Tara Scott joins me to talk about the television show A League of Their Own! You might have seen her review, and maybe you’ve seen folks talking about it online – it’s wonderful.
So we’re gonna squee about it, and no worries – no spoilers.
Heads up – there is some discussion of the consequences of being arrested for being queer at that time period, and that discussion begins at about 24 minutes in.
Thank you to FashionablyEvil for making a surprise appearance in the episode thanks to their comment on Tara’s review!
…
Music: purple-planet.com
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You can find Tara’s reviews here at SBTB and at The Lesbian Review, and you can listen to her podcast at Queerly Recommended.
I also mentioned the This Lesbian Ship is Intense podcast, and this scene from the film A League of Their Own where Madonna’s character teaches another character to read using…romance fiction!
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Transcript
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[music]
Sarah Wendell: Hello there! Thank you for inviting me into your eardrums. I’m Sarah Wendell. This is episode number 528 of Smart Podcast, Trashy Books. Tara Scott is joining me to talk about A League of Their Own, the TV show. You might have seen her review; you might have seen people talking about it online. It’s wonderful! We’re going to squee about it, and do not worry: we have no spoilers. We are going to take a few detours into queer rep in current media and the decision to decide to watch something if it’s really pissing off the homophobes and the TERFs?
But I do want to give you a HEADS-UP that at about twenty-four minutes in [24:00] we start discussing some of the consequences from inside the show A League of Their Own for being queer at that time. So if that’s not something you can put in your eardrums, you might want to skip ahead about two minutes at about minute twenty-four.
Thank you to FashionablyEvil for making a surprise appearance in this episode thanks to their comment on Tara’s review.
I also want to say hello to and thank you to our Patreon community. Hello! You are lovely. Thank you so much for your support. I have started recording bonus episodes for the Patreon community, and we have big plans for this fall: Discord server, hang-outs, swag, lots of fun stuff. So if you would like to support the show and keep the mayhem going and make sure that every episode has a transcript – hello, garlicknitter! [Hello, SB Sarah and the finest Patreon community ever! – gk] – please have a look at patreon.com/SmartBitches.
I want to offer a special hello and welcome to Sarah J, Kelly, Julie, and Kirstin, the newest members of the Patreon community. If you would like to join us it would be lovely to have you.
This episode is brought to you by Caraway Home. It is fall, and we are making all of our favorite and our fastest weeknight recipes because suddenly everyone is busy in the evenings! And now that we’ve been using our Caraway Home cookware for two months, I cannot tell you how much we love it. Our pots and pans were probably twenty-five years old, and the nonstick no longer qualified as nonstick, and we both cook a lot, so our cookware gets lots of use. Upgrading to Caraway Home has been astonishing. We ordered the entire cookware set in navy. There’s a fry pan, a sauté pan, a sauce pan, a Dutch oven, and lids, and it comes with storage. I love this part so much: every set comes with easy access storage solutions, so no stacking is required and you don’t rub off the finish. There are little magnetic slots for each pan in the cabinet, and I love it. Now, I do like things that look nice, but I am also interested in food tasting good? And wow! I’ve noticed in the speed of my cooking: the pans heat up quickly; they maintain heat evenly; the surface is ceramic, so it’s very slick; I need minimal butter or oil; and clean-up is incredibly simple. And over twenty-five thousand people have raved about their Caraway kitchen; you can try it for yourself! Visit carawayhome.com/SARAH to take advantage of this limited-time offer for ten percent off your next purchase. This deal is exclusive for our listeners, so visit carawayhome.com/SARAH or use code SARAH, S-A-R-A-H, at checkout. Caraway: nontoxic cookware made modern.
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This episode is brought to you in part by Stamps.com! Yep, still not over saying that. Now, I don’t want to alarm you, but the holidays are coming! I know, I know, it seems early, but if you’re part of any crafting community, you probably have already seen the holiday sales, ‘cause if you want to make gifts you’ve got to start working on ‘em now, right? And if you’re thinking of getting ahead of holiday organization and preparing early for holiday mailing and shipping, Stamps.com has everything you need to make your life a whole lot easier. Stamps.com is the twenty-four/seven post office you can access from anywhere: no lines, no traffic, no hassle! With Stamps.com I get exclusive discounts and terrific rates on shipping from the postal service and UPS, and I never have to take time to go to the post office and wait in line. Stamps.com lets me print official postage right from my computer and saves me money and time, and I cannot think of two things I value more. It’s easy, it’s fast, it’s streamlined; shipping things is never stressful. Get ahead of the holiday chaos this year; get started with Stamps.com today! Sign up with promo code SARAH for a special offer that includes a four-week trial plus free postage and a free digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts: just go to Stamps.com, click the microphone at the top of the page, and enter code SARAH.
We have a lot of show to talk about, and wow, do we love this show a lot, so if you’ve been curious or you’ve been watching, on with the podcast with my conversation with Tara Scott.
[music]
Sarah: Thank you, Tara, for doing this!
Tara: Of course! Of course.
Sarah: Okay.
Tara: This is my new thing that I’m very excited about, so I am –
Sarah: Please squee.
Tara: – talking to anybody who will listen to me about it!
Sarah: Okay, so real quick, introduce yourself; tell people who will be listening who you are and all of the queer things you do.
Tara: That’s a long list.
Sarah: I know!
