Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen. For tonight's entertainment, I present to you
Speaker 1: West Side Story. I will be playing all the parts.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting share impression. Well, it's yeah, I kind
Speaker 1: of sound like maybe it's it's giving like some kind
Speaker 1: of some kind of sesame street characters in there. You
Speaker 1: know that I am a musical theater girl, right like, Well,
Speaker 1: I'm okay, let me clarify. I'm a reformed musical theater girl.
Speaker 1: I think I also, I guess self identify as a well,
Speaker 1: maybe not reformed musical theater girl, but a recovering musical.
Speaker 1: Recovering is a good way to put it, because it
Speaker 1: is a disease that we will be dealing with all
Speaker 1: of our lives. So I guess it's appropriate that we
Speaker 1: are talking about the biggest movie musical of the moment,
Speaker 1: West Side Story, in fact, one of the most famous
Speaker 1: musicals of all time, dare we say? And she is
Speaker 1: back in the conversation, back in the spotlight thanks to
Speaker 1: the recent adaptation, And you, before seeing the new Spielberg film,
Speaker 1: had never seen West Side Story. I was a true virgin.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to unpack that because this is like
Speaker 1: a virgin the show where we give yesterday's pop culture
Speaker 1: today's takes. I'm ros dam you and I'm for in Toronto,
Speaker 1: and before we decides if we're the Sharks or the Jets,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about today's pop culture amazing. Let
Speaker 1: me just pop half an atty and going. Our news
Speaker 1: section today is mostly just what we have been watching
Speaker 1: on TV because I don't know that in the current
Speaker 1: state of the world that either of us are doing much.
Speaker 1: Although you, you know, you newly are a toot toot
Speaker 1: bee beep girl, so I guess you've been, you know,
Speaker 1: zooming around town, zooming around in town, making my way
Speaker 1: down to the car impoundment lot where my car got
Speaker 1: towed because everyone that was my fault. So I showed
Speaker 1: up to friends the other night. We were going yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I shut up to Franz the other night because we
Speaker 1: were I thought we were going to watch and just
Speaker 1: like that and a Marvel movie to prepare for our
Speaker 1: upcoming Marvel episode with Jill Can Booster. But I've got
Speaker 1: to france apartment to have them say that their car
Speaker 1: had just been impounded. And then and then I learned
Speaker 1: from you but Trayer that you had already watched and
Speaker 1: just like that, Um, right, right, well the boy Is
Speaker 1: We watched and just like that, and I felt like
Speaker 1: Steve is really done dirty to see Steve. David Eigenberg,
Speaker 1: the actor who plays Steve, should sue HBO for the
Speaker 1: literal character assassination they are pulling on Steve, because, like,
Speaker 1: I get that these characters have aged and there are
Speaker 1: different people, but that is not Steve. That's not Steve.
Speaker 1: I was reading about how David actually has hearing loss
Speaker 1: in real life and that's why they decided to write
Speaker 1: it into the character. But the way they're writing it
Speaker 1: is offensive and it doesn't contribute anything at all. It's honestly, like,
Speaker 1: not even his hearing that is I think the problem
Speaker 1: with how he's being portrayed, like him turning up at
Speaker 1: the farmers market and being like, oh I forgot my wallet,
Speaker 1: um at the pickle stand or whatever. It's just so
Speaker 1: not the Steve that we knew, and it feels like
Speaker 1: a betrayal of all of the time we put into
Speaker 1: that relationship and all the time we've spent being horny
Speaker 1: for Steve. Steve was always really good to Miranda, and
Speaker 1: the first movie is about him cheating on her and
Speaker 1: like them deciding to like stay in their marriage. And
Speaker 1: I think like one of the hallmarks of their relationship
Speaker 1: is they've, oh, has had really good sex. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the scene where they tried to fuck in
Speaker 1: the kitchen like was actually kind of it was so great. Um,
Speaker 1: someone I followed TikTok was saying, you can't watch and
Speaker 1: just like that, as if it is a reboot of
Speaker 1: Sex in the City, you have to watch it, as
Speaker 1: if it is a show with completely new characters who
Speaker 1: you have no context for, and just like take it
Speaker 1: at face value and it will vastly improve your enjoyment
Speaker 1: of watching it. And I think that might be how
Speaker 1: I mean to start approaching And just like that, I do.
Speaker 1: I do not know if I would be invested in
Speaker 1: a lot of these characters if they weren't connected to
Speaker 1: a cinematic universe that I was already in love with.
Speaker 1: I I think that honestly, it feels like I'm watching
Speaker 1: Are You the One? Season eight again, and I feel
Speaker 1: like what is happening here is sh Ideas is the
Speaker 1: one that Miranda thinks she's in love with thinks is
Speaker 1: like because because she's doing weed. Yes, because she's doing
Speaker 1: so much. I need to know I've done strong. What
Speaker 1: strain of weed is JD as smoking? Because smoking a
Speaker 1: dent THC counts TIVA because like almost in the same
Speaker 1: way that Shad is like a caricature of a queer
Speaker 1: non binary podcaster, the caricature of like a stoner, which
Speaker 1: is I thought we were done with that, and like,
Speaker 1: weed doesn't do that to you. Any of the behaviors
Speaker 1: that Miranda and Cha are like exhibiting cannot be explained
Speaker 1: away by being two stoned. Yeah, don't use weed as
Speaker 1: an excuse for your shortcomings, especially in such a lazy
Speaker 1: writing thing. Yeah, especially people that say, you know, they
Speaker 1: didn't finish a Marvel movie because they were too stone
Speaker 1: They fell asleep during Twilight because they were too stoned.
Speaker 1: Like grow up right, Yeah, maybe you should look in
Speaker 1: the mirror, Arangela. I have to say, the biggest thing
Speaker 1: on my mind is Yellow Jackets. I must tell the
Speaker 1: Virgins that I did watched the entire series in the
Speaker 1: week since we last spoke. Thank god, I'm so happy.
Speaker 1: Top line finale. I was a little disappointed, extreme I
Speaker 1: was extremely disappointed. To me, it was not a finale
Speaker 1: at all. The way I've been trying to think about
Speaker 1: it is I guess this isn't the kind of show
Speaker 1: we were all saying it was, because everyone, especially the
Speaker 1: people who have been watching it week to week, a
Speaker 1: huge part of the online discourse about it has been
Speaker 1: theorizing what was going to happen and like you know,
Speaker 1: what's the symbol? And is Jackie live? And like who
Speaker 1: killed Travis? And like like the questions, a lot of questions,
Speaker 1: a lot of mysteries, and I think we were all
Speaker 1: expecting the finale was going to answer those questions and
Speaker 1: it really didn't. The only question it answered is like
Speaker 1: how Jackie died, which was sorry lame because when I so,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear like your conspiracy theories. I legitimately didn't
Speaker 1: listen to that part of our podcast, but like we
Speaker 1: did talk a little bit about what we could think
Speaker 1: could happen in the finale, and what I said to
Speaker 1: you is, I was like, when you were like, Jackie's
Speaker 1: not dead, I was like, I think it might be
Speaker 1: something worse than death, you know what I mean? And
Speaker 1: I think you know, the way she did die is
Speaker 1: kind of that, but it was very anticlimactic. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: that's what I'm saying is like, I think we're looking
Speaker 1: at the show the wrong way, and it's not a
Speaker 1: show that's concerned with setting up big mysteries and then
Speaker 1: answering them. It's really it's it's yeah, it's not who
Speaker 1: done it. It's like a character study of these traumatized,
Speaker 1: fucked up women. And I think it like, instead of
Speaker 1: going for the plot satisfaction of answering all those questions,
Speaker 1: it gave us the like emotional quote unquote satisfaction of
Speaker 1: that really like gut wrenching moment when Shanna find Jackie
Speaker 1: buried in the snow, and it is choosing character over
Speaker 1: like some kind of twisty thriller who Done It? And
Speaker 1: like I do understand that. At the same time, like
Speaker 1: I don't think that's the ending that they were setting
Speaker 1: up throughout the season, and that's why it feels disappointing.
Speaker 1: So I just think, like there could have been a
Speaker 1: more satisfying wrap up. I did like some things, like
Speaker 1: I thought Tyson's wife finding her like Altar with the
Speaker 1: doghead was like really good, and like I think a
Speaker 1: lot of us called like weeks ago that she definitely
Speaker 1: killed a dog. So I wondered like, does that mean
Speaker 1: she was part of the cult on the island who
Speaker 1: kidnapped Natalie. I guess Lottie like is going to be
Speaker 1: a bigger character than maybe some of us expected. I
Speaker 1: felt like right away from the beginning that Lottie was
Speaker 1: going to be like the deer head leader or be
Speaker 1: like this kind of quasi cult leader that creates a
Speaker 1: division in the island. Sorry, not on an island. It's
Speaker 1: keep thinking it's lost, but like this, this is gonna
Speaker 1: be seasons of them stuck in the wilderness. Okay, Like,
Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen next season?
