Episode 6: "Mean and Horny"

*This week, the queers discuss the ultimate summer getaway for Long Island’s most unlovable children, SLEEPAWAY CAMP!! In this episode, Michael digs deep on conspiracy theories about Camp Arawak, Nay is driven to the brink of madness by how volcanically terrible the character of Judy is, Mark reveals his long-buried connection to the film’s crew, and everyone shares their best and worst stories from camp. Plus, in Tea Time we sip on SHARP OBJECTS, JAWS, the Instagram video vortex, and Producer Brennan drops by to talk CHILDREN OF THE CORN 1-4. [1]*

## **Content Warning**

This episode features discussion of sexual assault, homophobia, transphobia and pedophilia. Or as Michael puts it, "This whole movie's a trigger warning."

## **Trivia**

"Comin' at ya live from Mr. Furley's S&M dungeon," this week. Brennan is introduced as the show's producer/(camp) counselor this week. Michael has the shortest Shady Summary in the history of the show for this movie. Mark adds non-helpful daddy from the start of the movie to his impressions roster. "John!" And Aunt Martha. *Jesus Camp* is the documentary Nay mentions. Mark mentions wanting to do *Reform School Girls* as an episode. The entire movie is unanimously declared a "Girl, No" moment.

## **Tea Time**

**Nay:** slime videos on Instagram, sand videos, soap cutting and squashing

**Michael:** Like *You Can't Do That on Television* Nickelodeon slime or just?

**Nay:** Just like people popping slime, making slime…

**Michael:** When I was a little boy, i loved *You Can't Do That on Television*. So I figured out the recipe for slime as a kid and begged my mom to let me make it. I remember then it was like, water, flour, food coloring and I bet glue was the last ingredient to make it *thick.*

**Mark:** T-H-I-C-C. That's how your mom put it, too. She was like, "Here honey, you want it thicc don't you?"

**Michael:** "Use your thickener."

**Nay:** Michael's like, "That's what the kids are doing these days."

**Mark:** *Jaws* at the Arclight

**Brennan:** *Children of the Corn* 1 - Literally nothing happens.

**Brennan:** I've been wracking my brains trying to figure out why it's iconic and my answer is Isaac, because I think John Franklin is really good, um, the actor. Because he has this weird haunted quality to that performance that's genuinely great and everything else in the movie is very bland and basic.

*Children of the Corn 2* - Weird amount of *Wizard of Oz* references, much gorier. I loved it.

**Brennan:** Still a crappy movie, but it's a *crazier* crappy movie so I was into it.

**Mark:** Wild and crappy?

**Brennan:** Exactly

*Children of the Corn 3* - Three words about it: Screaming Mad George. He did the effects on that one and it's nuts. Honestly? Highly recommend. The plot is nonsense, but there's a part where a hobo's head gets ripped off and put in the dirt and then some kid, like, thirty minutes later comes by and he falls in the dirt and the hobo head starts chewing on his arm. It's crazy.

*Children of the Corn 4* - has nothing to do with anything. Is less a *Children of the Corn* movie and more of a paranormal disease outbreak movie and I kind of loved it.

**Michael:** Is that the one with Eva Mendes?

**Brennan:** No, that's part 5. Naomi Watts is in part 4. And Karen Black.

**Michael:** What's the subtitle on four?

**Brennan:** *The Gathering*

**Michael:** And what's five?

**Brennan:** *Fields of Terror*

**Michael:** The subtitles are my favorite because they're so dumb.

**Michael:** *Jaws* (last week); three episodes into *Sharp Objects*; started listening to a podcast called *Doctor Death*

**Nay:** Oh, you started *listening* to a podcast. I was like, "Oh, you got *another* podcast, Michael? Did you text Mark about this?"

**Mark:** Be like Nay and I are already texting each other like, "Can you believe this?"

**Michael:** Mark's actually doing it with me

**Mark:** (fake enthusiasm) "Yeah, Nay, you should totally listen!" Can you imagine?

**Michael:** (*Doctor Death*) is about a doctor that just fucked up so many people. And he's Doctor Death. So, check it out.

**Michael:** Are you guys still my friends?

**Mark:** Nay's still not convinced that you didn't start another podcast. She's looking at him like, "Is he fucking with me?"

**Michael:** She is like, I think I see a knife coming out

**Mark:** She is like, "I think he's fucking with me."

**Michael:** Her Swiss Army knife is coming out of her bathing suit--

**Nay:** Coming out of my Speedos

(After finding out how many *Children of the Corn* movies there are)

**Mark:** Wow, that corn had a lot of kids. It's nuts

## **Shady Summaries**

**Michael:** We're here for a very fill in the blank movie. Words fail.

**Narrator in the trailer:** Welcome, to Sleepaway Camp. Someone is watching you.

**Nay:** Is this Mark?

**Michael:** There's so much to say.

**Mark:** It's perfect

**Michael:** Well, it is, but it isn't.

**Michael:** Just… oof is my Shady Summary?

**Nay:** After a tragic accident, weird doctor-auntie raises her nephew as her niece and other gay pathologies

**Michael:** Mark, are you praying?

**Mark:** I think I might be to come up with a Shady Summary

**Mark:** All I have is just...

**Michael:** Don't go to this fucking camp?

**Mark:** Welcome to Camp Trigger Warning. It's just, every scene is a slap in the face to logic, propriety, decency…

**Michael:** It's garbage

**Mark:** It's amazing. But that's why we love...

**Michael:** It's not garbage, it's trash. and that's why we love it. It's pure trash.

**Mark:** And I say this as a *huge* fan of this movie, but oh my God.

**Michael:** It's amazing what age and time will do to you as you're watching something that you found so beloved, like you loved so much. What the fuck was I thinking?

