#philadelphia 1993

[the-mechanica]

my problem really deeply is how shallow a tolerance younger people have for old queer media. like yes, it's dated and some of the politics don't hold water anymore, but to ignore older media simply based on that is to loose EVERYTHING we have bc we don't have a lot. just because queer themes caught up more recently doesn't mean we should rehash everything to fit into a more "presentable" format that is only considered modern bc of the puritanical blacklash of the last several years and sanitization of queer themes.

[klearilist]

guys have you seen philadelphia (1993)? i think y'all should watch philadelphia (1993). it's a good movie philadelphia (1993)! please watch philadelphia (1993)

[90smovies]

[behindthesefangirleyes]

I’d like to thank not only God, but Jesus 🥹

x

[todayinhiphophistory]

Today in Hip Hop History:

The Roots released their debut album Organix May 19, 1993

[sharpth1ng]

Did sid and tatum know about billy and stu, or at least have any suspicions? ESPECIALLY THE MOVIE BATHROOM SCENE like surely one of them noticed how long they were gone and along with all the other gay shit and started to suspect something queer was going on

I think Tatum knows there's something up, like Stu is so obviously and openly into Billy it would be hard to ignore that as his girlfriend. He constantly sides with Billy, chooses him over pretty much everything else.

Honestly with Sid I see her as pretty checked out after her moms death, I don't really think she's all that present with Billy when they spend time together, and I think Tatum is also focused on her and making sure she's ok. Like the only reason they get away with the bathroom hookup during The Craft is that their girlfriends are also more focused on each other than they are on their boyfriends.

I truly think Tatum likes Stu and has fun with him, but from the conversations she has with Sid (like convo in the grocery store) I don't think she sees him as a life partner, and I doubt she expects them to stay together when they go to college the next year. I think if Stu straight up told her he was in love with Billy she would think he had bad taste but I don't think she would be devastated or even all that surprised.

Id say Sid also knows there's vibes happening, especially from the way she talks to them at the end of the movie and the queer-coded insults she directs at Billy specifically. After their behaviour in the kitchen I feel like you would need to be completely oblivious not to see that something is going on.

That said, with her I think she's kind of existing in a trauma fog through the movie, basically until the end when she snaps and starts fighting back, I think it's this moment of her seeing Billy clearly, instead of seeing him through her guilt and loss. So I don't think she necessarily put it together before the end of the movie but I think it was sort of hanging out in the back of her mind.

The other factor here is that queerness only really came into mainstream cultural awareness in the 90's. There wasn't much open or explicit gay shit happening in media, so I think it's also not something people would be reading into other peoples behaviour as quickly as we do now, which is how I think they get away with as much as they do. They're just boy best friends, right? And to the outside world Billy seems mostly annoyed with Stu. Even now, in 2023 people on twitter are reading these dudes as straight. Wild.

[camyfilms]

PHILADELPHIA 1993

Some of these people make me sick. But a law's been broken here. You do remember the law, don't you?

[quitecontraryy]

Ain't no angel gonna greet me It's just you and I, my friend And my clothes don't fit me no more A thousand miles just to slip this skin The night has fallen, I'm lyin' awake I can feel myself fading away So receive me brother with your faithless kiss Or will we leave each other alone like this

[rwpohl]

streets of philadelphia, bruce springsteen 1993

[klearilist]

watched philadelphia (1993) for the first time seven years ago to the day. life was changed forever

[gracie-bird]

"East Falls' princess gets her postage due" - The Philadelphia Enquirer, Sat, Mar 27, 1993 ·Page 12.

[twig-tea]

It is so late in the evening but I just have to add a bit of context for what the culture was like when this film came out. As a kid I was exposed to these posters and also PSA commercials about HIV/AIDS:

This ad exemplifies the level of awareness people had in the late 80s and early 90s; the government paid to educate the public on transmission, of course, but also what doesn't cause transmission, because people were panicked. Denzel Washington's character was not just rampantly homophobic, he was the representation of the attitudes of the majority of people in North America at the time. AZT had only been in Canada for 3 years and the US for 6 when Philadelphia came out. People didn't really have a sense that HIV was livable yet; and the media about AIDS before it had been about straight people even though it was known as the "gay disease" because those were the only people who were thought to invoke sympathy. There were dedicated hotlines set up for people to ask questions because so many people still knew so little about it. Almost everyone in certain social circles knew someone who had died, but people weren't talking about it due to shame. This is the context in which Philadelphia hired HIV patients from a local AIDS clinic as extras for the film, and got two of the most beloved actors of the time to star. This movie set out to change the context in which it was created and I respect the hell out of it for that. I remember seeing these ads (and similar ones about sharing a toilet seat) on the same channel that aired Philadelphia when it made its way from theatres to TV.

