Speaker 1: I think it's gay or to not have sex than
Speaker 1: it is to have sex. That's because you've been conditioned
Speaker 1: by media to never get the payoff have sex. Wait,
Speaker 1: that's actually really true. Oh wow, I hate that. You
Speaker 1: know that. I almost named my dog Sunday, who is
Speaker 1: currently in the studio with us. I almost named her Judy. Really,
Speaker 1: there have been a few times since I got her
Speaker 1: that I have felt like I should have done that. Um,
Speaker 1: maybe it's her middle name, but it was in. It
Speaker 1: was going to be an homage to Judy Garland because
Speaker 1: I had a deep, abiding childhood love of the Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz. It was probably the thing that, more than
Speaker 1: any Disney movie, more than any like cartoon, I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with and like formed a big chunk of my personality.
Speaker 1: Low and Behold. I grew up and I learned that
Speaker 1: that's true for like most queer people. And so today
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about the Wizard of Oz and
Speaker 1: all of the Oz inspired media that has spun off from. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the many many many different pieces of tangential I p
Speaker 1: that have a crewed over a time. Yeah, because this
Speaker 1: is like a virgin the show where we give yesterday's
Speaker 1: pop culture today's takes, I'm ros Damo and I'm fran Torado.
Speaker 1: And before we click our heels three times, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what's going on in Kansas. In Kansas, probably something transphobic.
Speaker 1: Was any of the Dropouts set in Kansas? I feel
Speaker 1: like maybe there might have been a scene there. Well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like large corporations, especially very corrupt ones,
Speaker 1: love to like put their bases in random states like
Speaker 1: that because they know they can get away with more,
Speaker 1: either tax wise or just like the government doesn't pay
Speaker 1: attention to or that's where they test people. But I
Speaker 1: think in the Dropout there, we're actually testing people in Arizona,
Speaker 1: R right. And on that point, the finale was excellent.
Speaker 1: What an incredible season of television, A closed loop, incredible
Speaker 1: performance by Amanda Saford, literally so consistent, like virtually, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't have any notes, Like I think it's
Speaker 1: almost difficult to talk about because it was such a
Speaker 1: wonderful kind of like piece of television. I think it's
Speaker 1: my favorite show of the years so far, maybe aside
Speaker 1: from like Euphoria If but like I just like the
Speaker 1: thing to me is in comparison to all the other
Speaker 1: scammer shows that are kind of making the rounds right
Speaker 1: now because they must be compared, Like this was the
Speaker 1: show to pull off what was a very human performance
Speaker 1: that like based absolute absurd. It'st like scammery into a
Speaker 1: reality that you didn't even know existed. Um, I just
Speaker 1: thought it was so well done, especially now that the
Speaker 1: Wee crashed kind of like, uh, we crashed. It has
Speaker 1: not low key fallen off for me, it has high
Speaker 1: key fallen off. It fell off the top of a
Speaker 1: whee crashed. I'm just not interested in the why of
Speaker 1: how this all happened with the dropout, Like I want
Speaker 1: to know how Elizabeth Holmes scammed everyone, and I'm really
Speaker 1: interested in her as a character despite her being so
Speaker 1: obviously evil and psychotic. With We Crashed, I don't care
Speaker 1: about any of that. Yeah, and with these scammer shows,
Speaker 1: like they all made the kind of choice to center
Speaker 1: a lot of the scammer around a romance that you're
Speaker 1: kind of made to root for. And the thing about
Speaker 1: like Amandacy Freed's character, are you meant to root for
Speaker 1: either of them? And We Crashed? I think they're definitely
Speaker 1: farming for empathy. If you have meat cutes, you have like,
Speaker 1: you know, moments where they're like sobbing together because they're
Speaker 1: losing billions of dollars. It's just like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I actually think it goes a very out of its
Speaker 1: way to spotlight how toxic they are and how from
Speaker 1: their very first interaction he was such a douche bag,
Speaker 1: but she like needed purpose so badly that she latched
Speaker 1: onto him. There's a scene in the most recent episode
Speaker 1: that you haven't watched that kind of like backs my
Speaker 1: argument a little more. But my point is with um
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Holmes and Sonny, like I felt that their relationship
Speaker 1: which is very weird and very bizarre and very hard
Speaker 1: to root for at the beginning, the big At the beginning,
Speaker 1: you're like, this is weird and think it's hard to
Speaker 1: root for the whole time. See no, see I I
Speaker 1: was like, this is uncomfortable and I don't really know
Speaker 1: how how these two characters are going to find chemistry.
Speaker 1: And then by the by the end when they're like
Speaker 1: scamming together, you're kind of like, this feels this, this
Speaker 1: was very real. There was I think, this is what
Speaker 1: I'm actually trying to say, there was realism in the
Speaker 1: romance that exists in the dropout that did not exist
Speaker 1: and we crash her other gam shows. I believed in
Speaker 1: their relationship because because I think, um, it's a very
Speaker 1: good depiction of a word that I think gets thrown
Speaker 1: around a lot right now culturally, which is grooming, and she,
Speaker 1: I think very clearly was groomed by him, at least
Speaker 1: in the way that the facts were presented in the show.
Speaker 1: And I actually thought it was like, one of the
Speaker 1: best scenes in the finale was that scene where they
Speaker 1: are it's either in the office or at their house,
Speaker 1: where they're kind of like making these threats without actually
Speaker 1: making them, and she says something like, you know, I
Speaker 1: was so young when we met. How old was I?
Speaker 1: Do you remember? And it's just it's all right there.
Speaker 1: She knows exactly what she's doing, she knows she's weaponizing
Speaker 1: their past against him, um, and it's it's just so brilliant,
Speaker 1: so brilliantly written, acted directed everything, And also the chilling
Speaker 1: moment when she turns to her mom and she's like
Speaker 1: it bad, um if I can't remember, Like what's the
Speaker 1: truth and what's a lie? Like is it my fault?
Speaker 1: If I can't even remember? And you see almost briefly,
Speaker 1: like a person who has lied to themselves so much,
Speaker 1: but her mother exactly and and and that it was
Speaker 1: what she was taught to do. Just all of the
Speaker 1: different layers of the show worked. Um, I have to
Speaker 1: ask you one thing before we finally hopefully never talked
Speaker 1: about we crashed ever again. Do you think that Anne
Speaker 1: Hathaway is wearing the wrong blush on purpose, as like
Speaker 1: a character choice, or do you think that the makeup
Speaker 1: artist is just bad because the blush is orange? I
Speaker 1: haven't noticed. Okay, it's so orange, and I really I
Speaker 1: can't look at anything else and I don't even notice
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Maybe it's just because I'm starting to
Speaker 1: wear like, you know, makeup and blush and stuff. But
Speaker 1: like I just I felt like it was maybe a
Speaker 1: character choice. I feel like, I'm know, I feel like
Speaker 1: she doesn't do ship like that, especially because of how
Speaker 1: much everyone's talking about Jared Letto and his method acting
Speaker 1: right now. I don't think she cares. I think she's like,
Speaker 1: just you know, do whatever. I would have thought that
Speaker 1: too if it weren't for an Anne Hathaway's also bizarre
Speaker 1: choice to like slightly lower her voice, which I think
Speaker 1: is very unnecessary. But yeah, but at least she's not
Speaker 1: wearing prosthetic teeth. At least she's not wearing prosthetic teeth
Speaker 1: and an anti Semitic like kind of prosthetic nose question mark, Like,
Speaker 1: has anyone ever talked about that? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: even know. It's all it's all drag, which does quite nicely.
Speaker 1: We're all born naked and the rest is Jared Letto
Speaker 1: is what you're going to say. It does bring us
Speaker 1: quite nicely to what I want to briefly touch on.
Speaker 1: I want to give us like a minute tops to
Speaker 1: talk about drag race. I knew as soon as this
Speaker 1: episode started we were getting a five person finale. I
Speaker 1: did throw my TV out the window when it happened. Um,
Speaker 1: both willow Hill and who was the other one Anigeria?