## **Pride Float**

**Mark:** Would you recommend? And does it get a Pride float?

**Nay:** They don't get a float. But, I pretty much demand that they make large donations to organizations that help folks understand their gender and affirm folks' gender

**Michael:** Like the Trans Lifeline or, yeah

**Nay:** I think what's so painful about this movie, is I think for us watching it is that our understanding of gender and our understanding of where we are in 2018 and watching this movie from 1981 is like, this movie is just so complicated because you have this young person and then the aunt decides, makes a decision for her, for this person, where it's like, "You're gonna live this way." And the scene at the end, where this child is losing their fucking shit and it's revealed that like, their genitals are different from everyone else. Imagine. And it just like, it made me want to throw up. And not because of the child's body. But just the kind of like, hysteria that's around revealing people's genitals?

**Mark:** Like you were looking past the camp at the reality of that would be like?

**Michael:** Like, "And here's our twist." Someone's gender identity is no fucking twist on your movie. It's cheap.

**Mark:** And it's an opportunity… again, everything that's ugly about the Eighties

**Nay:** Yeah

**Michael:** It's cheap shock value and you know that somebody, you know the way they; and I have no doubt in my mind that this movie started with the fucking ending and worked backwards. You know somebody was sitting in a room was like, "What if the girl was a boy, bro?"

**Mark:** "What if *Friday the 13th* but it was a camper and… eh."

**Michael:** "It was Pamela, but Pamela's really… Jason."

**Nay:** Yeah. So this like, moment of horror...

**Michael:** And also have her growl.

**Nay:** And she's like, growling and like, I just, I feel there are so many horrific moments in this world where someone is basically just demanding to see what kind of genitals someone has

**Michael:** And they're killed for it

**Nay:** And they're killed for it. And it just makes me really happy that Angela went fucking apeshit on everybody and was like, "Oh, all six of you in the sleeping bags that fucked with me earlier? All of you, ***dead***. You? Dead."

**Michael:** And every person she killed deserved it. Except maybe those four boys that were in the sleeping bags doing nothing but sleeping.

**Nay:** I was into that. "You threw sand at me, bitch." That means you fucking die, you know? Kill all of 'em.

**Mark:** That *is* an interesting takeaway from *Sleepaway Camp*. It's almost as if people shouldn't be allowed to make decisions about other people's bodies. Now, that said, would I recommend *Sleepaway Camp*? Of course! With a giant flashing warning for you to sort of like, gird yourself for--

**Michael:** *Everything* is triggering here. Sexual assault, gender identity, homosexuality…

**Mark:** So unless you are a very sensitive viewer, and y'know, and you're able to sort of right-size this movie and appreciate, I mean if that's the word, it for what it is, then it's a goddamn laugh riot. But holy shit.

**Nay:** Holy shit.

**Michael:** You can laugh at it. It'll get you through it.

**Mark:** But no Pride float.

**Michael:** No Pride float whatsoever. It's actually banned from the Pride parade. I would recommend it in that sense, too. It is, especially if you're a slasher fan, it's like, Slasher 101. You need to watch it in order to graduate to the next class, like if you ask me. I did get a little bit of hope watching it, though. Because my, I had a takeaway in a sense that while this is awful, but wow, we've actually evolved here in 35 years to a better understanding and acceptance of gender identity. We still have a long way to go, but 35 years in a lot of ways is a long time, but in a lot of ways it's not. Every time though I hear someone involved with this movie talk about wanting to remake it, I'm like, "Ugh. You better let five hundred people read that script before you even set *fucking* foot on a set."

**Michael:** The thing that sticks most with people about *Sleepaway Camp* is the ending, right? I wanna go back and watch (parts two and three) and see if that ending is utilized in any way. You know what I mean?

**Mark:** Stay classy, *Sleepaway Camp*

**Michael:** Just see what it looks like to me, now.

**Michael:** Brennan, really quick. Pride float or not? We didn't ask you.

**Brennan:** Come on. But I actually wanted to share a camp story, because you had your highs and your lows and my beautiful camp story is: I tried corn flakes for the first time. So, it was really an eye-opener.

**Mark:** (gasps) Me, too.

**Michael:** Did you like them?

**Brennan:** I did. Maybe just because the milk was *super* cold and I was so into it. Camping was such an experience for me. It was really formative. Corn flakes are great.

**Mark:** Corn flakes just taste better in the woods.

**Brennan:** I actually do have a story. I was being ironic, obviously. Jokes are great. But they made us sing a camp song and our camp song was "Good Riddance" by Green Day because everyone was like, "We hope you have the time of your life! Come on! It's great!" They also censored the word "tattoos" out of the lyrics.

**Michael:** Oh, that's right. You went to a Christian school too, right?

**Brennan:** No, I didn't.

**Michael:** Really?

**Brennan:** Tattoos are just really inappropriate for kids. Instead of "tattoos and memories" it was "sunshine and memories".

Donate to organizations like the Trevor Project and the Trans Lifeline if you're able.

## **Quotes**

**Brennan:** For the gaybies in the audience, who the fuck are you talking about?

**Michael** **and Mark:** (sigh disgustedly)

**Nay:** "Come and knock on our door…"

**Michael:** *Three's Company*

**Mark:** "We've been waiting for you…"

**Brennan:** I've heard of it. I've heard it referenced on *Friends*.

**Michael:** "Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, three's company too"

**Nay:** You know, like, three's company and then...

**Brennan:** Oh, four is a crowd? Is that what it is?

**Brennan:** Why can I reference *Bosom Buddies* but not *Three's Company*?

**Michael:** *Three's Company* was only a couple of years before that. It was a breakout hit, Brennan

**Brennan:** Breakout from what?

**Michael:** Have you never seen an episode of *Three's Company*?

**Brennan:** No. Where would it go? Where would I get it?

**Michael:** It's on Logo right now

**Mark:** Guys, I want to die right now, so.

**Nay:** My favorite show as a child was *Dragnet*, because I wasn't shit. I still liked cops back then.

**Brennan:** You wouldn't know it by the way these queens were talking to me earlier, but I am the producer of this show.

