Episode 327: Hallmark Movie Golems (with Eric Silver)
/So Hallmark made a Golem RomCom: Made for Each Other. But is it actually a golem?? We brought back golem correspondent, Eric Silver, to remind us what defines a golem, as we explore other “made of clay” stories, and whether or not your favorite comic book characters ARE golems.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of antisemitism, misogyny, and violence against women.
Guest
Eric Silver is the Head of Creative at Multitude, an independent podcast collective and production studio in Brooklyn. He’s produced 11 podcasts that have racked up tens of millions of downloads, and developed many more, characterized by strong, original structures and thriving communities. He is also a writer, game designer, and teacher. Catch him every week on the actual play TTRPG show Join the Party, the games advice podcast Games and Feelings, and the madcap game show about your favorite things, Tell Me About It.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Amanda recommends a daily tarot reading!
- Books: Check out our previous book recommendations, guests’ books, and more at spiritspodcast.com/books
- Call to Action: Go to multicrew.club to check out all the new MultiCrew benefits!
Sponsors
- Queer Candle Co. is a queer & trans owned business that makes small batch soy wax candles, hand poured with love. Use code “spirits” to get 10% off your first order at queercandleco.com
- Blueland creates everyday eco-friendly cleaning productions that save you money and space, without any plastic waste. Get 20% off your first order when you go to blueland.com/spirits.
- BetterHelp is an online therapy service. Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/spirits
Find Us Online
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Transcript
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And this episode 327, here with past, future guest, cast friend, current husband, future husband if I'm lucky, Eric Silver.
JULIA: Also current friend too.
ERIC: Current friend, past boyfriend, past fiance, current husband, future guest, Eric Silver, it's me hello.
AMANDA: Hello.
JULIA: I will also say that only applies to one of us on this call and not the other.
ERIC: That's true. Oh, I've been Jake the whole time.
JULIA: Whoa, that's weird.
ERIC: It's been like that sitcom episode where someone has like two dates to the prom. So I've been going in between Brooklyn and Long Island wearing good clothes a lot.
JULIA: I can't believe you're Mrs. Doubtfiring me, how could you?
AMANDA: A real Boeing, Boeing situation.
ERIC: Jesus Christ, Amanda. I was just gonna say— I was just gonna say I can't believe Julia has been married to an 80-year-old woman this whole time.
JULIA: Hmm, that's true.
ERIC: But—
AMANDA: It's very true.
JULIA: That didn't happen to me.
ERIC: Derailed me by making it incredibly dish. Joke which again, I forgot I'm on Spirits. So everyone is standing and applauding who's listening to it.
JULIA: Correct, they are.
AMANDA: The home-field advantage. But Eric, you are not just here as a past future guest, past current, future friend to Julia, past fiance, current husband to me. You're also here as the Spirits Gollum correspondent, TM TM TM.
ERIC: Hello. Yes. It's finally time to talk about Gollums again.
AMANDA: It's only been you know, six years and 300 and some episodes.
ERIC: It's been—yeah, absolutely. Five days since I lost all my shirts. I forget about that, I forgot how they go.
JULIA: That's— that's the lyric, you got it, you nailed it.
ERIC: That's pretty close.
AMANDA: Yeah, well, it's been five hours since a storm and a indescribable amulet awakened you from statue to person. So uh—
ERIC: That's what I've been doing. I—they keep me in a library wrapped in a Talas.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: And then they write something on my head, they write podcast on my head and then they erase the P and then odcast like [2:36]
JULIA: I was gonna ask what do they have to erase to deaminate you and you got there, I didn't even have to prompt you.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: But Eric, you smashed in like Bruce Banner, modern Gollum himself, too.
JULIA: Perhaps?
ERIC: We'll see, we'll see.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: Okay.
AMANDA: To declare that we were doing this episode. Because you came across—
ERIC: [laughs] That's true.
AMANDA: —a Hallmark movie titled Made For Each Other. How did this cross your timeliner?
ERIC: Uhh, Twitter.
JULIA: Great.
AMANDA: Fair. [3:04]
JULIA: No other questions, were done.
AMANDA: [3:06] done. And at what point in the short two-sentence summary did you think this movie has been made for Spirits?
ERIC: Hey, first of all, I have a bone to pick with the internet that you're on Amanda. You're literally on Jewish romance Discord.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: I'm not sure why they didn't services to you—
JULIA: What happened, Amanda?
ERIC: —and I was [2:23] to do it. But I was sorting through all of the terrible Dungeons and Dragons hot takes and like Pokemon-specific accounts that I love to find this for it to come through. I'm surprised you didn't hear about it.
AMANDA: I am as well, and I'm very plugged into romance novel internet. But romance rom-com movie internet is—is a related but distinct entity. Lots of romance readers don't watch romance movies or rom-coms for that matter. And something that struck me while watching this movie, which we will recap for you listeners in a few minutes, is that I've never seen the faces of any of these people before because it's like Hallmark actors are their own bubble and universe. And I have never seen the faces of any of them ever before, and perhaps never again.
JULIA: I've seen a couple of these people in other stuff because famously, as we've talked about before on the show, Jake loves Hallmark Christmas movies. And there were—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Sure.
JULIA: —a couple of homework Christmas movie crossovers here on the show. So I've seen a couple of faces in the crowd here.
ERIC: [laughs] in the crowd.
JULIA: Yeah, it's like the—the scene in The Matrix where he sees the lady in the red dress as they're walking through the crowd.
ERIC: I like that.
JULIA: That's me, but with Hallmark character.
ERIC: And that's Doris— Doris is always in the back just eating rugelach out of her bag.
JULIA: Yep, yep.
AMANDA: Sorry Eric, do you mean rugelach?
ERIC: I mean a rugelach.
JULIA: Oh god.
ERIC: [4:35]
JULIA: Even I knew that was wrong.
ERIC: Oh my god. This is the thing that always gets me heated. And then I remember oh, I'm in the—ma— I'm now in the minority group, Christmas movie group because this happens to anyone who's not straight-up white and Christian and from a big city or Midwest. Is like, you know, it's just throwing all the language in there, like to me—meet like a quota. Like, oh, I get a—like 30 more like your typing gets 30 words per minute. It's 30 Yiddish words per minute.
AMANDA: It's like how on billions they just have the youngest person in the room say Tiktok every few episodes to remind you that they're plugged this Generation Z.
ERIC: Right. So let's like the pronunciation of rugelach was insane to me. And everyone kept saying—
AMANDA: They kept saying it.
ERIC: —they kept saying a rugelach, and it's germane to— to the—
JULIA: Plot!
ERIC: Plot, to the plot.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Oh, my God.
JULIA: They also like it wasn't consistent across the board. Several pronunciations happened in that movie.
ERIC: No, no. And that's—that's my first question. Like, I don't know if I should be asking for this. But like, how many of these actors do you think were Jewish?
AMANDA: Maximum of two.
JULIA: I was gonna say two or three.
ERIC: I was gonna say that the main woman and the main guy, Alexandra [5:47], who played Rachel, the sculptor, and that Cohen who played David the comedian. They--I think, could have been Jewish, but I'm really only gleaning from last name. But again, they all pronounced rugelach differently and wrong.
