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.
I'm seeing a couple of posts circulating about the gay 90s and this movie. The above is a very good summary, and I think it's worth adding a few other points.
This movie got made because Robin Williams said yes to it (and it's important that Gene Hackman did as well). Williams in the 90s was a mega-star of a type that's not present in the current media environment (maybe Tom Cruise, but I personally think that's echo from his salad days). Even his flops made money on the back end in the video rental market, which also doesn't exist anymore (streaming is different). Hackman was on the other side of his A-list career but still Hollywood nobility if not full royalty.
Playing gay was considered career suicide in the 90s. There had been a number of actors who put lie to that belief stretching back decades, but this was Williams and Hackman (yes, being on screen next to a gay character was enough to get you blacklisted) saying "screw that" and doing it anyway.
Being gay and out was career suicide in the 90s.
Nathan Lane had a really nice gig going for himself. The Lion King put him into the Disney rep company with people like Williams, Bette Midler, and Whoopie Goldberg (check their IMBD list from the 90s--they were making bank at Disney).
Lane didn't come out until several years later (nice summary: https://deadline.com/2024/06/nathan-lane-robin-williams-advice-coming-out-birdcage-1235975010/).
I don't want to imply that this was a Sorkinized moment where everything changed because of one thing, but this was a very important movie that caused real movement in the needle on queer acceptance.
It also proved that there was a market for films with gay characters, which had the knock-on effect of gay filmmakers being able to find distributors of their gay-themed films. Which meant that more people than ever (queer and non-queer) got to see representation on-screen.
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Most Beloved (non-canon) Queer Ship Tournament - Round 4
Which queer ship do you love more?
Matt Murdock/Foggy Nelson (Daredevil)*
Gaius Octavius/Jedediah Smith (Night at the Museum)*
how dare you make me choose
Remaining time: 5 days 4 hours
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In like 1998 my very femme lesbian friend went to Pride in London and was all excited at the “teddy bears picnic” happening in one of the city parks. She took along a picnic hamper and her cuddly teddy bear. Needless to say, the large hairy gay men all thought she was adorable and she had a great time
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we need to have a conversation about how the "everyone is 12" theory of politics now doesn't only apply to conservative men who want to kick the bad guys' asses and then go home and eat a steak their bangmommy made just for them (NO VEGGIES!!!) but also to adult women who are literally afraid of other people having sex and being sexy. it's like there's been this massive regression among women in their 20s where we've gotten rid of feminism and replaced it with a new form of purity politics that requires never saying anything bad about another women unless you find a new and creative way to call her a whore. the misuse of "she caters to the male gaze" as a new form of enlightened slut shaming, labeling any woman who wears a short skirt or has sex with a man as "not a girls' girl" and "a pick me," the intense overreaction to celebrity affairs or even just shit like the summer house mess where a woman is now dating another woman's ex even though there was no overlap and the "relationship" was just kind of a situationship that fizzled but now these little girls are online demanding both people involved in the new relationship lose their jobs and not get any brand deals, the panic over mildly sexual content in literally any capacity like ads or an instagram post in a crop top, the compulsion to link everything back to the epstein files, the monthly meltdown over sex scenes on tv and in movies. everyone is 12 and AFRAID of sabrina carpenter.
and yeah i don't think it's a mistake that there are basically two ages a woman can be, which is a literal child whose brain isn't developed yet so nothing she does is ever her fault bc she is constantly in some state of being groomed by malevolent ((forces)) so she needs to be told what to do by an authority figure who knows better, or a disgusting monstrous crone (over 30) who wasted her fertile years being a girlboss so she should just pack up her dusty vagina and move into a home bc nobody will ever want her again and it's embarrassing for her to still be out there enjoying her life. it's just pathetic that so many women who consider themselves progressive and even feminist have internalized this dichotomy which is indistinguishable from the way right-wing men view them
Hey, guys! I think I successfully plugged a plot hole in here, but I'm not 100% on that. So um... good luck!
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 |
~
“Holy Diver,” Robin said into the walkie talkie. “Come in, Holy Diver, this is Babel Tower, over.”
Immediately the walkie crackled to life. “Babel Tower, this is Holy Diver, I read, over.”
“It appears that the Upside Down is trying to merge with Hawkins, over.”
There was silence for a moment before it cackled to life again. “Shit.”
“Where are you guys headed, over?” he huffed into the walkie talkie.
Robin looked over at Joyce who shrugged. “One moment, over.” She turned around and stuck her head into the cab of the truck. “Where are we going?”
“I was gonna go to the Hammond place as that’s the last safe house we had,” Hopper growled.
Robin shook her head. “That’s no good, both Creel and Kay know about it.”
“Well where do you suggest?!” Hopper shouted.
“Head to the radio station,” Will said, eyes wide. “We need to get up to pierce the Upside Down and place to hide out until we can formulate a plan to do just that. So it’s a win/win.”
Titus and Kali just shrugged. They had no idea where that was.
“Are you sure?” Joyce asked. “Because one wrong move and the whole world is toast.”
Will nodded.
“We’re headed for Shangri-la, do you read?” Robin said into the walkie walkie.
