind of out of it with the other CITs in cabins 8-B and 8-A. There aren't problems, exactly. The CITs haven't been mean to me. Not at all, they couldn't have been nicer. It's just that I'm so different from them. Oh, all right, I'll be honest, it's that I'm exactly their age, but I seem so much younger. That's how I felt compared to Stacey and Claudia when the Baby-sitters Club first began, and that's how I feel now compared to almost all of the club members. The big difference is that I know my friends so well, I feel comfortable with them, so the difference doesn't matter. But I don't know the CITs." So she is feeling like, I don't have any trust with them. And I think she feels that, you know, she says explicitly, she doesn't feel comfortable with them because she feels different. And, you know, explicitly in this book, it's all like, "Because I'm younger," but really?
Kaykay Brady: 36:21
I know, "younger" is really a code in this series for "queer."
Brooke Suchomel: 36:27
Yeah. Completely.
Kaykay Brady: 36:29
It seems, right?
Brooke Suchomel: 36:30
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 36:31
Which makes sense. Like, there was no language for that in the 80s. It was like, the only way you could describe a female that wasn't, you know, embracing traditional gender norms, was they're childish or sort of stuck in their development. Because there was only one way to be.
Brooke Suchomel: 36:50
Because maturity is defined as embracing your position as a sexual object for men. That's how maturity is defined.
Kaykay Brady: 37:00
Stepping into that gender norm. Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:03
Kristy is actually, probably along with Dawn, this book excepted, the most mature member of the Baby-sitters Club. She's the least babyish.
Kaykay Brady: 37:14
I totally agree with you.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:15
She's the leader. She's the one that gets shit together, she gets things done, her organizational skills are on point, she is doing the damn thing.
Kaykay Brady: 37:25
She's creating businesses.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:27
She's not babyish at all, she's just not wearing makeup.
Kaykay Brady: 37:32
Right.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:33
That just shows you, you're in a society...
Kaykay Brady: 37:36
That does not allow for that.
Brooke Suchomel: 37:38
No. That defines maturity as, Have you accepted what your lot in life is going to be? And that is, To be a supportive sex object for the men that will be in charge. And Kristy says No, and will always say no. And it doesn't mean that she is arrested in her development, it means that she is rejecting this role that has been put on her. This was something that Kristy struggled with at the beginning of the series, because she had grown away from Claudia, and, you know, Stacey was new. Through the act of this shared thing that they have together, that is the Baby-sitters Club, they've just become very familiar with one another, and with familiarity, and the fact that they have a shared goal, that's what's given them that comfort. And so she doesn't feel as concerned about like, "Oh, they're judging me because I'm not wearing makeup," because they know her. And they know that the fact that she doesn't wear makeup doesn't mean that she's a quote unquote, "baby." It just means that Kristy doesn't wear makeup. And that's just all it is.
Kaykay Brady: 38:50
It's also making me think that, you know, there is something very special about coming together as a group to accomplish something. It's an opportunity that men and boys get their entire lives, effortlessly. And it's something that only recently women have been afforded the pleasure of being able to do. You see that sort of gendered-ness of the freedom of making things, building things, creating things versus just being siloed together by gender and fucking pecking each other to death.
Brooke Suchomel: 39:26
Yeah, I mean, women do work together to accomplish things. But men work together to accomplish things publicly. It's that visibility, it's that they are seen and recognized for accomplishments, even the process of accomplishing those things is public. I mean, that's what sports is, right? Just watching people in the act of working towards a goal and then seeing who's victorious. Whereas the kind of things that women have historically, like the accomplishments that have been prescribed to women have all been private.
Kaykay Brady: 40:00
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:01
And even if you work along with other women in more, like, in historically like communal kitchen situations or childcare or something like that...
Kaykay Brady: 40:10
Yeah, like community support.
Brooke Suchomel: 40:13
It's still in private. It's not a public display of female competence and goals. That's always been cast in the role of, That's what men do. So I think your point is really interesting. It's making me think about if it's that visibility that is the differentiating factor. And that speaks to another part of this with Kristy, which I noticed throughout, I have so many places where I've tabbed it, it's the visibility. She feels exposed. She feels not just exposed, but she feels stifled, suffocated. She says that she feels penned in, she feels trapped when she's in the bathroom, or wherever they are getting ready for this dance, and the girls are all fawning over her and like making her over and all of that. And they're just constantly talking about this and what they're gonna do, and she says, "I needed privacy. I needed separateness." She doesn't want to be both perceived and monitored in the way that she is being perceived and monitored. Like, if anybody is questioning whether Kristy is queer coded, please read this book.
