Screen Cares, Season Two

 Surviving the Suburbs: Pleasantville

Originally Aired April 4, 2023

Sarah: Jennie, you just sent me a text.

Jennie: It's the time of year whenever all of the neighborhood forums in my community send these links out that talk about how amazing the neighborhood is. I think I've sent you these before.

Sarah: You have, only because it's just on all of the top lists. It's like the best place to live in the world kind of a thing. And, it seems like it's still the number one city to live in.

Jennie: This text actually says “the best place to buy a home in America.” And if you use the logic of the, like, people who live here, America's the best country in the world. And therefore my community is not just the best place in America. It is the best place in the world to buy a home. (laughs)

Sarah: What amazing marketing your community has. And so funny that you don't exactly live there anymore. You're like, it's great but bye. (laughs)

Jennie: Yeah. It's exactly right. I lived in like the gleaming, like center stone of like perfection in the neighborhood, like the best new neighborhood with the best new schools.

And after the pandemic I was just like, Hmm, nothing. No thanks. (laughs) And we just moved. We were like, I think I live in an RV for six months instead, like how about that? (laughter) Like you said, that they market well. They literally have like a shiny, beautiful marketing department and like an arts council and all the things. Like it is, it is neighborhood goals and I think your last neighborhood was also neighborhood goals, wasn’t it?

Sarah: My last neighborhood was not neighborhood goals, but my neighborhood that I'm moving into is supposed to be neighborhood goals. And this is why we are talking about what we're talking about today because I need you to process this with me and help me to feel strong. And even though a huge part of me wants to run away screaming, we are not doing that cuz we already paid the money but I need to be able to survive in the suburbs, Jennie, help me survive the suburbs by processing it through this movie.

Jennie: Oh my gosh. That's right. You just had a huge life event. You guys are like getting under contract for a new house, right? Yes. Oh gosh.

Sarah: Yes….That was a very creepy yes, but yes,

Jennie: “Yes…”I can't believe that I did not connect the dots between the fact that you are buying a house and a beautiful shiny goals neighborhood. And this movie like until this second, I did not like the connection so, Sarah, tell me what movie we're watching.

Sarah: The movie that we are watching this week is Pleasantville. Did you realize how old it is? I could not get Liam to watch it cuz he is like, I'm not watching a movie that's 25 years old. And I was like, it's not 25 years old. And sure enough, when you math it, it, it is 25 years old. That's an old movie for a teenager.

Jennie: My face is denying that. Like right now, the face I'm sending you on Zoom is like, no, it's not 25 years old. The math is not real. I also felt like I watched it recently. I felt like I was grown when I watched it for the first time. I was 13. So, Uh, no. I definitely also feel very uncomfortable with how old it is and I don't understand it, and time needs to stop.

Sarah: Time does need to stop. And, so this Pleasantville, was from 1998. And, it was written and directed by Gary Ross and has all of the actors and the actresses that, I think were really big in 1998. We've got Tobey Maguire, Reese Witherspoon, my favorite William H. Macy, Joan Allen, who I think is only in these kinds of movies. There's Paul Walker, even like baby Paul Walker. I was shocked to see his baby face. Jeff Daniels, Don Knotts. Do you wanna read the IMDB description?

Jennie: Two 1990s, teen siblings find themself in a 1950s sitcom where their influence begins to profoundly change that complacent world.

Sarah: Do you think that describes this movie?

Jennie: I do think that, like highlighting that it's 1990s at the end whenever they had Fiona Apple’s rendition of Across the Universe, and I was like, it's the most nineties movie ever. But yeah, the, the broad strokes of the plot are definitely that they get kind of magically sucked into a TV and then they color outside the lines.

Sarah: That is, I guess what it's about. I feel like they were more changed than their world, if that makes sense. Mm. But, uh, that's, but anyway…

Jennie: What line would you add? What would you add?

Sarah: I don't know. Something about political uprisings, (laughs) which is not really what it's about. Like shaking off the beige landscape of fitting in and welcoming the rainbows of critical thinking. I don't know. That's terrible, but like, something like that, cuz I think that's what they were doing.

Jennie: Okay, so if someone hasn't seen Pleasantville, or maybe it's been so long ago that their memory has been addled by time, what's something you think they really need to know just about, like the, basic components of the film so that you can still come along with this on this journey and conversation about, you know, the suburbs, the neighborhoods, all of those things.

Sarah: I think that what people need to know is that, Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon's characters are the siblings and they're disaffected youth. They're experiencing 1990s life and they fight. They're not happy. They get sucked into a tv back to when everything was perfect.

Like everybody now kind of says sometimes like, “oh, back in the day I miss when everything was simple and, nice and pleasant.” And that's where they sort of stuck. So they're trapped there and they have to try to fit in as 1950s teenagers and when they go into the tv, everything's black and white.

And as they help other people experience things or learn new things about themselves or have feelings, things start changing colors. And that's probably one of the coolest parts of the movie, is the visual, I think, of having this black and white movie with a little pop of a flaming tree or a red rose or all of those things. So that's, I think that's really important for people to know and remember.

Jennie: That's definitely right. You did a really good job painting a picture without giving it away. So if you haven't watched it, watch it later. Still listen to the podcast. That I think gets us going along the lines. And I won't lie, I had forgotten how smart this movie was.

