Openly Gleek (feat. Ty Mitchell)

our our scales. O. Wait, wait, we need to actually do a kind of red leather, yellow leather, red leather. What was what sells seashells by the seashore? What did you do to that? Really ugly? Should we do a quick ground that thought? You? Neque New York, New York?

You know, that's really moment. Yeah, this is really cursed, which is very appropriate because today we're talking about Glee, the seminole Ryan Murphy TV show, and we have none other than the first openly gay porn star and writer Tie Mitchell here today to talk with us all about Glee It's impact on TV culture, queer representation. Because this is like a Virgin the show where we give yesterday's pop culture today's takes. I'm ros Dam and I'm fran Toronto.

This Pride month, we were blessed by what I will say is one of the best gay albums of all time and definitely an album of the year, from um Muna's self titled second album, Muna Um. I'm in love with it. I've been listening to it NonStop. Actually on the flight to New York from l A. I just had it playing on a loop while I was sleeping for the entire flight. So now I feel like it has settled into my very bones. And I'm gonna say my favorite track right now currently is Nurse High Too.

It's so good, it's like really synthy. Um. I really like how their production has evolved, especially like I think the songwriting and like the musicians ship has always been there. But I think maybe because you know, mun As signed to Phoebe Bridges label Satisfactory Records, and I think maybe like getting them like like helping them out with production was maybe part of that, or just maybe they have

access to like a better studio now. I don't know, but just realized that saddest factory is a double entendo for satisfactory. I didn't know that good if I did not, anyway, that's very Phoebe. But yeah, it's very Phoebe. Um again Runners high Runners hide for me. I mean it feels very like fruit fru or like image and heat a little bit, which is the biggest compliment, biggest we can give.

And then like my other fave, Solid with like those harmonized vocals that they are so known for, reminds me of very like Um, very like Wilson Phillips, like Um eighties nineties era, like girl rock, you know girl in quotes rock. Um right, it would definitely play at like a wedding scene in a queer movie. Yeah, they them rock if you will Um and I yeah, I mean, I I love I'm so excited about it. I remember Um, after shooting the Silk Fun music video with them, they

had like a bonfire at Naomi and Joe's house. Um, and I remember we were talking about the album and what they were excited about. This is eons ago and I had been listening to Silk Fun all day, so I was like addicted to it because it's such an earworm and I mean that and it's a term of endearment, and um, they were They were like, oh, we want to show you this other song just to see what

you think. And they played what I Want and I remember being like, oh, this is like such a bop and they were like, well, Silk Chifn is for the girls and what I Want is for the boys. We love the musical binary love binaries. Yes, Um, that's very exciting speaking of something that's for the girls. It was just announced that Emma Roberts is joining The Spider Man SeeU in Madam Webb alongside Dakota Johnson and Sydney Sweeney.

So Sony really said, gays, you will be watching this superhero movie whether you like it or not, right, And I mean I'm here for Sydney Sweeney obviously. Um, Emma Roberts has never been my girl. Like, I really can't tell the difference between her and all the other blonde cast members of American Horror Story, right, who are all who are all nepotism babies. Emma Roberts is Julia Roberts's niece,

Reilly Lord is Carrie Fisher's daughter. Um, Tessa Familia is vera familiar sister, like they are all just related to someone famous. They all look exactly the same. But I'm totally behind this casting. I love that, like because I think Spider Man is like a very just like boy centric superhero universe. Um, except you know, we got Spy

or Gwen into the spider verse. But I really loved the idea of like force feminizing spider Man, state sanctions and spider Man it's like your favorite superhero absolutely without a die. I mean, is that just because he's a twink? I mean, I I it's probably because he shoots come out of his hands, but I feel like for me, Yeah, sorry for the visual, but I think you know I love an underdog story. I have no shame in loving

Spider Man, even though it has been done to death. Well, um, something that did not make me shoot come out of my hands, but did make me feel really ashamed of my love. That was um to two weeks ago. I did something really dark, which was I watched the entire final season of Love Victor in twenty four hours the day it was released. Wait, I don't know that you watched at all. With the whole over ours in twenty four hours, that's really half an hour episodes. It's very easy. Yeah,

I did it in two sittings. I did once watch a season of Love Victor in one sitting as well. Really a story that I told about our live show this this past this yesterday. It was, okay, I'll give I'll give the abre I'm going to I'm going to create editions, but I would love to hear you. Okay, France took too much ammodium and was no, no, no, no, no no, no, give me storytelling value. I'm going to break it down. Fran, do it, Phoebe Maker do it.

Fran was okay, I'm gonna do it. Okay. So Fran was on Fire Island wanted to bottom and so took an ammonium but accidentally took two um and so had a hard brick of ship in there and there colon and there were no doctors on Fire Island famously has no doctors. So had to spend eight hours sitting in front of a TV watching Love Victor reclined, unable to recline because reclining or laying down in any capacity hurt.

