June 19, 2026 • 40 mins
When the 1996 comedy The Birdcage hit theaters, it was a commercial and critical success. On top of that, it was one of the first major studio films to center on a gay couple, and joyously as well. We take a look back, talk some themes and how things have changed (or not).
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Sanny and Smantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff when never told your protection of
iHeart Radio and today for Pride Month twenty twenty six,
we are talking about the nineteen ninety six American comedy
(00:27):
The Bird Cage. It was directed by Mike Nichols, who
I recently learned directed the film Day of the Dolphin,
and is a whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It kind of came up because there was all this
news about Ron having like killer dolphins, but apparently Day
of the Dolphin was a whole movie about dolphins trained
to kill political figures.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I thought that was a whole US thing.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, yes, in this movie it was the US. Yeah,
but I learned a lot about the training of dolphins
for this purpose unrelated to The Bird Cage. But when
I saw I was like, White Nichols, I'm pretty sure
that's the dolphin guy, which I'm sure he would very
much justlike that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm laughing at the fact that you were calling him
the dolphin guy.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yes, it's a dolphin.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You never know what that means.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
That was not where I went when when you went there.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
That fair enough. That's yeah, Well we're not talking about
the Day of the Dolphin today, but you can look
it up. It's quite spectacular. The history, a lot of
things you're not expecting to pop up, but anyway. It
was directed by Mike Nichols, with an adapted screenplay by
Elaine May, which was based on the nineteen seventy eight
(01:52):
French Italian film The Cage Ah Fall, which was based
on the nineteen seventy three play by the same The
cast includes Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Closta Flockhart, Gene Hackman,
Diane Weist, and Christine Baranski. The story follows gay couple
Armand and Albert Golmand, whose son Val is marrying the
(02:17):
daughter of a conservative senator. It's thirty anniversary, I guess,
really right, or so timely nineteen ninety six. I'm telling you, Yeah,
sometimes it happens.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
A lot of the dub every time now on this boy.
But we didn't do that at all on purpose, No,
but it just happens.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It just happened in this case. And I'll get more
into a second. But when it came out, Uh, it
was a critical and major financial success, which was notable
because this was one of the first examples of a
major US studio releasing a film that centered on gay characters.
(02:59):
It won the Green Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance
by Cast. It was nominated for a bunch of other things,
but this one it won, And so yes, I have
to say I had ulterior motives for choosing this movie.
We did want to pick a fun one, and I
have been meaning to watch this ever since my queer
(03:20):
baiting experience for reasons. I was also very curious to
see how it held up, or did it hold up?
So we shall see. But I want to say before
we get into this, pronouns wise, the character Albert, they
(03:40):
alternately refer to him as he and then she when
the drag persona is in place, So I'm going to
be trying to stick to that. That's what they did
in the movie, but just to say so, all right.
(04:02):
The plot, Armand, who's played by Robin Williams, is the
openly gay owner of a South Beach drag club called
the bird Cage. One of his star acts is Starina,
the drag persona of his partner, Albert, who's played by
Nathan Lane. They live in their apartment above the bird
(04:23):
Cage with another gay man. It opens with Starina putting
off her performance. After a problematic Indigenous woman's stands up
to say, Armand confronts Albert and reverse psychologies him into
going on. Despite Albert's insecurities, Armand's son Val announces that
(04:47):
he is getting married, and Armand is not happy about
it because his son is twenty and jokingly because he's
marrying a woman. His fiance valschiance, Barbara is nine, although
they say nineteen at first and then they say.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Eighteen eighteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It was suspicious.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
From her point of view, Barber's point of view, we
see that she's been lying to her conservative parents about
her boyfriend's parents, what they do, their sexuality. She's really
built up this whole wife for them. Barbara's dad, Senator
Kevin Keely, who's played by Gene Hackman, is the co
(05:31):
founder of a socially conservative group, the Coalition of Moral Order. However,
his co founder is found dead and it's a whole scandal.
It's a whole mess to get out in front of it.
Barbara's mom pushes for their daughter's wedding to go forward
as soon as possible as a distraction, like take the
(05:54):
attention off this we'll have a wedding, not knowing that
her potential son in law's parents are gay men. However,
the Senator is worried that the family Vow's family won't
want to go ahead with the wedding because of all
this scandal, so they don't announce it to the press.
(06:15):
Barbara's family comes to visit Val, Albert and Armand. Armand
agrees to play into Barbara's lies and submits to his
son's request to change his apartment, backing away his gay
art for a couple of days. Albert freaks out understandably
(06:37):
and is hurt by the insinuation that he shouldn't be
there to meet Barbara's family. Albert and Armand fight. Eventually,
they decide that Armand will direct Albert on how to
present as straight, and that Albert will pretend to be
Vow's uncle to make the story believable. They contact VAL's mother,
(07:02):
who haven't seen it for twenty years, to get in
on the ruse, so that Armand has a beard of sorts,
he has a lady. They reconnect and Albert discovers them
in a compromising position. I have to say they're not
(07:22):
doing anything but it does look bad from Albert's perspective.
Albert decides to go off on his own, but Armand
follows him. They have a heart to heart and sign
a legal document making them partners. But then when Albert
puts on the suit, he tries the whole being straight
(07:45):
man thing. He's hurt at the reactions of Armand and
val And he leaves. Meanwhile, Val who in my opinion, sucks,
I just did not like him at all. But he
intercepts a call from his mom and tells her to come,
(08:06):
even after Armand had already canceled the whole thing. So
the Kilis arrive and meet Armand, and they start a
very awkward dinner. Albert occasionally interrupts from where he has
locked himself in the bathroom. He's just like crying loudly.
(08:26):
Vow's mother is stuck in traffic, but Albert steps in,
dress as a conservative housewife. Barbara's parents buy the act.
In fact, they love her, that she's the best as
everyone else panics because they know what's going on, and
a tabloid crew observes and is trying to get in. Eventually,
(08:51):
Vow's mom showed up and the gig was up. So
Val introduces Albert as his mother and revealed that his
parents are gay. The Kilies try to escape, but the
press have surrounded them. Albert has the idea of dressing
them in drag to sneak them out. Val and Barbara
(09:13):
get married, and Armand and Albert are proudly attending as
a couple. The end, Yes, a lot of singing of
we are family.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yes, lots of we are family.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
This was interesting. I was intrigued to see it and
see how things have changed, and there were definitely some
things that didn't hold up. But I did think it
was pretty It was a pretty joyous I don't know.
