Speaker 1: Hi, I'm the Owaisha. You may know me as the
Speaker 1: former host of Visibilia. Well, I'm back with the new
Speaker 1: show called Praxy. It's about the niche emotional questions that
Speaker 1: no one in your life can relate to. That's where
Speaker 1: Praxy 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: Praxy wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Because.
Speaker 3: This is episode six of Because the Bus Belongs to Us,
Speaker 3: a podcast where two queer nets get down to business,
Speaker 3: assembling their final bits of evidence in the hope of
Speaker 3: convincing other queer people that Bruce Springsteen is a queer icon.
Speaker 3: I'm Jesse and I'm Polly, and the show is almost over.
Speaker 2: No next episode will be our last. We'll be presenting
Speaker 2: our findings to a panel of queer people. You get
Speaker 2: to decide if we have enough evidence to admit Bruce
Speaker 2: Springstea to the Queer Icon Hall of Fame.
Speaker 3: At the very start of this mission, we came up
Speaker 3: with four checklist points.
Speaker 2: We of course smashed check this.
Speaker 4: Point one is Bruce Camp Yes, he is.
Speaker 2: Our second check this point. Underdog status started.
Speaker 4: Well with that escaping, that needing to get out.
Speaker 5: You got to go, and you'll do anything to make
Speaker 5: sure you don't have to go back.
Speaker 4: That to me is the essence of an underdog.
Speaker 3: Then it ended in a full panic about the entire
Speaker 3: purpose of the show.
Speaker 2: Sure, a lot of Bruce Brinky's lyrics make us feel seen,
Speaker 2: but can we actually relate to him? Do we even
Speaker 2: want to make a whole podcast series idolizing a rich, white,
Speaker 2: straight cis man whose politics we aren't actually sure of.
Speaker 2: But we pulled it back with checkliss point three good music.
Speaker 3: Bruce is so much more than Bruce, and I love
Speaker 3: thunder Road, not just because Bruce said it, because we
Speaker 3: all get to say it to each other. Now we
Speaker 3: just have one checklist point to go before we can
Speaker 3: officially crown Bruce Springsteen with queer icon status. Quite simply,
Speaker 3: is there a vibe? Do other queer people agree that
Speaker 3: Bruce is a queer icon?
Speaker 2: And we are getting nervous. Next week we'll be presenting
Speaker 2: our evidence to an expert panel of queers, and the
Speaker 2: fate of this very serious scientific investigation rests in their hands.
Speaker 2: Today is our last chance to collate our evidence, gather
Speaker 2: our findings, and prepare our ultimate argument.
Speaker 6: So we're looking.
Speaker 4: Just like last bits and bobs are here. So in
Speaker 4: classica style, we're back to basics. Sitting in my.
Speaker 3: Bedroom, surrounded by Zeen's books and photos of Bruce. We're
Speaker 3: having one last nerdy evidence gathering session looking through our
Speaker 3: Bruce Springsteen ephemera.
Speaker 2: In episode four, we put a name to a discomfort
Speaker 2: that we've been feeling throughout the series. There's a difference
Speaker 2: between the radical queer email Bruce Springsteen we've created in
Speaker 2: our heads and projected our own meanings onto, and the
Speaker 2: very real life Bruce Springsteen walking around in New Jersey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so I'm just going to quote you to
Speaker 3: you reading my favorite line from your graphic memoir Looking
Speaker 3: for Bruce. So you're saying here, part of being a
Speaker 3: Bruce fan is getting to choose which myth or version
Speaker 3: of the truth I believe in. It's a bit like wrestling.
Speaker 3: It's both fake and very real, but it's only fun if.
Speaker 4: You really believe.
Speaker 3: I guess that's what we're going to put to the
Speaker 3: test next week if we can get other people to
Speaker 3: see the fun in believing too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something we touched on in episode two as well,
Speaker 2: when we talked about Bruce's esthetics. So there's this image
Speaker 2: of him in this book here. This is called Springsteen
Speaker 2: Album by Album by Ryan White. It was taken for
Speaker 2: Rolling Stone at nineteen eighty four by Aaron Rappaport. He's
Speaker 2: got the denim, he's got double bandana, and I could
Speaker 2: obviously read this image in a very queer way if
Speaker 2: I wanted to, But I'm sure loads of people saw
Speaker 2: this and thought he's just the ultimate American man.
Speaker 7: He was a version of white male, patriotic, heterosexual American
Speaker 7: that I disidentified with.
Speaker 2: This is a Lana Coombier.
Speaker 8: I was born between Born to Run and Darkness on
Speaker 8: the Edge of Town.
Speaker 2: For much of Alana's life, they were not a fan
Speaker 2: of Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 8: And then what happened was that I listened to Nebraska.
Speaker 3: Oh Nebraska, the Bruce Springsteen album that Dykes have claimed
Speaker 3: as their.
Speaker 2: Own, released in nineteen eighty two, The Legend Girls that
Speaker 2: Bruce recorded the songs on a little four track in
Speaker 2: his bedroom, just him and his guitar and his harmonica.