Because however, the you know, amorphous rock like turd was adjusted into like my upper or lower intestine had like it felt like the way it was large, like hurt if I would move and also couldn't eat, could only sit and watch Love Victor. I had to face time a doctor and the doctor was like, do not under any circumstances, so that only gatorade. All that to say, Love Victor was um good. Well, maybe if I have a medical emergency that keeps me in bed against my

will for eight hours, then I will I will watch it. Um. The stupidest part of it, though, is that in the final episode, Victor gets an award from his school for being gay, which I don't think is a good thing, although the show kind of frames that is like this is kind of bad, but like ultimately kind of good and like, I don't know, I want a scholarship for being gay in high school. Basically I didn't even apply for it and I got it, but they were just

kind of like, how much money was it? Actually? I also don't think he got I don't think he got money. He just got an award. Oh well, that's fucking stupid. I something that I remember about the Love Victor franchises, they try to paint them as like a working class family, and that that just was not I mean, if you any context clues, like in the show, you would know that they are probably pretty middle class. Another thing I watched, unfortunately was Elvis. Oh, you didn't like it? It was

so bad. Really. First of all, it's two hours and forty minutes long. Well, I mean, it is bass and it's just so disinterested in being about Elvis's life and is much more interested in just being a bas Lerman movie. Yeah, I'm such a bass stand so that doesn't sound that bad to me. No, But like it's style over substance, but the style isn't good. I love things that are style over something, but the style has to be good.

The styles not was not good. You didn't like the the Casey Musgraves cover, No, because what the point when that happens? Like, I want to hear the actual song in this Elvis biopic, not a cover of it, And that was another problem I had with it. So the movie ends when Elvis dies and then there's like a clip montage of the real Elvis, which I hate when that's done in biopics because it just makes me think

I should have just watched a documentary. And I also think it undercuts the performance of the actor who's been playing this character for the last almost three hours and the movie did he die on the toilet? No, what I didn't even know that that happened. All they say is that he had a heart attack. Literally for me, like, I think it's one of the most well known facts of Elvis that he died from. I had no idea. Well he did um after probably eating one of those

disgusting peanut butter and bacon sandwiches. Like peanut butter and bacon. That sounds incredible. I mean that he would famously like send a private jet to go pick up this like special sandwich that was made at some sandwich shop that had it was a full French baguette that was scooped out and filled with a pound of peanut butter, a pound of bacon, bananas, and I think honey or something like that, and fried. I want one of those. Yeah, I mean it is actually before I thought it was

really good. We should make them on Fire Island this week and then maybe you'll be full of shit again. Well I would never take two emmodium as the box instructed ever again. Okay, Basilerman maybe had the second highest anticipated film of this weekend after Buzz Lightyear. The Light Year movie which you saw. I did see. Um, I've been seeing a lot of movies just because I have a lot more time on my hands. And now that is you have the mc stuffs rewards membership, you are

cashing in. Mom. So I saw a light Year. It was fine. It was not great, it was not bad. It was just a totally fine animated movie. Um. I don't have a lot of nostalgia tied to toy story. No. I mean a lot of people say, like, oh, it's one of the greatest animated films ever created. But and it's I guess, like the the um framing of it is kind of interesting because they said, like the way they frame it is that this is the movie that

Andy saw. That the toy interesting. So like at the beginning of the movie, it says Andy saw, like his favorite movie, this is that movie. I love that they are trying to convince us that there was a movie that had one a black person in it and to a gay kiss, a gay gay lesbian, a black lesbian, a black gay character. I don't listen. I know that there was this whole controversy about the gay kiss. I don't even remember if they kissed in the movie. That

fucking sucks. But also it's not surprising at all. But I do remember, like what I thought was nice about it was that, So the whole story is that buzz. It's like going on these missions and they only take a couple of minutes for him, but on the planet that he's coming from, it takes like four years. So when he comes back for the first time, his like partner is like, oh, I got married while you were gone,

and he says, oh, who is what's her name? Like, and there's no kind of like mo like weird moment. He it's just like very casual, which I really appreciated, Like I think that is a good representation, especially in a kids movie. And they show her with her wife

and like her her son and like eventual grandchild. Um. But this is like the first gay kiss in a Disney I'm just so tired of Disney being like this is our first game, like this is our first rim job scene in the Pixar movie, and every single time

it's like a gay time's like headline Instagram post. And I saw one the other day that was like Disney to premiere the first openly gay teen romance, and I was like, well, first of all that would suggest that they were closeted and stealth teen romances in previous Disney film. None of this, None of these words are in the Bible.

Like I'm so done with the first, Like you know what, this is the first fucking on air felching on a podcast about Buckle Up Virgins for the Virgins listening yesterday, we are talking about Glee, the Fox Ryan Murphy TV show that had an ironclad grip on pop culture in the like early the Obama era, the Obama Oh my god, if if you exactly, if you want, if you want to encapsulation of what the Obama era was like in media,

it was Glee. I feel that way. I feel that Glee is the quintess Glee and True Blood are the quintessential cultural products of the Obama. We should have done this episode on True Blood. I mean, we can talk about True Blood too, but they're kind of two sides of the same coin, and they are absolutely in conversation

with each other. Well because they're both like really really off the rails kind of like psychotic, yes, psychotically told um, you know, drama soaps that appealed to you know, also anyone who doesn't know, Ty, can you give like a t l DR very brief summary of what Glee is about.

