Latest / Did That Age Well? / #197 – Did The Boys in the Band (1970) age well? (w/ Kameron Tyler)

Transcript

#197 – Did The Boys in the Band (1970) age well? (w/ Kameron Tyler) · Did That Age Well?

• 0:00
  All right, boys and girls, girls and gays and they's today.
• 0:05
  You're in for a real hoot and maybe a devastating conclusion
• 0:12
  maybe. Or maybe we'll end it with a
• 0:14
  little bit of hope, like the 2020 Ryan Murphy version.
• 0:18
  Today it's Boys in the Band with our dear friend Cameron.
• 0:21
  Cameron Tyler, welcome to the pod.
• 0:23
  I'm back. He's back.
• 0:25
  You couldn't stay away. I clicked my heels three times
• 0:29
  and now look what happened. And look what happened.
• 0:32
  Cameron is here at Dude IDK Studios sponsored by Spider
• 0:35
  Moving and Storage because you know that you can get a free
• 0:39
  quote at spidermoving.com for all of your local and cross
• 0:42
  country moving needs. I love those guys.
• 0:44
  Oh my God, me too. They're so helpful.
• 0:47
  They are. They are.
• 0:49
  Cameron, what do you do? Who are you?
• 0:52
  Well, I'm a podcaster at the same studio as you.
• 0:55
  Oh my God, right here at Dude IDK studios.
• 0:57
  I host dude IDK studios, the Cameron show guess Oh my God,
• 1:02
  guess what? Oh my God, what is?
• 1:03
  It May 7th. Oh my God, this is coming out on
• 1:06
  May 7th. What happens on May 7th other
• 1:08
  than Mr. Beast's birthday? Yeah, we did find out it's Mr.
• 1:11
  Beast's birthday. Today.
• 1:12
  No, that's too bad. I feel.
• 1:14
  I feel like Dumber for knowing. That Yeah, I actually regret
• 1:17
  looking it up. Yeah.
• 1:19
  And we talk about boys in the band today on Did That Age Well.
• 1:23
  And the season 3 premiere of the Cameron Show is out today.
• 1:27
  We're doing a summer season. It's going to be our coolest
• 1:30
  season yet. So many fun things this summer.
• 1:34
  We're celebrating Pride next month.
• 1:36
  We're celebrating my birthday in July.
• 1:38
  Well, really, I should say our our birthday.
• 1:41
  And we're doing our first live show this season.
• 1:45
  I can't. Believe it and I can't wait.
• 1:47
  It's going to be iconic, I'm telling you, TuneIn.
• 1:50
  Oh my God. And if you all haven't heard, he
• 1:53
  can do it all. He's an author.
• 1:55
  Yep. You want to plug some books?
• 1:57
  I wrote two books If you don't. So far.
• 2:00
  Now, you know, two books so far. Yeah.
• 2:02
  I'm on a little hiatus from social media so I can write.
• 2:05
  Yeah. Two more.
• 2:06
  Yeah. Oh, look.
• 2:10
  Oh my gosh. And what is that there?
• 2:12
  Well, actually, I swear I didn't do this, but we happen to have
• 2:16
  both of my books here. Oh my.
• 2:17
  Gosh, we. Have Lucas with a KA fiction
• 2:20
  novel and a mural in space A gay.
• 2:22
  Boys memoir. And who's that gay boy, Cameron
• 2:25
  Tyler? The gay boys, Me.
• 2:26
  That's me. Just picture a little gay kid
• 2:29
  with a bowl haircut sitting on the rings of Saturn all alone.
• 2:34
  Yeah. And you can listen to that boy
• 2:36
  on Audible. You can listen to both of these.
• 2:39
  You can or read them in the in the book or whatever or.
• 2:43
  Kindle. Whatever.
• 2:44
  Yeah, totally. Tickles your fancy, is that what
• 2:47
  they say? OK, I think I know it's tickle
• 2:49
  something. But whatever tickles.
• 2:51
  You never want to tickle the wrong thing.
• 2:53
  Oh girl, you really do not. So just tickle your fancy and
• 2:56
  only your. Only your own fancy or someone
• 2:59
  else if you consent. If you ask someone else and they
• 3:01
  or they ask you yeah to tickle theirs, then you can if you want
• 3:06
  to. What do you like about Boys in
• 3:09
  the Band? Well, you better be careful with
• 3:12
  that question because as you know, I love so much about Boys
• 3:16
  in the Band. That's true.
• 3:17
  The first time I ever watched Boys in the Band, I was stranded
• 3:21
  on a work trip because it was storming in Columbia, SC and I
• 3:26
  was supposed to come home, but I couldn't because the airport had
• 3:30
  to shut down and so I was alone in my hotel room.
• 3:33
  All my friends from the conference had gotten out early
• 3:35
  in the day, and I was just like, what am I going to do?
• 3:37
  It was just me and my iPad. And so iPad, baby, I know.
• 3:42
  And I start. I love as, you know, I love gay
• 3:45
  movies. Mostly sad gay movies.
• 3:47
  Yeah. Mostly sad gay movies about the
• 3:49
  AIDS crisis. Yeah.
• 3:51
  But there is no shortage of that.
• 3:52
  There's no shortage of that, except for at the time I had
• 3:55
  seen all of them. So you.
• 3:59
  Were all out. Wait, what year was this?
• 4:01
  This was in 2018. OK.
• 4:03
  And I was like, well, I guess I'll just look up like another
• 4:05
  old gay movie to watch. Yeah.
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  And that was the first time I had even heard of Boys in the
• 4:10
  Band. And it was the whole movie.
• 4:12
  I don't know if it's still up, but the whole movie was on
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  YouTube for free. Yeah, I watched the whole thing,
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  the 1970 version, because the new one wasn't out yet.
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  And I was immediately so obsessed because I was like,
• 4:26
  wait, how is this movie at the time, almost 50 years old, and
• 4:30
  yet I relate to this so much. That is so rare.
• 4:35
  Yeah, because you and I have even watched movies from the
• 4:37
  early 2000s that in some ways feel more dated than this.
• 4:42
  Yes. And this the play, because this
• 4:46
  was a play first, the plays from 1968.
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  Only two years before, but thinking about now, that was so
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  long ago. Well, almost 60 years ago this
• 4:56
  was written, and when I read this I still feel like most of
• 5:02
  this dialogue could be said today.
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  You think so? I do.
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  I think there are some things I mean.
• 5:08
  Well, of course. There are some things I have to
• 5:10
  say. Let's get it off the table.
• 5:12
  They use the N word in this. They sure do.
• 5:14
  And by they, we mean Michael. Michael is problematic.
• 5:18
  Michael is problematic, and that's kind of, and that's the
• 5:20
  point. That's the point is that he's
• 5:22
  problematic. Yeah, I mean, we should probably
• 5:25
  do a rundown of all the characters.
• 5:26
  Yeah, let's start with, let's start with Michael.
• 5:29
  So Michael is the one with a drinking problem.
• 5:34
  He does have one, yeah. He does have one.
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  He goes. He spirals into insanity
• 5:41
  throughout the film as he becomes drunker.
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  And he's hosting a party he's the host of.
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  So the whole thing takes place at a party that he is hosting.
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  And he says in the beginning, like, I've quit drinking because
• 5:53
  I turn into a monster when I. Yeah, he's like, it's been 5
• 5:55
  weeks. Like, you know, I just feel so
• 5:58
  bad about myself. He keeps talking about the ick.
• 6:01
  Which? Gen.
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  Z could never the ick. The ick was around long before
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  it became a part of the vernacular in today's world.
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  You know, you know what? This play 1968, that's the year
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  my mom was born. Wow, the ick has been around.
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  It's been around, but in this case it's a very specific ick.
• 6:21
  It's a self hating gay ick. Yeah, which ick.
• 6:24
  Yeah, ick, we don't want that. But yeah, he basically just gets
• 6:29
  the ick every time that he drinks.
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  And he's like, I'm tired of feeling really awful about the
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  way that I treat people the next morning.
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  He says in so many words. And don't we all get that?
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  I mean, maybe not some of you, but everyone on this couch gets
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  it. Yeah, I don't know when
• 6:46
  Michael's birthday is, but I believe it's at the end of July
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  or begin of. August, if I had to guess, I.
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  Think he's a Leo. He definitely has main character
• 6:55
  energy for sure. By the way, you can see it in
• 6:58
  the old 1970 version or the 2020 version with Jim Parsons.
• 7:02
  Jim Parsons from Big Bang Theory, The Normal Heart does an
• 7:06
  amazing job in this role being just neurotic and drunk.
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  I was so skeptical of Jim Parsons, and you know what?
• 7:15
  He really pulled it off. Wait, did you watch the new one?
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  Yeah, I watched it last night. Oh my God.
• 7:20
  Yeah. So Molly and I watched the 1970
• 7:22
  version with our friend Jimmy. Shout out Jimmy, friend of the
• 7:25
  pod. Yeah, we love Jimmy.
• 7:27
  And then I was like, oh, I kind of hope you watched the 2020
• 7:31
  version because here's Part 2 of my origin story with this.
• 7:36
  So I fell in love with the old movie.
• 7:38
  Coincidentally, the next year is the like, 50th anniversary of
• 7:44
  Stonewall and Broadway announces that they're reviving Boys in
• 7:49
  the Band. They have Jim Parsons, who
• 7:52
  obviously then was in the remake of the movie.
• 7:54
  They have Matt Bomer, they have Zachary Quinto, they have Andrew
• 7:58
  Reynolds, they have a stacked cast, all out gay men.
• 8:04
  And I was like, I have to go to New York to see this movie be a
• 8:09
  play with an All Star cast on Broadway during Stonewall 50.
• 8:14
  Yeah, your entire gay life had been leading up to this.
• 8:17
  No, literally. Literally.
• 8:18
  I called my friend Jayce. I'm like, guess what?
• 8:20
  I got us tickets to this. We're going to the show.
• 8:23
  We went to the show in June of 2019.
• 8:26
  Yeah, life changing. I was like, wow, they should use
• 8:31
  this cast and they should make a movie to remake the movie and
• 8:34
  then guess what, they. Did from your lips to God's
• 8:36
  ears, babe. To Ryan Murphy's ears.
• 8:38
  But in the gay TV world, that seems to be synonymous.
• 8:43
  And so, yeah, then the next year, the remake of the movie
• 8:48
  comes out, and now everyone can see those Broadway actors, those
• 8:52
  the revivals, performances. And yeah, he's so good in that
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  role. He is so good, I really wasn't
• 9:02
  sure what to expect from him. My expectations were low and I
• 9:05
  thought that he was perfectly neurotic.