**Mark:** I name checked you earlier

**Brennan:** I know, thank you

**Michael:** We need to put you back in Katherine McPhee's basement

**Brennan:** I miss it so much!

**Michael:** I feel like I know somebody who wrote on a *Hellraiser* film--

**Brennan:** That's not shocking, because there's a lot of those.

**Michael:** And I think they had to write to like, write it in a day and a half. I'm not kidding. I think it was was taking an old script and making it a *Hellraiser* movie in the process

**Mark:** It just turned into that gif of the cat going, "smack smack smack" on the keyboard.

**Michael:** And I think it was one of Dimension's we'd better shoot this sequel really quick so we can keep the rights type of movies

**Brennan:** I love those, though. Because it's just someone cracking their brain open and dumping it on a script and being like, "Here's a movie, I guess."

**Mark:** "This is a movie?"

**Brennan:** "We'll see."

**Michael:** They literally put it in one theater, for the contract

**Brennan:** For the Oscars?

**Mark:** (sarcastically) Yeah

**Michael:** Literally one theater, one screening.  and it satisfied some clause.

**Brennan:** I know someone who was probably there. He's pretty hardcore.

**Mark:** Oh, that's tough.

**Nay:** I just quickly wanted to say that I identify as a child of the corn.

**Michael:** I love that

**Mark:** Visibility is important

**Michael:** I'm gonna put that in your bio.

**Brennan:** The *Children of the Corn* are pretty queer, too. Like, most of the kids are little gay boys and John Franklin is gay. Like the actor who played Isaac is for sure.

**Mark:** (fey voice) "He Who Walks Behind the Rows".

**Michael:** (fey voice) "Girlfriend."

**Mark:** (fey voice) "Let's do it."

**Nay:** Groups of little church kids? Gay. It's so gay.

**Michael:** Right? It's like seventy-five percent

**Nay:** They're out in the corn, on the farm.

**Brennan:** No parents around

**Nay:** No social media

**Mark:** They're not shucking

**Nay:** Or are they?

**Brennan:** Well, it depends

**Michael:** You know what they're doing behind that corn

**Brennan:** I did mention (on my other podcast) that corn is ribbed for her pleasure, so there's definitely, there's some fun to be had in those cornfields.

**Mark:** That is true. Corn is ribbed when you think about it.

**Nay:** Mmm-hmm.

**Brennan:** And even when you don't.

**Mark:** Gross. Well, I didn't like corn before and now I really hate it.

**Nay:** I'm just looking at this weird bag of candy (Michael) brought.

**Mark:** It looks like poison candy.

**Michael:** It's like from an AM/PM. Someone gave it to me, like, "Here's this candy I bought on this trip."

**Nay:** Absolutely not. Hell no.

**Mark:** No. It looks like...

**Nay:** I'm gonna put it in my purse to sit for thirty years until I'm a grandma

**Michael:** "**Warning:** May cause your elbows to burn."

**Brennan:** What?

**Michael:** That's just how it looks. The person is very nice. Maybe?

**Michael:** Quick plot summary - kids go to camp and they die

**Mark:** Long Island's most unlovable children are rounded up on to a bus...

**Michael:** Children? They're like age five to four hundred. What is with this camp?

**Mark:** Just the most foul-mouthed, monstrous children are all just dumped...

**Michael:** (as a parent) "Take my horrid fucking child this summer."

**Mark:** At this awful camp run by…

**Michael:** Awful people

**Nay:** By pedophiles

**Mark:** Yeah, by literal pedophiles.

**Michael:** And dudes showing dong

**Mark:** And then they're murdered.

**Michael:** A really interesting thing is to start from the beginning of the movie. So. Daddy for daddy. What's going on there? Because if you ask me, the whole movie's saying basically, "Two gay men are the cause of all the problems going on" in this movie's world, based on the opening.

**Nay:** I wanted to whoop everyone's fucking ass (in the opening of the movie). I was so mad. Somebody make a move. It's an emergency.

**Michael:** That's the thing I noticed. From the beginning to the end of the movie, no one helps anybody.

**Nay:** Just the cousins

**Michael:** Two daddies.

**Mark and Michael**: Cause of everyone's problems.

**Mark:** That's the fucked up thing about this movie. The camp is populated by pedophiles and monsters and sociopaths and like, they're all crazy.

**Michael:** Daddy daddy

**Mark:** But in the end of the day, if only these two men hadn't fucked

**Michael:** "If only these two men had been watching their children."

**Mark:** Or something. Also, it has the weirdest approximation of gay sex I've ever seen, which is essentially one man next to another man and they sort of just rub each other's shoulders. Like in gentle circles.

**Nay:** Isn't that what gay sex is?

**Michael:** Sort of. We have more clothes on than they did in the movie

**Mark:** We like to make it sound a little more elaborate than that

**Michael:** Were they in like, an empty space, too? Was the bed an "X" like you'd see in the script, like, "EXTERIOR: Bed X."

