Queering Romantic Comedies

According to the romantic comedy canon, only straight people fall in love. In the final installment of their rom com podcast series, Cristen and Caroline examine how mainstream titles treat LGBTQ characters and how queer rom coms subvert expected tropes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On July, Mr Robot returns the USA Network for its
second season. Hailed by Rolling Stone as the number one
show of and named Best Drama by the Golden Globe
and Critics Choice Awards. Mr Robot follows a cyber security
engineer who is recruited by the mysterious leader of an
underground group determined to bring down the world's largest corporation.

(00:25):
But when their hack is a success, the consequences are
far greater than they imagined. Starring Rammi Malick and Christian Slater,
Mr Robot returns Wednesday July at ten ninth Central only
on USA Network. Hey, I'm Chuck and I'm Josh and
we're the host of Stuff. You should know, the podcast
that's right and if you're into understanding cool and unusual

(00:47):
and seemingly ordinary and even boring things that are made interesting,
you should check us out. Please and thank you. We're
on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, anywhere you get podcasts.
Welcome to Stuff, Mom Never told you. From how stupports
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen

(01:15):
and I'm Caroline and Caroline I can't believe we're here.
At the last installment of our rom com summer series.
It's been a wild ride, how it has been, indeed,
And you know what's part of what has been so
fun about doing all of this pop culture research is

(01:35):
revisiting movies and themes that I have previously seen or
just known about, and uncovering so much hidden meaning and
nuance that, like a young Caro didn't know existed or
didn't know what it meant, such as well, such as
a lot of the early Haze Code era gay character

(01:57):
tropes that we see in the thirties and forties specifically,
but also of course moving into later decades. Yeah, I
really loved learning about how the Haze Code and censorship
gave way to romantic comedies because we're like, well, we
can't can't get directly sexy, so let's just do a

(02:18):
little a little slapstick and some jokes, which is actually
probably strategies I've had on dates, um might work better
on screen than off. Yeah, I mean to to revisit
something that we've been talking about through our series. The
Haze Code was basically this moral code that existed over

(02:40):
Hollywood films that you couldn't say certain things, show certain things,
and you obviously couldn't have certain types of characters. And
of course all of this encompassed staying away from sex
and drugs and all of that dangerous stuff. Hence you
do get all of the witty rep artee between characters,
which is basically the cornerstone of romantic comedy. And who

(03:01):
doesn't love some witty repartee rep bartee. Hello. Um. Before
we get into this final episode, though, can we just
take a nostalgic look back everything that we've covered, because
let's let's see where we started from and where we've arrived.
Because we started with rom coms one oh one and

(03:22):
really with the Hayze code and talking about how the
genre evolved. And then what did we talked about? So
then we talked about the independent career woman who basically
gets saved by love because she works too much. She's
married to her job. Yeah, we talked about people of color,
characters of color in rom comms they tend to be

(03:44):
shoved off to the side, and how romantic comedies are
the most segregated genre in Hollywood. They're super segregated because
even when you do have a gay character or a
black character or an Asian character, that person is likely
going to end up the sidekick, which was another episode
we did. Oh yeah, assassy but probably unlovable or undateable

(04:06):
sidekick who's just an accessory to propel the protagonist story
exactly well. And speaking quickly though, of people of color,
one of the studies that we were looking at in
this episode just mentioned as an aside that if you
look at just crowd scenes in romantic comedies, even those
are usually a sea of white people. Well, we did discuss,

(04:30):
was it, in the original episode, We did discuss romantic
comedies as a type of science fiction. Oh yeah, that's true.
So the romcoms clearly happened in a universe or on
some sort of plane of existence where uh, people of
color are just maybe they're on another planet somewhere. Yeah,
it's it's like an all white planet where people magically

(04:53):
meet and they can have they can afford like giant apartments,
even though they write one like magazine column per month,
and somehow there are dozens of Matthew McConaughey's just waiting
for you. That is funny to imagine that. Um, the
typical romantic comedy characters, everyone from a Meg Ryan and

(05:15):
a Tom Hanks to Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Kate Hudson,
Matthew McConaughey. That they all exist. It's like the same person.
It is funny to imagine that this person is just insane.
Well maybe that's the appeal of the ensemble rom com,
which I feel like it's kind of the new the
newest iteration where you just pack all the stars and

(05:36):
all the storylines and into one Valentine's Day or one
like why can't I do like an Arbor Day. I
would like to see a very arbitrary holiday ensemble rom
com an Arbor trary Caroline, My love for You only grows.

(05:56):
But today we are closing out this series talking about
LGBT rom coms because in the Hollywood mainstream rom com canon,
only white people fall in love and only straight people
fall in love. I mean, it's a very heteronormative cis
gender genre. Yeah, And I mean it's important to talk

(06:17):
about how LGBT characters have been portrayed over the decades
because even still in more mainstream um more mainstream cinema,
and this is changing gradually, especially now that we have
merit equality, but gay characters have typically been denied the
happy ending they've typically been relegated to that sexless sidekick role.

(06:43):
And when you look at Hollywood around the time that
the Hayes Code was instituted, really the only way for
gay characters to exist, if they existed at all, was
through super no negative, awful stereotypes. Well, and I have
a feeling that that's obviously not just the Haze Code

(07:07):
and religious organizations like the Catholic Legion of Decency that
would bring its hammer down, um if any of the
films got too racy, but also just the general homophobia
of the day. Sure, exactly, And but you had that
homophobia institutionalized through the Haze Code and through the Legion

(07:29):
of Decency, which labeled LGBT people as deviants sexual deviance.
And so just like the Hayese Code forced filmmakers to
get creative, like you can't show sex, but you can
show the you know, the witty, funny slapstick lead up
to sex, like our verbal for play. That's right. Well,

(07:52):
filmmakers had to get creative with showing or including gay people.
And unfortunately, rather than the the high side of things,
which is like oh from censorship, we get romantic comedies
which are like cute and fluffy. When it came to
LGBT people, it was like, oh, you're the villain. And

(08:12):
so one of the first tactics used to navigate this
ban was a continuation of a character that Hollywood had
created a little earlier leading up to the Haze Code,
which is the Cissy. And this character did start to
dwindle over the lifespan of the Haze Code simply because
the Cissy even was too overtly gay to be depicted

(08:33):
on screen. And so basically, in general, if you look
at real life outside of the movies, homosexuality was seen
as the sort of attack on masculinity and gender norms,
which in the nineteen thirties and during the Great Depression
was already under attack. You have male breadwinners who are
suddenly out of work and unable to provide for their families,

(08:55):
and so the Cissy or the Pansy was sort of
a way to deal with those anxieties. This was one
of Hollywood's first gay stock characters, and this character was
portrayed as over the top of feminine lipstick wearing, has
a thin mustache and a trim suit and really, now
I'm just picturing John Waters. Yeah, I mean they're just
two dimensional characters obviously used for a cheap laugh. Um.

