Queer as Folklore

**New episodes coming soon!**

A folklorist, an ethnologist walk into a podcast – This is Queer as Folklore!

Welcome to a semi-academic hangout, where the questions are more important than the answers.

Music: Logan Nickleson

We chat about Pride season and discuss episode eight of Queer as Folk, where we find many variations of power dynamics at play, as well as the dichotomy pride and shame.

Vince slams the car door on commitment to Cameron, Stuart smashes the shop window of homophobia, Nathan gets to kick a queer bashing classmate out of the gay bar.

The season ends on an upbeat note with It’s Raining Men and almost everyone feeling victorious; well, except for Lance who is deported, Romy who has been betrayed by her partner Lisa and Janice who briefly gets her son Nathan home before he runs away to London with his best friend Donna. There’s a lot to unpack here.

This episode was recorded on May 14, just a week after we recorded episode nine. A lot was going on for us in May: Arwen was drowning in essay deadlines, Charlotta was graduating and Marianne was moving apartments. Our moods go from hysterical laughter to mellow contemplation.

And with this episode we wrap up season one and will be back in September. We enjoyed making this first season so much, and we hope you enjoy listening!

Outline

References

Åbo/Turku pride 2019  (some English)

Helsinki pride 2019 (In Finnish)

The video essay by Todd in the Shadows on the song It’s Raining Men is nowhere to be found on his channel, but available here.

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Our discussion keeps circling back to adulthood, or rather becoming an adult.

What is our generation to do when we can no longer rely on, or afford, the markers of adulthood that were afforded to the generation before us, like cars and houses?

Episode seven of Queer as Folk holds a large helping of (men failing at) adulting, a side dish of performing “real” relationships, a sprinkle of Doctor Who trivia.

We celebrate Charlotta, who is graduating with an MA in Folkloristics with gin & tonics (with LOTS of cucumbers, sorry)!

Outline

References

We made a jumbled up reference to Bruce Lee’s “lost interview”.

Twitter thread: signifiers of adulthood by @joshmlabelle

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Clandestine meeting with Lisa and baby Alfred

In 1999 in the faraway land of Manchester there are many ways to form family. What does episode six of Queer as Folk teach us about family?

We found many opposites at work here: marriage/divorce, family of origin/chosen family and the spectrum between accepting and non-accepting parents. Do we owe our parents to come out to them?

At the end of episode 1.06: Stay here, stay queer, get used to it we found parallels between the Harry Potter books and Queer as Folk. In Queer as Folk Nathan is the Harry that enters a magical, partially hidden world of queer Manchester. So in this episode the overview is fantasy themed and there’s art to go along (see below)! We haven’t yet decided who all of the characters correspond to in the Potterverse (who is Hagrid?) but we are firmly decided that Donna is Hermione, and maybe also Ron.

Outline

Maria Doyle Kennedy plays Marie in Queer as Folk and Siobhan Sadler in Orphan Black.

The character Lance is not an Ampelmann, but rather these German pedestraian symbols are.

Helsinki gay club DTM pictures and info (in Finnish) taken from here and here.

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In the back from left to right: Alexander, Vince, Hazel (Molly Weasly), Liza & Romy. In the front: Stuart, Nathan (Potter), Donna (Hermione/Ron).

Dagmar illustrations

Queer + folklore =

What does “queer” and “folklore” mean on this podcast? Is folklore queer? This is our first episode NOT discussing the tv-show Queer as Folk. This is, however, NOT a minisode even though we say so in the intro.

In the first part of the episode we discuss many things queer, often on a personal level. The second part is based on Charlotta’s recent intro lecture to folklore studies, but with snack breaks and questions that potentially have no answers. 

What is the relationship between Folkloristics (or Folklore Studies) and Ethnology? What is folklore and what do folklorists study? Is fan fiction folklore? How is folklore categorized? What is (bicycle) culture? How is Queer as Folk like a fantasy novel? 

Outline 

References

The podcast Nancy on the word queer

The Folklore Podcast

Ted talk by Lynne McNeill: Folklore doesn’t meme what you think it memes

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Strap in for a hands-on, pink, denim, fill-in-the-blank overview of episode five of Queer as Folk! Towards the end we lightly touch upon the concept of dating culture. Our discussion on adulting and gay archetypes was lost due to technical difficulties but the themes will be revisited in upcoming episodes!

Hosts Arwen, Marianne and Charlotta talk about the upcoming Queer as Folk reboot and discuss dating. What kind of Queer as Folk reboot would we like to see and what is dating like in Queer as Folk?

Golden Boy Stuart goes on a work date instead of babysitting for his sister as promised, undersexed Doctor Who fan Vince goes to dinner with Australian accountant Cameron and denim stalker Nathan keeps up the drama. Nathan needs no less than two mothers to keep him on track and he has recently caught politics. Vince plucks up the courage to call Cameron for a second date and he finally gets his shag.

Read the fill-in-the-blank overview from the podcast here.