Glee is a musical comedy on that aired on Fox about a high school glee club made up of losers and rejects and then very quickly also popular people competing for various titles that got higher in stakes as the show went on, and who were continually um attempted to sabotage at sabotage by Plankton asque super Lynd played by

Jane Lynch, Sue Sylvester say her name, Um. Yeah. The inciting incident of it is that the cool kid at school gets blackmailed by his teacher into joining the glee club, thus creating this sort of tension between the rejects and the cool kid, and Lea Michelle is a reject and the guy is the cool kid. Yes, Um and more cool people joined the glee club because the cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester sends them in as like um spies, but then you know they actually like it. It ran for

five seasons six seven. I believe I only watched two. I want to be clear about that going into the beginning. I have only watched two seasons of Glee. I have watched clips of other seasons of it, but that was all I could do. I'm going to um muscle through a blanket statement that y'all can you know, help me maybe fix if it's an act. But I feel like Glee came onto the scene at like another wave of like gay representation post Will and Grace that was trying

to that. That I think created a new era of like gaze on TV that were not Jack. You know, there was a lot of Jack I think still in the show. Yeah, because Chris Colfer's character like is just a different version of that kind of gay. But the thing about Ryan Murphy's comedic stylings is that he really was maybe not Ryan Murphy specifically, but the Glees comedic stillings were like very like crass. They weren't afraid to make like really inappropriate jokes. I think that a lot

was incredibly problematic and afraid to do that. That's the thing is the show developed a social conscience over the course of its run, and that's why that's part of why I feel like it's really quinte essentially like an Obama Obama agricultural product, is that the show kind of became reactive to itself and to feedback to it, and became a show that was very self aware about a

certain kind of responsibility towards representation. Yes, yes, because I do think when it started, I remember the first episode previewed a couple of months before the actual season premiered. I think it was maybe like before the finale of a season of American Idol or something. It was American Idol Area, And I remember watching it with my roommate and we thought it was the coolest, most transgressive thing ever.

And I do think the early episodes of that show are pretty radical for what was on TV at the time, and like the kind of jokes they were making, um, the audience that they were catering to, the identities that they were centering. But you're right, and that it became too self aware, um, and too scared of saying the wrong thing. I can only speak for like the first season, I feel like the gay characters in the show, we're like pretty neutered, like because it was like still for

like a really young audience, neutered and tortured. Like the whole season two is about Kurt being bullied. Yeah, it's a lot of like bullying stuff. However, I remember, I think very it gets better in my mind. I remember hating the show when it like when I watched that

after I'm finishing the first season. But I do remember feeling like I hadn't really watched something that had multiple gay characters, and also like characters that or rather storylines that were invested in the romance were like in something like Will and Grace, like or other sitcom sitcom you kind of vibes it's like they will never talk about sex and there was like no kissing really on Will and Grace or whatever. Obviously that was like the dawn

of like a lot of gay people on TV. But kurt storyline was really I mean, I think if you follow kurt storyline over the course of the show, you do see that kind of self awareness in the sense that like Kurt starts out as like bullied, and then the bullying gets worse, and then his relationship with father gets strained, and then he meets Blaine from the Warblers, and we get to watch a gay character get everything that he wants, basically, like he restores his relationship with

his dad, he has a boyfriend who is beautiful, he like goes off to the Warblers Dalton Academy and like gets to gets to have like a community of like young gay kids or or at least gay tolerant people. He moves off to New York with Leah Michelle like becomes friends with Sarah Jessica Parker. Wait, does Sarah Jessica Parker play herself? She comes and sings Let's have a Kiki mashed up with the Turkey Lurkey song for herself or she playing a character? She always plays herself, really,

she kind of does. There were some great guest stars, Like I know Kate Hudson was on it for a minute, Me and he leaks. First season, you had Adena and Kristen Adina Menzel playing Liam Michelle's mother was one of the best casting choices I think ever. Demilovado, Lindsay Lohan,

Perez Hilton, Britney Spears was on this. She was on the Britney episode, like very briefly, just they let her make a quick cameo and the conservators of the conservatorship, um, we were going to watch an episode of Glee the other night. It's famously not on any streaming platform for a while. Yeah, it was removed and now it's not anywhere streamable. But I really wanted to watch the Madonna episode, which I do think is the best episode of Glee

of the two seasons that I've watched. What happens in that episode, it's just they do a bunch of Madonna numbers and it's amazing. Nothing further was Madonna that when they did that was the like a virgin? Was that when they did like a virgin? Whenever they yes, they they do like a Virgin? Yeah, it would have been so perfect for this podcast. I know, right we had watched it. What was like your first impression of the show, Like, when did you watch it as it came out? Do

you remember what we were saying? So I I was in high school. I was I was a debate kid obviously, Oh my god, that's such a good fact about you. And when to have a particularly strong theater program at my high school, there was just like it wasn't funded at all. There was a high turnover on the people who were teaching it, and there was just not very much interest. So we didn't really have much of a

theater program. We did like one musical in the whole four years that I was there, and I kept wanting to apply to the theater magnet school, and like would kind of get started application every year and then like not go through with it because I just wanted to stay at my same high school with all my friends.

