the holidays are camp! a christmas week reader.
Read up on Kirsten Dunst, Meg Stalter, Hallmark movies and more in a links-only edition of QTB.
Queering the Burbs is a weekly-ish distillation of pop culture, politics and queerness written by Joe Erbentraut. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing (it’s free!), liking or sharing this piece.
I hope all of you are reading this are enjoying some time off the clock and doing whatever it is you need to do to take your mind off our boiling planet, the Omicron variant and our failing democracy. <3 <3 <3
Anyway, here are some of my favorite things I’ve consumed of late:
Can we all agree that Kirsten Dunst is a national treasure overdue for some recognition? (If you said yes, read on. If you said no, you may unsubscribe. KIDDING, sort of!) I mean, Drop Dead Gorgeous. Bring It On. Fargo. The Virgin Suicides. Melancholia. Marie Antoinette. This probably ill-advised covered of The Vapors’ “Turning Japanese.” The list goes on and on and on, and yet, nary an Academy Award nomination to be found. In The New Yorker, Rachel Syme writes about the Taurus icon’s career and her latest Oscar-buzzy role in Netflix’s western-thriller The Power of the Dog.
Meg Stalter has a holiday message for you: Get this gift outta here and put God back in Christmas. Stalter also recently gave an interview about some of her favorite things to The New York Times’ Kathryn Shattuck promoting her appearance with Yvonne Orji, Chelsea Peretti, Jane Fonda and more for Amazon’s new Yearly Departed holiday special.
Rest in power, Joan Didion. The Cut’s obituary centers on the writer’s best-ever two-word sentence: “Oh, wow.”
And we also just lost the incredible bell hooks. In The Atlantic, Crystal Wilkinson writes about how hooks helped a generation of Black Kentucky women writers find their voices, just as she had.
Have you heard about the Yankee Candle Index? Well...
My dear friend Britt Julious just published her first byline in Harper’s Bazaar and it asks a timely question: “Who are Christmas movies for?” If you indulge in holiday-themed cinema from the likes of Lifetime, Hallmark and all the streaming platforms, this is a must-read exploring the GAC Family channel breaking away from Hallmark and poaching stars like Danica McKellar and Lori Loughlin.
Aubrey Plaza just published a children’s book called The Christmas Witch and did a full circuit of deeply chaotic and strange talk show appearances to promote it. Of course, the most surreal and endearing one was on The Drew Barrymore Show.
I’ll never, ever tire of Patti LaBelle’s 1996 live rendition of “This Christmas,” including all reenactments and tributes to it. I continue to maintain that it is the perfect encapsulation of holiday manicness. The latest and greatest addition to the canon comes from TikTok creator Denzel Crisp. Read on below for some true excellence. (The use of trail mix to represent the crowd? Inspired.)
Did you know that Uzo Aduba was once a competitive figure skater? She trained for nearly a decade and can be seen here executing a solid double flip to some Elton John.
The suburbs aren’t boring, they’re camp (at least according to this TikTok)!
And one more QTB bop of the week for 2021 comes from Australian neo-soul band Hiatus Kaiyote: Here’s “And We Go Gentle” off the album Mood Valiant.