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Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff

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Speaker 1: I've never told you production if I heart radios? How

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Speaker 1: stuff work. So about a week ago, as we record

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Speaker 1: this intro for a classic episode, UM, there was an

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Speaker 1: ad that ran on the Hallmark channel Yes for Zola,

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Speaker 1: which is a wedding hosting and planning site, and this

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Speaker 1: online anti l g B t Q plus group called

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Speaker 1: one Million Moms loudly complained about it. Hallmark pulled the ad,

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Speaker 1: claiming they were never going to be divisive or generate controversy.

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Speaker 1: That was kind of statement they released, and then they

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Speaker 1: generated so much controversy the hashtag boycott Hallmark started trending.

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Speaker 1: Celebrities weight in Glad, weight in Zola said they would

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Speaker 1: know you're advertised with Hallmark, and then all of our

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Speaker 1: Korean stated, the commercial is the season. You gotta either

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Speaker 1: stand for something, you got. A Target had that same

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Speaker 1: thing going on with them when they did the transgender

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Speaker 1: or just the neutral back rooms and the like. We're

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Speaker 1: standing by that as well as celebrating UM pride, you

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Speaker 1: gotta you gotta Well, maybe Hallmark learned a Hallmark lesson.

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Speaker 1: I hope so yes, Love is love, Love is love

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Speaker 1: and the classical we have for you today. I thought

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Speaker 1: it was kind of appropriate. Is about queering romantic comedies? Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because when you think about it, Hallmark has all the

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Speaker 1: romantic comedies they do, and they are not queer, or

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Speaker 1: they haven't been. Yeah, I don't think I've seen that. No,

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Speaker 1: but maybe in the future, let's hope. Let's hope. So.

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Speaker 1: But in the meantime, we hope you enjoyed this classic episode.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from how stuppworks

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

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Speaker 1: and I'm Caroline, and Caroline, I can't believe we're here

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Speaker 1: at the last installment of our rom com summer series.

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Speaker 1: It's been a wild ride, how it has been, indeed,

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Speaker 1: And you know what's part of what has been so

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Speaker 1: fun about doing all of this pop culture research is

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Speaker 1: revisiting movies and themes that I have previously seen or

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Speaker 1: just known about, and uncovering so much hidden meaning and

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Speaker 1: nuance that, like a young Caro, didn't know existed or

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Speaker 1: didn't know what it meant, such as well, such as

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Speaker 1: a lot of the early Haze Code era gay character

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Speaker 1: tropes that we see in the thirties and forties specifically,

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Speaker 1: but also of course moving into later decades. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: really loved learning about how the Hayes Code and censorship

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Speaker 1: gave way to romantic comedies because we're like, well, we

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Speaker 1: can't can't get directly sexy, so let's just do a

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Speaker 1: little a little slapstick and some jokes, which is actually

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Speaker 1: probably strategies I've had on dates, um might work better

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Speaker 1: on screen than off. Yeah, I mean to revisit something

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Speaker 1: that we've been talking about through our series. The Haze

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Speaker 1: Code was basically this moral code that existed over Hollywood

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Speaker 1: films that you couldn't say certain things, show certain things,

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Speaker 1: and you obviously couldn't have certain types of characters. And

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Speaker 1: of course all of this encompassed staying away from sex

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Speaker 1: and drugs and all of that dangerous stuff. Hence you

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Speaker 1: do get all of the witty repartee between characters, which

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Speaker 1: is basically the cornerstone of romantic comedy. And who doesn't

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Speaker 1: love some witty repartee repartee Hello um before we get

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Speaker 1: into this final episod, So though, can we just take

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Speaker 1: a nostalgic look back everything that we've covered, because let's

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Speaker 1: let's see where we started from and where we've arrived,

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Speaker 1: because we started with rom coms one oh one and

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Speaker 1: really with the Hayes code and talking about how the

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Speaker 1: genre evolved, and then what did we talk about? So

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Speaker 1: then we talked about the independent career woman who basically

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Speaker 1: gets saved by love because she works too much. She's

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Speaker 1: married to her job. Yeah, we talked about people of color,

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Speaker 1: characters of color in rom comms they tend to be

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Speaker 1: shoved off to the side, and how romantic comedies are

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Speaker 1: the most segregated genre in Hollywood. They're super segregated because

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Speaker 1: even when you do have a gay character or a

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Speaker 1: black character or an Asian character, that person is likely

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Speaker 1: going to end up the sidekick, which was another episode

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Speaker 1: we did. Oh yeah, the sassy but probably unlovable or

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Speaker 1: undateable sidekick who's just an accessory to propel the protagonist

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Speaker 1: story exactly well, and speaking quickly though, of people of color.

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Speaker 1: One of the studies that we were looking at in

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Speaker 1: this episode just mentioned as an aside that if you

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Speaker 1: look at just crowd scenes in romantic comedies, even those

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Speaker 1: are usually a sea of white people. Well, we did

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Speaker 1: discuss was it in the original episode. We did discuss

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Speaker 1: romantic comedies as a type of science fiction. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. So the rom coms clearly happen in a

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Speaker 1: universe or on some sort of plane of existence where uh,

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Speaker 1: people of color are just maybe they're on another planet somewhere. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's like an all white planet where people magically

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Speaker 1: meet and they can have they can afford like giant apartments.

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Speaker 1: Even though they write one like magazine column per month,

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Speaker 1: and somehow there are dozens of Matthew McConaughey's just waiting

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Speaker 1: for you. That is funny to imagine that, um, the

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Speaker 1: typical romantic comedy characters, everyone from a Meg Ryan and

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Speaker 1: a Tom Hanks to Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Kate Hudson,

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Speaker 1: Matthew McConaughey, that they all exist. It's like the same person.

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Speaker 1: It is funny to imagine that this person is just insane.

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Speaker 1: Well maybe that's the appeal of the ensemble rom com,

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Speaker 1: which I feel like it is kind of the new

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Speaker 1: the newest iteration where you just pack all the stars

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Speaker 1: and all the storylines in into one Valentine's Day or

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Speaker 1: one like why can't I do like an Arbor Day?

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Speaker 1: I would like to see a very arbitrary holiday ensemble

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Speaker 1: rom com an Arbor trary Caroline, My Love for You

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Speaker 1: only gross. But today we are closing out this series

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Speaker 1: talking about LGBT rom comms because in the Hollywood mainstream

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Speaker 1: rom com canon, only white people fall in love and

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Speaker 1: only straight people fall in love. I mean, it's a

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Speaker 1: very heteronormative cis gender genre. Yeah, and I mean it's

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Speaker 1: important to talk about how LGBT characters have been portrayed

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Speaker 1: over the decades because even still in more mainstream, um,

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Speaker 1: more mainstream cinema, and this is changing gradually, especially now

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Speaker 1: that we have marriage equality, but gay characters have typically

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Speaker 1: been denied the happy ending. They've typically been relegated to

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Speaker 1: that sexless sidekick role. And when you look at Hollywood

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Speaker 1: around the time that the Hayes Code was instituted, really

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Speaker 1: the only way for gay characters to exist, if they

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Speaker 1: existed at all, was through super negative, awful stereotypes. Well,

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Speaker 1: and I have a feeling that that's obviously not just

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Speaker 1: the Hayes Code and religious organizations like the Catholic Legion

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Speaker 1: of Decency that would bring its hammer down um if

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Speaker 1: any of the films got too racy, but also just

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Speaker 1: the general homophobia of the day, sure, exactly, and but

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Speaker 1: you had that homophobia institutionalized through the Hayes Code and

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Speaker 1: through the Legion of Decency, which labeled LGBT people as

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Speaker 1: deviants sexual deviance. And so just like the Hayes Code

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Speaker 1: forced filmmakers to get creative, like you can't show sex,

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Speaker 1: but you can show the you know, the witty, funny

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Speaker 1: slapstick lead up to sex, like our verbal for play.

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Speaker 1: That's right. Well, filmmakers had to get creative with showing

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Speaker 1: or including gay people. And unfortunately, rather than the the

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Speaker 1: high side of things, which is like, oh, from censorship,

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Speaker 1: we get romantic comedies, which are like cute and fluffy,

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Speaker 1: when it came to LGBT people, it was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you're the villain. And so one of the first tactics

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Speaker 1: used to navigate this band was a continuation of a

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Speaker 1: character that Hollywood had created a little earlier leading up

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Speaker 1: to the Haze Code, which is the Cissy. And this

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Speaker 1: character did start to dwindle over the lifespan of the

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Speaker 1: Haze Code simply because the Cissy even was too overtly

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Speaker 1: gay to be depicted on screen. And so basically, in general,

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Speaker 1: if you look at real life outside of the movies.

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Speaker 1: Homosexuality was seen as the sort of attack on masculinity

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Speaker 1: and gender norms, which in the nineteen thirties and during

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Speaker 1: the Great Depression was already under attack. You have male

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Speaker 1: breadwinners who are suddenly out of work and unable to

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Speaker 1: provide for their families, and so the cissy or the

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Speaker 1: pansy was sort of a way to deal with those anxieties.

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Speaker 1: This was one of Hollywood's first gay stock characters, and

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Speaker 1: this character was portrayed as over the top of feminine

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Speaker 1: lipstick wearing, has a th and mustache and a trim

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Speaker 1: suit and really, now I'm just picturing John Waters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're just two dimensional characters obviously used for

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Speaker 1: a cheap laugh. Um. And I think it's worth noting

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Speaker 1: too that also during this time, even if it's just

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Speaker 1: an implied gayness, only gay men exist, because also, I mean,

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Speaker 1: like we have the psychoanalytical panic um peeking at this point,

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Speaker 1: worrying about like girls hanging out too much together and

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Speaker 1: possibly becoming lesbians. Um. But I think there were still

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Speaker 1: kind of vestiges of that old Boston marriage era assumption

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Speaker 1: that we two women can't really do much with each other.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, they all have barbie crotches. Well. And also

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Speaker 1: it was all men making the movies. Oh yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the second of three basically horrific uh stereotypes of

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Speaker 1: gay people that would continue to reverberate forever is portraying

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Speaker 1: gay people as villains or victims. And so in the

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Speaker 1: ninety thirties and forties, one of the other ways to

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Speaker 1: navigate around the code was to portray gay people as

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Speaker 1: villains or victims. And this is yet another stereotype that

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Speaker 1: Hollywood helped institutionalize and whose echoes are still felt in

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Speaker 1: popular culture. Um. Basically, gay people were shown to be

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Speaker 1: committing terrible crimes because of their sexual orientation, with the

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Speaker 1: implication that homosexuality leads to insanity. And this is another

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Speaker 1: one of those nuances. It was totally lost on young

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Speaker 1: Caroline watching old movies, like I didn't know that someone

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Speaker 1: was supposed to be gay. I just it was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: it's just a fancy villain. Well yeah, because in those days,

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Speaker 1: homosexuality was in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental disorders, correct,

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Speaker 1: So of course they were deviant. Of course they were deviant. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And Alfred Hitchcock was one filmmaker who definitely leaned heavily

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Speaker 1: on this particular trope. If we look, for example, at

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Speaker 1: the movie Rope. It's based on the real life killers

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Speaker 1: and lovers Nathan Leopold and Richard Lobe, who met at

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Speaker 1: college in Chicago, and they kidnapped and killed a boy

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Speaker 1: as an intellectual experiment in staging the perfect crime. Basically,

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Speaker 1: they were evil and weird. Interesting personal side note, My

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Speaker 1: family's lake house in Michigan is right down the street

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Speaker 1: from Lobes family farm, which is now a wedding venue.

