FH Mini 152 - Pride

[0:00] hello podcast listener welcome to the flop house podcast usually on the flop house podcast we watch

[0:10] a bad movie or as dan likes to say a movie that has been a critical or financial failure because

[0:15] he feels bad for the movies and we talk about it but this is a miniature episode what we call a

[0:20] flop house mini where instead we'll be doing something different still movie related but

[0:24] something a little different.

[0:25] My name is, of course, Elliot Kalin.

[0:28] Today I'm joined by my, yeah?

[0:30] Oh, sorry.

[0:31] I'm using my usual cue.

[0:33] I'm Dan McCoy, loving this gentle energy you're bringing.

[0:35] Yes, and I'm also joined by-

[0:38] And I am Stuart Millington.

[0:40] But today we also have another guest.

[0:42] We did it perfectly.

[0:43] Yes, we did it flawlessly.

[0:45] You can really tell we've been doing this

[0:46] for almost 20 years.

[0:48] Today we're also joined by another guest,

[0:50] or in this case, perhaps a guest host,

[0:53] you might say in a way,

[0:54] because he's going to help lead us through a conversation about an interesting topic.

[0:58] His name, of course, is Alonzo Duralda.

[1:01] You probably know him as the chief film critic for The Film Verdict.

[1:03] Perhaps you know him as co-host of the podcast Maximum Film and also Linoleum Knife,

[1:07] Linoleum Knife being one of my favorite podcasts.

[1:09] He's author of the books Have Yourself a Movie Little Christmas and also Hollywood Pride, among others.

[1:14] And he's here to talk to us today.

[1:15] Alonzo, are there any credits that I have not mentioned that you'd like me to mention in this voice?

[1:19] Well, Elliot, I also co-host a show called Breakfast All Day with Christy Lemire on YouTube.

[1:24] and I'm a regular contributor

[1:26] to the Deck the Hallmark podcast

[1:27] and I had no idea we were doing

[1:30] ASMR today, but I am here for

[1:32] all the bedtime calm

[1:34] vibes. That's right.

[1:36] That's what this mini is all about is bedtime

[1:38] calm vibes. Bedtime calm vibes

[1:40] and then Stuart hawking

[1:41] blowing his nose. I'm sure

[1:44] Alex will cut it out.

[1:46] Leave that in, Alex. Leave in Stuart's

[1:48] human frailty, his

[1:50] weakness.

[1:51] I don't want people to think that I'm some kind of

[1:54] inhuman godlike being who cannot

[1:56] get hit. I am recovering

[1:58] from strep throat currently and it fucking

[2:00] sucks. Yeah, yeah.

[2:02] I forgot that you were actually sick when I started

[2:04] making fun of you.

[2:07] Now, we

[2:08] have a, there's a specific topic that Alonzo

[2:10] was going to talk about today, but before we started

[2:12] recording, Alonzo broke the news to us

[2:14] that he attended one of the screenings

[2:16] of After Last Season,

[2:18] whatever that movie is called, that we did recently

[2:20] and so I do want, I do tell our listeners

[2:22] a little bit about what the experience was like, yeah?

[2:24] Yeah, so everything your guest said about the trailer being on Apple trailers and everybody thinking that it was viral marketing for Where the Wild Things Are, absolutely true.

[2:32] I remember when that happened.

[2:33] And I just remember seeing that trailer thinking, huh, okay.

[2:37] And I have a couple of people that are friends of mine who see just about everything that opens.

[2:43] And every so often, they will sound the alarm.

[2:46] For a movie like, say, I don't know if y'all have seen Standing Ovation.

[2:50] No, I don't know that one.

[2:51] The teen musical or Dangerous Men or, you know, they were early on the Birdemic and The Room.

[2:59] Like, when they tell you drop everything and go see this movie, you listen.

[3:04] And so After Last Season opened in four markets for one week only.

[3:09] One of those markets is Lancaster, California, which is a good hour from where I live.

[3:15] It's way up, like, you're heading towards, like, Bakersfield, I guess.

[3:20] But I had been told, you have to go see After Last Season.

[3:24] So I went with two friends, and we've never forgotten it.

[3:27] And I actually own a DVD that was a brief moment

[3:30] where the mysterious Mark Regan was selling them on his website.

[3:35] And one of the friends who went with me to that screening got it for me,

[3:38] so I still have it in my collection.

[3:40] It is a prized possession.

[3:41] So when I saw y'all were doing an After Last Season episode,

[3:43] like, my head exploded.

[3:45] Yeah, I feel like we were so late to the train on that one.

[3:49] So, you know, there's this whole, whenever I hear about one of those and I'm like, oh, how did I not know about this?

[3:55] But then I feel a little bit better about it.

[3:55] It's due for a revival, I think.

[3:57] You know, I think enough time has elapsed.

[3:59] Maybe the people who knew forgot.

[4:01] And so now you're there to sort of beat the drum again to let people know that this is, you know, art is happening.

[4:07] That makes me feel better.

[4:08] Yeah.

[4:08] And it's in the public domain by now, right?

[4:10] Probably.

[4:11] Heaven only knows with the crackpot history of this movie and how much it did or didn't cost, you know.

[4:18] I also feel like a lot of these like really like legendary bad movies are the stuff that we would cover during small Bimber and thus like, you know, it's like once a year we would get around to it.

[4:33] Unfortunately, our bread and butter has become mediocre Hollywood movies that are just sort of deadening.

[4:40] But yeah, there's something about these movies where it's not even just that the movie is so bizarre, but the making of it is so shadowy, you know?

[4:48] Like, where did they get their money?

[4:49] And who, you know, how was this actually edited and put into theaters?

[4:55] You know, like, when you, because when you get to stuff like The Room or, you know, Ben and Arthur, you're just like, the origin story is as weird as the film itself, you know.

[5:04] But it's also fun, and the answer everyone always goes to is like, oh, it must have been a money laundering operation.

[5:08] It's like, there's easier ways to money, to make and release a film.

[5:12] Yeah.

[5:14] But Alonzo, the original intention was.

[5:16] Yeah, that works out, usually, that works out.

[5:18] if breaking bad is any indication yes car wash is the way to go yeah they uh alonzo you weren't

[5:24] here originally to talk about uh after last season although when you texted me this morning

[5:28] a picture of your ticket stub seeing it i was like i gotta hear more yeah um but uh you were

[5:33] here because it's this because it is june and june is pride month just because it's june june june

[5:39] june june june june and so uh alonzo you you wanted to have us talk about a little bit about

[5:45] kind of like, the question was, I believe, like, when was the first time that we remember seeing

[5:51] kind of like queer representation on film? Right? That was the question that you had asked us

[5:55] originally. Yeah, this is a conversation I've had with a lot of queer people, because I think,

[5:59] you know, we were always sort of on the lookout for it. And it's sort of, you know, it felt like

[6:04] a signal from the world, like, oh, wow, maybe there's this, you know, there's a community out

[6:09] there for me. Or maybe, you know, there's I'm not alone in the world. Although, for people like my

[6:14] it was more often than not,

[6:16] oh my God, I'm not that, you know?

[6:18] And so as people who are equally versed

[6:22] in your Solaris's and your bikini's car wash,

[6:26] I thought it would be really interesting

[6:28] to hear what y'all's take on

[6:30] when did you start sort of realizing

[6:33] these characters existed, you know,

[6:34] in the world and in movies

[6:36] and did it color your judgment

[6:39] of what a queer person was based on,

[6:42] oh, are they all like that?

[6:43] Or, you know, do you immediately know, wait, that's gross?

[6:48] You know, I mean, it depends.

[6:49] Like, I'll tell you mine.

[6:51] The first time I really remember, like, perceiving a queer character in a movie,

[6:56] and I'm sure as a kid I had seen, like, you know, old screwball comedies with, you know,

[7:00] Franklin Pangborn or whatever, and I knew the sort of, the sissy and the persnickety.

[7:04] You see Eric Bloor in the Fred Astaire movies, and you're like, yeah, here's a guy who's, yeah, exactly.

[7:08] The sort of uptight and, you know, fussy and whatever.

[7:12] But once I hit puberty and I was looking at movies in a different way, do you guys know the 1981 sort of Broadway, sort of slasher movie, The Fan?

[7:24] No, I don't know that one.

[7:25] I'm aware that it exists.

[7:27] Okay, so it was based on a novel that was apparently quite successful, and it was an epistolary novel.

[7:32] Like, the whole thing is letters and faxes and whatever else.

[7:37] But the premise here is basically that Lauren Bacall is a big Broadway star.

[7:42] I buy it.

[7:43] I believe it.

[7:44] Yes.

[7:45] Weirdly, she was at that point.

[7:46] Like she actually did win a Tony or two, which is bizarre because Lady Cannot Sing.

[7:50] And you see that in the fan where she has a couple of big numbers that are really embarrassing.

[7:55] There's more, Alonzo, Alonzo, maybe this is me being feeling stereotypical about queer people.

[7:59] There's more to Broadway than just musicals.

[8:01] There's straight drama, you know.

[8:02] They don't always sing.

[8:03] But she did musicals.

[8:05] Oh, okay.

[8:06] I'm not judging her based on a thing she wasn't doing.

[8:09] She actually was in like Woman of the Year and stuff.

[8:12] It wasn't like a revival of Death of a Salesman or something.

[8:14] Exactly, yes.

[8:15] Yeah, like there are not enough tunes in Long Day's Journey into Night.

[8:20] There should be a musical version of Long Day's Journey into Night.

[8:23] That would be great.

[8:27] Boozies.

[8:28] Anyway, so yeah, so she's a big Broadway musical star,

[8:32] and she has a stalker played by a pre-Terminator Michael Biehn.