Speaker 1: They both were bad. They were both bad in that
Speaker 1: lip sync double elimination. I love willow Hill, but honestly,
Speaker 1: she has not been eating recently, and that lip sync
Speaker 1: was a travesty considering the song that they had. It
Speaker 1: was a disgrace against Lady Gaga and Beyonce. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've heard of them. I agree with the
Speaker 1: with ellipsync Tank. I think that you know, we as
Speaker 1: a community have been waiting for that song to be
Speaker 1: a lip sync for a very long time, and they
Speaker 1: both boofed it. I don't think that, you know, Willow
Speaker 1: has necessarily let me down. I just think that this
Speaker 1: wasn't a very strong episode for me. Even the mouse
Speaker 1: gown I thought good. It felt like a look she
Speaker 1: brought for something else. It was the only thing she
Speaker 1: had left to wear. I loved the concept. I just
Speaker 1: thought that it lacked a little bit of polish. And
Speaker 1: the thing is, there's just no one else to route
Speaker 1: for like Camden is, just like Camden has like that
Speaker 1: would suck so hard. I think she's gonna win. I
Speaker 1: think she's been getting the winners edit. I think she's
Speaker 1: honestly to me. To my mind, the top two Camden
Speaker 1: and Dia because Data has a very good story of
Speaker 1: how she was eliminated. She's grown so much. She had
Speaker 1: that like breakthrough a moment halfway during the season. Now
Speaker 1: she has the diabetes plot line. Well. I loved in
Speaker 1: this episode the part where they invite them all to
Speaker 1: the TikTok lunch to be like, okay, so tell us
Speaker 1: about your tra trauma and one thing I did appreciate
Speaker 1: was that I guess Rue isn't dead naming the Queens anymore.
Speaker 1: Them their childhood photos when they you know, when they
Speaker 1: did got Mick that that season, they were like, we
Speaker 1: have asked your permission to use this photo or whatever,
Speaker 1: which is like you can tell that they're putting better
Speaker 1: people on the team. But um, to me, Okay, Camden
Speaker 1: being a winner or even being in the finale, it's
Speaker 1: just like her place is deserved. It's just she doesn't
Speaker 1: have anything distinctive or ownable about her. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like a Courtney Act problem where it's like, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: just kind of like hitting all the marks and you
Speaker 1: can clearly afford really nice costumes and you're a triple threat.
Speaker 1: But that's like beyond that when you take all of
Speaker 1: that away, like what's left? And I think that when
Speaker 1: you think about, you know, the pillars of the show
Speaker 1: and like charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent, it's like Camden
Speaker 1: to me lacks like the charisma and the uniqueness. I
Speaker 1: think she has the nerve, and I think she has
Speaker 1: the talent, but I just I don't think she has
Speaker 1: the first half of like what's required of a star.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? Yeah, I agree. Well, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to see Phoebe waller Bridge um win Tracker
Speaker 1: um by which I mean Lady Camden looks like literally
Speaker 1: exactly like her. Unfortunately, Phoebe waller Bridge is not taking
Speaker 1: home one hundred thousand dollars for the Killing Eve Dollar.
Speaker 1: There's the money, but have you seen the swirl of
Speaker 1: controversy that is around the Killing E finale, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, I didn't even know Killing Eve was airing,
Speaker 1: had no idea. I knew it was airing, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that it had ended, but I did see people
Speaker 1: talking about it on Instagram today and just how awful
Speaker 1: the finale. The girls are mad, mad, things are abundant. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm staying far away from a pink news is today.
Speaker 1: The girls are down bad queer blames. They're like, we'll
Speaker 1: talk about we'll talk about lesbian's one day a year. Absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: I have to say, the function of art and how
Speaker 1: we make it is not to make you feel safe
Speaker 1: inside of this, Like like, if you don't feel safe,
Speaker 1: if you don't like watching things that don't make you
Speaker 1: feel safe, you don't have to watch it to tell
Speaker 1: compelling stories, and so it's like to me, it's like
Speaker 1: if you're going to like calling attempt critique as you say, like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to sit here and say this is
Speaker 1: how like this made me feel and it betrayed me
Speaker 1: personally and therefore is bad. You can say that, but
Speaker 1: it just doesn't hold much weight. You should be critiquing
Speaker 1: it because the finale was just bad, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like find ways to talk about how the
Speaker 1: Barrier Gaze trope is like bad because it's repetitive and unoriginal,
Speaker 1: not because you feel betrayed. I also don't think you
Speaker 1: can say that the main character of a TV show
Speaker 1: dying in the last episode of before season show a
Speaker 1: character who was an assassin, is Barrier Gaze. It's not
Speaker 1: you can't just say any queer character who dies is
Speaker 1: Barrier Gaze because what if you're watching a horror movie
Speaker 1: that is literally the function of horror movies just to
Speaker 1: kill people for entertainment. This is a serial murderer thriller,
Speaker 1: Like that is like what I can't I can't I
Speaker 1: get that the I get that the esbians are down bad,
Speaker 1: you know, Find another show, find something, Go read a book,
Speaker 1: go touch grass. Please go outside, go outside, find some
Speaker 1: other queer people in real life and talk to them.
Speaker 1: Go to a community center. Go I don't know, learn
Speaker 1: to knit. I don't do something. Okay, that's true. As
Speaker 1: our producer just said, Lesbian, I just mean, take all
Speaker 1: that energy you use telling people, telling like directors and
Speaker 1: like actors online to kill themselves, and put it towards
Speaker 1: actual queer liberation what whatever, whatever way you can find
Speaker 1: that that is because I'm I am so apologetic to
Speaker 1: tell you that you will never find queer liberation in
Speaker 1: a TV show ever, period. And I have to say,
Speaker 1: if you want to feel liberated, you should go and
Speaker 1: see everything everywhere, all at once. Oh my god, for Angela,
Speaker 1: I I have not had that kind of emotional, cathartic
Speaker 1: moment in a movie, and I like six months it
Speaker 1: was so in at least six the last time I
Speaker 1: watched Frozen, Oh my god, that show. That movie, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it exceeded my already impossibly high expectations. Like
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, better multiverse movie than Spider Man, No Home.
Speaker 1: The new Doctor Strange movie has you know, it's work
Speaker 1: cut out for it, because Michelle, y'all really just it's
Speaker 1: the Scarlet Witch. Oh my god, I would watch that movie.
Speaker 1: I mean the clip circulating right now she is in Marvel, yes, exactly,
Speaker 1: But I think, honestly, I'm thinking about that about her
Speaker 1: role in Marvel as a character that kind of can
Speaker 1: is just one of the many characters that has let
Speaker 1: her down as an actress and and and has failed
Speaker 1: to show her versatility um, despite the fact that she
Speaker 1: has very badass and chan chi. But like, my this
Speaker 1: the clip that's circulating right now of Michelle Yaw kind
Speaker 1: of tearing up and talking about how when she read
Speaker 1: the script she felt that this was the first time
Speaker 1: someone could finally see what she was. But it's so
Speaker 1: true and like this film, which you know, no spoilers,
Speaker 1: but like the premises, it's like Michelle Yaw owns the
Speaker 1: laundromat um with her family and discovers that she belongs
Speaker 1: to a multiverse that she is kind of like the
Speaker 1: chosen one to like save basically, um, it sounds crazy,
Speaker 1: but like you buy into the movie really quickly, which
Speaker 1: I think is honestly. The complexity of the universe that
Speaker 1: they build is so actually quickly understood, which is so
Speaker 1: hard to do. You know, what I mean, Like I
Speaker 1: get so lost in plots like that, and like you
Speaker 1: just understand or the rather you click into it so immediately,
Speaker 1: all of the action, all of the comedy, all of
Speaker 1: the kind of like emotional like resonance of like each
Speaker 1: of these performances just like stuck the landing in every way.
Speaker 1: Like what were your favorite parts from this? Well? I
Speaker 1: thought it was so funny. I laughed so much while
Speaker 1: watching it. Um, the parts that made me the most
Speaker 1: emotional were the rocks. Oh you know, you have to it.
