Joined by poet and critic Joy Priest, we discuss Inde Navarrette’s Halloween debut on October 31, 2026. We discuss her monologue’s callback to Shane Gillis’ gym joke through the lens of counter-speech and persona versus performer in stand-up, “Bootygate” Trump jokes from the Scary Halloween Cold Open regarding audience knowledge and Black satire’s refusal to take power seriously. We also talk about the long history of drag as satire, and drag kings as commentary on masculinity in the Uninterested Woman Game Show. Readings and references include Kiese Laymon’s 2018 Trump satire and the Campus Reform interview, Halberstam’s work on drag kings, and the 2006 film Idiocracy.
Episode Links
Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-66-inde-navarette-s52e04/id1712886779
Listen on Libsyn: https://sites.libsyn.com/490733/episode-66-inde-navarette-s52e04
Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/182WVBu03gk2oRH3irVGBm?si=Y6r7GZlYSR2Hmor_88GzAQ
Listen on YouTube: https://youtu.be/_rkGOqSSGoc
Resources
Germann, O. (2016). Gender performance: From the freak show to modern drag. Digital Literature Review, 3, 66–76. https://doi.org/10.33043/dlr.3.0.66-76
Harari, Y. N. (2024). Nexus: A brief history of information networks from the Stone Age to AI. Random House. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/762444/nexus-by-yuval-noah-harari/
Marone, A. (2018). Ole Miss prof: Trump’s ‘juicy booty’ is ‘proof that god is white’. Campus Reform. https://www.campusreform.org/article/ole-miss-prof-trumps-juicy-booty-proof-god-white/11338
Sedgwick, E. K. (1985). Between men: English literature and male homosocial desire. Columbia University Press. https://cup.columbia.edu/book/between-men/9780231176293/
Volcano, D. L., & Halberstam, J. (1999). The drag king book. Serpent’s Tail. https://libsearch.arts.ac.uk/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=111205&query_desc=an%3A286224
Barker, C. (Director). (2026). Obsession [Film]. Focus Features.
Zappa, F. (1985, September 19). Frank Zappa at Senate hearing [Video clip]. C-SPAN. https://www.c-span.org/clip/senate-committee/user-clip-frank-zappa-at-senate-hearing/4537011
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