Queer Movie Podcast

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Glass Onion (Queer Mystery) Jan 05, 2023

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The new Knives Out movie is a bit gay, apparently... well, we'll be the judge of that! Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us! We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen! New episodes every other Thursday. Find Us on the Internet Super Highway - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd ROWAN: Before we get into this episode, we just wanted to say a massive thank you once again to Jennifer and Toby who support us on Patreon at the rainbow parent level. So incredible. Thank you so much for all of your support. If you would like to check out our Patreon which has a bunch of different perks, including queer watch alongs our Discord that's exclusive to patrons, and a bunch of other stuff besides then check us out@patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast. Okay on with the show. [theme] JAZZA: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast celebrating the best— ROWAN: —and worst— JAZZA: In LGBTQ plus cinema. One glorious genre at a time. ROWAN: I'm Rowan Ellis. JAZZA: And I am Jazza John. ROWAN: Each episode we discuss a movie from a different genre of cinema. JAZZA: This episode genre is— JAZZA AND ROWAN: Queer mystery? JAZZA: I love we made that a question. ROWAN: Very coordinated. JAZZA: Today we are going to be talking about Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery. This is the latest in the Knives Out Series of Films that it is the second. It's still a series that accounts and it's starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc and Hugh Grant as his housekeeper. ROWAN: But before we done our mesh facemasks, Jazza, what's the gayest thing you've done since the last episode? JAZZA: What a great question that I actually hadn't thought about until you just asked me now. ROWAN: You did give me a short Christmasy candle anecdote earlier, which I think is a very good option. JAZZA: Excellent. Thank you so much for knowing me better than I know myself. So as you know, I have now moved to New York. Hello, I'm Jazza, and I live in New York. ROWAN: Incredible. JAZZA: And I on my first weekend attended, it was the one after Christmas and attended a lesbian candle white elephant where— ROWAN: Stunning. JAZZA: I went to the Union Square Christmas market and asked one of the people on the market stand to give me their gayest candle because it was for lesbians. And I asked what did the lesbians want? And she went sage. ROWAN: And she was right. JAZZA: And she was right. They veritably fought over ROWAN: Notorious, notorious for the sage. JAZZA: How about you Rowan? ROWAN: Well, I accidentally got a wolf cut in my hair. JAZZA: And ROWAN: I—basically I just was like, oh, can I get slightly shorter layers than I did before? And then she really went hard on the like, the front of my head with the short layers. And then just continued until the back was like a bit struggling. So I was like, oh, wow— JAZZA: Oh no. ROWAN: And she was like, uh-huh, let's take a wolf cut. And I was like, it is one. Not what I asked for, but I was like, I guess it makes me more you know, Gen Z gay, so. JAZZA: Oh, yeah because the blue hair wasn't enough. ROWAN: Yeah. No. JAZZA: Sure. ROWAN: So they are looking at me slightly closer, because I've been wearing my hair JAZZA: Yeah. ROWAN: So he hasn't… JAZZA: I haven't been oh my god, the reveal. ROWAN: I mean it's slightly greasy. So it's— JAZZA: Oh, my go— ROWAN: And my hair is just a bit of a mess. JAZZA: I would—you look great— ROWAN: I'm gay. JAZZA: But it does increase your lesbian. ROWAN: Yeah, it really does. JAZZA: Yeah, yeah. ROWAN: So I think I need to figure out how to like style it and work with it and get over the panic and stress of having a haircut. I didn't think I was gonna have. I was like, yeah, keep the length, that it happened. But it just made me more gay. So that's my gayest thing from this month. [theme] JAZZA: We will first be chatting about the gay of this film. How they marketed it as such, and also the inherent queerness of the mystery genre. ROWAN: We will then be reviewing the plot and splitting the film into three acts. Of course, as usual. Obviously, we will be spoiling all of this movie, you know, feel free to watch and come back to us when you've seen it. I would recommend that, I like this movie. Spoiler alert. But also, it is a murder mystery. So like if you—if you—some movies, you could listen to our explanation and then go watch and be like, wow, I feel like I've had an entirely whole experience. But we will be giving away who did the murder. So it feels like maybe watch it before we give that away to you. JAZZA: Excellent. And so without further ado, let's get online and play a quick game of Among Us with Angela Lansbury and review Glass Onion. [theme] JAZZA: So we have had it confirmed by directors, cast members, the gossiping classes of the movie elite, that this film is indeed about Benoit Blanc who is confirmed as a gay. ROWAN: Homosexual. JAZZA: Veritable homosexual. So we found this out just before it was released in the run-up to Christmas this year, through a load of the media PR interviews that were happening around the movie with—I first found out about it listening to radio four in the morning, because I'm just really engaged with politics, where Daniel Craig was being interviewed and they just had a quick conversation about oh, yeah, it was—it was just really obvious that Blanc was gay because he's uh— ROWAN: some neckties. JAZZA: Wears— ROWAN: Neckerchief. JAZZA: Neckerchiefs. Loves the neckerchiefs, and is a bit eccentric. And it has been described and talked about by the cast members and Rian Johnson, the director as when they thought about showing a little bit of Benoit Blanc's homelife. It was "obvious" quote-unquote, to them that this would be how they were going to code the character, and that it fit really, really well. I was first excited and then worried. Because this feels like a narrative, a trope, a way of discussing the queerness of a movie that we have seen with many, many films in the past. When, if you blink, maybe you miss it. But it's very important to the marketing of the movie that everybody knows that this is now queer, or has a queer character in it. ROWAN: This is indeed a term that I coined for a long-ass video essay that I made a couple years ago. Queer Catching. JAZZA: Queer Catching. And— ROWAN: They really did it. JAZZA: Hey, they caught this— ROWAN: Textbook. JAZZA: —they caught this queer. ROWAN: They call you. I mean I was gonna watch it anyway but— JAZZA: Yeah, of course. And I would have anyway as well. I am very conscious that when especially Rian Johnson has done interviews around the home life of Benoit Blanc, he wants it to be kind of like a pogo, where you never really the—the personal life of the detective of the main character in a mystery is never a focal point of the story or the narrative. They are the vessel through which you experience the unfolding of the story. And that makes sense for this genre. But I feel like the—I feel like the problem here is that if there is—this is like a queer coded character made for a Chinese audience, where unless you know that, that scene, and it is one scene where Hugh Grant opens the door for Daniel Craig, they aren't even in the same scene together. You would not know that they are a gay couple. ROWAN: Yeah. JAZZA: And I feel like we were—we've been conned a little bit. What do you think? ROWAN: I kind of agree with you. I think that especially within this genre, right? And I'm going to talk a little bit in my context section about the like, queerness of the detective genre. But I don't think it's a coincidence that so many people that I've seen online, who didn't see the interviews that were done beforehand that I think we're done, partly in order for people to like get that this was a thing from the beginning and there—for there to be like no doubt when they go into the cinemas. People hadn't seen these interviews, and all those discussions beforehand, fully thinking it was a Holmes and Watson situation. JAZZA: Hmm. ROWAN: Right. JAZZA: My parents who had seen none of the—I watched this the first time with my parents, they had no idea. They didn't clock that as a—as a quick outro at all. ROWAN: Yeah. And so yeah, I—I would agree with you. I think also, it's interesting because I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with like, I've seen interviews where they essentially ask like, oh, did you know that he was gay when you first like auditioned or during the first movie? And Daniel Craig was like, no, because he clearly wasn't. And it was something that came between movies, when they found out they were getting a sequel or maybe multiple sequels, and that Rian Johnson was like, okay, I guess I gotta figure out who this character is outside of these like, elements of it. Potentially, he had that thought in his head, but he clearly never said it to the actors. And I think that—I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with deciding to flesh out a character who you thought was only going to be a one movie or one season and then being like, ah, actually, I feel like I've realized something about them, that I can include. I really thought about their backstory or their personal life, but now it's making sense to me. But I think that then only giving us this like one ambiguous scene is a bit strange to me. And I think that—that thing that you said about okay, this has to, you know, the detective's personal life can't be the focal point and everything. You can have that and also have made it explicit that they will get—like he—his character, Hugh Grant's character calls Benoit Blanc, Blanc, like his by his surname. JAZZA: Yeah. Yeah. ROWAN: It doesn't even like— I— the smallest detail if he'd have just said, instead of being like, there's someone at the door for yo Benny, or even like, to be honest, I would have preferred like an actual term of endearment, because —he's very British. Darling is a classic British one. If you'd have just been like, there's someone at the door for you, darling. Yeah, that would have made no difference in the scene. It would have given you know, more or less information, but it would actually have confirmed it. JAZZA: And the problem that I have with the scene as well, is it feels sandwiched in and kept in just for the sake of queer coding. There's the concept in western film storytelling where everything in the movie is meant to move the plot forward. This does nothing to move the plot forward. And there it—isn't even that Hugh Grant's character is a minor character that doesn't really do anything because there are other minor characters and secondary characters that we see in very brief scenes. I'm thinking about Dave Bautista's mother for example, who's literally in just like one funny scene but tells us something about um, Bautista's character, moves the plot forward— ROWAN: Yeah. JAZZA: —and like he's actually has a function. Hugh Grant's character has no function in this movie whatsoever. And so it feels like something that is just dropped in. And it's literally two seconds— ROWAN: Yeah. JAZZA: —Of the movie that we— you lit—I would the first time I watched this, I was tired and falling asleep. And I literally missed it because I—I nodded off for like 30 seconds— ROWAN: Yeah. JAZZA: —and missed the scene. ROWAN: Yes, agreed. JAZZA: One of the things I've really enjoyed is all of the other queer-coded stuff about Benoit Blanc that people have found and then turned into memes. His fabulous like Grecian flag— ROWAN: Yeah. Romper? JAZZA: Romper. Yeah. Beautiful when they get this medicine shot into the back of their neck. And he is the only one that doesn't have a gag reflex. ROWAN: Yeah. Classic. JAZZA: All brilliant, brilliant moments. Do—how did the gay, the gays in the mysteries, and the detectives? How what and when? ROWAN: Thank you for that incredible segue into my bit of context, Jazza, so I think that we can talk about the sort of detective genre, and you know, men co-habiting without talking about Sherlock like I've already mentioned it. And that's, you know, Sherlock notoriously of the BBC version is like one of the most prolific fandoms on the internet. For something that only had like two episodes. JAZZA: Sure. ROWAN: Like, it's—because it had this like tension. And because it was clearly being like played around with and like, some people might argue queerbaiting was involved with the show, where you have this kind of very close, very caring, loving relationship between these two characters. But then the potential of them being romantically linked is referenced in text quite a lot, for them to just like, awkwardly deny it, or to get flustered about it, or you know anything like that. And so I think that it's not unusual for people to be able to see this subtext of like two men who are very intensely involved in the work and in their personal lives, who kind of complete each other in terms of, it's never just that one of them is able to solve it on their own. There's always like a some element that this other person brings, whether it is to in the case of Sherlock and John, to give them some kind of like grounding element, to give them appreciation where they have had scorn before from—from outsiders, which again, is quite queer coded. And so I think that it's not a sort of surprise to me, that a lot of people who already see the career potential in Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, for example, read this as being very queer. But then the other side of the coin is that it doesn't surprise me that the people who don't see Sherlock Holmes and John Watson is queer coded. Don't see these two as a couple. Because it is so—like he literally opens the door having in the middle of cooking after like, sort of slightly nagging Benoit— JAZZA: Are you in the bath again? Yeah. ROWAN: Like it's—it's very much that kind of energy that could be a—a spouse or it could just be, you know, a classic British butler scenario and— JAZZA: Uh really grea— yeah, yeah. ROWAN: Still friends, especially because it's clearly during lockdown. So it's like, well, people will cohabitate JAZZA: all over the place. ROWAN: They loved apart. And so yeah, I think that it's—I— I don't think that it's completely like the first time we've seen this kind of potential queerness crop up, but it's the first time that we've had other than some indie projects. So there's a—a short film, a short Sherlock film, which is like, specifically queer which is on YouTube, which I can recommend to people. Search that out. But in terms of the big retellings like it's not really—so it's often actors will talk about like, not often, but sometimes acto…

