Episode 11: We See Ourselves

Awards season is officially behind us, and while both of us did a lousy job of keeping up this past year, we couldn’t help but stop and ponder the role movies have played in each of our lives. During our formative years we were lucky to see women portrayed as adventurers, saviors, leaders, risk-takers, barrier-breakers, and survivors. We saw ourselves as the funniest of friends, the nurturing mother, the fed up wife, a different kind of boss, a cool rider, young girls searching for home, or as the woman putting the men around them in their place. We saw the characteristics we hoped to one day embody ourselves - smart, driven, capable, unapologetic, complex, funny, and uncompromising. (Oh, and able to carry a tune and dance). And just as importantly we saw what we didn’t want for our own lives.

In this episode we travel back to the movies and female characters who helped shaped the way we see the world women inhabit…and could inhabit. It’s a conversation about why representation matters and how important it is to see yourself, your choices, and your dreams portrayed and validated for all to see. Which naturally leads to a conversation about how long it has taken for movies to tell more diverse stories, and how we owe it to our sisters to take in those stories and see their worlds as important as our own.

We mention no fewer than thirty movies and talk at length about so many of them that linking to or putting a clip from each would be wayyyyyy too much. So instead, enjoy the trailers and/or special treats from the ones that were super-formative and made up the bulk of our conversation. Classics, every one of them.

Dorothy taught us we have all the smarts and strength we need

Princess Leia showed us how to fight. Carrie Fisher showed us how to laugh

Violet. Doralee. Judy. Our original squad goals!

Teri Garr is actually the whole point for us

“Working Girl” is one impeccable line after another, and every scene is stolen by a major star playing even the smallest of parts (paging Joan Cusak). But here’s one in honor of Olympia Dukakis who made the most of her role in this movie and gets another shout-out in this episode. RIP to one of the greats women in film.

“Tess, Tess, Tess, Tess. You don't get ahead in this world by calling your boss a pimp.”