Kaykay Brady: 41:35
Yeah, 100%. 100%.
Brooke Suchomel: 41:37
There's so much about that. And it's like, it's not a coincidence that this feeling of exposure, and not being able to be private, feeling on display, and feeling this pressure to be, she calls herself, when she's looking in the mirror after they have given her a makeover before she's going into the dance, she calls it "a false Kristy."
Kaykay Brady: 41:57
She's in drag!
Brooke Suchomel: 41:58
But like, not a drag that she has chosen for herself.
Kaykay Brady: 42:01
Yes, not a drag that makes her feel empowered or seen.
Brooke Suchomel: 42:03
Right. Not drag in the sense that she is expressing something internal, and making that external. The kind of drag that she is in is 100% external, in other people putting their view of what she should be on her, physically on her.
Kaykay Brady: 42:24
Yeah. And I think for me, this ties back to, you know, what's different about the men coming together to create things versus the traditional women coming together to create things, and I think it is that men get more choice to express whatever they want to be and whatever they want to do versus like traditional groups of women coming together to support and create, it's so narrow and so confined by gender. And so that requires a lot of policing of each other. Because in some ways, it's a demonstration of your gender, and your sort of properness as a woman versus the idea of creating something that seems interesting, unique, and compelling to you. And you're not necessarily going to be pigeonholed as a man for like, you know, are you ascribing close enough to your gender norm?
Brooke Suchomel: 43:17
Right, although we see a bit of that with the Logan portrayal, where, you know, he talks about, it's like, he loses respect, because his girlfriend is gushy with him.
Kaykay Brady: 43:27
Yeah, and they're also pecking each other to death.
Brooke Suchomel: 43:29
Yeah. And he knows they can't see that he's writing in a journal because he'll lose respect. So you are seeing both sides of the "Assimilate to the gender norms, or else you will experience social difficulties." Isolation at minimum, "you will be made an example of" at worst. And so for me, that's kind of what I was seeing throughout this in every chapter. I actually had a more positive response to this book, I think, than you did. It didn't feel as madcap as the first one did.
Kaykay Brady: 44:09
It definitely had more heart and soul, closer to the series.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:12
It felt more real. You know, it felt more authentic. The first one just did not feel authentic. The first one felt like this was somebody writing a pilot for a wacky Baby-sitters Club cartoon or something like that.
Kaykay Brady: 44:24
Scrappy Dappy Doo! Wait til they bring in the baby. That's when you know it's jumped the shark.
Brooke Suchomel: 44:29
Well that's, Oh, you've got Karen Brewer and Nicky Pike writing entries, you have jumped the shark. But to me, I felt that it was an honest reflection, at least of my experience. I think it's different when you're a kid and you're thrown into new situations, there's definitely pressure, but it just feels like the peer pressure really truly kicks in, in accordance with the gender norm side of things, as you enter puberty. And the kids I think are really experiencing different facets of it. We haven't talked about it much, but you see that in Jessi and Mallory's, like the kids that are in their cabin are assholes. They're racist...
Kaykay Brady: 45:17
Oh, they're calling them fucking Oreos! Yep.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:19
Yeah, they're like, openly racist and hostile to them. Like, you see racism in here, you see homophobia, I would say, you know, it's a stretch, because again, everything with this book is coded. But like, it's there. It's just coded. It's like, "If you're a girl, and you're entering puberty, you best get your makeup on, you best start flirting with boys. You gotta do that, because any deviation from that is not allowed." You see that, you know, I think Stacey is obviously feeling a different sense of pressure. She is peer pressured by the other Baby-sitters Club.
Kaykay Brady: 45:58
Yep.
Brooke Suchomel: 45:59
She doesn't wanna be there.
Kaykay Brady: 46:00
That's how the book starts.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:01
So it's like, you get that pressure from your friends too, right? They want you to do things, and you're just like, Fine, fuck it, I'll give in if you just shut up. You see that too with Claudia. You know, she's really excited that she has a crush on a Japanese boy, because she says, All of the boys that I've had crushes on before have not been Japanese, and I know that my parents really want me to get married to a Japanese man and have kids and all of that. So there are lots of little things there where I'm like, this would be an interesting thread that I think now would be expanded upon significantly.