• 9:08
  Yeah, 'cause that is like such an important part of this main
• 9:11
  character Michael, is that he's neurotic and you can tell very
• 9:16
  early on that he has some issues even when he's not drinking at
• 9:22
  the moment. He.
• 9:24
  The moment that he opens his mouth, you know he's got big
• 9:29
  issues. He's bitching about his
• 9:30
  hairline. Within two minutes, he's
• 9:33
  criticizing his friend Donald, telling him he's too late and
• 9:36
  too early, coming over at the same time.
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  I mean, truly, this guy. Yeah, he's got and he tries to
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  like, he tries to criticize himself before anyone else can.
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  Like when he's like, girl, that's like the best defense
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  mechanism. And people hate it.
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  People hate it. And all of his friends turn
• 9:59
  against him, obviously, but to me, not enough.
• 10:02
  But we'll get into that. Should we talk about some of the
• 10:06
  other characters? Should we lay it out?
• 10:08
  Yeah, I think we should talk about Donald next like this.
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  Donald shows up next. Yeah.
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  So Donald, played by Frederick Combs, he is.
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  We're uncertain of the nature of his relationship to Michael.
• 10:20
  Like they're they're kind of exes, but they're also friends.
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  But are they still romantically involved?
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  I mean, what do you think? Do you think that they're still
• 10:28
  kind of a thing? I don't think that they're still
• 10:30
  a thing. So they they say that they did
• 10:32
  try to make it at one point, like have sex and it just didn't
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  work out. And I think that's because
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  they're good. Judy's they're like best
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  friends. And like I look at Donald as
• 10:44
  like, to me, that is like my sister Kip, who's like my best
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  friend that I call my sister because so many people never
• 10:51
  believed, like you guys never hooked up, you guys never
• 10:54
  kissed. And I'm like, no, it just
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  wouldn't work because he's my sister.
• 10:59
  I think they're like that because Donald is, I was kind of
• 11:04
  thinking earlier like what is the point of Donald?
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  And truly, the main point of Donald is he's like the anchor
• 11:09
  for Michael. He's the, he's the foil for him,
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  we need the person who is just kind of a straight man, you
• 11:20
  might say. I know, but he is gay.
• 11:23
  But he is gay. But he is the he is the foil of
• 11:27
  Michael. He is calm and grounded in all
• 11:31
  the ways that Michael isn't and serves as sort of this like flip
• 11:38
  side of the coin. Yeah, and he's not afraid to be
• 11:41
  honest with Michael, but he's unlike some of the other
• 11:44
  characters, he's not as critical of Michael.
• 11:47
  He's very compassionate toward Michael because he sees through
• 11:51
  the tough exterior and as someone who is very Michael
• 11:55
  esque, just way less racist. The Donald characters in my life
• 12:02
  are so important that. God bless them, love.
• 12:05
  Daniel so or Donald so much. Yeah.
• 12:07
  And by the way, in the new one, this is Matt Bomer.
• 12:10
  And by the way, Donald is the only character who literally
• 12:13
  shows his ass and thank God. Thank God, Oh my God.
• 12:17
  And he, by the way, he did it on.
• 12:18
  Stage. Got naked and went in the shower
• 12:21
  on stage. A a real your actor's favorite
• 12:24
  actor you know. Oh.
• 12:27
  God, he's so hot. So good.
• 12:29
  OK. And then we have we have Keith
• 12:32
  Prentice as Larry the extremely handsome 1, the polyamorous
• 12:37
  well, I don't know if. You know what?
• 12:38
  We can talk about Larry and Hank together.
• 12:40
  Let's talk about them together, because they also are foils of
• 12:44
  each other, I think. They're foils of each other.
• 12:46
  They're like very yin and Yang. Yes, because they are literally
• 12:49
  a couple. Literally.
• 12:51
  And they both want. They both want to be available
• 12:56
  to the other and are unavailable to the other in very different
• 12:59
  ways. And they still make it work.
• 13:01
  And they still make it work. By the end, it turns out they
• 13:04
  are a super couple. Yeah, but it's a rocky road to
• 13:07
  get there. They have to because they're.
• 13:08
  Fighting from the minute they before they even get to this
• 13:11
  party, they're fighting. The moment that they walk into
• 13:16
  the party, they realize, oh, there's someone that you slept
• 13:18
  with. Yeah, so there's a lot of
• 13:20
  tension in the relationship between Larry and Hank, but
• 13:24
  ultimately they love each other. The deal is Hank is the married
• 13:30
  one. Yeah, so he's getting a divorce.
• 13:32
  He's the bisexual one. Oh yeah, he's with a with a
• 13:35
  clear preference, as Michael says.
• 13:36
  Yes, yes. And so he is in the process of
• 13:40
  divorcing his wife because we find out he met Larry like a
• 13:44
  couple years prior on a trip to a business trip to New York.
• 13:48
  Yeah. Fell in love with Larry and left
• 13:50
  his wife over it. Yeah.
• 13:52
  And Larry also fell for Hank. But Larry doesn't want to be
• 13:57
  tied down to one person. Can't.
• 14:00
  It's against his nature. OK, so he says.
• 14:02
  Which is fascinating to me because I'm like, this is one of
• 14:05
  the parts that still feel so relevant.
• 14:07
  Totally. And when and when Hank tries to
• 14:11
  save their relationship by proposing a three-way but
• 14:15
  neither of them wants it, he's just like trying to find some
• 14:18
  way to salvage it. I'm like God, millennials, am I
• 14:23
  right? I know.
• 14:24
  I mean, it really does feel like that.
• 14:26
  Like, yeah, so Larry's whole thing is like, I can't just be
• 14:30
  with one person and he can't accept that.
• 14:32
  And Hank is like, I'm trying to make this work.
• 14:34
  I'm literally leaving my wife. I offered you to.
• 14:37
  I offered to do this threesome with you.
• 14:39
  And Larry's like, I never asked for a threesome.
• 14:41
  Yeah, I like to have them all, but I like them one at a.
• 14:43
  One at a time. He says that, yeah.
• 14:46
  And so they're a very complicated couple.
• 14:48
  Yes, it turns out to your point, that Donald had previously
• 14:53
  hooked up with Larry, so there's an awkward tension in the room
• 14:57
  because Hank is a little jealous.
• 14:59
  Yeah, they've seen each other but never met.
• 15:01
  Isn't that what they say? Very casual conversations.
• 15:04
  Yeah, in the 2020 movie, they show a little more by showing
• 15:09
  it. They show.
• 15:09
  Flashback, yeah. Very hot.
• 15:12
  Hot. Oh yeah, I said.
• 15:14
  Thank you for that. You can find that movie on
• 15:16
  Netflix. Exclusively.
• 15:19
  So yeah, they're a very interesting dynamic to the
• 15:22
  party. Yes, and I did say as we were
• 15:25
  watching this, are they the reason why you hate polyamory?
• 15:31
  I I think maybe I. They could be.
• 15:35
  They are. Just having like Deja vu
• 15:37
  flashback sitting on this exact couch when we were talking about
• 15:40
  Sex and the City too. And I did say that I well, what
• 15:45
  I said is it's not for me. I hate it.
• 15:50
  I just like. When they start yelling at each
• 15:52
  other about how neither of them really wanted a threesome but
• 15:55
  they were just like trying to make it work, I said, God, the
• 15:57
  amount of work here. I know.
• 15:59
  And that like to me encapsulates that personally for me.
• 16:05
  You can make it work. Good for you.
• 16:07
  That's none of my business. And that is none of our
• 16:09
  business. It's not for us to say we're
• 16:11
  going to talk about these characters exclusively.
• 16:14
  And if you want to extrapolate that to your own life, that's on
• 16:17
  you. Yeah.
• 16:18
  OK, Exactly. OK.
• 16:19
  Then we have Frederick Combs as oh, no, we already did.
• 16:22
  We talk about Donald. Yes, we did.
• 16:24
  We have not talked about Cliff Gorman as Emery.
• 16:28
  Emery. Emery.
• 16:30
  Emery, I think, OK, so I know that you identify as a Michael.
• 16:35
  I think I identify as an Emery. I think you're 1000% an Emery.
• 16:39
  He is. I mean, he is at one time
• 16:41
  described by a character we haven't talked about yet as a
• 16:44
  butterfly in heat. That is one of my favorite lines
• 16:47
  in the whole movie. God, he's like a butterfly.
• 16:50
  Butterfly in heat. Emory is just cuckoo bananas.
• 16:55
  He is the most flamboyant of the bunch.
• 16:57
  I think that this is just a funny play because it's so
• 16:59
  clever, but he is the true comedic relief.
• 17:03
  Yes. And he has depth to him, as we
• 17:05
  find out during the phone call game, which I'm sure we'll
• 17:08
  discuss. But even though he has such
• 17:12
  depth, the main thing I think he's remembered for is just
• 17:15
  being the campiest, the kookiest.
• 17:18
  Yeah. And also my favorite thing about
• 17:20
  Emery, which I think this is also very you.
• 17:22
  He is a caretaker by nature. He is because he is still like,
• 17:26
  Can I serve you some lasagna? Yeah, he loves to serve you the
• 17:30
  lasagna. Yeah.
• 17:31
  And when when like, everyone is kind of like falling apart, he's
• 17:37
  sort of the one like when Bernard is like crying and like
• 17:41
  a little bit too drunk to stand up, he's the one who's like, all
• 17:44
  right, I'll carry you that short little guy.
• 17:49
  Yeah, he's just this tiny little flamboyant homo, but he's so
• 17:55
  lovable. He has a very naive quality
• 17:57
  about him and a very motherly quality about him which I love
• 18:01
  so much. He is 100% himself, which is why
• 18:06
  he is so resented by Alan. That's why Alan hates him is
• 18:11
  because he hates that somebody could be comfortable being gay.
• 18:17
  Well, let's talk about Alan now. So let's talk.
• 18:19
  About Alan, well, I want to say first a little bit of background
• 18:24
  on Peter White as Alan. So he was thinking about doing
• 18:30
  the play like he got offered this opportunity and he's like,
• 18:35
  he was like, this is really moving.
• 18:37
  But I was sort of thinking like, I don't need this kind of risk.
• 18:41
  And one of his mentors said, Peter, if you're going to be an
• 18:43
  actor, you're going to have to take some risks in your life.
• 18:46
  And he said, OK, I'll do it. He's one of the few straight
• 18:49
  guys in the yes. And guess what?
• 18:52
  He was the grandpa and passport to Paris with Mary Kate and
• 18:55
  Ashley. Oh my God, everything in life
• 18:58
  was leading up to Mary Kate and Ashley and.
• 19:00
  You've always said that. And I've always said that.