Speaker 1: I think that the people that captured Natalie are Yellow
Speaker 1: Jackets conspiracy theorists, Like there are people that are obset
Speaker 1: that are obsessed with the lore and mythology surrounding the
Speaker 1: Yellow Jackets girls, because it's like a haunted thing that
Speaker 1: happened in this town. And so I think these like
Speaker 1: haunted conspiracy theorists have been at play in killing Travis
Speaker 1: in like the symbols that it keep like popping up everywhere.
Speaker 1: I think it's just an entity that is going to
Speaker 1: be part of like the villainy of season two that
Speaker 1: was never in season Why interesting. What do you think?
Speaker 1: I kind of feel like we're going to find out
Speaker 1: that Lordie also survived, and you know, because she's extremely wealthy,
Speaker 1: like runs some kind of like shadowy organization and is
Speaker 1: still doing all the like weird ritual stuff back on
Speaker 1: the mainland. You know, I think that that the idea
Speaker 1: of her orchestrating all of this is like that is
Speaker 1: so spot on, it makes complete sense. I love we'll
Speaker 1: see and like, what nineties icon actress is going to
Speaker 1: play older Lottie? Yeah, especially now that the show is
Speaker 1: a hit, like they have to get someone that is
Speaker 1: on the Christina Ricci level, you know what I mean, Like, yeah, virgins,
Speaker 1: you should give us your picks for older Lotties. Who's
Speaker 1: your pick for older Lottie? And why is it Dakota Johnson.
Speaker 1: Dakota Johnson is not old enough? I completely disagree. I
Speaker 1: think she's not her forties or fifties. I think she
Speaker 1: could be forties or fifties if she wanted to, but
Speaker 1: she's not. I don't think she's like the Bill of Like,
Speaker 1: I think they need another iconic nineties actress like Christina Ricci. Okay,
Speaker 1: so live Tyler. Yeah, I'm never not talking about I'm
Speaker 1: just thinking of Burnett's. Um, I mean, when a writer
Speaker 1: has already been used in the show like this, so
Speaker 1: that wouldn't really make sense. Who else is of that?
Speaker 1: Like kind of kitchy like late nineties like weird girl core,
Speaker 1: Heather's era. Let's get Nev Campbell in it. Nev Campbell,
Speaker 1: But Nev Campbell looks too much like Julia from the
Speaker 1: Crowd honestly, no offense, but like Juliette Louis kind of
Speaker 1: looks like Nev Campbell. If like Nev Campbell, like I
Speaker 1: don't know, was like shrunken a little bit, can you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Um, I am aware that you
Speaker 1: still haven't watched Euphoria, which is I'm gonna I'm gonna
Speaker 1: reserve my commentary because I'm gathering energy from you that
Speaker 1: you are maybe actually going to watch. I am going
Speaker 1: to watch it at some point. I'm just not in
Speaker 1: a rush to watch it. Yes, you know what I
Speaker 1: am watching on HBO that I don't think you're watching
Speaker 1: is the final season of Search Party. Oh. I actually
Speaker 1: watched the first three episodes, so, UM, when I think
Speaker 1: about end of the world satires and millennial commentaries, satires
Speaker 1: I think that Search Party is like the most successful
Speaker 1: one I can think of. I think that this season
Speaker 1: is a really huge swing and a complete departure in
Speaker 1: genre and even subject matter in a way that I appreciate.
Speaker 1: But I'm kind of having a harder time getting through
Speaker 1: it because it is so off the rails. But there's
Speaker 1: nothing that I'm disliking per se, especially when it comes
Speaker 1: to like commentary about social media cults, which I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the part of Search Party that I really like
Speaker 1: is how just when you think like these characters have
Speaker 1: made the worst decisions they possibly could, they're able to
Speaker 1: take that to the next level. I love the idea
Speaker 1: of Dory as like a cult leader figure because like,
Speaker 1: one of the things this the show has hit over
Speaker 1: and over again is like her extreme narcissism and the
Speaker 1: level to which it like has become harmful to like
Speaker 1: her and others. So it makes total sense that there
Speaker 1: would be people in the world who would find that
Speaker 1: narcissism incredibly appealing, because that's how cults work. It is,
Speaker 1: and it's it's funny how the narcissism of each individual
Speaker 1: character creates these little swirls of like problems. Like I
Speaker 1: love the Little Demonic Child. Um it's it's giving, It's
Speaker 1: giving Orphan, Which did you know that there's a sequel
Speaker 1: to Orphan coming out called Orphan First Kill. I'm never
Speaker 1: going to see either of those movies. Well, that's disappointing
Speaker 1: because Orphan is one of the best films ever made.
Speaker 1: Not to blow up your spot, but I am aware
Speaker 1: also that you are watching a season of Drag Race
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah. Well, I have been watching the new
Speaker 1: season and I guess I was just like in the
Speaker 1: mood to like binge something mindlessly that I could be
Speaker 1: on my phone during for most of it. Um, so
Speaker 1: I'm watching Drag Race UK season two. I've also already
Speaker 1: forgotten every queen from the second episode of US fourteen.
Speaker 1: That's fine, I can help you run them down. There
Speaker 1: was Maddie Morphous's straight Okay, I'm gonna give it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to give a controversial opinion. You thought she was good.
Speaker 1: I didn't think she was bad, and I also like
Speaker 1: you wasn't bad. I also like didn't really have an
Speaker 1: issue with her being on it because here's because let
Speaker 1: me let me like give an explanation why I think
Speaker 1: it's like it's weird when you consider the framing of
Speaker 1: her as a straight man, and like the fact that
Speaker 1: they keep bringing it up, and I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: more a production thing then it's her thing, because I
Speaker 1: just like, obviously I'm not going to like ascribe any
Speaker 1: kind of identity to her, but I feel like, if
Speaker 1: you are doing that level of like gender fuckery, even
Speaker 1: if you still like have heterosexual sex or like sex
Speaker 1: with you know, the opposite gender whatever, you must identify
Speaker 1: as like a little bit queer. That's why it's like
Speaker 1: hard to watch because as much as I want to
Speaker 1: believe that Maddie really is truly heterosexual, I just don't
Speaker 1: understand the appeal of her art form if you aren't,
Speaker 1: as just as you said, at least a little bit queer,
Speaker 1: which is why I loved that Rue right from the
Speaker 1: jump kind of dragged her a little bit, like exposed
Speaker 1: her in the workroom, immediately knowing full well that these
Speaker 1: girls we're going to be like, what the fuck. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why I think it's a production thing, because like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it is. I'm not saying we shouldn't like gate keep
Speaker 1: queer art too straight people, but it was such a
Speaker 1: conversation when the casting was announced, and I just think
Speaker 1: it's like a lot more benign than it is like
Speaker 1: being kind of made out to be in the discourse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: as much as I hope that one of the girls
Speaker 1: will come from Maddie in the way that we all
Speaker 1: want to come from Maddie, I don't think any of
Speaker 1: them are going to be that girl. But in Untucked,
Speaker 1: when Maddie is trying to describe all these things about
Speaker 1: being a straight person and drag, you can see just
Speaker 1: the light leaving all of their eyes, like all of
Speaker 1: them like nodding and smiling, trying to be like encouraged
Speaker 1: and be like, yeah, girl, you're a great ally. We're
Speaker 1: proud of you. Like you can tell a lot of
Speaker 1: these girls have things that they're thinking that they're not
Speaker 1: going to say because they're on reality television. We should
Speaker 1: have been we should have been this time talking about
Speaker 1: not Maddie morphosis but Angeria. Oh she was amazing. I
Speaker 1: did I really kind of be Angeria versus corn Bread
Speaker 1: In the final two. I thought Georgia's was so fun
Speaker 1: to watch, like high energy perform. You know who I
Speaker 1: was confused by was a lady Amden, because like I
Speaker 1: feel like that's the equivalent of someone being like, I
Speaker 1: live in London, but I was born in New York
Speaker 1: City and my name is Lady St Mark's you know something.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's just stupid. I mean, not to get cute,
Speaker 1: but like I was like, you're not I mean, you're American,
Speaker 1: but you're not. It was confused. My name is Lady
Speaker 1: Times Square. Yeah, I'm Lady Universal Studios, CityWalk. I'm Lady
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Lady cheese Gg Factory. Okay. So I
Speaker 1: was like pretty ambivalent about even seeing The West Side
Speaker 1: Story remain. I think we were a little excited. I
Speaker 1: a little, but not I think the level I would
Speaker 1: have liked to be considering the fact that I love
Speaker 1: the original so much, I didn't know what could be
Speaker 1: improved upon. But I mean, obviously there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff about the original West Side Story that's bad through
Speaker 1: the lens of today, but it's such an amazing film,
Speaker 1: and it just felt like a weird retreading. But like,
Speaker 1: generally I did like the movie. You went in with
Speaker 1: no totally in the hands of Steven Spielberg Antony Kushner,
Speaker 1: where you like this is like I trust this, or
Speaker 1: where you immediately like have it have it feel a
Speaker 1: type of way about either of them. Um, Spielberg felt
Speaker 1: like a weird person to be doing it because I'm like,
Speaker 1: I guess his career is so weird to me, Like
Speaker 1: he comes out every couple of years with like what
Speaker 1: seemed to be very like narratively disconnected movie is like
Speaker 1: ET two AI to West Side Story. Also, he did
Speaker 1: Rogue Player one right, that was him Shutter Island, Like
Speaker 1: what what is he? What is he making movies about
Speaker 1: besides just making like big spectacle blockbusters that come out
Speaker 1: on Christmas he famously or not famously. He did say
Speaker 1: in interviews that he had been wanting to make West
Speaker 1: Side Story since he was ten, which I was hard
Speaker 1: to say. Sorry, sorry to say it, Um, But maybe
Speaker 1: Tony Kushner hadn't inducted him into the Fago tree that
Speaker 1: is this musical because it was concepted by four you know,
Speaker 1: affluent white Jewish gays. Anyways, what were you expecting going
Speaker 1: into it? Like, knowing kind of nothing about the musical?