Kaykay Brady: 46:37
Definitely.
Brooke Suchomel: 46:37
So there are some little things in there that are rich, that we don't get to see play out. It seems like the attempt is there. But there's also a lot of problematic things where like, again, Logan's reactions, and the way that he responds to this pressure that he's getting, it's not presented as problematic. There isn't like a "This isn't cool" sort of sheen, it's like, "Logan's a great boyfriend!" And it's like, he's not, though. He sucks.
Kaykay Brady: 47:11
I 100% agree with you. And I also felt, you know, it really did ring true, the peer pressure. All of that completely rings true and feels like a very good representation of that, especially in the 80s. I think where my disappointment comes in, is just that it seems like other books are able to have more of a slightly elevated perspective on what is being seen and happening. Whereas this book more just seems like, you get to see it, but nothing really gets to be done with it. And it really hits me hard as someone who experienced homophobia so intensely, and nothing is done with it. And like, I don't know what the message is, like I said it's either neutral, or I'm not sure. But there's nothing really done with it. Certainly not the way that I think the Netflix show would. So I think it's the very fact that it was so well done, this book, in terms of putting you back there, that it feels like, ugh, it really hurts to have nothing done with it.
Brooke Suchomel: 48:20
Yeah, I think the most that you get is with Kristy, she says at the end, "I can't say I had a bad time at the CIT dance that night." And you see her actually cutting in, dancing with boys, cutting in. To me, it felt like the tool that they're using is experimentation. They're kind of like stepping out and being like, Okay, maybe should I try these things? Should I put on a different persona? And seeing if that works for them. But you don't see as much of an explicit, Here's what I learned from this, here's what I took away, here's how I have changed as a result of this. Except you do get more of that with Kristy, I think, so I just want to say this and get your take on it because this is a paragraph that stood out to me. I believe this is Kristy's, yeah, it's her last chapter of the book. So she says, "I can't say I had a bad time at the CIT dance that night. I also can't say I wasn't glad to see the minivan arrive to take us girls back to our cabins. Immediately I felt more like myself. I was a Kristy snake, shedding my movie star skin so that I could wear my comfortable skin instead. Phew, what a night." I think that's probably the closest thing that we get to some sort of resolution that feels like there's some sort of internal reflection happening.
Kaykay Brady: 49:41
Definitely. I think for for me, it's like your response to the Dawn book, where you sort of see maybe what Dawn really wants deep down inside and who Dawn is and what might be healthiest for Dawn. And then, given all the pressures, Dawn just completely settles. And the book just kind of leaves it as like, Okay, Dawn settled, and you're like, Oh, no! That's how I responded to this book. And that paragraph's perfect. It's perfect because she's like, you know, to me, that is a young queer person learning to settle and operate in a straight world and like, dim her light. So like, for me, it reads as very sad.
Brooke Suchomel: 50:29
Yeah. Even though she says she's more comfortable in this other skin, she isn't saying, I'm gonna own this comfortable skin, I'm gonna embrace it.
Kaykay Brady: 50:40
It reminds me of the million things I had to do as a young queer person that never felt right to me, that I would just like, numb myself to. Now this would be as simple as wearing a fucking dress when I wanted to wear a fucking bow tie, and like, I would have been so filled with joy to wear a bow tie, and instead, they put me in a dress. And I'm like, "Well, I didn't die!" But all the while my light was being dimmed. And then it goes as far as like, sleeping with a man, and having no desire to sleep with a man, and being like, "Well, I didn't throw up!"
Brooke Suchomel: 51:13
Right. Ringing endorsement. I hope you said that afterwards. "High five, didn't puke." That's a five star review on Yelp.
Kaykay Brady: 51:22
"Two paws up! Did not vomit." But anyway, for me, that paragraph is just very, you know, you could take a young queer person and apply it to so many aspects of life. And it's so sad, and of course, this is me with my own experience reading so much into this, which is what you do when you read a book, but the million different ways that the self is dimmed, oppressed, and changed. And the way that the book has, I think, a lock on a lot of different social issues. But in this, it doesn't. And it makes sense for the time, but a queer person reading it, it just can't help but feel like "Womp womp."