[8:37] And the whole time he's sending her these letters

[8:40] that are increasingly, like, obsessive and, like, sexual.

[8:44] And the movie never comes out and says that he's gay,

[8:47] but I think we're sort of meant to pick up on that

[8:48] because he is stalking a woman of Broadway.

[8:53] Nonetheless, there is a part where the police are closing in on him

[8:56] and he has to fake his own death.

[8:58] So he goes to a gay bar, picks up a guy who is his general, like, size and, you know, body type.

[9:05] They go to a rooftop.

[9:07] His pickup initiates offscreen oral sex on Michael Biehn.

[9:12] Michael Biehn reaches for a straight razor encased in a pink plastic sheath, by the way,

[9:19] slits the guy's throat, sets him on fire, leaves a suicide note to sort of make the police think

[9:24] that he has killed himself and, I guess, immolated himself or whatever.

[9:28] Once he cut his own throat, he then lit himself on fire, I guess.

[9:31] Yeah, I guess he mentions Savanarola once or twice in the suicide note, perhaps.

[9:35] Anyway, so that was the first time I'd ever seen two men having sex in a movie.

[9:40] And they didn't finish because one of them got his throat slit by the other one.

[9:45] And I was like, okay, I'm not.

[9:49] That movie alone, I think, kept me in the closet for an extra three years, probably.

[9:54] So that stuck with me.

[9:56] And that's like a biggie.

[9:58] And the 80s were rife with these kind of really terrible, you know, like,

[10:04] Demi Moore's next-door neighbor in St. Elmo's Fire with a strawberry perched on the lip of his margarita,

[10:12] you know, or, I mean, countless other movies.

[10:15] And also, I think the 80s was prime time for, like, the hero gets to say faggot and no one cares, you know,

[10:22] and it's funny.

[10:24] So, you know, this is, I'm older than you guys, but these are the movies of your youth.

[10:29] These are the films that made you.

[10:31] So, yeah, I would love to hear, like, your recollections of, like, oh, yeah, there was this guy and that lady.

[10:36] And, you know, maybe they were good, maybe they were terrible.

[10:39] But, you know, tell me.

[10:41] The first one that comes to mind for me is, which police academy was it where they go to a gay bar?

[10:47] All of them.

[10:48] They always wind up at the Blue Oyster, which is somehow a bar where leather dudes dance the tango.

[10:55] That's what happens at a leather bar.

[10:57] It's always leather night, yeah.

[10:58] There was such a – when we were kids, there was – I think that was probably – something like that is probably the first one for me also.

[11:05] It's the thing where like it's a comedy or an action comedy and there's a character in it who is either very swishy or is a leather guy or both.

[11:13] And there was this – I feel like growing up, there was this understanding gay men are all incredibly effeminate.

[11:18] but they're also into leather and, you know, tough daddy stuff.

[11:22] And the idea that not all gay people are into leather

[11:25] and not all leather people are gay was such a, like,

[11:29] it just didn't, it just was conflated into like a general other.

[11:33] And I think, I'm trying to think what the specific one was,

[11:35] but I feel like there's, there were so many, what's the, in the,

[11:39] is it Bronson Pitchot in the Beverly Hills Cop movies?

[11:42] Who's like-

[11:43] Serge?

[11:44] Serge, the kind of mincing, but I'll tell you,

[11:46] He actually, I think, is more in the tradition of the old screwball sissy characters in that he is self-contained and you meet him on his terms.

[11:56] He is not going to meet you on yours.

[11:57] That's true.

[11:58] But I think that's maybe one of the first ones I remember seeing where it's like, oh, this guy is being – clearly there's like a – there's a lack of like at the very least kind of macho quality, which I had started like – or like a traditional – I don't know.

[12:15] like the hero of the movie Masculinity.

[12:17] Right, Butch.

[12:18] Yeah, not Butch, yeah, Butch.

[12:19] But then as, but I feel like also when I was growing up,

[12:21] because I'm a little bit younger than you, Alonso,

[12:23] it was during like, what I really remember

[12:25] is kind of like the late 80s, early 90s,

[12:27] when suddenly, suddenly like the idea of queerness

[12:32] or homosexuality was now a big topic of conversation nationally

[12:36] in a way that I think it had been more of an undercurrent before.

[12:39] And so like the, it felt like, I remember growing up,

[12:43] I was like, it felt like, so, like, did we just discover gay people?

[12:47] Like, is this a thing that, is this like a new thing that happened?

[12:50] And then you go back and watch old movies and you're like, oh, no, it's, you know, this is something that has always been around and aware of.

[12:55] The same way that, like, you watch 30s movies and you're like, wait a minute, they had sex back then?

[12:58] And the people making the movie, like, knew that sex existed, you know?

[13:02] Well, I think, I mean, the late 80s, early 90s is where, like, AIDS was happening.

[13:05] Yeah, I think that must have been it.

[13:06] So, yeah, we were a topic of conversation as a problem, you know, as either objects of pity or, like, hide your children.

[13:15] They are coming to, you know, give you their cooties.

[13:17] But I remember that started to edge into, like, the, like, you know what?

[13:22] It's okay.

[13:23] You know what?

[13:24] The very special episode of the sitcom where somebody could show you that, like, guys, you know, they're just like you and me.

[13:31] But it was – but I feel like it was like the – like we showed the first Bill and Ted movie to my older son and everybody enjoyed it.

[13:37] But the part where there's just like that one moment where they're using the F word with each other and I'm like, oh, I don't like this.

[13:44] Well, and to their credit, both Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves were like, you know what, we were young and dumb.

[13:50] And like the apology tour is always fascinating.

[13:53] Like they did one, the Beastie Boys I think were, you know, kind of like looking back at their early stuff.

[13:59] So, you know, I'm all for Eddie.

[14:02] Well, yeah, Eddie Murphy.

[14:04] Because I was saying,

[14:04] because Beverly Hills Cop does give you Eddie Murphy

[14:06] doing his little mincey, limp wrist thing

[14:09] and talking about having, you know,

[14:10] herpes simplex 10 or whatever.

[14:11] And it's like, ugh.

[14:14] Because I feel like that was the era

[14:16] when it was like Eddie Murphy

[14:17] and like we're seeing Robin Williams

[14:18] doing like his kind of mincing voice,

[14:21] his kind of like pre-Birdcage

[14:23] when it's not, this is a character I'm playing,

[14:25] but this is just like a voice I'm doing in a routine

[14:27] And the joke is, this is hilarious that I'm doing this voice or something like that.

[14:32] Yeah, I mean, I'd have to parse all of the Robin Williams stuff.

[14:35] But, I mean, I think he had at least sort of a San Francisco background.

[14:38] And I think kind of was mining that more for the comedy of the outrageousness than the, like, look at this silly homo, you know.

[14:46] Yeah, I guess that's probably true.

[14:47] But I think in some ways, looking back on it, I didn't realize at the time.

[14:50] But I think the first character, like, first queer character I'm going to see might have been, now that I assume that Stiles, the character from Teen Wolf, the best friend, I believe is a closeted character.

[15:00] And he has a moment where he says that, where he says he's not as a joke.

[15:05] But I'm like, there's no way.

[15:06] There's no way this character's not in love with Michael J. Fox.

[15:09] Yeah.

[15:09] The people who say it the loudest sometimes, you know, especially when you're a teenager.

[15:13] I remember that, so when I was a kid, I, you know, I just, I really loved, I loved the movie Zorro the Gay Blade.

[15:22] Oh, me too.

[15:23] Because, because the thing was, like, I just loved Zorro.

[15:27] I loved the character of Zorro, and Zorro the Gay Blade is this movie that I don't know at all how I would react to now.

[15:34] I haven't seen it since then, but, like, she had a twin brother who was forced to take over the mantle of Zorro, his twin brother Bunny.

[15:43] Buddy Wigglesworth.

[15:44] Yeah, who was very effeminate.

[15:46] But, like, as a kid watching this movie, loving Zorro and not knowing anything about gay people, I'm just like, oh, this is his funny twin.

[15:56] Like, there's, like, none of it, like, registered to me as, like, I think a gay stereotype, even though it's in the title.

[16:03] I'm just like, oh, this is a fun adventure movie with jokes.

[16:07] This big, goosey guy.

[16:08] No, but here's the thing.

[16:10] Like, for me, and, you know, you ask 20 gay people,

[16:14] you'll get different answers on this.

[16:15] I love Zorro the Gayblade, and what I think is great

[16:18] is that he is never the butt of the joke,

[16:21] at least in terms of, you know, yes,

[16:24] we're meant to laugh at his wild, outrageous sense of fashion,

[16:27] the fact that he, like, turns these Zorro outfits

[16:29] into these, like, fringe, you know, kind of, like, crazy things,

[16:33] but he is as effective with the bullwhip

[16:37] as Zoro is with the sword, and he wins.

[16:41] He wins the day.

[16:42] He is always defeating and shaming the bad guys

[16:45] in the way that Zoro would.

[16:47] And so, weirdly, it's this kind of like,

[16:50] yeah, we're meant to laugh at how campy

[16:52] and outrageous and over-the-top you are,

[16:54] but you are also a Zoro-level superhero, you know?

[16:57] Yeah.

[16:58] No, I think you're reminding me,

[17:01] like, I also think that, like,

[17:02] I loved Indiana Jones so much,

[17:04] that I just, like, I thought whips were cool.

[17:05] So I'm like, this cool guy has a whip.

[17:08] It was a brief period when whips were like the weapon, the cool weapon of choice,

[17:12] even though they're maybe the hardest thing in the world to use.

[17:15] Yeah.