Tara: Okay, I’m Tara Scott. [Laughs] I’m Tara; I am one of the staff writers at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books; also The Lesbian Review. I have my own podcast called Queerly Recommended where my co-host Kris Bryant, lesbian romance author, and I recommend all the queer books, TV shows, movies, videogames – if we’re, if it’s going in our eyeballs or yours, you’re going to hear about it.
Sarah: Fabulous.
Tara: Unless it sucks; we won’t talk about it if it sucks. That – [laughs] –
Sarah: You know what just occurred to me, and I’m going to say this on a recording so that I don’t forget?
Tara: Mm.
Sarah: I should connect you with the two people who do This Lesbian Shit Is Intense? The podcast?
Tara: I’ve never heard of this podcast; that sounds great!
Sarah: Well, I think – wait, they had to change their name because iTunes didn’t like Shit. I had changed my name of my podcast originally because iTunes is a butt-noid.
Tara: [Laughs] Uh-huh, it sure is!
Sarah: This Lesbian Shit Is Intense – what is the new name of the podcast? T, oh, it’s TLSII [This Lesbian Ship Is Intense], which works, but it’s a great podcast, basically about lesbian ships, and I feel so bad for them, because they had the whole cast of First Kill on their show and different, different people, and the show got canceled. They’re very sad about that.
Tara: Well, they should still be pushing it, because that’s what people want! Like, we actually, Kris and I were just talking in a recent episode about, well, about that, and it’s like, are we, like, there’s all this extra representation happening – you know A League of Their Own is a great example – but are queer projects getting canceled super quickly? What’s happening there? Like, gays are still getting buried; it happened with Killing Eve.
Sarah: Yep, just a little bit! That –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – Killing Eve, did, did Killing Eve, like, hire Game of Thrones writers? Is that what happened?
Tara: Well –
Sarah: I mean, maybe.
Tara: – the thing I found –
Sarah: Maybe.
Tara: – most interesting and most telling was that when Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh were doing promotion for the finale, you could tell they were very, like, we hope people like it! We’re so sorry! Like, the, the vibe was very, like, almost apologetic –
Sarah: Yes, they were wincing.
Tara: – people were going to be upset. Yes.
Sarah: They were wincing. They were smiling with all of their teeth showing, like ahhh!
Tara: And all the fear behind their eyes, yeah. And rightly so! They should have been – and it’s not their fault, they’re not the writers, but –
Sarah: Yeah, but it’s hard to be like, we know that this is going to go so badly, and nobody else knows except us –
Tara: That’s right.
Sarah: – how badly it’s going to go. We’re really sorry!
Tara: Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah: Someday, someday there will be a whole channel of actors doing one-shot wrap-ups of shows that ended badly. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Tara: Whoa! I mean, that would be incredible, but in the meantime I guess we all have fanfic. Like –
Sarah: That is why we have AO3.
Tara: Yeah!
Sarah: So let’s talk about good queer stuff!
Tara: Yes, let’s do it.
Sarah: So is A League of Their Own absolutely your new complete obsession? You want to rewatch it? You just want to think about it? Is this like your new – is this your jam? Your coulis? Your reduction?
Tara: It, it is! And, it is, and that’s the thing that’s hilarious is that I don’t give a shit about baseball. I never have!
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: I think it’s boring! [Laughs]
Sarah: Well, I mean, you’re in Canada; you’re obligated by birth to care about hockey; that is the rule.
Tara: I don’t care about that either!
Sarah: [Gasps]
Tara: I’m very bad at this! [Laughs]
Sarah: Somewhere, somewhere a Mountie –
Tara: I, I know.
Sarah: – and their horse are very mad.
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: But you don’t give a shit about baseball, and you are all about this show.
Tara: I don’t! I – I’m all about the show. So I finished it. I watched a documentary immediately that I felt like was adjacent to it.
Sarah: Right.
Tara: I’ve already started watching it again, and to prep for this conversation I watched the, I had an edible and watched the finale again last night and cried again at all the same spots.
[Laughter]
Tara: Like –
Sarah: Which is really funny because I cried at the end of this, but I also will cry instantly at the end of the movie A League of Their Own when –
Tara: Oh yes.
Sarah: – when Geena Davis is aged and she comes across the picture of Tom Hanks’s character, who has since died, and there’s that super shmoopy Madonna song, that’s it! I’m crying; that’s all –
Tara: Oh yeah.
Sarah: – I’m sorry; I’m done now. And it’s the same, same thing! Like –
Tara: Well –
Sarah: – how many decades later –
Tara: – are we doing –
Sarah: – and you’re pressing on that same button. Nice job, show. So let’s do, like, sort of an overview. I did some quick research: this show has –
Tara: Okay.
Sarah: – more than sixty-five hundred reviews on Amazon with a four-and-a-half-star average, ninety-three percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – when your review posted today on the site, FashionablyEvil was like, I was hoping for a thread about A League of Their Own!
Tara: [Laughs]
Sarah: Oh my God, I have a show hangover! And I was like, that’s really funny, ‘cause so do Tara and I!
Tara: Oh my goodness. Well, and the thing that was really unfortunate, and what actually got me to watch it in the first place – ‘cause like I say in the intro of my review, I wasn’t going to watch it. Like, the movie was so perfect; how could a TV show also be perfect? And I mean, it was, it was a couple of factors. The one that I did get into was just everybody was talking about it on my Twitter. Every queer woman on my Twitter was freaking out, and I started to get FOMO, but the other thing was that it actually got review-bombed by homophobes who –
Sarah: Oh yeah, that’s always a good indication; like, wait a minute, maybe I need to go check this out if you hate it that much!
