Zoe Lister-Jones

Ilana connects with creator, writer, actor, director (and LA-based Brooklynite) Zoe Lister Jones. Zoe is a creative star that pushes the envelope for women-lead film & TV production crews and is bringing female sexuality to the screen in a fresh and expansive way in her films BAND-AID and HOW IT ENDS and the series SLIP. On It’s Open, Zoe and Ilana share about their own sexual awakenings in their 30s and their growth to recognize and identify with queerness and sexuality as a portal… all while learning a thing or two from Gen Z 🙌🏼

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Host: Ilana Glazer
Producers: David Rooklin, Annika Carlson, Madeline Kim, Kelsie Kiley, Glennis Meagher
Video Producers: Lexa Krebs, Louise Nessralla
Audio Producers: Nicole Maupin, Rachel Suffian, Rebecca O’Neill
Lighting Director: Kevin Deming
Editor: Tovah Leibowitz
Graphics: Raymo Ventura
Outro Music: Don Hur

All Things It’s Open: linktr.ee/itsopenpod
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsopenpod
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@itsopenpod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to It's Open with Alana Glazer. That's me. Hey. I just came off this conversation. It was so honestly, this was a turning point for me as an interviewer because this conversation was so present. Because my subject is such a um is such a presence. And she is both real and grounded, but uh um upward looking and pleasure-seeking. She's fucking brilliant. She's an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, and a queer icon. Um, today's guest was Councilwoman Fawn Moscato and New Girl. You know her as the filmmaker behind Band-Aid and uh the TV creator, star, and director behind the uh very sexy show Slip. Please join me in welcoming Zoe Lister Jones. Hi, Zoe Lister Jones.

unknown 0:58

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Where does Jones come from? My dad. Jewish Jones?

SPEAKER_02 1:03

No, convert Jones.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Copy that. So you grew up in Brooklyn. I did. How old are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:09

I'm 43.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Do you are you whispering because it scares you? Your age? I mean, I get it. You know. Oh, wait, how old are you? I'm 38. Ugh! Oh, is that so much younger? It it is, actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

It's tremendously younger.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

I mean, I'm the oldest I've ever been, you know? I know, me too. Truly. And it's also like I um I think of people as trees, like we're tree tree rings. Like your 38-year-old is like just right there. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm like 38, 37, 36 years old. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? So it's like all accessible. You know, I'm so excited to interview you today because you just, you know, you're really smart and you're locked into reality and you share reality really well. We'll be we've been at like whatever places that are like expect to be fan and cute. And like they are, but like also you'll like get in a corner and get fucking real about it, you know? Um, but you also, so in a way, you you're you're a real New York Jew who can't who shares reality and and can be in the soil of it, but also you have a lightness and a delight to you and a pleasure and curiosity that you take. Thank you. I'm not as fun as you. You're fun. Oh come on. And you're like, you're perfect. Um, and so I I I'm surprised that you're like 43.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

What? I know. Because what about it? Because like the feminist in me should be like screaming it from the rooftops. Oh, I don't know. Um, I mean, sure. Listen, my 40s I think have been the best decade of my life. I think it does continue to get better. And also there's something there is talk about internalization of like um oppressive forces. Yeah. I think it's just like internalized misogyny that I don't want to get older as a woman, that I am hanging, I'm hanging on to that youth for dear fucking life.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

You were like the feminist in me should be screaming it from the rooftops. I thought, oh, this is a woman thing. So it it's the internalized misogyny. It's what is it, looks or like um your perceived value from the misogynist outside world?

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Probably, yes. I mean, I think looks are tied into the perceived value from the outside misogynist world, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

What do you do for looks, honestly? I like did Botox five or six times. I kind of gave it up, and I'm like, I don't know. I I'm I'm raw dogging space time right now. I'm just gonna see what she looked like. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

I know. I was really I wore it as a badge of honor that I had not like received Botox. That's not what you do.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Well, like almost an art culture, like you do receive it like at a certain like age submit.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

Yeah. Um, and then this year I tried it for the first time. Cool. And um I dig it. I just I don't know if I dig it and I'm still kind of figuring out where it stands in my like soul. You know? You know, and also it's like we're full of contradiction. Full of contradiction. And I'm like, my algorithm is a lot of girl.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

It's a lot of like punishing. My algorithm is like, you better be tapping every area, tapping, slapping, massaging with your fist.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

Oh my god, the lymphatic, and this is when we're swinging the arms and we're doing swinging, and we're swinging. We're shaking it out. We gotta de-puff, we gotta snatch, we gotta do the braids that Annie Hathaway is doing. What are those? Well, everyone's talking about how snatched she looks at the time. Absolutely incredible. Unbelievable. Like porcelain shocking, unbelievable. Yes, de-aging. I mean, the women that we're looking at are de-aging. Correct. And she's now revealed that she's got tiny braids on the side of her head, and they're just yanking them. Literal hair braids. Literal hair braids.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I thought this was like a thread, threads facial type of thing, known as literal braid. This is just like thank you, Annie. Tank you Annie. Thank you, Annie.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

This episode brought to you by Anne Hathaway's braids.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

