#little gold men podcast

[jbaileyfansite]

Interview with Vanity Fair (2024)

If you looked up the phrase “booked and busy,” you’d probably find a picture of Jonathan Bailey. The British actor broke out as Lord Anthony Bridgerton, whose love story took center stage in the second season of Netflix’s eponymous hit romance. He captured even more hearts as Tim Laughlin, a McCarthy-era conservative turned radical queer leftist in Showtime’s epic limited series Fellow Travelers, and will soon star as another eligible bachelor, Fiyero, in Jon M. Chu’s two-part Wicked adaptation—a part Bailey scored after Chu found clips of the actor singing online. “The fact that it was a YouTube video that got me the job is kind of wild and incredible,” Bailey says on this week’s episode of Little Gold Men.

On top of all that, Bailey managed to return to the Ton for season three part two of Bridgerton, which begins streaming Thursday, June 13 and filmed concurrently with Fellow Travelers—which bled directly into Wicked. He remembers practicing Ozdust Ballroom choreography during lunch breaks on Travelers, wearing his buttoned-up G-man glasses and sharp haircut from the waist up—“and then it was Fame from the waist down. I’ve got terrible videos that may or may not surface in about a hundred years time—hopefully once I’ve died, because they’re so embarrassing.” But then again, there’s a poignancy to them: “Tim, if he’d been born 60 years later, may have played Fiyero in the school production of Wicked. And he would have loved the shiny boots.”

Vanity Fair: As Tim on Fellow Travelers, you evolve from a conservative, religious congressional staffer in the ’50s to a radical queer man living in the ’80s. What was it like filming that character arc? I have to imagine it would be tough to do.

Jonathan Bailey: It was an incredible challenge. For Tim, he’s talking about the idea of religion and faith and what that gives you at the beginning. And I think it seems to have equipped Tim to endure a love against all odds. He never gives up on Hawk (Matt Bomer). And Hawk becomes his sort of living religion, and something that he believes in.

I was like, I want to see a gay ingenue who’s a fish out of water—who’s itchy in his skin. It’s not like he’s doe-eyed and just sort of hapless; he’s fighting from the get-go. He does not understand why the world is the way it is. His emotions are the thing he leads with. And he’s all about truth and transparency and honesty. And I think that comes from this Catholic sort of conservative upbringing. So it’s just the most beautiful quest that he has in his life, to find absolution but also acceptance. But he never stops fighting. That’s why, to me, he’s an absolute icon.

Tim is prickly and struggling internally with his sexuality while also dealing externally with important moments in American history, from McCarthyism to the AIDS crisis. As a Brit, how familiar were you with the American history?

Not enough [laughs]. It was not included on the curriculum. But then I’m not sure it really was in America, either. This is why we’re shining a light on areas of history that conveniently haven’t been included. It’s an experience to explore a character throughout that time, but also the history of queer experience—to offer me, as Johnny, catharsis. And to be in a predominantly queer environment to tell that story. I relished it, because there’s so much that I need to understand about the privilege that I have now and the people that came before me. The fact that there’s five out gay actors leading the show is because of all the people that came before. And I’m telling you, people have been loving gay actors for years. They just haven’t been able to say that they’re gay.

We’re getting more and more queer stories and queer representation on screen, but these characters are not always portrayed by actual queer people. I think Fellow Travelers proves that it makes a big difference when you cast queer, out, gay, LGBTQ+ actors in roles that are queer.

This is so specifically exploring the queer experience over 40 years. I think there was a GLAAD report last week that was kind of disheartening, about how there’s been a decrease in queer or LGBTQ+ characters being represented…. Tim and Hawk and all the characters in this are born into a world where they have to fight. And if you’re ever having to monitor or adapt or to survive, if your first instinct is it might not work because of who I am, then that’s the difference between being a gay actor and not being a gay actor. It’s the fight.

The show wouldn’t work without your chemistry with Matt Bomer. How did you find that dynamic? Tim and Hawk’s relationship has a sub-dom dynamic, and at times it switches. There’s a power struggle. It’s complicated and nuanced and always believable.

[laughs] Well, I mean, Matt Bomer is a supreme being, and incredibly lovely and great. He’s got such a wealth of experience. We met on Zoom to do a chemistry read, and then we met in a coffee shop about a week, or even actually less than that—like, six days before we started filming. For about an hour we said, you know, this is such an opportunity. This is what we’re really excited about. It’s a great amount of trust and a free fall. But that’s the point of gay relationships: There is so much nuance, and the dynamic is so balanced because there’s no gender, There’s no—uh, what was it? Women are from Venus, men are from Mars.

The fact that the intimacy is so richly explored is so important to the gay experience. It’s something that I found really incredibly vital as well—to allow people to understand the way that men come together sexually is also directly linked to how the world communicates to them. You know, their relationship with their self-worth and their shame. Also, literally, where are the safe spaces that they can meet. Even in their own homes, in [Fellow Travelers], they had a window of how many hours until the sun came up and Hawk had to get out. Even there it’s unsafe. I loved that the intimacy had its own evolution.

I’m glad that you brought up the intimacy. It’s such an important part and of the show’s DNA, and, frankly, rare to see intimate scenes between two queer men on television. What was it like filming those scenes?