Speaker 1: It was so good, I think. Um, her husband, who's
Speaker 1: played by Kahai Kwon, was so great, and I found
Speaker 1: him very sexy. He was in the scene the universe
Speaker 1: and where he was in the suit where she was
Speaker 1: a singer so hot. Um, and all of these actors
Speaker 1: ability to play so many different selves, like so many
Speaker 1: different versions of the same character, Like the actor. I
Speaker 1: thought her daughter was really good. I, Um, she's in
Speaker 1: Marvelous Mrs Maisel, and I've always thought she was pretty
Speaker 1: good in that as well. Jamie Curtis and Jamie Curtis,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, the Hot Talkends Universe, so goody. It's
Speaker 1: such a such a good movie and I think like,
Speaker 1: and you know we're after this, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about Severance because we both started watching Severance this weekend,
Speaker 1: and I do think like there's something linking these two
Speaker 1: things together because they both do what really good science
Speaker 1: fiction is supposed to do, which is take something that's
Speaker 1: really grounded in reality and really human and blow it
Speaker 1: out through science and technology, like like create a universe
Speaker 1: and that is very like our own, except like humans
Speaker 1: have figured out how to do one thing and here
Speaker 1: like and everything everywhere all at once. It's like this
Speaker 1: central idea of what if, Like what if I had
Speaker 1: made this choice? What if my life had gone this way?
Speaker 1: And that is a very relatable feeling. I think we
Speaker 1: all feel like that from time to time. And on
Speaker 1: that note, like in terms of like the sci fi
Speaker 1: the world building of it all, like we have to
Speaker 1: champion original films because the only things popping off right
Speaker 1: now are like exactly Marvel movies, reboots, sequels, like and
Speaker 1: this is such an annoying and cliche like kind of
Speaker 1: like thing to say, but it's so true, and like
Speaker 1: this is a movie that we as a culture like
Speaker 1: wait for in terms of like a completely novel originality
Speaker 1: that is entirely like like entirely in its own right,
Speaker 1: like beautiful and stunning and like flawless, like I don't
Speaker 1: use that word lightly, even though that's so uninteresting to say. Also,
Speaker 1: Jenny Slate was so good to see, and with the
Speaker 1: dog so good. I don't think I will say I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a perfect movie. There were parts of
Speaker 1: it that I thought, like, I think the end is
Speaker 1: like very the the emotionality like almost becomes a little
Speaker 1: sacharin um, And I think like some of the things
Speaker 1: are wrapped up a little too tidily, but it kind
Speaker 1: of doesn't matter because the strokes are so broad yet
Speaker 1: the emotions are so specific that it all just really works.
Speaker 1: I just, on a taste level, tend to enjoy more
Speaker 1: saccharin things, but regardless, like you and I did sob
Speaker 1: through the last like third thirty minutes at least, and
Speaker 1: then and I saw this movie alone. We both saw.
Speaker 1: I left afterwards, went down to the parking garage, sat
Speaker 1: in my car and cried more because I was thinking
Speaker 1: about my mom. And the movie hits you multiple times
Speaker 1: because there's so many layers to it. It's just a beautiful, beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful film. A movie that and you were talking about
Speaker 1: the last time you cried. I just want to quickly
Speaker 1: sneak in um the fact that like this, Uh. I
Speaker 1: watched this movie the day after I saw Coda, which
Speaker 1: was a movie that I quickly discovered was not Belfast.
Speaker 1: I was like, I think I had conflated the two
Speaker 1: in my head as like the white contenders for the Academy,
Speaker 1: you know when, for Best Motion Picture. And so when
Speaker 1: I sat down to watch it, because it was this
Speaker 1: year's Best Picture winner, I had a very emotional experience
Speaker 1: to it. The logline is like a girl is the
Speaker 1: only hearing member of a deaf family, and she really
Speaker 1: loves to sing, and so she is basically deciding whether
Speaker 1: at the end of high school, whether she's going to
Speaker 1: pursue singing as a dream or whether she's going to
Speaker 1: stay with her family to support them because she's the
Speaker 1: only one that can hear. And so, like another movie
Speaker 1: that I like, sobbed through the last thirty minutes of
Speaker 1: actually like a movie that, like I I started crying
Speaker 1: and then like just kind of continually cried. But I
Speaker 1: was also trying to like eat um, like the barbecue
Speaker 1: that I had ordered, and so like, my nose is
Speaker 1: really stuffed up. And then another crying moment happened, and
Speaker 1: so I was like, because my nose was stuffed up,
Speaker 1: I started like sobbing and then choking on my own food.
Speaker 1: Like wow, I was crying. A very visceral experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was, but it definitely, definitely, definitely see that movie.
Speaker 1: I think it's worth, you know, a month of Apple
Speaker 1: Apple TV Plus if you subscribe, So I pay for
Speaker 1: Apple TV Plus. It's um, And so it was very
Speaker 1: easy for me to once I saw that everyone was
Speaker 1: talking about the show Severance, to decide to give it
Speaker 1: give it a go um, which actually is like a
Speaker 1: very hard thing for me to do because I do
Speaker 1: not just like try out new TV shows without feeling
Speaker 1: pretty confident that I'm going to like them. And I
Speaker 1: was kind of, I guess, the way the people were
Speaker 1: talking about it and some of the like stills I
Speaker 1: was seeing on Twitter, I was kind of expecting a
Speaker 1: succession vibe for some reasons. I guess I thought like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is Apple TV's succession and it's so not. It
Speaker 1: is okay to give you the logline. Severance takes place
Speaker 1: in a world where people can have a procedure done
Speaker 1: called severance, where when they go to work they completely
Speaker 1: forget their outside lives and become this blank slate persona,
Speaker 1: and when they leave work, they can't remember ever anything
Speaker 1: that happened there. So it's essentially like bifurcating these people
Speaker 1: and like kind of lobotomizing them literally. It's it's starring
Speaker 1: Adam Scott, Patricia arquette Um and directed by Ben Mark.
Speaker 1: He's been working on it for like five or six
Speaker 1: years or yeah, and it's really creepy. I think the
Speaker 1: cinematography is really beautiful and the show, if you watch
Speaker 1: the trailer, the trailer very succinctly kind of shows you
Speaker 1: a little bit of what you're trying to sign up for.
Speaker 1: And I thought that it would maybe be more ham
Speaker 1: fisted in its critique of, like, you know, the workforce,
Speaker 1: or in its critique on like capital and our relationships
Speaker 1: to like our work. But I actually feel like what
Speaker 1: the show tries to say about work is not too
Speaker 1: heavy because it prioritizes the suspended tention totally. It's much
Speaker 1: more about the storytelling that about any sort of like
Speaker 1: think PC metaphors. Yes, to be totally honest, this show
Speaker 1: is maybe not as much to my taste, because the
Speaker 1: suspended attention is something that like, I feel like I
Speaker 1: need a buddy while I'm watching it. It is actually
Speaker 1: very very spooky, It's very tense. The show reminds me
Speaker 1: a little bit of how you experience wand division in
Speaker 1: that when you go into it for a lot of
Speaker 1: the a lot of time you're kind of like, what
Speaker 1: am I watching? Like you spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: trying to figure out the world a lot of cogs
Speaker 1: or in your if and if you don't have context,
Speaker 1: it's like you're kind of just along for the ride.