[17:16] You'll put an eye out.

[17:17] Yeah.

[17:18] But I can't believe we haven't talked about C-3PO, by the way, the original game robot.

[17:22] Thank you.

[17:24] He was a real role model for me.

[17:28] They did something recently where they – so in the Mad Magazine parody of Star Wars that first came out, they had a joke from R2-D2 where he says, oh, great.

[17:39] I'm stuck here with an F-word robot.

[17:41] And they changed it for a more recent reprint.

[17:45] They changed it to I'm stuck here with a gay robot.

[17:47] And it's like, well, it's still the same joke.

[17:49] You just took out the slur.

[17:51] But it's still the same – you haven't changed what the joke is.

[17:54] I mean, yeah, but it's not wrong.

[17:56] I mean, C-3PO is totally a gay robot.

[17:58] He's one of those characters who I've always loved C-3PO.

[18:00] And I think that was one where, like, not until I was older was I like,

[18:03] oh, I see this kind of stereotype that he could be this.

[18:06] But I was always just like, yeah, I love that he's always complaining.

[18:09] I love that he's very specific about what he wants or doesn't want.

[18:12] He's fussy.

[18:13] He's fussy.

[18:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[18:14] He is totally the Franklin Pangborn of the Star Wars universe, I think.

[18:19] Yes, I love Franklin Pangborn.

[18:20] You know, in the 90s, there was a webzine called Blair.

[18:26] Named, of course, for the character from The Facts of Life.

[18:28] And they had an article called

[18:30] Lamar Luttrell is the Total God of You.

[18:34] And it was a celebration of the Lamar Luttrell character

[18:39] from Revenge of the Nerds,

[18:41] whom you may recall, like, you know,

[18:43] when they have the field day with the other frats,

[18:46] like, the physicists and the nerds design a javelin

[18:52] that can be thrown with his limp-wristed style

[18:54] that makes it go further but again lamar latrell is fully himself and he is one of the nerds so

[19:03] he is one of our heroes he is one of the put upon characters the other nerds accept him so any

[19:09] blowback that he receives from straight people you know in every sense of that word in this movie

[19:15] just makes him part of our underdog heroes so as as much as there are elements of that character

[19:21] that you could point to as being kind of silly

[19:22] and stereotypical, you know, he, again, gets to win.

[19:27] Yeah, yeah.

[19:29] So is that how, when you're looking at,

[19:31] would you say that's the way to look at

[19:32] kind of like judging the, for lack of a better word,

[19:36] like offensiveness or inoffensiveness of the characters

[19:38] is also kind of like, how does the character

[19:40] treated within the narrative in terms of like,

[19:44] are we on their side and not just judging it

[19:46] based on are they enacting stereotypes

[19:49] that we recognize can be used in offensive ways.

[19:54] Yeah, I think so.

[19:55] Because I think the narrative has a voice

[19:58] about what we're meant to think about these characters

[20:00] and how we're meant to understand

[20:02] whether they are good or bad

[20:04] or heroic or villainous or whatever it is.

[20:08] There's a terrible movie from the late 60s

[20:11] called The Gay Deceivers.

[20:13] And it's about these two dudes

[20:15] who pretend to be a gay couple

[20:17] so that they can avoid getting drafted and sent to Vietnam.

[20:21] Oh, so it's like Three's Company, the movie, yeah.

[20:23] Kind of, yeah.

[20:25] And so to maintain the illusion of they move in together

[20:28] in this apartment complex in West Hollywood

[20:30] that is run by a guy named Malcolm de Jon,

[20:33] and the actor playing him is the great Michael Greer.

[20:36] You might know him from Messiah of Evil or Fortune in Men's Eyes.

[20:40] And he basically rewrote the character

[20:43] and turns him, what could have very easily just been a sort of swishy stereotype joke,

[20:50] into this, like, fabulous presence who is nobody's fool and is large and in charge.

[20:58] And he makes that movie worth watching because he is so in charge of the situation

[21:04] and such a fun character and such a character who is in control of his domain

[21:09] that, yeah, even though the movie itself is patently offensive,

[21:13] on numerous occasions and all the stuff with the straight lead characters is just like

[21:18] they say some shit you wouldn't believe you know but you just you're waiting for

[21:23] malcolm to john to come back on screen and just be fabulous and put the whole thing in his pocket

[21:28] i will say that even even when it's a a positive description in like this is a hero way

[21:35] sometimes the stuff that we grew up with i i remember like part of me is like oh i it's really

[21:44] to my parent and my brother's credit uh bringing me up that uh even as like a straight male living

[21:51] in cornfields in the midwest i was able to look at mannequin and be like this hollywood

[21:59] characters is a bit much it's it's kind of insulting i think to uh i think it's a it's

[22:06] playing into some stereotypes here yeah i mean again i think a lot of it has to do with who's

[22:11] telling this story you know like did a queer person write it or direct it um is there a queer

[22:16] actor you're playing the role is the character you know allowed to have a love life or a sex life

[22:23] Or are they just there to be the shoulder to cry on or the helper, the magical homo, if you will, of the straight protagonist?

[22:34] I always talk about how Hallmark movies have the black friend on phone, which is the woman, the friend that the white heroine will talk to throughout the movie to tell her what's going on with her relationship.

[22:47] And the supportive black friend does a lot of nodding on the phone.

[22:50] It's kind of like so many horror movies have the person of color who has a closer connection to the supernatural and can tell the white hero what's going on with the thing that's haunting them or cursing them.

[22:59] Like a ghost?

[23:02] Is it the horror of Party Beach that has the maid who keeps saying, it's the voodoo I tells you?

[23:08] Yes.

[23:09] She's also the smartest character in that movie because there's the part where he goes, he's looking for sodium to destroy these monsters.

[23:15] And he goes, I called a couple places and I can't find it.

[23:18] And she goes, you call every place.

[23:19] She yells at him, call all of them.

[23:23] Huh, hey, I hadn't thought about that.

[23:26] But yeah, so you have like,

[23:27] I think there are a lot of times

[23:28] where the gay character is there to like,

[23:30] give the heroine a makeover, you know,

[23:32] or whatever to just sort of be in service of,

[23:35] but not have any actual inner life of their own.

[23:38] So, I mean, yeah, I think at least with Hollywood,

[23:41] in the first or second movie,

[23:43] I think he's got like an implied boyfriend, right?

[23:46] It's been so long since I've seen either of them,

[23:48] I don't remember, but yeah.

[23:49] watch mannequin all the time a lot i know it's one of my many failings what do you do during

[23:54] mannequins giving what are you watching i think that reminds me so i think one of the earlier

[24:02] ones where i think i might have been more fully aware is a character is it's like that is the

[24:07] is the harvey fireson character in mrs doubtfire well yeah it's like where it's like he is there

[24:12] to give robin williams a a makeover into a it to be a woman but also like he does have a husband

[24:17] or at least a partner, you know, a long-term partner who's living with him.

[24:20] Like, you do get a sense that he has a life outside of appearing in the scene.

[24:24] Yeah, that couple is referred to as, like, Uncle Jim and Aunt Jack or something,

[24:28] whatever the characters are.

[24:29] Like, it is very clearly stated they're a couple.

[24:32] And for a kids' movie in the 90s, that's a huge leap forward, you know?

[24:37] Like, the fact that these two people, they're not just roommates,

[24:40] they're not just pals, they are referred to as aunt and uncle,

[24:43] even though that's a joke, that at least is a joke that says they're a couple,

[24:46] This is how you know them in our family.

[24:49] So yeah, that in a tiny way is actually a big step forward.

[24:52] It's such a weird thing where there's a – because sexuality as with race is such a messy thing in terms of like people's understanding or acceptance of things that are different from them.

[25:06] There are so many movies like that where it's like this is a little bit more progressive than you would think, but it's also kind of regressive in this other way.

[25:13] Like those characters are also like makeup and mask experts who are there to like put him through a makeup montage basically.

[25:23] And you see that it's like it's a – it's hard to find that clear cut of like, oh, well, this is a good version of it.

[25:29] This is a bad version of it because you're also living within the stereotypical assumptions of the world that the movie is existing in and reflecting and stuff like that.

[25:39] But you're right.

[25:40] It's a big thing in that movie that it's like,

[25:42] oh yeah, they're members of our family.

[25:43] We have no question about their relationship.

[25:44] Like that's, we love them and this is how they love

[25:47] and that's it, you know, it's just for taking for granted.

[25:49] And I think the fact that these guys are like

[25:51] working with latex and stuff, it's not just like,

[25:53] oh, I'm going to give you a smoky eye.

[25:55] Exactly.

[25:56] You know, they're artists.

[25:57] They don't work at a, it's not, oh yeah,

[25:59] my swishy brother-in-law who works at a salon.

[26:01] You know, it's like, oh, these are professional makeup artists.

[26:04] You know, if one of the looks they had given Robin Williams

[26:07] was like, you know, the T-1000

[26:09] with like one robot eye sticking out.

[26:12] That would be, you know.

[26:13] I don't think you're going to get this job as a nanny.

[26:17] Now I wish that was it.

[26:18] Instead of like different types of women in that montage,

[26:20] she was like different monsters.

[26:20] That would have really booked them up, you know.

[26:22] We can do everything.

[26:24] He keeps terrifying the kids as he comes in and tries to be.

[26:29] I don't think we want to hire the gill man as our nanny.

[26:34] This is kind of off to the side.

[26:36] What a great movie that would be if it's like, it's not just that he's pretending to be a nanny, but he's pretending to be a monster nanny.

[26:41] And it's like, yeah, we wanted to hire a monster.

[26:43] And it's called Monster Nanny.