Personally, I just think, What an opportunity. It’s really exciting to be able to know that you’ve got the space to be able to show what you haven’t seen before. I remember Queer as Folk, Blue Is the Warmest Color. There’s been beautiful same-sex intimacy explored. But I think in this instance, it was how the two characters came together, but also directly reflective of what’s going on inside and the distance between what they really felt towards each other—what they felt like they could say, and also what they felt that they had to do in order to survive. That’s where the intimacy is incredibly hot.

It didn’t seem to me to be an overwhelming ask for the intimacy scenes. It felt to me that that was exactly what it should be. If you’re going to tell this incredibly bruising, tender, detailed love story that’s going to explore four moments in history, of course, you should explore the intimate dynamics. And I do think you can show so much about what’s happening with a human in those silent moments of intimacy. That’s why it’s brilliant. You know, I can see where sex scenes don’t further the plot and they don’t explore character development and they’re cynically included. With this, that was never going to happen because it was all on the page. And it’s important.

Source

[ilikethisacompletelynormalamount]

Yet the unadorned rigor of this stage-trained actor, who recently completed a tour de force Vanya run on the West End, remains firmly evident. He embodies Strangers’ Adam with an intricate attention to physical detail. “You don’t want somebody pretending to be a boy, but you want a sense of the vulnerability of a child, and also somebody who is learning to fall in love as an adult—and how those things are intertwined,” he says. “I don’t know if that is apparent in watching, but it’s a very, very tactile film…. Even the way he is able to be embraced by his parents, and then learns to be the embracer of Harry, it’s something that I had to map out silently for myself.” One lovely scene later in the movie finds Adam back in his childhood home, wearing pajamas and curling up into bed alongside his parents—with, again, all three actors in question roughly the same age. It’d feel absurd, bordering on campy, if not for Scott’s gentle verisimilitude. “I feel very proud of it,” he says of the sequence. “It takes work.”

...

[coffee-and-uhg]

New podcast with Diego Luna for Vanity Fair (Diego is the first 30 minutes) and accompanying article which is basically an edited transcript of the podcast.

[dualredundancy]

Just five days to go! Who will win big on Sunday at the 76th Primetime Emmy Awards? We have our predictions! #Emmy #Emmys #Emmys2024 #EmmyAwards #EmmyPredictions

[wellntruly]

knighthooded replied to your post "Happy Day After Oscars Day"

oh man I've for some reason kept putting off going to see The Fabelmans (partly due to those trailers you mentioned) and Aftersun (because I need to be emotionally ready) but it sounds like I've got some tickets to buy

amelodie replied to your post "Happy Day After Oscars Day"

I've similarly been putting many of these off, so thanks for the insights and encouragement! I'm really curious about these parasocial critic friends though. Who are some of your favourites to follow?

Oh man, my close personal friends! Many of them responded to The Fabelmans and Aftersun so similarly to me, while also some others really did not!! But maybe the true ~magic of the movies~ was the different ways they affected us all along.

Here are some of my folks and where you can find them:

Richard Lawson, Chief Critic at Vanity Fair His reviews are on VF.com, and he's one of the co-hosts of the 'Little Gold Men' podcast, one of my stalwarts. Next week I believe they will be doing my FAVORITE episode of the year, the one right after the Oscars where Joe Reid (stay tuned) comes on with his spreadsheet of what's coming out this year and, sight unseen, they have to make their wild guess of what's gonna win Best Picture. Do they replay their predictions from the year before too? Oh you bet. A riot. I'll add the link once it drops.

David Sims and Griffin Newman, co-hosts of the 'Blank Check' podcast David is a film critic at The Atlantic, Griffin is an actor and comedian, and 'Blank Check' is their podcast where they cover directors' filmographies, in...depth. These episodes are long as hell. You know you're lost in the sauce when you realize that's become a feature not a bug. I have an intro episode! It's the start of their Bob Fosse miniseries from last summer, on his first movie musical, Sweet Charity (1969). I mean first of all you should absolutely watch Sweet Charity, dazzling and a hoot, but even if you don't see it first, this episode is so great. A lot of it is from their dossier on Bob Fosse (the Fossier), as the introduction of this series, so it's a lot of fascinating history and context of both Broadway and Hollywood at the time, but also they're just all in a particularly bouncy mood and it's a treat to listen to. Ben Hosley, their weird little sound guy of a producer, is basically discovering in real time that maybe he loves musicals?? It is so fun. Anyway. Lots of running bits, sure, lots of guests also (hi Richard!), LOTS of hours, but I just vibe so much with the way these two love movies.

Joe Reid and Chris Feil, co-hosts of the 'This Had Oscar Buzz' podcast Let's just stay on the podcast train for a stop longer. Joe and Chris are both Oscar historians and freelance critics, popping up on places like Vanity Fair and Vulture. Their podcast has the pretty brilliant premise of covering movies that once had dreams of Academy Award nominations, but it all went wrong. Their appreciable cattiness is perfectly suited for this. They also have really good film festival recap episodes, for the current year. Edit: Ahh I forgot my intro episode! It is this one from February on Magic Mike XXL, a film I have not seen, with special guest, their friend Pamela Ribbon, the reason we got this moment, and every moment in this episode where I almost crashed into something laughing.

Emily St. James, of, sigh, I guess just Twitter right now Emily was recently laid off from her job as a cultural critic on Vox, in the on-going horrors of the media job landscape. I'm sure she'll be somewhere else soon, and can't wait. I've actually followed her longer than anyone on this list, and this is where this gets so delicate and complicated!, but you may actually be more familiar with her under her old name, as she's been a noted voice in especially TV criticism for decades, and really shaped The AV Club for years.

