Speaker 1: Madonna. I know you listen to every episode of this
Speaker 1: podcast and you heard it from Trix and Mattel. She
Speaker 1: wants like a virgin Barbie.
Speaker 2: No, you know, if she does it, she's gonna push
Speaker 2: through like a ray of light Barbie, and we're gonna
Speaker 2: get blue jeans and like like a Hotten shirt. Kabala Barbie.
Speaker 1: I want that.
Speaker 2: She's sheen am me, no me, not my name? Yo
Speaker 2: yo yo? What is your childhood trauma? I have coo.
Speaker 2: You know what's going down the floor like.
Speaker 1: Round Welcome to Like a Virgin, the show where we
Speaker 1: give yesterday's pop culture today's takes. I am Ra's Damu
Speaker 1: and I am fran to Rota Virgins. You know you
Speaker 1: will have heard our patch from Fire Island in our
Speaker 1: episode last week. Also, if you're a patron patroon dot
Speaker 1: com slash like a Virgin, you will have heard our
Speaker 1: annual Fire Island episode. But our vacation is over. It's
Speaker 1: back to real life. I had a great time. I
Speaker 1: think you did as well. Fran Oh for sure.
Speaker 3: I mean I still feel like my body is like
Speaker 3: catching up with all the things that I put it through.
Speaker 2: During that week.
Speaker 3: Like honestly, vacation can be like I'm not going to
Speaker 3: say exhausting, but like it's definitely like your body is
Speaker 3: operating at a different level, taking in a different number
Speaker 3: of drugs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I and in the sun all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was really the thing that got me the day.
Speaker 1: The day we got back, I needed just a reset
Speaker 1: day and I did like an intense body cleanse, skincare, routine,
Speaker 1: hair washing, and like afterwards, laying on my couch, I
Speaker 1: just felt fried, like both both physically because I got
Speaker 1: a lot of sun and mentally like even though literally
Speaker 1: all we were doing was laying around and relaxing, I
Speaker 1: needed a day to sort of get back to I
Speaker 1: needed to bring me to life, as Amy Lee said
Speaker 1: on the emin Essence debut album. And then the next
Speaker 1: day was my birthday. Yes that's right, Virgins, I am
Speaker 1: now thirty five years old.
Speaker 3: Yes, and you celebrated by going to the place that
Speaker 3: Carrie Bradshaw went to on her exact thirty fifth birthday,
Speaker 3: which was a very mediocre Italian restaurant.
Speaker 1: It was really it was actually bad, Like my entree
Speaker 1: was bad. My entree was bad because I didn't realize
Speaker 1: I thought that I was ordering a pasta that had
Speaker 1: spinach in it, and instead what I ordered was a
Speaker 1: pasta that substituted spinach for noodles. No, it was fine.
Speaker 1: It was not about the food. It was about the vibes,
Speaker 1: and it was not about the food. No. But it
Speaker 1: was a very lovely birthday dinner. And actually this was
Speaker 1: one of the best birthdays I've had in years, I
Speaker 1: think mostly mostly because I approached it very much as
Speaker 1: just another day. I worked during the day, I went
Speaker 1: to the gym, I did very ordinary things. I went
Speaker 1: to a bookstore and ran into a lovely virgin who
Speaker 1: gave me a great discount and picked up a bunch
Speaker 1: of new books. And then I had a wonderful meal
Speaker 1: with my nearest and dearest, wearing I have to say,
Speaker 1: a pretty sickening outfit. There was a great day.
Speaker 3: We love that your outfit was incredible. Yeah, it was
Speaker 3: cordial and it was simple, and that's exactly what you
Speaker 3: need out of a birthday gathering. I feel like, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: the food, the food you we said, was like kind
Speaker 3: of it was olive garden territory SERTs I thought were phenomenal.
Speaker 1: The desserts were great. I love a tartufo. I hadn't
Speaker 1: had forever. It was so good, and I think everyone
Speaker 1: else I think I don't think anyone else had had
Speaker 1: tartufo at that table, so it did gag them a bit.
Speaker 1: For anyone who wants to know, we went to Il Cantonore,
Speaker 1: which is if you remember the season four episode of
Speaker 1: Sex and the City, The Agony and the Ecstasy. It's
Speaker 1: the restaurant where Carry goes for her birthday dinner and
Speaker 1: none of her friends show up and she has to
Speaker 1: pay for her own birthday cake. The woman with the
Speaker 1: birthday cake is here and she needs a bebate and
Speaker 1: my friends did show up and it was lovely. We
Speaker 1: had a great time and I also had sex that
Speaker 1: night when I got home, and it was fabulous birthday.
Speaker 1: It was really a perfect birthday. Was it was it with? Well?
Speaker 2: Was it with Recurring the World?
Speaker 1: If that's all we're going to say, that's all we're
Speaker 1: going to say. The rest is for the Patreon divas. No,
Speaker 1: the rest is for not people who listen to this podcast. Sorry,
Speaker 1: but you know what we will talk about is the
Speaker 1: fact that no is the fact that Taylor Swift released
Speaker 1: Speak Now Taylor's version I am a little over the
Speaker 1: Taylor's versions, I have to say, and I really felt
Speaker 1: the fatigue with this one because I think I mean
Speaker 1: a I didn't listen to it for basically a whole
Speaker 1: week because we were not featuring it on Fire Island. No,
Speaker 1: not to the.
Speaker 3: Vibe we tried and then switched to just contemporary tailor
Speaker 3: and Taylor's.
Speaker 1: It just I think we've lost the plot in a way,
Speaker 1: which is that the actual point of these albums is
Speaker 1: to literally re record the existing music in such a
Speaker 1: way that it replaces the old Scooter's versions. And yes,
Speaker 1: we get the new tracks and everything, and you know,
Speaker 1: some of the ones on this album are good, but
Speaker 1: it just sounds so much like the original that I'm like,
Speaker 1: what is the point?
Speaker 3: And the bonus tracks, which like Hayley Williams and fallow
Speaker 3: Way are amazing features to have on the bonus tracks, Sorry,
Speaker 3: didn't really do it for me. I think the only
Speaker 3: song that I will return to is I See You,
Speaker 3: which was on the original or no, is that a
Speaker 3: bonus track?
Speaker 1: But that's the bonus track? Yeah? I thought that she
Speaker 1: made the music video the stupidest music video ever for.
Speaker 2: I loved that bonus track. I thought it was.
Speaker 3: It's a good song, yeah, but no, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I godspeed to everyone going to the Eras tour. Peyton
Speaker 3: just went like seems like she actually I feel like
Speaker 3: everyone we know was like at the Denver show for Eras,
Speaker 3: Rose is still looking for tickets though, no, I'm You're like,
Speaker 3: I'm not anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm seeing Beyonce next week. I'm good, love, enjoy.
Speaker 1: I only have one big summer concert in me, and
Speaker 1: that is the one I have been listening to speak
Speaker 1: now Taylor's version, but I could just as easily listen
Speaker 1: to Scooter's version and like be fine.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I have I feel like I'm all
Speaker 3: listened out, like I have so much music.
Speaker 1: It's just this shtick is getting old.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I don't want to listen to Reputation Taylor's version,
Speaker 3: like that's gonna be bizarre? No, no, no, no. What
Speaker 3: if she did all acoustic, Like how is she going
Speaker 3: to do?
Speaker 2: That would be fab That would fab if like ras like, yeah,
Speaker 2: an acoustic version of a reputation would be fabulous because
Speaker 2: it would be different instead of just being a copy
Speaker 2: paste of the music.
Speaker 3: I have a question y as a as someone who's
Speaker 3: a little more of a tailor scholar than I am.
Speaker 3: I feel like she said maybe in her documentary that
Speaker 3: reputation was kind of like an era that she regrets
Speaker 3: a little bit. Is that she said something like that before.
Speaker 3: I feel like she's talked about how it was like
Speaker 3: a really dark time and how she felt like reputation
Speaker 3: was in reaction to or retaliation against something instead of
Speaker 3: like actual art.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a reaction to the way she
Speaker 1: was talked about post you know, like being quote unquote
Speaker 1: exposed by Kim Kardashian and like the Kanye West of
Speaker 1: it all. I don't know if she's ever said anything
Speaker 1: about regretting it. I certainly don't regret it. Reputation is
Speaker 1: one of my favorite Taylor albums.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's at the bottom of my list.
Speaker 3: So but I, you know, whatever Taylor's version is gonna
Speaker 3: look like, I'm here for it.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Taylor and tunes, a lot of Taylor's music
Speaker 1: was featured in the trailer for the second season of
Speaker 1: The Summer I turned pretty Actually, Ryan when the trailer
Speaker 1: dropped thought it was a short film that she had
Speaker 1: made because he had no context for the show. The
Speaker 1: first three episodes dropped on Amazon on Friday, and I
Speaker 1: watched them all this weekend. And you know, I famously
Speaker 1: don't love YA because I don't believe teenagers are real people.
Speaker 1: But this is very compelling YA soap opera and there
Speaker 1: is a lot of Taylor shot music featured in it.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a very like no thoughts
Speaker 1: had empty summer show to watch, that is a perfect one.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to watch it, but it does sound
Speaker 2: is it kind of?
Speaker 1: I was talking to the Virgins, I know, I.
Speaker 3: Was just saying, for the record, is it like a
Speaker 3: kind of to all the boys I've loved before?
Speaker 1: Coded? It's yeah, Well it's written. The book that it's
Speaker 1: based onst written by Jenny Hahn, who wrote to All
Speaker 1: the Boys. It's love Triangle, a girlye who is in
Speaker 1: uh like, caught between two brothers. Brother. Yes, there's also
Speaker 1: they're dealing with grief because the brother's mom died. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's very good. Okay, Okay.
