This week, my fiancé Cori Birce gives her take on the classic movie Say Anything.
Cori Birce
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Episode Direction by: Aaron Calafato & Rob Montague
Special Guest: Cori Birce
Audio Production: Ken Wendt
Orginal Music: thomas j. duke
Additional Vocals: Cori Birce
7MS37SayAnythingw/CoriBirce.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe
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Hey, everybody, Aaron here. Let me bring you up to speed. Today is part three of a trilogy that my friend Rob Montague and I co-created. We said, "Let's take three weeks in a row of 7 Minute Stories, and let's deconstruct the '80s and '90s pop culture and examine how it portrayed the pursuit of love."
Now, most of you are with us every week, but if you haven't listened to the last two weeks, go ahead and do that so that this episode makes sense. It started with Episode 35, titled She Looked Like Alicia Keys, where I tell a story about a grand romantic gesture that I made to a young lady back in the day.
We followed that with Episode 36 where I talked to Rob Montague, and he does a great job of exploring the toxic side of '80s and '90s pop culture. Today, Episode 37, we get the female perspective of this whole topic from my fiancée and 7MS vocal talent, Cori Birce.
By the way, Cori has been getting a ton of voiceover work from individuals and companies who have heard her on this podcast, and they've hired her for intros and outros and ad reads, and just using her wonderful vocal talent. If you know anybody that could use Cori's wonderful voice, visit her website at coribirce.com. That's C-O-R-I-B-I-R-C-E.com.
Anyway, Cori and I sit down at our kitchen table. We're in creaky chairs. We can't stop our chairs from creaking, and we've been working on that for a while. We had this great impromptu conversation about a favorite movie of both of ours, Say Anything, directed by Cameron Crowe. Heads up, there's a few vague spoilers, but if you haven't seen Say Anything by now, it came out 1989, you should probably get on that.
But anyways, I start the conversation by asking Cori what she thinks of the movie's main character, Lloyd Dobler, and she starts there. By the way, don't forget, in season three, we're going to be diving into this topic even more, and we're going to get a panel of more female voices to take on this very interesting subject, '80s and '90s pop culture, the pursuit of love, movies like Say Anything. Stay tuned for that bonus episode next season. But for now, enjoy my chat with Cori Birce.
What are your thoughts immediately following that movie about Lloyd Dobler from a female perspective?
I think Lloyd Dobler is the coolest. If it were me, I probably would have never broken up with Lloyd Dobler. He's wearing a Clash T-shirt for more than half of the movie. He likes music, he's cool. All the things are good. He kicks glass out of the way, but there's a boundary that she sets and he just ignores it.
He calls her a bunch of times after she says she doesn't want to be with him. There's a lot that happens there that now I'm like, "Eww," whereas in my younger years, I was like, "Yes, he's persistent," but there is definitely a time where persistent gets weird.
In the story that I told a couple of episodes ago, she didn't tell me no, but I was very persistent. Then the following episode, when I talked to Rob, he highlighted what you said, which is a boundary. Just because you want someone doesn't mean you deserve to have them. Do you think Lloyd crossed those boundaries? For you, you said you wouldn't have broken up with Lloyd Dobler. You were attracted to his type.
Yeah. I mean, he's really cool. He listens to good music. He wears a cool jacket, he has great hair. He's just a cool dude.
You wouldn't have broken up with him, but what I'm saying is, what if there was something in your life where you had to pause and you had to tell Lloyd, "Hey, sorry." Would you have accepted his pursuit? Would you have thought his pursuit was weird?
That's the other thing about the movie. In the movie, I don't want to ruin the movie for everyone, but there's stuff that comes up that she's looking forward to doing. She's leaving at the end of the summer, and so she's breaking up with him for that. But in the movie, is he aware of what she's doing and why she's doing it? Is she intentionally pushing him away and he's aware of that, so that's why he's so persistent? But even still, it gets to the point where it's slightly creepy.
Where did he cross the line, can I ask you?
The 8 million phone calls was a little bit insane.
Probably.
The standing outside with the boombox, which is a scene that I love, but realistically, if someone that I had said, "I don't want to see you anymore was standing outside of my house," I would call the police in a second. I would be like, "There's this creep outside holding a boombox up."
