The Bechdel Cast - The Birdcage with Manuel Betancourt

Episode Date: June 27, 2024

Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Manuel Betancourt discuss The Birdcage. We! Are! Family! Check out Manuel's piece at https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/men-smear-revisiting-seminal-lgbtq-comedy-the-birdcage/ and Matt Baume's video essay at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozTjoeHy7mI&t=2s  Follow Manuel at @bmanuel on Instagram and Twitter, and buy his book 'The Male Gazed' at https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/719500/the-male-gazed-by-manuel-betancourt/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everyone, it's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also gonna have some fun,

thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're gonna take some viewer questions Thank you. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. into a mafia state. Available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. really shows that we're surprisingly more united than most people think. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, Emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE Superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. On the Bechtelcast, the questions asked if movies have women in them.

Are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism the patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the bechdel cast we are family i am a republican official i mean certainly not us but but certainly jean hackman what an iconic oh god I'm so excited to talk about today's I've already just started the episode by accident but just like there's so many beautiful parts of this movie and ultimately it's like how can we as a community help this Republican avoid a scandal and you're like oh what if, well, what if we didn't? What if we didn't? Calista Flockhart would live. She'd be fine. Anyways, anyways, welcome to the Bechtel cast.

Welcome, indeed. My name is Caitlin Durante. My name is Jamie Loftus. And this is the podcast where we talk about all of your favorite movies from an intersectional feminist perspective. And today, covering a god i feel like this is one this qualifies as a movie we have almost covered like six or seven times at this point and we just never had the right guest come along until today yeah let's bring him in our guest today is a film critic and writer. It's Manuel Betancourt. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm very I love talking about this movie. So I'm very excited about today. We're so excited to have you. I forgot we didn't tell anyone what the Bechdel test is.

Well, what is it? Well, what is it? Well, here's what it is. It is a media metric created by queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel-Wallace test. It is a media metric that by queer cartoonist Allison Bechtel, sometimes called the Bechtel-Wallace test. It is a media metric that has many different versions. Ours is do two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they speak to each other? And is there a conversation about something other than a man? We particularly like it when it's a substantial conversation and not just throwaway dialogue. Dykes to watch out for, showed characters talking about whether or not movies pass this test, because they were specifically looking for women in movies talking to each other about something other than a man, because if they weren't talking about a man, the characters in the comic could

ship those characters together, because there was so little lesbian representation on screen, queer representation on screen in general. We've mentioned this on this show over the years, but I feel like especially, like it's worth bringing up every once in a while because Alison Bechdel was truly playing a game of 5D chess that I don't think the general public gives her credit for. Like it's just reduced to, you know, people of marginalized genders talking about anything. But it's like, no, she she had a reason she had a motivation. So that's all the context. Manuel, thank you for being here. Of course. Tell us about your relationship with the birdcage. I feel like

I don't know a world in which the birdcage was not part of my life. It's one of those 90s movies that were so played in my house. I think it's one of those like it was in constant rotation. I don't remember that we had a VCR or VHS of it, but it just played on TV all the time. And every time it was on, I would just watch it. And it has to have been one of the first mainstream Hollywood films that I remember watching that was about gay men and it was about drag and like they were not punchlines like this was before Will and Grace like it was sort of around sort of time yeah but it was like

Robin Williams who like of course I knew and Nathan Lane who I then fell in love with but it just I I've always watched it it was so central in my like teenage years and I always loved it and it's it was only until I sort of went to college and you know reading something like Fun Home and reading Bechdel and sort of reading queer theory and sort of then going back to it and being like oh this is a movie that at its time it was both so radical and so traditional and I think that's where the for me has always been the the crux of it because it is you know how do we help this republican senator not have a controversy have a scandal and also let's celebrate family but also do it with the power of drag and the power of um you know battling against toxic masculinity and how do we

value femininity in gay men? And the fact that it can do both those things at the same time has always fascinated me. So I think about it a lot. I laugh about it every single time I quote it infinitely. And also everyone has spent, you have Robin Williams, you have Nathan Lane, you have Christine Baranski, you have Gene Hackman, you have, I mean is hank azaria doing a very very problematic guatemalan character yeah we'll talk about that hank azaria being you know hank azaria yeah the thing is i like the bit about the shoes so much it's funny the bit about the shoes gets me every single time like the shoes that would have carried me for a six hour like a whole lord of the rings marathon i could have watched the shoes bit

it's so funny yeah absolutely jamie what's your history with the movie i've seen this movie so many times i feel like it is one of the more quotable movies that exists i feel like there's people who quote this movie all the time and don't even know that they're quoting this movie. And that is the power of a good Elaine May script. And I'm very excited to talk about her and Mike Nichols as well. But I just I love this movie. My mom, this is one of her favorite movies ever. She had it on a lot. I remember very clearly my mom being like, Jamie, this is the movie where the genie and Timon are married. And, and I was like, awesome. And she's like, yeah, it is awesome. So I think I, yeah, I probably have been watching this movie since I was like 10, maybe I don't

even maybe even sooner. Like, it's just a great movie to have on. And I don't know, I don't even maybe even sooner like it's just a great movie to have on and I don't know I didn't even realize I think Manuel it's like a great way to put it is like this movie is both very subversive and very like grounded in more traditional values than you would think when you like go back to look at it um it's so interesting. And it was wildly successful. So yeah, I mean, this is like a V, this was a VHS standby. I spent a lot of, you know, sick days watching The Birdcage alone. And in my whatever, eight, nine, 10 year old brain, it was the movie where the genie and Timon were married. And it will always be that.

Yeah. Caitlin, what's your history with the birdcage? So I bring this up on the podcast every now and then where there's a movie that I've seen a few clips of before I actually saw the movie. And I saw the clips by playing the movie trivia game, Seen It. Oh my god, right right this movie got play whoever did seen it was a big birdcage fan the birdcage because i would see the clip where robin williams is teaching they're kind of like demonstrating to this dancer for an upcoming performance different dances that he can do. He's like, Madonna,

Madonna, Twyla, Twyla, you know, that part is so like, I when I was rewatching it, I was like, oh, that's just a moment where they were like, Robin Williams, just do a Robin Williams thing here. And and he and boy, did he? He sure did. And so it was that scene. It was the scene where Robin Williams is telling Nathan Lane to keep his pinky down and that men smear, you know, iconic scenes. And I would watch them and I'm like, what is this movie? What movie are these scenes from? And then I eventually saw the movie, I think when I was probably a freshman in college. And I was like, oh my gosh, I get why it was so heavily featured and seen it. It's such a fun, funny movie.