Speaker 2: He originally intended to re record full versions with the
Speaker 2: whole band, but then he decided to release them as
Speaker 2: is because it just felt right.
Speaker 3: Lots of the songs on the album are pretty dark,
Speaker 3: songs about unemployment, death, debt, isolation, and a whole lot
Speaker 3: of hopelessness.
Speaker 8: I heard these songs about people who are having a
Speaker 8: much more ambivalent relationship to being American, to living where
Speaker 8: they are, to having this other level of sort of
Speaker 8: like procurity around class and while being who are in
Speaker 8: their white way, still subject to and worried about policing,
Speaker 8: who are trying to make these decisions about what does
Speaker 8: it mean to try to live in this place, make
Speaker 8: a life. People who are seeking a kind of freedom
Speaker 8: that's different than the freedom that I thought Bruce was
Speaker 8: angling toward.
Speaker 2: I always really trust people who say they got into
Speaker 2: Bruce through Nebraska. I think most queers that I know
Speaker 2: in Nebraska, for some reason, is like the album as
Speaker 2: opposed to like the more poppy stuff, even though we
Speaker 2: all have pop as well. I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: Nebraska seems to be this thing that grabs hold of people.
Speaker 8: It just feels so intimate to me. I was remembering
Speaker 8: that on my dating profile I had something about being
Speaker 8: a fan of Nebraska era Bruce Springsteen, which now I
Speaker 8: would just change and say I'm a fan of Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 8: but at the time I felt it was necessary to
Speaker 8: make that little qualification.
Speaker 2: That sends a very specific message.
Speaker 3: At the time, Alana was getting into Nebraska era Bruce Springsteen,
Speaker 3: they were in their late twenties. They were identifying as
Speaker 3: fem but feeling quite complicated about what that marker meant
Speaker 3: to them.
Speaker 8: My performance of fem felt really uneven. FEM was really
Speaker 8: like sparkly and glittery and polished, and my day to
Speaker 8: day embodiment was not that in any way.
Speaker 2: There was some practical body stuff that was blocking Alana
Speaker 2: from being able to fully lean into their gender expression.
Speaker 8: Trying to wear a dress while also trying to deal
Speaker 8: with an insulin pump, which I wear all the time
Speaker 8: and is just like dangling on this tube. It's hard
Speaker 8: to figure out if you're wearing a strapless dress, which
Speaker 8: I was doing sometimes at that time, like where is
Speaker 8: that pump going to go? In a harness? Of course
Speaker 8: that's the best place for it to rest while you're
Speaker 8: going out you know, just kind of dealing with things
Speaker 8: like that.
Speaker 3: Elana was also trying to work out what fem meant
Speaker 3: to her as an identity beyond the esthetics. She had
Speaker 3: these legendary fem community leaders to look up to, people
Speaker 3: like Mini Briecee Pratt and Amber Holloba really.
Speaker 8: Like badass, engaged, sexy, tenacious fems. So I was really
Speaker 8: appreciating the sort of ways in which people who I
Speaker 8: knew as FEM were really embodying care and love and
Speaker 8: community connection and solidarity, and those were all things that
Speaker 8: I was also eager and trying to embody in my life.
Speaker 8: So I had these very big shoes to fill in
Speaker 8: my imagination of what FEM was. That was the part
Speaker 8: where I felt like really inconsistent, not in a like
Speaker 8: horribly deep struggle way, but I think that that was
Speaker 8: part of what I was just puzzling through.
Speaker 3: Probably the most famous song on Nebraska is Atlantic City.
Speaker 3: The guy in it is in a pretty threatening situation,
Speaker 3: tied up in gambling in crime, but in the song
Speaker 3: he's speaking to his girlfriend. He tells her, put your
Speaker 3: makeup on, get your hair well pretty, and meet me
Speaker 3: tonight in Atlantic City.
Speaker 8: This guy knows what has gone into this beauty knows
Speaker 8: that it's a performance, right, Like knows that you're putting
Speaker 8: on this makeup, you're putting on these stockings, you're putting
Speaker 8: on this dress, that idea of being this person who
Speaker 8: is so desired and appreciated for their effort at looking
Speaker 8: a certain way and embodying a certain kind of femininity.
Speaker 8: I had never met a cis man where I felt
Speaker 8: the feeling of that gaze the way Bruce articulates it.
Speaker 8: But I have felt that gaze from butch lesbians and
Speaker 8: butch people for sure. And so for me, like when
Speaker 8: I hear Bruce singing, like, oh, this is how I feel.
Speaker 2: From this little moment of being seen by a line
Speaker 2: in a Springsteen song, things really started to snowble. She
Speaker 2: kept talking to queer fems about Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 8: He kept coming up across conversations with people who did
Speaker 8: not know each other or even know each other. We well.
Speaker 2: In twenty eleven, Alana published a zine Because the Boss
Speaker 2: Belongs to Us queer femmes on Bruce Springsteen.
Speaker 8: The zene was very much a project of sort of
Speaker 8: inviting and wanting to connect with people who could help
Speaker 8: me understand how I felt about Bruce, especially because there
Speaker 8: was this fem identification that everyone shared that it wasn't
Speaker 8: a straightforward butch identification, and I think that was part
Speaker 8: of the tangle that I was really interested in.