But I did become really close friends with a bunch of people who were at theater program, and so I was kind of like living vicariously like through these like gleaked up theater friends and also through like drawing parallels between my whole like debate team experience in Glee. But I was like in I was in high school, as Glee was happening, I would come to my like English class and sit next to my English teacher and gag about Glee every week. Um, so you were a Glee

I was. I was fully a Glee. I was fully in it. I loved it. I was obsessed with it. And then when I went to college, was around the same time that it was like season four, season three probably happened, and it did start to get like the humor started to get not as good, and the like social message became stronger and stronger. Can we have a brief aside to talk about the relationships between gay people

and their English teachers because I came out. My English teacher was maybe the fourth or fifth person I ever came out too. Like period, I had a like, let's have a Kiki kind of relationship. What was your English teacher? Like missed of all was my ap lit teacher and a loose cannon. And she was a total blast. And she like seated me next to her, not because she had to watch me, but because we would gab like most of the glass because I was like I was like bored most of the time, because I was just

like finished my work. She once famously said that I could shoot out an a or like a nine a p essay. You know, I'm sure you could. I'm sure it was probably not kind of pedagogy to like very very clearly like like call out like a better student than everyone else. I had a I had an English teacher. This was an English teacher that I was had like a really good relationship with. But my my last APT teacher teacher, his last year of teaching English at our school,

he just like was over it. And his whole thing it was so amazing. His name is Mr. Brown. His whole thing was that he was an atheist and if you went into his class, and this is we were in the Midwest, where like atheism is like kind of a little like not everyone believes in God, but like it's taboo to be an atheist, Like that's kind of culturally where I was, UM, And if you had to take a class from Mr Brown, you were told ahead of time that he was an atheist and like be

prepared for that or whatever. And in his last year he was fully arguing with Christian high schoolers about the existence of God. I was just like, and only now am I Like that is kind of crazy, Like that is a crazy thing to do as a full grown man. Teacher would be like, I don't remember any of my English teachers names, but like, I think it's interesting that you talk about, you know, how you were a debate kid and that gave you sort of like an understanding

of what was being enacted on the screen. I was a theater kid, so obviously, like Glee was deeply triggering and traumatizing for me because some it was playing out so much of like what was going on social, socioculturally in my life in high school. Um. I never did choir or anything, though, so it was like a little different but like they did put on shows sometimes, and like they did so many show tunes and some of them were amazing, Like the Glee cast version of some

songs are great, Um, don't ran on My Parade? Like that is one of Lea Michelle's shining moments in life. Or her performance of My Man incredible, really really good my Man? What is transcendent about it? I don't even She's just so good. It's just really good. Are we all still today able to say, like Leah Michelle is

so good it's a rude it's incredibly talented. She is so fierce enough, just barely fierce enough to get away with how rude she is barely Yeah, but it's is it like the fact that she's difficult to work with, that she doesn't have work anymore. Well, she did her post Glee work was still in the Ryan Murphy verse. She did Scream Queens, and she was great on Scream Queens.

I didn't know she did Scream Queen. Yeah. That's another thing, is that Ryan Murphy's reputation when Glee came out was that he was edgy because his prior work was and popular. He wasn't yet known as like that faggot. If you actually, like, if you're looking at the chronology of Ryan Murphy and you want to see the thing most clearly led to Glee, It is Popular, which is a show, a show that was on the WB for two seasons, um, and is about a popular girl and an unpopular girl whose parents

get married so they become step sisters. And it is so good. Um. What's what's her name? One? Yeah, the one she's in a lot of the rhyme. Yeah. She she plays this character Mary Cherry, which is really funny because of the other Mary Cherry. Um, and she's so good. Ums. Like I've always wondered, like, what is Ryan Murphy's like you? I guess you see these adult creators who are so clearly working out their own trauma in their work, and it's like, when is Ryan Murphy going to get over

whatever happened to him in high school? He was from Indiana, that must be said, that is a lot of trauma built in. That's a gay filmmaker, think to Stevens did too, but he just coming back to Alan Ball did that with six ft Under worked out a lot of his like gay stuff. I think that's just like and he did it like gay artists have been and I don't know,

I don't think that's a terrible thing. That's the thing too, is that we look back at Glee as like cringe e thing that kids watched, when like, at least those first two seasons, it was such a parody. It was such a parody of high school show. It was like it was it was making fun of itself and of the entire genre of like high school dramas. It was like very much laughing at itself and at the genre is getting into until it's like, for some reason wasn't or wasn't doing it as success And a lot of

the jokes are dated now. I just I remember watching the show as it aired and feeling like whoa, Like that's a really in the no joke, Like that is a joke that I like, very clearly understand because it's something that I went through, Like makes fun of something that I went through. A lot of the writing was very smart, but a lot of it was also very okay.

If you had to be in when Santana calls Rachel, if you had to be in one of the groups New Directions Vocal Adrenaline, the cheer Squad, which one would you want? Are these all the clicks? These are all the different glee class I would be in the Warblers. I would be one. Are the Warblers. They're the one that at the prep school that that Kurt was in. Is the raven clause? Is he still dating Darren Chris when he goes to the Warblers? Or are they over?

But that's when they meet. Oh that's when they meet. Oh it's so And Blaine is singing Teenage Dream with that was a moment too, And like Kurt just happens to stumble upon the Warblers singing Teenage Dream and Blaine is like swinging, like winking and smiling like at Kurt. It's like, I mean good. And then when they break up three years later or two years later, Blaine like does this like kind of drunk, like really pathetic, like reprise of Teenage Dream at this Beano bar in New York.

At this stage it is like I'm cleaking out. I'm cleanking out, guys cleaking When you think about devices to explain, like the constant performances of musical numbers in a TV show like a glee club club is a good conceit Like it does make sense that they would be singing

a lot. But the thing is like they were doing these full musical numbers or like, I think a thing that always annoyed me was that they would be rehearsing and then like Rachel would just look over at the band that was always playing with them, when the band would always already like have an arrangement of the song ready to go, and everyone like a companist. Okay, and that's that's what it is you have to do they have like did they have a songbook they were working on?

