Ryan: Derek, could you tell remind people a little bit about yourself and then your first time being introduced to Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds?
Derrick: Yeah. so Derek Weston. I am the director of theological education for an organization called Creation Justice Ministries. We're a Christian environmental organization helping churches and Christians and denominations think about how we live in better relationship with God's creation. so that's what I do most of the most of the time.
Ryan: Ha ha ha.
Derrick: but I you know, I saw the birds like when I was young. Like I remember seeing it like as a as a kid and was like, what the hell is this?
Ryan: Ha ha.
Derrick: and then seeing it again in film school, because I'm I was a film studies major. and in a s in a class where we were watching a a bunch of films of Alfred Hitchcock. and think I had similar like what the hell what the hell is this kind of reaction to the film.
Ryan: It I mean it truly is a it's a crazy movie. Like I mean I can imagine I'm
Derrick: It's insane.
Ryan: trying to think like obviously I can't put myself back into a nineteen sixty three mindset, but just trying to put your head around this like how are they doing this with all these birds? Like like I know they have some real
Derrick: Ha ha ha.
Ryan: birds and some special effects, but I'm just like, okay, this guy might be insane. The the this Hitchcot guy, he might be insane. letting lose these birds
Derrick: Yeah. Like the
Ryan: out of chimneys and all that sh
Derrick: I mean there's a there's a there's a in the credits, there's someone in the credits who is bird trainer. And so like someone was on that set, like directing birds got
Ryan: No, no, no, no, no. It's all wrong. You you came in too early. You just did you even look at the script? What is your motivation?
Derrick: What is your motivation in this scene right now?
Ryan: What was your motivation?
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: I I will be honest with you, Derek. This was and I really hope that this isn't too shocking. This was my first time watching a Hitchcock movie. Yep.
Derrick: What?
Ryan: I've been saving Psycho for a reason. So that it's not yeah, exactly. We're gonna need to repaint those walls behind Derek because his mind is blown.
Derrick: pieces of brain all over this this booth.
Ryan: But yeah, this was my first time watching
Derrick: Wow.
Ryan: a Hitchcock movie.
Derrick: Well it it it pleases me to be your first.
Ryan: Well I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. the the w when when we were talking about this n these next round of movies we wanted to discuss, you brought up the birds pretty immediately, and I think it ties in really well with both your work that you do and the lens that you bring to these conversations that we did like with Godzilla and Jaws, that that environmental edge that these movies have, but also this is pretty overtly apocalyptic movie. And you and I are both gonna be guests at Theology Beer Camp in October. And and the whole theme of Beer Camp this year is apocalypse. So I wanted to approach the birds with an apocalyptic lens, but also an environmental lens. So we can kind of like look at like an eco apocalypse or I I don't even know if that's a real thing. But we can look at it through that lens and I'm really excited to dig into this because there were a lot of parts of this film where I was just like, yep, that's pretty spot on, and that got my brain moving. so I'm gonna read a little bit of details about the film, give a synopsis, and then we're gonna jump into talking about an an economic or an environmental apocalyptic lens to look at Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This movie was released March 28th of 1963. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on a novel that he took and adapted to the screen. It stars Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Tippy Hedron, and Veronica Cartwright. The Birds follows Melanie Daniels, a wealthy San Francisco socialite, who pursues a budding romance with lawyer Mitch Brenner, by unexpectedly following him to his coastal hometown of Bodega Bay. Shortly after her arrival, the local bird population, including gulls, crows, sparrows, and pretty much any other bird that could be could be found, they begin an unexpected, increasingly violent and highly organized mass attack on the town's residents. As the avian assault escalates into a lethal path of chaos across the town. Melanie, Mitch, and his family are barricaded inside their homes. The townspeople succumb to paranoia, and they blame Melanie's presence in the town for this bizarre phenomenon that's happening to all of them. After surviving an attack from a flock of birds in the attic of Mitch's house, Melanie leaves severely traumatized and injured. She leaves town with Mitch and his family. They leave behind this. Quiet, eerie landscape that's just completely covered in, you guessed it, a bunch of birds.
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: So, Derek, the birds is pretty famous for not explaining why this is happening. They don't give a reason. And I I think from from what I've read and from what I've heard from other film buffs, Hitchcock does that.
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: Like Hitchcock does not really feel the need to explain to you why this certain phenomenon is happening. And I think that kind of speaks to how apocalypse shows up, how the the revealing of things show up in our everyday life, whether it be a spiritual revealing, whether it be an apocalypse of a a more physical nature, these disastrous changes in things. Why does this movie feel so visceral in its ability to not explain why things are happening? And how how how do we see that show up in in real life?
Derrick: Yeah. first off, wanna just say that avian attack would be a great band name. so just just just bracket that.
Ryan: Arian attack Yes
Derrick: well just think about this this strategy of like having a thing happen that does not get explained. Like this is the walking dead, right? This is
Ryan: yeah.
Derrick: this is this happens in horror all a a a lot, and there's something actually scarier about not knowing. why something's happening. Because if we know why, then we we think we have this this this this element of control. and maybe we can maybe we can solve the puzzle. Here there's no s puzzle to be solved. We're just reacting. We're responding. And and and that means if we don't know how it started, we don't know that there's gonna be an end. I mean that's that's the thing about the end of this film is like you get this report that there are these other Bay Area cities that are beginning to experience this. They drive away with this backdrop filled with birds. And you're asking yourself, like is California about to be taken over by birds? And if it's if it's you know like if California then like is it gonna be the United States? Is the whole world going to be taken over by birds? Like the you're you're you immediately catastrophize because we don't know where this thing came from, we don't know how it started, which means we don't know how stop it. And so there's there's this element that makes that so much more frightening because we're completely out of control of this situation. and and that just feels terrifying. That just feels absolutely terrifying.
