Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Deep Thoughts About the Role of Pathos in Broad Comedy

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

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Those aren’t two pillows…

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Emily finally watches one of the most beloved buddy comedy movies of the 1980s: Planes, Trains & Automobiles this week. After intentionally skipping this film when it was first released (because it appeared to feature gross-out and cringe humor), Emily is surprised and delighted to find the John Candy and Steve Martin comedy offers a nuanced look at how to see past our class-based differences.

While John Hughes’ script provides a lot of the movie’s warm heart, it’s Candy’s performance that makes this comedy more than just a series of silly hijinks. Candy brings an impressive level of emotion and pathos to his larger-than-life character of Del Griffith. And though the film trades in some period-typical fatphobia as part of its visual storytelling, viewers are ultimately given a clear sense of Del’s dignity and grief along with the belly laughs.

It’s two days to Thanksgiving, making it the perfect time to throw on your headphones and listen–even if your flight gets rerouted to Wichita!

CW: Fatphobia

Mentioned in this episode
Roger Ebert’s 2000 retrospective review
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/

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

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

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.

פרקים

1. Transportation Modes Thoughts (00:00:00)

2. Road Trip Adventures and Friendships (00:16:32)

3. Character Analysis of Del Griffith (00:25:17)

4. Exploring Intimacy in Comedy (00:33:41)

5. Exploring Fat Phobia in Film (00:44:11)

6. Thanksgiving Movies and Character Depth (00:59:21)