Latest / Like a Virgin / Openly Gleek (feat. Ty Mitchell)

Transcript

Openly Gleek (feat. Ty Mitchell) · Like a Virgin

0:03
Speaker 1: I'm going to create an environment that is so toxic,
0:06
Speaker 1: and they really did. They really did create an environment
0:09
Speaker 1: that was so toxic and yet fruitful. I'm starting a
0:18
Speaker 1: rumor that Kate Bush is a gleek. You know, Um,
0:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know if that's that's if
0:25
Speaker 1: that's true, but we love to say shitty things for
0:27
Speaker 1: attention here on like a virgin. That's true, and this
0:29
Speaker 1: episode will be no different because we're talking about Glee.
0:33
Speaker 1: We're just we were warming up right before we're doing
0:35
Speaker 1: our our scales. O. Wait, wait, we need to actually
0:39
Speaker 1: do a kind of red leather, yellow leather, red leather.
0:42
Speaker 1: What was what sells seashells by the seashore? What did
0:45
Speaker 1: you do to that? Really ugly? Should we do a
0:51
Speaker 1: quick ground that thought? You? Neque New York, New York?
0:56
Speaker 1: You know, that's really moment. Yeah, this is really cursed,
1:02
Speaker 1: which is very appropriate because today we're talking about Glee,
1:05
Speaker 1: the seminole Ryan Murphy TV show, and we have none
1:08
Speaker 1: other than the first openly gay porn star and writer
1:13
Speaker 1: Tie Mitchell here today to talk with us all about
1:16
Speaker 1: Glee It's impact on TV culture, queer representation. Because this
1:21
Speaker 1: is like a Virgin the show where we give yesterday's
1:23
Speaker 1: pop culture today's takes. I'm ros Dam and I'm fran Toronto.
1:31
Speaker 1: This Pride month, we were blessed by what I will
1:34
Speaker 1: say is one of the best gay albums of all
1:36
Speaker 1: time and definitely an album of the year, from um
1:40
Speaker 1: Muna's self titled second album, Muna Um. I'm in love
1:44
Speaker 1: with it. I've been listening to it NonStop. Actually on
1:46
Speaker 1: the flight to New York from l A. I just
1:49
Speaker 1: had it playing on a loop while I was sleeping
1:51
Speaker 1: for the entire flight. So now I feel like it
1:53
Speaker 1: has settled into my very bones. And I'm gonna say
1:57
Speaker 1: my favorite track right now currently is Nurse High Too.
2:01
Speaker 1: It's so good, it's like really synthy. Um. I really
2:05
Speaker 1: like how their production has evolved, especially like I think
2:09
Speaker 1: the songwriting and like the musicians ship has always been there.
2:14
Speaker 1: But I think maybe because you know, mun As signed
2:16
Speaker 1: to Phoebe Bridges label Satisfactory Records, and I think maybe
2:21
Speaker 1: like getting them like like helping them out with production
2:25
Speaker 1: was maybe part of that, or just maybe they have
2:27
Speaker 1: access to like a better studio now. I don't know,
2:30
Speaker 1: but just realized that saddest factory is a double entendo
2:35
Speaker 1: for satisfactory. I didn't know that good if I did not, anyway,
2:41
Speaker 1: that's very Phoebe. But yeah, it's very Phoebe. Um again
2:44
Speaker 1: Runners high Runners hide for me. I mean it feels
2:46
Speaker 1: very like fruit fru or like image and heat a
2:48
Speaker 1: little bit, which is the biggest compliment, biggest we can give.
2:52
Speaker 1: And then like my other fave, Solid with like those
2:56
Speaker 1: harmonized vocals that they are so known for, reminds me
2:59
Speaker 1: of very like Um, very like Wilson Phillips, like Um
3:05
Speaker 1: eighties nineties era, like girl rock, you know girl in
3:08
Speaker 1: quotes rock. Um right, it would definitely play at like
3:12
Speaker 1: a wedding scene in a queer movie. Yeah, they them
3:14
Speaker 1: rock if you will Um and I yeah, I mean,
3:17
Speaker 1: I I love I'm so excited about it. I remember Um,
3:21
Speaker 1: after shooting the Silk Fun music video with them, they
3:24
Speaker 1: had like a bonfire at Naomi and Joe's house. Um,
3:29
Speaker 1: and I remember we were talking about the album and
3:33
Speaker 1: what they were excited about. This is eons ago and
3:34
Speaker 1: I had been listening to Silk Fun all day, so
3:36
Speaker 1: I was like addicted to it because it's such an
3:38
Speaker 1: earworm and I mean that and it's a term of endearment,
3:41
Speaker 1: and um, they were They were like, oh, we want
3:44
Speaker 1: to show you this other song just to see what
3:45
Speaker 1: you think. And they played what I Want and I
3:49
Speaker 1: remember being like, oh, this is like such a bop
3:52
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, Silk Chifn is for the
3:54
Speaker 1: girls and what I Want is for the boys. We
3:57
Speaker 1: love the musical binary love binaries. Yes, Um, that's very
4:01
Speaker 1: exciting speaking of something that's for the girls. It was
4:04
Speaker 1: just announced that Emma Roberts is joining The Spider Man
4:09
Speaker 1: SeeU in Madam Webb alongside Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney.
4:14
Speaker 1: So Sony really said, gays, you will be watching this
4:18
Speaker 1: superhero movie whether you like it or not, right, And
4:20
Speaker 1: I mean I'm here for Sydney Sweeney obviously. Um, Emma
4:24
Speaker 1: Roberts has never been my girl. Like, I really can't
4:27
Speaker 1: tell the difference between her and all the other blonde
4:30
Speaker 1: cast members of American Horror Story, right, who are all
4:33
Speaker 1: who are all nepotism babies. Emma Roberts is Julia Roberts's niece,
4:37
Speaker 1: Reilly Lord is Carrie Fisher's daughter. Um, Tessa Familia is
4:41
Speaker 1: vera familiar sister, like they are all just related to
4:44
Speaker 1: someone famous. They all look exactly the same. But I'm
4:47
Speaker 1: totally behind this casting. I love that, like because I
4:50
Speaker 1: think Spider Man is like a very just like boy
4:55
Speaker 1: centric superhero universe. Um, except you know, we got Spy
5:00
Speaker 1: or Gwen into the spider verse. But I really loved
5:02
Speaker 1: the idea of like force feminizing spider Man, state sanctions
5:07
Speaker 1: and spider Man it's like your favorite superhero absolutely without
5:11
Speaker 1: a die. I mean, is that just because he's a twink?
5:13
Speaker 1: I mean, I I it's probably because he shoots come
5:16
Speaker 1: out of his hands, but I feel like for me, Yeah,
5:18
Speaker 1: sorry for the visual, but I think you know I
5:21
Speaker 1: love an underdog story. I have no shame in loving
5:24
Speaker 1: Spider Man, even though it has been done to death. Well, um,
5:28
Speaker 1: something that did not make me shoot come out of
5:30
Speaker 1: my hands, but did make me feel really ashamed of
5:32
Speaker 1: my love. That was um to two weeks ago. I
5:35
Speaker 1: did something really dark, which was I watched the entire
5:38
Speaker 1: final season of Love Victor in twenty four hours the
5:42
Speaker 1: day it was released. Wait, I don't know that you
5:45
Speaker 1: watched at all. With the whole over ours in twenty
5:50
Speaker 1: four hours, that's really half an hour episodes. It's very easy. Yeah,
5:55
Speaker 1: I did it in two sittings. I did once watch
5:57
Speaker 1: a season of Love Victor in one sitting as well.
6:03
Speaker 1: Really a story that I told about our live show
6:05
Speaker 1: this this past this yesterday. It was, okay, I'll give
6:08
Speaker 1: I'll give the abre I'm going to I'm going to
6:14
Speaker 1: create editions, but I would love to hear you. Okay,
6:16
Speaker 1: France took too much ammodium and was no, no, no, no,
6:18
Speaker 1: no no, no, give me storytelling value. I'm going to
6:21
Speaker 1: break it down. Fran, do it, Phoebe Maker do it.
6:25
Speaker 1: Fran was okay, I'm gonna do it. Okay. So Fran
6:28
Speaker 1: was on Fire Island wanted to bottom and so took
6:31
Speaker 1: an ammonium but accidentally took two um and so had
6:36
Speaker 1: a hard brick of ship in there and there colon
6:41
Speaker 1: and there were no doctors on Fire Island famously has
6:43
Speaker 1: no doctors. So had to spend eight hours sitting in
6:46
Speaker 1: front of a TV watching Love Victor reclined, unable to
6:50
Speaker 1: recline because reclining or laying down in any capacity hurt.
6:54
Speaker 1: Because however, the you know, amorphous rock like turd was
6:58
Speaker 1: adjusted into like my upper or lower intestine had like
7:03
Speaker 1: it felt like the way it was large, like hurt
7:07
Speaker 1: if I would move and also couldn't eat, could only
7:10
Speaker 1: sit and watch Love Victor. I had to face time
7:13
Speaker 1: a doctor and the doctor was like, do not under
7:16
Speaker 1: any circumstances, so that only gatorade. All that to say,
7:23
Speaker 1: Love Victor was um good. Well, maybe if I have
7:29
Speaker 1: a medical emergency that keeps me in bed against my
7:33
Speaker 1: will for eight hours, then I will I will watch it. Um.