I had really kind of painted it with a, we're using a lot of painting and color analogies because it is a strong theme in the movie. So if you hear us say this a lot, this is why,

Sarah: There better be a lot of painting puns in this episode. Or I'm gonna be very disappointed in you.

Jennie: (laughs) Are you gonna turn red?

Sarah: (gasps) Oh my, oh gosh. A movie and a color pun. Oh my gosh.

Jennie: I did it. I did it.

Sarah: You did all the things.

Jennie: Yes. So before we get into why this movie connected with you so much, Sarah, because that's what I'm here for. I wanna know why you care about it. What is your Screen Shares Rating for Pleasantville? So, as you know, it's screen cares. We like to give you help thinking about who you should watch this movie with.

Is it a Buddy Screen with a friend? Is it a Love Screen with a significant other, Family Screen with intergenerational watching, Little Screen for the little kids in your life? Or is it a Solo Screen watch alone or a Work Screen, watch with coworker?

Sarah: This might be one of the first weeks where I can actually give you one category and one category only, which I never can do. I can't commit. I'm just, I'm sorry, Alex, but yeah, commitment's hard. (laughter) I think this week I really kept going back to it as, actually a Family Screen. I think it's really cool to have conversations with different members in your family about how to. How to make choices, how to decide where to live and, decide how to move in your community and think in your community.

And, I didn't wanna just extend that to, my significant other, or with friends, or kids like it, it really felt like it needed to be a whole family conversation and a whole family watch,

Jennie: I agree with you actually. I think that we can give this a bold and underlined rating as Family Screen, so when you look at our show notes, that will be what it is. Family screen all the way.

Sarah: You mentioned that you saw this movie when you were 13 and do you remember that?

Jennie: I don't remember seeing it when I was 13. My, my husband, worked at a movie theater and movies were really important for our friend group. And so he had like a movie list that was like a must watch list. And so I actually think I watched this for the first time with him, cuz it was on the movie list of must watch movies.

Sarah: Oh, so interesting.

Jennie: Um, that's actually when I think I watched it for the first time. But what about you? .

Sarah: Hmm. I feel like I'm constructing a memory of watching this with high school friends and I specifically think that I was watching this with, a friend named Sarah also and a couple other friends in our group, at her mom's house.

And I don't really know if that's even true cuz I don't actually remember watching a lot of movies with her at her mom's house. But for some reason that's the memory that comes to mind. I remember feeling underwhelmed by the movie when I did watch it and this was probably the peak of my snobbery when I was like, “oh, this is stupid.”

And I think I also remembered later trying to compare it to American Beauty, cause it did feel very similar and I know they came out maybe within a year or two of each other. But I remember at some point thinking like, Ugh, American Beauty is so much better.

And rewatching it for this podcast, it's not my favorite movie. I will be honest about that. It wasn't one where I was like, I am watching this movie for a personal enjoyment. I was truly watching this movie because I was like feeling all of their gut, all of the scared, all of the fear, um, of moving into the suburb that we are going to be moving. Because I just kept thinking like, oh my God, a suburb is everything that I hate. It represents the bane of humanity. Why am I doing this?

So, because I just was like, let me punish myself. I was like, let me watch movies that show horrible depictions of suburbs. And of course this one kind of came up and I was like, I'm gonna do it. And it ended up being a better experience than I thought. I think there are a lot of things in this movie that helped me do some more productive thinking about living in the burbs than I had.

Jennie: Absolutely. And so is this time when you watched it when you were younger, I kind of wanna circle back to that, around the same time that you were taking a film class at a local college and like watching The Shining for the first time and like developing your more like cinematic artistic sensibilities.

Sarah: Yeah. That was when I was doing all the film stuff and my friend's favorite movie at the time and I don't mean to talk smack because there is nothing wrong with enjoying movies for what they are, but like I do remember that their favorite movie was, She’s All That, with Freddie Prinze Jr. and I remember watching it and I was like, okay, I'll watch it the once, but like, they watched it and I had to watch it many, many times with them. And I always thought this is just torture. This is terrible. Why are we watching this again for the 19th time?

Jennie: Do you feel like you were kind of, trying to define people and like set yourself up as whatever your perception of was cool at the time and like has that changed since then?

Sarah: I don't think I've ever wanted or tried to set myself up with the title of cool because I just, I don't think like I ever thought I would ever accomplish that. I'm not cool, and I'm fine with not being cool. And even then, I never aspired to that.

I think what it was for me was that I was trying so hard to be different and that was the way that I could be different from my friends, because there were a lot of ways where I didn't fit in with them. And so it was easier for me to be making that intentional choice of like, well, you like this conventional movie that everybody else likes, but I don't like, I like all this other stuff.

I think that was really my attempt was like trying to be the outcast almost.

Jennie: Well, it's still defining yourself, right? Like, even if it's not cool by like the traditional sense, like I think you're ridiculously cool. But that's because like my definition of cool includes like a broad knowledge of culture and politics and like thoughtful conversations and humor.

So I think you meet my definition for cool, but I think that it's more that that time period when you're trying to find yourself, and I think Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon's character are both like at that time of their life when they're trying to find themselves and people in the film have kind of never even reflected on it.

So in Pleasantville, once they get sucked in, people are like, “what's at the end of the road?” “Well, the other road, silly.” Like there's nothing outside of it. And it's like that life un-reflected that we've talked about. Mm-hmm. So here we are reflecting on the suburbs.