Full show notes at the publisher

The Holiday Sitter (Queer Hallmark) Dec 22, 2022

Show notes

It's time for the Christmas episode! In which Rowan and Jazza discuss how Hallmark went from banning gay ads to making their own queer movies in three years flat. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us! We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. We are also supported by Dipsea. For audio stories to spice up your alone (or not-so-alone) time, go to dipseastories.com/queermovie for a 30 day free trial. This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen! New episodes every other Thursday. Find Us on the Internet Super Highway - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd JAZZA: Before we kick off this episode, just want to say a quick thank you so much to Jennifer and Toby who support us at the highest level of the rainbow parent on our Patreon. We love you um with the podcast. [theme] JAZZA: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast, celebrating the best— ROWAN: And worst— JAZZA: —in LGBTQ plus cinema one glorious genre at a time. ROWAN: I'm Rowan Ellis. JAZZA: And I—I am JAZZA: John. ROWAN: In each episode we discuss a movie from a different genre of cinema. JAZZA: This episodes genre is— JAZZA AND ROWAN: Queer Hallmark. JAZZA: Ho.Ho.Ho. Today we are going to be talking about how Hallmark, the company that does greeting cards, but also for some reason, also does movies have gone from banning gay ads, to producing queer movies of their own in three years flat? Also, the movie itself, which is called The Holiday Sitter. ROWAN: But before we get triggered by the mere mention of pancakes as the lead does in this movie, which is a scene. We will be going in. I'm so glad that Jazza has mentioned this in the intro, because we will be diving deep into that particular choice by the director and actor. Jazza, what's the gayest thing that you've done since the last episode? JAZZA: Rowan, I may actually have had the gayest month of my life. ROWAN: Oh, tell me everything. JAZZA: So I— ROWAN: Except like, like, tell me everything in about 60 seconds. Yeah, we got to get them on the episode. JAZZA: Yeah, I could tell you about the fact that I went to a Sugababes concert. And now wear their merch all of the time. I could tell you about the fact that I have moved to New York. But don't worry, there'll be lots of other opportunities— ROWAN: Stunning. JAZZA: —to us to be able to do that. I could tell you about the fact that in the last two weeks, I have gone on seven days. ROWAN: Oh my. JAZZA: And I'm going on my eighth one this— ROWAN: With the same— JAZZA: —Evening. ROWAN: —person or seven different boy? JAZZA: No different types of students. ROWAN: All the—all the dwarfs. ROWAN: Snow White. JAZZA: I'm Snow White. JAZZA: Yeah. But I'm instead going to tell you about the—one of the most embarrassing celebrity encounters I've ever had. When I was saying goodbye to London, one of my final nights out with friends was at the Glory Pub, which is in North London. And we were watching this drag show, and who happens to be beside me, but Bowen Yang from— ROWAN: No. JAZZA: SNL and— ROWAN: No. JAZZA: —And ROWAN: You're lying. JAZZA: And—and Fire Island. Uh no. ROWAN: I can't believe JAZZA: It's real. ROWAN: this story for the pod. JAZZA: I have— I have been keeping— ROWAN: That's incredible. JAZZA: —It for the pod. I obviously it like a couple of people . So this is a look at the 60 seconds. Someone went up to Bowen Yang and said, oh my god, are you Bowen Yang, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, I can't go over to him now. But then that person went from Bowen Yang to me, and was like are you Jazza John? ROWAN: No, wait, this exchange? JAZZA: I don't think so. ROWAN: Oh my god, I imagine. JAZZA: Because I was just like, well, this is ridiculous that this happened, because I haven't put it—I've put like one video on the internet in the last year. And then I was like—I genuinely built up the courage to like say hi but like, I just think you're making really good stuff. Keep doing it. So I'm about to leave, and I'm like It's now or never. I go into Bowen Yang, and I go, hey, I think you're making great stuff. And he went, thank you so much. I try my best. And I went, oh, no, don't try your best. Make sure they get their money's worth. ROWAN: What?Oh, no, this really took so many turns, Jazza. JAZZA: I don't know. And then I just—and then I just ROWAN: That, I don't know. JAZZA: And then—and then he followed me to the bus stop because he was leaving with his friends. ROWAN: Oh no. JAZZA: And thank God, he didn't got on the same bus as me. But it was—it was terrible. It was really horrific. And so now we can't be friends, because I'm just going to be replaying that in my head for the rest of my life. ROWAN: Oh, and like what's so wild is that, you had like an actual professional link to this man that you could have mentioned. This— JAZZA: Yeah. Oh. ROWAN: —this fucking podcast, you. JAZZA: Oh, I'm not saying I've done episodes and reviewed your acting. I'm not telling him that in the midddle of the club. ROWAN: Yes should have been like, but we could just have been like, really, really love your stuff. I—I am like a film journalist. You can say that, podcaster, that's what you do. And you could have been like— JAZZA: Okay. ROWAN: —we—we—we specifically talk about queer movies and we bloody loved Fire Island, and you deserve— JAZZA: Yeah. No—I. ROWAN: —everything you got from it. JAZZA: No. ROWAN: Because it's true. We did. JAZZA: So in another—in another universe, he could have been a guest on the podcast, but I think it's that. It's not happening. ROWAN: Oh don't bring that into the—don't like the worst time and when that didn't happen, because you said just the worst sentence that could have come out of your mouth. Yeah, classic. JAZZA: Just made no sense. Anyway, what's that gayest thing you did? ROWAN: Um, I don't really think I can top that at all. What absolute chaos. Oh, I'll tell you what to do—I did, I—I sent my first four chapters and a full outline to my agent of the fiction, like book I'm writing, and she came back and she really, really liked it. And every single comment, there were some actual comments that were useful to the, you know, the writing and everything. But a lot of the comments were just hurt. Like I was clicking on them really nervously. This was a comment where she'll be like, terrible, take this out. But instead, it was just hoping like, low mood, and like, even—even in space, the gays do be doing this. And I'm like, oh, I love you so much. So it was um—I had a really good, good gay feedback from, from my agent on that. JAZZA: Amazing. Fantastic. I can't wait to read some of your space opera, it's gonna be great. ROWAN: Well, I mean, now you said that on air, we got Julio, can we clip it? If you don't, you broken the law. That's how this works. JAZZA: I can't wait to read whatever you're writing. ROWAN: At least one sentence of it. [theme] JAZZA: We are not American. And therefore Hallmark movies aren't really a staple of our culture. Although I did just move to New York. And so I'm a proper New Yorker now. That's why Rowan has been wonderful and gone away, and done some top tier research on what um Hallmark, and why. ROWAN: I'm gonna get to that in a second. But just to let you know what else be going on in this podcast. It's the same as every episode, in case this is your first time joining. After that, we're going to be reviewing the plot, splitting the film into three acts as we do. Because you know, the three act structure is so universal. As such, we will be spoiling all of this movie. So feel free to watch it if you really want to, and come back to us when you seen it. But to be honest, it—it follows a very classic formula. It's very predictable. So you won't be missing much, like you can already probably guess the plot. JAZZA: Can I just say the—the depth of meaning in that short pause between you can watch it, and if you want to was profound. ROWAN: I say what I mean. And I mean, what I say, Jazza. JAZZA: Without further ado, let's find the funds to defer our flight to Hawaii three times in the week before Christmas and review The Holiday Sitter. [theme] ROWAN: Okay, so, Hallmark, we need to talk about Hallmark. Hallmark is one of those brands in the US, which has a very long history. But it's very interesting history that I feel like not a lot of people necessarily know the beginnings of, although you can definitely see the tendrils of what it used to be still in that I would say. So I feel like when people hear the word Hallmark, they think of romcoms. Primarily, they think of the original movies. They think of it being kind of like low budget, fine, too bad acting. And actually probably the same goes to script as well. Zero creativity in terms of directorial choices. Potentially because there simply isn't time. So this is all I would say pretty accurate. Like the stereotype is kind of accurate. It's— it is a lot of rom coms. A typical Hallmark release cost just $2 million to produce, which is— JAZZA: Oh wow. ROWAN: —essentially nothing. That is 100 times less than, like blockbusters that you would see right. So like, No Way Home, for example, I know it's a $200 million budget. So quite literally a hundred times more expensive, which you know, you would expect. But 2 mill—2 million sounds like a lot until you actually get into the fact you having to pay for literally everything and everyone who works on that movie, and that suddenly, the money just goes. And so it's no surprise that because of that low budget, they are attempting to fit things into a very tight timeline, especially because Hallmark will produce like dozens of movies just for their Christmas season. So the filming itself apparently takes just 15 days for a typical Hallmark movie. JAZZA: Oh my, that's wild. ROWAN: Which means no fancy camera angles, hence why the directing is pretty bland. No kind of pushing to overtime. Very few retakes, apparently. So there's really no room for the actors to do much like figuring out different choices for their character like anything like that. It feels like it's just like, okay, go, go go. And then the editing team often has about two weeks to edit the entire movie. JAZZA: You're joking. ROWAN: Nope. That is what I read a few—there's been a few deep dives actually within probably the last like five years. A bunch of them have been done. And this is kind of what gets talked about. There's a lot of like anonymous insider knowledge and like leaked info, which is all very clandestine. And so yeah, it's—it's been—the— the plot of these movies has been especially the Christmas ones because it's not just— Hallmarks not just for Christmas gang. It's a—it's a whole year round. JAZZA: And capitalizing all year round. ROWAN: Truly. And so the—here's the plot. This is the—this is the plot. This is the joke, right? You've got a typical city dwelling rat woman, who loves to do business and has to come back to her family town and or some other kind of small town for some reason, where she meets herself, the small town hunky local bakery owner/lumberjack/architect/dad. And at first off, they couldn't be more different, they do—they don't see eye to eye, but then they find they have common ground. And at the end they're kissing. You know, it's this—it's all very cute. You can probably see Jazza, as someone who has watched this film. How that is essentially been superimposed on to this movie as well. This is a— this is not like a it's a gay Hallmark movie, therefore we're going to treat it differently. The main character in this is just the city dwelling rat woman. JAZZA: Um, yeah, 100% like the opening scenes of oh, I'm—I'm here and I'm overworked. And I'm married to my job. And I never even think about love. I was just like, I don't know, the familiarity I actually quite enjoyed, to be completely honest. And that's what the appeal is. ROWAN: This is what the appeal is. And this is the appeal of a lot of these genres, where things—which I think a lot of people think about when I say these genres, a lot of people think about romance, right? They think the idea of like this set, plot, this set, stock characters, all of this kind of stuff. And I think that there is this element of we know what's going to happen, we—therefore there is a satisfaction and the payoff when that does happen, right? I think gets looked down on I would say a lot, particularly as a more like women oriented stereotypically kind of genre, because you could say the exact same thing about a bunch of male dominated genres of like action movies, of who like murder, who done it type things. Although I would argue that they have actually the strongest like I used to work at a publisher, and in terms of crime and thriller, middle aged women were actually the highest proportion of that audience for book content. But yeah, because of the stereotypes, you—I feel like the idea that it stopped, as you said, it's not necessarily a bad thing. But we—you know, the criticisms of these particular Hallmark movies are not because their stock romances, let's put it that way. So I mentioned before about these interesting little tendrils that come and you sort of hinted at it earlier, when you talked about the idea of banning a gay ad. So for those who don't know, essentially, in December of 2019, the channel stopped airing these ads for a wedding registry, like an online wedding registry, called Solo, that included like two brides kissing, because they had complaints that this was like not family friendly, like promoted same sex marriage, whatever that means. JAZZA: They were actually lobbied by a—by an organization called 1 million. ROWAN: They're the worst. Just the worst. JAZZA: Again, they're not nice people. ROWAN: But they did very quickly, like within the same month, like there was a very quick turnaround, reverse that decision and actually reinstated the adverts. And went further than that to say that they were going to work with GLAAD, which is I'm sure everyone who listens to the podcast knows this, is kind of like a media monitoring organization, I guess specifically for LGBTQ plus media to create more inclusive programming. And I think that, that idea of hey, how have they gone from banning these ads to doing a movie like this in like three years, is because of the fact that they had this proactive kind of immediate response to them banning this ad on banning it, but saying we're actually going to work on our programming, that meant that they could be putting out queer content very quickly afterwards. Other than the fact that obviously, they took—take about seven days to write, shoot and e…