**Mark:** It reminded me of the bed that Rose Nylund had in her home on *The Golden Girls*

**Nay:** Shut the fuck up. Wow. I literally just saw that last night. Like her bed, looking at her whole bedroom.

**Michael:** That show is amazing

**Mark:** Am I crazy? Does it…?

**Nay:** Yes, but not for that

**Mark:** The Rose Nylund connection

**Michael:** Did everyone do acid before making this movie?

**Mark:** Possibly? I can imagine the controlled substances were probably a part of making the movie.

**Michael:** On the call sheet, "Acid".

**Mark:** I just want to talk about seeing this movie at 12 years old in a video store...

**Michael:** Being terrified

**Mark:** And being obsessed with the cover, which was a wet sneaker, like a Ked, on the tip of a hunting knife with blood on it and you can see the handwriting of the (does kid's voice), "Dear Mom and Dad…" which, by the way, if you're afraid for your life, writing a letter home is probably the least effective means of protecting yourself.

**Michael:** (as a child) "I'm so scared right now. They're gonna get this letter in six days."

**Mark:** Putting that aside for a second. I remember at twelve, watching this alone. The psychosexual messy insanity was a lot, a LOT to absorb. It was really a lot.

**Michael:** It starts with the daddies and just continues through the movie.

**Nay:** It always starts with the daddies.

**Michael:** What is up with the bitch Aunt Martha? What's up with Aunt Martha?

**Mark:** What movie is she in?

**Michael:** What is going on there? And she's a doctor?!?

**Mark:** No, she  is in her own movie. I respect her.

**Nay:** Completely different style of everything

**Michael:** We have a bit of a clip of Aunt Martha that I'd like to play before diving into a discussion about her.

**Brennan:** If by a bit you mean three full minutes, because I just did not cut Aunt Martha. You do not do that.

**Michael:** Every set (in the movie) looks like a school play

**Mark:** I guess basically, what's going on with Aunt Martha is that because she was crazy enough to raise Angela as a girl, when she is in fact, a bio... which, i mean, talking about the "trans themes" of this movie is like a war of attrition. There is no rhyme or reason to it, it's just plain offensive. So, forgive us if any listeners hear anything, it's the movie not us, we swear.

**Michael:** This whole movie's a trigger warning

**Mark:** They were like, "You're crazy. You raised Angela as a different gender," and so the actress was like, "I guess I need to sound like I'm in a Tide commercial from hell." Like, what is she… I don't know.

**Michael:** My question for you guys about Aunt Martha is - is she high as fuck or a satire on the family values of the 80s?

**Nay:** I think both

**Michael:** So I think both is-- she was on something. Someone was on something there.

**Mark:** Awww, our podcast's first libel suit.

**Michael:** ***Allegedly***. That helps right?

**Michael:** I also don't want to give the movie enough credit to think that they were even clever enough to do a traditional values satirization. 'Cause it was the time of Reagan and like "family family family" was front and center. And in a way, it's kind of cool that there are two, the first parents we see in the movie are gay guys. It's kind of like, "Here are your traditions and we're tossing them out the window." But I just, I shudder to think that I'm giving this movie any credit for being that witty and clever.

**Nay:** I read something about there being a lot of conversation just about the acting style differences between the aunt and everyone else.

[E/N: Couldn't find that, but I did find an interview with Desiree Gould, who was Aunt Martha]

**Michael:** Was (Aunt Martha's) maybe a reaction to the "trauma" she experienced by losing a child?

**Nay:** They didn't say why. Just that it caused a lot of conversation.

**Mark:** I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that she's neither a satire on the American family...

**Michael:** Or an actor?

**Mark:** Not high. I'm going to posit the theory that she is just a bad actress.

**Michael:** I think you're right

**Mark:** Who makes poor choices

**Mark:** *Sleepaway Camp* is like the *Teen Witch* of slasher movies. Where it should not work, nothing should work. It shouldn’t make any sense at all, because it's just every, scene to scene is yet another opportunity to go, "What the fuck?"

**Michael:** Well, it’s literally them throwing shit at a dartboard and never hitting it.

**Mark:** And yet, as a whole, it’s a masterpiece

**Michael:** It’s a bullseye

**Mark:** Of wrong, of wrongness

**Michael:** It’s just sleaze

**Mark:** Pure uncut

**Michael:** Sometimes people are just doing sleaze.

**Michael:** Major question about Aunt Martha

**Mark:** Oh my god, we’re still talking about this woman

**Michael:** Do you think the hat was in wardrobe or did she bring it?

**Nay:** That’s her hat

**Michael:** That’s her hat, right? She probably wears it to bed

**Nay:** She still wears it

**Mark:** Who the fuck wears a beret indoors?

**Michael:** Why don’t we have an Aunt Martha spin-off?

**Mark:** With what she was doing while everyone was at camp?

**Michael:** Just staring out a window

**Michael:** Speaking of staring, Angela

**Mark:** I think that’s really one of the big twists of the movie is that she stares like a taxidermied bird for a good portion of her time at camp and then eventually, someone is like, "Angela are you all right?" And she’s like, "Oh, I’m fine thanks." And you’re just like, what?

**Michael:** It’s like she’s never spoken before. "Why are you talking to me? What is this?"

**Michael:** Nay, do you think there’s anything behind (Angela’s) hypnotic silence?

**Nay:** Well, I was thinking a lot about dysmorphia and what that feels like

**Michael:** She definitely didn’t look comfortable in her skin

**Nay:** And what it would be like to be to… because as a cis person I don’t understand what it would be like to have to live as something you’re not. And most of the time when she was quiet, I was thinking yeah, "Same". How do you not go fucking crazy having to do that. *And* that’s your auntie.

**Michael:** (Angela’s) actually fulfilling her own self-desire, over hers.

**Mark:** Angela literally didn’t have a shot, so I think that speaks a lot about you that that’s what you started thinking about as you were watching.