So what is your fear of the suburbs, Sarah, why did you go on a cinematic journey to comfort yourself and swim in this misery?

Sarah: Okay. The only way that I can answer that is I just sent you a YouTube link, and while unfortunately, due to copyright and us wanting to respect artists and all of that, we are not going to be playing this. But I want you to listen to just a snippet of the song that I sent you. Okay. And then I wanna hear your reaction, and then I will tell you how this answers your question.

Jennie: Okay, here we go. Malvina Reynolds, “Little Boxes.” Released in Omni Records January 1st, 1961.Ooh, we're going back to like Pleasantville times. Oh, I've heard this song. Oh my gosh, I wanna be friends with Malvina Reynolds.

And this says that it's the Weeds theme song. Is this the theme song to Weeds? I never, I never, um, I never watched Weeds,

Sarah: Actually this had me years ago going down this rabbit hole of listening to every version of this song because I love it and I hate it.

This is the song that when there is a horror movie version on my life, this is going to be the theme song of that movie, because I personally find this incredibly eerie, incredibly scary, and truly my worst nightmare. Do you wanna share, what a couple of the lyrics were maybe. And I also wanna know if you had the same reaction that I do to that song.

Jennie: Yes, I can. Um, it's talking about her life and how she, you know, I think clearly broke away from this idea of little boxes, little houses, all made of ticky tacky and the idea that people go on, I, I'm gonna be paraphrasing here cuz I just heard it for the first.

But the idea that, and the children and the fathers and they drink their martinis and they go to college and they live in their little houses and everything's all the same.

And the cadence of the song is very repetitious. It really mirrors the content. I agree, could definitely be like a horror scene montage. Someone's cleaning up a body to this song.

Sarah: Or making a body, well that sounds gross. Or killing a body. (laughter)

Jennie: Yeah. But at the same time, I am also like a total sucker for folk punk music. I don't know if you know the sub-genre. Like I love it. I do.

Sarah: I do know that, so, and I know that about you, too.

Jennie: Yeah. Um, this song. I like, love this song so much. Like it's not scary to me. And I definitely get why you, um, would reference it with this movie for sure.

Sarah: I purposely have wanted to find some reason to play this song for you on air and have your reaction, because I really actually think about this song a lot.

Like in a way that's not normal or healthy, but like anytime I'm anywhere and maybe I'm in Target and all of a sudden I see like, you know, the racks of clothes and it's just all the things that everybody's wearing and they're wearing it in the same way.

Or, maybe it's, you know, driving down in a suburb and it is truly looking at all of the houses that are variations of themselves. And all the yards are the same because HOA and all the people outside. I don't know who I just saw. Did I just see you or are you a different person? I don't know cuz you also look the same to me.

It plays in the back of my head quite a bit actually. (laughter)

Jennie: I love it. So I am, I'm interested. So tell me more about this song and then if you have any kind of like response or overlap with your growing, dealing with the suburban life.

Sarah: My dad played this song for me when we lived in the burbs. The one and only time we ever really lived in the burbs, when I was in elementary school. I don't really remember why he played it for me other than like there were times where he would just play random songs and say like, “wow, isn't this a great message? Or what do you think it's saying? Or what do you think of this songwriter?”

And they were always something from the sixties, fifties, seventies maybe. You know, it was Bob Dylan, it was The Beatles. It was apparently Malvina Reynolds. And it struck such a terrifying chord in me because I heard the song and then I looked outside and I realized how much effort it takes to maintain being a suburban person.

And I remember like my dad always wearing like, “oh, I gotta cut the grass. Like it has, has to be a certain length,” or like, “oh no, we can't do this to the house because,” I don't know that we actually had an HOA, but it was just not acceptable to do certain things to your house. And I don't know why we like played into that, but we did. Probably because of like time and money and not wanting to be even weirder than we were. So I think from a very early age, I always felt that there was a crushing pressure and expectation of living in the burbs that felt too difficult and unpleasant.

I think that in my experience, the suburbs really are homogenous, right? I did a little definition searching and a little bit of research on suburbs in general, because I'm like, where did these start? Why did these start? And, the definition is very basic: It's basically just neighborhoods that are on the outskirts of cities. And, I think when I hear that, even it gives me a little bit of a shiver of my spine where, because to me being in the city is safe. It's, where there is diversity, it's where there are ideas and jobs and fun things to do.

And so being on the outskirts of that feels very, I don't mean fringe in the way that we're using that word now, but just it means being on the outside, looking in and seeing all the things that are too far away or like will require a lot of effort to be part of. And that doesn't feel great.

There is just an unspoken pressure that if you choose to live in the burbs, it will be harder to be different and individual.

Jennie: You said something, you said a lot of really interesting things, but one thing that stuck out to me was your description of feeling safer in the city because of the ideas and the diversity.

And I think that is something that was a little surprising for me because I think I often hear people talking about the idea of the suburbs being the safer place. Like presumably whenever your family lived in the suburb, would you think that one of the reasons that they did was cuz they thought it was safer than living in a city?

Sarah: I think a lot of it was affordability and proximity to where my parents were working and yeah, the safe aspect. I mean that's kind of like what I think at least parents, were doing. Like, they really thought that if you wanna give your kids a safe upbringing, you go to the neighborhood that has the great schools and has the sidewalks and the planned activities and like you're giving your kids the benefit of a youth filled with community and not getting run over by cars and, a good education.

