#334: Lara is obsessed with the new A League of Their Own series, and loved the original movie. Link and Josué join her in discussing how the show expands on themes and characters in the original, and how showing queer joy really hits a home run.

Josué Cardona 0:11
Welcome to GT Radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Josué Cardona. And my co hosts for tonight are Link Keller.

Link Keller 0:24
Hello.

Josué Cardona 0:25
and Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:26
Hi,

Josué Cardona 0:28
Lara, it’s your turn.

Lara Taylor 0:30
I sound more excited every week.

Josué Cardona 0:32
You sound great.

Lara Taylor 0:33
Fabulous. Fabulous.

Josué Cardona 0:36
It is my pleasure to have you here. Yes.

Lara Taylor 0:39
It’s my turn to pick and I want to talk about some gay ass shit.

Josué Cardona 0:43
Okay. Yeah.

Link Keller 0:44
mmmYeah,

Lara Taylor 0:47
I mean, I had an idea and we can talk about that. But I also the show itself is pretty good. I want to talk about a league of their own.

Josué Cardona 0:55
The movie or the series?

Lara Taylor 0:58
Both, either, compare contrast. Yeah, yeah.

Josué Cardona 1:04
I’ve seen the movie many times. I’m a fan.

Lara Taylor 1:06
I’ve seen the movie very, very many times.

Josué Cardona 1:10
My favorite Madonna song is this used to be my playground?

Lara Taylor 1:15
It’s where I fell in love with Geena Davis.

Josué Cardona 1:18
She’s great. Yeah.

Lara Taylor 1:20
And Rosie O’Donnell and. And Madonna. I

Josué Cardona 1:27
I’ve mentioned Geena Davis on the show many times because of the Geena Davis Foundation. And their motto is if she can see it, she can be it. It’s for girls to see like in media to see you very positive portrayal

Link Keller 1:39
it’s only for Geena Davis

Lara Taylor 1:40
The Geena Davis Foundation, where Geena Davis can see herself in all the media she’s been in.

Josué Cardona 1:51
And be it.

Lara Taylor 1:53
Um, but

Josué Cardona 1:55
long kiss good night. Have any of you watched that movie?

Lara Taylor 1:57
No.

Josué Cardona 1:58
I love that movie where she where she plays an assassin. That was that loses her memory. And then Samuel Jackson shows up like as her handler and she’s a housewife. No,

Lara Taylor 2:11
no, but that sounds like bad ass. It’s Geena Davis. You better not be quoting the wrong

Josué Cardona 2:16
I’m pretty sure

Lara Taylor 2:18
Okay, Link says yes.

Josué Cardona 2:19
Just gonna Yeah, okay. Yeah. My first DVDs I bought, like the one I haven’t seen in a while. Continue, sorry.

Lara Taylor 2:26
Yeah, yeah. No, but I’m watching that movie. As a kid. I could probably quote the whole movie from beginning to end. Maybe not off the top of my head. But if you got me going, I could the whole thing. The song that they sing, is there like it? I sing it all the time. And it’s been stuck in my head for weeks now. I think so. If nobody has heard of a league of their own, it’s about the women’s all American girls baseball team or baseball league. During the during World War Two when the men were off at war, and all the baseball players got shipped off to war. So who was going to play baseball? women were going to play baseball. I almost want to say like there was a lot of things that went over my head in the movie when I was a kid like they were talking about STDs and I had no idea avoid the clap Jimmy Dugan. But I the the movie itself. It hit me as a kid like, I love baseball. I am probably the only person on this podcast who loves baseball

Josué Cardona 3:43
can confirm

Lara Taylor 3:45
can confirm and just watch it. I love baseball movies. More than actual like baseball. I feel like baseball is an experience when you go to when you go to the game. It’s different than when you’re sitting at home watching on TV. I still love watching baseball games on TV and missed it when COVID happened and there was no baseball going on. And I definitely tuned in for the weird games with the canned audience and the cutouts and all of that. And I hope they someday make a movie about baseball I think the weirdness of baseball during COVID

Josué Cardona 4:23
be like the league of their own. Tom Hanks plays a cardboard cutout in the stands.

Lara Taylor 4:31
I have a feeling one a Tom Hanks was probably a cardboard cutout for one of the teams. But it was one of those movies that was like you saw women doing something that they wouldn’t normally be doing and this is in the 90s Fast forward to now. I did not as a kid watching that movie originally. Like as an adult looking back on the movie. I know how gay That movie was. But as a kid, they shied away from a lot of it. And Rosie O’Donnell played her character very queer even though it was never said.

Josué Cardona 5:09
So an interview with her recently where she said that she was told to like tone it down

Lara Taylor 5:13
did you see an interview or a tik tok of an interview?

Josué Cardona 5:16
Look, I don’t know where I saw things anymore, but it was most likely on Tik Tok.

Lara Taylor 5:22
Because I saw that tik tok

Josué Cardona 5:23
it counts it counts.

Lara Taylor 5:24
It does. It does. Yeah, yeah. But she she played the character queer even though the director told her not this isn’t gay. And in that interview, she says, Well, they’re making a TV show of A League of Their Own, with but with gay. And I’ve been excited about this show since I heard about it. It was off my radar for a while. And then all of a sudden, I saw an ad that it was going to be on Amazon. And that’s all Nina and I did that week was watch A League of Their Own. It was amazing. And I think the original concept I came up with when I was pitching the idea, the show today was like, how do reboots or remakes or whatever, bring new context to things and I think watching that movie as a kid, and as an adult, I had somewhat of an idea of what the experience was. But watching this show, they give you more time with characters that are clearly built off of ideas of characters in the in the movie, and different new ideas as well. But watching what it was like to be queer, a queer person, a queer black person a queer black person working in a factory in in World War Two, it was it was definitely interesting and brought, I don’t know new context and the show broke me a few times. I definitely cried a lot. I think more than I did. watching the movie as a kid. Because spoilers for a movie that’s like 30 years old. The Rockford peaches don’t win the whole thing. And it was very sad for me. But I don’t know. Josué you saw that movie.

Josué Cardona 7:31
I have seen the movie.

Lara Taylor 7:33
Did you watch any of the show?

Josué Cardona 7:35
I did. I watched I’ve I’m halfway through the third episode.

Lara Taylor 7:39
Okay, I haven’t gotten to the ones that broke me yet. But

Josué Cardona 7:42
yeah,

Lara Taylor 7:43
I don’t know.

Josué Cardona 7:44
Yeah,

Lara Taylor 7:44
I had a hard time the first episode. I was like, oh, that’s clearly supposed to be Dottie Henson. And oh, that’s clearly supposed to be Doris Murphy.

J...