Billy Eichner on “Bros” and Joyce Carol Oates on “Blonde”

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 30 September 2022

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

One of the first queer rom-coms released in cinemas by a major studio, “Bros” is making movie history. But the film’s co-writer and star, the comedian Billy Eichner, tells David Remnick that the milestone has taken too long to achieve. “Culture and society at large, for the vast majority of human existence, [did] not want to talk about the private lives of gay people and L.G.B.T.Q. people,” he says.

Plus, the staff writer Katy Waldman talks with the prolific novelist Joyce Carol Oates about the new film adaptation of her novel “Blonde,” which premières on Netflix this week. Directed by Andrew Dominick, it’s a fictionalized account of the life of Marilyn Monroe. Oates tells Waldman that she enjoyed the production but found it “extremely emotionally exhausting” and “not for the faint of heart.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNWC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:13.5	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, I'm David Remnik.
0:18.0	You probably came across the comedian and actor Billy Eichner the same way I did.
0:22.5	Somebody probably sent you a video of this manic guy running around New York City quizzing
0:27.6	passers-by on questions like, is this a real Tyler the Creator lyric or not?
0:34.2	Did you hear that Madonna died?
0:36.3	And would you have sex with Paul Rudd for a dollar?
0:39.7	Let's go!
0:40.7	Miss for a dollar.
0:41.7	Would you have sex with Paul Rudd?
0:42.7	That's Paul Rudd.
0:43.7	Of course I was.
0:44.7	Yes, thank you!
0:45.7	Here's a dollar!
0:46.7	Miss for a dollar!
0:47.7	Would you have sex with Paul Rudd?
0:48.7	Yes!
0:49.7	Billy on the street was designed to go viral and it did.
0:53.4	Madonna even had the good sense not to sue him.
0:56.5	A decade later, Billy Eichner is starring in a form of comedy that by contrast, you'd
1:01.2	almost call serious and respectable.
1:04.4	A romantic comedy called Bros.
	...

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