OH HAY!

I’ve decided it’s time for a second instalment of Sassy’s Queer Studies. We all know I think that High School Musical is a gay allegory of unsurpassed genius, but even if you don’t agree with me about that, you will still die a thousand gay deaths watching High School Musical 2. DIE, I tell you. Die die die. Trust.

To be honest y’all, it’s not even an allegory this time. It’s just all kinds of rainbow coloured camp magnificence. Kenny Ortega has outdone himself. I really do love that bitch.

It actually occurs to me now writing this that this movie is gay enough for even Disney to notice, and, in fact, I think maybe they did. They cut this scene from the final movie. Could it be that seeing a girl and her brother dance in sequinned tiki costumes in front of the Arizona desert was just drag enough for the execs to put their foot down? Perhaps. But anyway.

So to set the scene for you, the action happens at the Lava Springs country club. And has there ever been a movie set that looks more like an homage to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert? I say no.

Our little basketballer and now fully-fledged (uncloseted) Musicale superstar Troy is working in the kitchen with his possessive BFF Chad, and those two fiesty lovers are still bickering like queens in a dressing room.

Gabriella the Mexican faux-love interest is working as a lifeguard which is fucking hilarious, because everyone knows Mexicans can’t swim. Trust Kenny to put the ladies in jobs that:

a) make them look ugly;
b) are likely to kill them off via drowning and write them out of the script;
or
c) in Gabriella’s case, both. Girl does not have the legs to pull off a one piece swimsuit as daywear.

And my little darling Sharpay is – I didn’t think this was possible – more fabulous than ever, especially backed by her three dancing Sharpette lackeys, and the honorary fourth Sharpette: her fierce gay brother Ryan. We know Ryan’s still queer cause he still wears whimsical hats.

Related note: no girl in this entire movie is attractive except for Sharpay, which totally makes sense when you realise that she’s pretty much a teen drag queen. It makes even more sense if you – like me – have watched all of the behind the scenes rehearsal special features on the HSM2 DVD and put two and two together to get OMG SHARPAY IS JUST KENNY ORTEGA IN GIRL FORM. Her dog in the movie is even Kenny’s dog. Of course it is.

Too cute.

By the time this movie was made, Zac Efron was also of legal age, so while he spends most of the movie in his signature blue to match his sparkly blue eyes, there are also strategically placed shirtless Zef shots at every opportunity. Apparently Kenny Ortega is also a massive perve. We totally have that in common.

And, of course, there be singing. Not quite as good as the singing in the first, because Zef was by this point both overage and sufficiently famous to demand to sing instead of being dubbed, but singing nonetheless.

Singing in kitchens:

Singing on golf courses:

Singing on stage with fireworks and wind-machines:

And my personal favourite, Troy crooning on a piano like Marilyn Monroe.

But perhaps the biggest triumph of the whole movie* is contained in just one brilliant scene.

In it, fierce brother Ryan faces objections from burly Chad, who declares that he Does Not Dance, and therefore will not be taking part in the Lava Springs talent show. Naturally, the two decide this fight will best be settled by a song and dance set to the rhythms of a baseball game. And isn’t that how everyone settles conflicts? I know I do.

( … ooh, look who ends up on top of the bat. Go Ry-Ry)

Now I love this, because I love musicals. Whatevs, don’t judge me. I JUST DO, OK? But I love it even more because it is the fuck-off gayest thing I’ve ever seen on a television. For one thing, the whole premise involves men playing sport together while all the hideous and badly-dressed womenfolk are corralled behind a hurricane fence.

I think it’s actually even gayer than when those two boys walked into Brian’s house on Queer as Folk wearing t shirts that read ‘PITCHER’ and ‘CATCHER’. If you are clever, you will realise what this means, and also realise that it is VERY RELEVANT HERE.

The boys PITCH and CATCH and wave their bats around. They point at each other as they duet about I don’t dance! and I know you can!. Ryan prances around the bases and throws in a jete. Chad throws his hands in the air and shakes his booty and from now on he will be known as Miss Jackson … if you’re nasty. The sexual tension is completely off the scale and it’s kinda hot to be honest. They have even more sparks between them than Troy and Chad. Amazing.

