Ian Thomas Malone Ian Thomas Malone

Wednesday

27

January 2021

1

COMMENTS

The Lady and the Dale provides a riveting perspective of a trans pioneer

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Pop Culture, TV Reviews

Courtesy of HBO

Trans people often have to deal with people claiming that the trans identity is some sort of “new” phenomenon, despite all the history to the contrary. The life of G. Elizabeth Carmichael is a pretty wild story even before you take her gender identity into consideration. The new HBO four-part documentary The Lady and the Dale offers a wide-ranging portrait of a colorful American life.

True to its title, the series largely splits its attention between Carmichael and the Dale, a three-wheel automobile designed to be the flagship offering for Carmichael’s Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation, which fizzled out in the late 1970s amid criminal fraud charges for Carmichael. The life of Carmichael and the Dale itself would make for fascinating documentaries in their own right, though co-directors Nick Cammilleri and Zackary Drucker do an excellent job weaving the many strands of their story through the four episodes.

Carmichael, a skilled con artist from an early age, makes for a fascinating subject. Though Liz died in 2004, interviews with her family, as well as archival audio tapes provide a thorough examination of her as a person. Carmichael is a complicated figure, a loving mother and a force of nature in the business world, flying a bit too close to the sun with some of her ambitions.

The series uses extensive cut-out animation to liven up some of the archival footage. This approach makes the experience a bit more colorful, while also adding to the emotional resonance of the material. The pacing is quite exceptional, a highly-bingeable experience that leaves you hungry for more at the end of each episode.

Trans people are frequently accused of deception by our very existence. For Liz, a trans woman, this dynamic is complicated by the fact that she was a literal con artist. Her story, especially her prosecution, exposes some of the ways that marginalized people are treated differently both by the justice system and the public at large. Cammilleri and Drucker spend a lot of time on the media reception to the case, including some fascinating interviews with some of the newscasters who worked on the story.

Popular culture is filled with con artists like Jordan Belfort, celebrated by many for their bombastic greed. Shows like Billions and Succession revel in their protagonists’ abilities to game the system. People like Liz Carmichael get treated differently, not necessarily because of the particulars of their crimes, but because of who they are as people.

Which isn’t to say that Liz Carmichael was actually a hero or that she didn’t deserve to be prosecuted for violating securities law among plenty of other offenses. Liz Carmichael did bad things, but The Lady and the Dale isn’t concerned with judgement, providing testimony from her relatives and former employees that paint a much fuller picture of the woman.

In her own way, Liz was a trailblazer. Trans people still face rampant employment discrimination. To see a woman like her take on the big auto companies can give inspiration to anyone looking to carve out their own mark on the world. For too long, women have been told we can’t succeed in a men’s world. Much of Liz’s problems were her of her own making, but she had some impressive achievements. Above all else, Liz lived her life on her own terms.

The Lady and the Dale thoroughly explores a complicated figure in trans history, a fascinating glimpse at a rebel who dared to dream big. One may not necessarily aspire to be like Liz, except in the courage she exhibited to live her truth and ask for more. Being out can be hard enough sometimes. To remove the weights of discrimination will hopefully create a world where more trans people can wield the power that Liz held, if only for a moment.

Wednesday

27

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

Zackary Drucker, director of The Lady and the Dale

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Pop Culture

We are so excited to welcome trans icon Zackary Drucker to the show to talk about her fascinating new HBO documentary series The Lady the Dale. The series dives into the complicated life of G. Elizabeth Carmichael, a trans woman whose Twentieth Century Motor Car Corporation created the three wheel car known as the Dale. Zackary & Ian discuss Liz’s life and legacy and the ways the world responded to her gender identity at the time.

The Lady and the Dale premieres on HBO on January 31st.

Ian’s review of the series: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2021/01/the-lady-and-the-dale-provides-a-riveting-perspective-of-a-trans-pioneer/

Film poster courtesy of HBO. Headshot courtesy of Zackary Drucker.

Monday

25

January 2021

1

COMMENTS

Haymaker is a worthy entry into the trans film canon

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Courtesy of Gravitas Ventures

The last few years have exponentially increased transgender visibility across film and television. Equality requires a bit more than merely being “seen.” Equality requires equity. Trans people need to have more than just a place in the room to stand, we need a seat at the table.

Haymaker follows Nick (Nick Sasso, who also directed the film and wrote the screenplay), a retired Muay Thai fighter, who’s a bit aloof trying to figure out what comes next in his life. Nick is calm and strong, a natural fit for the position of bodyguard, which comes his way via Nomi (Nomi Ruiz), a trans singer in need of a little muscle. The film mostly follows Nick and Nomi as they travel across the globe, developing feelings for one another which clash a bit with Nick’s ambitions to return to the ring.

