Paid in Puke Podcast: S10E1: Abortionpalooza 2024

It’s our Season TEN premiere AND our ONE HUNDREDTH EPISODE! Thank you to all of our listeners! We are thrilled to be back with our third Abortionpalooza, but much less stoked about the fact that thanks to the overturning of Roe V. Wade, uterus-owning Americans currently have less bodily autonomy than they did in Nineteen Hundred and Seventy Three. 

We kick things off with a brief history of abortion depiction on television and examine season 3, episode 5 of the teen cop drama, 21 Jump Street“Whose Choice is it Anyway?”. It originally aired on December 11th 1988 on the Fox network. It stars Holly Robinson-Peete, Stacey Edwards, and Dana Ashbrook (Twin Peaks). The teleplay by Michelle Ashford (Masters of SexCat Person), is surprisingly progressive and they even go so far as to make an anti-choice terrorist the villain. 

Then we tool around with Lily Tomlin and Julia Garner in 2015’s “Grandma”, directed by Paul Weitz (American PieAbout a Boy), and co-written by Tomlin, who put a lot of her own voice in it. Garner plays a high school girl who asks her free-wheeling grandmother (Tomlin) to help her scrounge up enough money to make it to an abortion appointment by 5 pm. Judy Greer, Marsha Gay Harden, Laverne Cox, and John Cho round out a fun supporting cast. 

We touch on themes such as who *needs* to be involved in deciding what to do about a pregnancy (*spoiler alert* it’s pretty much just the person carrying the fetus), where should kids get information about pregnancy and birth control, and why women should be valued for more than just their fertility. 

On the Lunchtime Poll, we reveal some information we wish we had never received.

Listen to the episode!

Paid in Puke S6E9: Dirty Dancing

On today’s episode, we’re carrying a watermelon for Emile Ardolino’s 1987 romantic drama, “Dirty Dancing”, starring Jennifer Grey, Cynthia Rhodes, and Jane Brucker. It’s a slumber party classic for women of a certain age. We reminisce about how much of the plot we understood when it first came out, Johnny’s chaotic energy, and the short-shrifting of Lisa Houseman. 

On the Lunchtime Poll, we discuss memorable moments from our youth that resulted in our radicalization. 

Paid in Puke S6E3: Abortionpalooza 2021

On today’s episode, we’re discussing the tragic state of underage abortion rights in the United States through thematically similar, but tonally opposite films: Eliza Hitman’s 2020 drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always starring Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder; and Rachel Lee Goldenberg’s 2020 comedy, Unpregnant, starring Haley Lu Richardson and Barbie Ferriera. 

There are some Hot Probs, but these films are both great in their own right and feature some really incredible debut performances.

Despite the heavy subject matter, we manage to keep it light on the Two Lunchtime Polls for the Price of One! 

Paid in Puke is available on all major podcast platforms or you can download this episode directly by clicking here!

Paid in Puke S1E5: Abortionpalooza 2019!

abortionpalooza 2019 episode image

In this episode we compare and contrast Alexander Payne’s 1996(!) debut, Citizen Ruth (starring the magnetic Laura Dern) with Gillian Robespierre’s 2009 debut, Obvious Child (starring our dream BFF, Jenny Slate). Both are about abortion. Who gets it right? Who gets it wrong?

Also, we rant about our pregnancy trope pet peeves and discuss how far into a relationship one waits before they fart in front of their paramour.

PS: We have since learned that Gillian Robespierre pronounces her first name with a hard G. Our apologies for the (repeated) error.