Just as I start to feel a bit odd in the crotchal region Kenny throws in some comic relief as the boys join in a group swing dance, and at last the fight culminates in a face-off between Miss Jackson sprinting for home base and Ryan running for a tag. The result? Victory to Miss Jackson, as he reaches home and lands with his head squarely in Ryan’s crotch. I think, to be completely honest, that that’s really a win for both of them.

Oh no, don’t leave yet. There is one final moment of homo. The moment where Miss Jackson … if you’re nasty stops the defeated Ryan from leaving and concedes:

I’m not saying I’ll do the talent show. But if I did … what would you have me do?

AND WE HAVE A LOVE MATCH! Cut to the boys having swapped hats, sitting at a fold out table, joking around and snacking on the hotdogs of camaraderie. Hotdogs. I kid you not. You can’t make this shit up. If you don’t find this scene amazing perhaps you should consider giving up on life. Just sayin.

And if anyone has any High School Musical 3 premiere tickets floating around … you know where to send them babies.

* The second biggest is that it includes the line of dialogue: Plug in the volcano! We’re going on! Magical.

And they say the news is depressing.

I have to confess right now that I am a closet Todd McKenney fan. Love him. Know it’s wrong, love him all the same.

Not just because he played Nathan Starkey in Baz Luhrmann’s masterpiece Strictly Ballroom (Pam Short’s broken both her legs … and I wanna dance with you), although obvs that helps a lot. Love him because he’s a total bitch. Love his crazy jug ears. Plus he has a place in my street I think because once I walked the dog past him in my trackies while he was waiting in the street with suitcases, and he totally said ‘what a handsome dog’. HANDSOME. True story. Want me to tell it again?

Sometimes I even watch Dancing with the Stars in the vain hope that he and Sonia Kruger will do a spectacular reunion samba. (Was that going too far with the honesty?)

And now after his infamous discovery in Rushcutters Bay park, passed out on Anzac Day afternoon with ghb in his pocket – and bloodstream – Todd McKenney has said possibly the sweetest words any celebrity can say.

“They weren’t my drugs! Someone put them in my pocket when I took my pants off.”

In his statement to police he explained the whole crazy mix-up. And quite the farcical mix-up it was. See Todd – and who HASN’T done this? – got a little heated on the dance floor and took off his pants. And while his pants were circling his ankles, some misbegot stuffed ghb in his pocket. Also, in his drink.

You know it makes sense.

I can say from personal experience that at about 3am that dancefloor at Gilligan’s is a furnace. The only thing worse is the dancefloor at the Palms. If I ever wore pants I’d be ripping those bitches off too, bb. Sometimes the crotch just really needs air.

There is nothing I love more than the old pants-off explanation from a celebrity. It’s like a lunar eclipse: it only happens rarely, but when it does, god is it beautiful. Possibly the only other pants-off incident to top this is our girl Lindsay Lohan’s valiant effort last year.

Sure Lilo was off her face, climbed in an SUV, stalked her assistant in a high-speed car chase and had cocaine in her pocket. But, guys:

“THEY WEREN’T MY PANTS.”

Sure you whip off your pants, Todd, but do you pants swap? Hmm. I thought not. And that’s why I do adore you McKenney, but Lilo owns my heart.

Because Cripples McGee and I are both:

a) massive nerds,

and:

b) dirty perves,

we took our tracksuited selves to see Prince Caspian at the Rouse Hill Cinema of The Future. (By ‘Cinema of The Future’, I mean in the sense that it has massive seats – for the fatties of the future – and parking spaces that know when they’ve been parked in. AMAZING).

And on the nerdy side, it delivered. Gryphons! Fierce black Centaurs with dreadlocks! Men in velvet tunics and chain mail tights!

But more importantly – oh, the perving. Luckily there are apprently no other nerds in the hills so we had the whole dark cinema to ourselves for a running commentary on how hot a man wielding swords and mortally wounding other men is. Why is it hot? Who knows. We don’t find it hot when men shoot each other in movies, so why do my pants seem to love hand-to-hand combat so much? Even always-the-ugly-brother Edmund starts to look kinda hot after he kicks a man in the face and stabs him in the throat.

