Chappell Roan & The Legacy of Queer History
Plus: Trump’s dismantling the Department of Education maybe, my friendship with Meghan McCain, and the world’s gone WICKED
“This month, I seem to be drawn to write about two different topics - pride and books.”
-Linda Thomas, GLO Newsletter, June 1997
So I found myself down in Springfield, Missouri, this past weekend.
I was the keynote speaker for an event called Springfield Black Tie, a fundraiser for Springfield queer organizations that’s known as “southwest Missouri’s premier LGBTQIA+ gala” - which to me, can be described even more directly as an event that lets us all know: there are queer people everywhere. We are NOT moving, or going back in the closet. Everyone: just leave us alone, and act normal.
It was a really great experience getting to meet so many people with fascinating stories of their own, and it really was such an eye opening experience to be welcomed into a community with such a rich history of queer liberation. One of the more prominent people I got to meet was Missouri House of Representatives MInority Leader Crystal Quade - the Democratic candidate for Missouri’s gubernatorial race who unfortunately lost to Republican Mike Kehoe.
But if you’ve been to the Black Tie website, you may have noticed something interesting happening at the event on the front page: “Springfield Black Tie Announces Donation of Autographed Rolling Stone Magazine Signed by MTV’s Best New Artist Chappell Roan. Chappell only signed a very few for close friends and family…”
That donated copy was provided by special guests to the gala Dr. Kara and Dwight Amstutz. Also known as my new friends. But maybe more famously known as the parents of modern icon Chappell Roan.
Now, I don’t wanna give away the game too much here - The Doctors Amstutz are EXACTLY as cool as you might expect, and we got to speak for quite some time about what it’s like to raise an icon, and how they took the rather unique approach to parenting a younger star by letting HER take the lead.
They weren’t helicopter parents - they were “free-range parents,” defined by the Little Medical School as parents who “give their children a great deal more freedom and independence in contrast to what they perceive as the current tendency toward overprotection and overparenting among parents. Comparable to parenting styles from the 1960s and 1970s, free-range parents are more likely to give their kids age-appropriate freedoms and responsibilities, such as accompanying them to school or letting them go alone to a park, or letting them fail at something to develop “grit.””
And I mean, DAMN - that free-range approach certainly paid off big time for Chappell, and will continue to do so as she grows her legacy. They let her figure it out herself, while also removing obstacles from her vision - such as allowing her to graduate high school early so she could head out to Los Angeles. I’ll have more to say about The Doctors Amstutz soon in an exclusive interview on American Fever Dream, so be sure to keep an eye out for that!
Now, for those of you who have never been to Springfield, an event like this happening in Missouri might be surprising, or even downright shocking. After all, Missouri went to Trump this election by nearly 19 percent… Josh Hawley was re-elected to the senate… as well as my new friend Crystal Quade losing by over twenty percent of the vote in the gubernatorial race (though to be fair, her race was incredibly underfunded; her message was on fleek, but because this was considered an “unwinnable” race, state Democrats ignored her campaign).
I mean, this is the state that birthed Lambert’s Home of the Throwed Roll - a restaurant that serves its country-fried fixin’s in a skillet and has a guy walking around with a dinner cart who literally chucks hot dinner rolls at your head while you’re eating. Yes, there have been lawsuits. No, unfortunately, I didn’t get to try it.
But for residents of Missouri, and especially Springfield, this event is the LEAST surprising thing to happen here. I mean for starters - Chappell Roan is FROM here. Did I mention that?
But this is also the home of the GLO Center, a nonprofit that has existed in the area since 1996 and hosts events uplifting queer-owned businesses, helps coordinate the Ozarks Pridefest, which is the largest LGBTQIA+ event in Southwest Missouri… and even “family support & education meetings” for community members who “don’t know where to turn when a child, family member, friend, or other loved one comes out as LGBTQ+.”
It’s an incredible organization and one that Springfield is truly blessed to have. But don’t just take it from me… take it from Chappell Roan, who donated $1 per ticket from her fall shows in Arkansas, Iowa, and Tennessee to the GLO Center.