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Movie That Made Me Queer with Bren Frederick Dec 08, 2022

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In which Rowan dives deep with the founder of the Bi Pan Library, Bren Frederick, to talk about owls, trio-protagonists and bi awakenings in the this week's episode. We're a serious podcast and have a sponsor, SquareSpace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. Find Us Online - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd About The Show Queer Movie Podcast is a queer movie watch party hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we research and rate our way through the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to black & white classics, Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things gaaaaay on the silver screen. New episodes every other Thursday. ROWAN: Before we kick off the episode, we just want to say a huge thank you to our patrons Toby and Jennifer, who have chosen to support us on the highest tier available on our Patreon, Rainbow parents. So, thank you so much for your support and for the support of all our other patrons. Sincerely, you help us keep the show going. So thank you very much and we have a link to the Patreon in the description if you would like to check it out. [theme] ROWAN: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast celebrating the best and worst and LGBTQ plus cinema one glorious genre at a time. I'm Rowan Ellis and welcome to one of our guest's specials. Today we are joined by a very special guest who will be answering the question what movies made you queer? I am very excited to welcome, Bren Frederick. BREN: Hello. ROWAN: Yay. who, amongst basically professional bisexuals, um in same way that I'm a professional homosexual. The founder of the Bi Pan library, which you've never heard of, I beg you to google it. It is an incredible resource for kind of Bi Pan and M-spec books. Chef's kiss, wonderful staff, we love to see it. And so you know, also my friends. So I was like, please come on the podcast, love to chat to my friends in a professional capacity. BREN: I'm very happy to be here. ROWAN: So as we normally do at the very start of these episodes, when we talk about the what movies made you queer format, we like to also specify you know, queer is—queer is not necessarily how everyone identifies. So what words do you use to de— to describe your identity? What is the official title of this episode? Bren Frederick, movies that made me blank. BREN: Movies that made me bisexual, genderqueer. Those are the main words that I use. I also just use queer as sort of a blanket term for myself. All of that would be accurate. ROWAN: Amazing. We have had a fair few people who have done these guests' former episodes. And they—some of them have doubled up with the—the kind of things that they wanted to talk about. There's a lot of people where it's like, oh, these— these particular movies or these particular characters really sparked something in —in many bisexual people, I only know, many queer people. You did send me some previews of some of the stuff you're going to talk about, and I am potentially—potentially going to bet, put money on the fact that no one else is going to have your choices because you have chosen some truly wild, wild picks. And so I would love to hear about your first one. In whatever order you decide, most hinge to least hinge. Um, earliest to most recent. What have you fancy, go for it? BREN: Okay, well, my fri—for my first movie, I've chosen Hoot from 2006. It's based on the novel Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. And it's rated a whopping 26% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. ROWAN: Oh my God. BREN: I don't—I think I'm in the wro—on the wrong podcast for anyone to know what movie I'm talking about. ROWAN: on the wrong planet? BREN: Have you seen this film, Rowan? ROWAN: No, I had no idea it existed and you sent me—I'm glad that you didn't send me just that information that you sent me the poster because I feel like I got more of a sense of what was going on. In that, it also has some quite famous people in it. This isn't some like— BREN: Before they were. ROWAN: Like random indie movie that like no—we've never heard of. Like these are— these are some big names. BREN: Yeah, like surely Brie Larson has been mentioned on this podcast before, surely. ROWAN: If not an injustice has been done. BREN: Yeah. ROWAN: But yeah, Brie—Brie Larson in it. BREN: Yep. This is I believe her first like main role in a film, I could be wrong. And she has a pop single over the credits. ROWAN: Okay, the fact I didn't know that it's truly— BREN: Yeah. ROWAN: Truly a—an injustice. Absolutely. So okay, what is the plot of this movie? Like, what—if—if people are sitting down thinking wow, 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, that seems like a gem. Brie Larson singing a pop song. I'd watch it. What is—what is actually going on in this movie? BREN: Right. So it isn't a musical. We'll start there. It was just this thing that happened in the Arts where like, leading girls and women would sing a song and it would go over the credits. And we just all accepted that was how it was. I don't know if everyone was trying to start a pop career at that point. So the main character is our boy Roy Eberhardt, played by Logan Lerman, who you might know is— ROWAN: A not a star-studded cast. BREN: Percy Jackson himself, which I never saw, because um, yeah. ROWAN: You heard the rumors about how bad it was. And you were like, I will—I will simply no, be watching this. BREN: No, it was uh. Well, I grew up very conservative Christian. So it was like, pagan nonsense. ROWAN: Oh, yeah. No, that's of course. Yeah. e—equally valid as an excuse, I guess. BREN: Essentially, it's about a—there's three kids who, Roy, Beatrice, the bear, and Beatrice's stepbrother, who's only known as Mullet Fingers. Mullet as in— ROWAN: Wha—what? BREN: Mullet isn't a, the little fish. ROWAN: Yeah, okay, that makes more sense in the little—like little tiny wigs on all his fingers. BREN: That's a completely different movie. So they become friends. Roy is new in town, he's not fitting in. He's from Montana. And He's new in Florida. It's set in the Florida Everglades. ROWAN: Sure, yeah. That seems like a place that exists. BREN: And I—I could really make an argument for this film being anti-capitalist, anti-cop. ROWAN: Pro mullet. BREN: Because, because the center—the center of this plot is these kids are trying to stop a big franchise Pancake House from being built on this little lot that has a bunch of burrowing owls and endangered burrowing owls. Carl Hiaasen, who wrote the book is an environmentalist and really involved in a lot of efforts to save the Florida wetlands. And all of anything that comes from this man is trying to save the birds. ROWAN: This is—I mean that sounds like a delightful movie. BREN: Yeah. But—but how did it's make me queer? ROWAN: the question. Yeah. the wet like, I get that like gay people like birds or whatever, but like, Where's—where's the connection for you here? BREN: None of these three kids fit into the gender role they're supposed to fit into. And that's not at all central to like, that's not what the—the movie is trying to tell you. But it's the thing that I picked up on as a kid. Roy is very sensitive and gentle and kind and emotional about these little birds. Beatrice is a star athlete at the school, she's a soccer player. She's very tough, all the boys are afraid of her. She can outrun anybody, like, she's—she, and she's known as the bear. She has this very like, masculine, tough nickname. And then Mullet Fingers is a runaway from his family. His family does not understand him, doesn't treat him well. And he would rather go live, like he literally lives like in a swamp, kind of, and feels far more connected to nature and animals than with humanity. And that sort of— is that distance from what you're supposed to be. And also, it's an entirely platonic film. Also, like, there's moments where you might think like, maybe Roy and Beatrice have a crush on each other, maybe near the end. But it's not central at all. And they have this very equal, platonic, caring friendship. At one point, Beatrice like stays the night in Roy's bedroom. They're like, middle schoolers, and they just have a nice, like, emotional conversation. There's no implication of anything romantic there. And it's—it's very, very sweet. And, well that was so important to me as a kid, where I was just kind of drawn to people of any kind as friends, as crushes. And it was so much media at the time, like the 90s. And the arts, was very aggressively gendered, very aggressively, heterosexual. ROWAN: Yeah. BREN: And prescriptive. And this movie didn't do that to me. And I thought I felt so safe there. I watched it so frequently on my little portable DVD player that we would have had at the time. ROWAN: Okay, so you've seen something truly incredible. Just that and without description. Bren, because you've made me want to watch this movie. BREN: Watch it with me. ROWAN: That is 26% on Rotten Tomatoes, we absolutely need to have a, like a Netflix zoom party situation with this because it sounds adorable. And I definitely understand what you mean about the the idea of having these sorts of possibilities put before you, especially ones that didn't fit into this very prescriptive idea that showed you a world where you didn't have to fit into this particular, like mode, this particular type. And I think that that's always so exciting to see that it doesn't necessarily have to be that you are like, oh, yes, this one character is who I am. But just the idea of like, you can have a character who's rejected their family, or you can have a character who is breaking the norms. It doesn't have to be the norms that you want to break, but it still has that element of, you know, something that feels relatable, especially I think, to young queer people that makes complete sense to me. BREN: Yeah, something I was noticing, as I was looking back over the movies I thought I might talk about today was, I was very drawn to movies with at least three main characters rather than a central protagonist, a hero or heroine. Because if there are three people of any gender, one of them is going to end up sidestepping out of some sort of prescriptive gender rule. Because they need it to be three different dynamic characters. So if there's a man and a woman and then a sidekick of any gender, that sidekick is going to be breaking some sort of gender norm. And I was always the most attached to that third person. And those—those were always the most comfortable to me because I could sort of patchwork together the things that I related to from all of these uh different archetypes I guess. ROWAN: Yeah, I mean, thinking about just the idea of the like, I'd know the Lizzie McGuire like three relationship kind of teen show element of like you had the—the main girl who was like pretty much the like normal girl kind of thing. The boy who was like, you know, some flavor of boy that probably might end up being a love interest of some kind. And then the lesbian best friend um, truly does the one on the side, which we love to see. So you know Buffy because similar energy with the willow, the lesbian best friend on the side. I love that. I mean, did you have any inkling at the time of like what this meant to you? Or is this one of those things where you look back on it and you're like, oh, boy, this has really given me some a—some info about myself as a child. BREN: Certainly not the gender part of it. That—that I have, I am still entangling as an adult. But at the time, I was extremely preoccupied with Brie Larson in the film. I had a crush on all of those main characters, like Logan Lerman, and Brie Larson, and whoever the other guy was, he doesn't—I don't think he acts anymore. ROWAN: Mullet Fingers. He should just be known as Mullet Fingers from now on. Great kid. I don't know. What a guy. BREN: But I—I was very preoccupied with Beatrice, who she was—she was so tough and cool. She was also feminine. I was very attracted to her, and I couldn't, you know, it was that classic situation of not knowing if you want to be her, or, if you like her. So I would like try to do my hair like her and didn't like it, and didn't know what the deal was with that. So but at the time, like I hadn't—it had not hit my consciousness yet. What it meant that I was so drawn to her or that I was so drawn to like my close female friends with whom I had very intense relationships and didn't understand why they were so intense either. So no, it wasn't conscious at all. I didn't have my first realization that I might like girls, much less all of the rest of it until I was 15, or 16. And that was maybe a week. I had maybe a week where I was thinking a lot about that. And then I repressed it so hard. It didn't come back up again until I was 18 or 19. ROWAN: I mean, here's the thing. That sucks real hard. But also, as you know, this podcast and me, myself is all about distance from real emotions, and therefore incredible work. Well, honestly, that was— BREN: I deserve an award. ROWAN: You really decided to repress it. I knew you committed diligence, you know, years-long repression. Incredible work. Do you have any of these examples that you feel like we're part of that? Either that initial realization or the subsequent realizations later on? Has it been anything that you've really felt like, oh, this is a part of that realization of that feels like it factors into it? Or is it always been sort of before and after the fact? BREN: I've only had a few that had to do with media. And one of them was a book, which I don't know if you want to talk—me to talk about it. ROWAN: I—I'll allow it. Considering that you're a librarian, and I guess I'll allow you to talk about this film podcast, this audio-visual podcast. BREN: Yeah. The—the first book that I read with bisexual main characters, book called Far From You by Tess Sharpe. It's a young adult, mystery thriller, like murder mystery thriller, about a girl whose secret girlfriend is dead. So, you know. ROWAN: The classic. BREN: We did bury her. And then later in the book, she starts developing a relationship with a boy. And both of those relationships are treated as equally real, equally emotionally deep. The author is queer herself. And I remember when I read it, I didn't know that about this book before I picked it up. So when I got to this part of the book, where I realized what was happening, and the girls are kissing on the page, I was sitting in a church. And I had this like, this sense of like, collapse around me. There's a stained glass window, you know, to the side of me with a cross on it. And I'm reading this book it's like, just this like, lightning bolt through me of connecting dots suddenly. Um, like every girl in a movie that I've been like really fixated on. And every girl I knew in real life, who was—I was just—I didn't know why I was so drawn to her. And it was very, very intense. And that, that would have been when I was 18-Ish. And that one I couldn't—I couldn't repress after that. It was just—it was too intense, too much at once. I was just old enough, I think to have this sense of l…

