Luxury Music for Surplus People (Ep. 124 - Madonna & Prince)

Luxury Music for Surplus People (Ep. 124 - Madonna and Prince)
Matt Baume & Student-Teacher Thomas Hårdell
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What makes you feel ugly, and do you try to hide it or highlight it? My guest this week is Thomas Hårdell, a Danish student-teacher and musician. Growing up, he was told to blend in like a stalk of wheat, and to avoid standing out like an oak tree -- which is ironic, given that he's well over six feet tall. There were times that standing out put him at risk, like when a host family found out he was gay and left him stranded in a foreign country. But over time, he's learned that standing out and being an oak tree allows you to provide shelter for others.

By the way, if you're in London, come see me at Nine Worlds, the geek culture convention from August 4th to 6th. I'm doing a panel on cosplay and another on queer Star Trek characters. And then on Sunday, August 6th, I'm presenting video highlights from interviews with LGBT gamers -- that's part of my documentary project Playing with Pride, which is all about what happens when queer culture and game culture collide. You can get more info about the panel and the project at PlayingWithPride.com.

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 a Podcast Award.

And a big thanks to everyone supporting the Sewers of Paris on Patreon, including brand new patrons Thomas, J, Patrick, and David. If you're enjoying the show, you can help keep it independent and ad-free with your pledge of support. Just go to SewersOfParis.com and click support the show on Patreon.

This Week's Recommendation: Modelland

My recommendation this week is not going to be for everyone. But if the subject of beautiful ugliness and precious imperfection is of interest, you might want to take a look at Modelland, the fantasy novel written by Tyra Banks. Yup, as in America's Next Top Model Tyra Banks.

Modelland defies all explanation, expectation, and reason. It's long, and every page is more bizarre than the last. The story concerns a young girl named Tookie De La Creme who yearns to travel to a magical place called Modelland full of the prettiest girls, which are known as intoxibellas. Her mother, who is named Cremalatta Defacake, thinks she's ugly and imperfect because she happens to look just like Tyra Banks, which will doom her to a lifetime of being enslaved in a factory. But -- you can probably guess where this is going -- Tookie eventually discovers that her imperfections are what make her beautiful. 

But that platitude is not why you read Modelland. You read it for the legitimately batshit bizarre ideas of Tyra Banks, such as the magical power of being aged thirtynever. There's the time a character named Chris-Creme-Crobat blinds himself by bowing too deeply over a sword. Nurses have scissors growing out of their heads, and pretty boys live in a place called Bestosterone. Maybe the strangest thing of all is that Tyra said she worked so hard on the book her hair fell out.

Now, put yourself in her position for a moment: as strange as Modelland is, there's no denying Tyra's lived a bizarre life herself. She's been a profesional model since she was 15, which essentially means she's been paid exorbitant sums of money just to be looked at in strange locales all over the world since she was a child. What we get in her book is what she sees when she looks back at the world. And it's real strange, confusing, off-putting and imperfect -- but it's imperfections are what make it beautiful.

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/

Going to Face the Dragon (Ep. 123 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer)

Going to Face the Dragon (Ep. 123 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Matt Baume & Television Writer Drew Greenberg
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We usually talk on this show about the entertainment that's changed the lives of gay men, but this week we're also talking about how gay men have changed entertainment. My guest is television writer Drew Greenberg, who's written romantic scenes between Willow and Tara on Buffy, helped introduce queer characters on shows like Warehouse 13, and is currently working on season 5 of Agents of SHIELD. Throughout his career, he was told his shows could never have queer leading characters. And throughout his career, he's refused to accept that that's true.

By the way, if you're in London, come see me at Nine Worlds, the geek culture convention from August 4th to 6th. I'm doing a panel on cosplay and another on queer Star Trek characters. And then on Sunday, August 6th, I'm presenting video highlights from interviews with LGBT gamers -- that's part of my documentary project Playing with Pride, which is all about what happens when queer culture and game culture collide. You can get more info about the panel and the project at PlayingWithPride.com.

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 a Podcast Award.

And a big thanks to everyone supporting the Sewers of Paris on Patreon, including brand new patrons Andrew, Patricia, Gary, Cameron, Sidekick, and Robert. If you're enjoying the show, you can help keep it independent and ad-free with your pledge of support. Just go to SewersOfParis.com and click support the show on Patreon.

This Week's Recommendation: DS9 episode Rejoined

Thanks again to Drew for joining me. You can catch his writing on Agents of SHIELD -- he's hard at work on Season 5 right now. That show features the first openly gay character in Marvel's cinematic universe. And while it's a little frustrating that it took so many years for the MCU to have someone who's openly gay, that's nothing compared the how long it's taken Star Trek. For my recommendation this week, take a look at a complex queer episode of Deep Space Nine, Rejoined, from Season 4.

The show features a character named Dax who's quasi-immortal in that a part of her consciousness can move from one person's body to another before dying. She's lived for several lifetimes, and on this episode, she meets another of her kind to whom she used to be married, several lifetimes ago. Back when they were married, they were a husband and wife -- but now, both of them are inhabiting female bodies.