I was thinking about Anne Hathaway just yesterday. I know do you remember the um the um hairpin trick on her lips? Before a photo shoot, she just like prods her lips a little bit to pump them up. No. She's so I like her icon. She's kind of like an icon. She shares it. Yes, I agree. I agree. That is so funny. Okay, I love it. It's like a little wig tape shit. We're talking chair. We're talking gaga. Okay, I'm loving it. Okay, do you do like laser facials? Yeah. I haven't done it yet. I've just tried it. Oh, you know what I did that was honestly talk about internalized misogyny, psycho morpheus. Oh, that's supposed to be really rough. I was like, I this is like near suicidal. And like the technology like improves so quickly that like I shouldn't have done it. It was like needle um micro needling, but as staples, like punching, like in a bed of a bed of needles, just staple, like punching your face. Crazy. Just nuts. And then I did it one month apart, three months in a row, and they're like, and you all you gotta do it is once a year. It was, it was, and and the, oh girl, it was nuts. I it's like I should just be doing like painless laser facials. And I love a good old-fashioned like human hands facial.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

Yeah, I love human hands facial. I've done the vampire facial. What's that? With like blood. They take your blood, they mix it up, then they put it back in the face to say. Do you did you find uh I don't know what I find with any of them? I don't think that my self-loathing will be I know like I know fixed by a single goddamn procedure.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

I have a line in my in my new hour where like I go through my whole journey with Botox and then I'm like, and then I stop because you know, I just because I go to so much therapy, and you it turns out you can never have enough Botox to be done with Botox, but you can have enough therapy to be done with Botox. And the thing is, like, I did Botox like um five or six times uh, you know, every six months or something for over a couple of years. And I stopped and I'm like, I honestly, I truly don't judge. And I'm like, get it, girl. You want like glass skin? I'm loving it. I see. But I'm like, I honestly think that it's like a spirit thing. And like, yeah, if you're like genuinely happy with yourself, you look hot. And then there's also the difference as a woman, oh, it's so sad we're slicing and dicing ourselves, but it does also help to like do the math and be like, can we look at these receipts and go with this? Um, you know, the difference between being like hot and fuckable. Like to emit sexual energy to me is more important and genuinely creative.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

Yeah, I I totally agree. Like, um, that's why I think my 40s have been fun. Because I think you all you do become more fuckable in your 40s because you become more self-actualized. Yeah. And that that is the sexy 100. That's that's the sexy part of it.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

And your energy is like just drawing, drawing in. I tell you. To your pussy.

SPEAKER_02 7:43

I think the lines around my door.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

Yeah. I gotta, I'm swatting them away. I'm loving it. Yeah. I'm fucking loving it. Um, you are uh something I love about you as a person and you in your work is that you center pleasure. Slip is a uh a TV series you created, uh-wrote and directed, yeah, and started. Yeah. Uh about a woman who takes a portal into the m multiverses she could have lived in through orgasm.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

How'd you come up with it? I wonder. Was it fucking your way through a TV pitch?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

I love this system. Fucking my way through TV pitches, a story of my life. I had made so I had directed um this film Band-Aid, uh, written and directed and starred in it. And um and um like easy. Um and I guess I'm starting there because like that felt we can talk about it also separately, but that was like a very um the process of making that film was really important to me, and I hired all women um as crew. And I was also like interested in exploring heaven was heaven.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Can we just stop there for a second about talking about you know, I think it's like interesting as women who I think you and I have strong voices and we assert ourselves, and I think people make assumptions about our level of self-confidence, but then the moment you like open the door, you're like, by the way, feel with shit loading and now and it's horror, you know, and it's like um it's actually a practice and an effortful practice to keep climbing toward that self-actualization.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Yes. Um and to not disempower yourself when given ample opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 9:25

That's right. That's right. How much messaging do we have baked in that you could just pluck, pluck, pluck? Um and you know, the thought of, and I remember, I remember hearing this is like either after Broad City or at the tail of an end of Broad City, which is seemingly the most empowered, you know, feminist, female-centered process. And yet when I like read, I think it was in an Instagram post, that you were hiring all female crew and bandit, I was literally like like arrested, paused, couldn't believe it. The it sounds like heaven to me. It was heaven. Heaven. And I I what I mean to say is that is a choice-centering pleasure. Yes, because women on set fucking rocks.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Rock, yeah, a hundred percent. And I've actually never thought of it that way. And so thank you for framing it. Because it is obviously it was like it was me wanting to like subvert a really broken system, but I actually think more than anything, it was about me creating an environment that I wanted to work in. And um, no shade to the men, you know.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

I I do want to say, because I'm also like having um I'm having these conflicting feelings lately as the hate machine that is powering the oligarchy and our federal government right now. This hate machine, we don't even realize, you know, progressives don't have that organization, don't have that money. Conservatives, it is a multi-billion, perhaps trillion dollar hate machine. They're starting, you know, they're going back into the trad wives and young women who look like I don't know what she could be, and then she's having hate messaging. And they're like, they hate men, these feminists. I mean, it's such an old, bizarre, flat playbook. They hate men. No, we don't. No. And and we don't hate male in individuals either. No. It's a system that fucks everybody over, not equally, but fucks takes from everybody. No shade to the men, but it's it's um given the power structure that we live in, which is an oppressive one toward women, it's almost like you created a planet, a different planet to go to. And you know what's so funny? Now I'm realizing with Slip, it's almost like a portal. Yes. It's like Band Aid was a portal. Yes, absolutely. I I was shook.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Again, me and Abby, you make a broad city. I was shook when I read that. And that means so much to me because obviously broad city was like fundamental to my sort of uh emergence as an artist, really. Like, oh, unbelievable, truly. Thank you so much. But yeah, I it was a magical experience and one that also I think um like just impacted the art in such a like cellular way. Um and that movie was about um many things, but I think it was also about like the mythology of what a woman's what what we're taught a woman's life is supposed to look like and what happens when we don't meet it, and how we as women can feel like failures. Um that movie deals with miscarriage, but also just like the dissolution of uh a partnership. And it's also funny, it's a musical. Um but um but I think that like the next step. I made a couple movies in between, but slip was living in me during that process and after, because to me it felt like the next step um in terms of like feminist filmmaking was to put sex female sexual pleasure at the forefront. Pleasure um at the forefront. And it felt really radical for me to do that. Um and so I it was also just like really fun because I think it it delves into female fantasy and sexual fantasy in a way that um I live in that place. I do be fantasizing a lot, and um, and so like where our fantasies take us when we um, you know, have casual sex, like the future tripping that one can fall prey to of like, and then this is what our lives look like.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