Speaker 2: This scene because the boss belongs to us, is our namesake.
Speaker 2: It came out way back in twenty eleven, and both
Speaker 2: of us lapped it up. We love it. Alana is
Speaker 2: basically a celebrity to us.
Speaker 3: We are so excited to talk to you because we
Speaker 3: are both your fan boys.
Speaker 4: Wow, you're like one.
Speaker 3: Of my origin story queer zine Bruce fans. And that's
Speaker 3: the same view Hollly right.
Speaker 2: Absolutely same for me. When I started the Me and
Speaker 2: Bruce zine series, it was a way to try and
Speaker 2: find other queer Bruce fans and try and connect with
Speaker 2: that community. And instantly as soon as I did that,
Speaker 2: everyone's like, well have you read this scene?
Speaker 3: This is my favorite thing about being part of the
Speaker 3: queer Breece Springsteen fandom. As soon as you discover it exists,
Speaker 3: you become part of this kind of underground community. People
Speaker 3: give you zcenes, send you articles, bring into a world
Speaker 3: of people who are as obsessed with Bruce as you Are.
Speaker 2: And alana zine, published over ten years ago, went a
Speaker 2: long way into creating that community.
Speaker 8: It was wonderful when the zine went out. People sent bootlegs,
Speaker 8: people sent CD compilations of just the songs that they
Speaker 8: would read as queer. Someone sent me a great flyer
Speaker 8: from their anarchist cafe that had a stencil of Bruce
Speaker 8: and said, the only Boss we listened to in Bruce's songs,
Speaker 8: the vision isn't just of you going alone, but that
Speaker 8: there's someone already waiting for you, someone who's ready to
Speaker 8: go with you. That part of the dream that as
Speaker 8: queer as we could go together, that you would not
Speaker 8: be alone, that you would find your people. That's part
Speaker 8: of the dream that I feel like this music embodies
Speaker 8: for me.
Speaker 2: Alana decided to bring all of these Queer Sprinstcene fans together.
Speaker 2: She organized a Bruce Sprinkstcene themed cabaret night named.
Speaker 8: Prove It All Night Queer's Do the Boss March of
Speaker 8: twenty eleven at Club Cafe in Boston. The acts we
Speaker 8: had ranged from people doing readings, to burlesque, to dance,
Speaker 8: to mandolin, go go dancing.
Speaker 3: It feels like a very beautiful coming together of things.
Speaker 3: This scene that you made over ten years ago brought
Speaker 3: me in Holly into our understanding that we're part of
Speaker 3: a community. Is part of the reason that we then
Speaker 3: met each other and decided to make this series, which
Speaker 3: we're naming after your scene. And it also really, if
Speaker 3: we're honest with ourselves, the only reason we're making this
Speaker 3: is so that we get to nerd out about Bruce
Speaker 3: with other Quick fans like you.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, it feels like extremely fun and queer that you're
Speaker 3: like a kind of blueprint for us continuing to do
Speaker 3: community making in this way.
Speaker 8: And I hope that this gives more people an invitation
Speaker 8: to make more and more people like complicating Bruce. It
Speaker 8: would also be great to see some critical work on
Speaker 8: Bruce that's like, why does everyone love Bruce so much?
Speaker 8: What's happening there? That would also be wonderful to see.
Speaker 3: It's funny, isn't It feels like, Yeah, queer Bruce fans
Speaker 3: definitely definitely exist.
Speaker 4: And the more people you talk to, the more people tell.
Speaker 3: You that they like Bruce, will tell you that they've
Speaker 3: got a friend who's great who likes Bruce, or like
Speaker 3: put you towards.
Speaker 4: An article and all of these things.
Speaker 3: Yes, but it doesn't feel like, you know, if you
Speaker 3: were like, tell me a queer icon, right, you wouldn't
Speaker 3: say Bruce right?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 4: No, what is it?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 8: I just I think that I'm wondering if part of
Speaker 8: it is just that others have this experience of thinking
Speaker 8: about someone who's I don't know, this American hero in
Speaker 8: a certain way that that's not who we tend to
Speaker 8: identify with.
Speaker 3: That's the challenge of what we're trying to work out.
Speaker 3: I guess, yes, is he even okay to say that
Speaker 3: he's a queer icon?
Speaker 2: You know, I'm still hung up on this question. Is
Speaker 2: it even okay to say that this cis white, rich, straight,
Speaker 2: ma'am is a queer icon?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I should agree.
Speaker 3: I would really like to get to the button of
Speaker 3: it before we have to present it to the panel
Speaker 3: next week.
Speaker 2: That's after the break.
Speaker 3: Hey, this is Jesse and Holly letting you know about
Speaker 3: another show you might want to listen to.
Speaker 2: Did you know that Radiotopia has a reality dating podcast.
Speaker 3: It's called Hang Up, and it's kind of like a
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Speaker 2: And seriously, it's a blast.
Speaker 4: I'm a long term listener. I've been there from day one.