All that is to say, this film is very important to me, thank you for doing such a great job discussing it, and to @bengiyo for including it on the syllabus.

Bengiyo's Queer Cinema Syllabus

I am currently working my way through Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley, the totally light-hearted, definitely not agonizing section of @bengiyo's queer cinema syllabus where I get to watch countless acts of violence be committed against queer people. Thank fuck I have Lesbians waiting for me at the end of this unit. The films in Unit 4 are: Bent (1997), Strange Fruit (2004),Boys Don’t Cry (1999), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Parting Glances (1986), Philadelphia (1993), The Living End (1992), Holding the Man (2015), Jeffery (1995), and Boys on the Side (1995).

Today i will be talking about

Philadelphia (1993) dir. Jonathan Demme 

[Run Time: 2:05, Available on: YouTube for rent, Google Play, Amazon, Lang: English]

Summary: When a man with HIV is fired by his law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.

Cast: * Tom Hanks as Andrew Beckett * Denzel Washington as Joe Miller * Antonio Banderas as Miguel

___

To steal a comment from @lurkingshan, it has been awhile since I’ve watched a good legal thriller. Philadelphia is brilliant, and I don’t just mean in the general sense, I mean it is smart. It is smart in how it sets itself up. We start with Andy and Joe on opposites sides of a court room, we can see the rapport between them, but we set them up on opposite sides from the beginning. We move from there to Andy at the hospital, receiving his transfusions, looking across the way to a man whose karposi’s sarcoma has advanced to the end stages a look to where Andy himself will end in this film. And then to Andy’s law office where there is physical touch, after physical touch, after physical touch. Some that happen so quickly, others that linger, that the camera focuses in on, and I only wish that we’d seen Andy the day after that meeting, because I would be curious to see if and how the physical touches changed with people in the office. 

But that’s not what we get, and we don’t really need it because what is truly important is that Andy is sicker than he originally let on. The point is that the law firm set Andy up while he was away. The point is that at so many stages in this film I was mad. And that was how I was supposed to be. I was mad at all the homophobic pieces of shit that were sitting there making excuses, that based a significant portion of their legal argument about not discriminating against Andy because he was gay with HIV, by trying to discredit Andy’s character because he was gay. [and of course the law office used a woman as their representation and had a Black man at their table as well…you know they were really trying to look good]

gif by @rancidtofu

You might know by now that I love a complicated relationship, so I was really thrilled that Joe eventually decided to represent Andy. Because Joe was homophobic as fuck, and he very much did not want to take the case. But again this film is smart, we never have to hear from Joe’s mouth or anyone’s for that matter that Joe decided to work with Andy after seeing how he was being treated by the librarian, but we know there’s no way it isn’t informed by experiences of racism in Black communities. The way Joe was stared at by a library worker when he was sitting at his table, the way Andy was stared at by a library worker when he was sitting at his table. The way Andy was being suggestively ushered away to somewhere out of view to other library patrons. 

I loved that Joe was viciously homophobic because it demonstrates so well the boundary between work and personal life. Joe is able to do his job and do it well, and eventually after months of working with Andy, is able to come around, even touching Andy’s face which we know even has a lesion on it, by the end of the film. That is huge from someone that started the film literally running immediately to the doctor to make sure he didn’t have AIDS from shaking Andy’s hand. From a modern lens I can totally see how that would probably feel stereotypical or derivative or something like that but I think it is important to keep in mind that this film was one of the first Hollywood movies to feature HIV/AIDS and also portray gay people in a positive light. I haven’t actually been adding the for/by/about designations to the Heartbreak Alley films because something about doing that didn’t really sit right to me when we’re discussing the violence to and death of queer people. But this film definitely was not made for queer people, and Tom Hanks acknowledges that he was cast in the role for his “non-intimidating screen persona” and that “one of the reasons people weren’t afraid of this movie was because I was playing a gay man.” 

The casting here was strategic to further assist audiences in sympathizing with a gay, HIV positive character. 

gif by @rancidtofu

I really love all the little moments of solidarity, the smiles between the Black secretary at the law office and Joe because They Know™ about experiences of discrimination in the workplace. The solidarity between the secretary with AIDS and Andy. I loved that a Black woman was teaching Andy how to apply make up to cover his lesions. I loved that Andy’s entire family knew that he was gay, knew he had AIDS, knew he had a partner and that they all loved and accepted him, and that he had so many people in his life that truly, well, and deeply cared for him. 