I'm sure where was the budget for all the costumes that they did or the song license You still had to pay for licensing if you performed these on like the stage, but at least but Glee was like and and in terms of licensing, like they must have spent so much money licensing those songs for the show. But like also the Glee music was an economy unto itself because this album sold, They did tours. Did you ever go see a tour time at all? I never went to. I don't do concerts on Oh there we go. I

feel like there's a short king. I feel like the the thing to me, I think the reason I didn't like the show like around the time it was out, was in large part of the music. Actually, like I think the music was a barrier to entry for me because that was the whole point of the show, I know, but I had moved on from that because I was like a theater kid, and by the time the show was really coming out, I feel like I was, um, I don't know, hating hating theater and hating musicals. Were

you weren't you close? Uh No, I wasn't close. Or maybe actually I don't remember. I need to, Actually I should. I need to learn what my actual life timeline is

is what I should remember. I feel like by the time Glee was out, I was really invested in the thing, in like cultural things that I knew that I could get better than my peers because I was gay and so like A big reason that I was so into Lady Gaga when I was in high school is because I could be like I I felt that I could get the references and understand this, that I had some kind of like affinity towards this thing, Like I get this in a way that the other people around me didn't,

and that actually made me feel really good about myself. It made me feel like I was really good at something or had some kind of like, um, exceptionalism to like my personality, And I think Glee was really similar. Even though it was a hit show. I felt like, you know, I could keep key with my English teacher about it in a way that like I was more

grown and more like sophisticated. But at the time, because I was like, it wasn't there Also, Um, the Glee Project wasn't that where people like auditioned to be on Glee and it has a reality show, have a friend that was on it. That's how Oliviard rigo No, no, no, She's difference all the musical the series. Um, but the Glee Project was a reality show where kids were competing to be on Glee. And um, that's where Alex Newell

is from. Like Tony nominee Alex Newell, the Glee Project invented Alex Newell because Alex eventually went on the show to write Yeah. I think so. I wasn't watching at that point, but I think they were one of the ones who made it onto Glee. Um and Glee, I mean as far as I know from what I've seen online, because I think every couple of weeks there's a thing on Twitter where someone clips out a scene from Gleen

is like can you believe this happened? Um, And a lot of times it's like it is really crazy, Like the one I saw recently was Sue Sylvester doing super Base, which like is crazy in and of itself. But my favorite version of that is the video where someone has

edited Vulk from Suspiria onto it. But I do think the show got a lot gayer as the years went on in terms of like I think one of the reasons that teenagers really liked it is because it was one of the few shows on TV that had queer relationships on it, Like Santana and Brittany haven't had a huge stand um and still due to this day, you know, Kurt and Blaine, like they were in the fan fiction world,

they were huge. I never read any Glee fan fiction, but they were like a monolith and it was highly it was satisfying, you know, And I don't really feel that I guess I don't know in this weird way, I like this Ryan Murphy apologist because like the this like Ryan Murphy self describes his style as Barroke, and I think that like as as queer people. We do. We've gotten fatigued with the right maximal style and really

tired of it. But I think that there is something there about feeling squeamish about really really highly visible gay style in in a mainstream place where everyone can see it, and that there's something embarrassing about that for us as queer people. And I don't know, I think it's as simple as like internalized homophobia, but that it's it's for some it's for the same reason that we kind of

have a hard time standing gay recording artists. Is like we have a hard time standing a show runner who is so unapologetically and and um clearly gay in all the ways that he works that we're like embarrassing really was like a pinnacle of like diversity, at least at the time. I think that we have things that are like,

you know, a lot more intersectional now. But like all of his projects, I mean, if I were to give Ryan Murphy credit on anything, he did set like new standards on casting, Like he was always casting like disabled actors, he was always casting queer people, but he was also always casting straight people to play queer people. Yes, I mean, but that you know, I mean that was just like

also like a casting standard unfortunately, like in the early aughts. Still, I mean and Darren Chris even I feel like that was the beginning of Darren Chris, like playing gay and projects and then when he said he vowed to never play a gay character again after doing it, like after winning an Emmy for it, that's what he said. Enough, But to your point, Hi, I feel like, um that whole Like, yeah, I agree, It's not as simple as

hating yourself. It's kind of like there's a kind of like, um fear that happens when representation quote unquote of sorts like hits a mass popularity, because all of a sudden, you're like, oh, everyone doesn't think that like this is me or that like immediately you kind of fear being flattened because that's what you don't want. You're queer, Like yes, yes,

yes you want to. I'm sure you honestly, Hummel. I hate to invoke this, but I'm thinking a lot about the Fire Island TV show that debuted on Logo like a few years ago. Do you remember like the kind of media like craze around that, like the the the overwhelming sentiment and like the thing pieces and the things that people were saying on social media was like this is like a symbol of gay America's moral decline or whatever, like they it would felt like shut up, like they

really treated it like it was not see propaganda. I was like, I was like, girls, I'm sure nothing. I'm not here to defend the Fire Island TV show. But the reasons people were the reasons people were mad about the Fire Island TV show was like hor phobia. It was like people feeling like this was a flattening of like a gay man could be. You know, I feel like it was a lot of well, it's like it's this feeling of they're going to make us look bad. Yeah, I don't know to think about that tie. Did you

see the Fire Island TV show problem? I want to get well, no, I think you're I think you're getting it. This weird um like riddle with representation that we've had to kind of deal with, especially over the past like ten years, as so much of our community has like shifted its attention from political goals towards um like I guess a pathetic like concerns um that like how what does what does representation that makes us happy? Like all happy actually look like is that possible? And like is it?