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Speaker 3: reality show without any of the bullshit of unethical reality tropes.
Speaker 2: Hang Ups tagline is no Rings Attached. It's a refreshing
Speaker 2: focus on dating and connection rather than marriage. Here's a
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Speaker 9: six callers to date exclusively over the phone.
Speaker 8: I feel like I could talk to you for hours
Speaker 8: on hang Up.
Speaker 2: You don't just get to eavesdrop on dates. There's also
Speaker 2: a series of eliminations, and in the end there's a twist. Well,
Speaker 2: the last caller standing choose the star and go on
Speaker 2: an all expenses paid vacation together, or choose a cash
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Speaker 4: Guys, it's high drama.
Speaker 2: Also, it's hosted by friend of the pod, Zakia Gibbons.
Speaker 2: You might even hear a little something from her in
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Speaker 3: Said the new season has just finished, so it's perfect
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Speaker 6: Platform, Jesse Holly, because the bus belongs to us.
Speaker 3: We're still sitting in my bedroom dotting the i's and
Speaker 3: crossing the t's before next week when we have to
Speaker 3: convince a panel of queers of Bruce's queer icon credentials.
Speaker 2: I know, in episode four cj Ray told us to
Speaker 2: go on with Upenhearts and find our own joy in
Speaker 2: meeting and Bruce Bringsteen, but I still feel a bit
Speaker 2: like that's one thing in terms of finding joy in
Speaker 2: my personal fandom and another to make a decision on
Speaker 2: behalf of the whole queer community.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we're going to convince the panel of queers,
Speaker 3: we need to have a proper justification for putting Bruce
Speaker 3: on this I Compedistal. There's only one person I could
Speaker 3: think of to help us put this question to bed.
Speaker 5: So on the table in front of me, I've got
Speaker 5: my almost entire zine collection. I've also put some little
Speaker 5: stickers to book mark the pages that I want to
Speaker 5: talk about. I just have performance anxieties, so I need
Speaker 5: to prep.
Speaker 8: So my name is.
Speaker 5: Otto and I am drag king Georgis Michael also drag
Speaker 5: daddy to Butch Springsteen, our very own producer of this
Speaker 5: wonderful podcast.
Speaker 4: I just really wanted to fatherly advice for this one.
Speaker 5: I was saying to my colleague today. I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: my drag son is coming later, and then she was like,
Speaker 5: can you have a drag son? And It's like, yes,
Speaker 5: I physically birth my drag son. In drag you can
Speaker 5: just give birth to children and they I'm out fully formed.
Speaker 5: An adult.
Speaker 3: Otto or Georges Michael is an absolute legend of the
Speaker 3: London drag scene.
Speaker 4: He is as obsessed with George Michael as.
Speaker 3: We are with Bruce Springsteen, and he thinks loads about
Speaker 3: queer fandom and our relationship.
Speaker 4: To the celebrity.
Speaker 3: Of late, we've been feeling less confident about whether we
Speaker 3: are in fact qualified to decide that he's a queer icon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we got pretty cocky to start.
Speaker 3: People.
Speaker 2: We're more examining we are on feelings. I'm a bit
Speaker 2: uncomfortable about it having a white male millionaire on a pedestal.
Speaker 2: His politics don't necessarily line with ours. How uncomfortable does
Speaker 2: that make us feel should we be elevating or the
Speaker 2: queers rather than elevating?
Speaker 5: Will you say, is it wrong to kind of elevate
Speaker 5: this person? But I think that the project of the
Speaker 5: queer icon is also a part of self elevation. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like community. Of course, there's like contributions to like
Speaker 5: his bottom line in terms of record sales and people
Speaker 5: going to his concerts. But the main point of fandom
Speaker 5: is for people to get their nourishment, isn't it. We're
Speaker 5: elevating ourselves through it.
Speaker 6: Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: We're getting?
Speaker 3: Are you saying that the truths others themselves?
Speaker 5: Maybe this one that's got a bit of a harsh edge.
Speaker 3: This is a little recording I made the first time
Speaker 3: Otter came to mind to teach me how to do
Speaker 3: drag king.
Speaker 2: Makeup great, you're just looking great.
Speaker 3: Me and Otto became friends through drag. We met through
Speaker 3: another friend from the scene when I was first starting
Speaker 3: to develop my but Springsteen character, And now some could say,
Speaker 3: thanks to my love of Bruce prestein we're drag family.
Speaker 3: So this is one of Utter's zines that he gave
Speaker 3: me for my birthday last year. It's called careless whisper
Speaker 3: Confessions of a drag king. I'm just gonna read a
Speaker 3: bit from this passage in there about fandom. It's actually
Speaker 3: a Jack Healbuson queer art of failure reference. There is
Speaker 3: a phenomenon I like to call the queer ut of fandom,
Speaker 3: reffing Ugh the queer ut of failure by Jack Halbuston.
Speaker 3: This is the near devotional further with which we revere.
