Eliza Griswold (2:05)

Do you think, Autumn, that the MeToo movement has really caused a shift and even a rift within the evangelical community? I mean, are we seeing greater tension between those who want change and those who want to kind of grasp conservative principles?

Autumn Myles (2:23)

I think it's doing both. I think a shift needed to happen. It had to happen. We have to do a better job at supporting, helping, and aiding these victims of any kind of violence that is the heart of Jesus. I know Jesus personally, and I know that he would not want any. Any one of his children abused. A rift? Yeah, that as well. But you know what? A rift. I'm okay with a rift for the shift.

Eliza Griswold (3:02)

So you've talked to me about the fact that this is just the problem of domestic Abuse is really. It's within the church and within a small group of pastors, including those figures like Paige Patterson. Paige Patterson, of course, being the recently ousted president of the sbc, the Southern Baptist Convention. And one of the things that you told me that I found so powerful was that when you heard Patterson's comments saying to a woman who had received, you know, so much abuse at the hands of her husband, to go back, that the idea there of submission and its scriptural roots. Right. Is part of what your own abuser used against you. Could you talk to us a little bit about that?

Autumn Myles (3:49)

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for bringing that up. It is very, very often that I hear that abusers, if they are in the church, will tell their victims, you have to submit to me. And in order to control their victim, and the victim, knowing that that scripture is placed in the Bible, wives submit to their husband is what I'm talking about. They will do whatever the abus. So the very word submission in the Bible is actually the word hupitasa, which means to willingly place yourself under. It's not a force. It's a willingly placing yourself under an individual. And we see that played out with Jesus on the cross. He willingly submitted himself to the authority of God and went to the cross. When I heard the comments, the dialogue back and forth that was said by Paige Patterson, I cringed. This is not just happening in the sbc. This is happening in churches, period. And it's a great opportunity for all churches to look at what's happened very recently in the SBC and say, I don't want that to happen to my church. I need to put a plan in place to protect these precious victims that even as we speak, Eliza, are right now suffering in silence. While we're speaking, there's a woman that's involved in a church that's getting beat up by her spouse right now. We have to do a better job at taking a nod from what happened at the SBC this past week and changing the entire church culture by telling the church at large, domestic violence is not okay. And the reason it's not okay is because it's not the heart of Jesus.

Eliza Griswold (5:53)

Okay, so you married your high school sweetheart? Yeah. Mm.

Autumn Myles (5:57)

Yes.

Eliza Griswold (5:58)

Okay, so let's talk a little bit about that first marriage. What was that like?

Autumn Myles (6:04)

Well, I started dating my high school boyfriend when I was about 15 years old. And, you know, it started off pretty typical. I was very infatuated with him. I remember him just slowly looking at me and saying things like, you're fat. Which, what girl wants to hear that nobody. You're ugly, you know, little things like that. You're stupid. And at first it jarred me, like, why is he saying this to me? But we had been in a relationship long enough to where I felt like I loved him. And maybe he was telling me the truth. And he asked me to marry him. I said yes. We were married nine months later, and things got really bad after we got married.

Eliza Griswold (6:56)

You've told me that at some point the sadistic games were so bad that you would even say, you know, just hit me. Just get it over with.

Autumn Myles (7:04)

I remember it very clearly. One night, everything was so bad, psychologically and mentally. The games that he was playing with my mind. And really, even at that point, I was probably playing with my own mind. Lies that I had believed and stuff like that. There was one night that I lay in my bed, I had not gone to sleep. I was terrified of death. I thought, at this point, God hates me, My husband hates me. I can't tell anyone because my dad is the pastor of this church. I don't want to embarrass them by telling my parents that I am in a bad marriage. And so I started contemplating suicide. And as I was really planning my own death, the spirit of God spoke to me and said, do you remember me?

Eliza Griswold (8:02)

I think it's so remarkable and important to underscore that for you, it's really this personal experience that you had with God that gave you the confidence to get out of your marriage. Right? That's really. Yeah. So just to pause on that and say, you know, that is what motivated you. Because I think sometimes from an outside point of view, we don't understand that kind of flexibility within the church, that kind of empowerment, you know, And I think it's important just to note that. So you got up the courage, you know, to ask for a divorce, to file for the divorce, to tell your parents, who were remarkable in supporting you, and then you had to tell the church. So you went to a group of church elders, tell us what happened.

