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

00:00 Intro: Our relationship to Queer as Folk
04:42 Episode facts
09:53 Nathan's sexuality path
10:30 Fashion
16:44 The queer appeal of Take That
23:06 Let's go to the straight pub
30:17 Is Stuart out of the closet or not - a debate
38:36 Displays of class and HIV-references
48:20 Let's go out on Canal Street

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

 

 

 

Hosts Arwen, Marianne and Charlotta get into wild speculation, over interpretation and bouts of laughter discussing sexual awakenings and coming out, fat shaming, lesbian tropes, emotional labour and explicit sex scenes in Queer as Folk.

In the first episode we meet the main characters: Stuart, who is successful but reckless; Vince, his best friend who has no luck with men; Nathan, the teen who enters their lives on a Thursday night and never goes away.

We get deep into emotional labour: who is taking care of whom and why don’t “real men” do emotional labour? We contemplate what the episode teaches us about how to be an attractive, successful gay man. Spoiler alert: it includes misogyny.

Outline

00:00 Intro
01:40 Meet Stuart, Vince and Nathan
13:31 (Possibly traumatic) sexual awakenings - Stuart and Nathan
17:41 Power dynamics between men - Vince and Stalky Mark
28:32 Allergy watch & Stuart as a big cat
44:22 Stuart and Vince's Titanic moment
50:59 Sex what?
01:01:10 Emotional labour friends
01:09:13 Emotional labour - a definition
01:13:49 The folklore of gay men
01:19:10 Music watch

References

Read more about emotional labour in this thesis written by Vasti Calitz

Music 

The part about chart listings taken from Todd in the Shadows

Haven’t You Heard by Patrice Rushen,
Something Changed by Pulp,
Beautiful Ones by Suede
& Sexy Boy by Air.

The terms for music inside and outside of film are diegetic and non-diegetic, also known as actual sound and commentary sound, respectively. Read more here.

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Marky Mark a la 1999:

 

 

 

In this podcast we’re taking Queer as Folk (the British 1999 tv-show) as a starting point for talking about queer culture and all things queer. We’re going to talk through and open up the words queer and culture within the podcast itself.

And what about folklore?

One widely used definition of folklore is artistic communication in small groups which basically means passing on information from person to person. This includes, for example, fairy tales, stories, jokes and memes but also unwritten rules on how to behave as a gay man.