Tara: Exactly! They hated it –
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Tara: – so much. They called it, you know, woke and talking about all the gay representation; they hated the Black representation. I was like, ha! Fuck you! I’m going to watch this now! I needed it –
Sarah: This is like the reverse of all of those reviews that say, this book had too much sex. Oh really?
Tara: That’s right.
Sarah: – pissed off the homophobes! And the TERFs? Oh, well, sign me right up!
Tara: Yes. Oh, it was the best. When did you finish?
Sarah: Couple of days ago. Cried. Cried my eyes out. Absolutely sobbed.
Tara: Uh-huh.
Sarah: It was terrible.
Tara: How can you not? It’s such a good ride, and I feel like it does everything right except the lighting, which I’m sorry, but –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: – I am on, I am on Roxane Gay’s bandwagon about everything is filmed too damn dark right now?
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: Everything.
Sarah: [Laughs] It’s so true!
Tara: It’s like, there are certain scenes, there are certain scenes I was like, what the fuck is happening right now? There’s the, the one spoiler, which, I mean, I also gave in my review ‘cause people need to know: the end of episode six, there’s a raid of a gay bar –
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: – but then there’s this, like, right after that is kind of a crucial moment as a couple of them have ducked into a movie theater, and I’m squinting and I’m like, what’s, what’s happening in this theater right now? I, I had to, like, back it up and change the settings –
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: – so I could actually see what was happening? That’s truly my only complaint – [laughs] – is the lighting. But every-, I mean, everything worked for me. And then I went way, way, way down the rabbit hole of, like, all the interviews. What were the panels? What were the Instagram live conversations? [Laughs]
Sarah: Like, what did everyone say about this show?
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: The thing I found the most fascinating, ‘cause you mentioned all of the people on your Twitter feed just absolutely freaking the fuck out, I saw something similar –
Tara: Mm.
Sarah: – with Our Flag Means Death?
Tara: Oh yes.
Sarah: Where the longer it went on, the more queer media people were like –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – okay, I’m cautiously optimistic that this might be o- – wait, okay, I’m even more optimistic. Okay, hang on –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – this is so fucking queer, and if it ends on a high note, everybody – and, and really –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – it was until the show ended, that’s when people were like, you are now safe to enter the water! Go and enjoy –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – this wonderful, happy, queer, weird content; it’s amazing. You, it was almost like –
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: – a lot of people vetted that show before they were like –
Tara: You have to.
Sarah: – ahhh, no. This is great; go ahead.
Tara: You have to.
Sarah: And the same thing with A League of Their Own: the minute people were like, nope, nope, nope! It’s good, good, good! People like, oh really? Ooh! Because –
Tara: Well –
Sarah: – the trick is, like you said, it’s historical.
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: History has not exactly been kind to the queers and the lesbians. This is –
Tara: No.
Sarah: – right in the middle of when it was illegal to be gay, and –
Tara: That’s right.
Sarah: – my, I think my favorite thing about this show is the fact that in the movie A League of Their Own there is a scene where a Black woman outside the field throws a ball at Geena Davis –
Tara: Mm-hmm!
Sarah: – and Geena Davis is like way over yonder and catches it and is like, holy shit, that woman has an arm! And it’s, what would you say, twenty-five seconds of footage? It is not a long scene.
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: This show –
Tara: Not much.
Sarah: – makes a whole plot out of that one person’s moment, and it’s so good. That’s my favorite part. Like, I, I appreciate Carson? I love the characters around Carson even more.
Tara: Yeah. Yes. Well – oh my God, I want to go in five different directions since you said that, and I just got all these, like, little goosebumps like, oh! You’re ready!
Sarah: Oh!
Tara: Go talk about it! So, I mean, the thing that I love about Carson mostly is the, I went back and read my review again this morning just to kind of prep, ‘cause I couldn’t watch all the other episodes in between?
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: So it’s like, what do I really – what is the platonic ideal of my thoughts about this thing? ‘Cause I jammed all of it into that review, and it’s like – the thing that –
Sarah: It’s a great review, by the way. It is fabulous. Like, you and I –
Tara: Thank you.
Sarah: – were going to review it together, and I was like, girl, you do not even need me.
Tara: [Laughs]
Sarah: This is awesome! We’re going to run this! Boop!
Tara: Thank you. So the thing that I love about Carson is that it shows someone who doesn’t know how to make choices for her life, and then starts making choices again and again and again, and every choice centers herself in a way that, again, if we’re talking about the 1940s, like, not only was it illegal to be gay, but also women couldn’t do anything! They couldn’t open their own bank accounts –
Sarah: Nope.
Tara: – they couldn’t, you know, they could vote; that’s kind of about all that they had, so to see this woman at that time who’s like, no, I choose me: I want baseball, I want Greta Gill – I was like, girl, who doesn’t want Greta Gill? I get it; it’s fine.
Sarah: I mean! You have great taste, Carson; I get it.
Tara: Very great taste, but also I do agree with you. Like, I found, as a queer person, I found it really heartening that they said, okay, we’re not just going to make this movie again; we’re going to go back to that original well of the All-American Girls Baseball League.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: There are untold stories there. Guess what! There were a bunch of lesbians in the league. We couldn’t show it; they wouldn’t have been able to talk about it at the time, and even – so when I referenced the documentary earlier, if anybody wants to see it, I’m going to talk very slowly ‘cause I can’t remember the name of it and I’m looking it up so cleverly – it’s called A Secret Love, it’s on Netflix, and it talks about, it’s about Terry Donahue and her partner Pat Henschel. Terry Donahue was in the All-American Girls League.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: It’s believed that she probably inspired one or multiple characters in A League of Their Own. They only came out to their family when they were in their nineties!