It’s also the home of the OLGA, or Ozarks Lesbian and Gay Archives, a living collection that documents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) experience in the Ozarks region. This particular collection is fascinating because it acknowledges that some of the most prominent missing history in America is queer history, so they’ve sought as much oral history as possible to help fill in the gaps.
Some of the materials included are related to Missouri State’s debate over the addition of sexual orientation to their non-discrimination policy, and even newspaper clippings related to MSU’s production of The Normal Heart, as well as a bunch of old GLO newsletters.
I say all of this about Springfield because they’re just one of many cities and towns across the world that has a rich, underreported history of LGBTQIA+ stories. Not every city is as fortunate as Springfield to have so many people seek to preserve the forgotten portions of history like this, but every city in America has a queer legacy worth seeking out. No matter who wants to pretend we don’t exist, there are more of us than ever, loud and proud, not only resisting the push back into the closet - but dusting off the files we found in the back of it.
Like Linda Thomas wrote at the start of The GLO Center’s June 1997 newsletter,
“This month, I seem to be drawn to write about two different topics - pride and books.”
I don’t have too many books to recommend at this exact moment (though that might change when we launch our books-into-films club next year - stay tuned for exact info), but I’ve got nothing but pride to think about and share when I step foot in communities that remember who they are and where they came from.
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In case you missed it, I was on Meghan McCain’s podcast Citizen McCain to debrief the election, and the discussion we had was a very interesting one that touched on the election from points of view represented by many sides of the political spectrum.
I’ve known Meghan for a very long time, and many of you already likely know that she and I are pretty good friends. It’s not a perfect friendship - I’m not a huge fan of Meghan’s stance on trans kids in sports, she thinks I’m insane for thinking taxes being raised to pay for Medicare for All is a good idea.
The truth is, we have our shit - but so do millions of friends and family across the country who are willing to hear each other out. And Meghan and I are definitely willing to hear each other out - I think having a sense of community with somebody on the other side that isn’t MAGA, and finding the common ground that things are not on a good path in this country is a good thing.
On Citizen McCain, Meghan shared her anxieties with me over the rumors that Lara Trump could take Marco Rubio’s seat in the senate and how that contributes to the growing concerns that America is furthering its status as an oligarchy… her horror in the Matt Gaetz announcement… and even her disgust with Joe Biden’s perceived disrespect toward Kamala Harris following the election. “Our hate of Nancy Pelosi will get us far,” she says at one point.
Look, these are all feelings I share, and feelings I assume many of you reading this share - and I think that if I were a random person coming across my talk with Meghan McCain, hearing her say these things would be illuminating.
I’m not saying we need to go out and scratch the backs of every MAGA chud in the comments or even try to meet the trolls in the middle, but I do think that finding common ground with our conservative friends is a necessity moving forward. Especially since we’re gonna need all the allies we can get moving forward over the next four years.
There are many things that should concern us about the forthcoming second Trump term, some of which I’ve covered here on Substack or over on TikTok. But there’s one that Meghan and I didn’t talk about that remains a bit of an ominous question mark is Trump’s pledge to terminate the Department of Education.
As Laura Meckler and Annabelle Timsit report for The Washington Post, this is a baffling yet sadly common threat from the Republican party - including, and maybe even especially, Donald Trump. He has claimed he wants to “return” the responsibility of education to the states - Donald, you dummy, education is ALREADY controlled by states - around 90 percent of the funding and rules comes from states and local governments.
What a gutting of the department would do, however, is severely kneecap the state of an already compromised system even further than it already has been. As Meckler and Timsit write, the education department “administers federal grant programs, including the $18.4 billion Title I program that provides supplemental funding to high-poverty K-12 schools, as well as the $15.5 billion program that helps cover the cost of education for students with disabilities. The department oversees the $1.6 trillion federal student loan program and sets rules for what colleges must do to participate. It also runs achievement tests dubbed the Nation’s Report Card and collects statistics on enrollment, crime in school, staffing and other topics. And the agency is charged with enforcing civil rights laws that bar discrimination in federally funded schools on the basis of race, sex and other factors.”