“Shangri-La,” Steve repeated. “Roger that. Over and Out.”
Kali tilted her head to the side. “Why did you call the radio station Shangri-La?”
Robin just smiled. “Where else would paradise be but a place where I could be me?”
~
Robin and Will were up on the radio tower trying to make it as secure as they could before everyone joined them because the last thing they needed was one of their last avenues of communication to go down.
“What did you mean about this place being the only place you could be yourself?” Will asked as he and Robin were putting up more railings.
“I think I’m more Babel Tower these days then I am Robin Buckley,” she explained. “Robin Buckley is a loud mouth band geek with few friends and no love life. But here, as Babel Tower?” She indicated around her. “I can be the badass monster hunter with a girlfriend and some of the tightest bonds a friendship could have.”
Will’s head shot up. “Holy shit. You have a girlfriend?”
She stopped for a moment as her brain caught up to her mouth. “Oh oops!”
“Am I the first person you’ve told?” Will asked excitedly. “I mean other than your girlfriend?”
Robin shook her head. “Other people know.”
“Like you don’t have to worry about people hearing it from me,” he assured her. “I’m... well. Similar but different.”
She blinked for a moment. “Oh! That makes a lot of sense actually.”
“Who was the first person you told?” he asked shyly, looking away and twisting his hands together.
Robin started going down the ladder to get more supplies. “Oh that’s easy. Steve.”
Will came to a stop for a moment and tilted his head to the side. “What like our Steve? Steve Harrington?”
“Yep!” she said still continuing to go down the ladder. “It felt really good after telling him. He was actually kind of sweet about.” She paused for a moment before half shrugging. “But like after he made fun of my for crushing on Tammy Thompson.”
Will rushed to the ladder and looked down at her. “But like the one thing Jonathan is always griping about is how Steve called me a fag when I was missing and that Jonathan beat the shit out of him for it.”
Robin paused on the ladder and then looked up at him. “People change, Will. They can change. We have to believe that otherwise what’s the point?”
Will thought about Vecna and then he thought about his friends. They had changed so much from when they were kids. Mostly because of the trauma. But also deeper than that. The way Lucas wouldn’t put up with the shit about his race anymore. The way Mike grew beyond being “the leader” and started letting the others help out. The way Dustin became darker in the wake of Eddie’s death.
Not all the changes were good or better. But they had changed.
“Yeah okay,” he muttered. “Is Steve–” he cut himself off and then shook his head. “I don’t need to know that actually.”
Robin grinned at him and then continued down the ladder, Will following suit.
Once they were both on solid ground, Robin put both her hands on his shoulders.
“For what it’s worth,” she told him gently, “telling the people you love who are is the most freeing thing in the world. No matter what they think, because even if they react badly it means that they never loved you and that’s worth knowing too.”
Will let out a deep sigh and then nodded. He would try it out with his family first. After all they were all here. All but El, anyway.
He opened his mouth to say that, but closed it again. Then he started to move past her when he got the urge to hug her.
Robin huffed out a laugh as he put his arms around her and murmured ‘thank you.’
“You deserve to be happy, no matter what that looks like to you,” she murmured back.
Will nodded and ran off.
She shook her head and got to work again. The world was ending and she didn’t have time for pleasantries.
But she did look up once and saw how Will’s family was was hugging him and crying. Happy tears from Will’s big smile on his face. Good. That was how it was supposed to be.
A few minutes later, Kali and Titus were out there, helping her.
“Are they always that mushy?” Titus asked after a few moments.
Robin straightened up and looked at the happy scene the Byers and Hopper were having and then back at the two numbered experiments.
“Some people can stay soft no matter how hard life gets for them,” she muttered as she started packing up the tools.
Kali and Titus shared a glance and then they both shook their heads.
“Look, I can’t say I understand what you guys went through,” Robin huffed. “The experiments, the escape, the living on the streets not know who to trust, but shit was hard here too. So many more people have died since you guys left. Good and the bad. But you don’t get to look down on us for finding a way to survive that didn’t take our softness with it.”
She jutted her thumb back at the radio station. “Especially not that boy. He’s been experimented on too. Because Creel or One or Vecna, whatever you call his scaly ass, kidnapped him and has been chasing him for three years.”
Kali and Titus shared another look. They had been told all this on the way over. It was all just so hard to believe.
“What would One want with him anyway?” Titus huffed, rolling his eyes. “Other than the powers that, I’m assuming One gave him in the first place, I don’t see what’s so special about him.”
Robin raised an eyebrow and the guy had the decency to blush.
“Because he’s like me, isn’t he?” Kali said tilting her head to the side. “He had powers outside of the blood experiments like the others; like Ollie, and Titus, and El. He’s not like them, he’s an outlier.”
“That’s the theory,” Robin confirmed. “He sees the rest of the numbered experiments as inferior because they only have powers because of his blood. But Will? Will lasted in the Upside Down for a week. There is some speculation Will wasn’t the first, only the only successful.”
“He lured other children into the Upside Down and then when they didn’t survive he moved on to the next candidate?” Titus said with a shiver. “That sick bastard.”