And so I feel like they were thinking like I'm giving my kids a great opportunity to have the kind of happy youth that I had as a kid. But it was, I think, an attempt to recapture that feeling that they had of a smaller world, when they were young.

Jennie: So the idea of like the smaller world, the safety, the quote unquote good schools, the sidewalks, so like, what's the trade off? What do you feel like you and your family would give up by moving to the suburbs?

Sarah: So now as an adult, I'm like honestly terrified to be making this choice. Actually, true story, Alex and I had a big conversation about it last night, where we were actually thinking like, do we just pull out and lose all of our money and just be like, well that's not good. And, probably not buy a house because we would've just lost all our money.

Because I do think that, again, I hate to say these generalizations, I don't think it's right. I don't think it's fair. But I will say that as a person who has lived for 40 years, things do feel more extreme than they did when I was 30 even. And so now I feel so much that I don't wanna make a choice where my kids feel so other, that it impacts their sense of who they are and their value of themselves.

Because it doesn't feel good to always be that outsider. And frankly, when we were in the neighborhood, I do worry, you know, I've got tattoos, Alex has tattoos. We also are educated nice people that aren't like the criminal element that maybe some people would associate with people with tattoos.

It was funny, Violet mentioned it to me. I had my sleeves pulled up and we were doing the showing, when we got out of the car. And as soon as I got out and I saw people there, I pulled my sleeves down to cover up my tattoo. Mm-hmm. And she's like, “why'd you do that?”

And I was like, “oh, uh…” I didn't really actually consciously realize that that's what I had done until she pointed it out. And so I think it's that element of like sort of preempting judgment and being afraid of that judgment and even more afraid of the judgment. I think I'm afraid of how I will react to worrying about what people are thinking because gosh darn it, I'm 40.

I don't wanna do that anymore. I wanna just live in a neighborhood where my daughter doesn't have to play in the alley and that's where she has to play now. I want my kids to have, I do want them to have the sidewalks. I do want them to have access to the trails and the things that this like planned community has because, we've been living for like six, seven months in, in a place where, they've gotten hurt because they're playing in an alley where cars rush through and there's trash trucks that go by and it's not really a great place to play as a kid.

Jennie: Mm-hmm, and if you don't wanna answer this question, this is fine, but when you were growing up as well as now, do you feel like as much as the tattoos contributed to you feeling other, do you feel like the fact that your Asian in a place where everyone else might be white in the same way that Pleasantville was completely white and homogenous, like how does that factor in?

it more or less than more of like your cultural identifiers with like tattoos or being educated or things like that? Because you can't pull your sleeve down over that. Do you know what I mean? Like that's, how does that factor in?

Sarah: It would be a weird look. (laughter) You just wearing be weird kook to just like wear all the way, don't look at me.

There's nothing under here. There's definitely not a person that's not white under here.

Jennie: (laughter) Um, I think that's what the shirt should say. You need a hoodie. A hoodie that completely just says, “definitely not a non-white person.” That's it guys. New line of clothing. It's a race free society. How much does the idea of being like racially other in these places factor into the discomfort and how much of that. Drives your discomfort and your willingness to make those sacrifices.

Cuz your kids deserve to be safe. They deserve to be somewhere that they can play and you, but you also deserve to get to be your authentic self.

Sarah: Ah, that's such a good question and it's a hard question to answer because I don't wanna sound like I am, living in trauma, but during COVID, my family experienced a lot of race-related stuff, a lot of race-related hate.

And that was hard for me in a way that I wish I could say that it wasn't. I wish I could say that doesn't inform the decisions that my family makes at this point, but it absolutely does. And that is what's scary because now where I live, I live in the heart of the city. I go walk around. I see so much diversity around me.

There's so much diversity in my street. Literally nobody looks the same. Everybody dresses differently. Everybody has a different vibe. Everybody has different, backgrounds, and I love that so much. I don't feel singled out when I'm in the city. I feel like I'm just part of it, just like everybody else's.

But in the suburbs, it is so white. I did the, like, you know how we are researchers, like I looked up the high schools, for both, because unfortunately this is in a new district. So I looked up the new district. The high school is only, I think it's like something like 96% white.

It's not that I hate white people. It's totally not that. It's just that, that speaks to a level of homogenous makeup that is a little scary if you're not part of that main group. His current high school is only 54% white and, his current school is also outperforming the other.

And so weirdly we will be paying for him to attend this public school from out of district. It's easier to stand out in a homogenous environment, and that is what scares me because I'm wondering, “am I trading physical safety for my kids to be able to play outside and not get hit by cars with emotional instability of being singled out,” potentially.

Um, or am I just being super negative because I have also grown up in the south and I had a basically decent experience when I was living in Alabama. There were some questions. People would say things, but it was all usually well-meaning it was coming from a place of curiosity or interest or just the human nature of, “oh, I noticed something different about you.”

It wasn't mean-spirited in a way that I experienced in other places that I lived. And so I have my faith in the south. I have my faith in the fact that, I just wanna be optimistic. I think even though there've been crap, things that have happened, I think naturally I, I want to just think that I, just like any other family can make a choice to live in the suburbs and assume that things will be safe and fine.

Yes, it will be more boring. Let's not pretend that suburbs aren't boring. They kind of are like, even with the planned events, it's not like living next to an art museum or something like that. And that's fine. I can drive there. It's not like I can never go to an art museum.