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Speaker 1: The Richard Lobe, the Lobe family, they're They're farm in Michigan,

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Speaker 1: which is now it's called Castle Farms, and it's right

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Speaker 1: down the street. I grew up driving past it all

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Speaker 1: the time. And didn't he use a similar device In Psycho,

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Speaker 1: where Norman Bates is uh inner, evil is sort of

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Speaker 1: quietly attributed to his homosexuality. Yeah, I mean well, and

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Speaker 1: and the reason we get that assumption is because of

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Speaker 1: his close really sation ship with his mother. With his

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Speaker 1: mother at the same time. Now, I just saw your

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Speaker 1: eyes light up and I backed away. I wanted you

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Speaker 1: to have it. How creepy would it be? Side note?

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Speaker 1: If instead of stuff Mom Never told you, this podcast

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Speaker 1: was called stuff Mother Never told you. Um. I laugh

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Speaker 1: sort of hollowly because a lot of people do call

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Speaker 1: it that, but usually it's like stuff your mother never

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Speaker 1: told you. Maybe that's just my father who says that

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Speaker 1: that might be what I'm thinking of. Um, but can

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Speaker 1: we talk about ben Her because another weirdo Kristen as

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Speaker 1: a child moment, it was one of my fames as

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Speaker 1: a kid, and I really, of course did not pick

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Speaker 1: up on the potentially homo erotic relationship between ben Her

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Speaker 1: and his former BFF Massala Kristen he wasn't a bff.

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Speaker 1: Well initially they were bf ass and then Massala turns

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Speaker 1: on him and gore Vidal, who partially screenwrote ben Her,

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Speaker 1: later got into a public feud via the l A

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Speaker 1: Times Letters section with Charlton Heston when he came out

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Speaker 1: on a documentary called The Celluloid Closet saying, oh, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I I wrote it so that uh there was, you know,

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Speaker 1: a secret gay relationship between the two. Charlton Heston never knew,

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Speaker 1: but that was always in the background. Well yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: gore Vidal said that, Yeah, I was totally meant to

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Speaker 1: be implied that been Her and Massala had been lovers

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Speaker 1: in the past and that Missala wanted to reignite their relationship,

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Speaker 1: and the director was like, totally against this. This is

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Speaker 1: obviously horrific. Gay people are terrible. We can't have them

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Speaker 1: in off films. Um, but Vidal promised to quote, never

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Speaker 1: use the word. There will be nothing overt, but it

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Speaker 1: will be perfectly clear that Massalah is in love with

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Speaker 1: been Her. And it was so between the lines, because

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Speaker 1: this was the other tactic of using of how to

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Speaker 1: paint gay characters. It was so between the lines that

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Speaker 1: this biblical movie with gay undertones ended up being a huge,

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Speaker 1: award winning blockbuster. And it's possible that I missed the

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Speaker 1: gay undertones because I, as a child, only saw this

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Speaker 1: movie on Mystery Science theater, So my only exposure to

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Speaker 1: it was having some robots talk over the movie. That

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Speaker 1: sounds like such a better way to watch it, first

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Speaker 1: of all. Um. Secondly, my childhood memory of watching ben

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Speaker 1: Her is just me zeroing in on their armor and

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Speaker 1: that they had like the pokey nipples in the in

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Speaker 1: the chest playing. And I don't mean it's just in

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Speaker 1: been Her, I mean in general, armor doesn't need need nipples,

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Speaker 1: I know, and that and that's what I thought as

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Speaker 1: a child, like, huh was it? Those are nipples? I'm

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Speaker 1: what those nipples doing there? I'm feeling strange and I

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Speaker 1: don't know what to call this, but I love that.

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Speaker 1: Like years and years later, Gorvidal, you know, makes this claim,

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Speaker 1: and Charlton Heston writes a letter in to the l

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Speaker 1: A Times is like you you are doing a disservice

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Speaker 1: to Billy Wilder. And then Gourvidal writes back and he

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, chuck, chill out, and then he and

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Speaker 1: then winky emoji. Yeah, because you know that Charlton Heston

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Speaker 1: would not like be cool like conservative charld and Neston

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Speaker 1: would not have been cool with playing a quietly gay

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Speaker 1: character hashtag masculinity. So fragile, But onward we go. That's

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Speaker 1: right because one classic classic film that I super need

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Speaker 1: to go rewatched now as a grown up person that

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Speaker 1: helped weaken the Haze Code was Billy Wilder's classic romantic

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Speaker 1: comedy Some Like It Hot that came out in nine.

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Speaker 1: So basically, cross dressing helped put the first little dents

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Speaker 1: in the armor, the Nipley armor of the Haze Code.

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Speaker 1: The movie features Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis in drag

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Speaker 1: basically the whole time, almost the whole time, fending off

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Speaker 1: male suitors and enjoying a little quality time with Miss

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Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe. And since they spend so much of the

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Speaker 1: movie in drag, the movie was condemned by the Legion

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Speaker 1: of Decency. It was banned in Kansas, did you know? Um?

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Speaker 1: It also did not get the Haze Codes Seal of

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Speaker 1: Approval um. And Jack Lemon's friends also warned him that

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Speaker 1: he would essentially damage his reputation as a masculine actor

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Speaker 1: by dressing up as a woman. And isn't it his

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Speaker 1: character that's eventually proposed to buy a guy in the film? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So basically, another way that this movie ends up touring

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Speaker 1: with gender and presentation is that Lemon's Daphne gets proposed

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Speaker 1: to buy a millionaire and when he rips off his

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Speaker 1: wig and says I'm a man, the millionaire's responses, well,

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Speaker 1: nobody's perfect, which is kind of great. It's sort of

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Speaker 1: a progressive moment. Yeah, but I mean, the studio even

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Speaker 1: brought in a female impersonator named Barbette. According to this

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Speaker 1: great article in Indy Wire, to teach the men how

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Speaker 1: to walk like women so that they could uh portray

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Speaker 1: women better on the screen and passed. But Jack Lemon

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Speaker 1: was he had other ideas. But they still dressed up,

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Speaker 1: they cross dressed and would walk around the MGM studio

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Speaker 1: and see if they could get into places. Right. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they went in, which would enrage North Carolina legislators. They

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Speaker 1: went into women's public restrooms to apply their makeup. And

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Speaker 1: when they finally weren't getting really strange looks from people

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Speaker 1: in the in the bathroom, they knew that they could

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Speaker 1: they could pass, that they were ready. And I gotta say,

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Speaker 1: Tony Curtis was pretty attractive and drag and who knows,

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Speaker 1: maybe that is what made the Legion of Decency a

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Speaker 1: along comfortable because they're like, I don't I don't like

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Speaker 1: how I feeled I look at him on screen. And

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Speaker 1: with the film coming out in nineteen fifty nine, it

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Speaker 1: does seem like it is a reflection of culture starting

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Speaker 1: to slowly, slowly, slowly open up to even the possibility

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Speaker 1: of gay people as people and not just stock characters.

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Speaker 1: Because ten years later you have the Stonewall Riots, and

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Speaker 1: even in the late nineteen fifties, in early nineteen sixties,

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Speaker 1: you have the homophile movement, which was a social movement

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Speaker 1: of gay and lesbians essentially asking to be assimilated into

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Speaker 1: broader culture and to have the same kinds of civil rights.

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Speaker 1: Um that street people were afforded. Yeah, And in the

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Speaker 1: seventies finally you mentioned the d s M earlier, homosexuality

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Speaker 1: is removed from the d s M, so it's no

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Speaker 1: longer classified as some sort of mental disord but more

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Speaker 1: context As we moved through our timeline of rom comms

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Speaker 1: in the Defensive Marriage Act has passed DOMA. So do

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Speaker 1: you think then that the passage of DOMA like essentially so,

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Speaker 1: do you think then that the passage of DOMA took

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Speaker 1: gay rom comms backward? Do you think that we would

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Speaker 1: have seen more had we I mean, obviously, had we

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Speaker 1: had marriage equality earlier? Yeah, I mean I think and

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Speaker 1: and uh, scholars link so much of the development of

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Speaker 1: gay rom coms to what was going on contextually at

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Speaker 1: the time in society. But um, I don't know that

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Speaker 1: it necessarily took gay rom comms back, but it definitely

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Speaker 1: put a massive stumbling blog because, of course, the cornerstone

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Speaker 1: of a rom com too is the eventual marriage that

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Speaker 1: if it doesn't happen at the end, there's a promise

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Speaker 1: of marriage at the end of a movie. Um. And

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Speaker 1: two of those scholars are Kyle Stevens and Deborah Model

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Speaker 1: mag who definitely link the way that LGBT characters are

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Speaker 1: shown in movies to their place in mainstream society at

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Speaker 1: the same time. And so because marriage is sort of

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Speaker 1: seen in society but also portrayed in rom coms as

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Speaker 1: basically the way that you become a functioning, socially acceptable adult,

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Speaker 1: it's definitely the key in the movie that's like, hey, look,

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Speaker 1: this person has grown beyond his or her narcissism to

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Speaker 1: become a contributing member of society, and we'll go on

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Speaker 1: to procreate. Like well, oh, but gay people aren't allowed

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Speaker 1: to marry. There are no same sex marriages happening yet,

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Speaker 1: and we still only have the sexless sidekick character. And

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Speaker 1: in the process, you're denying these gay characters any sort

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Speaker 1: of sexual agency, which is really a reflection of just

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Speaker 1: denying their existence and complexity as people and also denying

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Speaker 1: them the potential of being desirable to other people. Hence

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Speaker 1: things like the sexless gay sidekick. Yeah, and by denying

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Speaker 1: them the happy ending of tying everything up with a

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Speaker 1: marriage bow at the end of a rom com and

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Speaker 1: allowing them a place in the social order. They're just

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Speaker 1: sort of left out. Doesn't ever, girl grow up dreaming

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Speaker 1: of her marriage bow, her marriage bow. I know, and

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Speaker 1: I mean this doesn't mean that though that marriage isn't

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Speaker 1: present in gay focused rom coms. Kyle Stephens rights that, regardless,

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Speaker 1: a lot of the narratives in these movies still hinge

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Speaker 1: on impending nuptials, sometimes the protagonists, sometimes of family members. Um,

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Speaker 1: but it's always a looming wedding. He writes, that forces

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Speaker 1: the homosexual hero to confront his desires and and he writes,

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Speaker 1: complicating Byron's dictum, romantic commnies with homosexual heroes that end

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Speaker 1: in marriage would constitute a tragedy. In other words, gay

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Speaker 1: characters couldn't get married. Obviously, we're pre marriage equality, so

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Speaker 1: you don't get that happily ever after ending. And if

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Speaker 1: they did, it could also be considered as not a

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Speaker 1: great win because it would still be hewing to that heteronormative,

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Speaker 1: conservative traditional value system. So there's no winning. So there's

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Speaker 1: almost no winning in this uh in this explanation and

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Speaker 1: then we get In and Out starring Kevin Klein and

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Speaker 1: Magnum p I otherwise known as Tom Selleck. That's who

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Speaker 1: he is. I I just only picture the mustache, so like,

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Speaker 1: I can't hear his name in my brain over the mustache,

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Speaker 1: even though in the movie he doesn't have a mustache.

