Queer Voices
Queer Voices
December 24th - John Cameron Mitchell of HEDWIG and OH! MARY, discussion of BLACK CHRISTMAS
Happy Holidays from QUEER VOICES. Brett talks to John Cameron Mitchell about his appearance here in Houston on December 28th at NUMBERS NIGHTCLUB. It is brought to us by ARTHOUSE HOUSTON! Then Brett talks BLACK CHRISTMAS with Joan and Mariana from SCARY MOVIE NIGHTS. They break down the ultimate creepy Christmas flick.
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Queer Voices airs in Houston Texas on 90.1FM KPFT and is heard as a podcast here. Queer Voices hopes to entertain as well as illuminate LGBTQ issues in Houston and beyond. Check out our socials at:
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Hello and welcome to Queer Voices. This is our special holiday episode. I am Brett Cullum, and I have some great segments to unwrap for you tonight. First up, I get to speak with John Cameron Mitchell, the man who wrote and created Hedwig and the Angry Inch. He's coming to town on December 28th to Numbers Nightclub for a special screening of his movie and a performance. After that, I talk to the hosts of Scary Moving Nights Podcast. Joan and Mariana talk to me about my favorite holiday film that I'm probably watching right now. It's Black Christmas. So, happy holidays, or Holigase, as I like to say. Get your wig out of the box, put on your cha-cha heels on Queer Voices Holiday Edition. It's starting now.
SPEAKER_00:This is KPFT 90.1 FM Houston, 89.5 FM Galveston, 91.9 FM Huntsville, and worldwide on the internet at KPFT.org.
Brett:Hi, this is Brett Cullum, and today I'm with John Cameron Mitchell. He's an exceptional artist with an impressive array of credits that many people probably are not aware of. He's been on Broadway as a young man in Big River, Six Degrees of Separation, and The Secret Garden. Probably his biggest claim to fame so far, and what you might know him from, is he wrote with music input from Steven Trask, and he starred in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a rock musical about a gender-blurred rock star from East Germany that won him a Tony, and he turned into one of the best films of 2001. He also wrote and directed Short Butts, directed Rabbit Hole with Nicole Kidman, worked in films with Spike Lee, Michael Mann, he starred as Joe Exotic opposite Kate McKinnon for a Peacock series. He has the world's coolest podcast musical drama anthem, Hymonculus, which starred him and Glenn Klose and Cynthia Revo, Patty Lapone, just a few friends, as well as a new podcast, Cancellation Island, starring Holly Hunter. I mean, come on. He's made albums. He's set to take on the iconic role of Mary Lincoln in Oh Mary on Broadway, starting in February for 12 weeks. So welcome, John Cameron Mitchell, master of all media. I am tired just reading this. All right. Well, the reason that you're here with me today is that you are coming to Numbers Houston to do a special all-day event for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It's going to happen on December 28th. The schedule features a screening of his iconic film, live commentary, post-show performances with artists like Amber Martin, and it's going to celebrate queer cinema and music at this huge venue. And uh he's also doing a master class for students. It's all brought to us by Art House Houston, who were the folks that fought to save the River Oaks movie theater. So let me ask you first off the bat, how did you connect with Art House? What can we expect from this event?
SPEAKER_05:I was just reached out to by Maureen McNamara over there. My friend Amber Martin is from Southeast Texas and used to hang out at Numbers. And my buddy Jonathan Cohet, of course, from Tarnation, lives in Houston still and used to hang out there too. And it's Visions New Wave Club in the 80s. So I and I've I I haven't been to Houston a whole lot, just popped in here here and there. We've DJ'd there but with Amber and I have. And her family's in the Air area. So she's gonna join me and do a couple songs. She recorded a country album down there in uh Beaumont, I think. So I am really you know, Maureen came up with this idea. There's a master class. I just talk about my career and where we are today in terms of creativity. I do a kind of a drunk director's commentary during Hedvig. And then after there might be a few questions, but then we'll do a few songs with the local guitarist me and Amber. Oh awesome.
Brett:Well, I've heard a lot of songs with you and Amber on Amazon music, so I'll be excited to hear this. Now, going back to the genesis of Hedwig, how did you end up with musician Steven Trask? I know he was the music director and house band member at New York City Club Squeeze Box, where I think Hedwig was born, right? I mean, what made you join forces for this?
SPEAKER_05:Well, we met in an airplane. I was looking for someone who was a rock composer that wasn't necessarily in the theater world. And he he wasn't, he certainly had worked on dramatic things like scores for a short film and stuff like that, but he was very eclectic. I went to see his band at C C BGB's, he went to see me he went to see me perform at Lake Center in a show called Hello Again. And I was already thinking about a piece that used the origin of love, the myth from Plato. And that was the That was the center of the story. And you know, we were hanging out at the squeeze box club, which was our favorite place. My boyfriend was in his band playing bass and he said, I can get you a gig, but you have to do the female character because it's a drag club and I had never really done a drag before. I was kind of scared of it. Being a gay boy, you know, scared of my femininity. Then I realized it was a a a great honor to have energies that we might think of as male or female within us. I you know, I don't like the term non-binary. It's an imperfect one because it's a negative. I don't like being defined by what I'm not. But I like terms like androgynous, you know, it's like these are energies of all kinds that are within us. We're not we're not a not, we're a something, and we're a lot of things. So Hedwig is the same, you know, a little boy we might think of as non-binary today, kind of forced into an operation to escape in Germany, to to escape marry a GI and then abandoned, you know, as a woman that he didn't really want to be, watching the wall come down, and then where do we go from here? So it's very much a story of survival, of you know, recovering from trauma, of finding yourself letting go of grudges, letting go of of hatred and resentment. The character is quite resentful and then starts to forgive, starts to let go. Yeah.