Some of it was much sadder than I thought, and
I'm going to talk about that later. But the relationship
between Armand and Albert, I thought was very sweet. Robin
(09:53):
Williams was supposed to play Albert, who's the drag queen,
but he didn't want to do it because he'd already
done Missus Doubtfire. So there was something about seeing him
sort of no pun intended straight man for Nathan Lane. Yeah, Yeah,
(10:19):
it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It is the During this time, drag was having a
kind of resurgence in Hollywood movies because also, so this
was nineteen ninety six, and then two Wang Fu Thinks
for Everything. Julie Newmar came out in nineteen ninety five,
which has Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo in it,
(10:47):
and they famously are in drag and Jimmy John Leguizamo
I thought was a woman when I remember this movie
coming out, and I really thought he was a woman
because he was so pretty already.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It was so pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
But all that to say is they were really for
having a moment where a lot of the straight big
actors coming and playing into these films. And I want
to say, Patrick Swayze may have won an award for it.
I know you got a lot of accolades in this picture,
so I have I did think that was interesting. It
was all at the same time. There's a lot more
(11:24):
movies coming out. Those are just two of the big
ones that I remember it being big.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
What was happening that so many of the straight white
men sis men were all about doing these characters. I
think it was at this point that people were like translating,
if you play something controversial, you might be noticed as
a serious actor, so it definitely dug into that using
people in the marginalized community as a way to bait
(11:56):
people to get awards and to see a different side
of them. So I do, I do find that interesting.
But at the same time, like I thought, like I
remember the first thing I thought about with Robin Williams
playing this character of like a gay man trying to
be straight as a straight man. He did a lot
of like he took this I think respectfully instead of
(12:18):
doing his regular caricature acting which he is known for,
and I think that brought him a lot of like
respect in telling a queer person story. At the same
time it should have been a queer person which is
that same conversation that I'm sure we're going to come
back to, which why wasn't it because like it he
(12:40):
actually did, I think a job that felt genuine as
where Hank Azaria, who by the way, always plays a
tan Man in all the things, even though I don't
think he is.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He's not from like Mexico.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I think he does have like a lineage in being Spanish,
but he's also like a Jewish Greek person, so he's
always played He also played an Egyptian if you remember
in Night of the Museum, in one of those caricatures,
like it's it's interesting for him to play those characters.
But then he comes and we know him as this
(13:19):
other type of actor, and he is a character actor,
so he is good at these things. But it's interesting
because of the nineties definitely allowed for that. I mean
even today we see it happening. But these movies are interesting,
but how they portray each other character because he to me,
he was definitely the over the top charricature. Nathan Lane
(13:40):
is too, obviously, but I always saw him as that character.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Do you remember he was in Sex and This. Oh
have we come to that episode yet?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I don't think we have.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Oh I'm not gonna okay and back that up. But
this put an asterisk by this because it we'll come
back to this. We'll come back to this, because he
does pop up in Sex and the City as an
interesting character that's very similar to this. But also like
we know Nathan Lane as a Broadway performer, which also
has this like odd connotation that if you're in Broadway
(14:13):
you're gay.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So that's kind of like one of the stereotypes. There's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, kind of like a theater kid.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, there's a lot in this I felt interesting, and
I know we're going to get into in this conversation,
but this timing was an interesting time for straight men
playing gay.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, it really was, and there there are a lot
of reasons for it that we're going to get into.
But I do want to touch on something that you
said before we move on. I think that idea I
can win an award by playing a minority character, or
this is like a chance for my career. I mean,
(14:54):
that's not your identity. I think that's something we're still
kind of wrestling with. It still happens, absolutely, but it's
just sort of this idea of, oh, I can take
this other communities experience and make it my own and
maybe get an award because I'm having to channel their experience, right,
(15:20):
And there have been some actors who have done it
more respectfully and others who have done it and not
respectfully at all. Right, So that's definitely a question here.
(15:44):
One of the themes I wanted to start with is
that this idea of hiding who you are, because a
lot of the plot is that they armand and Albert
are settled and then Vow comes in and it just
becomes this whole thing of they have to hide who
they are, they have to hide the art, they have
(16:05):
to hide how they walk and how they dress or
anything like that. A lot of the articles I've read,
we're talking about code switching in this case, of being
able to tap into that for these characters straight man
(16:26):
kind of identity, and that's been something in the queer
community for a long time of the like straight passing thing,
and Nathan's Nathan Lane's character it just really can't do it,
and it is feeling this almost shame or judgment that
he can't do it, but he knows who he is,
(16:52):
and it's so sad, Like there's so many things in
here that I think in the nineties were played for
comedy and for me now I looked back and I
was like, that is so sad. You should get to
be yourself. And there's also this whole idea, of course,
(17:12):
of gender as a performance. You see that in the
drag community always. You see it, especially with Albert in
this because Robin Williams is pretty like he would be
straight passing, right, yeah, But for Albert, which by the way,
(17:38):
a lot of people have been writing about this recently,
maybe because of the maybe because of Pride or because
of the anniversary, but they were like, Albert really got
the shit into the stick here. But he puts on
this kind of conservative woman performance at the end and
(17:59):
it's sick successful in it, and that was more comfortable
for him than doing this like straight, straight man, every
day guy. One other thing a lot of articles pointed
out is that the Senator is actually presented more like
(18:19):
someone who is fake, like somebody who does not have
a sense of who they are, does not care who
they are, is pretending, and in the end it's Albert
that gets them out without the tabloids realizing by a
(18:41):
dressing them in drag. So a lot of the articles
I was reading, we're just saying, like, the framing of
this movie is really interesting because at the time it
was pretty new to have a kind of joyous movie
centered on cake characters. But also, you're not rooting for
(19:03):
the Senator, You're not rooting for VAL's mom, you're The
way it's framed is that these two men who love
each other are more authentic than anyone else. Everybody else
is pretending, doesn't know who they are. And there was
(19:26):
one line Robin Williams said, and I thought he said
it so well. Or his son is asking him, like,
can you just go along with this? And he says,
I don't want to be someone else, and it was
just so like he figured out I who he was.
He doesn't want to do this. Yeah, like I said,
(19:52):
a lot of lines and here they made me sad.
I think this is meant to be funny, but it's
also there's a point they bring up where people get
hurt because of who you are and who you love,
and so you're trying to minimize the fallout. And I
thought that was really sad because they have this nice, established,
(20:14):
happy life, right, and then Weal comes in again. I
really don't like Bell, but Wel comes in and is
essentially saying this is gonna hurt me. If you right
are true to yourself, that's gonna hurt me in my future.
