201. Chris Moukarbel (WIG and GAGA FIVE FOOT TWO filmmaker) – The closest thing to actual magic

201. Chris Moukarbel (WIG and GAGA FIVE FOOT TWO filmmaker) – The closest thing to actual magic

Author: Big Think / Panoply June 29, 2019 Duration: 45:45
When I was in middle school in the suburbs of Maryland, a man—let’s call him Robert—started doing some occasional gardening and housecleaning for my parents. By high school, Robert was our full-time housekeeper and a nanny for me and my sister, a family member, really. And he had become a she—let’s call her Tina. My sister and I learned to use her new pronouns and we watched as her clothes and then, with the help of hormones and surgery, her body changed to that of a woman. At the same time, the transition we went through with Tina at home was playing out in American popular culture. Homosexuality and drag and other queer lives and identities came out of the closet and onto the stage, screen, and streets. In 1984, in Mahattan’s Tompkins Square Park, Wigstock was born. It started as a kind of afterparty and evolved into a DIY, outrageous, funny, and fabulous annual drag festival that by the 90’s was drawing crowds in the thousands. It’s hard even to think back to the time when Robert who became Tina had to hide who she was for fear of upsetting her religious mother or—who knows—maybe not getting that job with my folks. In a world where RuPaul’s Drag Race is going into its 12th smash season, It’s easy to forget the courage it took, and still takes, for so many people to live on the outside what they know they are on the inside. My guest today is documentary filmmaker Chris Moukarbel, the director of Lady Gaga biopic GAGA FIVE FOOT TWO. In his new HBO documentary WIG, Chris and his stars—including Lady Bunny, Charlene Incarnate, and many more—take us back through the history of drag in New York City. And they show that now more than ever we need public spaces like Wigstock where we can perform, amplify, and celebrate our differences. Surprise conversation starters in this episode: Bill Eddy on “toxic people” John Cameron Mitchell on online communication and miscommunication Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Imagine having just a few minutes with a brilliant thinker, but instead of asking them about their usual expertise, you steer the conversation somewhere entirely unexpected. That’s the core experience of Think Again-a Big Think Podcast. Host Jason Gots sits down with an extraordinary roster of guests-from Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood to Richard Dawkins and Bill Nye-and presents them with ideas and questions they aren’t prepared to discuss. The result is a series of spontaneous, revealing conversations that go far beyond typical interviews. You’ll hear authors, scientists, artists, and cultural icons like Alan Alda, Salman Rushdie, and George Takei thinking out loud, grappling with new concepts, and often surprising themselves. This podcast lives in the unscripted moments where curiosity meets expertise, covering a wide terrain of arts, culture, and societal questions. It’s about the joy of a mental detour, the kind that happens if you had ten minutes with Einstein and decided to talk about something other than physics. Each episode is an invitation to step off the well-worn path and discover what happens when great minds are asked to, well, think again.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Think Again - a Big Think Podcast
Podcast Episodes
220. Elif Shafak (writer) – the cemetery of the companionless [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:39
“Maybe the opposite of goodness is not evil. Maybe the opposite of goodness is, in fact, numbness.” There are so many questions we never ask. So many assumptions we make every second of every day because our minds and ou…
218. Bill Bryson (writer) – the most extraordinary machine [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:02
Do you have a body? I do, but I was mostly unaware of this fact until somewhere in my mid-30s, when my life strategy of living like a bourbon-loving brain-in-a-vat became increasingly untenable. Since then, I’ve come to…
217. Ibram X. Kendi (author, activist) – Antiracism 101 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 47:36
I grew up in the almost entirely white suburbs of 1980’s Bethesda, Maryland thinking of myself and my world as 100% not racist. It’s hard to notice what’s missing: for example pretty much any black or brown people anywhe…