If Trump successfully dismantles the department, we’re talking about trillions of dollars at stake, to say nothing of the roughly 50 million K-12 students and nearly 20 million college students whose futures would be immediately impacted by these actions.
But it’s also worth noting that Trump ACTUALLY dismantling the department entirely isn’t likely. Trump would need not only congressional approval, but a Senate supermajority of 60 votes to end the Democratic filibuster. There’s also a bit of bittersweet irony on why such a move to dismantle the department won’t fly.
"If you look at the states that rely the most on Title I funding as a share of their per-pupil education spending, it's actually a bunch of red, rural states that get the largest share. You run into opposition not just from Democrats … But actually a lot of congressional Republicans have real concerns about it because they see the threat that it poses to their own constituents."
Meaning: the people who benefit the most from the Department of Education are voters in areas who dominantly elected Donald Trump. That’s not to say that Trump will not try to dismantle the department, or that he won’t find “creative workarounds,” such as allocating the resources of the department to other agencies… but he won’t realistically find many allies who could seriously support him in this endeavor without putting their own political futures at risk.
I can see the attack ads now: “North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis voted to KICK CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES OUT OF SCHOOL.” “Josh Hawley is AT WAR WITH FAMILIES IN POVERTY.” Matt Gaetz is lucky he already sent in his resignation from Congress, because the amount of scorched earth that can be made on a man voting to gut education for underprivileged families who is ALSO accused of being a sex trafficker?
Why am I focusing on the political angle right now? Because plain and simple, many of these folks don’t actually seem to care about the fact that dismantling the Department of Education would adversely affect tens of millions of Americans for generations to come. But I’m pretty sure that if their approval begins to plummet by even signaling a dismantling of the department, then, well… maybe, JUST MAYBE, they can pretend to care, even if it’s just for themselves.
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Let’s end today’s newsletter with a little bit of joy.
Pretend you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months. You lift the rock, dust yourself off, head to your car, become amazed that it even started after a few months, and head to your local coffee shop. Unfortunately, that mom & pop shop has shut down and been replaced by a Starbucks - it’s been months, and you need that sweet caffeine fix though, so you head inside to get a drink.
Now, you’ve been frozen in time for a few months. You see that Starbucks has teamed with a major motion picture for a promotional blitz of sorts, and no matter where you look, this motion picture is everywhere. Even when you leave Starbucks, you see this film’s merchandise at your local Target. You see LEGO sets and Funko Pops. Nail polish. Advertising. You absolutely cannot escape this movie.
You, from a few months ago, would have been beaten over the head with advertising for the newest Marvel Cinematic Universe “film,” and you would’ve been had you seen a media blitz for a major film at virtually any time in the last fifteen or so years.
But you, right now, are not living in that reality. Now, you are living in a Wicked world.
I have this feeling that this next paragraph is incredibly unnecessary for most of my readers here, so for those of you in the know, you can skip to the paragraph after. Maybe enjoy your Wicked Starbucks drink while you build your Land of Oz LEGO set.
But for the rest of you, Wicked is an upcoming film directed by Jon M. Chu that adapts the insanely successful Broadway musical of the same name, itself based on a novel by Georgy Maguire. It’s got some absolute titans in its cast, like Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Bowen Yang, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, and more. Wicked is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, following Elphaba before she became the Wicked Witch of The West. And most miraculously for something so completely unavoidable right now: it’s a MUSICAL. A capital-M MUSICAL.
Oh good, you’re back, welcome, I was just telling everyone about Wicked. The amount of money being poured into the Wicked promotional campaign is absolutely staggering, with Universal’s chief marketing officer Michael Moses telling theater owners at a pre-release screening that, “We’re going to be just short of obnoxious” when it comes to promoting the film.