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Movies That Made Me Queer with Joel from Fictional Fates Nov 24, 2022

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Rowan speaks to veritable intellectual (they actually read), Joel Rochester from Fictional Fates who goes through the media which made them queer! From Barbie to Mulan and, of course, the Pirates franchise. We're a serious podcast and have a sponsor, SquareSpace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. Find Us Online - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd About The Show Queer Movie Podcast is a queer movie watch party hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we research and rate our way through the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to black & white classics, Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things gaaaaay on the silver screen. New episodes every other Thursday. ROWAN: Before we dive into today's episode, we want to say thanks once again to our two amazing rainbow parent-level patrons. Jennifer and Toby, an incredible round of applause for you. If you're interested in finding out more about how to become a rainbow parent level patron or any level patron, to be honest, then the link will be in the description. You can find all of the fun and exciting perks there. ROWAN: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast celebrating the best and worst in LGBTQ plus cinema one glorious genre at a time. I'm Rowan Ellis and welcome to one of our guest's specials. Today we're joined by a very special guest who will be answering the question what movies made you queer? I'm very excited to welcome, Joel Rochester aka Fictional Fates. [theme] JOEL: Hi, everyone. ROWAN: Woooh. So Joel, for people who are listening who might not know who you are, can you tell us a little bit about what you do? JOEL: Yeah, I can. Hello, everyone, my name is Joel, otherwise known as Fictional Fates on most other platforms. I basically create a lot of like bookish content online. So like reviewing books, discussing books, talking about books, and crying about books a lot of the time, but I also delve into like other little bits, like productivity, and video gaming, every now and again. And yeah, it's just been pretty fun. I'm in a bit of a transformational era at the minute because I've just moved and there are boxes of bookshelves behind me that I still need to build. But I'm very excited to like continue creating more and more content in the future. ROWAN: Just a—the booky, a booky. JOEL: A booky. ROWAN: Little bookworm. JOEL: Hihi. ROWAN: Yeah, amazing. I like—I so I know, Joel, because we work together on some, like YouTube stuff at Penguin. JOEL: Yeah. ROWAN: The publisher, not the Biscuit Company, if you're from the UK. So I'm always a big admirer of the fact that they, you know, read books as someone who simply, you know, doesn't, apart from the ones that she asked to read for work. So, anyone who has good reads in which they managed to read more than like a book a month, I'm like, wow, an intellectual, an incredible person. JOEL: An intellectual? ROWAN: With a dedication. I simply buy them and then forget to read them. JOEL: Ah, yes, that is—that is a certain mood. ROWAN: So I kind of used queer as a bit of an umbrella term, a catch-all in that section but, how do you identify? What words would you put in that title JOEL: Oooh. I would identify as a non-binary bisexual. ROWAN: Amazing. So you are in fact answering the question of what movies made you a non-binary bisexual. This kind of episode, we've done a few of these in the past. And it's really a mix. It's—it's whatever the guests bring, right? So we've had some people answer it in a very serious way, talk about the importance of representation and what it really meant to them. And some people are just like, I wanted to fuck the Fox from the Disney's automated Robin Hood. And everything in between. So I'm going into this completely, with no knowledge. Joel has not informed me of any of these choices, so feel free to give them to me in any order that you like, from least to most chaotic, from you know youngest age that you encountered them to oldest. I will leave it up to you. Take it away. JOEL: Oh, amazing. Okay, so I think like the very first thing that came to mind was the Barbie films. Because— ROWAN: Incredible. JOEL: I could go into like a whole like analysis on like Barbie movies and like queerness. But my youngest sister used to like, own and watch all of the Barbie films. And so sometimes they're just like, oh, I'll just watch them with you see, like, what they're about. And I didn't know there was just something about the way that Barbie was just able to, like, be fully herself, be like, anything and everything she wanted to be. And like, you know, have amazing outfits and like, transform into like different, like magical scenarios. I was like, wow, I kind of want to be something like that. And I think there was just something so magical about like, the concept of Barbie and I notice that I was like, I—I relate, and I don't know why yet, but I relate. ROWAN: I have a confession. Joel. JOEL: Oh. ROWAN: I have not seen any of the Barbie movies. JOEL: Oh, oh, Rowan. ROWAN: What—what? So is it—it—so Barbie is the toy? JOEL: Yeah. ROWAN: She's kind of famous for being a job hopper. Like she really loves to do every job under the sun. She's like, maybe I'll be a model. Maybe I'll be an astronaut. Maybe I'll be a doctor, who knows? So is that the—the vibe of the movies that like every movie she's a different version of herself? JOEL: Basically. Like I—I'm of the opinion that Barbie has like a form of ADHD in some way because like— ROWAN: Okay. JOEL: You can't really hop to different hobbies without having like that. ROWAN: It's a very ADHD thing. JOEL: Yeah. JOEL: By the time they like, I truly don't know what people did before. Everything was at your fingertips, you could order online and delivered the next day. Because like if I—if I ordered something, and I had to wait like five weeks for it to come, I would have moved on from that potential hobby already. ROWAN: And maybe that would have been a good thing. Like if I hadn't just bought maybe that would have stopped me buying like, gouache at 2 am, like through a TikTok, and then I'm like, have I used them more than three times? Probably not. JOEL: Exactly. ROWAN: Oh, gosh, I do relate to that. Because there are definitely a lot of hobbies where I've been like, oh yeah, I'll do this. And then it drives them like, oh, maybe, maybe not. But you are right. Like each Barbie, the film has like a different scenario. So in like, there's like a series called Barbie: Fairytopia, where she's basically like a fairy. She gets to be a mermaid in the second film. It's pretty fun. And then she gets these like rainbow wings and magic of the rainbow. And that is probably— ROWAN: That's pretty gay. JOEL: Like the—yeah, the queerest film, I think. Because there were just all these different, like fairies that were like, okay, we'll give you a magic. And she's like, pride. So I think that was pretty awesome. But then there are ones where she like, runs a fashion show in Paris. There are ones where she's like, a princess and a pauper. Like, there was like this whole like section where they would basically just retell fairy tales and the Barbie way. And there were just definitely some of those homes where I was like, there's definitely some underlying queerness in this, and I don't know quite how, but I think my brain like when I was younger was figuring it out. ROWAN: So I know there's definitely a Barbie Nutcracker. JOEL: Yes. ROWAN: And the reason that I know that, is because I was around a—a friend's house who was a little bit high. And they essentially told me to—to go away to like, I had to leave the room because I looked like the Rat King from Barbie in the Nutcracker to them. They were like I was—I was just dancing around and they were like, no, no, I can't do this. You need to go, you look like the Rat King. I have not had the heart to look up what that character looks like. Because I know that I'm going to be—I know that might be the end of our friendship. JOEL: Oh, God. Maybe, potentially. I thought you were gonna go down like the aisle of like the Nutcracker himself. And how like a lot—It's kind of like the beauty in the beast effect where a lot of people prefer the beast to the actual like, look. ROWAN: They prefer the objects, the nutcrackers. Thanks to the contrast thing. JOEL: Because what he looked like after he kind of came like turned back into a regular human, was just not great. I prefer him as the Nutcracker. ROWAN: Incredible. Wait—hang on. I get it—I feel like you can't say that. And I can't not actually Google that to give my live reaction to the both versions of the Nutcracker. JOEL: Literally. ROWAN: Okay, so in—when he's a nutcracker, he's got an incredible like dark black mustache, big baby blue eyes. He's got a very chiseled, um, it's not really a chin. It's his goatee. JOEL: Yeah. ROWAN: His goatee is very chiseled. Okay, if I now look up, Barbie in the Nutcracker. Like— JOEL: Transform? ROWAN: Human transformed? I don't really know how to— JOEL: That the Mouse King just came up on my uh, when I was like looking at the app as well. And I'm like, oh, no. ROWAN: Oh, okay. I've just seen the Nutcracker man transformed. Umm. And—and when you click on the picture, it takes you to the origin, which is a tweet that just says the king and barbie and the nutcracker was hotter in his nut-cracking form. JOEL: Yes. ROWAN: about it for 21 years. JOEL: People are total. ROWAN: I feel like—was this also a case of the like, what I believe that we're kind of now referring to within the community as the Pirates of the Caribbean effect, or the—or the Mummy effects, where it's like, oh, I really also quite fancy both Barbie in the Nutcracker. Or were you not quite at that stage when you were watching these? JOEL: Now thinking about it, I definitely think there was kind of like both kind of scenario where I was kind of seeing both Barbie in the Nutcracker. Because I definitely feel like I—was like I like both of you. But I don't know which one I prefer, at this point. And I was like, I was just like, it was kind of that experience of just kind of me like wow, like this is someone who is really smart and intelligent and can be whoever she wants to be. And this is a— ROWAN: This guy can crack nuts. JOEL: This guy can crack nuts. And you know, I think there's a somewhere. So, I was just like, damn, and then he transformed back and I was like, well, the decision was made for me, Barbie. ROWAN: Yeah. JOEL: So. ROWAN: I like having that moment in your youth, you were like, I guess I'm straight after all. And there was like oh, wait, I got JOEL: Let's go back into denial for like a few more years. ROWAN: Oh my God. Oh my God, incredible. And then I guess the—I've imagined that would be a level of campiness to the Barbie movies as well. JOEL: Oh yeah. ROWAN: That feels like a—an energy as well. JOEL: Like there was definitely like campiness, like with like the outfits and kind of like the scenarios that would occur. There are definitely like a few bits where it just—it's very much like a film kind of franchise that I feel like benefited a lot from delving into the campiness of it. And just like not taking itself too seriously but then being able to kind of explore like different themes and stuff. ROWAN: So how old were you when this was like a part of your life, or this is like a childhood thing or? JOEL: Yeah, definitely. I think I—when I like first started watching them it was—when my sister was like 5 or 6, I was probably like 9 or 10. ROWAN: Oh, okay, so this is like a youthful, youthful exploration— JOEL: Yeah, It was like— ROWAN: Of this. JOEL: Ooh. Like, what is this? What is this film franchise? ROWAN: What is happening here? What's going on here? Oh my gosh, amazing. JOEL: And I just look up like compilation clips on YouTube and be like, oh, like let's keep watching and see—see what other direct films that are out there. ROWAN: Have you delved back into like—have you rewatched them, like now that you're older? JOEL: I haven't watched like any like in—like recently, by I know during the lockdown, I watched—I rewatch Princess and the Pauper because everyone was doing that like Tiktok, whereas like, I'm just like you, you're just like me. ROWAN: Oh, that's what that's from. Okay, good to know. JOEL: And so I was like, I'll re-watch that one. But I definitely want to rewatch Fairytopia at some point. Because I know the animation style is going to like, from what we've seen like in the share with like animation, seeing animation back then I'm gonna be like, wow, like, I was enjoying this back pan. ROWAN: So I—I mean, amazing. I feel like that's in the—I wish I had some kind of umm image I need to work on the—the imagery-based formatting of this particular kind of episode. Like that's going into room 101. That's going into the vault I'm like, that's going into the rainbow tote bag of your— JOEL: My experience— ROWAN: True identity. Boop, there it goes. JOEL: Just like get it from Tiger and just be like, okay, this is— ROWAN: It's really tight. I don't know whether anyone who's listening—anyone from the UK will definitely know this. And I guess because the Tigers are obviously in Europe, they might have the same thing, but there is a rainbow tote bag in tiger that is e—entirely like bought by gay teenagers. JOEL: Yup. ROWAN: It's fantastic. JOEL: It's how you identify each other. It's like— ROWAN: There is a rainbow tote bag. If not, hmm, ROWAN: It is. It's a new fagging. Yeah. 100 percent. Amazing. So the Barbie—the Barbie. JOEL: The Barbie. ROWAN: The Barbie and the Barbie movies are the pick number one. JOEL: Yes. ROWAN: Shall we move on to pick number two? JOEL: Oh yeah, we can do that. Oh, this one I feel like a lot of bisexual people will relate to. So this is from a Disney film. And— ROWAN: Okay. JOEL: I first watched this Disney film when I was younger. It was part of like the Disney Princess kind of, I guess it kind of its part of the Disney princess. ROWAN: I feel like I know where this is going, but continue. JOEL: And, it's probably my favorite Disney princess film out of all of them. Because I was just like, wow, like I am in love with like, not only kind of the story, but also the queer undertones that took place within this. And how basically the male lead is essentially bisexual. Because it's—it's a headcanon that's been widely accepted at this point. So when I first watched Mulan at I—I don't even know what age I was when I first watched Mulan, but I definitely watched it multiple times during my childhood. I think I just was attracted to both Mulan and Li Xiang that I was just like, there is something here. I think this was the bit where I was like, okay, but there—this is something that I need to start thinking about why I'm attracted to both of these people. And like not only was I attracted to Mulan, I was attracted to Mulan when they were dressed as a boy as well. ROWAN: As Ping. JOEL: So I was like, yeah, there is definitely something here. ROWAN: I feel like there'…

