The Fainting Couch: Queeriod Dramas

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to a special Fainting Couch edition of Fetch the Smelling Salts. I'm

[00:00:16] Alice. And I'm Kim. And this is our podcast where we talk about period dramas in TV and

[00:00:22] film from every era and all around the world. In Fainting Couch episodes, we tackle some

[00:00:28] of our favorite themes, subgenres or basically things we can't fit into regular episodes.

[00:00:34] So today we're talking about historical dramas that feature LGBT stories and we are calling

[00:00:40] them queered dramas. I don't know if anyone has called them queered dramas before, but

[00:00:47] if not, I'm shocked because it's really low-hanging fruit. And as lovers of queered dramas

[00:00:53] and to queer ladies, we especially love queered dramas. Yeah, definitely. So we've,

[00:01:01] you know, already done a few episodes on a few fantastic queered dramas, which you can find

[00:01:07] on our catalog. So there's Our Flag Means Death, Invitation Game and The Favourite,

[00:01:13] and most recently The Dance of the 41. We have plans to do more and we would love

[00:01:19] to hear your requests for queered dramas we should cover. So for this episode,

[00:01:24] shall we talk a little bit about queered dramas and their history? And just like with our episode

[00:01:32] on Disney animated period dramas, we each have a film that we chose to talk about a little more

[00:01:38] in depth. Okay, but first of all, why do we single out queered dramas as their own subgenre

[00:01:45] and why are they important? Well, I think, you know, the important because over the last few

[00:01:51] decades, queer people have been exploring our history, both in terms of the public strides of me

[00:01:57] and how we have lived hidden lives throughout history. That's really important and I think

[00:02:03] that's something that we need to think about. Yeah, so I think in queer cinematic history,

[00:02:08] you've got just queer representation across the board in film and on TV, but then queered

[00:02:15] dramas are their own special thing where you have both these depictions of historical events

[00:02:22] and characters in history who are queer and that have made strides in our own LGBT representation

[00:02:29] and human rights. And then on the other hand, we have these fictional or non-fictional

[00:02:35] representations of people from across all of history kind of grappling with being queer

[00:02:43] in their own time periods. I think both are really important explorations for us now.

[00:02:49] Especially, you know, with queer identity in all its forms, including trans identity,

[00:02:56] right? You know, being very much in the public consciousness, people tend to think about,

[00:03:02] you know, what it means to be a queer person in the here and now. And I think it's especially

[00:03:08] important to also remember that, you know, queer people have existed throughout history.

[00:03:16] Forever. Forever! Ever since we were little blobs like crawling out of the ocean,

[00:03:23] we have like two girl blobs, they're like, hey, I like your blob boobs. And she's like,

[00:03:28] thanks. Yeah, so it's good to remind ourselves that things that people are thinking about

[00:03:37] right now in terms of queer representation, the queer experience, actual people in history have

[00:03:44] been experiencing them in different ways and in different historical contexts. Now what I've

[00:03:49] been thinking about, right, in preparation for this episode is like, why are so many queer dramas

[00:03:55] so sad? So you know how we talked about how, okay, we're each going to pick a specific movie

[00:04:00] to like watch slash rewatch and talk about, right? And I was having this conversation with

[00:04:05] you and I said, look, I'm at this period of time where I literally cannot watch anything

[00:04:11] sad. I just cannot, I can't deal with it. I can't, you know? Yeah, we kind of, we had to

[00:04:16] go through our schedule and we agreed to cut out like super bummer stuff just for our own

[00:04:23] wellbeing. We just have like only mild bummer period dramas. Exactly. So especially when

[00:04:31] thinking of like queer dramas, I was like, oh dear God, you know, of all the things to watch,

[00:04:37] I literally had to kind of go through and do my usual thing that I generally do when I watch a

[00:04:42] movie. Anyway, look for spoilers. I'm a big spoiler person because I just don't want to be

[00:04:47] bummed out. So yeah, you know? So why is so many queer dramas so sad? And the obvious

[00:04:55] answer, I guess, is the simple fact is queer experiences in the last few centuries, which

[00:05:00] period dramas tend to cover, they've been a big bummer. So any film exploring the historical

[00:05:07] reality of queer characters is probably going to reflect that as if we needed a reminder that

[00:05:15] being a gay person or a queer person at any point in history is hard, right? We just needed

[00:05:24] filmmakers to point that out to us like really pointedly. But I think it's great that

[00:05:30] TV and filmmakers have been challenging that in the last five to 10 years,

[00:05:35] which I'm really excited to go into a little bit later about kind of where

[00:05:38] queer dramas are going. Okay, so I have a question, right? Yeah. Like how old do

[00:05:44] you think queer dramas are? Like how far back would they have gone in a cinematic experience?

