Feel Familiar? Emotionally Intelligent History

Full disclosure: We had wanted to title this episode "Dixie Chicks With D*cks," but then thought the better of it. Did you know that no less a conservative stalwart than the United Daughters of the Confederacy gave Womanless Weddings their start? Yup, men dragged-up to raise money for all those stone statues of men on horseback with swingin' swords and swell hair. Plus, we consider what someone has to do to get a dessert named after them, and I almost certainly mispronounce "Chilhowie, Virginia."  

Guest: Stephen Robinson. 

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

No one's really sure where Womanless Weddings came from. They seem to have sprung into existence in the mid-1910s in the South. But other amusements, from rowdy Medieval rituals, to vaudeville songs about cheating spouses, to peculiar goings-on in American parlors in the mid-1800s—including seances and charades—paved the way. Also, Stephen talks about seeing David Byrne in concert. And Joshua recounts hosting a concert by punk-rockabilly-folk artist Johnny Dowd in his living room. (Joshua's living room, that is. And no, the neighbors didn't complain. Here, have a look-and-listen.)

Guest: Stephen Robinson. 

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

There was a time when millions of men across America joined frats for (kind-of) grownups: Elks, Knights of Pythias, and scores of others. What helped them bond with and bromance one another? You guessed it: impersonating women. Lodges totally embraced Womanless Weddings and other drag artistry. What better way to keep icky, yucky girls away?! Plus, Stephen will talk about reviewing The Crying Game when he was in college.

Guest: Stephen Robinson. 

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

Starting in the 1890s, American college students formed all-male clubs to put on elaborate drag plays and musicals. Harvard had Hasty Pudding, the University of Michigan had the Mimes, and the University of Pennsylvania, Mask & Wig. Luminaries from Teddy Roosevelt to Jimmy Stewart were members of these much-admired organizations. None-too-woke college professors and deans worried it might turn college men queer. But students and alumni cheered them on. Then, during the First World War, American, British, and Canadian soldiers used canvas and gauze to make costumes for wartime drag shows beloved by both the brass and the enlisted men. Also, Stephen talks about the right's ongoing preoccupation with the movie White Chicks.

Guest: Stephen Robinson. 

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

Beginning in the 1800s, doctors, researchers, and men of science decided sex and gender was suddenly in their wheelhouse, not the church's. Now if you were queer or cross-dressed, you weren't a sinner, just sick or "inverted." Havelock Ellis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Sigmund Freud, and others brought sexuality into the modern age. That had some serious repercussions for men who dressed like ladies for a living. But real men weren't about to give up drag. In fact, it all set the stage for what was has been called the golden age of female impersonation in America. Also, Stephen recounts how the thick-flannel grunge look was hard at the hot, subtropical University of Georgia, and Joshua recalls catching R.E.M. in Newport News, Virginia all those years ago.

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

With women playing women onstage, female impersonation took a turn for the comical, the campy, and the cartoonish. Legendary "dames" like Dan Leno and Bert Savoy pioneered the art of "false disguise." During the late 1800s, that most troublingly American entertainment genre, the blackface minstrel show, reinvigorated heartfelt, illusionistic drag and set the stage for the return of men in "beautiful" and compelling female roles. Speaking of camp, we'll also talk about Andy's longtime fear of getting hit by lightning which started at the all-boys summer camp where kids dragged-up to do theatre.

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

Juliet, Ophelia, and Lady Macbeth were all originally written for and played by men. Then women broke onto the scene and, for a time, theatre bros around London argued that drag artists were better than actual women onstage. We also talk about M*A*S*H, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and drag at Andy's all-boys summer camp. 

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

You thought drag and female impersonation was something subversive and perverse? Think again! In Golden Age Greece 2,500 years ago, then later in Roman times, men dressed up as women onstage to enjoy power and prestige, and to show what a woman ought to look like. Cut to our day: the Alabama legislature might have banned drag, but at least one of those lawmakers dressed-up as a fetching lady for "Womanless Wedding," a decades-long tradition among prominent men in Dixie whose origins and meanings we will explore. 

Voice Actors: Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon

Full list of sources for Season Two.

"Wagner Bridal Chorus" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" 

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

Welcome to Season Two of "Feel Familiar? Emotionally Intelligent History." We're looking at how drag has served men, boys, dudes, patriarchs, generals, politicians, and businessmen very nicely from olden days to the twentieth century. Our guest is journalist and podcaster Stephen Robinson (PlayTyperGuy.com). You'll also hear voice acting from Mary Birdsong, Katty Biscone, and John Rincon. 

We hope you'll love Season Two: "'Womanless': How Drag and the Manosphere Have Been Bros, from Ancient Greece to the American Deep South."

("Wagner Bridal Chorus," Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/")

Season Two sources.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.

Join us to explore feelings, thoughts, culty mobs, angry people, and how our brain can deceive us, while our reflective mind can save us. Featured guest is therapist, author, and mental health educator Hannah Smith, MA, LMHC, CGP,  founder of Potential-Finders Network and its education branch, The Village Education & Growth Collective. Hannah is also the author Lasting Change: Overcoming the Grip of Anxiety, Depression, & Trauma with "User-Friendly" Neuroscience.

Theme Music: Kelly Dwyer. Logo Design: Mary Birdsong. Producer/Editor: Joshua Dudley.