Speaker 1: You kind of concede yourself to these the TV makers
Speaker 1: And obviously they're very different shows. But I'll be interested
Speaker 1: to see how severance pays off. Yes, I really want
Speaker 1: to know what's coming at the end. One of my
Speaker 1: earliest childhood memories is tying an afghan that my grandma
Speaker 1: had made me around my body, like like you would
Speaker 1: a towel, you know, like to like a feminizing of
Speaker 1: Cowe moment as queers, I want to do to I
Speaker 1: want to swap themselves in fabric of some kind um
Speaker 1: and I would, you know, imagine myself wearing a blue
Speaker 1: and white and gingham dress. Because all I wanted when
Speaker 1: I was a little child, childer neutral charm um was
Speaker 1: to be Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz. Of course,
Speaker 1: I mean she's she is the archetype. Um. I also
Speaker 1: feel like I really wanted to be Dorothy. This is
Speaker 1: an interesting episode of both of us, and that neither
Speaker 1: of us are virgins, but this was very formative to
Speaker 1: us personally and therefore is worth talking. And that's our
Speaker 1: podcast and will do whatever the funk we want, do
Speaker 1: whatever the we want. Um, you know, on the note
Speaker 1: quickly of queer swath I slapping themselves in fabric, I think, like,
Speaker 1: what is that? What? Why is it a queer right
Speaker 1: of passage to wear a blanket as a dress or
Speaker 1: to like pull it over as a cable you just
Speaker 1: send a staircase to like you know, let it fill,
Speaker 1: or like yeah, exactly exactly, Um, but yeah no similarly, um,
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz was just one of the most
Speaker 1: prominent things of my childhood. I read the book over
Speaker 1: and over and over again in like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: what when do you read those books? Like first or
Speaker 1: second grade? I was more of a movie girl. It
Speaker 1: was about the movie. For me, it was Judy Garland
Speaker 1: Margaret Hamilton's Down, you know, the girls were girling. I
Speaker 1: would I probably watched The Wizard of Oz every day
Speaker 1: when I was a kid. I had a book that
Speaker 1: had the script and also lots of like photos and
Speaker 1: behind the scenes stuff, and I would page through it
Speaker 1: as I watched the movie, and I would like color
Speaker 1: in it and make notes. It was The Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz was my whole life. I was obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: There there were these porcelain dolls that were sold at
Speaker 1: do you remember the Franklin Mint. There's a store in
Speaker 1: the mall that sold collectibles, and they had a um
Speaker 1: a line of Wizard of Oz porcelain dolls and like
Speaker 1: that sounds haunting, and I needed to have them. And
Speaker 1: like obviously, like I was a and dolls were like
Speaker 1: not were frowned upon, but I like kicked and screamed
Speaker 1: so much that I have the Dorothy one and I
Speaker 1: had the Wicked Witch one. I and I might have
Speaker 1: made them kiss one of my of course, of course,
Speaker 1: as we always do. One of my earliest Halloween costumes
Speaker 1: was the Tin Man and my cousin was Dorothy, and
Speaker 1: I remember being like just see the jealousy that I
Speaker 1: had to be this ugly, asked him, men with this
Speaker 1: ugly ass mask. Um, maybe I think this is finally
Speaker 1: the year that I'm Dorothy for Halloween because now my
Speaker 1: dog looks like Toto. Oh my god, Rose, I didn't
Speaker 1: even think about that component. Thank god it's April. I
Speaker 1: don't have to think about Halloween. But can the dress
Speaker 1: be like, you know, like' or something. We're going classic?
Speaker 1: Come on, you're not gonna do it like Harry Style
Speaker 1: is doing that Gucci Dorothy dress as we say, as
Speaker 1: we say in the industry megap However, his single oh Yeah,
Speaker 1: we didn't talk about it as it was we are
Speaker 1: we are newly we are newly radicalized Harry Styles. I've
Speaker 1: never listened to a Harry Styles album before, but I was, like,
Speaker 1: I have been listening to this over and over because
Speaker 1: it's so short and has like it's one of those
Speaker 1: TikTok songs that has no actual emotional, like cathartic payoff,
Speaker 1: so you have to listen to it seventy two times
Speaker 1: in order to feel because the catharsis um. But I was,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, taking a late night trip to
Speaker 1: Sweet Green as I often do picking up my Sweet
Speaker 1: Green and the Harry Styles song played, and I thought
Speaker 1: of you, and it was anyway, it's going to go
Speaker 1: back to oz. Um. I okay, So Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: the thing I loved most as a child, come come
Speaker 1: to find out as a queer adult that it's like
Speaker 1: the gayest thing in the world. Oh, I thought you were.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say that the entire
Speaker 1: production was curse. Oh yeah, we I think we all
Speaker 1: know that. Okay, good, that's what I thought. I feel
Speaker 1: like people that know the Wizard of ozin no, we
Speaker 1: all know about like the guy hanging in the cornfield,
Speaker 1: which apparently wasn't a real thing that wasn't real was
Speaker 1: an ostrich. I'm sure there's a YouTube video you can
Speaker 1: watch about it. Honestly, if you just watched Duty starring
Speaker 1: m Rene's what's her name, sorry, Renee's Alwigger. Like, I
Speaker 1: do actually think that contextualizes a lot of the really
Speaker 1: horrible things that happened on set, which like we'll get
Speaker 1: into the duty of it all. But what about the movie,
Speaker 1: So you said, like, um, you were talking about how
Speaker 1: like maybe it's this innate kind of gaines queerness that
Speaker 1: is in the movie like if I don't know, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's about like the any like subtext
Speaker 1: or metaphors. I think I just loved the fantasy. I
Speaker 1: loved the story. I wanted to go away to the
Speaker 1: magical land of Oz and really I wanted to be Dorothy.
Speaker 1: She was it. She was to me, Judy Garland, Dorothy Gale,
Speaker 1: the pinnacle of feminine beauty that like I, as a
Speaker 1: little burgeoning tranny, wanted to inhabit. And the thing about that,
Speaker 1: and we on this podcast firmly believed that the word
Speaker 1: camp is overused and often misused all the time. But
Speaker 1: Judy's Dorothy is the definition and the beginning of like
Speaker 1: an era of like women in film that would do
Speaker 1: a kind of camp performance, an emotionality that is like
Speaker 1: over the top and yet like deeply unaware of, like
Speaker 1: you know, how much it goes. I don't know that
Speaker 1: I agree with that. I mean, I've I think I
Speaker 1: feel like I've read so many like you know whatever.
Speaker 1: I know, I think there's an argument to be made
Speaker 1: either way, and like, certainly this podcast is not about
Speaker 1: debating what is camping, But I think I see it
Speaker 1: more as like she understood the movie she was in
Speaker 1: and like a big well did she like big MGM
Speaker 1: spectacles of the time, Like that was the kind of
Speaker 1: heightened like the kind of heightened performance that she needed
Speaker 1: to give. I think it's actually like pretty self aware.
Speaker 1: I and she also was like being plied with like
Speaker 1: pills um you know. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. She
Speaker 1: definitely I don't think that. Then in that case, I
Speaker 1: don't think there's self awareness. And I don't think she
Speaker 1: knew what movies she wasn't, you know? She was my point.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing. I know why you're resistant to
Speaker 1: like even talking to even talking about Duty and Alexa
Speaker 1: kind of camp. But I think that because she predated
Speaker 1: resistant to talking about Judy. I'm talking resistant to having
Speaker 1: a conversation about what is camp or not? But I
Speaker 1: think I think the reason and I agree, I also
Speaker 1: just don't really care about it. But I think the
Speaker 1: reason I bring it up is because a lot of
Speaker 1: camp that exists today is deeply aware of itself. It's
Speaker 1: it's part of a camp factory or the manufacturing of camp,
Speaker 1: and like Judy's performance is camp in its purest form,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? She didn't know that the
Speaker 1: way she would make her eyes all gooey, or the
Speaker 1: way she would like wall like every time something was wrong,
Speaker 1: or the way her eyes are really good, always on
Speaker 1: the brink of tears, which always Judy was going through
Speaker 1: literally and she was being tortured on that can you
Speaker 1: imagine this movie? She was fighting for her life? And
Speaker 1: I don't And I mean that both joking way in
Speaker 1: a literal way, but like it couldn't have been anyone else,
Speaker 1: Like could you have imagined this movie if Shirley Temple
Speaker 1: was Dorothy and stud which like like can you imagine?
Speaker 1: But that's but I love I love her drink. I
Speaker 1: think the point I would like to order what I
Speaker 1: feel like I was responding to a kind of a
Speaker 1: kind of emotional self that I really wanted, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like I think that we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're often taught to be like ashamed of like our
Speaker 1: emotions and like how we react to the world. And
Speaker 1: like Judy was so you know, inordinately herself. But that
Speaker 1: I mean, the movie is is fucking gay, Like it
Speaker 1: is the source material is gay. I actually like I
Speaker 1: didn't read the Oz books as a kid. I recently
Speaker 1: found out because of a TikTok that I sent you.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you watched it. Um about how Ozma,
Speaker 1: who is one of the rulers of oz is canonically trans. Wait,
Speaker 1: how so she is um put in the body of
Speaker 1: a boy because like some kind of royal shenanigans um
Speaker 1: and then like discovers her and her woman. But it's
Speaker 1: it's like it is cannon that she is trans That's
Speaker 1: amazing and honestly, like it makes so I read UM.