Autumn Myles (8:48)

The way the Baptist church that I grew up in was structured is that there was a deacon board, and that's kind of how they handle these types of situations. And they looked at me and they said, you know, if you file for divorce, God's never going to use you. You have to rescind the divorce. And if I decided to follow in my keeping my divorce, they were going to do what's called church discipline, which is to kick me out of the church. And so what these men were telling me didn't resonate with the Jesus I had met at 3am in the morning. So you're dead on. My courage came from my relationship in. And I know that I was not the only situation that was handled poorly by the church that I was in.

Eliza Griswold (9:47)

So when we're dealing with some of what are the biggest hot button issues in the church today, one of the things that's come to the fore as a result of the MeToo movement is the role of women's leadership in evangelical communities. And that's really being questioned in profound ways. Complementarianism has to do with church leadership and the relationship between a man and a woman being able to lead a church. Now, in conservative circles, people will say women cannot be leaders in the church. At the other end, people will say women can be head pastors. You lie in a role that says men probably need to be head pastors, but men and women can form co pastoring teams, and that's biblical. Is that accurate?

Autumn Myles (10:35)

That's exactly where I lie, right in the middle.

Molly Ringwald (10:37)

Mm.

Eliza Griswold (10:38)

Okay. So some people might think that something like complementarianism, which rests the ultimate authority with a man in the relationship, might give men, like the remaining hierarchy within the church, might give men license to demean women or to put themselves over women. Have you wrestled with that, and can you help us understand that a little bit?

Autumn Myles (11:02)

I would say not if it's done well. You know, this is going to, you know, not everyone's going to agree with this, but I have seen it done well, and I've seen pastors serve the women in their church. So there is a way that it can be done very unhealthily, but there is also a way that it can be done very beautifully where the pastor is serving. And so that is where I'm coming from. When I see husband and wife co pastors, I see it's a very beautiful thing. You know, the woman is not less important than the man, and the man is not less important than the woman.

Eliza Griswold (11:50)

Do you think that the evangelical community needs to rethink some of its approaches to gender roles in general?

Autumn Myles (11:57)

I think having this conversation is a great start to talking about the gender roles in the church. It's a great conversation to have. If pastors are saying, I believe in women, women should be in leadership positions in their church. They need to back up what they're saying. I believe that this is a moment for us to learn from, for us to grow from. We can't just breeze past this moment. We need to take a hard look at our organizations and make Some changes based on what we find.

Eliza Griswold (12:35)

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you told me you. I couldn't even believe it, but that you've been called a heretic for this work. Sure.

Autumn Myles (12:43)

Of course, when you put yourself out there at all, you're going to get all sorts of things. You're going to be called a heretic. People aren't going to understand. They don't have the same passion. They haven't lived the same story that you have. But you know what, Eliza? If I can help one woman that is suffering today, I'll take all of those insults that are hurled at me.

Eliza Griswold (13:07)

So if you could make practical changes, what would they look like?

Autumn Myles (13:12)

Really, not respecting women is a matter of the heart. This is where we need to take a hard look inside of ourselves and say, listen, are we not elevating women to positions because of pride, because of religion, because of tradition? And if any of those things are the case, we need to change that. This is a time, Eliza, where our leadership and our pastors might need to repent.

Eliza Griswold (13:39)

That's a word that I hear, and I repent. Okay, so what does that mean, Autumn, can you tell us what does repentance look like in practical terms in the 21st century?

Autumn Myles (13:53)

Acknowledging that you're wrong. It's as simple as that. Acknowledging that you're wrong. Repent is one of those words where it makes everyone cringe, and we don't use it very much because it's not politically correct. However it's needed, we have to get past our pride in some of these areas. Say, you know what? I've been prideful. I haven't thought about this with grace. I haven't handled these situations as well as I could, and acknowledge that we're wrong. Ask Jesus to forgive us and move forward.

David Remnick (14:41)

That was the New Yorker's Eliza Griswold talking with Autumn Myles, the founder of Autumn Myles Ministries. Eliza's new book is Amity and One Family and the Fracturing of America.

Molly Ringwald (14:54)

Sam.

David Remnick (15:20)

Recently we published an essay by the actress Molly Ringwald. Ringwald, of course, was the star of a series of movies by John hughes in the 1980s. Sixteen candles, pretty in Pink, the Breakfast Club. Hughes wrote about teenagers, and especially teenage girls with an insight and an empathy that really hadn't been seen before. But at the same time writing when he did, he had some blind spots, too, particularly when it came to how those girls were treated by the boys around them. In Ringwald's essay, she talked about how those movies look very different to her now that she's a mother of a teenager herself.

