Death Becomes Her at 30: How a Meryl Streep-Goldie Hawn comedy found new life as a queer cornerstone
explains, there are more sinister, subconscious reasons this film has entrenched itself in the queer canon.Grannell is more than just an expert on macabre comedies like this one; he’s even adapted the film into one of his live stage parodies,stars Jerick Hoffer, a.k.a. Jinkx Monsoon, and Benjamin Putnam, a.k.a. Ben DeLaCreme.
AVC: It’s a beautiful idea that we as queer people want to laugh at our darkness. How consciously would you say that happens? Hasbecome an LGBTQ favorite because it’s funny and fun on the surface, but sneakily resonant underneath?Well, it’s interesting that you say that, because I think in building a career around loving and celebrating and making movies, I often didn’t analyze any of this shit. You know, I just celebrated midnight movies and programmed the movies we loved.
So it is interesting, now as an older queer person, analyzing these things, showing up in these documentaries and being asked questions I’ve never been asked before. I’m actually able to step back and look at these things and go, Oh, my God,could easily be a story about gay men and their value in the world being attached to their attractiveness, and how connected we are to women in Hollywood in that regard.
grow old, look old, get wrinkly, be saggy, and still get leading roles in movies. Women aren’t afforded that. I mean, people make fun of Joan Rivers for having all that plastic surgery. And it’s like, well, fuck you, because if she looked like the little old lady that she should’ve been because of her age, she wouldn’t have been asked or allowed to do a red carpet. So for us, I think there’s this connective tissue there.