Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 2: Hello there, and welcome back.
Speaker 3: What is this place as connected? Disconnected?
Speaker 2: It's connected.
Speaker 4: That's the number that has been disconnected. Hello there, and
Speaker 4: welcome back to the Disconnected. Here with the one of
Speaker 4: the more interesting individuals that I've been excited to.
Speaker 2: Talk about for a while.
Speaker 4: Here we've got the writer, editor and disability advocate Kristin Lopez. Kristin,
Speaker 4: thanks for coming on the show today.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: You've got a couple of books coming out in the
Speaker 4: next couple of years that we're going to be talking
Speaker 4: about in just a little bit.
Speaker 2: But you've written a book before, and you know, when.
Speaker 4: Somebody hears disability advocate and that's connected to film, I
Speaker 4: wonder how many people even know what exactly that means.
Speaker 4: So why don't you share what that means for people?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I talk about disability predominantly from the
Speaker 6: film representation side, which I think a lot of people assume.
Speaker 3: You know, disability advocates.
Speaker 6: Are government based or you know, social social justice type
Speaker 6: of stuff that they're all crusading for, you know, more
Speaker 6: curb cuts and you know legislation, which is important. You know,
Speaker 6: those people, I applaud them. I love that they do
Speaker 6: that the work that they do.
Speaker 3: I knew I was never.
Speaker 6: Going to be that, But at the same time as
Speaker 6: one of the few, if not only, physically disabled critics
Speaker 6: that I knew, but that I still intact. You know,
Speaker 6: I still don't see any wheelchair users at any of
Speaker 6: the screenings that I go to that are at the
Speaker 6: same level writing wise as me, or you know that
Speaker 6: work in the trades. So you know, I knew I
Speaker 6: was kind of in a privileged position to be like, Okay,
Speaker 6: well then I can talk about entertainment from a disability
Speaker 6: perspective and kind of ask questions about why things are
Speaker 6: the way they are.
Speaker 3: And I figure that.
Speaker 6: Would just be some sort of fun little niche that
Speaker 6: maybe I could make money. Like people would want to
Speaker 6: be like, oh this, this girl is going to write
Speaker 6: an article that's going to get a.
Speaker 3: Thousand clicks, and you know, we want to work with her.
Speaker 6: But I started noticing that people that were disabled and
Speaker 6: non disabled people as while we're reading it and we're
Speaker 6: a either hearton that somebody understood you know, their issues
Speaker 6: with film or b did not know that you know,
Speaker 6: certain depictions.
Speaker 3: Were problematic, and we're happy about that because.
Speaker 6: Ableism is still a relatively newism, right, you know, we
Speaker 6: we don't really know when we're doing it, and we
Speaker 6: certainly don't look back at the history of film in
Speaker 6: a way that emphasizes, you know, if you look at
Speaker 6: film through the lens of like racism, you understand that
Speaker 6: film is part of the culture of a you know, oppression.
Speaker 6: So the history of film is one of you know,
Speaker 6: racism and trying to move away from that. And same
Speaker 6: with with you know, disability. A lot of it is
Speaker 6: emphasizing disability is a negative and we're having to unlearn
Speaker 6: that at this point and it's still a relatively new thing.
Speaker 3: So for me, you know, I'm.
Speaker 6: I'm I always tell people I'm not shitting on your
Speaker 6: love of a certain movie. You know, I love many
Speaker 6: a problematic disabled film. It's about telling you that you
Speaker 6: should look closer though, at why things are the way
Speaker 6: they are. Why is the main character who's disabled a
Speaker 6: white guy. Why are most disabled characters disabled late in life?
Speaker 6: You know, why are disabled characters that are you know,
Speaker 6: physically disabled, especially women, also tied into how sexually attractive
Speaker 6: they are?
Speaker 3: Or aren't all of these things are deliberate.
Speaker 6: Choices that come from just a history of ableism.
Speaker 4: Well, and many of the things that you've talked about
Speaker 4: in this sector online previously and then your work are
Speaker 4: related to things of that last portion. There is things
Speaker 4: like the pretty Disabled and the films that are out
Speaker 4: there that we are capturing, you know, just the most
Speaker 4: surface level of disabilities. I guess it's the best way
Speaker 4: to say this, Like, we can talk about people that
Speaker 4: are deaf because that's something that we can relate to,
Speaker 4: but in a world of recognizing the full spectrum of
Speaker 4: all of this, it is really hard to even discuss
Speaker 4: because in a lot of ways, and pardon the pun
Speaker 4: with what you just said, but this is just not
Speaker 4: really a sexy topic either. This isn't something that gets
Speaker 4: a lot of clicks. This isn't something that sells a
Speaker 4: ton of tickets to things. People aren't dying to go
Speaker 4: to the films to see this. But the reality is
Speaker 4: it's important for those that would be represented on screen.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the.
Speaker 6: Fact that it's not a sexy topic is the again
Speaker 6: that history of saying it's not a sexy topic, you know,
Speaker 6: I mean, unfortunately There's been movies that have dealt with
Speaker 6: disability and sexuality and people don't go see those movies. Why,
Speaker 6: I say, often it has more to do with the
Speaker 6: audience than the film per se, because I think this,
Speaker 6: you know, I think abled audiences, because that's remember what
Speaker 6: I think.
Speaker 3: Movie most movies are made for.
Speaker 6: Most movies about disability are trying to get disabled audiences,
Speaker 6: not not abled people. So I think that, you know,
Speaker 6: a lot of times people just kind of go don't
Speaker 6: go see those movies because they're uncomfortable with it.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: And I mean there have been movies that have tried.
Speaker 6: To change the you know, the game Coda Won an Oscar,
Speaker 6: you know, but that movie did not make a lot
Speaker 6: of money, you know, when it did go to the theater.
Speaker 3: So what is the issue?
Speaker 6: You know, is it that people just automatically assume that
Speaker 6: a disabled movie is some sort of oscar baby serious
Speaker 6: thing that's the equivalent of taking your medicine, you know,
Speaker 6: And I think that we really need to re revise.
Speaker 3: What that is.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: At the same time, I think that I always couch
Speaker 6: disabled narratives in the sense of are they about ambulatory
Speaker 6: disabled people are not?
Speaker 3: Because I think that.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: What's interesting is is I get I get asked a lot,
Speaker 6: you know about if I covered if I why don't I.
Speaker 3: Talk about invisible disabilities?
Speaker 6: And I always say, a, you know, I can only
Speaker 6: research from my experience, from my perspective and apply it.
Speaker 6: I don't have autism as far as I know, Uh,
Speaker 6: you know, I don't have I have ADHD, but I
Speaker 6: personally don't consider that a disability for myself. So I
Speaker 6: don't really know how to couch it in those terms
Speaker 6: just because I was not I'm not built with that knowledge.
Speaker 6: And at the same time, I think my point still stands,
Speaker 6: which is that invisible disabilities are continue to be the
Speaker 6: way around dealing with disability and film. You know again,
Speaker 6: and a director, a screenwriter can write a physically able
Speaker 6: hot girl who maybe has you know, some sort of
Speaker 6: invisible disability, it doesn't solve the problem because again it's
Speaker 6: still just another way to x out having to make
Speaker 6: make the industry accessible for all.