Speaker 1: You know, my full pretty much, my full context of
Speaker 1: the musical came from that one time that Share played
Speaker 1: all the parts? Do do you know? Yes? I know
Speaker 1: I did actually learned quite a lot from that performance
Speaker 1: of it, like it kind of top lines the plot,
Speaker 1: which is for the virgins, I guess an adaptation of
Speaker 1: Romeo and Juliet, but it's kind of like whites versus
Speaker 1: Puerto Ricans as these two like street gangs. These are
Speaker 1: white and Puerto Rican street gang, the Sharks and the Jets,
Speaker 1: and two of the characterists fall in love and that
Speaker 1: creates the Romeo Juliet capulate versus Montague kind of scenario. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you have never seen West Side Story or Romeo
Speaker 1: and Juliet, like that is the basis of it. It
Speaker 1: is star cross lovers who can't be together because their
Speaker 1: families hate each other, and then one and then there's
Speaker 1: death at the end, death to all of them. But yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and you know my literally everyone dies. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that's Shakespeare. Shakespeare was kind of the George R. Martin
Speaker 1: of his time. He just loved to kill everyone's favorite
Speaker 1: I'm being facetious. Is just that George Armartin loves to
Speaker 1: kill your favorite character. He was the m c U
Speaker 1: time if Shakespeare even existed. Yeah, I wonder Shakespeare. I mean,
Speaker 1: Shakespeare didn't really create a cinematic University. He didn't really
Speaker 1: loop any of the s s tu the Shakespeare theatrical universe.
Speaker 1: We'll get we'll get back to Shakespeare. But anyways, so
Speaker 1: I have I have a long history with West Side Story.
Speaker 1: You don't have, um. Weirdly enough, West Side Story is
Speaker 1: like inextricably linked to the Rocky Horror Picture Show for me,
Speaker 1: because I had the vhs of both of them when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and it was like when I
Speaker 1: was like trying to fall asleep every night when I
Speaker 1: was in middle school, I would put on either West
Speaker 1: Side Story or Rocky Horror Picture Show and that was
Speaker 1: what would lull me to sleep. And it was like
Speaker 1: one night to the other, it was either of those.
Speaker 1: So I have a lot of love for the original,
Speaker 1: even though I know it's like very problematic, like the
Speaker 1: brown face and it is what it is. It is
Speaker 1: what it is and Natalie and Natalie Wood isn't singing. Um.
Speaker 1: So I guess, like I understood why why you can
Speaker 1: make the argument for the need for a new version
Speaker 1: of West Side Story. But I guess, like to me,
Speaker 1: the thing was like, Okay, if we're going to do
Speaker 1: a new one, why do it in the most obvious
Speaker 1: way as like a big budget Steven Spielberg movie, like
Speaker 1: do something a little more interesting, because in recent years
Speaker 1: there have been like there was a Broadway revival of it,
Speaker 1: or like an off Broadway revival that was pretty popular,
Speaker 1: although there was like something problematic with it, like someone
Speaker 1: in the cast had like it was maybe like a
Speaker 1: sexual assaulter. And then that happened that the lin Manuel
Speaker 1: Miranda one wasn't no, and then that happened again in
Speaker 1: the movie because of Ansel l Gort who right, yeah,
Speaker 1: who was amazing that he had a beautiful singing voice.
Speaker 1: I thought he sounded pretty good. His voice was gore,
Speaker 1: I mean, coming off of Incanto, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: these are some pipes. Anyways, Okay, let's talk about let's
Speaker 1: talk about the movie. Let's talk about you know what,
Speaker 1: what did you like? What did you get from it?
Speaker 1: I actually quickly have to when while we're talking about
Speaker 1: like context for West Side Story, this is relevant. My
Speaker 1: mom played Anita in her high school production of West
Speaker 1: Side Story. Like yeah, way back when, but growing up,
Speaker 1: my mom told us all that she was Maria because
Speaker 1: I think she was ashamed to be like this kind
Speaker 1: of ravishing game. You know kind of character, or maybe
Speaker 1: she just wanted you to think she got the lead
Speaker 1: because well, well know, I mean the other thing is
Speaker 1: my mom. But Anita is the better role my mom.
Speaker 1: Anita has the best song. I agree with you, however, America,
Speaker 1: my mom, this is honestly reintroducing my mother and as
Speaker 1: a character, and on this podcast, my mom was ashamed
Speaker 1: of what was a stereotypical kind of like feisty, sexy
Speaker 1: Regan woman and Anita in the o G. Not so
Speaker 1: much in the new adaptation. But in the O G
Speaker 1: she's supposed to be kind of like a almost like
Speaker 1: a bimbo. She's supposed to be very you know, so
Speaker 1: like kind of saucy. Um. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: the way that she's written is pretty like Anita gets
Speaker 1: Anita knows what's up. She's the one who like clocks
Speaker 1: Maria instantly rum. Well, anyways, my mom was also the
Speaker 1: lead in her high school rendition of uh Greece, and
Speaker 1: she was Rizzo, but she told all of us that
Speaker 1: she was Sandy, who also is a slut at the end.
Speaker 1: But my mom literally, okay, I think this is your
Speaker 1: mom wanting to rewrite history and saying she got the
Speaker 1: later role. It's not about being the lead, it's about
Speaker 1: being embarrassed that she was cast as a slut. But again,
Speaker 1: also in Greece, Rizzo is the best character. Again has
Speaker 1: the best song. It has nothing. It has everything to
Speaker 1: do with my mom's shame and therefore our shame. But
Speaker 1: my mom didn't tell us until I was like a
Speaker 1: late teenager. Does Vanessa Hudgens energy because Vanessa Hudgens famously
Speaker 1: played Rizzo in Grease Live? Oh right? Did she actually ever?
Speaker 1: Did Grease Life? Actually go? Grease Life was actually very good?
Speaker 1: Was it the best of the I think it's the
Speaker 1: best of the live musicals that I've seen. And she
Speaker 1: Vanessa Hudgens famously, um did it the day after her
Speaker 1: dad died. Oh my god, No, her dad died that day.
Speaker 1: She still went on well, as Vanessa Hudgens did one
Speaker 1: say people are gonna die. So I actually did love
Speaker 1: the new version, the Disney version, which I didn't even
Speaker 1: know it. Okay, what did you love there? Um? They
Speaker 1: were just multiple moments where the cinema combined with like
Speaker 1: the performances and hearing the music for the first time
Speaker 1: in that capacity, like hearing it all together, which I
Speaker 1: had never experienced before. I think was just there were
Speaker 1: moments that just left me literally breathless. Like I thought
Speaker 1: that so many elements of like the songs and how
Speaker 1: these characters like came together were really beautiful. I thought
Speaker 1: that kind of the attention to try and update some
Speaker 1: of West Side story and inject like a little more
Speaker 1: quote unquote authenticity into the narrative. I despite critics, I
Speaker 1: actually felt like a lot of those moments were successful.
Speaker 1: Do I think that the show is an overall authentic
Speaker 1: portrayal of Puerto Rican's No, not at all, um, But
Speaker 1: I do think the things that they tried to improve,
Speaker 1: um were like pretty good. Did you notice any of
Speaker 1: the things that they like tried to update by chance?