I know it's like we're like good at sex, but we're like really the best writers in our minds. And we can just like write chapters. Oh yeah, it's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

And the projection of like who that person is in our mind and in our story.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Instead of like actually focusing inward on like who we are in that moment.

SPEAKER_02 13:46

Yes, yes, and like how that person can fit into like a fantasy that kind of isn't written by us.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

You know what I mean? Yes, and also like it's we I think sometimes we think as women, um, or perhaps like as reflective women going through the our own feminist journey, we think, oh, I've put so much on this other person, this other partner, uh, and and and put so much weight on them instead of myself. But it's actually like you're also using that person as a figment of your imagination and dehumanizing them. And they're like a caricature, just serving it is self-actualization. And there is a sense of um either using each other or uh working with each other to figure out who one is, whether you're like really in a committed partnership um or casually having sex. Yeah. Um, that is, you know, it's this outward versus inward versus outward versus inward looking, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Yeah. And like that's when the bottom falls out, is when your projection no longer holds. You know when you're like, oh, you're not the person that I created. Yeah. In that way that does feel kind of like using someone or seeing someone or not wanting to see someone.

SPEAKER_00 15:05

And it's kind of a relief when the bottom falls out because you're not holding it up like the whatever ancient sculpt sculpture is that I don't know enough to ref in. Um forget it. Uh Google it. I don't know. Um, you know, and it's like kind of a relief when you're forced, I think, to sit with yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Like, who am I now? And like in your 40s, actually, it's like in late 30s, it's like, oh, I've been also, whatever, I'm just like talking about my fucking stand-up, but I've been talking about in stand-up just a little bit that I still have to refine. But about young people and they're like cokey energy and they're always like looking around for who they are. Yeah. And I'm like, I get it, but it's like, it's a relief when literally your nervous system, as an older, tired fucking person calms enough to just be like, all right, I'll stop running and just sit with myself to figure out this thing. Yes. It's a relief.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

It's totally a relief. And like second, it is absurd. It's like horrifying and a relief. Uh-huh. Totally. But it is why we're in so much therapy. Yep. And I will say too, late 30s, there was um sort of a an internalized or an internal sexual revolution that happened for me, which I've heard occurs for many women around late 30s, of like, I sort of something woke up in me. Cause 20s, my sex life in my 20s, at least, was like, you know, a gong show. Like it was really, it was a it was a mess. Yeah. Hilarious. It was um yeah, yeah. Because you are in that like cokey phase of life being like, Can you love me? Do you love me? Does sex mean love? Does love mean sex? Like what?

SPEAKER_00 16:44

I also felt like I was like an accountant where I was like sort of like building a portfolio rather than like having an experience. Totally. For me, it was um it was pregnancy where I and I I honestly I wanted to have a kid to to get pregnant and to have the experience of having a kid, but pregnancy, I was like, I I need to know, I need to be forced to be in my body. Yes. And it was like so interesting to me how um to have it's like being in puberty, but in your adulthood and actually knowing what to do with the spontaneous horn horniness. Yes. Like before, you ever hear of um contextual? I mean, l-ol, they don't call it horniness, but contextual um arousal versus spontaneous. Or spontaneous, you're just like, damn, I'm horny. Yeah. But contextual, you know, ladies, we like like candles, we like a story, we like a prologue, you know what I mean? Whatever the fuck. And you know, like that was the first time that had all this spontaneous arousal that I was like, damn, it's really fun to feel secure enough to then just be like, let's do this. Yeah. Um, I was yeah, that was like my uh earlier 30s. What was your what was your spark in your late 30s? And what did that what was it like? However much you want to say? I know.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

Um my spark. I mean, I went through um a divorce, and I think that, you know, opened up a lot of shut one door, open another one, big old wide open door. Wow, windows, many things opened. Um and I love it. I I think um it was so exciting to be in my body in a new way and to be aroused in a new way. And that is when I wrote Slip. So I was sort of like um, I think being able to experience sexual pleasure as a portal, like where it was like, oh my god, my world is opening to many different like worlds and universes, and that like sex can I think in my twenties when I was like single previously, um sex was more constricting as a feeling rather than expansive. Totally and so to experience it as expansive and like world-building and um was just so like yeah, revolutionary for me. And I wanted to write about it. And I think in all like um I was also interested in because I shot slip when I was 40. And because I'm also the star of it, it's a very sexually explicit show. And I think there was something And you're directing it, and directing it, and that that combo was really interesting in terms of the male versus female gaze and what sex, uh what I want sex, what I wanted sex to look like. Um Can I ask a couple things?