Speaker 3: You know what I finished this weekend, which I don't
Speaker 3: think you finished, was the other two?
Speaker 1: Did you did you finish that? No? I watched two
Speaker 1: and a half seasons of it in the span of
Speaker 1: a week, and then got that midway through season three
Speaker 1: and was like, no, I don't want to watch this anymore.
Speaker 1: It's bad.
Speaker 3: The I will agree that a lot of the latter
Speaker 3: half of season three is as you put it, ass
Speaker 3: and I felt it, and I felt like the finale,
Speaker 3: especially was a whole lot of assery, Like, I, so
Speaker 3: how does it end? I'm not I skim skipped through
Speaker 3: a lot of it. The show, especially in its finale,
Speaker 3: decided to completely change genres and become a drama, a
Speaker 3: like thoughtful, emotional, like personal journey drama about the moralistic
Speaker 3: arc of these two characters and how they can reconcile
Speaker 3: their misery and become like, I don't know, like people again,
Speaker 3: and they get there. The redemptions are the redemption arcs
Speaker 3: are really lovely, like they work fine, but the way
Speaker 3: it's shot is totally completely different, And I feel like
Speaker 3: the showrunner was maybe trying to do something that was
Speaker 3: like profound and brilliant, but the way that the main
Speaker 3: gay guy was portrayed and all of the internal struggle
Speaker 3: that he went through about which was like obsessing over fame,
Speaker 3: like getting overly involved with like the industry and like
Speaker 3: and like you know, excommunicating all of his friends and
Speaker 3: loved ones as a product of that. It feels like
Speaker 3: something that the showrunner actually went through, and it felt
Speaker 3: so transparently, something that the writer needed to just get
Speaker 3: off of his chest to a degree that felt like Bros.
Speaker 3: Coded Like it was like that scene in Bros. Where
Speaker 3: Billy Eigner has that long monologue to the to the
Speaker 3: his like kind of boo on the beach, talking about
Speaker 3: like how people don't understand him, and I was like,
Speaker 3: that's like lovely, but also like this is we know,
Speaker 3: this is you.
Speaker 1: That's such a That's not the ending I would expect
Speaker 1: have expected the show to have. I actually feel like
Speaker 1: it would be much truer to the show and the
Speaker 1: characters to not redeem them and to instead maybe give
Speaker 1: them some kind of come upance. Yeah for being horrible people.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean they definitely got punished for their actions,
Speaker 3: which is nice. But no, I don't know. The show
Speaker 3: is so like if Virgins ever wanted to watch it.
Speaker 3: The first two seasons are amazing, some of the second
Speaker 3: season is not great, and there are some episodes of
Speaker 3: the third season that are so genius, so laugh out
Speaker 3: loud funny, so much insider baseball like stuff that is
Speaker 3: like relevant to like queer people, especially like gay people
Speaker 3: that exist in media and consume gay media. Oh so
Speaker 3: fucking funny.
Speaker 1: And well you loved you loved that Aid's Play episode.
Speaker 1: Which I did not. I did not think was that.
Speaker 3: There was a spoof of The Inheritance that was fucking hilarious.
Speaker 3: I thought, featuring Lucas Gage. I also thought the muliu
Speaker 3: A bit was so funny.
Speaker 1: Well, I did like that Simulio talked about eating Molly
Speaker 1: shan It's pussy a lot. But other than that, I'm
Speaker 1: never going to watch the rest of the other two
Speaker 1: because I'm too busy reading gay monster porn.
Speaker 2: Okay say more please.
Speaker 1: So I have been book Corner. This is Roses Book Corner,
Speaker 1: which actually if you want to hear if you want
Speaker 1: to hear me talk at length about books, you can
Speaker 1: go on Patreon, Patreon dot com, slash like a Virgin
Speaker 1: and that is the official home of Roses Book Corner.
Speaker 1: But I have been reading a lot recently. I read
Speaker 1: four books while we were on vacation. I'm on fire
Speaker 1: right now and I've been reading a lot of lit thick,
Speaker 1: so I needed a mindless you know, palette cleanser. And
Speaker 1: as as virgins will know, I love a codpiece ripper,
Speaker 1: which is our terminology for gay historical romance. What I
Speaker 1: never have ventured into is gay is gay monster fucking
Speaker 1: book tentacle ripper. Tentacle ripper maybe like eggsack ripper.
Speaker 2: Not eggsac.
Speaker 1: I have yet to encounter of sexy eggsac in these books,
Speaker 1: but it could happen. So, based off of a TikTok recommendation,
Speaker 1: I downloaded onto my kindle a book called Soul Eater
Speaker 1: by an author named Lily Maine, and it is set
Speaker 1: in a post apocalyptic America that is overrun by monsters
Speaker 1: and the main care is a soldier at a military
Speaker 1: base who studies monsters and they bring in like this
Speaker 1: scary monster named Win, the soul Eater, who is like
Speaker 1: in He's like super tall, his like grayskin and has
Speaker 1: a hood so you can't see his face with there's
Speaker 1: horns sticking out of it. And the monster like takes
Speaker 1: a liking to him, and they end up escaping the
Speaker 1: facility and they start fucking and fall in love and
Speaker 1: he loves not to make it all about his genitals,
Speaker 1: but but it's about his let's talk about his genitals.
Speaker 1: So he has a slit where a penis would be. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then when he gets aroused, a penis comes out
Speaker 1: of the sort just like a shape of water. And
Speaker 1: when and they're they're flip fucking. So when the when
Speaker 1: the soldier wants to fuck him, he fucks the slit
Speaker 1: like under the penis, so that basically like the penises
Speaker 1: are like together in the whole. And this is great.
Speaker 1: It honestly is like really hot and fun and actually
Speaker 1: like a good story, like with well drawn characters.
Speaker 2: I support you. I support this.
Speaker 1: I started reading this the first book last yesterday evening
Speaker 1: around like five pm, and finished it this morning, and
Speaker 1: then immediately started the second one. And there's I believe
Speaker 1: seven in the series. So this is my new journey,
Speaker 1: is reading a month porn. It is soul eater, soul sucker,
Speaker 1: so there is definitely a lot of sucking going.
Speaker 2: On into it. Slash you should write one of those,
Speaker 2: slash you should adapt.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking I need to maybe
Speaker 1: start writing some porn. I actually am feeling very creatively
Speaker 1: repped up right now from everything I've been reading, I read.
Speaker 1: As I said, I read a bunch of books on vacation,
Speaker 1: and maybe, like I'll go more in depth into them
Speaker 1: on the Patreon at some point, but just to like
Speaker 1: quickly talk about them. My favorite book that I read
Speaker 1: while we were on vacation is Vladimir by Julia May Jonas,
Speaker 1: which is about a professor at a liberal arts college
Speaker 1: in upstate New York whose husband has been accused by
Speaker 1: several women of sexual misconduct, and as that's happening, a
Speaker 1: young professor comes to the school and she becomes totally
Speaker 1: obsessed with him. It's a really sharp and incredibly written
Speaker 1: takedown of like me too culture and wokeness and academia,
Speaker 1: and it's like one of my favorite things that I've
Speaker 1: read in such a long time. The voice is just
Speaker 1: so perfect. I also read We Could Be So Good
Speaker 1: by Kat Sebastian, which is a codpiece ripper about two
Speaker 1: newspaper reporters in nineteen fifties New York City who fall
Speaker 1: in love. I thought it was very sweet and I
Speaker 1: really like to see their love story. And then I
Speaker 1: read The Guest by Emma Kline, which is sort of
Speaker 1: the like hot Girl book of the Summer. It's got
Speaker 1: a very like saturated cover.
Speaker 2: We know what the cover looks like. And it's about
Speaker 2: a sex.
Speaker 1: Worker who is dating this man and staying with him
Speaker 1: in his beach house and like probably the hamp Dens,
Speaker 1: and he kicks her out, and so she has to
Speaker 1: spend a couple of days just sort of going around
Speaker 1: trying to like glom onto any man she can find.
Speaker 1: And it's it's a really great character study. She makes
Speaker 1: like bad decision after bad decision, and it's like you're
Speaker 1: just like reading it screaming at her. And it's really
Speaker 1: well done up until the ending, which was one of
Speaker 1: the most disappointing endings of a book I read in
Speaker 1: a very long time. It really needed like another chapter
Speaker 1: or an epilogue or something. It was just so disappointing.
Speaker 1: It was like it just like crashed off a cliff.
Speaker 1: And then the fourth book I read was like a
Speaker 1: codpiece of report that is not worth talking about. It
Speaker 1: was aggressively fine. But I am going to Florida this
Speaker 1: week to visit my family, so I'm sure I'll be
Speaker 1: doing a lot of reading while i'm there, and you know,
Speaker 1: stay tuned if you want more recommendations. Well, we have
Speaker 1: a very exciting episode today. This is a long time coming,
Speaker 1: both in terms of the fact that this movie has
Speaker 1: been promoted forever. Barbie the Doll has existed for a
Speaker 1: very long time, and we recorded this episode months ago.
Speaker 1: But we have Trixy Mattel on the podcast today talking
Speaker 1: all things Barbie. Yes, and we have to say, just
Speaker 1: because we are who we are, we are in support
Speaker 1: with this strike.
Speaker 2: Okay, SAG hello is striking.
Speaker 1: This is huge.
Speaker 3: All of the videos we're seeing a fran dresser are amazing,
Speaker 3: even though she's kind of an anti vaxxer, but she's amazing.