Speaker 1: I think I was mostly focused on the ways they
Speaker 1: tried to my den eyes it in terms of the
Speaker 1: romance of it, which, well you know that. I think
Speaker 1: they try to make the case for why Tony and
Speaker 1: Maria like are so in love, That's why they have
Speaker 1: them go on that date to the Cloisters. But it's like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I saw this movie on Christmas with
Speaker 1: my best friend Ryan, and he made this point, which
Speaker 1: is that the melodrama of West Side Story and like
Speaker 1: the Shakespearean aspect of it is what lets you excuse
Speaker 1: the fact that the day after Maria meets this boy,
Speaker 1: she fux him after he kills her brother. And like,
Speaker 1: it's only through like the grandiosity and like suspension of
Speaker 1: disbelief that you allow yourself to be okay with that
Speaker 1: as an audience member. And in this movie, with them
Speaker 1: trying to make it more realistic, it's harder to sell
Speaker 1: that be because it it is attempting to be more grounded.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I'm like, why did she just
Speaker 1: fuck him after he told her he killed her brother? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's just no real way to like, honestly, this is
Speaker 1: we're giving notes to Shakespeare at this point. Let me like,
Speaker 1: I feel, I think this isn't no because Shakespeare isn't
Speaker 1: right because you believe it in Shakespeare, but in this
Speaker 1: movie that's trying to be realistic, I don't believe it.
Speaker 1: I also just like didn't I didn't think they had
Speaker 1: good chemistry. I didn't believe their love story. I okay,
Speaker 1: a few things here I didn't so original. Shakespeare doesn't
Speaker 1: sell me on that that romance. So that's where I'm
Speaker 1: coming from. I I do love like we'll get into
Speaker 1: like other adaptations Romeo plus Julie, et cetera. I think
Speaker 1: that there are versions of Romeo and Juliet that like,
Speaker 1: I love. However, I do think that it's it's a
Speaker 1: really tough source material to modernize in terms of like
Speaker 1: emotional honesty, like emotional coherency, to to pull off just
Speaker 1: as you said, I fucked this guy that killed my
Speaker 1: brother one day ago, you know what I mean, and
Speaker 1: that now we're married. It's a lot, and I honestly
Speaker 1: feel like so I watched it with our friend, Justin,
Speaker 1: my one of my best friends, and he was a true, true,
Speaker 1: true version. I at least had like some context of
Speaker 1: the of the show. Justin knew nothing about West Side story,
Speaker 1: and so the gymnasium scene, like the school dance, which
Speaker 1: I think is actually the best scene in the new remake,
Speaker 1: the second Maria and Tony like start to fall in love,
Speaker 1: Justin turns to me and he's like no, he like
Speaker 1: had no idea, and he was like, wait, this is bad,
Speaker 1: like and I was like, yeah, dog, Like that's the
Speaker 1: CONCEI of the whole dog. Yeah, I said, yeah, dog,
Speaker 1: that's like the consie of the whole thing. It was
Speaker 1: so watching him digest it was really entertaining. And when
Speaker 1: we left the theater, the first thing he said was,
Speaker 1: it's kind of crazy that he killed her brother and
Speaker 1: she still wanted to be with him in the end.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yeah, I think that's, you know,
Speaker 1: an issue with the Shakespeare. And he goes, what do
Speaker 1: you mean, and I was like, oh, it's an adaptation
Speaker 1: of Romeo and Juliet. And so I felt like that
Speaker 1: was a testament actually to what what's really difficult to
Speaker 1: pull off, which is that if for some reason someone
Speaker 1: going into it doesn't know that it's an adaptation of Shakespeare,
Speaker 1: which I think Justin is a very rare case of that,
Speaker 1: it is actually really confusing to watch. Don't you think
Speaker 1: like if you were watching without knowing that, I think
Speaker 1: so because you I think if you went in totally blind,
Speaker 1: you would not understand a single choice that's being made exactly. Okay,
Speaker 1: there are things I did like about it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: what it looked nice? I guess, um, you're like muscling
Speaker 1: through giving trying to give Tony Kushner a compliment. Arianna
Speaker 1: Debos was amazing. She is incredible, and I thought she
Speaker 1: brought life to this character. And Anita is my favorite
Speaker 1: character in the West Side Story and has America was
Speaker 1: always my favorite number from the show growing up, and
Speaker 1: I thought that was done so well. Um. I thought
Speaker 1: Rachel Ziegler was good. She's you know, has a very
Speaker 1: pretty voice. I thought the show in general was kind
Speaker 1: of perfectly near perfectly cast. I think some people are
Speaker 1: mad that, like, it wasn't all Puerto Ricans, like Rachel
Speaker 1: Ziegler's Colombian. Not everyone in the cast was perto Rican,
Speaker 1: but like, I felt like everyone's great. Even Bernardo was great. Um,
Speaker 1: the guy who's the other, the leader of the jets,
Speaker 1: he and I mean he and Bernardo should have kissed.
Speaker 1: They should have. The vibe was there. Oh and Rita moreno,
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Basically Rita gave me the hardest cries
Speaker 1: I felt throughout the real I did not. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: the thing. I did not feel one single emotion throughout
Speaker 1: the entire thing. Didn't cry. It didn't it was nice.
Speaker 1: It did not move me. And West Side Story should
Speaker 1: move you, Yeah, it should. I felt nothing. I had
Speaker 1: to pee. That was all I felt. Really, my emotional
Speaker 1: response to it was like I think, in large part
Speaker 1: because I had never seen it before. When I left
Speaker 1: the theater, that's when I started to digest more and
Speaker 1: more what I watched and feel like less enthusiastic about
Speaker 1: it as just like a cultural object. Like I I
Speaker 1: there are a lot of things that I didn't like,
Speaker 1: but I think it starts with like the things that
Speaker 1: they tried to fix, which I think our valiant efforts
Speaker 1: still didn't really sail for me, Like like the this
Speaker 1: Tony coming back to his best friend Riff and like
Speaker 1: Rita Mano's like I guess, like his like kind of
Speaker 1: mentor whatever. There's this like thin critique of the Carcelral
Speaker 1: system going on like that Tony's like back from jail
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want to go, you know, back into
Speaker 1: the doghouse. So what was a good number was Officer
Speaker 1: crub Key? So you liked all of Officer crub Key? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I liked the group numbers. I did think the choreography
Speaker 1: could have been better. I agree. I I don't think
Speaker 1: they wanted to like dress up you know, Jerome Robbins
Speaker 1: too much. Like I feel like they just wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, keep it to what it was supposed to be.
Speaker 1: But I agree with you. I felt like to me
Speaker 1: the gymnasium scene was a lot, but Officer crup Key specifically,
Speaker 1: which had high involvement of the new edition of this
Speaker 1: trans character, which we should talk about, I thought, was
Speaker 1: like kind of fine. It's interesting to me that, like
Speaker 1: in the original, Officer crub Key is kind of this, like,
Speaker 1: what's what's so funny? I'm just thinking about the trans
Speaker 1: thing now, It's just so funny. Why is it funny
Speaker 1: to you? I just like I had no idea that
Speaker 1: was a thing going into it and didn't know. And
Speaker 1: I'm shocked like that I wasn't more aware of it,
Speaker 1: that it wasn't like a conversation, and that there wasn't
Speaker 1: like someone on Twitter like not my West Side Story
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I think that's kind of a testament
Speaker 1: to how benign it really was, Like it really is
Speaker 1: like I think I would. It feels like lip service,
Speaker 1: and I feel a type of way way of it
Speaker 1: because there were so many articles and so many press
Speaker 1: releases about the new edition of the trans character the
Speaker 1: West Side Story, and like all these I didn't sa.
Speaker 1: That makes me feel really happy about the state but
Speaker 1: my algorithm is in that it knows I don't want
Speaker 1: no discourse. But for those of you that don't know,
Speaker 1: there's a character in the O G. West Side Story
Speaker 1: called anybody so who. I don't think that. I don't
Speaker 1: think their name is ever even mentioned in the original.
Speaker 1: But anyways, it's this girl quote unquote in the original
Speaker 1: that wants to be a part of the boy gang.
Speaker 1: And in the new version they basically make him a
Speaker 1: trans guy who is trying to affirm his gender by
Speaker 1: being a part of this gang um. But in Officer
Speaker 1: cub Keys specifically, he kind of like, you know, plays
Speaker 1: around with the guys at a moment where someone like
Speaker 1: he's trying to correct someone like basically calling him a girl.
Speaker 1: And I was like, this is all very interesting, And
Speaker 1: then they sing Officer krub Key and still included. Even
Speaker 1: though a lot of lyrics were edited in the adaptation,
Speaker 1: but they didn't take out the transphobic lyric in this song.
Speaker 1: Did you notice that there's a transphobic lyric where they
Speaker 1: say my sister wears a mustache, my brother wears a dress,
Speaker 1: and how it's like a big it's like a the
Speaker 1: reason their family is sucked up and they're all sucked up.
