JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Ira Madison III's new memoir practically explodes with pop culture references, from the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers"...
(SOUNDBITE OF RON WASSERMAN SONG, "GO GO POWER RANGERS")
SUMMERS: ...To Lil' Kim.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIG MOMMA THANG")
LIL' KIM: (Singing) You got it goin' on, what-what?
SUMMERS: When we talked about his memoir - it's called "Pure Innocent Fun," and we'll get back to that title later - he told me, as one of the very few Black kids at his high school, he retreated into pop culture.
IRA MADISON III: Music, TV, at the mall every weekend, watching sometimes multiple movies in a day - that's sort of where my pop culture knowledge all comes from.
SUMMERS: At the top of Madison's list is "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," the TV show from 1997.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER")
SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR: (As Buffy Summers) It's my first day. I was afraid that I was going to be behind in all my classes, that I wouldn't make any friends, that I would have last month's hair. I didn't think there'd be vampires on campus.
SUMMERS: For young queer kids, he explains, it was more than just a story about a ditzy blonde teenager hunting vampires.
MADISON: Well, I think the main thing about Buffy is that she is this unassuming girl. I think that Joss Whedon first described it as, you know, you see a blonde girl walking down a dark alley. In any other horror movie, you think that she's about to die. And in "Buffy," she can take care of herself. What I really love about the show, too, is, you know, through her friends, Xander and Willow and then later Cordelia and Oz and, you know, her watcher, Giles, you have this group of people who sort of band together, and they have a secret amongst themselves. You know, they have, like, a secret club they're a part of. And no matter what other people think about them, who, you know, might perceive them in some way in school, they're saving the world every night, you know? And I think that, maybe for queer people watching that show, sort of gave you a sense of worth, you know? It taught you that you are not necessarily what people see you as.
SUMMERS: I want to stay with this for a minute because, as a gay man growing up, you had to come to terms with your own desires in secret, how there weren't a lot of active role models for you to see of men being comfortable being out there loving other men, though you do talk about an uncle that has since passed. It just sounds to me like that is an experience that's relatable for so many people, even today.
MADISON: Yes, I mention in the book at one point a coworker at Borders bookstore in Chicago, who was an out gay man, who, like, loved Mariah Carey. He was a lamb and introduced me to loving Mariah Carey more than I already did. I think that that was one of those first people that just made me feel comfortable in my own skin, made me feel like I could speak the way I wanted to speak. I didn't have to code switch. I didn't have to watch my mannerisms around him. And I think that that was incredibly helpful to me as a college student in Chicago, and I didn't experience that until freshman year of college, you know?
SUMMERS: It's not until that point when you're in college that you start really coming out to close friends, as you describe in the book. And something that stuck with me, as you said, that even though you were coming out and taking this big step and starting to open up to some of your friends, that it still felt like a cliff. It still felt like the end of your world. Can you tell us why?
MADISON: I think that once you are coming out to people who you are close to, there's this thing that I feel like people, particularly my millennial age group, thought that college is where everything sort of changes, you know? Like, if you just get to college, then you can come out freshman year. You can be who you want to be. But when you do that, it's usually with your friends. It's usually with other people you might know on campus. And then you have to figure out when you're telling your family. You're figuring out when you're telling the world. You're figuring out what it's going to feel like when people look at you and can tell that you're gay.
SUMMERS: I want to talk a little bit about voice because I know that many people who are hearing our conversation likely know you for your work on the podcast "Keep It," that pop culture podcast that you host. And I found - because of that, I found it really interesting hearing you reflect on your relationship with your own voice. I know that you wrote about when you were younger, thinking that your voice was a high-pitched gay voice, and, like, what it signaled to people about you when people heard you speak. You also talked about how sometimes your voice read as white, which is certainly something that I've had people say to me. Can you just talk a little bit more about that, and what it felt like all those years ago?
MADISON: I mean, speaking voices give you a lot of hang-ups, don't they (laughter)?
SUMMERS: Indeed.
MADISON: I feel like I have whiplash, you know, with my actual voice, you know? There's the period where I thought I sounded too white. There's the period where I thought when I answered the phone, you know, people would say, miss, thinking I was my mom. And I reflect on that in the book, wondering if it was because I was code-switching into the cheerful white voice that my mom would use on the phone when you're talking to bill collectors or something. And then later, I sort of hated my voice when I tried to sing, you know, in theater things at school. Then, doing the podcast, I remember specifically I could not listen to it for maybe the first year of it, at all.
SUMMERS: Interesting.
MADISON: I hated the sound of my voice. And I've gotten used to it now, but even then, I don't think people's voices sound to them what they sound like to other people. I was shocked whenever people would tell me that, you know, I sort of had, like, a deep voice, you know, like a Luther Vandross thing going on, so to speak, 'cause to me, it did not sound like that at all.
SUMMERS: It sounds like you've made peace with it, though. Maybe you and I can both commiserate over the fact that if you're in this industry long enough, that means you must, in fact, listen to your recorded voice back to you.
MADISON: You do, often. But thank God for people who transcribe interviews.
(LAUGHTER)
SUMMERS: You know, when we have these conversations, we often start by asking an author about the title of their book, but I wanted to end with this because it is derived by - from a quote by one of the queens of reality TV. I am a huge...
MADISON: NeNe Leakes.
SUMMERS: ..."Real Housewives Of Atlanta" fan. Yes. Your book is "Pure Innocent Fun." Tell us where you got the title from.
SUMMERS: So the title comes from the first season of "The Real Housewives Of Atlanta," where NeNe is - she's making fun of Kim Zolciak's singing, as she often did on that series. And then Kim gets mad at her. They have this fight. And during a confessional, NeNe is shocked that Kim would be upset with her, and she says, it's just unfortunate that people could change something that was just pure innocent fun into drama.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF ATLANTA")
NENE LEAKES: Unfortunate that people can change something that was just pure innocent fun into drama.
MADISON: One, that was a meme that I share all the time with my friends, and so it's a phrase that has always stuck with me. But when I was thinking about a title for the book, I was just thinking about the fact that, sure, nostalgia, it seems like pure innocent fun. You're looking back on your childhood. You're remembering things fondly. And then once you dig a little bit deeper, you see your anxieties, you see your fears, you see the traumas there. And I think that that reflects the process that everyone has of remembering anything from their past.
SUMMERS: Ira, thank you so much.
MADISON: Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: We've been speaking with Ira Madison III. His new collection of essays is "Pure Innocent Fun."
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