Ghost hunting, but never ghosted. Actress, comedian, and very trans, Roz Hernandez explores Arizona’s historic Jerome Grand Hotel and Grindr in search of some Girthy apparitions. Eight episodes, produced, directed, edited and filmed by Roz are available for free on YouTube right now.
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"Who the fuck was Graham Kennedy and why the fuck do you care so much?"
Glad you asked (or didn't)! I'm kind of sick of me just plastering a link to his Wikipedia page on my pinned post and not actually explaining my kinda niche special interest to followers and mutuals and why the hell it became one. Not quite a primer, more like a personal essay.
The TL;DR is that Graham Kennedy was an Australian television comedian, variety show compere, game show host, actor, and a whole bunch of other things. He was hugely influential in midcentury Australia, one of the most highly awarded personalities in our local television industry, and while largely forgotten now, used to be so famous in this country that they gave him the title 'The King'. Like Elvis if he made dick jokes for a living and was also, like, insanely gay. Like really, really fucking gay.
Intrigued? Probably not but let me explain myself and his personal significance to me more autistically under a read more anyway
(The main source I use for information below is the brilliant book King: The Life and Comedy of Graham Kennedy by Graeme Blundell)
Graham Kennedy was a name that kind of floated around my periphery for much of my childhood. My dad is a Baby Boomer so I knew of him, but not much about him. In my early teens I first encountered the game show Blankety Blanks, on late night cable, and it became a comfort show for me in some of my darkest moments. It was bawdy, crude, and not particularly cerebral, so it was perfect background noise for me.
It wasn't until a hyperfixation in the show The Newsreader (a show set in an 80s Australian newsroom) popped up that he became a significant part of my life. I began researching important figures in Australian television and his name kept coming up over and over again.
He intrigued me. He was lowbrow, irreverent, controversial, and often extremely camp. His personal life was gutwrenchingly tragic, which made me both incredibly sad but instantly curious.
And what really drew me in was that often, his comedy was just so extremely queer. What do you mean, that one of the biggest celebrities in this country used to be a man who would flirt with male costars, kiss them on air, fondle miniature statues of David, and strut around in a sparkly suit and huge crown like this?
Kennedy never publicly came out, but he alluded so heavily to his own sexuality that it felt like queer performance art largely ignored. No one seemed to talk about how his work itself was gay as hell, the narrative around his sexuality seemed to be that he was simply ashamed of it and that's why he never came out as gay. But I asked myself, why would anyone who was disgusted by who they were wink and nudge so heavily, be so homoerotic? It seemed weird to view Kennedy's closet as one made of shame. The public certainly seemed to know he was gay.
The thing is, Kennedy was not treated well by the television industry, especially in the early days of his career. He was over worked, and scrutinised by his bosses and the public for his perceived effeminacy. One coworker, writer Hugh Stuckey, claimed to see actual physical abuse by a program manager on Kennedy's first variety show, In Melbourne Tonight (or IMT, as it was often shortened to) because he was too effeminate. He was stalked and harassed by fans, and forced to fake dates and hint at relationships with female costars. He was scared to go into his backyard because people would be peering over his fence.
In the last years of his life, he would tell one of his closest friends, Tony Sattler, that he never should have done IMT, the show which made him famous. The years on TV, the constant scrutiny, lack of privacy, lack of creative control, and a disastrous and unfulfilling love life compounded. He became bitter, angry and cruel, and the way he treated those he worked with as his career reached it's end could be absolutely abhorrent. He retired to the Australian bush, became a recluse, and essentially drank himself to death over a period of 15 years.
It felt to me like society had failed this man, who was, yes, complicated, and not exactly perfect, but who had been hurt so much by the industry he worked in. And when people talked about his comedy, they didn't talk about brave it was to be so outwardly flamboyant and bawdy and homoerotic when people cared so much about this man's sexuality.
Some of his comedy is extremely dated. Some of it really doesn't stand the test of time. But some of it feels like the jokes gay friends make to each other around the table at the end of a house party. It wasn't gay in a polished and digestible way, it was gay in a crude and very REAL way.
(I have a short compilation of gay jokes I love here.)
As of the time of writing, I've been obsessed with this man for a little over a year. I've collected books, magazines, DVDs (I have 16 individual DVDs of his work), and even an LP he recorded in 1973 (one of the worst albums of recorded music I have ever heard, btw). I have written poetry about him, I'm in the middle of making a video essay about him, I have introduced countless people to this guy who has intrigued in a way no other celebrity, living or dead, ever has.
And so. I actually decided to make a post that answers, at a little bit, the question above. Now you hopefully know a little bit about who the fuck Graham Kennedy was, and why the fuck I care so much.
^ If you read this whole thing I'm doing this to you
With all this talk about an animated production being released in theaters by a small rising company very unlike the big media corporations... Let me make a proper introduction to the "Jim Queen" movie.
I already shared before a trailer of it without any context. You might have heard more about it recently because it was one of the midnight screenings of the Cannes Festival.
