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
Stand By Me
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This week we're taking a long walk to see a dead body. Not that long walk. The other one. A remarkably tender, nostalgic, and soul-searching walk of course, because that's what you get with a semi-autobiographical Stephen King adaptation by way of the late, great Rob Reiner. Fetch your gunny sack, watch out for those underwear leeches, and let's take that long walk together. Enjoy!
Okay, Alethea, I don't know if you want to play this game with me, but if you had to pick like which of the four boys you are in this movie, or the combination of the two, or three or four. What do you think?
SPEAKER_02Gordy, I suppose, the introverted writer kid. But as a young, as a young, closeted trans girl in the body of a boy, I definitely tried to be more like the River Phoenix character.
SPEAKER_03I mean, everybody wants to be Gordy, but I was a probably a little bit Gordy and Vern. I was the one who very much didn't I did not want to get into trouble, and I knew you people were gonna get me into trouble. Alright, so the film today. Did we did we did we have a teddy? We no, I think you were the teddy. What we definitely didn't have was the core was the River Phoenix character. There was no moral compass of Chris.
SPEAKER_02I wasn't a fucking I wasn't a fucking teddy.
SPEAKER_03You were a teddy. You were Corey Feldman.
SPEAKER_02Fuck off. I don't like that.
SPEAKER_03Alright, let's do it. The movie is Stand By Me. Here we go. Yeah, I'm I'm in a bad mood now.
SPEAKER_02Thank you.
SPEAKER_00And now we're pleased to bring you our feature presentation. Stand by me um was the first movie that I did where I realized that I have a chance at actually being successful at what I like to do. It was the first time I was I did a movie that really reflected my personality, that was different from anything my father would have done. And to be honest with you, when I first read the script, it was developed by uh a friend of mine, Andy Scheiman and Martin Schaefer, who I've since you know been long-term friends with and long we started Castle Rock together. Um they asked me to read it just to read it, you know, not to direct it, but to see if there's, you know, they said there's some good writing here, but we don't really know what the focus. We don't, you know, can you tell us what this is about? At the time Adrian Lyne was supposed to direct it, who you know, directed the Fatal Attraction. And he had just done a movie called Nine and a Half Weeks, and he didn't want to go to work right away. And um so I read it and I said, boy, there's some great writing in this, great characters. I don't really know what it's about yet, but boy, I'd like to do something like this because it it's that the the tone of it and the sensibility was very close to my personality and the way I saw the world. So I said, let me do this. And and when I took, and I said, Okay, you think you could get it? And when I took it on, I get migraine headaches because I really didn't know what it was about. I mean, the character of Gordy was kind of an observer. He wasn't really involved in the story so much. And when I hit when I hit on the fact that he was going to be the main character, and it was about him, and this journey to see the body was uh was something he had to do in order to come to grips with um his relationship to his father and how his friends helped him see him through that difficult time because he felt his father didn't love him, um, and his father liked the brother better and all that. And I thought, okay, now I can see what this film is. And those are feelings I had, you know, and and the the the the uh the strength that you get from friends and how friends can make you feel good, you know, help you make you feel good about yourself. And um the scene where Gordy, you know, where Chris says to Gordy, he says, you know, your father loves you. He just doesn't understand you. And I felt at the time early on that that was similar to the way it was with my father, that he did love me, but he didn't quite understand me. And so this film was like, even though a rite of passage for those characters in the movie, it was like a rite of passage for me. Because it was the first time I was making a film that was connected to my sensibility.
SPEAKER_03Uh Danny, how long has it been since you've seen this movie? Oh, it has been absolutely ages. This is another great one. It's gonna be like 15 years or so. So I'm gonna have some real fresh perspectives. But this did leave a pretty significant impression on me.
SPEAKER_02This is one that's gonna ri uh I I I feel like really gonna reduce us to to dri to dribbling messes.
SPEAKER_03We're gonna find out. Uh, welcome back to Queer Projection. My name is Danny Carroll. This is Alethea St. Joan. How are you, Alethea?
SPEAKER_02Hi. I'm well, Dan. I'm back I'm back in my town. I'm back in a New York groove. Uh, I love that for you. I'm back in the city and I'm broke and it's great.
SPEAKER_03In case you're just joining us for the first time, uh, Alethea and I have known each other for nigh on 30 years. What we do on this podcast is we revisit some of the uh big movies of our childhood, and we revisit the themes in them as queer adults and try to mind them for these queer themes and see what's in there. It's part nostalgia, it's part film history, it's queer theory, whatever you want to do, whatever your particular flavor is, we're gonna try for it. So, this is gonna be a very interesting one. Before, you know, we get we get into talking about Stand By Me, uh film by Rob Reiner, we have to, of course, briefly talk about the fact that Rob Reiner is no longer with us and uh and passed in sort of a very tragic way. I don't know, Lethea, do you wanna take that?
SPEAKER_02Really, really horrific, disturbing, like almost like classic LA true crime kind of way. Yeah. I I hope that didn't sound disrespectful. I didn't mean it that way. I just mean um LA has a has a history of uh Hollywood it either on the fringes or directly involved with some really, really gnarly shit. Murders and mansions. Murders and mansions.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I think what's gonna end up happening is just, you know, this is a film about life and death and the relationship between death and life and those sorts of things. And it and it's told, you know, in a aspirational sort of way, but I I think it's gonna be painted with the recognition that the the director met their end pretty uh pretty roughly. Yeah, Rob Reiner, phenomenal.