Speaker 3: And this is not promotion for the movie Barbie. This
Speaker 3: is a historicization of Barbie as an idyl and icon.
Speaker 1: Ok Yes. And we will probably behind the scenes be
Speaker 1: figuring out how we are going to approach talking about
Speaker 1: new media in the wake of SAG and the W
Speaker 1: A G A both being on strike. So this is evolving.
Speaker 1: We're still figuring it out. But no scabs on this podcast.
Speaker 1: No scabs, no thank you.
Speaker 3: This is a tricksy is a long time coming as
Speaker 3: a guest, iconic iconic, So let's let's do it.
Speaker 1: This episode is about and for the dolls.
Speaker 2: That's right, pre Barbie movie, pre social media, pre like
Speaker 2: I don't know, Jeremy Scott's boardby collection, pre all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I just I wanted to I wanted my zippers to
Speaker 2: be this big compared to my body, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, even proportionally. I wanted to be a tiny
Speaker 2: plastic thing. And I think it was like a maybe mentally,
Speaker 2: it was like an escape route from the human experience.
Speaker 2: It's like what if I also just had no thoughts,
Speaker 2: you know, like what if I also had.
Speaker 1: What if my head was squishy too?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was squish my head. What if my knees
Speaker 2: you know, snapped? And then when I started like I
Speaker 2: guess I got the cart before the horse, and like
Speaker 2: in my later twenties, I started being like, well, I
Speaker 2: take all this inspiration from America's favorite fashion doll, but
Speaker 2: what do I really know about it? And then for
Speaker 2: like a good year, I pretty much read every nonfiction
Speaker 2: book about Mattel and Barbie that is in existence, everything
Speaker 2: from the biography and autobiography of Ruth Handler to studies
Speaker 2: about child development to the history of Barbie. And I'm
Speaker 2: probably mentally ill and so when I get focused on
Speaker 2: something I really like, hit record and learn everything about
Speaker 2: it very quickly. And so now I just like, I mean,
Speaker 2: I really know everything about Barbie. I think I know
Speaker 2: everything there is to know. So what do you want
Speaker 2: to know? That's why we brought you on.
Speaker 1: Now we're going to test your knowledge. No, we're not
Speaker 1: here to getcha, but I am really interested to get
Speaker 1: maybe like, why do you think Barbie was so groundbreaking
Speaker 1: as a toy and why has she endured the way
Speaker 1: she has.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a few reasons. Right, number one first of
Speaker 2: its kind. Right until Barbie came along in nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 2: little girls were encouraged to pretend to be moms. That's it.
Speaker 2: All dolls were babies. So that's like the number one.
Speaker 2: This is the first toy that had women imagining they
Speaker 2: could be nurses or flight attendants or doctors or like anything.
Speaker 2: Not to mention you have to imagine in nineteen fifty
Speaker 2: nine a toy to have breasts and no husband and
Speaker 2: have her own apartment and be a mo which means
Speaker 2: she has her own income. Extremely scandalous, Like it's basically
Speaker 2: a porn toy for children at the time. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: this was at a time where a woman's second biggest
Speaker 2: fear is that her daughter's going to be like overdeveloped
Speaker 2: and slutty and like too independent. Her number one fear
Speaker 2: is that she's going to be ungroomed and unmarriable because
Speaker 2: a husband was a meal ticket. So even women who
Speaker 2: are a little conservative is like, well, if I get
Speaker 2: my daughter this doll, maybe she'll become interested in styling
Speaker 2: her hair and dressing herself. Like it was a way
Speaker 2: for women to communicate like, hey, I want you to
Speaker 2: be comfortable in your life, and if you want that,
Speaker 2: this is the template. Like this will get you fed,
Speaker 2: this will get you a house. Like that was sort
Speaker 2: of the communication there under the surface. And so that's
Speaker 2: the number one reason I think that that that's turned
Speaker 2: into now every adult has a Barbie memory, and you
Speaker 2: want your children to have the experience you had. So
Speaker 2: now it's like a rite of passage where it's like
Speaker 2: she's old enough for a barbie, let's get her a barbie.
Speaker 2: I mean, you give your kid the tool to imagine
Speaker 2: anything happening to them. Because originally, I mean the doll
Speaker 2: was invented when Ruth Handler would see her daughter using
Speaker 2: paper dolls to play out like adult scenarios. She was like, well,
Speaker 2: why doesn't this exist in the three dimensional The other
Speaker 2: reason it's so popular is because, I hate to say it,
Speaker 2: the good and bad press that comes out every five
Speaker 2: or ten years. You know, this year we're gonna get
Speaker 2: obsessed with Barbie's body not being big enough, and this
Speaker 2: year we're gonna barbiecore is gonna get big again. So
Speaker 2: it's going to go through runways for like a year.
Speaker 2: Like every few years, it pops researches again in fashion,
Speaker 2: or there's a movie about it, or an SNL skit
Speaker 2: or just it's such a common link. I mean, the
Speaker 2: average little girl in the United States owns eleven dolls.
Speaker 2: Eleven Barbies. Wow, yeah, an average jealous So the numbers
Speaker 2: like everybody has a Barbie story. And the flip side
Speaker 2: of that is, let's say every woman has a little
Speaker 2: bit of body stuff, right, things about their body they
Speaker 2: struggle with. If everyone owned a doll. I'm not saying
Speaker 2: it's fair, but it becomes the common thread that I
Speaker 2: think becomes a scapegoat for a lot of conversations about
Speaker 2: the culture as a whole. I don't like my body,
Speaker 2: I don't either did you have a Barbie? Me too?
Speaker 2: It must like I think that's a little too reductive.
Speaker 2: Body things and stuff like that is more than just
Speaker 2: some toy you had. It's commercials, it's movies, it's you know, everything.
Speaker 1: So that coverage girl has eleven dolls? How many dolls
Speaker 1: do you have?
Speaker 2: That's what I was gonna have. I'm about probably like
Speaker 2: six hundred little girls. Now more than that, like probably
Speaker 2: six thousand little girls, which means not if but when I.
Speaker 3: You're every woman, Wait, is it six hundred or is
Speaker 3: it six thousand a half?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I probably have. I mean, if we're being honest, I
Speaker 2: probably have. We're talking the body, like how many plastic
Speaker 2: dolls do I have? Because then there's clothes, which is
Speaker 2: a whole other thing. Yeah, it's not even quantifiable. Oh wow,
Speaker 2: So they're not They're not like in short or anything
Speaker 2: or like, is it like like a filing system. Are
Speaker 2: they all in a safe yeah? Are they invent?
Speaker 1: Are there?
Speaker 2: Is there an archive in our inventory? Or they're kind
Speaker 2: of spread out? Like at the motel and the reception,
Speaker 2: we have maybe three two or three dozen of my
Speaker 2: my real vintage collection. So if you go in there,
Speaker 2: some of those dolls are like they amn near on
Speaker 2: a thousand dollars, don't steal them. And then at my
Speaker 2: condo where I keep at my like uh drag studio,
Speaker 2: that's where I have like most of my vintage ones.
Speaker 2: That's where I have I have a number one Barbie
Speaker 2: deep in the closet, buried because that's a very valuable piece.
Speaker 2: Mind sent signed by Ruth Handler. Two. So I have
Speaker 2: a lot, and I'm always looking. I mean, I've stopped,
Speaker 2: I've started narrowing. So now I'm in the middle of
Speaker 2: getting rid of my nineties because most of what I
Speaker 2: collect is like sixties mad Barbie. So I'm getting rid
Speaker 2: of a lot of my nineties Barbie right now because
Speaker 2: I just I need to thin the herd. All collectors
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 1: It's like her Flop in the nineties.
Speaker 2: No Barbie in the nineties, I believe is honestly the
Speaker 2: Golden era, because we're talking like tan, orange skin, blue eyeshadow,
Speaker 2: this big white hair, and every look is like ice skates,
Speaker 2: roller skates, ice cream glitter. It's nuts because for a
Speaker 2: good like mid two thousands to twenty fifteen, it was,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, the least interesting time Barbie was in
Speaker 2: jeans and T shirts, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Ooh, normcore Barbie.
Speaker 2: Kind of like, I mean, there's important things they do now,
Speaker 2: like career of the Year Barbie. It will be this
Speaker 2: year she's a robot technician. This year she's running for president,
Speaker 2: and like.
Speaker 1: That year podcaster.
Speaker 2: Maybe she's a podcaster. One year she was like a
Speaker 2: music producer, so she had like a little keyboard in
Speaker 2: a computer and headphones. But I of course like the
Speaker 2: heightened versions. So like when Barbie a few years ago
Speaker 2: started doing the extra dolls, It's like, that's fierce when
Speaker 2: they're in like fur coats and pumps, and because Barbie
Speaker 2: used to be so aspirational and theatrical, and I feel
Speaker 2: that for a while it was getting really joggers and
Speaker 2: T shirt as a collector. It wasn't only the collector
Speaker 2: dolls were cool. But want I like a world where
Speaker 2: I can walk through Target and see dolls that I want,
Speaker 2: you know, I want those to be cool too. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's hard. I mean the dolls are made from plastic,
Speaker 2: and plastics made from oil and natural oils are all
Speaker 2: loose going up in price, and when you have like
Speaker 2: I'm sure Walmart or whatever is like we'll buy this
Speaker 2: meny dolls from you, matel but they have to be
Speaker 2: under ten dollars to beat this price point. Then it
Speaker 2: makes the toy company and the not the decorators, the designers,
Speaker 2: and the toy company like they're limited because they have
Speaker 2: to make a doll that's accessible. They can't spend all
Speaker 2: the money because then it's gonna be one hundred fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: Like I am fine with that, but yeah, you're like whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but a little like Mary Sue shopping a target
Speaker 1: in you know, like Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's have you ever been in like a
Speaker 2: CBS and they have like an eight dollar doll where
Speaker 2: she's just in this from suit. They still have to
Speaker 2: have an impulse purchase level doll. Yeah. For the kid
Speaker 2: who's like nagging at the store, is like can I
Speaker 2: just have one?