[00:05:53] Like what is the first queer drama? Officially? Yeah, like what is the first queer drama?

[00:05:59] Totally officially canon canon. What you say now will affect you till you die.

[00:06:05] Okay. Okay, no pressure. Well, first of all, if you want to know more about not only

[00:06:13] like queer dramas, but also the history of queerness and queer stories in film,

[00:06:18] I've got a few source recommendations. So I looked at this really great BFI article

[00:06:24] by Jack King called 10 Great Films About Queer History. There's also a Freesat article called

[00:06:30] A Short History of LGBTQ plus Cinema. And the 2017 documentary called Queer Rama covers

[00:06:40] LGBT plus representation in film, including period dramas, because the history of queerness

[00:06:48] in film and the depictions of queer characters in film is like its whole own thing. Because,

[00:06:54] you know, you think about it, you have queer characters and then you have queer coded characters,

[00:06:58] right? Absolutely. So if we're trying to narrow in on a definition, we've got period dramas

[00:07:06] are films that focus on historical characters and settings. There is all the cinema itself.

[00:07:13] And queer characters and stories have been a part of filmmaking also pretty much since the

[00:07:18] very beginning. So it's difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what should be considered the

[00:07:23] first queer drama. But I think one strong candidate is the 1922 silent film Salome.

[00:07:33] But Salome is an odd one. The story is adapted from the biblical story of Salome

[00:07:39] and the killing of John the Baptist. But the film is adapted from the play Salome by Oscar Wilde.

[00:07:47] And it's commonly accepted that several of the characters in the film are heavily queer

[00:07:52] coded, and much of the cast was queer. So does that make it the first query drama?

[00:07:59] Another candidate might be the 1933 film Queen Christina, which is about the life of

[00:08:06] 17th century lesbian monarch Queen Christina of Sweden. But so on one hand, the script gave

[00:08:14] Queen Christina a male love interest to try to kind of dampen down the gayness.

[00:08:21] But she is played by queer actor Greta Garbo. And her queerness isn't hidden in the film

[00:08:29] exactly. She does get to do some flirting with some lady characters. So that's another strong

[00:08:34] candidate. I'd just like to add that people familiar with film history are probably aware

[00:08:39] of the Hays Code, just the rules implemented by Hollywood censors that prohibited the inclusion

[00:08:45] of quote unquote immoral subject matter in films. This includes any overt mention of

[00:08:53] homosexuality. So the Hays Code really put a damper, so to speak, on queer dramas from

[00:09:00] 1934 to 68. That's quite a long time. Thankfully, after that, this sort of rubbish was

[00:09:07] finally abolished. Yeah, so in that period, we get some pretty funny queer coded characters,

[00:09:14] but you don't get stories about particularly historical stories about queer people.

[00:09:20] And it's only really been since the 1980s that queer drama started to become more

[00:09:25] mainstream with films like Another Country in 1984, Morris in 1987, which I'm going to talk about,

[00:09:36] Looking for Langston in 1989, Edward II in 1991 and Orlando in 1992.

[00:09:42] I do love Orlando.

[00:09:45] I've not seen that one, but Tilda Swinton is in it, right?

[00:09:48] Yeah, she's amazing. Absolutely. So it's one of those movies I've never seen in

[00:09:53] an entire tea. So that's something I like to rewatch, actually.

[00:09:57] Yeah. Okay. So one day we'll you and I will sit down and we'll just watch it together from start

[00:10:01] to finish. And we'll just kind of go a little bit gaga over Tilda Swinton those poofy bloomer

[00:10:06] pants. Oh, yeah. In 1992, an academic called B. Ruby Rich coined the term new queer cinema

[00:10:14] in Sight and Sound magazine. And that was to describe the new turn toward queer stories

[00:10:19] in the British and American film industries. So as I mentioned, part of this whole kind of

[00:10:25] 80s emergence of new queer cinema was the film Morris, which is a merchant-divory joint.