Is it even that I think crucial in an error when you can pull up TikTok and see gaye as many gay people as you want, doing as many different things and looking as the most specific kind of queer people as well, like just every single like person has

a lane on too. And I don't mean to say that representation doesn't matter obviously, I think it's kind of that, but I think we still as a culture really put a lot of steak in them in mainstream representation, and like it's it's about what who is visible to the most people and also what kind of resources are they getting for that visibility. So like I do think that people see more value in like the Billy Eichner rom com than like two boys kissing on TikTok, even if

it gets a million views. I think a lot of people are usually kind of just mad at the wrong things as well. Like I think that with something like Fire Island, it's like people for the TV show, I mean it's like people are mad that Like what they're really mad about is like we have a very limited amount of resources for mainstream media still, and like logo is like the place that makes gay stuff still and so to put all your two for Kelly Rippau, who produced the show, to be like, yes, this is the

show that needs attention right now. I think where we get anxious around the amount of space it takes up or the resources that it gets sometimes. And also I think like with that show specific like Fire Island is like a sacred queer space in a lot of ways, and I think it did feel like sort of commoditizing, like the the worst part of something that is very special to a lot of people for you know, like

mainstream entertainment. Um. And I know my gripes with Glee were definitely internalized homophobia, Like I'm I used to I used to write like a column for like my local newspaper or whatever, and I remember writing about how much I hate Glee, And I'm sure that, like, if I were to revisit that column, it was probably riddled with internalized homophobia. But I think the crux of what I was mad about was a lack of like multiplicity of perspective in like queer media at the time, even though

we weren't really calling things queer yet. Um. But I don't know, I feel like that you're you talking about, Like what what even makes like positive representation which is like an artifice, Like that's like not a real thing. It is usually like measured by this authenticity factor, like people always say that something has to be authentic or whatever, but like authentic to who you know what I mean? And I think that that's where people get caught up.

Is like when they look at something like Lee, it's like, well that doesn't represent me, and it's like, well, it was never meant to really represent you. It's like meant to represent right, it was a sad it's it's really stirical, like it's really making fun of itself. I don't know. Sometimes I do feel like the logical endpoint of like our representation discourse is like I don't feel represented until I am cast. Actually, we need more representation for me.

You need to We need more trans people in the writer's room, and by that I mean me. I want to be in the writer's room on TV shows. I'm very bookable. I need more people to read my pilot. I have a sample I have a sample stack that everyone should be reading. And that is when representation will be fixed. We need more queer stories, pleased buy my

book that I'm writing. But sometimes I am really surprised at what people do get excited about representationally, like that show am Stoppers, which, like I feel like if that had come out ten years ago, we would all be passing around a tweet or a Facebook post about like

here's another white But I think the funny thing had Stoppers. Ever, the meme of this was my hard stopper and all of the things that like like satirical or otherwise people like found representative of them when they like needed it during a very formative time. I honestly think all the time about that tweet from I hate summarizing tweets on the podcast I'm doing something that is a pet peep of mind, but there was a tweet that was like, kids are so lucky to have little naz these days.

Back then, all I had was this and it's Kurt doing single Ladies on, which is so tea and it. But I think that tweet actually really perfectly encapsulates a lot of things we're talking about, which is that, like, the problem is that the possibility of a little nas X really like I mean, I don't know if media was like ready for that in the early ats or whatever.

I mean, maybe that's stupid to say, but like, um, now to where we've grown up to and to all the different kinds of things that we've seen along the way, and also even in the way that Glee became increasingly more I don't want to say intersectional, because I feel like that is like over intellectualizing it, but like it just brought in even more kinds of queer and trans and black and brown people that you would not have

imagined on mainstream TV. And that was huge for a show that was pretty much the biggest show on TV for a long time. But you know, it bucks me that when we talk about representation, especially que representation, we always do this thing where we kind of project our own childhood's onto people who are young now, Like we're always talking about how we need this kind of representation for that twelve year old kid in Ohio who doesn't have anyone, and I'm like, I actually don't know what

that person's life is like. I don't know what a what a preteens, like queer preteens like access to different kinds of representation, especially on social media platforms, is like, and what they actually need. And it kind of bugs me that we have we we project knowing what young people. But but but the thing is, and we have talked about this on the podcast before, like they do want it on TV, and they do get they do get

really mad. Like as someone who has run a social media account, as someone who also like, we know what the people who we know what people who watch shows with queer characters, how much they make their whole personalities about those shows and those characters, and when those characters are killed off or the shows are canceled, they treat

that like the end of the world. Because I think a lot of young kids, especially um, the Internet has given them access to queerness in a way that we didn't have when we were growing up, and so rather than seeking it out in real life, they're centering their whole understanding of queerness around the media they consume, so that when it fails them it is even more devastating than it was for us, because we just assumed that we would never be represented in media, so we didn't

