Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast for childless cat ladies everywhere.

This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with graphic memoirist, professor, and podcaster, Nicole J. Georges (@nicolejgeorges), and talk about why the 1990 children’s fever dream, The Witches, Should've Been Gay. If you saw this movie when you were a kid, you just might have a thing for dark haired high femmes with impossibly purple eyes. 

Children’s movies in the 80s and early 90s really went all in on nightmare fuel, and The Witches is no exception. This “baby’s first body horror” delivers everything from Animorphs-style transformations to traumatized kids trapped in paintings, plus a convention full of witchy femmes casually peeling off their wigs…and then their faces.

The story kicks off with Luke’s grandmother basically issuing a public service announcement about suspiciously stylish, childless cat ladies in sensible shoes, and then immediately kills off Luke’s parents in a tragic accident. With his parents gone, Luke goes to England with his grandmother, where their hotel just happens to be hosting a witch convention led by the highest femme we’ve ever seen, Grand High Witch, Miss Ernst (Anjelica Huston). Luke accidentally stumbles into the convention, overhears Miss Ernst’s extremely chill plan to turn all the children in England into mice, and is immediately turned into a mouse himself alongside his new buddy Bruno. Together with his grandmother, Luke and Bruno set out to stop the witches for good.

Witches, and villains in general, have always been queer coded, but in The Witches it barely even feels like subtext. The queerness is so loud it might as well be canon. We get into the chosen family of cults, the oddly sexual energy of fish paste on cucumber sandwiches, and the most important question, are all mice gay?

We know one thing for sure, The Witches Should’ve Been Gay.

Nicole’s latest book, Emotional Support Animals, featuring therapeutic animal illustrations, worksheets, and grounding exercises is available now. Hear more musings from Nicole on her podcast Sagittarian Matters. Nicole also co-hosts The Gaymazing Race podcast alongside author and professor Karen Tongson. 

Join our Patreon family for as little as $5 per month to unlock 25+ full-length bonus episodes, ad-free weekly episodes, mp3 downloads of our original songs, exclusive Discord access, and more! 

You can also support the show by shopping small at bit.ly/lezmerch & picking up Lez-ssentials songs on Bandcamp.

Give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Email us @[email protected]. Connect with us individually: Ellie Brigida (@elliebrigida). Leigh Holmes Foster (@lshfoster).

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices