Every Note I Had While Rewatching The Incredible Shrinking Woman

Spoiler Alert: The Galaxy Glue jingle is still a banger. Plus, a Pat Kramer/Harry Styles connection that is *extremely* on brand.

Hi hi hello.

Welcome to the week that time forgot. Nobody knows what day or time it is—and most of us don’t care. I figured this was a perfect moment to time travel back to 1981 and one of the most beloved movies from my childhood: The Incredible Shrinking Woman.

Programming Note: The regular Friday-style newsletter will be coming at you later this weekend as we inch toward the New Year. Because…

But back to the ‘80s…

I’m pretty sure I knew this movie was vaguely trippy and weird even as a kid and I think that’s one of the reasons I loved it so much. I certainly have no idea how many times I’ve watched it over the years. Just that it’s A LOT. It had been a minute though, so I was happy to dive back into the saga of Pat Kramer and the plight of the American housewife in a consumer-obsessed society. Well, sort of. Not that you need to worry about getting tooooooo deep into the satirical elements if you don’t want to. (You can rent TISW on Amazon for like $4.50 or any of the other platforms that have rentals like Apple, Vudu, and YouTube.)

I’m always trying to let the people know when the universe chooses to provide.

Needless to say, it was v. important to many a member of Gen X and is yet another of the reasons that we are freaks in our own very specific way. Don’t worry, we’ll get to the garbage disposal scene that haunts us all forevermore.

We’ll get to my stream of consciousness notes while doing this rewatch in a second, but here’s the general deal with the movie. As I said, it came out in 1981 starring Lily Tomlin (in multiple roles), Charles Grodin, Ned Beatty, and a man in an ape suit, among others. It’s actually Joel Schumacher’s feature directorial debut before he becomes a BFD later in the ‘80s and beyond.

The movie parodies (ish) a 1957 film called The Incredible Shrinking Man, which I have not seen but seemingly leans even more into the sci-fi of it all. That movie was based on a 1956 novel called The Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. No, I have not read that one either.

This movie is my one true shrinking person pairing.

Pat (Tomlin) and Vance Kramer (Grodin) are living that American dream suburban life in Tasty Meadows (lol). She stays at home and drives a station wagon. He works in advertising. They have two little kids and friends and a seemingly pretty good relationship, though he’s such a Boomer dude of that era. In no way is he the worst or anything, but...

He brings home a new fragrance for Pat to try (and maybe help name with her idea of Sexpot!) It spills on her blouse and that combination of the perfume and other household products (Galaxy Glue!) causes Pat to mysteriously start shrinking. This turns her into a national celebrity and also makes her the target of an ambiguously evil group who wants to use her blood to make a serum they can use to shrink people and nations at will. Their lab is where she meets her third act BFF, Sydney the gorilla. Duh.

---

PREVIOUSLY ON WHN: Revisiting NY Mag’s Iconic 1998 Power Girls Cover Story

---

It really is amazing how many of the scenes in this movie have been burned in my brain for decades. Let’s get into it, shall we?

Basically, I jotted down/typed my thoughts as I watched. Perhaps they can serve as thought starters and discussion topics about a fairly unserious piece of nostalgic art (my fave kind). Or just laughable nonsense (likely).