Brett:It was a great journey. But do you feel like there's a big difference between the film versus the stage show? Is it I know I've seen both incarnations, but what do you feel is kind of the difference here?
SPEAKER_05:Well, obviously in the play, I mean, for those who have seen it, uh it's a one-person show, really, and they do pretty much all the characters, you know, telling the story and through their voices. There's just the only other characters are the band and the backup singer, Yitzhak. And in the film, all the people that are portrayed in the play, we've seen them. Tommy, Hedwig's mom and dad, Luther, all the people that are only intimated as part of the multitude that is within Hedwig. So the film is an opportunity to open it up to see the situations that are only described. And singing to Hedwig Tom uh Tommy singing to Hedwig and Hedwig singing to Tommy, whereas in the play they're just one and the same. Which metaphorically works, you know, when Hedwig becomes Tommy at the end, and then we're not sure who sh ambiguity.
Brett:Do you have anybody that's your favorite Hedwig other than you?
SPEAKER_05:I there's a lot of people I really like. I mean, Darren Chris was great. Uh this guy in Berlin named Sven Rodska was great. Matt McGrath was probably my favorite other Hedwig.
Brett:You know, I I have to admit something to you. I've seen Hedwig a lot, and I have to say my favorite ones are usually the ones that are in these little small theaters or nightclubs that are just doing it because they love it. You know? And it speaks to them. And I'm just like, wow. Well, obviously you are shifting gears right after this Hedwig thing, and you're going to O'Mary. So how the heck did you get to be a replacement person in O'Mary?
SPEAKER_05:Well, it's not that much of a leap. Is it? No. I mean, you know, the O'Mary Cole is an old friend and Okay. You know, Cole comes from a tradition of drag theater that stretches back to the sixties and John Bicaro, Charles Ludlum, Charles Bush. Who are all people who inspired me. So we're all of the same world, you know, in downtown queerish, queer facing entertainment and and art. So people like Bridget Everett, Coles, Cola, Justin Divian Bond, Anoni, the Scissor Sisters. These all we all come from the same font.
Brett:But stepping into somebody's play that you didn't write, I mean obviously Hedwig was your own invention, and this is Kohl's. That's their play.
SPEAKER_05:So is it have a different energy when you kind of come in or Well, I mean, in this case, i it does borrow from the ancient traditions, as I said, of drag theater, and part of that ancient tradition is improvisation and ad libbing and in lost drag, you know. And with the people who have played it since Cole, like Jinx Wonsoon, for example, have very much made it their own to the point I can couldn't quite remember what other people did because they're really encouraged to make it their own and they're quite different. And maybe that which is sort of the way, you know, Hello Hello Dolly was in the sixties. You know, Pearl Bailey would follow you know, Carol Channing. And it's like, you know, there's nothing similar about them. So to me that is part of the Commedia del Arte kind of tradition of this kind of theater. And the same as Hedwig.
Brett:Exactly. I mean I've seen so many different iterations of Hedwig, it's kinda neat. Everybody brings something different. So who are your co-stars for O'Marry?
SPEAKER_05:I think they've announced they didn't tell me, but someone else did it. Yes. Someone they didn't tell me. Why didn't they tell me? See Simo Liu from the Shang-Chi movie is taking over as Mary's acting teacher. Of course. And apparently he is a real I mean he's a hilarious guy and comes from Canada, has done a lot of theater. So I'm very much looking forward to that.
Brett:I I'm so jealous. I have such a crush on him, so but and and you, of course, too. But Mary, Todd, Lincoln, and Hedwig. Do they have anything in common?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I think they both feel like second bananas, you know, to Lincoln and or Tommy Gnosis. So there is definitely this kind of resentment of not really getting their dude, which is certainly Mary. And Hedwig, you know, Hedwig's songs are stolen, not Mary's, but she's not allowed to perform. She's not allowed to be herself. So yeah, there is a lot in comedy.
Brett:Okay, this show is gonna air on Christmas Eve. So I wanted to ask you, what would a John Cameron Mitchell holiday look like?
SPEAKER_05:Well, I'm not so much into the rel yeah obviously obviously, but not so much into the religious stuff. So but you know, Christmas is a a cr created thing. You know, the date was taken from the birth date of the god Mithras. You know, it's like and it was connected to the solstice, right? So the you know, no one really knows when Jesus was born or uh if he was born. And then Santa Claus is a whole other thing, and like there's all these you know it's syncretism. That's when you take different religious things and ram them together. And to me, the more rammed the the better. Because it's it's uh what I like about it is really the getting together thing, the gift giving, you know, not so much the uh the fighting about what is right, what what actually happened, you know. Historical details, you know, to me it's the spirit and you know the we have to the spirit of generosity, of course, is a lovely one and to me, but you know, the actual day means less to me. I give presents all all year. I don't give them the Christmas.
