← Sentimental Garbage
Sentimental Garbage
Return to Oz with Shon Faye
01:19:05
You will be rather attractive one day. Not at all beautiful, you understand, but you have a certain... prettiness
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- [00:00]
Caroline
BetterHelp online therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
- [00:45]
Shan Fay
So I'm coming up to my two year wedding anniversary, which, as it turns out, is the exact amount of time it takes to become extremely nostalgic about everything, even the stuff that went wrong. Which is a good sort of reminder to anyone who's getting married soon or getting married this summer that, like, actually the stuff that goes catastrophically badly is the stuff that you'll remember the most fondly of all. Like, for example, my musicians didn't show up, my ceremony musicians didn't show up. And it was so cataclysmic because I had imagined exactly how I wanted to walk down the aisle and exactly how I wanted to feel. And the musicians were supposed to play kind of on the patio of the venue afterwards while everyone was getting drinks. And I was just like, oh my God, I'm going to walk down the aisle to nothing. And then everyone will just be like wandering around this patio for afterwards with like no music and no vibe. And it was so awful. And then at that moment, one of my oldest friends, Harry Harris, he just revealed that he taught himself how to play piano over Covid. And he sat down at this big grand piano at the venue and just played, played all my favorite songs, played some songs that we'd written together. And it was like one of the most special moments of my entire day. So I was talking about this exact thing with my friend Haytham, who got married three years ago, and him and his wife Rowan, they were still students at the time, but they decided that they were going to get married. But then take the photos at this beautiful scenic place near where they. And they got there and it started raining. And at first they were like, okay, this is like a cinematic, cute amount of rain. And then eventually it just got so intense that they had to abandon it all completely and it was just a complete disaster. But Haytham told me he was like, weirdly, that's my favorite part of my wedding because it just felt so cute and special and just like it was the two of them. Now, Haytham is from Gaza and he has no access to any of the photographs that he took on his wedding day because a few days into the war his home was destroyed. Five days into the war, his daughter Karaz was born. And ever since then, the entire story of this little family who got caught in the rain on their wedding day has just been totally about surviving day to day, getting enough food, and, like, making sure that Karaz has basically any happy memories from the earlier parts of her life. Now Rohan is pregnant again, and they're trying desperately to fund their very existence as this war continues on. I'm going to include the link to Haytham's GoFundMe in the episode notes for this show, and I really hope that you can find it in your heart to give them a few quid and contribute to this little family and their ability to survive. Okay, thank you. Enjoy the show. Hello, and welcome to Magical Garbage, the podcast where we talk about the enchanted trash that made us who we are. My name is Caroline. And I'm Farouza Balks. Sad, sad eyes. And joining me is Princess Mumbi's head collection. It's Shan Fay. Hi.
- [03:57]
Farouza Balks
How are you?
- [03:59]
Shan Fay
Really, really thoroughly disturbed. I feel like this movie, I don't know if it totally hangs together as a complete narrative sometimes, but it doesn't mean I don't fucking love it, and it doesn't mean that it's not responsible for some of the worst images that exist in my brain.
- [04:18]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, I think. I think the thing about this film, and I guess it's one of those, like, many experiences that you have as a child and then you grow up and start talking to other adults about it and you realize it was a really collective experience, is I just have such vivid memories of this, of certain scenes in this film terrifying me, and they are embedded in my brain. And then I realize that that's the case for, like, every slightly whimsical person over the age of 30. I know with this film, everyone's terrified about it. Like, I. I posted. You invited me on. I posted about it because there was a BBC article to celebrate the anniversary of it coming out.
- [04:56]
Shan Fay
Oh, really? Oh, God. I had no idea that we were doing a timely podcast. This is fabulous.
- [05:01]
Farouza Balks
And I posted on my stories and made a little joke about it. And I had, like, people of, you know, all kind of the full spectrum of my social circle, men, women, and all in between. Basically, like, replying, being all the fucking Wheelers, they terrified me.
- [05:20]
Shan Fay
Always. The Wheelers is the first thing that people come up with. And then the head collection, I think.
- [05:27]
Farouza Balks
It'S maybe, I think the other way around, because even this morning. I rewatched the film this morning. And I was sort of doing some housework whilst it was on in the background and. And I knew the bit where she had to go and get the powder of life from the cabinet with Princess Mombi's original head. And that moment where she reaches in and the head wakes up and then it's like Dorothy Gale and tries to bite her. That I literally stepped out of the room to clean my kitchen sides while that was happening because I was like, I don't wanna see that because it's. Because it was so. It's so deep in my psyche how frightening that was that I. And then all the heads start screaming the name and the body gets up. That like still terrifies me. So that for me. But then the bizarre thing too is also that Mombi and the head thing is also sort of deeply glamorous in quite like a. I feel like as a sort of transsexual older person, the idea of a kind of customizable head and being able to have a new face according to your mood. Deeply appealing.
- [06:45]
Shan Fay
And indeed harvest the heads of children.
- [06:49]
Farouza Balks
Yes, that too. Well, she actually, I have to quote you on that. She says she's going to lock her in the tower for a few years until her head is ready. So she actually doesn't want Dorothy's head until it's at least a protein.
- [07:03]
Shan Fay
It's everything. Everything about that is so perfectly horrifying. I think that like this is the place where this movie is the strongest is when it allows itself to be a horror film for children. The parts that movie I don't like are when it tries to be a friendly movie. I'm like, no, like the. When I. I don't like the side characters. I don't like the any even sidekick humor. I'm like get back to being the most frightening film I've ever seen.
- [07:31]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, like the wise cracking chicken.
- [07:33]
Shan Fay
I could not be fucked with the chicken.
- [07:36]
Farouza Balks
She's just not funny.
- [07:37]
Shan Fay
She's just not funny. But wait, let me step back for a second because like I. I'm sure everyone who's listening will have heard of you and your work and you're very eminent memoirist and non fiction writer. What is your relationship to sort of magic and whimsy and fantasy? Full stop.
- [07:58]
Farouza Balks
Quite intense, I would say. I. So actually as a child my favorite film was the wizard of Oz, the 1939 film Judy Garland. I to this above my bed. I have a print of it by an artist called Jason Schulman where every frame of that film is layered. He does, he does art where he layers every frame of a movie over one of each other and it becomes this kind of blurred color.
- [08:22]
Shan Fay
Beautiful.
- [08:22]
Farouza Balks
And above my bed, in my flat, that his print of the wizard of Oz, the frames of the wizard of Oz is still there. Because it was such a huge part of my childhood, I was able to recite, I think at one point the whole film, like, along with it. Like I would be able to mouth along all the words of all the parts for the entire film. So, like, I was so the wizard of Oz was like a huge part of my childhood. And then, yeah, around that. Like, that probably gave me a taste. But got anything to do with fantasy. And I watched anything to do. Because there was like various animated versions of the wizard of Oz. Yeah, there was a. There was a. Yeah, like so. So all forms of magic. That there was an animated version. Obviously this film I would have watched quite young because it was kind of connected and it would have interested me. And then, yeah, like fantasy was and continues to be. I mean, obviously I am of the Harry Potter generation. Oh, God, has that been a nice.
- [09:25]
Shan Fay
Few years for you?
- [09:27]
Farouza Balks
It's fine. I'm not a Harry Potter adult, nor am I a Disney adult. Very into Disney too, but I'm not Harry Potter or a Disney adult. Grow up.
- [09:34]
Shan Fay
Oh, my God. I'm actually really surprised to hear this about you because I just. I mean, we've met a couple times before. This is our first proper hangout today. But like, I've, I've, you know, my. The way I associate you and your work has always been a very sort of straight talking. Like, I wouldn't. I wouldn't have thought you quartered much Disney for some reason. I don't know why I assumed that, but you're. Are you. Okay, you're not a Disney adult, but you're kind of Disney leaning.
- [09:58]
Farouza Balks
Yes, I'm Disney lean.
- [09:59]
Shan Fay
Have you been to the parks as an adult?
- [10:02]
Farouza Balks
As. Ooh, as an adult.
- [10:03]
Shan Fay
That's a real test. I have, by the way, twice.
- [10:07]
Farouza Balks
Only. Only because I do think if I. I think if I had managed to get past 18 months with any boyfriend, I think I would have made him take me. But I think it's too. I don't have. This is not very feminist of me. I can go for meals alone. There's plenty of stuff. I got solitude. But I don't think I can take myself to a Disney park alone.
- [10:29]
Shan Fay
You can go with a gal pal.
- [10:30]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, I was thinking about, could I go with the gays or the girls? Have I been. I. I think I might have been to Disneyland Paris when. When I was 19 as an adult. But I would go now. I just think I would either have to like. Yeah, it would have to be someone very close. But the reason I haven't gone with like a Galpa or whatever is I don't. I'm quite Disney. Maybe I am a Disney adult, but I. I don't have. The friends I've made in adulthood aren't.
- [10:58]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [10:58]
Farouza Balks
But I like. I love it. So I. Because I'm also musical theater. I'm an ex. Right.
- [11:03]
Shan Fay
And those words do often join.
- [11:05]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, I'm an ex musical theater gay. So I also love that I'm going to see Evita tomorrow.
- [11:11]
Shan Fay
Oh, my God, Michelle.
