Anita Bryant, God Bless Her (Ep. 120: Gore Vidal)

June 29, 2017 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Albert Williams

What's the difference between an end and a beginning, and are they sometimes the same thing? My guest this week is Albert Williams, a longtime queer artist and activist who's seen the queer world transform over the course of his life. Throughout that time, there were periods when change just wasn't coming fast enough, and that's when he and his friends found ways to force one era to end and a new one to begin.

Also -- throughout the month of July, The Sewers of Paris needs your nominations to win a Podcast Award. Just go to PodcastAwards.com and nominate The Sewers of Paris in the LGBT category. It's open July 1 through July 31, so if you're enjoying the show I'd be very grateful if you could help it win this award.

This Week's Recommendation: The Fox and the Hound

Thanks again to Albert for joining me. As he pointed out, stories about young queer people and young straight people discovering their differences have been a part of our community for decades. And for my recommendation this week, take a look at a film that have an unexpected perspective on that experience: Disney's the Fox and the Hound. And make sure you have a lot of tissues around because it's one of those "you will cry" Disney films.

The story follows a young orphaned fox, and his best friend, a puppy being trained to be a hunting dog. As kids, they're inseparable -- until the expectations of their separate worlds intrude on their relationship. The fox wants to remain close forever, but the hound is being pressured to not just turn his back, but to attack his former friend. And the older dog who trained the hound is particularly determined that they should maintain their traditional roles as adversaries.

Who knows if anyone who worked on this movie intended for it to have queer subtext, but the core of the conflict -- two boys from different worlds -- is painfully familiar, particularly when coupled with the hostility of the older generation. And although the ending is pretty melancholy, there's a glimmer of optimism as well: in a climactic moment, a bridge is built between the world of the fox and the world of the hound. They're not quite able to cross it, but at least it's there -- and maybe future generations can go further than they did.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

He Found Out my Secret - (Ep. 119: Matchgame & Press Your Luck)

June 22, 2017 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Mandel Ilagen

This week's guest is Mandel Ilagen, but it's not the first time his name's come up on the show. He's a ringleader of a group of gays who are obsessed with game shows -- you might remember past guests Louis Virtel and Randy West describing Mandel's house parties that are like TV show tapings mixed with cocktails and queens. Game shows might seem like frivolous entertainment, but for Mandel and many of his friends, they provided a way to prove themselves amongst their peers -- and, for the first time in their lives, have fun doing it.

This Week's Recommendation: Ferdinand the Bull

For my recommendation this week, take a look at the children's book The Story of Ferdinand. This was a pivotal text for me as a child, and after reviewing it for this week's episode, I found that it still is. It's the story of a gentle bull who prefers smelling flowers over fighting, and what happens he must confront the world's expectations about who he's supposed to be.

Looking back on this book, I wonder just how much it shaped my sense of right and wrong to this day. I know that I read it a lot as a child. It is a truly beautiful work that has filled me with joy since before I could read -- in part because the telling of the tale is as gentle as the main character. There's no judgement, no mockery, and no tragic end for the bull who just wants to live life on his own terms.

Ultimately, the story leaves Ferdinand in a place of incredible bliss: not having proven himself, and yet still completely satisfied -- because his failure to measure of up other people's expectations is their problem, not his.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Roll Yourself in Glitter - (Ep. 118: Justin Sayre)

June 15, 2017 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Justin Sayre

My guest this week is Justin Sayre, whom you may know from the excellent Sparkle and Circulate podcast, or his delightful live show The Meeting of the International Order of the Sodomites. He always knew there was a big queer community out there, but he never quite felt a connection with it, so he decided to do something about that: by appointing himself its chairman.

This Week's Recommendation: Mae West in Myra Breckinridge

For my recommendation this week, I want you to take a look at a film that does everything it can to defy description -- Myra Breckinridge. And specifically, look up the YouTube video that's just excerpts of scenes with Mae West.

The movie was made in 1968, and it's a weird sloppy mess of a story that's pulled in all different directions by all different ideas. Sometimes it's funny, sometimes it's torturous, every now and then it's a little bit sexy. And never is it any better than when Mae West is on the screen.

By this point in her career, Mae is an undisputed master of feminine sexual glamour. The fact that she was 75 years old at the time doesn't matter at all, and it is with unbridled gusto that she delivers lines like "ah, the end of another busy day. I can't wait to get back to bed. And if that don't work I'll try sleep."

The rest of the film is a mixed bag at best -- it's a fumbling adaptation of a Gore Vidal novel by a creative team that lacks the sophistication to understand the queer source material. The result is a mess of ideas about masculinity, which on their own would simply be forgettable. But Mae West's campy vamping snatches defeat from the jaws of defeat, not quite redeeming the film or rescuing it from its downward spiral, but at least transforming it into a joy to watch on its day down.

Clips of Stuff we Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

I Was a Teenage Theater Tyrant (Ep. 117 - Pee-wee Herman)

June 8, 2017 Matthew Baume

This Week's Guest: Tom Lenk

Have you ever proved yourself wrong? My guest this week is actor Tom Lenk, who appeared as Andrew on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Tom was convinced for years that he lacked the skills that seemed to come naturally to other actors -- and so he was terrified when cast in a show that demanded more of him than he thought he could deliver. Facing that challenge changed the course of his career -- thanks in part to confidence he absorbed at an early age from the most beautiful woman in Puppetland.

