Twins and years and years and twins

The 15th week of queer things we’ve been up to and into

If you want to be a grocer or a general or a politician or a judge, you will invariably become it. That is your punishment. If you never know what you want to be, if you live what some might call the dynamic life, but I would call the artistic life… If each day you are unsure of who you are and what you know, you will never become anything. And that is your reward. ~Stephen Fry (recounting Oscar Wilde)

Dead Ringers starring Rachel Weisz. We loved this limited series. Full stop. Weisz is brilliant as the twins Elliot and Beverly Mantle. We love complex and flawed queer characters like these two. The show gets into a wide range of topics, including twins, birthing, death, codependency, sex, medical racism, the medical industrial complex, and big pharma. Go watch the series and let us know because we want to talk about this show. 

Years and Years by Russell T. Davies. This show was an interesting deep-dive this weekend. Released in 2019, Years and Years is a sociopolitical drama that brings both heart and starkness as it considers a near-future-alternate-timeline-ish reality that will have you wondering “is this the real life? is this just fantasy?” Davies managed to presciently capture and tell a very palpably real-yet-fictional story that spans 15 years and 3 generations of an extended family in Britain. If you’re feeling raw these days—and your method of processing the challenges society and people face today and in the near future is not to intake more of it—maybe this isn’t the show for you right now. Davies (writer and showrunner of Doctor Who and Queer as Folk esteem) does something special—and incredibly difficult to execute—with Years and Years, even if he doesn’t perfectly nail every storyline. This show is both individual and collective, today and future, small moments and big events. What it really shows is how people continue to function amidst increasing dysfunction in society, from political nightmares to climate disasters. We can also see with Years and Years how everything that happens will continue to happen around our insignificant lives, yet the world is completely affected by each of our actions and inactions. And, truly, our love for our people is what grounds us, what fuels and motivates and sustains us. 

Interview with Lamya H, author of Hijab Butch Blues. 

Hijab Butch Blues

We have been really wanting to read the debut book Hijab Butch Blues since we learned of it—and this interview by Aryana Goodarzi, Associate Editor at Dyke Queen, with the author Lamya H makes us want to even more. Aryana introduces the interview, saying “While the memoir by author Lamya H is inherently about being a queer Muslim, it is about so much more.” Well, while this interview is inherently about a new book, it is about so much more. Go read this compelling interview and go get the book, if you haven’t already done so. It’s on our summer reading list for sure.

The thing that I keep coming back to is the resilience of queerness. And the fact that it’s everywhere and people are going to try to erase it, but it’s just unable to be erased. I think about that a lot. The ways in which people are so brave and beautiful, and are carving out these lives for themselves, even under really terrible situations. And the really brilliant and beautiful organizing that we’re gonna see come out of it. ~Lamya H

An ode to Mel & Sue, part 2. 

Last week, we recommended the dark comedy Hitmen because we appreciate the deep friendship and contagious camaraderie of Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins. We mentioned that we have a soft spot for the soothing ways of British “craft” reality shows, from baking to pottery, from woodworking to sewing. We find genuine comfort in watching these kind and gentle competition shows. Big thanks to our across-the-pond friend Gretel for reaching out and telling us a behind-the-scenes tidbit that shows us more of Mel and Sue’s “daffy aunts” awesomeness. Apparently they weren’t just in the Bake Off tent for the naughty puns! 

As it turns out, Mel and Sue had an important hand in crafting and embodying the kindness, generosity, and connection that oozes from Bake Off and other British craft competition-reality shows. There would have been a very different Bake Off—and therefore a very different vibe to all the shows that followed in the wake of Bake Off’s success—had Mel and Sue not been the show’s presenting jokers out of the gate. On the very first day of filming, Mel and Sue resigned because they did not like how the producers were trying to manufacture drama with a dash of trauma for the cameras. Sue has recounted: “We resigned, basically, because it was not a kind show. They were pointing cameras in the bakers’ faces and making them cry and saying, ‘Tell us about your dead gran.’” Mel and Sue knew that there was “a different way” to present a competitive show featuring home bakers, one with heart and humanity—and clearly they were given a chance to do that. So, for 7 seasons of Bake Off, Mel and Sue actively worked to maintain this compassionate vibe. In an interview with the Guardian, Sue explained: “if we see them [the bakers] crying or something, Mel and I will go over there and put our coats over them or swear a lot because we know then that the film won’t be able to be used.” It is next-level goodness to literally and purposely sabotage footage to protect baking competitors from producer exploitation (and potential embarrassment)—and it warms the cockles of our dark hearts. 

You can read more about Mel and Sue in this loving ode by Jess Zimmerman: “What We Lose When We Lose Mel And Sue.”

Heather

Role Models by John Waters. If you know me personally, you know that I am partly who I am because of John Waters, especially his early films. I was going to do a “cheat” here and recommend almost everything that John has done, from his films to his books, from his live shows to his art collection—which he has bequeathed to the Baltimore Museum of Art. But Role Models is a great read for everyone, including those uninitiated to John as a creative nonfiction writer. (We’ll cover his recent foray into fiction writing soon enough.) John is one of my main role models, in art and living—including aging. John turned 77 this week, and he is still sharp, vibrant, stylish, and cutting. He is still engaged with popular culture and curious about generations younger than his own. He’s still creative and creating new works, having reinvented himself (more than once). When I was younger, I used to pine for the filthy John of yore. I was upset that he found—of all things—mainstream respectability (gay gasp!). But, eventually, I realized that that was a fruitless feeling, and that I should be so happy that, even as he grew wealthier and older, he maintained the perverse twinkle in his eyes, continuing to subvert expectations and skewer societal norms. In other words, age hasn’t slowed John down. Was this entire post really a ruse so that I could honor a nearly life-long role model? Yes, yes it was. I want to celebrate my queer elders while I still share the same space and time they do. 

Amie

Artist L Wood Hensens. This Portland-based artist makes magic on canvas with oil paints. I keep going back to the sparkling reflections, luminous leaves, glowing skin, velvety petals, and the sexiest chain-linked fences you’ve ever seen. The hours and hours Hensens must put into their paintings translates into gorgeous scenes you could live in for years. 

Artworks by L. Hensens