Speaker 1: I think that like at least two, if not three
Speaker 1: of the books, I don't remember anything. I just remember
Speaker 1: loving them as a kid, and I do know that
Speaker 1: like they were all very dark and very violent. They
Speaker 1: got um. I think initial criticism found the books actually
Speaker 1: too violent, and so they actually like waned in violence
Speaker 1: as he started making more and more literally murder someone
Speaker 1: and Dorothy murders two people. Yes, And well, I think
Speaker 1: that's also the magic of the film is the film
Speaker 1: is able to render something that's actually really violent as
Speaker 1: like you know, fantastical and silient, like you know, the
Speaker 1: way the Witch of the East has these you know,
Speaker 1: striped stockings on that make it fierce fierce um. And
Speaker 1: so I think that, you know, the movie um renders
Speaker 1: all of that darkness and violence in a very pristine
Speaker 1: MGM way. And so I think it's interesting to see
Speaker 1: things like Returned to Oz or the Whiz adaptation of
Speaker 1: the movie that really leaned into the original L. Frank
Speaker 1: Baum like kind of vision, which was darkness violence like
Speaker 1: kids can handle. Oh yeah, because you have only experienced
Speaker 1: Return to Oz for the first time today. For me,
Speaker 1: Returned to Oz was one of the most formative pieces
Speaker 1: of media in my childhood. UM. So, Returned to Oz
Speaker 1: came out starring for a ball. It's it's about Dorothy
Speaker 1: going back to Oz and Oz is all fucked up,
Speaker 1: and it is an incredibly dark, twisted, beautiful fantasy. Um
Speaker 1: it's so weird. It has one of I think one
Speaker 1: of the most iconic villains of all time, Queen Mombi,
Speaker 1: who is a which who is a hall of women's
Speaker 1: severed that she keeps so that she can wear a
Speaker 1: new head every time. She's like feeling herself, which also
Speaker 1: feels very trans to me, very trans. The movie opens
Speaker 1: with Dorothy's um and uncle being so like shook about her,
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, like her visit to Oz, that
Speaker 1: they commit her to a mental institution where she received
Speaker 1: where she almost undergoes shock therapy. Can I I this
Speaker 1: is not this is not a drag. I watched the
Speaker 1: movie specifically because you told me how formative it was
Speaker 1: to you. And within the first five minutes of this film,
Speaker 1: I understood everything about what you know because there is something.
Speaker 1: I mean, it is somehow very archetypal, but also like
Speaker 1: it's so so dark two wheelers, the guys who have
Speaker 1: wheels for hands. No, but I mean, I'm so scary,
Speaker 1: so very scary. But I'm talking about the act and
Speaker 1: the talking chicken also sucked up. The actual conceit of
Speaker 1: the movie is like like to to be and it
Speaker 1: is like on paper it was trying to be a
Speaker 1: sequel to Judy Garland's Wizard of Oz. Like they had
Speaker 1: to pay but it's not a musical. They had to
Speaker 1: pay MGM, like an inordinate amount of money just for
Speaker 1: the rights to say the word like ruby slippers, because
Speaker 1: that was original to the movie. Wasn't in the books,
Speaker 1: um and the like. But to have to start a
Speaker 1: movie that's like and M and all the people people
Speaker 1: you love don't believe that entire thing that happened to you.
Speaker 1: They think you're crazy. They think you are crazy, the committed.
Speaker 1: They have you committed for electronic shock therapy. And here
Speaker 1: you are trying to tell people about like your friends
Speaker 1: and this like kind of traumatic thing that you went
Speaker 1: to the and it went through, and they're all telling
Speaker 1: you that it's not believe you. Um, and you get
Speaker 1: sent to a magical fantasy land with your talking chicken
Speaker 1: and a woman wants to cut your head off so
Speaker 1: she can wear it. Yeah. But my point in that is,
Speaker 1: like the fact that these were trying to be more
Speaker 1: true to the darkness of the al frank Baum's Bomb
Speaker 1: books was something that I really appreciated as an O
Speaker 1: G lover of the books, and like I uh did
Speaker 1: a little google about like when these books came out,
Speaker 1: and he like al frank Baum was trying to kind
Speaker 1: of change children's books a little bit. He like loved
Speaker 1: kind of Hans Christian Anderson books, but he thought that
Speaker 1: the fact that they taught kids like lessons and morals
Speaker 1: was really unnecessary. Like he didn't see the function of that,
Speaker 1: even though like The Wizard of Oz is filled with
Speaker 1: these like populist allegories. Um. But the uh the within
Speaker 1: a decade span when The Wizard of Oz came out,
Speaker 1: the books that also came out were like Beatrix Potters,
Speaker 1: like you know, Peter Rabbit or whatever, all of Jack
Speaker 1: London's books, The Little Princess, and of Green Gables, The
Speaker 1: Secret Garden, Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan like all
Speaker 1: of these was this boom h yeah, the boom and children,
Speaker 1: all of these people trying to kind of turn and
Speaker 1: revolutionize and change the kind of story on kids books.
Speaker 1: I think is very interesting in the context of like
Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz, because it really was trying to
Speaker 1: make kids feel more like adults or rather, or rather
Speaker 1: it wasn't trying to pander to kids. It was it
Speaker 1: felt like kids could handle the level of fear, because
Speaker 1: I think it explores in a really um profound way
Speaker 1: the terror of being a child. Ah. That is such
Speaker 1: a good way of because being a child is terrifying, terrifying,
Speaker 1: It's terrifying and wonderful and equal measure, and I think
Speaker 1: that's something the Wizard of Oz and any good Oz
Speaker 1: property understands. And I actually liked in Return to Oz
Speaker 1: that Dorothy was younger that she had been in the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz because it makes more sense for the story.
Speaker 1: Al Frank Balm al Frank bam Road two editorials asserting
Speaker 1: that like the only way like to like white victory
Speaker 1: was like for the wholesale genocide of like native people
Speaker 1: in this country in the nine literally. I mean, nothing's
Speaker 1: about that is surprising, But as I always say, it's
Speaker 1: just like, you know, let history stick to create the
Speaker 1: creators of the things that you love. Um, did you
Speaker 1: ever watch The Whiz? Like the movie adaptation? I have
Speaker 1: watched The Whiz. I've also seen, you know, a production
Speaker 1: of it. I've always wanted. Was when I was in
Speaker 1: high school my freshman year, thought was our musical for
Speaker 1: the year. Oh, I thought you meant a real production?
Speaker 1: I was also, I was. I was in The Whiz
Speaker 1: in my predominantly white high school. I was in a
Speaker 1: production of The Whiz as um one of the you know,
Speaker 1: one of the bricks in the Yellow Brick Road. It's
Speaker 1: not I will say it's not one of my favorite musicals.