Speaker 5: Our cultural icons as queers. These icons don't need to
Speaker 5: be gay themselves, think Madonna, Elvis, Bruce Springsteen, though they
Speaker 5: sometimes are in the case of George, but either way
Speaker 5: they come to mean something particular in the ways in
Speaker 5: which queers fan them, and that is to fan as
Speaker 5: a verb. See the dance floor of a queer party
Speaker 5: when anything by Robin starts to play, or the Internet
Speaker 5: and lesbian meme culture since twenty nineteen. Perhaps it's because
Speaker 5: as a community we have historically had to speak in
Speaker 5: codes for safety, so cultural figures become a kind of proxy,
Speaker 5: a way of recognizing ourselves and each other. This also
Speaker 5: plays out in drag, which, like zene memes and dance flaws,
Speaker 5: can be a kind of fandom. You see it in
Speaker 5: the recurring characters who get impersonated at drag Nights. I'm
Speaker 5: not the only George Michael, and I've also seen many
Speaker 5: of Freddie Mercury and a Prince, the artists who hold
Speaker 5: a special place in our hearts.
Speaker 2: I love this idea of thinking about too fam as
Speaker 2: a verb. It makes it feel more active and places
Speaker 2: the agency with the fans.
Speaker 3: Some of the references Otto used to Robert on the
Speaker 3: dance Floor lesbian mean culture reminded me of something tams
Speaker 3: In from Unskinny Bop said last episode. Potentially one of
Speaker 3: the reasons our experience of finding other queer Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 3: fans has felt kind of underground is because the queering
Speaker 3: of male celebrities by Dyke's trans masks in their powers
Speaker 3: is a more recent phenomenon. Is there a specific way
Speaker 3: our little sub sections of the queer community do fandom
Speaker 3: that's different to the people who lifted the likes of
Speaker 3: Madonna or Brittany to their queer eye com pedestals.
Speaker 10: Someone did once come to my apartment said that they
Speaker 10: didn't like Bruce that I joked that they had to leave.
Speaker 2: This is afy.
Speaker 10: I'm afi yellow Duke. I live in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 10: and I'm a queer Bruce brincetit. I feel like I
Speaker 10: laughed saying that, because it feels like a funny thing
Speaker 10: to slap as a label on myself. I don't think
Speaker 10: it's solf is part of like a larger fandom or
Speaker 10: anything like that, which is maybe why I'm sort of
Speaker 10: like it's funny to identify myself that way.
Speaker 2: After he grew up between New York and New Jersey.
Speaker 10: There's this bucket of like Bruce as this person with
Speaker 10: a complicated relationship to where he's from. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 10: like in real life, he still lives in New Jersey.
Speaker 10: He's very wealthy and successful. It's probably all fine, but
Speaker 10: I do think there's a way where, like so much
Speaker 10: of his music is about loving a place and not
Speaker 10: necessarily feeling part of it, or loving a place and
Speaker 10: also knowing you have to leave at some point.
Speaker 4: And I think that's a.
Speaker 10: Very queer relationship to home. And I think that's definitely
Speaker 10: a thing that feels relatable to me.
Speaker 2: As AFI grew up their taste in Springsteen songs, grew
Speaker 2: with them from summers in New Jersey as a kid.
Speaker 10: You're on the board walk, you're at the beach, you're
Speaker 10: like doing your little activities. One of his hits is
Speaker 10: usually playing in the background somewhere, and I feel like
Speaker 10: it tends towards the more like poppy or stuff like
Speaker 10: dancing in the dark, like all the like big hits
Speaker 10: are the ones that I feel like I can think
Speaker 10: of as like these are like the childhood songs.
Speaker 4: And then as a teenager, I.
Speaker 10: Have one memory of like watching the Cheffer than the
Speaker 10: Rest video and I was like particularly sad obviously and
Speaker 10: being like, oh, like this is about being afraid of
Speaker 10: love and also like being willing to try again in
Speaker 10: a way that I thought was really poignant and beautiful. Later,
Speaker 10: as an adult, I really moved towards Nebraska Tunnel of Love.
Speaker 10: Obviously still in the Cynthia eighties era, but we're still
Speaker 10: like moving a little. Like his sound is maturing. I'm maturing,
Speaker 10: I guess.
Speaker 3: And this pattern of Bruce kind of soundtracking AFI's emotions,
Speaker 3: his sound maturing alongside her continues even today.
Speaker 10: I saw him for the very first time live in
Speaker 10: last September. I was very struck by like how like
Speaker 10: emotionally vulnerable he was. I mean, you know, now he's
Speaker 10: in his seventies, he's very much thinking about the end
Speaker 10: of his life. He's like very much talking about like
Speaker 10: how all of his friends are dead, like everyone he
Speaker 10: started performing with when he was a teenager, Like they're
Speaker 10: all dead now and he's mostly the one who's left
Speaker 10: and successful. That vulnerability I was sort of comforted by.
Speaker 10: It was a little like WHOA, we're here and he's
Speaker 10: talking about dying. And also like, WHOA, we're here and
Speaker 10: he's talking about dying. That's like really cool and special.
Speaker 10: I'm not at that life stage, but I'm thinking about
Speaker 10: getting older trying to figure out some of those things.
