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Bad Gays (podcast)

Bad Gays is a podcast which explores the biographies of questionable figures—or outright villains—in queer history. The podcast is hosted by Huw Lemmey, a novelist and writer, along with Ben Miller, a historian, author, and member of the board of the Schwules Museum. Its first episode was released in 2019.

Lemmey and Miller started the podcast to discuss topics of queer history that editors told them there would be no audience for. [CITE LA TIMES] The show uses its subjects stories to interrogate what paths queerness—and especially the white gay male identity—have traced beyond heterosexuality. Per Miller, "Can we take this route that is all about solidifying our own personal power ... or try to make a world that everyone can live in?" [CITE VOX]

In each episode of the podcast, the hosts consider an "evil or complicated queer in history." One host describes the biography of the subject in question to the other; they then discuss the implications of the subject's life, with attention paid to the circumstances in which their sexuality was determined; and finally, they decide whether the subject is bad or not-bad, and gay or not gay. The research portion of the podcast is delivered in a scholarly tone, and citations for their research are provided both within the body of the episode, as well as in the show notes. [CITE LARB] A recurring joke on the podcast involves identifying the presence of figures with "evil twink energy" who derail the lives of its subjects. [CITE VOX]

Reception
Writing for the LA Review of Books, [REVIEWER NAME] praised the podcast for its "unembarassed scholarliness", highlighting in particular the episodes on Anne Bonny, Franco Zeffirelli, John Wojtowicz, and Cressida Dick. [CITE LARB]

BOOK:

The book won the Best History & Biography category in the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards.

Book Adaptation
In 2022, Verso Books released Bad Gays: A Homosexual History, an adaptation by Lemmey and Miller of the podcast into book form, dedicating each chapter to the life and social context of a single individual or small group. While most of its subjects were previously profiled on the podcast, the book emphasizes the roles these figures had in the construction of gay history and gay identity.[CITE LARB] The book won the Best History & Biography category in the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards.

Refs
LA Times interview: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2022-06-06/bad-gays-and-the-two-podcasters-who-love-them

The Nation interview: https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/bad-gays-podcast-interview/

Pop matters book review: https://www.popmatters.com/lemmey-miller-bad-gays-2022

Vox podcast interview: https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/26/18715040/bad-gays-podcast-roy-cohn-lawrence-of-arabia-andrew-sullivan-lgbtq-pride

Tank Magazine podcast interview: https://tankmagazine.com/tank/2019/04/bad-gays

LARB review: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/what-historys-bad-gays-can-tell-us-about-the-queer-past-and-present/

Washington Post book review: https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2022/05/31/bad-gays-book-review/

AnOther Magazine interview: https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/14145/bad-gays-huw-lemmey-ben-miller-interview-verso

The Face, Colin Crummy, 26 Feb 2021,: https://theface.com/culture/bad-gays-podcast-huw-lemmey-ben-miller-lgbt-history-month-queer

The Guardian profile, Louis Staples: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/24/bad-gays-podcast-interview-alexander-the-great-ronnie-kray

Bad Gays: A Homosexual History

Bad Gays: a Homosexual History is a 2022 book by Huw Lemmey and Ben Miller from Verso Press. The book presents the biographies of less-than-heroic queer figures and describes how their historical circumstances influenced their sexuality. It also presents a critique of "how white male homosexuality, as a political, identitarian, and emancipatory project, has failed". It is an adaptation of their podcast of the same name.

Subjects covered include Nazi SA leader Ernst Röhm, Roman emperor Hadrian, Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, J. Edgar Hoover. Most chapters are dedicated to delivering the biography of a single individual, while also describing their social milieu, with an emphasis on how the culture of the time perceived homosexuality. Recurring themes include the prevalence of misogynist attitudes in their subjects as well as the effects of colonialism in linking to emerging western queerness to a colonial other. [Biddle, Red Pepper]

Huw Lemmey is a British novelist and filmmaker, while Ben Miller is an American historian who serves on the board of Berlin's Schwules Museum. They began their collaboration after sharing frustrations with getting pitches accepted that presented more nuanced approaches to queer history. [LA TIMES]

Reception

Bad Gays was praised for its humour and provocative posture; however, several reviews critiqued the coherence of the book's overall narrative. Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez, writing for The Washington Post, describes the book as succeeding in its goals to tell the story of how the evolution of gay identity chose "rainbows over radicalism", while praising the book's entertaining indulgences in "shade and gossip". [In 'Bad Gays,' the historical figures are products of their times, but not heroes By: Tom Fitzgerald, Lorenzo Marquez, Washington Post, The, 06/16/2022]

In Red Pepper's review, Claire Biddles praises the connections the authors draw between their historical queer subjects and aspects of contemporary gay life.

For Foreword Reviews, Michael Elias calls Bad Gays "an account of historical privileges and marginalization, as well as a theory of queerness for the future," praising it for identifying "how queer sensibilities interweave with power relations and the choices people make regarding their power."

The book won the Best History & Biography category in the 2022 Goodreads Choice Awards.

For Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, Matthew Hays called Bad Gays memorable, praising particularly the concluding chapter on Pim Fortuyn, while commenting that the book's structure of having each chapter stand on its own allows for more casual reading, but may make its argument less clear.

Huw Lemmey (writer)

Huw Lemmey is a British novelist, artist, and critic. He is also the host of the podcast Bad Gays with Ben Miller.

In 2020, he started a newsletter called "Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs," which analyzed the sitcom, Frasier episode by episode.[CITE SCOTT STERN LARB][CITE NEWSLETTER ITSELF] Since 2019, he's written a newsletter on Substack called "Utopian Drivel".

Frieze review of Ungentle: https://www.frieze.com/article/huw-lemmey-onyeka-igwes-ungentle-2022-review

Ross McElwain (LARB Blog) review of Red Tory: https://blog.lareviewofbooks.org/reviews/looking-wrong-way-review-red-tory-huw-lemmey/

Ian J. Battaglia (Chicago Review of Books) review of Unknown Language: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2020/10/06/words-transcend-time-in-unknown-language/

Em Size (Sydney Review of Books) Red Tory: https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/review/lemmey-red-tory/

Georgia Horgan in conversation with Huw Lemmey: https://jerwoodarts.org/resource/georgia-horgan-in-conversation-with-huw-lemmey/

Will Jennings conversation with Huw Lemmey on Ungentle: https://thequietus.com/articles/32142-huw-lemmey-onyeka-igwe-ungentle-studio-voltaire-interview

Scott Stern, What History’s “Bad Gays” Can Tell Us About the Queer Past and Present, LARB: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/what-historys-bad-gays-can-tell-us-about-the-queer-past-and-present/

i-D Vice interview with Huw Lemmey https://i-d.vice.com/en/article/8xze5k/red-tory-my-corbyn-chemsex-hell-interview-huw-lemmey