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Speaker 1: It's very confusing. Yeah, it's a whole whole new Tom sellec.

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Speaker 1: It's like a different face. There's so much real estate

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Speaker 1: above his lip. I just don't know what to do with.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, I'm saying all this having not actually seen

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Speaker 1: the movie myself. Um, but Stevens uses In and Out

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Speaker 1: as an example of the anxiety that can come up

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Speaker 1: around same sex relationships and the inability to tie things

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Speaker 1: up with a wedding. So in In and Out towards

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Speaker 1: the end or at the end you see spoiler. Sorry, Uh,

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Speaker 1: the lead gentleman Kevin Klein and Tom Selleck putting on suits.

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Speaker 1: They're all handsome, They're clearly getting ready for a wedding,

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Speaker 1: and all, oh my god, there's all this tension of like, wait,

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Speaker 1: a wedding. This is a year after DEMO was passed, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: so so how can two men be getting ready for

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Speaker 1: a wedding. Um, But don't worry, nineties audience. It turns

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Speaker 1: out that it's just one of the men's parents renewing

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Speaker 1: their vows. So even a quote unquote gay rom calm

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Speaker 1: has straight people tying the knot in it rather than

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Speaker 1: a same sex couple. So this basically just reaffirms that sacred,

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Speaker 1: sacred hetero love at the end. So I read the

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Speaker 1: Stevens analysis before I watched In and Out for the

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Speaker 1: very first time. Seriously, this romcom series has just done

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Speaker 1: so much good for my like pop culture knowledge. I'm

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Speaker 1: finally catching up. I'm in like what es seven? You're

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Speaker 1: getting there? Like sixth grades finally. Um. And I found

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Speaker 1: stevens Is critique of In and Out to be overly

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Speaker 1: harsh in comparison to what I saw as a viewer. Um,

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Speaker 1: because a it's laugh out loud funny. I was surprised

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Speaker 1: how how much I found myself laughing throughout the whole thing. Um. Also,

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Speaker 1: Joan Cusack is wonderful. I mean, it's it's an ensemble

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Speaker 1: cast perfect. Joan Cusack is in it. Oh yeah, should

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Speaker 1: have said earlier. So Joan Cusack plays Kevin Klein's fiancee,

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Speaker 1: and the relationship between them is really sweet because they

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Speaker 1: obviously have a true platonic love for each other and

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Speaker 1: they've never had sex, and she has gone through all

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Speaker 1: of this dieting to like make over her body so

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Speaker 1: that she can fit into a wedding dress. Um. So

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Speaker 1: there are all these other trophy anxieties that the movie

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Speaker 1: plays with as well. Um. And Tom Selleck without his

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Speaker 1: mustache comes along and essentially opens Kevin Klein's eyes to

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Speaker 1: the fact that Matt Dylan was probably right. Um. And

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Speaker 1: to me, the whole thing was really satirical because I

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Speaker 1: was I started watching it expecting to be kind of

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Speaker 1: horrified at the almost bird cage like level of the

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Speaker 1: son's you know, like disdain in homophobia. Um. And of

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Speaker 1: course the small townspeople once they start suspecting and later

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Speaker 1: find out that Kevin Klein is in fact gay, he

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Speaker 1: loses his job and people start turning on him. But

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Speaker 1: then in the end it's so redemptive because essentially it's

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Speaker 1: a story about showing audiences how being gay in no

407
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Speaker 1: way like makes you a different person. It doesn't. It

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00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:38,879
Speaker 1: isn't some type of character failing. And so you see

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Speaker 1: this small town rallying to support Kevin Klein's character and

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Speaker 1: get him his job back. After Bob new Heart, Oh god,

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Speaker 1: Bob new new Heart is the principle of the school

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Speaker 1: and he reluctantly asks Kevin Klein to step down after

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Speaker 1: he outs, you know, comes out of the closet publicly. UM.

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Speaker 1: So I wish that I could have seen it in

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Speaker 1: the late nineties because it is such a mainstream film

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Speaker 1: with such an a list cast. UM. And I would

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Speaker 1: be curious to go back and and read reviews from

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00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:22,399
Speaker 1: the time UM about it, because to me, it's still

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Speaker 1: even though it played a lot on game mal stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of barber streisand jokes. There's this

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Speaker 1: whole scene of Kevin Klein dancing, um in a rather

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Speaker 1: effeminate way. Um. But at the same time when he

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Speaker 1: has his quote unquote bachelor party, when he's still closeted,

424
00:28:42,760 --> 00:28:47,440
Speaker 1: Kevin Klein's character, UM, he gets really frustrated because all

425
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: of his kind of like blue collar small town guy

426
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: friends are like, hey, we're gonna play your favorites it

427
00:28:55,120 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: strives in night, and Kevin Klein's like, no, no, I'm

428
00:28:58,680 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: a man. I don't want to hear that and they're like,

429
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: but it's our favorite too, So it's kind of cute

430
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 1: how they play around with a lot of that. But yeah,

431
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,360
Speaker 1: you aside from you know, the comical kiss that he

432
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:14,360
Speaker 1: and Tom Selleck share, which we're going to talk about

433
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:18,200
Speaker 1: later on, it is also a product of its time

434
00:29:18,320 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 1: in how unsexual Kevin Klein is and even after he

435
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:28,240
Speaker 1: and Tom Selleck get together, how unsexual or de sexualized

436
00:29:28,240 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: I should say their relationship is. But it is very

437
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: much a product of his time, because Kevin Klein remains

438
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: really de sexualized in his character does even after he

439
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: gets together with Tom Selleck, even when they are very

440
00:29:43,320 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: lovingly putting on you know, each other's taxes, helping helping

441
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: each other tie the tuxedo bow tie not exactly. Um,

442
00:29:55,720 --> 00:30:00,080
Speaker 1: that's pretty much as far as their physicality goes. And

443
00:30:01,160 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 1: that's when you remember, oh yeah, this is coming out

444
00:30:05,200 --> 00:30:08,400
Speaker 1: on the heels of doma and I mean in this era,

445
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: people do love a rom com. Oh yeah, they do

446
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: love a rom com. Model Mogs sites Mark Rubenfeld. I

447
00:30:15,680 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: guess that this must be a fellow rom com scholar. Also,

448
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:24,280
Speaker 1: what a great phrase, model Mogs sites Rubenfeld, Uh and

449
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: Rubenfeld notes that the nineties were rom com boom time.

450
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't have to tell you people this.

451
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: You've been listening to our series, you already know. But

452
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 1: in alone, there were fifteen Hollywood romantic comedies that sold

453
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,440
Speaker 1: more than three point four million tickets at the box office,

454
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,280
Speaker 1: and eight of those actually grossed more than a hundred

455
00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:50,040
Speaker 1: million dollars. So basically, at this time in the nineties,

456
00:30:50,080 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: we are clearly in love with love. We're in love

457
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 1: with happy endings. But the thing is all of these

458
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:57,720
Speaker 1: gay rom comms and and I really, I don't say

459
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,680
Speaker 1: gay rom coms as like a dismissive or jord of thing.

460
00:31:00,760 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: I'm I'm lovingly saying gay rom comms. Um, these these

461
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: rom comms have to find an alternative ending, because there can't,

462
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: like we said, there can't be that wedding at the end.

463
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: It can't be too serious, it can't be too passionate,

464
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,880
Speaker 1: like the gay characters can't or the same sex characters

465
00:31:20,920 --> 00:31:24,240
Speaker 1: can't love each other too much or or kiss passionately

466
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 1: even well. And it seems like as a result of that,

467
00:31:27,720 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 1: a lot of the mainstreaming quotes gay ish rom coms

468
00:31:32,960 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: are more about a straight person either a presumably straight

469
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: person either discovering that they are gay, like navigating a

470
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 1: journey with their sexual orientation, or a straight person being

471
00:31:50,720 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 1: in love or attached to somehow a gay person like um,

472
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: object of my affection with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rod

473
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,760
Speaker 1: Where yeah, where he is a she is straight, she's pregnant,

474
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: she wants Paula Read to be her main squeeze and

475
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: help raise the baby. Um, there were a lot in

476
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: the nineties two that was like prime time for all

477
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:13,640
Speaker 1: of that anxiety to about, like straight women falling for

478
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: a gay men and wanting to form the conventional family

479
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:19,960
Speaker 1: unit with them. Well, isn't it also that time that

480
00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:22,880
Speaker 1: the whole gay best friend trope is starting to peak

481
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 1: on TV as well? You have Will Embrace Sex in

482
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:30,240
Speaker 1: the City. Yeah, I mean think about it though, because

483
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:32,920
Speaker 1: Will wasn't allowed to be very sexual, where at least

484
00:32:32,960 --> 00:32:36,920
Speaker 1: Jack got to flirt and be outlandish, and Stanford on

485
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: Sex in the City wasn't really allowed to be sexy

486
00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:42,120
Speaker 1: or sexual either. He was also more trophy and like

487
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 1: almost a girlfriend. So you have these characters that are

488
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:51,040
Speaker 1: again are devoid of the sexual, devoid of the political,

489
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: and are basically the best friend. Yeah, because obviously our

490
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: culture still doesn't know what exactly to do with it,

491
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: so you have to have some straightness, it seems like

492
00:33:03,160 --> 00:33:06,840
Speaker 1: in there so that we are kind of coloring still

493
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:10,080
Speaker 1: within the lines for the most part. Yeah, basically. And

494
00:33:10,280 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: included in coloring within the lines is the way that

495
00:33:15,200 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: LGBT centric rom coms are distributed, because it's not like

496
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 1: many of them have been huge hits in mainstream theaters

497
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,959
Speaker 1: outside of major cities. They're more likely to be in

498
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: your art house theater here in Atlanta, that's Tara. And

499
00:33:31,080 --> 00:33:33,040
Speaker 1: I'm not I mean, I'm not even kidding, like if

500
00:33:33,080 --> 00:33:36,840
Speaker 1: you've gotta Tara, that sounds so awful that our that

501
00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: the movie theater, the movie theater, y'all that we go

502
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: to in Atlanta's is Tara. But it's not just gay themes,

503
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: it's i mean, any type of outside the mainstream theme

504
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:52,680
Speaker 1: at all. That's where I saw Obvious Child starring Jenny Slate,

505
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 1: which is all about I mean, it's a rom com,

506
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:56,680
Speaker 1: but it's about abortion. But I mean that's the thing.