• 19:03
  I've been known to say that. He was also from on The West
• 19:06
  Wing, Yeah. So I mean the man, his career
• 19:10
  did not tank because he did. This it certainly, I think, put
• 19:13
  him on the map. I mean, it was a risk A1968970
• 19:20
  amazing for him to do that. Yeah.
• 19:24
  And and you can almost tell he's one of the straight actors
• 19:27
  because he's one of the few who didn't die from AIDS.
• 19:29
  That is. So true, which we will talk
• 19:31
  about which of? Course we will talk about you
• 19:33
  knew we weren't going to talk about a sad gay movie without
• 19:36
  talking about AIDS. Cameron would not let us leave
• 19:39
  this couch have. To tell you what happened of.
• 19:41
  Course. OK, One other thing I do have to
• 19:44
  mention about Cliff Gorman is that he and his wife, they cared
• 19:48
  for the actor who played Tex when he was dying from AIDS.
• 19:54
  Yeah, and we love Tex, AKA Cowboy.
• 19:58
  We'll talk about him too. But.
• 19:59
  His story is so sad. He said that he was typecast as
• 20:03
  like a sex worker and like as a dumb hot guy and he lost his
• 20:08
  career. That's like what he said, you
• 20:11
  know, cost him his career. He ended up going to.
• 20:16
  Jail he was. He got back into sex work
• 20:20
  through nude modeling, which there's nothing wrong with sex
• 20:22
  work, but I don't think that it was what he planned on doing.
• 20:26
  And then he fucking died of AIDS but Jesus Christ.
• 20:29
  Who took care of him? One of the other straight cast
• 20:33
  mates, which ironically is the guy.
• 20:37
  What's his name? His name is Cliff Gorman.
• 20:40
  Cliff Gorman, who plays Emery, who plays the most flamboyant
• 20:43
  character of the bunch, was actually just such a good
• 20:46
  hearted straight man. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:49
  That's allyship. Allyship.
• 20:51
  Oh, for real? You straight guys think that
• 20:53
  your allies get real. This was a real.
• 20:58
  Take care of a dying gay sex worker and then we'll talk.
• 21:01
  And then we'll talk. Come back to us then, OK.
• 21:05
  And then of course we have Reuben Green as Bernard,
• 21:10
  allegedly not gay but current whereabouts unknown.
• 21:13
  I read that he died in 1977 from a heart attack.
• 21:18
  Really. But I've also read that people
• 21:20
  don't know where he went, so who knows what the truth is?
• 21:23
  But why don't we know where he is?
• 21:25
  I don't like. That I don't like that at all,
• 21:27
  especially because I loved him in this role.
• 21:29
  He was. So I'm more worried for like,
• 21:32
  his well-being. I'm kind of like, OK, he
• 21:34
  disappeared. Yeah.
• 21:36
  What's up with? That chances are he's dead by
• 21:39
  now. By now, probably.
• 21:41
  Probably, but Bernard and Emery are best friends, Yeah, and I
• 21:46
  love their relationship because they are kind of painted to be
• 21:51
  the two who are the most outcasts.
• 21:55
  Like like Bernard is the only guy who's black and Emery is the
• 22:00
  only one who's super super undeniably flamboyant and cannot
• 22:04
  pass. Totally.
• 22:05
  Your son's calling you, Logan. Logan mama's busy.
• 22:12
  He knows I'm here today. Like literally.
• 22:15
  Oh my God, I'm thank you for telling me.
• 22:17
  I didn't even realize I'm such a bad mom.
• 22:23
  But Bernard is the only black guy.
• 22:25
  Emory is the most flamboyant, cannot pass.
• 22:28
  And because of that, I think they have such a beautiful
• 22:31
  friendship. And there's even a part where,
• 22:34
  you know, as I mentioned, there's some racism that
• 22:36
  happens. And Emery also makes a few,
• 22:40
  like, black jokes. Yeah.
• 22:42
  But you'll notice when you're watching this movie, Bernard
• 22:45
  doesn't care when Emery does it. And he later calls him out for
• 22:49
  it. He later is like, it hurts when
• 22:51
  you do that. And he says, I'm so sorry.
• 22:54
  I will never do it again. And I believed him.
• 22:57
  Oh well, for sure. And also, Bernard admits that he
• 23:00
  let Emery do that because Emery, that's the only thing that makes
• 23:05
  them equals, he says. And I love that about their
• 23:09
  friendship. I think that it is such a
• 23:12
  universal thing, like not necessarily like for the token
• 23:17
  flamboyant character and the token black character.
• 23:20
  That's not what I'm saying, but like for in a friend group, I
• 23:24
  feel like there's always a few or a couple who are the most
• 23:29
  different and they band together and I love that totally.
• 23:32
  And I love that that was captured in their friendship.
• 23:35
  Totally. Yeah, it's a treat.
• 23:38
  They really do care about having fun and they really genuinely
• 23:42
  love their friends. Yeah, yeah, the gifts that they
• 23:45
  give. Oh, 'cause by the way, this is a
• 23:47
  birthday party. Yep.
• 23:48
  And we haven't even talked. About the birthday boy yet.
• 23:50
  But we will. But let's.
• 23:52
  Save him for last. And let's go back to Alan,
• 23:55
  because what we forgot to say about the character of Alan,
• 23:58
  which I believe they even made his last name McCarthy, which
• 24:02
  had to have been a very purposeful nothing, is an
• 24:05
  accident. Yeah, That cannot be an
• 24:07
  accident. Mark Crowley would not have done
• 24:10
  that by accident. His character enters the scene
• 24:14
  through a phone call first. So while Michael is getting
• 24:17
  ready for this birthday party, he gets a phone call.
• 24:20
  And the phone call is from his college roommate, Alan McCarthy.
• 24:24
  This guy is married to a woman. He has kids.
• 24:28
  He lives in Washington, DC But he tells Michael in a very
• 24:32
  distressed tone. It's like, literally, he's
• 24:35
  crying in a payphone booth. I need to talk to you.
• 24:38
  I need to talk to you. I can't tell you what it's
• 24:40
  about, but I'll tell you when I get to your house.
• 24:42
  Can I come over? And Michael is like, oh, shit, I
• 24:44
  don't want my straight roommate to come over because I'm about
• 24:47
  to have all my gay friends over for this birthday party.
• 24:49
  So he tries to tell Alan, no, no, don't come over today, let's
• 24:52
  talk tomorrow. Alan says sure.
• 24:55
  But then Alan shows up to the birthday party.
• 24:58
  Yeah. And he shows up to cause
• 25:01
  trouble. Yeah, he shows up and shows his
• 25:03
  ass. Yeah, he.
• 25:04
  Not literally. That we reserve for Donald.
• 25:08
  Donald, thank God. And chaos ensues between him and
• 25:13
  Emory. There's tension because Emory's
• 25:15
  so flamboyant. Allen is allegedly straight.
• 25:21
  Alleged the heavy on the alleged.
• 25:24
  Here's the thing, by the end of the play, there's a lot of
• 25:26
  evidence to say he is straight and not gay, and there's a lot
• 25:31
  of evidence to say he's gay and not straight.
• 25:34
  Maybe he's bi, but I did read from Mark Crowley.
• 25:38
  He purposefully made that ambiguous.
• 25:40
  Yeah, I was actually getting into an argument with Hunter
• 25:44
  yesterday because I was like, OK, so like, obviously he's gay.
• 25:52
  I was like, like, it was something we were talking about.
• 25:55
  Like he said like, I'm really unsatisfied that we never got an
• 26:00
  answer about whether he's gay or straight.
• 26:02
  I said, you think we didn't get an answer?
• 26:07
  It is heavily implied. And he was like, well, no, we
• 26:13
  don't know for sure. Like he never said it.
• 26:17
  He never like they needed something to tell us, like for
• 26:21
  sure, whether he was straight or gay, if that was what it was to
• 26:26
  be. And I said he is gay.
• 26:29
  I feel 75% that he's gay and 25% not.
• 26:34
  Yeah, I don't feel 100% either way, but I certainly lean toward
• 26:39
  he's a closet case. Right.
• 26:41
  Yeah, it's all internalized homophobia.
• 26:43
  And I think the plot will reveal a lot, which we'll definitely
• 26:46
  talk about the plot, but Oh no, cowboy I almost, I thought we
• 26:52
  were to Harold, but we're not. We're not we.
• 26:54
  Ex AKA Cowboy. Yeah, hot and dumb and so sweet.
• 27:00
  Yeah, the. Cowboy so naive.
• 27:02
  They're so horrible to him. They all horrific.
• 27:06
  They're horrific to him. Even the nice ones.
• 27:08
  Even Emery and Bernard are not nice to him.
• 27:10
  But you know what? I In a way I get it because he
• 27:15
  is the archetype he is in this group is.
• 27:19
  First of all, he's not friends with any of them.
• 27:22
  The cowboy who doesn't actually have an official name, which.
• 27:25
  Is very telling. Yeah, they call him Text.
• 27:27
  They call him Cowboy. He's listed in the book as
• 27:31
  Cowboy, and he is a gift that Emery has brought for the
• 27:36
  birthday boy, which is who we'll talk about next.
• 27:39
  And so the cowboy really doesn't know anyone there.
• 27:41
  And he's just this young, hot, hunky hustler.
• 27:46
  Yeah. And you find out so quickly,
• 27:48
  he's so naive and he's so cute and he's so nice and he just
• 27:51
  wants to have a good time. But he cannot keep up with all
• 27:54
  the the quips and the cattiness and the wit.
• 27:58
  And he's so adorable to me. And they are horrible to him.
• 28:02
  But I will say, as I just received a phone call from my
• 28:05
  very own little cowboy, sometimes in friend groups there
• 28:10
  is the guy who's just the youngest one.
• 28:13
  And. There is just a resentment and I
• 28:15
  don't think this is exclusive to gay men, but I think it is also
• 28:18
  very particular in gay groups of friends that there is just this
• 28:24
  like petty. I don't know.
• 28:28
  I wouldn't call it jealousy, but it's almost a little bit of
• 28:32
  resentment hazing really. I mean, they literally hazing.
• 28:36
  It is hazing. And there literally is a whole
• 28:39
  monologue in here about the transitory beauty that he
• 28:43
  possesses. And that is such a like a
• 28:45
  universal idea in the gay world. I feel like in 1968 and in 2026
• 28:51
  of like totally, well, it must be nice to be young and
• 28:53
  beautiful, you little shit, because I feel that way.
• 28:58
  And so a lot of the things they say to him, I'm like, no, I
• 29:01
  would say that. I would absolutely say.
• 29:04
  That I would cradle him in my arms and say just enjoy it while
• 29:07
  you can. And you know what?
• 29:09
  Emery is the nicest to him. And that's another way you're
• 29:11
  like Emery. But here's The thing is that
• 29:13
  Emery also is like, I mean, okay, yes, he did pay for him.