And as always, we have a lot of opinions. For all the breeders reading, you can guess by all the stabbing references so far this isn’t really a movie for the kids.

For all the Centaurs reading, Kiki wants me to point out that she is all over the idea of a Centaur boyfriend. Sure they’re not the prettiest boys on the block, but I can’t argue with the fact that it would be handy to have a boyfriend that also doubles as a mode of transport. You wouldn’t even need a car!

And Prince Caspian. Oh, Prince Caspian the vacuous. He’s pretty when he’s sleeping, not so much when he talks. Or moves. Or opens his eyes. When he announced ‘I … am Prince Caspian,’ we cried with laughter. Are Narnian heroes supposed to be Spanish? Or fake-tanned?

Joo made a funny joke! I laff!

Surely Narnian heroes aren’t supposed to be this funny.

Look at his little vacant eyes, darting around, trying to figure out where he is and who all these strange badgers are. He’s the Harry Kewell of Narnian royalty.

His one moment of intellectual achievement in the movie is when a mouse points a sword at his throat and he correctly identifies ‘joo are a mouse!’ (To answer your question, yes mice carry swords in Narnia. Everyone does. Leaving the house without one is like forgetting your house keys over there.)

But clearly the star of the movie is the delectable William Moseley as “High King Peter … the magnificent”. That’s how he introduces himself, and I am not going to argue.

Thankfully, he’s also 21, so we don’t have to feel dirty for checking him out in his wartime British public school uniform. We’d still check him out if he wasn’t, obvs, but it’s nice to be free of external judgment for once.

He’s as pretty as our beloved Zac Efron, but decidedly less homo. Kind of if Zeffie was … a dude. Of if Zeffie didn’t like other dudes. Same highlights!

And as far as the Christian message goes in the Narnia books, we would just like to say that if Jesus actually was a lion, and you could snuggle in his snuggly mane like the kids do with Aslan, maybe people would reconsider the attractions of Christianity. Especially Kiki. What’s cuter than a snuggly golden lion? Just a suggestion, J-man.

To summarise: we laughed, we cried, we creamed our trackies.

Gather round kids, it’s episode two of Sassy’s film club. Now that we’ve all discussed Tootsie and it’s brilliant mix of spangles, jews, wigs, feminist commentary and the queer gaze, it’s time for 9 to 5.

This movie is about 19 of the 100 Reasons Why I Love Dolly Parton (of the remaining 81, at least 30 are in ‘The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas’, one of them is the fact that she has both ‘Jesus Days’ and Gay Pride days at her Dollywood ranch, and two are her boobs).

Hello gorgeous!

Dolly is Doralee, the adorable fairy floss secretary with a gun in her purse. When she speaks angels play harps made of coconut ice and unicorn foals are born from tiger lily pods.

Lily Tomlin is acid-tongued Violet. When she opens her mouth passive aggressive knives like ‘oh, I know just where to stick it Roz’ fly out.

… and little Jane Fonda, in her Elton glasses and felt hats, is guileless divorcee Judy.

But do you know what people miss about this movie? It’s not just 80s schtick. It’s not proto-feminist First Wives crap. It’s not Office Space with women from 1980 (although there are a lot of references to Xerox machines).

It’s truly, completely, and utterly insane. They lull you in with Miss Dolly singing ’9 to 5′ – did you know she wrote that song accompanying herself on only her acrylic nails?? That’s another of the 100 Reasons – and then they totally freak you the fuck out. The girls end up in this bar:

with some giant margaritas and a joint that was a gift from Violet’s teenage son (I only wish to have a son that amazing one day), at which point they grab you with their fake nails and throw you down the rabbit hole.

There are cowgirl outfits, safari outfits, snow white outfits; A man is poisoned with Rid O Rat, concussed, almost killed, and causes the three to accidentally body-snatch from a hospital; There are gimp outfits, alcoholic old typing-pool boilers, S&M jokes, and a man named Dick in a half-unzipped 1980s Adidas jacket wearing only his sparse chest hair underneath. There is also the ONLY scene I’ve ever seen where actors are supposed to look stoned … and do.