(09:19):
And I think it's worth noting too that also during
this time, even if it's just an implied gayness, only
gay men exist, because also, I mean, like we have
the psychoanalytical panic um peeking at this point, worrying about
like girls hanging out too much together and possibly becoming lesbians. Um.

(09:44):
But I think there were still kind of vestiges of
that old Boston marriage era assumption that two women can't
really do much with each other. So, yeah, they all
have barbie crotches. Well. And also it was all men
making the movies. Oh yeah. Um. And the second of
three basically horrific uh. Stereotypes of gay people that would

(10:07):
continue to reverberate forever is portraying gay people as villains
or victims. And so in the late nineteen thirties and
into the forties, this was basically one of the Okay,
I just said that, um. And so in the nineteen
thirties and forties, one of the other ways to navigate
around the code was to portray gay people as villains

(10:30):
or victims. And this is yet another stereotype that Hollywood
helped institutionalize, and whose echoes are still felt in popular culture. Um, basically,
gay people were shown to be committing terrible crimes because
of their sexual orientation, with the implication that homosexuality leads
to insanity. And this is another one of those nuances.

(10:51):
It was totally lost on young Caroline watching old movies, like,
I didn't know that someone was supposed to be gay.
I just it was like, oh, it's just a fancy villain. Well, yeah,
because in those days, homosexuality was in the diagnostic and
statistical manual of mental disorders. So of course they were deviant.
Of course they were deviant. Yeah. And Alfred Hitchcock was

(11:15):
one filmmaker who definitely leaned heavily on this particular trope.
If we look, for example, at the movie Rope. It's
based on the real life killers and lovers Nathan Leopold
and Richard Lobe who met at college in Chicago, and
they kidnapped and killed a boy as an intellectual experiment

(11:35):
in staging the perfect crime. Basically, they were evil and weird.
Interesting personal side note, my family's lake house in Michigan
is right down the street from Lobes family farm, which
is now a wedding venue, the Richard Lobe, the Lobe family.
There there farm in Michigan which is now it's called

(11:56):
Castle Farms. That's right down the street. I grew up
driving past it all the time. And didn't he use
a similar device in Psycho, where Norman Bates is uh
inner evil is sort of quietly attributed to his homosexuality. Yeah,
I mean well, and and the reason we get that
assumption is because of his close relationship with his mother,

(12:19):
with his mother at the same time. Now, I just
saw your eyes light up and I backed away. I
wanted you to have it. How creepy would it be?
Side note if instead of stuff Mom Never told you,
this podcast was called stuff mother Never told you. Um,
I laugh sort of hollowly, because a lot of people

(12:40):
do call it that. We usually it's like stuff your
mother never told you. Maybe that's just my father who
says that that might be what I'm thinking of. Um.
But can we talk about ben Her because another weirdo
Christen as a child moment, it was one of my
faiths as a kid, and I really, of course did

(13:03):
not pick up on the potentially homo erotic relationship between
ben Her and his former bff Massala Kristen, he wasn't
a bff. Well, initially they were BFFs, and then Massala
turns on him and gore Vidal, who partially screenwrote been Her,

(13:25):
later got into a public feud via the l A
Times Letters section with Charlton Heston when he came out
on a documentary called The Celluloid Closet saying, oh, yeah, yeah,
I I wrote it so that uh, there was, you know,
a secret gay relationship between the two. Charlton Heston never knew,

(13:46):
but that was always in the background. Well, yeah, gore
Vidal said that, Yeah, I was totally meant to be
implied that been Her and Massala had been lovers in
the past, and then Missala wanted to reignite their relationship
and the director was like, totally against this. This is
obviously horrific. Gay people are terrible. We can't have them
in off films. Um, but Vidal promised to quote, never

(14:11):
use the word. There will be nothing overt, but it
will be perfectly clear that Massala is in love with
beIN Her. And it was so between the lines. Because
this was the other tactic of using of how to
paint gay characters. It was so between the lines that
this biblical movie with gay undertones ended up being a huge,
award winning blockbuster. And it's possible that I missed the

(14:34):
gay undertones because I, as a child, only saw this
movie on Mystery Science Theater, So my only exposure to
it was having some robots talk over the movie. That
sounds like such a better way to watch it, first
of all. Um. Secondly, my childhood memory of watching ben
Her is just me zeroing in on their um armor

(14:58):
and that they had like the pokey nipples in the
in the chest playing. And I don't mean it's justn't
been her. I mean in general, armor doesn't need need nipples,
I know, and that and that's what I thought as
a child, like, huh, those are nipples. I'm what those
nipples doing there. I'm feeling strange and I don't know
what to call this, but I love that. Like years
and years later, Gorbidal, you know, makes this claim, and

(15:21):
Charlton Heston writes a letter in to the l A
Times it was like you you are doing a disservice
to Billy Wilder. And then Gorbodal writes back and he
was like, oh, chuck, chill out, and then he and
then winky emoji. Yeah, because you know that Charlton Heston
would not like be cool like conservative charld and Neston

(15:42):
would not have been cool with playing a quietly gay
character hashtag masculinity so fragile, But onward we go. That's
right because one classic classic film that I super need
to get rewatched now as a grown up person that
helped weaken the Haze Code was Billy Wilder's classic romantic

(16:05):
comedy Some Like It Hot that came out in nine.
So basically, cross dressing helped put the first little dents
in the armor, the Nippley armor of the Haze Code.
The movie features Jack Lemon and Tony Curtis in drag
basically the whole time, almost the whole time, fending off
male suitors and enjoying a little quality time with Miss

(16:26):
Marilyn Monroe. And since they spend so much of the
movie in drag, the movie was condemned by the Legion
of Decency. It was banned in Kansas. Did you know? Um?
It also did not give the Haze Codes seal of
approval um and Jack Lemon's friends also warned him that

(16:47):
he would essentially damage his reputation as a masculine actor
by dressing up as a woman. And isn't it his
character that's eventually prop posed to buy a guy in
the film. Yeah, So basically, another way that this movie
ends up toying with gender and presentation is that Lemon's

(17:10):
Daphne gets proposed to buy a millionaire and when he
rips off his wig and says I'm a man, the
millionaire's responses, well, nobody's perfect, which is kind of great.
It's sort of a progressive moment. Yeah, but I mean,
the studio even brought in a female impersonator named Barbette,

(17:31):
according to this great article in any Wire, to teach
the men how to walk like women so that they
could portray women better on the screen and pass. But
Jack Lemon was he had other ideas. But they still
dressed up, they cross dressed and would walk around the
MGM studio and see if they could get into places. Right. Yeah,

(17:52):
they went in, which would enrage North Carolina legislators. They
went into women's public restrooms to apply either makeup, and
when they finally weren't getting really strange looks from people
in the in the bathroom, they knew that they could
they could pass that they were ready, and I gotta say,
Tony Curtis was pretty attractive and drag and who knows,