Speaker 1: And I was like, the trans person is literally in
Speaker 1: this scene. And you had the foresight to edit these
Speaker 1: other problematic like lyrics, but not this one. Where did
Speaker 1: the trans character come from? Like was Stephen Sondheim like
Speaker 1: we have to make this character trans? Or was someone
Speaker 1: like we have to put a trans character and that
Speaker 1: was Tony Kushner. I think Stephen, Stephen Sondheim and Tony
Speaker 1: Kushner were on one because they swooped in and they
Speaker 1: were like, whoa, this is already extremely problematic, but it's
Speaker 1: like totally our dream to make this musical, so let's
Speaker 1: do it and like the wokest way possible. That's kind
Speaker 1: of what it felt like. And I think the trans
Speaker 1: character is a is a Kushner edition it was. I
Speaker 1: wanted to nuance it. I do think like it. They
Speaker 1: took Jade as as woke like applied momentum. Hey, it's
Speaker 1: but I don't think the trans character was actually like unearned,
Speaker 1: like if you look at the source material. I didn't
Speaker 1: mind it. Yeah, it was just a weird choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there are other things. It's like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a moment where all of the sharks sing the version
Speaker 1: of like the Puerto Rican anthem that's like the revolutionary version.
Speaker 1: It's like the pre kind of updated version where they
Speaker 1: talk about like taking out their machetes and how they
Speaker 1: want it's about like overthrowing the government kind of. And
Speaker 1: so the fact that they inserted that was like a
Speaker 1: pretty big like wink, Like they hired a lot They
Speaker 1: obviously hired like a lot of consultants of this project.
Speaker 1: Rita Moreno was also an EP, and I think that
Speaker 1: given her history, like she's so consistently vocal about things
Speaker 1: that bothered her about West Side Story in general, that
Speaker 1: I am sure that she probably had heavy insight and
Speaker 1: how the adaptation was created. I liked that they what
Speaker 1: they did with Doc as a character, making it Rita
Speaker 1: having her sing somewhere um and like her being the
Speaker 1: one that like rescues Anita from her assault, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, a tough scene to watch. But again, Ariana
Speaker 1: Debo is like so good. I'm I'm just like so
Speaker 1: excited for her in her career and like she had
Speaker 1: such a great year last year between this and Shmia
Speaker 1: dude for the Okay, So for the virgins that don't
Speaker 1: know the Doc character in West side story is basically
Speaker 1: like the apothecary guy in Romeo and Juliet who bestows
Speaker 1: the poison to both of them question Mark, and they're like, hey, here, here, here,
Speaker 1: teens have this like elixir so you can have your
Speaker 1: suicide pack. Like this is gonna be Like that's literally
Speaker 1: his whole role. So I guess in the updated version
Speaker 1: is just like you know, a quack doctor just given
Speaker 1: out prescriptions. Um, well not actually, but it should have.
Speaker 1: Maybe that to me is like what you said earlier
Speaker 1: about how they didn't take it fair enough. I totally agree.
Speaker 1: Like I feel like if they're gonna do it like
Speaker 1: it should be or could have been, like much more
Speaker 1: radically reimagined, like almost the way that Romeo plus Juliet
Speaker 1: did it, which is one of your favorite movies. Oh absolutely.
Speaker 1: I I love Shakespeare, let's get that out of the way.
Speaker 1: I'm a Shakespeare girl. When I was in fifth grade,
Speaker 1: I found the complete works of William Shakespeare on my
Speaker 1: dad's bookcase and just like, read it, read the whole thing,
Speaker 1: nerd um. And I have loved Shakespeare ever since. And
Speaker 1: like that came out like around that age, and I've
Speaker 1: always been obsessed with Shakespeare. Juliette is my middle name
Speaker 1: that I did pick for myself, which is beautiful. Yeah
Speaker 1: it's a little corny, but whatever. Um yeah, I love
Speaker 1: love Shakespeare. What's your favorite Shakespeare it is? I think
Speaker 1: we have this same one. I think it's I think
Speaker 1: it's Midsummer, followed closely maybe by Winter's Tale minus, followed
Speaker 1: closely by The Tempest, Love the Tempest. I think The
Speaker 1: Timis is a little boring. I think it's like his
Speaker 1: weirdest play, which is why I really like it, and
Speaker 1: his last play, which is also a reason that I
Speaker 1: love it. Shakespeare works in multiple genres. It's like romance, comedies, tragedy, comedies, tragedies, histories, comedies, histories, tragedies,
Speaker 1: and problem place. The ones that he like didn't finish,
Speaker 1: I guess. And also they don't fit into or the
Speaker 1: whoever Shakespeare was although you know, because they're all those
Speaker 1: theories about like was Shakespeare real? Like was it written
Speaker 1: by a woman? Are there many Shakespeare's? Shakespeare in Love?
Speaker 1: Um right, I do love Shakespeare and love I watched
Speaker 1: it kind of recently. I haven't watched an ages. I
Speaker 1: would love to watch it for goop and goop alone.
Speaker 1: That's how you called Gne. You call her she goes
Speaker 1: by group. She's good in it. It's just like she
Speaker 1: should not have won an Oscar for it. She won
Speaker 1: an Oscar one Best Actress. That must have been a
Speaker 1: slow year. No, it was because Harvey Weinstein campaigns really
Speaker 1: hard for it. That makes sense, though, I mean corruption
Speaker 1: will always win. Um, what okay, So what's your favorite
Speaker 1: Shakespeare adaptation? I mean I think it's the same as you.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's Romeo plus Juliet or She's the Man.
Speaker 1: I was just about to say fallow Gloves. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: She's the Man, I think, which is an adaptation of
Speaker 1: twelfth Night. Yes, famously. Um, I mean Shakespeare, like Shakespeare
Speaker 1: is so gay. There's always cross dressing. There's the implicit
Speaker 1: gayness of the cross dressing on stage. Because if I
Speaker 1: don't know, if you if you skipped history, Um, at
Speaker 1: the time that shakespeare plays were you know, being produced
Speaker 1: while he was alive, women were not allowed to be
Speaker 1: in the theata. That's why the women were played by men.
Speaker 1: Shakespeare is very gay. Well, that's why Shakespeare wrote it.
Speaker 1: It's like he was trying to fulfill his like you know,
Speaker 1: fantasy of like men kissing by have these men play
Speaker 1: women on stage. He's basically like a medieval version of
Speaker 1: when you make your two tender kiss. Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Do you like McBeth? Have you watched?
Speaker 1: Are you? Do you plan to watch the Tragedy of Macbeth? Um?
Speaker 1: Probably not, because they use the O G dialogue, right.
Speaker 1: I think that that I um a D H D
Speaker 1: kid had a really hard time with the original dialogue.
Speaker 1: I think with Romeo plus Juliet, it's all imagistic to me, Like,
Speaker 1: I I retain like the world building that bas Lamon does,
Speaker 1: but like not a lot of what they're saying. Oh.
Speaker 1: But I think that's one of the things that works
Speaker 1: so well about Boss Lerman's Romeo and Juliet is that
Speaker 1: it's the juxtaposition of the Shakespearean language with the contemporary imagery.
Speaker 1: And like what he did so well was make that
Speaker 1: language feel authentic to the action that was happening, and
Speaker 1: like it's not restrictive, it doesn't keep you from understanding
Speaker 1: what's going on. And I think it's all it's like
Speaker 1: in the direction, it's in the way it's performed. Really,
Speaker 1: Shakespeare was like what made me fall in love with language.
Speaker 1: Like in addition to his plays, I really loved his sonnets.
Speaker 1: You know, I took a lot. I did a lot
Speaker 1: of Shakespeare when I was like, you know, a theater kid.
Speaker 1: Obviously gay sonnets. If I had stuck closer to theater
Speaker 1: in college, I maybe to have like gone a Shakespearean root, oh,
Speaker 1: like made it like a primary study. Yeah. Maybe I
Speaker 1: took a lot of Shakespeare classes in college. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I love the Bard and I say, I agree
Speaker 1: with you on the bas Lerman movie. I think that
Speaker 1: like that the way that they performances who work like
Speaker 1: helps you understand the dialogue and are really beautiful. I
Speaker 1: thought it was totally successful. It's definitely my favorite. And
Speaker 1: that's seeing where they see where they see each other
Speaker 1: for the first time, and um through the fish tank
Speaker 1: is so perfect, and like Leo is so beautiful in it,
Speaker 1: Claire Janes is so beautiful in it. They're both they
Speaker 1: look they are the cutest lesbian couple ever. They really are. Oh,
Speaker 1: speaking of back to She's the Man, did you know
Speaker 1: that some of her best work it actually I'm not
Speaker 1: you're saying it with yes, we are being I need
Speaker 1: the Virgins to hear that we are actually being completely genuine.
