Not like that film was a one-off either.

I would like to add The Birdcage (1996) to this list of drag queen movies (mind you, it's based on a French stage play from 1973).

Which starred Nathan Lane as a drag queen just two years after he had voice Pumba in "The Lion King":

And we ESPECIALLY need to remember Victor Victoria from 1982 (during the REAGAN administration) which is SET IN THE 1930S and stars everyone's favorite curtain-sewing nanny as a struggling soprano who decides to pretend to be a boy doing drag (DOUBLE THE DRAG FOR YOUR MONEY). I mean look at this photo:

Count Victor Grazinski isn't putting up with your transphobia (or you being a dick to Robert Preston).

Unfortunately, the representation of drag and female impersonation (as it was often called pre-Stonewall) is scant in mainstream American cinema due to the Hayes Code. There are definitely more, but these are biggest, "family-friendly" names I can think who have starred in major motion pictures as drag performers.

Highly encourage people to check out Matt baume’s series on LGBT rep in American sitcoms on YouTube. This idea that tv suddenly became queer later on in the 2000’s has no basis in reality. Conservatives try to act like the queer community was suddenly sprung on them. None of that is true. They’ve been explicitly in front of their face the entire fucking time. The first Oscar best picture winner ever had a homosexual male kiss in it NONE OF THIS IS NEW INFORMATION

Joe Flaherty and John Candy - Monster Chiller Horror Theatre: Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Cats (SCTV, 1978)

"use chatgpt" that's the devil talking. buy four caffeinated drinks and pull an all nighter. this is the way.

i may lose 5% for a late submission, but at least no one can deny that i wrote it with my own tits i mean brain

could u imagine if ppl talked about catholicism the same way they talked about like… indigenous ppl’s religions….

girl in horror movie holding a bible open: “according to legend, a mob tortured a half-man, half-god, and nailed him to a wooden cross, leaving him to starve to death. But days later, on this very night, they found he had clawed his way out of the grave. Now those who believe lie in wait for him to rise again, To honour him, they have weekly gatherings where they chant and sing, and at the end of it they eat his flesh and blood.”

girl’s friend: “wow.. thats so creepy…”

horror movie jock: “it’s only a myth, don’t worry”

EVERYTHING HAPPENS TO ME

Encounter: first-draft Alien

“Raar, I’m gonna getcha!”

If you have a PhD or an MD you can say shit like “Doctor’s orders” and you sound authoritative and powerful but if you’re a step short of those and you say “Master’s orders” you sound cringe as hell and possibly corrupted by the One Ring, this sucks

"It will make your hearts beat faster. It may even make you want to die. Do not be afraid. You will witness a miracle."

the problem with everyone becoming a reviewer and essayist now is that, plainly and gently, a lot of these people are not smart enough for the position

this post has gotten pushback and i want to be clear i am not against the idea of someone starting out bad at a craft and getting better nor am i saying that if you're not immediately excellent at something that it is not something you can ever be good at. what i am saying is that not everyone has the desire to learn how to analyze a work in the way that a proper review or analysis truly requires. in large part i think this has been perpetuated by social media sites like rateyourmusic, letterboxd, and youtube having very minimal thresholds for reviewing (unambiguously a good thing btw), but it has led to a trend of everyone calling themselves a reviewer when they simply are not good at it. and when this is addressed to them, they will take a defensive stance and go "it's my opinion".

and that's the thing: analyses and reviews and critiques and essays are your opinion, but they're your substantiated opinion that references other works, pieces of evidence, etc. i could write twenty paragraphs about how much i like a work but if i write it poorly and repetitively it frankly means less than a two sentence soundbite. the craft is being watered down and disrespected, and now whenever says they've reviewed something, i have to wonder "did they actually review it or did they write a summary and sprinkle in occasional comments/opinions that ultimately serve no thesis?".

i did not mean to frame "smartness" in an inflammatory way in the same way that i do not think everyone who has ever written a bad review is stupid or that anyone who is not a good reviewer is stupid. without derailing the post, i personally believe there are multiple types of intelligence and gatekeeping various fields for this is not a bad thing. not everyone is capable of working on spaceships, or doing brain surgery, or counseling people through mental health crises, or writing orchestral music. these are fields that require different types of skillsets and intelligences and it's not a bad thing if you or anyone cannot meet the standards of all of them or even any of them. my point is that people should try to express themselves in the ways that fit them and their perspective, instead of trying to shrink themselves down to a mold that doesn't fit or serve them.

i just want to stop seeing bad reviews and shoddy analysis. that's all.

okayyyy and what if i don't? would you be mad if i said the world of critical analysis is more than just vibes and memes?

I'm just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family. It's just, I wish I had more time to seek out the dark forces and join their hellish crusade.

Anjelica Huston as Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (1991) & Addams Family Values (1993)

can I say something, perhaps with no point, about the sentiment that goes around in writer spaces that's like, "sometimes I read a published book and I think wow, if this crap got published, that gives me a boost of confidence that I can get published too"

firstly, i get it, i've had that thought too. but you are, inevitably, to someone, at some point, going to be that bad writer. someone is gonna read your work and think, "wow, they had the balls to publish this?" someone is gonna laugh about your dialogue to their discord friends, or be thinking of you when they write a post about tropes they're sick of. someone is gonna give you a bad review.

and that's fine. like I cannot express how much the quality of your art has no bearing on your right to create it, distribute it, share it. it's kind of freeing and humbling to think "I am the bad writer"

also you're gonna be friends with 'bad writers.' you're gonna work with them and find that they are people who are trying so so so hard too.

I just find the attitude that 'bad writers' are some separate species of wonderfully ignorant idiots that only exist to make us hardworking real writers feel better, so unhelpful

still thinking about this whale sign i saw in cologne's old town....