- [11:13]
Farouza Balks
So I think, like, whimsy and fantastical things like the Little Mermaid was a film that I was obsessed with as a child with divorce. Harry Potter. Yes. Became. And Ursula K. Le Guin, like fantasy, classic fantasy novels. And then Also I was 37, so I was sort of turning 11 or 12 just at the end of the 90s, early noughties, when it was very fashionable to dabble in witchcraft.
- [11:41]
Shan Fay
Oh, it's never not fashionable.
- [11:44]
Farouza Balks
I think it went out of fashion for a bit.
- [11:45]
Shan Fay
It's always in with somebody.
- [11:47]
Farouza Balks
But I did dabble in witchcraft. I think it was, you know, it was kind of Buffy the Vampire. So I charmed. And of course, the Craft, which stars Firuza Bulk, who is Dorothy. Um. And yeah, I think it was just very like the idea of having like a pentagram and an altar in your room when you were a sort of queer child in 2002. Yeah, I was there.
- [12:12]
Shan Fay
I mean, wizard of Oz is like a classic. You know, the phrase Friends of Dorothy exists for a reason. You know, there's like, why do you think it is that? And, you know, I couldn't help thinking about it as I was watching Return to Oz today. Cause this is the second time I've seen it, like, this year. Like, I watched it again when Wicked came out and I did a sort of a double bill with a palamine of wizard of Oz and then returned to Oz. And it is fascinating of like, you watch wizard of oz, the original 1939 version, and like, you know, they weren't thinking about subtext, really. They were thinking about text. Text. They weren't thinking about, are the gays going to love this? So whatever. But they. But it was kind of discovered by the gay community in a big way, I feel. And like became a representation of so many sort of, sort of queer themes, I suppose. I mean, what do you. Why do you think that wizard of Oz has become so rich in queer subtext? And how do you think that, like, followed through into Return to Oz? Because I have my own theories, but I'd prefer to hear yours.
- [13:13]
Farouza Balks
I think the wizard of Oz, I think the idea of escape from kind of humdrum domesticity into this technicolor fantastical world speaks to. And particularly, like in the first half of the 20th century, a very gay experience, which is this idea of you.
- [13:34]
Shan Fay
Have to leave to do it.
- [13:35]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. You have to leave and wanting to escape. And somewhere over the rainbow, this idea of like a. Like a. Like a. Like a safe place that, like, that exists and is, like, you know, exists somewhere beyond where you can see is quite a hopeful.
- [13:51]
Shan Fay
And where everyone's a freak.
- [13:53]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, exactly. And so there's. So there's that this, like, deep idea and it's there in Nurturing Wicked as well, because it's. Ironically, it's obviously Elphaba that becomes the queer heroine in that. But it's like Defying Gravity is a similar kind of like, I will be in this place in the sky away.
- [14:12]
Shan Fay
From you all because I will transcend the normal and become something. Yeah.
- [14:16]
Farouza Balks
This idea of the kind of gay or queer anthem them, like, I think anything where it's like. Like, honestly, like, let it go in frozen, like, sometimes, like the B side.
- [14:25]
Shan Fay
Of the fighting gravity. Really.
- [14:26]
Farouza Balks
Well, yeah, it is. But like, that song. I mean, obviously it's for children, but sometimes when I hear that when you see girls dresses, Elsa, I'll be like, that's. This is a transsexual anthem. I'm never going back. The past is in the past. I mean, I'm like. So, like, this idea of, like, it's obviously this, like, overlap between, I guess, a childhood. What is marketed as like, oh, it's that all children want to escape to a fantasy world. I think is probably true that it's a general appeal. Right. But there is a specific way that maybe that lands with a queer person young or older, where it resonates extremely deeply. This idea of. Yeah. Essentially being a freak in your own home and there being some other place where you can find your people.
- [15:18]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [15:19]
Farouza Balks
So I think the wizard of Oz speaks to that. I also think that there are, like, Judy Garland, obviously, she acquired a particular kind of. Because I think of the melancholy in her voice. Because what's odd is that she's 16 in the wizard of Oz.
- [15:35]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [15:35]
Farouza Balks
And that voice is so melancholic that it. Like, she doesn't seem like a 16 year old. I mean she's dressed like a little girl.
- [15:42]
Shan Fay
Yeah. She's got the chicken covering her tips.
- [15:46]
Farouza Balks
She of sings like this sad 40 year old and then that is obviously like kind of how her life went and there is a kind of tragedy to that that is quite captivating. I also do remember my mother telling me when I was watching the wizard of Oz once that Judy Garland had ultimately like my mom basically. I mean she died of an overdose so she didn't intentionally kill herself. When my mom was like, oh, she basically killed herself. And I like oddly I became more fascinated. Like there was something about that, knowing that tragedy. But seeing this kind of young girl.
- [16:19]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [16:19]
Farouza Balks
To me as like an 8 or 9 year old made her even more fascinating.
- [16:22]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [16:22]
Farouza Balks
And what I don't know, like the natural kind of mellow, you know, might not be that gay and queer children are more melancholic but it might just be that there is a, there's a sense of interest in tragedy or things not seeming how they are on the surface. So that's the very sophisticated answer. The other answer is that I think there are really campy elements to it. Right. Like the bright technicolor scheme of Oz. The fact that yeah there is this like female person in these brightly colored sparkly shoes accompanied by three male non threatening kind of gay coded companions. Yeah. Like and they're also.
- [17:02]
Shan Fay
Maybe they were concerned with subtext because they were not going out of their way that high. That these are some gay, gay characters.
- [17:08]
Farouza Balks
Skipping down the, skipping down the yellow brick road. And of course it's a musical. Right. Which is, which is a huge. Maybe one of the most stark differences between the two is that the register of, as I understand it, returned to Oz. What was intended anyway was that it was actually closer to the books and the books have a slightly darker edge as often the case I think with the subject. Like when you have particularly like a big budget film like the wizard of Oz, but also like for example the early Disney animations is that the fairy tales they were drawn from are much more dark and fucked up. And then obviously to turn.
- [17:49]
Shan Fay
Yeah, like we've always been getting sort of photocopies of photocopies. It's like we had this oral tradition that was then codified by Hans Christian Andersen and all that. And I remember reading those stories as a kid. Like the red shoes used to give me nightmares. The idea that like having to dance until you died and all that kind of stuff and yeah, then it becomes dignified and then everything becomes a Photocopy of a film. Photocopy. And it does feel like with Return to Oz that they are pulling back to, I guess, the original intentions of the book, which were. Had these kind of. Kind of Victorian era, right. Frank Baum and had these like, quite ghoulish illustrations that are very. Of that era. And it's that thing of like. Oh, you know, lots of almost Jules Verney kind of cogs and characters who are sort of almost assembled from different parts. And like, it's definitely, you see that being brought to life in Return to Oz. But I also feel like you get this sense of almost a knowingness of like, everything we know about Judy Garland. I see and feel in Firuza Balk's performance. And it almost feels intentional, like this thing when you open on the opening scenes of Return to Oz and it's like, Dorothy hasn't slept in six months. She hasn't slept since the tornado. It's almost 1900 and we don't know what to do about her. And like, she really looks like a kid who hasn't slept in six months. And they kind of are sort of, you know, trying these experimental therapies, electroshock therapy, to work with her, you know.
- [19:15]
Farouza Balks
I was gonna say the Return to Oz is also a very radical anti psychiatry film.
- [19:19]
Shan Fay
Radically anti psychiatry.
- [19:23]
Farouza Balks
Very, very. Like. Like, I was like, wow. Yeah, it captures. Well, that's it. Like, I think some of them, obviously we talked about the Wheelers and. And Princess Mombi being fucked up, but also the very first half hour is deeply, really upsetting. And apparently I did read that when it came out in 1985 in cinemas, that there were like, reports of lots of parents taking their children out in that first half hour. Like when basically when Dorothy's sort of strapped down to a. Yes, that is to a table, because it is very dark.
- [19:58]
Shan Fay
Do you know what's so horrifying and really quite brilliant? I think it's one of the more brilliant again, I think every. All the scenes where this is a scary film, it is a brilliant film where it's trying to be fun and lighthearted. When they're trying to wrestle the tone back into something lighter, it falls apart for me. But there's a bit where they're strapping her to this gurney because they're gonna take her to be shocked. And she's trying to argue with the nurse, but really politely because she's like a well brought up kid and she's like, you know, lie down, Dorothy. I'd like to sit up, please. And then they go, you know, no, you know, you have to be sort of bolted in in case you fall off. And she's like, well, I came all the way here in a horse and buggy and I didn't fall off. And it's like, yes, being strapped to a gurney is scary, but having this little kid argue really politely about why she doesn't want to do that is both. It just takes it to another level. To me, it's like heartbreaking and scary at the same time.
- [20:51]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we. I think probably it's worth saying at this point that I think for me on the rewatch, what struck me the most is Faruza Bulk's performance is actually incredible. Like, it's because. Because it. Apparently it was her first ever film. And unlike Judy Garland, who was older and also just a studio kid, had been performing her whole life like the Tin Man, Scarecrow and Cowardly lion were men in suits. Like, they were people actors that she was interacting with. And they were. Those guys that played them were quite like grandees of cinema, I think, in their day.
- [21:29]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [21:30]
Farouza Balks
Whereas Far Isabel's acting with puppets and it's like.
- [21:34]
Shan Fay
And guys inside machines. Yeah, there's a guy inside. Tick tock. Just like cramped, like, hunched over with a little remote control.