Robin nodded. “Agreed. Which is why we appreciate you coming to town to help his kick his scaly ass to hell where it belongs.”
There was the rumbling of cars and a very ragtag group of people stumbled out of the assembled vehicles.
“That bastard!” Nancy spit the second her feet touched the ground. “He sent demogorgons after the parents who were at the house trying to get rid of them!”
Robin, Kali and Titus ran up to them.
“Is everyone okay?” Robin asked, turning to Steve.
Steve shook his head. “Ted and Karen were beat up pretty bad, and one of the other parents died.” He looked over at Nancy. “We don’t know who she was.”
“I think she was the mom of one Holly’s friends,” Nancy muttered. “Lanester, Lancaster, something like that.”
“That’s awful,” Joyce said coming up to the assembled group. “That poor family.”
“Both my mom and dad are in the hospital and Mike promised Dad that he would get Holly back,” she continued. “One I fully backed. So what’s the plan?”
“That’s what we’re all here for,” Dustin huffed. “We need to get to the Upside Down and stop Vecna before the two worlds merge.”
“Only we can’t get to the Upside Down,” Lucas growled, “because somehow he’s figured out how to stop El from creating a gate.”
“What?!” Kali shouted. “Then what the hell is she even good for?!”
“Hey!” Mike snapped. “I’m getting really sick of you acting so high and mighty for having escaped and left her behind! You know god damn well if it wasn’t for El banishing One to the Upside Down you wouldn’t have been able to do that! So either get your head out of your ass and realize that’s she is STILL only a kid and fucking help us or get the fuck out OUR town!”
Kali was so shocked her head rocked back as if she had been slapped. She staggered backward and then turned on her heel and stormed off.
Ollie and Titus shared a glance. Then Ollie nodded.
“Even we think that Kali is being unreasonable about all this,” she murmured. “We want to help, even if she doesn’t come back.”
Steve tilted his head to the side. “Let me go talk to her.” Every head turned to him in a snap. He just held up his hands. “I think know what’s bothering her.”
Titus shrugged. “I say he try. If he fucks it further, she was already going to leave. Kali wouldn’t do anything to harm people here.”
“We don’t have time for this!” Hopper growled.
“You’ve got someone else who can banish Vecna’s illusions?” Dustin barked back. “Because without that we can’t tell what is real and what’s not!”
Hopper’s head jerked back in shock. He hadn’t thought about that. “Shit.”
“We need her help,” El said with a sigh. She had woken up with the attack on the parents. She still wasn’t fully recovered and that’s why the one mom died. But she could feel her energy sources slowly coming back up.
Max looked around. “Wait, where did Steve go?”
Erica burst out laughing. “While you asshole were fighting about whether or not he should go talk to her, he just went and did it.”
People just shuffled uncomfortably as they waited, but they didn’t have to wait long. About a few minutes later Steve came back with Kali in tow. But both of them refused to say what they talked about.
They gathered in the basement of the radio station and discussed plans. To everyone’s surprise it was Steve’s plan that made the most sense, even Steve’s. Albeit with some crude comments from the peanut gallery about the size of his dick.
Then they all ate and took turns resting.
Dustin pulled Steve aside in the middle of all this and asked, “Hey can I talk to you for a minute?”
Steve nodded and followed him into the hall.
“It’s about Eddie...” Dustin began, folding his arms and looking down at his feet. “Do you think it’s really him? The one you saw in the Void?”
Yeah, Steve really should have seen that one coming. “I don’t know, bud. I want to believe he is, but it’s far more likely he’s not.”
Dustin nodded. “I don’t want to believe it either, but I can’t keep the hope down. It crops up again just when I think I’ve convinced myself it can’t be him. It can’t be Eddie.”
Steve pulled him to him and gave him a big hug. “I want to believe so bad that he’s real and that we can save him, but I know that if I dare to hope and it’s not real, I won’t survive that.”
Dustin wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist and held on tight.
“I blame him sometimes,” Steve murmured into Dustin’s hair. “That he should have run. That both of you should have run. Ran for Max’s trailer instead of Eddie trying to buy us more time.”
“But he saved me!” Dustin wailed. “He saved me!”
“I know,” Steve whispered, “I know. But I told you two not to be heroes. Hell, getting up to the real world trailer and throwing a Molotov cocktail into the open gate would have give you two enough time to run for cover.”
Dustin looked up at him in stunned silence. “Well shit.”
They really should have thought about that, shouldn’t they?
“I’m sorry, Steve,” he whispered. “We knew the bats were going to be focused on us. That was the plan. But we didn’t come up with proper exit strategy for when it went sideways and that’s on us. But I think he wanted to be a hero. To sacrifice himself because he thought he should have died instead of Chrissy. And you were the only one who noticed.”
Steve just held him tight, tears running down his face.
“You’re the only one whoever notices,” Dustin continued. “You noticed Max back in the cemetery. You noticed Lucas pulling away before that. You’re the big brother we all need, but we treat you so badly and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Steve!”
“We’ll make it through,” Steve muttered. “We have to.”