Fran Hoepfner, Bright Wall/Dark Room, 'Fran Magazine' First found Fran through BW/DR, where she still turns out incredible essays on the regular, now a loyal subscriber to Fran Magazine, her stellar newsletter, and she is easily the best Letterboxd reviewer in the business (not a business). She's just so astute and so funny, how the FUCK does she do it! Best in the business!

Demi Adejuyigbe, of one million things but on Tumblr: the 21st of September music videos He's just on Letterboxd, but we should be so lucky. Any time I have relayed a Demi Letterboxd joke to someone they've lost their mind. Most recently it was him calling the white love interest in RRR Phoebe Waller-Bridgerton.

I've just realized that of course, ALL of these people are also on Letterboxd. Haha what a dumbdumb! I've gone back and made all their names links to their Letterboxd profiles.

Well I hope this is more than you asked for!! Will update with more people I've surely forgotten.

[insanityclause]

Interview with Tom for Vanity Fair's Little Gold Men podcast about Loki Season 2.

[pod-together]

Pod-Together Day 7 Reveals 2024

Love, not sedition (琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV)) written by aninfiniteweirdo, performed by paintchipblue Summary: 'What is this, if not sedition?' The recording only shows stating as Xiao Jingyan doesn't answer out loud.

settling in (Welcome to Night Vale, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)) written by Koschei_B, performed by DuskDragon39 Summary: On his trip through America, Gerry passes an town of interest. In the end, it might not be exactly all he's expected to be, but he can't say he regrets staying in the long run. At the very least, he get to live, and all the dangerous stuff around isn't his concern to deal with. And, just maybe, he likes how friendly the people are, even if it's a little creepy. Sue him. Or better yet, Mary Keay.

Voice and Heart (The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells) written by lc2l, performed by EternalLibrary Summary: Good morning this is S9BT5, the heart and voice of your Company Substation. Please be aware that we have visitors onboard the station today from a Preservation Survey Team. Staff are expected to be courteous and welcoming, and to remember that all conversations are monitored for training and enforcement purposes.

Time May Change Me (But I can't trace time) (Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy) written by Little_dumpling, performed by Kittona Summary: Anakin’s mother is leaving for Europe and Anakin does not want to come along, thank you very much. But his only other option is to go live on his Uncle Qui-Gon’s horse ranch. Anakin will go, but he did not sign up to do chores!

the cul-de-sac on the spiritual path (The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir) written by olive2read, performed by carboncopies Summary: stuck in a random catacomb niche, deep in the Ninth House, Wake gets to know Gideon Nav (whether she wants to or not) -or- 5 times Gideon went to visit her mum’s niche -or- why Wake didn’t take the shot

elutriate calor vulpes (All For The Game - Nora Sakavic) written by Opalsong, performed by Flowerparrish Summary: Andrew hated heats. He hated being vulnerable and out of control. Neil…helped. [4 Heats Andrew Struggled Through + 1 He Enjoyed]

Gifts of Gold (gold) (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) written by BardicRaven, performed by BardicRavenReads, audio production by OneGoldenRaptor

Two and a Half Men (Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Mortal Instruments Series - Cassandra Clare, Shadowhunters (TV)) written by Sivan325, performed by Ceewelsh Summary: "Do you mind telling me why I have kid-Bucky in my apartment?" Steve asked. Tony looked at him, noticing how the man looked exhausted. "Bucky? A kid? Are you out of your mind?" "How many kids do you know who have a metal arm and long hair?" "Touché."

Blood of the Covenant (is thicker than the water of the womb) (One Piece (Anime & Manga)) written by stereden, performed by Aibhilin Summary: The little postgull drops the newspaper right in front of her and then hightails it away from Mount Corbo, and that should have been her first clue, because the bird usually likes to hang about and beg for scraps. But not this time. No. Because this time, the newspaper has her oldest brat’s picture plastered all over the front page, but it’s not the cocky grin of his wanted poster. No. It’s her kid, bruised and battered and in chains. Firefist Ace, Whitebeard Commander, to be executed! the headline proclaims for the world to see, and Dadan freezes. birds of a feather (Dungeons and Daddies (Podcast)) written by travvymybeloved, performed by godoflaundrybaskets Summary: “Oh, fuck,” Glenn said and through the windshield, Henry could see him throw his joint down onto the dashboard. He threw himself half out the window, leaning out at the waist and throwing open his arms. “Come on, Henry! Go, go, go!” Henry let out a wordless honking noise and started flapping his wings, skipping against the ground and taking off in the air for a few seconds. He hit the ground, took a few shaky steps, then took off again with more confidence. Darryl whooped, starting to rev the car, and Glenn caught Henry out of the air and yanked him into the car. Darryl slammed the stick into drive, the car lurched and shot off across the field, and Ron continued cry-laughing in the backseat as they beat a quick retreat. “You almost got your butt kicked by a bird,” Ron wheezed out, wiping at his eyes, and Henry harrumphed. “Oh my God, that was great.” --- If Henry was asked to guess anything, anything, about Faerûn, "geese act as malicious guides to your soulmate" wouldn't have even made the top 100 guesses. The Hall Pass (หัวใจไม่มีปลอม | Beauty Newbie (Thailand TV 2024)) written by Wereflamingo, performed by Annapods Summary: Liu’s comfortable relationship with her boyfriend Guy gets shaken up when Guy gets cast in a Boys Love series opposite charismatic established actor Saint. Well, Liu thinks he's charismatic. Guy thinks he's extremely annoying and can't be trusted. There's no way that hall pass will ever be needed. Or: a rookie BL actor and his girlfriend acquire a third through the power of BL and complaining about your shared real/imaginary boyfriend. A story about social and parasocial relationships, monogamy and polyamory, sexuality and lack thereof, beauty, choice, and enemies-to-lovers BL, told through voice messages and phone calls on Liu's Phone.