And I watched it every few years after that. Again, not one I grew up with, but one I've appreciated as an adult. And I'm glad we're finally covering it there's so much to talk about it's an awesome it's also just like I love a farce I love a damn farce right I didn't realize because I'm you know uncultured swine

that this was based on a French play and I love finding out something like that because it makes me feel like I'm secretly like so smart. And that's actually why I watched The Birdcage a hundred times is because I love French theater. French culture. Exactly. Exactly.

Well, let's take a quick break and then we'll come back for the recap. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to

take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks.

Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life it's too late for that

I have a proposal for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do one session 24 hours BPM 110 120 she's terrified

should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this?

We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre.

It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture.

This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport

from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon.

Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back. Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Seeing that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba,

and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. Oh. So all of these- We have, we thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the ninth century B.C. B.C.?! I didn't realize how old the hot dog was.

Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back. And here is the recap for The Birdcage. We open in South Beach in Miami, Florida. Ever heard of it? On a drag club called The Birdcage.

That's the name of the movie. We're cheering. We're cheering. Woohoo! It is run by Armand played by robin williams um we also meet his partner albert played by nathan lane a drag performer whose stage name is starina and armand and agador played by hank azaria who is armand and Albert's man-servant? Cool boy, man, yeah.

Really? I'm like, there's so many things to talk about with that character, but one of them was like, I hope he's getting paid in more than rent. I hope he's getting paid money. Right, we're not sure. But anyway, Armand and Agidor are trying to convince Albert to get ready and go on stage for the performance but Albert is too upset because he thinks Armand is cheating on him there's nothing like Nathan Lane sobbing like no one sobs like Nathan Lane. Him sobbing, him gasping, him squealing. It's incredible. Yeah.

So he thinks that Armand is cheating on him. And we, the audience, are kind of led to believe that that might be true. This is a very weird fake out. I will say every time I see this fake out, you're just like, why did they? But whatever. It's Farsi, but you're still like, OK they but whatever it's it's farsi but you're still like okay unclear why this was done so what happens is a young man comes to see armand but twist it's his son not his secret lover so his son val played by dan futterman is there to ask for his dad's blessing because he wants to get married

to his girlfriend barbara and armand is like um you're 20 years old and you're too young to get married but and he was right to say it he was right to say it i'm just not wrong i i was seeing a lot of letterboxd reviews of this movie that put in words something that I was like, oh, that is sort of because we're told they're 20 repeatedly. But like in 1996, 20 year olds looked 35. Like it's just I don't know if it's like a dressing thing. I don't know if it's like a skin care thing. I mean, they're dressed like adults. But I just kept being like, yeah, they're too young.

But they also look like, you know, they're too young, but they also look like, you know, they're in their 30s. They probably have, I don't know. It's confusing. But they are 20. And Armand is like, what are you doing? But I guess go ahead and have your hetero wedding. Then we meet Barbara, played by Calista flockhart and her family her dad is kevin keely played by jean hackman he's a conservative senator and co-founder of something called the coalition for moral order her mom louise played by diane weist is a very like wife of a conservative senator type you know very like prim and pearl clutching yeah and her parents are not thrilled with the idea of barbara getting married so young either but they kind of warm up to the idea when barbara says that val's dad is a cultural attache to Greece and his mom is a housewife.

But we know that Val's dad is the owner of a drag club and his quote-unquote mom is Nathan Lane. Way better, but they didn't realize. They didn't know how good they had it. I know. So then Senator Keeley gets embroiled in a scandal where his colleague and the other founder of the Coalition for Moral Order was found dead with an underage black sex worker. And we will unpack that later. Yeah. But her parents were like, hmm, maybe our daughter's wedding to Val can rehabilitate our image, especially because they think Val comes from this very traditional, wholesome, heterosexual family. And especially because right now, the press is having a field day with this scandal. And Senator Keeley's reputation is on the line. Then we get that famous scene where Albert is rehearsing

and Armand is directing and Albert says, he blew a bubble with gum at me while I was singing. He can't do that while I'm singing. And then Armand does that demonstration of all the dance moves that the other performer can do. Culturally impactful. Indeed. Then Val takes Armand aside and tells him that Barbara and her parents are coming for dinner the following day.

And how they're very conservative and that Barbara told them all that stuff about Val's parents being a cultural attache and a housewife. So Val asks his dad and Albert to play that part, which will mean hiding all of their penis art. So many of them. So much dick art. It's hilarious. I honestly, like, Ian, you don't realize how much is there until they have to remove it until they're packing it up and you're like that's quite a bit yeah so they have to hide all of that they have to quote unquote act more straight which includes sending albert away for a few days he can't even be present and this is where i mean like all right i don't know i i'm so excited to talk about

i think you know evil villain val like val oh my gosh yes how ungrateful his mother is literally nathan lane and and look how he's dealing with like uh val yeah we'll talk about it um so val makes all these homophobic demands and armand is like fuck that i'm not gonna pretend to be somebody else for this conservative asshole but then armand changes his mind and agrees to play along for the sake of his son because ultimately every movie is about fathers and sons yes and see it's like that's. See, that's where it's subversive and it's traditional. It's still about fathers and sons, so people can be comfortable. Yes, exactly. So Armand suggests to Albert that he go away on a trip

because, again, Albert is quite effeminate and doesn't fit this image that they're trying to create of Val coming from this traditional hetero family. And Albert is very understandably hurt by this. And Armand tries to comfort and reassure him. And then Albert's like, well, what if I pretend to be a relative who drops in? You know, Uncle Al, I could play it straight. And this is the scene where Armand tries to coach Albert on how to, you know, quote unquote, act straight, how to keep his pinky down and how to smear condiments like a man and

walk like a man and chew tobacco like a man. Yeah, like a man. I was hoping this was taking a turn for Titanic. Yes, of course, naturally. And meanwhile, Barbara and her family have snuck away from the hordes of press surrounding their house. They drive from Ohio to Florida over the course of, I think, a single day. And it takes longer than that. But anyway, who's counting? They make this quick trip to Florida to meet Val's family, but there are a couple journalists who saw them escape, and now they are following the family.

Back in South Beach, Val finds out that Armand told Albert that he can stay and pretend to be uncle al so val is freaking out and really this is the the peak of him being a little shit and armand's like okay well what we really need is a woman to pretend to be your mother hey wait let's just ask your actual birth mother who turns out to be christine baranski which if you have to your actual birth mother, who turns out to be Christine Baranski. Which, if you have to choose a birth mother, you couldn't do better. Yeah, that's truly about as good as you can do. Truly. Her name is Catherine.

Armand goes to see her. They reminisce about how they met, that one time that they slept together, where she got pregnant and had Val. It's a great scene I also love the like I feel like this is a very 90s 2000s contrivance I'm sure it's still around but like she's just vaguely business-like like you don't like she has an office and you're like good for her we like whatever it is she's up to. She's girl bossing. Yeah. They're like, woohoo. Executive realness.