[26:46] $7,000.

[26:47] A mummy would be obvious.

[26:48] A mummy is obvious.

[26:49] Yeah, a mummy is too easy.

[26:51] Too easy, yeah.

[26:52] This is kind of off to the side of, like, the current part of what we're talking about.

[26:56] But I was thinking about like how growing up in rural Illinois at a time when like, you know, any gay people around me would have been closeted mostly.

[27:11] It's just what it did to my ability to pick up on any sort of subtext in anything, which is to say like I didn't have it as a child.

[27:18] But I just remember watching, you know, fried green tomatoes and being like, I think these women are more than just friends, you know, based on an expressly lesbian novel.

[27:33] But in the movie, they took out, you know, any sort of.

[27:37] Yeah, that's an infuriating adaptation.

[27:40] No, no.

[27:41] They really pulled back on it.

[27:42] When I found out, I was very mad.

[27:44] You had the same experience.

[27:45] Let them be in love.

[27:46] Yeah, but Dan, you had the same experience when you watched Desert Hearts as a kid, right?

[27:50] Like, they were like, I think these women might be, hold on.

[27:53] They're naked together in bed.

[27:55] And then when you watched Bound, and you were like, I think these women might be, hold on.

[28:00] You're like, female friendships, they're just so much more comfortable with each other.

[28:04] But, and again, I think, you know.

[28:06] That was terrifying.

[28:07] That's what the early 90s, that was, there was such a terror of that stuff.

[28:13] because, yeah, I mean, Fanny Flagg is a lesbian.

[28:16] Like, you know, she was, you know,

[28:18] involved with Rita Mae Brown for years.

[28:21] And so, and the book is pretty clear

[28:22] about that relationship.

[28:24] And I think if you'd made that movie 10 years later...

[28:26] But the original title is Fried Green Lesbians, yeah.

[28:28] Yeah, exactly.

[28:30] But if you made it today...

[28:31] That doesn't make it a cafe.

[28:32] Horrifying.

[28:34] Do you think, and do you think if they made it today,

[28:36] do you think they would just not...

[28:39] Yeah, I think they would be very straightforward about it now.

[28:42] I do remember, this is, I mean, this is a little bit later, and this speaks more to me confronting my own bullshit.

[28:49] But I remember, I think it was somewhere in college when But I'm a Cheerleader came out.

[28:55] I feel like that was, not only was it very campy, but it was also like such an overt, like a depiction of a lesbian coming of understanding and lesbian romance.

[29:09] And I feel like at the time it was – it felt very confrontational to me because I feel like it was very much a moment of college Stuart who was already insecure being like, but wait, I'm not necessary anymore.

[29:24] And like it was something that it took –

[29:25] Where's the me in all this?

[29:26] Yeah, I had to – like I had to unpack at the time and obviously I have come to understand.

[29:31] I've been led to believe I'm at the center of human civilization.

[29:33] What's going on?

[29:34] But, I mean, that does come from the fact that, you know, similar to Dan I came from, a fairly Midwestern closeted universe.

[29:46] I think I've told this story before, but I just think he deserves his plaudits whenever I can give it to him.

[29:54] I remember very clearly when I was young, my brother John saying to me for some reason, like I don't know what the context was.

[30:00] He was like, you're going to grow up, you're going to fall in love with a woman, or you might fall in love with a man.

[30:04] You might be gay and that's okay too and I'll love you no matter what.

[30:07] I'm like looking back on that, to be given that so young, I'm so appreciative that he did that because I don't – I feel like it really did mean that I'm like, oh, yeah, sure.

[30:20] That's fine.

[30:21] You know, I grew up feeling –

[30:22] But now you know looking back, you should have said, it doesn't have to be a binary, you know.

[30:26] Yeah, yeah.

[30:27] No, no.

[30:27] He's canceled.

[30:28] He was canceled.

[30:30] Yeah, exactly.

[30:30] He didn't address every possible situation.

[30:35] You could find yourself in a polycule, you know.

[30:39] No, but, you know, to Stuart's point, yeah,

[30:43] there are movies that come along that really, you know, shake it up.

[30:47] And I think, you know, Desert Heart certainly was one of those movies.

[30:50] For me, I remember going with my best friend in college, Kurt Holman,

[30:57] to see both My Beautiful Laundrette and Prick Up Your Ears,

[31:03] both of which have these, you know, are like,

[31:07] My Beautiful Laundrette has that amazing scene

[31:09] where they're out in the street

[31:10] and Daniel Day-Lewis secretly licks the guy's neck,

[31:13] you know, and Prick Up Your Ears,

[31:15] you know, they're like cottaging,

[31:18] you know, they're like going to public men's rooms

[31:19] and picking up dudes and stuff.

[31:21] And both of those movies,

[31:22] I just remember sitting there being like,

[31:24] stone face, stone face, no reaction,

[31:26] Do not.

[31:27] Don't show the world.

[31:28] Don't show the world what this means to me.

[31:30] Do not gasp.

[31:31] Nothing.

[31:32] Just keep it on lockdown, you know.

[31:34] And obviously, Kurt was one of the first people I came out to, and he was great about it.

[31:38] But I wasn't ready to go there yet.

[31:40] But these movies were showing me something that I hadn't seen before.

[31:43] And this was not the fan, you know.

[31:45] This was like, even though things don't work out well for Joe Wharton at the end of Prick Up Your Ears,

[31:50] nonetheless, it's not directly tied to him having sex with people.

[31:53] So, yeah.

[31:55] So I think it's great when you see that movie that isn't like a big Hollywood production that suddenly is like, you know, oh, wait a minute.

[32:04] This is also a thing.

[32:06] Although now, I mean, I guess for some people it could be a Hollywood production.

[32:09] You could see Love, Simon or something and it would, you know, change your perspective on what this stuff even means, you know.

[32:18] Well, I mean, it's the value of having – it's the value of storytelling and many different people telling stories, right?

[32:24] I think it gets boiled down to the idea of representation, but that's like a very simple, basic way to look at it.

[32:32] But the idea of like you could – it's not just the thrill of going and seeing something that you haven't seen before that means something to you particularly on screen.

[32:43] But seeing something that is outside of the realm of what you understood was possible in any way.

[32:47] Like that's the magic of stories and movies and things like that.

[32:50] You know, it's the Ebert line that everybody always likes to quote.

[32:52] the movies are a machine that creates

[32:54] empathy, you know. Yeah, I have an issue with that quote.

[32:56] I have an issue with that quote, but still, you know.

[32:59] Because I think movies

[33:00] can also be used to create hatred, you know.

[33:02] The quote is, well, of course, yeah.

[33:04] It is a machine that creates only

[33:05] empathy. Yeah.

[33:08] But I think that's about every

[33:10] possible... But I think that's

[33:12] often how the quote is used. The same way that, like,

[33:14] there's a, the same

[33:16] way that... They can create empathy.

[33:17] Well, the same way that people talk about, like,

[33:20] and this is totally off topic, so I apologize,

[33:22] When they're like, comedy is only funny when it punches up.

[33:24] Well, that's not true.

[33:25] Like, there is, part of the problem with comedy

[33:27] is that it can be funny when it punches down,

[33:29] so you've got to be a discerning audience, you know?

[33:31] True.

[33:32] Anyway.

[33:33] But I do think that seeing characters that are, you know,

[33:37] not you in a movie, you know,

[33:39] that's where the empathy part comes in.

[33:41] And so, yeah, I think for a lot of people,

[33:44] their awareness that, A, queer people exist,

[33:48] and B, queer people have a right to exist

[33:50] and, you know, are not a direct threat to them

[33:53] and just want to live their own lives

[33:55] and, you know, fall in love in their own way.

[33:57] You know, I think for a lot of people,

[33:59] movies provide the way for them to get there.

[34:03] But to Elliot's point, I think also a lot of homophobia

[34:06] is probably engendered by what people saw in movies

[34:09] in the, like, late 60s and 70s and beyond

[34:12] because, you know, we were invisible pretty much

[34:15] during the Hays Code period.

[34:17] You look at the movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

[34:20] where you're like, what's this guy's problem?

[34:22] I don't understand.

[34:22] What's Frank upset about?

[34:23] His best friend died?

[34:25] That's pretty sad, but I don't know why he's impotent now.

[34:27] And it's like, oh, it's because he's in love with him.

[34:29] Oh, I understand.

[34:30] Yeah.

[34:32] Or like, you know, Crossfire, you know,

[34:34] which was a book about a gay bashing

[34:36] that becomes a movie about anti-Semitism.

[34:38] Okay, sure.

[34:39] They were like, we can admit that Jews exist now.

[34:43] It's a bold new step for American cinema.

[34:45] And like you're saying, in those movies in the 60s and 70s

[34:47] where being queer is synonymous

[34:49] with being psychotic, essentially, in some way,

[34:52] you know, or sadistic in some way.

[34:54] Or pathetic, you know, that was also an option.

[34:57] Like there's like a, at least for me,

[34:59] I feel like a lot of what I saw in movies

[35:01] was a certain seediness, a certain danger.

[35:06] But at the same time, there was like the femininity

[35:09] or like anything that others something

[35:12] so that it's like, stay away, person.

[35:14] And they were talking about with queer men in particular,

[35:17] because you would have similar,

[35:18] not as often we'd see in movies queer women

[35:20] who were, it's the same problem

[35:23] because they're super butch,

[35:24] they're super masculine, you know, super tough, you know.

[35:27] Super butch or they're like scheming

[35:29] to try and take women away from men.

[35:33] Super butch also sounds like a great

[35:35] like sort of zine comic.

[35:37] Super butch is like an underground comic.

