#Assorted Jewish Writings - On Queerness

[gay-jewish-bucky]

Despite all the pain Bucky has endured, imagine how incredible must it have been for him to awaken to a world where he, as a gay Jew, does not have to choose between being gay and being Jewish; he can proudly be both.

Every single flag carrying the star of David, every Jewish organization that marches in pride parades and celebrates queer Jewish life, every pride shabbat, every blessing for queer Jews, every queer couple married under a chuppah celebrated by their congregation and their rabbi, every synagogue that celebrates all Jews as equally holy and equally welcome... all of it, things big and small, filling his heart with the overwhelming feeling of, "this is where I've always belonged".

[theradioghost]

hey, can i pester you for some podcast recs? something with a good dose of humour and not too many episodes to catch up on. a sprinkle of queer romance would be a nice bonus. my fave so far is tsco starship iris, and i also loved greater boston, wooden overcoats, the bright sessions and caravan. and thanks always for all your great recs! you’ve brought many hours of joy into my life :)

We Fix Space Junk -- Two intergalactic repairpeople -- a knowledgeable cyborg veteran and a former socialite on the run -- travel the universe meeting people and fixing things at the behest of the terrifying intergalactic corporation they’re trying to work off their debts to. Hilarious British sci-fi sitcom featuring Evil Space Capitalism, many many wonderful AI characters, and an absolutely delightful teenage space wasp-human-cow hybrid princess who is probably off accomplishing her grandiose special destiny somewhere offscreen while the main characters deal with things like their bosses possibly trying to kill them (again).

Death by Dying -- People have a tendency to die in odd ways in the small town of Crestfall, Idaho. Luckily the town also has an Obituary Writer, an eccentric and nameless but impeccably stylish fellow whose closest friend is the Angel of Death, and who has a knack for solving murders even though that’s definitely not his job description. Throw in walrus haikus, extremely rude ravens, Something Mysterious And Malevolent Lurking In The Dark Woods Outside Of Town, disappearing childhood homes, silent nuns, ghost bicycles, and three man-eating cats, and you get something like a delightful cross between Wooden Overcoats and Lemony Snicket. (Also, OW is peak Canonically Bisexual Dumbass.)

Less is Morgue -- Riley is a paranoid, reclusive teenager with a fondness for conspiracy theories who lives in their parents’ basement. They’re also a predatory ghoul who feeds on human flesh. Evelyn is a cheerful, outgoing young woman with questionable tastes in media. She’s also a ghost, ever since she was killed by a falling stage light at a Nickelback concert 16 years ago. And since Riley dug up and ate Evelyn’s corpse, they’re roommates! Will they ever manage to record a coherent episode of their podcast without something going ridiculously wrong and/or Riley eating one of the guests? Probably not!

Victoriocity -- The steampunk buddy-cop comedy-mystery thriller you never knew you needed but definitely do! Featuring Inspector Fleet, a grouchy, extremely driven policeman looking for the murderer of the Empire’s greatest inventor, and Clara Entwhistle, an even more driven and unfailingly upbeat rookie journalist who has just arrived in the island-spanning, bizarre cityscape of alt-history Even Greater London. Come for some of my favorite sarcastic British narration since Adams and Pratchett, stay for characters-are-begrudgingly-forced-to-work-together-until-they-come-to-genuinely-and-deeply-care-about-one-another-as-friends trope. (Also for Tom “Eric Chapman” Crowley as the aforementioned grumpy detective.)

Quid Pro Euro -- From one of the other leads of Wooden Overcoats, this doesn’t have a typical plot as such but has made me laugh so hard I pulled a muscle despite the fact that I know nothing about the EU. Which is what this near-surreal, Look Around You-style comedy is about: Felix Trench’s vision of a simultaneously hilarious and terrifying alternate European Union, seen from the perspective of a serious of educational tapes from the ‘90s predicting what the EU would look like in the 21st century. It’s hard to describe this show in any way that does it justice, but it’s incredibly funny.