**Michael:** Poor little Angela

**Mark:** However, being quiet and uncomfortable in your skin doesn’t— sometimes I thought I’d paused the movie. Because it would cut to Angela, and it’s not like even an "I’m uncomfortable and I’m staring but I don’t know what to do," it’s just literally, "Angela freeze." And she’s...

**Nay:** I love it

**Michael:** And she’s great at it

**Nay:** I love how she does that

**Michael:** She’s like part-mannequin. They cut that part of the story out.

**Mark:** it’s just like *Mannequin*.

**Nay:** I think it’s a really good defense mechanism

**Mark:** it pissed Judy off

**Michael:** I mean, it really is. she freezes and no one knows how to react. Imagine like dealing with that.

**Nay:** I feel, and I wonder if she loved that. Like…

**Michael:** She was playing them the whole time

**Nay:** You know? Because if you’re real quiet and it’s irking people—

**Michael:** You just do it more

**Nay:** It just looked real fun

**Mark:** It’s one thing to be quiet. And another thing to be like (stares silently).

**Michael:** But how do you counter that? M-E-G got mad every single time. I call her M-E-G, I’m never gonna call her "Meg." Because she’s like, "I’m Meg. M. E. G."

**Nay:** Fuck that bitch. I hate her.

**Mark:** I had a revelation. My high school acting teacher was the acting coach on *Sleepaway Camp*.

**Michael:** No shit. Your connections to the acting world…

**Mark:** And his name is Greg Poulos and he is an inspiration. He is the greatest. I remember once— he was the best. He was the type of teacher who would hang out with kids and tell them stories. And he had a voice where he was like (gruff voice), "Let me tell you a little something about *Sleepaway Camp*." He’s like, "These were the dumbest babies I ever met in my life. These little shits couldn’t act their way out of a wet paper bag." And his quote about any of them was, "You wanna know what their acting style was I got a hold of them was?" And I was like, "What?" And he goes, "Helen Keller meets *RoboCop*." So he was the type of teacher where he would’ve been fired by now, probably?

**Nay:** Yeah

**Mark:** But he is an amazing champion of young talent. I treasure my classes with him. But he was basically like, "I tried." But essentially it’s like the director told every single child, "When you say this line, say it like you’re saying, 'Fuck you.'"

**Michael:** "Say it like your fucking feet are on fire." Not just the cussing is off the charts, but the toxic masculinity from every male character is insane. We actually have a supercut of the swearing

**Mark:** Thank fucking God

**Brennan:** Before I play this. Are there Oscars for audio editing movies from 1983? Because I would like to submit myself

**Michael:** It’s part of the new popular category

**Mark:** For your consideration…

**Michael:** A Brennan Klein production

(After the supercut of the swearing)

**Nay:** I hope that one day I have forty children aged five to thirty and it sounds like that in my house. That’s how I want my children to talk

**Michael:** Would you own a camp? Camp Nay?

**Nay:** Mm-hmm.

**Mark:** it’s like Martin Scorsese’s *Sleepaway Camp*

**Nay:** It’s just kind of fascinating to me though. I grew up going to summer camp. But it was a Christian summer camp, so you could be racist but you couldn’t curse. You know what I mean? No one could say all those cuss words.

**Michael:** (mockingly) "You can hate races all you want. Just don’t use dirty words."

**Nay:** (Summer camp) is just a lot of my least favorite things. What my favorite kind of summer camp would be? It would just be an air conditioned room with a bunch of blankets and a really clean bathroom. And that is the exact opposite of what camp is.

**Michael:** I went to Catholic grade school and at my school in sixth grade, we went on the class camping trip to camp, and it was like, only three or four days. It was called Camp Christopher and my sixth grade class would go, and I think three or four other schools there. And it was kind of that, but it wasn’t as much religion-based but you had the classes and I remember going down to the river and putting water in a beaker and having to measure shit

**Nay:** Turning water into wine

**Michael:** Yeah, but it was the first time I remember, the first time I experienced being called a "fag" a lot in my life. Because it was like pre-junior high, where I was really starting to get bullied. But it was old enough that I think kids were starting to remember. But I remember our high school counselor, they had seniors from a local high school called Lake Catholic that would be, like, the counselors, and I remember our counselor guy always kept calling another one of the counselors a fag the entire day, so everyone was just doing it. And it’s just so bad. And you’re sitting there for three days. But, I got fucking food poisoning the second night and I remember being so excited

**Mark:** On the bright side…

**Michael:** Yeah, I was so sick. I threw up all over everybody’s shoes in my cabin.

**Nay:** Yesss, nice

**Michael:** Yeah, didn’t do it on purpose either, just blew chunks everywhere. The dad and the high school kid that were in our bunk were like, "What the fuck is happening?" I was Regan MacNeil puking.

**Mark:** Fabulous

**Michael:** But I also had my awakening there, too. Not only the bad stuff, but I think I was telling you guys yesterday, I realized my first true crush happened there and I never thought of it that way in the past until we started talking about it via text yesterday. And I was like, "I totally loved Joe." Like one of the senior, one of the high school kids. Yeah. And being so obsessed with him and realizing that little old 11 year old me was like, "Make out?"

**Mark:** I remember those counselors well.

**Michael:** Always shirtless

**Mark:** Never forget.

**Mark:** I feel bad because my memories of camp were the best memories of my childhood.

**Michael:** *Red Shoe Diaries* for Mark

**Mark:** Kind of. A little bit. This was when I was still living in Quebec and this was a French Canadian run camp, but it was in Maine. and it was called Tekakwitha and I went-- (Michael laughs). If you guys are going to make me fucking feel like Rose Nylund…

**Michael:** (as Rose) "Back at camp."

**Nay:** (as Rose) "Deflurbenburben"

**Michael:** (as Rose) "When Charlie died, I felt…."

**Mark:** And no, it was amazing. I remember that first year, I, the head-- everybody was in a different cabin and you all had a counselor assigned to you, and mine was named Francis (said with a French accent). And he was so fucking hot. And he would stride-- we were like twelve, right? And I don't know, I *guess* it was a different time or whatever and he would just stroll around scantily clad...