[35:39] You'd buy it in a head shop,

[35:40] an underground comics book.

[35:41] Yeah, her four issue team up with Hothead Paisan

[35:44] is a really good one.

[35:47] But it's a – I mean it shows you how like a movie reflects the assumptions or the stereotype society, but then it also perpetuates them at the same time.

[35:58] And it's a – like there's a lot of people who – I certainly like – there are – I remember seeing – the first time I saw Blackula.

[36:07] And there's like – Blackula's coffin is discovered by these antique dealers who are very much like stereotypes of swishy gay men in the 70s.

[36:15] And it's one of these things where it's like, oh, so like these characters are like – they don't – of course they have no – the plot does not need them to have much of an interior life.

[36:24] They're just there to like bring Black Yellow back to life basically.

[36:27] To be bitten.

[36:27] Yeah, to be bitten.

[36:28] But it's like the – that – trying to parse when I saw it, like what is the reaction they intended the audience to have to these characters?

[36:37] Because were they supposed to be comic relief characters or was it supposed to be some other aspect of like, oh, this is a horror-y movie.

[36:44] So there's like, these are these kind of other kind of deviant type people.

[36:47] It's like, it was a very strange thing to me.

[36:49] They're deserving of their fate.

[36:50] Yes, or something like that.

[36:51] But the characters were, it was a, and I like, it became like a real,

[36:55] I had a lot of trouble enjoying the rest of Blackula

[36:58] because I kept thinking about it.

[36:59] I was trying to force this hard problem out of you.

[37:02] Otherwise, it was an impeccable movie, you know?

[37:04] Such a funny statement.

[37:07] I mean, because like, you go back to silent cinema

[37:10] and you see examples of like,

[37:13] oh God, I forget the movie now,

[37:15] but there's some movies like set in the West or whatever.

[37:17] And one character,

[37:19] somebody sees like Charlie Chaplin kissing a woman in drag

[37:23] and thinks that Charlie has just kissed a man.

[37:25] And so this guy immediately starts like flouncing about

[37:29] in this very specific way.

[37:30] And it's like, oh, this was coded in the 1920s.

[37:33] People already knew what these arm movements

[37:36] and little, you know, hip swishes

[37:38] and whatever tiptoe walking meant, you know.

[37:41] And so, yeah, I think it's an easy laugh

[37:43] for audiences who assume,

[37:44] well, nobody in this room is that.

[37:47] So let's all find that hilarious, you know.

[37:50] But yeah, I think Stuart's right.

[37:51] There's also what I think Andrew Sarris

[37:54] once referred to as the twilight demimonde,

[37:57] you know, the sort of, you know,

[37:58] the seedy underbelly of the big city

[38:01] where, you know, the gays

[38:02] and the heroin addicts all gather, you know.

[38:06] And they're always looking for victims.

[38:08] Yeah, they're always looking to corrupt somebody into a dangerous world of antiquing and listening to Judy Garland albums or whatever other stereotypical things they're doing.

[38:20] Because it's that weird flip thing of the stereotype is either pitiful and weak or incredibly sinister and dangerous, but they exist together.

[38:32] And they exist as an opposition to what I guess is supposed to be like for men, especially like the proper role or proper whatever.

[38:40] Well, and again, we see this today in like the, you know, ask a hard right conservative and they will tell you that, you know, immigrants to this country are both lazy welfare mooches and they're taking all your jobs.

[38:57] Yeah.

[38:57] You know, so you sometimes manage to do both those things at the same time because they're all bad.

[39:02] And it's the similar thing with anti-Semitism has always been that way where Jews are both kind of subhuman vermin, but they're also so incredibly brilliant that they manage to control the entire world and take over everything despite having – despite being like weak and having none of the strengths of the Gentile human beings.

[39:22] It's a – it really goes to show you that there's not really much rational thought in bigotry.

[39:28] Didn't think it through enough.

[39:29] No, it's never based on a really straightforward, consistent philosophy.

[39:34] There's a, um, I just-

[39:35] Well, it is.

[39:37] We hate you.

[39:38] That part is consistent.

[39:41] Consistently, I don't like you, you know?

[39:43] Yeah.

[39:48] Ready, go.

[39:49] Knock, knock.

[39:50] Who's there?

[39:51] We got this.

[39:52] With Mark and Hal?

[39:53] You knew this one.

[39:57] We can't put that out as an ad.

[39:59] We just did new episodes every week on MaximumFun.org

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[44:12] So I feel like it was in the 90s, not to shift too much, but in the 90s, I feel like there was also a shift where we did see, you had mentioned before, but it felt like there was an increased representation of gay characters.

[44:25] But on some level, it felt like these characters were often presented where their chief struggle is against the repercussions of them being gay.

[44:38] Like, so by having sex with a person of the same gender, they're going to die or something.

[44:45] Yeah, I mean.

[44:46] It's the 90s version of the tragic mulatto, you know, like their lot in life is to suffer and eventually pay for the sins of humanity, you know, yeah.

[44:54] Yeah, the 90s, there's a lot going on.

[44:56] Because first you've got, on the one hand, you have like the new queer cinema, you know, like in 90, Poison and Paris is Burning both win the jury prizes at Sundance, you know.

[45:06] And suddenly you've got, like, Greg Araki and Gus Van Sant and Rose Trochet and, you know, Cheryl Dunye and all these filmmakers.

[45:12] John Waters.

[45:14] Well, John Waters.

[45:15] He is our Eminence Grease.

[45:18] It's so funny.

[45:19] John Waters is like, I mean, he's the, like, I think about this all the time, that, like, you watch his older movies and they're genuinely filthy.

[45:26] Like, they're genuinely, like, really out-trade.

[45:29] Yeah, they earn the word subversive in a way a lot of movies don't.

[45:33] And just by lasting, he has become such a, like, mainstream beloved figure in a way that, like, it reminds me so much.

[45:41] I mean, this is the negative way to put it, but the line in Chinatown when they're talking about, when John Huston has the line about, like, that rich people are like, they're like ugly buildings and prostitutes.

[45:52] If they last long enough, they become respectable.

[45:55] Well, I think Mick Jagger said, you know, in America, they try to ban you and then they put you in a museum.

[46:00] Yeah.

[46:01] Which, and both of those things have literally happened to John Waters.

[46:04] So, yeah, no, he's...

[46:06] So you're saying, so you had this, you had this, in the 90s, you had this, like, outburst of...

[46:11] Yeah, you have this indie boom, you know, of, like, of low-budget queer films.

[46:15] And then kind of this sort of, like, crossover into commercial and even mainstream movies where suddenly they're like, oh, there's money to be had here.

[46:24] Because we were such a starved audience at that point.

[46:27] We would run out to see whatever it was, you know.

[46:29] With, let's face it, disposable income.

[46:31] Because, you know, you're not wasting them on children most of the time like I am.

[46:34] Yeah, they're all dicks, right?

[46:35] Well, I mean, later, not so much.

[46:37] But, yes, at that time, sure, let's say yes.

[46:40] But, you know, so then you start getting movies like In-N-Out or even like, you know, A Jeffrey.

[46:49] You know, where like big names are attached and you're getting released into like, you know, big city art houses and maybe even some suburban multiplexes.

[46:58] Philadelphia? Is that in there?

[47:00] Yeah, that's, I mean, that's right in there.

[47:02] But that falls more in the category of like the sort of,

[47:05] that's almost like a movie Stanley Kramer could have made.

[47:07] Yeah, that's a message picture.

[47:09] Exactly, about social issues, you know.

[47:11] But an important one, you know.

[47:13] And I think for a lot of people,

[47:14] their first time seeing a queer character who was the hero

[47:18] and who was played by Tom frickin' Hanks, you know.

[47:22] And they get to follow Denzel's journey of going from like,

[47:28] homophobic and AIDS phobic and you know not wanting to deal with this stuff to completely

[47:32] accepting and loving this other you know character and and wanting to save him and wanting to you

[47:38] know like help him seek justice uh but yeah I think also like there is that thing of the 90s

[47:45] there's that residual you know AIDS panic certainly I think it manifests itself probably

[47:50] most vividly in the what we call the Michael Douglas sexual panic trilogy um you know fatal

[47:56] attraction, basic instinct, and

[47:58] disclosure, which are completely heterosexual

[48:00] movies, but they're all about AIDS, really.

[48:03] Because they're about, like, you know,

[48:05] married dudes, you stray,

[48:07] and it's gonna blow up in your

[48:09] face, and you better watch it.

[48:11] He is just so fuckable

[48:13] is the thing. That's true. When you're

[48:14] that hot, what are you gonna do?

[48:17] He had so much sex, he gave him cancer.

[48:19] Yeah.

[48:20] Dan, that's not how it happened. What?

[48:23] I mean, it could be.

[48:24] No, it can't. Yeah, it can.

[48:26] It can.

[48:27] That's actually, that's actually, yeah.

[48:29] It actually can.

[48:30] I actually have a friend who just got through that same cancer from likely the same cause, from HPV.

[48:38] Oh, right.

[48:39] Well, maybe that's how it happened with Michael Douglas then.

[48:40] I don't know.

[48:41] So, I mean, I just wouldn't conflate him as a real person with the characters he played in the movies.

[48:46] Like, he wasn't, it's not like those experiences in Fatal Attraction and basically things that actually happened to him.

[48:51] What?

[48:53] I thought those were documentaries.

[48:55] Glenn Close is alive?

[48:59] Ah, someone stop her.

[49:01] But the bunny's okay, right?

[49:04] Stuart, I got to talk to you after the show.

[49:07] That bunny is still alive today.

[49:12] So yeah, I just, you know, you guys talk about like, you know, 80s exploitation a lot.