Ryan: From a from an environmental lens, I I was wondering if you could add maybe a little bit of fleshing out to the the nature aspect of this film where in the 70s and and then the 80s, like animal attack movies would become pretty in vogue, but the birds is kind of ahead of that. And and there would become this rise of like nature versus man, man versus like it would lead, you know, to Jaws, and it would lead to Cujo. Other other movies where like an animal in an for an unexplained reason goes after mankind. So how does the birds show show that and how how can that show up in nature or does that even show up in nature?
Derrick: Yeah. One of the things that I think is interesting is how the movie starts. the when we first meet the two main characters, they're in a s they're in like a department store that has a pet section and the birds are in cages. And so our first our you know, we see a we see one flock of seagulls early in the film, but like our first real encounter and sort of the the thing that motivates the the plot is birds in cages. So all of a sudden you you are starting with this piece of nature, this piece of creation that humanity is controlling, right? And then it immediately goes to the situation where humanity is out of control of what creation is doing. It starts with a gull that just kind of dive bombs out of nowhere. and how we then go from the situation where these things that we had in cages that we were completely controlling that are Cute and and docile and and maybe they fly around the department store for a little bit, but I can just throw my hat on it and it'll be fine. And like, you know. it's a good
Ryan: It was a good catch, Mitch. Good catch.
Derrick: good job, bitch. to this thing there, it's like there
Ryan: Mm.
Derrick: there is absolutely no way to stop it. There's absolutely no sense of of humans having any agency anymore. And I think that's a that's a big part of the anxiety that I think a lot of people feel around the the environmental crisis of like, have we gotten to the point where our attempts to control nature have now turned into the scenario where we don't know where the next storm, the next about of extreme heat, the next wildfire, we don't know where it's going to come from, and we don't know if we can stop it.
Ryan: nature has an ambi ambiguous intention behind it. But that does not stop the people in this movie from assigning blame super fast. Like so so and there's several different kinds of blame. Like the diner scene is one of my favorite scenes in this film. Because it is a
Derrick: Absolutely is the best.
Ryan: It's a microcosm of like what our country is now, what it was like in the sixties when this movie was being made. L like it's one of those examples of, I guess maybe we don't change that much. I guess we like i it just comes back
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: around. the the presence of Melanie being an outsider and she comes into this situation and And she's blamed for things that she could not possibly be in control of. Talk about control, Derek. Like she is completely out of control. Like what this this random like Tippi Hedron shows up and they're like, gotta be her. We don't have any reasons,
Derrick: Gotta be her. Gotta be her.
Ryan: but it's gotta be her. The the scapegoating, it reminded me of one of my my probably my favorite horror movie of all time, John Carpenter's the thing. It's all about paranoia. It's all about,
Derrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ryan: in that movie, it's the people I know. Like, which one of us that we like, they all know each other and they're blaming each
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: other. Melanie shows up to Bodega Bay and they're like, we don't know her. She's gotta be a bad guy. They ascribe a sin factor to her very immediately. When apocalypse and catastrophe show up in the real world, there. Like how how have you seen that scapegoating show up in in parallel with catastrophizing?
Derrick: I mean it's it's it's you know it's part of the immigration conversation that's happening. It's part of the like it's it's it's what happens whenever, you know, an area becomes not what people are used to, the people who are changing it are obviously the problem, right? there's no there's no thought given to did we do something or have like have we been pissing these birds off for years and they've literally just got ticked off? You know, it's like, no no no, it's it's gotta it's gotta be this it's gotta be this stranger. It's gotta be this new person. and I I think that you know whether that's a new technology, a new like political class, a new, you know, r racial or ethnic class, new gender or gender expression that like When things start to fall apart, our very human we go looking for a variable, right? The variable is the new person. And like, if we can just eliminate that variable, then the problem will be solved. But so often the the variable is the person who's most vulnerable. And like that's actually what Melanie is in the situation. She is the person who like is is literally out on this island. Now she's out on this island because of you know she's thirsty but like she but like her fault but but
Ryan: Thirsty as hell.
Derrick: but she's I mean she's literally out there with like just her car, like has to buy pajamas, like is is knows no one and and really is the most vulnerable person in this space. and they all turn on her and like and it would have been easy, you know, for everyone to just turn on like everyone just like descends on her. but we see this all we see this all the time, like that there whoever the new person is is whoever the new group, the new class, the new underclass usually is who we we begin to point the finger at and say there why we have are experiencing this thing out of nowhere.
Ryan: It it's the the othering. Like whoever is other
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: or outside, well it's gotta be them. It can't
Derrick: Calm it down.
Ryan: it can't be any structural problems here. I so w speaking of the the diner scene and kinda like the the the atmosphere where people are starting to ascribe blame and and doubt in the others around them Mrs. Bundy, the the the bird expert, she insists
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: that nature can't do this, and she ends up being dead wrong about that. so what is this what is this movie to you say about human arrogance in in in the face of unknown? You know, we we just a couple of years back we came out of a a global pandemic and a lot of armchair experts were like, well, this is why this is happening, this is why that's happening, here's how we can fix this, here's how we can fix this. in in the presence of apocalypse, of of something being disastrously revealed to us, we rush to certainty, but we couldn't possibly be certain about that. So like how how does human arrogance play into the birds?