(18:13):
maybe that is what made the Legion of Decency a
little uncomfortable because they were like, I don't I don't
like how I feeled I looked at him on screen.
And with the film coming out in ninety nine, it
does seem like it is a reflection of culture starting
to slowly, slowly, slowly open up to even the possibility

(18:38):
of gay people as people and not just stock characters.
Because ten years later you have the Stonewall Riots, and
even in the late nineteen fifties, in early nineteen sixties
you have the homophile movement, which was a social movement
of gay and lesbians essentially asking to be similated into

(19:01):
broader culture and to have the same kinds of civil
rights um that street people were afforded. Yeah, and in
the seventies, finally you mentioned the d s M earlier,
homosexuality is removed from the d s M, so it's
no longer classified as some sort of mental disorder, but
more context. As we moved through our timeline of rom

(19:21):
comms in the Defensive Marriage Act has passed DOMA so
do you think then that the passage of Doma like
essentially so, do you think then that the passage of
DOMA took gay rom comms backward? Do you think that
we would have seen more had we I mean, obviously,

(19:43):
had we had marriage equality earlier? Yeah, I mean I
think and and uh. Scholars link so much of the
development of gay rom comms to what was going on
contextually at the time in society. But um, I don't
know that it necessarily took gay rom comm back, but
it definitely put a massive stumbling blog because, of course,

(20:04):
the cornerstone of a rom com too is the eventual
marriage that if it doesn't happen at the end, there's
a promise of marriage at the end of a movie. Um.
And two of those scholars are Kyle Stevens and Deborah
Model mag who definitely linked the way that LGBT characters
are shown in movies to their place in mainstream society

(20:25):
at the same time. And so, because marriage is sort
of seen in society but also portrayed in rom coms
as basically the way that you become a functioning, socially
acceptable adult, it's definitely the key in the movie that's
like Hey, look, this person has grown beyond his or
her narcissism to become a contributing member of society and

(20:48):
we'll go on to procreate. Like well, oh, but gay
people aren't allowed to marry. There are no same sex
marriages happening yet, and we still only have the sex
less sidekick character. And in the process, you're denying these
gay characters any sort of sexual agency, which is really

(21:09):
a reflection of just denying their existence and complexity as people,
and also denying them the potential of being desirable to
other people. Hence things like the sexless gay sidekick. Yeah,
and by denying them the happy ending of tying everything

(21:31):
up with a marriage bow at the end of a
rom com and allowing them a place in the social order,
they're just sort of left out. Doesn't ever, girl grow
up dreaming of her marriage bow, her marriage bow. I know,
And I mean this doesn't mean that though that marriage
isn't present in gay focused rom coms. Kyle Stevens rights that, regardless,

(21:55):
a lot of the narratives in these movies still hinge
on impain ending nuptials, sometimes the protagonists, sometimes of family members. Um,
but it's always a looming wedding, he writes that forces
the homosexual hero to confront his desires, and and he writes,
complicating Byron's dictum, romantic comedies with homosexual heroes that end

(22:18):
in marriage would constitute a tragedy. In other words, gay
characters couldn't get married obviously were pre marriage equality, so
you don't get that happily ever after ending. And if
they did, it could also be considered as not a
great win because it would still be hewing to that heteronormative,
conservative traditional value system. So there's no winning. So there's

(22:42):
almost no winning in this uh, in this explanation. And
then in we Get In and Out starring Kevin Klein
and Magnum p I otherwise known as Tom Selleck. That's
who he is. I just only picture the mustache, so like,
I can't hear his name in my brain over the mustache,
even though in the movie he doesn't have a mustache.

(23:02):
It's very confusing. It's a whole whole new Tom Selle.
It's like a different face. There's so much real estate
above his lip. I just don't know what to do with.
But anyway, I'm saying all this having not actually seen
the movie myself, um. But Stevens uses In and Out
as an example of the anxiety that can come up

(23:24):
around same sex relationships and the inability to tie things
up with a wedding. So in in and Out towards
the end or at the end you see spoiler. Sorry uh,
the lead gentleman Kevin Klein and Tom Selleck putting on suits.
They're all handsome, They're clearly getting ready for a wedding,
and oh my god, there's all this tension of like, wait,

(23:46):
a wedding. This is a year after demo was passed, unfortunately,
so so how can two men be getting ready for
a wedding? But don't worry nineties audience. It turns out
that it's just one of the men's parents renewing their vows.
So even a quote unquote gay rom com has straight
people tying the knot in it rather than a same

(24:09):
sex couple. So this basically just reaffirms that sacred, sacred
hetero love at the end. So I read the Stevens
analysis before I watched In and Out for the very
first time. Seriously, this rom com series has just done
so much good for my like pop culture knowledge. I'm
finally catching up. I'm in like what es seven? You're

(24:33):
getting there like sixth grade? Finally, Um, And I found
stevens Is critique of In and Out to be overly
harsh in comparison to what I saw as a viewer. Um,

(24:55):
because A it's laugh out loud funny. I was rise
how how much I found myself laughing throughout the whole thing. Um. Also,
Joan Cusack is wonderful. I mean, it's it's an ensemble
cat perfect Joan Cusack, isn't it? Oh yeah, should have
said earlier. So Joan Cusack plays Kevin Klein's fiancee, and

(25:19):
the relationship between them is really sweet because they obviously
have a true platonic love for each other and they've
never had sex, and she has gone through all of
this dieting to like make over her bodies so that

(25:41):
she can fit into a wedding dress. Um. So there
are all these other trophy anxieties that the movie plays
with as well. Um. And Tom Selleck without his mustache
comes along and essentially opens Kevin Kleins eyes to the
fact that Matt Dillon was probably right. Um. And to me,

(26:06):
the whole thing was really satirical because I was I
started watching it, expecting to be kind of horrified at
the almost bird cage like level of the Sun's you know,
like disdain in the homophobia. Um. And of course the
small townspeople once they start suspecting and later find out

(26:27):
that Kinvinclin is in fact gay, he loses his job
and people start turning on him. But then in the
end it's so redemptive because essentially it's a story about
showing audiences how being gay in no way like makes

(26:49):
you a different person. It doesn't. It isn't some type
of character failing. And so you see this small town
rallying to support Kevin Klein's character and get him his
job back. After Bob new Heart, oh God, new Heart
is the principle of the school and he reluctantly asks

(27:13):
Kevin Klein to step down after he outs, you know,
comes out of the closet publicly. UM. So I wish
I could have seen it in the late nineties because
it is such a mainstream film with such an a
list cast UM. And I would be curious to go
back and and read reviews from the time UM about it,

(27:37):
because to me, it's still even though it played a
lot on Gamel stereotypes. There are a lot of barber
strays and jokes. There's this whole scene of Kevin Klein
dancing um in a rather effeminate way. Um. But at
the same time when he has his quote unquote bachelor party,