[49:17] You know, it's clearly, I think, you know, movies that meant a lot to you guys.

[49:22] And I just find that's such a fascinating period in terms of, you know, it was sort of the last gasp of like, oh, you're just going to say faggot out loud.

[49:30] And we're all supposed to accept that, you know.

[49:33] And so, yeah, it's not like we can't still point to movies and be like, oh, I can't, this is problematic or I question your, you know, what you were thinking with this.

[49:44] But I think – I'm going to say for the most part, we were not – we're no longer in those waters for the most part.

[49:54] No, it is – there are several reasons why being a fan of like 80s trash like really like hurts my heart in certain ways.

[50:05] I mean, I think anytime you're a fan of trash, like trash is going to reflect, no matter how great it is, trash is going to reflect the, often the worst of it.

[50:15] Because it's going for the basest instincts, not the most basic instincts, but the basic instincts.

[50:21] And so like, it's going to reflect that stuff.

[50:22] But it's also like, that's the price you pay by loving culture, is that you don't get to just, you want to find pleasure in the things from before.

[50:32] And the world has not always been what it is.

[50:33] It's not, you know, people have not always been as understanding as they are.

[50:37] And so it's like, it's the same thing with like, we talk about movies because it's a

[50:42] movie podcast, but like it's the same thing with books or plays or, you know, any depiction

[50:46] of reality is going to reflect the understandings of reality of the people who made it.

[50:52] And their limitations.

[50:54] Exactly.

[50:54] And their limitation, which is not to excuse it, but it also means that like, you just

[50:58] got to be ready for it.

[50:59] And maybe, and this may be a little bit selfish, but there's something about watching like trash cinema where you're put now as an older person who's maybe a little more enlightened.

[51:12] You're able to look back and be like, I can identify that as gross, and that signifies that I am a better person now, so I feel better.

[51:22] You're like, I'm still watching this, and I can identify the parts that are gross.

[51:27] I'm not that much better.

[51:29] But it's also like, it's like when this came out,

[51:31] this is things that people felt comfortable saying out loud,

[51:34] you know, and like they were,

[51:37] this was a bit that they were happy to commit to

[51:39] and they didn't see any problem with it.

[51:41] When Criterion recently put out Risky Business,

[51:44] which is a movie that I was obsessed with in high school,

[51:47] Glenn Kenney did this great piece.

[51:48] It was like, thank God it holds up.

[51:51] Like it's, there's nothing in this movie

[51:52] that is so glaringly 80s.

[51:54] Like there's even, there is a trans sex worker in that movie

[51:58] And they are treated with respect in Risky Business.

[52:02] And it's just like, whew, because so much from the 80s.

[52:06] I mean, my God, the early John Hughes oeuvre.

[52:08] You're just like, oh, did we do that?

[52:12] It's such a joy to find older stuff and assume it's going to not hold up

[52:16] and then be like, oh, wow, like, I mean, this is a dumb one,

[52:20] but like rewatching old episodes of Night Court, I'm like,

[52:22] wow, Dan Fielding was actually fairly progressive by being like a Lothario.

[52:27] Yeah, well, look, as opposed to, you know, once the Gen Z started watching Friends during the pandemic, it was like, uh-oh.

[52:35] Or Starship Troopers.

[52:39] Well, Starship Troopers is a movie that people don't get, and that's their problem.

[52:42] That is so, it's so, I mean, I find it so funny when Starship Troopers came out, they were like, Paul Verhoeven doesn't realize he's made a pro-Nazi movie.

[52:50] And it's like, dude, I think he knows what he's doing.

[52:53] I think a lot of people, and I'm going to make a national judgment here, maybe particularly in America, feel the need to, like, hold themselves above whatever they're watching, which allows them to make assumptions that, like, the blindingly obvious thing in front of them was, like, done by mistake somehow.

[53:14] It's like, oh, does he know he's wearing a Nazi uniform?

[53:17] Yeah.

[53:17] Like, that's the signifier that is supposed to tell you how to feel about the movie.

[53:23] Or it's like, I mean, like I was saying about how they didn't like invent sex after the 30s.

[53:27] Like you watch a movie like The Gang's All Here and they have that whole dance number with those giant bananas.

[53:31] And you're like, and they're like, did they realize these are phallic?

[53:34] Of course they did.

[53:35] They had premises then.

[53:36] Like they knew.

[53:38] They'd been invented by that point.

[53:40] Yeah.

[53:41] Look, I just started watching The Boys for the first time.

[53:44] And I gobsmacked that anybody watched the first season of this show and didn't immediately get what the show was about.

[53:51] Like, I remember hearing, like, somewhere on, like, season three, people were like, oh, my God, the show's gone all woke.

[53:56] And I'm like, it's right there from the beginning.

[53:59] Like, he is not the hero.

[54:01] It's text.

[54:01] Homelander is not the good guy.

[54:03] Well, I think there's a lot of people who, they don't know how to read a story.

[54:07] Like, they don't know how to read what the story is trying to tell them.

[54:09] But also, when, especially when something is, like, Starship Troopers or, like, The Boys, they're using the, they're recontextualizing something to make it, to make a point.

[54:20] You know, that people just,

[54:22] they don't know how to understand that new context yet.

[54:24] And so they just assume that it means the thing

[54:26] that they've always expected it to mean.

[54:28] You know, like if you did a movie where,

[54:30] this would never happen,

[54:33] but if like John Wayne had done,

[54:35] or I guess maybe he did.

[54:36] I guess if you look at the searchers

[54:37] and you look at like John Wayne's character

[54:39] and that is a racist and he is shut out from society,

[54:42] not just because, oh, he's too strong for this world,

[54:44] but because he cannot make the acceptances in his heart

[54:47] that he needs to in order to be a part of society.

[54:50] And so it is such a strong statement about that John Wayne character.

[54:55] But a lot of people still watch it and they're like, John Wayne, what a hero.

[54:59] He's the hero of the movie.

[55:00] Because I know John Wayne and he's in it.

[55:02] He must be the hero.

[55:03] It's the Rorschach thing.

[55:04] I mean, I think that's kind of what doesn't work for me about Unforgiven is that Clint Eastwood is such an icon at that point.

[55:13] And for him to play this character who is so messed up, I remember seeing it with an audience.

[55:17] And when he starts shooting everybody at the end

[55:19] and you're supposed to think,

[55:19] oh no, this character is now lost

[55:21] to the dark side of his soul.

[55:22] And they're all like, yeah, get him.

[55:24] They're like, do it, do it, yeah.

[55:26] Clint maybe, what a picture.

[55:28] What a picture.

[55:29] I mean, as much as I love Clint Eastwood's work

[55:31] and I think he is,

[55:32] I thought, I loved juror number two.

[55:33] I thought it was so,

[55:34] I thought that was such a, such a-

[55:35] You and I differ, my friend.

[55:36] No, I really liked it a lot.

[55:37] Yeah, ditto.

[55:38] No, I really liked it a lot.

[55:39] But with Unforgiven,

[55:39] I think there is part of it where I'm like-

[55:40] Juror number three will turn you guys around.

[55:42] The third one-

[55:42] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[55:43] Oh, I thought it really improved on juror number one, which had potential, you know.

[55:47] But I think in Unforgiven, I wonder if there's a part of him where he's like, I want to say this, but I don't quite know how to say this.

[55:54] And he falls back into kind of the old patterns also.

[55:57] Like, I feel like Unforgiven, it hits its point when they shoot that guy who's sitting in an outhouse.

[56:01] And then everything after that is like, yeah, all right.

[56:04] Like, that's, I mean, that's the moment of the movie that hit its point, you know, so.

[56:07] Well, and to bring this back to our topic, like when Cruising came out in 1980, a lot of queer people were mad about that movie while it was being made because we'd been absent from the screen.

[56:18] And now here's this movie about like these serial killers in the leather world, you know.

[56:22] And the same with Basic Instinct.

[56:24] When that came out, I remember the protests.

[56:25] Oh, yeah, for sure.

[56:26] But in both cases, I think those movies have evolved in a way that like, for example, when Cruising was being made, a lot of people in the leather community were thrilled.

[56:34] They were like, oh, great, we're in a movie.

[56:36] Like we are being shown as part of the queer community

[56:39] because so often, you know, this is in the era

[56:41] when like leather guys and drag queens

[56:43] were often being discouraged from like being in the parade

[56:46] because, you know, they weren't sort of like,

[56:48] you know, heteronormative, you know, assimilationist enough.

[56:52] But yeah, as cruising ages,

[56:54] I think people have a lot of different reads on it.

[56:57] I mean, you can just look at that movie

[56:58] as this kind of like anthropological study

[57:01] of a New York that no longer exists, you know.

[57:04] That whole, the meatpacking district

[57:05] where all those bars are.

[57:06] Those are condos now, you know?

[57:08] And the brambles and that community

[57:12] was about to get hit so hard by AIDS

[57:14] that that is this moment in history

[57:16] that is at least captured, you know?

[57:18] And Basic Instinct, same thing.

[57:20] A lot of lesbians have since sort of embraced that movie.

[57:24] It's like, Sharon Stone is a badass in this movie.

[57:27] She's in charge.

[57:28] She is calling all the plays.

[57:30] She is befuddling and bewitching everybody else in the movie.