- [21:40]
Farouza Balks
But, like, she's got that. Like, she's got the fucking wisecracking chicken under Aunt one arm.
- [21:46]
Shan Fay
She's holding a live chicken the whole movie. She's 11. I would you have.
- [21:52]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [21:53]
Shan Fay
And then could you walk around with a live chicken now and remember lives?
- [21:56]
Farouza Balks
You know, Jack Pumpkinhead is like, his facial expression's fixed. He's giving us nothing. TikTok is expressionless.
- [22:01]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [22:01]
Farouza Balks
You know, the other one is like a gumper moose's head on a sofa.
- [22:07]
Shan Fay
Fucking hate him.
- [22:08]
Farouza Balks
So dry. But like, they're giving us nothing.
- [22:12]
Shan Fay
Yeah, they're giving her nothing. Yeah.
- [22:15]
Farouza Balks
So the fact that she is able to convey genuine emotion. And I think the thing is that I was trying to think because the kid. Really amazing child actors, I think when I was a child in the 90s, Mara Wilson, who was in Mrs. Doubtfire and Miracle on 34th street and Matilda when I was a child, she was the it child actress. And there is a specific vibe that child actors have where it's like this precociousness. But, like, Faruza Bulk is actually very, like, naturalistic. Like, you know, it feels like she is a very natural actress if that is her first ever screen role. Because, you know, it isn't even this, like, oh, what she's playing on, like, Mara Wilson was often playing the fact she was cute and, like, able to deliver the lines, but, like, was playing up this cuteness.
- [23:09]
Shan Fay
Yeah. Had a real winsomeness and a charm. Like, she was gorgeous. She was just adorable. You wanted to eat her. Where, like, Forsa park is. She's a very pretty kid. She is not sweet, really.
- [23:19]
Farouza Balks
No.
- [23:20]
Shan Fay
Like, she. You don't want to eat her. You know what I mean? Like, it's not one of those responses that you get where you just, like, you don't think, oh, my God, I want to mother her. You think, holy fuck, what happened to this kid?
- [23:30]
Farouza Balks
Well, that's why I love. That's why I have to say I love the fact that the other big film role she had then was in the Craft.
- [23:38]
Shan Fay
It feels like a straight line.
- [23:39]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, it does feel like it, because it feels like a continuation. But what I love in that is that she is the kind of Mombi of the. The Craft in that she is the. Yeah, she is the completely tapped villain.
- [23:49]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [23:50]
Farouza Balks
And. But, like, in that she, like, she's in a. Like, it's actually amazing acting in that because she's so menacing in that and manages to play this, like, unh. This person that, like, this teenage witch who is basically losing her mind in real time and becoming like, this mega maniac. And it not be like, hammy. That's the thing. She's not like a hammy actress. It's all very believable. So I think she. She. She kind of carries this film. I feel like where the. Where the director and the screenwriters and the producers on this film flopped it on a couple of occasions with, as you say, maybe the more cheerful parts. Also the fact that the plot of this film is very uneven because there are, like, parts of it that, like, watching it, I was a bit like, why does this feel like a game show? Like the, like the, like you're going to show? Well, like, like, why is there a whole segment of the film that's like, touch an ornament?
- [24:42]
Shan Fay
I love touch an ornament. Do you not like touch an ornament?
- [24:46]
Farouza Balks
I like it, but it feels.
- [24:47]
Shan Fay
It's so scary to me. Touching ornament. But the Orion is a game show. But it's my favorite game show.
- [24:52]
Farouza Balks
It's weird. I go through to our, like, showroom, and I'm going to get you to touch an ornament for no reason instead of just killing you now.
- [24:59]
Shan Fay
Yeah, yeah. And it's like. And Mombi's like, why didn't you Just kill her. And he's like, it's fun this way.
- [25:05]
Farouza Balks
We've got another third of the film to fill. That's the other thing too, is that I actually think the Gnome King. I was thinking about that because once the resonance, I think, between Wicked and Return to Oz. Right. But Return to Oz doesn't do it as well or is developed. Is this idea of like, if you look at maybe those three films, is this idea of power and who is, who is usurping power from who. It's all very dynastic.
- [25:33]
Shan Fay
Yes.
- [25:34]
Farouza Balks
Because in Wicked, right, there is this whole flavor flip of the wizard of Oz narrative, which is like, actually Dorothy is the kind of antagonist and she's this little brat who comes and meddles and actually in a world that she doesn't belong in. And the wizard is the same. The wizard is this interloper, kind of colonial overlord.
- [25:54]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [25:56]
Farouza Balks
And in Return to Oz, that sort of played with a bit where the Gnome King is like, but the emeralds, like, he's supposed to be this kind of like lord of, of. Of the cavernous rocks beneath the earth. And he's like, well, the fucking emeralds belong to me and they stole my.
- [26:13]
Shan Fay
Geologically, you can't argue with them. You simply cannot argue.
- [26:17]
Farouza Balks
And Dorothy is like, you have so many. And he's like, that's not the point. And I'm like, no, fair play is not the point. Like, they did belong to him.
- [26:26]
Shan Fay
Yeah. Like the Gnome King. Very. I think, I mean, if this was a movie that came out today, it would become a real environmentalist metaphor. And I think it would make it a poorer film. Like a more palatable film, but a poorer one. I kind of like how the Gnome King's motivations are fucking all over the shop. It's like, okay, he like, he wanted sort of reparations for the emerald stealing. And as punishment he turns everybody into a statue, which is another unbelievably haunting scene when she walks back into Oz. And it's almost like this shut down theme park and like the Disney park you will one day go to and you have everybody who's in these like beautiful Romanesque statues that are frozen in time. And like, okay, so it's kind of like a revenge. But then it's like she sends. She begins the game show of touch, an ornament and sends all of her friends in to touch the ornaments. And then they all fail. But as they all fail, he gradually turns from a face in the rock into an actor with makeup on. And he's gradually Becoming more human. And we also realize that he is the psychotherapist from the asylum. And so it's like, oh. And then he said, oh yes. When there's nobody left who remembers Oz, I'll be a human and then I'll rule Oz. I was like, what is this? Because I love it, but just give me one more piece of the puzzle.
- [27:52]
Farouza Balks
He was also sort of like, as he humanizes too, he sort of starts to give camp gay elder.
- [27:58]
Shan Fay
He does.
- [28:01]
Farouza Balks
Which has this kind of crescendo in when he suddenly is like, are you sure you didn't come back for these? And then he reveals that he's wearing.
- [28:09]
Shan Fay
The ruby and has been wearing them the whole time. Like it would have been so much simpler if he just like put his hand out and they bing materialized on the cushion or something. But he's like, no, I've been wearing them this whole time. He's menacing Gael.
- [28:20]
Farouza Balks
The proper old fashioned cross dresser experience. Are these for your wife, sir? Yes, but yeah, and then, and then, but I love that, that it's so camp when she's like, my ruby slippers. And then he's like, no, my ruby slippers. And like that. I remember that really strongly as a child. This man wearing these like fabulous shoes. Like Princess Mombi with the, with the customizable head. There's like a kind of queer thing to it and this like realization where they fell out of the sky off Dorothy's feet and she's actually brought about this entire destruction of Oz accidentally.
- [28:55]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [28:58]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. I wanted to touch actually on that about what's interesting about Return to Oz again, maybe comparing it with the wizard of Oz is you said this about the crossover, right? So Princess Mombi is the nurse in the mental hospital and the gnome king is. So that is a continuing theme of like the wizard of Oz, which the original film where characters in Oz like correlate to characters in Kansas. And so it gives this sense of like as we do in dreams where I don't know if this happens in your dreams. I've just started seeing a Jungian psychotherapist and so I now do dream analysis with him because he. And so he'll ask me, I keep a dream journal and we talk about my dreams in therapy. Yeah, it is. I guess it's because it's. It's very explorative and open ended. But I think I would have thought it was completely fucking woo woo a few years ago. But now I'm like, let's go.
- [29:54]
Shan Fay
I booked a therapist several years ago My one time in therapy, I was sort of having some sort of grief stuff, and I was like, I could do with some grief counseling, I think, but I didn't know what Jungian meant. So I just saw that she was kind of local to me and she did Jungian. And then I was like. I showed up to her place and I was like, listen, I had one of my best mates died. I'd love to chat about it. And she was like, interesting. Any dreams? I was like, what the fuck? But I think if I was looking for that, I would actually really appreciate that at this time in my life, as my dreams have become much more intense as I've gotten older.
- [30:24]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, well, one thing about, like. Because I guess I haven't really been paying attention to them, but I have been. But one thing I do notice in dreams, and this isn't. I think this is pretty common, is that the dramatis personae change. So, like, for me, in my dream, it can be like, oh. Like, I might be like, oh, I was sat with Caroline o' Donoghue doing a podcast, and then I turned around and it was Amy Adams. Do you know what I mean? Because it will be.
- [30:48]
Shan Fay
Love the calm, feel great about it.
- [30:52]
Farouza Balks
But, like, people will shift in my dreams. So I think that's very realistic. And in the wizard of Oz, it's this implicit thing that she's had a head injury from the house and she therefore is tripping balls and is hallucinating that the mean woman down the road is the Wicked Witch of the west and the farmhands are. Whereas in Return to Oz, what we're left with is the strong sense that in fact, Oz is real.