Brooke Suchomel: 52:05
Yeah, it makes you think about all of the things that you just grit your teeth and do because pushing back against it feels like more effort than you have, and it's like, "Just suck it up and deal with it and then move on." And you think, "Well, in this moment, who cares? It's a minor thing, it'll pass." But the repetition of having to do it over and over again, the fact that you have to do it over and over again, the way that that gets internalized in you, the message that it tells you, and the way that it's constantly reminding you that your authentic self is not something that society accepts as is...
Kaykay Brady: 52:46
100%.
Brooke Suchomel: 52:46
Just that pressure and how difficult it is to come of age, just period. Even if you are, you know, I think about it all the time. I had so many fucking advantages. I mean, I am white. I am cisgender. I am heterosexual. I was raised Christian. You know, like, even with all of that, it was torture to come up as the age of the girls in this book. If it's hard for somebody who has so many advantages, so many privileges built in to the society that you exist within, if I was lacking one or more of those things, I can't even fathom it. This is why it's just it's like, Who fucking cares? Why do you fucking care if somebody doesn't wear mascara? It doesn't affect you. Let it go.
Kaykay Brady: 53:43
I think the pain that you're describing, it really hammers home for me, all pain is relative. It's so funny. When you're a therapist, you really see this. You can work with clients that are insanely wealthy, and they are in a lot of pain, and they're struggling. And then you work with kids that are in the foster system, and have been abused, and they're in pain. And nobody's pain is more than the others. And like, you see this with Logan, too. You see his pain, you see his struggle. That's the thing about pain, is it is relative. And everybody has those struggles.
Brooke Suchomel: 54:19
Mm hmm. And we've said this before, and I think it's really true, and maybe you even see it in this book. Sometimes, being part of the in group? The struggle is real. There's no outsider status. You know, when you have an outsider status, sometimes it almost gives you relief, because you have an alternate universe of people. Now, of course, for like queer people like me, we didn't have that when we were younger. I think queer people today do, but you get that sort of outsider relief and connection, that I think when you're primarily part of the in group or the insider status, it's like, This is your community. You better fucking adapt, do you better hop to. Because what are you going to do if you get kicked out? Who are you going to go to? Well, it's the fact that now there can be multiple communities because of the ability to communicate in ways that we were not able to communicate before. When we were growing up, your community was like, literally your physical community.
Kaykay Brady: 55:21
Exactly.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:22
That was your community, because that's what you had access to.
Kaykay Brady: 55:25
Yes.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:26
Are you able to find others within your physical space, that have shared experiences that you can connect with so that you don't feel so isolated? Like, Kristy goes through with this. I would say Kristy would absolutely not have gone through with what she did with this makeover if she had another one of the Baby-sitters Club in her cabin.
Kaykay Brady: 55:47
That's probably true.
Brooke Suchomel: 55:47
She wouldn't have done it because she would have somebody else there to be like, You know what? Just one person to be like, You're okay. It's this feeling of, I'm on my own, I'm on a fucking Island, I have to survive. And if I don't see anybody else that can support me, or reinforce my decisions to remain true to myself, it's like an evolutionary thing, right?
Kaykay Brady: 56:12
Survival.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:12
It's survival, you survive by finding community. And if you can't find community, because everybody is isolated, in the way that like, normally, Kristy inserts herself into situations. And in this book, she says over and over again, I want to be separate. I want to be private. She wants to isolate herself.
Kaykay Brady: 56:32
Wow, interesting. I didn't even think of that, but you're 100% right. It's the first time we see her doing that, expressing that.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:39
Yeah. So she feels like she is trapped in a community where she is alone. And she feels like her only choices are either to remove herself from the community, or if she's going to stay in the community, to assimilate for the amount of time that she is in that community.
Kaykay Brady: 56:58
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 56:59
And I think that that is something that is very real. I think that's extremely real for most people.
Kaykay Brady: 57:05
It's totally valid.
Brooke Suchomel: 57:06
And I wonder how much of the fact that people are now able to find community outside of their physical space, if that is why we're seeing more mobilization and more support of things like, if you not only don't adhere to gender norms, but if you're trans. You know, it's like, Why are so many people coming out as trans? It's because they were trans all along, and now we're just accepting it. Not everybody is accepting it, but there's an ability to tell somebody else what you're feeling, and to have somebody else look back at you and say, "I feel that way too." And you realize that it's not you that's broken, it's the social structure that you're within that doesn't allow for you to express that, that is broken.