[00:10:33] And we just covered Remains of the Day recently. And before that, we did A Room with a View,

[00:10:40] my favorite period drama.

[00:10:42] Also lots of queer stuff in it. Not overt.

[00:10:47] Yeah.

[00:10:48] But, you know, it's all over the place.

[00:10:51] Merchant-divory, famously very gay production company. And all of their films to me have

[00:10:58] some kind of camp element. Morris is the only one that's actually overtly gay tells a gay

[00:11:04] story though. And I'd never seen it before. So I was really excited to watch it because

[00:11:09] it's been recommended to us by a few people. And if you look at any kind of like list of

[00:11:16] the best queer period dramas out there, you'll inevitably find Morris on the list.

[00:11:22] So shall I tell you a little bit about it?

[00:11:24] So Morris is a great one. It's another E.M. Forrester novel, just like Room with a View.

[00:11:30] And it's directed by James Ivory and it has a lot of some really key players from some

[00:11:36] other merchant-ivory films that you might recognize, including James Willoughby,

[00:11:41] who plays Morris Hall. And you might know him as Freddie Nesbit from Gosford Park.

[00:11:50] He's also in Poldark. And he's also in an upcoming period drama that I'm kind of excited

[00:11:55] to see called Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which also has Henry Cavill in it.

[00:12:03] Henry Cavill with a beard.

[00:12:05] So James Willoughby plays the titular character Morris Hall

[00:12:09] and his love interests, there are two, are played by Hugh Grant, who we saw in Remains of the Day,

[00:12:16] and Rupert Graves, who we also saw in A Room with a View.

[00:12:20] There are other period drama royalty folk in there like Phoebe Nichols, Mark Tandy,

[00:12:27] Simon Callow.

[00:12:28] Oh, we love Simon Callow.

[00:12:30] Aura Bay and Judy Parfitt. Helena Bonham Carter also has a little cameo in there as well.

[00:12:36] What's interesting about this as a gay story is that it's adapted from a much older novel.

[00:12:42] It's an E.M. Forster novel that was written alongside some of his other novels. So it

[00:12:49] was written around the turn of the century like a lot of other Forster novels, but it

[00:12:53] wasn't published until the 1970s because of the subject matter. And actually, because it

[00:13:01] was this gay story, their normal screenwriter decided that she didn't want to write the

[00:13:06] screenplay for this one. So it was written by James Ivory and Kit Hesketh Harvey, who's

[00:13:12] also written a couple other period dramas. It's about basically two Poshos who go to Cambridge

[00:13:18] together and develop this friendship that blossoms into a non-physical gay relationship.

[00:13:27] And then they have to grapple with what that looks like and whether they're going

[00:13:31] to pursue it or not, and just the risks and the ramifications that go along with it.

[00:13:39] And it really captures quite like viscerally, I think, the sentiment at the time,

[00:13:46] just how dangerous homosexuality was perceived. There's a part where one of the very wealthy,

[00:13:52] very posh influential characters gets caught trying to solicit sex from a man.

[00:13:58] And he isn't sent to prison, but he is dragged to court and his life is absolutely ruined.

[00:14:05] So the characters are seeing this, seeing what could happen to them,

[00:14:09] and they react in very different ways. So Hugh Grant's character gets married

[00:14:13] and Morris James Willoughby's character goes another way with it. And he ends up

[00:14:20] with Rupert Graves, who is an undergardener. What's an undergardener?

[00:14:28] He's like, you can garden my under. That was what I was thinking.

[00:14:32] Right? If it's not trimming a taint, I don't know what it is.

[00:14:37] I think it's just like a lesser gardener. Like you've got your head gardener and he's

[00:14:41] good. There's always got to be some kind of a hierarchy. So that's like the sous chef,

[00:14:45] chef and sous chef. So it is a tense movie. There's a lot to kind of be bummed out about,

[00:14:54] but here are some great things about it. First, it has some very excellent male nudity.

[00:15:01] It's not quite on a par with A Room With A View and that scene in which they're bathing

[00:15:06] in the pond together, but Richard Graves is involved again, which is fantastic.

[00:15:12] We get man butt, we get some full frontal man nudity with ding-a-lings.

[00:15:21] And at the beginning of the film, the film starts with Simon Callow as an awkward like

[00:15:27] boys school teacher drawing anatomical pictures of male and female genitalia,

[00:15:34] with a stick in the sand. And it's so glorious. It's like full vulva.

