SMNTY Classics: Queering Romantic Comedies

Time for another classic! 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 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
I've never told you production if I heart radios? How
stuff work. So about a week ago, as we record
this intro for a classic episode, UM, there was an
ad that ran on the Hallmark channel Yes for Zola,

(00:30):
which is a wedding hosting and planning site, and this
online anti l g B t Q plus group called
one Million Moms loudly complained about it. Hallmark pulled the ad,
claiming they were never going to be divisive or generate controversy.
That was kind of statement they released, and then they

(00:50):
generated so much controversy the hashtag boycott Hallmark started trending.
Celebrities weight in Glad, weight in Zola said they would
know you're advertised with Hallmark, and then all of our
Korean stated, the commercial is the season. You gotta either
stand for something, you got. A Target had that same

(01:11):
thing going on with them when they did the transgender
or just the neutral back rooms and the like. We're
standing by that as well as celebrating UM pride, you
gotta you gotta Well, maybe Hallmark learned a Hallmark lesson.
I hope so yes, Love is love, Love is love
and the classical we have for you today. I thought

(01:34):
it was kind of appropriate. Is about queering romantic comedies? Right, Yeah,
because when you think about it, Hallmark has all the
romantic comedies they do, and they are not queer, or
they haven't been. Yeah, I don't think I've seen that. No,
but maybe in the future, let's hope. Let's hope. So.
But in the meantime, we hope you enjoyed this classic episode.

(01:54):
Welcome to Stuff Mob Never Told You from how stuppworks
dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen
and I'm Caroline, and Caroline, I can't believe we're here
at the last installment of our rom com summer series.

(02:14):
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
revisiting movies and themes that I have previously seen or
just known about, and uncovering so much hidden meaning and

(02:36):
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
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 Hayes Code and censorship

(03:01):
gave way to romantic comedies because we're like, well, we
can't can't get directly sexy, so let's just do a
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 revisit something

(03:21):
that we've been talking about through our series. The Haze
Code was basically this moral code that existed over 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

(03:42):
and drugs and all of that dangerous stuff. Hence you
do get all of the witty repartee between characters, which
is basically the cornerstone of romantic comedy. And who doesn't
love some witty repartee repartee Hello um before we get
into this final episod, So though, can we just take
a nostalgic look back everything that we've covered, because let's

(04:07):
let's see where we started from and where we've arrived,
because we started with rom coms one oh one and
really with the Hayes code and talking about how the
genre evolved, and then what did we talk about? So
then we talked about the independent career woman who basically
gets saved by love because she works too much. She's

(04:27):
married to her job. Yeah, we talked about people of color,
characters of color in rom comms they tend to be
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

(04:50):
going to end up the sidekick, which was another episode
we did. Oh yeah, the sassy but probably unlovable or
undateable 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

(05:12):
look at just crowd scenes in romantic comedies, even those
are usually a sea of white people. Well, we did
discuss was it in the original episode. We did discuss
romantic comedies as a type of science fiction. Oh yeah,
that's true. So the rom coms clearly happen in a
universe or on some sort of plane of existence where uh,

(05:36):
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
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

(05:59):
for you. That is funny to imagine that, um, the
typical romantic comedy characters, everyone from a Meg Ryan and
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,

(06:21):
which I feel like it is kind of the new
the newest iteration where you just pack all the stars
and all the storylines in 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

(06:45):
only gross. But today we are closing out this series
talking about LGBT rom comms 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

(07:08):
important to talk 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 marriage equality, but gay characters have typically
been denied the happy ending. They've typically been relegated to

(07:31):
that sexless sidekick role. 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 negative, awful stereotypes. Well,

(07:53):
and I have a feeling that that's obviously not just
the Hayes Code 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

(08:14):
you had that homophobia institutionalized through the Hayes Code and
through the Legion of Decency, which labeled LGBT people as
deviants sexual deviance. And so just like the Hayes Code
forced filmmakers to get creative, like you can't show sex,
but you can show the you know, the witty, funny

(08:36):
slapstick lead up to sex, like our verbal for play.
That's right. Well, 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,