SPEAKER_02This is the first Rob Reiner film I think we're doing, correct? It's actually very strange because Rob Reiner, the way he was murdered, is the way that River Phoenix's character, when he grows up, is said to have died. That's like the that that's the inciting incident for uh Richard Dreyfus like telling the story. Yeah, he gets stabbed in the neck while trying to uh break up a fight. Okay. This is the first of uh two Stephen King adaptations that Rob Reiner did. The other one being, of course, the great film Misery. God, I'm almost like I'm really apprehensive about re-watching this because I feel like this is one of those movies that is really going to, you're really going to feel it the further on in life that you get.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah, yeah. No, I'm very excited about that. I'm excited because, you know, last time I saw this, I was probably, I don't know, I was very young. This is a this is a movie about being young for older people, trying to communicate those things uh that you just cannot see from that standpoint, and that you have to have, you know, the gap of years to fully, fully wrap your head around some stuff. Now, um, you know, not to not well but I I just want to make one more point.
SPEAKER_02It but it's also about reminiscing about the like the very intense but brief relationships you had with people who who those relationships did not even like last past that summer. Yeah. Like they're complete strangers to you uh at that time in your adulthood. But but I mean, I certainly have people like that in my past. Yeah. It's it's it's it's a very interesting um examination uh examination to make up one's past.
SPEAKER_03Well, I mean it's very interesting because you know, you and I were were young children together. We, you know, we were preteens and tweens and and and we have maintained our relationship. And so it is gonna be interesting just to sort of see if it evokes any feelings of of being of that age, you know, because I don't remember, and I'm sure we did, but like were we traipsing through the woods much, you and I?
SPEAKER_02Like Oh I certainly was, and I feel like you were much of the time. It was the remember the power lines were like all very quite undeveloped.
SPEAKER_03We would go exploring, but I feel like I was on such a uh such a much shorter leash than you that like my kind of adventure just wasn't always wasn't always it. Yeah. Just but yeah, yeah. But now I before we leave, you know, the topic of Rob Reiner. I mean we'll get back to him, of course, but like we should mention this is one of his earliest movies. And and I think it's very interesting because he came on uh to the project while it was already pretty much in motion. They were originally gonna have it directed by Adrian Lynn. Adrian Lyne, really.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, that would have been that would have that would have been a very different. I don't know Adrian Lyne. What else have they done? Yes, he does he did like Flashdance and Fatal Attraction. Got it, got it, got it, got it. He did he did the remake of Lolita, which I actually think is kind of better than Kubrick's. Really? Don't don't don't come at me.
SPEAKER_03Don't at me. Okay. You know what? I've never seen any iteration of Lolita. I've never seen any of the movies. Both are good in my opinion. You've read Lolita, obviously. Again, not in ages, you know. Yeah. But no, no, I I I think it's interesting. I want to talk about that because to talk about you know the fact that he picked up this movie from Adrian Line. Because, you know, again, this is a classic movie. Everybody knows this film, but like any other project in Hollywood, it was like a carry to get it to production. You know, I guess the the the people who originally sort of stumbled across Stephen King's novella The Body. I believe I believe it was Bruce Evans and Karen Gideon are the names. And and they just liked it and they wanted to buy the uh rights, and I guess King negotiated something really crazy for the time, like um gross, you know, a percentage of gross profits, which for like a an adaptation, I guess is just not what you do, is sort of excessive, but you know, they went for it anyway, and and you know, they're getting this.
SPEAKER_02There was such a glut of King uh ad adaptation material back then. I mean uh uh matched only by probably now. Right, I think.
SPEAKER_03So he probably had the pa I mean, of course he had the power to ask for that, you know.
SPEAKER_02Was this the first non-horror adaptation of Stephen King?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. That's a good question.
SPEAKER_02I think so. This is before Shawshag. Very interesting. I believe I I think it might have been, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Actually, I wonder if that threw people off at all, being like a a coming of age movie written by Stephen King. What is going on here?
SPEAKER_02I'm pretty I'm pretty sure the novella was one that he published under his uh pseudonym Richard Bachman. When he wanted to write like uh stuff that he felt Stephen King fans wouldn't allow from him, uh he would uh he would use the name Richard Bachman. Interesting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um yeah. But so, you know, this movie uh so they, you know, they've again, even with Stephen King's acclaim and everything like that, you know, they apparently shopped this down everywhere and only got it picked up at Embassy Pictures, and they're in the middle of development, and then Embassy Pictures goes under or something like that, or gets bought out. Um and and you know, it really gets just like kicked around for a while. And I just I I always am a little um I don't want to say thrown off, but like it it's always a reminder, like a a fresh reminder that no matter how good anything is, you know, it always has a a rough gestation period in this industry. You know, it's it it's never clean. There's always something going on that makes it complicated. And I don't know, I just think that's very interesting. Oh yeah, Back to the Future was rejected like 30 times. And I'm sure that could be said about so many of the movies we've done on here, but we never really dive into it. But I don't know, something about this kind of it just sort of struck me because I I I don't know what the vibe was in 1986, but the idea of it's like, okay, we got the Stephen King book, it's you know, it's cause should be low budget enough, you know, it it family values coming of age movie. I just I I in my head, that's like uh yeah, let's green light this. Why not? But I I don't know.
