Queer Projection
This is a movie podcast about finding queer themes damn near everywhere. Hosts Alethia St. Joan and Danny Carroll share a 30+ year friendship that has been bound together by a shared love for movies. A trans woman and a gay man respectively, Alethia and Danny explore what these movies meant to them while they were young and closeted, and what revisiting these movies means for the actualized, arguably maladjusted adults they’ve become. It’s a heady, often crass and sometimes crude blend - part nostalgia trip, part queer theory, part film criticism. Check it out!
Queer Projection
BONUS: Tangerine
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No full episode this week! Instead, we bring you this BONUS little romp down Santa Monica Blvd with Sean Baker's 2015 iPhone indie hit. Enjoy!
Okay, hello everybody. We've got a bonus episode for you today. Just to give a quick recap on how we do our bonus episodes, these movies tend to be ones that are either explicitly queer, hence breaking the model of the show itself, or just shows that don't quite fit into the model, or movies, you know, that don't quite fit into the model any other way. So we save them for bonus episodes. Alethe, would you like to introduce the film that we're doing today?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Uh today we are covering Sean Baker's 2015 uh iPhone shot indie sensation tangerine. Or 2013. Was it 2013? Maybe it's 2015. It was one of those years. It was late Obama era.
SPEAKER_00And now, of course, for our bonus episodes, we don't do the sort of walk away and watch. We have already watched this movie. I just finished it, so it is fresh on my mind. And I am just, you know, I'm really here interested to talk about it because it is also today when we're recording it, uh, the Trans Day of Visibility. Trans Day of Visibility.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, sort of sort of sort of accidentally. I don't think we planned that. Um no, not at all. And on this trans day of visibility. On this transday of visibility, uh, the Supreme Court, um, with some intentionality, I would, I would wager, uh, has ruled eight to one uh in favor of not banning conversion therapy as it has somehow protected free speech. Which is pretty crazy, if you ask me. It is pretty crazy. 8-1, Dan. Fucking 8-1. The really the realization hits hard once again that nobody is coming to help us.
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I I I am of the mindset that you can't be a good advocate if you're a pessimist. So I believe that we're gonna fucking wreck these people. But you know what? Hey, maybe that's just me.
SPEAKER_01I'm not a pessimist. I am I am ultimately not a pessimist, but this morning um I I'm drenched in realism at the moment, and I'm I'm working my way toward uh optimism. Um well by by attending by attending a trans day of visibility event this evening, trying to connect with community. Anyhow, let's get into the movie. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, let's talk about some, you know, because this is a really emotionally satisfying movie, I think. I I and I didn't it's such a fun movie. I feel like it is, it's a fun movie, and it felt like such a fresh watch for me. I I I remember seeing it, and it was very, you know, I was seeing it again, it was all coming back to me, but I don't remember quite having the same emotional experience, you know. Um so uh the way I think I want to get into this to start with is that you know, this when it came out was sort of the paragon of like iPhone in a dream filmmaking, you know, right? Because this was shot entirely on iPhone, correct?
SPEAKER_01Yep, Duplace Brothers backed. Uh Sean Baker had made a few films already by that point, but it was with this film that he really took off, and now he's a four-time Academy Award winner with a Nora.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And it seemed to prove the rule that if you had the filmmaking chops, then you all you really needed was an iPhone. Now, from your point of view, because I'm sure you know more about this, like how how true is it that their rig was super basic? You know, was it really that basic that they pulled off this movie with?
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. It was an iPhone 5s, which I I have a 17 Pro Max right now, and the photographic capabilities of that are just unbelievable, I believe. Uh 28 years later, uh 28 years later, the Bone Temple was shot on that. Or at least 28 years later, not the Bone Temple was. Anyhow. Um, so we've really come a long way since then, but like it still looks gorgeous, and it looks great. They had they had access to um, I think, I don't know about a lens package, but um uh certainly a I think post certain access to post-production um capabilities that really uh helped it out. But they also used like 35mm filters, there's a few really good cinematography apps. But yeah, basically it was it was very, very, very stripped down, and they they used like three different iPhones. And Sean Baker said on the last day of filming the iPhone they were using, he immediately went and traded it in for money because he had to pay his rent, which is cool.