Kaykay Brady: 57:53
Well, and also, you know, the way people work is they also come to understand who they are by emulating people who have come before. And so you see it with the straight characters in this book, where they're all showing each other, What does it look like to be a straight woman? But if you grew up, and you know, you're a trans person, you may not even know that you're a trans person, because there's no modeling. And it's very hard to create your own identity out of thin air. So of course, more connection, more visibility, any visibility whatsoever, you're like, "Wow," you know, you really start to get a sense of it. And it's funny, I do think it's a double edged sword though, because a lot of this connection is coming through the internet, right? It's coming through online sources. And that is so beautiful, and so revolutionary for groups that can't find the folks in their hometowns, for example. The tough part is that the internet is inherently isolating. And it's really timely, this theme that we're discussing of isolation in this book, because we're also seeing the isolation that people are experiencing being online all the time, and the way that it crushes the fucking human spirit completely. So it's a mixed bag.
Brooke Suchomel: 59:11
Yeah, it's definitely a mixed bag. I wonder how much it's like, you're going online because that's where you can find the space. Because if you're a queer kid growing up in like, a small town in Iowa, and you don't see many other people who are like, you feel like Kristy feels all the fucking time. Trust me, Kristy would feel that all the time growing up in a rural community. It's unfortunate, but it's true.
Kaykay Brady: 59:38
Growing up in New York City in the 80s, I felt that.
Brooke Suchomel: 59:40
Right, but I'm saying even now there are places it's like, you go online because it's the only place that you can make that connection because that physical, either they aren't there or they feel so threatened by being seen that they won't come together. You have to go online, so everything has to be underground.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:01
Yep.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:00:02
So what you end up getting is, you get queer kids and people who feel and think differently from the sort of hegemonic structure that they're within, they move. They go away. I can say this from experience, these small Iowa towns are dying. And one of the reasons why they're dying, you hear so much about like, economics. And yeah, economic issues started that process, when jobs are removed and you can't find work, that's tough. But another huge part of it, and I will say this to my dying day, and I will say this to every single person in that state, is it is your attitude towards people that are different from your normal structure. You are making it unsafe for people who aren't just like you. If they feel unsafe in your community, they will leave. And it is those people that you need to build your new future.
Kaykay Brady: 1:00:59
Yeah, keep it vital.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:01:01
Your factory is gone. It ain't coming back. It sucks. I'm sorry. But that's just reality. So you can continue to be angry about that, or you can think, What do we have to do? You can be so focused on, Let's go back to this time when we had these factories here, and you had moms stay at home and all of this, like this nostalgia trap that you get in that acts like how America was in the 1950s was anything other than America in the 1950s. That was a very small window of time. That is not how this country was before, it is not how it was after. You're just thinking about when white people without a college degree were perhaps the wealthiest that they had been in the history of this country. That is gone, that was a blip, that was a moment. Now you can get back to what you see as quote unquote, your "glory days" of where you weren't as worried about putting food on your table, etc. You are going to need to welcome more people into your community to make that happen. You are going to need to open up your community to people who are not like you exactly in every way. And guess what? That's okay. That's where new ideas come from. That's where new businesses will come from, that's where new industries will come from. And that is where you will actually grow as people and as a community, because you're being exposed to new things, not shutting everything that's new or different out. That is why you're dying, it is suicide. Obviously, if anybody listens to this, you should know how we feel about capitalism, you should know how we feel about income inequality. And that fucking sucks for everyone. But guess what, white people? It doesn't just suck for you. It sucks for everyone, and so we need to come together. Sometimes I have little fantasies of how lovely would be to move to one of these small towns and like, fix it up and live in a tiny community where you can walk everywhere, and where you know everybody. I am 100% down with that. What I could not abide is judgment and hostility and any sort of isolation. So it's like these towns are killing themselves because they're not open to new people and new ideas. And it's why we have so many of the social problems that we have today. Because we're so focused on judging others for not assimilating, rather than just thinking, Why do we have to assimilate at all? So long as everybody is able to live as they want to live and isn't hurting anybody, who fucking cares? I don't care. I don't care what you do. You just don't get to tell me what I can do. That's it. It's just crazy to me, because it's not hard. We could live in that world tomorrow. Literally tomorrow. It wouldn't cost a dime, wouldn't cost a cent. We would just have to agree to do it.
