Bonus Video! The hidden camera tricks of The Birdcage

Aw that's so lovely! And congrats to your partner!!! Her scholarship sounds super interesting, I'd love to see what she's working on.

Matt Baume

Oh yay! Thank you so much for your work - by the way, my partner is a queer comedy and TV scholar, and I've pre-ordered Hi Honey, I'm Homo as a small commencement gift to celebrate her getting her PhD ^_^

Lexi Turner

Oh that's a great idea. Adding that to my list!

Matt Baume

Just rewatched your absolutely fantastic The Birdcage & La Cage video, and couldn't help but think how much I would love to see a Nathan Lane dedicated video, and/or perhaps even moreso an Angels in America video! (Maybe a "stage to screen to stage" journey?)

Lexi Turner

Hello fellow Mainer! I agree, Space Gallery would be a great choice.

Shannon

It is! I've got Garfield up on a higher shelf (important not to let them get too close)

Matt Baume

I have to ask - is that a stuffed Nermal on your shelf?! (Also, great video, as always!)

JordanL

I don't know if Maine has entered the "please come here" conversation - but please consider the Space Gallery in Portland! Or... I guess anywhere in Ogunquit. Also: I work at a university with a very large LGBTQ+ collection (I know, Maine is wild). Feel free to reach out. My user name at gmail.

Ghostland Radio

I do remember it being a bummer. I'm sure they had the best intentions and they hoped to broaden the minds of parents of gay children. But what I took from it was "If you come out, there's a really good chance your parents will send you to conversion therapy and then disown you if it doesn't work".

TBoneSF

Oh YES that shot is astonishing -- that one, and the slow push in on the key in Notorious. A real shame that Young & Innocent uses blackface in that scene, it really mars what would otherwise be a super enjoyable clip.

Matt Baume

Glad Day is top of my list!

Matt Baume

That really reminds me of how I watched the episode of The Simpsons with John Waters -- hidden in another room, scared they'd catch me!

Matt Baume

Oh my God you're right, how did I never notice that???

Matt Baume

Oh yes I have a copy of that one too! It's kind of a bummer (and it's weird that it was a gay movie in 1985 that doesn't even mention HIV). And a weird little gay connection: It was directed by Gil Cates, who took over producing the Oscars after the whole Allan Carr debacle.

Matt Baume

I'd be more open to it if not for the fact that the premise for Two and a Half Men was lifted verbatim from a short-lived 1998 ABC show called Brother's Keeper.

Sam Aronow

dude youre so kewl thanks for the backup link

The Sheen name reminded me of a theory I have: the show "Two and a Half Men" is about a gay couple adopting a son, but it got retooled to be about brothers. Please just tell me I'm crazy and I'll bury it...

Jason Olshefsky

I neglected to mention the 20 minute shot was from 'Under Capricorn" 1948.

William C. Hardy

Regarding 'The Birdcage', Alfred Hitchcock also used incredibly long camera shots, in "Young and Innocent' 1937,when the camera zooms slowly over a crowd of dancing couples in a hotel ballroom to focus on the drummer with an eye twitch in blackface in the band playing the music and an amazing 20 minute shot (actually 2 shots) that follows characters from outside a house to inside the house and then room to room.

William C. Hardy

If you're able to come to Canada for your book tour, (not sure how complicated it is to go international) you should check out Glad Day Bookshop in Toronto, it's the best, they do lots of events, and is the oldest LGBTQ+ bookstore in the world, I believe!

Gillian

I remember watching this, with much trepidation, as I had just come out to my parents a few years earlier, was still seeing a psychiatrist at the time for 'my condition' and was literally fearful that the fam would see me watching it and.....I don't know what I was fearing they would do. In reality, they didn't do anything. However, as most people know nowadays, there were no positive role models for Gay people in the 50's and 60's so whenever anything came along, I would want to watch it. I remember an episode of the TV show, "Medical Center" in which Robert Reed who later played the Dad on "The Brady Bunch' played a transgender man, mid1970's. Quite a thing for that time, but by 1975 I had no problem watching on topic programs.

William C. Hardy

"Some of My Best Friends Are" was also the title of an obscure 70's film set in a gay bar and featuring Rue McClanahan and Fannie Flagg.

Scott Nesmith

Watching your video, I had a flashback to a made-for-tv movie in the mid-80s about a family whose son comes out that starred Martin Sheen and Marlo Thomas. I looked it up and it's called Consenting Adult from 1985. As a closeted gay teen when I saw it, it stuck in my brain all these years. Sheen played a less-than-accepting dad.

TBoneSF