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Bonus video! Are these punks punking us? (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-15 17:00:10
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hello there!

I have a juicy tale of revenge in this week's bonus video! It's the story of how Lance Loud made the most of a very unpleasant dinner with an insurance industry CEO.

Plus! A little correction/update about what may have been some intentional deceit behind the scenes of An American Family.

And finally! A strange news magazine clip from 1979 of New York punks (?) at a wacky tacky (??) party with a punk caterer (???) that I think might be playing an elaborate practical joke on the audience. I'm not sure, though -- do you think it's real? Here's a link to the entire news segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjrpwsfrfaU

New video about The Real World and Pedro Zamora is coming your way soon!

PS: Here's a backup link to the bonus video in case the embed doesn't work: https://youtu.be/RpiBVpBXpM8

Files

Bonus video! Are these punks punking us?

Hello there! I have a juicy tale of revenge in this week's bonus video! It's the story of how Lance Loud made the most of a very unpleasant dinner with an insurance industry CEO. Plus! A little correction/update about what may have been some intentional deceit behind the scenes of An American Family. And finally! A strange news magazine clip of New York punks (?) at a wacky tacky (??) party with a punk caterer (???) that I think might be playing an elaborate practical joke on the audience. I'm not sure, though -- do you think it's real? Here's a link to the entire news segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjrpwsfrfaU New video about The Real World and Pedro Zamora is coming your way soon!

Comments

Betsy

"This looks more New Wave than Punk": yes! My first thought exactly! The "punk food" could have been some form of performance art, but elaborate prank is also a very good hypothesis. I am impressed by the caterer's ability to refill a toothpaste tube, but caviar on Triscuits? I don't know about that...

Justin

Great stuff, Matt, but you've got to slow the fuck down when you're speaking in these videos. 😅

Trevor MacIsaac

A truly great Lance story :) It's interesting to consider the question of whether there is such thing a "pure" documentary. By definition the knowledge of being watch, filmed or considered by an observer is going to influence the behavior of the observed. That's without even considering the techniques and motives of the documentarian. It's interesting that you bring up Margaret Mead, whose study in Samoa was heralded for decades as an impartial, pure and first hand documenting of a culture. It only emerged much later, how much Mead's findings were massaged, skewed and outright fabricated (largely summarized in Derek Freeman's 1983 book Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth). This is just as true in the modern age when findings are on camera, as the "truth" will always be filtered through what the documentarian choses to show, and how the clips are edited. I owe this healthy skepticism to my dad, starting when he and I would bond over one of the first highly popular modern "reality" shows: COPS. I was a kid, and I was definitely entertained by the show, but I mostly remember the long conversations with my dad after, where he would tell me that even though it was on camera, it was not real life. "We're only seeing what they (the cops, the producers, the camera crew) want us to see" he would say "which means were not seeing how it really is".

