For this Satisfaction Month at ToughPigs, we’re elevating cash for charity and freely giving some tremendous cool prizes within the process. However whereas we’re having fun with Satisfaction Month, we’re reminding you once more that homosexual, transgender and nonbinary individuals are simply folks in your neighborhood like everybody else. We’re not evil or bizarre, and even new, regardless of what lots of people need you to suppose. We’ve all the time been right here, dwelling our lives, hanging out with our buddies, and generally, making the artwork you’re keen on.
Working example: The Jim Henson Firm and Disney have labored with quite a few trans and nonbinary puppeteers, performers, and creatives through the years. They’re part of reveals you take pleasure in, like Muppets Mayhem and Again to the Rock. Each Satisfaction Month, I attain out to a few of them and have wonderful conversations with a number of the most real, passionate artists I’ve ever spoken to. Beneath, I’m going to profile one in every of them and share some tales.
Charley Feldman (they/them)
Henson Initiatives: Fraggle Rock: Again to the Rock, Harriet the Spy
Introduction:
Final 12 months, when Fraggle Rock: Again to the Rock premiered its second season, I used to be obsessive about the present’s greatest (and queerest!) episode, “I’m Pogey.” For individuals who don’t know, this episode is about Wembley Fraggle studying that he can categorical himself in many alternative methods, with assist from the nonbinary Fraggle Pogey and a magical drag queen-esque monster named The Nice Glitterini. As quickly as I watched it, I knew I needed to speak to that episode’s author, Charley Feldman. It took some time for our schedules to line up, as you possibly can see, however I’m so glad I lastly did get to speak to Charley Feldman.
Charley is a nonbinary, pansexual TV author. Along with engaged on each seasons of Again to the Rock and The Jim Henson Firm’s animated Harriet the Spy present, they wrote for The Owl Home and each wrote for and have been a supervising producer on X-Males ’97.
Clearly, I largely talked to Charley about their id and “I’m Pogey,” however they’d plenty of tales to inform.
Attending to the Rock:
Charley has been writing for various tasks for over a decade. They labored on numerous YouTube reveals, together with Machinima and Display Junkies, then developed their very own manufacturing firm known as CREATURE. CREATURE’s identify later grew to become Chickbait, a pun that Charley admits made extra sense earlier than they transitioned. After 9 years within the digital sphere, Charley realized their actual dream was to write down for TV and flicks. They wrote an animated pilot that didn’t get picked up, however did get sufficient consideration to land Charley a writing gig on Season Certainly one of The Owl Home. Since then, they’ve been “booked and busy ever since.” Whereas they didn’t listing each venture they labored on on this period, they famous Journey Time: Distant Lands as one other favourite.
As a baby, Charley was an enormous fan of Labyrinth. They mentioned it was “the one factor I wished to lease from Blockbuster. It’s an escape. It’s that feeling of chance and creativeness that Henson actually wished to faucet into.” So it comes as no shock to study that Charley was excited to affix the Jim Henson Firm in 2019, after they started writing for the animated Harriet the Spy. There, they met and labored with Halle Stanford, the President of Tv with the Jim Henson Firm. When Henson was planning the reboot of Fraggle Rock, Halle instructed showrunners Matt Fusfeld and Alex Cuthbertson that they needed to attain out to Charley. Charley has been working with the Fraggles since then.
Becoming in on Again to the Rock:
I can’t stress sufficient how glad Charley was every time they talked about Again to the Rock. They mentioned it felt like a homecoming, a bizarre alchemy of foolish weirdos from all completely different genres of writing. “I hate to be so smug about it,” they mentioned, “however we had the most effective workforce for the work. We had delicate, actually honest folks. They have been supportive, bolstering one another’s concepts. It reminded us of Fraggle Rock itself; we laughed till our face harm.” Jocelyn Stevenson, a author from each the unique Fraggle Rock and Again to the Rock mentioned it was “silly,” however Charley added that “from her, that’s a great factor.”
Charley famous that each episode was written extraordinarily collaboratively. In Season One, this was just a little harder, seeing as many of the work befell over Zoom. Nonetheless, Season Two started with a writers’ retreat, the place the workforce mentioned concepts that them. Lots of the writers have been queer, and so there was plenty of curiosity in exploring LGBTQ+ themes. Due to the constructive reception of Season One’s “The Glow,” an episode the place Boober’s glowing baloobius serves as a metaphor for queerness, the workforce determined to maneuver ahead with one other episode that handled these themes.
Creating “I’m Pogey”
Charley instructed me that earlier than Season One even started filming, the writers considered Pogey as a nonbinary character, and wished to make use of they/them pronouns for the character. So when brainstorming started for the second season, folks started asking Charley in the event that they wished to speak about this an episode.
Charley’s first objective was to make this vital matter really feel “Fraggley.” Their objective was to write down one thing the place, if youngsters knew this sense, they’d perceive it fully, however their writing wanted to be a lot broader than simply speaking about nonbinary identities.