Speaker 4: Well, and that leads into why there needs to be
Speaker 4: a book about this, which you have coming out. I mean,
Speaker 4: the moment that you let me knew that this existed,
Speaker 4: I had to pre order this because this has been
Speaker 4: something I've been you know, trying to talk about for
Speaker 4: a while, trying to get people to understand is an
Speaker 4: important topic, try to have people understand what representation can be.
Speaker 2: So tell us about your book.
Speaker 6: So you know, Popcorn Disabilities is uh, my attempt to
Speaker 6: kind of do a look at disability and film in
Speaker 6: a way that's not academic. It's being put out by
Speaker 6: an academic press, but I really wanted it to be
Speaker 6: funny and kind of utilizing things that I've learned from
Speaker 6: watching disabled films. You know, how disabled films made me
Speaker 6: feel as a person and how I'm assuming they make
Speaker 6: a lot of other people feel because of the bad representation.
Speaker 6: So you know, it was an interesting journey historically from
Speaker 6: the silent ear to today looking at disabled films and
Speaker 6: the tropes and the stereotypes they use, but more importantly,
Speaker 6: how they make a generation of disabled people feel about
Speaker 6: being disabled.
Speaker 4: Right, there's so many people obviously that have probably never
Speaker 4: even considered this while watching many of these films. With
Speaker 4: that in mind, and obviously we could get you to
Speaker 4: speak on this for hours and hours, but with that
Speaker 4: in mind, can you explain what is good representation and
Speaker 4: bad representation of disabilities?
Speaker 6: I mean, the most obvious is bad representation because that's
Speaker 6: there's more of that that exists, and mostly it's emphasizing
Speaker 6: the disability. Becoming disabled is something to fear, that being
Speaker 6: becoming disabled is a death sentence, and or that you're
Speaker 6: lacking in something, and that a disabled person is.
Speaker 3: Always mourning what they have lost, you know, and.
Speaker 6: Usually bad representation is, you know, showing that being disabled
Speaker 6: you're something to pity. You're poor, you're uneducated, your family
Speaker 6: hates you, you hate yourself, all of these, all of
Speaker 6: these elements that emphasize you know, at the end of
Speaker 6: the movie, you know, it's all about the able person,
Speaker 6: so you know how the able person feels having known you.
Speaker 6: Your life doesn't need to get better, but it's about
Speaker 6: how the other person that really spends time with you,
Speaker 6: the danes to be your friend or partner or whatever.
Speaker 3: How their life is better. You know.
Speaker 6: Good representation, I think for me, you know, in terms
Speaker 6: of what I look at right now, is if it
Speaker 6: gets the little things right. You know, if it's if
Speaker 6: it's showing me a person in a wheelchair that is
Speaker 6: a custom chair and not a hospital chair. If I
Speaker 6: can tell that that person in that wheelchair, has actually
Speaker 6: used a wheelchair, or has done some sort of research.
Speaker 3: If the script doesn't emphasize.
Speaker 6: The disability is something to be sad about, it just exists,
Speaker 6: you know, it's just something.
Speaker 3: To be happy about.
Speaker 6: If a movie is about a disabled woman, particularly disabled
Speaker 6: woman of color, I will give it at least a
Speaker 6: kudo for not being a typical, you know, white male
Speaker 6: disabled story. So, you know, good representation I think right
Speaker 6: now is still coming in bits and pieces as opposed
Speaker 6: to an overarching thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean there's a kind of baseline Bechdel test sort
Speaker 4: of feeling that you can get here. And it seems
Speaker 4: like if if somebody with a disability is in a
Speaker 4: scene and that's the only focus of every scene, that's
Speaker 4: pretty damn telling in and of itself.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean there's there's so many overt elements
Speaker 6: I think that people you know, don't notice about disability representation.
Speaker 3: I mean, one of them is how often a.
Speaker 6: Disabled movie prioritizes an abled person, you know, whether that's
Speaker 6: a caregiver or a partner. You know, the movie's not
Speaker 6: really the disabled person's story, it's the partner story.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, rain Man is a great example.
Speaker 6: You know, Dustin Hoffman is on the poster, yes, and
Speaker 6: he is the titled character. And yet I think most
Speaker 6: people if you ask them, who is the protagonist, who
Speaker 6: is the lead?
Speaker 3: Who is the person that grows and changes storm cruise?
Speaker 6: Uh, you know, and that that happens a lot because
Speaker 6: you know, screenwriters and I think entertainment executives the whole,
Speaker 6: the whole group assume that disabled people are this magical
Speaker 6: entity that you're.
Speaker 3: Clearly not going to understand as an audience member.
Speaker 6: So we need to have what I call an able
Speaker 6: body buffer, which is an able person that can be
Speaker 6: the shirpa you know, that can help you understand the
Speaker 6: mythical disabled person. They're really telling the audience that we
Speaker 6: think you're stupid, you know. And I think that's always
Speaker 6: really funny to me that when people realize, like, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, wow, that's that's really true.
Speaker 4: I guess we all need an ambassador to disabled land,
Speaker 4: that's for sure, exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I mean, you know, I think that I'm
Speaker 3: one of the.
Speaker 6: Few people that you know, I tell people, we compartmentalize,
Speaker 6: you know, if I was looking for a movie that
Speaker 6: was perfectly rendered from a disabled standpoint, I would not
Speaker 6: like anything because you know, it just doesn't exist. And
Speaker 6: you know, I love me some bad representation that maybe
Speaker 6: has some merit.
Speaker 3: I love Forrest Gump.
Speaker 6: You know, I think that movie is really interesting, specifically
Speaker 6: for the Gary Sineze character. And yet you know, it's
Speaker 6: it's got a lot of issues. So I think that
Speaker 6: we all kind of have to see the good where
Speaker 6: we can.
Speaker 3: When we can.
Speaker 4: I would agree there with that. There there are lots
Speaker 4: of obvious bad examples of this. What are some of
Speaker 4: the more, uh, well, we'll say recent films that people
Speaker 4: should look to as good indicators of disability or representation
Speaker 4: in film.
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, it's it's tough.
Speaker 6: I mean, I always say the horror genre is one
Speaker 6: of the more accommodating disabled, you know genres, if only
Speaker 6: because there's more characters they're either overtly disabled or coded
Speaker 6: as such. You know, I tell people I love Aaron
Speaker 6: Schimberg's A Different Man, which came out last year.
Speaker 3: I think that's one.
Speaker 6: Of the best looks at disabled representation, and yet disabled
Speaker 6: people and diabled audiences don't necessarily, you know, think of that.
Speaker 3: I know a lot of.
Speaker 6: Disabled people that when I said how much I love
Speaker 6: the movie. They had not seen it, but they had
Speaker 6: seen that Sebastian Stan was playing a disabled character and
Speaker 6: they said, oh, well, what do you mean, he's a
Speaker 6: disabled character that gets hot. And I was like, I know,
Speaker 6: you clearly have not seen the film.
Speaker 3: I'm like, because it's.
Speaker 6: Commenting very specifically on the belief that all disabled people
Speaker 6: want to be hot Spatch and Stan, and that is
Speaker 6: only scratching the surface, you know.
Speaker 3: It's it's got so many different layers.