Kaykay Brady: 1:03:57
Yeah, I think part of what makes it hard is a lot of bad actors taking advantage of a natural human psychological tendency to not be super adaptable, to be afraid of difference, and to be afraid of change. You know, it's like people need help. You see it in these books, right? You see the way that kids need to be taught, like, This kid has a learning difference, or, This kid can't hear. We can adapt and learn to sign, and that actually enriches all of us. So people need to actually be supported in the ability to see and think like that. If you don't have a lot of support for that, and in fact you have a lot of bad actors taking advantage of this totally normal human trait, then of course it's not going to happen, because it takes effort for that to happen. And that, to me, is sort of the beauty of books like this, right? Because the books since the jump have been teaching that. They've been teaching that opening instead of closing, accepting instead of judging, explicitly and implicitly. And so I think maybe that's why I love when the book goes on that bandwagon and I get frustrated when the book doesn't. It felt like, I don't know, reading this book almost felt like living in a small town for me. And I was just like, I had a feeling in my body of, I didn't want to be reading it. I kept like, going off onto Facebook, I noticed I felt physically kind of antsy, like I wanted to get up and do something and not be reading it. It really felt for me like I was there. And I didn't want to be reading it and I wanted to go do something else.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:05:50
I think that that might be part of the different reaction, because it was totally like living in a small town, which is something that I know well. So it was really nice for me to see the sort of dynamic that I feel in my bones captured in this book.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:06
And see, I was ready to go to San Francisco.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:09
Oh, I was too, believe me.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:11
Kaykay was like, No, I'm leaving! Bye!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:13
Right. But that was me while I was living in said small town.
Kaykay Brady: 1:06:17
Like, you felt seen.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:06:20
Yeah. And I would say, I think you're totally right, the thing that I think for people to know, though, is while it does take effort to change the way that you respond to things, that effort is actually super freeing. It takes more effort. It takes more effort to judge, it takes more effort to hate. That is something that takes so much energy and time. Whereas if when you feel that judgment come into your head, you're just like, "That's a judgment," and you let it go? It's effort to train yourself to recognize when you're judging. I mean, it's something I am going through right now. I am working so actively, like, I am so far from perfect. I absolutely have biases, I absolutely go back to habits of being like, Oh my God, why is that person wearing that, you know? But being like, It doesn't matter. So for me, being like, if something doesn't affect you, if it doesn't matter, if it's just like this person likes something that I don't like? Okay! Who cares? Just let it go!
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:17
I love that you just said that. I love that you just said that, and I think it's such a brilliant point. Even though it does take intentionality, it takes mindfulness and intentionality to do it, on the other side of it is really life affirming for you.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:07:38
Yeah!
Kaykay Brady: 1:07:39
It's so funny. I was on a plane once for work flying to the Midwest, and there was a guy from the Midwest in the plane with me. And he was like, Hey, where are you from? I said, Oh, I'm from San Francisco. And you know, he just got this, like, really nasty look on his face. And his body got really tight. And he's like, Why do you live there? And the only thing I could think to say is, Hey man, we're happy there.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:02
Seriously.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:03
In that moment, I could feel that I was happy and positive. And this guy was fucking pissed!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:11
Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:11
About nothing! And so I had a moment of being like, Wow. Look, there's struggles everywhere. But again, it's like what you're saying, that kind of opening of your heart, opening of your mind that is liberating to you.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:25
Yeah, nowhere is perfect. But I hear often from people back home, it's like, Oh, how much does your gas cost out there? And it's like, Saving two dollars a gallon on gas is not the price that my soul and happiness can be bought for.
Kaykay Brady: 1:08:43
Yeah, totally.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:08:43
We are here because, in my experience, this is the place that has the least judgment. You can be whoever you want here, you just don't get to be an asshole to anybody else. That's all it is. So long as you are not hurting anyone else, be who you want. Nobody cares. You know? I mean, you might get that in some pockets. But that's an exception, not the rule. Because this is a place of people that have come here for that very reason.