Yes. Yes. The CEO of a company. And Albert walks in on them being kind of handsy slash it's Christine Baranski who's like really touching Armand in a way that we're not sure that he's comfortable or consenting to it. But anyway, Albert sees this, he gets upset and he threatens to leave. Armand comforts him once again, gives him palimony papers saying that he has like rightful ownership of the club and Armand decides to tell Catherine not to come to dinner after all meanwhile Val is continuing his little homophobic meltdown then Catherine calls to be like wait so you don't want me to come and Val is like no no no we do want you to come

because again he's just too ashamed of Albert. So Catherine makes her way to the house. Albert, who is upset that he's not effectively passing as straight, locks himself in his room. Then the Keeley family arrives to the house for dinner. And Armand and Val are doing their best to pretend that armand is straight the whole situation is awkward and uncomfortable and funny we have hank azaria slipping all over this is where the iconic shoes bit comes in and i i just love like whatever gene hackman who knows he's i don't even know where i would rank him in the you know he's in the bottom half of this cast we're just saying something because i think he's awesome right um

but like the second how he like instantly connects with albert without knowing like it's just it's so funny it's like they're they're just killing it it's great right because before that the dynamic is extremely awkward and gene hackman goes this long, boring tirade about the foliage in Virginia or something like that. And everyone's like, uh-huh. And then the big moment comes where Albert, dressed as a woman, comes in pretending to be Val's mom, who is a conservative housewife. And then, yeah, Gene Hackman's character immediately takes a liking to her, which also like kind of threatens Barbara's mom. And she's like,

you like her better than me. And low key, he does. Like they hit it off. Especially because Nathan Lane in drag pretending to be Val's mother is like spewing some of the most, like the wildest conservative rhetoric where it's like, no, I don't even, I don't think we like he you know albert's playing 5d chess he's like doing conservative drag too like he's doing intellectual drag on top of like it's amazing it's so funny okay so meanwhile the journalists have lost track of the keelys but they're taking what information they do have to try to figure out where they've gone. And they find out about

the Birdcage nightclub owned by someone named Armand Goldman. And there's this mix up of like, are they the Coleman's or the Goldman's? Because another component of it is that they're pretending not to be Jewish in order to, you know, impress this conservative Christian family. So that's part of it. Now it's time for dinner. And this is where things really start to fall apart because there are these gay horny bulls. Albert's wig is falling off. Catherine shows up because she still thinks they need her to be there. And then Senator and Mrs. Keeley are like, um, who is this? And why do you have two moms? So Val finally reveals the truth, which is that Armand and Albert are together as a gay couple. They run the drug club downstairs.

They are his parents. The Keelys are horrified, and they're about to leave, but the journalists are on the doorstep. So they're kind of trapped there. The press have gotten wind about the senator possibly being there. So then they get the idea to sneak the Keelys out through the club by dressing them in drag so that they will escape undetected and that works and then we cut to val and barbara's wedding and it's all of you know like barbara's conservative friends and family looking over at val's queer friends and family being like, what? What's going on? And that's the election is in the homestretch and I'm exhausted. But turns out the end is near, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd. This podcast is for people like me who need a little perspective

and insight. I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Van Jones, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, and political strategists like Karl Rove and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, even though these days fun and politics seems like an oxymoron. But we'll do that thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee, Roy Wood Jr., and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Power to the podcast for the people. So whether you're obsessed with the news or just trying to figure out what's going on, this season of Next Question is for you. Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric,

starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session, 24 hours. BPM 110, 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. They're just dreams. And of course, Lucha Libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha Libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment.

Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture.

We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Do you ever wonder where your favorite foods come from? Like what's the history behind bacon-wrapped hot dogs? Hi, I'm Eva Longoria. Hi, I'm Maite Gomez-Rejon. Our podcast, Hungry for History, is back.

Season two. Season two. Are we recording? Are we good? Oh, we push record, right? Okay. And this season, we're taking an even bigger bite out of the most delicious food and its history. Saying that the most popular cocktail is the margarita, followed by the mojito from Cuba,

and the piña colada from Puerto Rico. So all of these Latin cultures. We thank Latin culture. There's a mention of blood sausage in Homer's Odyssey that dates back to the 9th century B.C. B.C.? I didn't realize how old the hot dog was. Listen to Hungry for History as part of the My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, there's a lot to unpack. Where to begin? Yeah, Manuel, what stands out to you? Where would you like to start? Guest's honor. There are so many places to start. I always like starting a conversation about this movie with nathan lane because i think he

i mean we can talk about nichols and may sort of being the the dna of the film but i think the film lives and dies on lane's performance and the way that he really keys into the tone and i think in that dinner scene when he is doing this like conservative drag to the nth degree yeah is working on so many levels for audiences who are keyed into what he's doing not gene hackman obviously not senator keely who's always only seeing the literal stuff in front of him which is like this is what a woman looks like this is what a woman's supposed to think this is what i want um she's only agreeing with me she's only right like she's of course he takes a liking to her yeah but i think the the farce of the movie which i think is what lane does so well is what helps for me sand down a lot of the problems right so like the fact that val is an asshole right and the fact that he's like really an ungrateful son

the only reason that works is because this is a farce and not a melodrama if this were a melodrama then we would be encouraged more to like examine why like the whys of what he's being such a little bastard of a son and like why he's being so ungrateful but because this is a farce and because we know this is sort of this plot that's going to put into motion all of these like hilarious antics I think it it makes me a little bit softer on Val because I think the movie actually ends it pushes us to disagree with him I think there's no if you walk out of the birdcage thinking that what Val was asking was normal or acceptable like I think you've not read the film because the film really just wants to get you to the point to be like this never should have happened right and so it indicts val and it does that by giving lane and

giving albert so much power in those funny scenes in like you you're so drawn to him and drawn to what he's doing and those right as we were talking at the beginning like he can sigh and it's funny he can squeal and it's funny he can gasp and it's funny he can like look askance and it's funny. He can squeal and it's funny. He can gasp and it's funny. He can like look askance and it's funny. His wig can be like coming off and it's hilarious. And he does so much with every single line reading that of course you're falling in love with them in every single version of them. So I think in that sense, like that's where I always begin. Yeah. And in an ideal world or, you know, an alternate universe, the plot of this movie wouldn't even have to exist because Val would have just been like,

yeah, these are my parents, Armand and Albert, and they are happily together as a gay couple. Okay. Right. But that's not the world we live in and so you know the movie hinges on them pretending to be a straight couple to appease a conservative senator and you know we can talk about the way that culminates as far as like and the conservative family learned their lesson not to be so homophobic and right and it's like and we