Time:Bombs -- A miniseries by the exalted creators of Wolf 359, which (because they are madmen) was written, recorded, and produced in the space of one week. Also, a comedy about an NYC bomb retrieval squad on New Year’s Eve, most of whom are just trying to get through the night while their leader attempts to break a record for most bombs cleared before the calendar ticks over. Chaos and hilarity ensure.

Superstition -- Wisecracking, bi, Jewish, definitely-a-private-eye-just-don’t-check-her-qualifications Jacqueline St. James receives a message from her father, which is weird, because her parents disappeared years ago. Following the trail leads Jack to Superstition, Arizona, a town in the middle of the desert where everyone’s got secrets, assorted ghosts/monsters/cryptids harrass the locals, and the missing persons rate is the highest in the nation. As a protagonist Jack is Looking For Trouble And If She Cannot Find It She Will Create It, so while Superstition isn’t a comedy per se, it’s got a fair share of laughs and is also just so, so excellent in general.

Standard Docking Procedure -- A self-declared hopepunk scifi workplace comedy about the somewhat dysfunctional staff of Pseudopolis Station, effectively a high-tech interstellar truck stop. It’s funny and heartwarming, nothing truly bad happens, and Julia Schifini is there.

Solutions to Problems -- A morally-questionable human named Janet who has defintely never done any illegal time travel and an easygoing, physically indescribably alien who likes to go by Loaf host an intergalactic advice podcast. Are you tired of your species’ insistence on solving everything via ritual combat? Not sure how to talk to your partner about whether body-swapping has a place in your sex life? Dealing with being a superpowered teenager summoned into being by the collective will of an apocalyptic groupthink cult? Janet and Loaf have you covered! Provided that Janet’s on-and-off girlfriend, the AI who supplies the air they breathe, doesn’t kill them all first. Oddly heartfelt comedy in the form of a relationship advice radio show from the Space Future.

Middle:Below -- This show’s tagline is “Remember: bad things WILL happen,” and that is basically a lie. This is actually a short, incredibly heartwarming and frequently funny show about Taylor Quinn, the only human with the ability to pass between the land of the living (aka the Middle) and the land of ghosts (the Below). Meaning, of course, that the dead call on him to fix all their problems, with the help of a girl named Heather, a ghost named Gil, and a cat named Sans. (Also, some of the most comparatively wild live shows I’ve ever heard.)

Inn Between -- Ever wonder what fantasy characters get up to between adventures, during all that time they seem to spend at inns? This show skips all the adventuring, question, and action, instead focusing on the quiet moments between where what is Definitely Not A D&D Party meet and progress from bickering strangers brought together by circumstance to close-knit found family -- all at the inn, of course. (Lots of queer folks in here also, although there’s no romance at least in the first  couple seasons.)

The Godshead Incidental -- A relatively new but very exciting and so far really enjoyable show!! Following a young woman who writes an advice column through her life in a familiar, and yet strange city where anyone might be a minor god -- your editor, your landlord, that weird guy on the street who was shouting about how he’s the God of Memory and you got into a fight with him and now you keep forgetting everything? Also, your apartment is full of pigeons now because you found out the aforementioned landlord is secretly the god of doorknobs and he’s panicking. Good luck! (Starring Ishani Kanetkar, aka Arkady from Starship Iris!)

Gal Pals Present: Overkill -- Madison, a middle schooler at a Girl Scout camp, agrees to play a game with a somewhat tastelessly bright-pink Ouija board. However, Madison doesn’t know that she’s a natural medium, and now sarcastic mid-2000s 19-year-old Aya Velasquez has joined the many ghosts who are for some reason haunting scenic Harding Park. Aya, however, will not rest until she can solve her own murder (and possibly get to know that other ghost girl a bit better, who says romance has to stop when you’re dead?). Absolutely hilarious writing of a narrator who is almost definitely wearing spectral Uggs during the entire show.