But what if he's playing Peter Gabriel?
Did I break up with him already?
You did.
I've been ignoring him for weeks?
He's been calling for weeks.
That is creepy and unacceptable.
Okay.
That's not okay.
Yeah.
Now, would I have loved to be in that situation with Lloyd Dobler myself? Of course.
Wait, hold on. Stop before you go. What do you mean, would you have loved to be in that? See, you're very nuanced here because you're clearly drawing boundaries. At the same time, you're saying you would have loved to be in this position with Lloyd Dobler. Help me understand.
I just have always liked Lloyd Dobler as a person. I think he's cool. He likes good music. He's the kind of guy that I would have wanted to date in high school. He's cool.
Do I have any Lloyd Dobler in me?
You have a little bit.
A little bit? You brushed that off really quick.
Well, no, I think out of the two of us, I'm Lloyd Dobler, and you're, what's her character's name? I can't remember.
Yeah, the girl with the dad who owns the senior citizen home. Yeah.
Oh my gosh, how can we not remember her name? He says it a thousand times.
You know what else he says?
What?
"Girl got me to trust myself, man. Had me walking around here feeling satisfied."
Oh, yeah. You love to take lines from movies and use them.
Lloyd Dobler presents Cocoon.
Yeah, that's a great scene. That's so funny. It's so weird. He's the coolest. But yeah, he definitely crosses boundaries. I don't know. It's a weird thing. It's as if there is a time where women want and expect men to be persistent. Right? I know at least every single one of my girlfriends at one time or another had a boyfriend that they broke up with thinking, "Oh, if he tries to get me back, tries to win me back, then we're good." Do you know what I'm saying? There's this weird expectation.
Is the expectation, do you think that had a lot to do with those movies we watched growing up?
Probably. Yeah, I mean, think about every single romantic comedy really is a story of girl meets boy. They either date and then break up, or it's nerdy guy chases popular girl. Is it Can't Buy Me Love, is that the one with the earrings that I like so much?
It might be.
I can never remember the name.
But the storylines are very similar.
Yeah, it's all the same. It's like, nerdy weird guy wants cool popular girl, so he gets weird summer job and works really hard to try and win her attention and affection, or does something to win her over, saves her in a time of need or something.
But there's always a pursuit and persistence.
Yes.
You said before we started recording, and I hope it's okay, you were saying, we're creaking around in our kitchen table here. That's why there's so much background noise. But that's fine. You said that you would accept the persistence if you were attracted to the person.
I'm saying that it comes across as a lot less creepy if it's someone that you have shown interest in.
Clearly.
As a woman, it is important to set boundaries. If a man is pursuing you, and clearly pursuing you, that you're not interested in, it's okay and should be the right thing to do to say, "Hey, you're an okay person. I'm not interested in you." Men need to learn how to take that and live with it. Because a lot of the times when a woman is like, "Hey, I'm not interested in you. I think we could be friends," a lot of guys' reaction is absolutely ridiculous.
Unacceptable.
Yeah, call you a bitch.
Oh, that just infuriates me.
Yeah, it's insane the kind of things that men will say if you turn them down.
Because they're enticed. They're enticed.
I've been called stuck-up. I'm the least snotty, stuck-up person ever. But I remember one time at a bar, some guy came to talk to me and I was like, "No, thank you. Bye." He was like, "Oh, you're so stuck-up." It was just ridiculous stuff. People say weird things.
You're like, "No, you're just a turd."
Yeah, there are a lot of men that just cannot handle any kind of rejection. Then it's got to be confusing as a man because in these movies, they're rejected and then they're like, "Oh, well, if I'm persistent, I will eventually win her affection." But it needs to be known that if a girl says no and she's not interested in you, then take that as it is.
No means no.
No means no.
Thank you for always being receptive to me and letting me be your Lloyd Dobler, and vice versa. You're my female Lloyd Dobler.
Yes.
I love you.
I love you too.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Audio production by Ken Wendt. You can connect with Ken or inquire about his audio production services at kenwendt.com. That's Ken W-E-N-D-T.com. Original artwork by Pete Whitehead. Find out more about Pete's work at petewhitehead.com. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts. Lastly, I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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