So I want you to do something for me. I want you to go home, put on a robe, get completely stoned, and put this movie on. Eat a bucket of wings, write some notes and I’ll see you next week at film club.

xox Sassy

Last night, with about five hundred screaming and over-excited women, I saw the Sex and The City movie. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that in it, Miranda sits down at a table, draws a thick black line down a sheet of lined paper, and starts trying to turn her husband Steve into a list of PROS and a list of CONS.

(If you’re wondering, the fact that he always flashes his naked white butt is not on either of the lists).

It’s a flashback to series four, where confused Miranda decries a pros-and-cons approach to relationships as ‘judgmental’ and Carrie sagely points out:

So am I, and as I left the cinema, I did.

Pros:

Samantha has had some amazing work done, and it gives me hope for my future.

At one point Carrie roams the street in pyjamas, a calf-length caramel fur coat and a sequinned beanie. That is some champagne Little-Edie-Grey-Gardens fashion magic right there.

My ticket was a donation to the very worthy Tour de Cure.

Cons:

I left with an simmering sense of vague depression, and without a good thirty points of the IQ I had when I walked in.

And as I read my list back I couldn’t help but wonder: when it comes to love, when things get too confusing, is the answer really still as simple as a list of pros and cons?

You see lately, my man Saint Kevin and I have been having some problems. Let me explain.

Pros:

In the beginning he was so sweet, doing things he knew I’d love without me even having to ask. Always willing to say sorry when he knew he was in the wrong.

But maybe, like Miranda, in making a commitment to him I made him, in the long-run, complacent.

Cons:

All of a sudden, he hates my taste. He never wants to do or see what I want. He argues with me over what we should watch and always chooses the dvd.

And what is a couple without common interests? Sure we still both love Cate Blanchett films, but is it really enough? He doesn’t even enjoy drinking until we have alcohol blackouts anymore.

It turns out the things I thought were important to us, what we talked about for our future, just aren’t priorities to him.

Mum did always tell me that a happy marriage is built on shared goals and values. Actually, I lie. Mainly she always told me “there’s nothing wrong with marrying someone with money,” but she said that other stuff sometimes too.

Or, when it comes to matters of the heart, do we need to use our hearts instead of our heads? Is love a matter of silencing your inner critic, throwing logic out the window, and following your gut?

I think I’m willing to take that chance. Let’s settle it this way: Saint Kevin, I know Parliament isn’t sitting next week. Tuesday lunchtime, if we both make it to the mid-point of our two neighbourhoods by midday, it means we’re willing to start again. You overturn the solar means test, I forget about the Bill Henson debacle, and we start again. Deal?

See you in Goulburn, baby.

Word on the street is that coming out of the closet is kind of tricky. And if we lived in more homo-friendly times, maybe you could pop into Angus & Robertson and buy your flamboyant youngest son an illustrated edition of ‘Little Troy Likes to Sleep with Boys’ to explain some things. In the meantime, we have High School Musical.

I could write a (probably extensive) blog about why High School Musical is one of the greatest films ever made and why I love it like my own child, but in the interests of brevity, suffice to say Zac Efron is magical.

His bad acting and joyful dancing make me feel sunshiney in my heart. On the day he was born, two silver winged unicorns cut a sliver from a shimmering rainbow and gave it substance in the form of a little boy. A little boy who grew up to love Liza Minelli and mascara.

And before you get all het about him being underage in the movie, it’s no pervy love. (Just quietly, if it was, him being underage also wouldn’t discourage me. Because I’m inappropriate like that). More that I want to adopt him, and shield him from the corrupting influences of the bad bad world.

I don’t even like to think of him being a real boy, to be honest. I feel like if you ever saw him pantsless, there would be only a skin coloured pair of plastic undies, like on a ken doll.

But far more than just being a Disney musical cheesefest that you either love or hate, respectively, depending on whether or not you are a totally awesome human being, HSM is an allegorical, inclusive, pro-diversity, homo-nurturing, singing, dancing masterpiece. Oh, it has LEVELS.

And it’s all thanks to this man.