AMANDA: It's like a—
ERIC: So I don't know.
AMANDA: —it's like a dialect coach said no, no, no. We hear in some set version of New York State, rugelach.
ERIC: It's on [6:09] actually, Amanda.
JULIA: So what are we talking about this movie before we dig into the serious problems that I had within?
ERIC: Please, please. I want to start off just by saying, I think as a Hallmark movie, and I am comparing this also to like the other Hallmark movies and Christmas Witch. It was up there, I thought the some of the dialogue was pretty good. I thought that at least, the actor who played Rachel, with her eyebrows were great.
JULIA: Her eyebrows are great.
ERIC: And I thought there was like a lot of interesting conversation about this, especially as a jumping-off point of the Gollum. Whether or not this is a Gollum story, I'm not sure about, or they just kind of said it, then I—I like that it's a jumping-off point. So I would give this like a solid 7 on the Hallmark movie scale. Now, compared to other movies, I don't know. But on the Hallmark movie scale, pretty good.
AMANDA: Absolutely. And why don't I give a quick plot summary of the movie, before we jump even further in the listed description, which Eric made think for sure? This must be [7:07] made for each other, follows a sculptor who uses magic to create her ideal man and bring him into reality. But she then starts to fall for her real-life friend and learns to appreciate the flaws that make love perfectly imperfect. And the headlines on— on like Twitter and social media were like, oh my God, there's a Gollum Hallmark movie, we got to check it out. And just to add on to that summary, you know, yeah, Rachel is a sculptor, her parents are weirdly supportive of her artistic career.
JULIA: Shockingly.
AMANDA: She is—is teaching.
ERIC: Wait, hold on a second, are they?
JULIA: Well, they're not. They just want her to get married. The career part— the mom is very supportive. She's like, showing up to shows and be like, my daughter is great. And she's like, this is for the kids like this is for the students.
ERIC: Right.
JULIA: Mom, stop centering me in this conversation.
ERIC: Yes. Their relationship is really wild in that like—
JULIA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: This is something—and again like the Jewish motherness of this. I'm still not sure how Ra—it's like, I guess it's real, but I feel weird that you just showed a bunch of Christians this.
AMANDA: Yup.
ERIC: They're like enjoying this. I'm like, okay, the relationship between the mother and Rachel is that like she more wants her to be married than anything else. But it's also everything are on the parent's terms. It's like you– it's fi— I want you to get over the main conflict, in the beginning, is that Rachel has not shown her work in a very long time, because you got a really bad review. Which I also thought was really great. I love that, that was the—the main conflict.
AMANDA: [8:31]
ERIC: And the parents were like, or the moms specifically was like, oh, get over it and just do your shit, because I think you're great. And once you accept that, not unlike a RuPaul the Drag Queen way like in a Ru—in a like a RuPaul the media mogul way.
JULIA: Sure.
ERIC: She's like do what I want and then yo—and then I know you'll succeed because I said so and do everything that I say.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Exactly. It's also embarrassing for Judith, Rachel's mom that her younger daughter Ruth is getting married to some fucking drip. And that—
JULIA: They were the worst couple ever.
AMANDA: I know. That nothing relatable or no family resemblance at all as well between any of these actors. But yeah, so Judith is you know, both kind of, I think embarrassed for herself and her younger daughters getting married, were the older daughter, which you know from time in memoriam is a problem and romance-related novels and movies. And really is pressuring Rachel to find a date to her sister's wedding, because if not, Judith is going to set her up over and over again, including in her student's art exhibition, where Judith like interrupts her opening speech to be like, where's your art teacher? And then Rachel's like, hi, mom.
JULIA: And she tried to set her up with just like a really weird cardiologist and she's like, oh, no.
AMANDA: Yeah, though. Great statement glasses there. Eric and I the whole time we're like, look at those glasses. [9:45]
ERIC: [9:45] I try to figure out I'm like those aren't where we [9:47] where did you find that?
AMANDA:
Rachel chatting with her BFF and next-door neighbor Doris is talking all about how she wishes you know that she could just bring her sculpture pan over to a lake CGI latex form of Aaron O'Donnell who plays Clay. Their perfect man which she spent years and years making but doesn't feel like she wants to exhibit because she's you know, worried about that critique like you brought up Eric. And then Doris launches into the ancient Jewish folk tale of the Gollum.
ERIC: Yes. Can I read what Doris said?
JULIA: Yes, please.
AMANDA: Absolutely.
ERIC: Hundreds of years ago, rabbis would create sculptures of men made out of clay, then they would bring them into life to defend their communities and, you know, generally tidy up around the house. Not bad. Not bad.
JULIA: I'd heard worse descriptions of Gollums.
ERIC: I know that Doris because pulling rugelach out of her bag and giving it— I thought it was really interesting that they put a medallion, the sculpture to turn it real. I was looking at that sculpture, it was really weird. I pause it, there were like some Hebrew words around it. I actually thought it was something from like these really arming that are like a talisman that just had like words of encouragement, because I saw one though, a word that was Kazak on it, which means strength. So I thought it was just like some Kabbalah bullshit, or like something—something that you like, I'll bring you whatever as you do it, which I thought was weird.
AMANDA: Live, laugh, love, protection, strength.
ERIC: Yeah, live, laugh, love. And then of course the thunder— the thunder and lightning going when that was happening, it was so funny.
AMANDA: I was like oh no, are we gonna be struck by lightning like in Frankenstein? Which now again, another inspired by a Gollum story.
JULIA: We're gonna about that later too.
AMANDA: Exactly.
ERIC: It is the illu—the illusion was really fun.
AMANDA: It was. But then Clay, her sculpture comes to life. Everyone calls him Clay, no one remarks on it, it's incredibly funny. And then the rom-com proper is off to the races where Rachel has her perfect man, somebody devoted only to her, whose only purpose in being brought to life through this talisman and the you know, wishes and manifestation as they Rachel does with an eye roll, which is the most relatable she was to me during this. And she has to decide whether somebody who you know loves her entirely, who is unformed and gets formed only to serve her, who her parents are pressuring to become a lawyer. And he's just like, apparently endlessly smart and aced his LSAT on a practice test.
JULIA: He's ju—he's a hot himbo but at the same time, he's incredibly smart. So I'm just—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —very curious about the design of who Clay is as a character.
ERIC: His like stupidity, but also competency I think was super funny and honestly kind of on point, How it's like, well Clay can put his mind to anything because he just gets told to do it and he's not held back by all the other stuff that—that humans are.
JULIA: I doubt, Eric.
ERIC: Well, that was very funny. Like doubt and love.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: And thinking—
AMANDA: And ego.
ERIC: And jazz flute.
AMANDA: Oh my god, the jazz flute C flat. I—It was incredible.
ERIC: He was just like, there this guy who is—who is— so the comedian Matt, who is the other part of the point of the love triangle,
JULIA: David.
ERIC: I'm sorry, I'm looking at the actor's name. I'm sorry, David, the comedian. I need to name them like this as a Jewish folk tale. Like I need to say their name and then their job.
JULIA: Gotcha.
ERIC: Like, it's Clay, so it's Rachel the sculptor. David—David, the comedian, Clay the Gollum. David the comedian ha—used to be a lawyer and he has this big fucking lawyer-ass apartment in New York City,
AMANDA: Like a penthouse, like— you see that freestanding fireplace room divider situation, it was incredible man.