Speaker 1: Well, the ones that I got to get, Like when
Speaker 1: I was a kid and like wasn't allowed to have dolls.
Speaker 1: It was like when I had a couple dollars and
Speaker 1: I was like didn't have supervision. That's when I was
Speaker 1: able to like buy the you know, Walgreens Aisle Barbie
Speaker 1: and then hiding that I kept in my closet that
Speaker 1: my parents didn't know about and would play with them
Speaker 1: in secret.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh wow, that was that's your doll origin story?
Speaker 1: Was that is my doll origin story. It's like covered
Speaker 1: in shame because of like you know, like the you
Speaker 1: know whatever it was saying about like my gender, like
Speaker 1: my queerness or whatever. You know, it was very, very shameful.
Speaker 1: I knew that I was not allowed to have them
Speaker 1: because I already did too many girly things, and you know,
Speaker 1: like I think my mom kind of looked the other way,
Speaker 1: but I knew that it was wrong. And now I
Speaker 1: look back on it and like, of course I wanted
Speaker 1: to play with dolls. Hello, Like why is it? Why
Speaker 1: was it so shameful?
Speaker 2: But it really was, honestly, Well, it's not a two
Speaker 2: way street either, Like if your daughter wants to talk
Speaker 2: a truck, no one cares, But if your someone wants
Speaker 2: a barbie, it's an issue.
Speaker 1: Yes, say that.
Speaker 3: I'm so glad earlier that you brought up the kind
Speaker 3: of like the boy girl toys and McDonald's, because that
Speaker 3: was such like a moment in the culture, like like
Speaker 3: and and the kind of fascism required for me to
Speaker 3: get a NASCAR toy as a child, like.
Speaker 2: I don't want that fucking Nascar toy, Like, how dare
Speaker 2: that was so rude?
Speaker 3: I was like that it was it was violence, honestly almost.
Speaker 2: There was something almost more aspirational for me too about
Speaker 2: like the McDonald's Happy Meal Barbies, because a lot of
Speaker 2: times the hair was plastic and sculpted, so it was like,
Speaker 2: she's almost like a religious totem. She's like a little
Speaker 2: statue of the perfect woman. And I mean, as a kid,
Speaker 2: I really was just worshiping the dolls. I mean before
Speaker 2: I understood, before I understood that she was sort of
Speaker 2: at that point in the nineties, Barbie was almost doing drag.
Speaker 2: She was parodying femininity on such a high level. I mean,
Speaker 2: miss Yvonne Barbie peg Bundy. There was this pocket of
Speaker 2: like women doing drag that was like I think probably
Speaker 2: a response to women's movements like in the nineties, like
Speaker 2: shaved heads and tape over the titties. And there was
Speaker 2: this beginning conversation about what we expected women and like
Speaker 2: me and me from Drew Carrey, it's like, when we
Speaker 2: show what women are supposed to be like, and we
Speaker 2: pushed that a little bit. We show how stupid it
Speaker 2: is to expect women to do anything or be any
Speaker 2: type of way. You know, That's something I'm always wanting
Speaker 2: to explore with Tricksy, especially in the beginning, was like,
Speaker 2: if my waist is this big, and my titties are huge,
Speaker 2: and my hairs and all this is if you look
Speaker 2: at me and see a woman, I think that's actually
Speaker 2: very illuminating that, like I read, doesn't do I look
Speaker 2: like your mother or your sister? No, So like it's
Speaker 2: interesting that you see women when I look fucking crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you look like someone's mother or sister.
Speaker 2: And I will I will say, like when I got
Speaker 2: out of Texas, They're like, your hair reminds me my mom.
Speaker 2: I'm like, can I see it? And I have to
Speaker 2: say so, I actually watched her unboxing of your number one,
Speaker 2: of your number one Barbie, the original was it nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty five Barbie just off the Fountain nineteen fifty nine?
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I have to say that the original Barbie, her mug
Speaker 3: was pretty cunty, like she had like like thin brows
Speaker 3: and a side eye, and she had like, you know,
Speaker 3: like thick eyeliner leg She.
Speaker 1: Looked kind of her face is giving a little like she's.
Speaker 2: Like you sure, and I'll say she's she's a little
Speaker 2: severe looking for a child's toy, I will say. And
Speaker 2: that's part of why, you know, in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 2: when the handlers were showing Barbie toys used to be
Speaker 2: purchased this way. There would be a toy convention at
Speaker 2: let's say the Radison San Diego, and all the toy
Speaker 2: store owners in the country would fly to town and they
Speaker 2: would go hotel room to hotel room, and they would
Speaker 2: get pitched new toys by little toy developers. And that's
Speaker 2: how toy stores would stock shelves. They would try to
Speaker 2: predict what's going to be big or like, this isn't
Speaker 2: out yet. And Barbie was a brand new thing, and
Speaker 2: you have to imagine they thought this is gonna be
Speaker 2: a major hit, and they barely did numbers. I mean,
Speaker 2: everybody was mortified and grossed out by this doll when
Speaker 2: it was shown at the nineteen fifty eight toy fair.
Speaker 2: So then the first run of Barbie, which is that
Speaker 2: number one with like the really cunty face and she
Speaker 2: looks not even nice, she looks severe. That run of
Speaker 2: those was under three hundred thousand pieces like maybe two
Speaker 2: h and fifty because it was never Nobody thought it
Speaker 2: was going to be a hit except the people making it.
Speaker 2: And if you don't know this too, this is crazy.
Speaker 2: Mattel was one of the first companies to realize you
Speaker 2: don't have to sell to the child. You have to
Speaker 2: sell to the parent, because that's ultimately who buys the product.
Speaker 2: So Mattel was the first company, basically one of the
Speaker 2: first companies to put commercials for toys during the children's
Speaker 2: cartoon hours. Nobody had thought to do that. Like if
Speaker 2: you sell it to the child, the child will sell
Speaker 2: it to the parent. Basically that's how you get a
Speaker 2: toy sold. And so that's part of those commercials is
Speaker 2: like popping up during cartoon breaks. Is what made it
Speaker 2: go from like a toy at a convention that no
Speaker 2: one cared about to like basically Ferbie in the nineties,
Speaker 2: like clamoring to a sensation. Yeah, and I mean only
Speaker 2: a few toys have broken through like that if you
Speaker 2: think of like easy Bake oven or there's only a
Speaker 2: few toys that have had a complete whirlwind in Mattel.
Speaker 2: Mattel in the first three years went from nobody to
Speaker 2: the I think that the number one toy company in
Speaker 2: the world in like three years. But she was initially
Speaker 2: a flop, which is kind of great, a total flop,
Speaker 2: like less than a flop. People being like you're joking right,
Speaker 2: Like this all has nipples. This is disgusting. This, this
Speaker 2: is just sickles. Maybe the og Ones had at least,
Speaker 2: like I think the original prototype had nipples and they
Speaker 2: removed them before they went to shelf.
Speaker 1: Oh, I imagine they were hard nipples and not sort
Speaker 1: of like a rubbery song like deep.
Speaker 2: Brown and like this big around. Yeah, dinner plates.
Speaker 1: Put nipples back on barbies. I'll say.
Speaker 2: If you watch the documentary Tiny Shoulders on Hulu, it
Speaker 2: opens with like a reenactment of that. I think it
Speaker 2: was Ryan who owns the patent on Barbie, who he
Speaker 2: did own the patent on Barbie. He basically picked up
Speaker 2: the doll, took a nail file and shaved off the
Speaker 2: nipples and was like, no, it's perfect, and that's kind
Speaker 2: of like the lore of how they did it.
Speaker 1: No, which they still are.
Speaker 2: People are still hung up on nipples.
Speaker 1: So oh yeah, I mean you get my nipples sanded off.
Speaker 1: This weekend, I did not have a good time.
Speaker 2: I know, now are all the girls just standing off
Speaker 2: their nipples? It's the culture there are.
Speaker 3: I want to know, what which of the barbies do
Speaker 3: you know within your knowledge that were like controversial or
Speaker 3: like recalled or like created hubbub I know, like one
Speaker 3: of the things that I was thinking of was like
Speaker 3: kind of I want to say, like in the aughts,
Speaker 3: there was a pregnant barbie that was recalled because she
Speaker 3: didn't have a wedding ring. That was like a huge
Speaker 3: thing and it was like I can't get pregnant out
Speaker 3: of wedlock or whatever, and they were all recalled.
Speaker 2: Are there any other like controversial barbie stories like that?
Speaker 2: There's a lot, And I want to say, I don't
Speaker 2: work for Mattel, but I will descend them until the
Speaker 2: day I die. This is a doll that's been out
Speaker 2: for seventy years. So if you're going to judge the
Speaker 2: dolls of sixty years ago by the standards of today,
Speaker 2: you're always disappointed. Okay, Like, but you know when they
Speaker 2: did slumber Party, there was a slumber party barbie that
Speaker 2: came with a scale and a diet book and the
Speaker 2: inside or the back of it said donate that hasn't
Speaker 2: aged well. I don't think it was an issue at
Speaker 2: the time, but it was, you know, as not age
Speaker 2: at the time.