Derrick: Well it's it's I mean, f Mrs. Bundy is is absolutely obnoxious. you know, like she she she shows up and she's and she's and
Ryan: dear, that couldn't possibly happen.
Derrick: she's she's you know rattling off the the Latin names of the birds and you're like, like here we go.
Ryan: We get it, you read a book.
Derrick: we Yeah, red on blood. Like not only that, like ornithology is my hobby, right? You know, it's like not even the thing I do full time. It's not even what I do best. so like it's
Ryan: It's not even learning most.
Derrick: So so there is there is this like I have never experienced this, therefore it can't be true.
Ryan: Ooh.
Derrick: I have never had any personal experience of this, therefore it's it's it's definitely false. And that's that's a you know, a lot of one of the things that I think gets left left out of the climate change conversation is that like the phrase we need to be using is global climate change. And so As we're recording, you know, there was this massive landslide just last week in Nepal that happened and killed hundreds of people. and they're saying, scientists are saying it happened because of melting glaciers and the water level rising, causing this water to rush in and basically destroy this this town in Nepal. For so many of Americans, we had massive heat wave. across across Europe. For so many Americans, unless we experience it ourselves, that's where the arrogance comes in. It's like, well I didn't experience it. So it's not real. Right? And like I I I know for a fact that like birds don't do this. Like, well the bird the person who actually experienced a bird attacking them is telling you this happened. And you're like, no, no, that doesn't happen. Birds don't do that. It's and and so we have to the the arrogance is thinking that Our experience and our perspective is normative and like is the baseline for reality, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: And and instead of opening ourselves up to someone else had an experience that's different than mine, someone else is suffering in a way that I I can't actually comprehend. Let me open my heart and my mind to this brand new experience. Because what the hell? What if birds are doing something on I as a a vocational ornithologist have never experienced.
Ryan: I don't always study ornithology, but when I do I prefer dos second So my gosh. I it's Just w one more question about the the diner scene. Derek, were there any other perspectives
Derrick: yeah.
Ryan: in the diner that y you saw that really landed with you? 'Cause we we have the mom with the kids,
Derrick: So
Ryan: we have the the guy spouting off Old Testament prophecy. Like did any of these like really like strike a chord with you?
Derrick: So I I first off I I love that I I'm looking at the IMDB page and I'm looking at these two characters. one is labeled as drunken doomsayer in diner, the other is labeled as hysterical mother in diner. and both of their perspectives are are like just so telling when we think about what's going on right now. Like, well, this is the end of the world. Like, and like and it's and it's it's God's will, right? Like it's not just like this is what Jesus said was gonna happen, right? Like this is this is so much of you know, there's a lot of climate deniers, but there's also like a stream of of Christian fanaticism that's like, yeah, everything's on fire, so Jesus can come back. Like, that's super not helpful, by the way. cause of you're
Ryan: You're making my job harder and I don't like it.
Derrick: making my one, you're making my job harder, and two, that says terrible things about Jesus.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Derrick: But then but then we also have like hysterical mother. Who's like, we can't talk about this thing because it might scare the kids when the the most victimized thing, the most victimized population in this whole entire movie is a is a classroom of kids. That like we can't we can't risk scaring the kids when like this is the world they're about to inherit. Which is a world that is being taken over by birds, right? I mean, let's let's let's make the correlation here, right? That like let's not talk to our kids about climate change, despite the fact that like this is the mess that they're going to have to clean up. And so thinking about like all the different like this is how humans respond when catastrophe happens, when there is a crisis. There's always people who are gonna step up and be heroic. There's always people who are gonna be looking for solutions. There's always gonna be helpers. There's always gonna be people who are like, I mean, cause it wasn't just that like that they were blaming Melanie for, you know, like bringing the birds. Like they're saying she's evil. Like it like someone actually says to her face, you're evil. Like you have some moral deficiency. And and and the film even sets this up that like at some point she had been in Rome and naked in a fountain. And so like maybe, maybe her one time like skinny dipping tryst in Europe caused birds to attack us? What?
Ryan: I'm sorry, but like in that equation, bring on the birds then. Like are we watching the same movie? Like I'm so sorry. Someone's gonna watch it be that was irreverent. I'm like, have you seen Tippy Hedron? I will be a reverent.
Derrick: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: so I to to to get more back to a salient point and not the that mess that just happened. there is there is a a a a po apocalyptic biblical lens that this that this hysterical drunk prophet he brings to this diner scene. And I think that was the one he was the guy where I was like, well, I've seen this guy before. Because like any any
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: movie about apocalyptic paranoia has a a harbinger. They have a harbinger character,
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: you know, even even in some non some non-apocalyptic outright movies, they have someone who who foretells doom happening to a group of people or to a place or to a person. And scripture also has several moments in it where it talks about future events, future judgment, and nature groaning with the acts of of of the people, whether it's a people group in a place. The idea of nature groaning, can that be ascribed
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: to the birds a as like interpreting it as, this is nature groaning against something? Like whether it's human interaction, human coercion with nature. Where does that theme kind of play out in your mind?