[jgroffdaily]

Jonathan is interviewed by Richard Lawson at Vanity Fair, with the interview also available as a podcast.

There are additional questions asked in the podcast about the state of theatre and crowds after Covid, shows he has seen recently (including OH Mary!, Mary Jane and Illinoise), the differences between working in film, television and theatre, and the legacy of working with David Fincher.

In conversation with VF’s Richard Lawson, Groff talks Merrily as well as his childhood in rural Pennsylvania and his Tony-nominated performance as Melchior Gabor in Spring Awakening. Rather than joining Lea Michele, his Spring Awakening costar and bestie, on Ryan Murphy’s Glee, Groff opted to stay in the theater world. “I really felt like I didn’t want to sign on to be a singing teenager again for another seven years, which I had just done for two years in Spring Awakening,” he tells Lawson.

As you’ve navigated a very dynamic career, how have you found managing the art and the commerce?

I’ve been really lucky in that when I moved to New York, I just wanted to act. I was not looking for money. I mean, I waited tables and I kept cash under my bed and all of that when I first moved to New York. But as time went on, I was lucky enough to get those few jobs that allowed me to live and allowed me to listen to my artistic appetite over a monetary need. Even the jobs that have blessedly made me money in my life, I never took for that primary purpose. Every job that I’ve taken has been an artistic curiosity primarily. So I’ve been really lucky in that regard.

Are you saying that you didn’t do the off-Broadway Little Shop of Horrors for the money?

[Laughs] It’s funny that you bring up off Broadway, because there was this moment after Spring Awakening where I had left—I had left the show after doing it for two years. I was 23, and Ryan Murphy had told Lea Michele and I that he had written this show Glee for the two of us, and would we be interested in doing that? I really felt like I didn’t want to sign on to be a singing teenager again for another seven years, which I had just done for two years in Spring Awakening. I was 23, and I really wanted to act. I love singing, but doing that felt like more of the same as opposed to something that would be an opportunity for artistic growth. And that next year, I did three off-Broadway plays.

When I came out the other end of that experience, I understood the truly life-changing power of doing great material. Spring Awakening changed me from the inside out as a person. I came out of that experience feeling like, Ooh, I want to keep doing this. I want to keep stretching and growing and challenging myself as an actor. So, Hair and Glee came up as opportunities, but I went to Playwrights Horizons and the Public Theater and did plays there for the next year.

[hunterrrs]

Brian Dumoulin may be one of the most interesting men to wear black and gold in quite some time, as he's got so many passions outside of hockey, like travel, food and wine. The 31-year-old shared some of his must-haves, both on and off the ice, at home and on the road.

Wine books, magazines and podcasts

One magazine I've subscribed to that I really like is called Noble Rot. It's from London, where they have two different wine bars and a wine store. I really like the stuff that they write. It's really, really cool.

For podcasts, there hasn't been as many recently. But through the course of like 2010 to 2021, there was a podcast called 'I'll Drink to That!' It's a guy named Levi Dalton. He basically interviews everyone, from people who work in restaurants, winemakers, wholesale distributors - anyone in the wine trade. They talk about how they got into wine. With the winemaking, it can be very technical, where they talk about decisions with the barrels, decisions with when to pick, how their vineyards are different than the other… so it's very intricate. I wouldn't say it's for a beginner (laughs), but it's really good information.

For books, the last one I read is called 'Terrior Footprints' by Pedro Parra. He's sort of an expert. It's a book about wine and how when you blind taste, you kind of taste soil in the glass, and that's a good way to blind taste because you can really pick up different notes if you know where it's grown in.

Grassl universal glasses

I use those normally. I also use Zalto universal glasses for whites, Zalto burgundy glasses for pinots and lighter reds, and Zalto bordeaux glasses for heavier reds

Loose leaf imported tea

I do a lot of green. Lingering Clouds is a green tea that I really like. Then there's Gaba, which is good for after meals, for digestion. That still has a little caffeine, so I don't try to do that towards nighttime. I always have loose leaf chamomile before bed. I'll usually do that around 7-7:30 PM, or I'm going to the bathroom all night (laughs).

Snacks with a bit of a kick

I mean, it's not healthy or anything, but I like salt and vinegar chips. Those get me, my wife too (laughs). We'll have a bag and all of sudden, it's gone. It's easy to finish a whole bag. I also like Smart Sweets sour gummy bears [the green package]. We have them on the team plane.

The stovetop

My favorite kitchen utensil is honestly the stovetop. I like cooking on the stove a lot better, I'd say, just because grilling is a little bit harder to control. I'll do steak on the stovetop, but obviously I'll cook burgers on the grill, and stuff like that. But I like just trying a bunch of different things on the stovetop.

Broom and dustpan

I love to clean and sweep, it's soothing. I like the broom and dustpan. I'm old fashioned. That's all I need.

