Speaker 1: Hi, I'm the Owaishaw. You may know me as the
Speaker 1: former host of Visibilia. Well, I'm back with a new
Speaker 1: show called Proxy. It's about the niche emotional questions that
Speaker 1: no one in your life can relate to. That's where
Speaker 1: Proxy comes in. I'll connect you to researchers and strangers
Speaker 1: with shared experience, and you'll get to ask all your questions.
Speaker 1: We're kicking things off with a three part series on
Speaker 1: the emotional and mental health toll of layoffs. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: Proxy wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is episode seven of Because the Bus belongs to Us.
Speaker 2: I'm Jesse, I'm Holly, and i am James.
Speaker 3: That's right. For this final episode, Jesse and Holly must
Speaker 3: face a panel of queers who will decide once and
Speaker 3: for all if Bruce Springsteen is a queer icon. Who
Speaker 3: am I? You ask, well, I am an actual, legitimate
Speaker 3: queer in stem I've spent the last decade working in
Speaker 3: engineering in life science, building robots basically because seeing is
Speaker 3: Jesse and Holly have spent the entire series saying that
Speaker 3: they are on a serious scientific mission. They've drafted me
Speaker 3: in to give them the cloud that they so desperately need.
Speaker 3: As you'll remember, way back in episode one, Holly and
Speaker 3: Jesse anointed themselves with queer scientist researcher status. I went
Speaker 3: on a mission to get Bruce Springsteen recognized as a
Speaker 3: queer icon. That mission is finally coming to a close.
Speaker 3: They've discussed if Bruce's camp, if he can be rooted
Speaker 3: for as an underdog, and if you can dance, cry,
Speaker 3: and falk to Bruce Springstein's music. Now it's time for
Speaker 3: the final point on their checklist. Our hosts must present
Speaker 3: their evidence to a panel of queer experts who don't
Speaker 3: already think that Bruce Springsteen is a queer icon. Does
Speaker 3: Bruce have it? Okay, let's go in the hot seats.
Speaker 3: We have our two self proclaimed queer scientists, Holly Cassio
Speaker 3: and Jesse Lawson. Please introduce yourselves and explain why you
Speaker 3: feel qualified to the store yourselves with this scientific investigation.
Speaker 3: Let's start with Jesse.
Speaker 4: Hello, my name is Jesse. I U say then pronouns.
Speaker 2: I'm a tourist, I am an audio producer, youth worker
Speaker 2: and perform drag as butcher Springsteen and I have been
Speaker 2: a proper Bruce fan for the last ten years. He
Speaker 2: helped to drag me out of the closet of my
Speaker 2: own brain, and that is why I feel qualified for
Speaker 2: this panel.
Speaker 3: Amazing and now, Holly.
Speaker 5: Hi, I'm Holly, my pronouns are there. She I'm a Leoh.
Speaker 5: I'm also a zine maker and a comic artist. I'm
Speaker 5: the author of the Me and Bruce zine series, and
Speaker 5: I also made the Looking for Bruce graphic memoir. I've
Speaker 5: been a proper Bruce fan for about twenty five years
Speaker 5: and he was my first ever queer friend, and that's
Speaker 5: why I'm qualified to be part of this investigation.
Speaker 3: Thanks, seeing as you've said multiple times over the series
Speaker 3: that you're doing a proper scientific investigation into Bruce Springsteen's
Speaker 3: queer icon status. This episode is taking the form of
Speaker 3: an academic peer review. I have collected a panel of
Speaker 3: leading experts in this field, queer icondom. They will be
Speaker 3: presented with Holly and Jesse's research and be asked to
Speaker 3: interrogate its aims, purpose, methodology, and the ethics and value
Speaker 3: of this work. It is my pleasure to welcome that
Speaker 3: panel today. Firstly, welcome Zakia Gibbons. Please introduce yourselves, explain
Speaker 3: a little bit about why your best place to evaluate
Speaker 3: this investigation, and for bonus points, I'd love to know your.
Speaker 6: Current relationship status with Bruce. Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 6: I mean, y'all did your ZOOI X science. I guess
Speaker 6: I'll give you mine. I'm a kind answer. I'm also
Speaker 6: a chaotic bisexual living in gay Ass Brooklyn, and I'm
Speaker 6: from gay ass Atlanta, and I am a journalist covering
Speaker 6: gay ass shit and my current relationship status with the Boss.
Speaker 6: I honestly know nothing about Bruce Bringsteen. I don't think
Speaker 6: I've ever listened to a whole song from beginning to end.
Speaker 6: I am kind of coming in pretty neutral awesome.
Speaker 3: Next, you have Hugh Lemmy. Please tell us about your
Speaker 3: pedigree and explain your current relationship to the idea of
Speaker 3: the Boss as a queer icon.
Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 7: My name is ce Lemmy. I'm a writer and co
Speaker 7: host of the podcast Bad Gays, and as a fully
Speaker 7: registered and accredited to practicing homosexual, I think it's my right,
Speaker 7: if not my duty, in fact, to be as judgmental
Speaker 7: as I please about straight guys. But I do think
Speaker 7: as a fan of the Boss for two decades or
Speaker 7: more in good standing, I think I'm yet to be
Speaker 7: convinced to the queerness of his icon status.
Speaker 3: Oh things are heating up. And finally, Joelle Taylor, you
Speaker 3: know what to do.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Man's Joel Taylor, a poet and author, and my
Speaker 8: latest poetry collection is called Conto and Other Poems. And
Speaker 8: then Alphabet, which is a novel both look in part
Speaker 8: of subculture of the eighties and nineties and reveals it
Speaker 8: to be part of a space of radical friendship and community.
Speaker 8: If you've seen the Rebel Dykes film, that's the kind
Speaker 8: of era I'm talking about. And as such, and as
Speaker 8: somebody who's part of that whole scene, somebody thinks of
Speaker 8: the kind of things we did to you know, as queer,
Speaker 8: as how we squatted and how we come to And
Speaker 8: I just can't entertain the idea. And Bruce Springsteen is
Speaker 8: a queer icon. I think she's everything that queer icon
Speaker 8: is not. I can't see how this straight white multi millionaire,
Speaker 8: this kind of shimmering vision of masculinity entitlement a miracle
Speaker 8: and is a legendary terrible hair and.
Speaker 9: Queer right on.
Speaker 3: Happily now, panel, this is not an interrogation. It's not
Speaker 3: your job to work against Jesse and Holly, but it
Speaker 3: is your job to uphold them to the standards you
Speaker 3: see fit. It's also important to note, for the purposes
Speaker 3: of this study, I'm not investigating if Jesse and Holly
Speaker 3: can convince you all to love Bruce Bringsteen. I'm investigating
Speaker 3: whether you can recognize that there is enough evidence from
Speaker 3: the research that they've done that the Boss has enough weight, bun, gravitas,
Speaker 3: and gumption to stand as a queer icon. At the
Speaker 3: end of this conversation, I'll be asking you all if
Speaker 3: you can accept this research and therefore Bruce with the
Speaker 3: same queer icon credentials bestowed upon the likes of Whitney,
Speaker 3: Madonna and countless others in our community. You may say
Speaker 3: yes or no and share suggested revisions to their thesis
Speaker 3: of any Are we all sitting comfortably, then let's begin.
Speaker 3: First up, we're shining a spotlight on the reasons behind
Speaker 3: the study, What were its aims and why the Jesse
Speaker 3: and Holly and barrack on this mission.
Speaker 4: Jesse, Yes so, because the best belongs to us.
Speaker 2: Is a seven part investigation where me and Holly try
Speaker 2: and prove with real science that Bruce Springsteen is a
Speaker 2: queer icon and I guess like the reason that we
Speaker 2: did it is because we met. We both queer people
Speaker 2: who loved Bruce Bingstein, and that's how we met and bunded,
Speaker 2: and then we kind of worked out there were more
Speaker 2: of us. So this is our love letter to other
Speaker 2: queer Bruce fans out there.