Oh snap Kenny Ortega! Who doesn’t love a dancer with a gut?

Fun fact about Kenny: not just the director and choreographer of HSM. Boy also choreographed Xanadu. Xanadu! Amazing.

I suspect he’s also the one who made sure Zeffie’s Troy wardrobe is almost entirely in shades of blue so we can see his pretty blue eyes. Awwwww.

So you know the female spies who were sent into occupied France in WWII and posed as refugees to evade capture? (Because who would willingly go pose as a refugee, of all things? It would totes suck.) Kenny Ortega’s like that. Like a gay spy sent into the film industry posing as a Disney director. Because who would try and be socially progressive in Disney, of all places, right?

That’s the genius. HSM is a ‘love story’, allegedly. *cough cough* But for all the passion between Zeffie’s character Troy, and Gabriella, played by the loathsome and corpse-coloured Vanessa Hudgens, they might as well have named her character ‘ghost of homos future’. In fact, I will call her that, from now on. Because I wish she would die and stop tormenting me with her pallor and her baby voice.

The real love story is between Troy and musical theatre, specifically the delightfully named upcoming East High winter production ‘Twinkletown’. Teenage basketball superstar Troy discovers – one crazy new year’s eve – that he … GASP … likes to sing. He is ashamed, as all men apparently should be, to discover that singing makes him happy in his little golden soul.

He pretends it didn’t happen. He represses. He hides it from his friends. He tells himself it was just one time! I was drunk! Everyone has a blow job from a guy once in their life … right?

But baby can’t fight it for long. Like a bloodhound on the trail of homo criminals, he sneaks into the auditorium behind a janitor’s trolley. And soon golden boy Troy is in the running for a lead part in Twinkletown.

And there’s no question what being in a musical represents. (Sorry, Musicale. Because theatre folk are fancy like that).

Musicales are run by the single, bejewelled, unhinged drama teacher Miss Darbus. Also known as a faghag spinster.

Troy and Ghostie’s competition for the lead parts are the spangly, manipulative, narcissistic, bedazzled Sharpay and her fierce gay brother Ryan. (We know he’s gay cause he wears hats. Hats, people! Always with the hats!)

But that wily Kenny lets us think this is a bad bad thing. Musical practice makes Troy miss basketball practice with his 100% heterosexual, manly team mates. Sharpay is a heinous scheming bitch in a sequinned shrug.

Miss Darbus mercilessly forces the basketball boys to paint in detention. Ryan is a halfwit who loves Ashton Kutcher and jazz squares. Troy’s bff Chad points out that musicals produce hateful tools like Michael Crawford, which is surprisingly insightful. And true.

And the gay starts to spread, like ebola. Or jam. Other kids start confessing things: like playing the cello. Or loving to dance. Or – crime of all crimes – liking to bake.

Chad: Zeke … is BAKING.

If this was a live show, this would be the part where a gopher walks across the front of the stage with a cardboard sign readng ‘HOMOS RUIN LIVES’.

Instead we have something much much better:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/FBVUlgG8Lm8&hl]

The gays are ruining everything! I bet they also killed the dinosaurs! And Jesus!

The nerds and the basketball team form an alliance to create a straight army, rip Ghostie and Troy apart and stop all the musical madness before something gets burned down or God sends another flood.

Confused little angel Troy turns to his daddy (incidentally, Troy’s mum seems to have disappeared. There are seriously no breeders in this movie at all) and asks:

Troy: Dad, did you ever wanna try something new, but were afraid of what your friends might think?

It’s actually tres poignant. Daddy Bolton is having none of it though, and tells little Troy to get back to basketball like a real man and stop sucking dick. IT’S REALLY SAD.

But success, for the basketball team in their republican red uniforms, and the nerds in their KKK white labcoats, is bittersweet. Troy can no longer sink baskets (no, that’s not a euphemism) and chemical equations hold no joy for forlorn Ghostie. Suddenly, the world is bland and colourless, and the valuable lesson is finally learned.

The straight army mobilises once more to weasel our star-crossed lovers back into the Twinkletown call-back audition and let Troy’s soul sing itself to freedom.