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My Policeman (Queer Adaptation) Nov 10, 2022

Show notes

In which Jazza and Rowan respectfully discuss Harry Styles, his bum, and his acting. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us! We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. We are also supported by Dipsea. For audio stories to spice up your alone (or not-so-alone) time, go to dipseastories.com/queermovie for a 30 day free trial. This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen! New episodes every other Thursday. Find Us on the Internet Super Highway - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd JAZZA: Hello everyone. Before we kick off, I just want to say a really big thank you to Jennifer and Toby for supporting us on our highest patron tier, Rainbow Parent. We'd like you very much on with the show that. [theme] JAZZA: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast, celebrating the best— ROWAN: And worst — JAZZA: In LGBTQ+ cinema one glorious genre at a time. ROWAN: I'm Rowan Ellis. JAZZA: And I am Jazza John. ROWAN: In each episode, we discuss a queer movie from a different genre of cinema. JAZZA: This episode genre is— JAZZA&ROWAN: Queer Adaptation. JAZZA: Hmm. Glorious. Today we're going to be talking about the latest manifestation of Harry Styles's locked-down hobby, acting with the film adaptation of the book by Bethan Roberts, My Policeman. ROWAN: But before we see if we can make this 1950s trouble work, Jazza, what's the gayest thing that you've done since the last episode? JAZZA: Well, we just had Halloween. ROWAN: We indeed. JAZZA: And Halloween is of course gay Christmas, and I hate dressing up, but because I have some friends who are professional drag queens. They make—so I came up with a hugely original never before done idea of being a lesbian Velma. Because les—um— lesbian is now canonically Velma. ROWAN: Hmm. Stunning. JAZZA: But not only was I lesbian Velma. So I had the orange turtleneck and everything. But I also decided to make it slutty because that makes it, that's a gay Halloween costume. ROWAN: Happy Halloween. JAZZA: Isn't it? As I was looking around H&M, as one does when you are last-minute shopping for a Halloween costume. There were a surprising number of turtleneck options, some woolen, some made of some stretchy fabric that definitely isn't biodegradable. Among these was a beautiful extra small, stretchy crop top turtleneck in the appropriate color. ROWAN: Thank goodness it was stretchy. JAZZA: And—Thank goodness it was stretchy. Luckily enough my AAA cup for boobs beautifully fills out ROWAN: That broad pectorals could not be contained with a nonstretchy, extra smooth top JAZZA: 100% And I sat there looking great, freezing my ass off in the smoking area of this party that I went to. Draped in the lesbian flag that I had purchased as part of my outfit. ROWAN: Rude of Velma to not wear a coat canonically. JAZZA:I can confirm that polyester pride flags are not the best thing at maintaining heat and maintaining warmth in British autumn. But they—I've learned my lesson. ROWAN: Good to know. JAZZA: And I will probably make the same area again. How about you? What was your gay thing? ROWAN: You know, why not? I'll do— Halloween is inherently gay Christmas. So I will do my Halloween costume as well. So I dressed up as a pirate in Disneyland Paris, and it was a blue pirate and so I think pirates are gay because obviously, you know Our Flag Means Death Black Sails is simply true. But also— JAZZA: Elizabeth Swan of Swan as— ROWAN: As the Swan, the bisexual awakening for many and so that alone is is gay. But also because I was in Disney I decided, and I was blue. I decided that I was a member of the pirate gang from Descendants, which is run by Ursula's daughter. And as we all know, Ursula is a drag queen. So it came full circle. Everything was very gay and it was exactly the perfect temperature of costume to wear because I overheat very easily. And it turns out when you're doing like a historic party thing that isn't just Lottie, you have like the pirate shirt but also the dress, but also the corset. Yeah, I simply chose a character who wore layers. JAZZA: Much smarter, I mean in many ways. ROWAN: Classic practical lesbian over here. JAZZA: Yeah yo—you're just layers upon gay, upon gay, upon gay of like adult Disney gay in a practical outfit that also has clear undertones. Really high-quality Ro, good job. ROWAN: Thank you. [theme] JAZZA: In this episode, we are going to first talk about the main man, Harry Styles, and how his locked-down project of becoming a serious film actor, uh is—is developing. How's that going, Harry? And then I'm also going to be giving a little bit of a snapshot into what 1950s gay life was like. as this is indeed a period piece. ROWAN: We will then be reviewing the plot and splitting it as always into three acts. As such we will be spoiling all of these movies. So if you would not like to be spoiled before you watch it. It is currently available on Amazon Prime. So pause this uh, have a little watch and then you can come back when you're ready. JAZZA: Very good. Welcome back for everybody who did trot off. Without further ado, let's centrally poke each other in the neck and review, My Policeman. [theme] ROWAN: Okay, so when we plan these episodes, we talk about like what potential contexts or ideas that surround the movie that we want to talk about, as well as the plot itself. And uh— it's difficult not to talk about Harry Styles here because I think that considering this was one of his first like major projects and acting. He's only really done four so far right? So he did like a bit part in Dunkirk, a little cameo in The Eternals, and then Don't Worry Darling which he wasn't originally meant to star in, and now this is his first like, it's me I'm Harry Styles doing acting raw. JAZZA: And is the lead role. ROWAN: Yeah. JAZZA: Well, one of the lead roles. ROWAN: Yeah one of the leads. And so I think that a lot of people were very interested in this maybe just for that reason purely alone, but I also think people are interested in it because Harry Styles, to a lot of people who like to power socially consume celebrities on the internet, is Schrodinger as queer. In that uh— he has a fandom that from the very beginning of him being in this boyband One Direction, don't know if you've heard of it, pretty underground. There was like speculation that he was in a relationship with one of his bandmates. There was speculation he was dating various other like male celebrities or public figures. And that has kind of continued onwards. And it has been fueled in those areas of the internet, I would say by the gender expression of some of Harry Styles's like outfits on tour or in like magazine shoots, things like that. So he's worn dresses and skirts, he's worn, like sequins and bows and like a lot of stuff that we don't necessarily consider traditionally masculine. And it's worth pointing out here that someone's gender expression does no—no links necessarily to their gender identity and or sexuality. But for a lot of people, this was like evidence of him engaging in queerness in some way. JAZZA: Groundbreaking insights Rowan as always. Ama— this has become so prominent. I went to the V&A fashioning masculinity exhibition and the dress that he wore in the Vogue photoshoot, the big fur-like frilly, puffy dress. Puffy is in like volumeness, not the other use of the word puffy. It is—it's that, it's like the final exhibit alongside Billy Porter's tuxedo dress and Bimini Bon Boulash's final look on the runway for the drag race into the UK. ROWAN: Stunning. Amazing. Go and see it guys, It's worth it. And so there are definitely a lot of conversations around Harry Styles. But it's also part of a wider conversation, I think around these discussions of now that we're in a point at which some people do feel able to come out. Some people in the public eye do feel able to talk about their sexuality, their gender, and their gender identity, whereas before, it was totally impossible for anyone to do it. Now, because some people feel safe, there is this expectation from some people that everyone should do it, they have an obligation to do it or that this is something that they should be kind of pressured into doing. Because I think still, for a lot of people, the idea of like being out is linked to being honest and morally virtuous. And like all of these things, and then if you're not out, that it's somehow like a flaw in your character, or there is something like inherently deceptive about what you're doing. And that goes, I think, for both sexuality and gender in, in sort of slightly different ways. And we've seen most recently this come to like a really horrible head with Kit Connor of feeling like he has outed himself as bisexual, because he was getting so much harassment, for like various, various sides of this for being—for queer baiting, even though that's not the thing a real person can do, or for being deceptive or for like not coming out or you know, all of these things. And so this conversation around Harry Styles is like, within this backdrop of that, and he, as far as I know, has never said he's part of the LGBTQ+ community. He's—he's made these comments like, you've only publicly—sometimes people say, you've only publicly been with women, and I don't think I publicly been with anyone, which is not a yes, not a no kind of answer. JAZZA: It's also not a true like, he clearly has publicly been with women. Yeah. ROWAN: It's also you know, we have to acknowledge the fact that the way he's dressing in photoshoots, and on tour is not like some dude deciding to wear a dress. It's someone who has marketers, and stylists, and PR people and like career coaches, and a ton of people deciding what he's going to be wearing, rather than necessarily being an authentic representation of his own gender expression. And so with all of this light conversation in mind, he, as one of his first acting projects, decides to play the lead in a movie, in which he will be playing a gay man. Or at least a queer man, I think it's ambiguous in the text as to whether or not he has like, romantic and sexual feelings for—that his wife or whether it is purely a sort of like a loving, platonic meeting of minds type relationship. So, yes, that's kind of like the interesting Harry Styles backdrop to this. And I think it's particularly interesting that he's decided on this within all of this discussion to be a role that he's decided to play. JAZZA: And was going to be the first leading role that he played, because Don't worry Darling. he was parachuted in after Shia Labeouf didn't happen. ROWAN: Yeah. And I think that for a lot of people, there's this—there's this idea of like, like I say, as queer, where Harry Styles is either a closeted or no—not interested in putting labels on a queer person who is taking this role, because it will allow him to express some element of queerness within his art openly as a character, rather than necessarily needing to like put it in his music or open up about it publicly as himself. Or he is a straight dude who has potentially exploited the queer audience he has, by never explicitly saying he's straight and then you know, dressing in a certain way, acting in certain roles that will give them fuel for these like conspiracy theories about him. JAZZA: And keep people talking about him. ROWAN: And keep people talking about him, right? And I—my general take on this is like, sure, either one of those might be true, but in trying to interrogate psychoanalyze, for someone to make a decision either way or, you know, be really angry at the idea it might be the latter and that he's manipulating people and exploiting people and stuff, we run the risk of in pressuring this person, ending up having to pressure other people within that space, including people like Kit Connor, who is Bi but not either, like, ready or interested or wanting to come out and use that word or discuss it publicly. And I—my personal feeling about it, is that it is never like, the justice you think you're doing in like outing, a straight person who's, like, potentially exploiting the community with their art, is never going to be worth the payoff, of like damaging actual queer people who are not openly queer, who need that support. JAZZA: Yeah, 100%. Like Kit, Connor is not the only person to have gone through this. ROWAN: Not at all, just the most recent. JAZZA: Like, we've talked about the author of Simon, and uh. ROWAN: Hmm. Love Simon, Becky Albertalli. JAZZA: Yeah, who went through a similar thing, going through lots of criticism? ROWAN: Yup. JAZZA: Writing back queer characters, and then felt forced to come out as well. And so yeah, it's like— it's a weird catch twenty-two to be in. Like there is a huge spectrum of ambiguity in terms of what is the Harry Styles phenomenon. And it's okay, that we don't know. ROWAN: Yeah. And so I think it's also important to conclude that any criticism we do with Harry Styles's acting, is not driven by any of this background discourse, and is, in fact, an extremely objective observation by two people watching a movie with a dude in it, who arguably is not a great actor. JAZZA: He's not a great actor, I don't feel like I have to put the word arguably in front of it. There's been enou— there have been enough other people who've said that this isn't a fantastic performance. And oh, boy, is uh, is he out of his depth. ROWAN: And also, I think it's important at this point, to point out that like this movie has been and always was going to be taken over by the discussion around the fact that it's like Harry Styles's like lead role breakers. I would also argue that in Don't Worry Darling, he's not really a character. JAZZA: Well, Harry in this one, Harry Styles's name, appears in the opening credits before the name of the movie. ROWAN: Oooh, interesting. But it's also worth noting, and is in this movie. For example, as well, who— they are a queer actor themselves. I mean, Rupert Everett, obviously, as well, who famously has talked about a lack of roles coming to him after he came out as gay. That's something he's talked about a lot. And he is fantastic in this movie. And so there's just that—there's like other—there are actual queer people in this movie who are playing these roles. And I would argue, you know, maybe let down by the direction and the writing and like, the things around them, but like as performances are putting in lovely performances, and sometimes like very excellent ones. JAZZA: I did a quick Google when I can't confirm David Dawson, who plays the younger Rupert Everett, he plays Patrick who's also a gay man. All of the queers were together. ROWAN: The…