(08:58):
when it came to LGBT people, it was like, oh,
you're the villain. And so one of the first tactics
used to navigate this band 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

(09:18):
Haze Code simply because the Cissy even was too overtly
gay to be depicted 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

(09:42):
breadwinners who are suddenly out of work and unable to
provide for their families, 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 th and mustache and a trim
suit and really, now I'm just picturing John Waters. Yeah,

(10:04):
I mean, they're just two dimensional characters obviously used for
a cheap laugh. Um. 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,

(10:29):
worrying about like girls hanging out too much together and
possibly becoming lesbians. Um. But I think there were still
kind of vestiges of that old Boston marriage era assumption
that we 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.

(10:52):
And the second of three basically horrific uh stereotypes of
gay people that would continue to reverberate forever is portraying
gay people as villains or victims. And so in the
ninety thirties and forties, one of the other ways to
navigate around the code was to portray gay people as
villains or victims. And this is yet another stereotype that

(11:15):
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. It was totally lost on young

(11:35):
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, correct,
So of course they were deviant. Of course they were deviant. Yeah,
And Alfred Hitchcock was one filmmaker who definitely leaned heavily

(12:00):
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 in staging the perfect crime. Basically,
they were evil and weird. Interesting personal side note, My

(12:24):
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, they're They're farm in Michigan,
which is now it's called Castle Farms, and it's right
down the street. I grew up driving past it all
the time. And didn't he use a similar device In Psycho,

(12:45):
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 really sation ship with his mother. With his
mother at the same time. Now, I just saw your

(13:05):
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 do call
it that, but usually it's like stuff your mother never

(13:26):
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 Kristen as
a child moment, it was one of my fames as
a kid, and I really, of course did not pick

(13:46):
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 bf ass and then Massala turns
on him and gore Vidal, who partially screenwrote ben Her,

(14:08):
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,

(14:29):
but that was always in the background. Well yeah, um,
gore Vidal said that, Yeah, I was totally meant to
be implied that been Her and Massala had been lovers
in the past and that 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

(14:53):
use the word. There will be nothing overt, but it
will be perfectly clear that Massalah is in love with
been 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

(15:17):
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 armor and

(15:41):
that they had like the pokey nipples in the in
the chest playing. And I don't mean it's just in
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 was it? 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, Gorvidal, you know, makes this claim,

(16:03):
and Charlton Heston writes a letter in to the l
A Times is like you you are doing a disservice
to Billy Wilder. And then Gourvidal 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

(16:25):
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 go rewatched now as a grown up person that
helped weaken the Haze Code was Billy Wilder's classic romantic

(16:48):
comedy Some Like It Hot that came out in nine.
So basically, cross dressing helped put the first little dents
in the armor, the Nipley 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

(17:09):
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 get the Haze Codes Seal of
Approval um. And Jack Lemon's friends also warned him that

(17:30):
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 proposed to buy a guy in the film? Yeah,
So basically, another way that this movie ends up touring
with gender and presentation is that Lemon's Daphne gets proposed

(17:54):
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. According to this

(18:14):
great article in Indy Wire, to teach the men how
to walk like women so that they could uh portray
women better on the screen and passed. 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,

(18:34):
they went in, which would enrage North Carolina legislators. They
went into women's public restrooms to apply their 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,

(18:56):
maybe that is what made the Legion of Decency a
along comfortable because they're like, I don't I don't like
how I feeled I look at him on screen. And
with the film coming out in nineteen fifty nine, it
does seem like it is a reflection of culture starting
to slowly, slowly, slowly open up to even the possibility

(19:20):
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 assimilated into

(19:44):
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 disord but more
context As we moved through our timeline of rom comms

(20:04):
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, had we

(20:26):
had marriage equality earlier? Yeah, I mean I think and
and uh, scholars link so much of the development of
gay rom coms to what was going on contextually at
the time in society. But um, I don't know that
it necessarily took gay rom comms back, but it definitely
put a massive stumbling blog because, of course, the cornerstone

(20:47):
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 link the way that LGBT characters are
shown in movies to their place in mainstream society at

(21:08):
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

(21:28):
become a contributing member of society, and 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 sexless sidekick character. And
in the process, you're denying these gay characters any sort