[00:15:41] Oh my God. I'll watch it just for that.

[00:15:44] Shaft and balls. It's fantastic. Yeah, you can just watch the first 15 minutes.

[00:15:49] It also has the most exquisite reciprocal hair petting I've ever seen in a film.

[00:15:55] That's the award I would give for it. This shows a really interesting progression

[00:16:02] in terms of the perception of homosexuality in media over the 20th century. So Ian Forrester,

[00:16:09] who himself was a gay man, he was rightfully really trepidatious about publishing a book

[00:16:17] like this with this kind of honest representation of these male characters who

[00:16:21] are in love and the choices they make. For those familiar with the film, you know that

[00:16:26] it ends and we kind of don't know what happens to Morris's character after he gets together

[00:16:32] with Alex Scudder, the undergardener. But the book originally had an epilogue that doesn't

[00:16:40] appear in the film and only appears in a few editions of the book. But I wanted to talk a

[00:16:45] little bit about it because I find it really sweet and kind of a happy ending. Since we're

[00:16:51] talking about sad period films, so it ends on this kind of like he's not in a great place or

[00:16:56] not sure what's going to happen with his life. He basically just blew up his life to be with

[00:17:00] this person who's in very, very different class from him, let alone being with another man.

[00:17:07] But in this unpublished epilogue of the book, they run away and become

[00:17:15] lumberjacks together. And they're like really happy and one of Morris's sisters

[00:17:21] kind of comes across them in the forest and she's like, you're gross and gay and a lumberjack and

[00:17:30] I wish I didn't run into you and I won't tell mom that we saw you. And he's like,

[00:17:35] cool, whatever. And then he just goes back to his cabin and just like cuddles up with his

[00:17:41] lumberjack husband and they're just like having a great time.

[00:17:44] I like that for them. So we'll just say so we get some really great full frontal nudity with

[00:17:51] James Willoughby. We'll never complain about that. But this role, the role of Morris was

[00:17:57] originally meant to go to Julian Sands. No, but he had a conflict with another film.

[00:18:05] And so they recast Morris. So we were robbed of another Julian Sands nude scene.

[00:18:14] And so I think this film, along with a few other films that were coming out around the

[00:18:19] same time really put queer-read dramas on the map as something that was like a viable subgenre.

[00:18:24] Okay. I don't know why, but you talking about Morris makes me think of Brokeback Mountain.

[00:18:32] So this is my weird train of thought. You talking about Morris makes me think of Bright,

[00:18:37] It's Hit Revisited, which I do think is something we should cover at some point.

[00:18:43] And then I have like a random link in my head to Brokeback Mountain

[00:18:50] because I was thinking about movies I want to watch and then movies I want to watch,

[00:18:56] but no, I will never watch because it's sad. Right? And I think that's a very key queer-read

[00:19:02] drama. It seems to mirror Morris in that it's two men who are together over a long period of

[00:19:10] time and have to grapple with that while they're also kind of dealing with expectations to

[00:19:16] be in heterosexual relationships. Yeah. People who cannot be together. And that is a theme

[00:19:24] that I just personally cannot watch. You know, it just makes me really sad.

[00:19:28] The golden thread through so many of these sad period dramas, it's like I can't be who I really

[00:19:35] am or there will be very serious ramifications and I can't be with the person I want to be

[00:19:40] with. So I have this aching longing for forever in my soul. Yeah. Which leads me

[00:19:48] through to what I ended up watching, which is Carol. But before I tell you a little bit

[00:19:53] about Carol, I should just remind people that, you know, Brokeback Mountain was also an amazing

[00:19:58] movie in that it had many Oscar nominations. It was nominated for Best Actor for Heath Ledger,

[00:20:06] Got Rest His Soul, Best Supporting Actor with Jake Gyllenhaal, Best Actress Michelle Williams

[00:20:14] nominated also for Best Cinematography. Didn't win for those, but they did win for Best

[00:20:19] Director with Ang Lee, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Score. So definitely worth

[00:20:26] watching for everybody who's not me. Anyone who's like me, I'd say go watch Carol. So I

[00:20:33] specifically, so I told you, I said, look, I want to watch a movie, right? There was

[00:20:37] centering specifically on women's stories, you know, queer women. I was looking at the list

[00:20:44] and so my criteria was queer women, not sad. That's a tough one. I feel like after Brokeback

[00:20:53] Mountain we get a lot of, it almost became a joke. Like every year you would get like

[00:20:59] the sad lesbian period drama film. Yeah. So sad lesbian period drama film that was not

[00:21:07] sad is Carol, which came out in 2015. I mean, it's not a laugh out, ha ha, you know, but it's

[00:21:13] a beautiful film. Something I always wanted to watch. It has the beautiful, extremely sexy.