SPEAKER_00Oh my god, love that. Yeah. Uh yeah, but I mean it so it it really was I think I was struck by how sort of expert the storytelling was. Not just the filmmaking, but just the rhythm of the drama and the way that the the soundtrack was used to convey, you know, emotion and movement and momentum, and it just it it had such forward motion for what felt like such a simple plot. And not even in the sort of after hours sense where it it you know it's just like a basic run through a city on a on a romp. It was more complex than that. You know, it it it I don't know.
SPEAKER_01It it I I also I really appreciated also the um narrative juxtaposition between two marginalized groups, but also two marginalized groups engaged in seemingly very different but also very similar lines of work involving very brief interactions with people for, you know, some amount of money. And uh yeah, I and it's such a great look into first of all, I don't I don't I don't know you know how much Armenian representation there is in in stories about LA. It seems like not very much. Um I don't I don't know. We're gonna have to look into that. Like outside of Sonom on Conan, that's pretty much all I can think of.
SPEAKER_00Um Wow.
SPEAKER_01But also this is this is West Hollywood, right? Is it was any of this near you or no?
SPEAKER_00Well, okay, so no, so you are uh to to that point, now that I've lived here for a while, so uh the area of LA in which this takes place is Santa Monica and Highland, which is a place I have commuted through on basically every job I've ever had to commute to in this town. I am very familiar with Santa Monica Boulevard. Uh especially that section. So the movie takes place on that border or on that sort of like zone between West Hollywood and Hollywood, and down sort of in in the part on Santa Monica, whereas you're driving through it, you're like, is how is this the middle of the city? It feels like an industrial zone. And you know, the some of the studios are there, but yeah, no, I I didn't quite realize it, but it is sort of a notorious, you know, prostitution area. And there are times when I was going into work at like 5 a.m. where they were just out. And and it clicked with me watching this movie. I was like, oh my god, because so many of the street sequences were places I see just every day. And those were it was mind-boggling. And those were all people from that environment. It's um it's incredible.
SPEAKER_01It is so like the two the two lead actresses, the two lead actresses were both uh trans sex workers in that area, and Sean Baker like approached them at an LGBTQ center one day and asked them and asked them to develop this with him.
SPEAKER_00Incredible.
SPEAKER_01I I that is just so magical. Yeah, it really is. But it also um it it it it does bring up some uh perhaps ethical arguments and uh concerns one of those ethical arguments. Well, the fact that uh Sean Baker is a cis white man and his co-writer is also a cis white man, and despite I think representing um or or allowing the um the two actresses to have as much say and like freedom to develop their characters and uh improvise the dialogue and all that, to then piggyback off that and then take the writing credit entirely for themselves and you know enjoy the fruits to their careers that the movie offered them, but like kind of leaving the two actresses in the dust. I don't know, there's a lot to look at there, I think.
SPEAKER_00Interesting. I mean, yeah, there's a very good salient argument about whose story is this to tell, you know. Yeah. Um but at the same time, I I I feel a personal, I mean, not just well, I I feel a personal anxiety in in the sort of like just nature of being a cis white man myself in in that in this conversation, but also just I'm not against it philosophically.
SPEAKER_01Um it's really an employment thing. Yeah. If if the if the playing field were a bit more level and you know both these girls went on to the careers that they really I think deserve, um there'd be less of an argument there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Huh. Yeah, no, I I think you're right. From like uh there is a tension between this philosophical question of what is a story and whose is it to tell, and just the basic pragmatic practical realities of living as a trans person and especially a creative field in America.
SPEAKER_01It's and trans representation is totally right. Trans representation at this current moment is is taking a real nosedive. And I think for the first time in a number of years, like most trans representation, we're kind of back to uh trans people being you know referred to offensively or uh purely um uh in in unserious and borderline offensive ways. Right, very retrograde.
SPEAKER_00Um just classic scapegoating. It's almost embarrassingly classic. It's just, you know, in terms of the fascist playbook. But I want to, you know, kind of talk more about sort of the tensions that this movie sort of presents when it comes to you know conversations about being trans and and trans representation and trans visibility on this trans-day visibility.