SPEAKER_02We we got we got we got Meathead behind the camera.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't know. Although, right, you know, Rob Reiner up to a certain point, like his his his run of first like seven or eight films is like one of the most unbeatable runs. But then like uh similar to Tim Burton, he has this incredible, like unprecedented, like still unmatched run, and then it's just dog shit after that.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Um, all right. Well uh dog shit.
SPEAKER_02I don't know why it's strong, strong words. Well, but just think of it, like um Spinal Tap, some kind of wonderful this, Princess Bride, Misery, fucking the American president, and then there's North, which was such an outrageous bomb that it's almost like a classic in and of itself. It's funny. So yeah, so no, I'm gonna. Oh, when Harry met when fucking when Harry met Sally, like the best romantic comedy ever. Yeah. That actually, I think that's my favorite of his films when Harry met Sally.
SPEAKER_03You know, it's it's it's very interesting. And you know, I I I I guess um You know, also uh Norman Lear helped to bring this to the finish line. Norman Lear, creator of All in the Family, who know Rob Reiner from you know, just sort of that world. I don't know, it's just that's also interesting to me that like these relationships we know and read about all we I don't know, they're they being so crucial to the art we end up with. Just, you know, Norman Lear being like, well, you know, Rob Reiner's on the picture now and Columbia wants to shut it down because they just bought embassy. But you know what? I'm just gonna I'm gonna toss in seven million of my own money to complete the film. Like, I I don't know, I just think moves like that are fascinating because then we all end up with Stand By Me. I don't know. I just love that.
SPEAKER_02I mean, certain this is still at a time when um certain executives like still did it for the love of the art form and not.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I think that still exists. It was harder. I don't know. I want to jump over real quick just to talk about what I want to sort of mind in this movie when I'm watching it in terms of queer themes. Um now it it's interesting because this is a uh a movie about a group of boys uh uh at a certain age, and you know what? I really think I did not have that, you know? My you know, my best friend, my closest friends in uh middle school were uh, you know, uh Jewish musical theater girls, and and you know, I had you sort of off to the side in a in a in a in a in their in some in your own category sort of um, but we didn't have like the group, you know, and it definitely wasn't male dominated in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_02So I think there was I I I had a few aborted attempts at those, but yeah. Right. They never last they never lasted.
SPEAKER_03I feel like I remember that. And isn't that so funny? That I don't know, yeah, I don't know. But I I do remember kind of like feeling that, and I again this is where I'm I'm really like I I don't know how much I missed having a group of male friends as much as like I was titillated by the idea of it, you know, like the the standout image in this movie for me is of course them all standing in their matching white briefs after the leech pond scene. And I just like I I remember not being able to quite put the words to it for many, many years, but just like wanting intensely to have boys that I could wear matching underwear with.
SPEAKER_02And until, you know. And see, but and and and I wanted desperately to be hanging out with Jewish musical theater girls.
SPEAKER_03Well, there we are. But I don't know. It it the the the I I I don't know how much of it Yeah, I I I I I am going to be examining my heart for how much I actually feel like I missed out on the boys group or and if that's really a thing, and if I don't know. It was also like, remember uh now and then the Christina Ricci uh Yeah, I love now and then the same exact feeling I got from when they when they're watching the boys during the skinny dip scene. And I like remember distinctly being like, why don't I have a group of boys to skinny dip? And like I don't know if that was a gay thought or not, you know? Um I think it was a little gay. I mean, yeah, but like but but I mean there's no shame in that. But like I was like, I don't know, I never liked horseplay, and yet it was like I felt like I was like, you know, like I'd love to be in that environment. Just like don't touch me, don't shove me. Don't like like I don't want to wrestle, but I'd love to be around while you're wrestling. You know, like I don't know. It's very strange. When I was young, I came from like a horseplay kind of environment.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh and that's that's that's something that I've very much grown up with.
SPEAKER_03And I think you picked up right away that I was not a horseplay kid.
SPEAKER_02You made it very clear very early, and I was like, oh, okay. I was gentle. I was I was a gentle boy. Not not ever not everyone is like my family. This movie draws an interesting parallel to um uh past episode George Washington, which was what, just two two episodes ago, because it's it it takes place in a lower class sort of milieu. Uh the Midwest, I think, as opposed to the South. Right. Um But it's also it's about that last summer, you know, the one that teeters just on the edge of childhood, but is but is you know, got one foot in adolescence, and it's it's the last summer where you have these kinds of relationships specifically and these kind of interactions with people. Yeah. It's it's it's uh quite melancholy. Yeah. And it's like I mean, and yeah. And and I forget I you know it's I always and also these boys, these boys are dealing with some fucked up shit. Right.
SPEAKER_03And I always somehow forget that the entire impetus is to go see a dead body. Like, I I don't know how I forget that, but I'm like, oh right, that's why they're on this journey. They just want to like see a dead body. And that's like a boy thing I have I had no relation with. Um yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but then but you'll remember they get there and then they're all just like oh well, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a person.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I yeah, I see. Have you have you read have you read the novella? You've read some Stephen King, right? Yeah, I've read a lot of Stephen King, but no, I I have never read the novella.