7:36
Speaker 1: The stupidest part of it, though, is that in the
7:38
Speaker 1: final episode, Victor gets an award from his school for
7:43
Speaker 1: being gay, which I don't think is a good thing,
7:48
Speaker 1: although the show kind of frames that is like this
7:50
Speaker 1: is kind of bad, but like ultimately kind of good
7:53
Speaker 1: and like, I don't know, I want a scholarship for
7:55
Speaker 1: being gay in high school. Basically I didn't even apply
7:58
Speaker 1: for it and I got it, but they were just
8:00
Speaker 1: kind of like, how much money was it? Actually? I
8:03
Speaker 1: also don't think he got I don't think he got money.
8:05
Speaker 1: He just got an award. Oh well, that's fucking stupid.
8:09
Speaker 1: I something that I remember about the Love Victor franchises,
8:11
Speaker 1: they try to paint them as like a working class family,
8:14
Speaker 1: and that that just was not I mean, if you
8:16
Speaker 1: any context clues, like in the show, you would know
8:18
Speaker 1: that they are probably pretty middle class. Another thing I watched,
8:23
Speaker 1: unfortunately was Elvis. Oh, you didn't like it? It was
8:28
Speaker 1: so bad. Really. First of all, it's two hours and
8:33
Speaker 1: forty minutes long. Well, I mean, it is bass and
8:37
Speaker 1: it's just so disinterested in being about Elvis's life and
8:42
Speaker 1: is much more interested in just being a bas Lerman movie. Yeah,
8:46
Speaker 1: I'm such a bass stand so that doesn't sound that
8:50
Speaker 1: bad to me. No, But like it's style over substance,
8:53
Speaker 1: but the style isn't good. I love things that are
8:57
Speaker 1: style over something, but the style has to be good.
9:00
Speaker 1: The styles not was not good. You didn't like the
9:02
Speaker 1: the Casey Musgraves cover, No, because what the point when
9:06
Speaker 1: that happens? Like, I want to hear the actual song
9:11
Speaker 1: in this Elvis biopic, not a cover of it, And
9:14
Speaker 1: that was another problem I had with it. So the
9:16
Speaker 1: movie ends when Elvis dies and then there's like a
9:20
Speaker 1: clip montage of the real Elvis, which I hate when
9:24
Speaker 1: that's done in biopics because it just makes me think
9:26
Speaker 1: I should have just watched a documentary. And I also
9:29
Speaker 1: think it undercuts the performance of the actor who's been
9:32
Speaker 1: playing this character for the last almost three hours and
9:35
Speaker 1: the movie did he die on the toilet? No, what
9:38
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that that happened. All they say
9:40
Speaker 1: is that he had a heart attack. Literally for me, like,
9:42
Speaker 1: I think it's one of the most well known facts
9:44
Speaker 1: of Elvis that he died from. I had no idea.
9:48
Speaker 1: Well he did um after probably eating one of those
9:51
Speaker 1: disgusting peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. Like peanut butter and bacon.
9:55
Speaker 1: That sounds incredible. I mean that he would famously like
9:59
Speaker 1: send a private jet to go pick up this like
10:01
Speaker 1: special sandwich that was made at some sandwich shop that
10:04
Speaker 1: had it was a full French baguette that was scooped
10:07
Speaker 1: out and filled with a pound of peanut butter, a
10:11
Speaker 1: pound of bacon, bananas, and I think honey or something
10:15
Speaker 1: like that, and fried. I want one of those. Yeah,
10:18
Speaker 1: I mean it is actually before I thought it was
10:22
Speaker 1: really good. We should make them on Fire Island this
10:24
Speaker 1: week and then maybe you'll be full of shit again.
10:29
Speaker 1: Well I would never take two emmodium as the box
10:32
Speaker 1: instructed ever again. Okay, Basilerman maybe had the second highest
10:38
Speaker 1: anticipated film of this weekend after Buzz Lightyear. The Light
10:42
Speaker 1: Year movie which you saw. I did see. Um, I've
10:45
Speaker 1: been seeing a lot of movies just because I have
10:46
Speaker 1: a lot more time on my hands. And now that
10:48
Speaker 1: is you have the mc stuffs rewards membership, you are
10:52
Speaker 1: cashing in. Mom. So I saw a light Year. It
10:55
Speaker 1: was fine. It was not great, it was not bad.
10:58
Speaker 1: It was just a totally fine animated movie. Um. I
11:03
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of nostalgia tied to toy story. No.
11:06
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people say, like, oh, it's
11:08
Speaker 1: one of the greatest animated films ever created. But and
11:11
Speaker 1: it's I guess, like the the um framing of it
11:15
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting because they said, like the way
11:18
Speaker 1: they frame it is that this is the movie that
11:21
Speaker 1: Andy saw. That the toy interesting. So like at the
11:26
Speaker 1: beginning of the movie, it says Andy saw, like his
11:30
Speaker 1: favorite movie, this is that movie. I love that they
11:33
Speaker 1: are trying to convince us that there was a movie
11:37
Speaker 1: that had one a black person in it and to
11:39
Speaker 1: a gay kiss, a gay gay lesbian, a black lesbian,
11:43
Speaker 1: a black gay character. I don't listen. I know that
11:46
Speaker 1: there was this whole controversy about the gay kiss. I
11:48
Speaker 1: don't even remember if they kissed in the movie. That
11:51
Speaker 1: fucking sucks. But also it's not surprising at all. But
11:53
Speaker 1: I do remember, like what I thought was nice about
11:57
Speaker 1: it was that, So the whole story is that buzz.
12:00
Speaker 1: It's like going on these missions and they only take
12:02
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes for him, but on the planet
12:04
Speaker 1: that he's coming from, it takes like four years. So
12:07
Speaker 1: when he comes back for the first time, his like
12:10
Speaker 1: partner is like, oh, I got married while you were gone,
12:14
Speaker 1: and he says, oh, who is what's her name? Like,
12:16
Speaker 1: and there's no kind of like mo like weird moment.
12:20
Speaker 1: He it's just like very casual, which I really appreciated,
12:23
Speaker 1: Like I think that is a good representation, especially in
12:26
Speaker 1: a kids movie. And they show her with her wife
12:29
Speaker 1: and like her her son and like eventual grandchild. Um.
12:33
Speaker 1: But this is like the first gay kiss in a
12:36
Speaker 1: Disney I'm just so tired of Disney being like this
12:39
Speaker 1: is our first game, like this is our first rim
12:42
Speaker 1: job scene in the Pixar movie, and every single time
12:44
Speaker 1: it's like a gay time's like headline Instagram post. And
12:48
Speaker 1: I saw one the other day that was like Disney
12:50
Speaker 1: to premiere the first openly gay teen romance, and I
12:55
Speaker 1: was like, well, first of all that would suggest that
12:57
Speaker 1: they were closeted and stealth teen romances in previous Disney film.
13:03
Speaker 1: None of this, None of these words are in the Bible.
13:06
Speaker 1: Like I'm so done with the first, Like you know what,
13:09
Speaker 1: this is the first fucking on air felching on a
13:13
Speaker 1: podcast about Buckle Up Virgins for the Virgins listening yesterday,
13:29
Speaker 1: we are talking about Glee, the Fox Ryan Murphy TV
13:34
Speaker 1: show that had an ironclad grip on pop culture in
13:39
Speaker 1: the like early the Obama era, the Obama Oh my god,
13:45
Speaker 1: if if you exactly, if you want, if you want
13:48
Speaker 1: to encapsulation of what the Obama era was like in media,
13:52
Speaker 1: it was Glee. I feel that way. I feel that
13:53
Speaker 1: Glee is the quintess Glee and True Blood are the
13:56
Speaker 1: quintessential cultural products of the Obama. We should have done
14:01
Speaker 1: this episode on True Blood. I mean, we can talk
14:02
Speaker 1: about True Blood too, but they're kind of two sides
14:05
Speaker 1: of the same coin, and they are absolutely in conversation
14:08
Speaker 1: with each other. Well because they're both like really really
14:11
Speaker 1: off the rails kind of like psychotic, yes, psychotically told um,
14:17
Speaker 1: you know, drama soaps that appealed to you know, also
14:23
Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't know, Ty, can you give like a
14:25
Speaker 1: t l DR very brief summary of what Glee is about.
14:29
Speaker 1: Glee is a musical comedy on that aired on Fox
14:36
Speaker 1: about a high school glee club made up of losers
14:42
Speaker 1: and rejects and then very quickly also popular people competing
14:46
Speaker 1: for various titles that got higher in stakes as the
14:50
Speaker 1: show went on, and who were continually um attempted to
14:56
Speaker 1: sabotage at sabotage by Plankton asque super Lynd played by
15:00
Speaker 1: Jane Lynch, Sue Sylvester say her name, Um. Yeah. The
15:07
Speaker 1: inciting incident of it is that the cool kid at
15:10
Speaker 1: school gets blackmailed by his teacher into joining the glee club,
15:16
Speaker 1: thus creating this sort of tension between the rejects and
15:21
Speaker 1: the cool kid, and Lea Michelle is a reject and
15:24
Speaker 1: the guy is the cool kid. Yes, Um and more
15:27
Speaker 1: cool people joined the glee club because the cheerleading coach,
15:31
Speaker 1: Sue Sylvester sends them in as like um spies, but
15:35
Speaker 1: then you know they actually like it. It ran for
15:37
Speaker 1: five seasons six seven. I believe I only watched two.