Derrick: Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think throughout the biblical narrative, you know, creation seems to be the the clearest indicator of what God is doing in the world. And so there's this there's this question of are the are the birds some sign that nature has just kind of reached its limit and like that humans, you know, because one of the things that is really interesting about the visuals of of this is that the birds are kind of colonizing spaces. Like they they descend on that like monkey bars and they descend on the house and they like claim space. It's a it's a colonization. And and and there's almost this sense of of nature re-colonizing a space or or maybe even decolonizing a space. and and there's there's something about feeling like what is if there's a failing here, the failing is not the birds. The birds for for for better for worse, even if it's like out of their typical behavior, birds are still doing what birds do, even if it's unusual. But the failing somewhere is is in the human The human response, the human presence is is the problematic presence. And and it's and it's never what's what's really interesting about this is that this is never a moment of self-reflection for anyone. This never becomes a moment where they go, what did we do to the birds? There's never a moment where and I think that's so often, you know, we look at the the prophetic literature, it's like so often the prophet's like, Hey, this thing's about to happen and people are like, Is it though? I don't know. Or like or k maybe it's probably not the thing you're saying it is, it's
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: probably just coincidence. there's never
Ryan: Just a coincidence.
Derrick: Yeah. It's like well, you know, like the the the one fish the one guy's like, it's probably was just the fish in my boat. Okay, cool, great. you have an explanation. but thinking about, you know, is is What does creation have to do to get our attention? Is is is sometimes a question that comes up in my work of like, what would what would creation actually need to do to get our attention? Would it come down to like sparrows flying out of your chimney and and like pecking out your neighbor's eyes? like, is it gonna come to that for for us to actually listen? to the fact that we're not necessarily living in in in a harmonious balance with the rest
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: of the created world.
Ryan: It's so maybe it's less of a question of i isn't you know, less of is nature speaking and more of is humanity listening.
Derrick: Yeah, yeah. I think that's I think that's it because what you again, what you never get in this film is any sort of reflective moments. like that dagger scene could have been a a moment where someone stood up and said, Hey, all, what has Bodega Bay's relationship with birds been like in the past?
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: Like what, you know, what habitat have we destroyed? What, you know, what what what food source have we eliminated? It's never it's never that. It's always like there's some supernatural force that's either God or this evil blonde. it's it's it's it's never about what the people of Bodega Bay did to the population of birds.
Ryan: This
Derrick: And so there there's there's never a sense of like asking the question of what is our role in this.
Ryan: So besides, you know, staying away from skinny dipping sirens, is there another are there any other like if we treat the bird the birds as an apocalyptic parable, and I think there's there's really good cause to do that, because it it it sets up so perfectly as we've you've been discussing, is there any message or like a A thing we can leave the birds with that might affect how we interact with nature during moments that we can't explain, these apocalyptic revealings, that we could just close out the the conversation with, Derek.
Derrick: I think there's a there's a real conversation to be had with how do we take care of the vulnerable in in these apocalyptic moments. Again, one of the one of the centerpieces of this film is a school filled with children who are trying to run from the school. to get away from the birds, which actually puts them in the like crosshairs of the birds. Like it's not a good strategy. Like leave just run outrun the outrun the flying things, right?
Ryan: We've got to run fast. They can fly.
Derrick: what? And and and and so there's this question of of The community kind of phrase, right? Like the community falls apart. They're blaming each other. They're not rallying around the the kids in the most vulnerable of their community. They're pointing their finger at the outsiders. They're they're using the kids kind of this bait. Like they're they're not they're not rallying around who's gonna be most vulnerable. And I think about this in our work. And again, I I go to Nepal. Or even in Gary, Indiana, where two for two weeks, Gary, Indiana, a city that is predominantly black, was without power because a lot of the Indiana grid was going to data centers, is going to data centers. Like that is an environmental justice issue. like the question is, in the midst of these apocalyptic events, what are we doing to care for the most vulnerable among us? Are we only thinking about how do I take care of myself? How do I shelter myself, my me and mine? Or are we actually looking out for there are gonna be some people who are gonna be hit by this first and hardest? And and what is our responsibility to them? there's I mean like they they failed those kids. they you know the like the the the whole of the movie is kind of adults failing kids in in some pretty substantial ways and so I as as I as I think about this sort of the the cautionary tale here is like if if the birds are inevitable. How do we care for each other? How do we take care of one another? Because like it feels right now, metaphorically speaking, it feels like the birds are inevitable. And so how do we how do we care for each other? How
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: do we how do we look out for how do we look out for the kids? How do we look out for the outsiders? How do we look out for the the those who are gonna be vulnerable of the systems that we've created?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Derrick: that feels like the pressing question for me.
Ryan: I I love that. You know, the inevitability feels like maybe a fact that we didn't emphasize enough throughout the body of the conversation of there are gonna be catastrophes that continue to happen. But maybe the more important question
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: is like, you know, yes, we we focus energy on how do we prevent the worst of things happening, but also like maybe not giving we don't give enough thought to how will we respond to this and who who Who are we going to be looking for, looking at when those moments come up? And I I have loved this conversation. Thank you for introducing me to Hitchcock. and I'm I'm excited to talk about Psycho, and North by Northwest, the rear window, vertigo,
Derrick: mm, yes. my goodness.
Ryan: trying to list all the ones I've heard about on Jeopardy.
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: But Derek, thanks man. I cannot wait to hang at the Olive Beer Camp. I hope people
Derrick: can't wait.
Ryan: Go check it out. we're out of physical tickets, sorry, but you can check out the online. the online platform is going to be just up and running. You're gonna get to see most of camp. So if you want to check that out, click the link in the episode description. You can get more information about tickets there. but yeah, until we see you in the next episode, just remember that the horrors may persist, but so can we.