JULIA: But there was no door on that room and he was renting it out as a room to someone. I'm just like [13:22] there?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Maybe?
AMANDA: Julia, I thought the exact same thing later a shot does reveal like the edge of a sort of sliding metal, like warehouse-style door.
JULIA: Ohh, okay.
AMANDA: And I was like, okay, I guess but yeah, it is inexplicable how he afforded such a nice apartment, and how Rachel affords both a studio where she also has school and her very nice art department. But anyway, that's—that's just a given.
ERIC: I thought that this was funny though because David was still holding on to his lawyer's apartment.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: But instead of giving it up, he keeps trying to have like, ramshackle roommates come in.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: [13:50]
ERIC: Nephew was standing there and his like, sister, who— his nephew was staying there. And he—his nephew was supposed to be playing the LSAT, or sorry.
JULIA: Yeah, he's playing the LSAT.
ERIC: Yeah. Julia, it's all the questions you don't do.
JULIA: Yes.
AMANDA: Oh no.
ERIC: You should have been studying for the LSAT, but it didn't because he's really into jazz flute. And I really like— it's so funny. And he leaves—
JULIA: No point to it.
ERIC: —and then Clay moves in. So it's—it's so awkward.
AMANDA: Exactly.
JULIA: It's truly no point to that subplot, whatsoever.
ERIC: Just to— just to get Clay in there. I don't—there was truly no other reason why David and Clay would interact other than Clay being his roommate.
JULIA: What they could have done was had the guy who's getting married to Rachel's sister Ruth, just have him his former roommate, and then he's moving out because he's getting married.
ERIC: Ohhh.
JULIA: That could have solved the problem and just not included the jazz flute at all.
AMANDA: Julia that's good and—but then we couldn't see two actors who are clearly within five years' age of each other play a grown uncle and nephew. No, it's very true or they could have both been in like his wedding party or something.
JULIA: Exactly.
AMANDA: But I was actually really impressed at the clip with which this tight 84-minute movie was moving. Because the wedding is over like a quarter into it, and then we get to see Rachel, you know, like the— like the summary said, kind of choosing between David who is you know, imperfect and you know, acerbic and you know, getting up in his own career and kind of figuring out what he wants to do, and you know, points out ways in which she's holding herself back, versus Clay, who has no fault, except that someone has to tell him to clean up after he makes her like pavlova in his shared kitchen apartment.
JULIA: Here's the thing, I watched this the world premiere of it.
ERIC: Damn, Julia.
JULIA: On Peacock.
AMANDA: Dang.
JULIA: With commercials. So it was two hours, and I was like—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: Yes.
JULIA: —oh, God, this movie is dragging.
AMANDA: Really?
JULIA: The la—the last like 45 minutes I was like, we have to—we have to pick up the pace here. Seriously, we just need to. Which is probably like the last 20 minutes of the actual movie when you don't watch it with commercials, but—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It was commercials for the first 45 minutes and then like every 5-minute commercials for the back half and I was like you're gonna make me watch all this. Okay, okay, that's fine.
ERIC: That's true. They did loaded up with commercials in the back. We watched a recording of it on the Hallmark Channel. So it was just like yeah, get it—because we got the same—
AMANDA: Love you weary.
ERIC: Yes.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: The same commercials on the Hallmark about some like true crime romance series.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: That they were pushing.
AMANDA: But listen, guys, this is also say that this is the movie I—I think, I think we enjoyed it.
ERIC: That's literally it [16:23]
AMANDA: [16:23] That's the whole thing, yeah. Is Rachel gets to choose between uncomplicated you know thing that checks the box, and love which involves the risk and being known?
ERIC: Like I want people to watch the movie. I don't want to spoil too much because I think if you want to watch it, you can. There are some funny things.
JULIA: There's no spoilers. It's exactly what you think it's gonna be.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, and well— we'll talk about the ending. Let's talk about the ending at the end.
JULIA: Okay.
AMANDA: That way people can—can listen to it and enjoy the rest of this movie.
ERIC: My three favorite things about this, is one, Rachel the sculptors' eyebrows. Incredible.
JULIA: Hmm, they're great.
AMANDA: They were so assertive. And I was like if she's not Jewish, and they're just giving her heavy eyebrows to make her seem Jewish.
ERIC: Yes.
AMANDA: I'm not sure how I feel about that. She started the movie and her headshot is in a lovely pair of overalls. So her— her overalls for me were as her eyebrows were for you.
JULIA: All of her outfits were very like on point for you, Amanda particularly. Every time she came out with an outfit I'm like, oh, man, it would look really cute in that. Oh, man, that would look great.
AMANDA: Thank you. Except for her hideous dress at her sister's wedding.
JULIA: [17:18]
ERIC: You would look better, you would look better.
JULIA: With the tights, it's not.
AMANDA: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
ERIC: Yeah. My second favorite thing was David the comedian. Every time he kept doing jokes vaguely about Jewish life.
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: And his big thing that he's like, big joke was about just explaining what Yom Kippur is?
AMANDA: Which I said I'm sure people are doing every night on the stage somewhere.
ERIC: But like it wasn't that funny?
AMANDA: No it wasn't. It was simply explaining young people [17:41]
ERIC: And every time he would walk off and then the guy who was like running the open mic that he was doing it at, was like, oh my god, David, so funny, what a great joke.
AMANDA: High five.
ERIC: It was—his big ending was just like Yom Kippur's [17:54]. And then he would like—and then everyone's just laugh and claps. And then the other thing, my third favorite thing was the thing that Clay gets into is cooking. And he gets so into it, and that's the thing that he's balancing between is like, is he supposed to be a lawyer, because that's what supposedly a good husband for Rachel would be? Or is he gonna go to cooking school?
JULIA: For his passion.
ERIC: These— yeah, his new passion, which is just like food, which is—it was so funny to me.
AMANDA: And which I thought was actually a really interesting thematic tie-in to Gollum's lore. Maybe that is where we can go next after a quick refill.
JULIA: Let's go.