Kaykay Brady: 1:09:14
Yeah.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:09:15
It's like minded people who just want to feel like they can be free to be who they are. That's why we're here. I would love for that to be the way everywhere in the country. I don't want that just to be a uniquely San Francisco experience. Because there are plenty of people who want hot summers, you know, there are plenty of people who want to live in the snow, there are people that want that. Like, let there be this sort of liberation, be who you are, everywhere. And frankly, my rent will come down. But also it will just make me happier, and I think our society would be so much happier and so much healthier. And it's something that, again, we could do this tomorrow, if we all just collectively choose to do so.
Kaykay Brady: 1:09:55
Yeah, and I think it is changing a little bit, in terms of, you know, people are living other places, because they can now.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:10:03
But you start to see the backlash, right? From people that have been there. And the whole thing is like, if those people could just open up their minds to the good that this brings, and not just the fear that they have? Like, don't let fear control your life.
Kaykay Brady: 1:10:18
Definitely. And you know, it's natural. I think that tension and that process is pretty natural in humans. And I think it does typically work out, because one thing we know for sure is proximity to each other physically cures a host of ills. It just does. Just physically knowing someone different than you and living around someone different than you, it can't help but change you. You know, even if you're not coming to it with this super open heart and open mind, it still does. It just still does.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:10:51
Right. And I think to the point of like, coming around and being open to making connections with people that perhaps you might not have been open to before, it's interesting that I think this book starts in a really good place with the- obviously, there's cultural appropriation.
Kaykay Brady: 1:11:12
Yeah, with the Camp Mohawk.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:11:14
Yeah, with the teepee and everything like that that's on everything. But Stacey says right at the beginning that she doesn't know a lot about Indian culture, but she goes, "I know this much. The Mohawk Indians are part of the large Iroquois nation, and the Iroquois lived in longhouses, not tepees." So she's starting with that. And then they named this lake, the lake that is at the core of the camp, Lake Dekanawida. I apologize if I'm butchering the pronunciation of that, because that's actually a real person. So I looked it up, and that is named after a person who is referred to as The Great Peacekeeper, who was one of the founders of the Iroquois Confederacy, who brought six tribal nations together. Nations that had at times been warring against each other or fighting for the same resources, he brought them together in a confederacy and established this as the way that they could all make sure that, you know, they're still their own tribes, but we have this shared goal and we're stronger together than apart.
Kaykay Brady: 1:12:21
Yeah, that they could survive.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:12:22
Right. And that is actually one of the things that was considered like, when the 13 colonies were brought together into the Articles of Confederation and everything, the Iroquois Confederacy was looked at as a model for what America could be. So I was like, Well, this is this is a really nice touch. It was undermined by the fact that the name of that lake was made fun of at every turn. I got really pissed off about that, where it was like, "Haha." It's like, this could have been a nice thing, and it got turned into, you know, "native names are funny." So that's not cool. And that's why I think they changed it to Camp Moosehead. But at the core of it, I thought it was nice that she picked the name of a real figure who brought everyone together. So, 80s moments. What stood out for you for Most 80s Moments in this book?
Kaykay Brady: 1:13:14
Lanyards! I was so glad lanyards got a shout out in the back cover copy. That's how important lanyards are.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:13:21
Yeah, everybody loves a lanyard.
Kaykay Brady: 1:13:22
Yeah, we did lanyards at camp. I loved lanyards, I thought they were so fresh. And then the second 80s thing I had was Dawn taping things that she sees on TV. Like VHS taping.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:13:35
That's how they get inspired to go to camp, because she taped The Parent Trap and Meatballs. And that made them want to go to camp, and then 23 people from Stoneybrook all went to camp because she taped Meatballs.
Kaykay Brady: 1:13:47
They should have gotten a cut of that money. Referral bonus, and I believe Kristy would have seen that and requested that. Come on!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:13:54
Agreed.
Kaykay Brady: 1:13:55
And then my third thing were bus escapades. There was some bus escapades, and I was fondly recalling all of my bus escapades. Like, one time my friend and I convinced our bus driver to buy us beer.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:14:08
How old were you?
Kaykay Brady: 1:14:09
Thirteen. And it worked! This was the 80s, y'all.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:14:14
Oh my god. Was he drinking the beer along with you while driving said vehicle?
Kaykay Brady: 1:14:19
No. He stopped the bus at a fucking gas station. He went in, he bought us Miller Lite, and then he dropped us in the woods.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:14:30
And he didn't come back to attempt to murder you?