Dark Ages -- The Rivercliffe Museum of Mostly Natural History is one of the finest museums anywhere! Or it would be, if anyone ever actually visited it. Or maybe if the staff weren’t a disastrous and dysfunctional collection of criminals, weirdos, wannabe immortals, idiot bisexuals who can’t just admit they like each other, and one extremely uptight elf with no people skills. Also, it would probably help if the legendary and fearsome Dark Lord, finally returned from his millennia of dormancy to complete his prophesied conquest of the world, wasn’t hanging around watching the chaos unfold because they’ve got his crown on display. (Fantasy workplace comedy with a theme song that did not need to go that hard?)

Brimstone Valley Mall -- It’s mid-December 1999, and at one mall in South Central Pennsylvania, a group of demons are going about their evil work -- namely, working at various dinky kiosks and restaurants, hoping of achieving every demon’s dream of getting to work at Hot Topic, trying not to do too much evil because Earth is way more fun than Hell and no one wants to get promoted back home, and preparing for their band's triumphant opening performance at the upcoming Y2K party. Just one problem: their lead singer is missing. Another absolute masterwork from The Whisperforge.

Arden -- 10 years ago, Hollywood starlet Julie Capsom vanished into the woods of northern California, leaving behind a car containing a human torso that may or may not have belonged to one Ralph Montgomery. Now, private eye Brenda Bentley and reporter Bea Casely, both of whom were among the first at the scene and both of whom have their own very strong opinions on the case, are setting out to solve the mystery on their true crime podcast, Arden. Providing, of course, they can stop arguing with each other long enough to solve it. (Or, a not-really-parody-but-definitely-comedy “true crime” podcast where the crime is a retelling of Romeo and Juliet -- and even knowing that, it’s still a genuine mystery with twists and a surprise ending! -- and the hosts are wlw Beatrice and Benedick from Much Ado About Nothing. In other words, it’s perfect. Season 2 is upcoming soon and is adapting Hamlet!!)

Alba Salix/The Axe and Crown -- Another high fantasy workplace sitcom, this one a medical comedy about the titular not-very-personable witch who runs the kingdom’s House of Healing and the various shenanigans she gets into, between her somewhat scatterbrained sister and brother-in-law the king and queen and her assistants, an overly-whimsical fairy and a wannabe monk forced to do community service. The same feed contains The Axe and Crown, a spinoff set in the same world that manages to simultaneously be a sitcom about the staff of a local pub trying to stave off foreclosure and come up with schemes to beat their business rivals, and a heartfelt story about gentrification and recovery starring a gay veteran with PTSD? Which is possibly one of my favorite podcasts? (Also contains one of the most unbelievable crossover cameos possible: Leon Stamatis.)

The Adventures of Sir Rodney the Root -- Also a high fantasy comedy! When a witch transforms heroic Sir Rodney into a small piece of wood, his closest companion Sir Gilbert must set out to cure him by collecting several highly powerful and dangerous relics, accompanied by a snarky dwarfen thief, an imperious princess, a slightly creepy human child raised by fairies, a picky elf sorcerer, a dead unicorn possessed by the ghost of a stoner, and a bard who breaks the fourth wall too much for his own good. So far as I can tell, nobody is straight.

The Amelia Project -- A dark comedy about a secret organization that helps people fake their deaths. Which is honestly a pretty full summary, barring the two important points that 1. this show contains possibly the most continuity-warping crossover event of all time (it’s the center point of this absolutely chaotic diagram), and 2. in one episode Felix Trench plays a character named Bartholomew Fuckface Chucklepants Knucklecracker.

[cinaed]

Gay Musicals

Recently I have fallen down a research rabbit hole of gay musical history, mostly due to this website. It's both heartening and disheartening to listen to songs from the 1970s and 1980s and see how far we've come and yet how far we have to go. But it's also made me desperately want to watch quite a few of them! 

Most of the summaries come directly from the aforementioned website.

My favorites, in somewhat chronological order:

Boy Meets Boy: A New Musical Comedy of the 1930s (1978)

By Bill Solly and David Ward

The year is 1936, the place is prim-and-proper London, yet in the society wedding of the year - breathlessly covered by all the newspapers - the happy couple consists of two men. The fact that no one finds this in any way unusual leaves the musical free to deal, not with angst and depression, but with fast-moving intrigue, high spirits and the universal problems that might beset any two people who fall in love.