don't even i mean not to like headcanon it we don't even know that they like probably they didn't learn their lesson right i don't i don't think that this leads like this leads to senator keely you know proposing legislation that's friendly to queer people i just don't see it it feels almost like i mean sorry to immediately go here but almost like a like a donald trumpian thing where you know someone who has a ton of queer people and in their life but would never in his life put forth any legislation for them to be treated equally right but yeah i mean i think meanwhile point, like, if we're viewing this movie, and I feel like we have to because of the culture it was released into, as like 1996, in general, a and Albert be who they are is meaningful and that like Val like you were saying then well like Val did the wrong thing by asking his parents to which

feels so obvious now right like obviously you know I think from a 2024 perspective like he is a villain and like albert should be allowed to legally kill him if he chose i that's just how i feel but yeah but like yeah for in in the culture that this movie was released into i feel like it really tracks and it's like while there is a part of me that wants this movie to push even more i also know know that, you know, it's very likely because we've talked about this in a lot of movies that have queer protagonists, how it's so easy to be totally screwed over in terms of ratings, in terms of distribution, and in terms of just getting your work out there, especially the further back you go in history, if things are, if whatever invisible line is crossed. And I think for the time this movie came out

and the cast and just like all of these incredible things that it goes way further than most movies at this time were. And it like definitely doesn't hurt that it's so fucking funny. I know. Right. And like we said, it centers a story that at least at this time, and especially in mainstream American media, was acknowledging something that was not often brought up, which is that, you know, in order to survive, queer people often had to hide significant parts of themselves. They had to, you know, code switch in a number of ways just to

be safe out in the world and not be, you know, quote unquote, detected. And we see all those scenes where Armand is teaching Albert how to quote unquote, act straight, smear pinky down, walk like John Wayne, all that kind of stuff. And then that brings up this concept of performing gender and what society's idea is of what it is to be a man or to be a woman, which, generally speaking, is a very, you know, rigid, binary, heterocentric view from society. Yeah, and well well that's like perfectly demonstrated by how like senator keely is immediately taken in by albert's conservative drag like it's it couldn't be clear that like gender is constructed based on how immediately he's like this lady rocks

like she looks and sounds like i need her to yeah I think so there's two things I think yes this the context in which the movie was made is sort of very important I think sometimes gets glossed over but I think also the fact that it takes place in South Beach because I think it reminds us that there are and were places there were gay folks queer folks created a community where they didn't need to code switch right so that that scene where Armand and Albert are walking to the restaurant where he's gonna teach him how to schmear like a man, they pass through so many gay men and they say hi. And the film really paints South Beach

as Fire Island or as Provincetown or as Palm Springs as these like havens of queer community that live in isolation, right? Like this is a place where they've created a community and a space and a business and a life that doesn't require them to code switch and i think right that's that also can key us into sort of like oh this is what happens when val leaves right val grew up in south beach but as soon as he's needing to interact with the with the outside world with the keelys of the world like he has no way of doing that because he's never had to and

i think to me that's also fascinating i think it's like it's usually queer folks who have to be like being like oh this is what the world expects of me but in this case it's val being like i don't have the language i have i have no way of doing this so of course i'm going to retreat into what i know and in terms of this like the gender performance i hear this is also like farce like if we've seen shakespeare in comedy it's like it's always men dressing as women and like everyone. So I think it's fascinating that Nichols and May sort of like really be like, this is the genre in which to do that. And this is what allows us because this is what we've always seen in comedy. And it doesn't, what does it differently is like it never does it at the expense of drag performers.

It never does it at the expense of its queer characters it's really so reverential to them like it really is an awe of what starina can do and what albert can do and they can you know create a character out of nothing while they're in their bedroom like i i every time i'm like oh he had that wig and he had those pearls and he had that dress like just in his closet. So what many other women could he have like drum up in five minutes while he was, you know, crying and wailing about? I would love to see the other options. Incredible. That's a trying on clothes montage that I would have loved to see.

I mean, it's this Doubtfire like moment, right? Like, is this wig? Is this, are these these nails? I also, I mean, just from, when I first seen this movie when I was a kid, I think if you don't count Timon and Pumbaa, which arguably you could, this was the first movie,

at least that I had ever seen, where there were gay parents. and and really i mean while you know being flawed in all the way peoples are flawed both really really good loving kind parents and again it feels like crumbs now but i know for sure if you don't count timon and pumbaa as adoptive fathers which again i do but but that um yeah that albert and armand are were probably the first example in a in a movie i saw of of queer parents which is wild because it's like i had uncles who were parents but i had just never seen it in a movie before and um and yeah i mean as much of a you know sort of like a a fearful dipshit that val can be um you know he had amazing parents and he

knows that and that's like part of the frustration of watching that character go through this is like you do know that at his core he knows that his parents love him so much and he's trying to like fit himself into round hole square peg whatever that metaphor is um right yeah which does bring me like one of the things that i i mean i don't know it's sort of like i don't really i don't actually feel like man i wish calista flockhart was in this more no disrespect to her but it's just like i don't want to don't actually feel like man I wish Callista Flockhart was in this more no disrespect to her but it's just like I don't want to take a second of screen time away from Nathan Lane but I don't know I was kind of curious about I guess why even in the space of a farce like it I

I would have loved to see her be more willing to push against her parents. Right. I feel like that would have, you know, characterized her a little bit more. And also just like would have honestly for, you know, would have made sense to be more because I'm just like Val, if Val grew up in a queer flirty in paradise, why her? Like why her if she's absolutely unwilling to move? Like, it's just, I don't know, I was a little confused and put off by her character. And I mean, that's just personal. But also, I mean, if we're looking for like, looking at the women in this story as well,

like, I was just kind of like baffled that even by 1996 standards that she wasn't at least challenging Val's you know because that's an interesting dynamic too is if Val is like here's what I'm going to do I'm going to do the most evil thing of all time in an attempt to be accepted by your family like what is the response to that and she's but she sort of is just like yeah it makes sense to me I wonder if that's why those characters are written to be the age that they are, 20 and 18, because like... Because they're still basically kids. Yeah. I also think as soon as you see her mom, you maybe sort of understand why she would be such a wilting flower. Because for most of the movie, Senator Keeley's wife is sort of mum and submissive and it's only

through the moment of the dinner and again it's a credit to weast's performance that she sort of blossoms like if if we're gonna headcanon the future of the couple i think like she's the one who will have emerged from this being like oh not only are queer people i don't know people but maybe i should not be so subservient to my idiot husband. Because she is the one who sort of pushes back the most out of her and Calista sort of in the film. But I wonder if that's only because she's feeling threatened by how much Gene Hackman seems to be taking a liking to,