- [31:27]
Shan Fay
Yes, there's a really definitive sense of closure in the movie if we skip to the end that she's had this big adventure, she saved her friends. Once again, Princess Osma, I guess we'll get to in a sec. Although I'm not sure what we'll say. You know, here you can see us anytime you want. And then we sort of end with Dorothy looking in the mirror, speaking with Ozma, calling her Auntie, and then Osma being like, shh, no, don't tell anybody. And then it's like, yeah, it's the affirmation to the audience that we never got in the 1939 version. This is really real. It's a sort of a parallel world. Like, characters move across, the sort of archetypes are similar, but it is a real world. It is not an hallucination. It really gives us that closure and it's like an interesting. If you're like.
- [32:13]
Farouza Balks
I'm not sure I like that, though. I think I actually. I actually think I prefer that Oz is a dream.
- [32:19]
Shan Fay
Why?
- [32:22]
Farouza Balks
Because I think it's more potent to me that it's like an extension of Dorothy's subconscious, unconscious mind and her longings and her fantasies and the feelings of being constrained by being like a farmhand in Kansas. I think I find that much more. Again, maybe it's going back to the old school queer identification. I find that much more powerful than the idea that she's just a girl that stumbled into. Because in the books, I think Oz is real, but I think it was actually very clever of MGM to actually turn it into.
- [33:00]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [33:01]
Farouza Balks
To turn it into a dream because, I don't know, I find that. I don't know, I find that motif a bit more powerful.
- [33:08]
Shan Fay
It's really interesting because, like. Yeah, because in a way, the sort of. The version you're suggesting where it is a hallucination of hers, it kind of suggests, like, oh, this. And it kind of really does underline and empower the whole ruby slippers thing of, like, you have the power within you all along. Like, yes, you have this kind of, like, grim Kansas life, but there's this inner world to you that is, like, vast and contains multitudes which, again, has a nice parallel for kind of queerness and stuff. But, like, maybe. Yeah, maybe it is a better and more hopeful and more exciting version than, like, Oz is kind of like a version of moving to New York when you're gay.
- [33:46]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you feel, I suppose, like. Because I imagine for you as a novelist, because we have to forget that the wizard of oz film in 1939 was kind of set a precedent and now maybe we'd think that and it was all a dream is quite cliche and lazy and actually no one would do it. But I think it was quite smart for its. As a cinematic conceit to be. Especially with the whole grayscale Technicolor contrast.
- [34:18]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [34:19]
Farouza Balks
What I like about this film, which is. Which does genuinely feel quite sinister at the beginning with the. With the psychiatric hospital stuff or the electroshock treatment, is that you do feel like it's a violation that they're trying to get rid of Dorothy's memories of ours because it's like someone is trying to crush her dreams out of her. And I find that really upsetting that they're trying to, like, get rid of it.
- [34:45]
Shan Fay
It's. It's so that all those conversations with the kind of professionals at the asylum. Like the him showing her the kind of electroshock machine being like, he has a face, he has two eyes and a nose and there's his tongue. And then her just responding with, is it gonna hurt? Like that thing of when a child knows that they're being sort of condescended to and that their language is being co opted by someone who doesn't respect. It's almost like appropriation and like. And you can always tell as a kid, it's a really strong kid memory for me of like when an adult is trying to get down onto your level. But like they haven't done the learning, they haven't done the reading, they're being appropriative of your culture. And she's like, no, you're gonna hurt me with this. And I know you're gonna hurt me with this. I find it really riveting. And you're so right. This thing of like this thing of being crushed or being broken down to your component parts or being made mute is this thing that keeps coming up in this movie again and again of like she has this vast internal life. She doesn't know how to deal with it. Nobody knows how to deal with her. First they try and shock it out of her. Then Mombi wants to take her head away, which is cunt. And then the gnome king wants to turn everyone into a mute like ornament. And it really, you know, the film is specifically set on the dawn of the 20th century.
- [36:08]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [36:09]
Shan Fay
And it does feel like this kind of really Victorian sensibility of difficult children sort of seen, not heard. But I don't know, it does feel very, just sort of in general difficult people being made to be smaller, quieter. I think there's like an interesting sort of conversion therapy sort of mirror there, if you're willing to see it. You know, like really, that stuff really got me. It really made me very emotional.
- [36:31]
Farouza Balks
I suppose there's no way when they went for that. I suppose actually the end had to be as it was. But it was quite funny that it was like. And everyone died as the hospital.
- [36:42]
Shan Fay
No, the hospital burned down.
- [36:44]
Farouza Balks
Everyone lived apart from the doctor who went back with his machines for his.
- [36:47]
Shan Fay
Infernal machines, which does feel a bit too so funny.
- [36:54]
Farouza Balks
The other thing is I hate the chicken. But I do think one thing that's really tickling me was that so for people that maybe haven't seen the film in a while, the gnome king is killed because actually hens eggs are poisonous to gnomes.
- [37:10]
Shan Fay
Yes.
- [37:10]
Farouza Balks
I don't know if you knew that, but now you do. And so Bellina, Dorothy's chicken, who starts speaking when she arrives in Arles, eventually lays an egg and it poisons the gnome king. But as a result, that's not explained until it happens.
- [37:27]
Shan Fay
We do see you got a chicken in there. On the Wheelers. The chicken is controversial.
- [37:32]
Farouza Balks
That's what was really tickling me today, was that they start talking about the chicken and you don't really know where that's going, but they. They. Every time someone's like, she has a chicken with her. And there is something kind of absurd and silly about the fact that the chicken is being spoken about. Like, it's like she's smuggled gear into cars.
- [37:56]
Shan Fay
She's got a chicken with her. Those Wheelers are so junky coded as well.
- [38:01]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, they are.
- [38:01]
Shan Fay
She's got a chicken in there.
- [38:03]
Farouza Balks
Well, that's the thing about. The thing about the Wheelers. Right. Is that they are. Because the film came out in 1985. The Wheelers and Mumbi, original head OG Mombi.
- [38:13]
Shan Fay
OG Mombi.
- [38:13]
Farouza Balks
Her makeup and the Wheelers are the only signs of the 80s.
- [38:17]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [38:17]
Farouza Balks
They are related. Well, TikTok's a bit steampunk, but. But like the Wheelers, there's something about them. It's the makeup and the Starlight Express sort of thing.
- [38:28]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [38:28]
Farouza Balks
And then, like, the sort of pale faces and then the sort of brightly colored blush and then the sort of horrible orange hair. And then Mombi has got this, like, unblended highlighter beneath her brow that's kind of just so they're like the only times that we see that we're in the 1980s, really.
- [38:48]
Shan Fay
It's interesting that, isn't it? Like, everything else does feel sort of so gloomy and timeless.
- [38:53]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. And Mumbi's got a perm as well.
- [38:55]
Shan Fay
And Mommy's got a perm. Mommy's got a few perms. There's a few permed heads in there.
- [38:59]
Farouza Balks
But it is weird. Yeah. Because some of her younger heads have a kind of more of a Victorian style.
- [39:03]
Shan Fay
But then.
- [39:05]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. Otherwise the film, you wouldn't know. I wouldn't have been able to tell. It was made in the 80s.
- [39:12]
Shan Fay
Yeah. You wouldn't be able to have. Was made in the 60s for a lot of money or in the 90s for no money at all. You know, it kind of has that sort of look about it, like it feels like a TV movie, even though it isn't.
- [39:22]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [39:22]
Shan Fay
You know, it's. Yeah. It has that placelessness to it. I feel like the, the Wheelers, they, they sort of. There's. Because everyone talks about it, right? Like oh my God, you bring up this movie, people immediately talk about how terrified they were by the Wheelers. And I feel like the second that you get their faces and they're giving actual human performances, they fall apart. For me, I'm like when they have the masks over.
- [39:46]
Farouza Balks
When they have the masks over their faces. Yeah, that's really scary. No, that they are properly terrifying. And I think that's, that's what's so unusual about this film is it has a few distinct images that have managed to stay with like a generation of people forever and haunt them.
- [40:07]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [40:07]
Farouza Balks
And like actually how, how many children's films achieve that where it's like vividly. That's burned into my mind today. I was genuinely like the, you know, unnerved because it's like it record, it's like record. It's like traumatic recall. My body's keeping the score.
- [40:24]
Shan Fay
It's like really remarkable about how a movie that like is technically speaking in many ways not good. Like yeah, like and, but and and was sort of really not liked at the time it comes out and isn't like a joy to watch now even if you were having like a kind of like a showgirlsy type, let's all come round and then like watch this movie together. Because it's a bit of a crack and it's a bit of fun and, and it's sort of bad and weird. It doesn't even kind of succeed on that level because there are so many quite long drawn out dull parts. But like, and I know I'm sounding like being negative about it, I love it because it has created the succession of truly iconic fucked up images that have defined people and chase nightmares for decades. Like it is such an achievement to.
- [41:11]
Farouza Balks
Do that and I think like it does point to things that I think are still worth. You know, it's like Wicked. I look, I went to see Wicked when it first like I said, the whole Oz franchise, it's not even a franchise but the whole Oz were universe canonical and non canonical. And I would argue that they sort of treat Return to Oz as non canon these days because. Because it's a bit like everyone, like commercially everyone's a bit embarrassed. And it was released by Disney. Like the original film was mgm. I don't know who does Wicked. But like, like it was weird that Disney owned the rights to the books. They, they apparently pumped this film out because they were about to lose the rights because they were at A timeout. And, you know, like, it's odd because in the. Like this, like all, like. They don't look like the Scarecrow. Doesn't look anything like the original Scarecrow. So it's like, oh, he looks bad. Yeah.