Speaker 6: To it in terms of, you know, the magic cure
Speaker 6: and how often disabled people want that. It even goes
Speaker 6: so far as to get a little meta and asks
Speaker 6: the question of whether Aaron Schimberg himself has any right
Speaker 6: to be telling a disabled story. It's just it's very smart.
Speaker 6: It's very smart, and I love it. I love it
Speaker 6: so very much.
Speaker 3: You know, I think Coda is very sweet.
Speaker 6: I think it's it's great to see a disabled family.
Speaker 6: It's not wealthy, or at least is not financially solvent,
Speaker 6: which tends to be.
Speaker 3: Something that you see a lot of.
Speaker 6: And I always point to the Chucky films, specifically Don
Speaker 6: Mancini's Latter Two Curse and Cult of Chucky, which have
Speaker 6: a disabled heroin. Yes, Fiona Dorf is not disabled, but
Speaker 6: I've been fortunate to interview Don Mancini about it and
Speaker 6: to hear him talk about like trying to getting the
Speaker 6: weeds of like discovering the right custom chair, you know,
Speaker 6: And you know I gave him. I think I gave
Speaker 6: him guph when I interviewed him, I'm like, well, you know,
Speaker 6: the movie's great.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 6: I don't have a lot of criticisms all. But you know, Fiona,
Speaker 6: when she's wheeling that chair, she's got chicken arms. You know,
Speaker 6: she's got these flapping wings. I'm all a disabled person,
Speaker 6: especially one that's got like hardwood floor you propel off
Speaker 6: of stuff. You know, you're trying to work smarter, not hurder.
Speaker 6: And he was like, yeah, that's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 3: But I mean, the.
Speaker 6: Movie I think is really smart in how it has
Speaker 6: a disabled heroin disabled from birth.
Speaker 3: You can argue whether that is true or not.
Speaker 6: Based on if you've seen the movie at the plot point.
Speaker 6: I don'tant to spoil it, but she's disabled from birth.
Speaker 6: She's a sexual character. Everybody else around her is a
Speaker 6: dick because they make the presumption that she's not capable,
Speaker 6: and yet she clearly is, and she uses her disability
Speaker 6: in a way that's always an advantage. So I think
Speaker 6: those are the ones that I always say I really love.
Speaker 6: If you go even further back to something like the
Speaker 6: silent era, there's a nineteen twenties film from Lawn Chaney
Speaker 6: Senior called The.
Speaker 3: Penalty, which is hilariously bonkers. It's hilarious.
Speaker 6: So the plot the beginning of the movie in a nutshell,
Speaker 6: is that a doctor is operating on a child who
Speaker 6: is gonna grow up to be Lawn Chaney senior. The
Speaker 6: kids got a like cold and a bump on the head,
Speaker 6: and the doctor is like, gott to chop his legs off, like.
Speaker 3: He got you, it's what we got do.
Speaker 6: And he does, and he makes this character a double amputee.
Speaker 6: And just from a technical standpoint, I don't know how
Speaker 6: they did it in this.
Speaker 3: Movie hiding Lawn Cheney's legs. I know they did they.
Speaker 6: You know, they've talked about how he did like this
Speaker 6: weird contraption where he strapped his legs behind him.
Speaker 3: I don't know how they did it. I have no clue.
Speaker 6: It looks like he does not have any legs below
Speaker 6: the knee, But to watch and just the production design,
Speaker 6: the way that ramps are kind of like intricately added
Speaker 6: into the set design. He's like trying to like see
Speaker 6: through out a door window, and he's got little like
Speaker 6: pegs that he puts in these holes and like climbs
Speaker 6: the wall.
Speaker 3: Like he's Spider Man.
Speaker 6: But the story is also like you are you understand
Speaker 6: this guy becoming a criminal mastermind and wanting to take
Speaker 6: vengeance on the doctor, because dude, that is some serious malpractice.
Speaker 6: Is it good representation? I'm not really sure, but is
Speaker 6: it entertaining? Is how a movie that is really cool
Speaker 6: to watch? You are damn right?
Speaker 2: It is you in.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is a perfect segue because of what
Speaker 4: you just brought up. You have frequently spoken about the
Speaker 4: landmark film Freaks over the years, because it is widely
Speaker 4: discussed as depending on who you're speaking with, either incredibly
Speaker 4: controversial for being a exploitive for certain people, and then
Speaker 4: on the far other end of the spectrum, indibly incredibly
Speaker 4: accepting for allowing these people to be on the screen
Speaker 4: at the time. What are other than freaks? And perhaps
Speaker 4: you can start with freaks? What are some of the
Speaker 4: major like touch points in film history of disability representation.
Speaker 3: You know, Franks is one of those.
Speaker 6: It's one of the few movies that even now, you know,
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty five, it has it still holds the
Speaker 6: record for the most abled cast members you know, on
Speaker 6: screen at any point in time.
Speaker 3: We've not broken that yet.
Speaker 6: It's one of those films that is just amazing to
Speaker 6: see how many physically disabled people are present that have
Speaker 6: really no shame in it, that just exist.
Speaker 3: Todd Browning tried really hard to.
Speaker 6: Humanize these characters and humanize the actors as well.
Speaker 3: You know, to hear some of.
Speaker 6: The behind the scenes stories about how people treated these
Speaker 6: performers is just you're you hate f Scott Fitzgerald by
Speaker 6: the end of it because you're just like, come on,
Speaker 6: it's just it's heartbreaking how it's a film that didn't
Speaker 6: single handedly destroy Todd Browning's career, but it certainly didn't help.
Speaker 6: And it's just it's it's a fantastic movie.
Speaker 2: It's it's really great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's one you know, Todd Browning and actually Dom
Speaker 4: Mancini and a lot of these others that are really
Speaker 4: great about representation, uh, for for whatever spectrum, I mean,
Speaker 4: one of the big ones you talked about. Mancini is
Speaker 4: great on representing disability, but then also queer representation. It's
Speaker 4: one of those one of those franchises that has been
Speaker 4: incredible with it. So obviously we got freaks. You already
Speaker 4: mentioned rain Man. What are some other of the like
Speaker 4: the best examples in history?
Speaker 3: Oh, gosh, best examples. That's really tough.
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, Martley Mattin's Children of a Lesser
Speaker 6: God I think is worthy. You know, he still is
Speaker 6: one of the few disabled women, the only disabled woman
Speaker 6: as far as I know, deaf and disabled to win
Speaker 6: an oscar, And it's one of those films that prioritizes
Speaker 6: deaf people of all stripes. And even though Bill hurt
Speaker 6: is the lead, you know, he's the one that opens
Speaker 6: the movie, nobody gives a shit about him. You know,
Speaker 6: you only care about Marlee Matlin. She is so good
Speaker 6: in it, She's so magnetic, and she really is a
Speaker 6: person that sends up this character. You know, challenges him
Speaker 6: all the time for his own kind of ablest microaggressions
Speaker 6: that he exhibits, and I mean offscreen he was a
Speaker 6: horrible human being to her. So, you know, but I
Speaker 6: think that one's one I really appreciate. Coming Home from
Speaker 6: nineteen seventy six is probably my favorite, just because it's
Speaker 6: a pre Ada world and hal Ashby was very forthright
Speaker 6: about trying to show what disabled people, disabled veterans we're
Speaker 6: dealing with.
Speaker 3: And I know John.