507
00:33:57,440 --> 00:34:02,479
Speaker 1: These themes that exist outside of the white, straight, uh

508
00:34:03,480 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: conservative traditional storylines creat Yeah, yeah, that are enjoyed in

509
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: mainstream theaters end up in these art house theaters because

510
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:16,160
Speaker 1: Hollywood is just not down with distributing something that might

511
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,160
Speaker 1: not make money. I mean, let's be honest, Yes Hollywood

512
00:34:19,200 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 1: has racism and sexism and all that stuff, but it

513
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: also wants to make money. And if it's afraid that

514
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: people aren't going to shell out the dollars to put

515
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:28,120
Speaker 1: their eyeballs in front of the screen, then they're not

516
00:34:28,280 --> 00:34:32,440
Speaker 1: even going to bother. And so, basically, as scholars model

517
00:34:32,520 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: mug Rubenfeld and Stevens argue, this really reinforces the mothering

518
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: of LGBT people and the idea that same sex romance

519
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: and sexuality are shameful and something that you, as a

520
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:50,160
Speaker 1: straight person in the major theater, you shouldn't even bother

521
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 1: being interested in. And so basically, if you have an

522
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:59,200
Speaker 1: LGBT centric rom com or featuring LGBT themes, if you

523
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: want to wind up up in a major theater, those

524
00:35:02,160 --> 00:35:05,000
Speaker 1: same sex romances have to be like in and out,

525
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: completely comic or ultimately tragic. I'll Brokeback Mountain, but that

526
00:35:09,640 --> 00:35:14,640
Speaker 1: is not a rom com mostly non sexual and white,

527
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:17,040
Speaker 1: because I mean, when's the last time in a major

528
00:35:17,120 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: theater you saw an LGBT rom com about people of color. Well, also,

529
00:35:21,480 --> 00:35:23,600
Speaker 1: when was the last time in a mainstream theater like

530
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:28,440
Speaker 1: an AMC you saw a gay romcom period? Yes, well exactly.

531
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:31,880
Speaker 1: And so one thing that um, I believe it's model

532
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,960
Speaker 1: mag talks about in her paper in the Journal of

533
00:35:36,000 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 1: Popular Film and Television from two thousand nine is the

534
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:42,560
Speaker 1: presence of the key kiss. So the key kiss, think

535
00:35:42,680 --> 00:35:45,759
Speaker 1: the end of one of my least favorite movie, has

536
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 1: Never Been Kissed with Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan. I

537
00:35:48,320 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: really enjoy it. But sorry everyone, no, I mean we

538
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: can have different tastes. In rom COM's Caroline, Oh thank God,

539
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,560
Speaker 1: But that key kiss, when Michael Vartan runs out and

540
00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:02,359
Speaker 1: kisses Drew Barrymore on the baseball field, that is that's

541
00:36:02,400 --> 00:36:06,920
Speaker 1: the key kiss, and the key kiss symbolizes that commitment

542
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 1: is happening. True love has been found. This is serious,

543
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:14,560
Speaker 1: committed love, and these people are together now and everyone

544
00:36:14,640 --> 00:36:18,000
Speaker 1: approves of it. They have the whole community support because

545
00:36:18,160 --> 00:36:21,200
Speaker 1: you know, in Never Been Kissed, the stands are filled

546
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: with everybody in town. As if you need somehow to

547
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 1: reinforce the fact that like you might as well have

548
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:31,719
Speaker 1: big cartoon arrows pointing to the couple kissing, like, this

549
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:34,080
Speaker 1: is who you're cheering for. We want them to be

550
00:36:34,239 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: in love. I feel like I needed those arrows and

551
00:36:37,000 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: Hope Floats because I didn't want those characters to be

552
00:36:39,280 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: together like so bad. One thing I've learned from this

553
00:36:42,600 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 1: series is that you hate Hopeful more than anything. I

554
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: think that Hope Floats has come up in every single episode. Yeah,

555
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,120
Speaker 1: and here's the thing. I love that movie, but I

556
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:57,839
Speaker 1: hate Harry Connick Jr. Like what he does to her.

557
00:36:58,080 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: I know I can go back. I can't go back

558
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: down that road. We already had feedback on Facebook that

559
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:08,279
Speaker 1: was unhappy with me. Um okay, So all I'm trying

560
00:37:08,320 --> 00:37:11,279
Speaker 1: to say is that the key kiss symbolizes seriousness. It

561
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: symbolizes that two people are in love, and if those

562
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:19,080
Speaker 1: two people are of the same sex, well that just

563
00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:22,360
Speaker 1: means you're going to the art house theater. And a

564
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: lot of times in those movies, the key kiss is

565
00:37:26,280 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: not going to happen in a packed out baseball stadium

566
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,759
Speaker 1: or at a wedding with with both families there. Um.

567
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,600
Speaker 1: It's usually in a more private setting where it's just

568
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:41,279
Speaker 1: one on one. And it is interesting now as model

569
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: Mogue points out, and something that I've never thought about

570
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 1: until all of our rom com scholarship, um is the

571
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:52,560
Speaker 1: fact that so many of these key kiss scenes and

572
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: the whole audience is cheering, or the whole township, or

573
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: the whole baseball stadium is cheering for the kissing straight

574
00:37:59,520 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 1: couple or are opposite sex couple. This is emerging around

575
00:38:03,080 --> 00:38:05,480
Speaker 1: the same time that DOMA was past. So you do

576
00:38:05,719 --> 00:38:10,600
Speaker 1: you have all of these like straight people anxieties. Well,

577
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,840
Speaker 1: and I mean think about how a decade before what

578
00:38:14,120 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: was going on in the gay community. It was the

579
00:38:16,480 --> 00:38:21,439
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis. So before we have all of these rom

580
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 1: coms happening, you have to have a Philadelphia like It's

581
00:38:24,960 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: We had to move through those cycles because aside from

582
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:32,000
Speaker 1: one AIDS rom com that I could find sided I

583
00:38:32,040 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 1: think it's called Jeremy. I mean, they're in the eighties.

584
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: There's nothing like funny at all of the portrayal of

585
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: gay characters on screen, because all of it was like

586
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: basically trying to shake mainstream America to say, Hello, this

587
00:38:45,680 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: is real, this is happening, and we're dying. Yeah, exactly. So,

588
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 1: because all of those negative stereotypes about gay people and

589
00:38:55,520 --> 00:39:01,000
Speaker 1: these like fearful assumptions that AIDS was the unquote gay

590
00:39:01,160 --> 00:39:03,279
Speaker 1: cancer as it was first reported on in the New

591
00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:07,600
Speaker 1: York Times, and all of the homophobia that was still happening, um,

592
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:12,480
Speaker 1: and just the slow recognition of gay people as existing

593
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: and being worthy of attention and respect as people. It

594
00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 1: takes until the mid to late nineties for us to

595
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: see them not as this other group of people who

596
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:30,799
Speaker 1: are having something like a horrible epidemic sweep through them,

597
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: but who are having love lives, love lives that are

598
00:39:34,520 --> 00:39:38,920
Speaker 1: in no way connected to tragedy. And as a byproduct

599
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:42,839
Speaker 1: of all that gay activism though that happened in light

600
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: of the AIDS crisis, it does pave the way for

601
00:39:47,920 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: lighter films that we're going to talk about. We come

602
00:39:50,120 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: right back from a quick break, all right, So once

603
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:11,120
Speaker 1: we hit the nineties, right, this is this is romcom

604
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: boom time style. Personal style is peaking. We've got lots

605
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 1: of frosted tips. We've got those uh, flipped up bucket

606
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:23,839
Speaker 1: hats with sunflowers on them. That's right. I actually had

607
00:40:23,920 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: a I had a flipped up hat because I addressed

608
00:40:26,200 --> 00:40:30,719
Speaker 1: as Matilda to a second grade costume parade. I thought

609
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,240
Speaker 1: you were adorable. I don't know, I have no idea.

610
00:40:34,560 --> 00:40:38,120
Speaker 1: I don't know. I hope I was um and And well,

611
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: those negative tropes around LGBT characters didn't disappear like we

612
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:49,400
Speaker 1: said earlier. Mainstream film and TV slowly begin to feature

613
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,880
Speaker 1: more positive portrayals of gay characters. Again, they might not

614
00:40:53,080 --> 00:40:56,840
Speaker 1: be more than two dimensional, kind of like trophy sidekick characters,

615
00:40:57,160 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: but at least they're not villains whose sexual orientation have

616
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: driven them insane to murder people. That's a plus. I

617
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:06,960
Speaker 1: feel like that's a step up. Well, this is also

618
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 1: the time, especially in the mid nineties, when we start

619
00:41:10,400 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: to get the first LGBT rom com cult classics. Yeah,

620
00:41:17,840 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 1: so in four, which I also believe is the same

621
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 1: year that Reality Bites came out, I'm pretty sure. So,

622
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:27,280
Speaker 1: I don't know, ninety four like something great was happening.

623
00:41:28,040 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: Good year for movies. But we get Priscilla, Queen of

624
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:36,760
Speaker 1: the Desert, which, as far as eccentric movies about drag

625
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 1: queens in a bus going across the desert goes, is

626
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:45,000
Speaker 1: really really heartwarming. I really love Priscilla Queen of the Desert,

627
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:46,440
Speaker 1: And can you tell me a little more about it?

628
00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:49,160
Speaker 1: Because I have never seen it. Yes, it is on

629
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:53,239
Speaker 1: my queue, um, but I've never seen it before. Basically,

630
00:41:53,680 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: you have some drag queen characters. You also have a

631
00:41:57,320 --> 00:42:01,600
Speaker 1: trans woman character, which when I saw the movie didn't

632
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,560
Speaker 1: think anything of it. But when I'm looking back now

633
00:42:04,800 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: and I think of the context of the time where

634
00:42:07,080 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: we were in ninety four and where we are now

635
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: talking about trans rights and visibility, it's pretty stinking incredible,

636
00:42:15,680 --> 00:42:19,439
Speaker 1: um and and and and not to spoil it, which

637
00:42:19,560 --> 00:42:23,440
Speaker 1: really you should see the movie anyway, but the trans woman,

638
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:27,560
Speaker 1: I mean she's not painted as a caricature. I mean

639
00:42:27,600 --> 00:42:29,759
Speaker 1: a lot of ridiculous things happen in the movie, and

640
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,240
Speaker 1: they are like dressed up and shown putting on makeup,

641
00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:34,720
Speaker 1: even when they're stranded, they're putting on their fabulous clothes.

642
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 1: But she doesn't die. And I know that's I know,

643
00:42:39,000 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 1: that's crazy, Like what that's like the bare minimum? Right? No.

644
00:42:42,480 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 1: I mean so often you had gay characters or LGBT

645
00:42:45,760 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: characters in general, meeting some sort of horrible end to

646
00:42:48,560 --> 00:42:52,719
Speaker 1: compensate for their evil and their subversiveness and whatever. Um,

647
00:42:53,040 --> 00:42:56,280
Speaker 1: But she finds love. Oh, she gets the wrong amid

648
00:42:56,360 --> 00:43:00,800
Speaker 1: the calm she she she gets the happy ending that.