Brett:Oh well, I'm definitely gonna play Tiny Tree Christmas by by you and bitch. So that's a cute uh but thank you so much for taking this time with me. I know you've got to. Oh, you're welcome. And getting ready for your Broadway role as Mary Todd Lincoln, getting ready to present everything at numbers with us on December 28th, which Art House Houston. I love them, love Maureen. So glad they're bringing you into town. It's just a dream to finally get to see you. Will you be there? Oh my gosh. Oh, yeah. Yes. Like the second it was announced.
SPEAKER_05:I was like, oh, forget this. Throw it in. Well, Jonathan will be there too.
Brett:No, really. Yeah. Oh, how funny. I have not seen him since we were in like nightclubs together somewhere, stumbling around. I'll be like, hey, blast from the past.
SPEAKER_05:Well, thank you so much. No problem. You take care.
SPEAKER_11:You too.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. Bye.
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SPEAKER_10:I went to twins weird.
Brett:Hi, this is Brett, and today I am joined by Joan and Mariana from Scary Movie Nights. They are a podcast where the scares are real, but the friendships are realer. I just had to do that to you guys. Oh, I have to do the thing, the little heart screen. You can't even see it. Yes. They are you can find them on YouTube, which is one of the most fun ways to watch Joan and Mariana, because they usually do it. Don't you guys usually do it on a bed? Like you're on either side of the bed sitting there?
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
Brett:Yeah, that's what I thought.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like a day bed.
Brett:Yes. Yeah, I don't want it to sound too lascivious, like, ooh, yellow in bed.
SPEAKER_03:Yellow in bed.
SPEAKER_06:You know it's like back in the day when they had like the the wife and the husband slept in separate beds on like the opposite sides of the room.
Brett:Yes, you were divided by microphones, headphones, and like a major portion of the bed. Unless remember, you you're kind of like a gay guy in his besties, so it totally makes sense. All right. You also can find scary movie nights on all major podcasting sites. You can get the audio version, you get the video version, or whatever you want to do. But I brought them in to talk about seasonal horror movies because spoiler alert, I really kind of don't like traditional Christmas movies. I ugh. They're just there's something about them. They're just treacly and they're sweet. It's kind of like Hallmark movies. I don't do those either. Oh I know, and you're making the space wrong.
SPEAKER_11:Listen.
SPEAKER_06:Okay. Oh wow. So so Brian and I have this new Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me explain. Brian and I have this Christmas tradition where Christmas Day, it's just the two of us, nobody else. We stay home, open presents, and then we just like eat snacks, like play around with our presents and watch Hallmark Christmas movies all day. Because you know that channel will get you before the credits even start stop rolling from the last one. Like they'll play, like, start playing the movie with the credits like half screen. So yeah, we uh your bottom so you got another 12 of them well okay let me ask you guys yeah you're crazy for that but that's horror yeah but let me ask you this like growing up what did you watch when it was Christmas time honestly uh we never really watched Christmas movies as a family like I I can't ever remember being like oh my god let's put this on let's put that on I remember when I was young watching Elf yeah a lot I really loved that movie I thought it was so funny to this day it's like one of my favorite Christmas movies but in Honduras like we mostly just celebrated the night before Christmas so like Christmas Eve was like the big celebration and we'd stay up through midnight you know and then like at midnight congratulate each other for making it through I guess to Christmas and then open presents and then we'd like go to sleep and wake up at noon.
SPEAKER_03:Like yeah same for me it's like the the beauty of being married like as a Hispanic person is a latin's being married to a white man is that my family celebrates on the 24th and then we got his family for the 25th. So it works out really nicely. Think in Colombia the you know Christmas it's a Catholic country so the holidays are kind of like really centered around you know the religious things so we have like nine days leading up to Christmas. It's called the novena and you go to someone's house and you like basically you read the story of like Mary and Joseph you know making their way over to you know I don't even know the story because I'm a terrible Catholic but it was really centered around that but it wasn't till I came to the States that I started watching Christmas movies. But I do love a Christmas movie. I love Elf Home Alone Home Alone 2 The Santa Claus the Santa Claus 2 I'm there I love the holiday vibes I love snow we don't get a lot of it here in Houston but I'll take it through I'll take it on the TV. I'll take snow where I can get it. So I do love a Christmas movie. I love Christmas lights I love Christmas decorations like it hot cocoa like I'm I'm bought in for all of it. So I'm I'm sat for Christmas movies.
Brett:Well I brought you guys on board because I found out that you were doing Black Christmas for scary movie nights and it is one of my favorite Christmas movies and I thought oh my gosh we have to talk about this for you know between you and me and Yohan and all I mean come on but I wanted to ask you first you guys have watched a lot of scary movies like tons. I mean I could go through like all of the titles that you've done on your podcast and I'm assuming a lot more but what do you think makes a good Christmas horror movie? What what makes Christmas especially kind of scary?