Beanie

That's just because I don't want to comb my hair. It's just laziness. That's one thing that I'm not into, is clothes. I'm not a clothes guy.

Lacrosse ball

I like to roll out on that for recovery. I really like that, it's easy. It's really good for your legs and your hips, to get into the small little muscles.

michelle giving us what we need: dumo, man of culture

[allthefoolmine]

The 2024 Women’s Olympic Marathon: GOAT

Your fool is BACK for some enthusiastic screaming about marathons!

Under the cut for folks in other time zones who haven’t woke up yet and want to be surprised and for anyone who wants to scroll on by!

So, listen. Listen. I said to the long-suffering @parrishsrubberplant that if the men’s marathon race was THAT good (and seriously, it was among the greats) the women’s races was going to be—I quote myself—“off the motherfucking chain.”

Holly cats was I right about that one. I could end this post right here with a string of head exploding and fire emojis, but instead I’m gonna write a bit about what I followed.*

(*still too cheap to pay for streaming, so this comes entirely from being glued to newspaper live text updates and the Olympics own race tracker, which gives the 5k splits. I WISH I HAD PAID. I wish I had *been there* in Paris.)

Things about this race that made my brain hurt, a numbered list:

1. Sifan Hassan (Netherlands): You have to be a pretty big nerd about running to remember the last person to medal in the 5k / 10k / marathon triple in the Olympics, so storytime.

Emil Zapotec, won gold in all three events at the 1952 Olympics. His marathon time was 2:23:03, and before you dismiss that, remember that training and shoe tech were different then, and also it was his first marathon. Hassan, as far as I know, is the second to try this triple, and her marathon time was 2:22:55, which is an Olympic record.

*and* she won bronze in the 5k and 10k earlier THIS WEEK. And we talked yesterday about the hilly Paris course, right?

Hassan, I need to add, made history in her last Olympics, Tokyo 2021, for getting Gold in the 5k and 10k, and bronze in the 1500m; she’s the first Olympic athlete to do that, ever, so it’s not like it was impossible to imagine she could medal in her triple this time (for Paris, she was initially also entered in the 1500, and decided not to.) Just, really hard to get your head around.

I’ve been listening to Kara Goucher and Des Linden do an amazing recaps podcast on Olympic track and field this week (go listen to Nobody Asked Us, they’re hilarious), and one of the things they stressed is that, from their own Olympic—both are double Olympians for the USA—and championship racing experience—the training you do for a hilly marathon vs for a track 5k is super, super different. Just to put in perspective the absolutely BATSHIT INSANITY of what Hassan just did by winning the Olympics. And setting an Olympic record. After the all the racing she did this week.

2. The race at 40k Sprint, do not run, to find a video of the finish. Here’s the one from Eurosports. Up until 2k to go, FIVE ATHLETES were in it: Sharon Lokedi (Kenya), Hellen Obiri (Kenya), Amane Beriso Shankule (Ethiopia), Tigst Assefa (Ethiopia), and Hassan.

Again, a comparison to Zapotec: a sportswriter once described his running style as “a man wrestling an octopus on a conveyor belt” and I couldn’t help but think of that when the commentators were desperately assuring us that Obiri is not struggling, she just Runs Like That. Obiri has one of the greatest CVs in women’s distance running history, and honestly, she looks like a woman wrestling an octopus on a conveyor belt. Often the octopus is winning. It’s so fun to watch.

Also, seeing Hassan, lurking at the back of the pack like a goddam shark, as Beriso and Lokedi got dropped. I was there and SEATED. You could almost see her scent blood in the water. It was EPIC.

3. The finish: Hassan and Assefa finished 3 seconds apart (and we had some good track style elbow throwing! The drama! Love to see track and field the contact sport!) Obiri was 15 seconds back from gold. I actually cried a little, like you do when you see something overwhelming beautiful and can’t help it. Lokedi, who is an athlete I love following, was fourth, 19 seconds back.

5. Yuka Suzuki (Japan): can we just scream together for a moment about how impressive Team Japan’s young marathoners were in this Olympics? Suzuki is 24 years old. She had, according to the information I could find about her, never raced in world championship race (not sure what a world university games is but I don’t think that counts). She went from being 13th at 25k to 8th at 30k, to 5th at 35k, to 6th at 40k…and finished 6th. Most of her running, for the last 10k of the race, was alone, with the lead pack in sight but not in actual distance to catch. Can you imagine how hard that it is, mentally? To be so close and yet so far at the end of a hilly marathon that just happens to be the motherfucking Olympics? I can barely get my head around it. Just. Holy cats people. Holy cats. So excited to see where she goes next.

6. Checked and Wrecked, the Honor Roll: It was super frustrating to follow this race because the Olympic tracker wasn’t working properly for past splits: it automatically updates them to show the state of the current race. Which made it very hard to follow changes in the race and spectulate strategy, and this didn’t happen with the men’s tracker, UGH, but anyway. Flowers to Jessica Stentson (Australia), Dakotah Lindwurm (USA) and Melody Julien (France), and also Lornah Chemutai Salpeter (Israel), who all, at various points in the first half, seem to have Went For It. I’m sure there’s plenty of other people who belong on this roll of honour, but that’s just who I noticed. I would rather see an athlete wreck themselves than check themselves, because sports are entertainment.

7. Lastly, because repeat Olympians Are Cool: Fionnula McCormick (Ireland)! Her fifth Olympics! Ridiculously cool.

Guys (gender neutral), women’s distance running is so fucking lit right now. There’s so many great athletes in the sport and that was such an epic, epic marathon.