[theme]
AMANDA: Hello, everybody and welcome to the refill. Welcome, first and foremost to our newest patrons Kelly, Mel, and Convoluted. Thank you so much for carving out some money of your budget each month to support an independent podcast that you really love like Spirits. You join the ranks of our supporting producer-level patrons Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Brittany, Froody Chick, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Megan Moon, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, Scott, and Zazi. And our legend-level patrons Arianna, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Clara, Ginger Spurs Boi, Morgan, Sarah, Schmitty, & Bea Me Up Scotty. If you would like your name read by me or Julia, one of us two those voices, you know, saying the name that is yours, you can join the Patreon at patreon.com/spirits podcast. It's not like a listed benefit because you know, we just thank you because we're thankful. But honestly, it's pretty good one. So join us, patreon.com/spirits podcast. My dad got me a tarot deck for my birthday this year, which he was like oh, I assume you have a bunch of these. But I just wanted to you know give you one, and I saw it I thought of you and I realized that I didn't. I have the Major Arcana Spirits merch, which you can buy it at spiritspodcast.com/merch. But I haven't actually ever owned a tarot deck. And so I have been starting my mornings by drawing a tarot card and looking up the meaning, and thinking a little bit about what that card can teach me for the day, and what it can ask me to focus on, and how I can use it basically as like a prompt for journaling and reflection, and making my day a little bit better, and a little bit deeper, a little bit richer. And you know what, guys, it's great. You've been talking about it for ages, we've talked about Tarot so many times on the show and so many forms, and it's great. So if you don't have a tarot deck, you can do like one of the apps that does a virtual reading, you can look it up, you can ask a friend like my sibling did for me in early locked down to send you photos of their drawings every day. But hey, Tarot, give it a go. There has also been so much happening here at Multitude, and one of those things is that we have added even more exciting benefits to the Multi-Crew, which is the membership program, not unlike a Patreon that helps Multitude invest in new work and try new stuff. It is hard running a small business out here in the digital media landscape. Lots of businesses go under all the time, but ours is doing okay, partly because of the Multi-Crew, because people give us some money each month to get exclusive benefits, like free tickets to digital and physical live shows, and access to special channels of our Discord or behind the scenes newsletter that community manager Roux works hard on every month. Our friends only Instagram, our Finsta, which is I know not what Finsta stands for, but it's what it stands for me. And our brand new perk is the collector's club at the $20 tier, which is when a different multitude host or staff member each quarter curates something special for you to enjoy and for us to discuss together. And I can now say that the very first one I picked and it's pollinator-friendly wildflower seeds that grow well in the geographical area of each of the people we are sending them to. And then we're gonna meet later in April to talk about what it's like to plant wildflowers and how that process has been going. So we are so excited, every month is going to be something different, something intended to inspire, entertain and spark conversation with your fellow Multi-Crew members. So we are so excited to be adding it in addition to the things like at the Founders tier of just $50 a month. People sign up for it and get their actual physical name engraved on a real plaque on the wall of our studio, but they also get to have private hangouts with our hosts each year. So check it all out, it means a lot to us and if you have a little money to spare even five bucks a month, it would make a difference at multicrew.club, join us today. We are sponsored this week by Queer Candle Company. This is a sponsor I am so excited to have on the show and that I've been enjoying lighting a candle here in the studio, when I'm here on my own or if I'm like doing any organizing, it's just a way to make each moment feel a little bit more special. And these are small batch of soy wax candles hand-poured with love by this queer and trans-owned business. The candles are also topped with a variety of botanicals including pressed flowers, dried herbs, and zested aromatics. They look so beautiful and it's something I haven't seen other candles do. I'm honestly really impressed that there is innovation in the candle space, and Queer Candle Company is doing it. They are also donating 10% of monthly profits to the Sylvia Rivera Law Project and sell DIY refill kits online. So any candle you buy from them is endlessly refillable. These are great folks. You should follow them on social @queercandleco on Insta and Tiktok. But more importantly, if you want to check out their beautiful stuff and order a candle for yourself or a loved one, go to queercandleco.com and use code SPIRITS for 10% off your first order. That's queercandleco.com code SPIRITS. One of my goals for the year was to reduce my personal carbon footprint. And one of the ways I'm doing that is shopping locally more often, as someone whose sizes are not particularly often stocked in stores near me, I was so used to buying clothes online that I almost kind of forgot that I could buy stuff not online, which sounds really silly. But it's been really great to focus more on running errands physically and I am you know getting out more, walking more, seeing shopkeepers more, and being a little more intentional about the stuff I'm purchasing, because I need to like go through physical effort, not just a few clicks when I actually want to buy it. So for lots of reasons that's been working out great. But one of the things that I don't have to worry about doing more sustainably is buying single-use plastic with my cleaning products because I had been on that Blueland train for years. They are on a mission to eliminate single-use plastic by reinventing cleaning essentials to be better for you and the planet. You just get a lovely, endlessly refillable bottle, and then you drop in the tablet fill a thing with water, and wait for them to dissolve. You never have to grab bulky cleaning supplies and lug them home on your grocery run. 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AMANDA: Eric, we're back. You and I lived together so often when I talk about things I'm drinking, it's things that we are both really enjoying. But can you tell me what you've been enjoying drinking alcoholic or not recently? Or something that reminds you of Gollums?
ERIC: Well, you know, you can just erase the podcast that's written on my head and do cran grape, because I saw cran grape juice from Ocean Spray in the new grocery store that's near us. Shout out to Jubilee, it is so close and actually good grocery store, I love it. And because I'm old now, and I can't bend my body, and I wake up hurt all the time, I have to drink like the light juice cran grape five, which is like five calories. I don't think it actually matters, and I don't care about like buying the light stuff. Honestly, it's because I'm old and I can't drink straight juice because it makes my teeth hurt. Because again, as I said I'm old. So shout out to like, I think we're finally at the age where like, businesses are starting to take things from our childhood and make them adult friendly.
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: And I think that that ocean is like Ocean Spray light juice is doing, and I'm really enjoying cran grape. And I'm also enjoying the little juice boxes of Yoo hoo, that we bought for a cabin trip. And then I— there were a bunch of leftovers and I'm still drinking and I love it.
JULIA: There you go.
AMANDA: Hell yeah. With our light cran grape juice in hand.
ERIC: Just a little cups of it.
AMANDA AND JULIA: Little cups.
AMANDA: So I think the question before us that I'd love to tackle in the second half of This episode is— is this a Gollum story? Or does this story have more in common with maybe Pygmalion or one of the many other stories where people are made out of mud or clay? So I put it to the panel, because what do we think?
JULIA: Eric, I—we brought you on as the expert here but—
ERIC: Sure.
JULIA: I'm watching this and I'm like, this seems like it's just Pygmalion and then you guys added Gollum for an extra level. And from what I remember from what you taught us about Gollums, it doesn't quite seem right to me?
ERIC: No, I agree. That was the first thing that I thought of as soon as like reading the summary. Is like, oh, she's making a thi—she's making the perfect man out of Clay, like, there it is. I know that like we moved away from it a little bit from what we understand of Pygmalion. If we're my fair lady-ing it, doing it or we're [28:50] buying me loving it, which just means improving a shitty—a shitty romantic partner and do a better romantic partner. But maybe it's closer to the original story, which I actually don't know. Though, I would like to throw in, that maybe this is an inversion of the Kolobok which is the main character of an East Slavic national fairytale, which is instead of the gingerbread man, it's a little ball of dough that runs around.
JULIA: Ohhh.
AMANDA AND JULIA: I love him.
JULIA: I think Amanda and I twins eat on that one.
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: I was looking up like other creating loved one's myths and lea— the gingerbread man led me to this one. It is just like a ball of dough running away from foxes—foxes of Eastern Slavic woods.
AMANDA: Oh my god.
ERIC: So we got this, but y'all it's adorable.
AMANDA: A truly incredible honorary mentioned. Julia, could you refresh the listeners and certainly not your co-host on this podcast what the story Pygmalion consists of?