(20:36):
They also hide the fact that they are Jewish, which
confused me for a long time. I was like, wait,
what is their last name? Keep switching it up. But
they do that because the senator, I suppose, also doesn't.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like to somebody.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah, when you go down the line of how his
partner in that organization got caught was the underage.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yes, obviously that was bad.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And then he's like black, like that's obviously he was
racist as well. So like all of those came under
fire all at once, and so he just hates all
the people's which we see.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That was one of the biggest things. I wanted to
see how it changed because I knew there was a
conservative senator element to it, so I was really curious.
I would say, this is a much softer take on
it than it is now, which is like almost got.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Four or five right.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
No, the take on that was that he actually doesn't care.
Is the optics to be a part of the Republican
Republican Party with this group specifically and to win the
votes and to make sure that he is on top
is to hate these things because that's what the party wants.
He doesn't actually care. Yeah, outside of the again the optics.
So that's the actuality when we see with the politicians
(21:54):
today that they actually do hate these people.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So it seems.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, no, it feels worse, Like it feels worse now
I've been watching this, Yeah, which could have which could
be uh just a bride product of it being a
comedy movie. They're not to go too much into it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But yeah, the nineties were when the politics was not good,
but it wasn't as bad as this, and it wasn't
because people weren't unlearning things at that point that we were,
but it wasn't as bad. That the whole like melting
pot theory was really okay then, so that was okay.
(22:35):
So therefore they were allowed, like people were allowed to
have the black community as a part of this conversation,
the fact that there was black drag queens uh in
this show as where we see it more and more divided,
uh as like more recently because we have white drag
queens who don't who are racist, like it just you
(22:57):
just have these like antics that that have kind of changed,
not that they weren't there before, because the divibe has
always been there, and that's the conversation in general. But
like in the nineties, you could only you see this
as like.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
We see this.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It wasn't better necessarily, we just weren't talking about it
as much.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of things when you look
back at the nineties, extremely toxic. Yeah, we were just
sort of accepting.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, the language of it all, like the things that
were accepted like, yeah, obviously that whole indigenous like drag
show that you're like, what just happened?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah? Yeah, well, and going off of your point, there
was a part of me that was a little shocked,
even though I shouldn't have been about how many they
really did run through a lot of conservative issues. Yeah,
in this so they definitely have like the racism with
(24:00):
the underage black woman who was a sex worker. They
talk about abortion.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I was like, and then because like Albert comes background, like, no,
I still agree with you, even though wait wait wait bro,
no you don't, you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, right, well, Albert was he was doing some interesting
things as the conservative uh missed out fire because he
did it. He would get in some like zingers, yeah
that was against them, and sometimes he would just be like.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Just throw everything out, murder all the people's burn it down.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, but they really there were some things I brought
up that it wasn't necessarily shocking, just surprised. I was like, oh, okay, yeah,
we were talking about that in the nineties as well. Yes, okay,
so that yes, politics and family is a big theme.
There are some ideas of like, you know, the morality
(25:19):
is political, that whole kind of thing that's happening. Who
decides the morality part. Also, they kept saying white wedding,
which I was like.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
A traditional Well, like I think at the end when
we see them being Catholic versus Jewish, like the idea
that it would be a Jewish wedding goes against everything
that conservatives. To be fair, most of the white people
that I know, maybe it's today versus nineties, but like
even Catholics were not seen as good potential leaders.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And I say this not as because like that's how
I feel.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That's just coming from like a Protestant background, and like
they really had some feelings about everyone who wasn't a Protestant,
and Catholics was included in that.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Gosh, these religious dynamics sauesting Well, there are a lot
(26:32):
of tropes in this movie. One is the drama Queen
very clearly with Nathan Lane's character kind of on the nose.
I did as part of this, Samantha Nos I was
torn between two movies, and I watched both of them.
This is the one we went with, but I watched
(26:53):
The Celluloid Closet, which is about the history of getting
representation past censorship in the United States and they kind
of go through all of the all of the tropes,
and it was interesting because they would bring in different
actors who would say like, I've I hated this trope,
and some would be like, actually, I felt like this
(27:15):
trope did represent something in my life, and the Drama
Queen one was one that people were like, yeah, this
did feel like represent something in my life. I thought
the Pullboy trope with Hanks Aria's character who he was
(27:36):
trying to get into the show, but he felt like
the very over the top one. He felt like the
one saying something next to Nipe and Light. But to me,
he was the one that was like, hmm, using gay
characters to build straight relationships. This is a big no
(27:59):
no in the gay community. But they kind of did
this because you know, Armand is pretending he's straight so
that his son can marry a woman. You've got Albert
(28:19):
pretending he's a conservative woman so this can happen. Uh,
And it seems like Albert the implication to me is
he's been very much there for val so I thought
that was pretty Another thing I don't like about him
(28:39):
is that he's kind of sidelined him.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But I feel like Calissa Flockhar's character Barbara Barbie Barbara.
She was a callousness, but she was making of all
these lies about them from Jump, like the Greek diplomat
and all these things.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're like, where did that go? I'm from? Did they
decide these lies at the beginning? Like what is happening?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And then of course, like she comes back with like
I would love to be a part of your family.
Because she concedes to going away with her father. He's like,
don't do this to me. I made your mother cry,
and the mother's say, I need someone to like me.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So he's someone to pick me, please.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
But like in that conversation, like she held up this
lie from Jump, like it almost like she's the one
maybe that pushed to be like we need to get married,
so we need to check them, but after the fact,
we'll just do this. And like she's obviously the more
progressive one because she gets offended by what Albert's saying,
as you know, trying to win over the sinner who
(29:44):
she does, uh. But at that point she's like, does
your mom know that I'm I'm gonna be a career woman?
Do and say He's like and violes like, that's not
my mom, Remember this.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Is a character. She's like, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So like both of those things though, But at the
same time, she was more than link to light to
our parents about this whole situation, even when she knew
they were escaping and trying to go to there. So
I feel like she's a bad guy too in this situation.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And what I was getting I was getting
riled up Samanto when I was watching it, and I
kept trying to tell myself, what, they're young, Well, yeah,
they're really young.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I'm in agreement with the parents on this one. Eighteen
and twenty is super young.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, those in the nineties that happened more often, but still,
I mean that kind of happens now.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I guess yeah, that was my That was the thing
I kept telling myself. I was like, Okay, well, they're young,
they're in love apparently so.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And he does talk about does talk about the fact
that when he was a child, his father told him
to lie mm hmmm. So it's kind of like it's
kind of more of the waves of the world. But
at the same time he did kind of set that
up mm hmm. And like this is how you survive.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and that's a larger conversation than perhaps this comedy
from nineteen ninety six in the Law, but you know,
being a gay person at that time, yeah, you would.