you know, Albert in conservative lady drag, which is kind of like a misogynist trope of like, oh, I find this other woman threatening. And so women are in conflict now because of it. The movie doesn't really examine that very thoroughly. But I was like, I wonder if that's kind of why there's any pushback from the diane weist character but i i do think like her performance like brings a ton and i i don't know i mean and ultimately like this is not a women's movie necessarily like i i feel like to some point it's like that that is a lot of what we talk about and i do think that there is even in like 1996 by 1996 standards like questions i had i don't know how

much of that is lost in adaptation i'm not familiar with the source material because i'm not actually that smart i've just seen the birdcage but i mean clearly like this is a story that um is centered on the goldman family but i do yeah there there were a few questions i had just about how the it felt like the women were characterized less thoughtfully but i mean i think it's because two out of the three women we see in this movie are kind of these like conservative stock characters which makes sense in the space of a farce and then we have christine baranski who's just awesome like one thing i was really happy about in the space of this movie is that i feel like you know so often when we see a mother character whether it's just like a biological mother or someone who's taken on the role of a mother you know someone who has a child

but is not a mother to that child like there's just an inherent like how dare you or a woman who gives up a child for adoption you know like it's there's a how dare you aspect to it that this movie just completely foregoes like it's there's not a moment of shame placed on this character um which i was i mean again just i think maybe at like a something that you're sort of conditioned to expect in a movie is like you know if a if a if someone gives birth and then the child is adopted there is an expectation of shame of regret and that the adoptive parents could not possibly be sufficient and that's just not entertained by the and it makes total sense in the story but it's like this was the arrangement

she doesn't regret it no one regrets it and she's just like happy to see Armand again I think it's really nice yeah I made that note too that it's so rare to see in a movie where if like people had a one night stand and a pregnancy happened because of it, you would typically see the mother raising the baby, you know, possibly as a single mother. And then the father may or may not be in the picture. But in this case, it's the father who raises the baby. And that's just something you rarely see in movies knocked up came out like 12 years after this and is like far more conservative in its view of one night stands like we have kind of mentioned the context a bit and i'd like to go through it more thoroughly because it is super interesting of,

you know, how this movie came to be and the backstory here. So I'm pulling most of this from a video essay from Matt Baum entitled the birdcage and, uh, Oh, French words coming. The college of full,

the inside story notes. Thank you. It Foll. The Inside Story. No notes. Thank you. It was perfect. Okay. I recommend, you know, watching this video essay. It does a really deep dive into the history of how the movie The Birdcage came to be. This is a very kind of summarized

version of that. But basically two French theater performers Uh-oh, more French coming um jean perot and michelle serot they write a play in i believe 1973 called the birdcage but in french which more or less has the same plot as the movie the birdcage and was kind of loosely inspired by a British play from the late 1960s called The Staircase, not to be confused with the true crime docu-series The Staircase. Which we have actually talked about extensively.

Extensively. We've been on a real journey. We don't have time. But yeah, he probably did do it. He probably did do it. Or maybe it was an owl an owl yeah that was how that was how i knew my brain was fully developed where prior to my brain's full development i was like it was the owl and then the second that shit was locked in i was like no he obviously did it

yes so this staircase is about a gay couple who even even though they bicker a lot, they love each other and they're together and they face the world together. So Le Cage Al Foll was then adapted to a French movie in 1978. And both the play and the film were loved by audiences, straight and queer audiences alike, because of its nuanced depictions of the queer experience and queer relationships. So the French film got a very small distribution in the US and it screened at a couple dozen art house theaters in the late 70s. But it got rave reviews, and I think at least one Oscar nomination. So it was appreciated by the audiences who did see it, although it wasn't, you know, a large number of people. And it was one of the first films about a gay couple to get a theatrical

release in the US. So an American producer, Alan Carr, saw the movie and wanted to adapt it to an American film. But no one took him seriously. But they did sell him the rights for the stage play. So Alan Carr went to work putting a musical stage production together for an american audience he hired mike nichols among other people but he fired them all and then hired another team including arthur laurent and harvey feierstein yeah sorry oh yeah gasp he brought he brought up the big guns for the cause yeah yeah i was like I was like, okay, not fucking around. Not fucking around. And so they developed the script together.

There were artistic differences in vision throughout the development. But eventually the musical debuted in Boston. Okay, hello. Okay. I've never heard of it. In, I I believe 1983. And they were really concerned about how especially Boston audiences would receive it, but the audiences loved it. And so the musical Boston is full of surprises. And I say this as someone currently sitting in it. Yeah, it's it's you never know what you're gonna get. But often it's love and acceptance.

I know. It's so nice. Okay, so then because of the success in Boston, the musical opened on Broadway, and it was a huge hit. It was nominated for eight Tonys. It ran for several years, it toured around. And an American film adaptation was the next logical step. But they still didn't have the film rights at this time. There was also a bunch of like messy stuff happening in Hollywood with MGM, the studio that would have been the one to produce this movie. But eventually the film rights were secured. This is like the early 90s now that we're talking about god okay and mike nichols came on board to direct after being fired from the stage production like a decade earlier there was apprehension on the part of the studio because a major studio doing a mainstream broad comedy about a gay couple was pretty unheard of at the time. And no one was really sure how American film going audiences would respond to this, especially around this time. And, you know, throughout much of history, but there was so much homophobic rhetoric from

conservative politicians who were like, running on the platform of homophobia. The Senator Achilles of the actual world. Of the real world. Exactly. Yeah, this is in the context that we had Jesse Helms. But also, I mean, we should also say like, this was also Don't Ask, Don't Tell. So it is Clinton year. So it's not just the right wing people that are sort of presenting a homophobic front. For sure. It was conservative and, you know, democratic politicians alike. But Mike Nichols was just like very adamant about making this movie.

He cast Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, and Hank Azaria among the other cast members. And many of them and the studio were nervous about how the movie would be received by audiences. Ultimately, it was a huge box office success. It was made on a $30 million budget. It made $185 million at the box office. It more or less saved MGM, which was absolutely flopping as a studio at the time and it paved the way for more queer characters and queer relationships to be present in mainstream media so and it also reunited i mean as like a comedy head it reunited nickels in may which is like so beautiful and so cool i mean they were like a

truly like still modern comedy defining uh duo in i think the 50s and they eventually went their separate ways in the 60s and you know nichols went on to direct a lot of theater and direct movies and may also went on to direct and write a lot of movies although i think she is still comparatively underappreciated and she's still with us um shout out elaine may but this was i mean they hadn't worked together in gosh i mean i think it was decades i mean it had been easily 25 years since they had worked together it wasn't like a bad blood situation but they just hadn't worked together in a really long time. And to come back together in this collaboration is like, what a dunk.