Speaker 5: I think even though at one time both me and
Speaker 5: Jesse thought we were the only queers in the world
Speaker 5: that loved Bruce Springsteen or the found meaning in his work,
Speaker 5: it turns out there are so many of us out there.
Speaker 5: And through Jesse doing their Butcher Springsteen drag and through
Speaker 5: me making scenes that felt like it was a way
Speaker 5: to open up conversations and meet other queer people that
Speaker 5: also had this obsession with Bruce. And I think QUI
Speaker 5: Springsteen fans have been overlooked long enough. There is actually
Speaker 5: so many queer Bruce Sprigsteen fans that we met that
Speaker 5: we couldn't fit them into all six episodes. So shout
Speaker 5: out to Tennessee Jones and Natalie Adler for their amazing
Speaker 5: writing on Bruce. And actually I have a small dossier
Speaker 5: to present the panel. I'm going to play a recording
Speaker 5: and these are two fans. This is Claire and Lee.
Speaker 4: So my name is Clybidels.
Speaker 10: I'm a writer and a.
Speaker 4: Team maker and I live in Glasgow.
Speaker 11: I'm a trans guy in my thirties who has been
Speaker 11: a fan of Pretty since my late teens. I identified
Speaker 11: as a CIS straight ish woman throughout my twenties, and
Speaker 11: throughout those years he provided a very passionate channel to
Speaker 11: my inner queer and was quite literally the only artist
Speaker 11: I listened to. There wasn't the same trans mass representation
Speaker 11: back then as I see now, So even though he
Speaker 11: was cis and straight, that's not how I considered.
Speaker 10: Him, although I'd heard a lot of his more famous
Speaker 10: songs just in the ethero when I was a child.
Speaker 10: I think the first album that I dived into was
Speaker 10: A Darkness on the Edge of Town and it was
Speaker 10: kind of like a real love at first listen kind
Speaker 10: of thing. Queerness to me is so much about kind
Speaker 10: of existing in this in between space and in this
Speaker 10: like unnamed unknoble space that could go somewhere you don't
Speaker 10: know where it's going to go, and it's about the
Speaker 10: getting there, and it's about the figuring out. Like I
Speaker 10: find queerness itself to be a refusal of stability.
Speaker 12: Of and of knowing. It's like a state of unknowing,
Speaker 12: and I find.
Speaker 4: That so much in Bruce's work.
Speaker 11: He sparked some deep feelings of me that I know
Speaker 11: is entirely linked to my queer identity. His seventies twin era,
Speaker 11: his hyper masculinity in the eighties, his gentle Cowboys, Sauce Wager,
Speaker 11: as he got older, darkness on the edge of town, backstreets,
Speaker 11: out in the street, these songs were playing my headphines
Speaker 11: as I walked along, and I fantasized about having a life,
Speaker 11: a physical image, and a type of love that didn't
Speaker 11: feel accessible to me at all, and Bruce was right
Speaker 11: there with me.
Speaker 12: A queer icon to me is someone who articulates something
Speaker 12: that we can't articulate for ourselves. And like Rosalita, especially
Speaker 12: the division that's on the Live nineteen seventy five to
Speaker 12: nineteen eighty five album, it's this like super long, drawn
Speaker 12: out like it feels like it's leading up to a
Speaker 12: kind of climax so many times but doesn't quite get there.
Speaker 12: But when it gets there, it's just like so cathartic,
Speaker 12: and it's all about like asking a girl out.
Speaker 11: I don't listen to him as much anymore that he
Speaker 11: still has a special place in my heart. I'm an
Speaker 11: outgay trans man, so I guess he provided a comfort
Speaker 11: that I don't need in quite the same way anymore,
Speaker 11: But it'll always be a queer icon to me.
Speaker 3: I'll now open the floor for questions from the panel
Speaker 3: on the aims of the study. Zakiah, what are your
Speaker 3: questions on this?
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm wondering, do y'all have a secret heterosexual agenda
Speaker 6: trying to flood a queer culture with street people?
Speaker 5: I mean, there's already enough straight people flooding queer culture
Speaker 5: as icons. I don't feel that's that's our agenda necessarily,
Speaker 5: but we are opening up what that could mean and
Speaker 5: looking at different types of queer icons.
Speaker 13: Why not why not have a plan as Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, I think that's like such an important question and
Speaker 2: something that we've really grappled with across the series. And
Speaker 2: I guess, like, if we're talking about the aims of
Speaker 2: the study, I guess the reason we started it is
Speaker 2: because there are more and more out queer icons who
Speaker 2: are queer. But there is something about Bruce Springsteen that
Speaker 2: drew me and Holly in, even though he's like a
Speaker 2: cis white, straight, rich man, and so we were like,
Speaker 2: we want to get to the bottom of like why
Speaker 2: we're projecting so much onto a man like that, And
Speaker 2: it is a promise.
Speaker 4: It's not just us.
Speaker 5: It's definitely not just us.
Speaker 3: Thank you all. Through your thoughts, Hugh, you seem like
Speaker 3: a guy who cares about purpose. One are the burning
Speaker 3: questions on your lips? I appre hearing that.
Speaker 7: Well, you don't need to convince me of what Bruce
Speaker 7: sprint to the table as an artist here, Like his
Speaker 7: music and his lyrics a specially brought me the same
Speaker 7: sort of joy and solace and also like a sort
Speaker 7: of richer deeper understanding of my own emotional life over
Speaker 7: the years. But I'm just wondering whether, in tryers to
Speaker 7: find him as a queer icon, we're kind of actually
Speaker 7: centering ourselves here, Like have you have you considered that
Speaker 7: maybe what's at stake isn't about how he helps us
Speaker 7: understand our queerness, but also oro maybe more how he
Speaker 7: helps us understand ourselves in the context of like other
Speaker 7: people's heterosexuality.
Speaker 4: Oh say more on that please.
Speaker 7: When I was in my late teens and signed to
Speaker 7: already get into Bruce it was through all these straight
Speaker 7: CIS white boys my age who I met in the
Speaker 7: hardcore punk scene, and I come from this like very
Speaker 7: sort of sort of matcho sporty or you know, football
Speaker 7: rugby type background, and then suddenly I was surround by
Speaker 7: all these boys who are like really sensitive and the
Speaker 7: way that they access their sensitivities and like thinking about
Speaker 7: their emotional in their life was through Bruce and that's
Speaker 7: how I bodied with them. And I was like, well,
Speaker 7: you feel this way about him. I feel this way
Speaker 7: about him. He speaks to both of us, and actually
Speaker 7: it was really useful for me to think, oh, maybe
Speaker 7: actually this image of sort of heterosexuality that I've grown
Speaker 7: up with is actually more complicated, and there's other heterosexual
Speaker 7: boys who are also as fucked up by this sort
Speaker 7: of system as I am.
Speaker 2: That's come up loads in the series as well, Like
Speaker 2: that's I think that's true for me and Holly is
Speaker 2: like a lot of the people we've bonded with have
Speaker 2: also been people who aren't queer but.
Speaker 5: Have like found something to either felt that they needed
Speaker 5: to aspire to Bruce's version of heterosexuality or masculinity, and
Speaker 5: in some ways, depending on who we spoke to. Some
Speaker 5: ways that was helpful for people, and in some ways
Speaker 5: that was almost like a punishment, like, oh, I can't
Speaker 5: live up to that, so I have failed gender somehow,
Speaker 5: I've failed being myself somehow. So it throws up all
Speaker 5: these really big questions. And definitely the thing we found
Speaker 5: in this scientific study is that not one single person
Speaker 5: feels the same way about Bruce. We're all getting something
Speaker 5: slightly different from him. It's not the same version of
Speaker 5: Bruce that we all have in our heads.