References

Queer as Folk reboot

The Polyamrous Dating Habits of the North American Red Squirrel by Dia Davina

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https://queerasfolklorecast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/1.06_-stay-here-stay-queer-get-use.mp3

Death is a recurring theme in the series. We talk about funeral traditions and queer death studies. We consider the different relationships between gays and their mothers and Charlotta shares a story from an interaction with her own mother. We swing around to masturbation folklore and end up talking about different sex shops we’ve visited.

Episode four of Queer as Folk: Death and Remembrance

The fourth episode of the series starts on a more serious note: The gay gaggle gathers at Phil’s funeral, which has some unconventional elements that Phil planned himself. During the wake, Vince is the target of some smooth flirting, while Stuart is distracted by a possible shag. Meanwhile, Nathan lends a hand to fellow school mate Christian Hobbes in the changing room. After running away from his prying mother, Nathan shows up at Vince’s moms house demanding everyone’s attention.

Phil’s funeral music of choice

I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper by Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip

D.I.S.C.O by Ottawan

References

On queer death studies: Death at the end of the rainbow (in Finnish) by Varpu Alasuutari.

Liket i garderoben (The corpse in the closet), a doctoral thesis and book by Ingeborg Svensson

Torka aldrig tårar utan handskar (Never wipe tears without gloves), a tv mini-series and book trilogy by Jonas Gardell

Kön och känsla by Maria Bäckman

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You can also get in touch with us at [email protected]

Happy Holidays! We’re taking a break over the holidays and will be back again with new episodes in January 2019.

https://queerasfolklorecast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/1-05_-come-for-the-funeral-stay-for.mp3

Death, disease and drugs. Camp, queer and characterizations. Fat, food and phobias. Spaces, scenes and sex, notably threesomes.

Episode three of Queer as Folk: It happened one night…

Camp Alexander arrives in Manchester with his friend Dane and his boy toy Lee, and the rest of the Gay Gaggle (Stuart, Vince, Phil) head out to the clubs on Canal Street. Nathan comes clean to Donna about Stuart dumping him. They follow the Gay Gaggle to the club Babylon and witness Stuart using his magic words to land a threesome. Alexander and his friend Dane are less choosy and head off with a creepy undertaker. Phil takes home a man who offers him drugs and consequently leaves him to overdose and pass away on his kitchen floor.

References

“I’ve seen Kate Moss in that advert and I felt nothing”

At the end of the episode we look at the Calvin Klein advertising campaign Obsession featuring Kate Moss. Coincidentally we looked at another CK-ad in our first episode, featuring Mark Wahlbergs crotch.

Head over to History is Gay for some lavender linguistics!

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The gaggle of gays

From the left: Stuart, Lee, Nathan, Alexander, Vince, Dane and Phil

Image source

https://queerasfolklorecast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/1-04_-good-things-come-in-threes_.mp3

We get into queer history and sexual narratives.

We open with a piece of local Finnish queer history that relates to Queer as Folk in a surprising way! Then we head off into some sex talk: specifically sex acts seen in Queer as Folk and sexual narratives in general.

On a more personal note: Is it possible to re-write the sexual scripts that culture has taught us? And what is the difference between wanting sex and wanting orgasms? Towards the end we come back to the actual tv-show and talk about Stuarts online manhunt and the man he orders off the menu: “goodfuk” or Responsible Colin, as we call him.

Books & blogs

Sexologist Tanja Suhinina on the difference between wanting orgasms and wanting sex (in Swedish).

The history of gays and lesbians in Åbo/Turku, Finland: Yksityistilaisuus (2005) by Tarja Hautanen (in Finnish).

We use the Swedish Media Database & IMDB

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Image source

https://queerasfolklorecast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/1-03_-liminal-closet-space-part-2.mp3

Coming out continues as a theme in episode two of Queer as Folk. We get into 00s fashion, boybands and queerbaiting, straight pubs and the gay scene. Also queer folk art, namely the AIDS Memorial Quilts.

Stuart goes on a manhunt at work, teen Nathan checks out butts at school and his friend Donna is finally named, and has the most best fashion sense! While Stuart is possibly maybe out at work his emotional-labour friend Vince is not. Yet Vince’s mum comes along to the gay pubs on Canal Street while Stuarts parents are still waiting for their ‘golden boy’ to get straight-married. We go into the ins and outs of Vince and Stuart being in and/or out of the closet.

Outline

Liminal space: Here we use liminal space to mean a space that is in between, a space between definitions or defined spaces. In the case of Stuart it is the space between the inside and the outside of the closet.

HIV-references

The red ribbon, The Names Project ,UK AIDS Memorial Quilt

Music

Sexy Boy by Air, Let Me Entertain You by Robbie Williams, You Think You’re a Man by Divine, Atomic by Blondie.

Bonus: Check out Promises by Take That. Possible queerbaiting, yes?

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Take That ca 1991

https://queerasfolklorecast.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/1-02_-liminal-closet-space-part-1.mp3