The Wildcats even share the love with the drama club:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/y-vK4HQj5GA&hl]

EXCLAMATION POINT!

And as the movie swells to its low-budget spangly climax, Troy and Ghostie take to the stage to sing the anthem for closeted gay teens all over the world falling in love for the first time – Breaking Free:

We’re soaring, flying
There’s not a star in heaven
That we can’t reach
If we’re trying,
So we’re breaking free

You know the world can see us
In a way that’s different than who we are
Creating space between us
’Til we’re separate hearts

But your faith, it gives me strength
Strength to believe…

Can you feel it building
Like a wave the ocean just can’t control
Connected by a feeling
In our very souls
Rising ’til it lifts us up
So everyone can see…

We’re breaking free
We’re soaring, flying
There’s not a star in heaven
That we can’t reach
If we’re trying, yeah we’re breaking free
Running, climbing
To get to that place
To be all that we can be
Now’s the time so we’re breaking free
More than hope
More than faith
This is truth
This is fate
And together, we see it coming
More than you
More than me
Not a want, but a need
Both of us breaking free

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/tvkh29RKFRY&hl]

It makes angels dance and the Wildcats win the Big Basketball Game.

And at last – oh, at last! – the entire multicoloured United Colours of Benetton cast join in the gym for singing, dancing, and a big group hug. Best of all, Ryan gets to dive into a big pile of basketballers. It’s no Ashton Kutcher, but I’m so happy for you, Ryan!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/k7zzbB17Fvo&hl]

Aaah, sweet resolution. The good ship SS Diversity sets sail into the sunset with the entire HSM cast on board. I only regret that there isn’t time in one post to talk about the brilliant Batman and Robin, possessive-girlfriend relationship between Troy and his bitchy queen Chad. All in good time, my babies. For now, let’s just watch them skip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/v/SV9slef7KdM&hl]

Tina Fey is amazing. Sure, she was a writer for SNL which hasn’t been funny for like, 20 years, but she then went on to write both Mean Girls and 30 Rock (which is another show you should be watching, if not for Tina then for Alec Baldwin as the snuggly Jack Donaghy). And despite all the buzz around about Geek Girls who aren’t really geeks at all, Tina Fey really is a bit of a struggler. She was never a hit with the mans and married the first guy she sexed (still married btw), which in itself didn’t even happen till she was 24. And she gives great advice on this matter, like how if boys don’t like you just look at it as them practising on other girls and you being spared of their crapness.

Sydney Pollack passed away today of cancer.

This affected me for a whole bunch of reasons – for one because deaths from cancer really hit home for me, but also because I am an unabashed soft-heart in general.

It also reminded me of something comparatively trivial – Sydney Pollack was the man who directed (and starred in) one of the greatest American comedies ever made: Tootsie.

I have seen this more times than I can count, and probably half of those times were before I was twelve (it so very nearly turned me into a cross-dressing man.) But who can say no to that red spangly dress?

And like all fabulous movies, it’s only better now that I understand it as an adult. It’s a comedy (and it really is funny; not like those 1950s ‘comedies’ that only make you realise how far humour has progressed in 50 years), it’s a romance (boy-dresses-as-girl, boy-meets-girl, boy-undresses-to-boy, boy-loses-girl, love triumphs), and it’s also kind of dark, and sad, in its way.

In the Tootsie DVD extras Dustin Hoffman (bless) looks genuinely hurt when he tries to explain to camera the moment he realised just what it’s like to be an unattractive woman. Or worse than to be one, to feel like one.

Because that’s partly what this is about – a man finding out what it means to know that what you look like matters so much. And to realise on the flip side of the ‘ugly’ woman struggling to feel respected or loved, there’s the beautiful woman struggling to be respected, or loved for something other than her rack, because beauty-worship cuts both ways.

Oh yeah, there are beautiful girls too – Geena Davis in her first ever role and Jessica Lange before she massacred her face with placcy surgery:

If the brilliant Some Like it Hot grew up, it grew into Tootsie.

And if you have a date with the couch tonight, maybe you should watch Syd’s cross-dressing New York extravaganza.

RIP Mr. Pollack.

Photos thanks to livingromcom