SPEAKER_03:That's an excellent question. And we were just talking about this because we did just record our episode on Black Christmas which I loved. I'd never seen it before but for me it like it ticked a lot of the boxes that I enjoy in a Christmas movie which is like the general Christmas vibe like there's it's snowing outside and there's Christmas lights and they're having like holiday parties and like the decoration inside the house is like really Christmassy. But I think for this film and for like as a horror film and Joanne talked a lot about this the pacing was excellent. I love the sound design and it really was like a very like simple but really strong premise because it's based on like you know your typical like what is it urban legend about like you know there's someone in the house with you. The call is coming from inside the house. So you know the the the plot is very straightforward but it's very well executed. And I think the the mystery of the killer and not knowing who the killer is we never see his face and we don't really know his motives is so scary. But I think especially like around Christmas time it's like a time to be with your family a time to be with your loved ones which is something that the characters in this movie are not doing because the the girls in in the movie are staying in the sorority house for Christmas or at least Margot's character Barb is but I think they're all staying for Christmas. So they're they're not with their families like they're supposed to be but I think it's also something about like your personal space like your home being like invaded or someone being there who's not supposed to be there I think is like really just I thought this movie was so good. I was so surprised at how much I liked it because I was like oh like horror Christmas like I don't really know what's gonna happen here but it was excellent.
SPEAKER_06:I loved it. Yeah and you know there are a surprisingly large amount of horror Christmas movies. I'm not saying they're all good but it's huge. Yeah it's the it's an amazing amount and I subscribe to Shudder as you know any good horror fan but I'm just saying and and you can go through this list of like curated Christmas movies that they have and they're all horror. I watched one just the other day called A Creature was stirring honestly not the not the best horror movie. But I think what's so scary about Christmas is just like Mariana said, like it's a time for you to like be spending with your family or you know it's it's this like safe cozy memory that a lot of us have and inserting even just like a stranger or something that's dangerous or something to subvert that safety that warmth is is really what is what is scary about some of these films. And I think it's something that Black Christmas really does really well. You know it's the you're in a sorority house you're with your girlfriends you're like drinking eggnog or hot cocoa and all of a sudden you get They're partying they are partying partying and you know it's it's this sorority right like sisterhood and then suddenly you have this call you don't know who this person is it's some man and now he's calling you all these names threatening you and it breaks it like shatters that Christmas like jollliness of that Christmas joy you know what I mean and and it's like you're raising your hand to do yes because I just realized that this guy's like Santa Claus.
SPEAKER_03:He's just he's a stranger who comes into your house sees you when you're sleeping when you're awake so that's kind of funny because you're so right about strangers coming to your house Santa's like come on in brother but not Billy. Do not come in Billy thank you.
Brett:Well let's let's back up a little bit for anybody that might be confused about Black Christmas because we really did just dive right in. I think most people yeah I think most people kind of are familiar with it but it's a 1974 Canadian slasher film and it was four years before Halloween and this is really funny because the director is Bob Clark okay and Bob Clark directed Porkies and he directed a Christmas story that one movie that plays over and over and over again at Christmas with the little guy in the pink pajamas and the Lego and all that. So this is a body from hell yes no and I mean it's it's really wild that he really started his career making horror films and this was at a time when he immigrated from Florida to Canada. He fell in love with Canada so he wanted to make a movie there and Black Christmas was it okay and they they didn't have slashers we didn't have these tropes he basically invented them way before Halloween and Bob Clark really made fun of John Carpenter and said you know Halloween feels like a sequel to Black Christmas because he's basically taking what I've set up and doing it. So it's really really interesting. It was originally going to be called the babysitter they actually the screenwriter wanted to call it that but Bob Clark was like I don't want them to be young. I want them to be college age so that's how they changed to the sorority and then they revised the script and then we're gonna call it Stop Me but they thought that that was kind of not a great title either so so there you go. I mean and then like like you said Mariana he based it on this whole urban legend of the babysitter and the man upstairs and there was a series of murders that took place in the Westmont neighborhood of Montreal Quebec where people got scary phone calls and it was right around Christmas time. So they kind of blended those two things together. So it was really interesting and actually it was Bob Clark that had the idea to never show you the killer the the script writer Roy Moore actually wanted that to be kind of revealed. But Bob Clark kind of pulled it back and said no we're not gonna show it and they really had to fight with the studio executives because they wanted them to to solve the mystery and show the killer and all this other stuff. But he he was like no I want it to be ambiguous so but it's an interesting movie.
SPEAKER_03:That is the best choice one of the best choices he made throughout the movie that's one of my favorite parts is that you never know who the killer is it keeps it like this insidious mystery of like somebody could be living in your attic and making all these phone calls and someone you know like there's all these guys that the girls are dating and seeing and you're like it could be these guys like is it Pita or is it some other guy?