15:42
Speaker 1: I want to be clear about that going into the beginning.
15:45
Speaker 1: I have only watched two seasons of Glee. I have
15:47
Speaker 1: watched clips of other seasons of it, but that was
15:51
Speaker 1: all I could do. I'm going to um muscle through
15:56
Speaker 1: a blanket statement that y'all can you know, help me
15:58
Speaker 1: maybe fix if it's an act. But I feel like
16:01
Speaker 1: Glee came onto the scene at like another wave of
16:05
Speaker 1: like gay representation post Will and Grace that was trying
16:10
Speaker 1: to that. That I think created a new era of
16:13
Speaker 1: like gaze on TV that were not Jack. You know,
16:18
Speaker 1: there was a lot of Jack I think still in
16:20
Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, because Chris Colfer's character like is just
16:23
Speaker 1: a different version of that kind of gay. But the
16:26
Speaker 1: thing about Ryan Murphy's comedic stylings is that he really
16:29
Speaker 1: was maybe not Ryan Murphy specifically, but the Glees comedic
16:33
Speaker 1: stillings were like very like crass. They weren't afraid to
16:37
Speaker 1: make like really inappropriate jokes. I think that a lot
16:41
Speaker 1: was incredibly problematic and afraid to do that. That's the
16:44
Speaker 1: thing is the show developed a social conscience over the
16:49
Speaker 1: course of its run, and that's why that's part of
16:51
Speaker 1: why I feel like it's really quinte essentially like an
16:53
Speaker 1: Obama Obama agricultural product, is that the show kind of
16:58
Speaker 1: became reactive to itself and to feedback to it, and
17:02
Speaker 1: became a show that was very self aware about a
17:05
Speaker 1: certain kind of responsibility towards representation. Yes, yes, because I
17:09
Speaker 1: do think when it started, I remember the first episode
17:13
Speaker 1: previewed a couple of months before the actual season premiered.
17:18
Speaker 1: I think it was maybe like before the finale of
17:22
Speaker 1: a season of American Idol or something. It was American
17:26
Speaker 1: Idol Area, And I remember watching it with my roommate
17:29
Speaker 1: and we thought it was the coolest, most transgressive thing ever.
17:33
Speaker 1: And I do think the early episodes of that show
17:36
Speaker 1: are pretty radical for what was on TV at the time,
17:41
Speaker 1: and like the kind of jokes they were making, um,
17:44
Speaker 1: the audience that they were catering to, the identities that
17:48
Speaker 1: they were centering. But you're right, and that it became
17:51
Speaker 1: too self aware, um, and too scared of saying the
17:57
Speaker 1: wrong thing. I can only speak for like the first season,
18:01
Speaker 1: I feel like the gay characters in the show, we're
18:04
Speaker 1: like pretty neutered, like because it was like still for
18:08
Speaker 1: like a really young audience, neutered and tortured. Like the
18:12
Speaker 1: whole season two is about Kurt being bullied. Yeah, it's
18:15
Speaker 1: a lot of like bullying stuff. However, I remember, I
18:18
Speaker 1: think very it gets better in my mind. I remember
18:20
Speaker 1: hating the show when it like when I watched that
18:22
Speaker 1: after I'm finishing the first season. But I do remember
18:25
Speaker 1: feeling like I hadn't really watched something that had multiple
18:29
Speaker 1: gay characters, and also like characters that or rather storylines
18:33
Speaker 1: that were invested in the romance were like in something
18:36
Speaker 1: like Will and Grace, like or other sitcom sitcom you
18:39
Speaker 1: kind of vibes it's like they will never talk about
18:42
Speaker 1: sex and there was like no kissing really on Will
18:44
Speaker 1: and Grace or whatever. Obviously that was like the dawn
18:46
Speaker 1: of like a lot of gay people on TV. But
18:49
Speaker 1: kurt storyline was really I mean, I think if you
18:51
Speaker 1: follow kurt storyline over the course of the show, you
18:53
Speaker 1: do see that kind of self awareness in the sense
18:55
Speaker 1: that like Kurt starts out as like bullied, and then
18:58
Speaker 1: the bullying gets worse, and then his relationship with father
19:00
Speaker 1: gets strained, and then he meets Blaine from the Warblers,
19:04
Speaker 1: and we get to watch a gay character get everything
19:09
Speaker 1: that he wants, basically, like he restores his relationship with
19:12
Speaker 1: his dad, he has a boyfriend who is beautiful, he
19:16
Speaker 1: like goes off to the Warblers Dalton Academy and like
19:20
Speaker 1: gets to gets to have like a community of like
19:23
Speaker 1: young gay kids or or at least gay tolerant people.
19:28
Speaker 1: He moves off to New York with Leah Michelle like
19:31
Speaker 1: becomes friends with Sarah Jessica Parker. Wait, does Sarah Jessica
19:35
Speaker 1: Parker play herself? She comes and sings Let's have a
19:39
Speaker 1: Kiki mashed up with the Turkey Lurkey song for herself
19:44
Speaker 1: or she playing a character? She always plays herself, really,
19:50
Speaker 1: she kind of does. There were some great guest stars,
19:54
Speaker 1: Like I know Kate Hudson was on it for a minute,
19:59
Speaker 1: Me and he leaks. First season, you had Adena and
20:03
Speaker 1: Kristen Adina Menzel playing Liam Michelle's mother was one of
20:06
Speaker 1: the best casting choices I think ever. Demilovado, Lindsay Lohan,
20:11
Speaker 1: Perez Hilton, Britney Spears was on this. She was on
20:14
Speaker 1: the Britney episode, like very briefly, just they let her
20:17
Speaker 1: make a quick cameo and the conservators of the conservatorship, um,
20:23
Speaker 1: we were going to watch an episode of Glee the
20:25
Speaker 1: other night. It's famously not on any streaming platform for
20:28
Speaker 1: a while. Yeah, it was removed and now it's not
20:31
Speaker 1: anywhere streamable. But I really wanted to watch the Madonna episode,
20:34
Speaker 1: which I do think is the best episode of Glee
20:36
Speaker 1: of the two seasons that I've watched. What happens in
20:38
Speaker 1: that episode, it's just they do a bunch of Madonna
20:40
Speaker 1: numbers and it's amazing. Nothing further was Madonna that when
20:44
Speaker 1: they did that was the like a virgin? Was that
20:45
Speaker 1: when they did like a virgin? Whenever they yes, they
20:50
Speaker 1: they do like a Virgin? Yeah, it would have been
20:53
Speaker 1: so perfect for this podcast. I know, right we had
20:55
Speaker 1: watched it. What was like your first impression of the show, Like,
20:58
Speaker 1: when did you watch it as it came out? Do
21:00
Speaker 1: you remember what we were saying? So I I was
21:03
Speaker 1: in high school. I was I was a debate kid obviously,
21:08
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's such a good fact about you.
21:12
Speaker 1: And when to have a particularly strong theater program at
21:15
Speaker 1: my high school, there was just like it wasn't funded
21:17
Speaker 1: at all. There was a high turnover on the people
21:19
Speaker 1: who were teaching it, and there was just not very
21:21
Speaker 1: much interest. So we didn't really have much of a
21:23
Speaker 1: theater program. We did like one musical in the whole
21:26
Speaker 1: four years that I was there, and I kept wanting
21:29
Speaker 1: to apply to the theater magnet school, and like would
21:33
Speaker 1: kind of get started application every year and then like
21:35
Speaker 1: not go through with it because I just wanted to
21:37
Speaker 1: stay at my same high school with all my friends.
21:39
Speaker 1: But I did become really close friends with a bunch
21:41
Speaker 1: of people who were at theater program, and so I
21:42
Speaker 1: was kind of like living vicariously like through these like
21:48
Speaker 1: gleaked up theater friends and also through like drawing parallels
21:53
Speaker 1: between my whole like debate team experience in Glee. But
21:55
Speaker 1: I was like in I was in high school, as
21:58
Speaker 1: Glee was happening, I would come to my like English
22:01
Speaker 1: class and sit next to my English teacher and gag
22:05
Speaker 1: about Glee every week. Um, so you were a Glee
22:08
Speaker 1: I was. I was fully a Glee. I was fully
22:10
Speaker 1: in it. I loved it. I was obsessed with it.
22:12
Speaker 1: And then when I went to college, was around the
22:14
Speaker 1: same time that it was like season four, season three
22:17
Speaker 1: probably happened, and it did start to get like the
22:20
Speaker 1: humor started to get not as good, and the like
22:24
Speaker 1: social message became stronger and stronger. Can we have a
22:27
Speaker 1: brief aside to talk about the relationships between gay people
22:30
Speaker 1: and their English teachers because I came out. My English
22:34
Speaker 1: teacher was maybe the fourth or fifth person I ever
22:36
Speaker 1: came out too. Like period, I had a like, let's
22:40
Speaker 1: have a Kiki kind of relationship. What was your English teacher?