Sarah: Isn’t that amazing?
Tara: Or late eighties! That’s right! And even if you look at, like, during the promo for this show, Maybelle Blair, she was a player who –
Sarah: Yes!
Tara: – consulted on the show; she finally came out at ninety-five, which is, like, incredible.
Sarah: Mind-, mindblowing.
Tara: Incredible! And I know there are some people who are kind of upset about the bar raid, that it was included and is – for me, I felt like it was really important to show at least one of, like, what are the actual consequences –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – that happen? It, yeah, it was hard to see that, you know, Jo was beaten up and that the police clearly took her in, and again, like, I don’t mind spoiling all that, ‘cause I think for queer listeners it’s important to understand, like, how bad that gets. Like, I got somebody to spoil it entirely for me. I was like, I need to know, is there sexual assault?
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: Are any gays buried? Like, what is happening there?
Sarah: Yes. Fashionably- –
Tara: And they gave me the warning of – mm-hmm.
Sarah: FashionablyEvil said in their comment that they watched with their ten-year-old, who watches Marvel and watches violence –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – and they found the bar raid deeply upsetting because these people were being attacked for being gay, and that was so –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – incredibly upsetting for this, for this child, and I get it! One of the things that I love about the efficiency of this show is –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – I love efficient visual storytelling. Like, it’s just like –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – I get it; I love it; it’s so great?
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: And there’s two moments, and one of them is the bar raid, because you have this –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – creation of this community that is very, very special and new, and they all aware how weird it is and how unique it is –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – that there’s a baseball league for women, and I mean, they’re, that was a big deal.
Tara: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sarah: And you have the, so there’s three specific efficiency moments that I want to mention. One –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – the bar raid underscores how incredibly powerful and unique the safe space of the baseball league was for these women?
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: But also the menace under which they were operating. They were in danger –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – for being publicly queer if they chose to do so –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – and in the baseball league they were on the field, they were isolated, they were protected, they were with their teams, they were on the bus, they were traveling together –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – they had their own family? They were still in danger.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: The other efficiencies that I love are one in the opening scene? The, the, the show opens with a shot of Carson’s legs as she’s running –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – to catch a train, and the first thing you see –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – are seamed stockings, and I’m like, wow!
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: Logically, oh, okay! I understand exactly what era we’re talking about. She’s running for a train –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – in a rural place, wearing seamed stockings. I don’t even need to see her costume; like, I know exactly. That was –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – I love that so much? I love visual –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – storytelling like that. And the other thing – [laughs] – it’s your turn to bring the pie!
[Laughter]
Sarah: She’s trying to get on a train, and this woman –
Tara: Uh-huh!
Sarah: – is standing with her husband like – first of all, she’s running for the train and her shirt’s, her, her blouse has come open so her bra is just hanging out –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – she doesn’t know.
Tara: Oh yes.
Sarah: Who amongst us has not had a bra out without realizing it?
Tara: Well, right.
Sarah: I mean, it happens.
Tara: Truly.
Sarah: So this woman is standing with her husband, and she’s like, well, I’m going to see you at choir practice. It’s your turn to bring the pie! And, and Carson’s like, absolutely, yes! I will be there! She’s – spoiler alert – getting on a train. Not going to be there.
Tara: [Laughs] I know! I love that so much! I was watching that again last week, and it’s like –
Sarah: Absolutely, I will bring your pie! Fuck your pie!
Tara: Yeah!
[Laughter]
Sarah: But what that does is it underscores that during the war she’s been on her own.
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: She hasn’t had her husband around. She has been in charge of herself within the socially safe arena of being somebody’s wife, so she’s not –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – a woman running around on her own.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: But she’s choosing to not go back to having her husband in her home, because she’s just found out – this is not a spoiler; this is all the first episode –
Tara: Oh yeah.
Sarah: – that her husband’s coming home, and so she is at this very pivotal moment of, do I just sort of wait and have him integrate back in my life and take this role that I don’t necessarily want, or do I go do what I want and run for this train and basically be like, you can deal with your own pie worries, lady; I’m out of here?
Tara: It was incredible. I love that, like, I –
Sarah: It’s so good.
Tara: – I loved that her catalyst was the thing that is actually one of the things that was supposed to be bringing the most joy –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: – at the time in a lot of families.
Sarah: Oh yeah.
Tara: Obviously not every family – families are complicated – but, like, so many families would have been thrilled, so many wives would have been thrilled to get that letter, and for her, she’s like, I’m fucking off to, uh, I’ve got to go do some baseball?
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: I have some tryouts?
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: I feel like this is important? And then it’s like, yeah, she discovers that she is good enough at baseball, but she also discovers herself, who she is –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: – what she needs.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: What it’s like to be in a true community, because even the short interaction she has with her sister, it’s like she doesn’t really have community where she’s at. I don’t get the sense that anyone really gets her. Like, I think her husband gets her to a certain extent, but no one really gets her. She’s on her own until she is here, and so that’s the, like, yeah, it’s so – and yeah, she is queer too, but again, it’s that whole, the found family thing is so strong in this –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – and I love that so much. Like, the way you see all the queer characters kind of gravitate –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – towards each other over the course of the series?
Sarah: Yes, gay-dar is not necessarily an external thing? Often it’s a tractor beam.