Kaykay Brady: 1:14:32
No. He had issues, though. No doubt about it.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:14:33
Okay. You think? He drove a bus to the gas station to buy 13 year olds beer, who he then dropped in the woods. Did he have issues? He had issues.
Kaykay Brady: 1:14:48
Yeah, I guess I always just thought of it as my superior skills of convincing people, because it took me like an hour. It took me like the whole bus ride to get him to buy us beer.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:15:01
That's the thing. When you are a teenager, you're thinking about, Okay, what do I have to do to get one over on the adults? And you feel victorious, without thinking about, Holy fuck, what does it mean that this adult actually gave into my pleas? What's wrong with this adult? You don't think about the other side of it, you just want your Miller Light in the woods. Yeah.
Kaykay Brady: 1:15:23
Who doesn't? Anyway, so...
Brooke Suchomel: 1:15:25
Did you shotgun a Miller Light in the woods?
Kaykay Brady: 1:15:28
We did, we did. You know we did. We drank all six of them, and then went home and tried to act normal with our parents.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:15:38
Walked home drunk from the woods.
Kaykay Brady: 1:15:40
Yes! The 80s.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:15:43
I'm so glad you're still with us today, Kaykay. I'm so glad you survived. Speaking of surviving, the big 80s moment- I mean, there are so many 80s moments in this book. It's just like a barrage of 80s moments. It's a compendium of 80s moments in this book. But the one that really jumped out at me was the panic about Lyme disease.
Kaykay Brady: 1:16:03
Oh, yeah, totally.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:16:05
It's brought up, "This is a new disease, it's around here," and it would be. I mean, they're in upstate New York, it would absolutely be...
Kaykay Brady: 1:16:11
Yeah, it was all over the place in New York and Connecticut. It was a big deal. In fact, that friend that I got the six pack with, her sister had Lyme disease for years, and they didn't know it. They didn't catch it for like five years, and she couldn't walk for five years.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:16:26
It's incredibly debilitating, yeah. When Lyme disease first sort of came out into public consciousness, there was so much panic. I mean, this was coming off of the AIDS panic too, like America in the late 80s was very afraid of emerging diseases in a way that they don't seem to be today. You know? But Stacey is afraid that she has Lyme disease when she has...
Kaykay Brady: 1:16:52
Pinkeye, a cold, poison ivy, and impetigo.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:16:56
Yeah, she has a lot of things. Stacey does not belong in the woods.
Kaykay Brady: 1:17:00
I was gonna say, Stacey wanted to stay in New York City. She should have stayed in New York City.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:17:04
She should have been rubbing that in her friends faces the entire fucking time. "See what you did?" I love the fact that she's like, "Fine, I'm here, fuckers. But you all are gonna write a goddamn book for me." I mean, she's like, "I'm the boss now." Love that. I love that for you, Stacey. You need to bring that same energy with you in the infirmary where you are because your friends dragged you there when you just wanted to spend a nice summer in New York.
Kaykay Brady: 1:17:29
Respect my boundaries, bitch!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:17:31
Seriously. Respecting boundaries, not an 80s moment. So the lack of respect for boundaries, very 80s moment.
Kaykay Brady: 1:17:38
Very 80s.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:17:39
Yeah. So the next book that we focus on is also a Netflix adaptation, has a Netflix adaptation in the new season. So much like we're now reading a book that we saw adapted in the first season, the next episode we're going to be discussing a book that we will see adapted in the second season when we have our own summer vacation, which will not take place in the woods. There will be no Lyme disease or poison ivy, hopefully, in our podcast recording studios as we're discussing...
Kaykay Brady: 1:18:11
Aw, Brooke, you won't come drink Miller Lite with me in the woods? I thought we were friends!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:18:17
If by "woods," you mean like, your backyard? Absolutely. Let's do that. But we are going to be discussing Jessi and the Super Brat in our next episode, which gets, from what I've heard, a very modern day adaptation in the second season of the Netflix show.
Kaykay Brady: 1:18:35
Ooh, I'm excited!
Brooke Suchomel: 1:18:37
So it'll be interesting to compare the two. Looking forward to that, Kaykay.
Kaykay Brady: 1:18:43
Me too, friend.
Brooke Suchomel: 1:18:44
But until then...
Kaykay Brady: 1:18:46
Just keep sittin.' [theme] Somebody tried to put makeup on me? I'll tell them to go shit in their hat.