Speaker 2: And also, like, it's funny that you said, like, are
Speaker 2: we at risk of like centering ourselves in this which
Speaker 2: I would say one hundred percent, yes we are, But
Speaker 2: like I think maybe that's like something.
Speaker 4: That's quite beautiful.
Speaker 2: Is like a lot of what we have been thinking
Speaker 2: about is all of the different creative ways that people
Speaker 2: find themselves through projecting what they need to on other
Speaker 2: people with the resources that they have.
Speaker 3: Thank you all. Let's move on and discuss the methodology
Speaker 3: of this investigation. Jesse, can you please briefly summarize the
Speaker 3: four criteria you said out at the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yes, so we looked at a bunch of what we
Speaker 2: were calling at the time queer icons. Maybe they're just
Speaker 2: gay icons, which is like you know, Madonnatina Turner, Whitney Share,
Speaker 2: Brittany people like that. We called them our control group
Speaker 2: because we're scientists, and we looked at what links them
Speaker 2: all together so we could try and make a kind
Speaker 2: of checklist, and we came up with these four points
Speaker 2: that Bruce would have to fulfill to be a queer icon.
Speaker 2: The first one is that queer icons have to be
Speaker 2: camp and that is an aesthetic thing, but it's also
Speaker 2: a vibe, like a truth telling Queer icons to we
Speaker 2: have to be able to root for them as an underdog,
Speaker 2: and what we mean by that is we have to
Speaker 2: be able to recognize a struggle in them that they
Speaker 2: might have got through or succeeded past, so we can
Speaker 2: look at them and be like, oh, they've been through
Speaker 2: stuff like I've been through, and they're on the other
Speaker 2: side of it.
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 2: If they're a musician, they have to have good music,
Speaker 2: and that we define that by lots of queer people
Speaker 2: get really good at association as closeted queer teenagers, and
Speaker 2: so it has to be music that helps to drag
Speaker 2: you out of years of dissociation. And then we sub
Speaker 2: genred that by saying you have to be able to cry, dance,
Speaker 2: and fuck to Bruce Springsteen's music. And then the last
Speaker 2: one is, obviously, do they have it to other queer
Speaker 2: people who don't already think they're an icon?
Speaker 4: Could they be convinced? And that's why we're here today.
Speaker 3: Thanks Jessie. So does the panel agree with these criterias
Speaker 3: indicative of what a queer icon is? Let's start with Joelle.
Speaker 3: Do you think you can reduce a queer icon to
Speaker 3: a list of four check boxes?
Speaker 8: I mean, to be honest and it certainly no, absolutely not,
Speaker 8: but having it explained it actually makes a lot of sense. Really,
Speaker 8: so I am quite I'm persuaded, Yes you can, I
Speaker 8: think so. We camp is obviously funds of mental to it,
Speaker 8: the idea of the underdog as well. I mean, you say,
Speaker 8: good music. I get you. Obviously he's got to be
Speaker 8: good or he wouldn't be an extremely parous musician. But
Speaker 8: just makes my skin all off my body, and I believed,
Speaker 8: but you know, if it's I guess good music is
Speaker 8: what unites people and brings people together. And there are
Speaker 8: millions of bands out there, so yes, And do they
Speaker 8: have eight I'm not sure it's they got it talking.
Speaker 8: It sounds religious, it is this sort of is that
Speaker 8: kind of quality.
Speaker 4: To Oh, that's such an interesting question.
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, icon comes from that, doesn't it That
Speaker 5: whole idea of having icons that have deeper spiritual meaning?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Zakiya. Can you name someone for us that you
Speaker 3: see as a queer icon and do they fill these criteria?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm I'm thinking of two names. One is kind
Speaker 6: of like a basic cliche, but it's just the truth.
Speaker 6: Britney Spears. I just fucking love her, and I would
Speaker 6: say shell those criteria. She is so canapy, from her
Speaker 6: looks to just her vibe. I love that she is
Speaker 6: an unapologetically chaotic high femme and her songs are fucking bangers.
Speaker 6: It literally makes me feel transcended when I'm on the
Speaker 6: dance floor. Maybe that's the Poppers, I don't know. Also,
Speaker 6: I've cried to her songs and I think I think
Speaker 6: I fucked her song at least once. If you seek
Speaker 6: amy my favorite bisexual anthem and also underdog like Hello.
Speaker 6: She's been through so much, so I would say Brittany
Speaker 6: is kind of my go to queer icon, and the
Speaker 6: other one I was gonna say SpongeBob is also another
Speaker 6: one of my dear icons, like the old show with
Speaker 6: Spungebob is camp He is so campy, the absurdism of
Speaker 6: him in the show. He is always fucking with gender,
Speaker 6: he's gay for Patrick, and also he has also had
Speaker 6: some banyers. Literally, I remember in third grade there was
Speaker 6: an episode where they played in their version of the
Speaker 6: super Bowl. They had a song and I literally shed
Speaker 6: a single tear as like a nine year old because
Speaker 6: it touched my car. So yeah, Mike queer icons ready
Speaker 6: is one?
Speaker 4: Rub I love that.
Speaker 5: I want to get Bruce up there next to those
Speaker 5: two people.
Speaker 6: The triat.
Speaker 3: No Jesse and Holly. Can you convince the panel that
Speaker 3: Springsteen is still the points in your checklist? Please? Can
Speaker 3: you take us through your findings? Let's start with chat.
Speaker 5: Okay, So camp was the first item on our checklist,
Speaker 5: and we decided that camp has really an ever changing meaning.
Speaker 5: So we've gone a little bit further than Susan Suntag's
Speaker 5: notes on Camp and we've joined that up with more
Speaker 5: current theories of Butch Camp and Dyke Camp. So, using
Speaker 5: that as our starting point, we said that Bruce's looks
Speaker 5: were super camp. Whether it's his seventies twig clok or
Speaker 5: it's all American look or even some of his more
Speaker 5: contemporary looks, we said that they were camp. We also
Speaker 5: said that there's an element of extravagance and generosity and
Speaker 5: world building that's contained within Bruce's songs, his live shows,
Speaker 5: and his performative aspect. We said they're extreme in a
Speaker 5: camp way.
Speaker 2: We had a lesbian fashion historian analyzed some of Bruce's
Speaker 2: looks and one of the things that she said was
Speaker 2: it's very gender and I feel like that's a good documentary.
Speaker 3: Joelle, what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 8: When you first start, you know that camp has a
Speaker 8: changing meaning. Where I went up was really darling. I
Speaker 8: don't think so. When you started to speak, I was thinking,
Speaker 8: because we never really do look at camp from a
Speaker 8: diet or but perspective, and I fact, yes, I think
Speaker 8: you're right. You know you're writing the rules as it were,
Speaker 8: so you're defining what camp is. Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 8: I agree, And I don't know the lyrics though, and
Speaker 8: the look itself just really puts me off. So it
Speaker 8: fascinates me, like what draws you to that hypromasculinity or that,
Speaker 8: like you said, all American, what draws you to?
Speaker 5: Originally we had one of our criteria was going to
Speaker 5: be could you dress up as an icon at Halloween
Speaker 5: party and somebody else would recognize what that was? But
Speaker 5: that was kind of too shallow for what we were
Speaker 5: going for because you could dress up as anybody. It
Speaker 5: wasn't about something you could dress up as. It was
Speaker 5: about is there extravagance mixed with authenticity as part of that?
Speaker 5: And we thought Bruce really ticked that point.
Speaker 2: Also, like there are some lesser known Bruce Springsteen looks
Speaker 2: that we find to be very camp because there's obviously
Speaker 2: in the eighties, you know, he was like all muscles
Speaker 2: or bandanas or type blue jeans, which for us also
Speaker 2: we do kind of look at and be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's you know, looks like a lot of butch Kings.
Speaker 4: That we've seen in the club.