• 29:19
  He is a gift, but he, Emery, makes it very well known that he
• 29:23
  is not fully human in the way that the rest of them are.
• 29:26
  Well, I mean, and my favorite part about cowboy is he says I'm
• 29:32
  I'm not a steal. I cost $20, so I mean, he didn't
• 29:38
  sell himself for $20. It's so true.
• 29:41
  But like, another example, there's this one part where he's
• 29:44
  like, well, I was doing chin ups and I fell on my heels.
• 29:47
  And Emery's like, never wear heels when you're doing chin
• 29:49
  ups. It's so good.
• 29:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:52
  So we love Cowboys. We do.
• 29:54
  Let's talk about the Creme de la Creme of this the the the other
• 30:00
  main. I would say the other main
• 30:02
  character. Like if there are two main
• 30:03
  characters, the other main character is Harold.
• 30:06
  Harold for sure. Harold for sure, and he doesn't
• 30:09
  even come in until really the second act.
• 30:11
  Yeah, like probably halfway through the second act.
• 30:14
  I feel like we get literally like halfway through the movie
• 30:16
  before. He's just such a he's such a
• 30:18
  presence before he even arrives, though, because he's the reason
• 30:21
  why they're gathering and everyone's talking about how
• 30:25
  he's late and why he's late and how he's so vain and then he
• 30:30
  shows up. Leonard Frey does a phenomenal
• 30:34
  job. Oh my God.
• 30:35
  Amazing. And you know what?
• 30:36
  I also, I really thought that Zachary Quinto as Harold was
• 30:43
  like, he performed it so well. It's also laughable that the
• 30:48
  hottest guy that you've ever seen would play Harold.
• 30:52
  I'm sorry. Yeah, they didn't do a good
• 30:53
  enough job making him ugly. Yeah, because a very important
• 30:58
  part of Harolde appearance is that he is, as he describes
• 31:03
  himself, pockmarked. I did.
• 31:06
  That's not a camera. Not a Cameron word.
• 31:08
  That is a Harold word and he describes himself as a 32 year
• 31:12
  old pock face Jew or something like that.
• 31:15
  And like in the OG movie, they did a good job with his makeup,
• 31:21
  really caking it on and really showing like, yeah, he had acne
• 31:25
  and he like picked at it and it's less scars.
• 31:28
  And it's clear, like it was the type of makeup that shows, like
• 31:33
  he put makeup on to try to cover it up.
• 31:36
  It's like it's like there's layers to it.
• 31:40
  They took this man's face. They pockmarked it and then made
• 31:44
  it look like a person who is covering up their face.
• 31:46
  Again, pockmarked, not a Molly Smith phrase.
• 31:49
  Not our. Word not our word, We.
• 31:50
  Didn't come up with that. Not what we said.
• 31:52
  But yeah, exactly. They show that he is trying to
• 31:58
  cover it up. He's trying to make himself look
• 32:00
  as good as he can. And this is a very important
• 32:02
  part of Harold's character because Harold, like Michael, is
• 32:07
  a very angry man beneath the surface, and the surface it
• 32:12
  what's shown is just this hard, cold, spiky wit.
• 32:18
  And in that way they are twin souls.
• 32:21
  So where I would say that, oh God, what is his best friend's
• 32:27
  name? Harold No.
• 32:30
  Which friend? Which best friend?
• 32:32
  Best friend from the beginning. Oh, the last night.
• 32:34
  Night, night. Hold, please.
• 32:39
  OK, Never mind, Donald. And we are so back.
• 32:43
  Donald. Donald.
• 32:45
  Whereas Donald is Michael's anchor and foil in the way that
• 32:50
  he has access to Michael's soft side.
• 32:55
  Harold is Michael's foil in the sense that unfortunately he has
• 33:01
  access to the soft side and also that's dangerous.
• 33:05
  He they they know each other's vulnerabilities so well and
• 33:09
  weaponize it against each other because they hate themselves.
• 33:12
  Yeah, exactly. Oh my God.
• 33:15
  And I feel like this is most commonly seen A with gay men and
• 33:21
  B with preteen girls. Doesn't it just give you the
• 33:25
  like I. I've always thought this from
• 33:27
  the first time I watched the movie.
• 33:28
  Harold versus Michael is like 2 preteen girls who are best
• 33:33
  friends, but at the sleepover, for reasons unbeknownst to
• 33:36
  anyone but Satan, they turn on each other and they bring up the
• 33:40
  each other's most in like, deepest, darkest insecurities,
• 33:46
  which in Michael and Harold's cases, that Harold is a person
• 33:51
  who feels ugly and takes drugs to self medicate.
• 33:55
  Yeah. And Michael is someone who hates
• 33:57
  that he's gay and is a mean drunk and a person who steals.
• 34:03
  What is that? Called, He's in debt.
• 34:04
  He's in debt and he steals stuff.
• 34:07
  Well, I guess you could call that a thief.
• 34:09
  Kleptomaniac. Oh kleptomaniac.
• 34:11
  He's like a klepto and he's in big debt.
• 34:13
  Yeah. And that is so interesting.
• 34:16
  I think looking at this moment in time 50 years ago where the
• 34:21
  idea of like debt being associated with morality is.
• 34:27
  So I mean, that's the it's the thing that's crazy because like,
• 34:32
  obviously there is like more debt in today's economy and like
• 34:39
  more people in debt, like debt is more it should be more
• 34:44
  normalized, right? But there's still such a stigma
• 34:48
  to be like, I can't afford this, but I got it anyway.
• 34:52
  Type of that that he has like the thing that really like gets
• 35:00
  Michael over the edge is when Harold says like, but my
• 35:05
  cosmetics paid for. Oh yeah, this thing paid for.
• 35:10
  Yeah, exactly. It's like.
• 35:12
  So I might kill myself with these pills, but at least the
• 35:14
  pills are paid for and I'm like damn it is a night fight.
• 35:19
  The girls are fighting. The girls are fighting to the
• 35:22
  death. Yeah, like if you want to see
• 35:24
  gay men as Housewives in New York 1968, look no further.
• 35:28
  You found it? Yeah.
• 35:30
  Except it's just. It's really sad.
• 35:32
  It is devastating and it's so interesting 'cause I think, like
• 35:37
  All in all, we watch this whole birthday party unfold and it
• 35:41
  just gets darker and darker and darker and there are some
• 35:44
  glimmers at the end. It's not a completely
• 35:47
  devastating ending. And totally to their credit, no
• 35:50
  gays die at the end. Spoiler alert.
• 35:53
  And the. AIDS epidemic was still a
• 35:54
  twinkle in Satan's eye. Oh my God, yes, the AIDS
• 35:58
  epidemic was still a decade away.
• 36:01
  Yeah, and a a little over a decade away.
• 36:04
  And so the main theme of this as far as like it's commentary on
• 36:09
  homosexuality at the time is like, I mean, one of the most
• 36:13
  famous lines that sticks out to me also is Michael says, you
• 36:16
  show me a happy homosexual and I'll show you a gay corpse.
• 36:21
  And I think the the message that was kind of or the painting that
• 36:26
  was painted is that all of these gay men have issues.
• 36:32
  Some of them are particularly because they are gay, but it's
• 36:36
  not inherently because they're gay.
• 36:38
  Like Michael is self loathing. That's a real problem.
• 36:41
  Totally. And like and like.
• 36:43
  Harold hates himself because he's aging and because he
• 36:48
  believes he's ugly. Exactly.
• 36:50
  And. Larry does just doesn't want to
• 36:53
  adhere to society's rules. But it's not because he's gay,
• 36:57
  right? Hank is like wanting Larry to
• 37:00
  commit, but that's literally most people dealing with a man.
• 37:06
  And. Then there is poor cowboy which
• 37:10
  anyone could be drawn into sex work.
• 37:12
  Totally, and anyone can feel like the dumbest person in the
• 37:16
  room. Yeah, I.
• 37:17
  Mean we don't know that, but other people do.
• 37:20
  Emery is fine being himself but he's bullied by everyone else.
• 37:25
  Bernard is facing racism and Alan is in a marriage and
• 37:30
  probably so far in the closet if he is gay that he'll never come
• 37:33
  out. So it's like, I think they did a
• 37:36
  really good job of showing like, yeah, the mainstream likes to
• 37:41
  say that gay people are miserable because, by the way,
• 37:43
  this 1968 is before Stonewall. It's one year.
• 37:47
  One year before Stonewall? So like, this was not written in
• 37:50
  a post Stonewall world. Yes, the Black Cat Cafe
• 37:54
  demonstrations had already started happening.
• 37:56
  The gay rights movement was underway, but it had not become
• 37:59
  mainstream. So having this message on a
• 38:02
  stage in Washington DC, which is where the show first came out,
• 38:06
  it was monumental because it was showing.
• 38:08
  Like you all think gays are miserable, but consider the idea
• 38:12
  that maybe they're not miserable because they're gay, they're
• 38:14
  miserable because y'all make it so hard.
• 38:16
  Yeah, it is interesting that this is a really like
• 38:20
  self-contained production in that like, we aren't seeing
• 38:26
  their discrimination from the outside.
• 38:28
  We're seeing how discrimination impacts their views of
• 38:32
  themselves and how they operate in their innermost worlds.
• 38:37
  You know, it's like we don't see someone, like, spit on them and
• 38:42
  call them the F slur. We see the way that they like
• 38:46
  internalize. And they're internalized it.
• 38:49
  Yeah, Yeah. We see kind of the culmination
• 38:53
  of all of them facing years of oppression.
• 38:56
  Like, yeah, let's talk about the plot.
• 39:00
  Girl, let's talk about the plot. Well, actually, can I say
• 39:03
  something before we get into that?
• 39:04
  Just something about the characters is that is that they
• 39:09
  were all based on real people. All of these characters were
• 39:13
  based on real people. Oh my God, Michael.
• 39:16
  OK, so Crowley said that Michael reminded him of himself, and he
• 39:22
  wrote this play as a way to stop drinking.
• 39:25
  He's like, I wanted a drink and I wrote instead.
• 39:28
  You know what? I could see that because
• 39:30
  actually they don't say it in the movie, but in this, yeah,
• 39:33
  Michael's a playwright. I thought that I thought that
• 39:36
  you were about to pick up your own book.
• 39:39
  And don't put it past me, to be honest.
• 39:42
  Don't put it past me. But yeah, in in the original
• 39:46
  play, he is a playwright or actually, I think he's a
• 39:50
  screenwriter. Yeah.
• 39:51
  I haven't read this in a while, but he is a writer.
• 39:54
  And they don't mention that in the movie, which is interesting.
