Weiner Dog (2016)

Directed by Todd Solondz

SPOILERS IN THIS EPISODE!

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“Horror films are our collective nightmares.”

SPOILERS FOR:

Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz 1995)

Happiness (Solondz 1998)

 

FILMS MENTIONED WITHOUT SPOILERS:

Me and You and Everything You Know (July 2005)

Martyrs (Laugier 2008)

Proxy (Parker 2013)

Rememory (Palansky 2017)

Hereditary (Aster 2018)

Ghostland! (Laugier 2018)

SPOILERS BELOW

TOPIC INDEX – Wiener-Dog (Solondz 2016) –

1:26 – Laura’s choice

4:18 – Connection to Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz 1995)

6:00 – Discussion of the film begins

8:48 – Dawn Wiener played by Greta Gerwig

11:35 – The film’s title

13:54 – First sociological connection; U.S. values, social context, and life choices.

14:43 – Weiner dog’s agency

16:35 – Meta leash stomping

19:25 – Cancer full circle

21:37 – A darker read

23:54 – Character Continuum

28:20 – Loneliness

29:49 – A new Wiener Dog theory emerges

30:47 – Intermission

34:18 – Film Students

37:26 – Guess Laura’s nickname for Marshall. Tweet at us! We’ll send you a super cool, unique, prize if you get it right!

38:00 – Schmerz

39:53 – Wiener dog and the meaning of life.

42:19 – Wiener-dog lives on

43:33 – Fantasy and film students

44:34 – Meta commentary on film school by Solondz?

45:37 – Todd Solondz, filmmaking, and “What if, then what?”

48:46 – Gender and Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz 1995)?

50:56 – Absence of sexuality

55:47 – Structure, culture, and individual experiences of joy in Wiener-Dog (Solondz 2016)

58:48 – Individual, dyad, tryad, group

59:55 – An apology and some sociology (Goffman’s master status as well as Simmel on shift from dyad to tryad and intersubjectivity vs folie a deux)

1:05:07 – Ritzer’s McDonaldization and Disney (see also Eco and Baudrillard for sociological commentary on  Disney theme parks)

1:11:55 – Does Wiener-dog meet its own standards?

1:15:31 – Drugs, joy, and death

1:18:43 – Overall evaluation of the film

1:19:05 – Same universe as Welcome to the Dollhouse (Solondz 1995)

1:22:25 – Miranda July

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