Like that's so great. Yeah. This is also where I should say, like if you have not watched the Broadway show, because it is fantastic. And it is sort of, you know, looking back in the 1983,

if you think of Harry Firestein doing the show, writing the show and in the Tony broadcast having there's this big number called I am what I am which is sung and dragged by the character about this that's the number that the producers chose to do

on the Tony broadcast which they knew would be watched by like you know millions of people that in itself was also kind of like groundbreaking to see drag performers on stage at the tony awards you know on network television so this is the kind of like ip if you will that has really been breaking ground sort of for decades and chipping away and you know when we talk about you know as you said you know it was one of the first examples of like a queer couple in a mainstream comedy and then i was like where are those films today like in 2024 i think we're still struggling that that would be

right like the birdcage was number one in the box office three weeks in a row right and it was like in box and i was like how are we doing that in 1996 and how are we struggling to even get independent queer cinema in 2024 like sometimes it's just so baffling. It's baffling. And it's like the way we learn this in so many different, with so many different marginalized communities where, you know, like you have stories about like, oh, well, no one wants to see movies

with women over a certain age. And then the first wives club comes out and everyone's like, oh, nevermind, but it's still going to be another 20 years before we get something like that with an equal success rate i mean it's like we went through that level of discourse when black panther was a billion dollar movie like it's just like uh crazy rich asians like it's just all it happens over and over and over and um people just never learn it's so frustrating and i feel like the 90s i mean mean, there were more, yeah, to your point, Manuel, there were more movies about queer people that starred mainstream, you know, huge actors than happens now.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I always think of Birdcage, To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert at this sort of like this tripartite like moment where like drag was having a moment so every time right now we're having comparable conversations with like you know RuPaul's Drag Race bringing drag into the masses I was like yeah but also 25 years ago we had Guy Pearce we had Patrick Swayze we had John Leguizamo we had Robin Williams we had Nathan Lane all these films that were really capturing the zeitgeist and then it still takes decades for us to do it again and i'm just waiting for it to ebb again and flow and it's kind of frustrating to oh to be keep having these same conversations and either hollywood learning the wrong lessons or belatedly learning them or then just forgetting them once a new right ceo comes in possibly

taking over warner brothers i mean, or someone else. But like, right, it's always. It's just so, I don't know, like so much of it in my mind has to do with like the rise of studio takeovers and how like, you know, Disney is far less likely to make this movie than whatever other studio. And then you have like, whatever, even if if even if you like a handful of them marvel movies just like febrezed the entire landscape of like what a blockbuster movie could look like because this is a blockbuster movie like and also just like a hostility towards original stories like this is an original story but also i mean caitlin just hearing the fact that it took, you know, the better part of 20 years to get this from on stage in France to here.

It's like even when we have a story that centers queer people, it has to be tested for 20 years before it can be considered a viable American movie and even then it has to be sort of like couched in these very careful ways in order to get the proper rating and get the proper release and the stars and just like all this stuff like it's for the fault that this movie has it's like one that you're just like it's a miracle that it came out

and that it's so good and I just wanted to shout out really quickly as well because elaine may is a jewish writer and also she sort of intersects like it's not just um the fact that senator keely is homophobic which he overtly is but also that he's anti-Semitic. And like, you know, I don't think he would as openly or proudly say that as he would, I'm homophobic. But clearly there is also a like cultural code

switching on that level too. And just to see, I don't know, I just feel like it speaks to Elaine May's skill as a writer that like this family is being forced to hide a lot of things about themselves. And of course their queerness is at the center of that, but there is also, like, there's just a lot. And I don't know. In some ways, it's like, I don't know. Val's a villain, but it's also, like, kind of tragic that he has grown up in such an accepting environment and still is so affected by the greater cultural forces that he is tempted to become hostile towards the people he loves most. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Senator Keeley is also deeply racist. He says different things about the Agidor character, as does Armand says racist and xenophobic things about the Agidor character and then the Agidor character himself is Hank Azaria playing a character from Guatemala

Hank Azaria is not a Guatemalan or Latinx actor he's doing one of his Hank Azaria accents. Hank Azaria. I mean, I've kind of forgot that this was like on his list of crimes, honestly.

Yes. Because there's, there's a lot of discussed, popularly discussed crimes with Hank Azaria. And this one, I feel like is maybe because there's whole documentaries on his performance as Apu. Yes.

We will refer you to a documentary called The Problem with Apu, where comedian Hari Kondabalu examines the representation of South Asian characters in Western movies and TV and how Apu from The Simpsons, which is voiced by Hank Azaria, significantly set that representation back. He's doing a very similar thing with the Agidor character in this movie. And it's just incredibly frustrating to watch. It's like the part of this movie that very clearly ages the absolute worst. And then also there is like precedent for this prejudice and quiet brownface in comedy and in farce. And he's certainly not the first to do it, but it's so egregious and otherwise close to, in my opinion, close to perfect, wonderful movie. Sticks out like a sore thumb.

Yeah. And especially because this movie is set in South Beach so it's also when I was like oh why we would need one Latin character right like Latino Latinx character because that would make sense for the time would make sense for the geography and so I could see that there was a reason to like have an Agidor like character but it didn't have to be this way and it didn't have to be like this and it didn't have to be played by Hank Azaria you sort of wonder like who might have been able to sort of do a much more interesting job or a much more nuanced uh but this is very much this it is the lowest hanging fruit jokes of the entire film and they're hard to they do make it hard to watch just sort of like the Mickey Rooney part of Breakfast at Tiffany's which was like oh yeah I can't there's no I don't know how to reconcile that

just because there's no way to right yeah I mean and the fact that this movie was shot partially in Florida and partially in Los Angeles there are so many talented Latin comic actors like there's absolutely no excuse for casting Hank Azaria in this not to mention it's like he it's not like Hank Azaria is the reason like he's like the 10th most famous person in this movie like just don't cast him you don't need him in that way this movie is still very much a reflection of the kind of standards of the 1990s where you know as we've been saying it's mostly white characters or white actors it's all cis actors and characters um there are physical embraces and like pecs on the cheek between Armand and Albert but there's no significant like romantic kiss things like that that you're like

oh yeah this movie came out in the 90s but as i was touching on in the kind of context corner of this movie it was very groundbreaking in many ways and i think the reason it has such a lasting legacy from its you know kind of conception as a French production in the 70s is that it did present queer characters with far more nuance than audiences had seen. And part of that is because there's an exploration of how these characters feel while being forced to fit this like, you know know rigid mold of heteronormativity and masculinity and to pretend to be someone they're not you have different monologues from armand and from albert saying like i know who i am it took me 20 years to get here but i'm not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that. Fuck the senator.