“Individuals suppose we include an agenda of constructing extra folks queer, however all of us can say we simply need youngsters who’re already queer to know they’re liked and seen and part of a neighborhood like Fraggle Rock,” Charley defined.
This was all crucial to them, and so for this episode, Charley was round for the complete course of to verify it was executed accurately. Charley summarizes the episode’s message merely: “It’s the great a part of saying you’re not particular. We are able to all hear your fact.”
Charley and Wembley
Early on, the writers mentioned whether or not the episode ought to solely be about Pogey. However the workforce felt that, since Pogey was a less-established character, it felt much less impactful to heart the episode solely round them. The episode wanted to discover one of many core forged. Provided that, the writers felt Wembley was the apparent selection. Charley stresses that like Wembley, plenty of trans folks get accused of being indecisive about who they’re. However Charley feels that gender isn’t as easy of that. “I’m a proponent of seeing all of gender as one thing that serves you or it doesn’t,” they defined. “Some folks want a extra concrete factor, and a few individuals are simply passing by. And isn’t {that a} great factor? And to Glitterini, if that sparkles for you, then it suits you. But when it doesn’t, then a minimum of you tried.”
Charley likened Wembley’s moments of self-doubt and self-hatred to the “crucible” that every one queer folks need to undergo earlier than they discover themselves. Charley admitted that they nonetheless really feel Wembley’s doubts plenty of the time, as a result of they current femininely regardless of being nonbinary. That mentality went into the design of Glitterini, who first seems as a smaller, drabber monster earlier than he reveals his glittering kind. “It doesn’t matter if folks see you as nonbinary,” they defined. “It’s what’s inside that counts.” All in all, writing “I’m Pogey” was extraordinarily cathartic for them.
Pogey’s performer, Kanja Chen, was very anxious about portraying a nonbinary character, as they’re cisgender. Kanja was not conscious Pogey was nonbinary when he began performing the character within the first season, even when the writers thought of them to be. Regardless of Kanja’s worries, Charley felt he was capable of convey plenty of pathos to the efficiency. Likewise, Charley was happy with the character of Glitterini, even when they initially insisted glitter was too generic of a theme for him. (“Johnny [Tartaglia] fought for it,” they mentioned, of the present’s government producer.) Charley’s one insistence was that, if they’d to make use of glitter, Lanford the plant ought to barf it up in some unspecified time in the future. That continues to be within the completed episode.
To wrap up our dialog about “I’m Pogey,” I needed to ask Charley concerning the Junior Gorg B-plot, the place Junior can not select which Gorg field to enter on Gorg Boxing Day. The ToughPigs workforce had combined emotions about this subplot, so I wished to understand how they felt about it.
Charley defined that story was written for Season One’s “Flight of the Flutterflies,” one other episode they wrote. That episode mattered lots to Charley, who has a generalized anxiousness dysfunction and associated to Boober’s plight. As a result of that episode was about holidays, Charley wished to incorporate a Gorg vacation, and determined to make it Boxing Day in reference to the present’s Canadian filming location. The workforce preferred this plot, however it didn’t match into the episode, so the introduced it again for “I’m Pogey” however rewrote it to be about binaries. Charley preferred that the packing containers have been a pleasant, easy technique to clarify the gender binary to younger folks.
Queerness and Fraggles
I requested Charley how their queer id impacts all of the work they do. “It’s simply a lot part of me that I’m positive it comes out in methods I don’t even acknowledge,” they mentioned. “Even earlier than it will get to writing, folks want me to affix a employees, and I attempt to current myself as authentically as I can. You’re hiring somebody who’s nonbinary, who’s happy with their queerness. It’s not one thing I overtly champion if it doesn’t make sense for the story, as a result of story is my prime concern. But when there’s a spot for it, I genuinely need to embrace it, as a result of I believe inclusivity issues.”
Charley notes that puppetry and cartoons are inclined to resonate with queer folks due to concepts that stem from these media’s inherent sense of play. “When you perceive that the world is absurd–and I imply that very particularly and never in a nihilistic approach–then you possibly can take it as it’s and understand that you would be able to be something. There’s a freedom to understanding that the principles don’t matter, and these methods and labels and methods through which we’re making an attempt to restrict ourselves to suit a mildew is absurd. We’ve all agreed to it, and why?” They defined that this mindset lets folks discover their neighborhood, the present they need to be part of, likening being queer to being part of The Muppet Theater.
And lastly, I requested Charley if they’d a remaining message for our readers. They mentioned, “To my beloved queer neighborhood: Let’s put aside the worry for a second (reliable as it’s) to place the ‘foolish’ in ‘Foolish Creatures’ this Satisfaction. Dance gained’t take our cares away ceaselessly, however it has all the time been a rattling good place to start out!
“To our a lot wanted allies: if anybody trusts you sufficient to share with you who they’re or what they’re discovering about themselves, repeat after Gobo: EVERY NEW THING I LEARN ABOUT YOU MAKES ME LOVE YOU EVEN MORE!”
Click on right here to place the “foolish” in Foolish Creatures on the ToughPigs Discord!
by Becca Petunia