Derrick: Yeah. so Derek Weston. I am the director of theological education for an organization called Creation Justice Ministries. We're a Christian environmental organization helping churches and Christians and denominations think about how we live in better relationship with God's creation. so that's what I do most of the most of the time.
Ryan: Ha ha ha.
Derrick: but I you know, I saw the birds like when I was young. Like I remember seeing it like as a as a kid and was like, what the hell is this?
Ryan: Ha ha.
Derrick: and then seeing it again in film school, because I'm I was a film studies major. and in a s in a class where we were watching a a bunch of films of Alfred Hitchcock. and think I had similar like what the hell what the hell is this kind of reaction to the film.
Ryan: It I mean it truly is a it's a crazy movie. Like I mean I can imagine I'm
Derrick: It's insane.
Ryan: trying to think like obviously I can't put myself back into a nineteen sixty three mindset, but just trying to put your head around this like how are they doing this with all these birds? Like like I know they have some real
Derrick: Ha ha ha.
Ryan: birds and some special effects, but I'm just like, okay, this guy might be insane. The the this Hitchcot guy, he might be insane. letting lose these birds
Derrick: Yeah. Like the
Ryan: out of chimneys and all that sh
Derrick: I mean there's a there's a there's a in the credits, there's someone in the credits who is bird trainer. And so like someone was on that set, like directing birds got
Ryan: No, no, no, no, no. It's all wrong. You you came in too early. You just did you even look at the script? What is your motivation?
Derrick: What is your motivation in this scene right now?
Ryan: What was your motivation?
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: I I will be honest with you, Derek. This was and I really hope that this isn't too shocking. This was my first time watching a Hitchcock movie. Yep.
Derrick: What?
Ryan: I've been saving Psycho for a reason. So that it's not yeah, exactly. We're gonna need to repaint those walls behind Derek because his mind is blown.
Derrick: pieces of brain all over this this booth.
Ryan: But yeah, this was my first time watching
Derrick: Wow.
Ryan: a Hitchcock movie.
Derrick: Well it it it pleases me to be your first.
Ryan: Well I'll never forget it. I'll never forget it. the the w when when we were talking about this n these next round of movies we wanted to discuss, you brought up the birds pretty immediately, and I think it ties in really well with both your work that you do and the lens that you bring to these conversations that we did like with Godzilla and Jaws, that that environmental edge that these movies have, but also this is pretty overtly apocalyptic movie. And you and I are both gonna be guests at Theology Beer Camp in October. And and the whole theme of Beer Camp this year is apocalypse. So I wanted to approach the birds with an apocalyptic lens, but also an environmental lens. So we can kind of like look at like an eco apocalypse or I I don't even know if that's a real thing. But we can look at it through that lens and I'm really excited to dig into this because there were a lot of parts of this film where I was just like, yep, that's pretty spot on, and that got my brain moving. so I'm gonna read a little bit of details about the film, give a synopsis, and then we're gonna jump into talking about an an economic or an environmental apocalyptic lens to look at Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. This movie was released March 28th of 1963. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on a novel that he took and adapted to the screen. It stars Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Tippy Hedron, and Veronica Cartwright. The Birds follows Melanie Daniels, a wealthy San Francisco socialite, who pursues a budding romance with lawyer Mitch Brenner, by unexpectedly following him to his coastal hometown of Bodega Bay. Shortly after her arrival, the local bird population, including gulls, crows, sparrows, and pretty much any other bird that could be could be found, they begin an unexpected, increasingly violent and highly organized mass attack on the town's residents. As the avian assault escalates into a lethal path of chaos across the town. Melanie, Mitch, and his family are barricaded inside their homes. The townspeople succumb to paranoia, and they blame Melanie's presence in the town for this bizarre phenomenon that's happening to all of them. After surviving an attack from a flock of birds in the attic of Mitch's house, Melanie leaves severely traumatized and injured. She leaves town with Mitch and his family. They leave behind this. Quiet, eerie landscape that's just completely covered in, you guessed it, a bunch of birds.
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: So, Derek, the birds is pretty famous for not explaining why this is happening. They don't give a reason. And I I think from from what I've read and from what I've heard from other film buffs, Hitchcock does that.
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: Like Hitchcock does not really feel the need to explain to you why this certain phenomenon is happening. And I think that kind of speaks to how apocalypse shows up, how the the revealing of things show up in our everyday life, whether it be a spiritual revealing, whether it be an apocalypse of a a more physical nature, these disastrous changes in things. Why does this movie feel so visceral in its ability to not explain why things are happening? And how how how do we see that show up in in real life?
Derrick: Yeah. first off, wanna just say that avian attack would be a great band name. so just just just bracket that.
Ryan: Arian attack Yes
Derrick: well just think about this this strategy of like having a thing happen that does not get explained. Like this is the walking dead, right? This is
Ryan: yeah.
Derrick: this is this happens in horror all a a a lot, and there's something actually scarier about not knowing. why something's happening. Because if we know why, then we we think we have this this this this element of control. and maybe we can maybe we can solve the puzzle. Here there's no s puzzle to be solved. We're just reacting. We're responding. And and and that means if we don't know how it started, we don't know that there's gonna be an end. I mean that's that's the thing about the end of this film is like you get this report that there are these other Bay Area cities that are beginning to experience this. They drive away with this backdrop filled with birds. And you're asking yourself, like is California about to be taken over by birds? And if it's if it's you know like if California then like is it gonna be the United States? Is the whole world going to be taken over by birds? Like the you're you're you immediately catastrophize because we don't know where this thing came from, we don't know how it started, which means we don't know how stop it. And so there's there's this element that makes that so much more frightening because we're completely out of control of this situation. and and that just feels terrifying. That just feels absolutely terrifying.