SPEAKER_02I have it as part of a collection somewhere. Um I'll have to I'll have to look at it again. Okay. Well, we're we're at 17 minutes, and I think we don't have to spend too much time on the street.
SPEAKER_03Let's go watch it. Because uh, you know, just to recap, you know, for me, I'm not gonna necessarily be searching for the queer themes in this movie, although they might be there. But um just trying to sort of like search my heart for why I was so affected by uh a lonely feeling of of you know not having a boy group, and and if that's tied to my gender identity and sexuality in any way. That's what I'm gonna be looking at. You can all do whatever you want while you watch this movie. Are you excited, Alethea?
SPEAKER_02I'm very excited. This is a movie I have a lot a lot of fondness for, and it's seen a lot early on in my life, but it's been there's uh a significant gulf of time between then and now. And I'm really a little bit dreading, but you know, very interested to see how it's going to affect me now. I expect tears.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, same, same, same. Um, all right, this is exciting. Stand by me by Rob Reiner with Will Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Kiefer Sutherland. It's gonna be it's gonna be interesting. Alright, everybody. See you after the break.
SPEAKER_04Bye. We got along pretty good. We got along great. We got we got along like like brothers, kind of, you know.
SPEAKER_05Except uh We kind of had our bad moments too, but just like the movie. And it's only natural when you're, you know, with uh with these guys for two, three months. Best of friends fight. Yeah. Yeah. So they have their good times too.
SPEAKER_04We were like best of friends that fought and got along great. We had a lot of fun with it. We just lived in the 50s for the summer and really got into it.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't that scared.
SPEAKER_05He fit in pretty great. He was great because he was he was always he was crazy. It was funny.
SPEAKER_04Because he was like the most adventurous one of us, I'd say. We would all like tease him and stuff, you know, at first, and then like when he started to like fit in with us and we all got crazy, and he would just always go, Oh cool, come on, you guys gotta let me do this. Come on, come on. We gotta do this, we gotta do this. Let's go throw some uh bottle stuff off the balcony. That'd be fun.
SPEAKER_01I was a New Yorker kid who had just started in my first movie, and they they all knew each other from LA. And they had done other movies, so I was a newcomer. And I got to know them, and they were really nice. Like we were really good buddies. On the trestle scene, I had to run, and like a train was breathing down our neck, so little Rob, he was really explained about things like like you have to be scared of this woman. This is Vern, this is the most scariest point of his life. And then I just thought of something right off the bat. When I was a little kid, I used to have dreams that the closet would eat me up. So I just thought of that.
SPEAKER_05Hey, at least now we know when the next train was due. Chris uh was a peacemaker, you know, he's a diplomat, tried to smooth things out between his friends. Really frustrated with his life because i i he was um trapped inside of this reputation that that he was born with. He was like the bad kid in town and he stole. And and he didn't want to, you know, he he wanted to, you know, climb above that, and you know, it finally comes out in him and he's really frustrated and he uh talks about it with his friend Gordy, and Gordy helps him out.
SPEAKER_01No man, seriously. Am I weird? Yeah, but so what? Everybody's weird.
SPEAKER_05Since the scene where um I'm telling Gordy that he should be a rider and he shouldn't listen to what his dad says. And we're walking on this track and uh we had to keep the certain distance from the camera and it was on a dolly, otherwise the focus could be out. So we did a lot of takes and that got kinda got frustrating. But we did it and it came out good. We all kind of helped each other. 'Cause you know you you work off each other.
SPEAKER_04In a film like that, you have to work off each other when, you know, it's four guys just through the whole film. Just that's what it's about. It's, you know, I mean, we would go up to each other's rooms at night and practice and stuff, you know, and we'd all go over to River's house and we'd do all the handshakes.
SPEAKER_05And we would say all the you know slang that they used back then in the 59s, and you know. And that's a plan and a half.
SPEAKER_03Oh, no, no. Everybody sees themselves in Gordy and Chris, but most of the time people are usually a Teddy or a Vern. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Uh, excuse me. Um, are you aware of what uh of what Vern looked like when he grew up?
SPEAKER_03I don't want to know.
SPEAKER_02He's fucking hot on the city. Was he the hot one? Jerry O'Connell. Did he turn out to be the hot one? Just 11 years after this movie, he was in Scream 2 and he is a fucking hunk. Nice.
SPEAKER_03Seriously, look it up. For him. So I really like this, but I've got to admit that I don't know that I really found many queer themes in this movie. We did get two instances of the word faggot, though. I did clock those.
SPEAKER_02And and Cocknacker.
SPEAKER_03Oh, uh, but I love Cockknocker.
SPEAKER_02Cockknocker is great. You know what gets close and can can possibly be discussed under a queer thematic umbrella is um, you know, it's so rare that you see any media depicting such vulnerability between between males, especially.
SPEAKER_03So yes, I agree completely. And in fact, I have sort of like a queer conspiracy theory that I might want to throw into this movie a little bit. I don't know. Um, but it does wrap around uh River Phoenix's um phenomen phenomenal child actor performance here. He's incredible.