But I think I'm going to try so hard to choose being optimistic, even though that feels a little bit ignorant on my behalf. I don't know.

Jennie: What I'm hearing you say is that whenever, you're in a diverse group, you don't have to be defined only by your ethnicity, the same thing in Pleasantville, the way that is, people start changing and becoming color as they kind of find their true selves,

They stand out in a very visible and undefined way. Like it's very, very, mm-hmm. Very obvious. Like, oh wow, you're a colored person, which really was indelicately used, quite frankly. We're talking about civil rights movement, but like, yes, sure, but you can't hide that, right? And so then you're like, oh, okay, I'm, I'm like you said, 96% white.

We're gonna go ahead and be the other percent. It's gonna be really obvious. We have to deal with that. And so my question is, whenever you were growing up and now, have you ever felt obligated to kind of fit in and just make it work?

Have you ever compromised on who you are or like hidden or tried to minimize your own awesome Sarah-ness. And so have you ever done that? Have you ever kind of minimized to keep the peace in a cultural situation?

Sarah: Yeah. And I think that if anybody were to say that they don't, I think they would be disingenuous. Because I think we all do that to some degree. And I know that my reaction to being in a situation where I know that I'm gonna have the different opinion or some kind of difference of something, I always am worried about other people's comfort.

I also am worried about being misconstrued. It really bothers me if people misunderstand what I'm saying or just misjudge me. So I feel like I'm always, approaching situations with like an extra layer of explanation that nobody really usually wants or needs.

But I feel like I do that to try to soften the difference that I'm trying to exist in. And that's really hard. I think about both of us actually, because, we both are doing things that are not your typical conforming thing like you were saying, like you left the number one place in America, the number one place in the world to go live in an RV for six months and you have a sense of adventure that I don't think is that typical, of people in general.

And we both homeschool. That's not easy. And that's something that is definitely not the normal thing. Like people in, my mom group here, people call public school kids is like “the normies” and it's actually meant with love, like it's not meant in a mean way, but it is like those are the normal kids and we are the weirdos that are not doing school like that.

It is really hard to want to not hurt people's feelings or make people uncomfortable by being who you are. And so, yeah, I know that I've done that from time to time. I think I do it less because I think, you know, again, like I hate to bring up age, but like truly with age does come the ability to not care so much, and I don't really care that much. Not as much as I used to about offending somebody's sensibilities. Like I still don't wanna offend somebody or hurt somebody, but I don't care if people think I'm a little bit, weird. I don't actually care if, like my tattoos, weird out the moms in my mom group. I apparently still am worried about that in my new suburb.

What about you? Like I'm, I, I kind of wanna dive into the fact that you left the burbs. And, you're a very authentic person, so I, I'd love to hear a little bit about your experience with how were you able to live in America's best neighborhood and still be you, because I think even though you chose to leave, you guys were still your wonderful selves. And I need to know how you were able to accomplish that and just how that.

Jennie: So for me, we moved to the, “the best place in the entire universe,” because, um,

Sarah: oh, now we're the universe. No universe, it's not “America or the world,” It's now, “the universe. “

Jennie: You know, there's, uh, we're just expanding out. I think that, that, that article is gonna get posted on Facebook soon. (laughter)

Um, but I moved there because I was like, okay, I want my kids to go to the best schools. We moved from Rhode Island to Texas. Okay, great. I researched, researched. “What's the best schools, the closest to my husband's work.” This is the place. Great. We'll get the house. I picked the house that was closest to the park. Didn't require you to cross major roads, had beautiful sidewalks. You could, I, you know, walk down to the little city area and get a cocktail and get your nails done and have a croissant and whatever. And, um, the school was objectively one of the best public schools I've ever encountered.

But I chafed in the close quarters. I felt uncomfortable with the expectations. Kind of what you're talking about. Like, “oh no, I left my trash out two days too long.” Or you know, literal posts on the Facebook group of people being like, “did you see the color of white, the people on whatever street painted their house? That's not one of the sanctioned whites.”

Jennie: No, I'm not. Not kidding you. Not the right flag.

Sarah: I love, I love the idea of whites being sanctioned, but I know we're talking about paint. (laughter) Sorry.

Jennie: (laughter) There was literally like, that's hilarious. (laughter) I like, man, the color play the color word play in this episode. (laughter) But there's literally like a list of approved paint colors for houses. It was neat streets, the manicured yards were next level. I'm just describing your worst nightmare, but it was lovely.

Sarah: Actually, it looked very beautiful.

Jennie: It was beautiful, beautiful. It was lovely, but my yard was very small. The expectations were very clear. If you wanted to help at the school, you could help in this way. If you had questions or concerns that fell outside of the way things were done, you could keep those to yourself. And ultimately for me, I personally was most compelled to leave more than anything by the lack of privacy and nature that I had if I had exactly the house I have now with acreage and privacy and trees and mud and a creek and all the things, In my old neighborhood, I would still.

I think for me it was just I need to be able to sit on my back porch and pretend that no one else exists in the world. And I couldn't do that because when I went out my back porch before I would know what my neighbors were having for breakfast in the house behind me. And so I kind of can't handle that.

So for me, that's what it was. That was it. I couldn't, it was actually nature and privacy that pushed me over the edge. And until I had this kind of thought process like you're going through now, I didn't realize how important that was for me. But I also realized when I was looking at 20-acre properties and thinking like, let's live in the middle of nowhere and have 63 chickens, I realized that's also not me.