like put too much weight in it. There's definitely a population of like what you're describing, which is like tender queers and people that subscribe to them. To us, like newsletter but I feel like what Tie is saying, and what I kind of agree with, is that a twelve year old in Ohio, you know, now has access to TikTok or whatever they have. They have access to so many different kinds of selves that I think you would

become disillusioned to pretty quickly. So like the stage we're at now, Like I feel very um salty about queer representation most of the time, I'm pretty like, you know, disillusioned, disheartened. But it's taken a lot of representation up into this point to get me to feel the kind of synicism I feel now. But when you start, when you're like ten, like or twelve or whatever, I feel like they're probably cynical before they even leave high school. And I feel like a lot of people I have a lot of

queer people who are in high school right now. I think, um, I think a lot of them are tender queers. But I also think there's a lot of people that you know, don't, will never, don't feel anymore like being queer is any kind of novelty, and maybe don't even care about like labels in general. I think it's a stute. I mean, I will, I will push back against the idea that every twelve year old and where you know, wherever, not everything.

But the thing is that if the kids who are like not allowed to have smartphones or something are also because there have homophoblic parents are also probably not allowed to watch Heart Star Heart Stoppers on Netflix. So you know, so that's like a there is something that actually must be done for those kids that representation actually isn't sufficient for um. But you know, I hear what you're saying that, like we do actually know something about about queer kids

and what they need. What sucks about that is that kids have horrible t east between shows that are like bad but kids love them, and show and like media that is like sophisticated and like interesting and rare, I guess, but like kids don't have access to them. I would love to talk about the Ryan Murphy of it all. I like, I like The Politician. Actually I did too,

the Politician. I enjoyed it, especially season two with Judith. Yeah, I mean, and I feel like I go into it knowing that this is a highly stylized showrunner who had who, and that I'm going into it expecting that things are going to be bizarre and baroque and over the top and ridiculous. And so when people are like, can you believe this happened Hungly, It's like, yeah, that is Ryan Murphy stuck. Can you believe this happened in American horror story?

Like can you believe this? You know? Can you believe this happened on men dot com? It's like asking that I really liked feud Um Betty and Joan Um and I I liked Ratchet, I thought, I mean, I enjoyed watching most of it. I couldn't get through the gore. I thought it was way too much gore. But that's just a personal taste thing. Um. I also thought that Andy Warhol docuseries was was pretty good, even though the

choice to do the AI voice was very strange. UM, but the politician, like I liked it once they weren't in high school anymore, and I just didn't understand why so much of it had to be set in high school. And it's like, just move on from that part of your trauma. So you mentioned Popular earlier. I feel like he loves like underdogs. He loves like an underdog story.

And I think that there's a through line from like popular to like Niptop or maybe not even Niptuck, maybe like Glee, but also like Pose and The Politician, where there's this kind of like underdoggy thing that he's always kind of pulling through and pulling out of narrative. Well, I did see myself representing Niptuck because fam Ka, Jessa played a secret a secret trans woman. Doesn't she get murdered?

You know, she does not get murdered, but she does like she has sex with one of the main character sons, and it's like this whole thing where they find out that she's trans. It's like, oh my god. Doesn't Willem also play a trans woman? William was on Niptuck, Yes, playing trans Um. I don't know. It's so funny to think about the question of like when was the first time you saw yourself represented on screen, because like it

for me, it was. I don't think if I answered that question in your real way, it would not be like a queer person, a trans person. It would be like just someone who more like energetically. No, it would be like Queen momby in Return oz Return to oz Um. You know, like, it's not gonna be like the first time I saw myself represented on screen was like Alexis and ugly Betty. You know, I mean, you know, I don't know. I don't know that I've ever seen myself

represented on screen, and I don't know. Maybe that is like a very like narcissistic um like presumption about how exceptional I am. But I guess I don't look for

it either. I don't. I don't. I have seen so many people and characters on screen that I want to be that, I want to have sex with that, and those two seem to go hand in hand when you're a faggot, I guess, you know, And I think like watching Glee, I remember, um, like seeing a character like Blaine, and I think internalizing this idea that, oh, I want to be like that kind of gay, I want to be handsome, talented, heart throbby like I like I. And

I didn't even necessarily think, oh this is possible because blames here, but that like I would kind of I think consume characters and queer representation in terms of like, um, who can I emulate one day? Who would I want to kind of grow up to be? You know, what I saw myself represented on screen was Pam and true Blood.

You succeeded. Yeah, thank you, Pam. Pam is a vampire who is just like has the most bone dry, sarcastic, dead pan wit is a huge fucking bitch m and like people and eats people and it's like evil and

has like very fierce looks. Um, she's amazing. But the flip side of the whole like queer people I want to be thing is that I also would resent those same characters because I wasn't there, and so that I feel like happens more often than seeing myself on screen, is I see people that make me feel bad about myself because I don't look like them or I don't have you know, Like it's weird how we go back and forth between like I hate you and I want to be you, and I feel like people do feel

that way about porn a lot. I feel that about people I want to back with. Definitely, it's the perils I think of like queer representation and success is because like I definitely know this, This is my experience with seeing other trans women, especially like a lot of us are like just measuring ourselves up to each other and like why why does she like look better than me?