[00:21:20] I mean, I could just go on about her. Cate Blanchett, she stars across Rooney Mara.

[00:21:26] You have Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacey and Kyle Chandler, right? So this is set in New York

[00:21:34] early 1950s. Wonderful aesthetic. Everybody's smoking, everyone's smoking indoors,

[00:21:42] that sort of thing. Quick summary. Essentially it's about relationship between two women,

[00:21:51] an older woman, Carol, played by Cate Blanchett and a younger woman, Therese.

[00:21:57] And so you got Cate Blanchett. So Carol, she's an older woman. She's married. She's definitely

[00:22:05] like a high society woman. She has a husband and a young daughter and she meets this shop

[00:22:15] assistant. So presumably I would say Cate Blanchett is probably like, I would say in

[00:22:20] her 40s, you know, as a woman in her 40s also I was like, not that old, baby. But you know,

[00:22:27] so she's probably, I would say supposed to be in that age range. And so she meets Therese,

[00:22:33] who is a young woman. She is a shop assistant in a big department store and right at the

[00:22:41] start the two women meet because Carol's trying to buy a Christmas present for her daughter.

[00:22:46] And they form this relationship and already right at the start, you know that Carol is about to,

[00:22:52] she's going through a divorce from her husband. Therese, she's in a kind of casual relationship

[00:22:58] with this man, but she's trying to kind of figure out what she wants to do in her life.

[00:23:04] She's an aspiring photographer and they have this relationship. So what's beautiful about it

[00:23:10] is that I tend to feel like in cinema, oftentimes when you have a lesbian relationship in cinema,

[00:23:19] there's very much an issue about the male gaze and lesbians existing, right? For the enjoyment

[00:23:27] of men. You know, that's obviously clearly a trope in porn, for example, you know? And

[00:23:34] I think it's this kind of something that's very difficult to do, to have a lesbian drama

[00:23:41] that doesn't fall into those tropes. But still it's something popular.

[00:23:47] Cate Blanchett, oh my God, like the whole time I was watching her, I was just like,

[00:23:50] she is just so, she's just, ooh, is a sexiness. Can I just spend just a moment

[00:23:56] to talk about how freaking like she is just, oh my gosh, she's the sexiest being alive.

[00:24:02] There's this bit where like, I'm sorry, I'm just going to perv on her. Her back, right? I just,

[00:24:09] I love women's backs. Well, you know how I feel about women's backs as well because of our

[00:24:16] episode that we did on Northanger Abbey, which famously features Little City Jones' back

[00:24:21] when she stands up out of the bath. So Carol is good for a lady back as well. Oh,

[00:24:29] Carol, you're just a lady back, beautiful lady back. I don't know. There's this kind of like,

[00:24:34] yeah, like you said, there's a sense of longing. And the other thing I enjoyed about the movie is

[00:24:39] that there's no moment of like questioning of, oh my God, I'm gay. What does this mean?

[00:24:47] Blah, blah, blah, you know? Even though you have these women who are in a way in

[00:24:54] heterosexual relationships, kind of like right at the start. But it's just taken,

[00:25:00] not taken for granted. It's just kind of like, yeah, okay, they are in these relationships,

[00:25:04] but they're also queer, you know? And part of the story of Carol is that she is in this

[00:25:15] marriage she's very unhappy about. And prior to this particular time period that we're

[00:25:23] watching her in, she had a relationship with her best friend, a woman who is still involved

[00:25:29] in her life. So she had a sexual relationship with a woman. And that is part of the reason,

[00:25:36] I guess, you know, this along with many other things has led to this divorce that she's

[00:25:41] seeking from her husband and who is not happy. He kind of wants her back. He wants

[00:25:47] to play the role of the wife, you know? So she's trying to kind of like step away from that.

[00:25:53] But her main concern is her daughter. So you see this relationship, this good friendship

[00:25:59] between these two queer women, Carol and her best friend. And then you see the relationship

[00:26:07] between Carol and Therese. And again, it's not really being seen through like the male

[00:26:12] gaze. It's kind of you're kind of in a way watching Carol through Therese's eyes.