**Michael:** How old was he?

**Mark:** He had to be early twenties. And he would talcum powder his balls.

**Michael:** Like air balled? No clothes on.

**Mark:** I remember being like...

**Michael:** I want to visit there

**Mark:** I was like Annie, I was like Annie. I was like (sings) "I think I'm gonna like it here!"

**Michael:** God, you would have put the kneepads on in a much different way

**Nay:** Wow

**Mark:** No, no. But that's the thing. Even at twelve I was just like, "Okay, I like guys." But it wasn't like, there was no...

**Michael:** It wasn't sexual

**Mark:** There was no like, physical impulse. It was all ideation and sort of just...

**Michael:** It was an awakening

**Mark:** "I want to be around..."

**Michael:** "This naked man"

**Mark:** "...nice older dudes who are just gonna hang out and like, I just wanna like, hang out and learn about archery and play Led Zeppelin for me." You know what I mean?

**Michael:** Sounds like you had a nice experience.

**Mark:** And that's what it was like.

**Michael:** I'm so glad one of us did.

**Mark:** I was so clearly a little gay boy. I remember my third year is when I really developed like a hardcore crush. The counselor was Jean-Sebastien. He looked like Kevin Bacon. And being at camp for me, where the first sort of time; I had a great summer that year. I had a pet snake, that I kept in the nature hut. Her name was Geraldine.

**Michael:** I want a time machine so bad

**Mark:** Listen, I loved camp. And I remember being-- I was so in love with Jean-Sebastien. And also, it was the first time I was actually cool when I was younger because I was fluent in French and English. And so when we went on our like, two-week camping like hike camp, like just go all around Maine whatever together as a cabin, I was the only one who could talk to people. I spoke English fluently and everyone was like, "How do you do that?" And I was like, "I dunno. I just *know* English. I was raised speaking both." And I was like, I'm *cool* here and I would have to...

**Nay:** Yeah, you were a bad bitch. Pet snake? Bilingual?

**Mark:** Right? I was like Britney.

**Mark:** This is how gay I was. I went home and I missed Jean-Sebastien so bad, I made him a care package.

**Nay:** Awwwwww!

**Michael:** What was in it?

**Mark:** MAD Magazine. I think a Led Zeppelin tape, because he introduced me to Led Zeppelin...

**Michael:** (as young Mark) "A lock of my hair."

**Mark:** (joining in) "A note on scented paper." No, but like, it was, it really incredibly formative.

**Michael and Nay:** Awwww, that's so precious!

**Mark:** I know, barf right?

**Michael and Nay:** No, it's so cute

**Mark:** But it was very, very formative and I...

**Michael:** I wanna pet you.

**Mark:** So there's something about *Sleepaway Camp* that I just go, I love it, but there's some part of me that's just like, "Goddammit, these are all just such awful people. This is such an awful world. This is such an awful portrayal of a potentially wonderful experience."

**Michael:** No one had a good time in this movie.

**Mark:** Judy's my favorite

**Michael:** I swear to God, that's Kristen Wiig. Kristen Wiig watches this movie, and goes, "That's how I'm playing every character on *Saturday Night Live*. I'm doing Judy from *Sleepaway Camp*."

**Mark:** Judy has to be at least twenty-five.

**Michael:** What did you say yesterday?

**Mark:** I said that Judy's what happens if summer camp could hold you back.

**Michael:** Like, a lot of times.

**Mark:** She was held back. Like, she just didn't graduate.

**Michael:** She actually was a counselor at one point, but they're like, "You know what? You need to be back *in* the camp."

**Mark:** Every single line is delivered with the most contempt possible.

**Michael:** Speaking of the shitty kids. I had two theories while watching this movie. One is that *Sleepaway Camp* is actually the incel origin story for all the online incels right now, who just can't get laid and so they're horrible to everybody. And my other is that it's a secret gay conversion camp. What do you guys think of that? Because I was watching the movie and all these dudes are like, all about like, with each other, "I'm gonna bang her man." And like, "I'm gonna fuck that. Did you see her?" But they're *all* so bad at it.

**Mark:** Their shorts.

**Michael:** So, so bad. They go skinny-dipping together completely naked. The one dude grabs his entire cock with his hand in tighty-whities in front of all of his friends. So, I think it's like they're actively trying not to get laid. The one dude gets a girl out on the boat with him finally, after begging her and then immediately dumps her in the water.

**Mark:** This movie pushed me over the edge. This movie pushed me over the edge when I was a child. Like, I was just like, "I can't. I don't know how to like, make this make sense at this point."

**Michael:** So my theory is that it's a gay conversion camp and they're secretly trying to get these kids to get with these girls and none of them know how. Like, they can't go through with it because they're all really gay and they don't wanna be heterosexual. So that's why they're all angry and horrible at hitting on women. Judy's literally on her bed with this guy and the guy's like, "I'd better go. He might come back." While the guy he's talking about is going to try and find a fourteen year old to bang, meaning the eighty year old owner.

**Mark:** Yeah, that's one of the most, it's one of the many...

**Michael:** It's just, ***ooof***

**Mark:** Meg being hot for the camp director, who looks like Jerry Orbach, I guess. Kind of? But if Jerry Orbach went to Vegas and threw his life away kind of?