(21:48):
of sexual agency, which is really 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

(22:10):
them the happy ending of tying everything 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

(22:32):
present in gay focused rom coms. Kyle Stephens rights that, regardless,
a lot of the narratives in these movies still hinge
on impending 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,

(22:57):
complicating Byron's dictum, romantic commnies with homosexual heroes that end
in marriage would constitute a tragedy. In other words, gay
characters couldn't get married. Obviously, we're 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,

(23:19):
conservative traditional value system. So there's no winning. So there's
almost no winning in this uh in this explanation and
then we get In and Out starring Kevin Klein and
Magnum p I otherwise known as Tom Selleck. That's who
he is. I I just only picture the mustache, so like,

(23:40):
I can't hear his name in my brain over the mustache,
even though in the movie he doesn't have a mustache.
It's very confusing. Yeah, it's a whole whole new Tom sellec.
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

(24:03):
as an example of the anxiety that can come up
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.

(24:24):
They're all handsome, They're clearly getting ready for a wedding,
and all, oh my god, there's all this tension of like, wait,
a wedding. This is a year after DEMO was passed, unfortunately,
so so how can two men be getting ready for
a wedding. Um, 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 calm

(24:48):
has straight people tying the knot in it rather than
a same 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 romcom series has just done

(25:09):
so much good for my like pop culture knowledge. I'm
finally catching up. I'm in like what es seven? You're
getting there? Like sixth grades finally. Um. And I found
stevens Is critique of In and Out to be overly

(25:29):
harsh in comparison to what I saw as a viewer. Um,
because a it's laugh out loud funny. I was surprised
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

(25:51):
cast perfect. Joan Cusack is in it. Oh yeah, should
have said earlier. So Joan Cusack plays Kevin Klein's fiancee,
and the relationship between them is really sweet because they
obviously have a true platonic love for each other and

(26:14):
they've never had sex, and she has gone through all
of this dieting to like make over her body so
that 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

(26:36):
mustache comes along and essentially opens Kevin Klein's eyes to
the fact that Matt Dylan was probably right. Um. And
to me, 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

(27:00):
son's you know, like disdain in homophobia. Um. And of
course the small townspeople once they start suspecting and later
find out that Kevin Klein 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

(27:25):
a story about showing audiences how being gay in no
way like makes 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,

(27:49):
Bob new new Heart is the principle of the school
and he reluctantly asks Kevin Klein to step down after
he outs, you know, comes out of the closet publicly. UM.
So I wish that I could have seen it in
the late nineties because it is such a mainstream film

(28:10):
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, because to me, it's still
even though it played a lot on game mal stereotypes.
There are a lot of barber streisand jokes. There's this
whole scene of Kevin Klein dancing, um in a rather

(28:33):
effeminate way. Um. But at the same time when he
has his quote unquote bachelor party, when he's still closeted,
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

(28:55):
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 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

(29:18):
in how unsexual Kevin Klein is and even after he
and Tom Selleck get together, how unsexual or de sexualized
I should 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

(29:39):
gets together with Tom Selleck, even when they are very
lovingly putting on you know, each other's taxes, helping helping
each other tie the tuxedo bow tie not exactly. Um,
that's pretty much as far as their physicality goes. And

(30:01):
that's when you remember, oh yeah, this is coming out
on the heels of doma and I mean 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

(30:24):
Rubenfeld notes that the nineties were rom com boom time.
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

(30:45):
million dollars. So basically, at this time in the nineties,
we are clearly in love with love. We're in love
with happy endings. But the thing is all of these
gay rom comms and and I really, I don't say
gay rom coms as like a dismissive or jord of thing.
I'm I'm lovingly saying gay rom comms. Um, these these

(31:05):
rom comms have to find an alternative ending, because there can't,
like we said, there can't be that wedding at 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,

(31:27):
a lot of the mainstreaming quotes gay ish rom coms
are more about a straight person either a presumably straight
person either discovering that they are gay, like navigating a
journey with their sexual orientation, or a straight person being