SPEAKER_01This typifies like the kind of uh filmmaking that I love the most. Um every every character, no matter how big or small, seems it just gets like their own little arc, even if it's just uh the camera lingering on them for five extra seconds at the end of a scene, existing with completely outside the confines of the plot. Maybe even the actor was unsure if they were still rolling or not, and it captures like some human vulnerability that you you can then project an entire kind of life onto. Um, absolutely. Very demi-esque, and that's the kind of filmmaking that I respond to I th I think the most.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Because, you know, it it is it finds its way into authenticity. Uh and it and it doesn't, you know, it it it manages to not make this appeal to humanity feel con contrived in those moments, you know? What I mean, but what I think you mean by these arcs, like everybody really you you're getting such a glimpse into the wholeness of their character. You know, we were we were just talking, I think before a technical glitch about the the moment with the um you know the 30 days sober heroine addict in the food line that Cindy's shaking down for information and just how Cindy just doesn't care about this monumental achievement. And you know, when Cindy says fuck you and walks away, we linger on this person in their sort of moment of like, well, fuck you too, and sort of sadness about it.
SPEAKER_01I know that felt so real. Yeah, yeah. But also even the moment with even the moment with the cops, like the we we get 30 seconds of the vote just bullshitting before Alexandra and that other guy are tussling in the street because he's refugeing to refusing to pay her, and we see the one cop be totally transphobic, like inside the car, and then get out and like almost condescendingly like like uh in front of in front of Alexandra, go from uh using the masculine to the feminine and almost like uh I'm doing this for you kind of way. Like, fuck you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's a little unrealistic that they would let them go. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I don't think I you know what I would disagree with you. I would disagree with you on that one, especially when it comes to the LAPD. The LAPD and the NYPD, they are different beasts entirely. It is definitely a lot more wild west keeping the peace out here than it is, you know. Yeah. It's just, you know, there's still cops, but there's uh there are a lesser degree of fascism, which I think you can just chalk up to the laziness of the West Coast.
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, because if you're into true crime at all, uh many of the famous West Coast murders um competent, incompetent bumbling, please. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Oh yes, yes. Anyway, that's a that's a different podcast.
SPEAKER_01Um we were saying before, um, you were talking about the visual style of this film.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, I uh uh yeah, the visual style just um just the visual language, but I I think we should pick up again uh on your those those two points of view you had on this movie, um, the sort of the trans perspective. Um you said you had some, you know, trans people who you were quote or something.
SPEAKER_01I will briefly relate quick little bits from um two trans writers that I really admire, one of whom is very kind of love hate, and the other who is quite on the side of the film like I am. Uh I'm not gonna say their names, uh, because I'm not gonna quote them in full. I'm just gonna kind of paraphrase-ish what they said. Okay, so uh here's one praises the central performances, saying the central performances are so good and the ending so wonderful that it gets around some major problems, including but not limited to uh one, their complaint is the iPhone shake gets real tired real fast. I don't know, I don't really agree with that. That's an aesthetic uh thing. I don't even notice it. Two, the direction is straight up not very good. I'm not sure to what they're referring, it's too general. Yeah, what? Uh three, um, my man simply cannot decide if trans people are humans deserving of dignity or hilarious clowns to laugh at. Feels like cis people should have to watch this with a chaperone. You know, I I kind of think I kind of think those things aren't mutually exclusive. Like, why can't they be both? And I think we wouldn't be having we wouldn't be having this argument if it wasn't a hetero cis guy directing. Right. Uh and here's another one by another trans writer that I really like and respect. Uh this one says, she says, iPhone is the only way to shoot this film, subverting selfie culture cliches and revealing its accused narcissism to be a deep and all-encompassing empathy. This film is of genuine interest in the lives of every single person it captures, even if it's only for the briefest of scenes. Uh the two professions at the s yeah, I mean, this is pretty much what I was saying. Uh Tangerine gets it. This is not synonymous with superficiality. Time is not empathy, but the way in which you use your time can be. Listen to a person's story, watch the way they move and speak, care about them. This is a film with a frantic pace, but it doesn't leave a single soul behind. How's that for a Christmas miracle? I I align more with this view. Well, yeah. Well, okay, so let's talk about that. Uh but I understand the I st I understand the uh hesitance uh on on the part of the other reviewer.