And I love how that is used to deliver maximum emotional impact, at least to me, in one single stupid opera line. 

I genuinely enjoyed essentially sitting in a court room for two hours watching Joe strategize, and execute his traps for the jury to win them over. I love how you know that they have won the second that a juror repeats verbatim a line Joe had said repeatedly throughout the trial. I am grateful the film was kind enough to let Andy be awake and alert enough to know that they had won. That his one of his last acts on earth was getting to engage with the part of law he loved most: “that every once in awhile, not often, but occasionally, you get to play a part in justice being done” Justice was done here, Joe and Andy both played a role in what could potentially become another precedented case in the roster to build towards a stronger future for gay people in the workplace. I think that (though likely coupled with how much his body was beginning to fail) is what finally made him ready to go. Because for so much of this film he would hesitate when it came to death. 

gif by @rancidtofu

He froze over the line “the actual physical [death]” when quoting the line about AIDS causing a social death. He talked about planning his memorial to try to get a reaction out of Miguel, and when Miguel gave him a response he very much did not want to hear “maybe you should” he took Miguel to a party, he talked about opera instead of practicing his Q&A. 

I am grateful the film ends at his memorial, not just for the memories, though I am especially glad it ends on a video of Andy as a child (to appeal to the ‘he was somebody’s kid type of crowd) but that the memorial was not entirely gloomy. There was life, there was conversation, there were smiles, it made things feel more real. Just like all “see you tomorrow” lies everyone knew they were telling themselves felt real. 

Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington are such powerhouses of actors and I am so so grateful that they did this project together. 

Favorite Scene 

(I am acknowledging that these gifs by @antoniosbanderas have nothing to do with my listed favorite scene, but I just need you all to know that the scene of these two laying in bed was cut from the final edit of the film, so I didn't actually get to watch it, so now you know it exists if you didn't already)

My favorite scene is when the law firm is questioning Melissa Benedict, a secretary that used to work with one of the lawyers in his previous firm. Melissa was diagnosed with AIDS after a blood transfusion, and she was put on the stand to prove one of the lawyers knew what AIDS lesions looked like and therefore was able to identify that Andy had HIV a week before he was fired. 

I was ready to reach through my screen to smack a bitch when the law firm’s representation started trying to make a moral argument, that Melissa’s AIDS was acceptable AIDS to have in an office because she involuntarily contracted the disease through a medical procedure, whereas Andy had had gay sex and therefore voluntarily risked acquiring HIV. And you can just see Melissa looking over at Andy so often when the law firm is trying to make this argument, and trying to get Melissa to answer questions in a way that would make her seem like she is actually of the law firm’s opinion. 

And she doesn’t let them do that to Andy. Instead she looks right at him and she qualifies her response saying: “But I don’t consider myself any different from anyone else with this disease. I’m not guilty, I’m not innocent, I’m just trying to survive” and it is just a beautiful moment for me. Especially because this film is trying to portray queer people in a positive light, having a straight, white woman with a disease she had no way of preventing say that she was just like anyone else with AIDS is hugely important to driving that message home. 

Favorite Quote 

gif by @fran-kubelik

I am so sorry in advance for how long this quote is, and that 90% of it is technically just Andy translating an opera but: 

“‘Look the place that cradled me is burning.’ Do you hear the heartache in her voice? Can you feel it Joe? Now in come the strings and it changes everything. It’s like the music, it fills with a hope. And that’ll change again. Listen. Listen. “I bring sorrow to those who love me” oh oh that single cello. “It was during this sorrow that love came to me.” (sobbing) “A voice filled with harmony. It said, live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It���s the blood and the mud. I am divine! I am oblivion. I am the god that comes down from the heavens to the earth and makes of the earth a heaven. I am love. I am love.” 

The level of emotion, the implication behind each and every line that he translates, the way that those lines spoke to me as a queer person. “Look the place that cradled me is burning” this body, his body is failing; this life, his life is coming to an end. “I bring sorrow to those who love me” we see that with Andy’s mom, with his entire family for that matter, we see how loved he was and know that his death is going to be a devastating blow for a lot of people. “It was during sorrow love came to me” Miguel is there for all of it, through all of it. When he collapses in court, his family is the first to get to him, to try to help him. When he’s in the hospital the entire hallway is flooded with people that love him. Andy breaks at this point in his monologue, choking out the line “A voice filled with harmony. It said, live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It’s the blood and the mud.” I do not think Andy was ready to go until the very end when he finally said he was. Live still. Andy wants to live still. I am life. Heaven is in your eyes. It’s everything around you. It’s the blood and the mud. He will see Heaven soon, he is looking at the world through the lens of a dying man. “I am the god that comes down from the heavens to the earth and makes of the earth a heaven” We have one life to live, we should use it well, Andy has so much love in his life, that’s truly such a heavenly thing to have. He is seeking justice, in such a way that others might be protected the way he wasn’t. “I am love. I am love.” 