Speaker 2: It's interesting hearing Afy talk about how they kind of
Speaker 2: grew up with brace, especially because often in straight world
Speaker 2: upside so fandom itself is seen as this kind of
Speaker 2: childish thing. Almost that's next.
Speaker 3: We're back because thinking about the way queers do fandom
Speaker 3: after Yellow Duke.
Speaker 2: Had this beautiful experience of different Bruce Songs soundtrack in
Speaker 2: their life growing up, which got us thinking about the
Speaker 2: way the age and maturity play out in narratives of fandom.
Speaker 3: My Drag Dad, Autoweights, or George's Michael thinks a lot about.
Speaker 5: This fandom is associated quite heavily with adolescents. There's something
Speaker 5: that feels quite queer about that obsessional yeah, over extending.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there is this idea I think you mentioned earlier
Speaker 2: about fandom is a teenage thing. It's a young thing
Speaker 2: that you grow out of. So as adults who still
Speaker 2: really are obsessed with stuff, yeah, or we kind of should.
Speaker 2: We're grown up by now and be more adult in
Speaker 2: what we do. And there's also an element of gender
Speaker 2: as well, Like there's this idea that if you're a
Speaker 2: fan for usually a girl, you're usually very like a
Speaker 2: passive consumer and it's very silly, frivolous thing to do,
Speaker 2: as opposed to men who like football, which is a
Speaker 2: real fandom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but how how do queers.
Speaker 2: The fantom differently?
Speaker 5: I mean, I think there's something about the intensity of
Speaker 5: the fandom. For me, I think we do fandom with love.
Speaker 5: I don't see this harsh edge that you get at
Speaker 5: the football match. I kind of want to say this
Speaker 5: without like doing a dirty on football, because I don't.
Speaker 5: People have what they have and I'm happy for people
Speaker 5: to have the things that make them happy, and I
Speaker 5: think that that's probably the case with a lot of
Speaker 5: straight culture is that it's built on this premise of competition. Now,
Speaker 5: as I say that, I'm just thinking about like drag
Speaker 5: and competitions all of that. But then I think it
Speaker 5: stems back to like the Balls in like New York,
Speaker 5: where the whole thing was a competition, but it was
Speaker 5: a satire on the competition of capitalism that we have
Speaker 5: every day, because it was like, yeah, I could win
Speaker 5: this thing. If homophobia didn't exist, I could be executive realness,
Speaker 5: I could like own my own company. The root of
Speaker 5: it is it's coming from a place of love.
Speaker 3: I feel like you maybe hit the name on the head, Holly,
Speaker 3: when you were saying that, Like when you're describing fandom
Speaker 3: as something which people think about as childish and something
Speaker 3: that you grow out of that is like an inherently
Speaker 3: queer experience.
Speaker 4: Like right now, so I'm.
Speaker 3: Thirty one, and what I want, which is like communal
Speaker 3: living and like other things like that are seen by
Speaker 3: some parts of straight society as childish.
Speaker 4: Right, Like people talk.
Speaker 3: Loads at being like and what you're going to do
Speaker 3: in your next stage of life, like the kind of
Speaker 3: exactly yeah, yeah, and like it's all pointing towards heteronomyas
Speaker 3: blah blah, et cetera. And I wonder whether that's like
Speaker 3: the inherent queenness of fandom is like it's this really
Speaker 3: fun thing that other people think like having that crazy obsession. Yeah,
Speaker 3: people think of that as this like and it's actually
Speaker 3: infantilizing thing, indulging in yourself.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're indulging a thing, but you're.
Speaker 2: Also spending time on yourself and the things that you
Speaker 2: really love. Not many people get to do that.
Speaker 5: I think it's also relational, and I think maybe because
Speaker 5: in queer communities we don't have as much this idea
Speaker 5: of like the heteronormative nuclear family unit, and we've had
Speaker 5: to do things like chosen family that also includes you know,
Speaker 5: chosen icons and aesthetics that we draw from. It's like
Speaker 5: it's a relationship that you have with this, and I
Speaker 5: think that queers are really good at relationships. And the
Speaker 5: ways that we love our friends is similar to the
Speaker 5: ways that we love our icons. That desire to kind
Speaker 5: of hold each other up as opposed to a desire
Speaker 5: to put each other down, which I think is much
Speaker 5: more prevalent in straight culture because we already have failed
Speaker 5: because of the queer art of failure. We're already failing
Speaker 5: against those modes, so therefore we find our own ways
Speaker 5: to navigate. But we're also pushed into that space, so
Speaker 5: it's both coming from within and coming from without. We're
Speaker 5: seen as being perpetual children. Also, because we're playful and
Speaker 5: creative and ingenious, we also make that space for ourselves.
Speaker 5: Fandom is a wonderful way to play this idea of
Speaker 5: playing with the different motifs, the different symbols, playing with
Speaker 5: the music, reading things into it. Where it may may
Speaker 5: or may not be, it doesn't really matter because it's
Speaker 5: fun and sharing that and creating culture.
Speaker 2: Qui is also really good at creating culture. This is
Speaker 2: definitely something we can relate to. I don't care if
Speaker 2: Bruce actually chose a gender neutral name on purpose for.