And for good reason; as Wall Street Journal outlines, “The Broadway adaptation of Gregory Maguire’s novel has collected over $5 billion over 21 years by telling a version of “The Wizard of Oz” in which the Wicked Witch isn’t so bad—she’s a hero…“Wicked” has grown into an economy unto itself, one that has reaped major profits for Universal since it invested in the show more than 20 years ago. Now, the two-part, $320 million film adaptation has conscripted everyone at Comcast, from Jimmy Fallon to Jenna Bush Hager, into a campaign that combines the razzmatazz of Judy Garland’s MGM days with the global reach of the modern entertainment conglomerate.”
The promotional push for something like Wicked is absolutely catnip for li’l ol’ me, and I’m sure opening day is going to be like Super Bowl for the Gays. But it had me think about something that’s been eating away at my mind off and on for the last few years: why are studios hiding that their big films are musicals?
This was a question asked all the way back in January of this year by Ryan Faughnder at the LA Times, who tried to find an answer to why the Mean Girls remake, Wonka, and The Color Purple’s ad campaigns were light on music, to the point of possibly even being deceptive advertising. The approach seemed to work, since each film was somewhat of a success - especially Wonka, a bonafide box office smash. It’s also likely that Wicked will be equally as successful, despite the advertising also seeming to hide its musical elements.
But that begs the question: why are studios so willing to MAKE a musical, and so unwilling to promote them? I mean, let’s look at the numbers. Over the last two decades, Wall Street Journal points out that at least ten movie musicals have made hundreds of millions of dollars domestically over the past twenty years.
The adaptation of Les Miserables made nearly 150 million dollars at the box office… The Greatest Showman made $174 million domestically, and a staggering $439 million globally… and the Beauty and the Beast remake made an absolutely eye-popping $504 million domestically.
I mean, even La La Land, an original musical that never tried to hide it was a musical, which swept the 2017 Oscar nominations that is better remembered today for Warren Beatty mistakenly announcing it as the Best Picture winner when Moonlight was the ACTUAL winner… was a smash success at $151.1 million domestic.
There’s no easy answer to why studios are trying to hide their musicals, since so many seem to be getting bankrolled at a rate much higher than this same time a few years ago. That’s part of why the Wicked promotional blitz is so promising to me, though. Compare this campaign to the superhero movies released in 2024. Marvel Studios’ Deadpool & Wolverine was the sole theatrical release by the studio this year, and by every single metric imaginable was a smash hit with a similarly unavoidable ad campaign.
But which among us have seen Venom: The Last Dance - AND knew that it was the third Venom movie? Who among us is chomping at the bit to see Kraven the Hunter - a film I promise I didn’t make up, that comes out in December, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Spider-Man’s seventh most famous villain? Did anybody even go see the remake of The Crow? Did that even come out? Was that a fever dream I had or
All of this, coupled with the massive success of most movie musicals over the last decade, gives me hope that the classic big budget blockbuster, the one that isn’t tied to superheroes, could be on its way back. And maybe, just maybe… musicals will make their grand return to prominence as well.
Ironically, there is ONE superhero film that could negatively affect my hypothesis: Joker: Folie à Deux, a film that is ALSO a musical… that hid it was a musical. The second Joker, to put it lightly, was a massive flop - critically AND commercially. 32% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes. 32% fan score on Rotten Tomatoes. It made $206 million on a $190–200 million budget, and it’s projected that Warner Bros will face a $125–200 million loss on the film.
THIS is the one obstacle standing in the way of my beloved musical revival, and if it’s because of a remake of a remake of a supervillain origin story then so HELP ME GOD I will write the angriest letter imaginable to Warner Bros.
Though to be fair, I believe fully that Joker 2 flopped not because it was a musical… but maybe, just maybe, because it hid that it was a musical. You cannot target a superhero audience with a gritty superhero movie, only to reveal that haha jk Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix are going to do a soulful duet all over this bitch, without facing the consequences in some way.
But then again, I haven’t seen it, so take my Joker opinion with a grain of salt. All I CAN say is:
The Wicked push has been Wicked Good. The movie musical has been on the rise for two decades now. Therefore, people love movie musicals. Let’s bring the musical aspect out of the closet and onto our screens, and hope for the dawn of a new era of musical dominance.