By the way, Tom's the subject of a new documentary coming out this month called Nerdgasm. The film follows his quest to stage a show in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and it's available to watch on Amazon starting June 16th.

And the Sewers of Paris is independent and ad free thanks to the support of listeners. If you're enjoying the show, head over to SewersOfParis.com and click "Support the Show on Patreon" to help keep the show going for as little as a dollar per episode.

And one more note -- I'm going to be at the Lyst Symposium in Copenhagen this coming weekend, from June 9th to June 11th, presenting a talk about queer sex, love, and relationships in games. If you're in Copenhagen, come check it out, or follow along with my travels on twitter @mattbaume. I'll be visiting several European cities all throughout this summer to report on international LGBT issues -- and hopefully, to visit the actual Sewers of Paris.

This Week's Recommendation: Pee-Wee's Big Holiday

Thanks again to Tom for joining me, and head over to TomLenk.com to check out his work -- including the documentary Nerdgasm, available June 16. The doc's about what happens when you push through self-doubt and believe in your own abilities, and for my recommendation this week, I hope you'll watch another another movie about queer self-confidence: the Netflix special Pee Wee's Big Holiday.

Now I am not a big believer in nostalgia reboots, which are almost always unable to live up to the unreliable memories of the original. But somehow Pee Wee's Big Holiday is a bundle of unmitigated charm and delight, just like Pee Wee himself.

The film is centered around friendship, and the lengths to which we're driven by feelings of affection. Pee Wee plays a small-town boy who's never vacationed far from home. But when he meet a famous hunky actor named Joe, he takes the plunge and goes on an epic journey to New York for Joe's birthday party.

The story tingles with queerness throughout, from the breathless interest of the male leads to the suggestive insertion of a fist in a friendship bracelet. But what makes it so joyful to me is Pee Wee's confidence, self-assuredness, and comfort in his own weird skin.

He is, to be clear, a very strange boy. And at no point does it even seem possible to imagine him being anything else. Even when he's in trouble and things aren't going his way, he is unswervingly himself -- giddy, curious, playful, and sincere.

And so are the heroes he encounters, from hairdressers to bank robbers to an odd heiress. Each one is a strange, happy caricature; each one unabashedly eccentric; each one -- as we all should aspire to be -- a Pee Wee in their own big holiday.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Queer Desire Has Always Been There (Ep. 116: Kurt Cobain)

June 1, 2017 Matthew Baume

This Week's guest: Hamed Sinno

What did you rebel against when you were a teenager, and are you still rebelling today? This week's guest is Hamed Sinno, whose Lebanese upbringing afforded him only brief glimpses of gay culture and queer voices in pop culture. In college, he formed a band with some friends and discovered to his surprise that his defiant songs resonated with other folks. But with that heightened visibility came new risks -- particularly when he came to America.

This Week's Recommendation: Once More With Feeling

Thanks again to Hamed for joining me, and if you're having trouble finding his band, you can try Googling the English translation -- Leila's Project. I do advise finding translations of the lyrics, because they're quite lovely: confessional, emotional, brutally honest. And so for my recommendation this week, check out the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, "Once More with Feeling."

The episode came a bit after a weird 90s trend of inserting surprise musicals into otherwise nonmusical TV shows, but unlike, say, The Drew Carey Show, there is an actual reason that the characters on the show burst into showtunes: a dangerous demon curse that forces them to confess feelings that are too hard to say without being sung.

As is par for the course with Buffy, the show is funny and clever but with a dark undercurrent that, when the music's over, leaves the characters to deal with the consequences of honesty. Some are brought closer together, others pushed apart, and some are closer but in a way that might not be an entirely good thing.

What I love about this episode is how singing changes the act of communication. It comes at a point of crisis on the series, where the characters have, like so many families, spiraled into a failure to communicate. The opportunity to perform changes all that -- it turns difficult words into a show, introduces a level of remove that makes confession bearable. And then the music's over. And it's time to deal with what's been said, which may be painful for everyone -- but not as painful as the secrets they kept.

Clips of Stuff We Talked About

Music

Parisian Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

About The Sewers of Paris

The Sewers of Paris is a podcast about how queer lives are shaped by our favorite books, movies, music, and shows. Each week, guests open up about their secret struggles, hidden passions, and surprising triumphs by plucking a piece of entertainment from their past and answering the question: What’s the entertainment that changed your life?

About Defining Marriage

Each week on Defining Marriage, hosts Matt Baume and James Morris chat about what's happening with marriage equality, featuring frequent digressions into pop culture, silly banter, and the jokes and quibbles that have kept them together as a couple for over a decade.

The first eighteen episodes of the podcast contain the complete audiobook version of the book Defining Marriage, which traces the decades-long evolution of marriage through the personal stories of those who lived through it, featuring personal insights from the lives of Evan Wolfson, Dan Savage, Ken Mehlman, Dustin Lance Black, and many more.

About Matt's So-Cast Pod

Revisit the iconic '90s drama My So-Called Life, one episode at a time. Every week, host Matt Baume & his guests delve into the teen angst, the grown-up turmoil, and the endless flannel of the 90s -- and examine the show's impact on television and our lives.