(31:50):
in love or attached to somehow a gay person like um,
object of my affection with Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rod
Where yeah, where he is a she is straight, she's pregnant,
she wants Paula 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

(32:13):
a gay men and wanting to form the conventional family
unit with them. Well, isn't 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

(32:36):
Sex in the City wasn't really allowed to be sexy
or sexual either. He was also more trophy and like
almost a girlfriend. 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,

(32:59):
so you have to have some straightness, it seems like
in there so that 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

(33:20):
many of them have been huge hits in mainstream theaters
outside of major cities. 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've gotta Tara, that sounds so awful that our that
the movie theater, the movie theater, y'all that we go

(33:40):
to in Atlanta's is Tara. But it's not just gay themes,
it's i 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 com,
but it's about abortion. But I mean that's the thing.
These themes that exist outside of the white, straight, uh

(34:03):
conservative traditional storylines creat Yeah, yeah, that are enjoyed in
mainstream theaters 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 money. And if it's afraid that

(34:23):
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 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

(34:45):
straight person in the major theater, you shouldn't even bother
being interested in. And so basically, if you have an
LGBT centric rom com or featuring LGBT themes, if you
want to wind up up in a major theater, those
same sex romances have to be like in and out,

(35:05):
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 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.

(35:28):
And so one thing that um, I believe it's model
mag talks about in her paper in the Journal of
Popular Film and Television from two thousand nine is the
presence of the key kiss. So the key kiss, think
the 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

(35:52):
can have different tastes. In rom COM's Caroline, Oh thank God,
But that 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

(36:14):
approves of it. They have the whole community support because
you know, in 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

(36:37):
Hope Floats because I didn't want those characters to be
together like so bad. One thing I've learned from this
series is that you hate Hopeful more than anything. I
think that Hope Floats 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.

(36:58):
I know 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, 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

(37:19):
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 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

(37:41):
Mogue 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
the whole audience is cheering, or the whole township, or
the whole baseball stadium is cheering for the kissing straight
couple or are opposite sex couple. This is emerging around

(38:03):
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
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

(38:24):
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.
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

(38:45):
is real, this is happening, and we're dying. Yeah, exactly. So,
because all of those negative stereotypes about gay people and
these like fearful assumptions that AIDS was the unquote gay
cancer as it was first reported on in the New
York Times, and all of the homophobia that was still happening, um,

(39:07):
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 for us to
see them not as this other group of people who
are having something like a horrible epidemic sweep through them,

(39:31):
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 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, So once

(40:07):
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. I thought

(40:30):
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, they might not

(40:53):
be more than two dimensional, kind of like trophy sidekick characters,
but at least they're not villains whose sexual orientation 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 rom com cult classics. Yeah,

(41:17):
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.
Good year for 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, is

(41:41):
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

(42:01):
think anything of it. But when I'm 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, it'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,

(42:23):
I mean she's not painted as 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

(42:45):
characters in general, meeting some 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 want to say, is it

(43:08):
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,

(43:30):
John Leguizamoh and Wesley Snipes dream Team as drag queens.
But again, looking back, 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

(43:51):
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 one dring. Now
if you could go back and look at that movie
and it does it 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

(44:14):
small 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 l. Wizama's character has this like

(44:37):
adorable 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

(44:59):
to then grow apple 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

(45:22):
a 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, but some
argue that it is. I feel like it kind of
it's sort of like sits on the line between rom

(45:44):
com and just a com 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

(46:04):
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.

(46:25):
Hankers Area is like their house boy, and I use
that term I understand, but I use that term because
he literally is like the tropiest, most caricatured character ever.
He wears little short shorts, denim cutoffs, and is hysterical,
but he is a total trope um. But no, I
thought the exact same thing, and when I was looking
at this as a potential rom com, because you do

(46:47):
have 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,

(47:10):
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 wish if you knew my parents well,
and it's so colorful. It's a very vivacious movie. Um,

(47:32):
but yeah, a little different to watch in vers. Yeah.
And then the next year is when we get In
and Out, 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, is up on stage

(47:53):
delivering acceptance speech thanking his teacher quote who is gay,
And Kevin Klein this like sin 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, we'll overlook that. In

(48:16):
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 is essentially model. Mogue argues.