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: And it’s also the idea that –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – instead of having to play act this role of happy rural farm wife, she’s like –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – I don’t want to play that role anymore. I don’t want to pretend to be that; I want to be who I actually am. And when it’s that far away –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – from the role that you’re expected to play? Like, the person who’s yelling at her about bring pie to choir practice doesn’t ask her once, where are you going? And why do you have a baseball bat?
Tara: No!
Sarah: Like, it never occurs to her to ask, what are you doing? It’s, you better fulfill your roles that you’re supposed to be in –
Tara: That’s right.
Sarah: – and if you don’t, you know, you’re in trouble! Like, okay!
Tara: Doesn’t even care enough to say, your bra is showing.
Sarah: Yeah, and then she’s like, God, did you see her bra was out? Like, I have stopped total strangers –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – at RWA; like, there was a woman who was carrying a bunch of boxes and her dress had shifted?
Tara: [Laughs]
Sarah: And I just walked in front of her like, hi. Just give me a second. Okay, proceed. And she’s like, oh my God, thank you! Like, you don’t know –
Tara: Yeah!
Sarah: – if your tits are out sometimes! It happens!
Tara: No! But this bitch –
Sarah: Oh, she’s like –
Tara: – doesn’t say anything!
Sarah: – did you see her bra? And her husband’s like, um –
Tara: Hateful.
Sarah: – uh, uh, no?
[Laughter]
Sarah: He doesn’t know the right answer! So moving on from Carson –
Tara: Oh yeah, well trained.
Sarah: – who is –
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: Okay, so who is your absolute favorite character or characters in this one? Can you pick – nope, you can’t pick – oh my God.
Tara: Rude!
Sarah: Y’all, the eye roll –
Tara: Rude! Yes, I can –
Sarah: – the eye roll –
Tara: – but also, rude.
Sarah: – the eye roll that Tara just gave me.
Tara: That was a neck roll, even!
Sarah: Yeah, that was a whole head –
Tara: Yeah, I thought that was –
Sarah: – but that was a –
Tara: – very rude.
Sarah: – an expression of great derision that I dare ask that Tara narrow down. [Laughs]
Tara: Okay, if I absolutely have to narrow it down, it’s Clance, actually. So that’s Max’s best friend.
Sarah: Yes!
Tara: And I just love Clance! She’s a gigantic nerd. She not only reads comics but creates her own comics!
Sarah: Yes!
Tara: When her husband goes off to war.
Sarah: Yes!
Tara: They are the sweetest couple ever. She is funny; she is smart; she does – much like Max, actually – she does kind of what it takes to, you know, achieve whatever means she needs, but in a, but with integrity and with kindness and –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: She’s fabulous. I really, I love her, and even, like, when, when Max says, look, my Uncle Bertie is not weird – ‘cause that’s, like, people are going to find out there’s this character who’s a trans man who is Max’s uncle – and everybody still thinks of Bertie as Max’s aunt, and that’s not the case. Clance doesn’t really, she doesn’t say anything! There is no bad reaction when Max says, I’m going to be spending more time with Bertie, and you just kind of need to deal with it. This is a time when, you know, people who were considered sexual deviants or inverts – I think invert was the term that they used – I guess to trace it sort of, like, to trace this moment back to the bar scene, ‘cause the bar, the bar raid is the potential consequence for every queer person in this show.
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: It’s kind of the one thing they’re showing; there’s, like, little bits of casual homophobia here and there, like inverts being talked about and whatever, but there were a few potential really terrible consequences that could happen, and one of them is, yeah, you can be arrested, and if you are arrested your name will be published in the paper.
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: That was a thing. People lost families; they lost, lost jobs; their lives, whatever; but a lot of women – I know this more about women; I don’t know if it’s the case for men. It’s possible this happened to men too, but I, I didn’t do any research on that – but, like, for sure women ended up in asylums –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – and getting lobotomized or having electroshock therapy, and –
Sarah: We have to zap the queer out of you. Yeah.
Tara: That’s right.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: It was terrible! And so to see, for me – see, I did two characters. Sorry! Ha! You can’t constrain me to one! But for me –
Sarah: I figured that would be the case! [Laughs]
Tara: – getting to see Bertie not only living his truth but thriving? He had a beautiful life! He had community! They have that party! Like, I love their house party –
Sarah: Ah!
Tara: – with nothing but Black queer people! So good!
Sarah: The, the entire –
Tara: So good.
Sarah: – the entire show has so many moments where a character or characters realize, oh, hold up, I’m safe here.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: I have found a safe place here. Among these people I am safe; in this location I am safe.
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: In this baseball league I am safe. I am surrounded –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – by people who keep me safe.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: So you also did research on baseball? And you don’t like baseball.
Tara: Well, a little – no, I didn’t do research on all of baseball. [Laughs] Most of the history I know from watching the original film. Like, that –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – to me, like, that’s kind of the historical text!
Sarah: And I will say, Madonna’s best role, by the way. Madonna’s best theater role is A League of Their Own.
Tara: That’s probably true, although I haven’t seen any film with Madonna in it for a very long time. I was going to try to watch this film again and then, you know, life happened? Yeah, that’s probably true. I mean –
Sarah: My favorite scene in that movie –
Tara: – Who’s That Girl? couldn’t have been very good. [Laughs]
Sarah: Yeah. My favorite thing about the movie, by the way, is the idea that she, so she, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell were really good friends at that time and they did all their press together –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – and they low-key play their relationship in the movie as if they are together?