Jennie: I actually do want to be able to have the safety of a neighborhood. Like if my house burns down, I want someone to see it. Like I want someone to call 9-1-1. And if I'm being honest, I wanna have Indian food delivered to my house sometimes and that's not something that you can have if you live out in the middle of nowhere.

So I don't know, was that in any way helpful or did I scare you further from the suburbs?

Sarah: No, I think that was really helpful because, I think there's also just so many different types of living, and I think that's exactly right.

What I was really hearing you say is that, a neighborhood could be objectively safe. A school could be objectively great. It can have all of these features and things, but it really matters what your individual values are and if they're being met or not met where you're living. And for you, you needed the peace and the quiet, and you needed the babbling brook and you needed like the mud on your kids' shoes because muddy kids are happy kids.

You needed that kind of space. I know that you will understand this, but a huge value to me is like being able to walk my dog. Because I do it multiple times a day, like I need to be able to walk him And I currently almost get hit by cars all the time because he is not nice on leash with other dogs.

So I have to cross a busy road if another dog is coming. So it would be nice to live in a neighborhood where I can watch, walk my dang dog and not worry about being a pedestrian fatality on tomorrow's, like subdivision news. Because that could happen.

Jennie: You know, I wanna ask you a question. Is it fair to say that you feel like suburbia necessarily means conformity?

Sarah: I do. Okay. I do. And, and do you think that?

Jennie: Well, so yes and no. So I'm gonna take you on a journey of binaries here. So I, on my notes, I, I kind of telescoped it out because when I used to teach history, I would always get out to this, like most macro analysis of this. So at the smallest level, subdivisions equal conformity, and then go with me until we get out to the bigger things.

And then you go to like perfection versus authenticity, then you go to ignorance and non-diversity. I would add that cuz you pointed that out versus knowledge and ideas. And then the very next step is that idea of safety versus freedom. And so do you feel like by accepting a subdivision that you are trading freedom for safety?

Sarah: First of all, that was super brilliant. I really love that a lot. I never thought I would wanna go on a journey of binaries, but I, I liked that I would buy that ticket again. I liked it a lot. Yeah, I do, I do, I do feel like I'm trading safety for freedom. And I think right now it makes sense because I also think that like with everything, we talk about this a lot, I think, but there is a season of life thing.

I don't have to live here forever, but like right now, Violet needs to be able to ride her bike without falling down because she's avoiding a garbage truck that's speeding. Liam needs to be able to walk around and get away from his annoying mother without me worrying that he's gonna get kidnapped.

Like, I don't know. These are very strange scenarios and very specific, but we need that right now in our family. And frankly, the big unspoken elephant in the room, we also need affordable housing and this is affordable housing. That's nice. And, it is a home that I can be excited to live in.

I think that having the conversation though now up front about safety versus freedom, knowledge versus, ignorance and going all the way back. Reminds me that I think this, that these things need to actually be talked about with the kids. And as a family, I think we need to be aware that these could be things that we're feeling or experiencing.

And that doesn't mean that this is wrong. As I was watching the movie, I was like writing down different quotes cuz there's a lot of really good quotes in the movie, and this is a very simple one, but like somewhere towards the end they say, “there is no right house, there is no right car…”

And they kind of go on and on. And I think that's exactly right, there, isn’t always going to be the one thing that is perfect in all of the ways for each of us in our lives. And I'm frankly not trying to train my children to only live in a bubble where everything is perfect.

I had this conversation with somebody the other day, another parent, and um, we were talking about politics and war and she was saying, “oh, shh, be quiet,” cuz we were talking about the Ukraine war. And I was like, “oh, sorry. Like what?” Like cuz I, I was instantly like thinking, “did I say a bad word?”

And she was like, “well, my kids don't know what war is.” And so I was like, “oh, what do you mean?” And so we had this whole conversation where it was actually a cool conversation. She was telling me that in her mind, part of being a good parent is giving her kids the ability to live in a world that, is positive and happy.

And then if they know all of these things, they will always be too mired down in basically the darkness to ever think good about another person or to approach a situation with, positive intent. And it was so hard for me not to be like, “What the…whatever,” about it, because I get it, like she's doing what we're all doing.

We're all like just doing our best with the tools that we have with our own beliefs. I get it. Like I, I don't wanna denigrate what she was saying or doing or thinking, because I do get that, she's a very good parent. She tries so hard. Like we all do. I, I know that I probably have weird things that probably does somebody sound weird, but it has bothered me for weeks now.

I keep thinking that in my mind, are we really in a place in 2023 where there's a 10-and-a-half-year-old who doesn't know what war is and the nine-year-old brother doesn't either? And how will that impact the future if we are so sheltering our kids from the fact that these are very ugly things. War is horrible.

I hate what is happening in Ukraine that is not okay. It's super scary, super disturbing. And I feel like my teaching of my kids that these atrocities are happening in the world is not harming them. But I know that she feels so different. What do you think?

Jennie: This is fascinating to me and I think it really mirrors a lot of things in the movie. And then I think it also makes what we were just talking about even more true. It's like a perfect example of the idea that freedom or safety knowledge or ignorance. And I don't think these things have to be binary, quite frankly. I think that that's the danger. And I think that when you cast things as binaries, you point it out. It's kind of the matrix idea that when you let the truth in, you're corrupting something. (laughter) But it sounds like you're like Morpheus in this situation with these kids, and you're like, I need them to know the truth here. Because it's like, yes. Yeah. It's bleak, but it's real, right? And so when the people in the movie in Pleasantville were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. People are finding out about sex.