Brett:Well the cast was wild he got a lot of good people for it he got Olivia Hussey who was just off of Romeo and Juliet he got Kira Dulley who was just off of 2001 he played her boyfriend Margot Kidder who was Canadian and this was before she had just done Brian De Palma's sisters but she hadn't done Superman obviously so she wasn't really well known yet. And we had John Saxon and he was in like Spaghetti Westerns Bruce Lee movies and of course Nightmare in Elm Street who could forget and then you had Andrea Martin from SCTV like comedian Andrea Martin and she actually replaced Gilda Radner who got cast in Saturday Night Live and she had to leave the project so that was wild to me that he got all these people but they all just kind of wanted the exposure and Olivia Hussey she was she relied on psychics for advice and a psychic told her that she would go to Canada make a movie and it would make a lot of money and that was the only reason she accepted Black Christmas. Yeah and she did and it did yeah and then but this same psychic told her that she was going to marry Paul McCartney and Margot Kidder used to tease her mercilessly about how that's not coming true. Oh my god you can't you can't always be right I guess she's gonna be wrong about some of them I know but it was really interesting that they kind of Bob really made a lot of the shifts to the script setting doing it younger adults it was shot in Toronto in 1974 probably cost about six hundred eighty six thousand dollars which is probably like just over a million now some of the famous people that almost got cast Elvira because Sandra Peterson was almost Jess and Betty Davis was going to be the house mother can you imagine Betty Davis as the house mother oh my god that would have been amazing yeah yeah but didn't happen obviously and they filmed it all at the University of Toronto but the sorority house that you see is not really a sorority house it's actually a real house can you imagine living in that thing?
SPEAKER_06:No I read that it was like a 20 room house which is that's insane like that's way too many rooms what are you gonna do with all those rooms but so many rooms actually I I tell Brian sometimes because he likes big houses and I'm like what are you gonna do with that you got to clean it all he's like no you have maze for that and I was like okay but like what are you gonna do about the 18 other rooms that you're not using like this is and the dude that's living up in the attic.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah it's so big you don't even know in one of your 20 rooms it wouldn't even be the attic they could just be hanging out in one of your 20 rooms don't do it Juan don't do it.
SPEAKER_06:No I don't I don't think so yeah we talked about this frogging idea I don't know if you know what that means frogging but it's basically this idea of like some stranger living inside of your house and like eating your food when you're not there like basically utilizing your space when you are not living inside of your house.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah it's not even an idea it's like a thing like people frog like they and people like will set up cameras because they're like oh my god like why do I have a little bit less milk than I did the night before and then they'll figure out someone has been living in their house without them knowing.
Brett:So scary that is like the worst. Yeah that's like somebody in my car. I mean I just know I just always take the backseat.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah and again it's this idea of like someone invading your space where you're supposed to be feeling safe you know like warm, cozy, whatever and it's just no thank you. I'm good.
Brett:Yeah. Well what was interesting is they remade this movie twice in the 2000s once in 2006 once in 2019. And Bob Clark was involved with the remake of 2006. He was an executive producer and it was the last movie that he ever worked on. So it's kind of poetic that this one that made him really famous he finished remaking it right before he passed away but I just don't think that the remakes do it justice.
SPEAKER_03:I mean I think the original is the way to go I don't know if you guys watched the remakes did you we have not we considered watching I think the 2019 remake for Scary Movie Night but didn't didn't win.
SPEAKER_06:It didn't win that was my suggestion I was like I want to watch the newest iteration and yeah we watched the Lodge instead which is was still an excellent film but not quite as Christmassy.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah we did have the conversation of like was the law it did happen around Christmas but it wasn't as Christmassy as Black Christmas even though like for neither movie like Christmas was not like a central part of the plot necessarily it was like kind of a side little side thing but this one just felt very Christmassy. I think also like just the the set like the set itself really like lent itself and then also the Christmas carolers which was beautiful of that scene.
Brett:Oh all those lights and all those carolers and stuff and I got the impression I mean the setup is basically girls in a sorority house and I got the impression that Christmas was coming. They were all getting ready to leave and that's kind of why when somebody disappears you just think oh well they just went home or something like that. Although I kept screaming at them going there's suitcases right there.
SPEAKER_03:I mean come on even the cop didn't say anything about the suitcase literally I mean I was like there's two suitcases people but I don't know like I was I was telling Joanne it's like they're in college where like honestly like being in college is crazy. Like the rules go out the window and like people don't lock their doors anymore. Like there's that one part where they're like I think this is the only locked door in the whole house and they like go around trying to lock all the doors little do they know the killer is already inside the house but yeah it was just like really really funny like that I I think that college students I think that felt very real. It's like they would be like oh I don't know maybe she just threw herself in a bag and like left her suitcases for whatever reason like I I I didn't take too much issue with that because I was in college and doors were not locked very often.
Brett:So you just think you're gonna live forever when you're in college and you don't really worry about safety. I don't know it's it's one of those things. But I really liked it because unlike American slashers that kind of came later we always had high schoolers and I kind of like the idea of college women and then they could address a few more things like we were talking about there is an entire plot line about abortion that is in the movie and it was the same year as Roe v. Wade is that right yeah yeah and there's a lot of like feminist angles in the movie a lot of relationship toxic stuff the struggle with mother and daughter just all of these different things about women that surprisingly pop up in this movie and it surprisingly has like some people that call it a feminist movie although I would argue any movie that has sorority girls getting picked off one by one is probably not a feminist movie.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah but I am glad that they put all of that in there and you know spoiler alert Olivia Hussey is one that is considering having an abortion because of her her boyfriend and it creates a great tension in the film you kind of wonder oh is he really angry about this enough to kill people I think it's also interesting like whenever I was watching the movie like femicide is like a really big thing in like a lot of Latin American countries especially and so like the idea like the whole time I was watching I was like oh it's Peter like Peter's pissed that she wants to have an abortion and he's gonna kill her because it's something that's unfortunately really common. I also think like women's like sexuality is something that was kind of like important in the movie because you have like the dad who's worried about his daughter Claire coming into her room and she's got like all these naughty posters of people who are naked and stuff like that, which is completely normal. But obviously like he's you know starting to see his daughter in this different lens and I also thought that was really interesting because he his daughter's missing and like why are you so concerned with what's going on like in her house like where where is your kid and she's like literally upstairs but anyway and and also we we talked about how it's interesting usually in these slashers the the trope tends to be like oh the virgin is the one who survives but in this film like you have the virgin who is Claire and she is the first one murdered she a virgin I think so because they well I think it's important. Yes they teach her yes Margot yes being inexperienced and then we have like our final girl Jess who is literally pregnant out of wenlock so I thought that was kind of interesting.
