MovieChat Forums > The Squid and the Whale (2005) Discussion > Bernard and Joan didn't know 'Hey You'?....

Bernard and Joan didn't know 'Hey You'?... Clever joke

posted 11 years ago by pleckbo
8 replies | jump to latest

Meaning that maybe Bernard considers 'The Wall' a 'lesser work' compared to other Pink Floyd albums and so he gave it no notice whatsoever. It's unrealistic that he wouldn't know that is a Pink Floyd song but it's really funny when exaggerated like this (if this is the joke).

As for Joan, maybe she didn't say something because Walt's a dick to her and she might've wanted him to be embarrassed... And how was Walt even dense enough to think something like that world work in the first place? I'm sure there's probably more to it all that I'm not getting.

[–] fluffchop 11 years ago

Why would anyone know that song? What's with all this didn't know that song being a joke nonsense? It would be more unusual to find someone that HAD actually heard of it.

[–] pleckbo 11 years ago

Surely you jest.

It's from THE WALL by PINK FLOYD - there's no way you haven't heard of that. Plenty in that audience in 1986 would've known that song from such a seminal album released only seven years prior.

[–] Darvidd 11 years ago

And, of course the film, also in wide release by 1986 (video too!).

'What is an Oprah?'-Teal'c.

[–] pleckbo 11 years ago

Ah, yes, of course, how could I forget? Thanks for underscoring my point :)

[–] dylank381 11 years ago

Correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure "Hey You" wasn't in "The Wall" film.

[–] kenny-164 11 years ago

Watching the film, you could not help asking the OP's question, but then I did the math, figuring the parents are mid forties to mid fifties, the wife likely being as much as ten years younger than the husband. Even if fifty, the dad would have been born roughly in 1935 or so, and so when The Wall was released, would have been in his early forties. In short he was not a baby boomer into baby boomer music. In fact while they are literary and into films (loved the late reference to "the blonde nurse who looks like Monica Vitti"!), do we see him listening to any music?

The wife is a bit harder to figure, except she seems generally clueless.

Now the tennis instructor I would think is much more likely to have listened to Pink Floyd, and since he was in the audience, I think he would have much more likely known the song. A plot hole? No, but I think qualifies as a goof.

Also it would have been more likely that they would have been looking at the LP's liner notes in 1986 than a cd booklet, but I don't know when The Wall was first on cd, so we let that one go.

[–] burninater10 11 years ago

Now the tennis instructor I would think is much more likely to have listened to Pink Floyd, and since he was in the audience, I think he would have much more likely known the song. A plot hole? No, but I think qualifies as a goof.

Towards the end of the film, there is a brief moment where Walt tells Ivan (the tennis instructor), "I didn't write the song," to which Ivan responds, "I know," implying that Ivan had withheld exposing Walt, perhaps so that he would learn a lesson. This makes the moment when, after the show, Ivan told Walt, "Some song, brother," much more poignant to me & gives the character another layer that we might not have assumed was there.

As for the parents, I think it's plausible they didn't know the song. They don't seem the type to have listened to Pink Floyd, whereas Ivan probably would have.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 10 years ago

I feel you, in that I kind of unconsciously thought everyone knew that album and would know it forever. But then I got married to my second wife, born 1984, and she didn't know any of it. On the DVD extras, it is shown that Jesse Eisenberg was unfamiliar with the song.

I suppose that doesn't explain the older characters, but they could easily be too old to have heard it.

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