[00:26:21] So that's like her point of view, that the movie is kind of taken. The movie in a way

[00:26:28] touches upon something, something that's close to my heart. You know, when people who are

[00:26:32] also in heterosexual relationships, when queer people in heterosexual relationships

[00:26:37] have to try to like, you know, when they talk about themselves as being queer,

[00:26:45] people think of it as, oh, you know, it is just a phase. So there's this kind of like bit,

[00:26:51] right? You know, they're like, oh, no, no, you're not really queer, you know?

[00:26:55] Oh yeah. I think we as two bisexual women know all about this, where there's just,

[00:27:00] I mean, bi erasure is a thing. And you experience it a lot like, oh, if you're with a man,

[00:27:07] does that just mean that your attraction to women is just irrelevant? Or does it get turned off?

[00:27:14] Yeah, or if you've never been attracted to a woman before, or even if you've never

[00:27:18] been with a woman before, right? If you've always been with a man, you've never been

[00:27:22] with a woman before, but you've been attracted to women, but for various societal reasons,

[00:27:27] or you've just never been with a woman before, then if you happen to, in this case, that seems

[00:27:34] to be the case. So you have this kind of like difference where you have Carol who is set up as

[00:27:39] this very confident woman, in a way also confident in her sexuality, confident in

[00:27:46] her sexual preferences, you know, in that sense. Also because it has been established

[00:27:51] that she has already been with at least one other woman. So it's like, yeah, yeah, she is

[00:27:57] gay, you know, she is bi or she's queer, whatever, right? Yeah. She got her punch card stamped.

[00:28:03] She's a real gay now. Exactly. You're like, okay, okay. She's a real gay now, right? And then

[00:28:08] you have Therese who presumably, so you see her, so she's in this relationship with this guy.

[00:28:13] And then there's another scene right at the start where she's with this other guy and he

[00:28:19] kisses her, you know, and then she's kind of swept away. She meets Carol, right? You know,

[00:28:25] and presumably she's never felt the way about any other woman, any woman before Carol,

[00:28:33] but she feels this way specifically for her. And then you have this thing where the scene

[00:28:38] where she's arguing with her kind of boyfriend, right? And he's just like,

[00:28:43] essentially going, yeah, this is just a, you know, just a phase. What you and I have is

[00:28:48] real, like you're just infatuated with her. This really isn't a thing, blah, blah, blah.

[00:28:52] He's even denying her, her sexual preferences, you know? Or, and yeah. And like that, that bit

[00:28:59] really, really got to me here, especially as someone who just thinks of everything in

[00:29:04] terms of a spectrum. So it was like, Oh, I'm sorry. Do I have to get my punch card then?

[00:29:08] You know? Yeah. So it's all right. That's just a personal moment there.

[00:29:15] No, I think that's a really relatable moment as well. And I think that's something that

[00:29:19] hopefully that we see more kind of depicted in film because it was already, I mean, I think the

[00:29:24] reason that we see a lot of older queer-age dramas centering around male stories is because

[00:29:33] male homosexuality was kind of more visible and kind of visibly threatening. Whereas

[00:29:40] women's homosexuality could be like skirted under the rug just as like, Oh, well, do

[00:29:46] women even really have sexuality or? Yes. Can women even have sex, right? Or they just kind of

[00:29:56] playing around with female relationships. And so it's very, very easy to overshadow that. So

[00:30:02] centering women's homosexuality stories was already a development. And now we've seen that

[00:30:08] grow and expand more and more and more. And I hope we'll see more bi stories in queer-age

[00:30:14] dramas because we've always existed as well. And we've just been easy to erase, especially

[00:30:22] by women. I'm not going to say especially by women, all bi people, but because women's

[00:30:27] sexuality was also kind of simultaneously denied. I think bi female sexuality is something that I

[00:30:34] would like to see more take more center stage. And we haven't even touched yet on things like

[00:30:42] trans stories and ace stories. Yes. In queer-age dramas. Definitely. I mean,

[00:30:48] so another thing on my list to watch, right? Is the Danish girl, you know? Yeah, that's a

[00:30:53] funny one. Yeah, it is right. Cause you know, I mean, when it came out, the trans community was

[00:30:59] understandably upset that the titular character was played by Andy Redmayne, right? Who is,

[00:31:06] you know, wonderful actor and all. And then you have this whole thing about trans characters,

[00:31:11] not being played by trans actors and actresses. Yeah. And the problems that come with that.