Speaker 1: I mean there's some great songs in it. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I have seen at probably every theater competition or like
Speaker 1: audition I've gone to, I've seen someone try to do home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a perfect song. I The Whiz is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite musicals, and I think that's part
Speaker 1: of the reason why I actually don't love a lot
Speaker 1: of the movie. Um, but what I was going to
Speaker 1: say to your earlier point is that something that I
Speaker 1: did really like about the film adaptation was that they
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, made Dorothy, I think, a thirty
Speaker 1: year old like school teacher who lived in Harlem, and
Speaker 1: the the kind of Kinsey is like she's never you know,
Speaker 1: been south of Harlem and and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: she's in Oz, which I think is like a really
Speaker 1: smart and adult way to to kind of update the
Speaker 1: story of The Whiz. Although it's like sad to know
Speaker 1: that the reason they did that is because like Dana
Speaker 1: Ross was just like too old to play Dorothy by
Speaker 1: the time they hired her, but she had just campaign
Speaker 1: for the movie. Apparently the movie really would not have
Speaker 1: gotten made of Diana Ross hadn't, I guess, fought so
Speaker 1: hard for it and they really wanted to replace her
Speaker 1: with Stephanie Mills the o G. But I guess she
Speaker 1: just like had a big, big power play. But I
Speaker 1: watched it recently because I had read an interview where
Speaker 1: Molina Mitsukas had said that she had floated the idea
Speaker 1: of a Whiz adaptation to Solange, which, like Milina Mitzukaus
Speaker 1: is like one of my favor kind of like visual artists,
Speaker 1: creative director people, and I think Solange in The Whiz
Speaker 1: would be her kind of like Mini Ripperton, kind of
Speaker 1: like voice would lend itself so well to like the
Speaker 1: musical stylings of this film, and like, I honestly think
Speaker 1: that was a part of why I'm curious to hear
Speaker 1: what you thought about The Whiz, because I felt like
Speaker 1: the music is kind of the best part of this entity,
Speaker 1: and the music was not really championed in the movie
Speaker 1: outside of like can You Feel Brand New Day, which
Speaker 1: I think is really well done, and also Home obviously
Speaker 1: was well done. But I don't think the musical lends
Speaker 1: itself to Diana's voice as much as I wanted it
Speaker 1: to at that stage career. I mean, I have to
Speaker 1: be honest, I'm just kind of ambivalent about The Whiz.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of emotional stakes in it.
Speaker 1: I think the music is fine for the most part,
Speaker 1: um I don't think a lot of it's very memorable
Speaker 1: at least for me. Um, Yeah, it just doesn't do
Speaker 1: it for me. It's okay, I will I will do
Speaker 1: all of the Whiz standing for us because it meant
Speaker 1: I think it meant a lot to my high school career.
Speaker 1: It was something that I just really loved. Um. But
Speaker 1: I guess another reason why the movie. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: I have to say that Diana Ross is home like
Speaker 1: in this movie. When I watched it for the first
Speaker 1: time recently, I was like, this is the precedent, like
Speaker 1: the predecessor, or maybe even the reference for Anne Hathaway's
Speaker 1: I Dreamed a Dream because she does that move the
Speaker 1: Cheeta does that song all one take on like a
Speaker 1: black screen behind her with a very tight close up
Speaker 1: on her face. Yeah, and Diana Russ did the exact
Speaker 1: same thing, which is extremely difficult to do as an
Speaker 1: actor and even more difficult to do as like someone
Speaker 1: who's singing and acting. You know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: think that those parts of the movie are things that
Speaker 1: I loved. But um, the Whiz was like famously, like
Speaker 1: the movie was famously a huge flop, because huge mega
Speaker 1: flop do Docaca because it was so amped up. I
Speaker 1: think it was an I p that's obviously so culturally beloved,
Speaker 1: and I think that having all these stars set up
Speaker 1: in the movie did not really give the audience what
Speaker 1: they wanted because all of the stars are covered in
Speaker 1: prospect extent and like you can't really see Michael Jackson
Speaker 1: in this like Scarecrow, Like you can't really and and
Speaker 1: also again the movie really leaned into like L. Frank
Speaker 1: Baum's kind of like darknesses, um And I felt like
Speaker 1: that was off putting to a lot of audiences at
Speaker 1: the time. But I think that creative director, in terms
Speaker 1: of the creative direction of the movie, it is much
Speaker 1: like Return to Oz, very brilliant and very adult and
Speaker 1: very ahead of its time. You know, it is so
Speaker 1: weird and polarizing and like, um, uncomfortable at times, and
Speaker 1: I felt like that was a strength of the film overall,
Speaker 1: that is not necessarily commercially viable, and honestly reminded me
Speaker 1: a lot of um, did you see that where the
Speaker 1: Wild Things are? Adaptation the Dave Eggers one. It reminded
Speaker 1: me a lot of that because here you have like
Speaker 1: a filmmaker taking a globally beloved I P, like an
Speaker 1: i P that is like so important to a lot
Speaker 1: of people from a children's perspective that if you do
Speaker 1: a single thing to cross it, it's a betrayal, you know,
Speaker 1: to to go back to an earlier theme and so
Speaker 1: what and then for the filmmaker to take this and
Speaker 1: to kind of warp into like a weird, dark existential
Speaker 1: movie that has a lot of like adult themes and
Speaker 1: some great music by Karen O and some great music
Speaker 1: by Karen Oh. Like, both the films kind of delivered
Speaker 1: something that the audiences didn't sign up for. But that's
Speaker 1: not a fault of the filmmaker or even the audience,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It's just kind of was
Speaker 1: like a disconnect and how the film maybe the films
Speaker 1: were either marketed or like kind of ramped up where
Speaker 1: the wild things are. And also the Whiz just basically
Speaker 1: made like a big, like a weird, long, scary arthouse film.
Speaker 1: But something that was extremely commercially successful and continues to
Speaker 1: be continues to be until we die is Wicked the Musical,
Speaker 1: which we have talked about on this podcast before. Yes,
Speaker 1: um too much. According to producer Phoebe, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: I I drink my coffee out of my Wicked the
Speaker 1: Musical mug every morning. Phoebe's in the booth right now,
Speaker 1: hurling tomatoes at us stage. You know, I think every
Speaker 1: generation it has its Wizard of Oz retelling, and that's
Speaker 1: just like a um that's just like a hallmark of
Speaker 1: culture now because it now is public domain, because it's
Speaker 1: public domain. So that's why we see it reinterpreted in
Speaker 1: so many ways over and over again. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we've seen so many versions of it through
Speaker 1: many different lenses, like through like different cultures, through different
Speaker 1: like musical styles. And I think the reason why Wicked
Speaker 1: is so successful is because the framing of it is
Speaker 1: just like through it started this whole craze of wanting
Speaker 1: to give like a villain origin story like Wicked, I
Speaker 1: think is the originally not not just the musical, but
Speaker 1: the book by Gregory McGuire, which which the musical is
Speaker 1: based on, and like is much more it's much weirder
Speaker 1: and like more political and gayer than the musical. Before
Speaker 1: I even knew it was going to be musical, I
Speaker 1: read the book because I saw it in like Borders
Speaker 1: or Barnes and Noble, and like, of course I was
Speaker 1: obsessed with the Wizard of Oz and like especially the
Speaker 1: Wicked Witch of the West, which is I think like
Speaker 1: an interesting dichotomy on buying personality. Is as much as
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with Dorothy when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I was just as obsessed with the Witch. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, because I'm a bad girl. I was really
Speaker 1: scared of her as a kid and fell in love
Speaker 1: with her through Wicked. If we were to place ourselves
Speaker 1: in time during the Wicked craze of two thousand three,
Speaker 1: I can remember it so vividly. What are some things
Speaker 1: you remember? I I know I was in UM show
Speaker 1: choir and then musicals at the time, so everyone in
Speaker 1: my show choir was obsessed with it. Like we even
Speaker 1: sang a song from it um I think for our teacher,
Speaker 1: as like our our senior song. Long but obviously Okay,
Speaker 1: let me tell you where I was. So I was.
Speaker 1: I went to it an art school. I was a
Speaker 1: theater major. I was like the my whole life revolved
Speaker 1: around theater when we heard about Wicked the Musical, because like,
Speaker 1: we were very up to date on what was happening
Speaker 1: in theater. Immediately, I was on the Wicked the Musical
Speaker 1: website every day, listening over and over to the snippets
Speaker 1: they had of the song oh my God, not this,
Speaker 1: and then the snippets and I had them memorized. And
Speaker 1: then it transferred to Broadway and I would go on
Speaker 1: Broadway dot com or maybe it was like Broadway World
Speaker 1: dot com and I would watch the like clip packages
Speaker 1: that they had that had footage from the show over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. And then for my sixteenth birthday,
Speaker 1: my birthday trip was a trip with me, my friend Angelina,
Speaker 1: and my mom to go to New York City and
Speaker 1: see Wicked the Musical and I saw it on Kristen
Speaker 1: China with enormalate Leobutts his last performance, and it was iconic.