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yes. What was the like um what did the crew look like? It wasn't all women, it wasn't all women. And I also remember Zoe a video of you talking about and like clips of in the whatever press piece it was that you were like directing nude. That's a fucking power move. That's a power move.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah, I mean, I was robed, but I was I had to be directing nude if I was hysterical. Because my scene partners, I would be giving them directions sort of like within the scene where I was nude.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

But like in the in terms of um, I don't know what, um women being uh just so, you know, honestly, like uh how do I say so so violently policed and oppressed. Yeah. It's like there's no how do we say that? Just like how do we say that? You know, it's like um there is no reverse racism, there is no reverse sexism. These systems fuck white people over as well. Right. Even if it's emotionally cut them off, they don't realize it, besides the actual, yeah, financially, you know, basic human needs cutting you off. And like same, same with men regarding feminism. Like we all benefit from it. So there's no reverse, there's no version of a God couldn't do that. Yeah, no shit, because Harvey Weinstein fucking exists. Right. You know what I mean? Right, right, right and the millions of Harvey Weinsteins that have existed. Um, so it's just funny, like how you directing nude is kind of the antidote to, you know what I mean? It's like so wild.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

And like I will say, um, you know, we had like an intimacy coordinator and um met I I wanted I wanted to make sure obviously that everyone felt super, super safe. Um the crew was like very important that I could feel safe. Um, because I was like cutting out the middleman. Usually the actor has to feel safe with the director who's directing them in really intimate sex scenes. Um, and so often that's a male director and a female subjectslash object, you know, in those in those circumstances. So I was like, How do I want to feel safe? And how do I want to make sure that the crew feels really safe? Um and it was really it was fascinating. I will say post was almost more fascinating, like post production, because um, you know, I'm like

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Like the editing, and you're sitting in the edit and working with editors.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Well, my editors were women, but um but like like um doing the sound mix because it it we're talking about uh the levels of the orgasm and it's me and I'm having to do takes of um ADR. So you're talking about ADR adding sound later of orgasms to match the visual of you coming hysterical with and like with the men in the room, I think it was it was like a really um transformative experience for me and feeling really safe with those men in that room. I love it, and them going, like being able to talk about sex with a woman who's not their wife, who's their boss, um, and to do it in a way that just felt really like loving and open and safe. And we were just talking about our work, which was sex, you know? Yeah, which was like, um, which was obviously simulated sex, but but like there was just something so beautiful, I think, about it having be a having it be a co-ed experience.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

And I have to say, it's also like uh like what I'm saying about this system fucking everybody over, you know, it's like I'm sure they were totally moved and transformed by that opportunity to talk about sex with you as a piece of art.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

Yes. And I had had obviously very different experiences. Um, like, and after Band-Aid, I wanted to have many, many women in as department heads. I knew that I was probably never gonna be able to do that again because that movie was small and independent and non-union because I was not in the union yet. And the next thing I did um after Band-Aid was like a network TV pilot that I wrote and directed. And I went in there being like, so I want to hire all women. And they were like, absolutely never, you know, and they were like, that's an HR truly disaster. Yeah, yeah. I was thinking about that too. Is that like they can't they can't do that? Um so I was able to hire, you know, mostly I think and almost entirely female department heads, which was really exciting. And when people came for Band Aid. Oh no, for this TV palette. That's cool. No, Band Aid was all. Yeah, yeah. But this where I was like, and I walked on set and I was like sort of like hunched, like being like, I failed. And everyone who came on set was like, This is crazy, how many women are here? Yeah. And so it was also And in um decision-making position. In decision yeah, or final decision making. Totally, yeah. Um and that was also eye-opening for me to be like, it doesn't also have to be all or nothing. I felt that it had to be all or nothing to sort of really show that it could be. Right. Um, yeah, and and to open up like and show for yourself too.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah. Not some like performance, but really be like, could this be?

SPEAKER_02 24:43

You know, exactly. Yeah. And like it's very interesting because in Band-aid, when we were crewing up, like some female department heads, I would be like, So we're hiring all women. And they would be like, but I have my dude that I've worked with for a decade. And that is part of the barrier to entry for women behind the camera, is like, and I get it, because like everyone's wants to succeed. So they're like, Yeah, I want to use my dude that knows me and we have a shared language. And I had to be like, You can't, which I do think actually all of those um women who who felt that way were then like so excited to see that I think like opportunities for mentorship are also so important for both the mentee and the mentor. That's right. Um, because the fear that we all have of like hiring someone with less experience, which is what stops, you know, crews, especially in our industry, but I think probably across all industries from diversifying, you know, whether it comes to gender or race or or anything, um, is like a lack of experience. And how do we change that? And it's like, well, we change it by giving opportunities to people with less experience and having faith that they're gonna be so hungry for the opportunity they might actually outshine a person who's been doing it for decades. I love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

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unknown 27:24

Ooh!

SPEAKER_00 27:25

So thank you so much to my viewers and listeners for joining me in this very special milestone for the production of It's Open with Alana Glazer. And girls, boys, go get that discount. And now back to the show.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

So Slip came out on Roku, um, which was also like, it was still like where's the bag? Because nobody knew how to how to use Roku, um, which was part of the issue. But um but then four months into Slip, and I will say I had an executive um at Roku who believed in the project so wholeheartedly, and I had written all seven episodes of Slip in the the pandemic, um and I handed him all seven episodes and he greenlit me without a single note. So, like, God bless this man, Colin Davis. Um God bless Colin Davis and and allowed me to make the show that I wanted to without any compromise. And it was a really wild show to put on television. And um and then he left Roku right when it came out. And so I didn't really have a champion. But basically, four months uh after its release, they removed it from the platform entirely.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Fuck.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

And it um Why for a tax write-off. Could could you own it? I think I will be able to.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Um because that would be sick to license it.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Oh, I would love that. Yeah, because it's like it's been a couple years now. Um, but it's been one of the great heartbreaks of my life. And like it it doesn't really leave that heartache when you have birthed something. And I think that especially that show for me was like such a child. I don't have physical children, but like a real art baby that was like it the fact that it can't exist for anyone to see now is so devastating. And it was nominated for two independent spirit awards when it came out.