[00:31:20] Yeah, exactly. We've got, this has always been a thing in queer representation in film,

[00:31:26] whether you have queer characters actually being played by queer actors and a hundred times more

[00:31:33] so for trans characters, the very few times that you even do see them depicted in film,

[00:31:38] let alone in a historical context, they're played by Eddie Redmayne. Yes. Again, beautiful

[00:31:45] Eddie Redmayne. You know, I've no problems with him as an actor. I had a problem with him being,

[00:31:50] you know, cast for this role. Can I tell you my theory about why he was cast in this role

[00:31:57] in the Danish girl? Okay. Tell me it's because his lips are the exact same color

[00:32:01] as the rest of his face. And so when he puts on lipstick for the first time, it's

[00:32:07] the most dramatic and cinematic transformation. Oh, fair. So that makes it fine.

[00:32:16] Yeah. That makes it all right. There's clearly no trans act. You couldn't find a single

[00:32:22] trans actor, actress who had, you know, lips the same color as your face.

[00:32:26] And this really is so representations of not white people and trans people

[00:32:37] and other people with these more, what are now still considered niche sexualities, like

[00:32:43] asexuality are still not seen as much as we would like. There are a few great films

[00:32:50] that center on black stories. I'm just off the top of my head. There's Bessie, which

[00:32:57] stars Queen Latifah and Moonlight, which part of Moonlight, I think is a contemporary story,

[00:33:04] but there's a lot of it that's set in the eighties. And then trans stories aside from

[00:33:09] the Danish girl have really been very few and far between we've covered our flag means death,

[00:33:14] which has really good kind of gender spectrum representation on it. And I think

[00:33:22] the TV series Pose is another really good example. Amazing, like a trans period drama.

[00:33:30] And some people might argue that it shouldn't quite be considered a period drama because

[00:33:35] it is set in the nineties, the early nineties, but a bad news. That was a long

[00:33:41] ass time ago. Exactly. As a millennial, you think back to the nineties, you're like,

[00:33:46] yeah, that's not long ago. And then you count how many years has it been?

[00:33:52] At least 30 years, you know? So I personally would consider that a period drama. And also

[00:33:58] if we hark back to our very first Fainting Couch episode, right? Where we kind of

[00:34:02] talk about how at least how we at least define period dramas, right? And in terms of

[00:34:10] not just being set in a past and an identifiable past, but it's also kind of actively engaging

[00:34:17] with that past and cultural and historical moments and ideas that were specific to

[00:34:27] that time period. And I think Pose especially deals with it.

[00:34:31] Yeah, absolutely. You're talking about ballroom culture in Harlem in the early nineties during

[00:34:37] the AIDS epidemic. You've got a lot of black and Latinx characters. It's an incredibly

[00:34:45] compelling story. I love Pose. I would really like to talk about it sometime. And I love

[00:34:52] Pose because it also talks about this really important intersection of marginalization where

[00:34:58] you've got POC characters and trans characters. Yeah. So every time I think of Pose, and

[00:35:06] the whole time I was watching Pose, I was reminded of a movie that anyone who knows me

[00:35:12] would know that I keep telling people to watch it. It's actually one of my favorite movies and

[00:35:16] I think it's a very important movie for people to watch. Especially I would say again,

[00:35:22] younger listeners who may not have in a way lived through the AIDS epidemic. Again,

[00:35:31] you and I, we're not that old, but I do remember AIDS being a big thing, HIV AIDS.

[00:35:38] So I watched when it first came out this movie called Enderband Played On. It came out in

[00:35:46] 1993. I think it's a very important movie that covers kind of what was going on at the time

[00:35:55] in terms of medical science, politics and social ideas. It is very white, I will say. It's very,

[00:36:06] very white, totally, which is why I think you need to kind of like watch, if you do watch that

[00:36:12] then go watch Pose. Think about being reminded of what was actually happening

[00:36:18] to all sorts of communities. So just a throw in recommendation. Again, I'm not really sure if

[00:36:26] I would consider that a period drama per se, but it's definitely a film or docudrama of sorts

[00:36:35] that was very much about the AIDS epidemic, specifically in America in the 80s,

[00:36:43] which I think is important. So what other developments do you think we can look forward

[00:36:47] to in period dramas? So I personally would, you know, think I'm thinking about queer dramas that

[00:36:55] have happy endings. It's one of the reasons why I love Our Flag Means Death, right? Yes. You

[00:37:00] know, not only does it play with history, right, in a very in-your-face way, it has

[00:37:05] characters whom no one will even think of as being queer, you know, Blackbeard and

[00:37:11] Steed, yeah. But yeah, but it does that to like bring about queer joy. And that's lovely,

[00:37:20] because queer people can be happy too. Queer people can be happy in queer relationships.

