The Birdcage: Deep Thoughts About Joyous Queer Comedy, the Beauty of Middle-Age Romance, the Villainy of Val

Send us a message! Include how to reach you if you want a response. Shouldn't you be holding the crucifix? It is the prop for martyrs!The 1996 film The Birdcage offered a revolutionary portrayal of gay romance in a mainstream movie. Not only do we see a stable, loving, long-term relationship between Robin Williams’ Armand and Nathan Lane’s Albert, but the film is a funny and joyous celebration of being queer that doesn’t require a side of tragedy.But as Tracie shares with us this week, not everything in this laugh-out-loud comedy has aged well: Armand and Albert’s son Val is a straight-up villain (see what I did there?) who pressures his parents to hide their true selves, Hank Azaria’s portrayal of Agador, the Guatemalan house boy, makes his character the butt of the joke (not to mention the fact that Azaria is a straight, white, Ashkenazi Jewish man playing a queer Latino), and the shortcuts the filmmakers use to show the hypocrisy of Gene Hackman’s Senator Keeley reify racist stereotypes.The sisters still find a lot to love in this film that asks us to question assumptions about gender performance and family–even if they can never forgive Val.We are family! I’ve got the Guy sisters with me. Get up everybody and listen!CW: Discussions of homophobia and the AIDS epidemicMentioned in this episode:The commentator who named Val THE villain of the 1990s: https://crookedmarquee.com/why-the-birdcage-mattered-and-how-it-came-up-short/#google_vignetteOur theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirlsDon't miss out on updates and event invitations from Tracie & Emily! Join the Guy Girls VIP List at guygirlsmedia.com/keepintouchWe are the sister podcasters Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our extended family as the Guy Girls.We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love 80s and 90s movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, analyzing film tropes with a side of feminism, and examining the pop culture of our Gen X childhood for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, religious allegory, and whatever else we find. We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com. For our work together, visit guygirlsmedia.com We are on socials! Find us on Facebook at fb.com/dtasspodcast and on Insta at instagram.com/guygirlsmedia. You can also email us at guygirlsmedia at gmail dot com. We would love to hear from you!