They're finding out about arr, they're finding out about, um,

Sarah: …geography. Oh my god! (laughter)

Jennie: …fire, no, like literal. There's some very clear biblical imagery with like her giving her an apple. Um, which also I think the next binary out is original sin versus inherent good. Like what do you think about human nature? But like there's some other movies, like what are the other ones here that you have that all deal with this? So if any other listener is grappling with this, you have other choices too, in addition to Pleasantville.

Sarah: Oh, oh, yeah. And they all take a very negative spin on things. I actually was looking for some that had a positive spin on suburbia and suburban life, but there was Ice Storm and again, Joan Allen was in that movie.

There's Blue Velvet, Virgin Suicides, Revolutionary Road, which that movie, like we talked about this, that movie just instantly depresses me. American Beauty, Stepford Wives. That one that I haven't seen yet, Vivarium where it looks like very nightmarish kind of a situation. But clearly, filmmakers are interested in this concept, musicians are interested, everybody's interested, if you do a Google search, which I did, for like, “why do people hate suburbia,” or “suburbia is bad,” or “is suburbia good,” you get so many things, like everything from an academic journal and research, into the, emotional outcomes of children living in suburban life, all the way to a Reddit thread about how people hate suburbia, and everything in between. And it's clearly something that's such a hot topic.

And clearly I think what you're saying is exactly right, is the whole thing of like binaries that like there isn't just a one or the other. There's a scale, there is not just good or bad. There is not just the perfect house and the imperfect house.

Jennie: There's not, and so something I'll share too, that if you, I don't know if you actually ask for my advice, but I'm gonna give my unsolicited advice now.

Sarah: I always want your advice. It's not unsolicited…

Jennie: So in the film we talked about how people they're getting color put into their life. And so that idea that you can have individual authenticity, even in a homogenous place. Where I maybe was like a little more like, kind of still me, wasn't colorless, wasn't black and white, but I was maybe just like a notch down on the saturation of my own, like intensity. I made friends with people who are lovely, who live there. There are cool people, there are weird people.

Whenever I finally decided to leave our perfect best neighborhood in the entire world, I needed to sell like all of my things but when I really let my kind of freak flag fly, if you will, was whenever I just started listing my furniture and my stuff and just like posting, like my favorite one that I posted was a, the push lawnmower that was like, you know, like the old fashioned kind with the silk, with the blades, like there's nothing to it. And I just listed it as margarita powered lawnmower. Um, and then like listed all of the attributes of like, you can listen to a podcast, crime podcast, get drunk, push your lawnmower, whatever.

Like it only runs on your drink of choice. And so I just made this ludicrous post because I just didn't care and wanted to entertain myself. And when I did that, people who were amazing came out of the woodwork online on this group that I had kind of maligned as like, ugh, this group of like, Lululemon wearing, sorry, Lululemon, Um, you know, you know, people like, they would never understand me, but whenever I was just me, people were like sending me private messages. Be like, “I think it's so cool that you're gonna live in an RV! That's awesome. I wish I could do that.” And then people were like, “where have you been all my life? Let's go get a drink and like mow the yard.”

I kind of regretted that I hadn't just done me at full volume from the beginning because the worst case scenario is that people I wouldn't like anyway wouldn't like me. And so I kind of think like, without getting the HOA on your business, just be as you as you wanna be and cut, you know cut, cut to the chase and save yourself some time because I think I missed out on meeting even more people outside of my sphere because I was afraid of what people would think.

Sarah: I think you're exactly right. Maybe I'll just go into this new neighborhood and be like, look at my tattoos. I like weirdly have an obsession with dinosaurs. I know a huge amount of facts about prehistoric life that is just not normal, but let's be friends. And if not, then, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with ever, just you doing you and I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. And I know the road hasn't been easy for you, because those are big life changes.

And even if a big life change is leading you to something really good and positive, it's still difficult. But you guys did it anyway and I'm just hoping that like I can make sort of a reverse journey and still kind of have the same happy, authentic outcome as you.

And to that end, because I feel like every episode needs to have something as a bookend. But can you listen to that first link for me? And you might think that I haven't learned anything from you in this episode when you listen to it, but I can assure you that's not the case.

Jennie: Okay. We're getting some punk rock vibes. The Descendants, the name of the song is “Suburban Home.” This is on the nose. I'm like head bobbing right now.

Sings: “I want a home just like mom and dad. I wanna be a statistic. I want a suburban home.”

Sarah: Yep. I'm bringing this song to you for a couple reasons. One, because The Descendants are life to me, this is one of my favorite bands. This is an older song. It's from the eighties. Every time that anybody played this song, they thought that he was being sarcastic.

But in a documentary and much later, Tony Lombardo was the drummer, and the writer, was like, “I actually really wanted the safety of being able to be in a little happy life and also being able to say like ‘F you to everybody if you don't like me the way that I am. “

Yes. And I think that this is full circle, like we go from Malvina Reynolds and the Little Boxes to like a very, not actually sarcastic Tony Lombardo in The Descendants saying, “I want that.”