22:42
Speaker 1: Like missed of all was my ap lit teacher and
22:46
Speaker 1: a loose cannon. And she was a total blast. And
22:49
Speaker 1: she like seated me next to her, not because she
22:52
Speaker 1: had to watch me, but because we would gab like
22:56
Speaker 1: most of the glass because I was like I was
22:58
Speaker 1: like bored most of the time, because I was just
23:00
Speaker 1: like finished my work. She once famously said that I
23:02
Speaker 1: could shoot out an a or like a nine a
23:04
Speaker 1: p essay. You know, I'm sure you could. I'm sure
23:09
Speaker 1: it was probably not kind of pedagogy to like very
23:11
Speaker 1: very clearly like like call out like a better student
23:15
Speaker 1: than everyone else. I had a I had an English teacher.
23:18
Speaker 1: This was an English teacher that I was had like
23:19
Speaker 1: a really good relationship with. But my my last APT
23:22
Speaker 1: teacher teacher, his last year of teaching English at our school,
23:27
Speaker 1: he just like was over it. And his whole thing
23:31
Speaker 1: it was so amazing. His name is Mr. Brown. His
23:33
Speaker 1: whole thing was that he was an atheist and if
23:36
Speaker 1: you went into his class, and this is we were
23:38
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, where like atheism is like kind of
23:41
Speaker 1: a little like not everyone believes in God, but like
23:44
Speaker 1: it's taboo to be an atheist, Like that's kind of
23:46
Speaker 1: culturally where I was, UM, And if you had to
23:50
Speaker 1: take a class from Mr Brown, you were told ahead
23:52
Speaker 1: of time that he was an atheist and like be
23:54
Speaker 1: prepared for that or whatever. And in his last year
23:57
Speaker 1: he was fully arguing with Christian high schoolers about the
24:00
Speaker 1: existence of God. I was just like, and only now
24:04
Speaker 1: am I Like that is kind of crazy, Like that
24:07
Speaker 1: is a crazy thing to do as a full grown man.
24:11
Speaker 1: Teacher would be like, I don't remember any of my
24:13
Speaker 1: English teachers names, but like, I think it's interesting that
24:16
Speaker 1: you talk about, you know, how you were a debate
24:18
Speaker 1: kid and that gave you sort of like an understanding
24:21
Speaker 1: of what was being enacted on the screen. I was
24:24
Speaker 1: a theater kid, so obviously, like Glee was deeply triggering
24:29
Speaker 1: and traumatizing for me because some it was playing out
24:32
Speaker 1: so much of like what was going on social, socioculturally
24:35
Speaker 1: in my life in high school. Um. I never did
24:40
Speaker 1: choir or anything, though, so it was like a little
24:43
Speaker 1: different but like they did put on shows sometimes, and
24:47
Speaker 1: like they did so many show tunes and some of
24:50
Speaker 1: them were amazing, Like the Glee cast version of some
24:53
Speaker 1: songs are great, Um, don't ran on My Parade? Like
24:58
Speaker 1: that is one of Lea Michelle's shining moments in life.
25:01
Speaker 1: Or her performance of My Man incredible, really really good
25:07
Speaker 1: my Man? What is transcendent about it? I don't even
25:11
Speaker 1: She's just so good. It's just really good. Are we
25:15
Speaker 1: all still today able to say, like Leah Michelle is
25:19
Speaker 1: so good it's a rude it's incredibly talented. She is
25:23
Speaker 1: so fierce enough, just barely fierce enough to get away
25:26
Speaker 1: with how rude she is barely Yeah, but it's is
25:30
Speaker 1: it like the fact that she's difficult to work with,
25:32
Speaker 1: that she doesn't have work anymore. Well, she did her
25:35
Speaker 1: post Glee work was still in the Ryan Murphy verse.
25:39
Speaker 1: She did Scream Queens, and she was great on Scream Queens.
25:42
Speaker 1: I didn't know she did Scream Queen. Yeah. That's another thing,
25:45
Speaker 1: is that Ryan Murphy's reputation when Glee came out was
25:47
Speaker 1: that he was edgy because his prior work was and popular.
25:51
Speaker 1: He wasn't yet known as like that faggot. If you actually, like,
25:56
Speaker 1: if you're looking at the chronology of Ryan Murphy and
25:58
Speaker 1: you want to see the thing most clearly led to Glee,
26:01
Speaker 1: It is Popular, which is a show, a show that
26:05
Speaker 1: was on the WB for two seasons, um, and is
26:09
Speaker 1: about a popular girl and an unpopular girl whose parents
26:12
Speaker 1: get married so they become step sisters. And it is
26:16
Speaker 1: so good. Um. What's what's her name? One? Yeah, the
26:22
Speaker 1: one she's in a lot of the rhyme. Yeah. She
26:24
Speaker 1: she plays this character Mary Cherry, which is really funny
26:27
Speaker 1: because of the other Mary Cherry. Um, and she's so good. Ums.
26:33
Speaker 1: Like I've always wondered, like, what is Ryan Murphy's like you?
26:39
Speaker 1: I guess you see these adult creators who are so
26:42
Speaker 1: clearly working out their own trauma in their work, and
26:46
Speaker 1: it's like, when is Ryan Murphy going to get over
26:49
Speaker 1: whatever happened to him in high school? He was from Indiana,
26:52
Speaker 1: that must be said, that is a lot of trauma
26:55
Speaker 1: built in. That's a gay filmmaker, think to Stevens did too,
27:00
Speaker 1: but he just coming back to Alan Ball did that
27:03
Speaker 1: with six ft Under worked out a lot of his
27:05
Speaker 1: like gay stuff. I think that's just like and he
27:07
Speaker 1: did it like gay artists have been and I don't know,
27:11
Speaker 1: I don't think that's a terrible thing. That's the thing too,
27:14
Speaker 1: is that we look back at Glee as like cringe
27:17
Speaker 1: e thing that kids watched, when like, at least those
27:22
Speaker 1: first two seasons, it was such a parody. It was
27:24
Speaker 1: such a parody of high school show. It was like
27:27
Speaker 1: it was it was making fun of itself and of
27:30
Speaker 1: the entire genre of like high school dramas. It was
27:36
Speaker 1: like very much laughing at itself and at the genre
27:38
Speaker 1: is getting into until it's like, for some reason wasn't
27:42
Speaker 1: or wasn't doing it as success And a lot of
27:44
Speaker 1: the jokes are dated now. I just I remember watching
27:47
Speaker 1: the show as it aired and feeling like whoa, Like
27:50
Speaker 1: that's a really in the no joke, Like that is
27:52
Speaker 1: a joke that I like, very clearly understand because it's
27:55
Speaker 1: something that I went through, Like makes fun of something
27:57
Speaker 1: that I went through. A lot of the writing was
27:59
Speaker 1: very smart, but a lot of it was also very okay.
28:02
Speaker 1: If you had to be in when Santana calls Rachel,
28:05
Speaker 1: if you had to be in one of the groups
28:07
Speaker 1: New Directions Vocal Adrenaline, the cheer Squad, which one would
28:13
Speaker 1: you want? Are these all the clicks? These are all
28:15
Speaker 1: the different glee class I would be in the Warblers.
28:17
Speaker 1: I would be one. Are the Warblers. They're the one
28:20
Speaker 1: that at the prep school that that Kurt was in.
28:22
Speaker 1: Is the raven clause? Is he still dating Darren Chris
28:25
Speaker 1: when he goes to the Warblers? Or are they over?
28:27
Speaker 1: But that's when they meet. Oh that's when they meet.
28:30
Speaker 1: Oh it's so And Blaine is singing Teenage Dream with
28:34
Speaker 1: that was a moment too, And like Kurt just happens
28:37
Speaker 1: to stumble upon the Warblers singing Teenage Dream and Blaine
28:41
Speaker 1: is like swinging, like winking and smiling like at Kurt.
28:44
Speaker 1: It's like, I mean good. And then when they break
28:46
Speaker 1: up three years later or two years later, Blaine like
28:49
Speaker 1: does this like kind of drunk, like really pathetic, like
28:54
Speaker 1: reprise of Teenage Dream at this Beano bar in New York.
28:59
Speaker 1: At this stage it is like I'm cleaking out. I'm
29:02
Speaker 1: cleanking out, guys cleaking When you think about devices to explain,
29:18
Speaker 1: like the constant performances of musical numbers in a TV
29:24
Speaker 1: show like a glee club club is a good conceit
29:27
Speaker 1: Like it does make sense that they would be singing
29:29
Speaker 1: a lot. But the thing is like they were doing
29:31
Speaker 1: these full musical numbers or like, I think a thing
29:34
Speaker 1: that always annoyed me was that they would be rehearsing
29:37
Speaker 1: and then like Rachel would just look over at the
29:39
Speaker 1: band that was always playing with them, when the band
29:42
Speaker 1: would always already like have an arrangement of the song
29:45
Speaker 1: ready to go, and everyone like a companist. Okay, and
29:49
Speaker 1: that's that's what it is you have to do they
29:52
Speaker 1: have like did they have a songbook they were working on?
