816: Lez-ssentials Pretty Little Liars with John Arrow

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Welcome back to Lez Hang Out, the podcast where “two can keep a secret if one of them is dead”. 

This week, Leigh (@lshfoster) and Ellie (@elliebrigida) hang out with return guest and founder of TGI Femslash, John Arrow (@jarrow272), to talk about the 7 season teen mystery drama, Pretty Little Liars, for this Lez-ssentials episode, a recurring segment on the essential movies and TV shows in the lesbian canon. 

Come with us on a journey back to 2010, when television seasons were 26 episodes long and showrunners were just starting to figure out how to harness the power of social media to engage with fandoms in a big way. Pretty Little Liars itself does not age all that well in many ways, especially in the treatment of their one and only trans character; but back in the 2010s it was actually considered pretty progressive for having several queer characters and a lesbian showrunner. If you were queer or questioning in the early aughts you 1000% knew about Shay Mitchell as sporty lesbian Emily Fields who seemingly turned every woman within a 5 mile radius of her gay. If you are a lesbian of a certain age, Emily likely played a role in your own coming out journey too.

For those of you who were part of the #BooRadleyVanCullen (like Leigh), you may recall more of the social fandom experience than you do the plot. Before Twitter became the cesspool it is today, there were the golden days of weekly live tweeted episodes of PLL with the cast members, the showrunner and the writers. The extremely unhinged plot made it the perfect group-viewing show and we highly recommend that if you have never watched PLL, you watch with a friend or three. While we do talk about a lot of the major plot points, the whole series is just too convoluted for us to really spoil anything for you. Even hardcore fans like John find something new in each rewatch. 

At the end of the episode, stick around to hear our original song based on PLL, titled “A Liar”, written by Leigh Holmes Foster and produced by Ellie Brigida. Join us on Patreon at bit.ly/lezpatreon for instant access to mp3 downloads of all our original songs or find us on Bandcamp to purchase songs individually. 

Remember, you can give us your own answers to our Q & Gay on Instagram and follow along on Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and BlueSky @lezhangoutpod. Find your fav tol and smol hosts Ellie & Leigh at @elliebrigida and @lshfoster respectively.

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