Full show notes at the publisher

Bros (Queer Mainstream) Oct 27, 2022

Show notes

In which Jazza is the only one who could watch Billy Eichner's Bros and recounts the best seggs scenes in cinema, period. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us! We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. We are also supported by Dipsea. For audio stories to spice up your alone (or not-so-alone) time, go to dipseastories.com/queermovie for a 30 day free trial. This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen! New episodes every other Thursday. Find Us on the Internet Super Highway - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd JAZZA: Before we kick off just a quick thank you to our top patrons Jennifer and Toby who are supporting us on the Rainbow Parent Tier. You're awesome. We love you. Okay, let's talk about some films. [theme] JAZZA: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast celebrating the best— ROWAN: –And worst– JAZZA: –In LGBTQ+ cinema one glorious genre at a time. ROWAN: I'm Rowan Ellis. JAZZA: And I'm still Jazza John. ROWAN: Each episode we discuss a movie from a different genre of cinema. JAZZA: This episode genre is— JAZZA&ROWAN: Queer mainstream. ROWAN: Yeah, look of us were like, how do we convey mainstream in our audio acting? JAZZA: I went like serious business. Please give this voice-over work. We are going to be discussing the first gay film ever made. That's mainstream rom-com by a major studio. Yes. It's Billy Eichner's Bros. ROWAN: But before we turn to steroids to get over our ex, Jazza, what's the gayest thing you've done since the last episode? JAZZA: So you suggested this for me. ROWAN: You're welcome. JAZZA: And I thank you very much. Because I've had such a straight month, I got a text from bloods.co.uk saying your blood type which O+ by the way, please take note just in case I need blood donations, is running low. The UK is having a blood shortage at the moment for O+ and O– blood and they were like, you've given blood before please come in. Now listen up. The only time I've ever given blood was during COVID when I was not having any sex. JAZZA: And it was actually– ROWAN: Humble brag there from Jazza. JAZZA: Yeah. ROWAN: The only time in my life. JAZZA: So in the UK, men who have sex with men, are still unable to donate if they are sexually active and I'm not in a monogamous relationship. I as a little humblebrag just tweeted out, active sex life here hello everybody. ROWAN: Oh, hello. JAZZA: Um, still being discriminated against, despite the fact that I am on PrEP, get tested regularly, and probably less riddled with STIs than most straight men floating around giving blood. So I did a little political activeness. ROWAN: I also, as I pointed out to Jazza, love that it is still in the theme of Jazza's updates always being about his romance or sex life. JAZZA: That it's the only qualifier that I have for my gay card. ROWAN: My one is going to be essentially the– in the tone of what I normally am, which is, is that actually gay Rowan, or if you just decided something's gay, so I did a, I went to a horror movie marathon night sleepover at my friend's house. And we watched, you know what, one of the movies that we watched was the new Hellraiser, which does have Jamie Clayton as Pinhead in it, who I actually saw in person on an elevator at a convention. JAZZA: Not as Pinhead. ROWAN: Not as Pinhead. No. JAZZA: Okay. ROWAN: And she is so beautiful like it, like. I was just kind of slightly overwhelmed. But I also was with two of my friends and I thought that they'd spotted her and I thought we'd get off the elevator and be excited about it. Except they had not clocked her whatsoever. So I had a very private moment with Jamie Clayton about JAZZA: One-way moment. ROWAN: One-way moment with Jamie Clayton. JAZZA: Lovely. And how was that? I love it, but you did it. So it's gay. It's fun. ROWAN: That's how it works. Yeah, exactly. JAZZA: Good job. Well, that's nice to know that I have a broader umbrella of things that I can use for the segment in the future. ROWAN: Well, I mean, Jamie Clayton's like a trans icon. So I feel like his. JAZZA: Sure. ROWAN: And also I'm a gay guy, so it fits. It works. This is our podcast Jazza, we make the rules. JAZZA: Yeah, it's our podcast, you make the rules. ROWAN: Very true. [theme] JAZZA: We are going to be doing things a little differently in this episode because only I have seen the movie. Bros haven't come out in the UK. yet. ROWAN: It is not. JAZZA: And we are residents of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. But I happened to be serendipitously in the US last week and left a conference late at night and went to a 10 pm screening of both horrific jetlags. Managed to stay awake through the whole thing. So the plot section of this is all down to me. It was a week ago. I don't know how much I'm going to remember. But we'll see what we can do. So I'm going to be splitting it into three acts. Place your bets now as to where you think the party and its aftermath will fall. ROWAN: But did you think, dear listener, that I was prepared to come on to this podcast and do an episode without having done any prep? No, despite not having seen the movie, I have, in fact, read all of the commentaries. Do I regret it? Maybe. So much discourse about this movie. And somehow Jazza hasn't come across all of this. So before we do the plot, I'm going to be telling them basically why the straights let us down/some of the gays as well in the marketing of this movie, the discourse around this movie. And more everyone has been saying about it. And then I guess I'll be finding out whether any of it is true, with any of this discussion around this movie having any validity. JAZZA: The only thing I have seen, is how pissed off Billy Eichner, who is the star and writer of this movie. Is pissed off and blamed the straights for not going to support queer cinema. ROWAN: Indeed. JAZZA: Despite the fact that Fire Island seems to do fine. Uh, heads up listener, we will be spoiling all of this movie. If you are the type of person who likes to go in blind to films, then pause now go watch it, support queer cinema, and come back later. Okay, thank you so much for coming back. It's lovely to have you. Thanks for coming. ROWAN: Without further ado, Let's wrestle in the park and make out. It's very funny that I'm doing the lead-in when I haven't seen the movies. I don't know that reference yet. And review Bros. [theme] ROWAN: Okay, so the genre today is mainstream cinema. And this is kind of interesting, right? Because what is mainstream cinema, this movie heavily marketed itself as being mainstream, and that being one of its selling points, specifically, the idea— JAZZA: The first gay movie. ROWAN: The first gay movie ever, but specifically, the idea of it being the first romcom by a "major studio" in inverted commas. I think this is very interesting, for several reasons. One, I don't think that that is true. Because I think there are definitely a lot of movies that you can consider to be romcoms that are gay, that like have major studio backing in some way, I guess it's the one that was commissioned by a major studio rather than distributed by it, maybe. But either way, the idea that one mainstream studio like a big studio is a thing that we should be aspiring towards, is one thing that's kind of implied by the fact that it's part of the marketing. And two, it implies that these major studios are irrelevant still, which I think is in itself, kind of contentious, because I think nowadays, people are more likely to see a movie if it is made by a streamer, than if they are made by a major studio. So if you're looking to say, this is how the financial backing of a big company and a lot of people will have access to it. It's kind of more impressive to potentially have it on Prime or Netflix or Apple+, sure, sure. JAZZA: Yeah. And in terms of being able to have the—like that accessibility thing, what's going to be seen by more people. I remember in the run-up to this, it was hanging on the fact that it was in cinemas, everybody go to the cinema to see it. And I felt like that was a weird thing in a, because I only ever really do that for like the really big, big, big blockbusters. But that is a different experience. Going to the cinema to see it there, rather than in your living room. ROWAN: Yes. JAZZA: Yeah. It's a—what do we count as a major studio? ROWAN: I think technically, I looked this up for a video about this, or I think when I was initially when this came out, and I was like, I feel like I need to fact-check the marketing of this movie because it doesn't seem accurate. And I have a feeling since I did that. Probably studios have like been bought by the studios. And maybe there's only one left at this point. JAZZA: me. ROWAN: And so yeah, basically, this kind of happened. And Billy Eichner tweeted about the idea of like, hey, this movie didn't do well, because straight people didn't go and see it. And then he kind of had to like backtrack and defend the marketing of his movie. I think the quote was, the marketing is not the movie. And the tweets are not the movie. But he weirdly like it's a strange relationship where he—the people publicly talking about this movie, who are involved in this movie seem to want to credit Billy Eichner with like, all of it. They want to credit him with every success. But say that he has absolutely zero to do with anything negative to do with the movie, which seems very strange, like the idea of all the marketing has nothing to do with Billy, it's all to do with the studio. But then they're also saying that he is like the big orchestrator of everything. And this movie is all queer-made. And like all this stuff, which I thought was very interesting as like a kind of these two things don't quite gel together to create a full picture to me. JAZZA: He's, he wouldn't, though, like he was the writer. I think he has producer credit as well if I remember correctly, but it would be really weird if he had something to do with the marketing and the way that they were trying to frame the film to the general public. ROWAN: Well, the very first. When it was first being talked about, it was really doing it and he was the one who was saying this is the first like he was the one who used that as, as a cell. Right? It wasn't that this was being used by the studios and he like even retweeted a post about it. Like he was the one who first tweeted about it. JAZZA: Okay, so it's Billy's fault. ROWAN: Yeah, kind of, and also then he continued to kind of dig this hole by doing these tweets about blaming the failure on a straight audience. I think when you look at the marketing for this movie, like that poster with like the two guys with the hands on each other's butts, with this very like, classic rom-com, font, and logo and stuff. I kind of— JAZZA: Yeah with the O with the like Cupid's arrow. ROWAN: Yeah. And like, it's like the producer of Train Wreck and Bridesmaids and the director of Forgetting Sarah Marshall is what's on the poster? Then, it feels like who is this poster for? Like, who did they think this poster was going to work on? Because it doesn't feel like what. In hindsight they have been trying to sell to the queer community, to try and persuade them that it isn't just a movie that they made for straight people to see in cinemas. JAZZA: They—in the past, we've criticized movies for not being or we've talked about some movies not being like explicitly gay in their marketing. And to be fair, this is explicitly gay like there's a not-safe-for-work trailer that is pretty safe for work to be completely honest. ROWAN: Yep. JAZZA: There's— like it's explicitly two guys with their hands in each other's back pockets on the bumbum. ROWAN: Although I will say that there is a history in Hollywood of movies in which two men have to fake being gay together for various reasons, which have poses that are very similar, and the movie is called Bros. So there is, there is it, there is an argument that a street audience or people who hadn't seen that this is what the movie was about, might not have necessarily, especially where all of the comps are straight movies, might not have necessarily picked up on that as obviously as we might have. But I do see your point. JAZZA: Yeah, it feels like all of those quotations of like, mentioning bridesmaids, and all the other kind of like big mainstream. Like I think those kinds of movies are like straight culture, trying to be like, hey, you like this too? I think it was trying to, we called this episode ma-mainstream. It is trying to put Bros in the same kind of like category, as those big blockbusters with like the mainstream comedian stars from the US. I don't have a huge problem with that. But I think that it was overly ambitious to try and do that. ROWAN: I think that they're like the history-making aspect of the narrative as being the way to sell it, because I don't think the first blah, blah, blah, was like, was going to sell it to straight people, right? That felt like a thing that they were doing with queer people, except like we know better. So it just felt very— JAZZA: We know better when Twitter and Tiktok exist. So everybody said this. ROWAN: Yes. there's a difference between like, it's going mainstream, and we're excited about that, as opposed to it's going mainstream, and we're kind of be weirdly been guilted into going to see this movie, especially when as you mentioned earlier, so recently added Fire Island, which was even at first glance, way more diverse, seemed to have more heart to it. It was very good. And were very well received and came out first. So it feels like, it felt a bit weird. The thing that I want to talk about that I don't think you will have seen, that I think is now post the initial marketing, potentially getting people less, even less likely to see it or want to see it if they've seen it. Is the threads in the commentary by Guy Branum, who— JAZZA: I haven't seen this? ROWAN: So this is, this person Jazza who was in the movie. JAZZA: Oh, shoot. Yeah, yeah. It's Gay Fat Friend. ROWAN: Yes. So kind of down in his Twitter profile. co-starring, co-producer of the major motion picture Bros, is, is the profile. So he essentially has been tweeting a lot about this and his angle on it, which has gotten like 500, quote tweets at this point. So there's a lot of commentary going on, as well as a lot of people kind of discussing it, is a sort of bitterness, I guess. So the first tweet in this thread reads, in talking about how cruelly Billy Eichner, white, cis, rich, hot or not, hot enough to be a movie star, depending on who's tweeting, demanded the queer community support his movie. I think…