Speaker 6: Boyd is a horrific human being now, but he is
Speaker 6: so damn good. It makes me mad that he's a
Speaker 6: horrific human being now because he's so good in this
Speaker 6: In the movie, he gets a lot of the little
Speaker 6: bits of business right, he wheelds a wheelchair accurately, he's
Speaker 6: got he's a good looking guy that's got a car
Speaker 6: and a house, you know, emphasizing again that disabled people
Speaker 6: just live lives.
Speaker 3: You know. It's it's a brilliant, brilliant film.
Speaker 6: It's got a disabled sex scene in it that I
Speaker 6: think is very, you know, just beautifully rendered. That one's
Speaker 6: definitely a high point invest years of our lives.
Speaker 3: I think. From nineteen forty six is another one.
Speaker 6: Harold Russell won the Oscar one two, you know, and
Speaker 6: it's one of those films that really does again the
Speaker 6: veteran element is there, but also just gets a lot
Speaker 6: of the little minutia you know well, and Harold Russell's great.
Speaker 4: And I want to say thank you because you keep
Speaker 4: bringing up all the things that I'm planning on asking
Speaker 4: that you're just making these transitions incredible.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like the ADA had a.
Speaker 4: Tangible effect on filmmaking at the time, where, you know,
Speaker 4: other than the actual making of the film, and they
Speaker 4: were required to do certain things on these working spaces,
Speaker 4: but like how they were represented on screen after the
Speaker 4: ADA is a post before.
Speaker 6: You know, the ADA comes in the in the nineties officially,
Speaker 6: and I think it's it's interesting to watch something like
Speaker 6: a movie that comes post pre Ada is Coming Home,
Speaker 6: you know, nineteen seventy six. You're seeing how so many
Speaker 6: of the places that John Lloyd's character goes to have
Speaker 6: stares or he's got to you know, kind of navigate.
Speaker 6: He goes to a police station at one point and
Speaker 6: there's a stare. He's got to like go off with
Speaker 6: his wheelchair. It's it's everywhere because that was what the
Speaker 6: world looked like. And then you see something post Ada,
Speaker 6: you can I can always tell when it's post ADA,
Speaker 6: even if it's set.
Speaker 3: In a previous time period.
Speaker 6: Something like Born on the Fourth of July, which actually
Speaker 6: came out right as the Ada passes, and it's very
Speaker 6: much a post you know, kind of Ada world where
Speaker 6: you're not really looking at the sidewalks, and it's it's
Speaker 6: more about like this character trying to accept his own
Speaker 6: disability in himself. But then you want something like Forrest Gump,
Speaker 6: which again set in the nineteen sixties during Vietnam, and
Speaker 6: you know, you look at the medical system pre and
Speaker 6: post Ada in these films in Coming Home, it's they're
Speaker 6: very apathetic, you know, doctors, everybody's kind of we're living
Speaker 6: on the dole. They don't really know how to handle money.
Speaker 6: Born on the fourth of July is just like the
Speaker 6: medical system as hell. You know, ron Covid screaming into
Speaker 6: the void. There's people dying all around him. You know,
Speaker 6: there's doctors that don't speak English. Whereas then you look
Speaker 6: at something like Forrest Gump, which I always laugh because
Speaker 6: there's a scene where Lieutenant Dan goes down a ramp
Speaker 6: and the joke is you hear him crash into something,
Speaker 6: which yeah, and I'm just like that not have been
Speaker 6: a ramp in nineteen seventy whatever, that would have been
Speaker 6: a staircase.
Speaker 3: Stop it. But even you know, something like I just
Speaker 3: you can.
Speaker 6: You can tell kind of this post Ada world where
Speaker 6: the hospitals in Vietnam it's all doctors to speak English.
Speaker 6: You know, everybody's got their own bed, they got ice
Speaker 6: cream and ping pong.
Speaker 3: It's just great, right, Everything was cool.
Speaker 6: So there's a real revision of history as we once
Speaker 6: the Ada passes, and especially with war films, you know,
Speaker 6: when you get the Ada, you get into the war.
Speaker 6: In I Rock, you know, in the two thousands, it
Speaker 6: wasn't enough to just have about physical disabilities.
Speaker 3: You have to deal with mental disabilities as well.
Speaker 6: And you're also seeing a lot more of the military
Speaker 6: and medical system paying or at least.
Speaker 3: Offering funds, you know, to be part of the movie.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's a yeah, that's a soft spot for
Speaker 4: certain people in Hollywood, of course, but it obviously leaves
Speaker 4: a bad taste in the mouth afterwards, especially when it's
Speaker 4: propaganda of all different shapes and sizes.
Speaker 3: You know. I included Home of the Brave.
Speaker 6: I was looking for a war movie that had a
Speaker 6: disabled woman in it, and I had a friend recommend
Speaker 6: this movie to me, and I watched it, and Home
Speaker 6: of the Brave is very two thousand and six. It's
Speaker 6: very much slow mo black and brown people throwing bombs,
Speaker 6: Death to America type of thing.
Speaker 3: Very two thousands war in.
Speaker 6: Iraq, like US versus Them, but Jessica Biehle plays the
Speaker 6: leading lady.
Speaker 3: She loses a hand in a bomb, hand in an
Speaker 3: arm in a bombing.
Speaker 6: And it's one of the most laughably heinous disabled movies
Speaker 6: I've watched.
Speaker 3: In a minute, she goes to Walter Reid.
Speaker 6: Okay, they make a big point of saying, like Walter
Speaker 6: read Medical Center, and they're showing her all these high
Speaker 6: end things we can do with your hand, and they're like,
Speaker 6: I forget if they say, like her insurance doesn't cover
Speaker 6: any of that, or what the excuse was, but they're like,
Speaker 6: here's what you get.
Speaker 3: And it's like a rubber glove that looks like a hand.
Speaker 3: It looks sake as hell, and.
Speaker 6: She goes to like use it like she's a pe teacher,
Speaker 6: and they throw the volleyball at her and she drops
Speaker 6: it because she's like and she has flashbacks, I'm not kidding,
Speaker 6: slow moo flashbacks of her just like playing tennis with
Speaker 6: her perfect arm and like going to the grocery store
Speaker 6: and throwing her arms up in the air and you're
Speaker 6: just like, uh huh, I can see.
Speaker 3: What is going on here. You really miss your arm.
Speaker 6: She's got a boyfriend that she you know, can't deal
Speaker 6: with what has happened to her, and her boyfriend leaves her.
Speaker 3: And he says, well, I guess it only takes one
Speaker 3: good hand to push someone away. And I'm like Jesus,
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, okay. This was a movie that got money,
Speaker 3: uh got money.
Speaker 6: And I think they said, I forget if it Irwin Winkler,
Speaker 6: I think was the producer, very old Hollywood, and I
Speaker 6: think they said that it was meant to be in
Speaker 6: a modernized version of Best Years of Our Lives. And
Speaker 6: I was like, yes, if somebody did not learn anything
Speaker 6: from Best Years of Our Lives, yikes, it's over.
Speaker 3: Ray, It's over. Don't you get it?
Speaker 2: At least tell me that what did I do? It's
Speaker 2: not about you, It's about me. Okay, you want to
Speaker 2: be alone. Fine, I've tried comforting you.
Speaker 7: I've tried giving you space, but which is so damn determined.