• 39:57
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 39:59
  But that makes sense. Then it's Mark Riley.
• 40:01
  Yeah, and then Donald was inspired by one of his friends.
• 40:07
  And then the let's see, Donald was based on Douglas Murray, to
• 40:15
  whom the play was dedicated. Harold is is a cipher for Howard
• 40:21
  Jeffrey, dancer and choreographer to whom the play
• 40:25
  was also dedicated. The the 2019 version of the
• 40:31
  play. And then let's see there there
• 40:38
  were others that I didn't write down, but oh, you know what?
• 40:43
  That's so interesting though. Oh.
• 40:45
  Never mind. But yeah, basically, basically
• 40:49
  all these characters are based on people who he knew, including
• 40:53
  himself, which, damn, that's a really, that's a very stark look
• 40:57
  at oneself. That is so amazing to me.
• 41:00
  I mean, I love that I. Love it and also another reason
• 41:04
  why he's a Leo. Who else?
• 41:06
  Writes. I mean, we got to look up.
• 41:08
  Who, who else, writes themselves into the into the play as the
• 41:12
  main character villain? I'm looking up Mark Crawley's.
• 41:16
  Look up his birthday. Yeah, one thing that does make
• 41:21
  me, I don't know, question how this holds up is just.
• 41:26
  He was a Leo his birthday. Is on his. 21st bitch.
• 41:33
  I knew, I knew. We knew.
• 41:35
  A woman knows. Only a Leo would create a work
• 41:39
  of fiction where he just writes a whole character based on
• 41:43
  himself. That's amazing.
• 41:46
  Incredible. So sorry.
• 41:47
  The best and the best writers do.
• 41:50
  And the best writers do. And I've always said that
• 41:51
  you've. Always said that I have.
• 41:53
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 41:55
  Does this OK? Do you think that this portrays
• 41:57
  gay men as like self obsessed and bitter though?
• 42:00
  Do you think that it like reinforces a stereotype?
• 42:03
  I think it reinforces something that Mark Crowley witnessed in
• 42:07
  his friend group and life first hand.
• 42:09
  And I'm so sorry to say, maybe I'm bitter, but I think it's so
• 42:13
  realistic if you get a group of gay men who are very familiar
• 42:19
  with each other. Yeah, drunk.
• 42:22
  Let me tell you something. Something like this birthday
• 42:24
  party could very well happen. I've been at parties that felt
• 42:28
  just like this 50 years after this came out.
• 42:31
  I don't think that every gay man is like this every day, but I
• 42:35
  think that this play is a perfect storm, and that's why
• 42:41
  the story happens on this particular day.
• 42:44
  I think what's what I really like about the movie is that in
• 42:47
  the beginning of the movie, there is this montage of them
• 42:50
  just living their lives. Yeah.
• 42:51
  And you see, they're just all normal people in society,
• 42:55
  actually. Like, one of them's working at a
• 42:57
  store, and one of them is getting his car picked up from
• 43:00
  the mechanics. Yeah.
• 43:01
  One of them is picking out a birthday present for Harold.
• 43:05
  And I think, like, that is really nice to me that they put
• 43:09
  that in the beginning of the movie to the song, Anything
• 43:11
  goes. Adorable, adorable.
• 43:14
  Because I think that, yes, it shows the dark underbelly of the
• 43:20
  effects of homophobia. And even though homophobia looks
• 43:25
  very different today, 50 years later, I think that a lot of
• 43:29
  those, because no matter how homophobic, it's not anymore.
• 43:33
  Kids still grow up in the closet, and a lot of this movie
• 43:37
  is about the the bad, the dark side of what that turns into
• 43:43
  inside you. And ultimately, like the way in
• 43:46
  which you can hurt the people around you if you don't, like,
• 43:50
  confront your inner demons. Hurt people hurt people hurt.
• 43:53
  People hurt people it. Should just be called hurt
• 43:56
  people hurt people. Period.
• 43:57
  Michael is hurt. Spoiler alert.
• 44:01
  And people, in turn, are. Carol does hurt, yeah.
• 44:05
  Everyone leaves hurt. I mean, let's get into it.
• 44:07
  They have this birthday party Michael has organized for Emery
• 44:11
  to cook. There's lasagna.
• 44:13
  It actually starts out so great. They turn on music.
• 44:16
  They all start dancing. Together, the set is beautiful.
• 44:20
  Oh, the set is amazing in both movies.
• 44:23
  And the Broadway show was the same apartment.
• 44:27
  It's A2 level apartment. Michael's bedroom is upstairs.
• 44:29
  It's so cool. Yeah, this party starts out
• 44:32
  great. And then then things start going
• 44:34
  downhill, not only because Alan McCarthy shows up, but because
• 44:38
  it literally turns into a thunderstorm.
• 44:40
  And because the moment that he shows up is when Michael
• 44:44
  actually, no, it's after he punches Emery that Michael
• 44:47
  starts drinking. Michael starts drinking when
• 44:49
  tensions start rising and that's before Harold even gets there
• 44:53
  Also. So like, you have the Alan Emery
• 44:59
  fight, you have Michael start drinking it, thunderstorms
• 45:02
  outside, Harold shows up. There is such a shift in Part 2
• 45:07
  that I think is like a beautiful illustration of how fast things
• 45:12
  can go downhill. Oh yeah.
• 45:14
  So in the second-half of the play, after all of this
• 45:18
  exposition that happens, and there is a healthy amount of
• 45:21
  exposition because you're dealing with 8-9 characters.
• 45:26
  Yeah. The most notable event in this
• 45:31
  birthday party, in my opinion, is that Michael in the third act
• 45:35
  makes them all play a game. Oh, my God.
• 45:38
  It is a game in which they are all instructed to pick up the
• 45:42
  phone. This is unhinged, by the way.
• 45:45
  Yeah, pick up the phone, call the one person they've ever
• 45:49
  truly loved, and you have to ask for that person.
• 45:53
  If they don't answer and then you have to tell that person
• 45:56
  that you love them, then and only then do you get the full 10
• 46:02
  points that you're able to get. And what does everyone win?
• 46:06
  Nothing. We all lose.
• 46:07
  Whoever said that, one of them said.
• 46:09
  We all lose. We all lose.
• 46:11
  This is a game that Michael Peer pressures everyone into playing.
• 46:15
  Even Strong arms them into playing it.
• 46:17
  And that's one of the things that really bugs me is that like
• 46:21
  nobody stands up to him. No one says no, Michael.
• 46:24
  We're not playing this stupid game.
• 46:26
  Yeah, you actually said that while we were watching.
• 46:28
  You're like, why is everyone doing this?
• 46:30
  And I'm like, I get it because I've been in the situation where
• 46:34
  haven't you ever been to like especially again, I'm sorry,
• 46:37
  this is giving teenagers slumber party.
• 46:40
  Yeah, it is sort of like when whoever is in charge, like,
• 46:44
  brings out an unhinged idea, you have to agree with it because
• 46:47
  you don't want to see them crack.
• 46:49
  Like, I don't want to know what Michael's going to say to me if
• 46:52
  I don't do this. I think a lot of it was they
• 46:54
  were scared of Michael and as a Michael esque presence I
• 46:59
  understand. I really think that you are less
• 47:02
  like Michael than you think you are.
• 47:03
  Well, you've only known me since I quit drinking.
• 47:07
  OK, period. That is so true.
• 47:09
  That is so true. That's why I watch it now with
• 47:13
  even like a clearer lens and I'm just like, Oh yeah, well, no
• 47:17
  wonder he's like that. I used to be so much like that.
• 47:19
  Because you're right. I'm not really like Michael now.
• 47:22
  Right now, I actually would hope to be like, I don't know, I
• 47:27
  would like to be like Emory. Who wouldn't?
• 47:29
  Of course, who wouldn't? Life at the party?
• 47:31
  I have a lot of Harold that jumps out, but I would like to
• 47:34
  be more like Donald. Wouldn't we all?
• 47:37
  Like to be the supportive friend.
• 47:39
  Yeah, someone who just is there for you.
• 47:42
  Yeah, when you're having a panic attack, he'll give you a
• 47:44
  Vicodin. Totally.
• 47:45
  And that way I'm a Donald, I will give you a Vicodin.
• 47:48
  Yeah. Just all you have to do is ask.
• 47:50
  All you have to do is ask. You probably don't.
• 47:52
  You just have to freak out and I'll just.
• 47:53
  Stick it in mouth and I'll stick it in your mouth.
• 47:55
  Yeah, absolutely. But yeah, this game is just the
• 48:00
  most torturous thing to watch and I'm sure to experience.
• 48:03
  But also, it's what gives us the insight that we get into some of
• 48:07
  the characters, like, Yep, Bernard.
• 48:10
  Yep. It turns out, you know, you want
• 48:12
  to talk about the harmful effects of oppression, This man
• 48:16
  who is the black character. I'm glad that they used it in a
• 48:22
  good way because what they did with this, what Mark Crowley did
• 48:26
  is he wrote Bernard to have been the son of, like, a maid.
• 48:31
  And his back story is that his mom worked for a rich white
• 48:36
  family, I think, in Michigan. Yeah, for some reason.
• 48:39
  And he was in love with the son in this rich family.
• 48:45
  And it turns out that when they were teenagers, Bernard and this
• 48:49
  guy hooked up and they, like had a very romantic night in the
• 48:54
  swimming pool of this rich family's house.
• 48:56
  But of course, besides the fact that one was white and one was
• 49:00
  black, one was a worker, one was the employer, one was gay, 1
• 49:05
  was. I mean, they were both.
• 49:07
  Gay 1 was. But one would turn out to be
• 49:10
  openly gay, and one was never going to.
• 49:13
  He calls him. And you really see in that
• 49:15
  moment, like, wow, Bernard, talk about intersectionality.
• 49:19
  Girl. Bernard's experience is shaped
• 49:23
  not only by the fact that he's gay, but also race has like
• 49:27
  shaped his particular gay experience.
• 49:31
  And class too. And class, too.
• 49:33
  Yeah. Well, and then you have Emery,
• 49:36
  who also plays the phone game. And his back story is that he
• 49:39
  was in love with a guy, a guy 65 or six years older than him in
• 49:45
  school, Doctor Delbert bots or something.
• 49:49
  Like he has the ugliest name, but he's like, I was in love
• 49:52
  with this guy. And by the time I was at the end
• 49:54
  of high school, he went to dental school and he was a
• 49:57
  dentist. And I like I professed my love
• 50:02
  to him and asked if we could be friends.
• 50:06
  And the whole thing is so restrained and you can tell he
• 50:09
  was just so innocent and this crush was so like such a
• 50:13
  universal feeling. Oh my God, yeah.
