darkshrimpemotions:impossiblemonsters: aqueerkettleofish:aqueerkettleofish: musicalhell:brehaaorgana
darkshrimpemotions:impossiblemonsters: aqueerkettleofish:aqueerkettleofish: musicalhell:brehaaorgana:andreii-tarkovsky: To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (1995) Dir. Beeban Kidron This was such a formative movie This shit was revolutionary for the mid-90s. Among other things it helped me understand that transgender and cross-dressing were completely separate things. To this day, I am in awe of the fact that Patrick Swayze not only campaigned hard to get the audition, not only auditioned in dress and makeup, but spent most of the day leading up to the audition walking around LA in dress and makeup.This was a man who could sing, dance, act, ride a horse, fight, and walk in heels, he had nothing to prove to anyone, and he is MISSED. Okay, I’m not done feeling about this.If you’re younger, you may not know Patrick Swayze; he was Taken From Us in 2009. But Patrick Swayze was an icon of masculinity. Men were willing to watch romantic movies because Patrick Swayze was in them. Patrick Swayze was fucking beefcake.And this man didn’t just agree to do a movie where the only time he’s not actually in drag is the first three minutes, which involve stepping out of the shower, doing make up, and getting Dressed. He has ONE LINE that is delivered in a man’s voice, and it’s not during those three minutes.And if you watch those three minutes, you see a stark difference between his portrayal of Miss Vida Bohéme and Wesley Snipes as Noxeema Jackson. (I am not criticizing Snipes’ performance. They were different roles.) Noxeema was a comedy character. Chi-Chi was a comedy character. But Miss Vida Bohéme was a dramatic role, played by a dramatic powerhouse. When Vida sits down in front of the mirror, she sees a man. And she doesn’t like it.Then she puts her hair up, and her face lights up.“Ready or not,” she says. “Here comes Mama.”And while Noxeema is having fun with her transformation (at one point breaking into a giggling fit after putting on pantyhose), Vida is simply taking pleasure in bringing out her true self. And when she’s done, she sees this:And you can FEEL her pride.All of this from an actor who, up to this point, walked on to the screen and dripped testosterone. the fact that some of you history-ignorant children in the notes are trying to shit on groundbreaking historical queer cinema because it doesn’t meet 2021 standards is infuriating. sit down, shut the fuck up, and listen to the elders in the room for fucking once This. If you have never lived in a world where queerness was universally pathologized and criminalized to the point that even IMAGINING a world where it wasn’t constituted a radical and potentially dangerous act, you don’t have any business judging those of us who have for how we survived it and how we found (or still find) comfort in the few imperfect representations we got. You don’t have to like it. You probably aren’t capable of “getting” it. And to be honest, I don’t want you to! I am glad that young queer people will never know exactly what it was like “back then.” But what you also will not do is refuse to learn your own history and then shit on everything that came before you, because like it or not what came before you is the reason you will never have to get what it was like back then. -- source link