Molly Ringwald (15:55)

My feelings about the Breakfast Club really evolved over the years. I think it really wasn't until the Criterion Collection released it and I did an interview about it. By that point, My daughter was 14 years old. And it was after MeToo movement. I really started to feel uncomfortable with aspects of it. And I feel like it took me many years because of the affection I had for these movies and the fact that they're so great in other ways. It was just sort of an accumulation, I think, that really made me want to examine the movies as she's been.

David Remnick (16:39)

Grappling with those movies. In the age of MeToo, Molly Ringwald sat down with another admirer of the late John Hughes, the writer and the director, Judd Apatow. Apatow made his name writing about the same kinds of characters that Hughes did. Lovable outsiders, goofballs, and the smart young women who have to deal with them.

Molly Ringwald (16:59)

First of all, I'd like to say that I feel like we're coming full circle here because your daughter Maude interviewed me for Rookie, and now I'm interviewing you.

Judd Apatow (17:07)

So I feel like somehow our other children need to get involved in that.

Molly Ringwald (17:13)

I think so, too. Well, the reason why I really wanted to talk to you is because of this piece that I wrote for the New Yorker about my feelings about the films that I made with John Hughes. And I think you, more than any other filmmaker, is seen as having taken over the mantle, in a way, of John. I mean, you can kind of make a connection between your films and his.

Judd Apatow (17:43)

Well, I think with the influences, you know, sometimes you're not aware how deeply influenced you are unless you sit down like this to really think about it. You know, when I was in high school, that's when all of the first John Hughes movies hit. You know, Ferris Bueller.

David Remnick (18:04)

Life moves pretty fast.

Autumn Myles (18:06)

You don't stop and look around once in a while.

Judd Apatow (18:08)

You could miss it. And Sixteen candles.

Molly Ringwald (18:13)

Chronologically, you're 16 today. Physically, you're still 15.

Judd Apatow (18:20)

And Breakfast Club did.

Molly Ringwald (18:24)

I mean, I assume that you like the movies when they came out.

Judd Apatow (18:28)

Well, I had a very strong reaction to Anthony Michael Hall.

Molly Ringwald (18:33)

And what was that?

Judd Apatow (18:34)

I probably felt like, I think I'm a little bit like that guy. I'm a stringy, funny, abused young man. I was a forgotten young man who thought I deserved better. And there was something about his spunk that I connected with.

Molly Ringwald (18:56)

This information cannot leave this room, okay? It would devastate my reputation as a dude. No problem. I've never bagged a babe. I'm not A stud. I got the rep in sixth grade, and it, like, it stuck with me. I'm still on hold. Look, I appreciate you not laughing at me, okay? I'm sorry.

Judd Apatow (19:28)

I really appreciated the way he. He wrote about young people and their problems. It was very real in a way I hadn't seen before on television. I mean, this was the time of Eight is Enough. And it definitely was a precedent for, you know, some of the nerd work on a show like Freaks and Geeks, which I worked on.

Molly Ringwald (19:50)

Right.

Judd Apatow (19:51)

You know, the whole point of Freaks and Geeks to its creator, Paul Feig, was to tell the story of Lindsay Weird. She, you know, followed in a tradition of some of the great parts that you played. Smart women in high school who are trying to figure out who they are aren't sure where they fit in. Being smart makes it more difficult because you see how lame everybody is. And so, to me, I feel like that's work we've been doing all along. But we've also enjoyed making movies about, you know, immature men and how they grow up and how they learn certain lessons.

Molly Ringwald (20:30)

Yeah. You know, I saw the movies completely differently when I made them. And although I still have so much affection for them, it's complicated because there are certain things that I feel very uncomfortable with as a feminist and as a mother. When I made the Breakfast Club, I. I never really thought. The only thing, as I mentioned in the piece, is there's that one part of the movie where John Bender goes under the table and he looks under my skirt. And although you don't really know, you assume that he grabbed my character or did something. And I remember at the time, that sort of really bothering me. But. But other than that, the whole seduction, which John Bender really does sexually harass Claire, or you could see it that way through the whole thing. Never apologizes, but still gets the girl, which, when I think about, kind of bothers me. I don't want to imagine a world where somebody basically mistreats my daughter and that she doesn't expect an apology. Face it, you're a tease. I'm not a tease. Sure you are. Sex is your weapon.

David Remnick (21:49)

You said it yourself.