SPEAKER_00There were moments where I felt like I needed a chaperone while watching this. Yeah. Um I'm not gonna lie. So uh so again, I think the like, you know, are they hilarious clowns to laugh at that question? You know, I yeah, I'm they're funny, messy bitch. Exactly, exactly, exactly. But I will say, you know, the one part of the movie that I felt very sort of like uncomfortable thinking was sweet because I also knew so the the laundromat sequence towards the very end after she gets the cup of piss thrown on her.
SPEAKER_01Oh yeah, and she gives her a wake back.
SPEAKER_00Right, and it's so beautiful. It is it is beautiful, but it's like, do you have to have this sort of like ritualistic act of humiliation? Yeah, it has to have a hate crime. But like where you like the where the trans person is like forced to take off the stuff that helps them secure their identity, and we are m supposed to look at the raw, you know, unvarnished thing underneath. Like that felt very much like sh like it was not for me and shouldn't be for me, and maybe it wasn't really for anyone. Like and I felt a little uncomfortable thinking it was so sweet because they should be looking at that.
SPEAKER_01If the writer-director was trans, that that would feel, you know, very honest. Um he is not, it uh I mean there I I think there is an argument or a dialogue to be had about um good intentions, but you know, good intentions wrapped in exploitation, ultimately. Right. Um and I'm I'm a little loath to say that just because I really love Sean Baker as a filmmaker. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and and again, it didn't seem leery. It didn't seem like I I can it You're right that what I'm feeling is a sense of exploitation because it's like literally stripping down these characters for our, you know, visual I don't want to say enjoyment, but like, you know, like to we're meant to l examine them under that microscope in that moment. And it's like, you know, I felt a compulsion to kind of like look away, like give them their privacy. Like she she just had a cup of piss thrown on her. But that's what's and again, I understand that's what's so beautiful about the sequence, but I don't know. There's a tension. There is that philosophical tension about like, is this viewpoint correct considering it is a non, it's it's a cis directory? I don't know. It troubles me, troubles my mind.
SPEAKER_01I I I very much dream of the day, and uh honestly am devoted to doing whatever I can to help usher it in. Uh, when, you know, we can just have a trans character existing, just like any other character, and their transness is simply a thing about them and not the defining trait of everything the narrative uh has to encompass. Which is my goal, which is my goal moving forward or has been um in anything I'm writing now.
SPEAKER_00I will say that this movie is very committed to tenderness, you know, uh and creating tender moments. And uh when it peels sort of back the curtain on somebody and knows it's looking at them in their vulnerable state, it is very tender and it's careful with that vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01The most tender, one of the most tender scenes involves if involves uh uh meth smoking.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yes, that's exactly what I mean. That's exactly what I mean. Um even just the sort of you know, all those taxicab sequences, like with that one girl who's like taking the selfies and then sort of exhaustingly taking off the Santa hat. Like, why am I doing this? Like, I don't know. It's it it's uh they take care of people in those moments.
SPEAKER_01The director and the film Oh, and that Native American guy who's explain who's explaining that he was named Mia Mia. Right. Uh which is a tender. Yeah, very, very, very funny. Um that's that's actually like a pretty famous actor, that guy. I can't remember his name.
SPEAKER_00Right, I remember that. You know, so the all of that to say I think perhaps they earned that laundromat sequence because it is so deeply tender and they have been so committed to tenderness the whole time. That's you know, that's what I think is the salve on the sense of exploitation in that moment.
SPEAKER_01But I also uh I also know that Sean Baker going in uh was intending to make a much darker, more dramatic, more punishing film, and that the two lead actresses like put their foot down and like insisted that it not be that. So I'm wondering I'm wondering if the piss throwing was a compromise or if they or if that came from their personal experience. I don't really know.