(27:58):
when he's still closet, Kevin Klein's character, UM, he gets
really frustrated because all of his kind of like blue
collar small town guy friends are like, hey, we're gonna
play your favorites it strives in night and Kevin Klein's like, no, no,
I'm a man, I don't want to hear that. And
they're like, but it's our favorite too. So it's kind

(28:20):
of cute how they play around with a lot of that.
But yeah, you aside from you know, the comical kiss
that he and Tom Selleck share, which we're going to
talk about later on, it is also a product of
its time in how unsexual Kevin Klein is and even

(28:41):
after he and Tom Selleck get together, how unsexual or
de sexualized I just say their relationship is. But it
is very much a product of his time, because Kevin
Klein remains really de sexualized in his character does even
after he gets together with Tom Selleck, even when they
are very lovingly putting on, you know, each other's taxes,

(29:03):
helping helping each other tie the tuxedo, bow tie the tuxedo.
Not exactly. Um, that's pretty much as far as their
physicality goes. And that's when you remember, oh yeah, this
is coming out on the heels of doma. And I mean,

(29:24):
in this era, people do love a rom com. Oh yeah,
they do love a rom com. Model Mogs sites Mark Rubenfeld.
I guess that this must be a fellow rom com scholar. Also,
what a great phrase, model Mogs sites Rubenfeld uh and
reuben Feld notes that the nineties were rom com boom time.

(29:45):
I mean, we don't have to tell you people this.
You've been listening to our series, you already know. But
in alone, there were fifteen Hollywood romantic comedies that sold
more than three point four million tickets at the box office,
and eight of those actually grossed more than a hundred
million dollars. So basically, at this time in the nineties,

(30:07):
we are clearly in love with love. We're in love
with happy endings. But the thing is all of these
gay rom coms and and I really I don't say
gay rom coms as like a dismissive or pejorative thing.
I'm I'm lovingly saying gay rom comms. Um, these these
rom coms have to find an alternative ending, because there
can't like we said, there can't be that wedding at

(30:30):
the end. It can't be too serious, it can't be
too passionate, like the gay characters can't or the same
sex characters can't love each other too much or or
kiss passionately even well. And it seems like as a
result of that, a lot of the mainstreaming quotes gay
ish rom coms are more about a straight person, either

(30:54):
a presumably straight person either discovering that they are gay,
like navigating a journey with their sexual orientation, or a
straight person being in love or attached to somehow a
gay person like um, object of my affection with Jennifer

(31:14):
Aniston and Paul Read. Where Yeah, where he is gay,
she is straight, she's pregnant, she wants Paul Read to
be her main squeeze and help raise the baby. Um.
There were a lot in the nineties two that was
like prime time for all of that anxiety to about
like straight women falling for a gay men and wanting
to form the conventional family unit with them. Well, isn't

(31:35):
it also that time that the whole gay best friend
trope is starting to peak on TV as well? You
have Will Embrace Sex in the City. Yeah, I mean
think about it though, because Will wasn't allowed to be
very sexual, where at least Jack got to flirt and
be outlandish, and Stanford on Sex in the City wasn't
really allowed to be sexy or sexual either. He was

(31:58):
also more trophy and like almost a old friend. So
you have these characters that are again are devoid of
the sexual, devoid of the political, and are basically the
best friend. Yeah, because obviously our culture still doesn't know
what exactly to do with it, so you have to
have some straightness, it seems like in there so that

(32:21):
we are kind of coloring still within the lines for
the most part, Yeah, basically. And included in coloring within
the lines is the way that LGBT centric rom coms
are distributed, because it's not like many of them have
been huge hits in mainstream theaters outside of major cities.

(32:42):
They're more likely to be in your art house theater
here in Atlanta. That's Tara, And I'm not I mean,
I'm not even kidding, like, if you gotta Tara, that
sounds so awful that our that the movie theater, the
movie theater y'all that we go to in Atlanta's is Tara. Well, yeah,
a log. But it's not just gay themes, it's I

(33:04):
mean any type of outside the mainstream theme at all.
That's where I saw Obvious Child starring Jenny Slate, which
is all about I mean, it's a rom combat, it's
about abortion. But I mean that's the thing. These themes
that exist outside of the white, straight, uh conservative traditional
storylines c Yeah, yeah, that are enjoyed in mainstream theaters

(33:26):
end up in these art house theaters because Hollywood is
just not down with distributing something that might not make money.
I mean, let's be honest. Yes, Hollywood has racism and
sexism and all that stuff, but it also wants to
make a money And if it's afraid that people aren't
going to shell out the dollars to put their eyeballs
in front of the screen, then they're not even going
to bother. And so basically, as scholars Model mug Rubenfeld

(33:50):
and Stevens argue, this really reinforces the mothering of LGBT
people and the idea that same sex romance and sexuality
are shameful and something that you, as a straight person
in the major theater you shouldn't even bother being interested in.
And so basically, if you have an LGBT centric rom

(34:12):
com or featuring LGBT themes, if you want to wind
up in a major theater, those same sex romances have
to be like in and out, completely comic or ultimately tragic.
I'll brokeback Mountain, but that is not a rom com
mostly non sexual and white, because I mean, when's the

(34:33):
last time in a major theater you saw an LGBT
rom com about people of color? Well? Also, when was
the last time in a mainstream theater like an AMC
you saw a gay romcom period? Yes, well exactly. And
so one thing that um, I believe it's model mag
talks about in her paper in the Journal of Popular

(34:53):
Film and Television from two thousand nine is the presence
of the key kiss. So the key kiss, think end
of one of my least favorite movie has never been
Kissed with Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan. I really enjoy it,
but sorry everyone, no, I mean, we can have different
tastes in rom coms Caroline, Oh my god. But that

(35:13):
key kiss when Michael Vartan runs out and kisses Drew
Barrymore on the baseball field, that is that's the key kiss,
and the key kiss symbolizes that commitment is happening. True
love has been found. This is serious, committed love. And
these people are together now and everyone approves of it.
They have the whole community support because you know, in

(35:36):
never been kissed, the stands are filled with everybody in town.
As if you need somehow to reinforce the fact that, like,
you might as well have big cartoon arrows pointing to
the couple kissing, like this is who you're cheering for,
we want them to be in love. I feel like
I needed those arrows and Hope floats because I didn't
want those characters to be together like so bad. One

(35:58):
thing I've learned from this is that you hate Hopeful
more than anything. I think that Hopefuls has come up
in every single episode. Yeah, and here's the thing. I
love that movie, but I hate Harry Connick Jr. Like
what he does to her. Now I can go back.
I can't go back down that road we already had
feedback on Facebook that was unhappy with me. Um. Okay,

(36:24):
So all I'm trying to say is that the key
kiss symbolizes seriousness. It symbolizes that two people are in love,
and if those two people are of the same sex,
well that just means you're going to the art house theater.
And a lot of times in those movies, the key
kiss is not going to happen in a packed out