• 50:16
  And then the girlfriend of this guy found out, told everyone,
• 50:21
  and he was just made fun of at his senior prom.
• 50:25
  After doing all the decorations. After doing all the decorations.
• 50:28
  I think that as we were watching this and he said I was in charge
• 50:30
  of the decorations. I said I know.
• 50:32
  That's right, I know. That's right, he made clouds out
• 50:35
  of. Tool or whatever, Yeah.
• 50:37
  Like, I just think, like, the phone game is such a devastating
• 50:41
  thing, and it's only made more devastating the more that it
• 50:44
  reveals about everyone who's either playing the game or
• 50:48
  watching in horror. Yeah, begging their friends.
• 50:51
  Don't do it. Don't do it Totally.
• 50:54
  But no one still stands up to Michael.
• 50:56
  It's baffling to me. And I think, even though I know
• 50:59
  that it's purposeful, that nobody stands up to Michael.
• 51:03
  I just do think, like if we're taking away our suspension of
• 51:08
  disbelief, someone would have been like, Michael, go to bed.
• 51:16
  I don't think in 1968 they did that.
• 51:18
  You don't think so? No, I think they had different
• 51:21
  expectations of what you were supposed to put up.
• 51:23
  Wow, that's I really do feel that way.
• 51:26
  Yeah, they hadn't invented boundaries yet.
• 51:28
  I was going to say, I think you're thinking with a
• 51:30
  millennial mindset. Right, I am.
• 51:32
  I'm like, I don't have to do anything.
• 51:33
  I don't want to do this is. Unhealthy.
• 51:35
  Should we stop? Actually, they didn't.
• 51:37
  I. Don't like this and I'm going to
• 51:39
  remove myself. Yeah, they didn't do that.
• 51:41
  No, they were just like, girl, don't do it.
• 51:44
  Don't pick up the phone. I know.
• 51:46
  And then they did. Like don't, don't.
• 51:48
  And then, yeah, Michael Peer pressured them.
• 51:49
  It worked. And then everyone finally had
• 51:53
  enough. Finally, finally, finally.
• 51:56
  So that's like the plot. And I think that that could
• 52:02
  still happen today. I think the plot aged pretty
• 52:06
  fucking well. Honestly, and the characters,
• 52:10
  the characters did because I think that like in all of these
• 52:13
  archetypes, someone can see themselves.
• 52:16
  I mean especially gay guys, but like I think people of any like
• 52:22
  orientation or walk of life can probably see themselves.
• 52:26
  Anyone in a group of friends? God, anyone with friends can see
• 52:30
  themselves. Yeah, because I think of it
• 52:32
  actually. I think this is such a
• 52:34
  fascinating thing to pair with the Broken Hearts club.
• 52:40
  Yes. So Molly and I look for our
• 52:42
  episode of Did That Age Well, where we talk about the broken
• 52:45
  hearts. Club.
• 52:46
  I'll link it somewhere in here. Yeah, because when we watch that
• 52:50
  movie and it's from like 2001 or something, I think.
• 52:55
  Before 9/11, pre 911. Pre 911 and then we have this
• 52:58
  pre Stonewall. They're both movies about groups
• 53:01
  of friends. They both utilize archetypes
• 53:06
  within the gay community, but also just within groups of
• 53:08
  friends in general, right? And I think it's the same thing
• 53:11
  that happens is they're both snapshots of how it is being gay
• 53:16
  in the world and then how that affects dynamics within friend
• 53:20
  groups. You know what I think this movie
• 53:23
  reminds me of the most in modern times?
• 53:26
  The episode of Girls when they go to the beach house.
• 53:29
  Oh my God. And everything goes to.
• 53:30
  Shit, Everything goes to shit. Selena Dunham, was that based on
• 53:34
  Boys in the band? Because now that did you say
• 53:36
  that? Honestly.
• 53:38
  It's where everyone's monsters come out.
• 53:41
  And it is so cathartic. So cathartic when Shoshanna
• 53:46
  breaks. Yeah, you just, you just and
• 53:50
  just like actually you guys are all horrible.
• 53:52
  Yeah, and she breathes them to filth.
• 53:55
  Yeah, it's incredible. And the way that like,
• 53:58
  everything kind of starts off perfect, like, and Marnie's
• 54:01
  trying to make it perfect. She's kind of the.
• 54:04
  You know what? Michael is such a Marnie he.
• 54:06
  So is. And Harold is such a Hannah.
• 54:10
  Yeah. Wait.
• 54:10
  MMHH. Whoa.
• 54:13
  Lena Dunham. OK, girl, what?
• 54:15
  Did you do here? What did you do here?
• 54:18
  Just honestly, Cowboy. Yeah, but Cowboy never got that.
• 54:22
  Moment, I know. You know what?
• 54:23
  That's one thing I wish we had that I wish that cowboy snapped
• 54:27
  and told everybody what they were doing and was like, and you
• 54:32
  do this and you do that and like talk to, Sen said to everybody.
• 54:36
  Because I love when the dumb one turns out to be really smart,
• 54:39
  like Shoshanna. Shoshanna is justice.
• 54:41
  For Cowboy. Justice for cowboy.
• 54:44
  Shoshanna. Yeah, she got that.
• 54:46
  She was, she was the smartest, most well adjusted person in
• 54:51
  that friend group. And you know, I wish, I wish
• 54:56
  every, every dumb person could have that moment in their friend
• 55:00
  group. If we did a new version of this
• 55:02
  which we always talk about. Of course, and I love that we do
• 55:05
  that. We would definitely.
• 55:07
  That's probably part of what I would put into the conclusion,
• 55:10
  yeah. Because to tell you how it ends
• 55:13
  without giving every detail away, no one ends up really
• 55:18
  happy, but everyone survives. Everyone survives and you know
• 55:22
  they're going to do it again the next weekend.
• 55:24
  Exactly. They even.
• 55:25
  It won't be the exact same, but they're all going to hang out
• 55:28
  again. They're all going to hang out
• 55:29
  again. No friendships have been
• 55:31
  permanently ruined. People's scabs have just been
• 55:35
  ripped off. Yeah.
• 55:37
  Everyone's just feeling a little on edge.
• 55:39
  Yeah, and understandably so. Completely.
• 55:43
  Yeah, yeah. But ultimately I just think
• 55:46
  like, wow, I can't believe that 58 years later, this is so good.
• 55:57
  And like I said, if you watch it with like a broken hearts club
• 56:02
  from 2000, I would love to see now because that's like 30 years
• 56:06
  later. So I think we're about due for
• 56:08
  another gay friend. I mean, you Fire Island.
• 56:11
  I know literally going to say Fire Island is probably the most
• 56:14
  recent. Yeah.
• 56:15
  But that 1 is really feel good. That 1 is really feel good, but
• 56:19
  that also shows a lot about how things have changed.
• 56:22
  And also, I mean, it still ends on kind of like, I mean, it ends
• 56:27
  on like a bittersweet note because like, they're never
• 56:31
  going to come back to that place in the way that they did.
• 56:34
  And like, friendships are still like, they're a little stilted,
• 56:39
  but they're going to be OK. I mean, that's kind of similar.
• 56:42
  Like I think that I think that because Fire Island is such a
• 56:44
  fun movie, I think about it with such a like, oh, it's such a
• 56:48
  like happy go lucky fun movie, but it actually is like very
• 56:51
  deep in the way that like everyone is struggling with
• 56:53
  their own. Oh, for sure.
• 56:55
  Stuff and Dang, still. Has like his own issues about
• 56:59
  his like appearance and his body.
• 57:01
  And then Matt Rogers, I forget his character's name, but he and
• 57:06
  his little BFF are kind of the Bernard and Emery.
• 57:08
  They are they? Absolutely.
• 57:11
  Are I know I need to that this everyone.
• 57:14
  If you want to do a holy trifecta, put it in your
• 57:16
  calendar. If you want to do like gay
• 57:19
  friendship trifecta through the years, I would do Boys in the
• 57:23
  Band, Broken Hearts, Club Fire Islands.
• 57:27
  Yes. And then we'll see gay history
• 57:29
  unfold through friendship. And that is that's your gay
• 57:33
  history, gay historians. Oh my God.
• 57:36
  And of course, I'm only talking about gay men because I am part
• 57:39
  of the problem. I'm talking about and mostly the
• 57:44
  white ones. And yeah, but you know what?
• 57:47
  I love Fire Island. Finally, we got some Asian
• 57:50
  representation. Finally, there's none in this.
• 57:54
  Except for when. Except for when memory says, hey
• 58:00
  big boy, you like the Chinese lawn dress?
• 58:02
  Yeah, exactly. Other than that, no Asian
• 58:04
  representation. And no Asian representation in
• 58:07
  Broken Hearts Club? No, once again, they had a token
• 58:10
  black character, Billy Porter. Yeah, but you know what?
• 58:14
  I like that in Fire Island, the two main leads are not white.
• 58:19
  Yeah, and plus we get Margaret Cho in Fire.
• 58:22
  Island. Oh my God, can't go wrong there.
• 58:23
  You cannot ask for. Less MUNA covers Britney Spears
• 58:28
  sometimes times incredible The soundtrack 10 out of 10. 100% I
• 58:32
  love the movie Fire Island. I think it's so underrated.
• 58:35
  Oh, it's a fabulous movie. It's incredible.
• 58:37
  It's a perfect like, yeah, it's a perfect just like slice of
• 58:42
  life. Looking at a friend group.
• 58:44
  I recently, OK, so there have been a couple of times in the
• 58:47
  past few months where I've gone on like group trips where I was
• 58:52
  like the bonus person who was coming into a group of friends,
• 58:56
  not knowing a lot of the people there and just like getting a
• 58:59
  little like a little peek into like another group of Friends
• 59:04
  Life. Like my friend who lives from
• 59:06
  out of town. Actually, these are both like
• 59:08
  friends who were from out of town.
• 59:10
  We're coming in to ski in Colorado.
• 59:12
  And watching the dynamics of people over like a weekend is so
• 59:18
  fascinating. And that's why I think that Tex
• 59:21
  needs to be the one to be as the outsider, the voice of reason,
• 59:25
  to be like you guys. Do you realize that it doesn't
• 59:29
  have to be this way? I mean, I agree with you 1000%.
• 59:34
  Yeah, when we do an updated version of Boys in the Band and
• 59:38
  not just a remake like they did in 2020, I mean, like revamped.
• 59:43
  Yeah, new one. First of all, new one of these a
• 59:45
  lesbian. Period at.
• 59:47
  Least one of them trans. Yeah.
• 59:50
  And enough. I mean, we'll just leave Hank as
• 59:53
  bi. Yeah, and we need.
• 59:56
  We're not here for by erasure. We're.