SPEAKER_00That is a very good question. Because, you know, again, I I love that idea that they put their foot down on uh because it's like listen, I know, like, yeah, this existence kind of sucks, but you know, uh one of the key things about a living your truth and b being a queer person at all is like we are finding joy wherever we can. Yeah. You know, w wherever it is, wherever we have to scrape it together. And so for them to insist, it's like, no, there is lightness to this life, and it has to be visible.
SPEAKER_01That is I'm so glad that that was uh Yeah, that the that the movie mostly pulls it off is um is really light-lay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And the community stuff. Yeah, and uh it is this is such a movie about walking in LA. Uh it's you know, it do the only uh the only time we're ever in cars is like when we're with John's, right? You know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, pretty much.
SPEAKER_00So for a for a uh for a for an LA movie to have cars be such background objects, that is something special too. It really is a real uh location point of view.
SPEAKER_01It's a ri and it's a very it's a very elegant way to just uh immediately kind of state a position on on class.
SPEAKER_00And also, just so much of what we learn and know about these characters and their personalities is conveyed in their walks, in how they walk and how they strut and how they move through the world when they know that they are on sort of like one hand a a sex object on and on the other hand they need to fucking get somewhere, you know. I I I I just love that.
SPEAKER_01The year the year that I spent in LA right before literally like as soon as I moved back from LA is when I started HRT. Um except for five blessed days when I had a car, literally five days. Uh, my entire experience was a walking experience. Yeah. And and and but and bus and and and subway, but but large I would I I would set out on like really extraordinary walking journeys, and I had a great time doing it.
SPEAKER_00I mean, in that part of LA, you can pull it off. You know, it's over over here, you know, in the Silver Lake area and stuff, you know, where it's less flat. Um, but down there in the basin, that whole stretch in Santa Monica, yeah, you can walk. You can walk it. And I did when I first got here too. But um, all right, you know, this is a bonus episode, so we should probably try and keep it short. But it do you is there anything else, you know, is there any kind of button we want to put on this in terms of just how this I don't know, movie speaks for the trans community? Like, is it where beyond those quotes that you had, how does the trans community take ownership of it? And I don't know, from your own personal point of view, how does it make you feel?
SPEAKER_01It makes me feel elated, um, because I I very much generally vibe with the uh representation of uh the community uh in the film. Um I but even even I within this minority group am not the most marginalized because I'm not a black trans woman, and they historically are you know the most marginalized, uh unfortunately still. So from my point of view and from a the point of view of uh the industry and Sean Baker's career in general, um uh it's a step in the right direction, even if there are still problematic elements, a well-intentioned, imperfect I don't I don't really know the word for this, problematic without meaning to be. You know what I mean? Well-intentioned, but problematic. Um the problematic elements are not malice, they're ignorance, I think.
SPEAKER_00Right. Or or uh indelicacy. Indelicacy.
SPEAKER_01You know, you have stumbling with But it's but it's most but it's mostly but it all mostly belongs to the two leads, and they are wonderful. They're absolutely wonderful, and they should be in a lot more than than than they've been in. It would be it would it would it would be lovely to uh meet them and maybe work with them one day.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I think that's that's a great way to wrap this up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah. Thanks everybody again for joining us. If you're listening to the bonus episode, you might be a Patreon subscriber. You might just really like us. Who knows? Um, and uh also I figure again, since it's trans day visibility, might as well go ahead uh if you're looking for a good organization to support beyond just listening to our podcasts. Uh check out trans music archive. You can find them on Instagram, social media, you just look them up. They are all about supporting uh trans musicians and also making sure that trans music is preserved in physical media and making sure that this library is available to as many people as possible. Um they are accepting donations. So if you're looking for a place to put your money where your mouth is when it comes to trans artists, that's a great way to do it.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and a lot of people, a lot of trans people uh struggle with unemployment, including this trans person. So, uh, or including this trans woman, so toss a trans lady some coin. It doesn't have to be me, but it would be cool if it was at alethea719 at Venmo.
SPEAKER_00Hire a trans person a day. All right, everybody, thank you for joining us. This has been Queer Projection. We will see you again soon.
SPEAKER_01Merry Christmas Eve, bitch!