649
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:05,560
Speaker 1: I mean, that is massively progressive Australia. But I mean

650
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: Australia does have, like I want to say, is it

651
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 1: Sydney that has the big drag queen culture? Um? But yeah,

652
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,400
Speaker 1: and and so I love Priscilla Queen of the Desert.

653
00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:19,640
Speaker 1: And the following year, I don't know what's in the water. Uh,

654
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,319
Speaker 1: movement towards equal rights maybe, um, but we get too

655
00:43:23,360 --> 00:43:28,960
Speaker 1: wong food with love Julie Newmar. And this is Patrick Swayze,

656
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 1: John Leguizamoh and Wesley Snipes dream Team as drag queens.

657
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 1: But again, looking back, yes they were drag queens and

658
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:47,320
Speaker 1: they performed in drag, but their characters were really really

659
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,239
Speaker 1: women identified. I mean they were still when they were

660
00:43:51,320 --> 00:43:54,400
Speaker 1: by themselves in their house in this movie, they were

661
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: still a lot of times, especially Patrick Swayze's character, dressed

662
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: and behaving as women. And so I'm one dring. Now

663
00:44:00,440 --> 00:44:02,280
Speaker 1: if you could go back and look at that movie

664
00:44:02,360 --> 00:44:04,760
Speaker 1: and it does it have more to say about trans women.

665
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:09,040
Speaker 1: But I mean, however, hokey this movie is. I mean,

666
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:13,880
Speaker 1: you do have these three outlandish characters coming to a

667
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: small town and changing hearts and minds. It still is incredible.

668
00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:20,640
Speaker 1: This movie. My mother took me to see this movie

669
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,360
Speaker 1: in the theater and she loved it. Loved it. But

670
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:26,800
Speaker 1: how could you not love Patrick Swayze and anything though? Honestly,

671
00:44:27,239 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: but John Lama's character in that movie, I think her name,

672
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:32,959
Speaker 1: I'm I seriously think her name is Cheche or something

673
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:37,000
Speaker 1: like that. Um. John l. Wizama's character has this like

674
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:44,200
Speaker 1: adorable falling in love storyline where she meets this young

675
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 1: farm boy, you know, he's never been away from home,

676
00:44:47,120 --> 00:44:51,640
Speaker 1: and he just thinks she's so beautiful and exotic because

677
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, oh, my goodness, a Latina woman and she's

678
00:44:55,080 --> 00:44:59,359
Speaker 1: beautiful and tall and broad shouldered. Um. And he has

679
00:44:59,440 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: to then grow apple with her actual identity. So so

680
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:09,359
Speaker 1: these cult films, these early LGBT rom coms, are are

681
00:45:09,560 --> 00:45:13,000
Speaker 1: such interesting time capsules in the nineties well, and in

682
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:18,120
Speaker 1: treating these characters as people rather than just accessories. UM.

683
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: I'm so curious though, to know what you think about

684
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: a movie that came out the next year, in the

685
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 1: year the Olympics came to Atlanta. Um, when The Bird

686
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:36,040
Speaker 1: Cage came out. Because now I did not immediately think

687
00:45:36,080 --> 00:45:38,320
Speaker 1: of The Bird Cage as a rom com, but some

688
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:40,239
Speaker 1: argue that it is. I feel like it kind of

689
00:45:41,040 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: it's sort of like sits on the line between rom

690
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,600
Speaker 1: com and just a com com um. And I tried

691
00:45:46,640 --> 00:45:51,239
Speaker 1: to watch it recently and it was unbearable because as

692
00:45:51,560 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: delightful as Nathan Lane and Hank Azariah are, their sons

693
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:02,719
Speaker 1: like deep seated like embarrassment and all of just the

694
00:46:04,160 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: homophobia um in it coming from the sun. I mean,

695
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,320
Speaker 1: I get the whole plot line that creates the conflict,

696
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,279
Speaker 1: but he's just awful to his dad's yeah, oh yeah,

697
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 1: so uh Robin Williams and uh Nathan Lane are the

698
00:46:21,080 --> 00:46:25,600
Speaker 1: fathers of the son who's newly engaged to Calista Flockhart.

699
00:46:25,800 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: Hankers Area is like their house boy, and I use

700
00:46:28,520 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: that term I understand, but I use that term because

701
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 1: he literally is like the tropiest, most caricatured character ever.

702
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: He wears little short shorts, denim cutoffs, and is hysterical,

703
00:46:39,080 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: but he is a total trope um. But no, I

704
00:46:42,200 --> 00:46:44,680
Speaker 1: thought the exact same thing, and when I was looking

705
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:47,440
Speaker 1: at this as a potential rom com, because you do

706
00:46:47,600 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 1: have a lot of rom between Robin Williams and Nathan

707
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 1: Lane despite all of the caricatures that are in that movie.

708
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 1: I thought the same thing. I was like, I don't

709
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:00,800
Speaker 1: know today if you could have this movie, because the

710
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:05,840
Speaker 1: driving force is them being afraid of upsetting their homophobic

711
00:47:05,920 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 1: son or he's and how embarrassing they are. Yeah, you know,

712
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 1: but you're right. I mean there are really sweet moments,

713
00:47:13,160 --> 00:47:18,000
Speaker 1: especially of Nathan Lane toward Robin Williams, but partially it's

714
00:47:18,040 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: because he has on false eyelashes and is batting them

715
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,840
Speaker 1: so perfectly. That's another movie. Both of my parents loved

716
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,799
Speaker 1: The Bird Cage. I wish if you knew my parents well,

717
00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:32,239
Speaker 1: and it's so colorful. It's a very vivacious movie. Um,

718
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: but yeah, a little different to watch in vers. Yeah.

719
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 1: And then the next year is when we get In

720
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:45,000
Speaker 1: and Out, we get Kevin Klein. He's about to get

721
00:47:45,160 --> 00:47:48,759
Speaker 1: married to a lady, but his former student, who is

722
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: now a successful actor, Matt Dylan, is up on stage

723
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:57,680
Speaker 1: delivering acceptance speech thanking his teacher quote who is gay,

724
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:00,920
Speaker 1: And Kevin Klein this like sin him on this journey

725
00:48:00,960 --> 00:48:04,160
Speaker 1: of self discovery because he's like, I'm not gay, I'm

726
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:09,400
Speaker 1: engaged to Joan Cusack. Am I gay? And so you know, like, okay,

727
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 1: great nineties movie. Make the straight guy the impetus for

728
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 1: the gay guys self discovery. Whatever, we'll overlook that. In

729
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: and Out has the key kiss that is central to

730
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: so many rom coms, but it is completely slapstick. It's

731
00:48:24,760 --> 00:48:27,840
Speaker 1: devoid of that intimate close up. In the swelling music.

732
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: Kevin Klein is like flapping around crazy like as Magnum

733
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:38,040
Speaker 1: p I kisses him, and that is essentially model. Mogue argues.

734
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: That is essentially what kept In and Out in the

735
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:44,640
Speaker 1: mainstream theaters and out of the art house theater ghetto.

736
00:48:45,520 --> 00:48:48,480
Speaker 1: She writes, the implication is not only that heterosexuals are

737
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 1: naturally revolted by same sex eroticism, but that gays should

738
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,839
Speaker 1: be to the entire audience is asked back away from

739
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,680
Speaker 1: or to laugh at the gay kiss, not to desire it.

740
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: And apparently the uh the filmmaker considered taking that scene

741
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:07,399
Speaker 1: out because he was worried that it was too much

742
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: like a bridge too far, but it tested so well

743
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:14,239
Speaker 1: with audiences that they left it in because it's hilarious. Right, yeah,

744
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: on the one hand, good for you not being disgusted

745
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:18,960
Speaker 1: by two men kissing. On the other hand, like, oh,

746
00:49:19,080 --> 00:49:21,400
Speaker 1: but it can only be if it's played for laughs,

747
00:49:21,880 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: although I will say that a very much redeeming factor

748
00:49:26,280 --> 00:49:29,600
Speaker 1: in all of this is that while yes there is

749
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:35,399
Speaker 1: this slapstick kiss and a lack of physicality between um

750
00:49:35,719 --> 00:49:40,400
Speaker 1: Tom Selleck and Kevin Klein, really beyond that at the end,

751
00:49:41,200 --> 00:49:45,920
Speaker 1: the town's embrace and support of Kevin Klein and the

752
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 1: way that they do it, and I really can't describe it,

753
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: and you need to watch it because it made me

754
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: will up a little bit. I'm going to be honest.

755
00:49:54,680 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 1: Is not for laughs at all. I mean, there's it's

756
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 1: still kind of funny, but like the nder lying message

757
00:50:01,880 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: is a very serious one that these are people. This

758
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:13,440
Speaker 1: is like a beloved English teacher in small town, USA

759
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:20,680
Speaker 1: who has tremendous friends and a devoted family, who also

760
00:50:20,800 --> 00:50:24,719
Speaker 1: happens to be gay. You know, at one point you have, uh,

761
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,719
Speaker 1: what's his name? He did the Quaker oats commercials. It's

762
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 1: a Quaker oatmeal commercials, and he was in life goes

763
00:50:31,560 --> 00:50:36,719
Speaker 1: on Wilfred Brimley. Okay, so Wilfred Brimley, this old guy

764
00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:39,799
Speaker 1: places his dad and he's a farmer. And at one point,

765
00:50:39,840 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: after Kevin Klein comes out as gay, Wilfred Brimley walks

766
00:50:43,600 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: in and he's just like, you know, San, I don't

767
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:52,360
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily understand it all, but I love you,

768
00:50:53,000 --> 00:50:56,000
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it's just like very sweet. Um,

769
00:50:56,280 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 1: So again I have I have a couple a couple

770
00:50:59,760 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: of owns to pick with Stevenson Model mag But a

771
00:51:05,600 --> 00:51:09,160
Speaker 1: couple of years later we have But I'm a Cheerleader,

772
00:51:09,239 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 1: which I watched this morning, Caroline before we came in

773
00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:18,840
Speaker 1: to record this podcast, because when we on Facebook asked stuff,

774
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,720
Speaker 1: man never told you listeners of their favorite rom coms.

775
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: But I'm a Cheerleader was one of the in the

776
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: top ten. And it stars Natasha Leone who is sent

777
00:51:30,719 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 1: off to gay reform camp essentially, and she falls in

778
00:51:38,840 --> 00:51:42,800
Speaker 1: love with Graham, who is another lesbian there who is

779
00:51:43,080 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 1: um resisting reformation. And it's so campy and um, have

780
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:51,879
Speaker 1: you ever seen House of Yes? It has very much

781
00:51:52,000 --> 00:51:56,280
Speaker 1: the same kind of like outlandish feel as that movie

782
00:51:56,360 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: starring Um Parker Posey. It might also be because both

783
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,080
Speaker 1: movies have a lot of pink and then but it

784
00:52:02,239 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: co stars Rue Paul who's hilarious and I mean, and

785
00:52:06,680 --> 00:52:09,759
Speaker 1: it just takes all of those stereotypes, all of those

786
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:15,800
Speaker 1: caricatures that we've seen in a lot of these mainstream

787
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,839
Speaker 1: films leading up to this point and just blows them

788
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:25,240
Speaker 1: up and essentially like satirizes all of the homophobia happening

789
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:27,800
Speaker 1: at the time. So if you haven't seen it, I

790
00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:32,040
Speaker 1: highly recommend it. It is on Amazon Prime and Google Play.