[00:37:26] Even in history. And if they can't then just change history. Yeah. As period drama lovers who

[00:37:33] do like a good amount of historical accuracy can say, if it's a choice between making queer

[00:37:41] characters really, really sad, bummed out and eventually dead, and playing around with history

[00:37:49] and being less historically accurate so that they can be happy and have some jollies,

[00:37:54] then I choose the second one. Yes, always. Hooray. What about you, Alice? Like what are

[00:38:00] you looking forward to? What are your observations of like how queer dramas have moved in a sense

[00:38:06] and what you're hoping to see more of? And so we haven't even touched that much yet on

[00:38:13] non-English language queer period dramas. Like queer dramas coming from outside of the US and

[00:38:19] Britain. And there's really great ones, like The Handmaiden, which is an adaptation of

[00:38:26] Fingersmith from Korea, which is incredible. More recently, there's a Spanish film called

[00:38:35] Elisa and Marcella, which is a little bit sad. It's based on a true story, but a really amazing

[00:38:41] true story of a woman who disguised herself as a man in order to be with her lover.

[00:38:47] That came out in 2019. And then from 2021, there's a Polish film that I haven't seen yet,

[00:38:54] but is on my list called Operation Hyacinth, which is set in the Second World War.

[00:39:00] So I would just love to see more queer period dramas coming out of just every country,

[00:39:08] as queer-centered stories in history from everywhere. Yes, because queer people were

[00:39:14] everywhere historically, reminder. I want some ancient Egyptian gays. I want some...

[00:39:21] Yeah, because see there's always lots, right? That's the thing. You see a lot of like,

[00:39:26] you know, ancient gay men, right? Or like depictions of ancient gay men. Definitely the

[00:39:32] Greeks. They'd be having sex with boys all over the place, right? Men would be having sex

[00:39:36] with men. You know, Achilles and his boyfriend, Patroclus over there. But you don't so much see

[00:39:46] women or trans characters, you know, different kinds of sexualities.

[00:39:52] You might see a eunuch once in a while. Yeah, I want some gay Vikings.

[00:39:59] I want some like Amazonian women. Yeah. You know, I want to ball... I mean,

[00:40:03] this is probably never going to happen obviously, but you know, you know,

[00:40:06] I love me a Bollywood movie, right? There's going to be a Bollywood queer drama someday.

[00:40:14] I'm gagging for that one. So that's what I want to see. I want a Bollywood queer drama. Please!

[00:40:20] Be like, you know, everyone's dancing around in beautiful outfits. Amazing song numbers.

[00:40:27] Brilliant. And I'm going to cover it. And then gay smooching. Yes. There are so many

[00:40:34] queerie dramas that we haven't gotten to mention. And so please write to us and tell

[00:40:41] us your favorite queerie drama. Tell us especially if there's one that you love that you would

[00:40:46] want us to cover, or if you'd like us to go a little bit deeper into either Carol and or

[00:40:54] Morris. And you can do that by going to our Instagram and slipping into our DMs

[00:41:01] at Fetch Smelling Salts, or you can email us at FetchSmellingSalts at gmail.com.

[00:41:08] We're also on TikTok, also at Fetch Smelling Salts. And we have BuyMeACoffee.com

[00:41:16] Fetch Smelling Salts, which we use to pay Helen. So yeah, buy us a coffee or more like

[00:41:22] buy Helen a coffee because she definitely needs it to listen to her speak and edit weird things

[00:41:28] out. Yeah. So I have to go stare at my own back in the mirror. Okay, cool. Because

[00:41:37] autoeroticism is also a thing. And I'm going to go watch that scene where Simon Callow

[00:41:49] draws a vulva into penis again, just because that's how I like to get to sleep. Yes.

[00:41:55] Goodbye.

[00:42:04] It's all finished.