[57:35] person in the movie by far yeah exactly so it's like you know for a movie that at the time people

[57:40] were furious about because it was like yet another queer killer she is such a cool customer and such

[57:46] a glamorous object and such a you know again in people are coming to her on her own terms

[57:52] that audiences respond to that and i'm fine with queer villains in a context where there's queer

[57:58] everything and yeah i think that's i think i wonder i was going to ask if you thought that

[58:02] was the difference maybe is that at a time when the only queer representation was as villains or

[58:07] victims i was going to ask about silence of the lambs for instance yeah like if that means something

[58:12] different than in a world where you have multiple types of queer characters and so you can have a

[58:16] queer villain without it being like this is the represent like this is the one version speaking

[58:20] for everyone yeah totally no yeah i think it makes a huge difference and silence of the lambs

[58:24] you know i is still argued about in queer circles i think everybody acknowledges it's a great movie

[58:29] obviously it is you know it's no journey number two but yeah it's all right yeah i mean yeah it'll

[58:34] do uh but no it's it's it is this extraordinary thriller but it's like you know uh how are we

[58:40] meant to read this this you know trans serial killer essentially we're given this you know and

[58:46] i think uh it again it's the context of like are we seeing all kinds of trans characters are we

[58:52] seeing all kinds of queer characters or is this it you know um and partly because it's not only

[58:57] a great thriller but it also is a presentation of like like um like earthy american life like

[59:05] steel town life so you see like a lot of extras that look very regular and normal people and then

[59:12] you have this one like seedy character i've i've like it further complicates it for me at least

[59:18] yeah i i mean that there there's a lot with that character that i think in a in a world where

[59:26] you're seeing a variety of characters,

[59:29] a variety of, you know, transmasc,

[59:32] transfem representation in movies,

[59:34] then it just becomes part of, you know, the tapestry.

[59:38] But at the time, you know, there were so few,

[59:40] I mean, G's and L's, let alone T's in movies,

[59:45] and certainly that were being presented as heroic

[59:47] or even protagonists.

[59:49] Yeah, I get why at the time that movie upset a lot of people.

[59:53] And, you know, you hear conflicting reports

[59:55] about whether or not Jonathan Demme

[59:57] went on to make Philadelphia as a mea culpa or not,

[1:00:01] you know, like who even knows.

[1:00:03] But yeah, it has been fascinating.

[1:00:06] You know, we've been getting a lot of great trans voices

[1:00:10] in film criticism in the last few years.

[1:00:13] Like if you have not picked up

[1:00:14] Corpses, Fools, and Monsters

[1:00:15] by Willow Caitlin McClay and Caden Mark Gardner,

[1:00:18] that's a book that will actually tell you

[1:00:20] what's great about Glenn or Glenda, you know?

[1:00:23] Oh, wow.

[1:00:23] Like, they will take these sort of texts that have been discarded and be like, well, actually, this has this to say about the trans experience.

[1:00:31] Maybe one of the most progressive movies ever made in a lot of ways.

[1:00:33] For the 50s, absolutely, yeah.

[1:00:35] I mean, it's trying for something, and it's trying to, like, you know, make a plea for tolerance and understanding, you know.

[1:00:41] And a plea for using Buffalo stock footage and things.

[1:00:45] Yeah, I mean, it's like that the character's left not with, like, a rejection, but instead with a, like, well,

[1:00:53] Let's figure out how to be together.

[1:00:55] Let's share Angora sweaters.

[1:00:57] Yeah, exactly.

[1:00:58] You know, BJ and Harmony Colangelo

[1:01:01] wrote an entire book about sleepaway camp,

[1:01:03] which made trans people very angry at the time.

[1:01:08] But I think, you know, there's a,

[1:01:10] I don't know, what were they so upset about?

[1:01:13] No, but I think there's a way that these texts exist

[1:01:16] where even something that is considered at the time

[1:01:20] like, negative or, you know, like, people, you know, people used to think, and to this

[1:01:26] day still think, like, the boys in the band is a terrible representation of, like, queer

[1:01:30] life, but it's there, and it's an attempt to at least tap into some real truths and

[1:01:35] an acknowledgment of our existence, you know?

[1:01:39] Like, I'll even say during the Hays Code years, you know, you could pick apart Hitchcock,

[1:01:45] you know, giving us, like, Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca or, you know—

[1:01:48] Bruno in Strangers on a Train.

[1:01:51] Robert Walker's character or, like, you know,

[1:01:52] or Norman Bates or whoever

[1:01:53] as being these negative representations.

[1:01:56] But it's like, but at least we're there.

[1:01:58] Yeah, I guess that's the question.

[1:02:00] Would you rather be invisible

[1:02:03] or would you rather be acknowledged

[1:02:04] in a less than positive way, you know?

[1:02:07] Yeah, neither are great choices.

[1:02:08] They're both terrible choices.

[1:02:10] You know, and I think it's the fact

[1:02:13] that we've moved past those two choices

[1:02:15] that now allows us to look back

[1:02:17] at the negative ones and say like,

[1:02:20] well, at least they, you know,

[1:02:21] they got this or they included us in this

[1:02:23] or they make this acknowledgement.

[1:02:25] Like, you know, I think it's too easy

[1:02:28] to just dismiss something as terrible

[1:02:30] or reprehensible or, you know, negative.

[1:02:33] But if you approach it in a different way,

[1:02:36] you know, oh my God,

[1:02:38] I just read like a fascinating book

[1:02:39] about the history of the children's hour on screen

[1:02:42] from these three,

[1:02:44] which was the sort of cleaned up version

[1:02:45] to the eventual movie of it.

[1:02:47] Like, yeah, I think that any text,

[1:02:51] even if it was reviled at the time,

[1:02:53] can later yield some kind of insight

[1:02:55] into the queer experience

[1:02:57] as it was, you know, either being lived

[1:02:59] or at least being perceived and understood

[1:03:01] by straight people.

[1:03:03] The people who, for better or worse,

[1:03:06] have been the main storytellers

[1:03:09] for quite some time.

[1:03:10] Who keep taking the jobs.

[1:03:12] Yeah, unfortunately.

[1:03:13] Yeah, yeah.

[1:03:15] So we should start to wrap up.

[1:03:18] But are there particular – are there – I was wondering if there are either – you mentioned just now Corpses, Fools, and Monsters.

[1:03:27] But are there other books or are there recent movies or forgotten movies that you would recommend to people where you're like, this is worth watching, not just for historical purposes, but this is one that you're really going to get something special?

[1:03:39] Oh, sure, yeah.

[1:03:40] Well, yeah, definitely Corpses, Fools, and Monsters

[1:03:42] and the Sleepaway Camp book by the Colangelos.

[1:03:46] Also, Travelle Anderson, a former Max Fun host,

[1:03:51] has a book called We See Each Other

[1:03:53] about trans representation in film.

[1:03:56] That was very helpful to me

[1:03:57] as I was writing Hollywood Pride,

[1:03:59] pointed out several folks that, you know,

[1:04:01] like artists that I didn't know about

[1:04:04] and characters on screen that I didn't know about.

[1:04:07] As far as recent movies,

[1:04:08] A queer movie of recent vintage, I think it's on Canopy, that I've been really trying to press onto people because I feel like it got generally overlooked in its release.

[1:04:18] It's an Italian movie called Le Mensita.

[1:04:21] It stars Penelope Cruz as the mother of a trans son.

[1:04:26] But it's Italy in the early 70s, and nobody understands what is going on with this quote-unquote girl.

[1:04:33] You know, and they don't understand his behavior.

[1:04:37] But the kid has this very rich fantasy life of his own involving, you know, what his future is going to be like or how he can exist in the world as a boy, as the boy that he understands himself to be.

[1:04:50] And so it's got these really big, fun, like kind of musical numbers that are that are fantasy sequences.

[1:04:55] But there's also this really cool thing where there's this encampment of people living in the woods across the street from their high rise apartment.

[1:05:02] and he goes there and hangs out

[1:05:04] and just presents himself as a boy

[1:05:07] and that's how they welcome him

[1:05:09] and he gets to sort of live this separate existence

[1:05:12] where he just gets to be a boy

[1:05:13] and nobody asks him questions about it.

[1:05:15] So that's a film that I really love

[1:05:17] that I would love for more people to see.

[1:05:19] So yeah, go look for Le Mensata.

[1:05:22] Mensata.

[1:05:23] Well, Dan, do you have any other,

[1:05:25] I mean, you're kind of the expert on this stuff though.

[1:05:28] So Dan, do you have any other thoughts

[1:05:29] about queer representation in film

[1:05:31] or, you know, with the experience of it.

[1:05:34] I mean, I was going to talk about seeing Cruising

[1:05:36] for the first time last year,

[1:05:38] but I feel like the moment's passed,

[1:05:41] so we can just wrap things up.

[1:05:43] I want to talk about my favorite movie of the year so far,

[1:05:46] Pillion.

[1:05:47] Woo!

[1:05:48] Okay.

[1:05:49] Well, maybe not my, but it's up there.

[1:05:52] It's up there.

[1:05:53] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:53] Your favorite was The Mandalorian and Grogu.

[1:05:55] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:56] But as somebody who's not in that community,

[1:05:58] I found it to be really affecting,

[1:06:00] In part because of the way that it presents, like, kink and that the, like, I guess BDSM or leather culture in such a, like, plain format.

[1:06:11] Like, yep, and they don't seem to make a joke out of it.

[1:06:14] But I don't know.

[1:06:15] How do you feel about it, Alonzo?

[1:06:16] I liked it a lot.

[1:06:17] I actually think it would be a really good double feature with Baby Girl, the recent Nicole Kidman movie.

[1:06:23] Because I kind of feel like they're both sort of coming out movies for kinksters.

[1:06:28] You know, they're about people who are able to sort of understand this is what I want and this is what I like and this is what I respond to and this is what I don't want, you know.

[1:06:38] And so it's about people understanding themselves, declaring that to the world, and also setting the boundaries of what that is going to be for themselves.