I don't give a damn what he thinks. Like, he has embraced who he is, and he doesn't want to backtrack from that. Albert, you know, when he learns his family wants to send him away, he's like, oh, I get it. You think I'm some monster. I'm a freak. And he's, you know, saying something like, I'm not going to stay where I'm not wanted, where I can be thrown out on a whim without legal rights. So these characters are advocating for themselves. And they're very steadfast in who they are. And yes, they're in this community of, you know, South Beach, where they don't have to deal with the same level of homophobia as other parts of the country. Not to say that this is the first time they're dealing with this, but I imagine if they've been in South Beach for a while, this is the first time in a while that they've had to kind of retreat back into the closet and hide their authentic selves. So as we discussed, yeah, like interesting to see Val make these

demands. I chalk it up to him being again, this 20 year old child, all this to say that I appreciate that part of this is letting the characters express how they feel about this harmful societal expectation, showing how traumatic it is for the characters to have to deal with. Those scenes were some of the most powerful to me. And I'm glad the movie took the time to show that. Those were some of my favorite moments in the movie. And also everyone in drag at the end. I think just the shot of Gene Hackman in drag is worth the price of admission.

And just like, yeah, Gene Hackman is, again, and I would rank him fifth in performances I love in this movie, but he is showing this simultaneous, I don't think I've ever quite seen a facial expression that both demonstrated, like, wow, this is so exciting, and I'm not supposed to like this. It's not actually awesome. Like, and just seeing that in the space of express, like one expression is really lovely. colleague the other thing that ages inexcusably poorly yeah right where it's you know the co-founder of the coalition of moral order this very ultra conservative you know family values guy being found with an underage black sex worker and the way she is talked about the way she is framed by the movie. To some extent, I see what they're trying to do, which is that they're trying to emphasize the irony that this,

you know, Christian crusader would cheat on his wife, the irony that she is black when this politician is very likely racist, but also the sex worker being black feels like it's a thing that makes it all the more scandalous also her being underage is not addressed and what i found most frustrating about all of this because yeah i think it is like an attempt at satire of like here is a person like an underage black sex worker is someone who this politician would absolutely have a vested interest in disenfranchising and you know not someone that you think he would ever want to meet right and so like not only are they you know exposing him to be a child sex abuser, but also, obviously, it's for... But it's like the way that that character is then presented by the movie,

which is also as a joke, kind of undercut any attempt at satire, where, I don't know, I mean, I think in a modern context, it's basically impossible to make this attempted joke work, especially in a movie that is otherwise completely white. And with one character that's Hank Azaria and brown face, not for the first time, but the fact that we do see this character and she is presented in a

bronze stereotypical way to boot. Like, it's just like, if there was any doubt that this movie was not equipped to even attempt that satire i feel like that really kind of sealed it for me on this viewing for sure yeah absolutely i like i think it was like it it almost narratively made more sense for it to have been a gay affair yeah that would have right right like it would have set up it would have been so much cleaner and neater and sort of but but maybe that

in itself would have been a little bit too much or too obvious because it is about the hypocrisy but yeah the the choice of target and that hypocrisy feels weighted in a way that the film kind of like never really deals with for sure yeah and the way that like you see how prejudiced um senator keely is the people that he's prejudiced against at least narratively who we know we have a deeper knowledge of we have a lot of empathy for we know them and that is the one character that you don't get that treatment for it's like you're just presented with a broad stereotypical reaction with a broad stereotypical reaction and a broad stereotypical character that i think like unintentionally almost reinforces

what the movie's trying to criticize i don't know it's like that was just and also like man well narratively it does make way more sense for sure um because then it's like oh not only is senator keely afraid of any scandal he's specifically afraid of this type of scandal yeah that it would have been a far more logical choice to make in the movie rather than what they do well what are you gonna do 1996 um man well i wanted to ask your thoughts and i know this might be opening kind of a can of worms and this is a much discussed complicated question but i was just curious on your thoughts of the straight actors playing gay characters in robin williams and hank azaria i know it's a different scenario for nathan lane

obviously he was out to his friends and family at the time of this movie he came out publicly a couple years later i think in 99 but yeah curious of your thoughts on that it is it is a can of worms and it is you know it's a conversation that i've had a lot over the past few years I feel like if you were a queer critic writing you just constantly run into this um what I always say is that I don't have a moral or an aesthetic complaint about straight actors playing gay so long as they're doing it with care with um curiosity to me this has always been a labor issue, more so than an aesthetic one. Like, I don't, it's not my place to say that an actor can or can't play X or Y or Z, because I think then it becomes very murky. But it is a labor issue when, if Hollywood studios and casting executives and directors are only offering these parts to straight actors, I think we should

interrogate why. And I think we should interrogate that why at a larger sort of systemic level in terms of who is getting paid, who is getting promoted, who is getting distributed, who is getting project screen lit, why that rarely happens for out queer actors. And so that's always how I want to frame it, that this is a labor concern more so than an aesthetic one um because i do think i mean i look at robin williams and what he's what he's doing with armand doesn't feel like caricature doesn't feel um mockery it doesn't feel like it's coming from a place of of hatred or of condescension it's actually coming from a place of love and i think you know you see that also in his like really tiny bit part in to wongo you really buy it and you really buy it for the chemistry that he has with with nathan lane

uh writer like i watch brookback mountain and i'm like i i love heath and jake i think they get at something very real and i think this is sort of the the the point of the actor this is exactly what they're supposed to be doing tying into the humanity of the other. I don't want any kind of actor, including queer actors, to solely be cast according to their very limited identity. I want queer actors to be able to play straight roles. I want trans actors to be able to play cis roles. Because I think as soon as we do it from one side, it has to come to the other side. But in you know, in a perfect world, we wouldn't be needing to have this conversation because queer actors would be, queer and trans actors would be given the kinds of opportunities that are solely given right now, or mostly given right now to cis

straight actors. And I think that's where the conversation needs to be happening, which is, it's a harder one to have than to just say, oh yeah, straight actors are not allowed because they don't get us and they don't understand us. But so that's always my like tiny little soapbox. No, no, no. We've had similar conversations on the podcast before when this comes up. And it does boil down to this happens because the pool of out queer actors, it's not that they don't exist. It's just they aren't given the same opportunities as their straight cis counterparts. It's that they don't have the same kind of often rise to fame as their cis straight counterparts. So yeah, a labor issue. It's a cultural issue far more than anything else. So great great thank you for sharing