- [42:01]
Shan Fay
He looks like a kind of an animatronic sort of theme park ride, sort of of the wizard of Oz kind of thing. He looks like something that's gonna come alive.
- [42:08]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [42:09]
Shan Fay
As your boat goes past it, you know.
- [42:11]
Farouza Balks
But it doesn't look anything like the original. But then, weirdly, they paid for the license to use the ruby slippers. So it's like. That's weird. It would have been better off if they had just been like, we've got nothing to do with the OG film with Wicked. You know, Wicked is very. I, like, I loved it. I went to see it in like 2005. I went all 2006 when it first came to London. So I was an early adopter of Wicked. But I. But I. And I loved the film. I went to see it and I will be seeing the second part, but it is very saccharine. And like, you know, like, Oz is. I did read the books, I think, like, if I think about the fantasy novels I read as a child, like, I think I think the most fully realized were, and intellectually expanding were Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. I think the most kind of gripping and page turner y ones were Harry Potter.
- [43:13]
Shan Fay
Sorry.
- [43:17]
Farouza Balks
Do you know why I'm saying sorry? Yeah. I'm the one being oppressed.
- [43:20]
Shan Fay
Yeah, exactly.
- [43:24]
Farouza Balks
I'm the one that, like, literally bought those books to invest into a big fund that's now being used to attack my human rights. Anyway, then. Then I. Yeah. And. But then I think the Oz books, I think what they. What I remember about them is they were genuinely fucking weird. Yeah. And because in the original books, right, like, they have to wear spectacles because the Emerald City is so bright, right? It does, yeah. Like, you have to wear special glasses because the emeralds, when you're too close to them, they're too. There's like all these weird little details. And you mentioned about Princess Ozma, who. In this film. This is one of the many threads that this film. It's like, because it's based on two of the books, one of them being Ozma of Oz. And so they obviously felt like they needed to introduce Ozma and she does become Queen of Oz at the end. But it's a bit weird because she's not a fully realized character. But one thing that they sort of Lift. That is quite interesting is this idea of a girl trapped in a mirror.
- [44:26]
Shan Fay
That, to me, is very scary.
- [44:28]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, really scary.
- [44:29]
Shan Fay
Yeah. It's another one of the images that really, like, obviously the Mombi, the Wheelers stuck in the head on a repeat. They're coming up in all the dreams. But, like, when I saw the Ozma in the mirror again, I wasn't expecting to see it. And I had that strange chill of like, oh, somewhere in my lizard brain, Ozma's always been in the mirror. You know, it's something so haunting about it.
- [44:50]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. And in the. In the books, I think at one point Mombi turns her into a boy called Tip, I read today on Wikipedia, so that no one will recognize her. So we've got a little. A little trans vibe there. But like this idea of. It's almost kind of ancient Greek, like Ovid or something, to turn this girl into a conceal. Her as a boy.
- [45:17]
Shan Fay
And is Asma in the books, Is she always like a child princess?
- [45:20]
Farouza Balks
I think so, yeah.
- [45:21]
Shan Fay
Okay, sure.
- [45:23]
Farouza Balks
I think she's. I think in the film she's more of a composite of figures. But the whole sort of government of Oz, it's a deeply unstable region. I don't know what their economy is like. Their GDP must be so bad because it changes power structure. But for a long time, it's this sort of benevolent dictatorship with the wizard.
- [45:42]
Shan Fay
But then actually before at least things worked, you know.
- [45:44]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. Before he came. It's not unlike Franco in Spain, because before he came, there was kings and then they sort of returned to a monarchy. So I presume that politically Oz is like Spain.
- [45:54]
Shan Fay
I don't like Franco in Spain.
- [46:00]
Farouza Balks
But yeah, Oz is governmentally.
- [46:01]
Shan Fay
Who else is making these comparisons?
- [46:04]
Farouza Balks
Oz is governmentally quite unusual. I mean, there's something. You know, I'm not sure that I would want to live there just economically, but so by the end, I think it's to tie things up. Although it's odd because Dorothy has left the scarecrow as kind of king.
- [46:22]
Shan Fay
Yes, that was the end of the original.
- [46:24]
Farouza Balks
And then he gets turned into a statue. He gets usurped by the gnome king, turned into an ornament, and then he's unturned back into the scarecrow. And it's like, well, I get to be king now, right? Oh, no, Ozma's here. So we're actually gonna go back to that line of succession which pre existed.
- [46:38]
Shan Fay
So he was always kind of a prince regent to begin with.
- [46:40]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, well, he's kind of just some sort of like. Yeah, I guess it's like, I mean, he's kind of like Trotsky in that way, isn't he? Just like never quite real power.
- [46:53]
Shan Fay
He's gonna go to Mexico and get murdered by an ice pick in 20 years.
- [46:56]
Farouza Balks
Well, yeah, just like we know, like in the end Trotsky never really saw any real power. It's like the scarecrow is. Yeah. Like he's probably the real radical ideas. Well, if anything, he was because.
- [47:09]
Shan Fay
Well.
- [47:10]
Farouza Balks
Well, yeah, or Osmarachi would be a guess closer to like reinstalling the tsars. That's why it's more in Spain. I'm thinking this live, but I think. Yeah, so. So Osma just in the film, I do think the image of this girl trapped in the mirror, this is what I think about Return to Oz. I guess if I was going to do a sort of overline thing, is that I think it's full of images that I think, wow, this should be in more kids stuff. Because I think there is a general, I guess, the commercial expectations of cinema. I'm sure that there would be people in the industry that would say, you know, this film flopped and there's a reason for it. People, particularly parents, probably don't like the idea of films that scare their children. But I do think this idea of a slightly dark, fucked up side to children's stories. Yeah, that exposes the sort of darker side of human nature. Like it is captivating and I just think some of the.
- [48:08]
Shan Fay
It has been mined out, I think of children's films. Like, I think, I mean, if we, if we call Wicked a kids film, which I guess we could like, I mean, in the way that these other two movies are kids films, there is like jump scare moments. Like you've got those monkeys coming through attacking Poirier in a grande in a trip lash. And that's like a very jarring scene. But like I feel like a real, a real problem or whether it's a bug or a feature, I don't know. But we're getting a lot of movies that need to be, you know, financed a lot. Making movies is more expensive than ever. And so scripts really need to be ironed out of any implausibility down the line. We don't want to lose anyone at any point. Everything must be explained, signposted, you know, everything. Like the chickens being, the eggs being poisonous. We would have known that by minute five if Return to Oz was made now. And I think we might have jump scares in kids homes now. But what we're losing is genuine strangeness, implausibility. And creepiness. Because I think in order to create those moments on screen and in film, you need to leave doubt and wonder and kind of black spaces where your imagination has to fill in the rest.
- [49:24]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. I'm trying to think of the last time I think there was that element of chilling or you know. Because I don't see loads of children's films at this point in my life because I don't have kids and there aren't like yet kids that I'm taking to the cinema. So I'm sort of out of the loop that either parents or children themselves are in. But I suppose like Tilda Swinton as the White Witch in the Narnia films because it's Tilda Swinton. So there's a kind of icy scary. Yeah.
- [49:54]
Shan Fay
She's bringing a weirdness.
- [49:55]
Farouza Balks
And also the kind of. I mean she's. She's got the kind of like they make her gigantically tall and she's got the kind of couture looks.
- [50:02]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [50:03]
Farouza Balks
Also a white woman with dreadlocks look which is quite wild. But whatever it was I too 2003. But like maybe that. Because I'm trying to think about when I was a child Return to. Apart from Return to Oz. What the sort of films that were targeted because I watched a lot of. I Unfortunately my mum was quite not super on it because I was her eldest child. So I saw a lot of like.
- [50:25]
Shan Fay
But we really grew up during the age of. Which is now totally over of the serialized horror TV show for children. You know, like Goosebumps and Are you afraid of the dark? Were they ever.
- [50:36]
Farouza Balks
The Demon Headmaster.
- [50:37]
Shan Fay
The Demon Headmaster.
- [50:38]
Farouza Balks
I remember the Demon Headmaster to this day. The prefects of the voice of the Headmaster. They must be obeyed. And it was actually really scary. Like these like. Yeah, these like hypnotized prefects. So yeah. This idea of peril threat but it being more intensely psychological than just like all jump scare. Yeah. And I. And I. And I'm sure that maybe there are equivalents of it now. But I do think. I think 80s and 90s because I was also thinking as well as Tilda Swinton, there was like a 1980s t. BBC adaptation of the guy in the Witch in the Wardrobe and again the White Witch. And that was very scary. And yeah, I guess like. Yeah, I just think there was something maybe going on in the 80s and early 90s where there was like a slightly darker mood.
- [51:24]
Shan Fay
There's definitely because like this. And also I think that the existence of Jim Henson's Creature shop was really helping sort of Push it as well. I mean, like that to have a kind of, I don't know, a dedicated studio that was just pumping out weird shit for. For big Hollywood bugs that doesn't really exist in the same way now we don't have the kind of the guy we go to to get our fucked up puppets. And I certainly wish that we did. But I also think that like, there are always kids who love this. Like everyone, you know, there's always 12 year olds watching Twin Peaks. Do you mean ever since Twin Peaks came out, there's a 12 year old watching it somewhere? And I do think people are getting that fix now. Young people are getting that fix from like sort of brain rot, TikTok accounts kind of thing. You know, sort of like odd cursed memes that they don't understand, but they're tickling a kind of another region of their brain that return to Oz possibly would have tickled before.