Speaker 1: I was obsessed with it because I was a fag,
Speaker 1: but I wasn't in the fandom the way you were. Well,
Speaker 1: let's be honest about it. The music is not great.
Speaker 1: There are some of it. There's some of it that's good,
Speaker 1: but Stephen Schwartz is like very hit or miss um.
Speaker 1: It has not aged well. I don't mean that in
Speaker 1: that it's like problematic or doesn't hold up. I mean
Speaker 1: it's literally been running too long. My friend Ryan and
Speaker 1: I saw it a couple of years ago. We won
Speaker 1: the lottery and as we were leaving, we're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this needs to close, and then like a new production
Speaker 1: of it can open as a revival six months later,
Speaker 1: but we need to change things up again. But then,
Speaker 1: like a month ago, I went to see a touring
Speaker 1: production of it in Costa Mesa, and what you talked
Speaker 1: about on the pod, which I did talk about on
Speaker 1: the podcast, but it did revide my love for Wicked.
Speaker 1: For I didn't mean to cut off your thought. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good musical, but it's a
Speaker 1: great musical. You you don't think it's you don't think
Speaker 1: I said what I said. You don't know, I said,
Speaker 1: I don't. It does not need any further explanation. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's a good musical, but I think it's
Speaker 1: a great musical. I I actually understand innately what you're
Speaker 1: trying to say. What is my favorite song? You asked,
Speaker 1: cutting me off, Um, I would say my favorite song
Speaker 1: or either the bridge in Thank Goodness where where um
Speaker 1: Glinda has her little moment. That's why I couldn't be
Speaker 1: happri um or I mean the Wizard and I obviously
Speaker 1: you know that's the moment that's that's the moment that
Speaker 1: when I was, you know, a sophomore in high school,
Speaker 1: my friend and I would put the Wicked CD into
Speaker 1: the D player in her Honda Civic and we would
Speaker 1: both scream the words too, and we would be like,
Speaker 1: you're a pitchy, you're a flat I hope you're happy. Um,
Speaker 1: And she'd be like, and we would like get to
Speaker 1: as long as your mind to be like, you have
Speaker 1: to do the boy parts. Oh of course, wow, that
Speaker 1: is the fatal that is honestly such a funk you. Um.
Speaker 1: I My favorite song was Popular, which like perfectly popular
Speaker 1: is the most fun. It also like just perfectly set
Speaker 1: up the dichotomy between these two characters. But also I
Speaker 1: just see myself in Glinda so innately. Well, when it
Speaker 1: comes to this podcast, You're the Glinda, I'm the alphabet.
Speaker 1: We all know this to be true. I feel like
Speaker 1: every queer relationship has like a well, okay, have you
Speaker 1: ever heard that, Like every gay relationship has a C
Speaker 1: three P O and an R two D two? Have
Speaker 1: never heard that? Okay, Well, it's true, like I'm you Well,
Speaker 1: I was, well, I was gonna say that, like I do,
Speaker 1: I do believe that to be true, I think every
Speaker 1: gay relationship has an R T D two and C
Speaker 1: three b O. But I think like maybe like every
Speaker 1: like T for T relationship has an alphabet, and Glinda
Speaker 1: like I think that relationship has an alphabetic. Oh, that
Speaker 1: makes much more sense because they are gay. But but Glinda,
Speaker 1: as you've said before, is like a little trans like
Speaker 1: has a slightly trans is born into something that she
Speaker 1: didn't choose and but everyone demonizes her for it. Also
Speaker 1: in the book, alphabet is possibly intersects. Yeah, um, there's
Speaker 1: it's a whole thing. Okay. But of the Wizard of
Speaker 1: Oz characters, who are we I think I am? This
Speaker 1: is I mean, I'm not the cowardly Lion. I think
Speaker 1: I'm either the tin man or the scare I'm the scarecrow.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of an idiot and I love life because
Speaker 1: of that, you know, like I I really actually, um
Speaker 1: for the most part, like blissed out when I choose
Speaker 1: not to kind of subscribe to a certain termoil or
Speaker 1: problematizing of things. Okay, And who am I I mean?
Speaker 1: I think I mean if you're no, actually I think
Speaker 1: if you're not Dorothy, I do think you're the cowardly Lion.
Speaker 1: I think that's I think never even considered that. I
Speaker 1: think I would. I think I would. So I have
Speaker 1: male energy, is what you're saying. Well, you know the
Speaker 1: Cowardly Lion. Do they really have a gender because in
Speaker 1: the movie when she's getting listen within the movie, when
Speaker 1: she's getting buffed and puffed, honey, when she is like
Speaker 1: in OZ and she's getting her nails done, she's getting
Speaker 1: her main done, she's like sitting down that little she's
Speaker 1: like having her you know, her self care day. Like
Speaker 1: I remember as a child, not adult, I remember as
Speaker 1: a child, as a tourist child like looking at that
Speaker 1: image and being like that has to be so amazing.
Speaker 1: Like I love the makeover montage when they go to
Speaker 1: the Emerald City. Okay, wait, one thing we do know
Speaker 1: for sure is while Dorothy was like asleep when they
Speaker 1: were on the Yellow A Road, the tin Man, the
Speaker 1: Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow were sucking and sucking. They
Speaker 1: were gonna exaust Well, I think maybe it started out
Speaker 1: as just being the tin Man and the scarecrow, and
Speaker 1: then the Cowardly Lion like woke up one night and
Speaker 1: was like, what's going on? And they were like, all right,
Speaker 1: coming actually dissect the dynamic between these four characters, because
Speaker 1: it is actually really weird. The movie, like kind of
Speaker 1: the movie kind of leads you to believe that Dorothy
Speaker 1: thinks the Scarecrow is like her faith. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a romantic undertone and there should not be. Well, I
Speaker 1: mean when she's saying goodbye and she's like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: miss you most of all, and the other ones are like,
Speaker 1: excuse me, what a fuck you? What a fucking bit?
Speaker 1: That's actually like that. It was right here, girl, your
Speaker 1: balloon has been taken off yet like text her later, girl, like,
Speaker 1: don't say that in front of these other girls. I
Speaker 1: was trying to figure out. But they're dynamic to them.
Speaker 1: For the three of them is like so interesting. It's
Speaker 1: supposed to be kind of like three stoog z. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a band of of underdogs kind of moment. And
Speaker 1: they all all each of them possess skill sets that
Speaker 1: the others lack, which I think is like, you know,
Speaker 1: the mix of like really good like character dynamics. Okay,
Speaker 1: of their three, whose song would you cut? I immediately
Speaker 1: thought of the Whiz unfortunately, and how the Tin Men's
Speaker 1: song is so subpar um. But going off the MGM movie,
Speaker 1: off of the MGM, I would cut the tin Man's again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because the scarecrows if I only had a brain is
Speaker 1: cannon now. And it even informs like you know, euphemisms,
Speaker 1: like things that we say in culture, like if I
Speaker 1: only had a brain, And the cowardly line, like his
Speaker 1: line delivery of courage, you know what I mean, is phenomenal, Like,
Speaker 1: I think that's an amazing character. If I could cut
Speaker 1: one song, it would be the Cowardly Lion song. Why
Speaker 1: I hate it? It comes to in the movie because
Speaker 1: it happens when they're at the Emerald City. It does
Speaker 1: and like, baby, we're past the whole thing where we're
Speaker 1: talking about what we need, like yeah, we gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta go kill this witch. Let's get moving. But that's
Speaker 1: a movie structure problem. I think the song, actually, I
Speaker 1: think the songs I don't even know. See, well that's
Speaker 1: the other thing. Okay, here's that thing actually is it's
Speaker 1: not even really a song. It's this actor kind of
Speaker 1: doing very very specific character choices that I think are
Speaker 1: totally like original, Like who like for him to be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go in and like gargle, like my lines,
Speaker 1: like for him to do the kind of you know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about? How he was how yeah, yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: How you know when we when I go home from here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look up ten Man Scarecrow fan fiction. Oh
Speaker 1: don't do that, and you know what, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of it, and it's gonna be It's gonna be. Okay. So,
Speaker 1: as I said earlier, like L. Frank Baum like did
Speaker 1: not want to learn lessons in this movie, or rather
Speaker 1: learn lessons from his books, but the movie does try
Speaker 1: to teach you a lot of things. I feel, Okay,
Speaker 1: what did you learn from it? Well, I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you that, like what I just asked you,
Speaker 1: So you have to go first, Okay. I feel like
Speaker 1: with all four of the kind of heroes, the movie
Speaker 1: is trying to show you that you are in and
Speaker 1: of yourself like a whole person, Like you possess everything
Speaker 1: you need to love and accomplish like your life, and
Speaker 1: are kind of tendency to see everything that we don't
Speaker 1: have makes us feel not like whole people and like
Speaker 1: we can't do what we need to do, when in
Speaker 1: reality we fully can't do what we need to do.