That would be a lesson you have learned and taken on.
Probably one of the other things that I thought that
(31:24):
stood out to me when it comes to tropes is
that there's this whole idea of very much like how
to act like a man, which one is the mother, Yeah,
which you know it can differ based on relationships, but
that's always been sort of a I don't know that
(31:47):
we can just assume that that's the way people feel
about themselves or how they see themselves. But it was
I mean, it was a nice moment, it was, Yeah,
But also same time, maybe check in on that one. Okay,
(32:09):
So representation obviously big one for this movie. As I
was watching the documentary, they were talking about how important
watching movies is and that's how a lot of people
learn about sexuality, about gender, and they do it for movies,
and so that can be really bad or really good.
(32:32):
And there's been a history of mocking gay people, of
fearing them, of peeing them. There was a very early
establishment of harmful gay stereotypes. One of them is the
sissy who is a man without sexuality.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That was the.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
First documented one, because there's no sin like being a woman,
as they said, and it teaches you how not only
does it teach straight people how gay people acts in
the movies, it teaches gay people what to think about themselves.
(33:13):
It's also very isolating when you're not represented. And this
is where you come in with the looking for it
everywhere you're interpreting everything. This is literally been built into
movies because of all of the censorship. They kind of
had to do it this way. It's sad and hilarious
actors who will be like, oh, yeah, that's what we
(33:37):
were doing and we were hoping you would pick up
on it, whereas some actors were like, oh, I didn't
even realize the director didn't put me in on that one.
But this did kind of. It was a breeding ground
for leading to stereotypes that were over the top. And
(33:57):
this is also subtext, subtech. You've got to try to
use the subtext to get around the hates code, which
we have talked about recently and Catholic groups because these
they were looking out. They were like, you cannot have
this representation in media. And when it did show up.
(34:21):
It was like gay equals villain or evil, something creepy,
wrong or off about them. You're happy when they die.
Ruined stories. A lot of people, when interviewed about it,
were like, it's ruined what I was trying to do.
(34:42):
There's also a lot of suicide depression, unhappy gay characters
that they're not going to find love, and you know,
depiction that it's a sense so it's like horror movie rules,
so you die. And there was one quote from the documentary,
(35:02):
if we could just learn not to hate ourselves so much.
But somebody else said something I thought was really fascinating.
Is bad representation better than no representation? But anyway, the
timing of this movie, when it came out, it was
(35:26):
on the heels of the AIDS epidemic, and there had
been all of this tragedy, there had been all of
this misery Philadelphia, the movie with Tom Hanks about AIDS
where the main character dies at the end. I think
it was one of the first big movies, studio movies
(35:49):
to tackle a gay storyline in nineteen ninety three somewhere
around there. But they were all sad, it was all depressing.
This one was notable because it was it was pretty bright,
it was pretty happy. It was here's this established couple.
(36:09):
We're not really questioning that they should be together, right,
we don't have to worry about that. It was a
very different take, and I think that's one of the
reasons it it really succeeded with audiences and critics because
it was just a first time for a lot of
(36:32):
people that they were seeing a happy gay couple, especially
after all that misery.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Right, And I think like one of the things I noticed,
especially towards the end, I know that it's one of
those big happy numbers, but having like the club is
a success, people have fun, love being a part of it,
come to see the shows like that type of level
of you know, they are established. You know it's loved
and the beloved into the community obviously with the way
(37:01):
it's filled. And then like even when they all come
down as a celebration as one big family, which you
do see them being a family together, all the performers
and all the people on the backstage, Like it's really
cute how they like rally they're like, hey, we got
to do this, and they're like, okay, we're in. Like
even with that, you see the conservative couple, the the
you know, the the daughter, all of them coming through
(37:24):
having fun. They're actually having Yes, they're nervous, but you
see Gene Hackman like singing and dancing and having fun
dancing with people. You see the wife dancing with someone,
you know, like having like they're like, I've never danced
with a man before. She's like, oh, you know, all
those things, pretending to be a drag wingers all and
having a good time doing that. It felt like a
celebration instead of some kind of downfall or some kind
(37:46):
of protests or like you didn't see any ugly things
to this connections that you saw good, celebratory fun that
everybody couldn't help but be swept up in.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And it felt different as well.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, yeah, it really did. And it's very like bright,
just all the colors and everything, the music. It's very
in your face, but also kind of settled. I liked
how Armand and Albert were kind of a settled, older couple.
(38:22):
But anyway, here's the quote from the BBC. Within the
context of mid nineteen nineties Hollywood, the film was also
a radical outlier that held particular significance for the LGBTQ
plus community. As doctor Matthew Jones, reader and Cinema Audiences
and Reception at de Montfort University puts it, it helped
(38:43):
an audience traumatized by a decade of living day to
day with the threat of disease and death to laugh again. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm glad we watched it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I also want to talk about that scene where we
do see Albert going through the market and talking to
the people like everybody knows him, and the friendliness, like
you see these scenes oftentimes with heterosexual couples going through
the market having the best time whatever, and to be
able to translate that for someone who is a big
icon in their community as like a drag queen or
(39:17):
but also like a gay person coming through and during
this time and just finding home like obviously this is
his home. It was also a nice turn to see
as well.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, it really was. And in that in that documentary
I mentioned a lot of the people interviewed mentioned stuff
like that of like just seeing something as on paper
maybe simple as that is so powerful because you're that
means you're accepted and loved and you have community.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Exactly, like that's that community.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah. Yeah, well, listeners, we you would love to hear
from you. We would love to hear your thoughts and
suggestions on what we should do next, what our next
movie should be, Happy, Pride, what you're doing. You can
email us at Hello at Stuffwenever Told You dot com.
(40:13):
You can find us on Blue Sky at moms a podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff When Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise, a common bureau,
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer
Casey and our executive Rusa Maya.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Thanks to you for listening Someffe Never Told You to
production by heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.