When handsome foreign correspondent Casey O'Brien misses out on the story of the decade - the Abdication - he focuses instead on the nuptials of Boston millionaire Clarence Cutler, whose intended is a British aristocrat, the Honourable Guy Rose. Casey's rival newsmen fool him into thinking the mousy Guy is a famous beauty. Then when the latter fails to turn up at the church, Casey turns the jilting into a sensational headline, and has to come up with a photograph to back up his story.

Ten Percent Revue (1987)

By Tom Wilson Weinberg

A revue of songs by Weinberg for his church, with songs about gay society, political struggle, and love. Amazon has a few of the songs available to listen to, and I really loved:

"Marriage Song," about while they might not be allowed to get legally married, they're still married in their hearts

"And the Supremes," a song about Bowers v. Hardwick, a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia sodomy law criminalizing oral and anal sex in private between consenting adults, in this case with respect to homosexual sodomy

"Walk to Washington," a song about protesting in DC for LGBTQA rights. We're gonna paint the White House lavender, make the Oval Office quake, we're gonna walk to Washington.

"Flaunting It," a protest song about being told not to flaunt it and make it obvious that you're gay through your personality, political activism, clothing, etc.

Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989)

By Janet Hood and Bill Russell

A song cycle about AIDS. The monologues are from the perspective of people who died from AIDS, the songs from the perspective of grieving family members and friends. If you've heard any song from this one, it's probably "My Brother Lived in San Francisco."

Ballad of Mikey (1994)

By Mark Savage

A musical about an activist lawyer and his struggles to feel useful and like he's actually accomplishing anything in his years as a gay rights activist, who's worried about burnout and the long struggle, and also just not feeling like he fits in with gay culture in a lot of ways.

The Harvey Milk Show (1996)

By Dan Pruitt and Patrick Hutchison

A musical about the life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in the history of California, who was assassinated at the age of forty-eight. It just sounds very interesting!

The Wild Party (2000)

By Alix Korey

Set during the Roaring Twenties, the entire musical happens in one wild evening in a Manhattan apartment. Please, please, give "An Old-Fashioned Love Story," a raunchy lesbian song, a listen. It's amazing.

I need a good-natured, old-fashioned / Lesbian love story / The kind of tale my mama used to tell. / Where the girls were so sweet / And the music would swell / And in the end the queen would send the men off to hell.

War Bonds (2002)

By Barbara Kahn and Jay Kerr

This musical was inspired by the long-neglected stories of women in the military during World War II, especially women pilots and army recruits, and the problems faced by lesbians among them. It is a love story that shows how two women, scarred by their wartime experiences, find a new life with each other after the war.

Pyrates (2003)

By Barbara Kahn and Jay Kerr

The true story of the pirates of the Caribbean, in the tradition of Three-Penny Opera and Oliver! set in 1720 Jamaica. Featuring real-life lesbian pirates Anne Bonney and Mary Read, pirate captain Calico Jack Rackham and gay hairdresser Pierre Devlin. Joining the pirates on their last voyage are an escaped slave, a Sephardic Jewish refugee from the Inquisition in Europe, and assorted brigands and rogues.

Ain't We Got Fun (2005)

By Mike McFadden

This offbeat original musical extravaganza takes place in a Chicago Prohibition Era Speakeasy, and focus on the timeless theme of two boys in love. They dance, sing and kiss - while fighting all the obstacles that keep them apart and that includes a stock market crash, a gaggle of gangsters, bootleg alcohol and the closet.

Upstairs (2013)

By Wayne Self

A musical tragedy about the 1973 arson fire at the Up Stairs Lounge in New Orleans, Louisiana that killed 32 people, nearly all of them gay men. I recently read a book on the tragedy and how it's been mostly forgotten though it was the most deadly crime against LGBTQ people until the Pulse shooting in 2016.