29:55
Speaker 1: I'm sure where was the budget for all the costumes
29:58
Speaker 1: that they did or the song license You still had
30:00
Speaker 1: to pay for licensing if you performed these on like
30:03
Speaker 1: the stage, but at least but Glee was like and
30:06
Speaker 1: and in terms of licensing, like they must have spent
30:09
Speaker 1: so much money licensing those songs for the show. But
30:12
Speaker 1: like also the Glee music was an economy unto itself
30:16
Speaker 1: because this album sold, They did tours. Did you ever
30:19
Speaker 1: go see a tour time at all? I never went to.
30:23
Speaker 1: I don't do concerts on Oh there we go. I
30:26
Speaker 1: feel like there's a short king. I feel like the
30:30
Speaker 1: the thing to me, I think the reason I didn't
30:33
Speaker 1: like the show like around the time it was out,
30:37
Speaker 1: was in large part of the music. Actually, like I
30:39
Speaker 1: think the music was a barrier to entry for me
30:41
Speaker 1: because that was the whole point of the show, I know,
30:43
Speaker 1: but I had moved on from that because I was
30:45
Speaker 1: like a theater kid, and by the time the show
30:48
Speaker 1: was really coming out, I feel like I was, um,
30:52
Speaker 1: I don't know, hating hating theater and hating musicals. Were
30:55
Speaker 1: you weren't you close? Uh No, I wasn't close. Or
30:58
Speaker 1: maybe actually I don't remember. I need to, Actually I should.
31:03
Speaker 1: I need to learn what my actual life timeline is
31:05
Speaker 1: is what I should remember. I feel like by the
31:07
Speaker 1: time Glee was out, I was really invested in the thing,
31:13
Speaker 1: in like cultural things that I knew that I could
31:16
Speaker 1: get better than my peers because I was gay and
31:19
Speaker 1: so like A big reason that I was so into
31:21
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga when I was in high school is because
31:24
Speaker 1: I could be like I I felt that I could
31:27
Speaker 1: get the references and understand this, that I had some
31:30
Speaker 1: kind of like affinity towards this thing, Like I get
31:34
Speaker 1: this in a way that the other people around me didn't,
31:37
Speaker 1: and that actually made me feel really good about myself.
31:40
Speaker 1: It made me feel like I was really good at
31:41
Speaker 1: something or had some kind of like, um, exceptionalism to
31:46
Speaker 1: like my personality, And I think Glee was really similar.
31:48
Speaker 1: Even though it was a hit show. I felt like,
31:50
Speaker 1: you know, I could keep key with my English teacher
31:52
Speaker 1: about it in a way that like I was more
31:54
Speaker 1: grown and more like sophisticated. But at the time, because
32:00
Speaker 1: I was like, it wasn't there Also, Um, the Glee
32:03
Speaker 1: Project wasn't that where people like auditioned to be on
32:07
Speaker 1: Glee and it has a reality show, have a friend
32:09
Speaker 1: that was on it. That's how Oliviard rigo No, no, no,
32:12
Speaker 1: She's difference all the musical the series. Um, but the
32:15
Speaker 1: Glee Project was a reality show where kids were competing
32:18
Speaker 1: to be on Glee. And um, that's where Alex Newell
32:22
Speaker 1: is from. Like Tony nominee Alex Newell, the Glee Project
32:26
Speaker 1: invented Alex Newell because Alex eventually went on the show
32:29
Speaker 1: to write Yeah. I think so. I wasn't watching at
32:32
Speaker 1: that point, but I think they were one of the
32:34
Speaker 1: ones who made it onto Glee. Um and Glee, I
32:38
Speaker 1: mean as far as I know from what I've seen online,
32:40
Speaker 1: because I think every couple of weeks there's a thing
32:43
Speaker 1: on Twitter where someone clips out a scene from Gleen
32:45
Speaker 1: is like can you believe this happened? Um, And a
32:48
Speaker 1: lot of times it's like it is really crazy, Like
32:50
Speaker 1: the one I saw recently was Sue Sylvester doing super Base,
32:54
Speaker 1: which like is crazy in and of itself. But my
32:56
Speaker 1: favorite version of that is the video where someone has
32:59
Speaker 1: edited Vulk from Suspiria onto it. But I do think
33:04
Speaker 1: the show got a lot gayer as the years went
33:07
Speaker 1: on in terms of like I think one of the
33:11
Speaker 1: reasons that teenagers really liked it is because it was
33:13
Speaker 1: one of the few shows on TV that had queer
33:16
Speaker 1: relationships on it, Like Santana and Brittany haven't had a
33:21
Speaker 1: huge stand um and still due to this day, you know,
33:24
Speaker 1: Kurt and Blaine, like they were in the fan fiction world,
33:28
Speaker 1: they were huge. I never read any Glee fan fiction,
33:32
Speaker 1: but they were like a monolith and it was highly
33:36
Speaker 1: it was satisfying, you know, And I don't really feel
33:40
Speaker 1: that I guess I don't know in this weird way,
33:41
Speaker 1: I like this Ryan Murphy apologist because like the this
33:45
Speaker 1: like Ryan Murphy self describes his style as Barroke, and
33:49
Speaker 1: I think that like as as queer people. We do.
33:53
Speaker 1: We've gotten fatigued with the right maximal style and really
33:57
Speaker 1: tired of it. But I think that there is something
34:01
Speaker 1: there about feeling squeamish about really really highly visible gay
34:11
Speaker 1: style in in a mainstream place where everyone can see it,
34:16
Speaker 1: and that there's something embarrassing about that for us as
34:19
Speaker 1: queer people. And I don't know, I think it's as
34:21
Speaker 1: simple as like internalized homophobia, but that it's it's for
34:24
Speaker 1: some it's for the same reason that we kind of
34:25
Speaker 1: have a hard time standing gay recording artists. Is like
34:28
Speaker 1: we have a hard time standing a show runner who
34:33
Speaker 1: is so unapologetically and and um clearly gay in all
34:41
Speaker 1: the ways that he works that we're like embarrassing really
34:45
Speaker 1: was like a pinnacle of like diversity, at least at
34:49
Speaker 1: the time. I think that we have things that are like,
34:52
Speaker 1: you know, a lot more intersectional now. But like all
34:56
Speaker 1: of his projects, I mean, if I were to give
34:58
Speaker 1: Ryan Murphy credit on anything, he did set like new
35:01
Speaker 1: standards on casting, Like he was always casting like disabled actors,
35:05
Speaker 1: he was always casting queer people, but he was also
35:07
Speaker 1: always casting straight people to play queer people. Yes, I mean,
35:10
Speaker 1: but that you know, I mean that was just like
35:12
Speaker 1: also like a casting standard unfortunately, like in the early aughts. Still,
35:16
Speaker 1: I mean and Darren Chris even I feel like that
35:19
Speaker 1: was the beginning of Darren Chris, like playing gay and
35:21
Speaker 1: projects and then when he said he vowed to never
35:24
Speaker 1: play a gay character again after doing it, like after
35:27
Speaker 1: winning an Emmy for it, that's what he said. Enough,
35:30
Speaker 1: But to your point, Hi, I feel like, um that
35:34
Speaker 1: whole Like, yeah, I agree, It's not as simple as
35:36
Speaker 1: hating yourself. It's kind of like there's a kind of like,
35:40
Speaker 1: um fear that happens when representation quote unquote of sorts
35:44
Speaker 1: like hits a mass popularity, because all of a sudden,
35:48
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, everyone doesn't think that like this is
35:52
Speaker 1: me or that like immediately you kind of fear being
35:54
Speaker 1: flattened because that's what you don't want. You're queer, Like yes, yes,
35:58
Speaker 1: yes you want to. I'm sure you honestly, Hummel. I
36:02
Speaker 1: hate to invoke this, but I'm thinking a lot about
36:05
Speaker 1: the Fire Island TV show that debuted on Logo like
36:10
Speaker 1: a few years ago. Do you remember like the kind
36:12
Speaker 1: of media like craze around that, like the the the
36:16
Speaker 1: overwhelming sentiment and like the thing pieces and the things
36:19
Speaker 1: that people were saying on social media was like this
36:22
Speaker 1: is like a symbol of gay America's moral decline or whatever,
36:27
Speaker 1: like they it would felt like shut up, like they
36:31
Speaker 1: really treated it like it was not see propaganda. I
36:33
Speaker 1: was like, I was like, girls, I'm sure nothing. I'm
36:40
Speaker 1: not here to defend the Fire Island TV show. But
36:43
Speaker 1: the reasons people were the reasons people were mad about
36:46
Speaker 1: the Fire Island TV show was like hor phobia. It
36:49
Speaker 1: was like people feeling like this was a flattening of
36:52
Speaker 1: like a gay man could be. You know, I feel
36:54
Speaker 1: like it was a lot of well, it's like it's
36:56
Speaker 1: this feeling of they're going to make us look bad. Yeah,
36:59
Speaker 1: I don't know to think about that tie. Did you
37:02
Speaker 1: see the Fire Island TV show problem? I want to
37:04
Speaker 1: get well, no, I think you're I think you're getting it.
37:05
Speaker 1: This weird um like riddle with representation that we've had
37:10
Speaker 1: to kind of deal with, especially over the past like
37:13
Speaker 1: ten years, as so much of our community has like
37:17
Speaker 1: shifted its attention from political goals towards um like I
37:21
Speaker 1: guess a pathetic like concerns um that like how what
37:26
Speaker 1: does what does representation that makes us happy? Like all
37:31
Speaker 1: happy actually look like is that possible? And like is it?