Hey, this is Sanny and Smantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm welcome to stuff when never told your protection of
iHeart Radio and today for Pride Month twenty twenty six,
we are talking about the nineteen ninety six American comedy
(00:27):
The Bird Cage. It was directed by Mike Nichols, who
I recently learned directed the film Day of the Dolphin,
and is a whole thing.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
It kind of came up because there was all this
news about Ron having like killer dolphins, but apparently Day
of the Dolphin was a whole movie about dolphins trained
to kill political figures.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I thought that was a whole US thing.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well, yes, in this movie it was the US. Yeah,
but I learned a lot about the training of dolphins
for this purpose unrelated to The Bird Cage. But when
I saw I was like, White Nichols, I'm pretty sure
that's the dolphin guy, which I'm sure he would very
much justlike that.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm laughing at the fact that you were calling him
the dolphin guy.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yes, it's a dolphin.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
You never know what that means.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
That is true.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
That was not where I went when when you went there.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
That fair enough. That's yeah, Well we're not talking about
the Day of the Dolphin today, but you can look
it up. It's quite spectacular. The history, a lot of
things you're not expecting to pop up, but anyway. It
was directed by Mike Nichols, with an adapted screenplay by
Elaine May, which was based on the nineteen seventy eight
(01:52):
French Italian film The Cage Ah Fall, which was based
on the nineteen seventy three play by the same The
cast includes Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Closta Flockhart, Gene Hackman,
Diane Weist, and Christine Baranski. The story follows gay couple
Armand and Albert Golmand, whose son Val is marrying the
(02:17):
daughter of a conservative senator. It's thirty anniversary, I guess,
really right, or so timely nineteen ninety six. I'm telling you, Yeah,
sometimes it happens.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
A lot of the dub every time now on this boy.
But we didn't do that at all on purpose, No,
but it just happens.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It just happened in this case. And I'll get more
into a second. But when it came out, Uh, it
was a critical and major financial success, which was notable
because this was one of the first examples of a
major US studio releasing a film that centered on gay characters.
(02:59):
It won the Green Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance
by Cast. It was nominated for a bunch of other things,
but this one it won, And so yes, I have
to say I had ulterior motives for choosing this movie.
We did want to pick a fun one, and I
have been meaning to watch this ever since my queer
(03:20):
baiting experience for reasons. I was also very curious to
see how it held up, or did it hold up?
So we shall see. But I want to say before
we get into this, pronouns wise, the character Albert, they
(03:40):
alternately refer to him as he and then she when
the drag persona is in place, So I'm going to
be trying to stick to that. That's what they did
in the movie, but just to say so, all right.
(04:02):
The plot, Armand, who's played by Robin Williams, is the
openly gay owner of a South Beach drag club called
the bird Cage. One of his star acts is Starina,
the drag persona of his partner, Albert, who's played by
Nathan Lane. They live in their apartment above the bird
(04:23):
Cage with another gay man. It opens with Starina putting
off her performance. After a problematic Indigenous woman's stands up
to say, Armand confronts Albert and reverse psychologies him into
going on. Despite Albert's insecurities, Armand's son Val announces that
(04:47):
he is getting married, and Armand is not happy about
it because his son is twenty and jokingly because he's
marrying a woman. His fiance valschiance, Barbara is nine, although
they say nineteen at first and then they say.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Eighteen eighteen, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
It was suspicious.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
From her point of view, Barber's point of view, we
see that she's been lying to her conservative parents about
her boyfriend's parents, what they do, their sexuality. She's really
built up this whole wife for them. Barbara's dad, Senator
Kevin Keely, who's played by Gene Hackman, is the co
(05:31):
founder of a socially conservative group, the Coalition of Moral Order. However,
his co founder is found dead and it's a whole scandal.
It's a whole mess to get out in front of it.
Barbara's mom pushes for their daughter's wedding to go forward
as soon as possible as a distraction, like take the
(05:54):
attention off this we'll have a wedding, not knowing that
her potential son in law's parents are gay men. However,
the Senator is worried that the family Vow's family won't
want to go ahead with the wedding because of all
this scandal, so they don't announce it to the press.
(06:15):
Barbara's family comes to visit Val, Albert and Armand. Armand
agrees to play into Barbara's lies and submits to his
son's request to change his apartment, backing away his gay
art for a couple of days. Albert freaks out understandably
(06:37):
and is hurt by the insinuation that he shouldn't be
there to meet Barbara's family. Albert and Armand fight. Eventually,
they decide that Armand will direct Albert on how to
present as straight, and that Albert will pretend to be
Vow's uncle to make the story believable. They contact VAL's mother,
(07:02):
who haven't seen it for twenty years, to get in
on the ruse, so that Armand has a beard of sorts,
he has a lady. They reconnect and Albert discovers them
in a compromising position. I have to say they're not
(07:22):
doing anything but it does look bad from Albert's perspective.
Albert decides to go off on his own, but Armand
follows him. They have a heart to heart and sign
a legal document making them partners. But then when Albert
puts on the suit, he tries the whole being straight
(07:45):
man thing. He's hurt at the reactions of Armand and
val And he leaves. Meanwhile, Val who in my opinion, sucks,
I just did not like him at all. But he
intercepts a call from his mom and tells her to come,
(08:06):
even after Armand had already canceled the whole thing. So
the Kilis arrive and meet Armand, and they start a
very awkward dinner. Albert occasionally interrupts from where he has
locked himself in the bathroom. He's just like crying loudly.
(08:26):
Vow's mother is stuck in traffic, but Albert steps in,
dress as a conservative housewife. Barbara's parents buy the act.
In fact, they love her, that she's the best as
everyone else panics because they know what's going on, and
a tabloid crew observes and is trying to get in. Eventually,
(08:51):
Vow's mom showed up and the gig was up. So
Val introduces Albert as his mother and revealed that his
parents are gay. The Kilies try to escape, but the
press have surrounded them. Albert has the idea of dressing
them in drag to sneak them out. Val and Barbara
(09:13):
get married, and Armand and Albert are proudly attending as
a couple. The end, Yes, a lot of singing of
we are family.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yes, lots of we are family.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
This was interesting. I was intrigued to see it and
see how things have changed, and there were definitely some
things that didn't hold up. But I did think it
was pretty It was a pretty joyous I don't know.