your thoughts of course so the movie does pass the Bechdel test I think I mean very loosely I was trying to track that I was like there are like loosely about sort of men but not a man I don't know it's one of those yeah between barbara and louise i'm like it it's passing at best but again i i feel like i have ptsd about how poor like how the bechdel test is like weaponized when there's movies that center queer characters in a way that alice in bechdel almost certainly and like i think in fact has confirmed it's like yeah that's not how you're supposed to use it i wrote as a joke because i remember that like when during fire island yeah when fire island came out they're like how well this movie isn't everything you think because

and you're just like fuck you like you know it's like this is i don't i think this is like at best a soft pass but it's also like doing so many things that most movies are that it's like would it be great if it passed yes am i going to think this movie is inherently hostile to women in marginalized communities because it doesn't fuck you you know no the more relevant test here is the veto russo test which we bring up now and then, which examines the representation of queer characters in media and asks if they have any kind of interiority, asks if you removed those characters from the story, would it affect the plot? And in this case, obviously, very, very much so the entire story centers these characters. So a high pass to the Vito Russo test, Bechdel test,

not super relevant here. But the nipple scale test. Bechdel test, not super relevant here. But the nipple scale, the Bechdel-Kast nipple scale, the most relevant test of them all, where we examine the movie on a scale of 0 to 5 nipples, looking at it through an intersectional feminist lens. I would say because of its legacy and the kind of aftermath paving the way for more queer representation, I want to give it like three and a half nipples. I'm taking some off for the Hank Azaria of it all, for the framing of the scandal with the black sex worker, different things like that, that make the

movie not hold up as well as it could. But as we've discussed, there is so much the movie is doing right. It's a critique on traditional ideals of masculinity. It's a celebration of characters living their authentic selves. Because of that, I want to give it three and a half nipples, maybe even four. I don't know, I'm somewhere around there. Also worth mentioning the movie is rated R. And it still was as much of a box office success as it was, because it's kind of rare for r-rated movies to do quite so well at the box office but why is it rated r we ask uh sure they say fuck a few times but other than that there's nothing that warrants an r rating about this movie i'm speculating that it's because it does center a gay couple yeah then they're like yucky oh this is gonna

corrupt oh oh oh oh so adult so adult yeah adults contain adult themes like it's just fucking ridiculous yes so uh all that to say i'll land like on a 3.75 and um i'll give my nipples to christine baranski and nathan lane yes i'm gonna go for i i think that this movie is um has its flaws i'm glad that we discussed them i feel like they're not often discussed the context of this movie um and for all of its wonderful parts it is still a movie that's ultimately written by white people in a hollywood that did and does cater to white people and so there's two glaring racist plot points that take place within in this movie but its legacy is undeniable the performances are undeniable like nathan lane is i forget i i i didn't have i couldn't find the quote that i found him in my research but um there was i believe it was like either gene hackman or

robin williams that was like this movie was about just like getting out of nathan lane's way and just like giving him room to do it because it's like a career defining performance and he's had so many since like he's just unbelievable and then randomly he's in the OJ series yes we just cited the same thing no yes we're big dicks the musical heads on this show but also I just think about like I was like he's just his range is incredible he's awesome and this is just like a perfect nathan lane role um and yeah the legacy is wonderful and speaking to uh what you were talking about earlier manuel like we we to this day we don't regularly get movies that center queer couples queer parents and the rating thing is very very glaring i'm glad you brought it up

but even in spite of the rating i mean i have to imagine if this movie was rated pg-13 it would have done even better and absolutely the fact that it became such a widely beloved movie and especially in today's climate like this was a movie that heavily featured drag that everyone watched and so people have only gotten more mentally sick as time goes on. And I love that for the world. And that's awesome. Yay. So I'm going four nipples and I'm giving four nipples to Nathan Lane.

If I had more, I'd give one to Elaine May, but I don't have any more. So that's just kind of the situation. That's understandable. Manuel, how about you? I think, yeah, I fall sort of in the 3-7-5-4. I think it's, as we've discussed, it does so many things simultaneously that feel radical and traditional, but keeping them always so funny. I think the fact that it does that with humor without punching down, without going for the low hanging fruit, Agidor and, you know,

sex worker aside, I think it's so, it's so smart. And it feels, I watched it in 2024 and it still surprises me that this got made in 96, that this was a hit in 96, that it had the characters, actors that it had in 96,

that, you know, Nichols and May who, you know, Nichols had been, you know, making amazing movies for decades at this point and you know he was able to sort of do this and i i also love the nathan lean of it all but also because this was an out gay actor

at the heart of it right i think there's i think that's also it's a great showcase for a queer performer who has only proven with time that he deserves every and all flowers we throw at him. So yeah, I would I would also give my nipples to him. Beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been such a treat. Come back anytime. Absolutely. This was a joy. Oh my gosh, thank you. And where can people follow you on social media check out your writing also we forgot to mention that you penned an amazing piece on rotten tomatoes ever heard of it on this movie so we'll link that in the description of this episode but yeah where can people check out that and your other

writing yeah you can find me on both instagram and x formerly known as twitter and it's at b manuel so b-m-a-n-u-e-l you'll find my writing there um also my recent book the male gazed on hunks heartthrobs and what pop culture taught me about desiring men just came out in paperback so if you're looking for a nice poolside or beachside read, I highly recommend it. It's all about men and desiring men and asking myself whether I want him or do I want to be him, which is a queer, a central queer concern of mine,

but also of a lot of queer folks. But yeah, that's, that's where you can find me. And you can find us on instagram at bechtel cast you can follow our patreon aka matreon at patreon.com slash bechtel cast where we release two bonus episodes every month on a hilarious amazing brilliant genius theme that always makes so much sense and that's five dollars a month you can check out our merch at tpublic.com slash the pectocast and grab

lots of t-shirts and pillows and buttons all designed by jamie and uh with that should we dress in drag and run out of a nightclub to the tune tune of We Are Family? Yes, absolutely. Yes, okay. See you there. Bye. Bye. The Bechdelcast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus,

produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Kaplan, with vocals by Catherine Voskrosensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.com. Hey, everyone. It's Katie Couric. Well, the election is in the homestretch, right in time for a new season of my podcast, Next Question, starting October 3rd.

I'm bringing in some FOKs, friends of Katie's, to help me out, like Ezra Klein, Jen Psaki, Astead Herndon, Karl Rove, and David Axelrod. But we're also going to have some fun, thanks to some of my friends like Samantha Bee and Charlemagne the God. We're going to take some viewer questions as well. I mean, isn't that what democracy is all about? Check out our new season of Next Question with me, Katie Couric, starting October 3rd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks

She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. To listen to new episodes one week early and 100% ad-free, subscribe to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dr. Laurie Santos, host of the Happiness Lab podcast. podcasts. We all know something is wrong in our culture, in our politics, and that we need to do better and that we can do better. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm.

Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you stream podcasts.