37:34
Speaker 1: Is it even that I think crucial in an error
37:38
Speaker 1: when you can pull up TikTok and see gaye as
37:41
Speaker 1: many gay people as you want, doing as many different
37:43
Speaker 1: things and looking as the most specific kind of queer
37:46
Speaker 1: people as well, like just every single like person has
37:49
Speaker 1: a lane on too. And I don't mean to say
37:50
Speaker 1: that representation doesn't matter obviously, I think it's kind of that,
37:54
Speaker 1: but I think we still as a culture really put
37:57
Speaker 1: a lot of steak in them in mainstream representation, and
38:02
Speaker 1: like it's it's about what who is visible to the
38:06
Speaker 1: most people and also what kind of resources are they
38:09
Speaker 1: getting for that visibility. So like I do think that
38:13
Speaker 1: people see more value in like the Billy Eichner rom
38:17
Speaker 1: com than like two boys kissing on TikTok, even if
38:22
Speaker 1: it gets a million views. I think a lot of
38:24
Speaker 1: people are usually kind of just mad at the wrong
38:27
Speaker 1: things as well. Like I think that with something like
38:29
Speaker 1: Fire Island, it's like people for the TV show, I
38:33
Speaker 1: mean it's like people are mad that Like what they're
38:37
Speaker 1: really mad about is like we have a very limited
38:39
Speaker 1: amount of resources for mainstream media still, and like logo
38:43
Speaker 1: is like the place that makes gay stuff still and
38:46
Speaker 1: so to put all your two for Kelly Rippau, who
38:49
Speaker 1: produced the show, to be like, yes, this is the
38:51
Speaker 1: show that needs attention right now. I think where we
38:52
Speaker 1: get anxious around the amount of space it takes up
38:55
Speaker 1: or the resources that it gets sometimes. And also I
38:57
Speaker 1: think like with that show specific like Fire Island is
39:01
Speaker 1: like a sacred queer space in a lot of ways,
39:04
Speaker 1: and I think it did feel like sort of commoditizing,
39:09
Speaker 1: like the the worst part of something that is very
39:12
Speaker 1: special to a lot of people for you know, like
39:15
Speaker 1: mainstream entertainment. Um. And I know my gripes with Glee
39:20
Speaker 1: were definitely internalized homophobia, Like I'm I used to I
39:24
Speaker 1: used to write like a column for like my local
39:26
Speaker 1: newspaper or whatever, and I remember writing about how much
39:28
Speaker 1: I hate Glee, And I'm sure that, like, if I
39:31
Speaker 1: were to revisit that column, it was probably riddled with
39:34
Speaker 1: internalized homophobia. But I think the crux of what I
39:36
Speaker 1: was mad about was a lack of like multiplicity of
39:40
Speaker 1: perspective in like queer media at the time, even though
39:43
Speaker 1: we weren't really calling things queer yet. Um. But I
39:47
Speaker 1: don't know, I feel like that you're you talking about,
39:52
Speaker 1: Like what what even makes like positive representation which is
39:55
Speaker 1: like an artifice, Like that's like not a real thing.
39:58
Speaker 1: It is usually like measured by this authenticity factor, like
40:02
Speaker 1: people always say that something has to be authentic or whatever,
40:05
Speaker 1: but like authentic to who you know what I mean?
40:09
Speaker 1: And I think that that's where people get caught up.
40:10
Speaker 1: Is like when they look at something like Lee, it's like,
40:13
Speaker 1: well that doesn't represent me, and it's like, well, it
40:14
Speaker 1: was never meant to really represent you. It's like meant
40:17
Speaker 1: to represent right, it was a sad it's it's really stirical,
40:20
Speaker 1: like it's really making fun of itself. I don't know.
40:22
Speaker 1: Sometimes I do feel like the logical endpoint of like
40:24
Speaker 1: our representation discourse is like I don't feel represented until
40:29
Speaker 1: I am cast. Actually, we need more representation for me.
40:35
Speaker 1: You need to We need more trans people in the
40:39
Speaker 1: writer's room, and by that I mean me. I want
40:41
Speaker 1: to be in the writer's room on TV shows. I'm
40:43
Speaker 1: very bookable. I need more people to read my pilot.
40:46
Speaker 1: I have a sample I have a sample stack that
40:48
Speaker 1: everyone should be reading. And that is when representation will
40:51
Speaker 1: be fixed. We need more queer stories, pleased buy my
40:54
Speaker 1: book that I'm writing. But sometimes I am really surprised
40:59
Speaker 1: at what people do get excited about representationally, like that
41:03
Speaker 1: show am Stoppers, which, like I feel like if that
41:06
Speaker 1: had come out ten years ago, we would all be
41:08
Speaker 1: passing around a tweet or a Facebook post about like
41:11
Speaker 1: here's another white But I think the funny thing had Stoppers. Ever,
41:17
Speaker 1: the meme of this was my hard stopper and all
41:20
Speaker 1: of the things that like like satirical or otherwise people
41:24
Speaker 1: like found representative of them when they like needed it
41:28
Speaker 1: during a very formative time. I honestly think all the
41:33
Speaker 1: time about that tweet from I hate summarizing tweets on
41:36
Speaker 1: the podcast I'm doing something that is a pet peep
41:38
Speaker 1: of mind, but there was a tweet that was like,
41:40
Speaker 1: kids are so lucky to have little naz these days.
41:42
Speaker 1: Back then, all I had was this and it's Kurt
41:44
Speaker 1: doing single Ladies on, which is so tea and it.
41:49
Speaker 1: But I think that tweet actually really perfectly encapsulates a
41:53
Speaker 1: lot of things we're talking about, which is that, like,
41:55
Speaker 1: the problem is that the possibility of a little nas
41:58
Speaker 1: X really like I mean, I don't know if media
42:00
Speaker 1: was like ready for that in the early ats or whatever.
42:03
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's stupid to say, but like, um,
42:06
Speaker 1: now to where we've grown up to and to all
42:09
Speaker 1: the different kinds of things that we've seen along the way,
42:11
Speaker 1: and also even in the way that Glee became increasingly
42:14
Speaker 1: more I don't want to say intersectional, because I feel
42:16
Speaker 1: like that is like over intellectualizing it, but like it
42:18
Speaker 1: just brought in even more kinds of queer and trans
42:22
Speaker 1: and black and brown people that you would not have
42:24
Speaker 1: imagined on mainstream TV. And that was huge for a
42:26
Speaker 1: show that was pretty much the biggest show on TV
42:29
Speaker 1: for a long time. But you know, it bucks me
42:32
Speaker 1: that when we talk about representation, especially que representation, we
42:35
Speaker 1: always do this thing where we kind of project our
42:38
Speaker 1: own childhood's onto people who are young now, Like we're
42:41
Speaker 1: always talking about how we need this kind of representation
42:45
Speaker 1: for that twelve year old kid in Ohio who doesn't
42:50
Speaker 1: have anyone, and I'm like, I actually don't know what
42:53
Speaker 1: that person's life is like. I don't know what a
42:56
Speaker 1: what a preteens, like queer preteens like access to different
43:02
Speaker 1: kinds of representation, especially on social media platforms, is like,
43:06
Speaker 1: and what they actually need. And it kind of bugs
43:09
Speaker 1: me that we have we we project knowing what young people.
43:13
Speaker 1: But but but the thing is, and we have talked
43:15
Speaker 1: about this on the podcast before, like they do want
43:19
Speaker 1: it on TV, and they do get they do get
43:22
Speaker 1: really mad. Like as someone who has run a social
43:27
Speaker 1: media account, as someone who also like, we know what
43:32
Speaker 1: the people who we know what people who watch shows
43:35
Speaker 1: with queer characters, how much they make their whole personalities
43:39
Speaker 1: about those shows and those characters, and when those characters
43:42
Speaker 1: are killed off or the shows are canceled, they treat
43:46
Speaker 1: that like the end of the world. Because I think
43:49
Speaker 1: a lot of young kids, especially um, the Internet has
43:52
Speaker 1: given them access to queerness in a way that we
43:56
Speaker 1: didn't have when we were growing up, and so rather
43:59
Speaker 1: than seeking it out in real life, they're centering their
44:03
Speaker 1: whole understanding of queerness around the media they consume, so
44:06
Speaker 1: that when it fails them it is even more devastating
44:10
Speaker 1: than it was for us, because we just assumed that
44:13
Speaker 1: we would never be represented in media, so we didn't
44:16
Speaker 1: like put too much weight in it. There's definitely a
44:19
Speaker 1: population of like what you're describing, which is like tender
44:23
Speaker 1: queers and people that subscribe to them. To us, like
44:25
Speaker 1: newsletter but I feel like what Tie is saying, and
44:28
Speaker 1: what I kind of agree with, is that a twelve
44:31
Speaker 1: year old in Ohio, you know, now has access to
44:35
Speaker 1: TikTok or whatever they have. They have access to so
44:38
Speaker 1: many different kinds of selves that I think you would
44:41
Speaker 1: become disillusioned to pretty quickly. So like the stage we're
44:45
Speaker 1: at now, Like I feel very um salty about queer
44:48
Speaker 1: representation most of the time, I'm pretty like, you know, disillusioned, disheartened.