Speaker 1: They were like, oh my god, thanks for reminding me
Speaker 1: not to eat well.
Speaker 2: I wear a lot of vintage clothes, and I mean
Speaker 2: when I shot vintage, I'm like, we're women seventy pounds
Speaker 2: and I'm like, I think they were like, clothes are
Speaker 2: this big, nonstretched, fabrics waste.
Speaker 1: It's like when you go to like a medieval museum
Speaker 1: and all the doors are like this tall, and you're like,
Speaker 1: totally people were extremely short.
Speaker 2: They were, and then you know, there's there's so many
Speaker 2: I mean, there was a doll called teen Talk Barbie
Speaker 2: where if you pushed a button on her back, she
Speaker 2: said phrases. It was in the eighties or the early nineties.
Speaker 2: One of the phrases she said was math is hard,
Speaker 2: and that was controversial for a female toy to be said,
Speaker 2: like women can't do math, but yes, math is math
Speaker 2: famously hard. That's what I'm saying. I'm like the apologist,
Speaker 2: So don't ever expect me to get mad, because I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, there's things that are a little more transparently,
Speaker 2: like an oversight like there was an Oreo Barbie, that
Speaker 2: there there was an Orio Barbie. She came as black
Speaker 2: or white, and like a black Barbie called Orio Barbie.
Speaker 2: I would you know, No, I'm sure they didn't love
Speaker 2: that that happened. And then earing Magic Ken, they said
Speaker 2: he was gay. It depends if you want to say
Speaker 2: that's controversy or not.
Speaker 3: He would so I own an earring Magic Ken and
Speaker 3: he was I actually have it on my desk.
Speaker 2: I was he looks. I mean, I don't think he's gay.
Speaker 2: I think he's a response to Vanilla Ice, who was
Speaker 2: so big at the time. Well it looks like Ice,
Speaker 2: so well I okay, So the story that I read
Speaker 2: online and I don't know if this is like I
Speaker 2: only read like, you know, one article about it.
Speaker 3: But like that they they were trying to like, you know,
Speaker 3: rebrand Ken. They didn't know if they should sell Ken
Speaker 3: dolls anymore, if they should find a new doll that
Speaker 3: wasn't named Ken or whatever. And they surveyed teen girls
Speaker 3: about what they wanted in a Ken doll, and then
Speaker 3: and teen girls and like you know, young girls were like,
Speaker 3: this is what I want, and they like you know,
Speaker 3: gave a bunch of recommendations. Yes, they gave a bunch
Speaker 3: of recommendations on the styling. And so for the virgins
Speaker 3: who can't see, this is a this is a you
Speaker 3: know what do we got like platinum highlight kind of blowout?
Speaker 2: We got a notch? Is that a notch? And as
Speaker 2: I wrote, now ear rings. But also like also, this
Speaker 2: is exactly how Vanila I is dressed exactly top.
Speaker 1: And motemnr on his inner lip that says come pig.
Speaker 1: He's holding a bottle of rush.
Speaker 3: This is but this is like a blue pleathar vest,
Speaker 3: a lavender messher and a literal cock ring around his neck,
Speaker 3: Like what is going on like this? I'm not surprised
Speaker 3: girls voted for this because like I mean tricksy and
Speaker 3: I'm sure you know this better than anyone that like,
Speaker 3: the main market for drag and like lots of queer
Speaker 3: culture is teenage girls.
Speaker 2: Oh, gay men don't even like me. I'm the audience
Speaker 2: is thirteen year old sister girls cis gender women periods.
Speaker 2: That's what's interesting with all this like discourse about drag
Speaker 2: being appropriate for kids. I'm somebody who accidentally has the
Speaker 2: maybe the youngest audience. But I have never said I
Speaker 2: liked kids or pulled punches when it comes to saying
Speaker 2: disgusting and horrible things.
Speaker 1: So I'm just talk about you how you don't like
Speaker 1: children one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And I mean when I get on stage, I talk
Speaker 2: about like rimming my dad. So I've never I've It's
Speaker 2: not a bait and switch where I've pretended to be
Speaker 2: kid friendly. Now I've always said I'm not kid friendly.
Speaker 2: But then they come to the show. So what am
Speaker 2: I supposed to do? You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: kick them out because when I was thirteen, I felt
Speaker 2: like an adult and I wanted to watch adult shit.
Speaker 2: So whatever.
Speaker 1: There's also and they have disposable money for merch exactly.
Speaker 2: Hello, you know, hard just to eat gay guys to
Speaker 2: do anything. Well, what if something better comes along? Like okay, fine,
Speaker 2: don't come you know, But I mean, ask any working
Speaker 2: drive queen if they make more money at a brunch
Speaker 2: with a bunch of gay guys or a bunch of bachelorettes,
Speaker 2: ask them who they make more money with, and they'll
Speaker 2: play the truth. You know. I recently DJed like I
Speaker 2: recently picked up a little DJ gig in Australia, and
Speaker 2: sometimes I like to pick up DJ gigs under the
Speaker 2: radar and not telling you when I'm going because I
Speaker 2: just want to play for fun and not like have
Speaker 2: to be tricksy in a way, you know. And I
Speaker 2: picked up a DJ gig at the Steamworks in Perth
Speaker 2: and I just went out of drag DJ at Steamworks
Speaker 2: Perth and a few people recognized me and said hi.
Speaker 2: But all in all, it was like so refreshing to
Speaker 2: be ignored by gay guys again and drag like, because
Speaker 2: that was my experience for the first like ten years
Speaker 2: in drag was just like gay guys barely paying attention
Speaker 2: to me. And now it's mostly not gay guys and
Speaker 2: they're very much paying attention to me, which I love,
Speaker 2: of course, But it was like it was a reality
Speaker 2: check to just play for gay guys ignoring me again.
Speaker 2: I was like, how this makes me appreciate the audience
Speaker 2: I have because these guys at Steamworks could don't care
Speaker 2: if I'm dead or alive, and what songs I play
Speaker 2: do not matter, So.
Speaker 1: I've never been as long as there's a rhythm for
Speaker 1: them to you know.
Speaker 2: Oh, and I was playing all my nasty music that
Speaker 2: really wouldn't fly at like a dance club. But I
Speaker 2: was playing like you know, gross, like spoken wordy, nasty, nasty.
Speaker 1: Wait.
Speaker 2: I have never been to a Steamworks branch. Did they regularly?
Speaker 2: I didn't know they have DJ sets at Steamworks that's
Speaker 2: a thing. I've never been to one either until this one.
Speaker 2: And it was it was like it's like a it's
Speaker 2: a steam it's a sauna. What is a Steamworks for
Speaker 2: the virgins? It's just like it's I mean, I'm not
Speaker 2: the expert. This was my first time at one. It
Speaker 2: seemed like a bathhouse. Basically, it's a little private rooms
Speaker 2: with a spa and a steam shower and a gym,
Speaker 2: and it had a little The one in Perth had
Speaker 2: a little mini nightclub basically had a room with a
Speaker 2: bar and a little dance floor and a DJ booth
Speaker 2: and it was a nice DJ booth. It was it
Speaker 2: was like four CDJs, like really nice, brand new equipment.
Speaker 2: I was like, I was like, this is really nice.
Speaker 2: And I was like I've played at other bars in
Speaker 2: Perth and they don't have as nice of equipment as
Speaker 2: the DJ equipment at Steamers.
Speaker 1: All right, like yeah, we're getting scrills in next week,
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: But it was just it's it's if you ever like
Speaker 2: are out and you think it's me behind, if you
Speaker 2: see like a ball guy DJing, it probably is me.
Speaker 2: And I just didn't advertise it because I just wanted
Speaker 2: to just be invisible. But I love that. I mean,
Speaker 2: you you a legend.
Speaker 3: Kind of like doing a incognito set at steam Marks
Speaker 3: is kind of reminding me of like when Bette Midler
Speaker 3: used to do when she was like the kind of
Speaker 3: singer for bat gay bath houses in New York and
Speaker 3: stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and I was like the only one there
Speaker 2: with clothes on. Yeah, it was like I had a
Speaker 2: T shirt on, and I was like vastly overdressed. Like
Speaker 2: also's naked people were on the dance floor naked, just
Speaker 2: naked dancing, and I was like, all right, work, that's
Speaker 2: so fun.
Speaker 1: I also was like I can't swing you.
Speaker 2: I can't take pictures with any of you because right
Speaker 2: now in the States they literally google drag queens and
Speaker 2: pull a picture and it's usually mine and they put
Speaker 2: on the news and call me a pedophile. So like,
Speaker 2: I can't take any pictures here. Like then again, at
Speaker 2: a at a bar place like that, pictures are prohibited anyway, so, right, Rose,
Speaker 2: have you ever been to a steamworks?
Speaker 1: Not a steam works, but I've been to many bath
Speaker 1: houses many, she's.
Speaker 2: Any bath house, water in the kitchen and get naked.
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm just imagine.
Speaker 3: I'm just imagining just like on a dance floor naked
Speaker 3: that I feel like logistically that could be dangerous.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean to be fair, when I've been at
Speaker 1: a bath house, I certainly haven't been on the dance floor.
Speaker 1: I've been doing the other things that you do at
Speaker 1: a bath house, right.
