00:00I was very much into Rose,
00:02which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet,
00:05who isn't into Kate Winslet.
00:07Hey, I'm Elliot Page, and this is Queer Roots.
00:14If I really, really think back,
00:16it was probably the older sister in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.
00:22You too?
00:24Yes.
00:25What was her?
00:26Amy Zelinski.
00:27Amy Zelinski.
00:28I'm very certain.
00:29This actually is not to be like my book,
00:31The Barf, but I do write about it in my book.
00:35I mean, who doesn't love Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
00:37just as a cinematic masterpiece, of course?
00:39Truly, what a spectacle, right?
00:41Riding a giant ant?
00:44Please.
00:44Stumbling upon a monstrous Oreo cookie?
00:49Like, the whole sequence with the sprinklers and the,
00:53I mean, really quite a stunning motion picture.
00:57Well, she's really pretty, you know, really gorgeous.
01:01Just the way she dressed was really cool.
01:03There was a casualness, there was a looseness.
01:05There's some flannel action,
01:07and the character was so caring and thoughtful.
01:13Yeah, I guess, like, clearly moved me and captivated me.
01:18Yeah, maybe like Jasmine in Aladdin.
01:21Yeah.
01:23Loved Aladdin.
01:25Obviously wanted, you know, to be Aladdin.
01:27She also had a tiger.
01:29That's like, kind of sick.
01:31It's pretty cool.
01:32I mean, as long as, you know, is the tiger okay?
01:34Like, what's the tiger's life like?
01:36Now that I know she has a tiger, I might change my answer.
01:45When I think of the things that I particularly,
01:48or storylines that I was really drawn to,
01:51like Phantom of the Opera, you know,
01:52when I was the Phantom for Halloween, really cool kid,
01:56you know, and I can see now knowing
02:01that these things are queer-coded.
02:03But even me now, I'm like, oh, really, the Babadook?
02:05Like, I'm just hearing about these things.
02:07Like, I'm always like, what, because of the cool top hat?
02:10Like, I need to, like, dive into this discourse more.
02:14Anything that really was making me feel things,
02:18I guess, didn't necessarily have, like,
02:22overt queerness in it.
02:24But, like, certainly Titanic, I was very much into Rose,
02:31which I think the connection also is Kate Winslet,
02:34who isn't into Kate Winslet.
02:35And also, of course, Heavenly Creatures.
02:37When I think about it, when I would have seen that is,
02:41would have been one of my first, like,
02:44queer representation movies of any kind.
02:46It would have been.
02:47But I'm a cheerleader.
02:48Ooh, Melanie Linsky, double showing there.
02:51Don't know, like, because sometimes for me,
02:53it's more about, like, a feeling when you watch something.
02:56You know, like, when I would watch Stand By Me,
02:59I would have this sense of reflection in these,
03:02I mean, like, I would see myself in these characters.
03:06River Phoenix's character in Stand By Me,
03:08I just was like...
03:14I'm feeling really confused
03:16because I'm drawn to these characters,
03:22recognize myself in these characters,
03:25feel shared experience with these characters.
03:28But the one I'm supposed to be saying I recognize more with
03:33or is this other one, which I didn't feel,
03:37or might sometimes say I felt just because I liked the thing
03:40because that's what you think your entrance is
03:43or something.
03:44I guess I'd say there was, you know,
03:47probably, I'll be honest,
03:49like an endless amount of characters like that.
03:51Whether it was Aladdin,
03:53River Phoenix's character in Stand By Me,
03:55Mowgli, Power Rangers, Batman and Robin.
04:02I wasn't like a cool kid that was like precocious and red.
04:05You know, I was like, wanted to play video games and sports.
04:08So that came later.
04:09Like, I really started reading at like 15, 16.
04:13I guess when I started to read,
04:14I did fall in love with Kurt Vonnegut.
04:16So then I just sort of was reading all of Kurt Vonnegut.
04:19I loved like Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf.
