Welcome to the Calm Down. My guests this week are the women of feminist folklore, our partner podcast at Skylark Media.

From the Brothers Grimm to modern urban legends, each week Carly Hall-Gensen and Rachel Marr consider what these stories can tell us about women's roles in different cultures and how they express society's beliefs about gender and sexuality.

Today we'll be discussing different interpretations of the hook man tale, as well as the true crime stories of lovers' lane,

while we dissect the phenomenon of the teenage urban legend, our very own oral tradition. We've already covered the panic. Now, here's the Calm Down.

Alright, I am here with Rachel Marr and Carly Hall-Gensen from Skylark Media's other podcast on the same network as American Astaria and that is Feminist Folklore. Hello to you both.

Hi. Oh hey there. I'm so excited that you both came on. I'm a huge fan of feminist folklore and I think there's so much that our shows do, even though your show is a talk-based conversational show in mind is a scripted show.

We still cover the same kind of cultural criticism, cultural studies, types of things that folklore and things like urban legends both represent.

So I think today we're just going to be talking about kind of a little bit of the women's perspective of some of these stories, especially the hook, urban legends in general, and just the stories that teens tell.

So, thanks for having us.

Yeah, we love contemporary legends. Those are like our favorite. Carly and I just love telling us. So thanks for having us on.

Well, I feel like you're going to lend a certain expertise that I'm very excited about. And we were just talking before we started the actual recording here that my introduction to urban legends, especially the hook and things like the babysitter, the man upstairs and the killer in the back seat came from scary stories to tell in the dark, which is that fantastic series of books that came out when we were kids.

And you all are in your early 30s, right? Yep. And I'm 30. So we're coming at this from a pretty similar frame of reference. So you both read scary stories to tell the dark growing up, is that true?

Absolutely.

Yep.

Favorite book, terrifying, terrifying illustrations. I still dream about those. They are so scary.

And in that vein, we talk about in the episode, the hook, that's the main legend that we talk about as a cautionary tale to young women who may engage in some necking slash underage, you know, unmarried sex on a lover's lane in the 1950s.

You all have prepared some different versions of the hook. I'm not sure how you want to present that. But we kind of wanted to look at some of the other ideas behind the hook, aside from it just being this straight up cautionary tale don't have sex, but about the symbology of the hook itself and some of the nitty gritty points. So, so why don't you take it away, you guys?

Yeah, I mean, I love the versions and actually the one that I've heard is the most gross one, which I didn't realize that it was the most gross one. Like I didn't know that there was one where she escaped.

And I actually, so there's other, you know, there's a million versions, but some of the ones that we pulled together is the one where the woman in the car.

Oh, maybe I should back up just so that I give full sense of what the hook man is. Basically, it's there's an escaped guy that from nearby institution who is out on the prowl and these two teenagers necking in a car.

He he happens upon them, but it's told from the couple's perspective and usually, you know, the hook man reveals himself in some ways.

Another version is that the woman, the guy finds a flat tire, the boyfriend, and so he goes out to get help. And then the woman here's a dripping on the car. And then she opens doors, she looks up and hit her boyfriend is in a tree and the blood is dropping dripping on the car.

...