**Michael:** Like *dead* Jerry Orbach?

**Mark:** And threw his life away at a craps table

**Michael:** I almost did a *Saved By the Bell* spit-take on my microphone

**Mark:** Sorry. But there's a, there's something happening there where I'm just like, that's… did no one have eyes? Did no one… how?

**Michael:** No one cared. How 'bout the baldies? The chef saying "baldies"? I had a theory that Meg was also a lesbian until she asked the old man for her date that he owed her.

**Mark:** He looks like the big mouth bass thing.

**Nay:** Billy Bass?

**Mark:** Yeah, the thing where you push the button and it turns its head and sings at you? Yeah.

**Michael:** But even Paul is a junior creeper in training and he's supposed to be the nice guy.

**Mark:** Everyone's a creep in this movie.

**Michael:** The one that likes Angela and is treating her well. I think like, twice, he tries to force...

**Nay:** (as Paul) "What's your problem?"

**Mark:** Or every time there's a social, it's like girls are huddled in a corner, terrified, while boys-- It's like The Warriors. The boys are like, coming at the girls and they're like, "What's your problem?" It's like, Jesus!

**Michael:** It's like adult-supervised rape, basically.

**Nay:** It's the worst. There were so many times...

**Mark:** It's *Salo*, that movie.

**Nay:** ...in that movie where you see a group of young men coming towards you from somewhere and honestly, like, nobody likes walking by a group of young men. Nobody. It's not good for anybody. No matter who you are, something's gonna get said. It's just the worst.

**Michael:** I've heard so many stories from women I know walking on the sidewalk and they see a group of men and they're like, "Fuck."

**Nay:** Yeah. Fuck my life. It reminds me of being an undergrad and having to walk through sorority and fraternity row. And you're like, approaching a house and you see eight guys on the roof and they're drunk and you're like, I have to turn around and go the other way. This is not gonna end well.

**Mark:** Well, that's *Sleepaway Camp*! That in essence.

**Michael:** So the owner is not only a gross disgusting, but the chef.

**Nay:** Artie. Ew.

**Michael:** Who we have a clip of.

**Brennan:** I don't think we need the clip. I have it, but we don't need it.

**Michael:** Good call.

**Nay:** Of him with his skin blistering? That was cathartic, though. I was like, "What if every person who tried to molest someone, five minutes later got a vat of boiling water poured on them?"

**Michael:** True. Like, the biggest pot of water ever to be alive?

**Nay:** Right. And then James Earl Jones's dad walks in and is like, "I'm gettin' a raise."

**Mark:** Ugh, that camp director.

**Michael:** The camp director, the chef

**Mark:** Because he looks at the chef and is like, "What happened?" After Angela and her cousin Ricky run out of the pantry and (Artie)'s like, "Nothin'. I scared 'em." And he's like, "I guess you did."

**Michael:** Even Ben is like...

**Mark:** Who's the HR at this fucking camp? There's literally no one.

**Michael:** "We all know how Artie can be. Oh-ho-ho-ho." And then everyone laughs like they're at the end of a *Scooby-Doo* episode.

**Mark:** Everything about this movie.

**Michael:** There's just so much.

**Mark:** And yet I love it. I love that it is so unabashedly…

**Michael:** Awful? Wears its trash on its sleeves?

**Mark:** Gross. It's just so gross.

**Michael:** It was shower-inducing as a 38 year old person watching this. But even like, the owner goes from pedophile to racist in the same scene. The way he lords fifty bucks over the sole black character in the movie. And then at one point, Ronnie walks up with his fruit basket and is like, "Whaddya gonna do about them?" And he's like, "Don't worry, I'll take care of *them.*" And then the camera pans over to a group of people of color and I'm just like, oh my God. This movie, from top to bottom, from side to side is just so…

**Nay:** Cringe.

**Mark:** Cringe every which way.

**Michael:** Back to Judy and her side-pony. I have so many theories about this movie and I have another one about her. I think Judy knows Angela's truth the entire time.

**Nay:** Yeah. I mean, she acts like it. She knows something

**Michael:** From the moment Angela arrives, she knows something and keeps alluding to a giant secret. And the whole lovebird thing she keeps doing? She's taunting Angela the entire movie because I really think she knows. There are three or four other instances of her (taunting Angela).

**Mark:** I think it reaches its apex with (as Judy) "A real carpenter's dream!"

**Michael and Mark:** (together as Judy) "Flat as a board and needs a screw!"

**Michael:** And then even goes in on her about not showering with everybody and just...

**Nay:** I hate (Judy). I was fantasizing about beating her up the whole time.

**Michael:** It's like she went to camp to drop off her kids and was like, "You know what? I'm staying."

**Mark:** I think though, that if there were a lot of gay people at the camp though, there would be more conditioner, because there is some big frizzy hair at this camp and oooof. Everybody's got that kind of like Shih Tzu hair that's like, Shih Tzu fresh from the parlor kind of hair where it makes a kind of triangle.

**Michael:** How about when Judy gets killed, there's the silhouette of the killer in the doorway and it's like, clearly not Angela. What it looked like to me is they had like a young boy in a wig and they had him tuck the hair in the back of his shirt which is super interesting.

**Mark:** Well, it's nice that they took the care to do something interesting

**Michael:** I mean, they tried

**Michael:** Did they cut a scene where they reveal that this is actually a youth detention center camp?

**Mark:** Oh no, it feels more like *Reform School Girls* than *Friday the 13th*

Michael asks the others if anyone or anything in the movie was positive in any way. A stud of the movie, something that made you say, "I'm queer for this movie."

**Mark:** The whole movie is such a negative that it becomes a positive, know what I mean? Like, it's so unabashedly wrong that that ends up being its redeeming quality.