SPEAKER_02I mean they're they're all really good in their own way. Corey Feldman, I think, is a little uh underrated just because of like what the kind of weird adult he became, but like what a sad fucking character. Like that is a heartbreaking character.
SPEAKER_03Oh yeah. I mean they're all a little heartbreaking. And you know what? I will talk about again why that why why so one of the um you know I think uh criticisms of this movie is that it like really, you know, it hits the the nail on the head a little too often, you know, that that it um what is it? Hold on another what's the uh line? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I I read a there's a review that says Reiner's direction hammers in every obvious element in an obvious script. And I think on some level I do agree with that criticism, except for the fact that I think the movie is entirely self-aware of that, and I think it comes down again to people's failure to recognize the framing device of it of being a look back in time, and in saying that, saying, obviously, I'm going to editorialize huge swaths of this because this is memory and memory is unreliable. It's the same thing that's going on, it's the same thing that was going on with the Virgin Suicides, you know? Um, and I and I think one of the key things for me, every I like so every time um Chris and Gordo had like a serious heart-to-heart, of which they have a few in this movie, uh, you know what? I really had a hard time being like believing that the Chris character, no matter how world-weary he was at this age, was like that articulate about these ideas that you very much have to sort of like look back on to recognize. And and I think it's gotta be like for me, it's it's it's in those moments, that is what came through once the character had reflected on it after many decades, when in fact he has no real memory of what it was they talked about. It's just that when he thinks back on those conversations, he realizes this is what Chris was telling him.
SPEAKER_02Because I'm just I'm sorry. Exactly. That's exactly what I thought. Like it's it's it's the it's the narrator filtering his own um recognition and realization about uh his past through the voice of his young friend.
SPEAKER_03Because every time Chris is like seeing Gordo for who he really is, I just don't believe that that kid would have been able like be mature enough to capably articulate that. So like I wish that I wish the hell I was your dad. Right. Come on, give me a break. You know, or maybe, you know, again, maybe that that that is a funny, useful thing to say. But so so I think if you're able to navigate that aspect of the movie, it's not gonna land as schmaltzy as I think it does on the first pass, come across as schmaltzy. I do think it tries to introduce itself as a subversive movie, you know, or maybe it's just of the time, but I think when you know you you you open on kids smoking cigarettes and telling jingoistic bestiality jokes, like you're you're kind of saying that this is gonna be a a little rough and tumble, you know? That's Stephen King's specialty. It is. And even just like the Chekhov's gun moment when he pulls it out right at the beginning of their journey, and you're just like, oh shit. Like, that's just kids with guns is just not something that you can toy with, not to put a pun in there. But like it it's there's too much gravitas to it that is that is a very much of its time, I think. Uh or or lack of gravitas.
SPEAKER_02Very much of its time being 86, but also about a time uh the 50s, where that was just uh uh the the issue was just completely um just a non-existent one compared to what we have to deal with today.
SPEAKER_03And also, like, you know, one of the key elements in this movie that I think is happening is that it's clear that these kids are heavily influenced by all of the like world wars and Korea and and stuff going on around them, and they are very clearly surrounded by men with intense PTSD. Like they all have dad trouble. And like there's all there there's clearly just like mental health, masculinity crises in the men, male figures in their lives, you know. Like those are the stories we get. Except maybe for Vern. I don't what was Vern?
SPEAKER_02I don't really think that Verne had a story in that way, but I feel like Ver I feel like Verne will it came from probably like the most normal household out of all of them. He was just probably he was just a dipshit.
SPEAKER_03That's why I relate. You know, my house was normal, it was a little intense. Verne definitely came from a house with great discipline, but just maybe not like corporal punishment. Yeah, but you know, especially in Teddy, who is just sort of performing soldier the entire movie, and you can tell that so much of their bond is this performance of soldierly masculinity, chivalry and camaraderie and things. So like the gun fits, you know?
SPEAKER_02That's part of what's so sad about his character, though, is that his character like can't help but like inhabit this ridiculous like hero version like soldier who stormed the beach at Normandy, the vision that he has of his dad who you know like violently abused him and is in a loony bin now because of what he experienced. Yeah. It's um very true, it's very troubling, very troubling to me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, very um troubling little performance. I I I think it the movie is very clearly being like, hey, these male bonded friendships are so important because all the other men in their life are intense threats. You know? The teenagers are fucked, clearly. They're all hoodlums, and the dads are all nutcases, you know, whether committed or not.
SPEAKER_02There's very interesting parallels between the group of older boys and the younger boys, too. There's there's a lot of um, there's a kind of there's a lot of like doubling between the characters. Right. Like for for one instance, Teddy, uh, Cory Feldman's character and Kiefer Sutherland both have scenes where they play chicken with oncoming vehicles.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I I think they're definitely trying to make a case that like these kinds of relationships can sour and become like the power dynamics can go the wrong direction and and become an amplifier for bad behavior instead of you know At the very least, one of those older boys was gay.
SPEAKER_02I guarantee fucking to you.