Speaker 2: But there's also you know, there's like in the seventies
Speaker 2: he was all leather and as in there's a look
Speaker 2: of his from like more recently that Holly calls his
Speaker 2: stone bush blues look just beautiful.
Speaker 7: The comparison of Katie Lang was really striking. I looked
Speaker 7: up the two album covers when you mentioned on the
Speaker 7: podcast and the spitting image of each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, moving on to checklists, point to underdog status, Jesse Go.
Speaker 2: One of the things that we've kind of related to
Speaker 2: in Bruce is that he has this quite critical relationship
Speaker 2: with the expectations and presumptions based around masculinity, which we
Speaker 2: see ourselves reflected in because it feels not too far
Speaker 2: away from the very queer idea of like gender as
Speaker 2: a performance. And he speaks very beautifully about masculinity in
Speaker 2: his book and in a lot of his songs.
Speaker 4: So that's something that we both felt.
Speaker 2: You know, there are struggles in there that are relatable
Speaker 2: to struggles of some queer people.
Speaker 4: There's also just.
Speaker 2: Like so many of his songs are about people not
Speaker 2: understanding you, being stuck in a context, like wishing that
Speaker 2: you could be you know, there's a very famous line,
Speaker 2: there's something happening somewhere, baby. I just know that there
Speaker 2: is this like yearning, and all of those are emotions
Speaker 2: that queer people I think can kind of get on
Speaker 2: board with. I guess we started thinking about whether or
Speaker 2: not the Bruce Springsteen and of lyrics and stories as
Speaker 2: different to the Bruce Springsteen who like walks around breathing.
Speaker 4: Air in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: He is obviously a multi millionaire, and so it feels
Speaker 2: it didn't sit totally right with us to call an
Speaker 2: extremely rich man an underdog. And we aren't totally sure
Speaker 2: where he stands on some aspects of politics that are
Speaker 2: really important to me and Holly, and we've both had
Speaker 2: experiences of being around other kind of straight male Bruce
Speaker 2: fans who've made us feel unsafe for like unlike them.
Speaker 4: So that was we got a bit unsure at that point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I also want to just really really stress
Speaker 5: that doubt and anxiety are absolutely key to this methodology.
Speaker 5: We spent a lot of time asking ourselves if we
Speaker 5: were the right people to be doing this, if there
Speaker 5: was any point in what we were actually doing, if
Speaker 5: anybody would get something from this. So just to say,
Speaker 5: as part of this academic peer review, we believe if
Speaker 5: you're replicating these results for yourself or replicating this investigation,
Speaker 5: you need both a checklist and a depression bench. So
Speaker 5: part of our investigation, I took Jesse to what I
Speaker 5: call my depression bench, where we just poured over all
Speaker 5: of the things we're feeling and doubts and anxiety about this,
Speaker 5: So that would be the apparatus you would need for
Speaker 5: this investigation if you're repeating this in future.
Speaker 2: And then like another point that potentially we thought maybe
Speaker 2: we'd add on if we did this study again is
Speaker 2: like we ended up having this day where we were
Speaker 2: like fucking hell, like do.
Speaker 4: We even like Bruce Springsteen?
Speaker 2: You know, and like maybe it's like a specifically career
Speaker 2: experience that the way that we show love sometimes is
Speaker 2: by like totally tearing apart the people in things that
Speaker 2: we love in like really over renalizing them and like
Speaker 2: projecting our own personalities onto people that didn't necessarily ask
Speaker 2: for that. So that was where we ended really on
Speaker 2: them on Underdog status is a check point.
Speaker 3: Hugh, what are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 7: Well, it's funny because the episode Yeah, where you focus
Speaker 7: on Bruce as an underdog was for me it seemed
Speaker 7: like you it was one that you were most sort
Speaker 7: of anxious and critical of both him and also like
Speaker 7: your own status in his investigations. But to me, it
Speaker 7: seemed like it was the place where it was the
Speaker 7: most potential request because searching for this like perfect Bruce
Speaker 7: and his perfect fans is like, as a perfect sort
Speaker 7: of political subject is obviously going to fail. But what
Speaker 7: is clearly there is that in his writings and his
Speaker 7: music about being an underdog, which is what everyone there
Speaker 7: has in common, Like, that's the commonality between like all
Speaker 7: his fans. So although he's not the perfect person, when
Speaker 7: he writes about those things, that's what we all sort
Speaker 7: of identify with. You that the way he approaches his
Speaker 7: hometown and the sort of feeling of both like sadness
Speaker 7: and longing in his hometown or of wanting to escape
Speaker 7: or Yeah, his approach to masculinity is something that can
Speaker 7: be perhaps like a caring thing to do that. All
Speaker 7: the other fans have some similar relationship to his music
Speaker 7: and around those things, even if they don't fuably share
Speaker 7: our political outwork. And it seems to me that that's
Speaker 7: where all music, and especially his music is so powerful
Speaker 7: that despite the differences, the fact that we react in
Speaker 7: the same way to those lyrics means there's a starting
Speaker 7: point for building alliances beyond our sort of sexuality and
Speaker 7: gender differences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Yeah, Yeah, it was hard, wasn't it? Because
Speaker 2: I think that is really beautiful. And then also we
Speaker 2: were like, is that also a bit diluting in that
Speaker 2: if anyone can relate to Prouce Springsteen's lyrics, does that
Speaker 2: make him a queer iconogs that make him a good songwriter?
Speaker 7: That's why I think he's a queer Eyeicut.
Speaker 2: But I guess like one of our conclusions from that
Speaker 2: was like, there is enough in his writing.
Speaker 4: That allows us to create the.
Speaker 2: Icon of our dreams in our little brains, and that
Speaker 2: that is maybe the same thing that people do with
Speaker 2: other celebrities too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that this we view this as just one checklist
Speaker 5: point as well, So viewing this in the context of
Speaker 5: other things helped us kind of start through those very
Speaker 5: complicated emotions on that very sad depression bench.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the additional adults, Everyone talk to you about
Speaker 3: your third checklist point good music.
Speaker 5: Okay, so we've got a lot to say about music.
Speaker 5: We wanted to see as an icon. Can his music
Speaker 5: drag queers back from years of association? And we looked
Speaker 5: at whether you could cry, dance, or fuck to his music.
Speaker 5: So in terms of crying, I can cry right now
Speaker 5: is if the panel would like me to cry enough,
Speaker 5: But I can. I just want to say I can.
Speaker 5: And also the most important thing. Straight men also cry
Speaker 5: to to his music as well. We have a token
Speaker 5: straight man on the show who talked about feelings of
Speaker 5: crying at his shows. We've seen other men crying at
Speaker 5: his shows. I think Bruce gives us a gift of
Speaker 5: being able to release your emotions through his music and
Speaker 5: through his performance. So then we moved on to dance,
Speaker 5: and we spoke to two legendary queer icons themselves, a
Speaker 5: DJ Legends Unskinny Pop, who talked about they have a
Speaker 5: set of Bruce Springsteen songs which absolutely unite a queer
Speaker 5: dance floor and this feeling of euphoria that queers have
Speaker 5: when hearing Bruce Springsteen in queer clubs and queer spaces.
Speaker 5: And then we looked at the checkpoint of fucking, and
Speaker 5: we asked a very cool professional musician who said they'd
Speaker 5: fucked to at least two Bruce Springsteen songs. And we
Speaker 5: also had a listener right in Crystal who named another
Speaker 5: good Bruce Springsteen fucking song, which is Candy's Room, which
Speaker 5: we didn't get to talk about in that particular episode.
Speaker 5: So I think those were our three areas, and I
Speaker 5: think that wasn't of our funnest checkpoints.
Speaker 3: Agree, Zakia, what do you think about Bruce's music?