(36:46):
baseball stadium or at a wedding with with both families there. Um.
It's usually in a more private setting where it's just
one on one. And it is interesting now, as model
made points out, and something that I've never thought about
until all of our rom com scholarship, um, is the
fact that so many of these key kiss scenes and

(37:10):
the whole audience is cheering, or the whole township, or
the whole baseball stadium is cheering for the kissing straight
couple or or opposite sex couple. This is emerging around
the same time that DOMA was past. So you do
you have all of these like straight people anxieties. Well,
and I mean think about how a decade before what

(37:31):
was going on in the gay community. It was the
AIDS crisis, So before we have all of these rom
coms happening, you have to have a Philadelphia like it's
We had to move through those cycles because aside from
one AIDS rom com that I could find sided I
think it's called Jeremy. I mean, they're in the eighties,

(37:52):
there's nothing like funny at all of the portrayal of
gay characters on screen, because all of it was like
basically trying to shake mainstream America to say, hello, this
is real, this is happening, and we're dying. Exactly so,
because all of those negative stereotypes about gay people and
these like fearful assumptions that AIDS was the quote unquote

(38:18):
gay cancer as it was first reported on in the
New York Times, and all of the homophobia that was
still happening, um, and just the slow recognition of gay
people as existing and being worthy of attention and respect
as people. It takes until the mid to late nineties

(38:38):
for us to see them not as this other group
of people who are having something like a horrible epidemic
sweep through them, but who are having love lives, love
lives that are in no way connected to tragedy. And
as a byproduct of all that, gay activism. Though that

(38:58):
happened in light of the AIDS crisis, it does pave
the way for lighter films that we're going to talk about.
We come right back from a quick break, all right, Caroline,
We've got some big news for the small screen. On July.

(39:20):
Mr Robot is coming back to USA Network for its
second season. That's right. It's been hailed by Rolling Stone,
is the number one show, and named Best Drama by
the Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. Mr Robot follows
a cyber security engineer who's recruited by the mysterious leader
of an underground group determined to bring down the world's

(39:41):
largest corporation. But when their hack is a success, the
consequences are far greater than they imagined. Following the events
of f Society's five nine hack on multinational company Evil Corps,
the second season will explore the consequences of that attack,
as well as the illusion of troll. Starring Rommy Malick

(40:02):
and Christian Slater, Mr Robot returns Wednesday, July at ten
nine Central, only on USA Network. So if you're looking
for something to binge on this summer, head on over
to USA Network on July and tune in to Mr Robot.

(40:28):
So once we hit the nineties, right, this is this
is romcom boom time style. Personal style is peaking. We've
got lots of frosted tips. We've got those uh, flipped
up bucket hats with sunflowers on them. That's right. I
actually had a I had a flipped up hat because
I addressed as Matilda to a second grade costume parade.

(40:52):
I thought you were adorable. I don't know, I have
no idea. I don't know. I hope I was um
and And well, those negative tropes around LGBT characters didn't
disappear like we said earlier. Mainstream film and TV slowly
begin to feature more positive portrayals of gay characters. Again,

(41:14):
they might not be more than two dimensional, kind of
like trophy sidekick characters, but at least they're not villains
whose sexual orientations have driven them insane to murder people.
That's a plus. I feel like that's a step up. Well,
this is also the time, especially in the mid nineties,
when we start to get the first LGBT romcom cult classics. Yeah.

(41:40):
So in four, which I also believe is the same
year that Reality Bites came out, I'm pretty sure, So
I don't know. Ninety four like something great was happening
year good year from movies, But we get Priscilla, Queen
of the Desert, which, as far as eccentric movies about
drag queens in a bus going across the desert goes,

(42:02):
it is really really heartwarming. I really love Priscilla Queen
of the Desert. And can you tell me a little
more about it, because I have never seen it. Yes,
it is on my queue, um, but I've never seen
it before. Basically, you have some drag queen characters. You
also have a trans woman character, which when I saw
the movie didn't think anything of it. But when I'm

(42:25):
looking back now and I think of the context of
the time where we were in ninety four and where
we are now talking about trans rights and visibility, that's
pretty stinking incredible. Um and and and and not to
spoil it, which really you should see the movie anyway,
but the trans woman, I mean she's not painted as

(42:47):
a caricature. I mean a lot of ridiculous things happen
in the movie, and they are like dressed up and
shown putting on makeup even when they're stranded. They're putting
on their fabulous clothes. But she doesn't die. And I
know that's I know that's crazy, like what that's like
the bare minimum? Right? No? I mean so often you
had gay characters or LGBT characters in general meeting some

(43:09):
sort of horrible end to compensate for their evil and
their subversiveness and whatever. Um. But she finds love. Oh,
she gets the wrong amid the calm she she she
gets the happy ending that I mean that is massively
progressive Australia. But I mean Australia does have like I

(43:29):
want to say, is it Sydney that has the big
drag queen culture? Um? But yeah, and and so I
love Priscilla Queen of the Desert. And the following year,
I don't know what's in the water. Uh, movement towards
equal rights maybe, um, but we get too wong food
with love Julie Newmar And this is Patrick Swayze, John

(43:52):
Legisamo and Wesley Snipes dream team as drag queens but
again looking bad ac. Yes, they were drag queens and
they performed in drag, but their characters were really really
women identified. I mean they were still when they were

(44:13):
by themselves in their house. In this movie, they were
still a lot of times, especially Patrick Swayze's character, dressed
and behaving as women. And so I'm wondering now if
you could go back and look at that movie and
it doesn't have more to say about trans women. But
I mean, however, hokey this movie is. I mean, you
do have these three outlandish characters coming to a small

(44:36):
town and changing hearts and minds. It still is incredible
this movie. My mother took me to see this movie
in the theater and she loved it, loved it. But
how could you not love Patrick Swayze and anything though? Honestly,
but John Lama's character in that movie, I think her name,
I'm I seriously think her name is Cheche or something
like that. Um. John Lgizama's character has this like a

(44:59):
Dore horrible falling in love storyline where she meets this
young farm boy, you know, he's never been away from home,
and he just thinks she's so beautiful and exotic because
you know, oh, my goodness, a Latina woman and she's
beautiful and tall and broad shouldered. Um. And he has

(45:21):
to then grapple with her actual identity. So so these
cult films. These early LGBT rom coms are are such
interesting time capsules in the nineties well, and in treating
these characters as people rather than just accessories. Um. I'm
so curious though, to know what you think about a

(45:45):
movie that came out the next year, in the year
the Olympics came to Atlanta. Um when The Bird Cage
came out, Because now, I did not immediately think of
The Bird Cage as a rom com um, but some
argue that it is. I feel like it kind of.
It's sort of like sits on the line between rom

(46:06):
com and just a calm com um. And I tried
to watch it recently and it was unbearable because as
delightful as Nathan Lane and hank Azariah are, their sons
like deep seated like embarrassment and all of just the