Fun Home (2015)

By Jeanine Tesori and Lisa Kron

Okay, I will admit that I've seen this twice on Broadway and once when it came to my city, but it's one of my favorite musicals of all time and I want to see it again. Adapted by a graphic novel memoir by Alison Bechdel about her childhood and growing up gay in a dysfunctional household, it has some beautiful songs.

Prom (2018)

By Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin

The musical follows four long-ago famous Broadway actors as they travel to the fictional conservative town of Edgewater, Indiana, after reading about a lesbian student who was not allowed to bring her girlfriend to high school prom. They want to help, but mostly they want to soak up the good press and be relevant again.

A Strange Loop (2019)

By Michael L. Jackson

Usher is a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical: a piece about a black, queer writer, working a day job he hates while writing his original musical.

[quasi-normalcy]

I can’t believe that people are willing to ditch their friends just because of how they voted. I mean, you’re seriously going to let politics ruin a perfectly good friendship? You’re going to throw all of that love and happiness away just because your friend constantly makes jokes about children in concentration camps? You’re going to write-off those years of fun you had together just because she’s incapable of mentioning any Jewish celebrity in any context without accusing them of being a paedophiliac satanist? Just because she has an entire assortment of fascistic conspiracy theories about global warming that she will ram directly into your conversation at any opportunity whatsoever? Just because you can’t bring your queer friends around to parties to which she is invited because she will be openly contemptuous of them? I mean, you’ve known her since high school. I mean, sure you only became her friend in the first place because social cliques mandated it, and sure you can’t recall having ever actually enjoyed any social interaction that you have had with her since high school...but, well, she keeps insisting that you’re friends, so it must be true! You gonna throw all of those lovely seconds of relative lucidity interspersed by decades of bile away???

[gay-jewish-bucky]

I think part of what brings Steve and Bucky together, from the very start of their friendship, is that both of them grew up with strong mothers who raised them to have an even stronger sense of justice.

Jewish-American women in particular have a long and rich history at the forefront of many movements for social advancement for marginalized people; a notable example being Brenda Howard, a bisexual Jewish woman dubbed "the mother of pride".

I can clearly see Winnifred Barnes being an active member of the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (now known as Women of Reform Judaism), a Jewish group with a long history of social and political activism both inside and outside of the Jewish community.

In 1965 the group adopted a resolution which called for the decriminalization of homosexuality and condemned homophobia from within the Jewish community. Winnie would have been the resolution's biggest supporter. Keeping the memory of her son alive, and ensuring it be a blessing for countless others, by fighting to build the world that she wished he had gotten to experience, that unbeknownst to her, he would get to live in with the very man she knew he'd been in love with for so long.

How deeply indescribably affirming and emotional it would be for Bucky, many years down the line, to get to experience a world where he could be himself, and to learn that, not only would his family have accepted him, but his mother actively fought so others like him could have this freedom to love and the Jewish community would embrace them with open arms.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

okay what if bucky were to hand sew him and steve their won pride flags, bc I hand sewed my own pride flag a few years ago and I was just thinking about what if bucky sews and he sewed a couple flags for himself and steve

Oooooo yes!!!! I'm all for this!

I'm so in besotted with the thought of Bucky sewing their pride flags. Getting nice, sturdy, fabric for the flags, teaching himself to use a sewing machine. When he's made Steve's flag, he moves on to sewing his own, onto which he lovingly hand stiches a Magen David to the center; this is the flag that hangs up on the roof over their front door, where everyone can see it proudly flapping in the breeze.

[gay-jewish-bucky]

me, every time i find a book about queerness in judaism: bucky barnes would like this book

[gay-jewish-bucky]

judaism and stucky combo: Bucky hanging the Jewish Pride flag in their apartment window

yesss i love that so much, bucky would be so incredibly excited to be able to do that!

i often think about bucky being on the run and encountering his first pride and just... being overcome with emotion by the number of jewish pride flags and signs about being queer and jewish

he'd never thought that he wouldn't have to choose between his gayness and his jewishness and suddenly he's thrust into a time where he can have both, but at the same time with what he's running from he can't... yet