SPEAKER_03Uh well I mean one of them there's a lot of grooming, but then it's also it's also Greece era, right? It's 50s, early 60s. Yeah, a lot of homosociality. Lot of oh yeah, no, this is a homosocial movie to the max, a hundred percent. I don't know. I I I I think uh let me see. What are do I want to go into sort of my grand conspiracy thesis here about you know, like I there is a maturity to Chris's character that feels false, you know? But there's also an intense tenderness and like a seeing of the other when it comes to his relationship with Gordo. And I think if anything, it exists there. This idea that it's like of the group of four boys on a on a level that it they are unable to articulate to the other two, they are seeing each other on on some secret level, you know?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there's there's kind of an angelic nature that um older Gordy in in recalling the story and typing it out uh is imbuing his character with, largely um in his grief, I suppose, and having just learned about his old friend's death. There's actually there's a very touching little callback at the end. Do you remember one of the first like hearts to heart that they have uh walking on the train tracks? Gordy's like, Do you think I'm weird? And he's like, Definitely, no, seriously, man, seriously, you think I'm weird? And he's like, Yeah, but like you know, he he he tells him, you know, that's not a bad thing. You're an individual. And then at the end, when his uh son and his son's friend are like begging him to take them to the beach, and they're like, We've been waiting for an hour. He's like, Oh, I'm almost there, I'm almost there, because he's finishing the story. The son goes, Oh, he's so weird. He gets like that when he's writing, and he hears the word weird and he smiles and then finishes the story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, again, see, there it is. You know, it is the having somebody near you who sees you on a level that allows you to be the other. You know, there is the queer stuff going on there. But, you know, also in in these moments of extreme tenderness, you know, throughout the movie that these boys have, like I there's the very last one where Gordo is crying because he's like, My dad hates me. And you know, River Phoenix gets a really like physically tender with him to the point where he's almost like smelling his hair, you know? And I think it's I mean, on on one level, it's just phenomenal acting from from a child actor there. Like the the authenticity of the tenderness, the absolute lack of fear in or or or discomfort in in creating this authentic comfort for this other actor. I I just I it's so it was so just like real and well observed for somebody that age. So maybe that's why it comes across as a little gay. But you know, maybe just four, just four or five years later he was gone too. Right. And maybe Gordo, like again, man, this is the grand conspiracy, is like in his reflection, being like, you know, he was a little too good at at hugging on me, you know? Like, I don't know. That maybe there's something going on there, but that is totally me reading into it because they there is so much of them inching closer to each other when they're having these heart-to-hearts in these movies, you know, especially that night scene where you do Gordo just like settles down and you see them wanting to sort of like throw an arm around each other, but it isn't until Gordo's character's crying and and you know, you know, Chris, that character had just broke in in front of Gordo, and Gordo was you know kind to him in that moment of vulnerability. He really goes for it for Gordo. That is A, beautiful, but B, I don't know. I see, you know what? I'm not even gonna kinda call it kind of gay, because that that removes, I think, the beauty from it on some level, but there is an inching closer that the boys do, those two boys do over the course of this movie, and it is it is sort of clinched in that moment where they are genuinely holding each other, and then moments later like holding ground next to each other while one of them's holding a gun.
SPEAKER_02And their intimacy and their bond is so lovely, and boys should be boys should be reared to not be ashamed of to behave that way.
SPEAKER_03I know, and I don't know. I don't want to get into the theory of it, but it's like, you know, is it ruined because people are me like me are being like, oh, you know, he kind of sniffed his hair a little bit. Like, I don't know. I feel again, I feel uncomfortable on some level reading into this movie. Speaking of uncomfortable, isn't it funny? So, my main memory of this movie being about, you know, the leech scene with them climbing out. Um for some reason in my memory they were all wearing matching tidy whiteies, but that is not at all the case. They're all wearing completely different underwear. And in fact, there's like a character distinction going on, in which sort of like, you know, the nerdier of the group are wearing tidy whiteys and the less nerdy ones are wearing boxer shorts, which was absolutely a dynamic when we were growing up. Imagine if one of them just had like a little bikini or something. Like, oh, Vern. See, no, that's a family game joke. Fuck that. Um, yeah, but no, it's it is, and and it is kind of it is funny. It's like, I don't know. There sorry, but there is sort of like this bizarre, I don't want to call it cock worship, but like there is this unspoken male thing where it's like, hey, if it happened to your dick, it's serious, you know. Like, I so remember, like, I remember this is a total yeah, the total divergence, but like in middle school, seventh grade, in in gym class, I forget what kind of a tea I had like a really young, but like really intense, sort of like crew cut gym teacher who, you know, without I think truly meaning to, was always just sort of like ragging on the ones that just like weren't keeping up, of which I was one, you know. Um, and so I always felt like he was not like at all taking me seriously and thinking I was sort of like I don't know, lazy or something. I don't I I don't know, but all I remember is this one time I had a I had shingles, believe it or not. And it was like right in my groin area, like right, you know, like up in there. And I remember like asking me about it, he's like, You got a nurse's note. And he's like, I've got like, yeah, I've got a rash. And I kind of like motioned. Yeah, yeah. And I and he kind of like he kind of like squared his shoulders a little bit. He was like, Oh, down there? Oh, dang it. You don't want to be messing with that. No, you're good. It was like immediately, like the fact that I clocked like there was something wrong with my dick, he was like, Oh, you know what? Not even gonna question it. When there's something wrong down there, you know. Like it was like a man code had kicked in that I didn't realize. No, it was it really was. It was very strange that it stands out to me all these years later. But the fact that he's pulling a leech off his dick and everybody's just like, oh my god, and he faints. Like, I don't know, it's funny. There's something, there's something about like it bit his dick off or something. Yeah, but it like just like it just reminds people that boys take their dick seriously. And you know what? I still do.