Speaker 4: Bobby g Yeah or Backstreets Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing I care about is that I have chosen
Speaker 2: to read a queer love story into those lyrics. It's
Speaker 2: not about Bruce. It's about me creating my own queer
Speaker 2: signified treasure hunt.
Speaker 3: This is something Happy talks about too. When they went
Speaker 3: to see Bruce Bringsteen live last year, there was this
Speaker 3: one moment.
Speaker 10: Born until Brene came out in the iron Core. We
Speaker 10: had been like trying to figure out when it was
Speaker 10: going to happen, Like it's going to happen? When is
Speaker 10: he doing boring to Ren and friends? Aren't the concert
Speaker 10: with like screamed this scream that truly to this day
Speaker 10: I think about because it was just like I've never
Speaker 10: heard him scream like that before, and it was like beautiful,
Speaker 10: and we're all we're all jumping along screaming, and we're
Speaker 10: just like, yeah, like tramps like us, Like tramps like us,
Speaker 10: Like that's a different those are different traps for like
Speaker 10: you all.
Speaker 2: Yes, the amount of times I've cried a breastcake because
Speaker 2: of queer meaning and then turned and seen a man
Speaker 2: cry next to me and thought, wait, what are you
Speaker 2: crying about?
Speaker 10: And I was thinking about these sort of like American
Speaker 10: rights that like for me is like a queer person
Speaker 10: and a black person don't feel accessible. There's a way
Speaker 10: in which you can still find a place. Not that
Speaker 10: I like deeply long for a certain type of American life,
Speaker 10: but I do think there's a way where there's like
Speaker 10: a sliver of that that I could access through being
Speaker 10: a Bruce fan. Not that I'm like a raging patriot
Speaker 10: either like to be very clear, like that's not what
Speaker 10: I'm trying to say, But like I do think there's
Speaker 10: a way where like, oh, like it doesn't have to
Speaker 10: look a certain way. That I think is what maybe
Speaker 10: past versions of myself were trying to work out what
Speaker 10: he means in this like American icon way. Even though
Speaker 10: his music is like critiquing the struggle that is the
Speaker 10: why of the American dream. I mean, he's also very
Speaker 10: much a symbol of that, Like he did the thing,
Speaker 10: like he succeeded. I think that's part of what is
Speaker 10: still I think kind of complicated. I am engaging with
Speaker 10: his music because I see queer signifiers in it, you know.
Speaker 10: I mean he's describing like straight relationships and his more
Speaker 10: like romantic songs, and like I don't necessarily have to
Speaker 10: be listening to them and being like I'm assuming the
Speaker 10: character of a straight man to like relate to this.
Speaker 10: It doesn't feel like work to have to like readjust
Speaker 10: as I'm listening. We're writing ourselves in, I think, and
Speaker 10: that can be really nice. It sometimes it feels very
Speaker 10: silly to be like zooming out of this conversation line
Speaker 10: in my brain, being like I am doing all this
Speaker 10: to talk about this like straight man, But it does
Speaker 10: feel sort of like there is an importance to people
Speaker 10: to be able to feel we can be reflected back
Speaker 10: in some way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so interesting because sometimes I think about that
Speaker 3: in terms of like a scarcity model of like, for
Speaker 3: so long queer people were so kind of like starffed
Speaker 3: of icons and role models and public figures and older
Speaker 3: figures for loads of different, you know, really difficult reasons.
Speaker 3: And so sometimes I'm like, it's the queer trait that
Speaker 3: we kind of have to find ourselves in people that
Speaker 3: we're not relatable to because we didn't have anything else.
Speaker 3: But I like the way that you talked about it
Speaker 3: is kind of the opposite of that of being like
Speaker 3: we're just really good at it, like we just make
Speaker 3: things about us.
Speaker 8: Yeah, we really just extremely.
Speaker 3: Nur Disclaiming and reclaiming molding a culture to fit ourselves
Speaker 3: is something Otto's really interested in too.
Speaker 5: I read this essay. It was by the godmother of
Speaker 5: queer theory, Kasofski Sedgwick. Also, I should say the title
Speaker 5: of this essay, which is You're so paranoid. I bet
Speaker 5: you think this essay is about.
Speaker 3: You, Eve Kasofski centric says that often people with marginalized
Speaker 3: identities consume culture in a kind of suspicious way, automatically
Speaker 3: assuming it is not for people like them, or even
Speaker 3: that it is actively harmful to their community.
Speaker 5: You know, nothing's going to surprise me, because I already
Speaker 5: know everything is fucked. It's kind of how I would
Speaker 5: say it.
Speaker 2: But then she describes an alternative, which she calls reparative reading,
Speaker 2: and she says.
Speaker 5: What happens when we looked at the ways in which
Speaker 5: people and communities manage to extract sustenance from the objects
Speaker 5: of culture, films, books, traditions, even a culture who is
Speaker 5: a vowed desire has often been not to sustain them,
Speaker 5: which I think is something that really resonates with me
Speaker 5: as a person living in a culture that is like
Speaker 5: really really out to get you, especially growing up on
Speaker 5: the section twenty eight, but now also because it's a
Speaker 5: really hostile time and we're seeing this really repressive turn,
Speaker 5: it's very easy to read things, not in a paranoid way,
Speaker 5: but in a way that like it is really out
Speaker 5: to get you, Like it's not a fantasy, it's it's real.