SPEAKER_00 29:21

Wow, wow, for Best New Show. Thank you. For Best New Show, I think.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

And we were like up there next to like Beef and The Last of Us and all these incredible, like huge shows with money behind them. And by the time we got to the awards, it had been removed from the platform. Like, oh my god, that wasn't enough. And the and the savings of the tax write-off was so minimal, it really like boggles the mind, body, and soul.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

I just these business people are no good at business. I mean, to watch like the whole HBO, like I can't and through the through the um, and then now it's like, you know, I'm just like it is and and through the strike, and then you know, demonizing that we went on strike to set standards for our basic needs. Yeah, it's so um, it's so unbelievable. It's unbelievable. I'm so sorry. That's painful. Yeah, super painful. Hella rude. Wheeler rude.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Yeah, but um I'm curious about um your queer awakening in proximity, actually, to slip and and the pandemic, honestly.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

Like pandemic did turn us gay. Yeah, kind of. Um, I well, slip was interesting because there is a queer storyline in it. Um, I think Slip was like around the time, yeah, of my queer awakening, but I was While writing it. While writing it. Cool. But I will say, I mean, it was kind of it was kind of after it that it really happened, but um I always was very aware of my queerness. And I was raised in this is the thing to me.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

You know, as somebody who grew up on Long Island and we're like pretty much the same age, and I I grew up on Long Island being like, I can't wait to get to the city, I can't wait to get to the city. I had this um idealized version of city kids and Brooklyn kids, and I would think that you would be doing LOL this move, what? Yes, and I was. Yeah, you know, whatever. But not this move, you know what I mean? I think it's when we went one way and then it took 30 years to go this way. Um, you know, so yeah, I'm I'm curious about how you sort of came to to know this about yourself beyond lol, just exploring.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Yeah. I mean, I knew it. I knew it. And my like synagogue lol was like very queer. My mom's friends were all like queer. My mom was an academic and was in like like there was a lot of like gender theory like early on in my life. So it's nonsense that I wasn't able, it's not like and I didn't feel that I was hiding it, but I do remember um that my best friend who's also queer now at the time in high school, because I had all these crushes on sort of like definitely trans mask girls, but they weren't yet trans mask, but like very mask presenting girls at the time and um and boys kind of equally. Like I wasn't like the boys were crushes in order to like cover up the girl crushes. Yeah. I was just like um yeah, it living in a world of fantasy, not acting on any sexual impulses regardless of gender. So I was like really shy and felt very invisible. I shaved my head. So I was presenting super queer. I shaved my head at 11.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

Are you an only child? Yes. Wow. Oh my gosh. She said. But by the way, my mom took me to like a Japanese hair artist who used like a tiny pair of scissors and did like the most meticulous shave, but it was not a shave. Oh, yeah with like baby bangs. Remember, like 90s baby bangs. Like holy shit. It was um see, this is some shit that I was just like, ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

SPEAKER_00 33:12

So that, yes, you know, going through and dealing with magazine, just fantasizing about you getting a Japanese head shave with scissors. Oh, out in some county deep stuff, okay. Holy shit, baby bangs, baby bangs.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

I was like dressing in like a lot of like men's leisure wear. Like I was really, I was being misgendered a lot. And so it was, I think there was a part of me that was like exploring something, but I couldn't put a name to it. And when my friend in high school was like, Maybe you're gay, because I had I was like crushing on this girl named Hot Liz, obviously, given given name. And she's like, Maybe you're gay. And I remember just feeling so offended.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Wait, so what do you mean? You were like, she's so cool, right? Or were you like, oh, she's hot?

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I was like, I love her. Like I thought she was hot, which is why it's so crazy to be like, you're gay and me being like, what?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah, like you know, like on Long Island, everybody was like using slurs, homophobic slurs. So I would like be, I remember like when we were all like changing together and I was like, hee hee hee hee hee, you know, and I was like attracted to girls. Um, and I was uh attracted, I guess, more to just like girls I could never be standard them girls and boys. Um and but like it being so far away, it being not even a conversation, yeah. And it was just constant F slur, that's so gay, you're so gay. And I remember like calling people out, I mean, with my own slurs, being like, Well, you're this, Tyler, um, to defend my all my gay friends. But um, you know, it was so far. Yeah. So what a funny thing that you're like, it's right there. It's right there, but the same systems were controlling both of us totally at the same time. Yeah, it didn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

And I was hearing the slurs too, even though I was in Brooklyn. I mean, obviously, there were like, yeah, it was crazy. I went to high school, yeah, deep Brooklyn high school. And they're South? Um, like Dipmas Park, Coney Island. Yeah. Yeah. Is that south? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Umly private directions.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

Grew up in Park Slope, but you were going um south first. Yeah, I was going Coney Island. You can't get more south. But not like Sheep's Head Bay or Bensonhurst.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