JULIA: Sure. So Pygmalion was a story that was told by Ovid, it predates Ovid, metamorphosis, but it was pretty much solidified by the—the story there. Pygmalion was basically this sculptor who decided that you know, basically like no woman is good enough for me. Every time I try to find the right woman, she just is—I see her fault and I just don't want to handle this anymore, right? And so he decides he's going to carve the perfect woman out of ivory, and he calls her Galatea and he basically is like, you're so perfect. He falls in love with her immediately, he like is kissing the statue, he's like bringing the statue gifts, it's the whole like situation. And so Aphrodite festival day comes along and Pygmalion goes to the altar of Aphrodite, brings her some sacrifices, brings her some gifts, and he is like, too scared to kind of admit out loud what he really wants. But he prays to Aphrodite and he is like, please just bring a living likeness to my ivory girl. And so nothing happens, he's like, okay, sure, Aphrodite, here's your offerings. Goes back to his house, does his usual thing of kissing and touching the statue, and finds when he kisses the lips of the statue, the lips feel warm. He kisses it again and he finds that the ivory has lost all of its hardness and she becomes like a full-fledged woman, and Aphrodite has granted Pygmalion's wish for Galatea to become real.
ERIC: That's it, right?
JULIA: And then he marries her.
ERIC: Yeah. [31:16]
AMANDA: Yeah, everything okay?
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: What happened?
JULIA: Everything's fine I guess? It's just a normal after that.
AMANDA: Dang.
ERIC: Everyone's like, hey, Aphrodite, good job.
JULIA: Yeah, they're like, hey, Aphrodite, that's great. Thanks, Bud. Awesome.
ERIC: It's like, hey, don't worry, there are gods that control every single specific part of our lives, so don't forget that.
JULIA: Don't forget that. The gods, sometimes they're good.
AMANDA: So that definitely maps onto some parts of made for each other, but not all. I mean, I was getting this as a Gollum story, given the framing of the like Jewish media being like, is this anything that I saw online? But Eric, how do you think this compares to the myth of the Gollum and the story of the Gollum overall? And what do you think would qualify this as a Gollum story if it was?
ERIC: Yeah, I mean, I want to give some points first to the first thing. Is that like, Rachel has incredibly high standards, which is exactly what Julia said?
AMANDA: Totally.
ERIC: It seems like Clay even though she is a sculpture, and she makes the rest of the stuff out of clay it seems like Clay is made out of ivory in the original thing. There's a point where like, after all the woo-woo shit that they do and the lightning comes down, she's like, oh my god, Clay winked at me, which seemed very similar to what you said about oh—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: —these— these lips are kissable—
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: [32:28] fucking [32:29] so— I there is a lot of stuff in there, but I—just a refresher on the Gollum story. I also want to give a real big shout-out to the Jewish Museum in Berlin who really nicely summed up everything which I did not have in 2016 when I originally did this episode.
AMANDA: I think they literally must have published this web page like weeks or months after we recorded our episode in 2016. Because this— this is like everything that you went over.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. So quick summary, I'm just gonna read what they have. A Gollum is a creature formed out of a lifeless substance, such as dust or earth is brought to life by ritual incantations and sequences of Jewish letters. But were usually originally written on the forehead. The Gollum brought into being by human creator, becomes a helper, a companion, or rescuer of an imperiled Jewish community. In many Gollum stories, the creature runs amok, and the Gollum itself becomes a threat to its greater. Boom. Pretty close to what Doris said honestly, like after the Gollum stops protecting the Jews from the pilgrims, there's usually like a whole thing of the rabbi being like, a Gollum, do my laundry. And as the Gollum does it, and they like falls in love with the rabbi's daughter and that's where all the problems happen. The best own version of the Gollum legend takes place in Prague and revolves around the studious Rabbi law. The first practical instructions on creating the Gollum can be found in medieval commentaries on the Sefer Yetzirah, which is the book of creation. Originally, creating a Gollum was a way for medieval Jewish mystics to come closer to God. Yeah, Jewish folklore. Pretty—this is outside of the Torah. This is just some stories and some vibes.
AMANDA: Exactly. And I—I was doing a little bit of reading just about a gold stuff in rabbinic commentary because I find that really fun. That was a point that I think is not really shown in a lot of Gollum media that it's not like this unholy hubris, right? Where like a lot of like modern, you know, AI and robotics media, which you know, is in the tradition of Gollums. We'll talk about how it's, you know, it's hubris, it's trying to make something bigger than you like it, you know, that the creature will end up like taking over the world or taking over your intelligence. And that wasn't how it was, it was a pure and holy act. And it was all about the like, you know, creative potency of Hebrew as a language and have studious people to be able to like, feel what it's like to be like God.
ERIC: Yes, exactly. The Jewish Museum of Berlin sums this up beautifully. Central to the Gollum legend is the human desire to create together with a range of themes, including creativity, control, power, and salvation. The Gollum also symbolizes each era’s dreaded, dangerous, and hope for redemption. Yeah, very much so. I think that the three things that need to be here for a Gollum story is one creation out of mud or dust, which we said, which is the thing that happens all over history. Obviously, we can all go all the way back to after that Adam was created out of— out of dust, then there's a whole Wikipedia page about it, which we could just list off after that.
JULIA: That's true.
ERIC: The second I think, is that there needs to be language involved. The Gollum needs to come to life because of a word either being inscribed or written and then put into it. I think that's really essential that like, not the word of God necessarily, but that like you—we can do something as humans to be close to the Divine through creativity. I think it's very important to Gollum to call them stuff.
AMANDA: Exactly. And creativity as expressed through human language as well. And we, Eric You and I both [35:48] each other. We're like, oh, good, they got it. When after Clay comes to life, Rachel's like, oh, wait, I sign all of my sculptures, let me check behind your ear. And sure enough, her initials are carved, and tattooed in this case, into his skin. Where we're like, okay, good, good. If it was just the amulet, it'd be like, oh, I'm not sure about that, but it involves some amount of like language.
ERIC: But I just don't understand why you didn't do that in the first place.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like I don't know why we needed the amulet at all.
AMANDA: I know. Doris should have been like listen this sculpture it's perfect your— you know perfection is getting in your way, just sign it, it's done. Call it done, it's done.
ERIC: Or just—or just even write a dream behind the dream you have, behind the year which they already did. Like I—and then—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: —they could have been the whole thing which is one of my favorite things about Gollum stuff and maybe about like all creatures that—you know creatures that seem indomitable but have one weakness is like there could have been a whole thing about like, if that gets smudged or if it gets ruined, then the Gollum stops being part of life. But also they ended up touching on this that like if the Gollum doesn't have purpose, it goes away. That's not necessarily true, but I did like they put them in the movie.
JULIA: Sure. Sure. They needed some sort of like, oh, but if you just let him go, he'll die basically. Like they needed to raise the stakes, I guess in that sense.
ERIC: Yeah. They like alluded to it for a second, but they didn't do that at all.
JULIA: Right.
ERIC: Which was very annoying.
JULIA: Well, they do it at the end. We'll talk about that a little bit when we—when we hit the ending here.
ERIC: Yeah. And then third, the thing that is not in the story, is that the Gollum needs to be created to protect a minority group or a group being persecuted from a majority group. It is the Gollum is created for defense, and for like defense for retaining power, for fighting off danger, and for hopefully, redeeming the minority group or the persecuted group. Because now they have like a super, but they have a secret weapon on their side, which is not in this at all. And it's not in a lot of stories that people say are Gollums. It's just like look at this thing I made it's big. Like that's—that's what I think is really important as we start to like modernists and postmodernists have conversations about Gollums in stories.