Speaker 5: But actually, I guess reading with a way to heel
Speaker 5: yourself through your narratives that you're finding becomes a way
Speaker 5: to take that culture just fucking love it anyway, and
Speaker 5: to find yourself there and to find nourishment despite what
Speaker 5: is ostensibly trying to hold you out.
Speaker 10: It's not like hugely important in the grand scheme of
Speaker 10: things that like queer people can like see themselves in
Speaker 10: these like iconic straight figures like Bruce or Taylor Swift
Speaker 10: or Beyonce or whatever like.
Speaker 4: But I do think.
Speaker 10: There's a way where it's still important for us to
Speaker 10: be able to like stake a flag down, like we're
Speaker 10: here and we feel a relationship to this that is
Speaker 10: important to people.
Speaker 5: That's the power of fandom is it's like I'm gonna
Speaker 5: fuck I can love you. It's trying to repair and
Speaker 5: trying to heal and finding that strength within ourselves.
Speaker 4: I love this.
Speaker 3: I love the idea of knowing things about to get you,
Speaker 3: but that making it even more powerful when we make
Speaker 3: the active decision to claim it for ourselves.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love the pure Sassin saying you're not for me,
Speaker 2: but I'm going to fucking love you anyway.
Speaker 3: Holly Jesse, our scientific journey is almost complete. We're just
Speaker 3: putting the finishing touches in our sea of evidence, giving
Speaker 3: a final look through lyrics, reading through fan testimonies, and
Speaker 3: spending as much time as science requires to image search.
Speaker 3: Bruce lesbian Jacket and Bruce put lag alote, of course,
Speaker 3: but will there's be enough for our final point on
Speaker 3: our checklist?
Speaker 2: Well, I think I found the perfect quote, and I
Speaker 2: feel like it speaks to what Afi and Otto were
Speaker 2: talking about. So this is from a chapter called Fandom
Speaker 2: as Pathology the Consequences of Characterization by Jerlie Jensen, and
Speaker 2: it's from the book The Adoring Audience, Fan Culture and
Speaker 2: Popular Media by Lisa A.
Speaker 4: Lewis.
Speaker 2: So Julie Jensen writes fandom should be explored in relation
Speaker 2: to the larger question of what it means to desire, cherish, seek, long, admire, envy, celebrate, protect,
Speaker 2: and ally with others. Fandom is an aspect of how
Speaker 2: we make sense of the world. So, in other words,
Speaker 2: we are perfect and actually we are doing fandom exactly right.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I smatching this.
Speaker 3: We're using fandom to make sense of our dystopian landscapes
Speaker 3: while also finding ourselves and others along the way. I
Speaker 3: feel ready to face the panel. We've proved that Bruce
Speaker 3: Bingstein is camp.
Speaker 2: We find our struggles reflected in Bruce's music at the
Speaker 2: very least, and.
Speaker 3: We have some thoughts and feelings about queering Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 3: as a project that ultimate that helps us find meaning
Speaker 3: in our lives.
Speaker 2: Which we and many others have done through dancing, crying,
Speaker 2: and fucking to his music.
Speaker 3: Will all this be enough to convince a panel of
Speaker 3: queer experts who could not give less of a shit
Speaker 3: about Bruce Springsteen that he is, in fact the queer icon.
Speaker 2: That's next episode, Because the Bass Belongs to Us is
Speaker 2: a production of malten Hart and iHeart Podcasts were hosted
Speaker 2: by Jesse Lawson and Holly Cassio.
Speaker 3: This series is executive produced by Jesse and Holly and
Speaker 3: created by Jesse Lawson.
Speaker 2: This episode was produced and sound designed by Jesse Lawson,
Speaker 2: with production assistants by Molly Nugents and Tess Hazel. Michelle
Speaker 2: mackclum is our mix engineer.
Speaker 3: Our original music and theme is by Talk Bazaar at
Speaker 3: Talk ba z aar Underscore. Our show art was designed
Speaker 3: and illustrated by Holly Cassio at Holly c Asio.
Speaker 2: In fact Check in by Serena Serlin. Legal service is
Speaker 2: provided by Rowan, Moron and File.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer from Malton Hart is Jasmine J. T.
Speaker 4: Green.
Speaker 3: Our executive producer from iHeart Podcasts is Lindsay Hoffman.
Speaker 2: A huge thank you and shout out to Lauren Purcell
Speaker 2: for all of her support.
Speaker 3: A reminder that our friends have released six absolutely stunning
Speaker 3: Bruce covers to celebrate the series. There's a link in
Speaker 3: our show notes for the Queer Springsteen playlist.
Speaker 4: Listen there. Don't forget to review the show on our
Speaker 4: podcast platform.
Speaker 2: And tell your friends to listen. It makes a huge
Speaker 2: difference because the bust, the bust, the burst