"Jim Queen", of its full name "Jim Queen and the quest for the Chloroqueer", is a gay satire-comedy cartoon produced by Bobbypills (in fact they are proud to present it as their first movie). They are known for various works such as "Peepoodo" or "Vermin", though I don't know much about them... But I DO know about THE work that boosted their fame in the first place: "Les Kassos" (which I think got an English translation at one point, as "The Wakos"? or maybe "The Dorks"?). An irreverent, very dark, very goofy and funny adult cartoon about the famous characters of children's media and entertainment become "social cases" as they passed their prime, and turning into grotesque caricatures of themselves. Lot of sex, lot of swears and lot of blood occurs as they all come in the office of the same tired social agent. Think a bit of it as a French spiritual successor to "Meet the Feebles" (though the Wikipedia page rather invites people to compare it to "Robot Chicken").
But back to Jim Queen: it shall get official theater screenings around mid June. It had an online funding in association with to ACT (Against Conversion Therapy) - though I heard some people say the funding campaign actually couldn't be completed despite the movie going out, so either they found the money elsewhere either they completed the cartoon with lower quality than what they intended? But you're not here to hear about money problem - you're here to see HUGE SEXY GAY MEN.
The story follows two protagonists. Jim Perfect, the most famous gay influencer of all of Paris, and Lucien, his twink self-proclaimed "number one follower". The two of them are forced into a quest for the mysterious remedy known as the "chloroqueer" (yes it is a chloroquine joke) when a mysterious epidemy spreads around queer people - the Heterosis, which turns homosexuals into heteros. And Jim just learned he contracted it - meaning soon he shall lose his fashion sense, his perfect-body obsession and his enjoyment of prostate-orgasm, in short everything that makes his identity. [Some clickbaity article made the plot sound very VERY different by just summing it up as "A gay influencer faces a virus" and stopped there]. In fact this is how Lucien will go from his first to his very last follower as his heterosexuality makes him lose everything and only Lucien is willing to remain by his side, even if he becomes... *shivers* an heterosexual.
The movie presents itself as dedicated to the Parisian queer scene, and the adventures of the duo will take them through caricatural versions of some of the "most famous landmarks of the gay community" in Paris, according to what was promised on the funding page. One of the two main creators of the movie, Marco Nguyen, also proudly claims he is the co-creator of the "MercrediX" and "VendrediX", the "hottest gay afterworks of Paris" which... I'll have to trust his word onto, I haven't been in Paris in a WHILE. At least in this part of Paris. Last time I went there it was to go in a bookshop-spree and I almost got hit by bikes four times in a row - and only twice was I actually near a road. Parisian bike-riders are the most dangerous bike-riders of France, let me tell you that. Foutus vélos parisiens va... Enfin bref.
So this was their project: to create, in their own words, a "politically incorrect, irreverent comedy for all to gather around, heteros or LGBTQIA+" which shall reveal "all what the gay people live through and that nobody dares to tell". (Have I mentionned that one scene included some BDSM-elderly-Nazi-styled guy locking up someone in an Iron Maiden with dildos instead of spikes? And that the bears in this movie are ACTUAL humanoid bears?).
They also managed to bring on the cast Elisabeth Wiener, who is quite a famous voice actor in France for doing the roles of Cruella, Yzma or Winifred Sanderson. She plays Lucien's mother, an homophobic health minister who is the main reason Lucien stays in the closet and is basically an awkward "first-time gay"... (A thinly-veiled caricature of Christine Boutin). La Briochée is also part of the cast, this drag queen that you might know for being the French voice of Angel Dust. And there's also Philippe Katerine who you might (unfortunately) know from that one Olympic Games performance... (Before he was more better known for his song "Louxor j'adore") - he plays *puts on glasses*... Lucien's prostate. No that's not a type, Lucien actually has a scene during which his prostate appears to him in a divine vision. It is that type of movie.
Their funding page included quite interesting bonuses specifically for animation fans - as in, traditional animation fans, because while computers and tablets replaced a lot of the paper-work, they offered to recreate animatons cellulos based on the animation files so people could have them for supporting the movie, with a certificate of authenticity.
Of course I can't say any more given the movie is not yet released to the public and I was not at the Cannes festival... But as I said before, it has been announced as THE gay comedy of France this year, so we shall see!
Made “Transaction” (2025) fanart based on the “DOWN BOY!!” “Arf!” meme lol
Here we have the characters Liv (played by Jordan Gray) and Tom (played by Thomas Gray, no actual relation to Jordan Gray ofc lol) in the style of that one Archie comic panel, in which Liv (left) and Tom (right) are in place of Veronica and Archie
I really love Liv and Tom’s dynamic in the show, and this meme really spoke to me lowkey and it reminded me of their dynamic frfr, so thought I’d give it a go and do a redraw of the meme lol :P
Enjoy!
(Seriously, please watch this show, it’s very good and absolutely hilarious and fun and super underrated, and if you’re looking for more queer & trans comedy created by queer & trans people, then I deffo recommend “Transaction” frfr!!!)
Directors & Writers: Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese
Mini-review:
It's not every day that I come across a film as original as this. Not all of its ideas gel together well, but its unabashedly queer spirit makes for an infectious experience. The colorful animation suits the story like a glove, even with the obvious budget constraints, and the music is a delight as well. I particularly enjoyed the details in the background art, like the jokes and Easter eggs hidden in signs and such. Like I said, some of its ideas are kind of heavy-handed, but the setting more than makes up for that. Like, I can't really think of a movie that's even remotely similar to this one in that regard. Anyway, Lesbian Space Princess serves up a hilarious sapphic space adventure that's filled to the brim with creativity.