**Michael:** It rights itself?

**Mark:** Yeah

**Michael:** It drinks itself sober?

**Mark:** Yeah, kind of

**Nay:** Obviously my favorite moment is when Meg gets killed.

**Mark:** (Meg) needs that grandpa dick! She needs it!

**Michael:** That curling iron went where I thought it went, right?

**Nay:** it went somewhere

**Mark:** I think, I think it went in her hoo-ha and that--

**Michael:** In her cissy?

**Nay:** Wow, michael

**Mark:** It's so gross

**Michael:** Unnecessary?

**Mark:** It's so spectacularly gross

**Michael:** Like, so unnecessary

**Mark:** And yet, it wouldn't be *Sleepaway Camp* without it. Like, that's sort of kind of how I feel about it.

**Nay:** I just like that Judy gets killed with one of her primping tools

**Mark:** It's poetic

**Michael:** It's pretty great

**Nay:** Like, this bitch is so concerned and she think she cute out here and she's shitting on everyone else. You're gonna fucking die with that curling iron, bitch, you know? I hate her.

**Michael:** There's your episode title

**Brennan:** Lot of asterisks in that one

**Mark:** Do I have a favorite moment? Um…

**Michael:** I have two. I actually have a stud for the movie, and it's Ronnie. He's actually the only non-piece of garbage in the entire movie.

**Mark:** That's a low bar

**Michael:** Yeah, and he's not a horrible person so he wins. But he actually tries to help, even if it's him standing in front of the one cabin they had an exterior shot for the entire movie. And it was like, "You go here, you go here. Let me go get my flashlight." And they showed him walk five feet to get his flashlight.

**Michael:** And then my other MVP is the cop's mustache.

**Nay:** Oh my god, right?

**Michael:** Because it went from real to fake to real to fake and I was actually talking with my friend Rob Wagner today, who is a big horror buff. He knows this movie by heart. It's like the seminal movie for him, it's like the movie he saw as a six year old. And he was giving me the lowdown on this mustache. So apparently this guy had a mustache, went and did a play where he shaved it, then they did reshoots on this movie. By the way, the added footage; they did additional photography on this movie and when he came back-- I'm laughing just thinking, "What did they miss on the first shot of the cop that they got wrong in the first round, because he's just hiding behind stuff. The shot...

**Mark:** The guy's hat in front of his face

**Michael:** Yes! It's like one eye you're seeing in the camera frame. And it's clear he's wearing the worst...

**Nay:** I thought it was a piece of felt. Like, what the fuck is on his face?

**Michael:** I could see his glue. And like it was black, he had blond hair.

**Nay:** It was bad

**Michael:** It was beautiful. And obviously Martha's fucking hat, because you know that was like, a actor's decision

**Mark:** I think my favorite part is the movie's half-hearted stab at psychological sort of clarity as to what fucked Angela up. Which I guess is seeing her dads pet each other, I guess, in that sort of black box whirling bed. And then her cousin or brother pointing at her or--

**Michael:** But is it supposed to be her and Ricky pointing and laughing?

**Mark:** Yes

**Michael:** Then who is the little girl who gets killed in the beginning? Just some random daughter?

**Mark:** I think that would be the actual Angela, for lack of a better term.

**Michael:** Okay, so you think that was second Angela.

**Mark:** Yeah. Also I sort of like the opening where it's these sort of mournful pans over the empty camp with echo-y sounds of children

**Michael:** Clearly shot in the fall?

**Mark:** I wish, now that we're having a talk about it, I wish the echo-y sounds of the children were like, "You fucking cocksucker! I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

**Michael:** Can you imagine, with the silent piano strumming?

**Mark:** (as Ricky) "Eat shit and live, Bill!"

**Mark:** This is why *Sleepaway Camp* was triggering for gay boys of a certain age. Because it's very much forbidden fruit in that it's full of curse words, lots of sort of baroque violence...

**Michael:** Surprisingly no nudity

**Mark:** Yeah, no nudity and yet it's like sort of thrumming...

**Michael:** Butts. Male butts.

**Nay:** And Angela

**Michael:** And a penis, yeah

**Mark:** It thrums with this weirdly homoerotic energy

**Michael:** There's a lot of homoerotic-ness to it

**Mark:** I remember watching this in my basement, going like--

**Michael:** (whispers) "This kind of gay"

**Mark:** "Oh God, what's happening in this movie."

**Michael:** I didn't even bring that up because I felt like we could talk for an hour about this movie

**Mark:** At least

**Michael:** Fuck. There's three more. And a remake.

**Mark:** *Sleepaway Camp* trigger warning? Oh no, the camp in part two, I believe it's in part two. My favorite scene in part two has to be where the answer, part two's answer to Judy. I forget the character's name, but she's blonde and she's you know, the same kind of like...

**Michael:** Awful bitch

**Mark:** Yeah, that combination of mean and horny, you know? And there's a scene where she fucks some guy in the woods and then as soon as it's done, she hops off of him and is putting on her shirt and combing her hair, and she's like, "You don't have AIDS or anything, do you?" And I was just like, (sigh), *Sleepaway* *Camp*. That's the brand. To say the most, the ugliest things...

**Michael:** Awful

**Mark:** Everything that's ugly about the Eighties, *Sleepaway Camp* kind of revels in. Like, truly revels in.

**Michael:** It's like the, I don't want to say the anti-Eighties, but it's the opposite of the Eighties

**Mark:** Oh, no. It's emblematic

**Michael:** The sequels are like, a different person, a different guy completely took over. The sequels did it right, though. They just went full-on camp. Part two's a riot.

**Mark:** Part two is hilarious. We're gonna watch it. Camp Rolling Hills, here we come.

## **Previous Episode**

Episode 5: "My Favorite Time of Day is Night"