(48:38):
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 the gay kiss, not to desire it.

(48:58):
And apparently the uh 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. On the other hand, like, oh,

(49:19):
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 Selleck and Kevin Klein, really beyond that at the end,

(49:41):
the town's embrace 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 going to be honest.
Is not for laughs at all. I mean, there's it's
still kind of funny, but like the nder lying message

(50:01):
is a very serious one 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,

(50:25):
what's his name? He 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 his 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, you know, San, I don't

(50:48):
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 owns to pick with Stevenson Model mag But a
couple of years later we have But I'm a Cheerleader,

(51:09):
which I watched this morning, Caroline before we came in
to record this podcast, because when we on Facebook asked stuff,
man 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

(51:30):
off to gay reform camp essentially, 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

(51:52):
the same kind of like outlandish feel as that movie
starring Um Parker Posey. It might also be because both
movies have a lot of pink and then but it
co stars Rue Paul who's hilarious and I mean, and
it just takes all of those stereotypes, all of those
caricatures that we've seen in a lot of these mainstream

(52:15):
films leading up to this point and just blows them
up and essentially like satirizes 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

(52:36):
to you by Netflix by lesbians. No it's it's fantastic,
go back and watch 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 or two thousand one, we

(53:01):
get Kissing Jessica Stein, which stars Jennifer Westfeld as basically
this she 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
ever told you listeners loved and that was like almost

(53:25):
a critical darling at the time because it does treat
sexual fluidity 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 Jhon Ham and of course it doesn't work out

(53:46):
because she goes on to start a relationship with a woman.
But you know, I r L they end up getting married.
Just that's a very much didn't tangential thing. Oh yeah no,
and they just they just broke up. I know, I
wrote I wrote this, I broke the news on Refinery.
Yeah they got um. But uh, I really I really

(54:07):
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 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

(54:32):
themes in rom coms that you never see in terms
of emotional connection versus sexual connection. What 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

(54:52):
many rom com tropes and the two women, both of
whom had been in straight relationships before, 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

(55:13):
stay together, but they stay friends. Spoiler spoiler, spoilers for
so many spoilers. And the thing is, I wish that
I hadn't read those reviews before I went back UM
and discovered that Kissing Jessica Sign is an HBO GO,
so well there you go, I know. Yeah. So I
watched it and very much enjoyed it UM and very

(55:38):
much agree that it's a rom com focus 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.

(56:01):
Not that different from In and Out, 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

(56:22):
com scenes where you'll have the awkward 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

(56:44):
that before. Well, I mean you said something that, uh,
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,

(57:07):
not having seen kissing Jessica Stein, is it possible that like,
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

(57:31):
how they ultimately explored what is a very common issue
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

(57:52):
the long term, because I think that that's an issue
that a lot of couples who have been together for
a while deal with, as as the dust starts to settle,
you know, and figuring out like what that balance is, Um,
the lust dust the lust does yes, um. But but
I like how they are able to We see these

(58:13):
characters after the breakup happens, and they're okay, we know
that we know that Jennifer Westfelt 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

(58:36):
hates computers. Um, she finds them just loatheso. But then
at the 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, it's gonna be
easy to guess. She gives this person her email address,
to which the person is like an email address, and

(59:00):
she laughs and says, yes, yes, it's true. Email is
the easiest way to get in touch with me now
with their 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.

(59:20):
She talks to someone and then meets up with someone.
There are more than there are 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 like ill at the thought

(59:40):
of lesbian sex. Oh yeah, that is something that's played
up for laughs. We saw that in Sex in the
City too. Yeah, it's like, no, come on, all right.
But overall, I gave it a what's our Sminty rating
system for for movies that hystorical uteruses? Oh yeah, dampons? Yeah,

(01:00:11):
uterus is okay, well out of how many five? Okay,
I would give it a four and a half out
of five Sminty gold uteruses. Yeah that's high praise. Yeah,
that's very enjoyable. Um. So looking forward to hearing what
listeners have to say about that one. And and I

(01:00:34):
can't speak on this movie this next movie because I
have not seen it, but it is one that I
definitely want to see. It's two thousand fours 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