Speaker 6: I'm sure I've heard Bruce Springsteen's song, but I don't know,
Speaker 6: but like I don't know well enough to be like, oh,
Speaker 6: that's Bruce Springsteen, or maybe I like heard it in
Speaker 6: the background at like CBS. I don't even mean to
Speaker 6: be shady, that's for it's like, you know, convenience store
Speaker 6: of music. So my question is as a Bruce Nube
Speaker 6: who doesn't know his discography, like, if you were to
Speaker 6: play a song right now, what song would give me
Speaker 6: that feeling that would make me go, oh, now I
Speaker 6: get it.
Speaker 5: It's a really tough question because he's got such a
Speaker 5: big body of music. And the one thing I'll say
Speaker 5: before we answer it is that most of the people
Speaker 5: we speak to have kind of said that they don't
Speaker 5: usually listen to the genre of Bruce Springsteen's music. It's
Speaker 5: like Americana or whatever you want of Carey's not really
Speaker 5: a genre that a lot of us subjects in the
Speaker 5: investigation would listen to voluntarily usually, but there's some about
Speaker 5: the lyrics that pulls them in. Yeah for me, And
Speaker 5: this is a song I always recommend to people who
Speaker 5: don't know Bruce at all is just and it's an
Speaker 5: obvious banger, but it's dancing in the dark because it
Speaker 5: was my queer awakening when I was thirteen. It sounds
Speaker 5: really upbeat, but when you listen to the lyrics, it's
Speaker 5: a song about deep, deep depression. And there's a lyric
Speaker 5: in there which is I want to change my clothes,
Speaker 5: my hair, my face. And the way in which he
Speaker 5: like screens sings that in the song, it's like this frustration.
Speaker 5: It feels really tangible, like he's looking at his reflection
Speaker 5: and what he's looking at doesn't reflect what he's feeling inside.
Speaker 5: And I think a lot of people we've spoken to
Speaker 5: have cited that lyric has been something that has been
Speaker 5: a mantra for them at some point.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I agree with everything Holly said. I
Speaker 2: will add one other song that we didn't get to
Speaker 2: talk about in the poocast, which is it's a.
Speaker 4: Song called I'm Going Down.
Speaker 2: Yes, he does things I'm going down a million times,
Speaker 2: which obviously, if you want to, you can interpret that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, point taken, and I will Actually I just realized
Speaker 6: one of my favorite songs I love the Chromatics cover of.
Speaker 4: What's the one I'm on fire.
Speaker 6: I'm on fire. I didn't realize that that was a
Speaker 6: Bruce song. So now I'm already like feeling my attachment
Speaker 6: to Bruce like grow Emily. Okay, very nice.
Speaker 3: And of course, your last checkpoint is being tested as
Speaker 3: we speak, isn't that right? Jesse?
Speaker 4: Correct?
Speaker 2: Our last checkpoint is can we convince a panel of
Speaker 2: queer people of his queer reckons say this?
Speaker 4: Thank you for being here? Only time will.
Speaker 3: Tell, Yes, only time will tell. I am so impressed
Speaker 3: by the vigor I see in the Panels analysis so far,
Speaker 3: you simply must put your brains on ice. After the break,
Speaker 3: we're interrogating Jesse and Holly's moral compasses. We're talking ethics. Baby,
Speaker 3: that's next.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Jesse and Holly letting you know about
Speaker 2: another show you might want to listen to.
Speaker 5: Did you know that Radiotopia has a reality dating podcast.
Speaker 2: It's called hang Up, and it's kind of like a
Speaker 2: queer cross between the Bachelor and Lovers Blind.
Speaker 5: And seriously, it's a blast.
Speaker 4: I'm a long term listener. I've been there from day one.
Speaker 2: It has all of the drama and chaos of a
Speaker 2: queer reality show without any of the bullshit of unethical
Speaker 2: reality tropes.
Speaker 5: Hang Ups tagline is no Rings Attached. It's a refreshing
Speaker 5: focus on dating and connection rather than marriage. Here's a
Speaker 5: little clip about their current season.
Speaker 6: Our star TEAMO is forty one years old and recently divorced.
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Speaker 6: So we set them up with six callers to date
Speaker 6: exclusively over the phone.
Speaker 3: I feel like I could talk to you for hours.
Speaker 4: On hang Up.
Speaker 5: You don't just get to eavesdrop on dates. There's also
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Speaker 4: Guys, it's high drama.
Speaker 5: Also, it's hosted by friend of the pod, Zakia Gibbons.
Speaker 5: You might even hear a little something from her in
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Speaker 2: The Nie season has just finished, so it's perfect time
Speaker 2: for binging. Ten out of ten would recommend to a
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Speaker 5: Subscribe to Hang Up Today on your favorite podcast.
Speaker 3: Platform, and we're back. This is because the boss belongs
Speaker 3: to us. I'm Jane's the only actual queer in stem
Speaker 3: to be feature. You're in a seven episode scientific investigation.
Speaker 3: So far, the panel has tested the studies, aims, purpose,
Speaker 3: and criteria. Now we're talking epics, baby, Hugh, you can
Speaker 3: take the lead on this one. What burning ethical questions
Speaker 3: do you have for our researchers.
Speaker 7: I'm going to say what everyone's thinking. Are you really
Speaker 7: independent minds when it comes to talking about Bruce Springsteen?
Speaker 7: Are you really approaching this willing to find out at
Speaker 7: the end that actually it's not a quare eye?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: No, I didn't go into this with open hearts and minds.
Speaker 5: I went into this fully self centered, trying to prove
Speaker 5: a point, but learning about science along the way.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 7: Also, Holly, in episode four, you says like really clearly
Speaker 7: that you that you didn't want to believe that the
Speaker 7: album Working on a Dream actually exists. You just pretend
Speaker 7: it doesn't exist, which is obviously a good example of that.
Speaker 7: But why why put through that album?
Speaker 5: Oh wow, this is some gotcha journalism, isn't it Working
Speaker 5: on a Dream? In my opinion, Working Our Dream is
Speaker 5: one of Bruce Bringsty's worst albums. It came out, I
Speaker 5: think it's two thousand and eight or two thousand and nine,
Speaker 5: just as Obama was being elected. It's very liberal, wishy, washy,
Speaker 5: vague songs about absolutely nothing. At a time when a
Speaker 5: political album was needed, he released a very apolitical album
Speaker 5: and the songs do not bang. They're just really boring.
Speaker 2: I don't think I went into this really willing to
Speaker 2: say that Bruce is not a queer icon, but I
Speaker 2: will say that maybe one of the things that we've
Speaker 2: learned along the way is like I think that our
Speaker 2: definition of queer icon is kind of like molded and
Speaker 2: changed across the show potentially so it still fits with Bruce.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think like ultimately we were like it
Speaker 2: is maybe good to cherry pick or ignore things because
Speaker 2: we're creating our own version of Bruce.
Speaker 5: And I think also that comes from you know, amazine makers.
Speaker 5: So a lot of the scenes that I make our
Speaker 5: cut and pass collage of taken the best bits of
Speaker 5: things that I like and then making something out of that.
Speaker 5: And I've definitely taken that approach to this scientific investigation.
Speaker 3: Thank you. We're almost ready to sort of panelists to
Speaker 3: deliver their verdicts. Before that, we have some listener questions.
Speaker 3: First off, we have Kyle Hi's Kyle here. I'm loving
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 14: Wouldn't really class myself as a Bruce fan, but I've
Speaker 14: been really enjoying all of the interviews and research that
Speaker 14: you've done. I have a question, do you think that
Speaker 14: younger generations do this as much? Because you mentioned that
Speaker 14: part of the reason why Quiz find heroes and straight
Speaker 14: celebrities is left over from a time and we didn't
Speaker 14: have many out celebrities. So I wonder now that younger
Speaker 14: generations have more kind of queer and trans heroes and
Speaker 14: representations and a cup to do you think they'll be
Speaker 14: putting as much effort into queering straight celebrities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is something that we were kind of
Speaker 2: wondering about in the show. It is like because of
Speaker 2: parts of queer history. So in the UK Section twenty eight,
Speaker 2: which was a law that prevented the quote promotion of
Speaker 2: homosexuality but local authority. So it meant that people didn't
Speaker 2: receive sex education like queer sex education in schools, along
Speaker 2: with a lot of other things.