SPEAKER_02Well, sidebar there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, sorry. I know that was a real tangent. I apologize, ladies and gentlemen, but it just made me think about it. All I'm saying is Dan Danny could star in a remake of Boogie Nights. Sorry. No, cut that. I don't need to keep keep that up. I want to be known for my kind eyes and generous spirit.
SPEAKER_02Um well, that's gonna be it's gonna be difficult when you got the hog that you got.
SPEAKER_03Shut the f all right. Can we get back to the movie? Um, sorry I brought it up. You know, it's the leeches' fault. It is a horrifying scene though, just plucking up the leeches. Like, ooh, game of the thing. I was actually I was actually like, ooh, that probably feels good. And that's like ew, gross. Can I also say though, I had zero recollection of this fucking pie eating contest scene. Oh, really?
SPEAKER_02What on that's like one of that's like one of the most famous scenes from the movie.
SPEAKER_03Also, like when I realized what was happening, I like stepped over and had to go to the other room. I was like, no, no, no, no. I don't need this right now.
SPEAKER_02It's very like it's very effectively stylized to um to to to be believable as coming out of the imagination of a 12-year-old boy. Correct. I will give it that. Otherwise, so weird. Well, Stephen King stories often feature um Stephen King's surrogates, uh, either adult or child, often in the form of a writer. And in those stories, there is usually a story within a story, if not a story within a story within a story. Right. Well, you know what? Like misery.
SPEAKER_03Just to you know, speak on that real quick. You know, anecdotally, you know, I've read that Stephen King was very impressed with this movie.
SPEAKER_02Um and there he he it's he thinks it's the finest adaptation of any of his work. Uh he said he weirded out uh Rob Reiner because uh Rob Reiner invited him to see it, and he said that he just started crying, gave him a hug, and then left without saying anything. Rob, like Rob Reiner thought it was like just didn't know what to make of it.
SPEAKER_03Right, yeah, no, that's what I read that he had to excuse himself because he like lost his composure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because I think it's it's uh so much of it is very specifically drawn from Stephen King's childhood.
SPEAKER_03I mean, good work, good work. Uh I mean, you know, it takes place in Oregon, it's gorgeous. I don't know if that's where it's shot.
SPEAKER_02No, no, no, it takes it takes place in Maine in the fictional town of Castle Rock, where many of the stories take place. Oh, I thought I remembered hearing Oregon at some point. You heard Portland, which is Maine.
SPEAKER_03Portland, okay, good. So that's why my brain is like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's Maine. Castle Rock is one of his fictional towns like Derry, where it takes place and all that.
SPEAKER_03Just to go back to sort of these boy men crying sequences, boys crying sequences, because I love when men cry. The River Phoenix moment where he's telling the story about the the lady that re-stole the lunch money after he tried to do the right thing. And and I don't know, when he started crying, it was really it really worked on me because you know it's like that moment where he's like, I just never thought that a teacher, you know, and and you realize like that is such a key moment in childhood when you realize that there are no real adults, and if there are, you just can't tell them apart from the people who are gonna use your good intentions against you.
SPEAKER_02You know, yeah, one of those is one of those one of those early moments where the scales leapt from your eyes just a little bit.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's a serious disillusionment when you're like I can't ever go back. I can't like I can't find the grown-ups anymore because I don't know who is and who isn't. Like that is that's rough. I also think that you know, also a good band-aid to rip off when you're young, because I think it took me a long time to realize that, like well into my early 20s before I realized like operationally there's nobody in charge. Yeah, no. Um, alright, you know what? I don't think we need to go too long in the tooth on this one, but I do want to give um just some honorable mention to the fact that there are some like Shakespearean level good insults in this movie. Uh like really, really good. Like at one point the junkyard owner calls them a foul mouth whore master. And I'm just like, that is just it's just straight, straight Shakespeare.
SPEAKER_02There's uh I think he also calls uh Teddy uh four-eyed loony son or something. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wait, hold on. That reminds me, at some point Teddy calls one of them a morphhodite, and I I have no idea what it is, so I have to look that up real quick. Morphhodite. By the way, that dog, Chopper. So cute. Such a cutie. Especially when he like crawls in the dirt after trying to. I know, I saw him. I was like, I want to pick him up. A morphhodite is informal for hermaphrodite. Yep. Well, so yeah. Well, why don't you grow the fuck up teddy a little bit? Yeah. Yeah, why don't why don't you stick to foul mouth whore master? You know what? Stick to faggot, honestly. It's better. And also the cigarette bit throughout this movie is so funny.
SPEAKER_02Just the fact that. I totally relate it to that though. Like, like the the entire day leading up to like you you have three cigarettes everybody, and you're like, we're gonna the entire day leads up to the moment you get to smoke that cigarette. I I remember moments like that when I was young and how big that seemed. Right.
