Hollywood’s New Lesbian Plot
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, Moira Donegan on Drive-Away Dolls and Love Lies Bleeding.
In the last few weeks, Hollywood has given us Drive-Away Dolls (directed by Ethan Coen, who also co-wrote it in collaboration with Tricia Cooke) and Live Lies Bleeding (directed by Rose Glass who co-wrote it with Weronika Tofilska). Although very different in tone, the two movies have some striking commonalities. Both are set in the late 20th century and take familiar genres (the buddy road comedy, the erotic thriller) while featuring lesbian lead characters.
To talk about this trend, I spoke to Moira Donegan, a frequent guest of the The Time of Monsters, who sees the movies as evidence of “the lesbian plot” becoming Hollywood fare. She locates both films as exercises in nostalgia for a period when actual lesbian culture is rapidly changing.
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Matthew Yglesias, a very influential journalist and proprietor of the Slow Boring substack, has emerged as a divisive figure within the Democratic party. To admirers, he’s a compelling advocate of popularism, the view the Democratic party needing to moderate its message to win over undecided voters. To critics, he’s a glib attention seeker who has achieved prominence by coming up with clever ways to justify the status quo.
For this episode of the podcast, I talked to David Klion, frequent guest of the show and Nation contributor, about Yglesias, the centrist view of the 2024 election, the role of progressives and leftists in the Democratic party coalition, and the class formation of technocratic pundits, among other connected matters.
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