Or like she's had more surgery than I have, or like she's getting attention that I'm not getting, like and I think that is very much a queer experience because like they're so there's so much less for us to get that we are jealous of anyone who gets a little bit more than us. I think that's maybe a big part of where people feel embarrassed by Glee is that Glee, for all its satire, is also a wish

fulfillment fantasy. It's like it is a high school experience that is like very fairy tale in the sense that you have this community of kids who come from all different parts of the school who are inspired to work together and sing really well and get to sing whenever they want and get to express themselves whenever they want and however they want um and even all fall in love with each other in various combinations in the process, even though they're you know, getting slushies thrown at them.

There is this this fantasy come true that's taking place in the show that I think can produce this knee jerk um resentment that maybe you were feeling for him. Yeah, And I think all of that is exacerbated by like scarcity mentality especially I mean at the time, it's like there was a dearth of cond of like you know, queer content in general, and so it's just like, really this thing, which wasn't my reaction the whole way through.

I remember loving like the first half of that season, but now that we you know, scarcity obviously still like multiplicity, intersectionality still needed, but like less of a problem now I think it'll be I'll be curious to know how like the representation conversation evolves. But I mean, honestly should

have a reboot. And I'm just but it was innovative at the time for Kurt to be a character who succeeds and gets his needs met because Ryan Murphy was intervening on a whole period of queer representation where quick characters were very tragic, with really the only exception being Will and Grace, and even then, um, there were there were other problems, and everyone hated Will and Grace for not being tragic because it emerged right now. It was such a huge hit. Well that too, Yeah it was.

It was a massive hit. But like sent like the critics at the time, we're like, this show has is like a um to yuppie and then aesthetizing of like what queerness is, and and it came right after the AIDS like kind of the in the wake of what was the worst of the AIDS crisis, and so a lot of activists were really still trying to keep people alive. And so for Will and Grace to have the audacity to be joyful, I think a lot of like, you know, people you know that feel type of way about that

are going to be extremely mad. But I feel like, um that that show very specifically was like we're not going to talk about AIDS, you know what I mean, Like they came into it with that as a partial mission for the show. So of course people are going to be, you know, mad that it's not representing or not like kind of representing the thing that was important in the time. Um. Tie, if you had to perform a song on Glee, your Glee Cast version, what would it be? Oh my god, I've thought about this so

many times. I think mine would be, um I write, since not tragedies by panic of the disco, that's good? Has that happened on Glee? They did? I'm gonna google right now. Mine would be probably like running up that hill. Glee Cast version. What would that even sound like? I mean, they basically did that at post because like Running Up the Hill was like a motif for the first season. But it's not like someone was doing a karaoke cover

of it. No, but that did not stop Ryan Murphy from making characters, you know, break out into the song at any moment on post post Nightmare. I would have to do I hate this part by the Pussycat Dolls. That's so good. Did you do it over last show as well? Well? Yeah, the well in the whole Glee Club would also be the Pussycat Dolls and we would be on the stage, but the stage would have water on it. Who who would be in the number with you? Would it be the whole club or would you have

a selection of backup girls? It would be the It would be the whole club, right because I mean the pussy Got Dolls is like seven people, right, Like, I guess it would be in the It would definitely be like at regionals or something. No, it would have been inspired by by some story. I mean, I guess it

could be both, Like would what's like what's the costume situation? Like, what are you wearing very very scantily clad vinyl probably or like it's still school appropriate, not well appropriate, I mean, was ever school appropriate? Yeah, we need to Euphoria Glee crossover episode is what we need. I mean honestly that the Rose hates somebody talking about you before you, but honestly, the play within a play in Euphoria was kind of gleey. Well, Euphoria is kind of a musical too. It's just a

jukebox musical where everyone lip sings instead of singing songs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has its most Season two was just like a lip sync every episode. I'm so glad I didn't watch season two. You would, you would, you would love it was awful. That doesn't matter. Would you ever do a porn in which you had to sing? Oh? We should do a porn We should do a porn parody of Glee.

I want to that has to exist. I'm gonna I'm gonna check right now and there there's definitely enough fan fiction porn of curtain Blaine, Right, that's right, there seems to be. I can't really find anything. It doesn't look like I should not be using the I heart WiFi to do I'll pitch it. Yeah, you should. You should write the script, Rose, who will you play in the Glee parody porn? Um, I'll be an executive producer. Okay, then I'll be I'll be Shoe Shoe something that I know.

I'll actually I'll be I'll be Jane Lynch. I do feel like I have Leah Michelle energy, like I do try really hard, you know, like I related to that element of like her character and also real life personality was that like she against all odds, would try her, made her, made her what she wanted very clear. So tire you, Kurt in the porn parody of Glee? No, I mean in the interest of getting more scenes? Yes? Or are you I kind of think No, I think

you're Rachel and Rachel yea, yeah, you're Rachel. What do y'all want to see us discussed next? Because honestly, we have no idea. We are really running load. It could be a book, a movie, a cultural phenomenon, a moment of celebrity, something that was just very specifically interesting to you as a baby queer or you know, siss Hett. If you are out there, um, you can call us

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you listen and uh leave us a review obviously. Like a Virgin is an i Heeart radio production. Our producer is pb Inter the Winter with support from Lindsay Hoffman, Julian Weller, Jess Crane, Chitch and Nikki E Tour until next week. See you later virgins don't Stop Believe and I was about to seeing Seasons of Love, but Don't Stop Believing as much better. Well, that's like the definitive Glee song. Yeah, is it really? Yeah, it's the song you did in the first episode, Don't Stop Believe in