Ryan: From a from an environmental lens, I I was wondering if you could add maybe a little bit of fleshing out to the the nature aspect of this film where in the 70s and and then the 80s, like animal attack movies would become pretty in vogue, but the birds is kind of ahead of that. And and there would become this rise of like nature versus man, man versus like it would lead, you know, to Jaws, and it would lead to Cujo. Other other movies where like an animal in an for an unexplained reason goes after mankind. So how does the birds show show that and how how can that show up in nature or does that even show up in nature?
Derrick: Yeah. One of the things that I think is interesting is how the movie starts. the when we first meet the two main characters, they're in a s they're in like a department store that has a pet section and the birds are in cages. And so our first our you know, we see a we see one flock of seagulls early in the film, but like our first real encounter and sort of the the thing that motivates the the plot is birds in cages. So all of a sudden you you are starting with this piece of nature, this piece of creation that humanity is controlling, right? And then it immediately goes to the situation where humanity is out of control of what creation is doing. It starts with a gull that just kind of dive bombs out of nowhere. and how we then go from the situation where these things that we had in cages that we were completely controlling that are Cute and and docile and and maybe they fly around the department store for a little bit, but I can just throw my hat on it and it'll be fine. And like, you know. it's a good
Ryan: It was a good catch, Mitch. Good catch.
Derrick: good job, bitch. to this thing there, it's like there
Ryan: Mm.
Derrick: there is absolutely no way to stop it. There's absolutely no sense of of humans having any agency anymore. And I think that's a that's a big part of the anxiety that I think a lot of people feel around the the environmental crisis of like, have we gotten to the point where our attempts to control nature have now turned into the scenario where we don't know where the next storm, the next about of extreme heat, the next wildfire, we don't know where it's going to come from, and we don't know if we can stop it.
Ryan: nature has an ambi ambiguous intention behind it. But that does not stop the people in this movie from assigning blame super fast. Like so so and there's several different kinds of blame. Like the diner scene is one of my favorite scenes in this film. Because it is a
Derrick: Absolutely is the best.
Ryan: It's a microcosm of like what our country is now, what it was like in the sixties when this movie was being made. L like it's one of those examples of, I guess maybe we don't change that much. I guess we like i it just comes back
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: around. the the presence of Melanie being an outsider and she comes into this situation and And she's blamed for things that she could not possibly be in control of. Talk about control, Derek. Like she is completely out of control. Like what this this random like Tippi Hedron shows up and they're like, gotta be her. We don't have any reasons,
Derrick: Gotta be her. Gotta be her.
Ryan: but it's gotta be her. The the scapegoating, it reminded me of one of my my probably my favorite horror movie of all time, John Carpenter's the thing. It's all about paranoia. It's all about,
Derrick: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Ryan: in that movie, it's the people I know. Like, which one of us that we like, they all know each other and they're blaming each
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: other. Melanie shows up to Bodega Bay and they're like, we don't know her. She's gotta be a bad guy. They ascribe a sin factor to her very immediately. When apocalypse and catastrophe show up in the real world, there. Like how how have you seen that scapegoating show up in in parallel with catastrophizing?
Derrick: I mean it's it's it's you know it's part of the immigration conversation that's happening. It's part of the like it's it's it's what happens whenever, you know, an area becomes not what people are used to, the people who are changing it are obviously the problem, right? there's no there's no thought given to did we do something or have like have we been pissing these birds off for years and they've literally just got ticked off? You know, it's like, no no no, it's it's gotta it's gotta be this it's gotta be this stranger. It's gotta be this new person. and I I think that you know whether that's a new technology, a new like political class, a new, you know, r racial or ethnic class, new gender or gender expression that like When things start to fall apart, our very human we go looking for a variable, right? The variable is the new person. And like, if we can just eliminate that variable, then the problem will be solved. But so often the the variable is the person who's most vulnerable. And like that's actually what Melanie is in the situation. She is the person who like is is literally out on this island. Now she's out on this island because of you know she's thirsty but like she but like her fault but but
Ryan: Thirsty as hell.
Derrick: but she's I mean she's literally out there with like just her car, like has to buy pajamas, like is is knows no one and and really is the most vulnerable person in this space. and they all turn on her and like and it would have been easy, you know, for everyone to just turn on like everyone just like descends on her. but we see this all we see this all the time, like that there whoever the new person is is whoever the new group, the new class, the new underclass usually is who we we begin to point the finger at and say there why we have are experiencing this thing out of nowhere.
Ryan: It it's the the othering. Like whoever is other
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: or outside, well it's gotta be them. It can't
Derrick: Calm it down.
Ryan: it can't be any structural problems here. I so w speaking of the the diner scene and kinda like the the the atmosphere where people are starting to ascribe blame and and doubt in the others around them Mrs. Bundy, the the the bird expert, she insists
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: that nature can't do this, and she ends up being dead wrong about that. so what is this what is this movie to you say about human arrogance in in in the face of unknown? You know, we we just a couple of years back we came out of a a global pandemic and a lot of armchair experts were like, well, this is why this is happening, this is why that's happening, here's how we can fix this, here's how we can fix this. in in the presence of apocalypse, of of something being disastrously revealed to us, we rush to certainty, but we couldn't possibly be certain about that. So like how how does human arrogance play into the birds?
