When Harry Met Sally: Deep Thoughts About RomCom Misogyny, Fake Orgasms, and the Myth of High Maintenance Women

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

Send us a text

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

On this week’s episode of Deep Thoughts, the Guy sisters revisit the iconic 1989 romcom When Harry Met Sally. Even though Meg Ryan’s Sally Albright offers a badass portrayal of a happy spinster who makes no apologies for wanting what she wants, a young Emily instead internalized the idea that being “high maintenance” was a sin that women must avoid at all costs. Though Nora Ephron's romcom does offer some important pushback against the confidently wrong pronouncements made by Billy Crystal’s Harry Burns, Crystal’s performance is so funny and charming that it’s very easy to overlook his misogyny. On the bright side, Sally provides an excellent demonstration of just how easy it is to fake an orgasm.

Throw on those headphones…because when you realize you want to spend the next hour listening to a podcast episode, you want the next hour to start as soon as possible!

Mentioned in this episode:
https://youtu.be/TuNcyWIUEf4?si=bh_bMe8hlA5eDq26
https://farragomagazine.com/article/farrago/on-the-everlasting-charm-of-when-harry-met-sally/
https://jwa.org/blog/five-most-feminist-moments-from-when-harry-met-sally
https://www.womaninrevolt.com/second-thoughts-harry-from-when-harry-met-sally/
https://www.vulture.com/2012/10/when-harry-met-sally-is-bad-for-ladies.html
https://www.movienight.ink/p/when-harry-met-sally

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.

فصل ها

1. When Harry Met Sally (00:00:00)

2. Navigating Relationships and Breakups (00:14:59)

3. Building Friendship After Heartbreak (00:18:34)

4. Discovering Love and Feminism (00:26:27)

5. Examining Gender Dynamics in Relationships (00:41:26)

6. Challenging Heteronormativity in Film (00:46:40)

7. Exploring Gender Dynamics in Cinema (00:56:36)

8. Sally's Singlehood and Gender Dynamics (01:01:23)