[1:06:47] And they're tonally and stylistically different films, but I think they're both really effective at that.

[1:06:52] But they're both, like, the drama comes from them trying to understand where those boundaries are and, like, figuring that out.

[1:07:00] They're not meant to be, what, like, paragons of this lifestyle.

[1:07:05] This is simply people learning something.

[1:07:07] Yeah, they're figuring it out, and they're figuring out how do I accommodate this into the life I already have, whether it's with, you know, the husband and children I have in my position as a CEO or just life with my parents or, you know.

[1:07:22] how my day-to-day existence,

[1:07:24] like how does this all fit in?

[1:07:25] How does this all fit together?

[1:07:26] Yeah.

[1:07:27] You're saying it's a step forward

[1:07:28] from in most older movies,

[1:07:29] it would be a joke about someone walks into the wrong room

[1:07:32] and there's someone just kind of swinging a short whip

[1:07:35] with a biker cap on and that's the end.

[1:07:37] And you just know, whoa.

[1:07:38] That person was Dan Aykroyd.

[1:07:40] Yeah.

[1:07:42] I have not listened to your Exit to Eden episode yet,

[1:07:44] but I have to, I gotta get into that one.

[1:07:46] That is a, that is,

[1:07:47] what's funny about that is that

[1:07:48] its portrayal of key communities

[1:07:51] is, like, the least of the problems in the movie.

[1:07:56] Although, I mean, like...

[1:07:57] Jewel smuggling or whatever.

[1:07:58] And Gary Marshall spent a lot of time in dungeons

[1:08:00] doing research, I'm sure.

[1:08:02] The funny thing about that movie is, like,

[1:08:03] the problem is not that what it is showing is offensive.

[1:08:06] The problem is that what they're showing as kink is so tame.

[1:08:10] It's so funny.

[1:08:11] Why does it even go to an island for this?

[1:08:13] They're like, let's look at some...

[1:08:15] There's the showroom sequence.

[1:08:16] They're going through different kinky situations you can do,

[1:08:18] and they're like, love in an elevator.

[1:08:20] Ooh.

[1:08:21] Ooh, living it up while going down?

[1:08:26] It's just like, oh, okay, well, this is the most like, you know, 2% milk, 1% milk version.

[1:08:35] I'm going to sit on you with my bare bottom.

[1:08:39] I mean, yeah, I am not part of the BDSM community, but even I could tell that the Fifty Shades movies were some bullshit, you know?

[1:08:47] Yeah.

[1:08:47] I mean, the most real moment in any of the Fifty Shades movies is the moment where Dakota Johnson is in the middle of getting dressed and they have an argument.

[1:08:53] And I was like, this feels real.

[1:08:54] This is the kind of thing that happens.

[1:08:58] Human behavior.

[1:08:59] Yes, sometimes you have an argument in the middle of getting dressed, but there's nothing sexy about it, you know.

[1:09:05] Elliot, do you have a recommendation?

[1:09:07] I should have prepared one considering I asked the question.

[1:09:10] I don't really.

[1:09:11] I'm going to think about one.

[1:09:11] That's going to be my homework assignment.

[1:09:13] Okay.

[1:09:13] Go think about what you've done.

[1:09:14] I've been so deep.

[1:09:16] I've been so deep in Czech comedies lately

[1:09:18] that I haven't been going outside of that world too much.

[1:09:22] That's a two-circle Venn diagram, I'm pretty sure.

[1:09:25] Yeah, I think so.

[1:09:27] But what was Milos Forman,

[1:09:29] one of his first American movies was like...

[1:09:32] Taking Off?

[1:09:32] Taking Off, yeah.

[1:09:33] I don't know if there's anybody queer in that.

[1:09:34] I haven't seen it.

[1:09:35] I don't know that there is,

[1:09:37] but I mean, Taking Off is a great movie

[1:09:38] at the very least about people trying to understand

[1:09:41] other people, you know?

[1:09:43] Like, you know, so those parents are looking for their,

[1:09:45] they're looking for their daughter

[1:09:45] and their daughters in kind of like youth culture.

[1:09:47] But I don't remember there being anyone queer in it.

[1:09:51] But I'll watch it again.

[1:09:53] It's a good movie.

[1:09:54] And I'm sure that now that I think about it,

[1:09:57] the movies I've been watching,

[1:09:57] I'm sure probably have gay jokes in them

[1:09:59] that I just didn't notice because, you know, I'm not sure.

[1:10:02] Yeah, I mean, the thing about like those early,

[1:10:04] like the late 60s, early 70s, like the code was gone.

[1:10:07] You could suddenly do characters like that.

[1:10:10] But since most of those movies were being made

[1:10:12] by like straight dudes, it was like,

[1:10:14] Well, it's either going to be comic relief or a killer, you know.

[1:10:18] But look at how progressive we are by having this, you know, this homo-inclusion, you know.

[1:10:24] What, we put you in the movie?

[1:10:26] You're the bad guy or we laugh at you?

[1:10:28] We acknowledge your existence.

[1:10:30] What more do you want?

[1:10:31] What else could we do?

[1:10:32] Come on.

[1:10:33] Could I be the star of the movie?

[1:10:35] Of a movie?

[1:10:38] I'll have to think of something.

[1:10:40] Well, I'll have to expand what I've been watching.

[1:10:43] Because it's like the listeners the past few episodes of the show, they're like, let Elliot watch some other stuff.

[1:10:49] So you stop recommending just Czech comedies from the same director over and over again.

[1:10:55] Well, this has been a really fun and very, I think, what an eye-opening conversation.

[1:11:03] We're all going to walk away.

[1:11:05] We've all really learned something today.

[1:11:07] Alonso, it's always such a joy to have you on the show.

[1:11:10] We'll have to have you back again real soon.

[1:11:13] but thank you for...

[1:11:14] Have to plug his book one last time.

[1:11:15] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:11:16] Oh, please, yes, my book, Hollywood Pride,

[1:11:18] that I wrote for Running Press and Turner Classic Movies.

[1:11:20] It's available everywhere.

[1:11:21] It is a book, book, an e-book, and an audio book,

[1:11:24] so look for them where you find those things.

[1:11:27] Ask your library to snag a copy if they haven't already,

[1:11:30] and it's got tons and tons of ideas of films

[1:11:32] that you might want to check out,

[1:11:34] but always a pleasure to be here, guys.

[1:11:35] I'm thrilled when you have me back,

[1:11:37] and this was a great chat.

[1:11:38] Who reads the audio book?

[1:11:41] Me!

[1:11:42] I tried to get Morgan Freeman

[1:11:48] and he wouldn't return my calls

[1:11:49] I would so much rather hear you read it Alonzo

[1:11:52] than anybody else

[1:11:53] oh stop

[1:11:54] but thank you so much everybody for listening

[1:11:57] this has been the Flophouse podcast

[1:12:00] a mini episode

[1:12:01] we'll be back next week with a movie episode

[1:12:03] but it won't be as interesting

[1:12:05] but it'll probably be dumber

[1:12:07] it'll be dumber probably

[1:12:09] we can praise this episode without burying another

[1:12:11] I don't know how to do that.

[1:12:13] It's the way I was raised.

[1:12:14] We are a member of the MaxFun Network.

[1:12:16] There are lots of great MaxFun podcasts.

[1:12:18] Maximum Film is a MaxFun podcast.

[1:12:20] Yes, it is.

[1:12:21] And where you can hear more of our friend Alonso.

[1:12:24] Our show is produced by Alex Smith.

[1:12:27] You may know him better as HowlDotty.

[1:12:29] And if you don't know him as HowlDotty,

[1:12:30] take a look, listen to his music, listen to his podcast.

[1:12:33] He's hilarious.

[1:12:34] He's a great guy.

[1:12:34] He does great work for us.

[1:12:35] And he does great work on his own.

[1:12:37] Otherwise, if you happen to find yourself

[1:12:41] in a situation

[1:12:41] where you could leave

[1:12:42] a positive review for us

[1:12:44] on the podcast listener

[1:12:45] of your choice,

[1:12:46] why not do so?

[1:12:47] Why not take advantage

[1:12:47] of that review?

[1:12:48] Five stars.

[1:12:49] Why not be generous?

[1:12:50] Give us five stars.

[1:12:51] If six is an option,

[1:12:52] give us six.

[1:12:53] Why be stingy with stars?

[1:12:55] Come on.

[1:12:55] We have such a cost.

[1:12:57] You're saving them up.

[1:12:57] You can't take them with you.

[1:12:59] There's an infinite supply.

[1:13:01] It's true.

[1:13:02] Look into the sky.

[1:13:03] It's filled with them.

[1:13:04] Just grab five

[1:13:05] and slam it on your computer.

[1:13:07] Yeah, be like the kid

[1:13:08] in that Italo Calvino story

[1:13:09] that Pixar made a short out of

[1:13:10] and just pluck some stars out and, you know, bring them home with you.

[1:13:14] Everyone, is there anything else I've forgotten, Dan?

[1:13:16] No, you did great.

[1:13:18] Okay.

[1:13:18] So thank you so much for listening.

[1:13:19] Again, we'll be back next week.

[1:13:21] And I guess I'll end with my normal catchphrase that I end every episode with.

[1:13:25] Keep flopping it up, floppos.

[1:13:28] Oh, man.

[1:13:29] Classic.

[1:13:30] And I've been Stuart Wellington.

[1:13:32] I've been Dan McCoy.

[1:13:33] And we've been joined by Alonzo Duralde.

[1:13:40] maximum fun a worker-owned network of artists owned shows supported directly by you

FH Mini 152 - Pride

Transcript

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