Speaker 1: That is a Manda Binds magnum opus, not just because
Speaker 1: of her performance, because their performance What a Girl Wants
Speaker 1: She's the Man. I used to watch What a Girl
Speaker 1: Wants the TV show every day after school. I I
Speaker 1: used to know, wait, do you mean the show that
Speaker 1: she was in with? Oh? Right, it's about what I
Speaker 1: like about you? What I like about about you. I
Speaker 1: thought they were, for some reason the same story that
Speaker 1: they spin off into a TV show. I have a
Speaker 1: totally different things. Oh, I had no idea. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, did you know that She's the Man
Speaker 1: is the movie that Amanda Binds used to platform and
Speaker 1: create Channing Tatum's career. Okay, so this is a really
Speaker 1: good little tidbit. That's why we have Channing Tatum. Literally.
Speaker 1: So Amanda Bindes talked about this in an interview. But
Speaker 1: when she was working on She's the Man, she was
Speaker 1: obviously like one of the most famous people on the planet.
Speaker 1: She was like so prolific, she was making so many movies.
Speaker 1: She was so beloved amongst generations that she had so
Speaker 1: much hour when she was cast in this movie. The
Speaker 1: romantically hadn't been cast. Yet at this point, Channing Tatum
Speaker 1: has had a few cameos in like little movies. He
Speaker 1: was on the famously the cover of Out magazine as
Speaker 1: like a model wrestling one of these other fags that
Speaker 1: have you seen that vintage Out magazine And so he's
Speaker 1: literally pretty much undiscovered and they didn't want to cast
Speaker 1: Channing Tatum and Amanda said no, no, no, they everyone's
Speaker 1: going to fall in love with this guy, like trust me,
Speaker 1: and they were issued at but she had so much
Speaker 1: power at the time. They were like, we're going to
Speaker 1: do what Amanda wants. We're gonna cast Channing Tana and
Speaker 1: then his career was born. Another thing about Amana Biands
Speaker 1: and She's the Man. So there's this TikToker Hello Taffy,
Speaker 1: who does these really great series that are like deep
Speaker 1: dives into pop culture. I would love to have her
Speaker 1: on at some point. Um. And she did a series
Speaker 1: on Amanda Binds recently and was talking about how Amanda
Speaker 1: Byns was made incredibly dysphoric by watching She's the Man
Speaker 1: and it would like kick started a lot of her
Speaker 1: body image issues, like remember watching herself on screen as
Speaker 1: a boy. Um, I'm just still actually really sad about
Speaker 1: the unraveling of Amanda Bynes. Do you like this song?
Speaker 1: I feel pretty okay. So this is a very contentious song.
Speaker 1: And like the history and criticism of West Side Story?
Speaker 1: Did you know that? I didn't? Okay, So this has
Speaker 1: like a Sondheim connect But like, do you know how
Speaker 1: they created West Side Story? Okay? So the four white
Speaker 1: facts that created West Side Story Arthur Lawrence, Leonard Bernstein,
Speaker 1: Jerome Robbins, and like Sondheim in his first ever project,
Speaker 1: they all set out to write something that was about
Speaker 1: Jewish discrimination. But they had been sorting through the story.
Speaker 1: They're basically trying to break the story. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know, a bunch of bros in like California trying
Speaker 1: to like you know, make this musical happen. But they
Speaker 1: couldn't crack what kind of the heart of the show
Speaker 1: would be. And they pulled up like a completely random
Speaker 1: newspaper article and like Los Angeles newspaper about a Latin
Speaker 1: gang fight in San Bernardino that had happened like the
Speaker 1: day before or whatever, and um, basically this is the
Speaker 1: same time as Ration, which is like when all these
Speaker 1: like Puerto Rican migrants, like hundreds of thousands and then
Speaker 1: moved to America and primarily to New York, creating like
Speaker 1: new Orrecans, and so there was like this public weariness
Speaker 1: of like too many Puerto Ricans in America or whatever.
Speaker 1: So all these stories about Latin gang fights were hitting
Speaker 1: the newspapers, and these four guys found one of those
Speaker 1: like newspaper articles, and they were like, wait, this like
Speaker 1: Latin gang fight thing is like kind of the this
Speaker 1: is kind of a story, Like this is a thing,
Speaker 1: and like in like the kind of I guess biography
Speaker 1: of Leonard Bernstein, they talked about how when they came
Speaker 1: across this news article, they were like, oh, making it
Speaker 1: about these teen gangs is going to make it much
Speaker 1: more timely. And Leonard Bernstein literally said the whole Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican thing had begun to explode, and like the biographer
Speaker 1: even said like if they hadn't found this news article,
Speaker 1: he doesn't think the musical ever would have been written,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. So it says a lot to how
Speaker 1: the show was concepted that a lot of the characters
Speaker 1: sing in these very operatic, like kind of aristocratic ways,
Speaker 1: and I Feel Pretty was specifically one of those songs
Speaker 1: that people would take issue with because they were like,
Speaker 1: these are a bunch of Puerto Rican women singing like
Speaker 1: white women, and what is that? But I feel I
Speaker 1: guess I always felt like that was kind of the
Speaker 1: point of I feel pretty like it's it's like, um,
Speaker 1: it's like a pantomime in a way, and I do
Speaker 1: think like they that's kind of how they approached it
Speaker 1: in the movie is like Maria there, you know, cleaning
Speaker 1: this department store, and she's like fantasizing about this perfect
Speaker 1: life that you know she doesn't have. Right. Well, that
Speaker 1: was the fix that Kushner and Spielberg tried to wedge
Speaker 1: in because in the original they're not in like the
Speaker 1: Gimbals department store. I think they're like at home or
Speaker 1: something like that. But Sondheim himself like is less proud
Speaker 1: of that work he talks about and he specifically points
Speaker 1: the fact he says, um, the play on words in
Speaker 1: Pretty Wonderful Boy drew attention to the lyric writer more
Speaker 1: than intow attention to the character. He said, I had
Speaker 1: hoped no one would notice anything but the cleverness of it.
Speaker 1: I was wrong. And in this interview he literally throws
Speaker 1: his other like like colleagues under the bus Like he
Speaker 1: basically says that like he he was too young, and
Speaker 1: he wanted to fix the lyrics and wanted to authenticate
Speaker 1: and make it more true to the characters, and that
Speaker 1: his the other guys on the show were much more
Speaker 1: senior than him, which makes sense. Like basically, like basically,
Speaker 1: you know, Rue was like, which of these other girls
Speaker 1: should go home tonight? And like Sonheim was like all
Speaker 1: of them, like they suck and like they're the reason
Speaker 1: that the musical is terrible. But to me, like this,
Speaker 1: I never think of West Side Story as a Sondheim
Speaker 1: musical because, like, you know, I think the works that
Speaker 1: we really think of as Sondheim works are ones in which,
Speaker 1: like he was totally in control during the music and lyrics.
Speaker 1: But it's also such a testament to the fact that
Speaker 1: he did have this incredibly long career and has truly
Speaker 1: had a hand in shaping American musical theater exactly. And
Speaker 1: I think that what he said about West Side Story
Speaker 1: specifically is emblematic of the musicals he would go on
Speaker 1: to create, which is characters that match the actual songs,
Speaker 1: that match the actual lyrics, and all of that together
Speaker 1: has a like a psychological honesty where in this is
Speaker 1: like kind of I mean, you know more about musicals
Speaker 1: than I do, but this is kind of the cusp
Speaker 1: of whin Sonheim started to make more musicals like that
Speaker 1: before that. It's like Rogerson, Hammerstein's, etcetera. Where it's like
Speaker 1: we're cowboys and they're Indians and we're going to sing
Speaker 1: a song about it and that and now we're in
Speaker 1: love and that send do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: What's your favorite musical? Okay, come back to me, what's yours? Um?
Speaker 1: Phantom of the Opera? Okay? Which is isn't it technically
Speaker 1: an opera? I guess it's a music music, a musical opera.
Speaker 1: It's a music. No, it's a musical okay because there's
Speaker 1: dialogue and opera is has no dialogue. Oh right, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah okay. Um. Wow, Phantom of the Opera is
Speaker 1: your all times, all time fave. It is to me
Speaker 1: everything musical theater should be. It is a spectacle. It's bombastic,
Speaker 1: it's ridiculous, it's overwrought. It's like I'm laughing, shooting, crying,
Speaker 1: throwing up. Um. I saw it um when we were
Speaker 1: in New York actually shooting um. Our cover art for
Speaker 1: this podcast. Um. I saw that the night after it
Speaker 1: had reopened on Broadway, and my friend and I were
Speaker 1: in the rear mezzanine and still like got the full experience.
Speaker 1: Like it's one of those shows where there's not a
Speaker 1: bad seat in the house because of how big of
Speaker 1: a production it is. It is my favorite musical. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm not really like an Andrew Lloyd Weber girl.
