Decoder Ring: ‘You’ve Got Mail’ Got It Wrong

Slow Burn

Slate Podcasts

News, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, Politics

4.6 • 25.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 December 2022

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

(This episode originally aired in March 2020.) The 1998 romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, is about the brutal fight between a beloved indie bookstore, the Shop Around the Corner, and Fox Books, an obvious Barnes & Noble stand-in. On this episode of Decoder Ring we revisit the real-life conflict that inspired the movie and displaced independent booksellers on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. This conflict illustrates how, for a brief time, Barnes & Noble was a symbol of predatory capitalism, only to be usurped by the uniting force at the heart of the film: the internet. Some of the voices in this episode include Delia Ephron, the co-screenwriter of You’ve Got Mail, the illustrator Brian Selznick, Laura J. Miller, author of Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, Joel Fram, founder of Eeyore’s Books for Children, and Boris Kachka, book editor for the Los Angeles Times. This podcast was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Benjamin Frisch and Cleo Levin was research assistant. Thanks to Steve Geck, Maris Kreizman, Emma Straub, Jacob Bernstein, Gary Hoover, Peter Glassman and June Thomas. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Slate’s Executive Producer of Narrative Podcasts. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you haven’t please yet, subscribe and rate our feed in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends. If you’re a fan of the show and want to support us, consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get to listen to Decoder Ring without any ads. Their support is also crucial to our work. So please go to Slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Sponsored by Saks.com. Check out the Holiday Gift Guide on saks.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, so we've been making decoderings since April of 2018.
0:06.0	That feels like a while to me.
0:08.0	And during that time, we have made more than 60 episodes of the show.
0:12.6	So today, what we're going to do is pull one of those old episodes out, brush it off,
0:18.4	and re-air it for you.
0:19.5	It's an oldie, but a goodie called The Shop Around the Corner.
0:24.1	And it's about a beloved movie, a beloved neighborhood, and some bookstores.
0:29.4	And a beloved, and otherwise.
0:31.6	Please enjoy and we'll see you next week.
0:40.4	There are some movies that I'll always watch.
0:43.1	No matter how many times I've seen them before, no matter if I come across them when they're
0:46.9	already halfway over, to be honest, most of these movies are romantic comedies.
0:52.7	And one of them is you've got now.
0:54.7	Don't you love New York in the fall?
0:58.6	Makes me want to buy school supplies.
1:00.6	I'm almost ready.
1:02.7	I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.
1:07.6	On the other hand, this is not knowing as it's charms.
1:12.6	You've got mail was directed by Nora Efron and is lovingly set on Manhattan's Upper
1:16.2	West Side.
1:17.2	It stars Tom Hanks, who you just heard as Joe Fox, and Meg Ryan as Kathleen Kelly.
1:23.2	Professionally, Joe and Kathleen are enemies.
	...

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