Speaker 2: To be pissed off at the world.
Speaker 1: I guess it only takes one good hand to push
Speaker 1: people away.
Speaker 2: To care of yourself, Vanessa.
Speaker 4: That's not great. At the beginning, one of the things
Speaker 4: that you mentioned was that as a critic, there are
Speaker 4: not many other people in the space, or any other
Speaker 4: people in the space. Maybe a sensitive question to ask.
Speaker 4: So if you don't want me to include it, to
Speaker 4: say the word, but are there any organizations that you
Speaker 4: can feel are really pressing forward to make that a
Speaker 4: priority to be inclusive in this space?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I mean when it comes to journalism, no, you know,
Speaker 6: there's a lot of disabled organizations that you know, look
Speaker 6: at the film industry, you know, and want to change
Speaker 6: how movies get made. But when it comes to you know,
Speaker 6: disabled journalism, I get a lot of students that email
Speaker 6: me and say, when I google disabled journalists, not even
Speaker 6: disabled entertainment journalists.
Speaker 3: When Google disabled journalists, your name came up.
Speaker 6: And and it's only getting worse right now, you know,
Speaker 6: with the way the economy is going, uh, and journalism
Speaker 6: is kind of dying on the vine. You know, people
Speaker 6: are not hiring marginalized you know writers. It's kind of
Speaker 6: going back to the bad old days where it was
Speaker 6: unless you were a white man enabled, you know, you
Speaker 6: weren't going to get hired. So I'm not hearing a
Speaker 6: lot about disabled journalists, you know, being in the room
Speaker 6: I have. I have left my current trade job, and
Speaker 6: I get a lot of people that say, could you
Speaker 6: get this, you know, in front of somebody at the
Speaker 6: Hollywood Reporter or Variety or you know my old you
Speaker 6: know locations that I worked at, and you I or
Speaker 6: the Rap and you know, I say, well, you know,
Speaker 6: I don't work there anymore.
Speaker 3: I can recommend somebody right about this, but.
Speaker 6: You know, if they're not well versed, you really want
Speaker 6: them to and you know right now, So it's it's unfortunate.
Speaker 6: I worry about how much disabled organizations that are trying
Speaker 6: to just change the film world are going to struggle
Speaker 6: because there are no disabled journalists willing and able, and
Speaker 6: there's not enough time from disabled or from able allies
Speaker 6: who you know are overburdened and understaffed. You know, how
Speaker 6: much of disabled coverage is going to kind of fall
Speaker 6: through the cracks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's not just journalism. That's the hard part
Speaker 4: right now, because I mean specific rights are being stripped
Speaker 4: from all kinds of minorities, including the disabled, and depending
Speaker 4: on how we respond to that, you know, just like
Speaker 4: you just mentioned the word overwhelmed and the reality is,
Speaker 4: while we're watching all kinds of people lose their rights,
Speaker 4: some of these are just going to be gone most likely.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And I mean I think that's the thing. You know,
Speaker 6: there's there's it's it's something that really irks me because
Speaker 6: there is disabled content being made. You know, We're we're
Speaker 6: getting it Judy Human biopic next year from Apple TV.
Speaker 6: We're getting there's some fantastic documentaries that are coming out,
Speaker 6: you know, about disabled advocates and disabled issues. And I
Speaker 6: get you know, I get a lot of people that
Speaker 6: email me and they're like, can you can you write
Speaker 6: about this?
Speaker 3: Can you cover this?
Speaker 2: Ay?
Speaker 6: I don't want to be the only person covering disabled content,
Speaker 6: nor should I. I don't represent you know, I know
Speaker 6: that there are other critics that have other opinions that
Speaker 6: are better than me.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, you know, I do worry
Speaker 6: about what the next generation of disabled critics look, you know,
Speaker 6: disabled entertainment writers look like. You know, especially the landscape
Speaker 6: where it's all about social media and quick bites and
Speaker 6: no nuance and saying you know your your point quickly.
Speaker 6: It's troubling. It's troubling, but I keep on, you know,
Speaker 6: I've been kind of pointing out things that have irked me.
Speaker 6: You know, we've had two big disabled events, you know,
Speaker 6: We've had We had Wicked last year, we had Deaf
Speaker 6: President Now that came out this year. We had a
Speaker 6: Marley Mattlin documentary that came of this year, none of
Speaker 6: which prioritized disabled journalists or writers or even influencers you know,
Speaker 6: writing about covering those elements. So my big cause to
Speaker 6: leve at the moment is is, you know, how do
Speaker 6: you expect you know, people to talk about disability if
Speaker 6: you're not going to let disabled journalists have a crack
Speaker 6: at the few things that we are actually that are
Speaker 6: actually made for us, you know, like and I mean
Speaker 6: I've had people say, you know, are you just complaining
Speaker 6: that you weren't asked? At this point, I would be
Speaker 6: happy to see anybody ask you know, when when Wicked
Speaker 6: came out, I remember, you know, I tried to get
Speaker 6: an interview with Marissa Bodi to talk to her about,
Speaker 6: you know, playing the character, and I didn't get it,
Speaker 6: which was fine, but when I asked, you know, I
Speaker 6: want to be an ally for other disabled writers that
Speaker 6: have written about that have maybe talked to her that
Speaker 6: have maybe written about this. A lot of people, you know,
Speaker 6: said that they had put in requests and been denied
Speaker 6: or had to write stuff for their own sites because
Speaker 6: no one wanted it. It's it's very frustrating because you know,
Speaker 6: if you don't want to able journalists to kind of
Speaker 6: get egg on their face by saying something wrong, then
Speaker 6: maybe hire a disabled journalist to.
Speaker 3: Cover that topic.
Speaker 4: It happens so few and far between that I feel
Speaker 4: like we we applaud the simplest of things and never
Speaker 4: prioritize the things that are actually going to be leading
Speaker 4: to market change. I mean last year was a big example,
Speaker 4: you know, representation of sex workers. Anora got multiple screenings
Speaker 4: of Sean just bringing sex workers to watch.
Speaker 2: A movie together, which is great.
Speaker 4: I'm glad that we're showing it in a positive light
Speaker 4: and that's fantastic, But what about people covering the film
Speaker 4: that are talking about things like that more, or films
Speaker 4: like Coda that could actually focus on those things in
Speaker 4: a positive light and how it can affect the community.
Speaker 2: It's it's something that gets lost very quickly.
Speaker 6: It's very frustrating, and I think that you know, when
Speaker 6: I was when I was a disabled when I was
Speaker 6: an editor. You know, I got asked a lot at
Speaker 6: the places I worked at you know, well, you're you're disabled,
Speaker 6: so you're part of the marginalized community, you know. And
Speaker 6: I'm like, yes, but that doesn't mean that if there's
Speaker 6: a film or TV show by a black filmmaker, you
Speaker 6: should automatically give it to me because I'm disabled.
Speaker 3: Those two things to not pars, you know, And I made.
Speaker 6: A point to try to you know, when I knew that,
Speaker 6: you know, no one like me or anybody on my
Speaker 6: staff could have that experience, I would try to find
Speaker 6: those writers and give them an opportunity. And eventually I
Speaker 6: got told, you know, it just it takes too much
Speaker 6: time and we we don't have the bandwidth, and also
Speaker 6: it's expensive, you know, so just just you guys should
Speaker 6: do it.