Derrick: Well it's it's I mean, f Mrs. Bundy is is absolutely obnoxious. you know, like she she she shows up and she's and she's and
Ryan: dear, that couldn't possibly happen.
Derrick: she's she's you know rattling off the the Latin names of the birds and you're like, like here we go.
Ryan: We get it, you read a book.
Derrick: we Yeah, red on blood. Like not only that, like ornithology is my hobby, right? You know, it's like not even the thing I do full time. It's not even what I do best. so like it's
Ryan: It's not even learning most.
Derrick: So so there is there is this like I have never experienced this, therefore it can't be true.
Ryan: Ooh.
Derrick: I have never had any personal experience of this, therefore it's it's it's definitely false. And that's that's a you know, a lot of one of the things that I think gets left left out of the climate change conversation is that like the phrase we need to be using is global climate change. And so As we're recording, you know, there was this massive landslide just last week in Nepal that happened and killed hundreds of people. and they're saying, scientists are saying it happened because of melting glaciers and the water level rising, causing this water to rush in and basically destroy this this town in Nepal. For so many of Americans, we had massive heat wave. across across Europe. For so many Americans, unless we experience it ourselves, that's where the arrogance comes in. It's like, well I didn't experience it. So it's not real. Right? And like I I I know for a fact that like birds don't do this. Like, well the bird the person who actually experienced a bird attacking them is telling you this happened. And you're like, no, no, that doesn't happen. Birds don't do that. It's and and so we have to the the arrogance is thinking that Our experience and our perspective is normative and like is the baseline for reality, right?
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: And and instead of opening ourselves up to someone else had an experience that's different than mine, someone else is suffering in a way that I I can't actually comprehend. Let me open my heart and my mind to this brand new experience. Because what the hell? What if birds are doing something on I as a a vocational ornithologist have never experienced.
Ryan: I don't always study ornithology, but when I do I prefer dos second So my gosh. I it's Just w one more question about the the diner scene. Derek, were there any other perspectives
Derrick: yeah.
Ryan: in the diner that y you saw that really landed with you? 'Cause we we have the mom with the kids,
Derrick: So
Ryan: we have the the guy spouting off Old Testament prophecy. Like did any of these like really like strike a chord with you?
Derrick: So I I first off I I love that I I'm looking at the IMDB page and I'm looking at these two characters. one is labeled as drunken doomsayer in diner, the other is labeled as hysterical mother in diner. and both of their perspectives are are like just so telling when we think about what's going on right now. Like, well, this is the end of the world. Like, and like and it's and it's it's God's will, right? Like it's not just like this is what Jesus said was gonna happen, right? Like this is this is so much of you know, there's a lot of climate deniers, but there's also like a stream of of Christian fanaticism that's like, yeah, everything's on fire, so Jesus can come back. Like, that's super not helpful, by the way. cause of you're
Ryan: You're making my job harder and I don't like it.
Derrick: making my one, you're making my job harder, and two, that says terrible things about Jesus.
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Derrick: But then but then we also have like hysterical mother. Who's like, we can't talk about this thing because it might scare the kids when the the most victimized thing, the most victimized population in this whole entire movie is a is a classroom of kids. That like we can't we can't risk scaring the kids when like this is the world they're about to inherit. Which is a world that is being taken over by birds, right? I mean, let's let's let's make the correlation here, right? That like let's not talk to our kids about climate change, despite the fact that like this is the mess that they're going to have to clean up. And so thinking about like all the different like this is how humans respond when catastrophe happens, when there is a crisis. There's always people who are gonna step up and be heroic. There's always people who are gonna be looking for solutions. There's always gonna be helpers. There's always gonna be people who are like, I mean, cause it wasn't just that like that they were blaming Melanie for, you know, like bringing the birds. Like they're saying she's evil. Like it like someone actually says to her face, you're evil. Like you have some moral deficiency. And and and the film even sets this up that like at some point she had been in Rome and naked in a fountain. And so like maybe, maybe her one time like skinny dipping tryst in Europe caused birds to attack us? What?
Ryan: I'm sorry, but like in that equation, bring on the birds then. Like are we watching the same movie? Like I'm so sorry. Someone's gonna watch it be that was irreverent. I'm like, have you seen Tippy Hedron? I will be a reverent.
Derrick: Yeah, yeah.
Ryan: so I to to to get more back to a salient point and not the that mess that just happened. there is there is a a a a po apocalyptic biblical lens that this that this hysterical drunk prophet he brings to this diner scene. And I think that was the one he was the guy where I was like, well, I've seen this guy before. Because like any any
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: movie about apocalyptic paranoia has a a harbinger. They have a harbinger character,
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: you know, even even in some non some non-apocalyptic outright movies, they have someone who who foretells doom happening to a group of people or to a place or to a person. And scripture also has several moments in it where it talks about future events, future judgment, and nature groaning with the acts of of of the people, whether it's a people group in a place. The idea of nature groaning, can that be ascribed
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: to the birds a as like interpreting it as, this is nature groaning against something? Like whether it's human interaction, human coercion with nature. Where does that theme kind of play out in your mind?
