Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Hey, I tell you what is. Big city, hmm? Live, work, huh? But not city only. Only peoples. Peoples is peoples. No is buildings. Is tomatoes, huh? Is peoples, is dancing, is music, is potatoes. So, peoples is peoples. Okay?

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit returns this week with Emily's take on The Muppets Take Manhattan. Although this 1984 film, directed by Frank Oz, still offers plenty of comedy, music, and whimsy, its treatment of women is a little less charming than the Guy Girls remembered.

Kermit, Miss Piggy, and the rest of the gang have just graduated from college and bring their senior musical Manhattan Melodies to New York to try to make it on Broadway. Of course, it's not so easy to find a willing producer, and Oz's storytelling scatters the Muppets across the country while Kermit stays behind. Unfortunately, the screenplay also seems to think that misogyny is just a fact of nature that women must deal with, so the audience must watch Miss Piggy become a badass in the face of catcalling construction workers and purse-snatching scumbags.

And all women in the film are similarly treated, with Janice remarking that she won't take off her clothes no matter how artistic the shoot is, Yolanda the rat constantly getting hit on by Rizzo, Brooke Shields also getting hit on by rats, and the Muppets' college audience laughing off Animal chasing a co-ed. So much for Gen X nostalgia if this was the pop culture written for children.

Still, as Pete might say, Muppets is Muppets. So please, join us!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, women, gen x nostalgia, pop culture, film, comedy, storytelling, cultural commentary, feminism, movies, movie reviews, muppets, kermit the frog, miss piggy, misogyny, romance, 80s and 90s movies, analyzing film tropes, classic movies

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

There's no crying in baseball!

This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t, Tracie returns to the 1992 Penny Marshall comedy A League of Their Own. Both Guy sisters loved the unabashed feminism and women-centered storytelling of this film when it debuted, and much of movie holds up to their Gen X nostalgia. Marshall lets the audience see how being part of a team creates a sense of belonging and self-worth, how women must excel as an athlete and a lady to be taken seriously, and how putting any kind of qualifier before the word "athlete" becomes a threat to the status quo.

But the feminism isn't entirely joyful, in part because this isn't just 90s era pop culture, but historical fiction based on a real baseball league. And unfortunately, the real-world misogyny Marshall illuminates via feel-good feminism hasn't gone away. It's alive and well and continues to devalue women's abilities, skills, and contributions even in 2026.

Don't worry! There's no need to run to catch this podcast. Just put on your headphones and listen in!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, feminism, pop culture, women, film, comedy, gen x nostalgia, storytelling, movies, cultural commentary, penny marshall, baseball, classic movies, film analysis, nostalgia, 80s and 90s movies, geena davis, tom hanks, analyzing film tropes

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please come to our party! We're hosting listeners like you on a zoom hangout, Thursday, March 19 at 7:30 PM EDT / 6:30 PM CDT. You'll get the zoom info when you rsvp at https://www.guygirlsmedia.com/hangout

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

I think we've all arrived at a very special place. Spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically.

Before the 2003 blockbuster film Pirates of the Caribbean was the pop culture juggernaut that spawned more sequels than most pirates can count on one hand, it was the first movie Emily went to see with her spouse in their early courtship. This week on Deep Thoughts About Stupid Shit, Emily brings her film analysis to what should be nothing more than a ridiculous piece of pop culture:

It's a big budget action adventure movie, based on an amusement park ride, starring an intentionally uglified Johnny Depp, channeling Keith Richards, to play an infamous pirate. It's no wonder Michael Eisner worried about the mental health of director Gore Verbinski for letting Depp do what he wanted.

But for all its silliness, Pirates offers tightly-written storytelling, professionals taking their craft seriously but not themselves, and a scene-stealing and pop culture changing performance by Depp. How we think of pirates has been completely altered because of Depp's portrayal of Jack Sparrow, which reinforces what a creative talent the actor is, even if he seems like a complete creep IRL.

Yo-ho, yo-ho, a podcaster's life for me! Grab a tot of rum and listen in!

Tags

deep thoughts about stupid sh*t, pop culture, film, film analysis, mental health, storytelling, analyzing film tropes, classic movies, comedy, cultural commentary, movie reviews, movies, romance, feminism, women, gore verbinski, johnny depp, keira knightley, orlando bloom

This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus content, live zooms with Tracie & Emily, discounts on merch, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

Please give us a review and/or a rating! It really does help. In fact, email a screenshot of your review and your address to guygirlsmedia@gmail.com, and we'll send you a Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t sticker to say thanks. ~Tracie & Emily

We are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!