I just. 

I don’t know y’all I just really liked this film. 

Score 

9.5/10

I’m salty that Denzel wasn’t nominated for an Oscar, though I am wholly unsurprised, and I am glad Tom Hanks won and that his speech included praise of Denzel. 

““And an actor who put his film image at risk and shown because of his integrity, Mr. Denzel Washington who I very much share this with”

Lovely film, highly recommend.  Now on to The Living End

[wheel-of-fish]

The Phantom of the Opera on TV (and streaming)!

I've been sitting on this list for two years in hopes of making it complete, but I realized if I wait that long I'll never post it. Let me know what I've missed!

Please note that I haven't watched all of these in their entirety and can't attest to their quality/content.

Adaptations

1983 - The Phantom of the Opera (TV movie starring Maximilian Schell, Jane Seymour)

1990 - The Phantom of the Opera (TV miniseries starring Charles Dance, Teri Polo)

Parodies

1961 - The Woody Woodpecker Show, S4. E13, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1962 - Beany and Cecil, S1 E12, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1966 - That Girl, S1 E14, "Phantom of the Horse Opera"

1968 - The Pink Panther, S1 E17, "Cherche le Phantom"

1971 - Night Gallery, S2 E4, "Phantom of What Opera?"

1974 - The Phantom of Hollywood (TV movie)

1987 - Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater, "The Phantom of the Theater"

1989 - Julie & Carol: Together Again, "Phantom of the Opry" sketch (TV special starring Carol Burnett, Julie Andrews)

1989 - Babar, S1 E13, "The Phantom"

1989 - Count Duckula, S1 E21, "Fright at the Opera"

1991 - Night Court, S9 E1 & E2, "A Guy Named Phantom" (clip)

1993 - Doug, S3 E5, "Doug's Huge Zit"

1994 - Lamb Chop in the Haunted Studio (TV movie starring Shari Lewis)

1995 - Goosebumps, S1 E7, "Phantom of the Auditorium"

1995 - Wishbone, S1 E37, "Pantin' at the Opera" (part 1 | part 2)

1998 - Anatole, S1 E9, "The Phantom of the Cheese"

1999 - The Triplets, S5 E9, "The Phantom of the Opera"

2000 - Are You Afraid of the Dark?, S7 E10, "The Tale of the Last Dance"

2000 - SpongeBob SquarePants, S2 E22, "Something Smells" (clip)

2010 - Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, S1 E7, "In Fear of the Phantom"

2015 - All Hail King Julien, S2 E15, "The Phantom of Club Moist"

2019 - If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, S2 E6, "If You Give a Mouse a Pumpkin"

2019 - The Tom and Jerry Show, S3 E76, "PhanTom of the Oompah"

Character appearances

1981 - The Munsters' Revenge, TV movie (clip)

1984 - Diff'rent Strokes, S6 E16, "Hooray for Hollywood - Part 1"

1997 - "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" music video (HD version)

2009 - Saturday Night Live, "Save Broadway" sketch

2010 - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, S6 E7, "Who Got Dee Pregnant?" (clip)

2010 - Ghouls, multiple episodes (clip)

2020 - Saturday Night Live, "Airport Sushi" sketch

ALW musical references

2006 - Family Guy, S4 E23, "Deep Throats" (clip)

2012 - Glee, S3 E18, "Choke" (clip)

2015 - The Late Late Show, Sept. 10: "James Corden joins the cast of The Phantom of the Opera"

2015 - The Late Late Show, Sept. 23: "Crosswalk the Musical: The Phantom of the Opera"

2016 - The Goldbergs, S4 E8, "The Greatest Musical Ever Written" (clip)

2018 - Jeopardy!, Feb. 15 show (clip)

2018 - The Late Late Show, June 18: "Crosswalk the Musical: Andrew Lloyd Webber classics"

2019 - The Umbrella Academy, S1 E1, "We Only See Each Other at Weddings and Funerals" (audio)

2020 - Dash & Lily, S1 E4, "Cinderella"

2020 - The Crown, S4 E9, "Avalanche" (clip)

2022 - The Masked Singer, S8 E4, "Andrew Lloyd Webber Night"

Other

1991 - David Copperfield: Secret of the Phantom of the Opera (TV special)

[a-very-tired-jew]

Oh look, Samidoun was finally labeled as the front for the PFLP that is has been this entire time. They’ve been around for years and it has been an open secret that they, and other groups, were fronts for PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.