JULIA: The movie as it is now Eric, how would you incorporate that aspect into the film? Like what changes would you make to kind of incorporate that third thing?
ERIC: Let's keep this on like the Hallmark level—
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: Like this needs to be on the Hallmark. I think the [38:03]
AMANDA: Real estate developer.
ERIC: No, it could have been something like that, like, you know, someone is getting kicked out of their house by the rich people like Rachel could have been—
JULIA: The Jewish Community Center or something like that, you know?
ERIC: Yeah. Or Rachel—I mean listen, Rachel also could have just been mugged. And Clay could have fought them off. We could have eluded in a very Hallmark way, maybe it was like anti-semitic or attacking a woman, I guess could be interesting. Because I guess that's romantic with throw them out at a rom-com. But I don't know how they could have necessarily gotten this forward. Because I don't know how a Gollum fits into a rom-com necessarily. I don't know if that's— that's why I thought this was Pygmalion in the first place.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: And I agree with you.
JULIA: I'm curious if maybe they could have done like protection from emotional damage and incorporated the fact that she is so scared to put her work out there again, because of that negative review. And Clay could have had something to do with protecting her from that criticism.
ERIC: That's interesting. They also did not talk about the Golum freaking out, which is another trope. I don't think it's necessarily needed in here, but I was waiting for Clay to get like super jealous or to go to the New York Times and shake down their art critic and to protect Rachel. A 100% that she totally could have been in there.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, and it's also a testament to her artistic ability because he starts making money by modeling and like gets it, like he's like beautiful like he's—he's, you know, the perfect human form. As far as all of these casting agents who like find his Instagram and blow them up, you know, our concern. So that also is proof, I think to go in this whole—whole plot that she's really good at what she does, and he's like living proof of that.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: I don't want to hit on Aaron O'Connell. He has obviously made a life out of being perfect.
JULIA: Just hot.
ERIC: And having just sick abs all the time. But like, would Rachel when she's creating the quote-unquote “perfect man” for her, does Clay look like a Hallmark man? I don't know if that's necessarily the case. I even would have thought that like maybe he would have been like super tall or broader or hairier. Or just like who, you know. I don't know like David was very specific like I knew he was the romantic interest, Amanda did not know. And I'm like, oh no this guy is because look at his fucking cheekbone.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
ERIC: Look at how [40:17] his cheeks go in.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Like, obviously David also looks like well, the Hallmark Channel says is the standard of beauty. So I want to I— if she had created Clay, I wanted to know if he like, you know, Dustin Hoffman was like 5 foot 6 and or even shorter. He was like 5 foot 4. And Paul Simon was like four—5'2, like, I'm surprised that he looks like something that would be in a Calvin Klein commercial, which is what they were riffing on in the jeans ad. If like, that's what Clay was supposed to be if he was like fucking Fabio or something.
JULIA: I think that brings up a good point though, because—and I think we can talk about the ending now. So if you don't want us to spoil the ending of this movie, stop listening I guess.
ERIC: You should go watch this movie.
JULIA: You should go watch it.
ERIC: It's wild.
AMANDA: Pause the episode go watch it, it's on Peacock and then come back to us.
ERIC: It says [41:00]
AMANDA: [41:03] with credits, yeah.
JULIA: The whole thing with her creating Clay is like no man is good enough for her. And I think kind of the point of the film is like, Rachel doesn't know what she wants.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: And so in creating Clay, and Clay being this kind of like Hallmark ideal looking man, I think that's kind of playing into the fact that it like, as much as she thinks that might be her type, it's not actually her type.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: He's an amalgamation of features, exactly. And I think in terms of casting, like, he also was a very capable, comedic actor—
JULIA: Oh yeah.
AMANDA: Like we'd laughed at his antics a lot, and he did a really good job in the role. And I think his body more than his face is sort of like a textbook you know, averaging out, smoothing out of like, you know, oh, you— you put piece together all the different features. And you know, and what do you get? But that's not the reality of love. And in swiping through her Tinder, like she is doing the same thing. She's like, oh, this weird feature. Oh, this like, little thing. Oh, you know, I see in this picture, that is one thing kind of set her off and made her eliminate people. And so Clay is like the doll you know, he's beautiful looking after I'm sure. But like, he's sort of adult, like medium.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah, that's a good point. Alright, let's talk about the ending because Julia and I also want to improve on this. At the end, wha—what's her name, Rachel is called—again, I need to frame this like this is fucking on [42:16] It's either Fiddler on the roof.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: He's a jazz, the jazz flute is on the roof, that's why I like it. Because in this Jewish like folklore, the shed all stories, there's always like a musician, there's always music. I love that the wedding was early in the movie, I thought it was great. So at the end, Rachel, the sculptor finally gets inspired. She submits something to this big art exhibition. She gets in, they're going to like read who's going to win the big prize of the end, and she gets the big prize. But Clay, after her mother does meddling, is pressured to propose to her and tries to steal her moment.
JULIA: My least favorite thing in the world!
AMANDA: Terrible.
ERIC: I really liked that though, because it demonstrated what she wanted her mom wanted and not what she was literally, like I said in the beginning of this episode in conflict between what Rachel wanted and what her mom said that she wanted.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: 100%.
ERIC: Which was I honestly thought and I honestly thought that was really good. Clay proposed, David left the comedy festival.
AMANDA: Don't worry in the credits he got back at this somehow, maybe a different year.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah, he—he I was like, oh no, Eric [43:19] [43:20] professional desires and his outcome of love.
ERIC: All three of them were choosing it at the same time. And then they all got what they wanted. Rachel and David got together and like, they push themselves to be good. and Clay became a chef, which was wonderful.
JULIA: And like one of the things that they touched on, and then we touched on earlier in this episode was that, like, if Clay loses his purpose, he stops existing, right?
AMANDA: Right.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: And so Rachel does this thing at the end, where she's like, oh, your new purpose is I don't even remember what she told him his new purpose was.
AMANDA: Pursue happiness.
ERIC: To find his own happiness, yeah.
AMANDA: Wonderful.
JULIA: Now, how I thought this movie was going to end?
AMANDA: I think I was thinking the same cut.
JULIA: Was earlier on in the movie, David takes a class with Rachel. And the thing that he ends up sculpting in her class is a sculpture dog, because he's like, I was allergic to dogs, and we got to have a dog, but I always wanted one. So this is kind of like the embodiment of the thing that I could never have. And as we've talked about before, Clay throughout this entire movie, he's just a— just a himbo, just like a dog of a man. And so I truly thought at the end, that they were gonna take that amulet off, they were gonna put it on the dog sculpture that David Bade, and now they were just gonna have Clay the dog.
ERIC: Ohh, that would have been nice.
AMANDA: I thought, similarly, because Rachel was like, oh, the thing I spent years working on is Cla— you know she didn't say this, but like, it's Clay, he's walking around now. I thought she was going to have him like, sit in as her exhibit and have to like take off the necklace to make him into a sculpture again.
ERIC: That's what I thought. Yeah.