No, but a lot of like Sheep's Head Bay and Bensonhurst kids in my school. Yeah, couple. So um, so it was Long Island coded. Do you know what I mean? And we and so there was a lot of homophobia there too. But I walked in freshman year with a shaved head and was immediately like recruited by the LGBTQ club. And I was like, no, no, no. Yeah. I could not join that club. So it was like, it was wild. And then I was married to a cis man for many years, and um even in our times of like opening our relationship, it never occurred to me. It like literally never occurred to me. It wasn't even like something that I felt that I was actively repressing, I was just going for dudes.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

And I just heard the phrase LLL, late in life loves being. I love that. Isn't that great? So many of us. I know it's like really sweet. You know what I mean? And I just I I find it just makes the community of women stronger and more connected. Yeah, you know what I mean? Totally. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:28

And so many like bless them, like femmes who were like really pulling straight men. You know, like the gap behind. And the Sophia Bush's 100. Oh no, gorgeous. They're just doing so much, they're doing some heavy lifting.

SPEAKER_00 36:45

At the end of the runway, and they're just like, they flip the cover and then they walk the other way and they're like, bye-bye. You know, it's it's uh stunning. So um, yeah, so you're just feeling it now. You're just fucking in it. I'm in it. You and your partner, you're so cutie. Thanks. Cutie, queer juice. I'm loving that. I'm gonna love in Stettl. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

I'm loving it. Um, probably, yeah, like um related in some way, deep, deep, deep in the ancestry. Yeah, but um we love it. And that's that's part of the attraction, yeah, probably. Um yeah, no, it's it's so great. I mean, the the journey, the queer journey is harrowing. You know, it is we're lying witch in wardrobing, like you don't know. The adventures are endless, and the first queer heartbreak is horrific. I think it's worse than straight heartbreak. And maybe for the LLL is even worse. But I think it is worse than straight heartbreak. Cause the because the emotional complexity is different.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

And the um proximity, the proximity in gender, where there's like a bit you can write off in uh or or like the distance is already built in in opposite sex relationships. Um, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. I know that resonates with me.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Yeah. It's it's interesting. And and yeah. Now my partner's uh uh a trans man, so I don't know if I'm going back in the closet or sort of where I'm standing.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, we're just sort of now it's just a spinning at the end of the runway. It's kind of a death drop and get up and spin, you know what I mean? It's great. Yeah. It's uh a full color wheel. It is, yeah, spectrum. Yeah. Yeah. Um, you know, I think about Gen Z women, and I'm like, I want to tell them so many things or something. Like, yeah, do you do you interface with Gen Z women? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:35

Yeah. Totally. In like through work? Um, yeah, and and many of many of my friends are Gen Z.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Um, what do you want to tell them? And do you tell them or do you like restrain and and hold off imparting knowledge? I'm really working on curbing unsolicited advice.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

Okay. So it's hard for me. But here is where you can give solicited advice. What I will say is I think part of the reason why I I didn't come out earlier is because I didn't have as much access to language or models of like the fluidity of the sex and gender spectrum. And so in some ways, I'm like, there's this, it's this a beautiful time in comparison, you know, um, because of access. But it it's also a confounding time to be a woman, you know, and I why well I think like social media and the algorithms are the compare and despair and the idea like the concept of a person being a brand was not right um that's right really the goal. And now, regardless of like how pure your artistic intentions are, you do have to look at commerce in a way that I feel like we weren't necessarily looking at. You have to look at like how you are branding yourself. Um and that is like just for my brain now as a woman, I'm like, what? You know? Um So I think that's really confusing. And I think that third, fourth wave feminism and sex positivity is confusing. Here's an example. When I was growing up, my mom hated Madonna. Oh my god, okay. Because her second wave feminism was like, that's so male gazy. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I was like, what are you talking about? That woman is in fucking charge. Right, right, right. She's like masturbating faux masturbating on stage. Right. And and so I think that like dialogue is even more confusing now.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

Because that at that time it was a like a boomerang. Yes. And now it's like the boomerang is like stuck in a tornado. You know, where it's like, I don't know who's empowered. I don't know if I am. You don't know, you know. Yeah, I still have to be around.

SPEAKER_02 40:58

I mean, I feel that I'm working for the man overtime a lot of the time. And then other times I'm I'm kicking it to him. And I don't know which is which, because I'm in that tornado, you know. But I yeah, I guess I'm like, I'm looking at Gen Z. There's different, there's different worlds, right? Like Gen Z queers are I'm I'm looking up to them. One hundred teach me one brothers. Like I want to know the fountain that you're drinking from.

SPEAKER_00 41:29

Yes. Gen Z also the way that they have this early exposure to language about race and gender and sexuality makes them so much fucking less awkward than millennials. Yes. We're like, they have you ever considered the identity? It's like so embarrassing how late we came to understanding this stuff. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 41:47

No, totally. But the human brothers are hip to it all in a way that is like just like organic, so organic, like you're saying. And um, and I guess I'm speaking to my Gen Z sort of like straight girls who are getting like baby Botox in their 20s. Or doing like baby GLP1, you know, microdosing. And that's where I'm like, oh God. No, no. I don't want to shame you, but I also want to encourage you to like not fall prey.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

I also genuinely want to warn you that we don't know what it leads to. People's faces don't fall apart. They've fallen off the bone. It's meat falling off the bone. We don't know. Yeah, we don't know what the heck. Yeah, yeah. And also just saying, just saying, it's I I I truly, I don't care what people do with their own bodies. Don't tell me what to do with my fucking body. But I do want to say a little plumpness helps. Yes. Genu genuinely you fall.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

It helps you when you age.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

That's what I'm talking about. People used to yes, that's they're doing the option. Choose your ass or fingers. That's right. I'm like, you're getting, you're, you're, I don't I don't have a fucking analogy right now, but I'm like, you're, you're, yeah. It's it's you're gonna want that. You're gonna want that. You're gonna want that. Yeah. Um, yeah, you know, like you're such a productive, generative person as a person into flesh, as a person, you know, who's creating projects and putting them out and output. What do you do? How do you um deal with pause and rest? What containers do you create for reflection?