Speaker 3: You don't need lived.
Speaker 6: Experience in order to write about something. And I'm like, true,
Speaker 6: but again, I want to be part of the solution,
Speaker 6: not part of the problem. So it's frustrating, you know,
Speaker 6: and I think that we're seeing kind of the doubt.
Speaker 6: It's why I think people are so you know, gravitating
Speaker 6: to substack and stuff like that, because you know, I
Speaker 6: know that for me at least in my case, it's
Speaker 6: letting me be the writer that I want to be,
Speaker 6: you know, and hopefully one day we'll be able to
Speaker 6: bring on more writers and kind of be the editor.
Speaker 6: That's like, you know, you should be covering these things.
Speaker 6: People should be talking about these things.
Speaker 4: And that's I mean, that's where what you just brought
Speaker 4: up with, like marginalized communities is so important, because it's
Speaker 4: not it's not just a matter of we can only
Speaker 4: focus on one. It's a matter of the there are
Speaker 4: films with diverse casts that we need to cover certain
Speaker 4: things and focus on different things because people are experiencing
Speaker 4: those films in different ways.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, when when How to Train Your Dragon the
Speaker 6: remake came out, I had friends that were going to
Speaker 6: the press event, and I asked, more than one of them,
Speaker 6: can you ask about you know, the disabled representation and
Speaker 6: about you know, the fact that Hiccup is disabled and
Speaker 6: the end of the movie where you know, the character
Speaker 6: exhibits limb laws and you know, kind of working with that.
Speaker 6: And I had more than one of them say, well,
Speaker 6: that's a really interesting question, Like I don't I don't
Speaker 6: want to make anybody uncomfortable, So I don't feel I
Speaker 6: should ask that, And I was like, right, but I
Speaker 6: didn't get invited, and neither did any disabled person. So
Speaker 6: it's kind of on you, you know, if you want
Speaker 6: to kind of lead the charge and help make the
Speaker 6: world a better place.
Speaker 3: So it's frustrating. And I think that's the other thing too,
Speaker 3: is that people.
Speaker 6: Don't want to ask the tough questions, especially in entertainment
Speaker 6: journalism that could limit their access. You know, I interviewed
Speaker 6: already asked her one time, and you know, I had
Speaker 6: to ask him at the end. I'm like, how what
Speaker 6: draws you to want to use disabled characters in your movies?
Speaker 6: And he looked at me like I had sprouted a
Speaker 6: second head. He did not know what to say, he
Speaker 6: had never been aft that in his life, and he
Speaker 6: gave me a word salad. This was when Midsommar came out.
Speaker 6: He gave me a word salad about like eugenics and
Speaker 6: Sweden at the time, and I was just like okay,
Speaker 6: And then he was like, well, you know, I don't
Speaker 6: think I used disabled characters and everything. You know, you
Speaker 6: don't know that the character in Hereditary was disabled. And
Speaker 6: I was like, right, we don't know that she's overtly disabled.
Speaker 6: But you know, Millie Shapiro is a disabled actress, and
Speaker 6: you know, the characters heavily coated as being mentally delayed,
Speaker 6: so like, and he was just he was They were
Speaker 6: very happy when it was like.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're done and go out. Uh. And I think
Speaker 3: that's that's the thing is.
Speaker 6: It's it's always funny to me. I don't like to
Speaker 6: be the person that calls people to the carpet, but
Speaker 6: at the same time, I'm just like, no one's gonna
Speaker 6: ask you this, and it's kind of my thing.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 6: On the flip side of that, I interviewed Kevin Smith
Speaker 6: once and you know, asked him about and it's in
Speaker 6: I included the movie in my book because I still
Speaker 6: think I enjoy it. I asked him about casting a
Speaker 6: you know, trishalle Edmonds, who is a black deaf actress
Speaker 6: in the Jane Silent Bob's Strike Back sequel, and he
Speaker 6: looked at me like I had sprouted a second head.
Speaker 6: But it was a good one because he was very
Speaker 6: happy that somebody had thought to ask him about that.
Speaker 6: He's all, no one's no one's brought the character up,
Speaker 6: no one's asked me about you know that he had
Speaker 6: a great story about you know, initially he wanted a
Speaker 6: deaf black transactress, but he couldn't find somebody who was
Speaker 6: all you know, so he just kind of you know,
Speaker 6: cast her that way and you know, talked about how
Speaker 6: his daughter learned asl so that she could you know,
Speaker 6: sign and it was a really great story and he
Speaker 6: was he was so he you know said afterwards, He's like,
Speaker 6: you know, thank you, Like no one's praised her performance,
Speaker 6: you know, and talked about the significance of having a
Speaker 6: character like that, and I'm like, you know, it's just
Speaker 6: when I see it, I don't I got to ask
Speaker 6: about it. So I mean, there are some some creatives
Speaker 6: that want to talk about it. It's just there's not
Speaker 6: enough disabled people to ask, and diable people are too
Speaker 6: scared to ask.
Speaker 4: It's also extra frustrating when we've seen the expansion of
Speaker 4: like covering of queer representation. I mean, forty years ago,
Speaker 4: we were having the same discussion about well, we can't
Speaker 4: have that even in this film, let alone like discussing
Speaker 4: in the interviews after.
Speaker 2: And now we're a lot.
Speaker 4: Of us, well not everybody, but most of us are
Speaker 4: viewing this as just a sort of everyday life, and
Speaker 4: we one a lot.
Speaker 6: I mean, I've said that, you know, the disabled experience
Speaker 6: is analogous.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: I think the Black community, the LGBTQ community, the Indigenous community,
Speaker 6: we all have kind of the same issues when it
Speaker 6: comes to representation as regards to lack of it, and
Speaker 6: you know, the ism part of it, you know, whether
Speaker 6: that's racism, whether that's you know, homophobia, whether that's ableism.
Speaker 6: But our issues are not the same, you know, they're analogous,
Speaker 6: they're similar, but there's a his entire history of black
Speaker 6: representation that is completely different than what disabled people have experienced.
Speaker 6: At the same time, you know, we're we're in our infancy.
Speaker 6: You know, in terms of film representation. It took how
Speaker 6: many years you know, for racism to be something that
Speaker 6: people point out and say like, oh, we shouldn't do that.
Speaker 6: It could take just as long time for you know, able,
Speaker 6: you know, disabled representation to get better. But it's the
Speaker 6: impetus is still on the disabled people, and that's unfortunately
Speaker 6: not helpful right now, you know, because if you're waiting
Speaker 6: for disabled filmmakers and disabled screenwriters, you're gonna be waiting
Speaker 6: a while. Because you need the studios to want to
Speaker 6: green light that content, and right now, you know they
Speaker 6: don't care about it, so they're not gonna green light it.
Speaker 2: That's too true.
Speaker 3: Gosh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's so much into this that I would love
Speaker 4: to go into your previous work tell us about But
Speaker 4: have you read the book?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So that was my first book.
Speaker 6: It seems so long ago because I've been writing books
Speaker 6: for way too long right now. I never I don't
Speaker 6: recommend writing three books in like a year and a half.
Speaker 3: Never do it. It's awful.