Full show notes at the publisher

Hot Takes with Connie Glynn Oct 13, 2022

Show notes

Rowan is joined by Connie Glynn, the author of very gay book series The Rosewood Chronicles. Get ready for some truly chaotic Hot Takes about queer cinema - you've been warned 👀 Find Connie here! Find Us On the line - Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod - Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast - Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/ - Multitude: @MultitudeShows We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout. We're also supported by the Black and gay owned vegan cosmetics company The Butters Hygienics Co. - check them out at https://getthebutters.com/ Production - Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John - Editor: Julia Schifini - Executive Producer: Multitude - Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd About The Show Queer Movie Podcast is a queer movie watch party hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we research and rate our way through the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to black & white classics, Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things gaaaaay on the silver screen. New episodes every other Thursday. Transcript ROWAN: Just very quickly before we get into the episode, I want to say a huge thank you to two of our patrons over on Patreon who joined the rainbow parent level. Amazing. Thank you so much Jennifer and Toby. Clap, clap, clap. Amazing fireworks. Cheers. The crowd goes wild. If you too would like to be a Rainbow Parent, then head over to patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast. That's one of the perks over there. We also have other levels including access to the Discord, a monthly movie watch-alongs, lists of our recommendations of various Queer Movies. So if that sounds up your alley, check it out. [theme] ROWAN: Welcome to the Queer Movie Podcast celebrating the best and worst in LGBTQ+ cinema one glorious genre at a time. I'm Rowan Ellis and this is Hot Takes. In Hot takes episodes, I'm joined by a guest who comes ready to go with three queer movie Hot Takes that they will need to persuade me off in three arguments or less. I am very excited to have on the show my friend, Connie Glynn! CONNIE: Hello. I hope you're all already because chaos is coming. ROWAN: I'm very excited. Connie is known for being the author of the extremely gay books, The Rosewood Chronicles, which do not get enough gay street cred as I think they deserve. CONNIE: They don't, it's like nobody knows it's gay, and it could not be more gay. ROWAN: But there are no heterosexuals in the series. ROWAN: You didn't mean– okay. CONNIE: Which I didn't mean to do. I just didn't have time to slot them in. ROWAN: Didn't have time to find the time. CONNIE: That's true. ROWAN: They take up so much time those heterosexuals. So yeah, we are going to be going one by one through these Hot Takes. Do you have a specific order for these Connie, that you would like to– CONNIE: Yeah. Okay, so let's see. So some of these, I would say are a little spicier, and some I reckon– ROWAN: Okay. CONNIE: Everyone will agree with and it will take very little persuasion. But that one's also kind of boring. So let's just do that one first. ROWAN: Okay, we'll get that one out of the way. CONNIE: Yeah. ROWAN: Give me the hot take. CONNIE: Honestly, I don't believe even as I'm about to tell you, this Hot Take, that this hasn't already come up. Like I think I'm just going to be preaching with the choir. And that is Simon from, Love, Simon. His friends are actually the worst. ROWAN: Okay, I'm–Pretend you; we aren't on a Zoom call, and you can't see my face here. I gave nothing away. I was still trapped. Wow, okay, what an interesting hot take, would you like to take me through your reasoning? Because I don't already have an opinion about this. CONNIE: I'm sure this is totally out of the blue and nobody's ever thought of this before. Okay, so let's begin. We live in a world where for some people, coming out is really dangerous, and can literally ruin their lives. And we have this boy Simon, who is this very clean-cut American kid. He's very primed for the possibility that coming out could ruin his life. And then we have this guy who is literally blackmailing him. He's like, if you don't let me hook up with your friend, Abby, then I'm going to out you to the whole school. I'm gonna, like, share these emails about you to the whole school. That is an extremely dangerous position for a young queer kid to be in. That, like, come on, like not to get really deep. I don't know how deep you go on these podcasts. But people literally die over these things. And it all comes out later on that he was messing with his friends' lives, but like barely. Barely. Barely. ROWAN: Just a little nudge. CONNIE: A little nudge. ROWAN: A little, little, tiny little. CONNIE: He was like helping this guy, trying and get with Abby like giving him info on what she was into. And they're really mad at him. They're super mad at him, even though they know that he was being blackmailed, that he was literally being blackmailed. And this girl Abby, he even came out to her earlier on. And she has this whole moment where she's like, I'm so glad you came up to me. I know what a big deal this is. ROWAN: So she/her. CONNIE: Do you. ROWAN: Do you, Abby. CONNIE: This girl, Leah has the audacity to be upset because she had a crush on him. And it's like, oh my god, do you know how much this hurts me? Specifically that you're gay? It's really a story, really. We're all just; we're just living at it. Here's Leah's story.I hate it. And you know what, I expected when I saw this film, I was waiting for the moment when his friends realized, like, oh, we have to actually be there for Simon, like he's just been publicly outed, and he has no friends. His life could be crumbling around him. Our friend should be put on suicide watch right now. This is a really precarious situation for a teenager to be in. But no, no, the big happy ending is that Simon realizes how cruel he has been to his friends and he apologizes and they accept his apology. Fuck this film, fuck you, fuck everything about it. ROWAN: So yeah, the spoiler that my face gave away was something that I'm pretty sure everyone who has listened to this podcast, even If they haven't listened to the Love, Simon episode that we did do, we'll know is that, I don't like Love,Simon. Made a whole video about it on YouTube. That was like my longest video at that point that I done, because I was just possessed by the need to express how much I agree with this Hot Take essentially, as like a big part of the reasoning why? Yes, agreed. I mean, you don't even have to go on any further. Although please do if you have more ranting points about this movie, and specifically this weird friendship. CONNIE: I do have more ranting points. ROWAN: Okay, you know what– CONNIE: You better believe I have more ranting point. ROWAN: I came in. I came in too soon with the agreement. Pretend like I still need convincing. Maybe there's someone out there that still does go for it. CONNIE: So this has nothing to do with Simon's friends being evil. This is just stupid. This is just all round, like what the hell, come on bisexual people exist. The whole misunderstanding is that he thinks that cool guy called Blue - he's been exchanging emails with who is the other gay guy at school who is not out. But he sees him kissing a girl. It's then like a big, oh, what? But actually, it's him. And kissing a girl was a misunderstanding. And it's like Simon, babe, bisexual people exist. ROWAN: They are around. CONNIE: You did not need to jump to that conclusion. And I kind of hoped that we would really have that moment where we'd be like, hey, you can't always assume someone's sexuality, like straight passing does not mean that someone is not LGBT. But we don't even; we don't even attempt to discuss them. ROWAN: Do you know the wildest thing is? There's a sequel to the book, at least. Called Leah on the offbeat. Leah's bisexual sounds like a thing. CONNIE: Oh, come on. Come on, that's great news, I'm so happy. But like, what– what the? I'm going to have a sip of my drink. ROWAN: Just a little, little sip. CONNIE: Her story, her being so upset about Simon not being into her, and that being like this cruel thing. And she's really upset that he didn't come up to her first. And that's actually a great plot point. I'm all for that as a plot point. Because that could be a moment of growth for this character Leah, and we could see that on the screen. Like other people that have selfish thoughts about other people's coming out journeys, could learn like, oh, I'm not the center of this, and my feelings are actually kind of irrelevant. ROWAN: Yeah. CONNIE: We don't do that. We just don't do that. Because like, she doesn't have to be evil. I don't have to be pissed off at this character, Leah, I could see her growth, but I don't get to see her growth. So instead, I just do not like her. ROWAN: I agree that there's definitely– there was no reciprocity, either. It didn't even feel like there was a– I'm sorry, and I'm also sorry, it was very much your right on Simon to be like, I am in the wrong. Truly, I've just been so awful this entire time. If Simon was a bad person, fundamentally, there are so many other things he could have done to make the blackmail, like