I am the Goldilocks of crying. I’ve had phases where I do it too much and phases where I do it too little, but for now I’ve evened out. It’s pretty predictable. Overwhelm, sorrow, joy, wedding episodes. But I was *not* prepared to burst into tears in the first ten seconds of a video of the song “The World Will Know” from the 1992 classic Newsies. Newsies, if you are unlucky enough to not yet know its joys, is a movie musical based on the 1899 newsboys strike. It stars an 18-year-old Christian Bale, who can neither sing nor dance. If you are of a certain age, you likely saw it on one of those giant TV carts teachers would roll into class when they were hungover. It is not very good.
A root is a piece of media you were obsessed with as a kid that, in retrospect, makes it humiliatingly clear the exact ways that you’re queer. The most common one I’ve heard is queer women&c re-re-re-watching Matilda for the glory of Miss Honey. Upon recent research (multiple group chats, Twitter) I’ve discovered that Newsies is a relatively common root for transmascs. It makes sense. It’s about short boys with uncracked voices taking on the establishment. They are performing masculinity poorly— they sing! they dance!— but are unquestionably part of a brotherhood.
I usually think of The Empress as someone or something who’s committing the act of creation. I think of agency and joy and disconnect, of what it means to bring something into the world and for that thing to no longer be yours. But after my surprise cry, I’ve been wondering about the experience of being created. I’m not asking what makes us queer, because it’s incredibly complicated and also I don’t care. But I wonder what makes us queer in the exact ways that we’re queer.
We saw ourselves in our roots, a pull that we could follow but not yet name. But while we couldn’t name the pull, we could name the media. “I am obsessed with Newsies” is a much easier thing to recognize than “perhaps maybe I am a boy.” The Empress both creates us and offers us the tools of creation, giving us the desire and something that allow us to recognize it. I’m imagining The Empress behind a switchboard, connecting us all to the things that we need with a million lightning-swift hands. I’m also imagining that they enjoy this. They’re giving us a gift. More life for us to build. More self.
I am missing a Newsies watch party tonight because of my shabbat practices. I am hosting a different one tomorrow night. (Shout out to Gina at Incandescent Tarot for reminding me of Newsies and starting a chain reaction.) I have no idea what I’ll think of it as an adult, besides that I suspect I will think that the journalist is hella hot. But I do know I’m going in on the prowl, searching for the ways that Newsies gave me the chance to be my own Empress. Also, with a box of tissues, and a clear floor for dancing.
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Okay, now it’s time to play my favorite game: drop your roots in the comments. My biggest three non-Newsies roots are Were The World Mind, bare: a pop opera, and Spring Awakening (links are to the songs and bootlegs I watched the most) (send help).
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This. is. amazing. I am slightly older than you (I think?) so encountered Newsies organically and then just about every day for about two or three years of my preteens—I was BEYOND obsessed with it, as were a few of my friends. I dug it purely because the singing dancing boys were dreamy; finding out that it was important to some transmascs out there as well gives me a whole new affection for it. Now I'm going to have to set up my own watch party! <3