While this is a good thing that it’s finally happening, I have to ask. Why now? This has been known for years. Samidoun has been organizing events for over a decade. These include fundraisers, protests, and educational events. They’re one of the major groups that has been “educating” these “activists” for years. And by their own admission, and according to multiple governments, they’re the ones behind many of the student protests on college campuses.

That means these college students have been “educated” by a terrorist front group. There’s a reason why so many of these college encampments, protests, and groups have been parroting terrorist talking points and justifying them under the guise of progressive language. They were literally taught to do so by a NGO that was pretending to be anything other than what it actually is; a terrorist front.

Again, I have to repeat that this very tactic was documented in the 1993 Palestine Committee Meeting in Philadelphia that had members of Hamas and affiliates discuss using progressive rhetoric and academia to manipulate and misinform Westerners to their cause. This meeting was wiretapped and documented by the FBI, and made public during the Holy Land Foundation trials in the mid 00’s.

Not only that, but the meeting also contains details about how they would create fake charities to raise money for their respective group. They would tell naive Westerners that it was for innocent civilians, rights, and other things that appealed to them, all the while they would be funneling money into their own pockets.

Hopefully this will see a shift in the landscape of this entire thing as domestic and international agencies finally get around to labeling terrorist fronts for what they are.

[queerism1969]

Movies and series with the best LGBTQIA++ representation:

Queer as Folk: 1999

The Secret of the River: 2023

Fantasmas: 2023

Los Espookys: 2019

The L Word: 2004

Six Feet Under: 2001

Pose: 2018

Sense8: 2015

Mindhunter: 2017

Altered Carbon: 2018

The Handmaid's Tale: 2017

Transparent: 2014

Giri/Haji: 2019

Hannibal: 2013

Carmilla: 2014

Love, Victor: 2020

We Are Lady Parts: 2021

It's a Sin: 2021

Young Royals: 2021

Heartstopper: 2022

Watchmen: 2019

Sex Education: 2019

Solar Opposites: 2020

Our Flag Means Death: 2022

Smiley: 2022

The Other Two: 2019

9-1-1: Lone Star: 2020

Feel Good: 2020

I Am Not Okay With This: 2020

Everything Sucks!: 2018

The Haunting of Bly Manor: 2020

I May Destroy You: 2020

P-Valley: 2020

Ragnarok: 2020

Schitt’s Creek: 2015

One Day At A Time: 2017

The Bastard Son & The Devil Himself: 2022

Big Mouth: 2017

Everything Now: 2023

Heartbreak High: 2022

Fellow Travelers: 2023

The Sandman: 2022

Mary & George: 2024

Everything's Gonna Be Okay: 2020

Vida: 2018

The Fall of the House of Usher: 2023

Interview with the Vampire: 2022

The Sex Lives of College Girls: 2021

With Love: 2021

Andor: 2022

GAP: 2022

The Horror of Dolores Roach: 2023

Helluva Boss: 2019

Severance: 2022

Baby Reindeer: 2023

Under the Bridge: 2024

The Legend of Vox Machina: 2022

What We Do in the Shadows: 2019

Hacks: 2021

The Wire: 2002

Lucifer: 2016

Sort Of: 2021

Four More Shots Please!: 2019

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: 2023

Modern Family: 2009

Brooklyn Nine-Nine: 2013

Blue Eye Samurai: 2023

Made in Heaven: 2019

A League of Their Own: 2022

Saas, Bahu Aur Flamingo: 2023

Dallas Buyers Club: 2013

Brokeback Mountain: 2005

God's Own Country: 2017

Thelma: 2017

Love, Simon: 2018

Kaathal – The Core: 2023

Uncle Frank: 2020

Khel Khel Mein: 2021

Red, White & Royal Blue: 2023

All of Us Strangers: 2023

Moonlight: 2016

Portrait of a Lady on Fire: 2019

Booksmart: 2019

The Handmaiden: 2016

Pariah: 2011

Everything Everywhere All at Once: 2022

Blue Is the Warmest Color: 2013

Saving Face: 2004

Philadelphia: 1993

The Whale: 2022

Badhaai Do: 2022

Aligarh: 2015

Below Her Mouth: 2016