Molly Ringwald (21:50)

You use it to get respect. No, I never said that. She twisted my words around.

David Remnick (21:56)

What do you use it for, then?

Molly Ringwald (21:57)

I don't use it, period. Oh. Are you medically frigid, or is it psychological? I didn't mean it that way. You guys are putting words into my mouth. Well, if you just answer the question.

David Remnick (22:08)

Why don't you just answer the question?

Molly Ringwald (22:09)

Be honest. No, Big deal. Yeah, answer it. Just answer the question, Claire. Talk to us. Come on, answer the question.

Judd Apatow (22:16)

It's easy.

David Remnick (22:17)

It's only one question.

Molly Ringwald (22:18)

No, I never did it.

Judd Apatow (22:22)

When I've put on movies that I liked as a kid with my children, I had the same experience as you. I remember putting on the Blues Brothers for my daughter when she was 9 or 10 years old. And I didn't realize how filthy it was. I mean, there was some really dirty stuff. And I noticed that in a lot of these films there was. They're way dirtier, they have way more sexual content. There is a lot more smarmy treatment of women.

Molly Ringwald (22:50)

Does it diminish your enjoyment? Now, when you watch movies that wouldn't be made now, if you go back and watch them, are you able to say, oh, well, that was just the way it was back then. Like, for instance, I was trying to watch Breakfast at Tiffany's with my daughter. And when it got to Mickey Rooney's portrayal of an Asian person, I stopped. I mean, I just like, you know, abandoned it entirely because as much as I love Audrey Hepburn, I just couldn't. I couldn't do it.

Judd Apatow (23:18)

Well, there's so many jokes that you wouldn't do from the past. So the question is, how are we supposed to feel about jokes that we wouldn't do now? One of the first comedies I saw that was R rated was Animal House, Natural Lampoon's Animal House.

Molly Ringwald (23:35)

Yeah.

Judd Apatow (23:36)

And it is a sea of very troubling jokes. When you watch it in2018. Yes, in a way, you know, it holds up and is very funny. But you definitely blanch a bunch of times like, wow, I can't believe they did that. Yeah, we all feel weird that we loved it as well. Like, we all laughed our asses off at every long duck dong joke.

Molly Ringwald (24:02)

Yeah, what's happening, hot stuff?

Judd Apatow (24:07)

Now we go, oh, I feel a little weird about some of that. And I assume that will happen with my work, where people watch it in the future. I go, whoa. How did they think that was okay to do?

Molly Ringwald (24:23)

When I wrote the article about my feelings about John Hughes, I had an incredible amount of anxiety because this is somebody that I really loved. And I loved the films that I made in so many ways. So to write anything critical about them at all was just really anxiety inducing. And also, I feel like so many people have had their sort of memories in some way attached to these movies. And I also think, you know, well, how would he have felt about this? Would this have hurt him? And I know that one of Your actresses criticized the movie, Knocked up. Was that hurtful to you? And did you feel like her criticism was valid at all or not?

Judd Apatow (25:11)

Well, I think that we certainly were trying to show very strong women. That was my intention, and I was playing with the idea of revealing how angry women get. You know, if some stoner gets you pregnant, you might be pissed off.

Molly Ringwald (25:31)

Yeah, here goes. I'm pregnant.

Judd Apatow (25:36)

Fuck off.

Molly Ringwald (25:37)

What?

Judd Apatow (25:37)

What?

Autumn Myles (25:38)

I'm pregnant.

Judd Apatow (25:40)

With emotion, With a baby.

Autumn Myles (25:43)

You're the father.

Judd Apatow (25:45)

I'm the father?

Molly Ringwald (25:46)

Yes.

Judd Apatow (25:47)

And that was the point of the movie, which is that Seth Rogen's character, you know, had to put the bong down and learn to respect this woman who he is now about to have a baby with. Part of what made it funny was how bad the place he was at the beginning. And Catherine was incredible in the movie. You know, her acting couldn't be better, and she was really, really funny. But she was tough as hell with Seth, and it really is what makes the movie work. I think when she watched it, she wished that she was lighter and more fun like the guys. And it's certainly, you know, it's fine for everyone to have an opinion. It hurts me because I love her in the movie, and I had a great time with her, but it definitely was intentional to have her be, you know, tough and strong in the movie. I'm just saying, when you're a guy and, you know, you have affections, you have responsibility, you lose that male camaraderie, and I get that. I totally understand where he's coming from.