Once again, a link to the end of the race for everybody in Europe / with vpns, because that was racing that makes me glad to be alive. Off the chain, indeed.

[writingbeforemidnight]

Why we have compassion for incels and hate "femcels"

Femcel. What a weird word. But I see it. Every scroll through my insta reel feed reveals it. "You're such a femcel", they might say. Bitter, hidden behind their phones. It's probably a women's rights post. Maybe something about abortions, toxic tampons or just that one video of that girl that recorded herself every time a man disappointed her.

"Femcel", the commets scream. As if women ever have problems getting laid. I'm one, and I'm striving. But that's besides the point.

The main difference between an incel and a femcel begins with the name. Incels, men "involuntarily in celibate", are a group that came off reddit. They named themselves that. They chose that name, and created their own community with their own vocabulary. "Femcels" however, is a name created by similar people. Men, frustrated with women and so called "radical feminism" (even though most things they are mad at, aren't even radical, but primarily human rights).

Now, creating these terms is a form of power, because it creates a narrative, the incels can control. They are the incels, they hate the "chads" but also the "stacys" and especially the "femcels". They have the power to paint the caricature of the femcel however they please. Surely, if there is a bunch of man haters, that has to mean, that women hating is also somewhat okay, right?

The incel movement is perceived as a defensive movement, that shields itself from female violence, femcels, unrealistic beauty standards other people set on them, loneliness and more.

You can see that, if you type in "incel" into the YouTube search bar. There's a Joe Rogan podcast, where the movement is seen as reactionary, or there is the Jubilee "ask an incel anything" video, further humanizing incels or videos about how little men are actually incels. But no video is harsh (enough).

Incels are rewarded with sympathy and humanity. Their actions have validity in context of their struggles. They are broadly seen as human.

But all of these videos fail to see, that the movement is not defensive, but offensive. It doesn't defend itself from violence, it creates it. It creates it's enemies, not based on stats or facts, but based on opinions from other radical content creators, that tell this tale of the "evil woman" and carry on their prejudices like a virus. The movement does not react to beauty standards, it makes them up and then blames other people for it. The movement doesn't help against loneliness, it creates a vicious circle that reinforces it.

---

I still remember being a Christina Aguilera fan in my early teens. And she has one kind of unknown song called "I hate boys", where she talkes about how boys "suck" and how "all men are dogs" because they play with girls and all of that stereotypical stuff.

Anyway, people were PISSED. No one bats an eye when men say they hate women because they are sensitive, stupid, gold-diggers and bad drivers, but don't you dare call a boy stupid! It's so fucked up how women can't call men stupid, while also being called ho3s, s1uts and almost every other slur there is on every rap song.

Male misbehaviour is always overshadowed. And when it's too big to be overshadowed, then it's being justified.

And "femcels"? Well, there are many reasons to treat them differently and hold them to higher standards! First of all, the patriarchy has women stuck in a very strict role. Of course women can have rage, but if so, even their rage is required to be aesthetically appealing, not ugly or disorted. We, as a society, don't allow women to be ugly. The worst image we know isn't the one of a man raping a woman, but the image of a feminist, with short blue hair and long armpits, smelling of sweat.

It's because even in 2024 women are still oppressed. Oppression creates structural barriers, that benifits some at the expense of others, the expense being the creation of a dilemma. When you can't do anything right, ever, that's called oppression. Women can't conform to society and women can't not conform.

The reason why we have compassion for incels and hate femcels, is because they are women and we don't have compassion for women.

Because we never see the humanity in women.

It's so sad, that we have more compassion with the movement that created several serial killers, like Elliot Rodgers, than with women. But then again, when has our society ever treated women with respect?

I really hope to one day wake up in a world of respect and love. Or maybe I just need to delete Instagram.

---

What do you think?

Love, xx

[jbaileyfansite]

Jonathan Bailey talking Fellow Travelers and Wicked for Little Gold Men Podcast. The interview is longer here than the transcripted one that you can find on Vanity Fair here.

[itskeisy]

When Tom Blyth learned that he would be leading the next Hunger Games film, he panicked. “I definitely went into this thinking, This massive machine is gonna consume me—eat me up and spit me out,” he tells me on the latest episode of Vanity Fair’s Little Gold Men podcast. “The fans are gonna hate me online, [they’re] not going to think I’m the right person for the job, and Francis [Lawrence] won’t be accessible as a director because he’ll be too busy.”

To read the whole article ⬇️

[dualredundancy]

[wellntruly]

The 4077 Film Festival

I watched three (plus) movies that they watched on M*A*S*H; this is my book report.

“Marlene Dietrich is back in town.” / 2x24 ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’

Okay so this one is actually just referenced in dialogue, not a specific film we watch them watch, but it happened that I watched two of Josef von Sternberg’s Marlene Dietrich films right before starting the M*A*S*H fest programming in earnest, so prologue, baby, prologue!

I had moved Shanghai Express (1932) up my watch list ever since it kicked off the Little Gold Men podcast’s Pride month Oscar flashbacks series this year, reminding me that I really wanted to see another Marlene Dietrich movie. Just stepping forward a few years into the 1930s also felt good, felt right after watching just so many (all) of Buster Keaton’s movies from the 1920s. Hot Chronological Summer!