Speaker 2: Other things that you do at a bath house. Like
Speaker 2: I like the idea that somebody has like a steamworks
Speaker 2: membership and uses it, like it's the fucking why they
Speaker 2: go there to actually use a treadmill and shower and
Speaker 2: leave mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And they're just sort of like they're like they're like
Speaker 1: on the elliptical and there's like someone getting railed in
Speaker 1: the background, and they're just like listening to like our
Speaker 1: podcast while they work out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're listening to like NPR, Yeah fresh Air.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that is kind of my my gym in Brooklyn
Speaker 3: and on a gym that I will not name, like
Speaker 3: I joined when it like in an in an earlier
Speaker 3: stage when it's it's not as crowded as it it
Speaker 3: wasn't as crowded as it is now. And like I
Speaker 3: signed up and I was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 3: family gym for like local Brooklyn people and like you know,
Speaker 3: their dads or whatever, and and you know, I've been there.
Speaker 3: I've been there for a while now.
Speaker 2: And like after like a month or two, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 2: everyone here is fucking Like everyone here is looking and
Speaker 2: fucking and this is a gay gym. And the way
Speaker 2: you're describing is kind of my gym because like the
Speaker 2: actual like cis hat like Brooklyn dads are just like
Speaker 2: like you know, in the steam room, like don't mind me,
Speaker 2: I'm just getting my steam in. I know you guys
Speaker 2: got to do your business, but like I'm just a
Speaker 2: dad or whatever. It's I love the it's really as
Speaker 2: a coexist moment. Well that was the other thing I
Speaker 2: was DJing somewhere. We're to be honest, most people there
Speaker 2: were trying to keep a low profile, and most like
Speaker 2: straight guys and stuff, they don't know who I am,
Speaker 2: and if they figure out, they're not gonna telling why.
Speaker 1: Way, so right exactly secret safe with me. Tricksy I
Speaker 1: do really want to know, because you know, we are,
Speaker 1: as we've said, like we're kind of in the year
Speaker 1: of Barbie right now, or like one of the year's Barbie,
Speaker 1: because Greta Garway's Barbie film is coming out this summer.
Speaker 1: What are you, like, are you excited? What do you
Speaker 1: want from it? Like, do you or do you have
Speaker 1: any suspicions now that we've got a couple of trailers
Speaker 1: out about what it could be about, like what's I
Speaker 1: haven't even.
Speaker 2: Watched the trailer because it feels like I don't know.
Speaker 2: I want to go and blind. And I also, you
Speaker 2: have to understand, anytime anything Barbie adjacent ever happens, my
Speaker 2: phone blows up. And so I also am like already early,
Speaker 2: like inundated about it, Like you're hearing about this movie
Speaker 2: constantly for over a year. So it was like by
Speaker 2: the time the trailers out and everything's reacting to it.
Speaker 2: I also, this is so crazy and this is my
Speaker 2: own damage. I also feel like, great, now everyone's a bandwagoner,
Speaker 2: do you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean?
Speaker 2: I like it as somebody who can name the year
Speaker 2: in the name of every outfit in that trailer, I'm
Speaker 2: sure I'm like, oh, did you like it? Did you
Speaker 2: like that movie?
Speaker 1: You're gonna be sitting theater like you're all a bunch
Speaker 1: of fakes, Get out of here. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But I also I love the Sims, for example, and
Speaker 2: I hate when people who love the Sims do nothing
Speaker 2: but shit on the Sims. The same way I hate
Speaker 2: when people like I love drag Race, but there's too
Speaker 2: much of it, there's too much. Like I hate people
Speaker 2: complaining about the wealth of something they like, like as
Speaker 2: if it's the Hunger Games and President Snow forces people
Speaker 2: to watch drag Race, Like when people complain about too
Speaker 2: many drag Race, I'm like, don't watch it, Mary, who
Speaker 2: fucking cares.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely forced to watch drag Race. So it's definitely
Speaker 3: a state sanctioned like three to four hours drag race.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if in New York, if you don't watch
Speaker 2: drag Race, every franchise AOC gives you a parking ticket.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, actually you get you get tax breaks for watching
Speaker 2: drag races. But I actually, I have a very open mind,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure I'm gonna go see it when it
Speaker 2: comes out, but I have no expectations, and I go
Speaker 2: into things wanting to like them. So I'm not a hater.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that Barbie can't imagine.
Speaker 2: Nobody's gonna hate this movie except the most hardcore, annoying
Speaker 2: Barbie fans where they're like nothing was ever going to
Speaker 2: be good enough for them. I no matter what, I yeah,
Speaker 2: I want.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about the trailer. I
Speaker 3: would love to know your take on it. If there's
Speaker 3: something that happens. I won't spoil it. But there's something
Speaker 3: that happens in like the first five seconds of the
Speaker 3: trailer that is so gratifying, and it's like it's like
Speaker 3: it's just like an Ahama.
Speaker 2: Where you're like, oh, this is the movie I'm gonna get.
Speaker 3: But I will say, you know, you were talking earlier
Speaker 3: about like Barbie of the nineties, the blown out hair,
Speaker 3: like the golden era of Barbie. That definitely he does
Speaker 3: feel like the Barbie they are channeling. Obviously, they're tapping
Speaker 3: into a lot of different eras of barbiees and making
Speaker 3: specific references to barbiees throughout the years, but you can.
Speaker 2: Tell it's like a nineties movie.
Speaker 3: And I do feel like Ryan Gosling's Ken is very
Speaker 3: earring Magic Ken, like I think it's it feels like
Speaker 3: a reference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I mean yeah, yeah, he looks gay. I
Speaker 2: think that's intentional. It's also a business and I think
Speaker 2: it says a lot about nineties Barbie that when you
Speaker 2: draw car if you drew a cartoon of Barbie quick,
Speaker 2: you would draw nineties Barbie. You wouldn't draw two thousands
Speaker 2: of Barbie without draws. Yeah, you would draw this girl. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so now he has something to do with When I
Speaker 2: dub nineties Barbie like the golden age of Barbie, I'm
Speaker 2: not being like it's my preference, and so it's true.
Speaker 2: I think it. I think they actually etched her in permanently,
Speaker 2: because the other Barbie you think of would maybe be
Speaker 2: be simsuit Barbie from the fifties, Like that's the other
Speaker 2: barbe you think of. But when I think of Barbie,
Speaker 2: I mean I think of like I don't know, like
Speaker 2: roller skates, cassette player, like gymnastics ninety shit, that's the
Speaker 2: Barbie that I think of. I But like I said,
Speaker 2: I have no expectations, and I think it's like I'm
Speaker 2: just excited. I mean, I really, to my core, to
Speaker 2: my bones, love and respect Barbie and anything, any little nibble,
Speaker 2: any little I'm happy for it. I love it.
Speaker 1: But are you furious that Margot Robie was cast instead
Speaker 1: of you?
Speaker 2: I do think it's funny to it's interesting to think
Speaker 2: that wasn't an originally Amy Schumer. I think that that was.
Speaker 2: I think that that was in the works. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure I.
Speaker 1: Think it was. Originally.
Speaker 2: When I first heard about the movie, I heard that
Speaker 2: Amy Schumer was playing Barbie like four years ago, and
Speaker 2: then I'm I love I love Morgart Robbie. I'm sorry,
Speaker 2: like Suicide Squad, she gives Okay, she's amazing Suicide Squad
Speaker 2: movies and it Tanya Girl Girl Girl Once Part a Time.
Speaker 1: Hal.
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm just gonna say this too. I
Speaker 2: don't like good movies. This year I watched like like
Speaker 2: Tar the Whail Triangle of Sadness, Like that is not
Speaker 2: for me, that type of movie. I watch it like
Speaker 2: stank faced, like this sucks, and then like but but
Speaker 2: I'm like, let's rewatch the original Super Marios movie, Like
Speaker 2: that's my level of movie that I love. And so
Speaker 2: I know I'm gonna like this was it.
Speaker 1: Like me, You're like me, I prefer I draw this division.
Speaker 1: I like movies not films, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: very clear difference between the two. I like the populist entertainment,
Speaker 1: and I definitely think I do think because of who's involved,
Speaker 1: Barbie is going to straddle the two like it's going
Speaker 1: to be because of the Barbie of it all, it's
Speaker 1: going to be accessible. But I also think because it's
Speaker 1: Greta Gerwig, that there's going to be something intelligent there
Speaker 1: by the.
Speaker 2: Way, the way that I thought Greta Greta Gerwig was
Speaker 2: Greta Thumberg, and I was like, oh is it not.
Speaker 2: I just was like that climate girl. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: Like I'm not like a smart film person like David
Speaker 2: is like the Ring of the Letter bled. No, I
Speaker 2: just watch what I watched. I re watched The Office
Speaker 2: over and over again.
Speaker 3: Marco Robbie is really good at being unhinged, and you
Speaker 3: can tell that this is going to be a slightly
Speaker 3: unhinged Barbie like without you know, leaning to into it.
Speaker 3: Like they're definitely making it a weird movie.
Speaker 2: And we had a hard enough on the.
Speaker 3: Pod and she talked a little bit about it and like,
Speaker 3: I don't think I realized, like how fucking stacked this
Speaker 3: cast is like do a lipa in this movie like
Speaker 3: so many people where I was like, oh, you're in
Speaker 3: this movie, like and so now it's like Sarah Yes, but.
Speaker 2: It's also it's also like The Ocean's eleven Yes, where
Speaker 2: it's like it's the Knives out of it All, where
Speaker 2: you're like, we need to get seventy five as actors. Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the only way you can have a hit these days.
Speaker 2: It needs to be all unknowns or all like literally
Speaker 2: Barack Obama has to be in.
Speaker 1: It all stars, all winners. Yes, totally, but you.
Speaker 2: Know, honestly, and this is a little bit of a throwback.