Speaker 1: What do you think I The Wizard of Oz made
Speaker 1: me transh that's my answer, and I don't have a
Speaker 1: deeper answer than that. It's just the Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: is absolutely the thing that made me realize that like
Speaker 1: I was or wanted to be a girl when I
Speaker 1: was little. Is there You said, you don't have a
Speaker 1: deeper answer to that, And yeah, I am farming for
Speaker 1: a deeper answer. What other good luck we've we've alluded
Speaker 1: to to um trans subtext in The Wizard of Oz?
Speaker 1: I p in general, like what what what do you
Speaker 1: think you saw in the story or in the characters
Speaker 1: where you were like I understand this to be or
Speaker 1: rather I'm trance because of this, I just wanted to
Speaker 1: be Judy Garland. I mean, she is the perfect archetype
Speaker 1: of a very specific kind of femininity that I wanted
Speaker 1: to be and loving that movie helped me access it.
Speaker 1: A pure heroine. And and what's interesting about the character
Speaker 1: of Dorothy is she's not interesting like she on paper.
Speaker 1: Now she has a plint with upon other things. And
Speaker 1: and they say, you know, obviously, like these um metrics
Speaker 1: didn't exist at the dawn of filmmaking. Which The Wizard
Speaker 1: of Oz is largely kind of like seen as this
Speaker 1: like the dawn of contemporary Yeah, um, even though this
Speaker 1: didn't exist. Like they always say, like a bad bad
Speaker 1: character writing is when characters don't make any decisions and
Speaker 1: things just happen to them. And that is exactly Dorothy,
Speaker 1: like she doesn't know her what she wants drives the
Speaker 1: entire movie. She wants to go home, but she doesn't
Speaker 1: make any decisions. That's not true. She decides to go
Speaker 1: to the Emerald City. No, the Witch tells her to
Speaker 1: do it. Dorothy says, I want to go home, and
Speaker 1: the and Glinda says, well, then you have to go
Speaker 1: see the Wizard. Dorothy's if desire to go home drives
Speaker 1: the entire plot of the movie. If I may fin
Speaker 1: is my point, which I think you will actually agree with.
Speaker 1: Things really do just happen to her, And that is
Speaker 1: in a lot of like screenwriting considered bad writing or whatever.
Speaker 1: And yet Judy Garland's performance like is so like magnanimous
Speaker 1: and sucks up like every single kind of like moment
Speaker 1: that you it doesn't even matter that plot wise, she
Speaker 1: really isn't doing anything because the emotional steaks are in
Speaker 1: every scene. I unfortunately fundamentally disagree with you because I
Speaker 1: think she has the most class. I mean, it's somewhere
Speaker 1: over the rainbow. So there's a thing in musical it's
Speaker 1: called the I Want song, and it's at the beginning
Speaker 1: of a musical where the lead sings a song that
Speaker 1: tells you what it is they want. And somewhere over
Speaker 1: the rainbow, what Dorothy wants is she wants to get
Speaker 1: out of her life and like find something more magical
Speaker 1: than it. And she gets that, and then she realizes
Speaker 1: that she wants to go home. And she spends the
Speaker 1: rest of the movie doing everything she can, literally murdering
Speaker 1: people so she can achieve what she wants. She didn't murder,
Speaker 1: but but she she didn't murder either of the witches.
Speaker 1: Pose no, but she does what she has to do
Speaker 1: to get what she wants. So I I will, respectfully,
Speaker 1: but she does. The movie is driven by her desire.
Speaker 1: Is that the desire is not an action, So what
Speaker 1: is this is so stupid? But like, what are the
Speaker 1: actions that she takes? She follows the Yellow Brick Road.
Speaker 1: There's literally a song about it because Glinda told her to.
Speaker 1: She didn't make that decision but she still makes the
Speaker 1: action she could have not. I'm not even nagging the movie.
Speaker 1: I'm actually giving, like Judy Garland a huge compliment. I
Speaker 1: think that what I'm not saying, you're nagging the movie.
Speaker 1: I just think we have you have different viewpoints on this.
Speaker 1: My point is, and I think it's very clearly laid
Speaker 1: out in like the song lyrics and the text of
Speaker 1: the movie, that Dorothy makes decisions. I think we were
Speaker 1: I think we're potentially both right. Um. I and I
Speaker 1: feel like I see what you mean about her being
Speaker 1: very reactive, like I didn't mean to kill her, my
Speaker 1: house fell on her. Like Dorothy is placed in circumstances
Speaker 1: and and without like trying to be but based on
Speaker 1: the circumstances, she makes decisions and actions that drive the
Speaker 1: plot forward. And I and I disagree, but I but
Speaker 1: I I think my my point is that that none
Speaker 1: of that matters. And I think that it's a testament
Speaker 1: how brilliant the film is that a character that is
Speaker 1: so flatly written still has emotional stakes and like every
Speaker 1: single component of the film because of the performance and
Speaker 1: because of the music, and because of all of the
Speaker 1: things that make the Wizard. I mean, how could she
Speaker 1: have action? When the Witch gets set on fire, she
Speaker 1: throws a thing of water on her and kills her
Speaker 1: on But she doesn't do it, she doesn't do it
Speaker 1: on purpose. But still it's still an action that she takes. You.
Speaker 1: It's not a decision to say she actually tries to
Speaker 1: save her life. You are, you are? You are actually
Speaker 1: sit show telling the Virgins. I think this actually conversation
Speaker 1: is perfect and it says a lot about both of
Speaker 1: us as people. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: but I am saying that I'm also right. I think
Speaker 1: they can both be true. And I think that's the
Speaker 1: wonderful thing about The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is that
Speaker 1: it came out almost a hundred years ago and we
Speaker 1: can still have this kind of discussion about it. And
Speaker 1: that's amazing and that's our show. But so I'm going
Speaker 1: to click my heels three times and We're going to
Speaker 1: go back to Los Angeles. We were in Oz this
Speaker 1: whole time. We were Why it wasn't I warned? We'll
Speaker 1: be back next week to talk about the horny gay
Speaker 1: Dumbledore movie that is going to be the best queer
Speaker 1: representation on screen. Get this sty so excited. Let's let's
Speaker 1: keep the expectations are real high. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: if you want to go see, uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: Secrets of Dumbledore, please do. If you want to pirate
Speaker 1: it and not give jk Rowling your money, do that.
Speaker 1: If you don't want to do any of them and
Speaker 1: you just want to hear us talk about it, that's
Speaker 1: fine too. Tell us what you want us to talk
Speaker 1: about next, whether it's a show, a book, a cultural
Speaker 1: phenomenon we want to hear from you. You can call
Speaker 1: to confess at three to three pennants. That's three to
Speaker 1: three seven three six two six two three. Leave us
Speaker 1: a review on Apple podcast It helps us a lot,
Speaker 1: even if it's a little spicy. I'm your co host,
Speaker 1: Rose domn You. You can find me online at Rose
Speaker 1: Domin I've rander Otta. You can find me at friends,
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Speaker 1: a Virgin anywhere you listen to podcasts, and please leave
Speaker 1: us a rating on Spotify and a review on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Like a Virgin is an I Heart radio production. Our
Speaker 1: producers BB with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane,
Speaker 1: chitch and Nikki etre until next week. See you later
Speaker 1: for Rgins made Somewhare Gonna Rimba