MsBarrows' Maunderings

my best friend linen my brother in arms cotton my partner wool my beautiful sister silk

our sick deranged enemy polyester....

the demon lord, prince of lies, "Vegan Leather"...

tumblr is genuinely the only social media site with any specific culture because it's the only site where content isn't algorithmic and doesn't vanish into oblivion after like 2 days. we still talk about goncharov. you think twitter is still talking about the ice wars on europa? no. we make internet culture and everybody steals from us, including the awful discourse. this is why i will never leave

My memory of The Birdcage (1996) is always that it's more dated and more difficult to watch than it actually is. You hear "drag-themed comedy from the 90s based on a musical from the 80s based on a play from the 70s" and you brace yourself just a little, right? But the film has a strong gay perspective, so the fruity fag jokes mostly come off as warmly affectionate. There is a surprising amount of poignancy in Robin Williams' portrayal of Armand, grudgingly agreeing to his beloved son's request that he go back into the closet for an evening ("do me a favor and don't talk to me for a while"). The drag club's staff attempting to redecorate the apartment with stuff straight people might like (a taxidermy moose head, an enormous crucifix, and Playboy magazine) is extremely funny. Albert's histrionics are a point of tension because he does often come off as a stereotypically pathetic/comic figure, but towards the end of the movie he makes it very clear that he's aware of how people see him, and asserts that trying to copy a stoic masculinity he doesn't possess for the sake of social approval would be more pathetic. In the 1983 musical adaptation, they give "Albert" (Albin) the only good song in the whole show, "I Am What I Am", which Gloria Gaynor covered to the delight of gays everywhere. Apparently Nathan Lane wasn't (publicly) out yet in 1996, which is amazing because it means that at one point in this movie you're watching a gay man playing a straight man playing a gay man playing a straight man, in a movie about how it's important to be yourself, an absurdity that does seem to encapsulate the state of gay America in the 90s.

Heads up that the RUNNING CLOSE TO THE WIND ebook is on sale for £0.99 until June 17th, so if you want a fantasy book about pirates, with bawdy comedy of a Terry Pratchett flavor (including the quiet anger about systems of institutional oppression), check it ouuuut, it is your Pride summer read AND IT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH ON EVERY PAGE I PROMISE