Welcome to Queer Cinema Catchup, a podcast where we talk about queer-related themes in film and TV. Who’s we, you ask?
Joe Murphy and Allison Theveny, movie-lovers who have a long history together. That history began in the 90s and almost ended in 2006, when Allison moved far away from what was then the childhood neighbor with whom she filmed little movies on a camcorder in the backyard. Twenty years ago, Allison thought moving meant never making another movie with Joe again, but here she is attempting to realize her Hollywood dreams alongside Joe, navigating life as roommates and podcast co-hosts who both happen to be queer, even if they didn’t recognize this shared identity back in their camcorder days. It’s a story that feels so rare and extraordinary to us, the Joe and Allison in question, though we’re aware it isn’t all that rare for two queer kids to find the ability to express themselves via the arts and wind up moving to Los Angeles in their 20s.
Nevertheless, we’re writing today to discuss our inaugural podcast episode, You’re Ny-Ver Too Old. An episode where we catch up on the 2023 Oscar nominated film, Nyad, which dramatizes the possibly true story of sixty-four-year-old marathon swimmer Diana Nyad as she attempts to become the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida. In this episode, we get pretty (some might say uncharacteristically) serious by celebrating the existence of a queer movie that isn’t about romantic relationships and wondering what achievement represents to the queer psyche. Waxing philosophical might be odd for a film that had Annette Bening wearing the aquatic version of Michael Myer's mask, but that’s QCC for you.
Prior to seeing Nyad, we assumed the film’s stars – Jodie Foster and Annette Bening – would play a couple. That assumption was wrong. Jodie and Annette – Bonnie Stoll and Diana Nyad respectively – are coach and player; a very different but we’d argue no less queer pairing. In fact, the two women say “I love you” to one another just before Diana reaches Florida after four previous failed attempts, and this moment struck us as especially queer, for we think that love isn’t just about sex and that queer people who often have to turn to chosen family know this better than most.
While our culture encourages us to think sex when we hear gay, recognizing love’s many forms and breaking it away from culture’s heteronormative understanding of that deeply felt emotion demonstrates how the queer experience and a queer lens can help make our world a gentler, more all-encompassing place. In other words, 2019 is too late for the first sex scene between two men to appear in a major studio picture, but tying queerness to sex alone limits the nuance and multi-faceted reality of that identity. Normalize queer sex but let us be more than just our sexual preference. Why can’t we have both?
While Nyad doesn’t delve into Diana’s alleged dishonesty about her aquatic triumphs, the film does explore her somewhat narcissistic personality; the way in which her goal matters above all other things, including her life and the needs and wants of those she loves the most, making Joe and Allison wonder about the drive to achieve, whether or not success depends upon a singular focus on oneself.
The complex portrayal reminded Allison of “the best little boy in the world” hypothesis, a concept she first heard discussed on Dax Shepherd and Monica Padman’s Armchair Expert interview with Ronan Farrow. A quick search while recording suggested that this theory came from research done by John Pachankis and Mark Hatzenbuehler in 2013 (and explored again by Benjamin T. Blakenship and Abigail J Stewart in 2021), though it apparently originated in a 1973 book memoir about gay life by Andrew Tobias (originally published under the pseudonym John Reid).
This work suggests that internalized sexual stigma propels gay people to excel academically and professionally as a way of securing self-worth and concealing an essential part of themselves that might incite judgement and rejection. To quote Mary Oliver, a poet who has a role to play in the fictionalized version of Diana and Bonnie’s journey to a successful Cuba to Florida swim, “you do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”
If you’d like to make like Diana Nyad and dive into these thoughts and many others more deeply, check out episode one of Queer Cinema Catchup, You’re Ny-Ver Too Old” available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify now. Have thoughts of your own? We'd love to hear them. Send us an email at queercinemacatchup@gmail.com.