This is complicated, because their species strictly forbids interaction with individuals from previous lives. But the two women find themselves falling in love all over again, despite the cultural taboo, and they're faced with a choice: live openly and face exile and death, or repress their love to remain a part of ordinary society. The parallels to queer ostracism could not be more explicit, though the show never comments on the characters being either lesbian or bisexual -- even after they share Star Trek's first same-sex kiss. It's a weird omission that nobody talks about gender, given that everyone else around them in the entire known universe presents as heterosexual. I would have liked to hear Star Trek speak as boldly about same-sex romance as explores far reaches of space, and although it's tender and affecting, the episode falls tantalizingly short of what it could have been.

I have a lot of quibbles with the way that Star Trek handles gender and sexuality, and I'm not going to go into my rant right now other than to say that it's a crime they stopped having men in miniskirt uniforms after the first few episodes of Next Generation. As a franchise, Trek has been disappointingly silent on queer romance -- but that's something I expect to change very soon. The upcoming series Discovery has Bryan Fuller at the helm -- that's the showrunner who gave us explicit queer sex on American Gods, lesbians on Hannibal, and musical numbers with Kristen Chenowith on Pushing Daisies. Even as studies told him to straighten his shows out, Fuller embedded a queer sensibility so deeply that it simply couldn't be removed without erasing the entire show. 

Discovery premieres in late September, and I cannot wait to see how queers are woven into Star Trek at last. Until then, we can content ourselves with the adorable timid first steps of DS9.

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/

Elizabeth Taylor is my Higher Power (Ep. 122 - Hillary Clinton)

Elizabeth Taylor is my Higher Power (Ep. 122 - Hillary Clinton)
Matt Baume & Ryan O'Connor
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This Week's Guest: Ryan O'Connor

We all have our sources of security -- it could be a career, a home, a relationship, a circle of friends. How would you handle the loss of all of those things? This week's guest is Ryan O'Connor, co-host of the outstanding LadyWatch podcast. A few years back, Ryan was pretty sure all of his goals were coming together like a tidy checklist. And then, one by one, they all fell apart, and he discovered that when you lose everything you have, you find out who you are.
 

This Week's Recommendation: Red Ladies

Thanks again to Ryan for joining me. Don't forget to subscribe to his show, Ladywatch, which he co-hosts with the delightful Jason Powell. It's a celebration of the amazing work of women, and I learn so much from every single episode. You can also support them on Patreon, where 10% of the proceeds go to The Geena Davis Institute On Gender In Media.

For another master class on feminine power, my recommendation this week is that you go to YouTube and search for Red Ladies Sondheim. You'll find a playlist of videos from Steven Sondheim's 2010 birthday concert, including a show-stopping series of songs from women in red dresses. There's Audra McDonald singing The Glamorous Life; Patti LuPone is a lady who lunches, Bernadette sings Not a Day Goes By, and Elaine Stritch grabs I'm Still Here by the throat and throttles it into submission.

There is a full range of emotions across these performances -- some are sad and slow, others upbeat, others wry. Though the occasion was Steven Sondheim's birthday, the performances are more a workship of the performers than the songwriter. Himself a gay man, I'm sure Sondheim appreciates the pricelessness of a diva, and to have seven arrayed on stage is the greatest birthday gift anyone could ask for. 

And while the songs were written by a man, what's remarkable about these performances is just how much authorship is contributed by the women. They're not just singing the words on the page and hitting the notes. They're inhabiting the songs, adding to the story with this faces, with their breaths, with the places they chose to pause or add a sarcastic roll of the eyes. These women all have as much to say as, if not more than, the composition. And in this performance, it's impossible not to listen.

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/

Support the show on Patreon

We've Cornered the Market on Mermaids (Ep. 121 - Joel Kim Booster)

This Week's Guest: Joel Kim Booster

We've Cornered the Market on Mermaids (Ep. 121 - Joel Kim Booster)
Matt Baume & Comedian Joel Kim Booster
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When did you first escape your bubble? We all start life protected by adults, looked after and shielded from the harsh realities of the world. Some of us burst out of it as fast as we can, and others like to pretend they never have to leave. This week's guest is comedian Joel Kim Booster, whose parents tried so hard to control his life that when he finally did come out, it was with so much momentum he found himself homeless -- until a family he hardly even knew took him in.

By the way, Joel has a half hour special premiering on Comedy Central this fall. And if you're in New York, he's recording a stand up comedy album on Tuesday and Wednesday of this coming week -- July 11 and 12 at Ars Nova. Tickets are fifteen bucks and you can get them at ArsNovaNYC.com.

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

This Week's Recommendation: If...

For my recommendation this week, check out the movie If... -- that's the word "if" followed by three periods. It stars a super young Malcom MacDowell as a teenager chafing under the stuffy rules of a quintessentially old-fashioned British boarding school run on cruelty and discipline. It's essentially Hogwarts without the magic, and if the only house was Slytherin. In those circumstances, who wouldn't want to rebel? And that's just what happens, when a close-knit group of outcast boys decides to fight back against hundreds of years of tradition.

The film swims through a sort of middle-ground between reality and imagination, and it's never quite clear what's really happening and what's a fantasy. The whole experience feels like a daydreamy speculation, as suggested by the title -- a teenager's mind wandering into fantasies of sex and violence and frustration at a system determined to keep him down. 

Pushing back against the powerful isn't easy, and the boys of If... are essentially tiny specks in a giant machine of tradition. Of course, those in power insist that their rules exist for the benefit of all -- for the students, for the monarchy, for those tempted by homosexual flirtation. It's a brutal environment in which to learn a bitter lesson: that no matter what motives the powerful may claim, they're really only interested in protecting their own power.

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/