Secretary (2002) w. Anna Fitzpatrick
You Are Good
Alex Steed
4.8 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 10 November 2022
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What exactly is a paralegal? Join us and our pal Anna Fitzpatrick while we get sweaty with the superior Gyllenhaal and James Spader.
You can find Anna online here!
You can find Anna's novel Good Girl here.
You can find Carolyn's song Break of Day here.
You Are Good is a feelings podcast about movies.
You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Patreon and Apple Plus. Patreon and Apple Plus supporters will get access to a longer version of this episode!
Our very limited run of Vulnerability Kink merch can be found here:
https://www.bonfire.com/vulnerability-kink-34you-are-good34-shirts/
Multitude handles our ad sales!
We made a playlist of songs inspired by this episode!
The Music of You Are Good, Vol. 1 is here.
You can find producer and music director Carolyn Kendrick's music here. She's also on Twitter.
Chase Potter edited this episode!
Fresh Lesh produces the beats for our episodes.
Liz Climo designed our logo!
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello you, welcome to You Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies today we are talking about |
| 0:14.6 | Secretary with author Anna Fitzpatrick. |
| 0:18.4 | I'm one of your hosts Alex Steed will soon be joined by my marvelous co-host Sarah |
| 0:23.8 | Marshall. |
| 0:24.8 | If you're not familiar with Secretary and I'm reading straight from Wikipedia, please |
| 0:29.1 | don't hold it against me, but let's be concise here. |
| 0:32.2 | Secretary is a 2002 American erotic black comedy romantic drama film directed by Steven |
| 0:38.8 | Schaenberg and written by Aaron Crassita Wilson. |
| 0:42.5 | It's based on the short story Secretary by Mary Gateskill. |
| 0:46.6 | We talk a lot about this short story and about Mary Gateskill's response to the movie |
| 0:51.9 | secretary in this very conversation. |
| 0:55.4 | Mary stars Maggie Gyllenhaal and James Spader explores the intense relationship between |
| 1:01.2 | a dominant lawyer and his submissive secretary who indulge in various types of BDSM activity |
| 1:06.6 | such as erotic spanking and pet play. |
| 1:10.2 | We talk about that a lot in this episode, so just know that that is coming. |
| 1:15.9 | We talk about things like self harm of these are various content warnings. |
| 1:20.3 | This is a heavy episode, but it's a romp still as we do. |
| 1:25.4 | And we talk about the dangers of taking movies as manuals of how to be out in the world. |
| 1:33.6 | And that theme is touched upon a lot in and is upcoming book Good Girl, which I've seen |
| 1:39.9 | described as a secretary meets flea bag. |
| 1:43.8 | So she was the perfect, the perfect person to have on to discuss this, discuss the themes, |
| 1:50.6 | discuss coming of age after seeing this movie. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Alex Steed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Alex Steed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.