As a film, Haymaker constantly works to juggle the dual narratives of Nick and Nomi across its eighty-three-minute runtime. Sasso is a capable director, making the most out of what’s clearly a limited budget. With filming locations in New York, Los Angeles, Greece, Mexico, and Thailand, Haymaker works hard to set itself apart from other indie productions.

Sasso is a capable actor, aiming to be more than a stock figure that the fighting genre often uses. As a character, Nick often functions in more of a reactionary capacity than as a driving force, an intriguing dynamic for the point-of-view character. Sasso’s chemistry with Ruiz works well, forgiving the more muddled aspects of his hero’s journey. His writing can be a bit choppy, but there are a handful of scenes that showcase his drive as a storyteller.

Ruiz largely carries the film on the sheer force of her energy. Nomi is pretty absurd character with seemingly boundless wealth, an aspect of the narrative that often feels out of place with the film’s indie production values. There’s something rather refreshing about the film’s outlandish presentation, giving a trans performer a rare opportunity to wield real power on screen.

Haymaker is presented more from Nick’s point of view, but Ruiz is more often than not the main driver in the film, possessing a palpable degree of confidence. It’s a silly romance at times, albeit the kind that trans people are rarely allowed to have on screen. There’s practically no transphobia in the narrative, another refreshing aspect that’s too often sorely missing from trans stories.

Sasso put together an ambitious film, one that consistently strives to be more than its budget would allow. Muay Thai, largely reserved for the third act, doesn’t play as big a role as the film description suggests. Haymaker is a satisfying journey, one that trans people will particularly enjoy.

Haymaker is in theaters, VOD, and Digital on January 29th

Monday

25

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

WandaVision isn’t designed to meet expectations

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Pop Culture, Star Wars, TV Reviews

Courtesy of Disney

WandaVision ushers in a new era for the MCU on the small screen. While Marvel Television only delivered peanuts on its promises of a shared continuity, Marvel Studios has brought the gravitas required to create a real sense of connectivity to its storytelling, largely in the form of its two leads. The Scarlet Witch and Vision hardly got much of a chance to shine across a handful of films that had many other heroes to entertain itself with.

The series largely succeeds on the chemistry of Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany, perpetually eager to act out WandaVision’s many tributes to classic American sitcoms. There are smiles to be had on everyone’s faces, though the audience knows the idyllic suburb is hardly what it seems. Sparking nodes of Marvel Comics, “House of M” and “Decimation” arcs, the show offers a slow burn that gradually hints at what lies ahead in the MCU’s post-Avengers: Endgame world.

WandaVision embraces MCU mastermind Kevin Feige’s key strategy of gradual plotting, having fun in the present while rarely losing sight of what’s eventually to come. Supporting players Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Harris and David Payton help paint the portrait of a world that sparks curiosity that its twenty-two minute episode runtimes can hardly satisfy.

To some extent, it’s a good thing that WandaVision leaves the audience wanting more by the time the credits roll. There is also the reality that this is the first meaningful new piece of MCU content since 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home (not counting Marvel Television’s Helstrom, which served as an uninspired curtain call for the company), the longest stretch in franchise history. It’s a burden that shouldn’t be WandaVision’s to bear, the first glimpse of how the future will look for Marvel on Disney+.

The reliance on humor based in nostalgia for sitcoms that aired more than fifty years ago is bound to rub some people the wrong way. As a company, Disney has increasingly relied on nostalgia as a selling point for much of its cinematic portfolio, including their live action remakes and the Star Wars sequels, which often felt like remakes themselves. People are starved for new Marvel content, only to be presented with references to pieces of Americana that their grandparents grew up with.

Television is a medium that tends to save its biggest bangs for its premieres and finales. WandaVision is presented as event television, only to mostly spend its time mirroring more conventional entries in the form. This formula would almost certainly play better if the audience was treated to a traditional twenty-two episode season that used to be the norm. The fact that most of the audience has waited years to learn the fate of Vision after his Avengers: Infinity War demise doesn’t exactly do much to temper expectations.

WandaVision is solid television, albeit not the kind of fare that’s well designed to live up to unsustainable hype. The Mandalorian is really, really good at producing cinematic-quality storytelling in practically every episode. WandaVision sits in the same category as a standard-bearer for a top-tier streaming service, lacking the sense of mandate to be the MCU’s flagship television offering.