Speaker 4: You know, it was real.
Speaker 2: It was a shameful thing to be to be out
Speaker 2: as a queer person. And then other big things in
Speaker 2: queer history, like the AIDS crisis, meant that for reasons
Speaker 2: of people literally not being around because they died or
Speaker 2: not being able to come out, there was a real
Speaker 2: kind of lack of queer elders or community leaders in
Speaker 2: the public eye. And so we were wondering whether there
Speaker 2: is a kind of like legacy of queer people having
Speaker 2: to do this work of like projecting onto straight people
Speaker 2: or like finding do you know.
Speaker 4: What I mean?
Speaker 7: I think as part of like queer culture is to
Speaker 7: look for these people and make them into icons. But
Speaker 7: I think the difference generationally might be less to do
Speaker 7: with our history and more specifically might be to do
Speaker 7: with the way we consume media today in social media,
Speaker 7: that it's much harder to have that sort of old
Speaker 7: fashioned type of relationship with an icon. Why you can
Speaker 7: project other stuff on them in a way that I
Speaker 7: don't know in the say, in the fifties and sixties
Speaker 7: you could have done with Judy Garland, that you could
Speaker 7: there's still sort of little information that you could make
Speaker 7: up the back story, so you identified strongly with her,
Speaker 7: And it's much harder for artists and musicians today to
Speaker 7: be able to maintain that distance from their fans enough
Speaker 7: that they can become a blank slate for people to
Speaker 7: project their emotions onto. And so you either have one way,
Speaker 7: which is the sworn like Lona del Rey, where you
Speaker 7: can still do that because she keeps so much hidden
Speaker 7: and it's just a performance she's doing as particular personality,
Speaker 7: or you go like the other way, which is like
Speaker 7: like Azilah Banks, who's just like constantly saying stuff, and
Speaker 7: then gay people, quiet people can sort of really hyper
Speaker 7: ironically take this person who says like the most outrageously
Speaker 7: like homophobic and transfer a bit things and be like yes, yeah,
Speaker 7: you're you're our hero and like jump on the opposite
Speaker 7: side of that. But it's hard for someone it's just
Speaker 7: like quite middle of the road as an artist to
Speaker 7: let them to become an icon these days because the
Speaker 7: sort of way we form is parasocial relations is totally
Speaker 7: changed by social media, and it's just the share quantity
Speaker 7: of access that we get to famous people's lives.
Speaker 6: You know, something I've been thinking about in this highly
Speaker 6: academic panel is it's kind of reminding me of the
Speaker 6: discourse around baby girl, you know, which I feel like
Speaker 6: is a gen Z term that you know, was birthed
Speaker 6: out of TikTok and then gen Z's on there, you know,
Speaker 6: calling street cysts celebrities baby girl. So just thinking about that,
Speaker 6: I just feel like, yes, I do think that there
Speaker 6: is a generational element where just like out of the
Speaker 6: picking for slims, so you know, you choose, you choose
Speaker 6: on You're like, Okay, I'm gonna make you gay, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna make you queer, and then you kind of come
Speaker 6: up with this whole backstory and you know, you kind
Speaker 6: of project your own desires and needs to be and
Speaker 6: wants to be seen. And now you know there's a
Speaker 6: lot more out and queer celebrities and representation, and yet
Speaker 6: you know, we're still seeing people queer people that aren't queer,
Speaker 6: you know, as seen in this rise of like you know,
Speaker 6: this baby girl discourse. I feel like that's just something
Speaker 6: us queers love to do, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: Because it's both emotionally and mentally and spiritually important to
Speaker 6: see ourselves and other people. But it's also fun to
Speaker 6: feel like you're kind of just inviting someone to your party.
Speaker 4: You know, Yeah, totally I always say.
Speaker 2: There's something that we talk about in episode six, which
Speaker 2: is like, if you like zoom out from picking specific
Speaker 2: you know, specific straight people to make into queer icons.
Speaker 2: There's something about like claiming mainstream culture as our own,
Speaker 2: like putting a steak into mainstream culture that isn't necessarily
Speaker 2: made for marginalized people, including queer people, and being like yeah,
Speaker 2: like I guess you want to entertain straits, but we're
Speaker 2: here too, and like we like this too, or like
Speaker 2: we find our own meanings from this too, and I
Speaker 2: think there's something maybe like powerful about that.
Speaker 15: Thanks everyone. Next up, we have a question from Kathleen
Speaker 15: h Halle and Jesse. It's Kathleen here in Yorkshire.
Speaker 16: I am living the show so far and I've heard
Speaker 16: what you have to say. I just don't know if
Speaker 16: I see Booth as a queer icon. I feel like
Speaker 16: we see the checkshire. We've all got daddy issues and
Speaker 16: that's all we need discuss.
Speaker 3: Joelle, what do you think?
Speaker 9: Yeah, I mean I think possibly for me, I was
Speaker 9: trying to figure out why am I not persuaded by
Speaker 9: this because I think there is a there's a difference
Speaker 9: in my head between the iconic queer icon and a
Speaker 9: queer a hero you know, So an icon is it's product.
Speaker 8: So what's a religious product to our projections? You know,
Speaker 8: this kind of prophecy you are, you have a distance
Speaker 8: from them, so you're able to project, you know, with
Speaker 8: absolute clarity and meaning everything you're looking for. Whereas a
Speaker 8: queer as somebody's actually doing something positive for us, there's
Speaker 8: actually a politically engaged has taken on great struggles at
Speaker 8: some time. So I don't know, daddy issues we certainly
Speaker 8: will do.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's a good point. I think we
Speaker 5: all do have daddy issues, and I think that should
Speaker 5: be acknowledged as part of this investigation.
Speaker 2: But I think, like I would say that that's like
Speaker 2: what what Cathleen said is potentially an argument for Bruce
Speaker 2: being a queer icon in that I'm like, yeah, like
Speaker 2: we have reasons why we need to make new daddies,
Speaker 2: and like maybe that's okay, Like maybe maybe he's someone
Speaker 2: who we can fill in those gaps for.
Speaker 8: Which is really really interesting this fiction between a gay
Speaker 8: icon and a queer ypo. I thought like queer would
Speaker 8: be more, it would queer things more, you know, So
Speaker 8: it challenges these kind of heats of normative ideologies and
Speaker 8: ideas and so me even the names or boss and
Speaker 8: exemplifies all of those things. So what what do you
Speaker 8: think the difference is between the two?
Speaker 2: What is the sort of Yeah, something we talked about
Speaker 2: a bit in the show is like who is choosing
Speaker 2: the queer icons, because like gay icons are traditionally worshiped
Speaker 2: by like cisc men potentially.
Speaker 4: And tend to be straight women.
Speaker 2: We think that there is a longer history of queering
Speaker 2: straight women than it is of queering straight men, and
Speaker 2: that might be because of women or trans masculine people
Speaker 2: or like people within that part of queer culture. They
Speaker 2: might relate, for example, to Bruce's masculinity in a different
Speaker 2: way that maybe a gay man might really relate to
Speaker 2: Bruce's masculinity. So we're wondering whether this is like a
Speaker 2: new thing that we are pioneering.
Speaker 4: The dyke for a nice Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 5: The fans that we spoke to and the experts that
Speaker 5: we spoke to in the show kind of pointed towards
Speaker 5: there being mostly dykes trans masque fans that were finding
Speaker 5: something in Bruce. It wasn't the same thing, but it
Speaker 5: was finding something in Bruce, and we thought that is
Speaker 5: worth investigating.