Derrick: Yeah, I think it's a great question. I think throughout the biblical narrative, you know, creation seems to be the the clearest indicator of what God is doing in the world. And so there's this there's this question of are the are the birds some sign that nature has just kind of reached its limit and like that humans, you know, because one of the things that is really interesting about the visuals of of this is that the birds are kind of colonizing spaces. Like they they descend on that like monkey bars and they descend on the house and they like claim space. It's a it's a colonization. And and and there's almost this sense of of nature re-colonizing a space or or maybe even decolonizing a space. and and there's there's something about feeling like what is if there's a failing here, the failing is not the birds. The birds for for for better for worse, even if it's like out of their typical behavior, birds are still doing what birds do, even if it's unusual. But the failing somewhere is is in the human The human response, the human presence is is the problematic presence. And and it's and it's never what's what's really interesting about this is that this is never a moment of self-reflection for anyone. This never becomes a moment where they go, what did we do to the birds? There's never a moment where and I think that's so often, you know, we look at the the prophetic literature, it's like so often the prophet's like, Hey, this thing's about to happen and people are like, Is it though? I don't know. Or like or k maybe it's probably not the thing you're saying it is, it's
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: probably just coincidence. there's never
Ryan: Just a coincidence.
Derrick: Yeah. It's like well, you know, like the the the one fish the one guy's like, it's probably was just the fish in my boat. Okay, cool, great. you have an explanation. but thinking about, you know, is is What does creation have to do to get our attention? Is is is sometimes a question that comes up in my work of like, what would what would creation actually need to do to get our attention? Would it come down to like sparrows flying out of your chimney and and like pecking out your neighbor's eyes? like, is it gonna come to that for for us to actually listen? to the fact that we're not necessarily living in in in a harmonious balance with the rest
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: of the created world.
Ryan: It's so maybe it's less of a question of i isn't you know, less of is nature speaking and more of is humanity listening.
Derrick: Yeah, yeah. I think that's I think that's it because what you again, what you never get in this film is any sort of reflective moments. like that dagger scene could have been a a moment where someone stood up and said, Hey, all, what has Bodega Bay's relationship with birds been like in the past?
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: Like what, you know, what habitat have we destroyed? What, you know, what what what food source have we eliminated? It's never it's never that. It's always like there's some supernatural force that's either God or this evil blonde. it's it's it's it's never about what the people of Bodega Bay did to the population of birds.
Ryan: This
Derrick: And so there there's there's never a sense of like asking the question of what is our role in this.
Ryan: So besides, you know, staying away from skinny dipping sirens, is there another are there any other like if we treat the bird the birds as an apocalyptic parable, and I think there's there's really good cause to do that, because it it it sets up so perfectly as we've you've been discussing, is there any message or like a A thing we can leave the birds with that might affect how we interact with nature during moments that we can't explain, these apocalyptic revealings, that we could just close out the the conversation with, Derek.
Derrick: I think there's a there's a real conversation to be had with how do we take care of the vulnerable in in these apocalyptic moments. Again, one of the one of the centerpieces of this film is a school filled with children who are trying to run from the school. to get away from the birds, which actually puts them in the like crosshairs of the birds. Like it's not a good strategy. Like leave just run outrun the outrun the flying things, right?
Ryan: We've got to run fast. They can fly.
Derrick: what? And and and and so there's this question of of The community kind of phrase, right? Like the community falls apart. They're blaming each other. They're not rallying around the the kids in the most vulnerable of their community. They're pointing their finger at the outsiders. They're they're using the kids kind of this bait. Like they're they're not they're not rallying around who's gonna be most vulnerable. And I think about this in our work. And again, I I go to Nepal. Or even in Gary, Indiana, where two for two weeks, Gary, Indiana, a city that is predominantly black, was without power because a lot of the Indiana grid was going to data centers, is going to data centers. Like that is an environmental justice issue. like the question is, in the midst of these apocalyptic events, what are we doing to care for the most vulnerable among us? Are we only thinking about how do I take care of myself? How do I shelter myself, my me and mine? Or are we actually looking out for there are gonna be some people who are gonna be hit by this first and hardest? And and what is our responsibility to them? there's I mean like they they failed those kids. they you know the like the the the whole of the movie is kind of adults failing kids in in some pretty substantial ways and so I as as I as I think about this sort of the the cautionary tale here is like if if the birds are inevitable. How do we care for each other? How do we take care of one another? Because like it feels right now, metaphorically speaking, it feels like the birds are inevitable. And so how do we how do we care for each other? How
Ryan: Yeah.
Derrick: do we how do we look out for how do we look out for the kids? How do we look out for the outsiders? How do we look out for the the those who are gonna be vulnerable of the systems that we've created?
Ryan: Yeah, yeah.
Derrick: that feels like the pressing question for me.
Ryan: I I love that. You know, the inevitability feels like maybe a fact that we didn't emphasize enough throughout the body of the conversation of there are gonna be catastrophes that continue to happen. But maybe the more important question
Derrick: Yeah.
Ryan: is like, you know, yes, we we focus energy on how do we prevent the worst of things happening, but also like maybe not giving we don't give enough thought to how will we respond to this and who who Who are we going to be looking for, looking at when those moments come up? And I I have loved this conversation. Thank you for introducing me to Hitchcock. and I'm I'm excited to talk about Psycho, and North by Northwest, the rear window, vertigo,
Derrick: mm, yes. my goodness.
Ryan: trying to list all the ones I've heard about on Jeopardy.
Derrick: Mm-hmm.
Ryan: But Derek, thanks man. I cannot wait to hang at the Olive Beer Camp. I hope people
Derrick: can't wait.
Ryan: Go check it out. we're out of physical tickets, sorry, but you can check out the online. the online platform is going to be just up and running. You're gonna get to see most of camp. So if you want to check that out, click the link in the episode description. You can get more information about tickets there. but yeah, until we see you in the next episode, just remember that the horrors may persist, but so can we.