791
00:52:34,040 --> 00:52:36,759
Speaker 1: And this episode is brought and this episode is brought

792
00:52:36,760 --> 00:52:42,360
Speaker 1: to you by Netflix by lesbians. No it's it's fantastic,

793
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:45,680
Speaker 1: go back and watch it. It is laugh out loud, funny,

794
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:50,680
Speaker 1: and Natasha Leone, a young Natasha Leone, is a delight. Well.

795
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:54,399
Speaker 1: So when we move into the New Millennium, I wonder

796
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:56,239
Speaker 1: if I can get echo on my voice there in

797
00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:01,400
Speaker 1: the New Millennium thousand actually or two thousand one, we

798
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: get Kissing Jessica Stein, which stars Jennifer Westfeld as basically

799
00:53:07,200 --> 00:53:11,640
Speaker 1: this she thinks she's straight lady who answers a woman

800
00:53:11,680 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 1: seeking woman ad in the paper clicks instantly with a

801
00:53:14,560 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: woman who placed it and Hi Jinks in Sue Well

802
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,239
Speaker 1: and that was another gay rom com that stuff one

803
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: ever told you listeners loved and that was like almost

804
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: a critical darling at the time because it does treat

805
00:53:30,719 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: sexual fluidity in a really novel way, especially at the

806
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:36,920
Speaker 1: time Um, but I gotta tell you, the first thing

807
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,920
Speaker 1: I thought of when I was watching the trailer was

808
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:42,799
Speaker 1: that it starts off with her going on a date

809
00:53:42,840 --> 00:53:46,319
Speaker 1: with Jhon Ham and of course it doesn't work out

810
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,200
Speaker 1: because she goes on to start a relationship with a woman.

811
00:53:50,320 --> 00:53:52,640
Speaker 1: But you know, I r L they end up getting married.

812
00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 1: Just that's a very much didn't tangential thing. Oh yeah no,

813
00:53:57,400 --> 00:53:59,080
Speaker 1: and they just they just broke up. I know, I

814
00:53:59,120 --> 00:54:01,719
Speaker 1: wrote I wrote this, I broke the news on Refinery.

815
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:07,000
Speaker 1: Yeah they got um. But uh, I really I really

816
00:54:07,040 --> 00:54:09,560
Speaker 1: want to see that one. But I was reading a

817
00:54:09,640 --> 00:54:13,360
Speaker 1: couple of reviews of it, and the one in Slate

818
00:54:13,600 --> 00:54:18,480
Speaker 1: from when it came out like almost loved it. He

819
00:54:19,239 --> 00:54:26,160
Speaker 1: was frustrated because you have Jessica Stein in this relationship

820
00:54:26,320 --> 00:54:30,960
Speaker 1: between two women that's like very genuine and is exploring

821
00:54:32,200 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: themes in rom coms that you never see in terms

822
00:54:34,800 --> 00:54:38,120
Speaker 1: of emotional connection versus sexual connection. What do you do

823
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:44,680
Speaker 1: if you don't that key kiss is different for both people. Um,

824
00:54:45,040 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: but they end up having this deep bond anyway. But

825
00:54:49,200 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 1: he was disappointed because it's still circled back to so

826
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:56,320
Speaker 1: many rom com tropes and the two women, both of

827
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: whom had been in straight relationships before, talked about men

828
00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,120
Speaker 1: so much to each other that it seemed like that

829
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: was sort of the stand in for having a guy

830
00:55:09,000 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: in there, you know what I mean, to kind of

831
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:13,960
Speaker 1: stabilize the whole thing. Yeah. Interesting. And then they don't

832
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 1: stay together, but they stay friends. Spoiler spoiler, spoilers for

833
00:55:19,960 --> 00:55:22,279
Speaker 1: so many spoilers. And the thing is, I wish that

834
00:55:22,440 --> 00:55:25,239
Speaker 1: I hadn't read those reviews before I went back UM

835
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,600
Speaker 1: and discovered that Kissing Jessica Sign is an HBO GO,

836
00:55:29,120 --> 00:55:32,040
Speaker 1: so well there you go, I know. Yeah. So I

837
00:55:32,200 --> 00:55:38,279
Speaker 1: watched it and very much enjoyed it UM and very

838
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: much agree that it's a rom com focus not necessarily

839
00:55:44,320 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 1: on heterosexual love or gay love lesbian love, but rather

840
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:54,479
Speaker 1: on fluidity and the idea of openness. But it does

841
00:55:54,640 --> 00:55:58,040
Speaker 1: play on so many of the same rom com tropes,

842
00:55:58,080 --> 00:56:01,200
Speaker 1: and it's funny to see how they kind of twisted around.

843
00:56:01,320 --> 00:56:05,960
Speaker 1: Not that different from In and Out, because you have

844
00:56:06,239 --> 00:56:12,920
Speaker 1: a wedding that prompts conflict, you have people from different

845
00:56:13,000 --> 00:56:16,080
Speaker 1: worlds who are coming together that kind of opposites attract

846
00:56:16,560 --> 00:56:22,000
Speaker 1: situation UM, and you have just like very stock rom

847
00:56:22,160 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 1: com scenes where you'll have the awkward first kiss and

848
00:56:27,200 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 1: then them sitting nervous next to each other, not knowing

849
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:35,960
Speaker 1: what to do after that. Um. And it does, ultimately, yes,

850
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:41,840
Speaker 1: kind of anchor itself around straight relationships with men. But

851
00:56:41,960 --> 00:56:44,239
Speaker 1: it was I've just never seen a rom com like

852
00:56:44,360 --> 00:56:47,640
Speaker 1: that before. Well, I mean you said something that, uh,

853
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 1: that I thought was important. Um. I mean, yes, we

854
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:55,319
Speaker 1: could argue very easily, and in some cases this is true.

855
00:56:55,360 --> 00:56:57,319
Speaker 1: You could argue that some of these rom com trips

856
00:56:57,360 --> 00:56:59,600
Speaker 1: are damaging regardless of who the stars are and what

857
00:56:59,680 --> 00:57:02,320
Speaker 1: the plot is. Some of these tropes are you know,

858
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:07,840
Speaker 1: playing up people's lives and realities for laughs. But not again,

859
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: not having seen kissing Jessica Stein, is it possible that like,

860
00:57:13,160 --> 00:57:15,320
Speaker 1: that's where we should be going? And by that I

861
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:21,880
Speaker 1: mean that sexual fluidity in relationships is shown is just normal,

862
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 1: a normal part of a rom com. Yeah, and that

863
00:57:25,160 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 1: there's life beyond a relationship as well. I really appreciated

864
00:57:31,400 --> 00:57:36,640
Speaker 1: how they ultimately explored what is a very common issue

865
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 1: when you are dating, which is the um if you

866
00:57:40,080 --> 00:57:43,000
Speaker 1: have the imbalance of someone who might have, you know,

867
00:57:43,080 --> 00:57:47,520
Speaker 1: a more aggressive sexual libido and someone who is more

868
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: emotionally connected, and how those two things really interact over

869
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,240
Speaker 1: the long term, because I think that that's an issue

870
00:57:55,320 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: that a lot of couples who have been together for

871
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:00,960
Speaker 1: a while deal with, as as the dust starts to settle,

872
00:58:01,120 --> 00:58:04,440
Speaker 1: you know, and figuring out like what that balance is, Um,

873
00:58:04,680 --> 00:58:09,560
Speaker 1: the lust dust the lust does yes, um. But but

874
00:58:09,720 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: I like how they are able to We see these

875
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:20,240
Speaker 1: characters after the breakup happens, and they're okay, we know

876
00:58:20,440 --> 00:58:25,640
Speaker 1: that we know that Jennifer Westfelt has undergone a serious,

877
00:58:25,760 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 1: you know, a long term change in her life because

878
00:58:27,920 --> 00:58:33,640
Speaker 1: her hair is now crimped and she's using Uh, this

879
00:58:33,840 --> 00:58:36,480
Speaker 1: is the big thing. So she's this writer and she

880
00:58:36,640 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: hates computers. Um, she finds them just loatheso. But then

881
00:58:41,520 --> 00:58:44,600
Speaker 1: at the end when she is like at the very

882
00:58:44,720 --> 00:58:48,400
Speaker 1: very end, when she is reconnecting with someone, I won't

883
00:58:48,440 --> 00:58:50,280
Speaker 1: say who, although if you watch it, it's gonna be

884
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: easy to guess. She gives this person her email address,

885
00:58:56,320 --> 00:59:00,080
Speaker 1: to which the person is like an email address, and

886
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: she laughs and says, yes, yes, it's true. Email is

887
00:59:04,240 --> 00:59:06,080
Speaker 1: the easiest way to get in touch with me now

888
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: with their curly hair just bobbing around. And then she goes,

889
00:59:11,440 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 1: you know, to meet up with with someone I feel

890
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:16,080
Speaker 1: like I shouldn't say anymore because now I'm just like

891
00:59:16,160 --> 00:59:20,120
Speaker 1: revealing the end of this movie. Um, but so wait spoilers.

892
00:59:20,400 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 1: She talks to someone and then meets up with someone.

893
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: There are more than there are scenes with more than

894
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:31,680
Speaker 1: one person on screen. Yes. Uh. The only thing that

895
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,919
Speaker 1: I found unnecessary and very much a product of its

896
00:59:35,160 --> 00:59:40,560
Speaker 1: nineties time is her initial like ill at the thought

897
00:59:40,720 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 1: of lesbian sex. Oh yeah, that is something that's played

898
00:59:46,680 --> 00:59:48,280
Speaker 1: up for laughs. We saw that in Sex in the

899
00:59:48,320 --> 00:59:54,800
Speaker 1: City too. Yeah, it's like, no, come on, all right.