• 59:58
  Not here for by erasure. With a clear preference on one
• 1:00:00
  side. Yeah, there you got it.
• 1:00:02
  Yeah, and Alan McCarthy also pretty much by.
• 1:00:05
  So like there's two by guys already, but we'll add a lesbian
• 1:00:08
  and a trans character. Cowboy will get his redemption.
• 1:00:12
  Yes, I would still make Michael pretty much the same, but not
• 1:00:17
  racist. Really.
• 1:00:19
  You think that? You think that it would It's
• 1:00:21
  like important to his character to not be racist or that it
• 1:00:25
  would make him hold up better? I think if I were going to
• 1:00:29
  include hints of racism, because maybe it's unfair to take it out
• 1:00:33
  because racism is still a part of the dynamics of a lot of gay
• 1:00:38
  friend groups. Totally.
• 1:00:39
  So maybe if it's unfair to take out, I would mostly not have
• 1:00:44
  anyone do that while they're sober.
• 1:00:45
  And I would have that be part of, I would have that at least
• 1:00:48
  be part of the dark underbelly. Yeah, I think it would be like,
• 1:00:55
  maybe it wouldn't be as blatant as it is in the 1968 version.
• 1:01:01
  It would be more. Like.
• 1:01:03
  The violence would be in microaggression.
• 1:01:06
  Type, yeah, we definitely turn up the microaggression.
• 1:01:10
  Yeah, totally. Like he says like he's like,
• 1:01:13
  Bernard, would you go get that for me?
• 1:01:15
  Or like, oh, Bernard, like you're so well spoken or like
• 1:01:18
  whatever, you know, like, yeah, microaggressions for sure for.
• 1:01:21
  Sure, yeah. Not that we want to like
• 1:01:26
  minimize the impact of like, I'm not saying like microaggressions
• 1:01:30
  are like easy. And you know it's only racist if
• 1:01:35
  you say the N. Word.
• 1:01:35
  But they're more common now. But it's just and so if we're
• 1:01:37
  doing a snapshot. Yeah, if we're doing a snapshot
• 1:01:39
  of what, a group of friends, what someone who holds like, you
• 1:01:45
  know, a lot of hate in their heart and someone who is racist.
• 1:01:49
  Yeah. And thinks that they're like the
• 1:01:52
  exception because they're gay. That they're like, Oh well I
• 1:01:57
  couldn't be possibly be racist. I have a black gay friend.
• 1:02:01
  Wow. Yeah, and we know them.
• 1:02:04
  We know the guys like them. We know them.
• 1:02:07
  We know them. And you know.
• 1:02:09
  Jimmy, I'm just kidding. Jimmy is nothing of the sort.
• 1:02:13
  Nothing of the sort. He's the Emory of the group.
• 1:02:15
  He. Is oh, my God, he's such an
• 1:02:16
  Emory. I know.
• 1:02:18
  Can I tell you what one of my favorite lines is?
• 1:02:20
  Of course, because I feel like it has to be mentioned.
• 1:02:22
  Yeah, there is this one part. Well, first of all, I do have to
• 1:02:27
  say one of my favorite lines of Harold is the one where he calls
• 1:02:31
  himself a Puck. Well, I'm just going to read the
• 1:02:34
  line. Can't read it.
• 1:02:35
  And just know these are not Cameron's words.
• 1:02:36
  These are Mark Crowley's words speaking through Harold.
• 1:02:41
  What I am, Michael, is a 32 year old ugly pockmark Jew fairy.
• 1:02:48
  And if it takes me a little while to pull myself together,
• 1:02:52
  and if I smoke a little grass before I get up the nerve to
• 1:02:55
  show my face to the world, it's nobody's God damn business but
• 1:02:59
  my own. And how are you this evening?
• 1:03:03
  That's the best part. I.
• 1:03:05
  Know Mark Crowley is so good at writing.
• 1:03:08
  Bitey, bitey, vicious, sharp slitting wit.
• 1:03:15
  Yes. This play and these movies are
• 1:03:18
  full of it. Oh yeah, thoroughly
• 1:03:20
  entertaining. You don't even want to pick up
• 1:03:22
  your phone because you'll miss it.
• 1:03:24
  Like just an ordinary line can be outstanding.
• 1:03:28
  It's. So fast-paced and that's the
• 1:03:31
  thing. I think that the the fast-paced
• 1:03:33
  dialogue and the quick wit is what really is the engine that
• 1:03:37
  keeps it running. When we're really like we're in
• 1:03:40
  one setting the whole time. It's it like, you know, we're
• 1:03:43
  watching it in real time. This isn't like, you know, they
• 1:03:46
  summarize a little bit and then they go into it.
• 1:03:48
  It's like we are at the party. You're at the party for two
• 1:03:51
  hours. Yeah.
• 1:03:53
  And I really like that they speed it up through the
• 1:03:57
  dialogue, through the quips, because otherwise this would
• 1:04:02
  have dragged and it didn't because they're so clever.
• 1:04:06
  There is not a lull in the two hours, no.
• 1:04:09
  And it is a long movie, but they really condense a whole party
• 1:04:13
  into the two hours. And it is fascinating 'cause it
• 1:04:16
  is happening in real time. Yeah.
• 1:04:18
  But then also it's clearly from like 5:00 PM to, like, almost
• 1:04:21
  midnight because it's light outside when it starts, right?
• 1:04:26
  And then by the end, he's like, there's a midnight mass.
• 1:04:29
  That's right. He does say that.
• 1:04:31
  But earlier in the in the movie, like when things are kind of
• 1:04:35
  like settling down, it actually might be just shortly before he
• 1:04:38
  says he's going to midnight mass, Michael asked Donald what
• 1:04:42
  time is it? And he goes.
• 1:04:43
  It's still early. Oh, so maybe he's just out
• 1:04:46
  walking around. Yeah, they do show him out
• 1:04:48
  walking the streets in the Netflix one at the end.
• 1:04:50
  Yeah. And then going to Mass.
• 1:04:53
  But yeah, it's sort of like it feels like it's in real time.
• 1:04:58
  It does. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:04:59
  And it pretty much is. It basically is.
• 1:05:02
  But you're right, it does the IT is the, it is the dialogue being
• 1:05:07
  so clever and snappy that keeps it moving.
• 1:05:09
  Yeah, One other line I like is your lips are turning blue.
• 1:05:15
  You look like you've been rimming a snowman just 'cause I
• 1:05:18
  can't believe someone wrote that in 1968.
• 1:05:20
  Oh yeah and this is like the first first time I think
• 1:05:24
  recorded on screen people using the word cunt in a movie.
• 1:05:29
  I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, he says it a lot.
• 1:05:31
  They say it a lot. You're a you're a sunt that's
• 1:05:35
  with a sedilla. Like amazing.
• 1:05:38
  Yeah. And he tells Donald you're a
• 1:05:39
  real card carrying cunt. Yeah, they use it a lot.
• 1:05:42
  Yeah. And.
• 1:05:44
  I love. It I don't mind it.
• 1:05:46
  Yeah, I really think it's funny too.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah, I think one thing that is timeless is gay guys calling
• 1:05:52
  each other the C word. That's timeless.
• 1:05:54
  It's problematic and timeless, and it will be in my revamped
• 1:05:57
  version. Absolutely.
• 1:05:59
  We're not changing that. Oh my God.
• 1:06:01
  I also kind of just want you to be a character in it, so we're
• 1:06:06
  gonna have a lot of representation.
• 1:06:08
  We are gonna, yeah, big time. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:12
  Molly. I don't want you to be Emery,
• 1:06:15
  though. I almost want you to be like a
• 1:06:17
  herald. Oh.
• 1:06:19
  My God. The foil for Michael, Yeah, You
• 1:06:23
  versus me. Oh my God.
• 1:06:24
  Like me as Michael and you as Harold The.
• 1:06:27
  Two of us could destroy each other, and that's why our
• 1:06:30
  friendship is so precious. Oh, because it has to be.
• 1:06:33
  Because it has to be. It's like we hold the keys to
• 1:06:36
  the a nuclear bomb. Someone gave us the code.
• 1:06:39
  Julio Stand. Before me Wait, do you want to
• 1:06:43
  hear another fun fact? Oh my God, of course.
• 1:06:46
  William Friedkin, who directed this movie, The next year he
• 1:06:51
  ends up directing The French Connection, wins an Academy
• 1:06:54
  Award for best actor. Yeah, but do you want to know
• 1:06:56
  the most famous movie he directed?
• 1:06:58
  What? The Exorcist.
• 1:07:00
  Shut up. This movie was directed by the
• 1:07:03
  same director as The Exorcist? No way.
• 1:07:06
  And honestly, when you really think if you watch the old boys
• 1:07:10
  in the band, you can kind of tell.
• 1:07:13
  Absolutely. What is happening in?
• 1:07:14
  This heel, not enough at capturing the horror of it all.
• 1:07:19
  Yeah, that. No, but actually, like the
• 1:07:21
  tension, the emotion, the cringe, the release, the
• 1:07:25
  release, Yeah, like the the climax is it's all scary.
• 1:07:30
  Yeah, it's all scary. It's this is a horror film,
• 1:07:33
  frankly. Michael becomes possessed by the
• 1:07:35
  devil. You could say that.
• 1:07:36
  Some would say that Exorcist is what it is because of boys and
• 1:07:40
  the bands. And, you know, they don't often
• 1:07:42
  note this in the Ryan Murphy version, when he goes into the
• 1:07:47
  church and he puts his little finger in the holy water.
• 1:07:50
  It does sizzle. I'm just going.
• 1:07:53
  Really. But that would be a little
• 1:07:55
  touch. I know Jim Parsons.
• 1:07:57
  Jim Parsons, you little devil. Okay, I was going to say
• 1:08:04
  something about the new one. Oh yeah.
• 1:08:07
  Okay, so this is not really related to anything that we were
• 1:08:10
  saying, but something that must be mentioned is that Matt Bomer
• 1:08:14
  is supposed to be like 30 in this movie and then in mid
• 1:08:19
  Century Modern the show, he's supposed to be like a retiree.
• 1:08:24
  How old is this man supposed to be?
• 1:08:27
  You know what I mean? He's just.
• 1:08:29
  You're right. Mid century modern is about like
• 1:08:32
  like men in their golden years and.
• 1:08:37
  And it only came out a couple years after this movie did.
• 1:08:40
  Yeah. So I'm kind of like, is he 30 or
• 1:08:43
  60? Well, that's a good question.
• 1:08:47
  And you know what? Matt Bomer probably looks about
• 1:08:49
  the same at both of those ages because.
• 1:08:51
  He's perfect, He's perfect. He in real life, he's 48, so
• 1:08:55
  he's. Right in the middle, kind of
• 1:08:56
  right in the middle. So he's like, you want me to go
• 1:08:57
  15 years up or 15 years down? Totally.