(46:26):
homophobia um in it coming from the sun. I mean,
I get the whole plot line that creates the conflict,
but he's just awful to his dad's Yeah. Oh yeah, so.
Uh Robin Williams and uh Nathan Lane are the fathers
of the son who's newly engaged to Calista Flockhart. Hankers

(46:48):
Area is like their house boy and I use that term,
I understand, but I use that term because he literally
is like the trophiest, most caricatured character ever. He wears
little short shorts, denim cut offs and is hysterical, but
he is a total trope. Um. But now I thought
the exact same thing. And when I was looking at
this as a potential rom com, because you do have

(47:10):
a lot of rom between Robin Williams and Nathan Lane
despite all of the caricatures that are in that movie,
I thought the same thing. I was like, I don't
know today if you could have this movie, because the
driving force is them being afraid of upsetting their homophobic
son or he's and how embarrassing they are. Yeah, you know,

(47:33):
but you're right. I mean there are really sweet moments,
especially of Nathan Lane toward Robin Williams, but partially it's
because he has on false eyelashes and is batting them
so perfectly. That's another movie. Both of my parents loved
The Bird Cage. I mean, if you knew my parents well,
and it's so colorful. It's a very vivacious movie. Um,

(47:54):
but yeah, a little different to watch in verses. Yeah,
and then the next year is when we get In
and Out. In we get Kevin Klein. He's about to
get married to a lady, but his former student, who
is now a successful actor, Matt Dylan Uh is up

(48:15):
on stage delivering acceptance speech, thanking his teacher quote who
is gay? And Kevin Klein this like sends him on
this journey of self discovery because he's like, I'm not gay,
I'm engaged to Joan Cusack. Am I gay? And so
you know, like, okay, great nineties movie, make the straight
guy the impetus for the gay guys self discovery. Whatever,

(48:36):
We'll overlook that. In and Out has the key kiss
that is central to so many rom coms, but it
is completely slapstick. It's devoid of that intimate close up.
In the swelling music, Kevin Klein is like flapping around
crazy like as Magnum p I kisses him. And that

(48:58):
is essentially model mogu are us. That is essentially what
kept In and Out in the mainstream theaters and out
of the art house theater ghetto. She writes, the implication
is not only that heterosexuals are naturally revolted by same
sex eroticism, but that gays should be to the entire
audience is asked back away from or to laugh at

(49:18):
the gay kiss, not to desire it, and apparently the
the filmmaker considered taking that scene out because he was
worried that it was too much like a bridge too far,
but it tested so well with audiences that they left
it in because it's hilarious, right yeah, on the one hand,
good for you not being disgusted by two men kissing.

(49:40):
On the other hand, like, oh, but it can only
be if it's played for laughs. Although I will say
that a very much redeeming factor in all of this
is that while yes there is this slapstick kiss and
a lack of physicality between um Tom Sellick and Kevin Klein,
really be on that at the end, the town's embrace

(50:05):
and support of Kevin Klein and the way that they
do it, and I really can't describe it, and you
need to watch it because it made me will up
a little bit. I'm gonna be honest. Is not for
laughs at all. I mean, there's it's still kind of funny,
but like the underlying message is a very serious one

(50:26):
that these are people. This is like a beloved English
teacher in small town, USA who has tremendous friends and
a devoted family who also happens to be gay. You know,
at one point you have uh, what's his name? He

(50:48):
did the Quaker oats commercials. It's a Quaker oatmeal commercials,
and he was in life goes on Wilfred Brimley. Okay,
so Wilfred Brimley, this old guy places dad and he's
a farmer. And at one point, after Kevin Klein comes
out as gay, Wilfred Brimley walks in and he's just like,

(51:09):
you know, San, I don't I don't necessarily understand it all,
but I love you, you know, I mean, it's just
like very sweet. Um. So again I have I have
a couple a couple of bones to pick with Stevenson
model mog. But a couple of years later we have

(51:30):
but I'm a Cheerleader, which I watched this morning, Caroline
before we came in to record this podcast, because when
we on Facebook asked stuff, I never told you listeners
of their favorite rom coms. But I'm a Cheerleader was
one of the in the top ten and it stars
Natasha Leone who is sent off to gay reform camp essentially,

(51:59):
and she falls in love with Graham, who is another
lesbian there who is um resisting reformation, And it's so
campy and um have you ever seen House of Yes.
It has very much the same kind of like outlandish
feel as that movie starring Um Parker Posey. It might

(52:20):
also be because both movies have a lot of pink
and then but it co stars Rue Paul, who's hilarious
in it, I mean, and it just takes all of
those stereotypes, all of those caricatures that we've seen in
a lot of these mainstream films leading up to this
point and just blows them up and essentially like satirizes

(52:45):
all of the homophobia happening at the time. So if
you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. It is
on Amazon Prime and Google Play. And this episode is
brought and this episode is brought to you by Netflix
by lesbians. No, it's it's fantastic, go back and watch

(53:06):
it. It It is laugh out loud, funny, and Natasha Leone,
a young Natasha Leone, is a delight. Well. So when
we move into the New Millennium, I wonder if I
can get echo on my voice there in the New
millennium thousand, actually your two thousand one we get Kissing
Jessica Stein, which stars Jennifer Westfeldt as basically this she

(53:31):
thinks she's straight lady who answers a woman seeking woman
ad in the paper clicks instantly with a woman who
placed it and Hi jinks in Sue Well and that
was another gay rom com that stuff one never told
you listeners loved and that was like almost a critical
darling at the time because it does treat sexual fluidity

(53:54):
in a really novel way, especially at the time. Um.
But I gotta tell you, the first thing I thought
of when I was watching the trailer was that it
starts off with her going on a date with John
Ham and of course it doesn't work out because she
goes on to start a relationship with a woman. But
you know, I r L they end up getting married.

(54:15):
Just that's a very much they didn't tangential thing. Oh
yeah I did, and they just they just broke up.
I know, I wrote, I wrote this, I broke the
news on Refinery. Yeah, they never got mar um, but
I really, I really want to see that one. But
I was reading a couple of reviews of it, and
the one in Slate from when it came out, like

(54:39):
almost loved it. He was frustrated because you have Jessica
Stein in this relationship between two women that's like very
genuine and is exploring themes in rom coms that you
never see in terms of emotional connection versus sexual connection.