Some of it was much sadder than I thought, and
I'm going to talk about that later. But the relationship
between Armand and Albert, I thought was very sweet. Robin
(09:53):
Williams was supposed to play Albert, who's the drag queen,
but he didn't want to do it because he'd already
done Missus Doubtfire. So there was something about seeing him
sort of no pun intended straight man for Nathan Lane. Yeah, Yeah,
(10:19):
it was interesting.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
It is the During this time, drag was having a
kind of resurgence in Hollywood movies because also, so this
was nineteen ninety six, and then two Wang Fu Thinks
for Everything. Julie Newmar came out in nineteen ninety five,
which has Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo in it,
(10:47):
and they famously are in drag and Jimmy John Leguizamo
I thought was a woman when I remember this movie
coming out, and I really thought he was a woman
because he was so pretty already.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
It was so pretty.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
But all that to say is they were really for
having a moment where a lot of the straight big
actors coming and playing into these films. And I want
to say, Patrick Swayze may have won an award for it.
I know you got a lot of accolades in this picture,
so I have I did think that was interesting. It
was all at the same time. There's a lot more
(11:24):
movies coming out. Those are just two of the big
ones that I remember it being big.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
And I don't know.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
What was happening that so many of the straight white
men sis men were all about doing these characters. I
think it was at this point that people were like translating,
if you play something controversial, you might be noticed as
a serious actor, so it definitely dug into that using
people in the marginalized community as a way to bait
(11:56):
people to get awards and to see a different side
of them. So I do, I do find that interesting.
But at the same time, like I thought, like I
remember the first thing I thought about with Robin Williams
playing this character of like a gay man trying to
be straight as a straight man. He did a lot
of like he took this I think respectfully instead of
(12:18):
doing his regular caricature acting which he is known for,
and I think that brought him a lot of like
respect in telling a queer person story. At the same
time it should have been a queer person which is
that same conversation that I'm sure we're going to come
back to, which why wasn't it because like it he
(12:40):
actually did, I think a job that felt genuine as
where Hank Azaria, who by the way, always plays a
tan Man in all the things, even though I don't
think he is.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He's not from like Mexico.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
I think he does have like a lineage in being Spanish,
but he's also like a Jewish Greek person, so he's
always played He also played an Egyptian if you remember
in Night of the Museum, in one of those caricatures,
like it's it's interesting for him to play those characters.
But then he comes and we know him as this
(13:19):
other type of actor, and he is a character actor,
so he is good at these things. But it's interesting
because of the nineties definitely allowed for that. I mean
even today we see it happening. But these movies are interesting,
but how they portray each other character because he to me,
he was definitely the over the top charricature. Nathan Lane
(13:40):
is too, obviously, but I always saw him as that character.
Speaker 1 (13:44):
Do you remember he was in Sex and This. Oh
have we come to that episode yet?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
I don't think we have.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Oh I'm not gonna okay and back that up. But
this put an asterisk by this because it we'll come
back to this. We'll come back to this, because he
does pop up in Sex and the City as an
interesting character that's very similar to this. But also like
we know Nathan Lane as a Broadway performer, which also
has this like odd connotation that if you're in Broadway
(14:13):
you're gay.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
So that's kind of like one of the stereotypes. There's
a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, kind of like a theater kid.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Yeah, there's a lot in this I felt interesting, and
I know we're going to get into in this conversation,
but this timing was an interesting time for straight men
playing gay.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yeah, it really was, and there there are a lot
of reasons for it that we're going to get into.
But I do want to touch on something that you
said before we move on. I think that idea I
can win an award by playing a minority character, or
this is like a chance for my career. I mean,
(14:54):
that's not your identity. I think that's something we're still
kind of wrestling with. It still happens, absolutely, but it's
just sort of this idea of, oh, I can take
this other communities experience and make it my own and
maybe get an award because I'm having to channel their experience, right,
(15:20):
And there have been some actors who have done it
more respectfully and others who have done it and not
respectfully at all. Right, So that's definitely a question here.
(15:44):
One of the themes I wanted to start with is
that this idea of hiding who you are, because a
lot of the plot is that they armand and Albert
are settled and then Vow comes in and it just
becomes this whole thing of they have to hide who
they are, they have to hide the art, they have
(16:05):
to hide how they walk and how they dress or
anything like that. A lot of the articles I've read,
we're talking about code switching in this case, of being
able to tap into that for these characters straight man
(16:26):
kind of identity, and that's been something in the queer
community for a long time of the like straight passing thing,
and Nathan's Nathan Lane's character it just really can't do it,
and it is feeling this almost shame or judgment that
he can't do it, but he knows who he is,
(16:52):
and it's so sad, Like there's so many things in
here that I think in the nineties were played for
comedy and for me now I looked back and I
was like, that is so sad. You should get to
be yourself. And there's also this whole idea, of course,
(17:12):
of gender as a performance. You see that in the
drag community always. You see it, especially with Albert in
this because Robin Williams is pretty like he would be
straight passing, right, yeah, But for Albert, which by the way,
(17:38):
a lot of people have been writing about this recently,
maybe because of the maybe because of Pride or because
of the anniversary, but they were like, Albert really got
the shit into the stick here. But he puts on
this kind of conservative woman performance at the end and
(17:59):
it's sick successful in it, and that was more comfortable
for him than doing this like straight, straight man, every
day guy. One other thing a lot of articles pointed
out is that the Senator is actually presented more like
(18:19):
someone who is fake, like somebody who does not have
a sense of who they are, does not care who
they are, is pretending, and in the end it's Albert
that gets them out without the tabloids realizing by a
(18:41):
dressing them in drag. So a lot of the articles
I was reading, we're just saying, like, the framing of
this movie is really interesting because at the time it
was pretty new to have a kind of joyous movie
centered on cake characters. But also, you're not rooting for
(19:03):
the Senator, You're not rooting for VAL's mom, you're The
way it's framed is that these two men who love
each other are more authentic than anyone else. Everybody else
is pretending, doesn't know who they are. And there was
(19:26):
one line Robin Williams said, and I thought he said
it so well. Or his son is asking him, like,
can you just go along with this? And he says,
I don't want to be someone else, and it was
just so like he figured out I who he was.
He doesn't want to do this. Yeah, like I said,
(19:52):
a lot of lines and here they made me sad.
I think this is meant to be funny, but it's
also there's a point they bring up where people get
hurt because of who you are and who you love,
and so you're trying to minimize the fallout. And I
thought that was really sad because they have this nice, established,
(20:14):
happy life, right, and then Weal comes in again. I
really don't like Bell, but Wel comes in and is
essentially saying this is gonna hurt me. If you right
are true to yourself, that's gonna hurt me in my future.