44:52
Speaker 1: But it's taken a lot of representation up into this
44:55
Speaker 1: point to get me to feel the kind of synicism
44:57
Speaker 1: I feel now. But when you start, when you're like ten,
45:00
Speaker 1: like or twelve or whatever, I feel like they're probably
45:04
Speaker 1: cynical before they even leave high school. And I feel
45:07
Speaker 1: like a lot of people I have a lot of
45:08
Speaker 1: queer people who are in high school right now. I think, um,
45:12
Speaker 1: I think a lot of them are tender queers. But
45:14
Speaker 1: I also think there's a lot of people that you know, don't,
45:18
Speaker 1: will never, don't feel anymore like being queer is any
45:21
Speaker 1: kind of novelty, and maybe don't even care about like
45:23
Speaker 1: labels in general. I think it's a stute. I mean,
45:25
Speaker 1: I will, I will push back against the idea that
45:27
Speaker 1: every twelve year old and where you know, wherever, not everything.
45:30
Speaker 1: But the thing is that if the kids who are
45:31
Speaker 1: like not allowed to have smartphones or something are also
45:34
Speaker 1: because there have homophoblic parents are also probably not allowed
45:37
Speaker 1: to watch Heart Star Heart Stoppers on Netflix. So you know,
45:41
Speaker 1: so that's like a there is something that actually must
45:43
Speaker 1: be done for those kids that representation actually isn't sufficient
45:48
Speaker 1: for um. But you know, I hear what you're saying that,
45:51
Speaker 1: like we do actually know something about about queer kids
45:55
Speaker 1: and what they need. What sucks about that is that
45:58
Speaker 1: kids have horrible t east between shows that are like
46:05
Speaker 1: bad but kids love them, and show and like media
46:10
Speaker 1: that is like sophisticated and like interesting and rare, I guess,
46:16
Speaker 1: but like kids don't have access to them. I would
46:29
Speaker 1: love to talk about the Ryan Murphy of it all.
46:31
Speaker 1: I like, I like The Politician. Actually I did too,
46:34
Speaker 1: the Politician. I enjoyed it, especially season two with Judith. Yeah,
46:40
Speaker 1: I mean, and I feel like I go into it
46:42
Speaker 1: knowing that this is a highly stylized showrunner who had who,
46:47
Speaker 1: and that I'm going into it expecting that things are
46:50
Speaker 1: going to be bizarre and baroque and over the top
46:55
Speaker 1: and ridiculous. And so when people are like, can you
46:59
Speaker 1: believe this happened Hungly, It's like, yeah, that is Ryan
47:02
Speaker 1: Murphy stuck. Can you believe this happened in American horror story?
47:05
Speaker 1: Like can you believe this? You know? Can you believe
47:07
Speaker 1: this happened on men dot com? It's like asking that
47:10
Speaker 1: I really liked feud Um Betty and Joan Um and
47:20
Speaker 1: I I liked Ratchet, I thought, I mean, I enjoyed
47:23
Speaker 1: watching most of it. I couldn't get through the gore.
47:26
Speaker 1: I thought it was way too much gore. But that's
47:28
Speaker 1: just a personal taste thing. Um. I also thought that
47:31
Speaker 1: Andy Warhol docuseries was was pretty good, even though the
47:35
Speaker 1: choice to do the AI voice was very strange. UM,
47:39
Speaker 1: but the politician, like I liked it once they weren't
47:42
Speaker 1: in high school anymore, and I just didn't understand why
47:45
Speaker 1: so much of it had to be set in high school.
47:47
Speaker 1: And it's like, just move on from that part of
47:50
Speaker 1: your trauma. So you mentioned Popular earlier. I feel like
47:53
Speaker 1: he loves like underdogs. He loves like an underdog story.
47:56
Speaker 1: And I think that there's a through line from like
47:58
Speaker 1: popular to like Niptop or maybe not even Niptuck, maybe
48:01
Speaker 1: like Glee, but also like Pose and The Politician, where
48:05
Speaker 1: there's this kind of like underdoggy thing that he's always
48:08
Speaker 1: kind of pulling through and pulling out of narrative. Well,
48:10
Speaker 1: I did see myself representing Niptuck because fam Ka, Jessa
48:14
Speaker 1: played a secret a secret trans woman. Doesn't she get murdered?
48:18
Speaker 1: You know, she does not get murdered, but she does
48:21
Speaker 1: like she has sex with one of the main character sons,
48:24
Speaker 1: and it's like this whole thing where they find out
48:27
Speaker 1: that she's trans. It's like, oh my god. Doesn't Willem
48:30
Speaker 1: also play a trans woman? William was on Niptuck, Yes,
48:33
Speaker 1: playing trans Um. I don't know. It's so funny to
48:37
Speaker 1: think about the question of like when was the first
48:39
Speaker 1: time you saw yourself represented on screen, because like it
48:41
Speaker 1: for me, it was. I don't think if I answered
48:45
Speaker 1: that question in your real way, it would not be
48:48
Speaker 1: like a queer person, a trans person. It would be
48:52
Speaker 1: like just someone who more like energetically. No, it would
48:58
Speaker 1: be like Queen momby in Return oz Return to oz Um.
49:03
Speaker 1: You know, like, it's not gonna be like the first
49:04
Speaker 1: time I saw myself represented on screen was like Alexis
49:08
Speaker 1: and ugly Betty. You know, I mean, you know, I
49:13
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know that I've ever seen myself
49:15
Speaker 1: represented on screen, and I don't know. Maybe that is
49:17
Speaker 1: like a very like narcissistic um like presumption about how
49:23
Speaker 1: exceptional I am. But I guess I don't look for
49:27
Speaker 1: it either. I don't. I don't. I have seen so
49:29
Speaker 1: many people and characters on screen that I want to
49:32
Speaker 1: be that, I want to have sex with that, and
49:36
Speaker 1: those two seem to go hand in hand when you're
49:38
Speaker 1: a faggot, I guess, you know, And I think like
49:42
Speaker 1: watching Glee, I remember, um, like seeing a character like Blaine,
49:48
Speaker 1: and I think internalizing this idea that, oh, I want
49:52
Speaker 1: to be like that kind of gay, I want to
49:55
Speaker 1: be handsome, talented, heart throbby like I like I. And
50:00
Speaker 1: I didn't even necessarily think, oh this is possible because
50:03
Speaker 1: blames here, but that like I would kind of I
50:06
Speaker 1: think consume characters and queer representation in terms of like, um,
50:11
Speaker 1: who can I emulate one day? Who would I want
50:13
Speaker 1: to kind of grow up to be? You know, what
50:16
Speaker 1: I saw myself represented on screen was Pam and true Blood.
50:19
Speaker 1: You succeeded. Yeah, thank you, Pam. Pam is a vampire
50:25
Speaker 1: who is just like has the most bone dry, sarcastic,
50:30
Speaker 1: dead pan wit is a huge fucking bitch m and
50:35
Speaker 1: like people and eats people and it's like evil and
50:38
Speaker 1: has like very fierce looks. Um, she's amazing. But the
50:42
Speaker 1: flip side of the whole like queer people I want
50:45
Speaker 1: to be thing is that I also would resent those
50:48
Speaker 1: same characters because I wasn't there, and so that I
50:51
Speaker 1: feel like happens more often than seeing myself on screen,
50:54
Speaker 1: is I see people that make me feel bad about
50:56
Speaker 1: myself because I don't look like them or I don't
51:01
Speaker 1: have you know, Like it's weird how we go back
51:04
Speaker 1: and forth between like I hate you and I want
51:06
Speaker 1: to be you, and I feel like people do feel
51:08
Speaker 1: that way about porn a lot. I feel that about
51:11
Speaker 1: people I want to back with. Definitely, it's the perils
51:13
Speaker 1: I think of like queer representation and success is because
51:17
Speaker 1: like I definitely know this, This is my experience with
51:20
Speaker 1: seeing other trans women, especially like a lot of us
51:23
Speaker 1: are like just measuring ourselves up to each other and
51:25
Speaker 1: like why why does she like look better than me?
51:30
Speaker 1: Or like she's had more surgery than I have, or
51:32
Speaker 1: like she's getting attention that I'm not getting, like and
51:36
Speaker 1: I think that is very much a queer experience because
51:38
Speaker 1: like they're so there's so much less for us to
51:42
Speaker 1: get that we are jealous of anyone who gets a
51:45
Speaker 1: little bit more than us. I think that's maybe a
51:48
Speaker 1: big part of where people feel embarrassed by Glee is
51:51
Speaker 1: that Glee, for all its satire, is also a wish
51:53
Speaker 1: fulfillment fantasy. It's like it is a high school experience
51:57
Speaker 1: that is like very fairy tale in the sense that
52:02
Speaker 1: you have this community of kids who come from all
52:05
Speaker 1: different parts of the school who are inspired to work
52:09
Speaker 1: together and sing really well and get to sing whenever
52:13
Speaker 1: they want and get to express themselves whenever they want
52:17
Speaker 1: and however they want um and even all fall in
52:20
Speaker 1: love with each other in various combinations in the process,
52:23
Speaker 1: even though they're you know, getting slushies thrown at them.