Speaker 6: But it's about literary adaptations. I did fifty two books,
Speaker 6: fifty two movies and kind of comparing and contrasting how
Speaker 6: they jive or don't jive with the source material.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And it was it was a lot of fun, you know.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 6: I say the silver lining to a pandemic was that
Speaker 6: I had a lot of free time on my hands,
Speaker 6: so I could just watch movies and read the book
Speaker 6: and and kind of uh it made me feel like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I could probably do my Masters if I want am
Speaker 6: I again if I wanted to?
Speaker 3: Because it was very similar thought process.
Speaker 6: Of like churning out books and being able to like
Speaker 6: sum up your points uh, and it's been great. It's
Speaker 6: been great to see people that have said, you know
Speaker 6: that they read the book and they watch the movie,
Speaker 6: they have book clubs, and I've just sent in volume two.
Speaker 6: It's going to be about romance adaptations, which was very
Speaker 6: different for me as somebody that does not tend to
Speaker 6: look at books as romantic books. So it was a
Speaker 6: nice little challenge. And yeah, it's it's very cool to have.
Speaker 6: I guess, does two books make a franchise?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think it does. I feel like
Speaker 3: that's good. Yeah, very cool to have a series that's that's.
Speaker 4: That is pretty damn cool. One of the things that
Speaker 4: has been very funny to me after the our chance meeting,
Speaker 4: which I don't even remember exactly what happened, I posted
Speaker 4: something on Twitter and you responded to it, and I
Speaker 4: don't even remember what that was.
Speaker 2: Do you remember what it was?
Speaker 3: The rain Man coming out? Probably Man coming out?
Speaker 6: And I think I snarkily added, there's no there's no
Speaker 6: autistic representation or any autism discussion to show how this
Speaker 6: is still not dated.
Speaker 4: Right right, So since that moment, I went, okay, I
Speaker 4: have to speak to her as somebody that's a father
Speaker 4: of two kids with autism and ADHD myself, and I'm,
Speaker 4: you know, going down the disabled path because I have
Speaker 4: screwed up my foot many times in my life and
Speaker 4: lots of other things happening. I went, I'm so just
Speaker 4: invested in finding out what this woman is feeling and believing.
Speaker 4: That led me to discovering your podcast. And I feel
Speaker 4: like over the last two weeks, the word ticklish doesn't
Speaker 4: exist as a real word to me anymore. Tell me
Speaker 4: about your podcast, because I think other people periods.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, ticklish business started.
Speaker 6: It started as a blog because I spent so much
Speaker 6: time reviewing contemporary film that I really wanted to review,
Speaker 6: you know, older film, stuff that wasn't new to me,
Speaker 6: kind of like give me a little something different. And
Speaker 6: it was right as classic film was not you know,
Speaker 6: people were there was a classic film community, but it
Speaker 6: was mostly like relegated to Twitter, back when Twitter was
Speaker 6: still fun. It faced me, yeah, exactly. You know, I
Speaker 6: discovered the TCM party hashtag and I made all these friends,
Speaker 6: and I slowly the blog became less about like just
Speaker 6: anything that was old and more anything that was like
Speaker 6: pre nineteen seventies studio era and then I figured, you know,
Speaker 6: I'll start podcasts, and podcasts were established, but they weren't
Speaker 6: glutted yet, and there was no as far as I
Speaker 6: knew at the time when I started it eight years ago,
Speaker 6: there were not any classic film podcasts.
Speaker 3: The kreen A Longworth had not started. You must remember this, which.
Speaker 6: Funnily enough, I always say, kream along. Ruth and I
Speaker 6: are in an imaginary feud.
Speaker 3: She just doesn't know it. My same initial, my same
Speaker 3: initial nemesis. Kreta is great.
Speaker 6: She's been on the podcast before and I think I
Speaker 6: brought that up to her and she's just like, oh, okay.
Speaker 6: But I decided I wanted to do a podcast, you know,
Speaker 6: about old Hollywood and kind of share the knowledge that
Speaker 6: I learned from reading and watching these movies. And I
Speaker 6: kind of always envisioned it as like a TCM intro
Speaker 6: with two people that was, you know, kind of more
Speaker 6: off the cuff.
Speaker 3: And we're still doing it eight years later. I didn't
Speaker 3: even think we would still be doing it.
Speaker 6: I took a little hiatus at the end of last
Speaker 6: year to write, like to finish my book, and we're
Speaker 6: back to doing it bi weekly. We just we have
Speaker 6: a new episode coming out soon. We just we have
Speaker 6: an episode of Dangerous when Wet about Esther Williams. We
Speaker 6: did a Jaws episode. Only took us eight years to
Speaker 6: finally talk about Jaws.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do this spinal tap in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: That's gonna be really fun.
Speaker 6: And it's just been really cool to not only get
Speaker 6: to go to like the TCM Film Festival and hang out,
Speaker 6: but interview you know, Paul Figue and talk about what
Speaker 6: he loves about classic film, and you know, we interviewed
Speaker 6: some old Hollywood celebs like Hayley Mills and Nancy Olsen and.
Speaker 3: The Waite ed Asner. So it's it's always been cool.
Speaker 6: And when we do that, they're always like, you know,
Speaker 6: you're you're so young, why do you young people want.
Speaker 3: To talk about me?
Speaker 6: Which I always laugh about now because I see a
Speaker 6: lot of younger people in their twenties talking about old Hollywood,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, I remember when I was the young
Speaker 6: whipper snapper that you know.
Speaker 3: Now I'm not.
Speaker 6: Young anymore and now it's you guys, so I it
Speaker 6: reminds also reminds me painfully of age.
Speaker 3: So it's it's great to see how time has passed there.
Speaker 2: That that is sadly true. Yeah.
Speaker 4: One of the big things about the podcast I want
Speaker 4: to throw out there is you have gotten some absolutely
Speaker 4: insane guests over the years that you have quite quite
Speaker 4: a resume. There, some that I were impressed by, and
Speaker 4: I will let other people discover those on their own.
Speaker 4: But one I really want to throw out, dear friend
Speaker 4: of mine that I look up to and was great
Speaker 4: on your show is alonzod all Day, who last year
Speaker 4: just wrote just this incredible book on queer history in cinema,
Speaker 4: like we've kind of been talking about. Hollywood Prize is
Speaker 4: a great book. Alonzo's fantastic, But I mean, Eddie Buehler,
Speaker 4: some of these other people that I've looked up to
Speaker 4: for years, like you have done some incredible work.
Speaker 2: So just well done.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 6: I was just I did a conference recently here in
Speaker 6: LA with Ben Mankowitz and somebody brought up that Eddie
Speaker 6: Muller did the podcast, and he was like, I don't
Speaker 6: want to hear about Eddie. I'm like, well, you didn't
Speaker 6: come on the podcast, so you're the only host that
Speaker 6: hasn't done it, so I'm not really sure what your.
Speaker 3: Hang up is.
Speaker 2: So well, to finish this off.
Speaker 4: A lot of people that you know, maybe part of
Speaker 4: this conversation not super excited about disability representation.
Speaker 2: Tell me about.
Speaker 4: Welcome Boils and Gools, because man, I am so excited
Speaker 4: about this, Like I had never heard about this before
Speaker 4: I started researching you. But I will have to pre
Speaker 4: order this day one too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So that was I maintained that I will probably
Speaker 6: never have an ideas great is that ever?
