The Shawshank Redemption: Deep Thoughts About Friendship, Slow Storytelling, and the Role of Prisons in American Pop Culture

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

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response.

Though it's now consistently named #1 on IMDB's top 250 list of classic movies, Frank Darabont's 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption started out as a commercial flop with no pop culture cache. It's understandable why Shawshank struggled to find its audience: there's no romance or women, the storytelling is slow with anything resembling action occurring in the final 30 minutes, and nearly the entire film takes place within the walls of a prison. But just as the story takes its time to explore the psychology of Andy Dufresne, the innocent banker who refuses to let the brutality of prison break his spirit, the film itself took its time to find that audiences appreciated its message of hope, resilience, and redemption.

In this episode, Emily never once utters the phrase "shenanigans ensue" about this gorgeous film. She and Tracie unpack the cognitive dissonance of this film topping Americans' list of favorites even while our country's prison system continues to institutionalize men like Red, Brooks, and Andy and discuss the Christian allegories within the film that they may have missed, as nice Jewish girls. The sisters also discuss the rarity of watching male friendship on screen and how Andy's view of money resonated with Emily even before she became a financial writer.

I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy listening on your headphones or get busy listening on your bluetooth speaker.

Content warning: Discussion of sexual assault and physical and emotional abuse

Mentioned in this episode:

Why ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ is the best movie about investing ever made

We're having a party, please come! A Zoom happy hour, Tue, 11/18, 7:30 ET / 6:30 CT. (THERE WILL BE PRESENTS!) So get ready to pour your favorite beverage, overthink some Thanksgiving-themed pop culture, laugh, and feel a little bit smarter.

It’s free, but please register at guygirlsmedia.com/happyhour, so we can share the zoom info with you! (Also, who doesn’t like knowing who’s coming to their party?)

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. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.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.

We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!

บท

1. Introduction to Deep Thoughts About Shawshank (00:00:00)

2. The Plot and Film Background (00:08:26)

3. Dehumanization in Prison Systems (00:26:57)

4. Money and Time as Currency (00:40:19)

5. Male Friendship and Toxic Masculinity (00:43:53)

6. Cinema's Power and Finding Your Audience (00:51:10)

7. Closing Thoughts and Next Episode (00:59:21)