- [52:17]
Farouza Balks
The other standout, I think is, and I mentioned the Little Mermaid earlier was Ursula the sea witch.
- [52:23]
Shan Fay
The Poor Unfortunate Souls.
- [52:24]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. But now I. Obviously growing up and you know, again, it's like. But she was based on Divine.
- [52:29]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [52:30]
Farouza Balks
Pat Carroll, who voiced her, was picked because she had a low voice that sounds very androgynous, like she could be a drag queen. And there is like a scene yet in the Poor Unfortunate Souls where she's like donut, you know, about talking about how she's going to take a voice and she's explaining to Ariel that she'll still be able to bag a man without a voice because men don't like women talking anyway.
- [52:51]
Shan Fay
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:52]
Farouza Balks
And. And there's like a whole bit. She's like, don't forget the importance of, of body language. And she's like throwing her hips around. It's very sexy.
- [52:58]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [52:59]
Farouza Balks
And I like, yeah, unreal. But like it really embedded itself in my conscious and it's like anything that's like, you know, sort of a bit like it. Like it almost like, how did that end up in a kids film, in a Disney. How did this like sort of like sexual drag queen. I mean, think about like the moral panic about drag queens now.
- [53:19]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [53:20]
Farouza Balks
And then like in like 1989 Disney, basically, like someone at Disney managed to get away with putting Divine in as the villain and like, you know, getting as close to a drag queen as you could, getting like a really low voice Broadway star.
- [53:33]
Shan Fay
Yeah. I mean you see a lot of that and like, I'm sure you get sent the same sort of Disney adult algorithm stuff as I do because we are Both closeted Disney adults of, like, the kind of queer coding of villains in that kind of classic Disney's animated thing. Like, Scar is like, talk about queer. He's got ruby red slippers on.
- [53:51]
Farouza Balks
When I was about, like 12 or 13, and obviously I'd seen the Lion King many times, you know, when you have those, like, odd moments, like, sexual awakening isn't one of those things that happens in. At least for me, it didn't happen in, like, obviously there were things like you see a muscly man and you're like, oh. And then, yeah, in my case, like, oh, fuck, I'm directed, boys. But I remember thinking, oh, Scar's voice is very sexy.
- [54:12]
Shan Fay
Yeah, of course, like when I was.
- [54:14]
Farouza Balks
Like 12 or 13, but specifically like, oh, that's hot. Do you know what I mean?
- [54:17]
Shan Fay
But I remember having a huge sexual awakening moment to the end of Aladdin when Jafar has Jasmine in the red outfit and she's got the gold handcuffs and just like, pretend that, like, she was turned on by him. And then he, like, sees through because he sees Aladdin's reflection in her crown. As you can tell, it's really imprinted on me. And then he puts her in an hourglass and she slowly drowns in sand. Yeah.
- [54:44]
Farouza Balks
Oh, my God. That was a sexual moment for you. The thing I remember, gosh, we're really going to dive. But the thing I remember most about that was a huge thing for me and I thought it was fab and I still think it's fab. Is the Aladdin where she is posing as a peasant and then they try and arrest Aladdin and she's like, unhand him by order of the Princess. Such a good reveal of Drag Race.
- [55:07]
Shan Fay
Could be such a good reveal. I can't believe no one's ever referenced.
- [55:10]
Farouza Balks
That because it's like this, like, you.
- [55:12]
Shan Fay
Know, Order of the Princess.
- [55:15]
Farouza Balks
But, like, this is.
- [55:16]
Shan Fay
I am not a prize to be won. Can't believe I've never had an opportunity to say that. It's so annoying.
- [55:22]
Farouza Balks
There's. There are also that I think on that sort of AI swap TikTok Disney adult stuff that you're talking about. There's a lot of like, I saw one recently that was me arring myself. There was one about how disappointed Belle is at the end of Beauty and the Beast when he turns into like. He turns into like a sort of pansexual guy from field that's, you know, practicing ethical non monogamy.
- [55:46]
Shan Fay
Very little canal bones.
- [55:49]
Farouza Balks
And she's like, I wanted to fuck the beast.
- [55:53]
Shan Fay
The beast didn't sign up for this. Come on. Awful. Awful hair. Awful. Yeah, but.
- [56:03]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, I think that there is a sort of, like, darkness in. That can be unexplored in kind of children's. And I think they continue to be in children's fiction. Right. Like, books allow. You know, like, I. I remember genuinely being quite. I think, you know, children do. Terror does need to be sort of a part of the development of an imagination as a child.
- [56:25]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [56:26]
Farouza Balks
And sort of. Yeah. Particular images being really scary. Like, you know, like, what is it? It's like something like Freudian uncanny vibes about. Like, why are we also scared by the idea of the. Or children were also scared by the idea of this woman that keeps multiple beautiful heads that all sort of move around in these cabinets. It's like there's something there about it. Like. Yeah, the uncat. Like, you know what. Why is that so scary? Like, it's not. You know, nothing violent happens.
- [56:57]
Shan Fay
It's not bloody at all. Like, it's not like we're seeing her chop off heads. And I think I was studying those scenes very closely today. Cause I had that same thought. And I think so much of it is in the fact that throughout the entire scene, as Dorothy and Mombi are having a conversation in the sort of head closet, the faces are all animate and they're all kind of watching. And for me. And then later on, when they all start screaming after she breaks into the cupboard, it sort of flips. And it's like. It's just something about the book ending of those scenes together is very internally horrifying and satisfying. But it's also. I think it's the. It's the thought of consciousness, I think, that is really scary as well. The idea of, like, okay, so when she swaps her head out, she instantly becomes Mombi. But does that mean when the heads are dormant, they are all fractions of Mombi as well? Are they their original characters? Like, at what point does the transition begin? Like that. That fucks me up. Yeah.
- [57:51]
Farouza Balks
And I think it's. I think it's also scary because it takes something maybe like a childlike thing to do, which is like, the idea of heads and dolls, heads on dolls, and being customizable that little girls in particular would do. But it turns it into this really sinister thing, which is. I will imagine if someone did that to you. You know, there's a kind of terror there about, like, it being a familiar idea, but then being made real, which is the hallucination, which is the hallucinogenic quality of Oz, I guess, which is. It's like a lot of maybe childlike. Yeah, like, I guess like childlike idealism or wonder being turned into something quite literal and therefore scary.
- [58:41]
Shan Fay
Also, there's something very like the terrible beauty, I think is scary. I mean, obviously there's like the wicked stepmother, but like, it's always very telegraphed from the beginning. But I think the way like Mombi is introduced where she's in this huge grand hall, she's so beautiful and she's playing a tiny guitar.
- [58:57]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [58:58]
Shan Fay
And then it's like we're just, I don't know, we're just made to trust beautiful women on screen when we're that age. And, you know, Dorothy goes quite willingly to her and then the heads.
- [59:11]
Caroline
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- [59:53]
Shan Fay
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- [60:25]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. I wonder if the Wheelers as well are kind of some sort of like. Because they're quite like teenagers as well. There's like a teenage gang vibe about them.
- [60:34]
Shan Fay
So. Right. And I saw like the boys who are hanging out outside. Right. The Outside the corner shop. And I'm afraid to go in because they're all smoking. What if they say something which is.
- [60:42]
Farouza Balks
Quite 1980s, like the teenage boys are all smoking glue. Let's make a video campaign for schools vibe. There's a kind of like fear of youth culture there and the fact that when you're a small child, groups of teenage boys are quite scary on bikes. And I do think that the Wheelers are. Because the Wheelers would never be in the 1930s film.
- [61:04]
Shan Fay
No, they are like a bicycle culture.
- [61:06]
Farouza Balks
Thing and that's why they're kind of punky vibes. It sort of feels like they're a riff on.
- [61:13]
Shan Fay
But that thing when she's being chased by them down this kind of stone labyrinth. It does sort of feel like you're your worst exact fear as a kid, which is you've seen a bunch of boys on bicycles, they've yelled something at you. What if they chase you? It feels so. Yeah. Like dreamlike and odd, but also a reflection of a truly real fear and a truly real experience.
- [61:33]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. So that is an amazing movie.
- [61:36]
Shan Fay
Maybe I was too rude about it earlier.
- [61:38]
Farouza Balks
I think there are just like some very inspired things about it. Apparently the guy that directed it, he'd never directed before. He was a cutter for. I read this earlier. Francis Ford Coppola, I believe. So he was like inside Hollywood or whatever, but not a director. This was his first directing job. It fell behind schedule because things kept getting delayed and also get deal. Yeah. And then Faruza bulk because she was carrying the whole film. As we've discussed. She had child law, you know, child labor laws. Damn child labor laws. And so it fell behind schedule and there was a point where he was almost fired during it. But then he got. He was mates with George Lucas and George Lucas flew in and managed to convince them not to fire him. They reversed their decision, but basically the film flopped so hard he was blacklisted and he was never directed since. So this is his one film. Wow. But that's.
- [62:40]
Shan Fay
What.
- [62:40]
Farouza Balks
What do you think? Because I always think this about like. I think it more of about pop songs, like being a one hit wonder.