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Whew, that's a beautiful question. I have the same for you. Okay. Um I'm not great at rest historically. Um, and I think that um my I place a lot of my value in productivity. Yeah. Capitalism. Not just capitalism. And so I am working on that. And I'm working on just trying to do nothing for um bits of time. But it's really fucking hard. Yeah. It's really hard. And like Um I'm like I'm really bad at meditating. I'm telling you all the things I'm not doing. I'm really bad at meditating.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

I'm I'm I'm digging it.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

I'm trying to do um a gratitude practice, which is not necessarily like rest, but it is something that I think takes you off the capitalist hamster wheel. Uh-huh. Because you're kind of going, like, I I I have what I want.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

I don't need to be fighting so hard to get somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

All the time. That's exactly right. Um, amen. Which is hard.

SPEAKER_00 44:34

Um, and but at least it honestly you can channel it into a practice. Yes. Rather than be like, I'm sitting sitting in the street. No, but it's great. Um, but it is you're rerouting the energy to something else. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um trying to like for sure, dude. For fucking sure. It's really hard to um, I do so much therapy, and I'm really working in therapy on understanding money as a function of the the society I live in, but not as a genuine value counter. You know, it is a value counter, and it it um, I just saw Matthew Cook, I think his name is Cook with an E on Instagram. Uh just a really cool layout of billionaires and how they're controlling all of our resources, which are finite. Water and money. These are one is natural resource, one is man-made, but they're finite. And it's like we, it's like it's depraved and disgusting, but we conflate money with human worth when it's really a representation of labor. Yes, it's a it's only a representation, it's not real. Yes, you know, but it's like it is so hard and such a practice. Like people used to be like, here's a donkey, here's a house. I don't know if you're talking, but you know what I mean? Um, you remember in the middle of the thing? No, that's historically accurate. Remember in Fiddler on the Roof when Tedler Tevyat is like um is thinking that he's doing a deal for a cow, but it's for his daughter. Yeah. Fucking classic mix up. Hysterical. Yeah. Fucking hysterical. But it's like whatever the fuck people used to trade. Like that's that actually is a true trade. Money is a symbol, but it is so hard to extract ourselves from this. We are the extraction. I know. So it's hard to like get your head around it. And it's it's genuinely, genuinely complex and takes effort to understand that. And I get it.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Yeah, and I gotta say, like, I'm not extricating myself from the capitalist system. I love to buy things.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

I what do you love to buy? Oh, clothes. Hell yeah. You a new girl, you a vintage girly. Uh mostly new.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

Yeah, I'm into new. Um, but I also like no, but I also like vintage. I like, I like I was raised with no money. Like my parents were broke ass artists in Brooklyn. But my mom had like really expensive taste. And so that dichotomy stays stays with me. Um and also I think when I'm depressed, I use spending as a crutch. It gives me a dopamine hit. Yep. Um, yeah. And so I am also like trying to be realistic with myself. I really admire what you're doing. And that is not the work I'm doing in therapy, but what you're doing. What about money? Yes, about money, like about sort of like separating or what or just like getting clearer on how you value it.

SPEAKER_00 47:21

Yes. I I grew up with in there, like used to be middle class, genuinely. And my parents um worked, but it was hard. And we would get help from my grandparents, and they had this um, they had this almost fear of money. The like I think of it as like the fear of God. Yeah. You know, this fear that I like, dude, I started working when I was nine. I I was just like uh mothers help helping. Oh my god. And I like developed so early. I looked like I was like 14. You know what I mean? So I was like, I remember watching twins with a drunk mom upstairs. I was like, I'm working for this cash, I'm nine years old. Like I was so, so um just focused on like saving my making and saving money and not having that anxiety, anxiety because I have enough fucking anxiety to begin with. Um so yeah, it's out of, it's out of relieving myself of that anxiety and not attaching, you know, it's like I can't spend um that central nervous system energy on this, you know? It's something to go out and be made, you know? Yes. Rather than like something bestowed upon, it's not bestowed upon us. Yeah. Some people are born rich. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? So it's like, it's just like this, it's hard. It's it's very upsetting. So upsetting too because, you know, we're in positions where we have our basic needs met, we have opportunity as women, you know, um, you know, whatever. It's like um, you know, so it's even just upsetting to be like, some people are, it's this system is designed to give most people nothing and steal from people and get them in sick, stuck ruts that are against any control that they have. It's like, it's just um, it's uh, and and you know, I I look too much outside at the world and you know, bleed for it. I I have to I try to work on like containing myself within the contines of my own confines of my own actual lived experience, but it's it's really upsetting.