52:26
Speaker 1: There is this this fantasy come true that's taking place
52:28
Speaker 1: in the show that I think can produce this knee
52:32
Speaker 1: jerk um resentment that maybe you were feeling for him. Yeah,
52:37
Speaker 1: And I think all of that is exacerbated by like
52:40
Speaker 1: scarcity mentality especially I mean at the time, it's like
52:42
Speaker 1: there was a dearth of cond of like you know,
52:44
Speaker 1: queer content in general, and so it's just like, really
52:48
Speaker 1: this thing, which wasn't my reaction the whole way through.
52:50
Speaker 1: I remember loving like the first half of that season,
52:52
Speaker 1: but now that we you know, scarcity obviously still like multiplicity,
52:56
Speaker 1: intersectionality still needed, but like less of a problem now
53:00
Speaker 1: I think it'll be I'll be curious to know how
53:02
Speaker 1: like the representation conversation evolves. But I mean, honestly should
53:07
Speaker 1: have a reboot. And I'm just but it was innovative
53:10
Speaker 1: at the time for Kurt to be a character who
53:13
Speaker 1: succeeds and gets his needs met because Ryan Murphy was
53:17
Speaker 1: intervening on a whole period of queer representation where quick
53:20
Speaker 1: characters were very tragic, with really the only exception being
53:23
Speaker 1: Will and Grace, and even then, um, there were there
53:26
Speaker 1: were other problems, and everyone hated Will and Grace for
53:30
Speaker 1: not being tragic because it emerged right now. It was
53:33
Speaker 1: such a huge hit. Well that too, Yeah it was.
53:35
Speaker 1: It was a massive hit. But like sent like the
53:38
Speaker 1: critics at the time, we're like, this show has is
53:41
Speaker 1: like a um to yuppie and then aesthetizing of like
53:44
Speaker 1: what queerness is, and and it came right after the
53:48
Speaker 1: AIDS like kind of the in the wake of what
53:51
Speaker 1: was the worst of the AIDS crisis, and so a
53:53
Speaker 1: lot of activists were really still trying to keep people alive.
53:57
Speaker 1: And so for Will and Grace to have the audacity
54:00
Speaker 1: to be joyful, I think a lot of like, you know,
54:03
Speaker 1: people you know that feel type of way about that
54:05
Speaker 1: are going to be extremely mad. But I feel like,
54:09
Speaker 1: um that that show very specifically was like we're not
54:13
Speaker 1: going to talk about AIDS, you know what I mean,
54:15
Speaker 1: Like they came into it with that as a partial
54:18
Speaker 1: mission for the show. So of course people are going
54:20
Speaker 1: to be, you know, mad that it's not representing or
54:23
Speaker 1: not like kind of representing the thing that was important
54:24
Speaker 1: in the time. Um. Tie, if you had to perform
54:28
Speaker 1: a song on Glee, your Glee Cast version, what would
54:33
Speaker 1: it be? Oh my god, I've thought about this so
54:35
Speaker 1: many times. I think mine would be, um I write,
54:39
Speaker 1: since not tragedies by panic of the disco, that's good?
54:42
Speaker 1: Has that happened on Glee? They did? I'm gonna google
54:46
Speaker 1: right now. Mine would be probably like running up that hill.
54:49
Speaker 1: Glee Cast version. What would that even sound like? I mean,
54:54
Speaker 1: they basically did that at post because like Running Up
54:57
Speaker 1: the Hill was like a motif for the first season.
54:59
Speaker 1: But it's not like someone was doing a karaoke cover
55:02
Speaker 1: of it. No, but that did not stop Ryan Murphy
55:05
Speaker 1: from making characters, you know, break out into the song
55:07
Speaker 1: at any moment on post post Nightmare. I would have
55:12
Speaker 1: to do I hate this part by the Pussycat Dolls.
55:17
Speaker 1: That's so good. Did you do it over last show
55:20
Speaker 1: as well? Well? Yeah, the well in the whole Glee
55:22
Speaker 1: Club would also be the Pussycat Dolls and we would
55:25
Speaker 1: be on the stage, but the stage would have water
55:27
Speaker 1: on it. Who who would be in the number with you?
55:29
Speaker 1: Would it be the whole club or would you have
55:31
Speaker 1: a selection of backup girls? It would be the It
55:33
Speaker 1: would be the whole club, right because I mean the
55:36
Speaker 1: pussy Got Dolls is like seven people, right, Like, I
55:40
Speaker 1: guess it would be in the It would definitely be
55:43
Speaker 1: like at regionals or something. No, it would have been
55:45
Speaker 1: inspired by by some story. I mean, I guess it
55:47
Speaker 1: could be both, Like would what's like what's the costume situation? Like,
55:51
Speaker 1: what are you wearing very very scantily clad vinyl probably
55:57
Speaker 1: or like it's still school appropriate, not well appropriate, I mean,
56:02
Speaker 1: was ever school appropriate? Yeah, we need to Euphoria Glee
56:05
Speaker 1: crossover episode is what we need. I mean honestly that
56:09
Speaker 1: the Rose hates somebody talking about you before you, but honestly,
56:11
Speaker 1: the play within a play in Euphoria was kind of gleey. Well,
56:14
Speaker 1: Euphoria is kind of a musical too. It's just a
56:17
Speaker 1: jukebox musical where everyone lip sings instead of singing songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
56:22
Speaker 1: it has its most Season two was just like a
56:24
Speaker 1: lip sync every episode. I'm so glad I didn't watch
56:27
Speaker 1: season two. You would, you would, you would love it
56:31
Speaker 1: was awful. That doesn't matter. Would you ever do a
56:34
Speaker 1: porn in which you had to sing? Oh? We should
56:36
Speaker 1: do a porn We should do a porn parody of Glee.
56:40
Speaker 1: I want to that has to exist. I'm gonna I'm
56:42
Speaker 1: gonna check right now and there there's definitely enough fan
56:46
Speaker 1: fiction porn of curtain Blaine, Right, that's right, there seems
56:53
Speaker 1: to be. I can't really find anything. It doesn't look
56:57
Speaker 1: like I should not be using the I heart WiFi
56:59
Speaker 1: to do I'll pitch it. Yeah, you should. You should
57:04
Speaker 1: write the script, Rose, who will you play in the
57:07
Speaker 1: Glee parody porn? Um, I'll be an executive producer. Okay,
57:11
Speaker 1: then I'll be I'll be Shoe Shoe something that I know.
57:19
Speaker 1: I'll actually I'll be I'll be Jane Lynch. I do
57:22
Speaker 1: feel like I have Leah Michelle energy, like I do
57:25
Speaker 1: try really hard, you know, like I related to that
57:30
Speaker 1: element of like her character and also real life personality
57:34
Speaker 1: was that like she against all odds, would try her,
57:37
Speaker 1: made her, made her what she wanted very clear. So
57:41
Speaker 1: tire you, Kurt in the porn parody of Glee? No,
57:45
Speaker 1: I mean in the interest of getting more scenes? Yes?
57:50
Speaker 1: Or are you I kind of think No, I think
57:53
Speaker 1: you're Rachel and Rachel yea, yeah, you're Rachel. What do
58:04
Speaker 1: y'all want to see us discussed next? Because honestly, we
58:07
Speaker 1: have no idea. We are really running load. It could
58:11
Speaker 1: be a book, a movie, a cultural phenomenon, a moment
58:15
Speaker 1: of celebrity, something that was just very specifically interesting to
58:19
Speaker 1: you as a baby queer or you know, siss Hett.
58:22
Speaker 1: If you are out there, um, you can call us
58:24
Speaker 1: to confess at three to three penance. That's three to
58:27
Speaker 1: three seven three six two six to three, but you
58:29
Speaker 1: can also leave suggestions as a review on Apple podcast,
58:33
Speaker 1: as an Instagram story just like anyway you want to
58:36
Speaker 1: reach us. You know there are middling degrees of success,
58:39
Speaker 1: and also tag our burner Instagram account at Like a
58:43
Speaker 1: Virgin fore which is probably the best way to get
58:46
Speaker 1: to us. Yes, we do check the d M. We
58:48
Speaker 1: do not always respond to them. Yeah, yeah, I don't
58:51
Speaker 1: know if we're Yeah, I don't know if we're all tiny,
58:53
Speaker 1: but we will see. Um. I'm your co host fran Toronto.
58:56
Speaker 1: You can find me at Frans squish code wherever you
58:58
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59:00
Speaker 1: at Rose Damn you on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, LinkedIn
59:06
Speaker 1: farmers only, farmers only. Um, what was that? What's the
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Speaker 1: Jewish dating app called j j Jada. I'm not on
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Speaker 1: jaded Unfortunately. You can subscribe to Like a Virgin anywhere
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Speaker 1: a Virgin is an i Heeart radio production. Our producer
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Speaker 1: is pb Inter the Winter with support from Lindsay Hoffman,
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Speaker 1: Julian Weller, Jess Crane, Chitch and Nikki E Tour until
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Speaker 1: next week. See you later virgins don't Stop Believe and
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Speaker 1: I was about to seeing Seasons of Love, but Don't
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Speaker 1: Stop Believing as much better. Well, that's like the definitive
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Speaker 1: Glee song. Yeah, is it really? Yeah, it's the song
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Speaker 1: you did in the first episode, Don't Stop Believe in