Queer Literature In The Era of Anti-Intellectualism with Frank Pizzoli

·1 hr 8 min·5 clips

Why are evangelical men obsessed with homoerotic Trump images while banning Grindr and calling gay people sinful?

Contradiction drives the episode from the jump. The cold open asks why some evangelical and right-wing men glorify muscular images of Trump while condemning gay people. Then the interview settles in, and Frank remembers being told that speaking his mind and living openly could hurt his chances elsewhere. The setting makes it worse: daylight, on a college campus, not some hidden threat in a dark alley. Equality suddenly sounds conditional. The memory takes an odd turn later, when Frank, as editor of the student newspaper, invites the college president and his wife to dinner. The meal is bad. When the president asks about wine, the students say they are underage and steer him away from a compromising situation. That sticks with Frank. He remembers the wife's face and later hears the president appreciated it. It does not fix the earlier warning, but it keeps the story from flattening into a simple villain scene. Andrew then turns to nostalgia for 1969 and the early seventies, especially Hair. Frank does not sneer at it. He treats it as commercial art, part of the period, but polished and overdone in the way paid entertainment tends to be. By the end, the mood warms. Frank talks about the response to his first book, including forthcoming and possible queer publication coverage, and Andrew thanks him for the history and care he brought with him.

As heard by us

A queer literary conversation where campus memory meets Hair's commercial visibility.

Frank Pizzoli gives this Ivory Tower Boiler Room conversation its strongest center. With Dr. Andrew Rimby, he looks back on campus life, on speaking openly and living as himself, and on the warning that being known could cost him a future at another college.

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Why you'd press play

You get Frank Pizzoli's campus memories and the question of what Hair helped make visible.

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