900
00:59:55,280 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: But overall, I gave it a what's our Sminty rating

901
00:59:59,200 --> 01:00:10,040
Speaker 1: system for for movies that hystorical uteruses? Oh yeah, dampons? Yeah,

902
01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:16,520
Speaker 1: uterus is okay, well out of how many five? Okay,

903
01:00:16,720 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 1: I would give it a four and a half out

904
01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:24,600
Speaker 1: of five Sminty gold uteruses. Yeah that's high praise. Yeah,

905
01:00:25,560 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: that's very enjoyable. Um. So looking forward to hearing what

906
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:34,200
Speaker 1: listeners have to say about that one. And and I

907
01:00:34,480 --> 01:00:36,640
Speaker 1: can't speak on this movie this next movie because I

908
01:00:36,680 --> 01:00:37,880
Speaker 1: have not seen it, but it is one that I

909
01:00:38,000 --> 01:00:41,440
Speaker 1: definitely want to see. It's two thousand fours Saving Face,

910
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:45,160
Speaker 1: which not only features a lesbian couple and one of

911
01:00:45,200 --> 01:00:47,720
Speaker 1: the women's pregnant mother who has to move in with them,

912
01:00:47,840 --> 01:00:49,800
Speaker 1: and of course one of the daughters is like, oh,

913
01:00:49,880 --> 01:00:52,280
Speaker 1: I can't tell my mom I'm gay, Like she keeps

914
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 1: wanting to marry me off. So you've got all of

915
01:00:54,760 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 1: those masquerading screwball hijinks, but it's an Asian American couple

916
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:03,240
Speaker 1: and their emilies and it's like, oh my god, finally,

917
01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:05,880
Speaker 1: and it looks so good. It looks so good. And

918
01:01:05,960 --> 01:01:08,120
Speaker 1: it's one of the ones that someone on Twitter was like,

919
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:10,480
Speaker 1: this is one of the few LGBT rom coms I

920
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:12,520
Speaker 1: know of what else is out there? So I have

921
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:15,080
Speaker 1: to see Saving Face. Well, and that also is one

922
01:01:15,120 --> 01:01:18,920
Speaker 1: of the few rom coms starring Asian Americans. Yeah, we

923
01:01:19,040 --> 01:01:20,960
Speaker 1: talked about that in our last episode, that you just

924
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 1: it's not like you see Asian American rom coms rolling

925
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,880
Speaker 1: around everywhere. I mean, it is so rare, and so yeah,

926
01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:30,640
Speaker 1: I for so many reasons, not only that it just

927
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 1: looks good. I need to see Saving Face. Um. So

928
01:01:34,000 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: as we moved through the two thousands, we do start

929
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: to see a little bit more diversity coming. In two

930
01:01:38,400 --> 01:01:41,080
Speaker 1: thousand fours, Touch of Paint deals with issues of religion.

931
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:43,919
Speaker 1: And then if we jump forward to two thousand six,

932
01:01:44,040 --> 01:01:47,640
Speaker 1: we get another movie that was a pretty relatively large

933
01:01:47,760 --> 01:01:50,440
Speaker 1: success as far as LGBT rom coms go, although this

934
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,800
Speaker 1: one is more of a rom com dram And that's

935
01:01:53,880 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: Imagine Me and You with Piper Parabo, and so Piper

936
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:02,600
Speaker 1: parables like she's happily committed to Matthew Good and and

937
01:02:02,800 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 1: I he's so hot, um, but she discovers her mutual

938
01:02:08,160 --> 01:02:14,040
Speaker 1: attraction to a woman. Okay, so it sounds kissing Jessica

939
01:02:14,120 --> 01:02:18,440
Speaker 1: Stein ish you have presumably straight, but oh look at this,

940
01:02:18,600 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: we have maybe bisexuality or some sexual fluidity happening. Yeah,

941
01:02:22,800 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 1: they have that in common, and they have their more

942
01:02:26,520 --> 01:02:30,480
Speaker 1: or less mainstream success in common as well. So what

943
01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:32,960
Speaker 1: is up? Why why do you imagine me and you

944
01:02:33,520 --> 01:02:37,040
Speaker 1: and kissing Jessica Stein? Why did they go against the

945
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 1: usual trend of oh my god, same sex, key kisses

946
01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:42,960
Speaker 1: me and you go to the art house theater because

947
01:02:43,040 --> 01:02:47,080
Speaker 1: it's two women, yeah, and attractive white women. Yeah. I

948
01:02:47,120 --> 01:02:50,240
Speaker 1: mean not to be like chasing Amy about it, but

949
01:02:50,360 --> 01:02:53,920
Speaker 1: it's like that is more palatable usually and is more

950
01:02:54,000 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 1: eroticized definitely than two men kissing, which that we're minds

951
01:03:00,400 --> 01:03:03,240
Speaker 1: me of. It's not necessarily a gay rom come, but

952
01:03:03,920 --> 01:03:07,720
Speaker 1: one that came out a few years ago that does

953
01:03:07,800 --> 01:03:12,000
Speaker 1: include men men kissing, although their their friends. Is the

954
01:03:12,080 --> 01:03:16,680
Speaker 1: movie hump Day starring Mark dupless Um, where he plays

955
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,520
Speaker 1: kind of straight lace guys got the the house and

956
01:03:19,600 --> 01:03:22,040
Speaker 1: the wife and the kid, and his friend comes to

957
01:03:22,120 --> 01:03:26,080
Speaker 1: town Um who is living more of a wild lifestyle.

958
01:03:26,160 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 1: He's not tied down to anything, and they get drunk

959
01:03:29,640 --> 01:03:33,360
Speaker 1: one night and they're talking about the I think it's

960
01:03:33,440 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 1: in Portland there it's an actual porn festival Um that

961
01:03:37,840 --> 01:03:40,280
Speaker 1: I want to say Dan Savage out of hand in

962
01:03:40,760 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 1: uh in starting and they get the cookie idea to

963
01:03:45,800 --> 01:03:48,720
Speaker 1: make a porn and submit it because they were like,

964
01:03:48,840 --> 01:03:50,520
Speaker 1: I mean, we can do this. We love each other,

965
01:03:50,720 --> 01:03:53,640
Speaker 1: we're guys. We can totally like make a porn together.

966
01:03:53,760 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 1: And it could veer off into browy homophobe territory, but

967
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:04,520
Speaker 1: it actually in the end, from what I remember of,

968
01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:09,720
Speaker 1: it has a really nice, honest moment of these guys

969
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:15,000
Speaker 1: actually exploring their sexuality in the sense of like talking

970
01:04:15,120 --> 01:04:17,320
Speaker 1: openly about it. Because when it comes down to the time,

971
01:04:17,360 --> 01:04:19,080
Speaker 1: they're like in the hotel room, they're like, are we

972
01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:21,760
Speaker 1: gonna do this or not, And they do end up kissing.

973
01:04:22,160 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 1: I won't give away the rest, but they have an

974
01:04:26,000 --> 01:04:30,320
Speaker 1: honest conversation about what it would feel like, and Mark

975
01:04:30,400 --> 01:04:34,000
Speaker 1: Dupless's character actually is like, I mean I I did

976
01:04:34,080 --> 01:04:36,040
Speaker 1: have a fantasy about a guy at one time, and

977
01:04:36,120 --> 01:04:41,680
Speaker 1: it's not played up for jokes. Yeah, so I mean that.

978
01:04:41,800 --> 01:04:44,040
Speaker 1: And again though that was more of an indie film,

979
01:04:44,440 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: but it got a lot of attention when it came

980
01:04:46,320 --> 01:04:48,840
Speaker 1: out because it was like, oh wait, we're seeing wait

981
01:04:48,960 --> 01:04:52,479
Speaker 1: is this a bromiance? Is this a gay rom what's

982
01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:55,800
Speaker 1: going on? How do you classify sexual fluidity and just

983
01:04:55,920 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: general openness and acceptance? Yeah, because like, oh, we're We're

984
01:04:59,640 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 1: a totally on board if it's too if it's too

985
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:04,760
Speaker 1: hot girls kissing, but like, oh wait, two guys, I

986
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:06,200
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what to do with that,

987
01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:09,360
Speaker 1: and especially two guys who look like you know, I

988
01:05:09,400 --> 01:05:11,400
Speaker 1: mean if you watch the league, I mean like they

989
01:05:11,440 --> 01:05:13,440
Speaker 1: look like two dudes like hanging out at a bar,

990
01:05:13,680 --> 01:05:17,040
Speaker 1: maybe playing fantasy football or something. They're like very much bros.

991
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:20,200
Speaker 1: They're not a Stanford Blatch on sex in the city.

992
01:05:20,400 --> 01:05:25,720
Speaker 1: So I'm going to be curious to see as marriage

993
01:05:25,720 --> 01:05:30,480
Speaker 1: equality becomes more of just like the thing that has

994
01:05:30,520 --> 01:05:36,360
Speaker 1: always been UM, trans rights continue to become more and

995
01:05:36,440 --> 01:05:41,760
Speaker 1: more accepted and destigmatized. Whether we will see that reflected

996
01:05:41,960 --> 01:05:44,920
Speaker 1: on the big screen because on the small screen we've

997
01:05:44,960 --> 01:05:47,840
Speaker 1: seen more progress with that. Yeah, I mean things are

998
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:51,440
Speaker 1: definitely slower for the big screen. We had in twenty

999
01:05:51,640 --> 01:05:54,280
Speaker 1: fifteen another movie that I have to go back and see,

1000
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:57,680
Speaker 1: which is Boy Meets Girl and the leading lady is

1001
01:05:57,880 --> 01:06:00,959
Speaker 1: a trans woman. This is she's played by Michelle Henley,

1002
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:04,400
Speaker 1: who's an actual trans woman, thank goodness, not someone masquerading

1003
01:06:04,480 --> 01:06:10,720
Speaker 1: as trans. UM who gets her own wonderful storyline of

1004
01:06:10,880 --> 01:06:14,120
Speaker 1: self discovery. This character is allowed to dream and have

1005
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:17,720
Speaker 1: love and romance and doubt and fear, and her best

1006
01:06:17,840 --> 01:06:21,840
Speaker 1: friend is a dude who's like, basically okay with the

1007
01:06:21,920 --> 01:06:24,320
Speaker 1: fact that his bff is a trans woman. There's not

1008
01:06:24,720 --> 01:06:28,160
Speaker 1: drama there, that's not the source of the conflict. UM.

1009
01:06:28,240 --> 01:06:30,640
Speaker 1: And she even has a relationship and tries to explore

1010
01:06:30,880 --> 01:06:33,560
Speaker 1: obviously not just gender. Gender has been on that's been

1011
01:06:33,560 --> 01:06:36,800
Speaker 1: figured out, but she explores her sexual orientation as well.

1012
01:06:37,360 --> 01:06:42,760
Speaker 1: And so how wonderful to see um trans issues on

1013
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,680
Speaker 1: the big screen displayed normally. I mean, I know that

1014
01:06:46,720 --> 01:06:49,960
Speaker 1: sounds weird, but not as a joke, not as a

1015
01:06:50,040 --> 01:06:52,160
Speaker 1: trope or a trick or something like that, or a

1016
01:06:52,280 --> 01:06:56,520
Speaker 1: tragedy or a tragedy. Yeah, exactly. And obviously there are

1017
01:06:57,360 --> 01:07:01,920
Speaker 1: fewer gay rom coms than there are hetero rom coms.