And so maybe I can just go into this damn suburb. Damn it, (laughter) with my freak flag hanging high, as long as the HOA approves, and just be our weird selves and that is my hope.

And maybe I'll just like play this song a lot more than I play the other song. Maybe that'll help too.

Jennie: You can just will it into being with music and movies. I think that's what we've learned at Screen Cares if nothing else. I think though, let's look at the characters in Pleasantville. But can you describe what Reese Witherspoon’s character, Jennifer did?

Sarah: She chose a world where she wasn't limited, but where she could remake herself as somebody who was more than what she was before, which is the contrast of what you would expect. She chose the black and white world, even though it wasn't black and white anymore. Yeah, she chose herself, which was interesting.

Jennie: She chose herself. And that actually reminds me of the movie Mona Lisa Smile, which actually was very empowering for me as someone who chose to stay home with my kids, despite the fact that I felt like I'm like very feminist and progressive and like fight the man and live my own life.

But like, I'm also a homemaker who homeschools my kids. Um, but in Mona Lisa Smile, it's the same thing. One of the characters decided, she's like, “no, I really do wanna be married and I really want this. Like this is my choice.” And it's just about making your own choice. It's about doing you. And I think that if right now, in this season of your life, the safety of the suburbs is what you need, it isn't all or nothing.

But one thing I will ask and, and something that I do wanna push us on a little bit just before we move on to our Screen Sparks and wrap it up, is this: because I love you and all of you, the thing the movie didn't do, and the thing that I don't wanna have happen to you is this, the movie did not actually address color, and race.

And the reality is you can hide liking The Descendants or like being punk rock or having tattoos.

But like, I hope that you think through like what are your hard line boundaries for like your identity and what will you and won't you allow people to do to you? And I think you were. Just hella brave when you made the choice to leave the place you were living during the pandemic where you didn't feel safe.

And so I just say like more of that brave Sarah as you go forward, cuz you're capable of it and you keep your people safe and you live in the reality of the world while still being positive. And so I just, yeah, I want that for you. And I know you'll be able to find a home and if you like, let your, you shine, you'll find your people no matter where you are.

Sarah: Well I appreciate that. I really do. These are hard life lessons and I feel like pretending like it's not a hard life lesson is extremely limiting and it's just being a pretender. I think that these are things that we all have to deal with, whether it is about race or religion or, just some sort of personal value or any other identifying characteristic that we would subscribe to ourselves.

Like, I think, I think it's hard, but I think at this point, I have had a good six or seven months here where I am now. It has sort of shored me up a little bit, because I did feel really deflated. Like part of me was like, yay, I'm escaping this place that like hurt me and I hated and it was hard but then I kind of needed to just build myself back up to being able to be like, “well, screw you if you have a problem.” It's really not my problem that you have a problem that's clearly your problem. And so I'm feeling more capable of doing that than I would have been a year ago. If we had moved to the burbs, I would've been like, you know, reading the HOA, I would've been like wearing khaki pants.

I don't know, do people in the burbs wear khaki pants? I don't know. But, I would be inclined to cover my tattoos and to pretend, I am just like everybody else. And that's also doing everybody else a disservice because everybody else doesn't deserve to get put into a pot of everybody else cuz we're all individuals.

And so I think that's what I'm gonna try to go into this new situation with is like being okay to be my freakish self and letting other people be themselves too, and not just making judgements about them too.

Jennie: I think that the song “Suburban Home” really captures what, like, the you-ness of this situation.

I really do like it. It's the struggle of like a punk rocker who wants to follow directions, right? Like it's, it's, it's like you're, you wanna read the HOA and you wanna do good by your neighbors and you, I imagine would be an amazing neighbor, but you still got like your punk rock spirit in you. And so I think that's so right.

You're going to go into it with optimism and assuming the best about others, but also like you've been through it, you've been through it, you can put up the boundaries you need to put up.

Do you think that we're ready to move on to Screen Sparks? Which character from Pleasantville, if you've seen it, do you most connect with?

Sarah: I love that one. If you had to choose, which is more important to you being part of a community, being a good community member and doing all of the community things, or focusing on your individuality and you being you, whether that impacts other people or not.

Again, I know I've learned my lesson a little bit in this episode, but I'd love to hear that from you and from listeners.

Jennie: What is that thing that you think unlocks the color for you? What would be the thing in Pleasantville that's gonna like light your fire and make you your most you self?

Sarah: Thanks for talking about this with me, Jennie, for being such a great sounding board and just for a fun conversation. I can do this, I can move into the dam burbs and I think it'll be great as long as you come visit, cuz I do have a guest room now, which will be exciting.

Jennie: Yes. A guest room. But wait, I have one more very important question. Everything I've said about you being able to brave your way into the burbs might lie on this question. I might change everything I've said in the whole episode. Is there good coffee nearby for you?

Sarah: So I've done two things to research this neighborhood. Number one, is there good coffee? And number two, are there good Mexican restaurants? And check, check on both. I literally bought like six different coffees. We went to three different Mexican restaurants before putting in our offer. And there's at least one acceptable and actually great option in both categories. So yes.

Jennie: Excellent. Put the sold sign in the yard, move. Get your coffee, get your Mexican, let that flag fly. Check with the HOA. And I think that you're gonna, you're gonna be an asset to whatever neighborhood you're in.

Sarah: And if not, screw up. No, just kidding. (laughter)