Reclaiming Power (Ep 296 - Death Becomes Her/Tom Zohar)

My guest this week is Tom Zohar, whose love for stories about powerful women led him to movies like Death Becomes Her and The Joy Luck Club, and whose hippie parents brought him to musicals like Hair. A common thread through a lot of Tom’s favorite media is characters who are completely and totally un-repressed, but self-repression was an issue he had to deal with as a teenager when he re-closeted himself and became increasingly shy about his accent. Theater is what helped him reclaim his voice, but not after the family fled the country to prevent his being conscripted in  the Israeli Army. We’ll have that conversation in a minute. First, a reminder that The Sewers of Paris is on Twitter and Facebook, where I post clips of the stuff that we talk about on each episode. This week you can look forward to some fun clips from Death Becomes Her. And speaking of videos, check out my YouTube series Culture Cruise, where I do a deep dive into LGBTQ milestones in entertainment that changed the world. I just posted a new video that combines footage from fifty years of documentaries to reconstruct the history of New York’s ballroom, voguing, and drag ball scene. You can find it by searching YouTube for Culture Cruise. And I hope you’ll join me for our next fun friendly livestream on August 1st at 11am Pacific. It’s a nice relaxing time to just hang out and chat. There’s a link at the top of the Sewers of Paris twitter feed. Also if you’re looking for more queer podcasts, check out my narrative comedy shows Queens of Adventure and Queens of Adventure Legends for an escape into a world of fantasy, with drag queens playing Dungeons & Dragons. You can subscribe to both shows at QueensOfAdventure.com, or search your favorite podcast app.