(20:36):
They also hide the fact that they are Jewish, which
confused me for a long time. I was like, wait,
what is their last name? Keep switching it up. But
they do that because the senator, I suppose, also doesn't.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Like to somebody.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Yeah, when you go down the line of how his
partner in that organization got caught was the underage.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Yes, obviously that was bad.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
And then he's like black, like that's obviously he was
racist as well. So like all of those came under
fire all at once, and so he just hates all
the people's which we see.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
That was one of the biggest things. I wanted to
see how it changed because I knew there was a
conservative senator element to it, so I was really curious.
I would say, this is a much softer take on
it than it is now, which is like almost got.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Four or five right.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
No, the take on that was that he actually doesn't care.
Is the optics to be a part of the Republican
Republican Party with this group specifically and to win the
votes and to make sure that he is on top
is to hate these things because that's what the party wants.
He doesn't actually care. Yeah, outside of the again the optics.
So that's the actuality when we see with the politicians
(21:54):
today that they actually do hate these people.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
So it seems.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Yeah, no, it feels worse, Like it feels worse now
I've been watching this, Yeah, which could have which could
be uh just a bride product of it being a
comedy movie. They're not to go too much into it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
But yeah, the nineties were when the politics was not good,
but it wasn't as bad as this, and it wasn't
because people weren't unlearning things at that point that we were,
but it wasn't as bad. That the whole like melting
pot theory was really okay then, so that was okay.
(22:35):
So therefore they were allowed, like people were allowed to
have the black community as a part of this conversation,
the fact that there was black drag queens uh in
this show as where we see it more and more divided,
uh as like more recently because we have white drag
queens who don't who are racist, like it just you
(22:57):
just have these like antics that that have kind of changed,
not that they weren't there before, because the divibe has
always been there, and that's the conversation in general. But
like in the nineties, you could only you see this
as like.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
We see this.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
It wasn't better necessarily, we just weren't talking about it
as much.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of things when you look
back at the nineties, extremely toxic. Yeah, we were just
sort of accepting.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
Yeah, the language of it all, like the things that
were accepted like, yeah, obviously that whole indigenous like drag
show that you're like, what just happened?
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah? Yeah, well, and going off of your point, there
was a part of me that was a little shocked,
even though I shouldn't have been about how many they
really did run through a lot of conservative issues. Yeah,
in this so they definitely have like the racism with
(24:00):
the underage black woman who was a sex worker. They
talk about abortion.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
I was like, and then because like Albert comes background, like, no,
I still agree with you, even though wait wait wait bro,
no you don't, you can't.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, right, well, Albert was he was doing some interesting
things as the conservative uh missed out fire because he
did it. He would get in some like zingers, yeah
that was against them, and sometimes he would just be like.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
Just throw everything out, murder all the people's burn it down.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, but they really there were some things I brought
up that it wasn't necessarily shocking, just surprised. I was like, oh, okay, yeah,
we were talking about that in the nineties as well. Yes, okay,
so that yes, politics and family is a big theme.
There are some ideas of like, you know, the morality
(25:19):
is political, that whole kind of thing that's happening. Who
decides the morality part. Also, they kept saying white wedding,
which I was like.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
A traditional Well, like I think at the end when
we see them being Catholic versus Jewish, like the idea
that it would be a Jewish wedding goes against everything
that conservatives. To be fair, most of the white people
that I know, maybe it's today versus nineties, but like
even Catholics were not seen as good potential leaders.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
And I say this not as because like that's how
I feel.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
That's just coming from like a Protestant background, and like
they really had some feelings about everyone who wasn't a Protestant,
and Catholics was included in that.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
Gosh, these religious dynamics sauesting Well, there are a lot
(26:32):
of tropes in this movie. One is the drama Queen
very clearly with Nathan Lane's character kind of on the nose.
I did as part of this, Samantha Nos I was
torn between two movies, and I watched both of them.
This is the one we went with, but I watched
(26:53):
The Celluloid Closet, which is about the history of getting
representation past censorship in the United States and they kind
of go through all of the all of the tropes,
and it was interesting because they would bring in different
actors who would say like, I've I hated this trope,
and some would be like, actually, I felt like this
(27:15):
trope did represent something in my life, and the Drama
Queen one was one that people were like, yeah, this
did feel like represent something in my life. I thought
the Pullboy trope with Hanks Aria's character who he was
(27:36):
trying to get into the show, but he felt like
the very over the top one. He felt like the
one saying something next to Nipe and Light. But to me,
he was the one that was like, hmm, using gay
characters to build straight relationships. This is a big no
(27:59):
no in the gay community. But they kind of did
this because you know, Armand is pretending he's straight so
that his son can marry a woman. You've got Albert
(28:19):
pretending he's a conservative woman so this can happen. Uh,
And it seems like Albert the implication to me is
he's been very much there for val so I thought
that was pretty Another thing I don't like about him
(28:39):
is that he's kind of sidelined him.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
But I feel like Calissa Flockhar's character Barbara Barbie Barbara.
She was a callousness, but she was making of all
these lies about them from Jump, like the Greek diplomat
and all these things.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
You're like, where did that go? I'm from? Did they
decide these lies at the beginning? Like what is happening?
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And then of course, like she comes back with like
I would love to be a part of your family.
Because she concedes to going away with her father. He's like,
don't do this to me. I made your mother cry,
and the mother's say, I need someone to like me.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
So he's someone to pick me, please.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
But like in that conversation, like she held up this
lie from Jump, like it almost like she's the one
maybe that pushed to be like we need to get married,
so we need to check them, but after the fact,
we'll just do this. And like she's obviously the more
progressive one because she gets offended by what Albert's saying,
as you know, trying to win over the sinner who
(29:44):
she does, uh. But at that point she's like, does
your mom know that I'm I'm gonna be a career woman?
Do and say He's like and violes like, that's not
my mom, Remember this.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
Is a character. She's like, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
So like both of those things though, But at the
same time, she was more than link to light to
our parents about this whole situation, even when she knew
they were escaping and trying to go to there. So
I feel like she's a bad guy too in this situation.
Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah. Yeah. And what I was getting I was getting
riled up Samanto when I was watching it, and I
kept trying to tell myself, what, they're young, Well, yeah,
they're really young.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
I'm in agreement with the parents on this one. Eighteen
and twenty is super young.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Yeah, those in the nineties that happened more often, but still,
I mean that kind of happens now.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I guess yeah, that was my That was the thing
I kept telling myself. I was like, Okay, well, they're young,
they're in love apparently so.