• 1:09:00
  And I'm like. Any up, down, right around,
• 1:09:03
  anywhere. Inches in.
• 1:09:04
  No, I'm just kidding. I would pass away. 15 is.
• 1:09:08
  Diabolical. I think anyone would pass away.
• 1:09:09
  Yeah, no, he's. Perfect though he's.
• 1:09:11
  Beautiful. Yeah, he's perfect.
• 1:09:12
  Wow. Yeah, gorgeous.
• 1:09:15
  I did like the flashbacks in the 2020 version.
• 1:09:18
  Yeah, that is one thing. I feel like this 1970 version,
• 1:09:23
  well they also used the same cast from the play.
• 1:09:26
  They did, and I love that. And it should be mentioned for
• 1:09:30
  those who haven't seen the 2020 version that it's the same
• 1:09:32
  script. Same exact script.
• 1:09:35
  And the set looks almost the exact same.
• 1:09:38
  It's amazing. It's incredible.
• 1:09:40
  Yeah. It's also very like they did a
• 1:09:43
  good job shooting it. It's beautiful.
• 1:09:44
  Oh yeah, it's gorgeous. And yeah, they're all very
• 1:09:48
  talented at delivering this dialogue.
• 1:09:50
  Yeah, no matter my I have my qualms with Ryan Murphy, but
• 1:09:55
  this? Produced this and The Normal
• 1:09:59
  Heart which is famously my other favorite movie.
• 1:10:02
  Yeah, and I gotta say, he knows how to cast people.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah, the casting is amazing. In this, in this film, in other
• 1:10:13
  projects he's done, casting has been horrid.
• 1:10:16
  Yeah, but it. Necessarily.
• 1:10:18
  He really showed, I said. Oh, so you can cast a project.
• 1:10:22
  Well, OK. But some might say he didn't.
• 1:10:27
  He just took the cast from the revival on Broadway.
• 1:10:30
  And copied and pasted it. Yeah, that's actually so true.
• 1:10:34
  Yeah. So that explains it.
• 1:10:35
  OK, yeah, OK. Well, we got to the bottom of
• 1:10:37
  that, but yeah, the the flashbacks were really cool.
• 1:10:44
  I think that some people might think that it's sort of dated.
• 1:10:49
  They might think that, you know, like we, we live in this, in
• 1:10:54
  this like progressive society where people can be who they
• 1:10:59
  are. But the thing that's so tragic
• 1:11:02
  is that I think I get so stuck in my like, bubble in Denver,
• 1:11:09
  like living in the city. Like.
• 1:11:10
  Living in like a community of, like, queer people, I just
• 1:11:16
  forget a lot of the time that there are people all over the
• 1:11:21
  country, I mean, all over the world, but like in the United
• 1:11:23
  States who, like, are like, legally cannot be who they are.
• 1:11:28
  And that like, like discrimination, obviously it's
• 1:11:33
  like, yeah, I know that discrimination exists, but like
• 1:11:38
  this the the impacts of discrimination and the way that
• 1:11:42
  these men have this like internalized homophobia, you
• 1:11:47
  know, I think that for a lot of people, more than we would think
• 1:11:52
  or maybe more than I would think rings true.
• 1:11:55
  So I don't know that. I don't know that it is like.
• 1:12:01
  Dated. I don't think it is.
• 1:12:03
  Yeah. I think again, you get 9 drunk
• 1:12:07
  gay men in a room who are all intimately familiar with each
• 1:12:11
  other and know each other's insecurities and secrets and
• 1:12:16
  history, it could very well turn into a very similar situation 58
• 1:12:22
  years later. Absolutely.
• 1:12:24
  And you know what? I think it'll be the same in 58
• 1:12:26
  more years. And I don't think it's bad.
• 1:12:30
  Yeah. I think it's just.
• 1:12:31
  It is. It just is.
• 1:12:33
  It just is. And I think you could learn to
• 1:12:35
  love it. And you know what?
• 1:12:37
  This group of friends would be so much healthier if they had a
• 1:12:41
  woman or two around. I do agree with that.
• 1:12:43
  I really think that this is OK. This is a cautionary tale of
• 1:12:46
  what happens when gay men are only surrounded by other gay
• 1:12:49
  men. I do think that is actually
• 1:12:52
  like, for real, for real, for real.
• 1:12:55
  Yeah, there are I and I would say that is true to this day
• 1:13:00
  yes, when there are groups of gay men who like have no women
• 1:13:05
  even as friends of. Yeah.
• 1:13:07
  You know, to bring housewives terminology.
• 1:13:10
  Of course, yeah. It's always more toxic.
• 1:13:12
  Of course women cast women in your friend groups or else.
• 1:13:17
  As full time cast members. As full yeah, not just as friend
• 1:13:21
  of. Yeah, full time.
• 1:13:22
  Full time, Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I love Robin de Jesus as
• 1:13:30
  Emery. So good and the new 1 Emery and
• 1:13:33
  the revival was an amazing presence on stage too I bet.
• 1:13:37
  I remember like leaving the stage production and he was my
• 1:13:40
  favorite actor of the whole group.
• 1:13:42
  Yeah, he's amazing. Yeah, just credit where credit's
• 1:13:46
  due. Yeah, it makes it hard for me to
• 1:13:47
  say which. Like if someone's like, well,
• 1:13:49
  which one should I watch? I would honestly recommend them
• 1:13:51
  both. Yeah, I would too.
• 1:13:52
  It's the same exact script and I would recommend them both.
• 1:13:56
  Absolutely. Me too.
• 1:13:59
  I think the people in the 2020 version are hotter.
• 1:14:05
  Oh for sure. Because that's.
• 1:14:08
  Because they're actors in 2020. Yeah, yeah, I do.
• 1:14:12
  Like in the 1960s and 70s, you could be an actor and be kind of
• 1:14:18
  ugly, or you could be like normal, normal.
• 1:14:21
  You could look like the rest of us mere mortals.
• 1:14:24
  Whereas like, if I walked into this, the friend group in the
• 1:14:27
  2020 version, I would say you're saying Harold is ugly.
• 1:14:33
  OK, I'll Zach. Recuse.
• 1:14:35
  Myself, I guess I'll just go throw myself off of this
• 1:14:38
  balcony. Because I would show up to the
• 1:14:40
  party and then I'd walk right out the door.
• 1:14:43
  I'd turn around. He had no lines.
• 1:14:45
  Yeah. Yeah, He had no lines.
• 1:14:49
  He walked in and he walked out. Some, some critics said that
• 1:14:54
  this movie is like a good representation of like, the
• 1:15:01
  strides that we've made so far in society and like, you know,
• 1:15:06
  something that we can look to and say, like, look how far
• 1:15:10
  we've come. But part of me thinks I don't
• 1:15:15
  know if that's quite true. I think the conversations have
• 1:15:17
  changed. Like, you know, I'm not telling
• 1:15:19
  my friends you're gay and you're always gonna be gay.
• 1:15:23
  Get it through your head. Like, I don't have to do that
• 1:15:25
  anymore. But have I told my friends you
• 1:15:29
  were so fucking out of line just now and you were a monster at
• 1:15:32
  this party, but I'm still gonna give you a Vicodin and sit with
• 1:15:35
  you while you calm down because I'm a good friend.
• 1:15:37
  And also, you should probably apologize to Bernard because
• 1:15:40
  what you said was a little racist.
• 1:15:42
  That could happen. That would definitely happen.
• 1:15:44
  1000% It honestly, to me more so shows how things have stayed the
• 1:15:48
  same. Yeah.
• 1:15:49
  Which is kind of what I love about this movie.
• 1:15:52
  It's a beautiful capsule, and it also makes me feel like I have.
• 1:15:58
  It's kind of like looking at a family tree.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah. It's like I have a history in
• 1:16:03
  this world. I do feel that way about this.
• 1:16:06
  I think that's what drives me to be so, like, obsessed with this
• 1:16:10
  story in particular. And, you know, I know in my
• 1:16:12
  house, I have a huge poster of the original run in DCI, bought
• 1:16:19
  a first edition of the play in paperback.
• 1:16:22
  I've seen both versions of the movie a million times, Flew to
• 1:16:25
  New York to see it on stage. I love this movie.
• 1:16:29
  But that's why, because I feel like it gives me a sense of
• 1:16:32
  history. Yeah.
• 1:16:34
  This is gay history. This is gay history.
• 1:16:37
  And you're listening to gay history.
• 1:16:40
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:16:41
  I couldn't agree more. I mean, of course, it was so
• 1:16:44
  groundbreaking and being the first major representation,
• 1:16:48
  especially, I mean, this was Off Broadway, but it became
• 1:16:51
  mainstream and it was controversial, but it was
• 1:16:56
  ultimately like, well received by critics.
• 1:16:59
  Almost all of the actors went on to have like, prosperous
• 1:17:03
  careers, except until they died of AIDS, But that's a whole
• 1:17:06
  different thing. That is but connected.
• 1:17:08
  But connected. But connected I'm.
• 1:17:10
  Afraid, and it's all part of history.
• 1:17:12
  Yes, it is. Wow, wow.
• 1:17:16
  OK, well what else do we have to discuss about this film?
• 1:17:20
  Just that everyone should see it.
• 1:17:21
  I mean, honestly. And again, if you want to do
• 1:17:23
  Cameron's curated Holy Trinity of gay history, of friend groups
• 1:17:29
  of gay men, yes, I would do Boys in the Band 1970, then I would
• 1:17:35
  do Broken Hearts Club 2000 or 2001, and then I would do Fire
• 1:17:42
  Island 2021, I think. And if you're a lesbian,
• 1:17:45
  considering, or any woman at all considering becoming part of a
• 1:17:50
  friend group of mostly gay guys. They need you.
• 1:17:53
  They need you now more than ever.
• 1:17:55
  More than ever. They really need you now more
• 1:17:57
  than ever. Do your part, do your part, do
• 1:18:01
  your part. And gay guys, you need to hang
• 1:18:03
  out with other people too, OK? I do believe that.
• 1:18:06
  I mean, I do know some gay men who are like all of their
• 1:18:09
  friends or other gay men. And I'm like girl.
• 1:18:11
  You got to find a girl. You got to find a girl.
• 1:18:14
  OK, just at least one. Yeah.
• 1:18:19
  Wow. That was so powerful.
• 1:18:21
  That was powerful and I just now want to go home and watch it all
• 1:18:24
  over again. Oh my God, me too, I might.
• 1:18:26
  Oh my God, I might too. OK, OK everybody go home and
• 1:18:29
  watch it. We love you so much.
• 1:18:31
  Bye. Bye.