Molly Ringwald (26:54)

Why do guys always go to that place? You miss male camaraderie. What do I give a shit? Go hang out with your bearded freak friends. I don't care. You want to hang out with guys that look like the shoe bomber, it's all on you, man.

Judd Apatow (27:04)

What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?

Molly Ringwald (27:05)

You should just support me, you know, you should just support everything I say, because at this juncture in my life, I'm allowed to be wrong.

Judd Apatow (27:12)

So if you're wrong, I have. Characters are supposed to be flawed, and a lot of times they're supposed to learn lessons. So we can't really make movies where everyone is great and respectful the whole time, because then there's no drama and there's nowhere to go. But, you know, times have changed, so you certainly could make the argument that the guys wouldn't start in that place right now. I would hope that now young people are learning how to treat each other much earlier, and there's a very open conversation happening Right now, which is very important.

Molly Ringwald (27:48)

For the record, I think we should say that you've been a champion of the whole MeToo movement, but there are people that you've worked with who have been accused of behaving inappropriately. How do you handle that when it's people that you know and that you've worked with a great deal?

Judd Apatow (28:12)

Well, part of it is that I know people on both sides of it. I know people who have been accused and I know accusers. And it's really tragic. A lot of people feel like there's no way to speak publicly without somehow messing it up. And so there's no way to communicate your point of view about it. And at the same time, accusers feel like they are not being taken seriously, they are not being believed, and nothing is changing. But overall, in the big picture, we are talking about something that nobody has ever talked about before. How badly women are treated, how they are disrespected in ways that men haven't paid any attention to.

Molly Ringwald (29:07)

Yeah, I consider myself lucky because I was never raped. And you know, I considering. I feel like I came out relatively unscathed. Although there were tons of inappropriate instances.

Judd Apatow (29:23)

How were you able to protect yourself?

Molly Ringwald (29:29)

It's really hard to say because if I say I was a strong person, it makes it sound like I'm saying that those women weren't strong. So I don't really know. I think it was a combination of things. I think my parents were very protective. And I also generally spoke up. I mean, when there was a film director who stuck his tongue in my mouth when I was 14 years old, I spoke up and I talked to the makeup artist and the makeup artist talked to the director's wife and that never happened again. In fact, the director no longer spoke to me on the set.

Judd Apatow (30:09)

Well, I think that things have changed in a way that can't be turned back. You know, it's amazing that a director can kiss a 14 year old actress and get away with it. But I think we all know that if that happened today, that director would be fired immediately. So we do have that change happening. So let's hope that an enormous percentage of it just doesn't happen because for the first time, people think I'm gonna get fired as the director if I do that.

Molly Ringwald (30:42)

Yeah.

Judd Apatow (30:42)

And I don't think that fear has ever been there in the past.

Molly Ringwald (30:47)

It would also just be nice if it wasn't just the fear of being fired. If it was just I wouldn't be able to be nice if people were good people. It's terrible.

Judd Apatow (30:56)

Yeah. Well, I don't, I don't know if you could make the world any better in the sense of the amount of good versus evil people. Yeah, every movie is filled with awful people. If you really, if you really researched who's in every movie, there's one or two terrible people. And so, so you would not watch anything if, if your bar was. I won't watch an awful person in the movie. But what I care about that matters is how are we treating people right now? How are all people respected on a set? How is the crew treated? This is what we can do that's important. We can change how we do business. We can change who's in power so that the future is much healthier and more respectful than it has been in the past.

Molly Ringwald (31:52)

Agreed. I want to thank you so much for doing this.

Judd Apatow (31:55)

Sure. Thank you. It was a pleasure.

David Remnick (32:01)

That was Judd Apatow talking with Molly Ringwald. You can find Ringwald's essay on John Hughes called what about the breakfast club? @newyorker.com I'm David Remnick and that's it for this week. I hope you'll join us next time and until then, keep up with us on Twitter ewyorkerradio.

Eliza Griswold (32:25)

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a.

Molly Ringwald (32:26)

Co production of WNYC Studios and the New Yorker. Our theme music was composed by Meryl Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Like Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron.

Eliza Griswold (32:38)

Emily Bottin, Ave Carrillo, Rhiannon Corby, Jill.

Molly Ringwald (32:41)

Duboff, Karen Frillman, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, Sarah Nix, Mytha Lebrow and Steven Valentino, with help from Susan Morrison, Emma Allen, Michelle Moses, Emily Mann and Jessica Henderson. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported.

Eliza Griswold (32:55)

In part by the Turina Endowment.