Speaker 8: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2: So it might feel affronting to be like, WHOA A
Speaker 2: cis straight white man. He doesn't deserve another pedestal. But
Speaker 2: maybe this is like a new thing that we've discovered
Speaker 2: and it's not about like glorifying him. It's about like
Speaker 2: celebrating Dyke and like adjacent culture question mark.
Speaker 3: Lastly, we have a question from Alison.
Speaker 4: Hello, this is Alison here.
Speaker 17: So I'm wondering if trying to ask Bruce himself was
Speaker 17: ever part of your plan or do you feel like
Speaker 17: he doesn't get to weigh in on this even if
Speaker 17: you could.
Speaker 5: Talk to him.
Speaker 17: And I'm also wondering, if you did have the chance
Speaker 17: to talk to Bruce, you're.
Speaker 4: Hanging out in the same room, what would you ask him.
Speaker 5: I've said this quite a few times during the podcast
Speaker 5: that I'm actually just really not interested in the real
Speaker 5: Bruce Springsteen. I love you, Bruce, I really do, but
Speaker 5: I do think that I don't need to know his
Speaker 5: opinions or anything. I don't need to actually meet him
Speaker 5: or speak to him, because the version I've got of
Speaker 5: Bruce in my head is so much more interesting and
Speaker 5: so much more important to me than the real Bruce
Speaker 5: Springsteen ever.
Speaker 2: Could Yeah, I think I feel quite similarly. I think
Speaker 2: we went into this project and we were just like
Speaker 2: Brice doesn't care about us, Like we're just two queer
Speaker 2: people making a little podcast. There are so many pot
Speaker 2: us about him because he's such a famous musician. If
Speaker 2: he did hear the show, I guess I would feel
Speaker 2: disappointed if he used it to gain the Pink Pound, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't want him to be like, oh sick, I've
Speaker 2: got queer fans now, I'm gonna like release a line.
Speaker 4: Of T shirts that say love is Love, Love is
Speaker 4: Love yet exactly.
Speaker 2: So, I think there's something nice about the fact that
Speaker 2: he's like a slightly unobtainable figure in our lives in it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's less about pleasing him or getting him on side
Speaker 2: and more about us being like, yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not about him, us the most important people.
Speaker 2: It's really about us, guys. That's what we're trying to
Speaker 2: communicate to you.
Speaker 3: Jesse and Holly. This is your last chance to share
Speaker 3: closing faults, feelings, or final bits of evidence with the pattern.
Speaker 5: So I have one last bit of evidence from our
Speaker 5: dossier to play now for the panel.
Speaker 2: Our executive producer Jasmine J. T. Green interviewing Alex or
Speaker 2: talk Bazar, who wrote the music for the series. So
Speaker 2: it's a conversation between the two of them, and the
Speaker 2: first voice you hear is Alex's voice.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 18: I've been thinking a lot about this whole quest for
Speaker 18: Bruce as queer icon. Bruce isn't my queer icon. That
Speaker 18: doesn't mean that Bruce can't be a queer icon. There's
Speaker 18: a lot of like white women in the halls of
Speaker 18: queer iconography, and who's picking those icons?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 18: It's been a lot of like the male.
Speaker 19: Gaze, See what you did there?
Speaker 18: So have Bruce right? Like, Bruce isn't for me, But
Speaker 18: because Bruce brusted for this concept that I was running
Speaker 18: from already that other people were running two. I was
Speaker 18: living in this idea of macho that was kind of
Speaker 18: like held on a pedestal, and Bruce was occupying a
Speaker 18: space that was manly but not overly mocho, and it's
Speaker 18: felt like kind of attainable. But I think also for
Speaker 18: me growing up a boy in New Jersey, it was
Speaker 18: sort of like dangerously alluring that you could just you
Speaker 18: could just be like Bruce and you could just keep
Speaker 18: guying out. As far as I understand, before this project,
Speaker 18: Bruce Springsteen the Boss was not a part of your life.
Speaker 19: Absolutely not.
Speaker 18: Okay, So now fast forward to you're suddenly helping make
Speaker 18: a podcast about Bruce, and you're presumably listening to a
Speaker 18: lot of Bruce.
Speaker 19: Now, so it's funny, like now my streaming algorithm is
Speaker 19: starting to recommend Bruce songs and I'm like, this a
Speaker 19: little man, This a little man got some.
Speaker 4: I get it.
Speaker 19: I absolutely get it. I absolutely get it. I'm like,
Speaker 19: I'm like crying thinking about it, like it's they're bops.
Speaker 19: They're absolutely bops, I must say, and like they contain
Speaker 19: like a different context to me.
Speaker 18: Now, so you just said, I guess that you you
Speaker 18: kind of implicitly recognized Bruce as queer icon. Do you
Speaker 18: do you think that Bruce is a queer icon?
Speaker 19: I am thoroughly convinced that he is, in fact a
Speaker 19: queer icon. I think I feel in the same way
Speaker 19: for you as in, like, he's not my queer icon,
Speaker 19: but there are things that I can recognize.
Speaker 3: Does the panel accept these additional pieces of evidence?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I do.
Speaker 8: I'm happy to accept this evidence. You know, it's the
Speaker 8: last minute the court will enter the evidence.
Speaker 3: Perfect. The serious and legitimate peer review panel have heard
Speaker 3: all of Jesse and Holly's evidence, and it is now
Speaker 3: their time to share if they agree that Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 3: is a queer icon. That's after the break, we are back.
Speaker 3: I'm James Cunningham, and this is because the boss belongs
Speaker 3: to us. Seeing if this isn't actually a scientific study,
Speaker 3: I don't have to be a neutral adjudicator, so I'm
Speaker 3: going to have my say too. I think that queerness
Speaker 3: is a personal expression of oneself and as a bucket,
Speaker 3: it's of your own filling and is intensely individual. And
Speaker 3: so I think if you know, this kind of Americana
Speaker 3: persona stands as an icon for people who are oppressed
Speaker 3: and marginalized and you know, trying to piece their way
Speaker 3: out of themselves to something greater than like where are
Speaker 3: we to stop it? And I also think that anybody
Speaker 3: who can look that good in an ecker chief, some
Speaker 3: cut off down them jacket and some tight tight jeans,
Speaker 3: you know, deserves definitely a point on the board too.
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting that you describe queenness is like
Speaker 2: there is like a very kind of individual version to
Speaker 2: everyone's definition of queerness. And there's a very individual listic
Speaker 2: thing around like queer icons and putting people on these pedestals.
Speaker 2: But something that Holly and I have learned, I guess
Speaker 2: across the series is also like, ultimately, the best thing
Speaker 2: that happened that from all of Bruce Springsteen is that
Speaker 2: we found community through that, Like we've found people and
Speaker 2: the things that we care about ultimately, like the things
Speaker 2: that bring us together.
Speaker 3: And so it's time for our queer icon experts final
Speaker 3: decision on whether Bruce Springsteen is a queer icon. So
Speaker 3: the panel you may answer yes or no. You may
Speaker 3: also answer yes, but with some suggest revisions to the
Speaker 3: study Zekia Gibbons.
Speaker 6: So you know, like I said, I still have yet
Speaker 6: to really listen to a Bruce song, so I feel
Speaker 6: like I cannot claim him as my queer icon. But
Speaker 6: you know, after you know, having listened to the show,
Speaker 6: after listening to y'all's arguments, hearing you know, other people's
Speaker 6: experiences and views on Bruce, I can't deny other people's feelings.
Speaker 6: If he is a queer icon to them, then he is.
Speaker 6: But I also just listen to it, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 6: these arguments are landing for me like I see it.
Speaker 6: But does he feel like a queer icon to me?
Speaker 6: Not yet, because I need to listen to his music.