- [62:47]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [62:48]
Farouza Balks
Because sometimes I think it must be fucking great to be a one hit wonder.
- [62:50]
Shan Fay
Oh yeah.
- [62:51]
Farouza Balks
Like. Like honestly, because you relieved all the tensions of a big career, but you got this one thing. Like maybe it's cringe for the first five years after it happened, but like, you know, like I was thinking about Jennifer Page song Crush from the 90s. It's just a crush.
- [63:07]
Shan Fay
So good.
- [63:08]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, it's so good. But imagine being Jennifer Page. It's like you probably get like one or two invites a year globally to go to a pride and sing that. You know, it comes on the radio all the time.
- [63:18]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [63:18]
Farouza Balks
But you've. You've been forced to get on and she probably day to day it's a normal life. But you get to whip out.
- [63:24]
Shan Fay
I've been thinking this a lot about a lot lately, I think because you know, with like Mighty Hoopla Sank the Pink and everything, all the lineups are just like essentially the one hit wonders of the early noughties kind of thing. And it's like you're just so delighted. Like wow, I'm So glad that Amy Studd gets to play.
- [63:41]
Farouza Balks
I love Amy Studd.
- [63:42]
Shan Fay
I love Amy Studd. And like I also, I feel like I'm never in a club now. I mean, like I'm so rarely in a club, but when I am, there's always some banging remix of Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield. And I realize she isn't a one hit wonder. She was quite successful. But like there's something about. Maybe it's something to do with like we're of a generation that's partying more and later into life. Like generally every previous generation, far more of us would be far more settled by now. Quite a lot of us who are still partying and going to hoopla and we're just kind of, we have the resources to keep these one hit wonders kind of going. It's sort of beautiful. And everyone's interested in seeing them for at least an afternoon. Like there's a real business to be made out of. One hit wonders that I'm not sure really worked before.
- [64:26]
Farouza Balks
Maybe that's true and. But I just wonder. It might with a pop song it's a bit different because it's only a commitment of three minutes. But I just, I've always wondered if like I would be, I mean, I don't know because with books, like I literally wrote my second book partly because I had a successful first book and I was like, I don't want to be the person that just wrote that book about trans issues. And like, like the second project for me was very much about please just don't let me be a one hit wonder. One a one bestseller type.
- [64:56]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [64:57]
Farouza Balks
And so clearly I do have a fear of it. But I guess why I'm thinking it like bigger media, I'm like, maybe once you get over the grief and I'm thinking about this guy, it's like Return to Oz. It's kind of okay, he never worked again. But it's now like what, 40 years ago? Yeah, 40 years.
- [65:13]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [65:14]
Farouza Balks
Like now maybe when you just like kick back and be like, actually I'm kind of proud of this. Like so many people watch this film and like it has got this cult. It's the whole thing about the cult classic thing, right? It's like Elizabeth Berkeley, you mentioned Showgirl where she basically said that like it kind of fucked her over at the time, but she's grown to like love that character. I wonder if there is something quite, almost quite chic about being a one hit wonder more so than being like a two or three hit wonder, you know? Like I'd rather be Jennifer Page who did Crush, than Katy Perry.
- [65:46]
Shan Fay
Oh, for sure.
- [65:48]
Farouza Balks
Do you know what I mean? Like, so locked in a particular time and so successful in that time and.
- [65:53]
Shan Fay
Probably some still getting soundtrack money and syncs and stuff and like, probably still getting a nice bit of cash through. We did an episode about a year ago on One Hit Wonders and a friend of mine who came on, he's a musician, said, you know what? I think what people miss about the one hit wonder is the wonder, like how difficult it is to capture that much attention for any amount of time at all. And like how I think that return to Oz kind of falls under that remit of being like, you know, yeah, you didn't ever make another movie and yeah, this was a failure when it came out. But like, it is so difficult to, for any movie to leave any kind of impression on anyone. Like how many like Coen Brothers movies have I seen that like were nominated for Oscars? And I don't remember a frame of, you know, there are some Coen Brothers movies I love. This is not a dig on them. I'm just saying worthy films are forgotten constantly. And this is a piece of trash that is beloved and is full of wonder, you know.
- [66:50]
Farouza Balks
Oh yeah, 100%. I'm trying to think of like other children's films that left an impression on me to the degree that this wonder where I'd be able to remember vivid scenes that left a very strong emotional impact on me in terms of fear or similar. And like there aren't many.
- [67:08]
Shan Fay
No. Do you think in, in some ways, like, like the method is the message in that? Like, I think, like the ways in which I remember this movie are not like I was in at a birthday party and we all sat down to watch it kind of thing. The ways in which I remember this movie are like, it's a weird rainy Saturday in somebody else's house and we turn it on and it's already half done and we, we just see the scene of Mombi or we just see the weird, or we just see something else. And it's kind of because it was on TV a lot. It exists in people's brains as repeated fragments rather than a whole narrative.
- [67:45]
Farouza Balks
Well, even I remember how I consumed it as a child. So like what my dad would do for me was when films were on television, he would record them onto VHS and then he would print special labels and stick them on so that instead of having the like bought VHS version, I would have liked the wizard of Oz to watch endlessly. Because he'd recorded it.
- [68:09]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [68:10]
Farouza Balks
On BBC2 with all the ads.
- [68:12]
Shan Fay
Yeah, yeah.
- [68:12]
Farouza Balks
And like, I remember. So I had wizard of Oz and then I also had Return to Oz with their specially printed labels on the.
- [68:19]
Shan Fay
Like, wow, that's nice.
- [68:20]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. And. And Return to Oz. The recording of it started about five minutes in. He hadn't caught the beginning of it.
- [68:29]
Shan Fay
Okay.
- [68:29]
Farouza Balks
So I always started when she was just, like. She was already had arrived at the hospital and was. I think it's the gurney is where it starts. But you do you know that all those, like, very strong.
- [68:42]
Shan Fay
Yeah. And you might have that kind of static wipe that goes on the screen as well because the tape is old. Like, that adds to the kind of freakishness of it.
- [68:48]
Farouza Balks
I've just remembered one of the other ones that left a strong impression on me. I don't know if you remember this, because were you. You asked me about your. My relationship to fantasy, but I'm seeing that you probably had.
- [68:58]
Shan Fay
Yeah. I would say that you and I were on a similar. I wasn't like a huge wizard of Oz person, but, like, definitely, you know. Yeah, definitely everything. Witchcraft. Huge fairies. Girl. Like, I was really based on the cottingly fairies.
- [69:12]
Farouza Balks
Cottingly fairies obsessed.
- [69:14]
Shan Fay
And, like. Did you hear. Okay, here's a ghoulish thing that I really hope you've heard of Lady Cottingley's, like, pressed fairy book.
- [69:22]
Farouza Balks
Yes.
- [69:23]
Shan Fay
You're.
- [69:23]
Farouza Balks
You're aware I, as I know it, that she. She said that they were, like, smushed. Yes.
- [69:31]
Shan Fay
So it was basically. It was Terry Jones from Monty Python. Fucking weird. So he was obsessed with the real Cottingly fairies story, which is like the girls who. The Victorian girls who fake the photographs, which I was already obsessed with. And then he came out with this kind of art book which was with the illustrator who I think did the Dark Crystal. So it's all of a family here. I think they met doing Labyrinth together because I think Terry Jones was on Labyrinth. And then they made this art book, essentially that was like the story of a little girl snapping fairies in her book in her, like, what's supposed to be a pressed flowers book. And they are these ghoulish, dying fairies with their sort of bodies pressed against the paper. Like, can you see the images? And what was so extraordinary and very haunted about this book is that the book goes over the course of her life. So she starts about. She's five. She can barely rise. She's like, I caught a fairy. Ha, ha. And she's like, kind of a sadist. And Never stops being one. She's killing them her whole life. And then as she gets older, the cursive becomes harder to read. So if you're a child, you kind of had to stop reading. But as it goes on, the fairies become, like, complicit in these erotic episodes she has. Some of them are kind of. Are basically rape. Like they're like holding her down while the rector shags her.
- [70:47]
Farouza Balks
Oh, my God.
- [70:48]
Shan Fay
It's so unclear who this book is for, but it was given to me because I liked fairies. But, like, I was obsessed with it and it was like that thing, that sort of private thing I went to look at by myself.
- [71:00]
Farouza Balks
Okay.
- [71:01]
Shan Fay
When I was done thinking about Sand.
- [71:03]
Farouza Balks
I thought I knew what you were talking about. I did not know about the. The deeply fucked up psychosexual gothic new fairies. Yeah, I'll be googling that. But actually, you just mentioned Labyrinth and that, like, again, another 80s. Yeah, but that is another film of like, this where I think it had such a striking, like some images from. I can't actually. I haven't seen Labyrinth probably since I was a child, so I couldn't tell you the plot in depth, but, like, I can still remember the baby going missing.
- [71:34]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [71:36]
Farouza Balks
And David Bowie and the.
- [71:39]
Shan Fay
The waltz round the room where he's basically telling her to be his bride.
- [71:43]
Farouza Balks
And she's 13. Yeah, exactly. And there was another film called Legend, I think.
- [71:51]
Shan Fay
Oh, with. No, that's Willow.
- [71:54]
Farouza Balks
Yeah, there's Willow, but there's Legend.
- [71:56]
Shan Fay
Warwick Davis in both of them, weirdly.