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: But then Madonna is teaching one of the girls who is illiterate how to read by having her read a very sexy romance novel?
[Laughter]
Sarah: Like, that scene was made for me! [Laughs]
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: So tell me what you learned. [Laughs]
Tara: So I think, I wouldn’t even say it was the show that inspired me to dig into it as much as the press. So again, reading that about Maybelle Blair –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: – and then the other thing that stood out to me was – I grabbed, I did grab a quote – so Chanté Adams plays Max, and she had a photo of her; Abbi Jacobson, who plays Carson –
Sarah: Carson.
Tara: – Maybelle Blair; and another woman, Billie Harris. And so I was like, this is kind of cool, and I’m reading the caption, and she said, I’ve been on this project for three years, but last week, meeting Billie, was the first time I met a Black ball player from the generation. After watching the first two episodes, she grabbed my hands and said, Max went through what I went through. I’m so happy folks get to see now.
Sarah: Ah!
Tara: And then finding out – so that, that was a thing that I didn’t know and that I was so surprised about. Like, I felt like I knew a little bit about the All-American Girls League, so I was mostly looking into, like, oh, okay, it was, it was the Wrigley son who founded it. That was kind of cool; I didn’t know a lot about Wrigleys – again, I don’t follow baseball, so – [laughs] – I didn’t realize, oh yeah, they were the founders of the Cubs –
Sarah: It’s fine.
Tara: – they were all that. And then reading about, you know, there are five players from the All-American Girls League that we know for sure were lesbians. One of them was Terry Donahue, like I said, and you can go and watch her story. And her story, it’s really interesting ‘cause it’s kind of biographical and talks about how Terry and Pat grow up and how they end up meeting each other later, and it gets into the baseball, but also, like, you see these, you see them go for dinner with these two gay men who are clearly some of their family? Like, their other family, and it’s definitely some sad stuff because we’re talking about, like, nonagenarians? Somebody’s dying soon.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: You just know. Like, it’s in for a sad time, and it’s like them moving kind of from their home to their, to an assisted living and that sort of stuff, but really kind of shows how they lived in a way to keep it a secret for a long time. So you can imagine that’s not that far off from a lot of what these women would have done in A League of Their Own, but where I got really interested was there were three women who played in the Negro Leagues because they could not, they were not even allowed to try out for the All-American Girls League. They were turned away. You know, Mamie Johnson and her friend went to one of the tryouts, and they were sent away, which is a lot like what happened to Max, and so she ended up signing with the Indianapolis Clowns.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: She joined them in 1955 – I know, right? I, I don’t know how baseball team names get made, but –
Sarah: I mean, it was the ‘40s; that name could have been a lot worse. There are a lot of terrible team names running around. [Laughs]
Tara: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. [Laughs] So, and she was on the same team as Connie Morgan, and so they were the second and third women to play professionally in the Negro Leagues, and the first woman was Toni Stone; she played for them in 1953 and for another team in 1954. And so for me the thing that was so brilliant was under-, like, I, it was almost like when I read that quote I was like, oh shit! And then I went back and thought about it more, and it’s like, we really do see Max carve a path. It’s like, okay, I want to play baseball, and it’s like, okay, well, the women’s team won’t let me; maybe I’ll try for my local men’s team, which isn’t even, it’s not even like a major league team.
Sarah: No, it’s a local –
Tara: And it’s just like my –
Sarah: – beer league –
Tara: Yeah!
Sarah: – basically.
Tara: Well, first she gets ignored, and then she’s told, we can’t even consider you unless you have a job, so she gets a job at a screw factory which has been repurposed to build stuff for the war –
Sarah: Yeah, it’s been, it’s been –
Tara: – and then it’s like –
Sarah: – commissioned for munitions, I think!
Tara: And then she’s like, how ‘bout now? And is still not treated very well –
Sarah: Uh-huh.
Tara: – and gets pulled in almost as a stunt –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – as a favor –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – from this woman that she had banged the night before –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – who is a pitcher –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – for this Black league and gets to prove herself and gets invited to the team, and it’s so, like, there were women that actually did that.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: They got brought in to, like, Black men’s teams –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – because they were that good.
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: And I just found that incredible. So yeah, like you, like, seeing that thirty-second clip from the original film spun out into its own other storyline showing there were incredible Black female baseball players at the time –
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: – that maybe they didn’t get to play in this league, but they are important figures in our sports history, and we can’t forget them either.
Sarah: Absolutely. And there is so much American and Canadian history in this series.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: Like FashionablyEvil – I, I’m going to have to give FashionablyEvil like a credit on this episode. Thank you for your comment, FashionablyEvil!
[Laughter]
Sarah: But FashionablyEvil –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – mentioned that Kelly McCormack, who plays Jess, insisted that –
Tara: Fucking love her.
Sarah: – her character be from Moose Jaw because of the town’s queer history. Apparently, Moose Jaw hosted a lesbian parade in the 1940s –
Tara: Oh really?
Sarah: – and had a thriving and diverse sex worker community. So first of all, I know that when you think about vacation, what you think about is Saskatchewan.
Tara: Oh, every time.
Sarah: Absolutely. The first –
Tara: I think about, and then I know, and then I don’t do it.
[Laughter]
Tara: Each year!
Sarah: But it kind of sounds like going to Moose Jaw is, is, sounds pretty cool.
Tara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: Well, and I think – I’m trying to remember where Terry Donahue is from. I think it’s from somewhere around there. The problem is when you look it up, it brings up an American football coach first.