04:24The first system I had was a Sega Genesis,
04:29which is personally my favorite system ever.
04:32So then it was a lot of Sonic the Hedgehog,
04:34NHL, 94, PlayStation came along,
04:38Crash Bandicoot, Need for Speed, FIFA,
04:42like the FIFA games.
04:44And then I moved out when I was 16, I moved to Toronto.
04:47And I was like,
04:49this is going to be too much with work and school.
04:51I have to like leave video games behind.
04:53And that is as if that happened.
04:55Like I, then I never had like a system ever again.
04:58And now sometimes I'll play Nintendo Switch and I have a,
05:02I do VR.
05:06Oh gosh.
05:07Movies in high school that I would have seen
05:09that really moved me.
05:11Lynne Ramsey's films, Rat Catcher and Morvern Caller
05:15were two movies that just like inspired me in the sense
05:18that they were the kind of movies that made me go like,
05:20oh wow, like this is the job I want to do.
05:23Like Samantha Morton's performance in Morvern Caller,
05:26really, like I can still think of tiny little moments
05:29in that performance.
05:30It completely floored me.
05:32Those were two very important movies in my life,
05:34but God, in that time I lived with a director.
05:38And so we would go to the video store near us
05:42in Toronto, Queen Video, which was awesome.
05:45And so I was watching all kinds of incredible films
05:49in that period.
05:50I was way cooler then than I am now.
05:54So much cooler.
05:56Ugh, what happened?
05:58Desert Hearts is one of my all-time favorites.
06:01The kiss they have in that film, that first kiss to me
06:04is one of the best kisses ever.
06:07Like in a movie ever, it's just...
06:10And the ending of that film, I love, adore.
06:15I do not think Desert Hearts has been appreciated
06:18as a film the way it should be.
06:20I mean, Tomboy is Celine Sciamma's film.
06:24Have you ever seen it?
06:25I have never seen it.
06:26It's on my list.
06:29Oh my Lord.
06:30Yeah, I mean, look, the first time I probably saw
06:32this movie, I was actually like 25, maybe.
06:36You know, one of my favorite films.
06:39I'll probably watch it again and again, you know, forever.
06:42I cried through most of it.
06:43It's not a sad, I mean, there's moments of it
06:45that there's tension in the movie, there's all this,
06:47but actually it's a very, you know, simple little story
06:50about this little kid trying to, you know,
06:54figure out how to belong and who they are.
06:56Stunning film.
06:58A mixture, like if I was trying to seem kind of cool,
07:05I'd like pretend I was into punk,
07:08but I was more, I think, into,
07:11I mean, punk is very emotional.
07:13I was looking for a different kind of emotion, I suppose.
07:16Orchestral, cinematic, dramatic, you know.
07:21I'd say like Radiohead's Amnesiac and Bjork
07:25and Wilko's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot were probably the,
07:29you know, the first experiences with music
07:32that made me love it in a whole new way.
07:36And so then I loved Cat Power and,
07:38well, I loved Slater Kinney and I loved Peaches
07:41and I loved, you know, I also loved, you know, Arrange.
07:45And as like a little kid, I liked, like,
07:48I loved New Kids on the Block when I was really little.
07:52I had a poster of Joey.
07:54Did you have any other posters?
07:55Were you like a big poster kid?
07:56I was as a teenager
07:57and then they became very different than that, yeah.
08:01As a teenager, they were like Patrick Waugh.
08:05He was a goalie, hockey goalie.
08:08I got a Michael Jordan poster.
08:10I had a Simpsons poster.
08:12And remember when you'd get CDs
08:14and there'd be that thing that, you know,
08:16you could, they'd give you the, yeah, those sorts of things.
08:20I'm thinking about Spice World.
08:22Great motion picture.
08:25There's a second on the way, I believe,
08:27that better not have just been a rumor.
08:28Slash, why am I not in Spice World 2?
08:32This is your bit.
08:34Put me in Spice World 2.
08:35Yeah, exactly.
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