Brett:So like the one girl we know is not a virgin is the final girl in this film which was really interesting yeah well I would argue that most of the girls in the film are not and they're very they make it very painfully aware.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:And I I actually I totally forgot about Margot Kitter's character Barb teasing Claire about being a virgin but I don't know I mean is her boyfriend they just seemed like you know and then she put all these naked pictures around yeah I mean maybe that's the image that she wanted to like curate for herself you know what I mean because like her dad is so like overprotective of and defensive of her she didn't want anything like that getting out but it was really interesting. I mean we talked about this like subversion of and I'm and I let me preface this by saying not everything has to mean something okay but I was like oh this is very interesting how it's like the idea of like the virgin birth of like the baby Jesus being celebrated in Christmas and then also like the antithesis of that being Jess wanting to get an abortion right around Christmas time. Where it's it's like instead of a white Christmas it's black Christmas and so you have sort of like death in all of its forms in a way.
Brett:Well you know they struggled with that title. Yeah they did they didn't want to call it that and when they released in the US originally it's Called Silent Night, Evil Night, because they feared that Black Christmas would make people think that it was a black exploitation film. Understandable.
SPEAKER_06:It would mean something totally different. Understandable. They also had another name when they were releasing it for TV. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Stranger and The Stranger in the House, yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah. And I was like, Mark, they should have just stuck to one name. I mean, you'd think that it would get confusing after a while. Like, which movie is this again? Oh, it's the one movie, but it's got three names.
Brett:Yeah, no, yeah, definitely. But you know, I think that that was a big thing in the 70s. I think that they thought about markets and renaming things so that it would translate to each market. And I don't know. So they were very and I think they were scared of that title, Black Christmas, because the 2006 remake faced a lot of backlash because the moms for America or whatever were convinced that they were going to put you know violence around the holidays, which I mean they did, but they didn't want that essentially. I know. But what was funny is the 2006 version, Andrea Martin actually comes back. She plays the house mother in 2006. And the 2006 version kind of fleshes out the killer a little bit and gives them a motivation and then all of that, which I yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But the 2019 didn't have a motivation. Like, I like that we don't know anything about him. Like so scary.
SPEAKER_06:All you know about him is that he has an eye. He has at least one eye.
Brett:Oh, and I mean, my gosh, uh you never see the killer, but you hear him, and those calls are the wildest thing I've heard. I mean, it's like the exorcist almost. I mean, it's just like I cannot imagine that some human actually acted these things out. And they say that he largely improved a lot of the calls, and they were just they were crazy. I mean, I was just like, wow.
SPEAKER_06:They were really horrible. I honestly loved that aspect of the film as well. I mean, it added to the mystery, but the mystery isn't that he wants to hurt them. You know, that's the only thing about the killer that's not mysterious. He's very like violent and aggressive, possibly mentally deranged because of like the different voices and you know what he's saying to them and what he's actually doing. And like the the fact that the violence is what's sure about the killer, I think makes him even more it's almost like personifying evil, like you know, like an anti-Santa Claus, right?
Brett:But there you go. That's the whole idea. That was the invention of the trope. The idea that you're being stalked by pure evil with no intention other than something that is gonna take you out, like Michael Myers, Jason Borges, Freddie Krueger, they're not picking you because of some weird thing that you did or, you know, anything like that. They're just picking you because you happen to be in the way like a great white shark, and they just want to take everybody out down. And that's what's kind of interesting about what Bob Clark set up with Black Christmas, is that he did all of that before anybody was really doing that. Now, what's funny though is the 2019 remake actually completely changes the plot. It's the killers, it's not even close. And it has to do with like witchcraft and supernatural stuff, and they made it PG 13 because they wanted kids to go see it.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Intrigued, but that feels like it's a different movie. Like you need to know it's not a different name.
Brett:Yeah, you should have just called it something else, but yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's okay. But it was really funny. Olivia Hussey met Steve Martin at a casting later in her career. And he said, you know, you were in one of my favorite films. And she was like, What? You like Romeo and Juliet? And he was like, No, I like Black Christmas. I've seen it like 27 times. She was just like, Oh my gosh. Honestly, that would be me.
SPEAKER_06:That would be me. I was like, girl, you slayed in Black Christmas, okay?