Speaker 2: The best Barbie we've ever seen in film, hands down
Speaker 2: and TV because you know, we've seen Barbie Perry in
Speaker 2: our SNL. Although I love those Epsenel skits where they
Speaker 2: have like the Barbie Instagram account. Have you seen those?
Speaker 2: Those skits are amazing. The best Barbie we've ever seen
Speaker 2: in cinema or media or whatever is Barbie from Toy
Speaker 2: Story two when they go through the toy aisle and
Speaker 2: there's tour guide Barbie. I mean that whole scene. But
Speaker 2: you know, because we get Barbie in the form of
Speaker 2: Gwendy and small soldiers, we get Barbie, like we get
Speaker 2: a Barbie without saying Barbie in a lot of types
Speaker 2: of media, and in Toy Story, we actually got branded Barbie,
Speaker 2: which made it so fun and they wrote her so funny. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was like formative, like that whole scene as a
Speaker 2: kid watching where they like go down the Barbie aisle.
Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, there's like these moments where like
Speaker 2: my creativity or like my vision jumps leaps.
Speaker 1: That was one of them.
Speaker 2: I would say. One of the other ones was the
Speaker 2: Jeremy Scott like think pink Barbie collection. When I saw
Speaker 2: that runway, my mind, like, I think my head exploded.
Speaker 2: I think my fontanelles gave out and my brain shot
Speaker 2: out of the back of my head because I just
Speaker 2: had never I mean, I guess I love heather At
Speaker 2: and it reminded me of Heather Ret, but I had
Speaker 2: never love love. I mean, early heather At is very
Speaker 2: very barbiecore Barbie Court.
Speaker 1: Heatherat is a fashion brand that used to exist and
Speaker 1: I went to one of their shows like when I
Speaker 1: first moved to New York, and it was like a gag.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I have no ing, I've never heard of them,
Speaker 3: but I'm curious just as a collector. Like something that
Speaker 3: I was really shook by when I was like, you
Speaker 3: know when I watch your unboxing video, was that you
Speaker 3: you actually unbox these Barbies? Do you like take all
Speaker 3: of your dolls like out of boxes and like unfasten
Speaker 3: them or like I thought it was like a collector's
Speaker 3: thing to like not unboxed toys. It's like a very
Speaker 3: like I don't know anything about collector world.
Speaker 2: It's like what how do you decide like whether to
Speaker 2: unpackage or unpackage, like what to undo and not undo
Speaker 2: what you preserve? Well, nineteen fifty nine Barbie, it's not
Speaker 2: like she came shrink crapped. Yeah, like toys, toys back then,
Speaker 2: we're just you could just open the lid of it,
Speaker 2: you know, like it's in the box. It's just a
Speaker 2: box sell of my toys. Like I have a Francy.
Speaker 2: I have a mod black Francy. And you know, black
Speaker 2: dolls when they started making them were always harder to
Speaker 2: come by, and they were made in a lot smaller numbers,
Speaker 2: so a lot of times the black doll is worth more.
Speaker 2: I have like a black Fancy and she's wrapped in
Speaker 2: plastic like some of them if they come in the
Speaker 2: store plastic. Some of them have I have really old
Speaker 2: cool ones that have like the price tag from the
Speaker 2: store on it on the plastic in the box, my
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty nine, Like it was clear it had been
Speaker 2: open and handled before, so it wasn't like the steaks
Speaker 2: were me peeling back plastic, you know. But if I
Speaker 2: like something now, I'll just get two so that I
Speaker 2: have one in the closet in one I can fuck
Speaker 2: around with.
Speaker 1: Oh that's smart. I've been thinking about this recently because
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like in my collectible era. I'm like
Speaker 1: going back and finding toys from when I was a
Speaker 1: kid that I didn't get to have and buying them now.
Speaker 1: And I did recently buy And I know you'll appreciate
Speaker 1: this tricksy because I know that you like Buffy. I
Speaker 1: bought a Willow action figure recently and it's of her.
Speaker 1: It's Vampire Willow, and I have it in the box.
Speaker 1: I have it taken it out, and I do want
Speaker 1: to play with it, but there's a part of me
Speaker 1: that wants it to stay pristine in the box. And
Speaker 1: I mean, I have told this story on the pod before,
Speaker 1: but when I used to get toys as gifts when
Speaker 1: I was a kid.
Speaker 2: I would tape them back up into the box to
Speaker 2: like preserve that. It was like really psycho behavior. No,
Speaker 2: I think, I honestly think that the packaging, to me,
Speaker 2: is part of the collectible. It's not a shell. I
Speaker 2: think it's part of it. I think it being packaged
Speaker 2: is part of and the way it's packaged is also
Speaker 2: part of the time capsule of it. This is how
Speaker 2: things were packaged at this time, and with Barbie especially,
Speaker 2: every aspect of it is a time capsule. This is
Speaker 2: what women wore. Oh, Barbie was a flight attendant. That's
Speaker 2: because at this time women that was one of the
Speaker 2: first jobs that women were doing. Like, every part of
Speaker 2: it is a time capsule, and so the packaging is
Speaker 2: part of that, the fonts, the colors, the wording. So
Speaker 2: most of the time I don't want to open it.
Speaker 2: But because I collect mostly like sixty two to let's say,
Speaker 2: like seventy one, because I collect that era, a lot
Speaker 2: of what I have is not boxed, and if I
Speaker 2: have it boxed, it's worth way more and I have
Speaker 2: to like care for it like in a safety deposit box.
Speaker 2: Like I have my number I have my number one
Speaker 2: on display here, but it's not my number one. It's
Speaker 2: a reproduction of a number one because I want people
Speaker 2: to ask about it and I want to say, yes,
Speaker 2: I really have it, but this isn't it because I
Speaker 2: don't trust you in my home.
Speaker 1: It's a conversation piece. Yeah, when you die, do you
Speaker 1: want to be put into a sort of life size
Speaker 1: Barbie box and wrapped in plastic? We can, because it happen, but.
Speaker 2: That's kind of giving Dori and Corey. Don't you think
Speaker 2: wrapping a body in plastic?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, maybe glass?
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe I will. Oh my god, this is horrible,
Speaker 2: but uh.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 2: I don't know how I want to die. I probably
Speaker 2: want a pink coffin though, for sure, or a pink eurn,
Speaker 2: like I want. Pink means a lot to me, and
Speaker 2: it's my you know, it's sort of my my trauma
Speaker 2: bond with that color is so extreme and like it
Speaker 2: means so much to me that you know, everything being
Speaker 2: pink makes me. I mean just the color pink makes
Speaker 2: me happy. I mean that's like corny and most people
Speaker 2: when they're like the pink Lady of Hollywood or whatever,
Speaker 2: it's like a sign of like, ooh, that person's wild
Speaker 2: when they're like, I'm all pink every day, but I
Speaker 2: love pink, and so I don't know. But then again,
Speaker 2: one time I saw it was like the show Obsessed
Speaker 2: or with this woman. If you guys ever seen that
Speaker 2: episode of that, that woman her husband died and she
Speaker 2: would lick her finger and fund dip his ashes, and
Speaker 2: she was addicted to eating his ashes. So if David
Speaker 2: doesn't do that, if David doesn't do that for me,
Speaker 2: he doesn't love me. And they were like, well, what
Speaker 2: happens when you run onto the ashes? And she was like,
Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: Is I'm going to do that to you when I
Speaker 1: kill you?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh thank you, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1: But I'll also snort your ashes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean you'll get a I don't even
Speaker 2: know how that would make you feel.
Speaker 1: Probably it will be in the hines on Fire Island
Speaker 1: and I'll be like, this one's for Fran. Actually, this
Speaker 1: one is Fran.
Speaker 2: Am I am I an upper or a downer?
Speaker 1: What do you think? I think you start as an
Speaker 1: upper and then we go down?
Speaker 2: Okay, love, Yeah, that's a that's a good. That's a
Speaker 2: good little arc.
Speaker 1: I wow.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe I'll be in my doll collecting era too. Now, Rose,
Speaker 2: now that you're doing you should, I mean, if I could.
Speaker 2: If you guys are really anybody who's listening wants to
Speaker 2: really nerd out. There's this book called Forever Barbie by
Speaker 2: MG Lords, and it's basically her like deep dive into
Speaker 2: the cultural, societal whatever significance is of Barbie, and she
Speaker 2: really elegantly illustrates the extreme butterfly effect that that toy
Speaker 2: had on the world, because in some ways Barbie influences
Speaker 2: the world, but in many ways, Barbie is just reflecting
Speaker 2: what's going on. So like in the sixties when like
Speaker 2: or like in the early seventies, when like Brady Bunch happened,
Speaker 2: suddenly Malibu Barbie happened and she happened to look a
Speaker 2: lot like jan or Marsha Brady, and then like you know,
Speaker 2: there's just there's ways where you can track when Barbie
Speaker 2: is mirroring what's popular in the world. And then because
Speaker 2: Bardie's around so long, you can track ways that Barbie
Speaker 2: itself because in nineteen fifty nine, what was Barbie style.
Speaker 2: Barbie style was reflecting the fashion of teenagers of the time,
Speaker 2: and now Barbie style is its own style, yeah, which
Speaker 2: I think is really interesting. Yeah. I mean that's as
Speaker 2: we've noted.
Speaker 3: That's like why you know, the barbiees of the of
Speaker 3: the aughts were wearing north faces and ugs as as
Speaker 3: they should be Tom's shoes.
