“The U.S. of The Wizard of Oz is not so far from the U.S. of today. The supposedly great man living in Trump Tower—I mean Emerald City—turns out to be a con artist, a bloviating coward who relies on selfaggrandizement and empty shows of power to cow the people ... . And the central reveal about the hollowness, cynicism, opportunism, egotism and fakery of our leaders is chillingly apt.”
betrayal of our national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”
—The Guardian, 2018
Google “Donald Trump con artist” and nearly 48 million articles appear. That amount is over 75 percent of the number of people who voted for the former “reality-television” personality in the November 2016 presidential election. While many of us believed him to be a con artist from the outset, the big reveal to his remaining supporters has not yet happened. Will there be an “ashy pall of disillusionment and disgust following the unmasking of the false savior,” as journalist Bidisha wrote of the Wizard of Oz in her 2018 piece for The Guardian? That moment would be welcome to the majority of our community, given that President Trump is no “friend of Dorothy” in all respects. (The catch phrase originated decades ago because The Wizard of Oz star Judy Garland was, and to many still is, a gay icon.) GLAAD and other nonprofits
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The viral meme “Surrender, Donald” soon followed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announcement on September 24 that a formal impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump would be initiated. She said, in part: “The actions taken to date by the president have seriously violated the Constitution,” adding that he “must be held accountable—no one is above the law” and that his enlisting a foreign power to smear political rival former vice president Joe Biden was a “betrayal of his oath of office,
President Trump’s July 25th phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the heart of the betrayal comes as little surprise to most detractors, however, and even seems characteristic of this surreal leader’s behavior. The MAGA hat wearers appear unphased by it along with widely used diminishing descriptions like “con artist” wielded even by Senator Marco Rubio and other Republicans.
have been tracking the President’s attacks and derogatory statements concerning the LGBTQ community. Check GLAAD’s out ACT UP demonstration in front of Trump Tower in here: https://bit.ly/2tr4vJc New York on October 31, 1989
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The Unmasking of a Con Artist
“Surrender, Donald” couldn’t then be any timelier during this Halloween month with the film Judy in national release and the recently launched impeachment inquiry dominating the news. If only we could click our heels three times and find out that the Trump presidency was an orange-hued technicolor nightmare populated by characters more bizarre, irrational, and destructive than fictional villains.
Pray This Mess Away, Pence; Let’s See How That Works for You
Yes, if Trump is impeached and removed as president, Vice President Mike Pence would succeed him as president by constitutional decree. It’s a stomach-turning proposition.
Cross Currents Andrea Shorter Let’s not get too far ahead by speculating and shot calling the turn of events leading to a now very likely impeachment of President Donald J. Trump. First of all, thank you to each and every one of the eight openly LGBTQ House congressional members who signed on to hold this corrupt president accountable by agreeing that an official impeachment inquiry is due. Amidst widespread angst that an
Yet, that’s the order of things, right? Unless, of course, Pence’s alleged complicit involvement in aspects of the President’s—clear throat— revealed “alleged” high crimes, misdemeanors, and treasonous scheme to strong-arm and extort the newly elected novice and already literally embattled Ukrainian president into digging up or fabricating dirt on a former U.S. vice president—Joe Biden, the still top-tier front runner-ish Democratic opponent, chief representative of all things Obama-era, and consistently polled 2020 election winner over Trump—also urges investigation towards and ending in his impeachment, and removal from office.
What did the Vice President know? And when did he know it? What did he know of the developing schemes by the President and company to again enlist foreign intervention into U.S. elections before and/or after his curiously and suddenly cancelled trip to the Ukraine in May by the President’s order, apparently as part of the effort to intimidate Ukrainian officials into “playing ball” and eventually complying with Trump’s requests for favors thought to benefit his campaign for re-election—and attempting to exonerate Russia from its interference in the 2016 presidential elections—all while holding up congressionally approved $390 million military aid to Ukraine to defend and protect its sovereign and stricken statehood against aggressive Russian encroachment? REDBUBBLE.COM
impeached and removed President Trump would pave the way for a President Pence, this small but mighty caucus put nation before party, and duty before politics, to make for a vastly growing majority vote to proceed as warranted.