Speaker 1: Like I don't like cats, I don't like Joseph Um,
Speaker 1: I don't like like Starlight Express, Jesus Christ Superstar. I
Speaker 1: feel like if I watched Jesus Christ Superstar today, I
Speaker 1: would really like it. But I don't think I've actually
Speaker 1: ever in full If I were to think about my
Speaker 1: favorite music hole that I've ever watched, I know that
Speaker 1: the way you framed the question is stage musical, but
Speaker 1: my answer is Mulan Bruge because it is the musical.
Speaker 1: I do not acknowledge this, and it's now a stage.
Speaker 1: I saw it. I saw it, and I liked it.
Speaker 1: You shut the funk up right and I had a
Speaker 1: good time. You you sit back. I can I can
Speaker 1: really we are losing credibility. No, no, listen, I I
Speaker 1: can really appreciate more like serious esoteric musical theater. But
Speaker 1: I really like a big Broadway musical spectacle, Like you know,
Speaker 1: I don't like I don't love the format of the
Speaker 1: jukebox musical necessarily, but I had fun at Mulan Rouge,
Speaker 1: and like, if I'm having fun, then a musical is
Speaker 1: doing its job. And it's not like I paid to
Speaker 1: see it, so yeah, right or right would never pay
Speaker 1: to see it. I actually I should see the Share
Speaker 1: Show because maybe that I heard it was horrible. I
Speaker 1: heard it was amazed. No no, no, I heard it
Speaker 1: was like the worst thing ever. No no, no, I
Speaker 1: could never I could never acknowledge that to be true.
Speaker 1: Well it is, it is apparently true. I used to
Speaker 1: see a lot of theater, you know, when I was
Speaker 1: a freshman in college. Um, when I was a freshman
Speaker 1: in college, I saw The Wedding Singer the musical eight times,
Speaker 1: like one semester. It was a musical. Um, it was
Speaker 1: a musical. My friend, uh, my my friend from college,
Speaker 1: and I like became really obsessed with it and we
Speaker 1: would go do the lottery like a couple of times
Speaker 1: a week, which was like such a great thing about
Speaker 1: like you know, being like living in New York when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, after being a musical theater kid
Speaker 1: in high school and moving to New York and then
Speaker 1: like having access to see all this theater that I'd
Speaker 1: only ever been able to see on like school trips
Speaker 1: are like coming in you know when I was a kid. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we were obsessed with The Wedding Singer the
Speaker 1: musical and went to see eight times, and we used
Speaker 1: to wait outside the stage door after every show, and
Speaker 1: we like became friendly or so we thought with Amy Spanger,
Speaker 1: who is like a Broadway icon, and one time she
Speaker 1: was like, do you want to come backstage? And she
Speaker 1: like brought us backstage and gave us a tour, which
Speaker 1: was like really cool. I was not only like a
Speaker 1: musical theater kid, but like I just loved Broadway and
Speaker 1: I grew up, you know because I have a lot
Speaker 1: of family in New York, and so we would go
Speaker 1: visit them a couple of times a year, and my
Speaker 1: grandparents would always bring me in to see a show,
Speaker 1: and like that is where my love of theater comes from.
Speaker 1: So this is the part of the podcast where we
Speaker 1: dive into our journeys. That's recovering theater queers. Yeah. Um, Okay,
Speaker 1: So when I when you asked was your favorite musical,
Speaker 1: the musical that came immediately to mind was one very
Speaker 1: problematic musical we did in high school, which is Flower
Speaker 1: Drum Song. Yeah, it's a Roger. It's a Roger Rogers
Speaker 1: and Hammerstein's musical about Chinese immigrants. It unfortunately has really
Speaker 1: beautiful music, like really beautiful music, but as a whole,
Speaker 1: it's like the most is like you've ever seen. There
Speaker 1: is like a grapht to like, the more problematic a
Speaker 1: musical is, then like the more people like, the more
Speaker 1: beautiful the music is, like they are inextricably like yeah,
Speaker 1: West Side Story honestly up there. But like my I
Speaker 1: don't know what my musical theater director was on, Well
Speaker 1: I do it. It was whiteness. But I was at
Speaker 1: a predominantly white high school and we did Flower Drum Song.
Speaker 1: We did the wind is are predominantly white high school.
Speaker 1: And we also did a version of Annie Get Your Gun,
Speaker 1: which even the rewrites include this kind of like Native American,
Speaker 1: kind of like subplats. I've also been in a production
Speaker 1: of Annie Get Your Gun. I was the male leading.
Speaker 1: This was that at camp when when I was a
Speaker 1: kid wait, like Jewish sleep Way Camp. You went to
Speaker 1: a Jewish musical sleep Awake? Wait? Did I not? Wait?
Speaker 1: Did I tell you this? So? I was at our
Speaker 1: friend Chenno's Christmas party at her house and there was
Speaker 1: a friend of hers there who I hadn't met before,
Speaker 1: and somehow we got around to the topic of Sleepway
Speaker 1: Camp and I was like, oh, I went to Sleepway
Speaker 1: Camp and the scorel was like I did too, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, mine was in Pennsylvania and she
Speaker 1: was like, wait, mine was two. And I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was in the Poconos. She was like mine was too,
Speaker 1: and I was like, mine was called camp La didn't hear.
Speaker 1: She was like I went there too. And did you
Speaker 1: both pull out a photograph that was ripped right down
Speaker 1: the middle and you and you put the photo together slowly? No,
Speaker 1: we did not, And then you both said that birthdays
Speaker 1: for October and that you both loved oreas with Peanut
Speaker 1: Butter October producer phoebe in with the live fact check things. Um,
Speaker 1: but I it was so crazy, and you know, I
Speaker 1: think maybe like, had she known my dead name, maybe
Speaker 1: she would have like remembered me because I was, I
Speaker 1: will say, kind of popular because I like, at the time,
Speaker 1: if you were a boy in theater, like you had
Speaker 1: the world was your oyster. That is well, not for me,
Speaker 1: but it was true that I got the lead. You
Speaker 1: had the lead in every show, you had your pick
Speaker 1: of all the girls. I was that summer. I was
Speaker 1: the lead in both of the musicals, had a girlfriend Anne,
Speaker 1: hooked up with the boy for the first time on
Speaker 1: the same summer. Really, I did meet my first and
Speaker 1: smoked weed for the first time. Oh no way. First
Speaker 1: of all, I met my first boyfriend in theater during
Speaker 1: our production of any Get Your Gun. Second of all,
Speaker 1: Get your Gun. That used to be my Instagram handle.
Speaker 1: Oh really it would now get flagged by Instagram. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Man, the good old days. You know,
Speaker 1: they won't go after people for actually like harassing trans people.
Speaker 1: But like you know, if you if you are trans
Speaker 1: and you want to use the t slura, you want
Speaker 1: to reclaim it. Yeah, um, it's over cut. The stage
Speaker 1: lights dead ass. I was one of our tech chairs.
Speaker 1: We had a very rogue buss. Well, you know, department
Speaker 1: of people. You know, when you don't get cast, do
Speaker 1: you become a stage manager? You know what's funny is
Speaker 1: like or like you lead the prop crew. This is
Speaker 1: very emblematic who I am. Actually, it's not that I
Speaker 1: was never cast. It's that, like, I never auditioned because
Speaker 1: I was too scared. So when I did find an audition,
Speaker 1: I did like get some roles. But I remember being
Speaker 1: in a stage production of The Hobbit, And have I
Speaker 1: told you about this before? This is a very formative
Speaker 1: like experience of like were you this is well, this
Speaker 1: is Francisco. She rests in beas Um in a production
Speaker 1: of The Hobbit. I okay, in the Hobbit? Who were you?