Speaker 3 (30:44):
And he does talk about does talk about the fact
that when he was a child, his father told him
to lie mm hmmm. So it's kind of like it's
kind of more of the waves of the world. But
at the same time he did kind of set that
up mm hmm. And like this is how you survive.
Speaker 2 (31:00):
Yeah, and that's a larger conversation than perhaps this comedy
from nineteen ninety six in the Law, but you know,
being a gay person at that time, yeah, you would.
That would be a lesson you have learned and taken on.
Probably one of the other things that I thought that
(31:24):
stood out to me when it comes to tropes is
that there's this whole idea of very much like how
to act like a man, which one is the mother, Yeah,
which you know it can differ based on relationships, but
that's always been sort of a I don't know that
(31:47):
we can just assume that that's the way people feel
about themselves or how they see themselves. But it was
I mean, it was a nice moment, it was, Yeah,
But also same time, maybe check in on that one. Okay,
(32:09):
So representation obviously big one for this movie. As I
was watching the documentary, they were talking about how important
watching movies is and that's how a lot of people
learn about sexuality, about gender, and they do it for movies,
and so that can be really bad or really good.
(32:32):
And there's been a history of mocking gay people, of
fearing them, of peeing them. There was a very early
establishment of harmful gay stereotypes. One of them is the
sissy who is a man without sexuality.
Speaker 3 (32:49):
That was the.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
First documented one, because there's no sin like being a woman,
as they said, and it teaches you how not only
does it teach straight people how gay people acts in
the movies, it teaches gay people what to think about themselves.
(33:13):
It's also very isolating when you're not represented. And this
is where you come in with the looking for it
everywhere you're interpreting everything. This is literally been built into
movies because of all of the censorship. They kind of
had to do it this way. It's sad and hilarious
actors who will be like, oh, yeah, that's what we
(33:37):
were doing and we were hoping you would pick up
on it, whereas some actors were like, oh, I didn't
even realize the director didn't put me in on that one.
But this did kind of. It was a breeding ground
for leading to stereotypes that were over the top. And
(33:57):
this is also subtext, subtech. You've got to try to
use the subtext to get around the hates code, which
we have talked about recently and Catholic groups because these
they were looking out. They were like, you cannot have
this representation in media. And when it did show up.
(34:21):
It was like gay equals villain or evil, something creepy,
wrong or off about them. You're happy when they die.
Ruined stories. A lot of people, when interviewed about it,
were like, it's ruined what I was trying to do.
(34:42):
There's also a lot of suicide depression, unhappy gay characters
that they're not going to find love, and you know,
depiction that it's a sense so it's like horror movie rules,
so you die. And there was one quote from the documentary,
(35:02):
if we could just learn not to hate ourselves so much.
But somebody else said something I thought was really fascinating.
Is bad representation better than no representation? But anyway, the
timing of this movie, when it came out, it was
(35:26):
on the heels of the AIDS epidemic, and there had
been all of this tragedy, there had been all of
this misery Philadelphia, the movie with Tom Hanks about AIDS
where the main character dies at the end. I think
it was one of the first big movies, studio movies
(35:49):
to tackle a gay storyline in nineteen ninety three somewhere
around there. But they were all sad, it was all depressing.
This one was notable because it was it was pretty bright,
it was pretty happy. It was here's this established couple.
(36:09):
We're not really questioning that they should be together, right,
we don't have to worry about that. It was a
very different take, and I think that's one of the
reasons it it really succeeded with audiences and critics because
it was just a first time for a lot of
(36:32):
people that they were seeing a happy gay couple, especially
after all that misery.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
Right, And I think like one of the things I noticed,
especially towards the end, I know that it's one of
those big happy numbers, but having like the club is
a success, people have fun, love being a part of it,
come to see the shows like that type of level
of you know, they are established. You know it's loved
and the beloved into the community obviously with the way
(37:01):
it's filled. And then like even when they all come
down as a celebration as one big family, which you
do see them being a family together, all the performers
and all the people on the backstage, Like it's really
cute how they like rally they're like, hey, we got
to do this, and they're like, okay, we're in. Like
even with that, you see the conservative couple, the the
you know, the the daughter, all of them coming through
(37:24):
having fun. They're actually having Yes, they're nervous, but you
see Gene Hackman like singing and dancing and having fun
dancing with people. You see the wife dancing with someone,
you know, like having like they're like, I've never danced
with a man before. She's like, oh, you know, all
those things, pretending to be a drag wingers all and
having a good time doing that. It felt like a
celebration instead of some kind of downfall or some kind
(37:46):
of protests or like you didn't see any ugly things
to this connections that you saw good, celebratory fun that
everybody couldn't help but be swept up in.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And it felt different as well.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah, yeah, it really did. And it's very like bright,
just all the colors and everything, the music. It's very
in your face, but also kind of settled. I liked
how Armand and Albert were kind of a settled, older couple.
(38:22):
But anyway, here's the quote from the BBC. Within the
context of mid nineteen nineties Hollywood, the film was also
a radical outlier that held particular significance for the LGBTQ
plus community. As doctor Matthew Jones, reader and Cinema Audiences
and Reception at de Montfort University puts it, it helped
(38:43):
an audience traumatized by a decade of living day to
day with the threat of disease and death to laugh again. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
I'm glad we watched it.
Speaker 1 (38:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I also want to talk about that scene where we
do see Albert going through the market and talking to
the people like everybody knows him, and the friendliness, like
you see these scenes oftentimes with heterosexual couples going through
the market having the best time whatever, and to be
able to translate that for someone who is a big
icon in their community as like a drag queen or
(39:17):
but also like a gay person coming through and during
this time and just finding home like obviously this is
his home. It was also a nice turn to see
as well.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, it really was. And in that in that documentary
I mentioned a lot of the people interviewed mentioned stuff
like that of like just seeing something as on paper
maybe simple as that is so powerful because you're that
means you're accepted and loved and you have community.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Exactly, like that's that community.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Yeah. Yeah, well, listeners, we you would love to hear
from you. We would love to hear your thoughts and
suggestions on what we should do next, what our next
movie should be, Happy, Pride, what you're doing. You can
email us at Hello at Stuffwenever Told You dot com.
(40:13):
You can find us on Blue Sky at moms a podcast,
or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff When Never Told You.
We're also on YouTube. We have some merchandise, a common bureau,
and we have a book you can get wherever you
get your books. Thanks as always to our super producer
Casey and our executive Rusa Maya.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (40:28):
Thanks to you for listening Someffe Never Told You to
production by heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
you can check out the heart Radio app, Apple Podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite ships.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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