Whether that’s fair or not is kind of beside the point. Olsen and Bettany are fun to watch no matter the circumstances or the state of the MCU’s broader portfolio. There’s a natural sense of urgency to want something to happen, but it’s hard to dwell on that too long when the present put in front us manages to put a smile on one’s face each and every week. Maybe WandaVision will overstay its welcome down the road, but for now, the show is still a delight.

Monday

25

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

Nomi Ruiz, star of Haymaker

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog

We are delighted to welcome Nomi Ruiz, star & producer of the new film Haymaker. Nomi talks about her experiences making the film, incorporating her music background as a singer into the narrative, and the importance of authentic transgender storytelling both behind the scenes and on screen.

Haymaker is in theaters, VOD, and Digital on January 29th

Ian’s review of the film: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2021/01/haymaker-is-a-worthy-entry-into-the-trans-film-canon/

Sunday

24

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

A Woman’s Work squanders its runtime with a surface level look at a complex issue

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Courtesy of 1091 Pictures

It is no secret that the NFL is a big greedy leviathan, offering meager wages to the countless individuals who work to make the games happen at the parks across the country. There is an extra sense of disgusting robbery when it comes to many of the team’s cheerleading squads. While treated essentially as employees, many of the cheerleaders were forced to pay their own expenses while not even receiving a salary for much of the year.

The film A Woman’s Work hones in on two cheerleaders who sought legal recourse for this absurd abuse. Lacy, a cheerleader for the Oakland Raiderettes, and Maria, who danced for the Buffalo Jills, saw their dreams come true upon earning a coveted spot on their respective squads. Dance is in their blood, a dynamic that’s unfortunately at odds with their respective employers, a fact complicated by the fact that the teams would much rather classify them as independent contractors.

Lacy and Maria make for compelling protagonists. Neither appears to have wished for this kind of publicity, much of it negative, especially from alumnae of their organizations. Director Yu Gu spends much of the narrative focusing in on their personal lives. Both women are inspirational figures who had the courage to take on a billion dollar monopoly, bringing about real change in the process.

As far as the documentary goes though, A Women’s Work spends much of its 80 minutes following the two around as they go about their daily lives. Yu uses a lot of what’s essentially b-roll footage of them riding around on bikes, meandering sequences that add little to the narrative. At a certain point, you start to wonder why the film digging deeper into the systemic roots of this inequality.

There are several scenes with Lacy’s female-led legal team that provide a great explainer into her case. Even here, Yu includes some more b-roll footage of the lawyers flipping through legal books in a way that comes across almost like a commercial rather than a documentary. The various strands just don’t connect all that well.

This dynamic is exacerbated when it comes to Maria’s male-dominated legal staff, a much less impressive operation than Lacy’s. When pontificating over the recent 1.4 billion dollar sale of the Bills to new owner, Terry Pegula, one of Maria’s lawyers speculates as to the percentage of value that the Buffalo Jills added to the equation. He starts off at 1% before upping it to 5% and finally arriving at 10% as a suggested added value that the cheerleaders bring.

Following this logic uncritically, the film sort of accepts the premise that the Buffalo Jills may in fact possess a worth up to $1,400,000,000. The settlement that the Oakland Raiderettes received ended up being a little over $1,250,000, split 90 ways, a very small fraction of a very small fraction of that sum. That kind of disconnect encapsulates one of the biggest problems for the film as a whole, namely its emphasis on personality over the substance of the case at hand.

A Woman’s Work has a powerful story, but the film rarely tries to dig deeper than the obvious nature of the injustice. There are sequences where Yu shows the other side of the equation, namely former cheerleaders who see the lawsuits as a threat to their continued existence. This is a complex situation that the film rarely tries to engage with on a substantive level.

The NFL cheated a lot of women out of fair wages, on top of forcing them to essentially pay to be part of the team’s cheerleading squads. The whole situation is so disgusting and outrageous, a sentiment that can be arrived at without watching an eighty-minute-long feature. A Woman’s Work doesn’t do much to add to the blatantly obvious conclusion that any reasonable person would arrive at.

Tuesday

19

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

Two of Us succeeds on the strength of its lead performances

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

The closet is a lonely place for LGBTQ people. An even lonelier place for couples, especially when one partner wants the other to break free from its artificial confines. Two of Us (original title: Deux), France’s official selection for Best International Feature Film for the upcoming Academy Awards, centers its narrative around the restraints that the closet imposes on an elderly lesbian couple.