(55:00):
Do you do if you don't that key kiss is
different for both people? Um, But they end up having
this deep bond anyway. But he was disappointed because it's
still circled back to so many romcom tropes, and the
two women, both of whom had been in straight relationships before,

(55:21):
talked about men so much to each other that it
seemed like that was sort of the stand in for
having a guy in there, you know what I mean,
to kind of stabilize the whole thing. Yeah. Interesting. And
then they don't stay together, No, but they stay friends.
Spoiler spoiler, spoilers for so many spoilers. And the thing is,

(55:44):
I wish I hadn't read those reviews before I went
back UM and discovered that Kissing Jessica Sign is an
HBO Go, So there you go. I know. Yeah, So
I watched it and very much enjoyed it, um and
and very much agree that it's a rom com focus

(56:05):
not necessarily on heterosexual love or gay love lesbian love,
but rather on fluidity and the idea of openness. But
it does play on so many of the same rom
com tropes, and it's funny to see how they kind
of twisted around. Not that different from In and Out

(56:27):
because you have a wedding that prompts conflict, you have
people from different worlds who are coming together that kind
of opposites attract situation. Um. And you have just like
very stock rom com scenes where you'll have the awkward

(56:48):
first kiss and then them sitting nervous next to each other,
not knowing what to do after that. Um. And it does, ultimately, yes,
kind of anchor itself around straight relationships with men. But
it was I've just never seen a rom com like
that before. Well, I mean you said something that, uh

(57:10):
that I thought was important. Um. I mean, yes, we
could argue very easily, and in some cases this is true.
You could argue that some of these rom com trips
are damaging regardless of who the stars are and what
the plot is. Some of these tropes are you know,
playing up people's lives and realities for laughs. But not again,
not having seen kissing Jessica Stein is it possible that like,

(57:35):
that's where we should be going. And by that I
mean that sexual fluidity in relationships is shown is just normal,
a normal part of a rom com Yeah, and that
there's life beyond a relationship as well. I really appreciated
how they ultimately explored what is a very common issue

(57:58):
when you are dating, which is the um if you
have the imbalance of someone who might have, you know,
a more aggressive sexual libido and someone who is more
emotionally connected, and how those two things really interact over
the long term, because I think that that's an issue
that a lot of couples who have been together for

(58:19):
a while deal with, as as the dust starts to settle,
you know, in figuring out like what that balance is, Um,
the lust dust the lust dust, yes, um. But but
I like how they are able to we see these
characters after the breakup happens, and they're okay, we know that,

(58:43):
we know that Jennifer Westfeldt has undergone a serious, you know,
a long term change in her life because her hair
is now crimped and she's using Uh this is the
big thing. So she's this writer and she hates computers.
She finds them just loaths some. But then at the

(59:04):
end when she is like, at the very very end,
when she is reconnecting with someone, I won't say who,
although if you watch it's gonna be easy to guess.
She gives this person her email address, to which the
person is like an email address, and she laughs and says, yes, yes,

(59:25):
it's true. Email is the easiest way to get in
touch with me. Now with her curly hair just bobbing around,
and then she goes, you know, to meet up with
with someone, I feel like I shouldn't say anymore because
now I'm just like revealing the end of this movie. Um,
but so wait spoilers. She talks to someone and then
meets up with someone. There are more than there are

(59:48):
scenes with more than one person on screen. Yes. Uh.
The only thing that I found unnecessary and very much
a product of its nineties time is her initial all
like ill at the thought of lesbian sex. Oh yeah,
that is something that's played up for laughs. We saw

(01:00:09):
that in Sex in the City too. Yeah, m like, nope,
come on, all right, But overall I gave it a
what's our sminty rating system for for movies? Would that
be hystorical uteruses? Oh? Yeah, Dampons. Yeahs Uterus is okay. Well,

(01:00:36):
out of how many five, I would give it a
four and a half out of five Sminty gold Uteruses. Yeah,
that's high praise. Yeah, it's very enjoyable. Um So looking
forward to hearing what listeners have to say about that one.
And and I can't speak on this movie this next

(01:00:58):
movie because I have not seen it, but it is
one that I definitely want to see. It's two thousand
four Saving Face, which not only features a lesbian couple
and one of the women's pregnant mother who has to
move in with them, and of course one of the
daughters is like, oh, I can't tell my mom I'm gay,
Like she keeps wanting to marry me off. So you've
got all of those masquerading screwball hijinks. But it's an

(01:01:19):
Asian American couple and their families and it's like, oh
my god, finally, and it looks so good. It looks
so good. And it's one of the ones that someone
on Twitter was like, this is one of the few
LGBT rom coms I know of what else is out there?
So I have to see Saving Face. Well, and that
also is one of the few rom coms starring Asian Americans. Yeah,

(01:01:41):
we talked about that in our last episode, that you
just it's not like you see Asian American rom coms
rolling around everywhere. I mean, it is so rare and
so yeah, I for so many reasons, not only that
it just looks good. I need to see saving face. Um.
So as we moved through the two thousands, we do
start to see a little bit more diversity coming in
and two fours, Touch of Paint deals with issues of religion.

(01:02:04):
And then if we jump forward to two thousand six,
we get another movie that was a pretty relatively large
success as far as LGBT rom coms go, although this
one is more of a rom com drum. And that's
imagine me and you with Piper Parabo. And so Piper
parables like she's happily committed to Matthew Good and and

(01:02:25):
I he's so hot. Um, but she discovers her mutual
attraction to a woman. Okay, so it sounds kissing Jessica
stein Ish. You have presumably straight, but oh look at this,
we have maybe bisexuality or some sexual fluidity happening. Yeah,

(01:02:45):
they have that in common, and they have their more
or less mainstream success in common as well. So what
is up? Why why do you imagine me and you
and kissing Jessica Stein? Why did they go against the
usual end of oh my god, same sex, Key kisses
me and you go to the Art House theater because

(01:03:05):
it's two women, yeah, and attractive white women. Yeah. I
mean not to be like chasing amy about it, but
it's like that is more palatable usually and is more
eroticized definitely than two men kissing, which that reminds me
of It's not necessarily a gay rom com, but when

(01:03:26):
that came out a few years ago that does include
men men kissing, although their their friends. Is the movie
hump Day starring Mark dupless Um, where he plays kind
of straight lace guys got the the house and the
wife and the kid, and his friend comes to town
Um who is living more of a wild lifestyle. He's

(01:03:48):
not tied down to anything. And they get drunk one
night and they're talking about the I think it's in
Portland there it's an actual porn festival, um that I
want to say, Dan Savage out of hand in uh
in starting and they get the cookie idea to make
a porn and submit it because they were like, I mean,

(01:04:11):
we can do this. We love each other, we're guys,
we can totally like make a porn together. And it
could veer off into browy homophobe territory, but it actually,
in the end, from what I remember of it has
a really nice honest moment of these guys actually exploring

(01:04:35):
their sexuality in the sense of like talking openly about it.
Because when it comes down to the time, they were
like in the hotel room, they're like, are we gonna
do this or not? And they do end up kissing.
I won't give away the rest, but they have an
honest conversation about what it would feel like, and Mark
Dupless's character actually is like, I mean I did have

(01:04:56):
a fantasy about a guy at one time, and it's
not played up for jokes. Yeah, so I mean that.
And again though that was more of an indie film,
but it got a lot of attention when it came
out because it was like, oh, wait, we're seeing wait
is this a bromance? This is a a what's going on?
How do you classify sexual fluidity and just general openness