AMANDA: And I'm like, God, how fucking dark.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Like yeah, I mean, she animated him for one purpose, which is loving her, and if she doesn't want that anymore, what do you do? And instead she like overnight comes up with a very beautiful sculpture of herself you know? Sculpting something out of clay.
JULIA: It's learning how to love herself, Amanda, that's why she wins. It's not—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It's no longer about like her desires, but rather the desires of her childhood self and getting in tune with her artistic nature. Oh, I'm crying.
AMANDA: Exactly.
ERIC: Yeah. That's why I thought that they did the medallion or the talisman in the first place because it would have been easier to take it off. I was noticing throughout the whole thing of Clay was wearing the necklace and he was.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: And I think you would have only put it on there if you were going to take it off.
AMANDA: Right.
ERIC: But then of course didn't touch that at all, which—which made me very, very annoyed.
JULIA: I was like, come on.
AMANDA: Yeah. And there was a moment where he was starting to take it off, and he's like, no, no, like, is Clay going to for the rest of his life have to wear this, and if he takes it off, he goes back to his statue? I'm not sure.
JULIA: Maybe.
AMANDA: Don't think too hard Amanda, don't think too hard.
JULIA: Is he not Clay anymore if he takes off the statue because his whole purpose was like being made for Rachel, I don't know ma'am. Hallmark didn't think that far and neither will I.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: I was glad because Doris points is out that if a goal sheet— I think Eric, you may have written this down too. But she says like, you know, if a Gollum no longer has a purpose, it no longer exists. And so I'm glad that Rachel kind of had that little forehead boop of a kiss to you know, give him or cheek kiss, which in my mind was sort of the like reinscribing or changing of the letters to you know, give him a new purpose, which is what all of us want. Which is to you know, pursue our own happiness.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
ERIC: There's a little easter eggs in here about like those things. At one point someone called Clay looks like a Greek sculpture. [46:26] very funny. Also, Clay because they didn't want to show dong of the Hallmark Channel.
JULIA: I was like any other mo— if this was PG 13 or more, we would at least do like a little bit of butt, but no butt, no, butt. Hallmark, come on.
ERIC: I know they should have done it a little bit. I thought it would have been funny, or I thought it was interesting that the blanket that they use of throw, to wrap up his junk, was fringed because you're supposed to use a Talas to like preserve a Gollum. So I thought that it was interesting, I don't know if that was intentional. I really want to quickly want to say what kind of movie was this? Was this a Pygmalion story? Was this a Gollum story. I think it's Pygmalion.
JULIA: It's Pygmalion.
ERIC: It's definitely Pygmalion.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Totally.
ERIC: I think it was nice that they made like an allusion to Gollum stuff, but like it really wasn't.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Yeah. Gollums are defined by not being able to speak in at least the you know, the textual evidence. And that's why like Gollum can't be in a minion, a group of 10 Jews that you need in order to like say Kaddish and to pray for the dead things like that. And you also like killing them isn't murder because they can't speak, therefore they're not people. Like that is the rabbinical logic to all of this, so definitively nautical.
ERIC: Interesting. Yeah, Gollum he was— he was fun. There are some other Gollums that we do know. Hey, let's play is this or is—that's not a Gollum—
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: For the past few minutes of the episode?
AMANDA: Oohh I love it.
ERIC: I have four examples that I would love to touch on.
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: One is a very classic story and three are from comic books.
AMANDA: Yay!
ERIC: Because it was all made by Jews. So were— it's all just kind of in the mix there. Let's talk about Frankenstein really quickly. But both Amanda and Julia know this as people who hung out of the Jekyll and Hyde club.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: This spooky and weird shit.
AMANDA: That's right.
ERIC: Mary Shelley was inspired by it. There—this would became more about the opposite, I think of what the Gollum story is, which is messing with creation. That's only what God is supposed to do. That's like a super Christian theme that you are not godly. You are not Je—you are not neither the father, the son, nor the Holy Spirit. So you just need to stay the fuck away. And anyone who has that hubris is a bad person, which I think is kind of what Mary Shelley was getting at. I mean, listen, well, let's talk about this is the opposite of the Tower of Babel. How the Christian God said y'all are too good, stop it. And the Jewish God is like nah, cool. Good job. Great job of expressing yourself and creating stuff. So I think that Mary Shelley while she was trying to freak out all of her friends and have sex at a graveyard—
AMANDA: [48:46] summer.
ERIC: Yeah, yeah in a graveyard, with a— with a bleeding human heart next to it. I think she was doing something else with that.
JULIA: I will also point out that like Frankenstein's subtitle is the Modern Prometheus and Prometheus from Greek mythology is one of the Titans that molded human beings out of water and earth. So I think there are definitely like a lot of parallels happening there. And the fact that we get like the lightning and thunder, which we associate with the story of Frankenstein a lot of times.
ERIC: So funny.
JULIA: So definitely, I was like, oh okay, I see what we're doing here.
ERIC: But Doris like oh, my joints are so sore.
AMANDA: And the elder never lies.
ERIC: The next one, actually, we can talk about Wonder Woman, which is on the same Wikipedia page with a big list of creation of life from clay that I was looking into. Well this is straight-up Pygmalion. In the lore of Wonder Woman, her mother had Hippolyta on the island of Greek God [49:36] she's [49:37] out of Clay. And the Greek gods gave her life.
JULIA: That's true.
ERIC: So straight up, just straight up.
JULIA: Yeah, fun fact.
ERIC: Yeah, I think defending truth and defending all that stuff is interesting but that's kind of a more about like the Amazon stuff and all the— all the boys were obsessed with when she was invented. But [49:53] let's— it's fine.
JULIA: It's all Greek mythology, baby.
ERIC: It's all Greek to me, which is—that it was a reference to something that happened on Spirits Podcast.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's something, something Gal Gadot being Israeli militarization. Moving on
ERIC: Something, something militarization. Something, something, uhh imagine all the people. Let's touch on the Gollum truly of comics and let's see if it is whether or not—let's see if it is actually a Gollum story. Let's talk about the Incredible Hulk.
AMANDA: Yay!
JULIA: Okay.
ERIC: So let's talk about our the— let's talk about our themes here. One crea— wasn't created out of—out of mud and Earth. No—
JULIA: No.
ERIC: —kinda. The Incredible Hulk well I— If you might remember mild-mannered scientists get zapped by radiation beam and turned into a big—a big hulking guy. I mean, that's kinda sorta like sculpture.
AMANDA: The human body is the unformed clay that the Hulk is made out of when you think about it.
ERIC: Yeah, kinda I mean we're use—
JULIA: When you think about it, radiation is an art form.
ERIC: I guess? Maybe we want to like smoosh it in one way [50:51]
AMANDA: Cause that part is not quite. That box is not quite checked.
ERIC: Yes.
AMANDA: But the Hulk does defend Bruce Banner and others from injustice and from violence.
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: And sort of like steps in when Bruce doesn't want him to, a lot of the time as well. Also doesn't have a great grasp of language, and it's like different you know, in different comics, and they're smart Hulk, and you see that all kinds of things. But Hulk is not—
ERIC: I change my Hulk.
AMANDA: —is not able to—it doesn't have full command of speech the way that people do, which I think is a really interesting aspect of this.