SPEAKER_02 49:16

The sort of like um uh misogyny capitalist pipeline is so apparent. And it's that like scarcity mindset that like that's right is is part and parcel with capitalism. Like you must make more to live, but now it's being like, or I guess it's always been co-opted by the patriarchy, but now it's like a whole new version um of like in order like to succeed, these are the edicts that you must live by, and it means oppressing and objectifying women. The Manosphere is like a perfect example of the way that the patriarchy oppresses men. Because all these men are so clearly in so much pain because of the patriarchy. That's exactly right. And then they're sort of like weaponizing it from this complete place of desperation because what else do they do? Um, and so many of them, at least in this documentary, shout out, I have nothing to do with it, um, were raised without fathers. You know, and so like there's already they're victims of this oppressive system. Truly. Here's here's where I'm like, after watching this documentary and really like uh unfortunately learning more about the manosphere, but I think it's important too because it's like really it's huge. Um they're all like subscribing to like the matrix, they they use the matrix, like the actual movie, and like red pilling, directed by two trans women, right, and a trans allegory and red pilling, which is what all these men who are so transphobic and um and homophobic are like espousing was really about like if you uh see uh the illusion of gender, you cannot unsee it. And they're now like that's they don't even they can't even see that this is the thing that they're like well, they just haven't, they don't know, they don't know enough about the movie that they're referencing, you know. Oh my god. But I've just been really like spinning on it because I'm like, there's so much to unpack here.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Um the anti-transness of this moment is so whether it's anti-trans femmes or anti-trans mask, it's so anti-trans, it's so anti-women, yeah, because the female spirit is about fluidity and flexibility. Totally. And it's and community. And it's so self-punishing because we all have both spirits in us. It is just so fucking obvious that it's this that anti-transness is a device to disempower everybody. I mean, I I find it to be so obvious. Totally. I I hate to be, I honestly, I'm honestly embarrassed about being an optimistic person, but I honestly have to be, I really believe that this is um, I I believe that like um this is just a disgusting, ugly moment that we're pushing through. You know, you you should you shit when you give birth, you shit when you die. Yep. And I really think that like we're just in the shitting ourselves, dying. Yeah, yeah, and giving birth to a new world. Like I I hate to give these these men the benefit of the doubt, but it's it's the men on top, just like the billionaires. It's the men at the top. LOL, they're like topping everybody else. And it's like you're like they're gayer than you realize. Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, it's I don't, I really don't believe it's like these victims. Uh I mean, it's they have free will, like grow the fuck up. But it's like it's just sad, and they're being like abused. But I do think a lot of them, which I think is happening politically too, are going to extract themselves from the system and be like, oh, I was in a cult, you know. God, I hope so. I I like think so just because I'm like, how could you not?

SPEAKER_02 53:11

I know. I know. I hope. But the um the rewiring is it takes time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what are you working on right now that you want people to know about? Um, I'm coming out in a TV show on Peacock that I'm acting in, but it is really fun. It's called The Miniature Wife. Yes, I'm looking forward to it. Yes. I mean, it is about a woman who's shrunk by her husband. So it's thematically sort of uh appropriate. Yeah. Um, but it's really fun. And it's also fun to just act for me. Because it's like nice to take off the other hands. Yeah, nice. Um, and then I'm like developing some things that I'm really excited about. I'm making a movie with Carol Burnett, which is Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 53:54

That's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Yeah, yeah. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, so that's been like just that's in this really dark time, there are these moments of just absolute brightness, especially someone like her who's like 92. Holy shit and has lived through. I like to talk to people who have lived through so much to be like, we gonna be good, you know? Yeah. And what does she say? Oh, well, she's so I mean, she's so optimistic and so great. Um good. Just as a human being. But I mean, talk about like a woman in comedy at a time where like, whoo, brother. But she she changed the game. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Um that's amazing, Zoe. Congratulations. Thanks. What's one thing you're gonna do for your pleasure this weekend?

SPEAKER_02 54:40

Yeah, that's better. That is really good. And I do think that it, you know, in these moments, like pleasure seeking is a revolutionary act. Yep. Agreed. And um, and I'm actually, I have not been prioritizing pleasure. So this is a really important thing. It's time to swing it back. It's time. Um do the runway. Bring it on my hair flipping. Yep. Um, what am I gonna do this weekend? Okay, I'm going to um listen, I'm gonna try and find a dance party. Fuck yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Zoe Lastrich. That's what we gotta do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

You're in New York?

unknown 55:12

I'm in LA.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

In LA, you're gonna find a dance party. Okay. Yeah. Okay, rock on. Thank you so much for coming in today. This is so fun. So fun. This has been a Star Pix production, okay? And I wanna thank my creative producers, David Roklin, Annika Carlson, Madeline Kim, Kelsey Kylie, Glenis Mahar. I want to thank the people who made this episode look and sound so sweet, so good. Uh, Nicole Maupin, Lexa Krebs, and Kevin Deming. I want to thank Remo Ventura for making this beautiful graphics and opening musical sting and the band Don Her, who is just finally bursting out on the scene publicly. Because one of the three members is Elliot Glazer, my brother. The music is so fucking good. And this is this after music is by Don Her. Um, I'll say it again, it's been a Starbucks production, and damn, I just had such a fucking good time. Oh, and this is the thing I always forget to say. If you like this show, like and subscribe. It truly makes a difference. Um, and also, guess what? I'm going on tour. I'm I don't know when the fuck this is coming out, but I am on a stand-up tour. So check out aloneglazer.com for tickets when I'll be in a city near you. To be honest, um just the first leg has been announced May through August, and I'll be announcing more dates this year. So don't get pissed at me if I'm not in your city. I'll be there likely, hopefully. Anyway, um, okay. I'm gonna say it. God bless you. Love ya. Bye.