(01:05:19):
and acceptance? Yeah, because like, oh, we're we're totally on board.
If it's too if it's too hot, girls kissing, but like,
oh wait, two guys, I don't know, I don't know
what to do with that, and especially two guys who
look like you know, I mean, if you watch the league,
like they look like two dudes, like hanging out at
a bar, maybe playing fantasy football or something. They're like
very much bros. There not a Stanford Blatch on sex

(01:05:41):
in the city. So I'm going to be curious to
see as marriage equality becomes more of just like the
thing that has always been um, trans rights continue to
become more and more accepted and destigmatized, whether we will

(01:06:02):
see that reflected on the big screen, because on the
small screen we've seen more progress with that. Yeah, I mean,
things are definitely slower for the big screen. We had
in twenty fifteen another movie that I have to go
back and see, which is Boy Meets Girl and the
leading lady is a trans woman. This is she's played
by Michelle Henley, who's an actual trans woman, thank goodness,

(01:06:25):
not someone masquerading as trans. Um who gets her own
wonderful storyline of self discovery. This character is allowed to
dream and have love and romance and doubt and fear,
and her best friend is a dude who's like basically
okay with the fact that his bff is a trans woman.

(01:06:46):
There's not drama there. That's not the source of the conflict. Um,
And she even has a relationship and tries to explore
obviously not just gender. Gender has been on that's been
figured out, but she explores her sexual orientation as well.
And so how wonderful to see um trans issues on
the big screen displayed normally. I mean, I know that

(01:07:09):
sounds weird, but not as a joke, not as a
trope or a trick or something like that, or a
tragedy or a tragedy. Yeah, exactly. And obviously there are
fewer gay rom coms than there are you know, hetero
rom coms, But there are so many, especially independent films
that we haven't had time to mention. And some of

(01:07:30):
them are real stinkers, you know, just like the same
seas with a straight wrong cum I mean, never been kissed.
You're not a fan. I'm not a fan. I'm trying
to think of one that I hate. I'm sure that
I don't know. My brain is just a little fuzzy
right now, But um, I would love to hear though
from listeners about their favorites and what they predict for

(01:07:53):
the rom com genre, because we are at a point
where some wonder if it's even going to survive UM
because in a lot of ways, like our society has
progressed beyond the typical rom com formula. UM, so what
are we gonna do with it? We're just gonna keep
having ensemble rom coms about Arbor Day. Maybe a gay

(01:08:19):
ensemble rom com. We haven't seen that well, no ensemble Calm,
a ensemble Colm, a mainstream ensemble Colm, because there have
been indie ensemble comms. Who was the Who was the Scholar?
Mogel Dog and her Gonsomble colms starring Dilmot mcdingle whoo.

(01:08:43):
And I think that is the sign that our series
has come to a close, because we've talked so much
about rom coms now that we are making up words
and acreatives that do not exist. So listeners, please write
to us, give us the words. Want to hear all
your thoughts about this UM, and we should probably set

(01:09:04):
up some kind of stuff I've never told you, uh
must see movie list because we've gotten so many fantastic
suggestions and so many films that I now need to
see and have seen by virtue of your suggestions listeners,
So thank you for that. And mom stuff at how
soberk dot com is where you can send us your letters.
You can also tweet us and moms of podcast or

(01:09:26):
messages on Facebook, and we've got a couple of messages
to share with you right now. I have a letter
here from Caitlin in response to our Surfer Girl episode.
She said, you expressed some doubt that Queen Emma was
a real person or if her name was anglicized from
a Hawaiian name. She was in fact a real person

(01:09:47):
and my son attends the preschool named after her and
which is part of a group of Catholic school she
originally founded. It's very common for Hawaiian alite i e.
Members of the ruling class to have English names. In
the nineteenth century, the elite often intermarried with the American
missionaries and businessmen who came to Hawaii. In addition, the
elite admired the British royal system and society a great

(01:10:10):
deal and borrowed from it in their post contact system
of governance, as well as established relationships and alliances with
the Brits. For example, Queen Emma's husband's name was Alexander
Lee Hooliho, and the last Hawaiian king's name was King
David Calicawa. It's difficult to overstate the influence American missionaries

(01:10:30):
and businessmen had on modern Hawaiian history and culture, the
names of individuals being only one small example. Kristen, I'm
glad you enjoyed your visit to Hawaii. I've lived here
for thirteen years and still have to pinch myself when
I'm sitting under a palm tree on the beach looking
at at the incredible blue and beautiful ocean. Hope you
return to do a live show one of these days,

(01:10:50):
Oh my god, anytime. Oh yeah. I want to get
up back to Hawaii as soon as possible. So I
have a recommendation here from Christina for a rom com.
She writes, I have the most amazing movie recommendation for you.
I'm not even through your Working Girl rom com episode,

(01:11:11):
and I haven't listened to the first episode in the series,
but I don't care because I love this movie and
I think you will too. And I highly doubt you're
gonna mention it because it's not as famous of an
oldie Wife Versus Secretary is a movie that clubs to
death so many tropes. The gold digging secretary and the
attractive women aren't smart and career driven women are happier

(01:11:33):
when they lay off work and get married. It's a
wonderful movie you will like. In the vein of My
Girl Friday and Working Girl without too many spoilers, the
wife played by Myrna Loy allows herself to be persuaded
on really shaky evidence that her very devoted husband, Clark Gable,
is cheating on her with his secretary played by Gene Harlowe.

(01:11:55):
The secretary is actually a very smart and competent woman
who knows gender is holding her back, and it's also
dealing with her boyfriend played by Jimmy Stewart talk about
an ensemble romcom wanting her to quit working and settle down.
It's funny, smart, and is so so freaking good. It's
the first movie where Gene Harlowe is in the sex

(01:12:15):
pot role, but there's nothing sex pot about her. It
addresses the idea that women can crave life satisfaction through
a career and are just as competent and capable as
men and are held back by societal rules and fears
of women in the workplace. There are a few issues
on the feminist front with it, but relatively minor, and
overall it's very modern and liberal thinking for the times,

(01:12:37):
despite coming before the postwar pushed to send women home.
And it's not exactly like secretaries today don't deal with
the same kind of thinking or that jealousy and fear
of workplace romance. Wow, so that sounds fantastic, Christina, I'm
adding it to my cue. I need like a month
off to watch all of these movies. So thank you

(01:12:58):
listeners for tuning in with us all summer for our
rom com series and keep your recommendations and letters coming. Mom.
Stuff at how stuff works dot com is our email
address and for links to all of our social media
as well as all of our blogs, videos, and podcasts
with our sources. So you too can learn even more
about rom coms. Head on over to stuff Mom Never

(01:13:20):
Told You dot com for more on this and thousands
of other topics. Isit how stuff works dot com.