TERRIFIC CITY is a podcast on the city and screen life of 1970s America, by journalist and author Melissa Gira Grant and filmmaker Cheyenne Picardo. It is made in New York City.
Melissa Gira Grant & Cheyenne Picardo
On this episode no mourning for Ruby / "When someone shows you who they are, believe them" / #SayHerName / making Candy complicit in the disposability of other sex workers / "the tricks of the trade" / despondently eating a slice of pie / Deep Throat as letdown / "representation" is a cop-out / listener mail from Matthew / Shine Louise Houston / 70s porno chic vs 90s porno chic / Serpico / extra: Franco's porn thing / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode The mob's landlords / Mayor Lindsay recruits Archie Bunker / Election Year vice crackdowns / the Public Morals Taskforce / Fantasia & "now the pimps wear blue uniforms" / stealing sex workers' dresses for slumming / "the whore who wants saving" / "the police are too busy being pimps to be art critics" / The Boys in the Sand / the whitening of the sex industry / Jeremiah Moss and wanting to be where things happen – in Times Square / "the innards of these places... they felt so exposed" / "to have empathy for spaces" / Flaming Creatures / the Fortas Film Festival / watch Serpico / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode Crackdown season's here / everyone's on the take / obscene courtroom boredom / porn defies definition / into the parlors and off the streets / "not really in the holiday spirit" / a weak Mob / a good soldier / inventing the private porn viewing booth / the Velvet Underground is always on somewhere / Behind the Green Door / Lynch, Kubrick, and the Mitchell Brothers / the WPA of porn / so Northern California / watch Flaming Creatures / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode: Theatre raids / proto-disco, all genders, all the time / a safe space, an outlaw space / OT / time-and-a-half at the massage parlor / "white savior Barbie" / Johnny and the rentboys / The Gaiety / The Haymarket / 8 shows for 8 dollars / bodacious ta-ta's / "when you think of it connected to Lauren Bacall" / The Boys in the Band / "a goddamn laugh riot" / "The Gay Bar," Maude / "Archie Bunker in an ascot" / watch Behind the Green Door / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode A very special gay episode / more temporal hubris / Jean Naté / "What did you use in Vietnam?" / an anti-porn PR gambit / Ebert on Deep Throat / Channel J / soul porn, Ella Baker, Huey Newton / before The Deuce: "Hustling" / loitering with intent / johnalism: of editors & ethics / watch The Boys in the Band and "The Gay Bar" / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode You're nobody, Dean Martin / "Hippies vs Hardhats" / Abbie Hoffman is not a bitch / "Lindsay's a Red!" and "the city needs to look good behind him" / getting paid to watch Mildred Pierce / the porn director with no film in his camera / "one loop and A Star Is Born" / “Today New York's grimiest is being replaced by New York's finest" / white girl innocence / the city as America's bad boyfriend / "I got something fine for New York's finest!" / watch "Hustling" / call us! / become a patron / so long
On this episode Does David Simon not fully understand his own show / Communism? / we called the shag / Edison and one-man peep shows / porn with a soup can of art / pandering feminist catchphrases / goodbye Village Voice / Siberia / the Times Square Redevelopment Corporation / "the crossroads of nowhere" / "loitering with intent to Elmo" / lost little rich girls / unpaid police companionship / watch Fort Apache, The Bronx / call us! / so long
On this episode "Nixon is pimp" / What year is it? 1971 / Darlene's tour of the SRO / Candy does some bookkeeping / Franco's Death Wish / Critics agree: "sex work is work" / Ellsberg, paranoia, and the plumbers / the Watergate years of porn / KLUTE, and Bree Daniels as everywoman / One of the two schools of police reform thought: "The Mod Squad" / the other isn't "Barney Miller" but you should watch it / call us! / so long
Featuring Our origin story / Why cities, why film and television, why the 1970s / "The Deuce" (inspired by but not limited to) / When the New York Times ran a front page story about there being no prostitution arrests on one day in 1971 / A preview of "The Deuce" through the eyes of the television press / "Brown bagginess" / Not preachy, not porn / an interview with podcaster and author Tina Horn about media representations of sex work, feminism, and pornography / watch "Klute" / so long
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