Speaker 6: But like I said before, he is giving baby Girl,
Speaker 6: so he he upgraded. He upgraded from me having zero
Speaker 6: opinions on him to being like, oh my god, Bruce
Speaker 6: is baby Girl, like I buck with them, and so
Speaker 6: check in with me in a few months after I've
Speaker 6: listened to some songs, and I'll probably be standing him
Speaker 6: as a queer icon as well.
Speaker 3: You let me.
Speaker 7: It's funny because I came into this thinking, no, he's
Speaker 7: not a queer icon, and I say that as a
Speaker 7: queer fan. But then as I've listened to the evidence,
Speaker 7: there's clearly everything's there. He is camp, but then people
Speaker 7: who love his camp love it with an intensity and
Speaker 7: a sincerity that goes far beyond, which I think is
Speaker 7: like the main point that makes a queer icon. And
Speaker 7: he does ruefully underdog even if he himself is a millionaire,
Speaker 7: and he can dance to his music and talk to
Speaker 7: his music. So I've checked on my minds. I think that
Speaker 7: he is a queer icon, although he's still not my
Speaker 7: queer icon. I'm just a queer fan. But I also
Speaker 7: think that Joel was right Earlies. This isn't really a
Speaker 7: subject to scientific study. This is a matter of theology.
Speaker 7: You either believe in the Boss or you don't. No
Speaker 7: amount of sort of persuasive argument can change you one
Speaker 7: word the other. Feed it in your heart or you
Speaker 7: don't fit it in your heart. We don't really need
Speaker 7: a scientists or physicists for this. You lead up a priest.
Speaker 2: What I'm hearing from you, h is that we've successfully
Speaker 2: managed to get us a gear into the cult.
Speaker 6: I would say I in terms of cult, I have
Speaker 6: like one arm in the sleeve of the cult cloak.
Speaker 6: I pad with some music. I will probably slip my
Speaker 6: other arm in and I'll be fully darning the Bruce
Speaker 6: Bringsen cult cloak.
Speaker 5: Next time we see you, you're going to be in
Speaker 5: that denim cloak.
Speaker 6: Yes, then club, Now that I know it's Denham, maybe
Speaker 6: I'll yeah, I'll wear it even sooner it would be Denham.
Speaker 7: Everyone wants to start somewhere.
Speaker 3: You can't start a fire.
Speaker 5: Oh amen to that.
Speaker 3: And finally, Joel Taylor, it really.
Speaker 13: Really really just agreeing with everything you were you were suggesting.
Speaker 13: But h, Yes, the revision. I accept that.
Speaker 8: Is your queer. Yes, he's your queer, not mine.
Speaker 4: Thank you so so much, Bun.
Speaker 5: That was so amazing and not as scary as I
Speaker 5: thought it was going to be.
Speaker 4: That was so good.
Speaker 5: Oh man, I think I'm still shaking. I was really scared.
Speaker 5: I was really nervous. That felt that felt terrifying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we I truly.
Speaker 2: I kept being like we did this to ourselves, like
Speaker 2: we we chose to be tested in this world.
Speaker 5: But now I'm thinking maybe I should do a pH d.
Speaker 4: Maybe that's next. It will make a bean, I really thought.
Speaker 5: I mean Joelle, who knew at the last moment. Actually,
Speaker 5: to be fair, I think all of them. Up until
Speaker 5: about halfway through, I thought.
Speaker 4: There's no chance.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there are so many people that run from that
Speaker 5: element of masculinity, like everything that Bruce represents. Why would
Speaker 5: we want to them celebrate that?
Speaker 2: But I thought it was so beautiful what Alex said
Speaker 2: about like that is a thing in that final bit
Speaker 2: of evidence of being like this, like new and playful relationships.
Speaker 2: Mascultee is something that some queer people run towards and
Speaker 2: some people are running from, and that just shows like
Speaker 2: simply whoops, you can't imaginize queer people.
Speaker 5: But Joelle, like very very early on, just like Hammered
Speaker 5: does with you know, should we be doing this, like
Speaker 5: why not members of our own queer community? What's difference
Speaker 5: between queer icons and gacons? And we went through that
Speaker 5: on the depression bench in episode four. We really interrogated
Speaker 5: our feelings on that. But of course that was something
Speaker 5: that Joel's going to question as all totally because it
Speaker 5: needs to be asked. I think if anybody else did
Speaker 5: this again, you have to ask those questions. And also
Speaker 5: you have to feel pretty shit about it.
Speaker 3: You just have to.
Speaker 5: Feel really anxious and depressed about it.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you everyone so much for listening to because
Speaker 2: the bus belongs to us.
Speaker 4: You heard it here first.
Speaker 5: Bruce Brinstein is a queer icon because he's our queer icon. Yeah,
Speaker 5: so anyway, to be honest, we just did this because
Speaker 5: we love Bruce and we love to love things too much.
Speaker 2: This has allowed us to connect to so many queer
Speaker 2: Bruce fans. There's so many of us out there slowly
Speaker 2: infiltrating the queer community with our Bruce loving ways.
Speaker 5: And regardless of what evidence we have, Bruce just is
Speaker 5: our queer icon, at least for now, because he's important
Speaker 5: to us and.
Speaker 4: Now it's time to say goodbye. Holly.
Speaker 2: Climbing is a town full pleasers, and we're pulling out
Speaker 2: of here.
Speaker 4: To win.
Speaker 5: Because the boss belongs to us. Is a production of
Speaker 5: Malton Hart and iHeart Podcasts. We're hosted by Jesse Lawson
Speaker 5: and Holly Cassio.
Speaker 2: The series is executive produced by Jesse and Holly and
Speaker 2: created by Jesse Lawson.
Speaker 5: This episode was produced and sound designed by Jesse Lawson,
Speaker 5: with production assistants by Tess Hazel. Michelle maclum is our
Speaker 5: mix engineer.
Speaker 2: Our original music and theme is by Talk Bazaar at
Speaker 2: Talk v A z A R Underscore. Our show art
Speaker 2: was designed and illustrated by Holly Cassio at Holly c
Speaker 2: A s i O.
Speaker 5: Executive producer from Malton Hart is Jasmine J. T.
Speaker 15: Green.
Speaker 5: Our executive producer from iHeart Podcast is Lindy Hoffman.
Speaker 2: A reminder that our friends have released six absolutely stunning
Speaker 2: Bruce covers to celebrate the series, Fight Milk, The Sheridans,
Speaker 2: coy O, Day, mus Ghost, Daskinsey four and Command Jasmine.
Speaker 2: There's a link in our show notes for the Queer
Speaker 2: Springsteen playlist listen there.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for the special people who've supported
Speaker 5: us while making the series. Lauren Passel, Arlie Ablinton, James Cunningham,
Speaker 5: Fen Williams, Kyle Gibbons, Beth Elden, Kerr, Oriel Wiles, Alana
Speaker 5: Cumbier for inspiring our name and bringing us.
Speaker 2: Together, Phil Roberts for buying me my first gay brucene.
Speaker 5: And all of our friends and family who have put
Speaker 5: up with us obsessively talking about Bruce forever and listen
Speaker 5: to so much springs in against their will. It's not
Speaker 5: going to stop, guys, just because the podcast's.
Speaker 3: Over and when more.
Speaker 2: Little shout out to the val Halla Suite, which is
Speaker 2: a free plugin for audio nerdes and has been used
Speaker 2: so much throughout the series. On my website, I have
Speaker 2: a list of resources for people interested in getting into audio.
Speaker 4: I'll link it in the show notes.
Speaker 5: For more Queer Bruce content from us, check out my
Speaker 5: scenes at Colschmall dot com and follow Drag King Butch
Speaker 5: Sprinksteen at Butch Sprinksteen Underscore Drag.
Speaker 2: I'm at Jesse lu Dawson and Holly is at Holly
Speaker 2: Cassio on socials stay in touch.
Speaker 4: You've not heard the last from us. Bye bye bye