Sarah: Well, I mean –
Tara: You have to find the baseball one.
Sarah: Right. Mm-hmm!
Tara: [Sighs] Yes, ‘cause she was Canadian.
Sarah: Yep!
Tara: And –
Sarah: Lot of very causally, thoroughly Canadian people in this show, and I just, I just love that, because it shows –
Tara: I know.
Sarah: – peeper were, people were willing to undergo a lot of discomfort, hardship, travel, and expense to try to play baseball professionally.
Tara: It was their only chance!
Sarah: Yeah. It’s really amazing.
Tara: And I did – oh – I did love Jess. I love – that’s, one of the things that I really liked about this is that too, is, like, kind of that range of how queer women presented, and you see Jess and Lupe and Jo are all, you know, they’re all butch women. They’re all, you know, they prefer the pants and the whatever and, you know, there was a reason why they had charm school for these women –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – because that was also the time. Like, that was why they were fining them for wearing pants. Like, a thing that happened with the bar raids at the time was, it gets referred to as the – what’s it called? It’s like the three article of clothing rule?
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: Something like that?
Sarah: Yeah. You can’t –
Tara: Which was not even –
Sarah: You can’t be wearing pants!
Tara: It’s not –
Sarah: Mm-mm.
Tara: It’s not even a real law. So, like, if a woman was caught, and it was kind of like a spinoff of masquerade laws from the, I think like the late 19th century, and it was just like, hey, you’re wearing pants and a shirt. Guess what? You’re going to jail, and we’re going to publish your name in a newspaper.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: And you know, for some of these women it was still important – like, Jess wears pants the whole series.
Sarah: Yep!
Tara: Wears a skirt at the beginning when she has to for charm school so that she can pass.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: But after that? No. She’s, you know, in her tank tops and pants with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth.
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: [Laughs] And Jess was, like, totally cool, butch present, which I know now we would say mask, but that’s not what they would have said then.
Sarah: Yep. And it, and it, and it’s, it’s fascinating because you can look at that, at that “law” –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – as, oh yeah, that’s a relic of the past, but it absolutely is not.
Tara: No.
Sarah: It is absolutely not a relic of the past, and it, I love a show that can have a viewer potentially look at this and say, wow, that’s really fucked up! Hold up, that’s still happening.
Tara: Well, and I think that’s why it was actually so important that they at least indicated how dire the consequences could be at that time for being discovered as a queer person.
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: Because, you know, unfortunately there are some people in this world, and most vocally in your country, that are trying to push for a return to this time.
Sarah: Yeah. Where there was one –
Tara: We could go back to this.
Sarah: – very limited role for everybody, and it was, it’s under the domain of cishet, white guys. Christians.
Tara: That’s right!
Sarah: Christian, cishet – can’t forget that part – Christian, cishet, white guys.
Tara: No. No, you can’t, ‘cause those are the ones, like, they’re pushing for it again! There, there is, like, a purposeful movement to try to make us go back to that –
Sarah: Yep.
Tara: – and we need to see stories like this and say we are absolutely not going back to that.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: We can’t.
Sarah: Nope.
Tara: Max’s parents –
Sarah: Yes?
Tara: – what do you think of Max’s parents?
Sarah: Ooh. Oh!
Tara: It’s so complicated, right?
Sarah: It’s so, so complicated! So complicated, and yet – [deep breath] –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – it’s like, oh gosh, I know that this is all out of love! This is not, I don’t accept you; this is not, I must control you. I’m reading a book about raising a child with ADHD, and one of the –
Tara: Mmm.
Sarah: – commentaries in the book is, you need to be a shepherd, not an engineer. You may not –
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: – engineer your children; that is not a thing that happens. You can’t engineer your child? You can shepherd your child. You can help keep them safe –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – and help guide them into adulthood; that’s your job. You’re not, your job is not to engineer and control your kid. And they’re not trying to engineer her, but they’re also like, this is the reality in which you live, and we want you to have the best possible future, and we really think our way is the way to do that.
Tara: Yes.
Sarah: So why don’t give –
Tara: And even –
Sarah: – a quick summary of Max’s situation, ‘cause I just jumped in with an answer but didn’t summarize. [Laughs]
Tara: Oh yeah. So Max’s situation is that, so her – this is all one of the things that I really love is, her parents are successful business owners –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – which is fabulous. Again, just like the showing, the choice to show –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – successful Black business people in the 1940s –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: – who were allowed to thrive is incredible.
Sarah: Oh yeah!
Tara: But her mom wants her to take over more and more responsibilities at the beauty salon that she owns so that eventually it will become Max’s salon.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: And Max just wants baseball, and so she goes and gets a job at the screw factory when she already has a job at the salon, and there’s just this kind of struggle and tension between Max wanting to pursue her dreams and Max’s mom thinking like, okay, but this isn’t safe for you. This is not a safe situation. I have built this thing that will keep you safe. I just want you to be safe.
Sarah: Yeah, everything –
Tara: I want you to be okay.
Sarah: Exactly! Everything that Max’s parents are trying to, to accomplish is coming from a place of love and care and awareness and an accurate –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – accurate analysis of what the world is for her and for them and for their community. Like, they are not wrong!
Tara: Mm-mm.
Sarah: And it’s really hard to – it’s, it’s, it’s the, it’s a very, it’s a very thoughtful and more nuanced version of, well, my kid wants to be a rock star.