Speaker 3: Again? That was? That was the lightning rod ideal.
Speaker 6: I'm friends with Alan Katz, who was one of the
Speaker 6: showrunners on the series.
Speaker 3: And it all kind of had started.
Speaker 6: I was very fascinated in the rights issues and why
Speaker 6: the show was not screaming, and I wanted to write
Speaker 6: an article about it, and my editor was just kind
Speaker 6: of like, yeah, nobody cares, so let's.
Speaker 2: Not do that.
Speaker 3: And I was like fine.
Speaker 6: But I had become friendly with Alan, and you know,
Speaker 6: Alan enjoyed telling stories about working on the show, and so,
Speaker 6: you know, he was very fascinated by my book writing
Speaker 6: and he's.
Speaker 3: Like, well, what's the next book? What are you going
Speaker 3: to do next? And I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 3: Like I got to figure something that I.
Speaker 6: Can live with for like a year. You know something
Speaker 6: that I can really like not be just bored with.
Speaker 6: I'm like, and it's, you know, Olsen Twins' biography, which
Speaker 6: you'll probably be really hard because you know they're the
Speaker 6: Olsen Twins. I'm like, or you know, maybe I could
Speaker 6: write about Tails from the Crip, like we could do
Speaker 6: like an oral history. I'm like, but somebody's done that, right,
Speaker 6: And he's like nope, And I'm like, wait what And
Speaker 6: he's like, no one's ever talked to And I'd found
Speaker 6: out that there was only one book that had ever
Speaker 6: been written about the show, was in nineteen ninety six,
Speaker 6: and it was really more of kind of like a
Speaker 6: picture heavy overall look at the series right as it
Speaker 6: was ending, and it had very limited scope. It was
Speaker 6: very rose colored glasses, very jewelsilver heavy. It's a great book,
Speaker 6: it's been a fantastic resource, but it was far from
Speaker 6: the full excuse me, full stories, And I just I
Speaker 6: could see the title, like you know that part in
Speaker 6: Boogie Nights when Dirk Diggler just has that moment where
Speaker 6: he sees his name and the lights the sparklers are
Speaker 6: going off.
Speaker 3: That That's what I saw, and we sold it very
Speaker 3: very quickly.
Speaker 6: My publisher was very excited about it, and that's what
Speaker 6: I've been working on. I was supposed to have it
Speaker 6: done earlier, but the TCM wanting a second volume of
Speaker 6: my book kind of made me move it right.
Speaker 3: But it's been utterly bananas to think of.
Speaker 6: You know, I've talked to over one hundred and fifty
Speaker 6: people from all facets of the show.
Speaker 3: I wish I had more. There's several people.
Speaker 6: I wish I had that as of right now, I
Speaker 6: do not, and I probably won't. But to hear the
Speaker 6: stories of how the show came to be and who
Speaker 6: almost did it and why it ended, and you know
Speaker 6: the films, I mean, it's comprehensive right as.
Speaker 3: Of right now.
Speaker 6: I'm at the stage where I'm kind of like organizing everything.
Speaker 3: And I looked at my page count and I was like,
Speaker 3: I really need.
Speaker 6: To ask my editor, like how far over the word
Speaker 6: count am I allowed to go before I got to
Speaker 6: start pairing it down.
Speaker 3: So it's it's very cool.
Speaker 6: I always worry that I don't have enough story, and
Speaker 6: I again I look at that word count, I'm like, no,
Speaker 6: I think I do. So it's it's going to be
Speaker 6: really cool to put it out there. I hope that
Speaker 6: by the time it's out there, the show will be streaming.
Speaker 3: My fingers are crossed. I'm hopeful. So twenty twenty seven,
Speaker 3: it's going to be very cool.
Speaker 4: I have longed for years to see it restored like
Speaker 4: from the original what we can get from the negatives,
Speaker 4: and then edit it again because obviously shot on film,
Speaker 4: edit it on tape is very difficult to maneuver around
Speaker 4: in the restoration world. So I hope somebody that's independently
Speaker 4: wealthy loves the show.
Speaker 6: From what I've heard, you know, the digitization is pretty good.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: The donors are the ones that are in charge of
Speaker 6: the rights, you know, right now, so we know that
Speaker 6: they're they're doing good these days. So you know, I've
Speaker 6: been fortunate to talk to them about this, and you know,
Speaker 6: the show seems to be in good hands.
Speaker 3: The hope is that, you know, somebody will.
Speaker 6: Want to stream it, and I'm I'm very hopeful that's
Speaker 6: gonna happen. So and I know that there's been a
Speaker 6: lot of really good elicit four K transfers on YouTube
Speaker 6: of the series, so I'm hopeful that you know, it'll
Speaker 6: look really good. But I mean also I'm I'm of
Speaker 6: the fact that, like, I love that it looks on HD.
Speaker 6: You know, I know when I interviewed Todd Masters, who
Speaker 6: is the the effects makeup guy for the series, you know,
Speaker 6: he he said, he's all, you know, HD is.
Speaker 3: Gonna ruin everything.
Speaker 6: He's all, because you're gonna see every little scene, every
Speaker 6: little you know, makeup. He's like, the point was we
Speaker 6: could make it look a little shitty because it wasn't
Speaker 6: gonna be you know, ould trap blown up. So it'll
Speaker 6: be interesting to see when that happens.
Speaker 2: Fully agree.
Speaker 4: Links for the books, the website, everything is in the
Speaker 4: description below.
Speaker 2: Where are you most active that you want people to
Speaker 2: follow you?
Speaker 3: I am on all the social media's.
Speaker 6: You can find me on Blue Sky and TikTok, Blue Sky,
Speaker 6: TikTok and Twitter at Kristin k Lopez. And you can
Speaker 6: find me at Instagram at Kristin Lopez eighty eight. And
Speaker 6: that's because I couldn't change it to Kristin k Lopez.
Speaker 6: So this is where we're at, so you can find
Speaker 6: me there. I have my sub stack, the filmmaven, which
Speaker 6: is the filmmaven dot substack dot com where I go
Speaker 6: long on all sorts of stuff, ticklish businesses, wherever you
Speaker 6: get podcasts. We have a very active Patreon. We just
Speaker 6: did an episode on a review on My Mom Jane,
Speaker 6: the j Mansfield documentary, and we're doing a new mini
Speaker 6: series looking at contemporary Ish movies that have classic film
Speaker 6: vibes and we're going to be kicking that off with
Speaker 6: a leak of their own. So yeah, it's a Patreon
Speaker 6: dot com slash ticklish boots all.
Speaker 2: Those thanks to the description below. Christen, this has been incredible.
Speaker 4: Thanks for coming on here to talk about it. It's
Speaker 4: something that I want to be somebody that can share
Speaker 4: voices like this.
Speaker 6: I appreciate it, and I mean when the book is
Speaker 6: out in November, I'm happy to come back and share
Speaker 6: more once people actually read.
Speaker 2: The book appreciate it. Have a good one and we'll
Speaker 2: talk to you hopefully again soon. Thank you for.
Speaker 4: Listening to the Disconnected podcast. There's one big thing that
Speaker 4: you could do to help the show, and that is
Speaker 4: to leave a rating and review on the podcast service
Speaker 4: of your choice.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
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Speaker 2: Cia bye e.
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