ERIC: Yeah. And it is more about power. I think this has more to do with like, [51:22] although this is a decent allusion to it, as Stan Lee did say that this was kind of sorta a Gollum story. And at one point, the Hulk does fight the Gollum, which is very funny.
JULIA: That's cool.
ERIC: It's actually this is more of like a Jekyll and Hyde situation. I think this has to do more with like Bruce Banner wrestling with himself and like the two sides of humanity, the angry side and the like civilized side. Stan Lee when he was like, ah, what do people like, they like fo— they like monsters that fight things. It's closer to Jekyll, he said it's closer to Jekyll and Hyde, and to Frankenstein. And like the hubris of creating something out of science.
JULIA: Sure.
ERIC: Which is more straight up? I want to posit that the real Gollum is actually Steve Rogers and America's ass. That's Captain America.
AMANDA: Ohh, tell us more.
JULIA: No, I see it.
ERIC: Right?
JULIA: I see it.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Right?
JULIA: Pleasantly surprised and I see it.
ERIC: The first thing is that again, we're doing— we're doing the same science thing. Dr. Abraham Erskine started the super soldier project turning li—little boys into big—big honkin' dudes using science.
JULIA: Stanley Tucci.
ERIC: The [52:28] was like what if we had big lads, I love this. So using sciences like the creation myth is kind of interesting. Using what you have at your disposal is pretty good. We will come back to language as we talk about the third thing, which is defense.
JULIA: It's right there.
ERIC: Now, what we know about Captain America, Captain America goes out for the United States and fights Nazis.
JULIA: Yes.
ERIC: Even in World War Two. Julia, what would you say the United States was in terms of like country and power? Are the Americans kind of like a persecuted group of people?
JULIA: No, I'm gonna say no. In 1940 America persecuted, no.
ERIC: No. But what was America doing while the rest of the world was fighting World War Two?
AMANDA: Belatedly defending Jews?
ERIC: Yes, the United States was doing fucking nothing.
JULIA: Yep.
ERIC: They were sitting on their hands. And you remember your US history, they didn't get in until at Pearl Harbor, which was like three years into World War Two by that point.
JULIA: Yeah.
ERIC: So when we're talking about language, and we're talking about someone defending others, hey, the Jews were getting Holocausted the whole time, and the United States wasn't doing anything? So the creators of Captain America, Joe Simon, and Jack Kirby to Jews wish that someone from America would go and fight the Nazis.
AMANDA: Oh, so Eric, the character of Captain America is itself the Gollum.
ERIC: Exactly the creation of. And remember, the original comic, the first cut the big popular cover was Captain America, punching Hitler in the face.
JULIA: It's true.
ERIC: Which was very, very divisive at the time in like, 1942.
JULIA: Yeah.
AMANDA: Dang, This is like—this is like fourth-dimensional chess, baby.
ERIC: Yeah.
JULIA: There's layers.
ERIC: There's layers upon layers. I know that, like, Steve Rogers is truly like the airy and lovely guy. But I think that, like the creation of the—wishing that Captain America would exist is the Gollum itself. I think another thing that's kind of interesting about this, and they do touch on this in the movie, the Hallmark movie, not the Marvel movies. And what they do a little bit is that like, Steve Rogers is a good guy, and he's always a good guy. He can't be moved by like bullshit that other people are saying, I think it was kind of pivotal in the Civil War movie that like Steve Rogers is like, hey, I don't like this when Tony Stark is like we have to do this because I said so and it's better for everybody. But Steve Rodgers has values. I think it's also partial to like the idea—the thing that happened very recently was like Steve Rogers was like a Hydra and Nazi spy the whole time. Is like no, that would never happen, cause Steve Rodgers has his pure of heart. And I think that that's also something is like Captain America is someone you can depend on, and that is important to someone who's defending a persecuted group like the Jews in the 1940s.
AMANDA: Dang.
JULIA: Crushed it.
ERIC: So—
AMANDA: I love it.
ERIC: None of these are Gollums except for America's ass.
JULIA: Specifically America's ass
AMANDA: Incredible. I can't think of a better note to end on. Go ahead and watch Made for Each Other. It was genuinely very fun. And Eric, can you please let the conspirators know where they can follow you online if they have not already?
JULIA: Or check out your work?
ERIC: Oh, well, we—listen—
AMANDA: Eric's doing a lot right now.
ERIC: I'm making four podcasts right now. You should listen to any of them, if you would find that interesting. We just started a new campaign on Join the Party, where we're all playing planted bug people set in a pirate world. It's like Red Wall and Plants vs Zombies meets One Piece and Pirates of the Caribbean. It's fucking awesome and a lot of fun to do. We've already recorded a few episodes of it and we're having a lot of fun and our theme song is absolutely banging.
AMANDA: [56:01] Shanti. [56:02] Shanti.
ERIC: [56:03] Shanti. You can listen to Games and Feelings with both Amanda and Julia have been on, which our games advice podcast that comes out weekly. If you need a new advice podcast, that's good, and also about games. I think you'll really enjoy it. A good— a good balance of actually good advice and games recommendations with jokes is what I would say.
AMANDA: Perfect.
ERIC: And Tell Me About It is that which is the game show that I do with Adul Rafai of Hello from the Magic Tavern and Hey Riddle Riddle. It's a madcap game show about proving the things you like are good and interesting. Where a multibillionaire forces people to talk about their favorite things, which is very fun and also I'm producing The Distraction which is the sports podcast from Defector the worker-owned collective that is awesome and good for media at large. So I'm doing a lot, I'm very happy to come back. It was nice to do an episode where I did not have to quiz Amanda and Julia and everything.
JULIA: We did it.
AMANDA: Wee. And Eric as always people can find links to those projects and many more on Twitter where you're at El_Silvero which is why honey?
ERIC: Oh, that's my name if I was a Lucha Libre wrestler.
JULIA: Okay, cool, cool.
ERIC: I don't know. Have you ever heard me say that before, Julia?
JULIA: No, never, never in my entire life.
AMANDA: Thank you, Eric, so much for— for being here. Thank you Made For Each Other for being a great window for our conversation. And remember, even when your mom is pressuring you to find a date for your younger sister's wedding—
JULIA: Stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
[theme]
AMANDA: Spirits was created by Amanda McLoughlin, Julia Schifini, and Eric Schneider with music by Kevin MacLeod and visual design by Alison Wakeman.
JULIA: Keep up with all things creepy and cool by following us @SpiritsPodcast on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr. We also have all of our episode transcripts, guest appearances, and merch on our website. As well as a form to send us in your urban legends and your advice from folklore questions at spiritspodcast.com.
AMANDA: Join our member community on Patreon, patreon.com/spiritspodcast, for all kinds of behind-the-scenes goodies. Just $1 gets you access to audio extras with so much more. Like recipe cards with alcoholic and nonalcoholic for every single episode, directors' commentaries, real physical gifts, and more.
JULIA: We are a founding member of Multitude, an independent podcast collective, and production studio. If you like Spirits you will love the other shows that live on our website at multitude.productions.
AMANDA: Above all else, if you liked what you heard today, please text one friend about us. That's the very best way to help keep us growing.
JULIA: Thanks for listening to Spirits. We'll see you next week.
AMANDA: Bye!
Transcriptionist: KA
Editor: KM