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: And, okay, the chances of that actually happening are really, really low, but what if you are that one that is going to succeed? What if you are the one who’s going to be a baseball pitcher?
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: What if that actually happens?
Tara: Yes. But, like, my kid wants to be a rock star with nu-, like, with layers on top of that, you know.
Sarah: Yes!
Tara: They are from multiple marginalized groups.
Sarah: Yes, exactly.
Tara: In a time when it’s not safe to be in any of those marginalized groups, they have multiple on top of each other.
Sarah: Yes.
Tara: Okay, how do I keep this child safe in this world, make sure she can feed herself –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – make sure she’s as protected as can – I mean, the store is kind of only protected as, as much as it can be –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – but, like, there’s still a kind of this, it’s as close to a nest that her mom can keep her in.
Sarah: Yep! Yep. And, and I understand that instinct completely! I absolutely get it. Like –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – my older child absolutely wants to be a musician, and I will be the first to tell you –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – they are very, very talented. But I regularly remind them, you know, it’s totally okay to have, like, a job between nine and five and then spend all your time and energy doing the thing that you love? Especially if you have a job that doesn’t completely deplete you inside.
Tara: Yes! You might need to have a job. Like, I, my dream growing up was book editing, and guess what? That doesn’t pay a lot of money.
Sarah: You don’t say!
Tara: It doesn’t pay a lot, so I have one author I do it for, I do the reviewing and the recommending to stay connected to books, and I work a job.
Sarah: Yep!
Tara: It’s, I love my job, but, like –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: My –
Sarah: Adulthood looks like –
Tara: My job pays for everything else.
Sarah: Exactly! Adulthood looks like a lot of different things.
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: So if anyone hasn’t watched this –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: If anyone is like, oh, I haven’t watched this yet; I was thinking about it; why should someone watch A League of Their Own? How will they feel when they finish it, aside from needing a little box of tissues? It’ll make you cry. It’s very, it’s very poignant and beautiful and –
Tara: Yeah.
Sarah: – it’s just all the, all the happy-cry feels.
Tara: I think that’s it! If you want to see something, it, like, for me it just, it felt safe and pure –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – to watch, and yes, you see a little bit of the ugliness in the world at the time, enough to remember, oh yeah, that happened; we don’t want to go back there.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: But mostly just have, like, joy and –
Sarah: Yeah!
Tara: – support and, yes, there are complicated things, but the thing for me, more than anything, is just this show has so much heart, and I will always show up for a project that has that. To me it’s the anti-Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones did not have heart. There’s joy and love and heart. You can tell that everyone who made it loves it –
Sarah: Isn’t that great?
Tara: – and that it’s a passion project. Yes! And I feel like when those happen, when they get it right –
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: – it just makes everything better.
Sarah: Yeah, it’s like watching Letterkenny. You can tell, you guys are having a real good time making this, aren’t you? You guys are having –
Tara: Yes!
Sarah: – a really good time! [Laughs]
Tara: Yes! Or Schitt’s Creek or The Good Place!
Sarah: Yeah, absolutely! What, Canada, what’s going on up there? Are you all just wandering around just being happy all the time?
Tara: Oh no, someone told you? Shh, the secret got out!
Sarah: God damn it! It’s in the Nanaimo bars, isn’t it?
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: Yeah.
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: Thought so.
Tara: Oh fuck! Now I want a Nanaimo bar! Very –
Sarah: [Laughs]
Tara: – problematic. I haven’t had one in a while.
Sarah: Tara, where can people find you if they want to talk to you about all of the things A League of Their Own? Where can they find you?
Tara: You can find me on Twitter @taramdscott; you can, you know, message me through the Queerly Recommended website. I’m sorry: please do not add me on Facebook or Instagram ‘cause those are family accounts, and I stupidly set up all my socials with the same handle! [Laughs]
Sarah: Yes, I understand this problem –
Tara: Mm-hmm.
Sarah: – out here on the internet with my own name. [Laughs]
Tara: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Sarah: Thank you so much for coming to squee about the show with me.
Tara: Thank you for inviting me!
Sarah: Oh my gosh. It’s such a good show! Go watch it!
[music]
Sarah: And that brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Are you watching A League of Their Own? Have you already watched it? Do you want to talk about it? We want to talk about it with you. I will link in the show notes to Tara’s review, and you can always tweet at us, and you can email me at S-G-, S-B-J- – I should get this right – [email protected]. I love hearing from you, and I would love to hear what you’ve been thinking about this show. It is just so good. It is such a warm hug!
As always, I end with a terrible joke, and this week is no exception. Are you ready?
Why should you always meet a first date at the gym?
Give up? Why should you always meet a first date at the gym?
Because then you know you’re going to work out.
[Laughs] You know you’re going to work out! You’re going to work out. That’s so silly! [Laughs more] This – and yet I’m still laughing! This is from u/monarch on Reddit; I don’t know which one, but thank you, monarch on Reddit. Work out!
On behalf of everyone here, we wish you a fabulous weekend with the very best of reading, and we will see you back here next week!
Smart Podcast, Trashy Books is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at frolic.media/podcasts.
[end of music]
This podcast transcript was handcrafted with meticulous skill by Garlic Knitter. Many thanks.
Aaaahhhh, as Sarah would say, my inner 13 year old is NOT chill. So excited to have a small role on a SB podcast!
Your comment and perspective added so much to our discussion. Thank you so, so much!!!
You are now famous, @FashionablyEvil!
Thank you for a great conversation, Tara and Sarah.