the blackmail of wanting to get with his friend. There's a lot of really bad things he could have done to make that happen. And instead, he's just like, okay, well, I guess what if I just gave him a chance with you? Like, what if I just gave him some info? CONNIE: The thing that they're really mad at him for, is that he told him to go hard or go home. So the guy does, like a public proposal of romantic intent. And this is humiliating for Abby, almost as humiliating as getting publicly outed. It's like, you should always understand how horrible that feels. And you could both apologize to each other if you insist on having Simon apologize. But it's so weird the way it ends. And it is so much about his apology and him having to realize that he's hurt people. And there's never a moment when the friends are held accountable for their behavior. ROWAN: Why would they be. Haha. CONNIE: You know what I want? I want you to know, The Mean Girls Musical does that revenge party, what I want is an ultimate ending, which is a whole other movie, where this happens, and Simon's like, holy shit, my friends are the worst people on planet earth. And he makes friends with like two other queer people at school, and they orchestrate some kind of horrifying revenge. ROWAN: Here's the thing though Connie, that would involve there being more than one queer person in a movie who gets any kind of like, presence or growth like there isn't other queer character. But there's them, like him and Simon don't really interact other than in these very few situations, which is like, firstly, when Simon's like, basically he brings it on himself because he's so effeminate. And then Simon being like, humiliated in the lunch hall alongside this other queer student. CONNIE: The one other yeah. ROWAN: Yeah, and then they like sitting outside the office and Simon not really having the conversation that really like; we actually want him to have this student, which is like, hey, sorry for the fact that I did nothing to support you this entire time. I was going through my own shit, to which the other student will probably be like, fair enough. Like it is very tough and then Simon will be like, but also I feel like maybe I had my own internalized issues because Simon also has this weird bit, where he talks about; he has that fantasy dance sequence, and then he cuts it short. And it's like, maybe I wouldn't be that gay. Eww like gross. And you're like Simon, grow the fuck up. CONNIE: Oh, wow. ROWAN: There's like a lot of internalized homophobia. But they kind of ignore that at the end. Like, that's not really part of the issue at all. It's mainly how much he needs to apologize to his straight friends. And I'm like, there were so many other interesting things going on within Simon's brain that could have been interesting to explore, like internalized homophobia. Because even though he is this sort of middle-class white, gay guy, who seems to have reasonably supportive parents, it's still scary. And there's still some stuff that you need to unpack within yourself. If you live in a world where homophobia exists, that like that can be internalized, even if it seems like you have a really easy coming out option. But no, they just– they just didn't. They simply did not. CONNIE: So you agree? ROWAN: I'm persuaded. This first Hot Take, I know that you said that you started on easy mode anyway. CONNIE: Yeah. ROWAN: But I agree. And I do, I mean, if anyone out there is like, actually, I disagree. Here is a logical counterargument to Connie. Feel free to tweet the podcast about it because I'd be fascinated to see someone be wrong in our notifications. CONNIE: Yeah. Also, if you do want to defend Love, Simon, you have to like come to my house and discuss it with me in person. ROWAN: You have to look Connie dead in the eyes. CONNIE: Right. ROWAN: And prove your point– CONNIE: In my eyes. ROWAN: Well, this is also fun, because I do; like me and Jazza have talked about this movie, and Jazza does agree with me. But also Jazza had a very personally invested experience within this movie. And we have talked about some podcasts before, but I would feel remiss if I didn't remind everyone that both of us saw this movie together. Me and Jazza saw this movie together for the first time at the BFI in London. And Jazza cried so hard that I essentially had to bury him in his jacket and his coat. CONNIE: Wait. Tears of joy? ROWAN: No tears of– I don't even; I think it was during one of the coming out scenes. But like the scene ended and Jazza was still sobbing and so in an attempt for him not to die of embarrassment. We had to stifle his sobs with his jacket. CONNIE: Wow. ROWAN: It was like onto a fun scene and everyone else was laughing and Jazza was just like, breathing heavily underneath his coat beside me in the BFI and the cell phone. CONNIE: I think the only film that's ever happened to me with was Coco. ROWAN: I mean, that's – CONNIE: I thought I was gonna have to call an ambulance. I was like, I can't breathe from crying so much. ROWAN: Somebody get me an ambulance. I'm in pain. This grandma she's singing- They're crying that much. CONNIE: Oh, no, she wasn't. She was dead. ROWAN: Sorry, spoiler for Coco. CONNIE: That's why I am crying. ROWAN: Julia, feel free to cut the spoilers for Coco. Because I believe people should see that movie unhindered by Connie's thoughtless spoilers on this podcast. CONNIE: Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. ROWAN: Amazing. Okay, well, you persuaded me at point number one. It wasn't a difficult challenge for you, but you did do it. But I would, I would love– CONNIE: Yeah. ROWAN: In that case to go on to number two, to go on to the second. CONNIE: Oh, don't worry. This one is Tumultuous! ROWAN: Is it spicy? Spicy one. Tumultuous?! CONNIE: I will say. ROWAN: Okay, that's a, that's an exciting word to hear. CONNIE: Don't come in…

Full show notes at the publisher

Do Revenge (Queer Revenge) Sep 29, 2022

Show notes

Is it an unhinged mess or a masterpiece homage to the genre? Rowan and Jazza discuss Do Revenge, directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, starring Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke.

Support us on Patreon at patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us!

We're a serious podcast and have a serious sponsor, Squarespace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout.

We are also supported by Dipsea. For audio stories to spice up your alone (or not-so-alone) time, go to dipseastories.com/queermovie for a 30 day free trial.

This is a queer movie watch party for your ears, hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we take a look at the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to comedy classics - Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things queer on the silver screen!

New episodes every other Thursday.

Find Us on the Internet Super Highway

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod

- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast

- Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/

- Multitude: @MultitudeShows

Production

- Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John

- Editor: Julia Schifini

- Executive Producer: Multitude

- Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd

Movies That Made Me Queer with Novympia Sep 15, 2022

Show notes

Jazza is taking over, with two English Queens (the main one is no longer available for some reason) Nova and Olympia!

They talk about media that made them queer, from WWE to Sailor Moon and everything in between.

We're a serious podcast and have a sponsor, SquareSpace support us! Help make the podcast profitable by going to squarespace.com/queermovie, and by using the code 'queermovie' at checkout.

Find Us Online

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod

- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast

- Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/

- Multitude: @MultitudeShows

Production

- Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John

- Editor: Julia Schifini

- Executive Producer: Multitude

- Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd

About The Show

Queer Movie Podcast is a queer movie watch party hosted by Rowan Ellis and Jazza John. Join us as we research and rate our way through the queer film canon, one genre at a time. From rom-coms to slashers, contemporary arthouse cinema to black & white classics, Queer Movie Podcast is a celebration of all things gaaaaay on the silver screen. New episodes every other Thursday.

They/Them (Queer Slasher Horror) Sep 09, 2022

Show notes

This week we dive into the world of queer slasher horror to breakdown the new Kevin Bacon movie They/Them!

This podcast needs your help to keep going! Go to patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast and join for as little as $5 per month to gain access to perks like queer movie recommendations, Discord access, and watch-a-longs. Thank you for supporting us!

New episodes every other Thursday.

Find Us on the Internet Super Highway

- Twitter: https://twitter.com/QueerMoviePod

- Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thequeermoviepodcast

- Website: http://www.queermoviepodcast.co.uk/

- Multitude: @MultitudeShows

Production

- Hosts: Rowan Ellis and Jazza John

- Editor: Julia Schifini

- Executive Producer: Multitude

- Artwork: Jessica E. Boyd