(01:00:54):
those masquerading screwball hijinks, but it's an Asian American couple
and their emilies 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

(01:01:15):
of the few rom coms starring Asian Americans. Yeah, 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

(01:01:35):
to see a little bit more diversity coming. In two
thousand fours, Touch of Paint deals with issues of religion.
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 dram And that's
Imagine Me and You with Piper Parabo, and so Piper

(01:01:58):
parables like she's happily committed to Matthew Good and and
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,

(01:02:22):
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 trend of oh my god, same sex, key kisses
me and you go to the art house theater because

(01:02:43):
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 we're minds
me of. It's not necessarily a gay rom come, but

(01:03:03):
one 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.

(01:03:26):
He's 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,

(01:03:48):
I mean, 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

(01:04:09):
actually exploring their sexuality in the sense of like talking
openly about it. Because when it comes down to the time,
they're 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

(01:04:30):
Dupless's character actually is like, I mean I I did
have 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 bromiance? Is this a gay rom what's

(01:04:52):
going on? How do you classify sexual fluidity and just
general openness and acceptance? Yeah, because like, oh, we're We're
a 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, I mean like they
look like two dudes like hanging out at a bar,

(01:05:13):
maybe playing fantasy football or something. They're like very much bros.
They're not a Stanford Blatch on sex 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

(01:05:36):
more accepted and destigmatized. Whether we will 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

(01:05:57):
a trans woman. This is she's played by Michelle Henley,
who's an actual trans woman, thank goodness, 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

(01:06:21):
fact that his bff is a trans woman. 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

(01:06:42):
the big screen displayed normally. I mean, I know that
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 hetero rom coms.
But there are so many, especially independent films that we

(01:07:06):
haven't had time to mention. And some of them are
real stinkers, you know, just like Sames's with a straight
rom 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

(01:07:28):
favorites and what they predict for 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

(01:07:50):
with it? We're just gonna keep having ensemble rom coms
about Harbor Day, maybe a gay ensemble rom com. We
haven't seen that well, no got ensemble calm, A ensemble calm,
a mainstream ensemble calm, because there have been indie ensemble comms.

(01:08:10):
Who was the Who was the Scholar? Mogel Dog and
her Gonsomble Calms starring Dilmot mcdingleho. 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.

(01:08:32):
So listeners, please write to us, give us the words.
We want to hear all your thoughts about this um
and we should probably set 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

(01:08:53):
virtue of your suggestions, listeners, So thank you for that
and mom stuff at how Sober suck com is where
you can send us your letters. You can also tweet
us a moms of podcast or 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

(01:09:14):
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, 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 elite i e. Members of the ruling

(01:09:35):
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 deal and borrowed from
it in their post contact system of governance, as well
as established relationships and alliances with the Brits. For example,

(01:09:56):
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 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

(01:10:18):
still have to pinch myself when I'm sitting under a
palm tree on the beach looking out at the incredible
blue and beautiful ocean. Hope you return to do a
live show one of these days, Oh my god, anytime.
Oh yeah. I want to get back to Hawaii as
soon as possible. So I have a recommendation here from

(01:10:39):
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, 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 going to mention
it because it's not as famous of an oldie wife
versus Secretary. Arry is a movie that clubs to death

(01:11:03):
so many tropes. The gold digging secretary and the attractive
women aren't smart and career driven women are happier 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

(01:11:23):
really shaky evidence that her very devoted husband, Clark Gable,
is cheating on her with his secretary played by Jeane Harlow.
The secretary is actually a very smart and competent woman
who knows gender is holding her back and is also
dealing with her boyfriend played by Jimmy Stewart, talked about
an ensemble rom com wanting her to quit working and

(01:11:44):
settle down. It's funny, smart, and is so so freaking good.
It's the first movie where Geene Harlow is in the
sexpot 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

(01:12:05):
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, 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

(01:12:30):
it to my queue. I need like a month off
to watch all of these movies. So thank you 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

(01:12:54):
about rom coms, head on over to stuff Mom Never
Told You dot com. For more on this and thousands
of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com