SPEAKER_03But I don't know that that was the joke in the movie. I think it's the way that they're very confidently saying to each other, like adults, like, you know what, that's when a cigarette tastes best after supper and things like that. Like, I don't know. Yeah, they probably heard an adult say that. Right, yeah. It's just it's yeah, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02They're smoking like fucking Winston's, which are disgusting.
SPEAKER_03But they see it in each other whenever they do things because they're always like kind of laughing at each other with I don't like Teddy when he's like when he's like when he's like the pile of shit has a thousand eyes. Or I cherish these moments. You are such like they're like you do not know what you're saying. I I like uh it that's such a but that's such a young adulthood thing. There like there's a level of being aware of other people performing adulthood without being able to recognize when you're doing it, you know. I I just I that is that's a very specific moment in everybody's life.
SPEAKER_02Also, did you notice Gordy? Did you notice Gordy's mom was um was Elaine's mom from Back to the Future and also the mom in Gremlins, which Cory Feldman is also in? She's the mom who like she's the mom who puts the gremlin in the fucking blender or the microwave.
SPEAKER_03I feel like who played Housewife a lot.
SPEAKER_02I was also sub I was also surprised. I saw this a lot when I was younger, but uh having not seen in a while, I was surprised by how noticeable like the low budget of it was to me this time. Right. How this kind of d despite uh the emotional punches it's packed for me over the years, uh there's kind of like not much to it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, you could tell that especially on the bridge scene, they did not have the budget to keep running that train over and over and over. So they ran that train once and had the kids do the jumps and the runs over and over and over, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, well, I mean, a lot of that well, a lot of those shots were rear projection. And the main shot where it shows the thing like barreling down on them, I'm pretty sure they have such a long lens that the kids are running here and the train's going like three miles an hour, like a hundred feet behind them.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_02And just because of the lens, there's no depth of field. So appear they appear to be like on top of each other.
SPEAKER_03Sure, but that's a morning shot and the train's done by afternoon, and then you shoot the rest of it. Like it's so clear that from one of the side angles that those are spliced images, like in a very specific way.
SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, you don't want to you don't want to actually put the kids in danger. Well shit, come on. It wasn't this 80s uh or whatever it was. I started rereading the body last night. I didn't finish the whole thing, but uh it's definitely even with the narration, there's there's a like a lot of a room for interior monologue that like doesn't always like the film sometimes feels like it's trying to like fill the dead space a little bit. Yeah. And I'm not really sure where I'm going with that. It just it was more sparse than I kind of remembered.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you imagine that a lot of the dialogue was going to be in the body? Or or are you saying that there was a lot of internal monologue in the body that wasn't in the movie?
SPEAKER_02It's just the way the story is set up. Uh the movie follows the the essential beats of the story and the skeleton of the story pretty closely, but it feels like a little thin on the screen just because so much of what is there on the page can't be included because it is interior monologue and things.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Interesting. I will have to take a look at that. But that's but that's I mean, just adaptation, I suppose. But yeah. Anywho. Um really, really good movie. And R.A.B. Rob Reiner, it's very fucked up that he died the way he did. Which is how the Chris character dies in this film.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Um, just real quick, I want to give a shout out to two lines from the movie that just I was like, oh, I gotta use this over and over. Um the first one, it was too hot and too much had happened. That was that's been many of my my days so far this June.
SPEAKER_02It's like it's like 1 p.m.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. It was too hot and too much had happened. But also the the uh the sort of nail on the headline of him reflecting on why this time felt just so perfect, and it was, you know, we knew exactly where we were and exactly where we were going. And you know, I think about the times when I'm happiest in my life, and it's when I feel like I understand those things firmly enough, you know? Is that I have enough of a projection on my horizon. And and again, it's that one of those useful youthful th feelings where you're like when you're young, no matter what, the plan is still intact. It can't have gone wrong enough early enough for the plan to not still be intact, you know? And and that's when you can really land on a we knew exactly where we were and exactly where we were going feeling, and that's why it's such a young feeling. And I don't know, that made me very sad, but also very like yeah, you know, it's inevitable. Also, we need to bring candy ass back as an insult. Really, really good.
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Candy ass is great. My favorite use of the word candy ass is actually um in Grand Budapest Hotel.
SPEAKER_03All right, we gotta do the season. We're gonna have to cut something.
SPEAKER_02Well, no, but when he's in jail and then we discover that like all the prisoners loved him because he like he because he just like dotes on all of them. And he's like, he's like, when you are in the s the slummer, it is incumbent upon one to not present oneself as a candy ass.
SPEAKER_03All right, we gotta watch it. I'm sorry, we're cutting one of the movies from this other season. We deserve to do another Wes Anderson episode. Yeah. Um, all right. Well, stay tuned for that, folks. Thank you again for joining us on Queer Projection. Tell your friends, tell your family. And Alethe is somebody who I have known since I was 12 years old. Um, it's been lovely talking about this movie with you.
SPEAKER_02It's been lovely too. Um, very strange one to reflect upon. Yeah. I'm not really sure why. I think I watched it like three o'clock in the morning. Perhaps I was just out of it a bit.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02All right, folks. See you next time. Bye.