1018
01:07:02,120 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 1: But there are so many, especially independent films that we

1019
01:07:06,280 --> 01:07:08,240
Speaker 1: haven't had time to mention. And some of them are

1020
01:07:08,280 --> 01:07:12,920
Speaker 1: real stinkers, you know, just like Sames's with a straight

1021
01:07:13,040 --> 01:07:16,600
Speaker 1: rom cum I mean, never been kissed. You're not a fan,

1022
01:07:16,800 --> 01:07:18,920
Speaker 1: I'm not a fan. I'm trying to think of one

1023
01:07:19,000 --> 01:07:21,320
Speaker 1: that I hate. I'm sure that I don't know. My

1024
01:07:21,400 --> 01:07:23,680
Speaker 1: brain is just a little fuzzy right now. But um,

1025
01:07:24,560 --> 01:07:28,160
Speaker 1: I would love to hear though from listeners about their

1026
01:07:28,680 --> 01:07:32,680
Speaker 1: favorites and what they predict for the rom com genre,

1027
01:07:32,840 --> 01:07:36,640
Speaker 1: because we are at a point where some wonder if

1028
01:07:37,520 --> 01:07:41,880
Speaker 1: it's even going to survive. Um because in a lot

1029
01:07:41,920 --> 01:07:46,640
Speaker 1: of ways, like our society has progressed beyond the typical

1030
01:07:46,800 --> 01:07:50,080
Speaker 1: rom com formula. Um, so what are we gonna do

1031
01:07:50,160 --> 01:07:53,400
Speaker 1: with it? We're just gonna keep having ensemble rom coms

1032
01:07:53,480 --> 01:07:58,280
Speaker 1: about Harbor Day, maybe a gay ensemble rom com. We

1033
01:07:58,320 --> 01:08:03,040
Speaker 1: haven't seen that well, no got ensemble calm, A ensemble calm,

1034
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:08,960
Speaker 1: a mainstream ensemble calm, because there have been indie ensemble comms.

1035
01:08:10,240 --> 01:08:14,520
Speaker 1: Who was the Who was the Scholar? Mogel Dog and

1036
01:08:14,720 --> 01:08:21,680
Speaker 1: her Gonsomble Calms starring Dilmot mcdingleho. And I think that

1037
01:08:21,920 --> 01:08:24,759
Speaker 1: is the sign that our series has come to a close,

1038
01:08:25,400 --> 01:08:28,000
Speaker 1: because we've talked so much about rom coms now that

1039
01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:30,960
Speaker 1: we are making up words and acreatives that do not exist.

1040
01:08:32,280 --> 01:08:37,479
Speaker 1: So listeners, please write to us, give us the words.

1041
01:08:37,600 --> 01:08:40,880
Speaker 1: We want to hear all your thoughts about this um

1042
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:43,240
Speaker 1: and we should probably set up some kind of stuff

1043
01:08:43,320 --> 01:08:46,599
Speaker 1: I've never told you uh must see movie list, because

1044
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:50,439
Speaker 1: we've gotten so many fantastic suggestions and so many films

1045
01:08:50,479 --> 01:08:53,240
Speaker 1: that I now need to see and have seen by

1046
01:08:53,360 --> 01:08:56,560
Speaker 1: virtue of your suggestions, listeners, So thank you for that

1047
01:08:57,200 --> 01:09:00,519
Speaker 1: and mom stuff at how Sober suck com is where

1048
01:09:00,560 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 1: you can send us your letters. You can also tweet

1049
01:09:02,920 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 1: us a moms of podcast or messages on Facebook, and

1050
01:09:05,880 --> 01:09:07,720
Speaker 1: we've got a couple of messages to share with you

1051
01:09:08,360 --> 01:09:13,920
Speaker 1: right now. I have a letter here from Caitlin in

1052
01:09:14,040 --> 01:09:18,000
Speaker 1: response to our Surfer Girl episode. She said you expressed

1053
01:09:18,040 --> 01:09:20,160
Speaker 1: some doubt that Queen Emma was a real person or

1054
01:09:20,240 --> 01:09:23,000
Speaker 1: if her name was anglicized from a Hawaiian name. She

1055
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,639
Speaker 1: was in fact a real person, and my son attends

1056
01:09:25,680 --> 01:09:28,280
Speaker 1: the preschool named after her and which is part of

1057
01:09:28,320 --> 01:09:31,720
Speaker 1: a group of Catholic school she originally founded. It's very

1058
01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:35,000
Speaker 1: common for Hawaiian elite i e. Members of the ruling

1059
01:09:35,080 --> 01:09:38,040
Speaker 1: class to have English names. In the nineteenth century, the

1060
01:09:38,120 --> 01:09:41,720
Speaker 1: elite often intermarried with the American missionaries and businessmen who

1061
01:09:41,800 --> 01:09:45,320
Speaker 1: came to Hawaii. In addition, the elite admired the British

1062
01:09:45,439 --> 01:09:48,639
Speaker 1: royal system and society a great deal and borrowed from

1063
01:09:48,680 --> 01:09:51,320
Speaker 1: it in their post contact system of governance, as well

1064
01:09:51,760 --> 01:09:56,160
Speaker 1: as established relationships and alliances with the Brits. For example,

1065
01:09:56,479 --> 01:10:00,320
Speaker 1: Queen Emma's husband's name was Alexander Lee Hooliho, and the

1066
01:10:00,439 --> 01:10:04,639
Speaker 1: last Hawaiian king's name was King David Calicawa. It's difficult

1067
01:10:04,680 --> 01:10:08,560
Speaker 1: to overstate the influence American missionaries and businessmen had on

1068
01:10:08,720 --> 01:10:12,360
Speaker 1: modern Hawaiian history and culture, the names of individuals being

1069
01:10:12,439 --> 01:10:16,000
Speaker 1: only one small example. Kristen, I'm glad you enjoyed your

1070
01:10:16,040 --> 01:10:18,360
Speaker 1: visit to Hawaii. I've lived here for thirteen years and

1071
01:10:18,479 --> 01:10:20,680
Speaker 1: still have to pinch myself when I'm sitting under a

1072
01:10:20,720 --> 01:10:23,400
Speaker 1: palm tree on the beach looking out at the incredible

1073
01:10:23,439 --> 01:10:26,040
Speaker 1: blue and beautiful ocean. Hope you return to do a

1074
01:10:26,160 --> 01:10:29,040
Speaker 1: live show one of these days, Oh my god, anytime.

1075
01:10:30,640 --> 01:10:34,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. I want to get back to Hawaii as

1076
01:10:34,080 --> 01:10:39,599
Speaker 1: soon as possible. So I have a recommendation here from

1077
01:10:39,760 --> 01:10:42,680
Speaker 1: Christina for a rom com. She writes, I have the

1078
01:10:42,760 --> 01:10:46,439
Speaker 1: most amazing movie recommendation for you. I'm not even through

1079
01:10:46,520 --> 01:10:49,240
Speaker 1: your Working Girl rom com episode, and I haven't listened

1080
01:10:49,240 --> 01:10:51,040
Speaker 1: to the first episode in the series, but I don't

1081
01:10:51,080 --> 01:10:52,960
Speaker 1: care because I love this movie and I think you

1082
01:10:53,080 --> 01:10:55,360
Speaker 1: will too. And I highly doubt you're going to mention

1083
01:10:55,439 --> 01:10:58,639
Speaker 1: it because it's not as famous of an oldie wife

1084
01:10:59,040 --> 01:11:03,280
Speaker 1: versus Secretary. Arry is a movie that clubs to death

1085
01:11:03,520 --> 01:11:06,680
Speaker 1: so many tropes. The gold digging secretary and the attractive

1086
01:11:06,680 --> 01:11:10,200
Speaker 1: women aren't smart and career driven women are happier when

1087
01:11:10,240 --> 01:11:13,320
Speaker 1: they lay off work and get married. It's a wonderful

1088
01:11:13,400 --> 01:11:16,240
Speaker 1: movie you will like. In the vein of My Girl

1089
01:11:16,360 --> 01:11:20,400
Speaker 1: Friday and Working Girl without too many spoilers, the wife

1090
01:11:20,479 --> 01:11:23,720
Speaker 1: played by Myrna Loy allows herself to be persuaded on

1091
01:11:23,880 --> 01:11:27,719
Speaker 1: really shaky evidence that her very devoted husband, Clark Gable,

1092
01:11:27,880 --> 01:11:31,559
Speaker 1: is cheating on her with his secretary played by Jeane Harlow.

1093
01:11:32,120 --> 01:11:35,040
Speaker 1: The secretary is actually a very smart and competent woman

1094
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:37,840
Speaker 1: who knows gender is holding her back and is also

1095
01:11:37,920 --> 01:11:41,040
Speaker 1: dealing with her boyfriend played by Jimmy Stewart, talked about

1096
01:11:41,040 --> 01:11:44,880
Speaker 1: an ensemble rom com wanting her to quit working and

1097
01:11:44,920 --> 01:11:48,679
Speaker 1: settle down. It's funny, smart, and is so so freaking good.

1098
01:11:49,080 --> 01:11:51,720
Speaker 1: It's the first movie where Geene Harlow is in the

1099
01:11:51,840 --> 01:11:55,120
Speaker 1: sexpot role, but there's nothing sex pot about her. It

1100
01:11:55,200 --> 01:11:58,800
Speaker 1: addresses the idea that women can crave life satisfaction through

1101
01:11:58,840 --> 01:12:02,040
Speaker 1: a career and are just as competent and capable as men,

1102
01:12:02,600 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 1: and are held back by societal rules and fears of

1103
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:07,920
Speaker 1: women in the workplace. There are a few issues on

1104
01:12:07,960 --> 01:12:11,160
Speaker 1: the feminist front with it, but relatively minor, and overall

1105
01:12:11,200 --> 01:12:15,160
Speaker 1: it's very modern and liberal thinking for the times, despite

1106
01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:18,360
Speaker 1: coming before the postwar pushed to send women home, and

1107
01:12:18,479 --> 01:12:21,040
Speaker 1: it's not exactly like secretaries today don't deal with the

1108
01:12:21,120 --> 01:12:24,080
Speaker 1: same kind of thinking or that jealousy and fear of

1109
01:12:24,160 --> 01:12:30,599
Speaker 1: workplace romance. Wow, so that sounds fantastic. Christina I'm adding

1110
01:12:30,640 --> 01:12:32,800
Speaker 1: it to my queue. I need like a month off

1111
01:12:32,840 --> 01:12:35,719
Speaker 1: to watch all of these movies. So thank you listeners

1112
01:12:35,800 --> 01:12:38,280
Speaker 1: for tuning in with us all summer for our rom

1113
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:42,439
Speaker 1: com series and keep your recommendations and letters coming. Mom

1114
01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:44,840
Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email

1115
01:12:44,880 --> 01:12:47,200
Speaker 1: address and for links to all of our social media

1116
01:12:47,280 --> 01:12:50,320
Speaker 1: as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts

1117
01:12:50,400 --> 01:12:53,960
Speaker 1: with our sources so you too can learn even more

1118
01:12:54,240 --> 01:12:57,639
Speaker 1: about rom coms, head on over to stuff Mom Never

1119
01:12:57,760 --> 01:13:04,599
Speaker 1: Told You dot com. For more on this and thousands

1120
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:06,960
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com