- [71:57]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. And then. And at the end. And this so scared me was Tim Curry plays like the devil and he's like. He's got, like. He appears and he's like fully bright red with horns, but with Tim Curry's voice and that really, like, I can still remember that to this day, like finding this, like, genuinely scary kind of satanic figure again in a children's film. But I do think, like, whether you say the one hit wonder or guess in cinema, it's the cult classic.
- [72:25]
Shan Fay
Yeah, yeah.
- [72:26]
Farouza Balks
Because I do think. I mean, some cult classics are like practical magic. Big cult classic, but flopped at the box office.
- [72:35]
Shan Fay
Yeah. But totally beloved now. So much so they're making a sequel with Lee Pace.
- [72:39]
Farouza Balks
Yes. But I do sometimes think, would I. I suppose I would always rather commercial success than to have a lovely home in the Hollywood Hills or whatever. But like, there is also something quite chic about cult. Cult classic. And then you just wrap it up there and no more scene. It's like how, you know, Kate Bush only Did one tour in the, you know. Yeah. In the 70s, like. And then where's. Like, no, I don't like touring. I'm never going to do it again. There's something quite glamorous about.
- [73:08]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [73:09]
Farouza Balks
Doing one thing.
- [73:10]
Shan Fay
I think what has to be inherent to the cult classic, I think it is quite different to the One Hit wonder because like a one hit wonder is like, here's a shimmering pop gem that like summarizes the moment and also subverts the moment. And here you go, enjoy your summer kind of thing. Whereas the cult classic. I think what keeps people coming back to them, whether it's Showgirls or this or the Room or even Practical Magic to a point of view, is that there's. It's so difficult to tell with these movies that are imperfect what is intentional and what is an accident. Do you mean it doesn't feel overworked to death or. It just feels like there's still kind of odd layers left in or bits they forgot to delete. And it's kind of the humanness of it that sort of. Because you can sort of see the strings, you can see the joins, you can see the intentionality where it came together and where it fell apart.
- [74:01]
Farouza Balks
I'm so. Well, historically gay myself, but obviously these days a fag hag. I. But I'm so embedded in kind of a gay sensibility in adulthood that sometimes I. I'm a bit confused about what's a cult classic, what's not, because something just feels to me like it must have been. It's like a mainstream hit that everyone knows. And then I realize it's always just because I only know gay people and gay people are obsessed with this film. I'll give you an example. It's like First Wives Club. I actually don't know.
- [74:29]
Shan Fay
Yes. In my head, that's a monster classic.
- [74:31]
Farouza Balks
Yes. And I don't. But. But then, like, I'm assuming that probably a lot of the people we know.
- [74:37]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [74:38]
Farouza Balks
Are like, it's for empowered gurgies and gays. And I don't know whether or not it was big at the time, but maybe it was. But to me it's massive. Like massive film. But I think it has an afterlife that was bigger than its initial because it's so beloved. And I would always rewatch that film.
- [74:57]
Shan Fay
An interesting kind of way to figure out the aggregate of, like, whether or not something is a cult classic is when the sort of the Metacritic or the Rotten Tomatoes is really low because it's taking contemporaneous reviews and then the IMDb score is like 9 out of 10.
- [75:12]
Farouza Balks
That's good to know, actually.
- [75:13]
Shan Fay
So it's like you find the cult in the in between. Yeah, if it's like, it's like 13% rotten tomatoes 9 out of 10 on IMDb. Yeah.
- [75:21]
Farouza Balks
Oh my God, yeah. Because yeah, I'm trying to think of like, oh, Death becomes her.
- [75:25]
Shan Fay
Oh, for sure.
- [75:26]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. Death becomes her is a strange one because that is a classic one where it is very. Another one that weirdly with the queer and every trans woman I know, it's like one of their favorite films. Like, yeah, like Monroe Bergdorf. It's one of her favorite films. It's one of my favorite films. Like Bimini, not a trans woman, but like under the trans umbrella. I remember her telling me, like drag queens and trans women. And it's obviously it's again, it's that like relationship to femininity. Like high camp, high bitchy, but kind of also like this idea of the fear of like femininity and. Yeah. And again, like full of these kind of like stock images like Goldie Horn having a hole in her stomach and yes.
- [76:10]
Shan Fay
Isabella Rossellini in her big necklace.
- [76:15]
Farouza Balks
Guess how old I am.
- [76:17]
Shan Fay
That was a really good Isabella Rossellini.
- [76:21]
Farouza Balks
Was it? She's like 78. I'm 87 years old. But yeah, like, I think, yeah, the cult classic. I just think I would be quite happy if I was a director of like a cult classic. And then we just wrapped it. Oh, another film that like, I think got critically panned that I think like now is like considered better with hindsight was Marie Antoinette the Sofia Coppola. Because I think at the time everyone was like, what the fuck is as this? Because they just didn't like it. But now I think it's like very beloved. And yeah.
- [76:54]
Shan Fay
Oh, I can never get enough of just like behind the scenes pictures of like Kirsten Dunst or having one headphone in listening to a song on a MacBook or something, you know.
- [77:05]
Farouza Balks
But again, like, I think it was because people didn't get that kind of like playful, oh, she's a bratty teenager who happens to be the queen of France. And like we're gonna have Aaron Carter do the soundtrack. It's genius.
- [77:19]
Shan Fay
Such a weird. Such a. Yeah, genius. But like such a weird one for Sofia Coppola who like I'm famously. It was like she worked for years on Marie Antoinette and she like then wrote Austin translation in 30 days and then Austin Translation. Instantly beloved indie classic and marionette. It takes 20 years for people to understand what was going on. But you know what? I'm not going to feel bad for Sophia.
- [77:40]
Farouza Balks
No, she's not a one hit wonder, for sure.
- [77:42]
Shan Fay
No.
- [77:43]
Farouza Balks
The other thing, here's one thing that I actually noticed today when I rewatched it, we can maybe end on this.
- [77:48]
Shan Fay
Yeah.
- [77:49]
Farouza Balks
Is I did love that, like, Dorothy. It starts off with like, oh, Dorothy's got mental problems.
- [77:55]
Shan Fay
Yes.
- [77:55]
Farouza Balks
But there's actually quite a lot about mental problems in it. So, like, Bellina is like, oh, I don't want to go back where I can't talk. Tik Tok's thinking winds down and he says something about like, well, how are you still able to talk when you couldn't think? And Dorothy goes, it happens to people all the time.
- [78:12]
Shan Fay
Oh, sassy.
- [78:13]
Farouza Balks
And then, and then, and then Jack Pumpkinhead is like, always check my head for signs of spoiling.
- [78:21]
Shan Fay
That really upset me, those lines he keep. Because he kept saying spoiling. Yeah.
- [78:26]
Farouza Balks
He was like. He was like, because I've seen so little of the world yet I don't want to spoil before I can. And I was like, this film is like, it's very, like, same. There's something maybe with like, same. No, I think genuinely there was something that really spoke to me this morning where I was like, maybe genuinely. Because, like, right now in the world, I feel like about half of the conversations I'm having with everyone I know is we're only getting more mentally ill, like, through, like, fascism tech. We're only, like, getting more and more. Like we're all just managing and unsolvable growing mental health dip. Sorry to end on this.
- [79:04]
Shan Fay
And we've just been like, for the last, sort of, like, I'm gonna say, six years. The feeling like the levies are about to break and surely we can't take any more. And then yet another day passes, another thing happens. Yeah. Literally.
- [79:13]
Farouza Balks
And I feel like that's what, like, Return to Oz was giving me was that everyone had, like, literal head trouble. Like, whether your brain is winding down and slowing. TikTok. I mean, his name alone. Right. How could they?
- [79:25]
Shan Fay
TikTok.
- [79:26]
Farouza Balks
TikTok. And his brain is constantly winding down. Oh, my God, Jack Pumpkinhead, his head is spoiling. Bellina is like, I'm not going back where I'm just gonna be clucking the whole time like a head.
- [79:39]
Shan Fay
Gump has got his own situation.
- [79:41]
Farouza Balks
Well, Gump's like, I wasn't made to turn around. I can't. I can't perform a U turn. I have to just keep going. And he keeps Joking about the last, like, you know that he did, he, he says, I, I think I understood my previous life better than this one.
- [79:54]
Shan Fay
There's something about, yeah, he hates having a body, he hates movement.
- [79:57]
Farouza Balks
So there's something about having head trouble. Literally, everyone's heads are so fucked.
- [80:02]
Shan Fay
Oh my God. Everyone's heads are fucked. And they extracted an asylum.
- [80:06]
Farouza Balks
Yeah. Because Dorothy's had a head injury. So there's this repeated motif of like, oh, everyone's head's fucked. And I'm like, this is like me and all my mates.
- [80:15]
Shan Fay
Me and all my mates. That's the meme. I'm glad that we have the meme ready to go for the podcast going out. Me and all my mates.
- [80:22]
Farouza Balks
Yeah.
- [80:23]
Shan Fay
Because you're like, it's so the original wizard of Oz. Like everyone has a complex series of emotional and mental problems. Courage, whatever. This is all just like, my head's fucked.
- [80:31]
Farouza Balks
I mean heads, literally, my literal head is fucked.
- [80:40]
Shan Fay
I'm so glad that we got to this conclusion in the end. Delighted with this. This has been returned to Oz. Our heads are fucked. Thank you, Sean.
- [80:48]
Farouza Balks
Thank you, Carol.
- [81:08]
D
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