Speaker 1: You know, not Tom shoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Next, like I bet you next year Barbie's are
Speaker 2: going to have those dumb puffy red boots that are
Speaker 2: going to be big. Now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess the thing that maybe the thing to
Speaker 3: end on is like I'm thinking about, like what's the
Speaker 3: what's the Barbie of the twenty twenties, Like, like what
Speaker 3: is cool? I know that you know, she is her
Speaker 3: own style obviously, but like hypothetically, like I don't even
Speaker 3: know what twenty twenties culture.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like twenty twenty five Barbie. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: what here's what is it? What he's wearing. She's wearing
Speaker 1: a pair of Margiala tabbies. She's got a bottle of Estradle,
Speaker 1: and she's got she's got a microphone set to do
Speaker 1: her podcast.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and but she DJs on the weekends for sure,
Speaker 2: totally and by DJing, I mean, she just has a
Speaker 2: MacBook and she literally is on Spotify. Yeah, yeah, she's
Speaker 2: on Spotify. Yeah, And I think I think they can
Speaker 2: of the twenty twenty threes. It's like, you know, Trimex,
Speaker 2: it's ozempic, it's it's injectable. Tanner, it's a unit, it's
Speaker 2: a mile unit.
Speaker 1: Yes, he's on a.
Speaker 2: Turkey for the hairlines. Your size too, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: But but I mean, if we're ending all jokes aside,
Speaker 2: like when you really sit and think of like the
Speaker 2: massive impact. We always talk about the impact Barbie has,
Speaker 2: but when you really think about the massive positive impact,
Speaker 2: I mean, this toy opened up a possibility for women
Speaker 2: to imagine their life to be anything at a time
Speaker 2: where they were only encouraged to imagine to be moms.
Speaker 2: I mean, it really is incredible, and I'm excited.
Speaker 1: For the movie.
Speaker 2: To be honest, the Doll of twenty twenty three is
Speaker 2: going to probably be whatever most popular look for the movie.
Speaker 2: That's what's because you know that Mattel is going to
Speaker 2: make outfits of all of those for sale.
Speaker 1: Yes, damn.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, I feel like now people for the next
Speaker 2: year and or two, Like, just as you said, barbiecore
Speaker 2: is going to be back again, and we're all going
Speaker 2: to be dressing like Barbie's and you know, Bigbocre has
Speaker 2: been back for a while. You know, I think of
Speaker 2: like faggots with white walls and gold fixtures and plants
Speaker 2: in their houses, like that is so like needs to
Speaker 2: be retired. That like geriatric millennial approach to like living
Speaker 2: is so tired, no whispers, Yes, it's so tired. And
Speaker 2: so I think Barbiecore is a reflection of I mean,
Speaker 2: we experienced this at the Trixy Motel. Maximalism is swinging
Speaker 2: back so hard and what's more like fabricated and fun
Speaker 2: and bouncy and synthetic feeling than like Barbiecore. I mean.
Speaker 2: And what's funny is it's gonna surge and it's gonna
Speaker 2: go away, but not for that long. I meane, Barbiecore.
Speaker 2: Now it's gonna be all these cool articles about it,
Speaker 2: but it's always around.
Speaker 1: It's around, She'll really about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all pink is the same as all blacks. Some
Speaker 2: people were all.
Speaker 1: Black, some people were all think that's the binary. Those
Speaker 1: are the two genders. Slide into our dms and let
Speaker 1: us know, are you a Barbie girl? Are you just ken?
Speaker 1: Did you play with dolls when you were a kid.
Speaker 1: Are you a doll?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: We want to know? You can also buy our merchant
Speaker 1: Like a Virgin for twenty sixty nine dot com and
Speaker 1: become patron at Patreon dot com slash Like a Virgin
Speaker 1: four weekly bonus episodes. You can follow us at Like
Speaker 1: a Virgin for twenty sixty nine on Instagram, and you
Speaker 1: can follow me anywhere you want at ros Daumu, and
Speaker 1: you can follow me at Franz squish Goo anywhere you like.
Speaker 1: Like a Virgin is an iHeartRadio production, and our producer
Speaker 1: is Phoebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman and Nikki Etour.
Speaker 1: Until next week, Au revoir Bye, good bye, Well and
Speaker 1: here's a clip from this week's Patreon episode. You can
Speaker 1: become a patron at Patreon dot com slash Like a Virgin.
Speaker 1: The book that we're talking about today is one that
Speaker 1: I mentioned on the main show earlier this year, Fingersmith
Speaker 1: by Sarah Waters, which I finished a month ago now
Speaker 1: at this point, just because of various scheduling things, it
Speaker 1: took a long time for me to read it, and
Speaker 1: then took a while for us to actually record this episode,
Speaker 1: so thank you virgins who actually did read the book
Speaker 1: and have been anxiously awaiting us talking about it. But
Speaker 1: we are going to be talking about it today, and
Speaker 1: we'll also be talking about the two films that were
Speaker 1: that were adapted from it, the BBC mini series also
Speaker 1: called Fingersmith, and then the film The Handmaiden, And.
Speaker 3: These are so I just for the virgins have never
Speaker 3: read the book. I have never seen the miniseries. But
Speaker 3: The Handmaid in its adaptation, which is very different from
Speaker 3: the book, we'll get into it is extremely different. Is
Speaker 3: one of my favorite queer films ever. Like I think
Speaker 3: it's like such a good point of reference for anybody
Speaker 3: that considers themselves a sinophile in the queer space. It's
Speaker 3: like to meet required viewing if you want to brush
Speaker 3: up on like queer cinema in general, because like part
Speaker 3: Chan Wook is, I mean, such a phenomenal director. But
Speaker 3: beyond that, it's just like you don't see WLW romances
Speaker 3: like this ever, like not even.
Speaker 1: In a case do see WLW sex scenes like this
Speaker 1: in porn, which I think is part of the problem. Well,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll get to my thoughts on the hand
Speaker 1: Made And I first would like to talk about the
Speaker 1: book to give you some context for when we get Yes,
Speaker 1: please to conversations. So Fingersmith is a two thousand and
Speaker 1: two novel written by Sarah Waters, who is a renowned
Speaker 1: British lesbian author. She primarily writes historical fiction, and most
Speaker 1: of her most celebrated work has lesbian themes lesbian characters.
Speaker 1: Her novel Tipping the Velvet, which is her first book,
Speaker 1: is my favorite book of all time, Oh Fingersmith, really.
Speaker 2: Of all time, like all time meaning, like of all
Speaker 2: time meaning.
Speaker 1: But it is among like.
Speaker 2: A top ten books of all time. I assume it's
Speaker 2: not like the number one.
Speaker 1: No, it is the number one. It's my favorite book.
Speaker 1: My job is I've said this on the podcast before. Okay, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not doubting you. I'm just I'm just always learning
Speaker 1: and relearning your favorites and your tops, which I love well.
Speaker 1: I mean, is that that surprising because as we've talked
Speaker 1: about on this, I love historical fiction and specifically queer history,
Speaker 1: and this is really well written queer historical fiction, which
Speaker 1: is usually not the case. Like usually it's like you know,
Speaker 1: a mod it's like Roman honest ripper. Yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: the term that we coined. So you know, I loved
Speaker 1: Tipping the Velvet, and Tipping the Velvet is very much
Speaker 1: about queerness, but it's much more and and it's about identity,
Speaker 1: but it has much more to do with gender, because
Speaker 1: Tipping the Velvet is all about cross dressing. It's about
Speaker 1: these performers, these female performers who dress up as men,
Speaker 1: and this woman who like become this woman who becomes
Speaker 1: a rent boy when she's like cast out by her lover,
Speaker 1: she starts dressing up as a man and engaging sex
Speaker 1: work and then you know, becomes sort of like an
Speaker 1: in house concubine of this rich lesbian who has this
Speaker 1: circle of other rich lesbians. So I loved Sarah Waters,
Speaker 1: and I had probably seen like an article or something
Speaker 1: talking about Fingersmith earlier this year. So I bought it.
Speaker 1: And it was very hard getting into because the beginning
Speaker 1: is very slow, and I sort of like waffled on
Speaker 1: about it for a while, and then like one day
Speaker 1: I finally just like sat down and really powered through
Speaker 1: the beginning, and once it picked up a certain amount
Speaker 1: of steam, I just could not put it down. And
Speaker 1: so the novel is set in the Victorian era in England.
Speaker 1: The there are two protagonists, but the one whose story
Speaker 1: we follow from the beginning is an orphan named Sue
Speaker 1: who is part of a family of thieves and criminals,
Speaker 1: and she has been raised by this woman missus Sucksby,
Speaker 1: and their family are all these like pickpockets, and they're
Speaker 1: called fingersmiths. That's where the title of novel comes from.
Speaker 1: And on a dark and stormy night, this family friend
Speaker 1: called Gentleman comes to their house and says that he
Speaker 1: has a job for Sue. He has been posing as
Speaker 1: an aristocratic man in this countryside estate, helping this man
Speaker 1: who has a large book collection, and he has discovered
Speaker 1: that this man has a niece who has like a
Speaker 1: huge dowry to her name, and he wants to cheat
Speaker 1: her out of it. So his plan is that Sue.
Speaker 1: He will recommend Sue as this woman her name's Maud,
Speaker 1: as her new mate lady's maid, and Sue will help
Speaker 1: him woo her and marry her so that he can
Speaker 1: get access to her, so that he can get access
Speaker 1: to her fortune, and then she will and then she
Speaker 1: will help him prove that Maud is mad and have
Speaker 1: her dumped in a madhouse so that he can you know,
Speaker 1: run them UK with her money and Sue will get
Speaker 1: a portion of the funds and that will be her
Speaker 1: payment for you know, running this con with him