Speaker 1: Just say the day? Why wouldn't you let me set
Speaker 1: up the story? It's part of the story. So in
Speaker 1: the Hobbit, there are not a ton of parts to
Speaker 1: pick from. You have wizards that are extreme one wizard,
Speaker 1: one wizard that's extremely tall, and then you have dwarves
Speaker 1: and goblins that are have to be way shorter than
Speaker 1: the wizards. I was a tall girl, but the director
Speaker 1: of the play cast his son as Gandalf, which is
Speaker 1: fucking stupid. So there is no role left for me
Speaker 1: except to be the only male quote unquote Elf, which
Speaker 1: is there's like basically a chorus of elves in the
Speaker 1: Hobbit stage play that don't really have lines, but they sing,
Speaker 1: and all of them are supposed to be women. But
Speaker 1: even though there's no women at the Hobbit, yeah, there
Speaker 1: no women in Hobbit, but that's how they wedged women
Speaker 1: into like the show, not one single there's only one
Speaker 1: named female character in the Hobbit, and it's Bilbo's mother
Speaker 1: right right, exactly dead who was dead. And so Mr Ailey,
Speaker 1: our musical person, was like, oh, I really want to
Speaker 1: cast Francisco, but like, all I can just make in
Speaker 1: this faggy elf And so I had to wear all
Speaker 1: the costumes that these girl elves wore. And I loved
Speaker 1: it obviously because I was wearing like a leaf skirt
Speaker 1: and a long wig. Okay, I had bundles, I had
Speaker 1: these little like these like elf ears. Okay, I was
Speaker 1: like living. And my parents, upon seeing the musical for
Speaker 1: the first time, had a signed by side talk with
Speaker 1: Mr Riley about how it was inappropriate to cast me
Speaker 1: as such a feminine role. Well they were right. I
Speaker 1: love that I like set up that started being like
Speaker 1: and this is a traumatic part of like my gender experience,
Speaker 1: and you're like and they were right. You know. I
Speaker 1: was also in a musical that was a an adaptation
Speaker 1: of a beloved children's novel, and that was when I
Speaker 1: was in middle school. We did The Lion, the Witch
Speaker 1: and the Wardrobe, and I was the Professor, who is
Speaker 1: supposed to be double cast and also be as Land,
Speaker 1: but that's not what happened in our musical, and I
Speaker 1: only got to be the Professor. But the Professor does
Speaker 1: have a great song called Doors and Windows, and it's
Speaker 1: like the first solo at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 1: and so I got to sing out Louise. Do you
Speaker 1: get that reference? Sing out Louise? You know what is
Speaker 1: from Gypsy? Oh well, now I would not that, are
Speaker 1: you like You're not so you're not familiar with like
Speaker 1: the musicals, I'm familiar with the musicals, the Cannon, I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with talking Gypsy, Phantom, the classics. So our high
Speaker 1: school did twelve shows a year, and two of those
Speaker 1: were musicals. Ever a lot, Yes, it wasn't. We had
Speaker 1: an insane feeder calendar. Our our school was not an
Speaker 1: art school, but it was very invested in the arts,
Speaker 1: and we got an okay budget to do stuff. And
Speaker 1: so I have a pretty robust a knowledge of the
Speaker 1: musicals that we did, of which they were many. But no,
Speaker 1: it's not. We didn't do the cannon like the breadth
Speaker 1: of the can as I said, the whiz and flower jumps.
Speaker 1: I went to a theater high school, and we did
Speaker 1: two main stages a year. We did a straight play
Speaker 1: in a musical, and it was a very big deal
Speaker 1: to get to even be cast in them, let alone
Speaker 1: to get a lead. I did have a lead my
Speaker 1: senior year. Oh that was the Annie was your last?
Speaker 1: Oh that was theater camp. Yeah. Um No. When I
Speaker 1: was sophomore, I was in the Ensemble of Dames at Sea,
Speaker 1: which is a sort of like anything goes Asque tap musical.
Speaker 1: That's where I learned to tap dance. And then when
Speaker 1: I was a senior in high school, I was cast
Speaker 1: as Telphibious in The Trojan Women by Euripides, which is
Speaker 1: like going to a high school auditorium to watch a
Speaker 1: Greek tragedy is like not something that should happen. And
Speaker 1: we took it so seriously at the time and thought
Speaker 1: we were doing amazing work. Um. And I wore a
Speaker 1: toga and didn't have any shoes, and I had a
Speaker 1: cape and there were some of the other leads. We
Speaker 1: all had capes and we used to backstage, which just
Speaker 1: like run around the hallways with our capes behind us.
Speaker 1: I didn't have shoes during the hobbit or also a
Speaker 1: production of metamorphoses, either like Ovid's Metamorphosis or Zimmerman One.
Speaker 1: Oh Mary's mmer Oh my god, that's like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite plays. Me too, it definitely easily. That was
Speaker 1: one of my college auditions was from Metamorphosis, which monologue
Speaker 1: the one of the guy in the pool. Uh my god,
Speaker 1: that's the most beautiful scene. We put a pool on
Speaker 1: the stage. Wow. I still have my copy of Mary's
Speaker 1: Immerman's Metamorphosis from high school. We are so liked girls.
Speaker 1: It's a really it's really crazy. So I only I
Speaker 1: never got a lead really. However, my last year I
Speaker 1: did finally like buck up the courage to audition, and
Speaker 1: I was also in a tap musical Rose more links
Speaker 1: between us. I was in Crazy for You, Sister, and Um,
Speaker 1: I was this close the virgins can't see it, but
Speaker 1: I'm holding my fingers very close together, this close to
Speaker 1: being cast as a lead. But I I don't have
Speaker 1: a ton of hand eye coordination, so he couldn't pull
Speaker 1: off the tap numbers required of the lead in that musical. However,
Speaker 1: my theater director, this is the same one who cast
Speaker 1: his son as um Gandalf, pulled me aside after I auditioned.
Speaker 1: He was like, I just want you to know that,
Speaker 1: like it was so close, that bullshit. No one who
Speaker 1: was not a theater kid will ever understand the feelings
Speaker 1: of not getting cast and then some teacher giving you
Speaker 1: some bullshit. It was almost you or like making you
Speaker 1: the understudy, where you're like, babes, we're doing six shows.
Speaker 1: I'm never going on unless I break this kid's leg,
Speaker 1: which which I was, well, the funny thing would have done.
Speaker 1: What's really funny is the guy that they did cast,
Speaker 1: who was an amazing taped answer, So it makes sense.
Speaker 1: Was a part of this really really toxic gay love
Speaker 1: quadrang in my high school between four gay men and myself,
Speaker 1: and we had all been involved with each other in
Speaker 1: some capacity, and it was like so dramatic and horrible.
Speaker 1: But I think the day that I came out to
Speaker 1: my parents, I was trying to like high key run
Speaker 1: away from home, and I had packed a bag and
Speaker 1: I was going to go live in his mom's basement. Wow. Well,
Speaker 1: no surprise that a discussion about West Side Story turned
Speaker 1: back around into talking about gay interpersonal drama and our
Speaker 1: childhood trauma and our childhood trauma. We will be back
Speaker 1: next week with a extra special discussion on the Marvel
Speaker 1: Cinematic Universe, something you are much more prevy to. Something
Speaker 1: our guest Joel Can Booster is much more prevy too,
Speaker 1: something that I am learning about. Yes, we will be
Speaker 1: talking about superheroes, supervillains, and Gwyneth Paltrow probably. Yes. So
Speaker 1: for all of those that are m C you curious,
Speaker 1: we're going to dive right in um if you If
Speaker 1: you want to watch some m CU movies ahead of
Speaker 1: next week, I will give you a list of some
Speaker 1: of my favorites, The Selects, The Avengers, the Original One,
Speaker 1: The First, Captain America and Captain America, and The Winter Soldier.
Speaker 1: I think one of the Tom Holland Spider Man movies
Speaker 1: I think should be in a digest No Way Home.
Speaker 1: Maybe all of One Division, Yeah, definitely you should watch one.
Speaker 1: Just watch all of One Division before next week. Thanks. Basically,
Speaker 1: what we're saying is, go to Disney Plus and go
Speaker 1: to the Marvel section and watch everything. Just pick the
Speaker 1: ones that look like the gayest like, yeah, just use
Speaker 1: just use your gut instincts and you'll probably be right.
Speaker 1: So for those of you that don't know, we take
Speaker 1: calls here at like a virgin. You can call to
Speaker 1: confess the thing that popped your cultural cherry. Just make
Speaker 1: a suggestion of what we should talk about at three
Speaker 1: to three pennants. That's three to three seven three six
Speaker 1: two six two three. You can tweet a your takes
Speaker 1: on this week's episode. Let us know what you think
Speaker 1: of West Side Story, which you think of musical culture
Speaker 1: in general? What's your favorite musical yes? Or if you
Speaker 1: want to share some of your own embarrassing phase school
Speaker 1: theater kids stories or photos or video, we would love
Speaker 1: to see them. Yeah, get get on, get online and
Speaker 1: tell us which marginalized groups didge your high school productions
Speaker 1: culturally appropriate? Um, we all want to know. You can
Speaker 1: leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, which
Speaker 1: you can do as well. It helps us a lot,
Speaker 1: even if it's a little sassy. Just give us five
Speaker 1: stars on your co host Ran Toronto. You can find
Speaker 1: me at friend Squish co wherever you want on social media,
Speaker 1: I'm Rose Damn You. You can find me at Rose
Speaker 1: Damn You, on Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. You can subscribe
Speaker 1: to Like a Virgin anywhere you listen to podcasts and
Speaker 1: leave us a review. It is the best thing to
Speaker 1: help our podcast. This is an I Heart Radio production.
Speaker 1: Our producer is phebe Unter, with support from Lindsay Hoffman,
Speaker 1: Julian Weller, Jess Crane, Titch and Nikki Tour. Until next time,
Speaker 1: see you laterver Ens