claire bee

Well, you didn’t actively object to the first Gigantic Mega Comment, so here’s another one! I think/hope this will be the last insanely super-long one, though. Anyway, I’ve now had a chance to check out the middle one of the three Flash Gordon film serials, Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars, and there are some doozies in here! In episode 1, we find out that Flash and Zarkov have moved in together: both their names are on the label of a doorbell, and it must be a home rather than an office because the door is opened by a Comedically Stupid Black Servant (if it had been an office it would probably have been a Comedically Ditzy Female Secretary. Ah, the 30s). The fact they can afford to pay a servant also means that they don’t have to live together in order to save money; they’re just doing it because they want to. Something that becomes clear as we go on is that Flash completely freaks out when he sees Zarkov in trouble. The first time it happens, the two of them are on a vitally important mission to capture Azura, Queen of Magic; but when Flash sees Zarkov hurt, he leaves Azura completely unguarded and runs over to his sweetheart. This results in the mission being a total failure. Later, Flash reacts to Zarkov being in danger by throwing his paralysing gun down randomly on a rock and rushing forwards – but the gun has been activated by the way he threw it down, and he runs right into the paralysing ray. Flash is not normally this much of a klutz! He’s generally cool and capable under pressure, but he just can’t cope with seeing Zarkov in danger. It’s worth pointing out that seeing Dale in danger does make him determined to rescue her, but doesn’t make him go to pieces in the same way. There are also times when Zarkov is in danger and Flash manages to keep a grip on himself, but those are when people he knows are around, and a gay man in the 30s would have to have a very strong learned instinct not to be too affectionate to his boyfriend in public, which presumably helps him keep control. So why doesn’t this instinct kick in when Azura’s there? Well… Azura has several pretty girls in bikini tops standing around in her throne room. They don’t seem to have any function except to be decorative, so it’s reasonable to assume that Azura likes to look at pretty girls who aren’t wearing very much. And yes, she’s a baddie, but very early queer representation tends to skew towards men a lot, so I’ll take my heavily implied tyrannical lesbians where I can find them! Anyway, if Flash’s gaydar has picked up on the fact that Azura is Family, then his guard might be more down around her. Also, Azura seems to have a bit of a soft spot for Flash, which is interpreted by the people around them as sexual attraction, but could just as easily be queer solidarity. Plus, Flash touches Zarkov a lot in this series; he touches Dale a fair amount too, but it’s often for a reason – to shield her from something, or comfort her if she’s scared. Whereas with Zarkov, he can barely be within a foot of the guy without wanting to be in contact with him. Zarkov does a fair amount of touching back, too; at one point, he covers Flash’s hand with his own and asks him if he feels a tingling sensation – which he does. The tingling is supposedly radioactivity, not sexual attraction, by the way; but still, it’s a nice moment. As with Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, there’s also a certain amount of men touching each other in general; but it’s still between Flash and Zarkov the lion’s share of the time. Also, as with Flash freaking out over Zarkov, the touching between these two generally tends to happen more often when no-one who knows them is around. By the way, not directly relevant to my main point, but one thing I do love about Buster Crabbe as an actor is that, when scary stuff happens, he frequently looks genuinely scared. Even today, it’s rare to find an action star who can let go of his machismo enough to look properly scared, and in the 30s? Not a chance. Except for this guy. Also, I’ve been looking at other stuff that Buster Crabbe did, and I’ve found some quite interesting things. For example: in Tarzan the Fearless (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2R616uhhhA), when the baddie is dying and dramatically repenting of his sins, the heroine’s father gently strokes his hair; an unusually tender moment between two men for a 30s film. Then, in Badge of Honor (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR1tYbW3PFU), there’s a slightly homoerotic fight scene; in the 30s, fight scenes normally kept grappling to a minimum, but here Crabbe and his opponent spend a significant amount of time rolling around on the floor together. Later, Crabbe says he’ll “proposition” another man; normally, when you mean you’re going to make a suggestion, you’d say something like “make a proposition to”; someone you’re propositioning is someone you want to sleep with, in general. In the Buck Rogers film serial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jI1k35m-aG8&t=5680s), there’s a moment where Prince Tallen embraces Buck just a bit more tenderly than necessary while trying to protect him from being blown up (about 1 hour and 38 minutes in to the binge video I linked you to. Other interesting Buck/Tallen moments are at or shortly after 1h59m, 2h6m, 2h23m – on that last one, watch exactly where T puts his hand). And yes, he was the star, not the scriptwriter; but he could easily have used his star power to push for changes to the script, and it does seem a bit of an odd coincidence that these scraps of plausible-deniability queerness show up in his stuff so often. It’s not just the queer stuff, either! There are other things that are surprisingly progressive in his films/film serials. In Tarzan the Fearless, there are dusky-hued jungle priests who want to use all the main characters as human sacrifices; but they turn out to be motivated by the entirely reasonable fear that, if anyone finds out about them, white people will show up and steal all their stuff. The fact that this is reasonable is shown by some white people showing up and immediately stealing their stuff. They’re also completely honourable – a very unusual quality for dusky-hued jungle priests in a 30s action adventure film. In Buck Rogers, the female lead is a competent, respected military officer who is far less likely to panic under pressure, and far more likely to do something genuinely useful, than most female characters in 30s popular culture. Also, Prince Tallen himself is of East Asian origin, without being evil, stupid, cowardly, or unable to speak English fluently. Really unusual for the 30s. By the way, the director on both this and the Flash Gordon serials was Ford Beebe; I found another serial Crabbe and Beebe did together, Red Barry (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhej-aAwiT0&t=3697s), which also has an unusually level-headed and helpful female lead, as well as another East Asian character (played by the same guy, actor and activist Philip Ahn) who is brave, loyal (though with divided loyalties sometimes), intelligent and can speak fluent English – though he sometimes pretends he can’t. No implied interracial gay relationships in this one, sadly, but there is a queercoded guy who, while he is a bad guy, is also a crack shot and not very easy to frighten, so at least a bit counter-stereotypical. And okay, I’ll admit it: I originally went down this particular rabbit-hole because I was hunting around for obscure early queer stuff to use for extra ballast for a possible Sidney Cole and Hannah Weinstein video, but I’m starting to think Buster Crabbe might deserve his own video. Is there enough material here for that? If not, is there any way to beef it up? Maybe by packaging it with the 80s Flash Gordon film – which might not be gay, but certainly is camp, and has all that lovely Queen music. By the way, there are also two TV versions of Flash Gordon, one from the 50s and one from 2007. I’ve watched as much of both of them as I can stand, neither are particularly good. It seems that, in order to make a good Flash Gordon adaptation, you have to make it for the big screen, and also make sure it’s as queer as you can possibly get away with. Very last thing: according to this guy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uy8oEtdMkk&t=723s) the Flash Gordon film serial was actually influential on a lot of things, including Star Wars. Just throwing that in there in case it helps!

Allan McPherson

Watching that clip and seeing the way they look at the camera, I've got to believe they're absolutely taking the piss!