I ended up watching both it and Morocco, because Shanghai Express SO enchanted me. Morocco (1930) is the one where Dietrich dresses in a tuxedo and steals a kiss from a woman, but Shanghai Express actually felt more pervasively, albeit subliminally queer to me, perhaps because she and her fellow sapphically inclined co-star Anna May Wong were rumored to have had an affair at some point. There’s just something about the scenes of the two of them lounging in a train car together just listening to music or silently playing cards and coolly eyeing anyone who comes in that says ‘gay culture.’ The actual romance plot is heterosexual of course, but it was wild how much more I was into that relationship than I was her one with Gary Cooper in Morocco, a much more famous and famously handsome star than [looks him up yet again] Clive Brook, and yet Brook all the WAY for me, girl. If we have to choose between Marlene Dietrich’s male love interests in von Sternberg pictures.

Anyway in the second season M*A*S*H episode ‘A Smattering of Intelligence’, Radar is engaged in a bit of hoodwinking (the 4077th’s second favorite pastime after flirting), and to indicate that he’s surreptitiously swapped some papers to further confuse some spy vs. spy antics going on, lights a cigarette and strikes a leg-up pose silhouetted in the doorway, causing spy #2 to ask if that’s the signal, and Hawkeye to remark, “Either that, or Marlene Dietrich is back in town,” and honestly describing Radar as being in drag as a famous bisexual woman from the ‘30s is not necessarily the least accurate description of Radar’s gender that I can think of.

Should you watch Shanghai Express? Babe yes, so moody in the best way. The play of light and shadow! This mysterious cast of characters all thrown together on a train! The Chinese civil war??? SHANGHAI EXPRESS.

Should you watch Morocco? Also looks so so beautiful, but if you only have room in your life for one Marlene movie, easy choice it's the above.

Blood and Sand (1941) / 3x05 ‘O.R.’

And now we reach the movies they actually watch on the show, although the first is a slight feint: this one we only hear. Early in the third season episode ‘O.R.’, recognizing that they’re all going to be working through the night, Radar asks Henry if he should pipe the audio from the movie in over the PA system, and Henry approves of this. I IMMEASURABLY approve of this, and think hearing the sound of old movie dialogue and Spanish guitar playing half muffled overhead as they operate is one of the most spellbinding atmospheres this show ever captured.

But the interesting thing about the choice of Blood and Sand for this episode, is that what this movie was most known for was actually its bold Technicolor visuals. Reportedly, director Rouben Mamoulian would carry around spray paint with him so he could change the color of props at a moment’s notice, and was also known to just paint shadows onto the walls sometimes if he couldn’t get the effect he wanted with light alone. The efforts of Mamoulian and his crew nabbed them the Academy Award for Best Cinematography: Color for 1941 (this was the era where there were two cinematography categories for color and black & white; ran until the 1960s actually!), as well as a nomination for Art Direction.

Though the film got no other notices and somewhat mixed reviews overall, Tyrone Power and Rita Hayworth were big deal movie stars, and their star-power is probably what contributed to much of this movie’s commercial success. When Father Mulcahy, hearing a scene playing over the speaker, asks what this is, Henry just states the title and their names. From another table, Hawkeye adds as a piece of description: “The Frank and Hot Lips of Old Seville.”

As it happens, Hawkeye’s joke is not so far off really! Tyrone Power is playing a passionate dumb matador married to a beautiful and innocent Linda Darnell (secret stalwart of the M*A*S*H programming, she's in two of these!), but gets swept up in a tumultuous affair with a powerful temptress played by Rita Hayworth. Something I learned watching Blood and Sand is that when Loretta Swit is playing Margaret in glimmering, half-lidded seduction mode, a big loose enticing smile on her lips, she is absolutely channeling Rita Hayworth in movies like this. And given the way Blood and Sand goes (I am so sure you can guess), Hawkeye would seem to be implying that Margaret is fully capable of destroying Frank’s whole hapless married ass.

Verisimilitude Corner: What plays over the speakers is 100% a scene in Blood and Sand, but I believe that the Spanish guitar I so love is actually lifted from a different part of the score and layered in with this particular Power & Hayworth dialogue. It creates a much more distinctive auditory profile to weave through the background of this scene; I completely understand why they would have done this.

Should you watch Blood and Sand? Naw, it’s sure got a look, but story and construction aren’t exactly anything to write home about

Leave Her to Heaven (1945) / 3x18 ‘House Arrest’

The first thing I noticed about Leave Her to Heaven should have occurred to me earlier: 20th Century Fox. All three of these titles turn out to be Fox movies, making all the sense in the world, as M*A*S*H the show was produced by the Fox television arm, after the success of the feature branch’s surprise hit, M*A*S*H the Altman film. Licensing clips of movies is definitely easier when they are also your movies.

The next framing element we need to discuss is that once more, this film was known for its vivid Technicolor cinematography, again the winner of the Academy Award for Cinematography: Color its year! And yet, what they’re watching on M*A*S*H is definitely Leave Her to Heaven, and definitely in black & white. Come to think of it, all films they watch are.

I have tried to figure out what’s going on here, and in the process have learned a lot more about the mechanics both physical and economic of Technicolor film, but have not come up with any definitive explanation (yet), just an educated guess. Which is, as it so often is, especially with the Army: cost. Shooting Technicolor film was outrageously expensive, involving huge cameras that you had to rent by the day from the Technicolor company, through which you would run three strips of film that were treated in different ways, so would respond to light and then dye differently (yes they dyed the film! incredible! are you seeing why it was SO ‘SPENSIVE), and then they’d all be layered together, et voilà: the richer-than-life colors you see in Technicolor films from the 30s-50s.