Nina (Barbara Sukowa) and Madeline (Martine Chevallier) are looking forward to retirement in Rome, leaving behind a somewhat bad neighborhood in France. Hindering their progress is Madeline’s reluctance to come out to her kids, long after the death of her husband. The plans are further put into jeopardy when Madeline has an accident that renders her unable to speak. Nina is forced to watch her lover cared for from an uncomfortable distance across the hall, desperate to be the primary caregiver.

Making his directorial debut, Filippo Meneghetti leans heavily on his two leads to carry the narrative. Sukowa and Chevallier have a natural sense of chemistry. Chevallier does a fabulous job communicating emotion through facial expressions and gestures. Sukowa tears at the heartstrings with Nina’s desperation, a deeply powerful performance.

The story does leave a bit to be desired, a regressive premise that relies too much on homophobia in the modern era to be fully satisfying for LGBTQ audiences. Though Nina and Madeline are shown to have known each other for decades, the exact specifics of their relationship are far more muddled. That sense of uncertainty makes it much harder to understand how their relationship could be kept a secret from Madeline’s children, who live nearby.

Meneghetti finds success in his ability to capture the essence of a romance running on borrowed time. Love does not conquer all. There are plenty of external factors ready to sabotage anyone’s “happily ever after.”

Nina’s perseverance and creativity in the face of constant roadblocks is quite inspiring. Some of her antics are a bit cartoonish in nature, something you might find in a sitcom. Sukowa gives such an exuberant performance that you can’t help but root for her to achieve something that the circumstances could call a success.

In many ways, Two of Us might have worked better as a period piece, giving Meneghetti’s over-reliance on homophobia some better cover. This film has little to say about gay relationships, but it does make for a compelling love story Nina and Madeline belong together. With that notion so prevalent, it becomes a bit easier to forgive some of Meneghetti’s more foolish antics.

Sukowa and Chevallier elevate the film’s lazy premise, a powerful romance that shines brighter than the abundant cliches. France is one of the most progressive countries in the world on LGBTQ rights. You would hardly realize that watching Two of Us. Despite that, romances featuring elderly lesbians are quite scarce in film. The strength of the leading performances is more than enough to forgive the film’s shortcomings.

Tuesday

19

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

Menstruation, From Moment to Movement

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog

We are delight to welcome Inga T. Winkler & A.J. Lowik to the show to talk about their work in the field of menstruation education. Inga is lecturer at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights and the Director of its Working Group on Menstrual Health & Gender Justice. A.J. is a non-binary trans PhD candidate and researcher at the University of British Columbia with a focus on trans people’s lives and health.

Inga & A.J. discuss their work and the ways to combat menstruation stigma, the challenge of moving the ball forward past “visibility,” and the ways to speak about menstruation in an inclusive manner for trans and non-binary menstruators.

Inga recently co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Critical Menstruation Studies, which is open-access and wonderfully formatted for online browsing. You can access the book here, https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-981-15-0614-7

A.J. has written an article on trans & non-binary menstruators for the International Journal of Transgender Health, which can be accessed here: https://ianthomasmalone.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Lowik-Just-because-I-dont-bleed-doesnt-mean-I-dont-go-through-it-Expanding-knowledge-on-trans-and-non-binary-menstruators-2.pdf

You can learn more about Inga at her website: https://www.ingawinkler.com/ and on Twitter @ingatwinkler

You can learn more about A.J. on their website www.ajlowik.com and on Instagram @thegenderoffender

Palgrave Handbook cover image courtesy of Palgrave Macmillan

Saturday

16

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

Disneyland AP Cancellation Analysis

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog

Disneyland has cancelled the Annual Passholder Program, leading to many disappointed superfans clinging to their AP popcorn buckets and Halloween AP magnets for relief. Ian is pretty sad. She also thinks that the media is being ridiculous in criticizing APs for being Karens, hogging the park, and being too obsessed among other things. Ian offers some analysis on the current situation and why she thinks the AP program will be back pretty soon after the pandemic.

For more Disneyland fun, check out our other episodes including the three park ranking of every ride in Disneyland and our Galaxy’s Edge analysis.

Thursday

14

January 2021

0

COMMENTS

TTTE & Chill: Thomas and the Magic Railroad

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog

Grab your gold-dust and your conductor’s whistle, because we’re going to Shining Time Station to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Thomas and the Magic Railroad. The Shout! Factory blu-ray set contains a number of wonderful bonus features, including numerous deleted scenes from the storylines that didn’t make it into the film. Ian & Tara talk about the legacy of the film and its place within Thomas lore.

Film poster courtesy of Shout! Factory

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