SPEAKER_03:Literally, no, it was so good, and her hair looked so good like the whole time. And then I re like I was telling Joanne, like Romeo and Juliet was the movie that our teacher played us in high school when we were reading Romeo and Juliet. So I like didn't realize it until I was doing the research for the podcast, and I was like, oh my god, like she was Juliet. Like, and she like that movie is like it's really good. Although we were talking about the fact that she was like 14 when she was shooting it and she was doing nude scenes, which is like not good. Yeah, crazy. But I didn't realize it was her, but she she was great. I thought she was she was my favorite character in the movie.
Brett:The cast for this is really on fire, and they're really good. And I think Bob Clark had said something that you know you can have a pretty good script as long as you have a really great cast, you can make something really good. But if the script doesn't live up to it, no, we were saying that if it you have a good script and a mediocre cast, they can bring it down. They can make it worse. And I think these people really upped a lot of their stuff. And then the funny thing, the the house mother character, he based her on his aunt who used to hide bottles of booze all over the house. Very successfully. Yes, she did, but you know, my big question was all of these girls are like drunk already. So why was she having to hide anything?
SPEAKER_03:That's what I said. I was like, they're they can go get alcohol on their own. It's Canada. Is the drinking age in Canada also 21 or is it 18?
Brett:I don't think even in the US, I think it was only 18 at this point.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so why all the cloak and dagger about the alcohol crazy?
SPEAKER_06:I guess so. I guess she didn't want to think. Yeah, I told Mariana, I was like, this lady took straight up shots from the bottle, okay? You could smell it on her breath. You already know those girls knew she was drunk. AF.
Brett:Like Well isn't funny because it reminded me of American, like the facts of life, only just really, really alcoholic. I was like, oh my god, Mrs. Garrett's a drunk.
SPEAKER_06:Yeah, she was uh she was one of Mars' favorite characters in the whole in the whole movie.
Brett:She really does get a good part. I mean, come on. You know, anytime that she gets to be drunk and and run around looking for a cat in a horror movie. Well, and you always know that's gonna be in badly.
SPEAKER_06:Well, and you know, it's it's really good because she offered so much comedic relief in this way and like a touch of realness, you know, like like grounding it just a little bit more. And that's one of the reasons I love this movie. The pacing is so good. He really reaches that balance of like lightheartedness at some points, you know, with like the drunk house mother and the dad being such like such a like has a stick up his butt and and the cop being so inner inept and the other detective giggling, and but then you also have like really horrific scenes. And I feel like when a horror movie makes you laugh and gives you the shivers, like that's really when it hits for me. Like it's just such a great balance that they hit with this particular movie.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, there was like depth to it, like it wasn't just horror, but there was like you know, all these real life, very like kind of heavy things going on. Like Barb is clearly drunk, she does not have a good relationship with her mom, and Jess is pregnant with this guy who frankly sucks, and he breaks a piano at the music school, which is not okay. So it it made it feel very like grounded, but then it was a little bit funny and it was scary, and then it was Christmas, so it was great.
Brett:Well, neither of you had seen it before, right? Do you think that this would be something that you could put on at Christmas time every year with like a glass of like really strong eggnog or something alcoholic?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
Brett:And watch.
SPEAKER_03:I think we gotta make a drinking game out of this movie. And go. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Every time they show Claire in the in the attic, which every time someone doesn't notice this dead girl in the attic window, literally. I told her I was like, does he move her in the daytime or something? Because man, she is so obviously up there.
SPEAKER_03:She's up there.
SPEAKER_06:Just staring out with a bag. I'm like, girl, please.
Brett:I know, but actually what's really funny, the the actress that played Claire was a swimmer and they hired her basically because she could hold her breath with that plastic bag over her face.
SPEAKER_03:Which is so scary because okay, like even if you like stop holding your breath because you're between takes, you can't keep that bag on your head because then you're just gonna be inhaling a bunch of carbon dioxide. I would be so paranoid if I were shooting that. I'd be like, take it off, take it off right now and breathe.
Brett:Oh no, this is the 70s, they didn't care.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You're so right. We talk about one of these classic, you know, 70s movies or before, maybe even the 80s, it's like some horrible stuff they made people do.
SPEAKER_03:Like Yeah, people are entitled to financial compensation.
SPEAKER_06:Oh my god. I mean, like when you think about like Linda Blair, for example, what happened to her? Oh Lord. The actress who played her mother, the cast from Texas Chainsaw Massacre, you know. Oh my god. All of these people were like injured while shooting, and it was like no one really cared because it's it was the seven, like it was a lawless place filmmaking, you know, at this point. And I'm glad now that actors have rights and you know, like there are certain ways that you can't.
SPEAKER_03:Intimacy coordinators and intimacy coordinators, exactly.
SPEAKER_06:You know, like it's good that the industry has evolved to protect people. And but man, like listening to some of the stories from back then was like, hey, just put this plastic bag over your head, you'll be fine. You're a swimmer, right? Just hold your breath.
Brett:You'll be fine. Fine. No problem. Well, you know, in in the 70s, and I think particularly in this time period, horror movies were really made on the cheap. And studios would not throw money at them because they were convinced that they wouldn't make a lot of money. And this actually made a lot of money when it was released, and it's it still to this day kind of has a cult following. I don't think everybody knows it as well as like Halloween or Friday the 13th or something like that, because I think it was one of those under the radar, but the can't the Canadian film industry like recognizes it as one of their biggest hits.
SPEAKER_03:I loved it, and I'm gonna start telling everyone about it because I'd never heard of it until Joanne told me about it. And yeah, I because we want to do a Christmas movie to be released on Christmas, because I think Christmas is a Thursday this year. So so yeah, I hadn't even heard of this.
SPEAKER_06:Um, let me tell you to go back to your question about do you think I could sit there and watch this movie with a really strong alcoholic eggnog? The answer is a resolute yes. In between Hallmark movies, we're gonna put on Black Christmas, okay? And we're gonna have a little bit of horror injected into that day. I absolutely love this movie. I mean, I I heard about this movie a very long time ago. I don't know, Brett, if you remember. There was a channel called E. Yes, of course. Yeah. And they had they released this 101 scariest movie moments. And it was like it was like a, I don't know, three or four hour series of these like horror movie actors, comedians, directors, and they broke down like scenes from uh like essentially a bunch of scary movies, and it was like the 101 scary. This movie was like uh close to close to the top, and I was like, Black Christmas, what is that? And I was so intrigued because again, it's the idea of like this warm, cozy holiday that you're supposed to spend with your family, just like completely upended ever since then. I mean, it's been so long, Brett, since I saw that. I mean, I was probably half my age, to be honest, since I watched that, and like now coming now to finally having watched it, reviewing it with Marr and reviewing it with you here on this podcast, like feels like such a great moment for me of like, man, I love horror and I have always loved horror, you know, and it's five out of five.
Brett:Yeah, no, it's a fun. I I it is one of my favorites just because it pioneered a lot of things. And it was way before a lot of the slashers had set up their tropes. And I think it was just so neat to watch something that was that early and knew what it was going to be what the next 15 years of movies were gonna be.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_06:Oh my god. Yeah, I I I did make that point during the podcast too. It was like, man, like this came out by the way, the same year as the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is one of my top three horror movies of all time. This this movie informed Halloween, like you said it Friday the 13th. Like you you you were talking about earlier at Nightmare on Elm Street. And I it even informed Scream a little bit, you know, with like the phone calls and like the who is this? Like there's a stranger in my house. And they're coming from outside. From literally right over there, yeah. So I no, I I really love this movie and and it gave me a new appreciation for slashers that I don't think I had before watching this movie because like like getting to see the origins of the slasher essentially, like those slasher tropes, and and and and and having it executed so beautifully, you know. I'm like, yes, I can see like it helps me deconstruct other movies a little bit more, and and I just absolutely love that.
Brett:Yeah. But Mariana, what do you think? In conclusion.
SPEAKER_03:In conclusion, everyone should go watch this. I love when a horror movie stands up as like more than just a horror movie. Like I think Sinners was so amazing, and it like it goes beyond be like, yes, it's a movie about vampires, but there's just so much more to it. And it's it's just like I don't know, the plot is just so solid and like the storyline is really good and like the acting is great. And I I thought this movie was just like very like holistically solid and it stands on its own, like just as like a great film, and also happens to be a great horror film that happens to be around Christmas time. So I really, really enjoyed it so much. It's like it's a thriller, and it's you know, it's about what I think this movie, I could be wrong, but I think it passes the Beck Delta.
Brett:Oh, I'm sure it does. It's all women.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's all women. So but they have to be not talking about men. So I think that I'm I'm gonna go re-watch it the first 15 minutes, but I just really liked it.
Brett:I think there are some sequences where they don't talk about men. I I definitely I mean, of course they talk about sex lives of turtles, but there you go.
SPEAKER_11:Yes.
Brett:So okay, so Johanna Mariana, you can find them at Scary Movie Nights. Is it scary movie nights or just night?
SPEAKER_06:Scary movie nights. Nights with an S.
Brett:With an S. So plural. So many, many scary movies and scary movie nights. Okay, so a podcast, obviously, where the scares are real, but the friendships are realer. You can find them on YouTube, all major podcasting sites. Facebook, I think I can find you. The Gram, Instagram, the Gram. The Grams, TikTok, TikTok, all major social media things. And I think it's so cool that you guys get together and talk about scary movies. And it's such a nice combination of like the two least likely. Because usually when you get horror movie podcasts, you get these kind of like basement troll people that listen to heavy metal or something, and you just get this weird vibe of like, you know, oh yeah, like pending doom, or yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Or just regular folk.
SPEAKER_06:We're just exactly and extremely bubbly, actually. Now that you now that you mention it, we're just like, oh my god, scary movies.
SPEAKER_11:Oh but it it brings like a Christmas vibe.
Brett:So there you are. Full circle.
SPEAKER_11:Oh man.
Brett:Thank you for listening to Queer Voices. We have been a show on KPFT 90.1 Houston for over five decades now. And if you're in the holiday spirit, please consider donating at KPFT.org so we can keep going. I am Brett Cullum, a producer of the show. Brian Lavinka is our legacy producer, along with Deborah Moncrief Bell. Contributors include Davis Mendoza DeRuzman, Joel Tatum, and Jacob Newsome. Special correspondent and my husband is R. Lee Ingalls. Happy holidays and cheers to 2026. I mean, it's gotta be better, right?