And as a side product this process also resulted in: a black & white negative. Now I have not yet found anyone confirming this, but my suspicion is that the studios would also make some copies off this negative that were not run through the pricey dye process, and those black & white reels would have been available for cheap if you were, say, the U.S. Army, looking for a discounted way to distract for a couple hours the people you’ve sent to fight a war from the fact that you’ve sent them to fight a war. I think it’s a good theory! But if anyone has actual info PLEASE let me know, I’m so so interested in what was going on here.

But meanwhile: in the third season M*A*S*H episode ‘House Arrest’, Hawkeye, on the titular house arrest, learns that Gene Tierney, striking in any color scheme, is in the movie they have that week, and is ready to move Heaven & Earth, or at least Father Mulcahy, to be able to see her. What Hawkeye does not know at this moment, nor would anyone watching this episode who has not seen John M. Stahl’s Leave Her to Heaven, is that it also predominantly takes place in SMALL TOWN MAINE. I love the idea of M*A*S*H writers putting this easter egg in here, winking “and this will be one for the Criterion crowd :)” (also predicting the emergence of the Criterion Collection ten years later).

Verisimilitude Corner: For reasons I cannot fathom, the Leave Her to Heaven clips playing on the wall of the Swamp are happening all out of order. The first scene we see set at a table takes place in the early middle of the film, then we cut way back to the beginning portion in New Mexico, before swinging all the way to a piece in the last act. There is no wedding scene in this film, no matter what Father Mulcahy says, but it is in fact even funnier that Henry cries at the one he does, as this is actually one of Gene Tierney's big dangerous femme fatale moments (for all that like, they all are—tbc!!), and his weeping at it tracks with how Nurse Able is mystified by his reaction, and earlier he'd complained that after looking away for two seconds he had lost the plot.

Should you watch Leave Her to Heaven? So turns out Leave Her to Heaven is considered one of the few COLOR NOIRS, and it kinda fucks totally. It looks so Douglas Sirk melodrama gorgeous, but with a plot straight out of Gone Girl. And like, you ever seen Vincent Price, young? NOT I. Impossibly tall. Shows up in a rain storm in the New Mexico desert. Martin Scorsese has said this is one of his favorite movies—the taste.

My Darling Clementine (1946) / 5x22 ‘Movie Tonight’

And finally, from the Potter era, and from Potter’s heart, comes the fifth season episode 'Movie Tonight', where we watch really a remarkable amount of the battered copy he’s managed to track down of his favorite film, the John Ford western My Darling Clementine.

Harry Morgan is so cute, the phrase “My Darling Clementine” is so cute—with its lilting song to match—and this episode itself: it’s cute. The film screening works just as Colonel Potter hoped it might: a way to bring his campful of grown theater kids together during a tense patch. It’s very funny how little urging it takes for them to begin using every unplanned projector failure intermission as an opportunity to get up and start doing impressions for each other.

But do you know what’s so intriguing? When I finally watched My Darling Clementine, I found it actually struck a kind of harmony with M*A*S*H’s more melancholy currents. Filmed in 1946, it’s been called one of the first true post-war westerns, and there does feel something sort of haunted in it, this sense of loss. It starts in the song even, which after those first lines you remember is actually about a young woman “lost and gone forever.” So many of the characters are carrying some sort of wound, physicalized in coughs or injuries if not simply the toll clearly being wrought on them by the deaths that keep falling around them.

And then there’s that the two main characters are a brooding, Shakespeare-loving, TB-stricken outlaw surgeon (oh okay!), and their reluctant but-I’ll-do-it new marshal, a mellow, even-voiced, semi-secretly then not at all secretly total fucking weirdo, who caused me to message a M*A*S*H friend part-way in, hey, did we know Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp is Such A BJ. Fun, FUN. That would have been fun in the mess tent.

The film itself isn’t devoid of humor, either, should mention! Particularly around Old West Hunnicutt. It's that element as well as its dreamy bleakness that pairs well with a mobile hospital post in Korean War sitcom purgatory. Colonel Potter, famously, loves horses, so his 2/3rds horse-based explanation for why he loves this movie raises zero questions, but what that doesn’t indicate is you’re also going to get scenes like one where Doc Holiday is having alcohol poured over his hands so he can do emergency surgery on a pair of scrubbed tables in the saloon. This was a good pick, M*A*S*H writers, is what I’m saying.

Should you watch My Darling Clementine? Oh yes if I was not clear: Yes

4077 Film Festival: Closing Remarks

I enjoyed this process so much. I love conceptual experiences and homework, so, really optimal for me. And I love old movies and I love M*A*S*H and I love their use of old movies on M*A*S*H! Contemporary cultural elements like this do wonders I think to recall you to their actual time period, as this show is so much about the 1970s and Vietnam, that remembering it's actually set in the '50s can give me an enjoyable swoop in my stomach as I suddenly fall back further in time. It was the 1950s... The records that show up in 'Your Hit Parade' are all jazz... M*A*S*H: good show, good movie & music supervision.

Up next: NOT Bedtime For Bonzo (1951), a real movie, that also underscores my statement above as I just need to express to you: starred future president Ronald Reagan. M*A*S*H!!!!