Under the developing circumstances, it might not prove too far-fetched that even the most remote notion that Vice President Pence would succeed as president might also be short-circuited should his suspected involvement in Trump’s most egregious abuses of presidential powers be revealed, such as the solicitation of foreign interference in U.S. elections, and the
cover-up of evidence by abusing the classification system to hide transcriptions of the President’s call(s) to Ukrainian President Zelensky. Again, not to get too far ahead of the now official impeachment inquiry afoot to oust arguably the worst and most dangerous president in U.S. history, but boy, wouldn’t it be grand if anti-LGBTQ Pence was also put out of commission as well? These are some of the darkest, serious times for our nation. No matter one’s partisan persuasion, impeachment proceedings are not to be taken lightly under any circumstance. Still, one can hardly remain without some remote hope that the alleged involvement, awareness, and complicit-ness of this particular vice president will prove apt cause for his ouster as well. After all, he appears complicit and in praise of all of the horrors visited upon us by Trump. So, why not these latest revealed offenses? There are clearly bigger fish to fry, but I do wonder what Pence thinks about Trump’s defensive remarks before a post U.N. Conference event for diplomats and career government workers: “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close (continued on page 26)
Judy Hits All the Notes But Zellweger Outshines Film’s Flaws
But while she can be incandescent on stage, Garland is a mess off stage. The film’s first half hour has her fighting her ex-husband Sid Luft (Rufus Sewell) for custody of their kids, being homeless—she is denied her hotel room for being in arrears on payment—and remains unemployed because of her reputation for being both unreliable and uninsurable. She takes the opportunity to perform in London as a way of earning income to get her kids back and her career back on track.
Film Gary M. Kramer As Judy Garland, in the last year of her life, Renée Zellweger gives a knockout performance in Judy, an uneven biopic that focuses on her London concerts six months before her death. At the start of director Rupert Goold’s absorbing drama, young Garland (Darci Shaw) is being told by Louis B. Mayer (Richard Cordery) that she 2
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Judy, which was written by Tom Edge, who adapted Peter Quilter’s play End of the Rainbow, wisely focuses on this period of her life, and that provides the opportunity to illuminate her psychological state. Garland’s loneliness is beautifully depicted in shots of her alone in her dressing room after a performance, or fit-
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fully trying to sleep in a kingsized hotel bed. Goold creates distinct visual styles for the on stage, off stage, and backstage, as well as the flashback scenes that show Garland as a youth on the MGM lot. The episodes from her youth — she defiantly takes a bite out of a hamburger or goes swimming when she is not supposed to—reveal aspects of her life that echo in her later years. Even if these scenes illustrate how Garland Renée Zellweger stars as Judy Garland in Judy was beaten down as a child, Better are scenes of 47-year-old Garland’s anxand account for her difficuliety, as when she expresses her all-too-real conties as an adult, they show a fearless Garland, cern, “What if I can’t do it again?” after a not someone fragile or vulnerable. It feels like successful opening night. Garland’s lack of selfa misstep, perhaps. Moreover, while these epiesteem is a theme throughout Judy, and one of sodes emphasize Garland’s struggle with diet the film’s most touching sequences has Garland pills, her food issues, and her sleeping problems, they seem to be included for the benefit of meeting two fans, Stan (Daniel Cerqueira) and Dan (Andy Nyman), by the stage door after a those viewers who don’t know Garland’s troubled history. (continued on page 27)
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is special because of her voice. The voice is “her gift” and it “gives people dreams.” When Judy gives her first performance at the Talk of the Town cabaret in London—a show-stopping rendition of “By Myself”—Judy shows the power of that voice. (Zellweger did all of her own singing and is even releasing an album of Garland covers in conjunction with the film.)
