The Problematic Gaze

This week we kick off our Pride Month curation. OK, OK so we thought Pride Month was in July instead of June. Be we are taking ownership of our clanger and calling this 'Milking Pride Month'!!! We start by revisiting one of the most controversial LGBTQ+ films ever released:  The Killing of Sister George  (1968). Part psychological drama, part soap-industry satire, and part time capsule o...

Pour yourself a Gin and Tonic, grab the olives, and dust off your Demis Roussos LP', because this week we're stepping inside one of the most gloriously awkward evenings in British television history:  Abigail's Party . Originally broadcast as part of the BBC's  Play for Today  in 1977, Mike Leigh's masterpiece of social discomfort has become one of Britain's defining television dram...

Hello Gazers! We're recording this week's Gazette bright and early this week because the UK has once again transformed into a country completely unprepared for temperatures above "pleasant." If you hear the occasional background noise, blame the open windows—we're choosing fresh air over melting. With everyone reminiscing about the legendary summer of 1976, we decide to put nostalgia under the mic...

Click here to watch Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf on YouTube Hello Gazers! Pour yourself something strong because this week we're spending an evening with cinema's most gloriously dysfunctional couple: George and Martha in 1966's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Fresh from a faculty party, the pair invite younger couple Nick and Honey back for what should be a quiet nightcap. Instead, everyone emb...

Hello Gazers! This week we're recording remotely because Britain has once again entered its annual tradition of becoming completely incapable of coping with weather. As temperatures soar, we compare heatwave survival strategies, including tinfoil-covered windows, strategic fan placement, and the increasingly tempting idea of simply lying on a cold kitchen floor until September. The conversation qu...

Hello Gazers! This week we're heading back to 2006, a magical time when low-rise jeans were a public menace, reality television ruled the schedules, and everyone seemed to have very strong opinions about eyebrows. Our destination is the pilot episode of Ugly Betty, the comedy-drama that asked an important question: what happens when a genuinely decent person wanders into one of the worlds most rut...

Hello Gazers! In this week's Gazette we're checking in from the worlds of fitness, fandom, and television uncertainty as Dave embarks on a new health journey involving a gym membership, swimming, and the shocking revelation that exercise may actually be good for you. Whether his back agrees remains an ongoing investigation. Elsewhere, we discuss our recent Star Trek social media clips and uncover...

Hello Gazers! This week we're boldly going where we've occasionally gone before: into the wonderfully strange universe of Star Trek. Following a recommendation from listener Fiona, we beam aboard the final episode of the original series, 1969's Turnabout Intruder, a story featuring body-swapping technology, interstellar jealousy, and gender politics that have aged about as well as a pint of milk l...

Click here to listen to Dr Lee and Dave on the Everyone's A Little Queer Podcast Hello Gazers! This week’s Problematic Gazette begins in the traditional fashion: with unexpected background noise, minor technical chaos, and the startling discovery that we had somehow planned our Pride Month content for July!! After owning our spectacular scheduling error, we discuss why Pride still matters in 2025....

Click here to watch along to our YouTube Party Playlist featured in this episode! Hello Gazers! Break out the bunting, inflate the balloons, and check the expiry date on the party snacks — The Problematic Gaze has officially reached its second birthday and 100th episode of our main show! Broadcasting live from the grand ballroom of PG Manor (capacity: two hosts and a worrying number of themed play...

Hello Gazers! With our 100th main episode and second birthday approaching faster than Dave can buy unnecessary items in Soho, this week’s Problematic Gazette is a gloriously unedited soundcheck special from PG Manor. As bunting plans reach critical levels, we dive into Netflix’s three-part Kylie Minogue documentary, covering everything from her Neighbours beginnings and chart domination to health...

Hello Gazers! As a heatwave hits the UK, we're getting HOT HOT HOT! We conclude Sex Month by sliding dramatically across the interrogation-room floor into 1992’s Basic Instinct — a film containing ice picks, cigarette smoke, deeply suspicious therapy ethics, and more uncrossed legs than Brighton Pride! This week we unpack Paul Verhoeven’s gloriously trashy erotic thriller, from its Hitchcock and n...

We return from the luxurious broadcasting hubs of PG Towers and PG Manor to survive a British heatwave that has left us sweaty, confused, and emotionally fragile. Dr. Lee has a spiritual encounter with a dragonfly in the garden, while Dave nearly proposes marriage to a dishy car-wash attendant after a deeply awkward tipping incident. We revisit the national trauma caused by our Porky’s episode, di...

In this episode, we revisit  Porky’s  (1981), the hugely successful teen sex comedy set in 1954 Florida, to ask the important question: was this ever actually funny, and could it possibly be made today? Alongside the film, we take a trip through 1981 in our Culture Corner, covering everything from Charles and Diana’s wedding and the UK inner-city riots to the Scarman Report, the devastat...

We are back after a week away and apparently the world survived without our opinions on Eurovision, AI, and 1970s sex comedies — though only just. This week we answer listener letters, discuss Cilla Black’s fifty-seven emotional interpretations of “Alfie,”, defend Confessions of a Window Cleaner as the cinematic equivalent of finding chips on the floor and still eating them, and prepare emotionall...

In the second week of our Sex Season, we pull on our nylon overalls and climb the ladders of 1970s British cinema to revisit Confessions of a Window Cleaner — the cheeky box-office phenomenon that somehow became the biggest British hit of 1974. We unpack Timmy Lea’s endlessly episodic adventures in window cleaning, accidental voyeurism, and improbable seduction while asking: what exactly...

We kick off Sex Month on  The Problematic Gaze  by diving headfirst into Alfie, the swaggering, unsettling snapshot of 1960s masculinity that still raises eyebrows today. We explore how Michael Caine’s charismatic performance—paired with that infamous fourth-wall-breaking narration—pulls us into Alfie’s world, even as his misogyny and emotional detachment push us away. We unpac...

We record a live, unedited “Problematic Gazette” update from PG Manor while planning upcoming episodes that launch our “sex season,” starting with  Alfie  and continuing with films from later decades. We swap stories about accidentally overhearing loud sex through an open bungalow window, along with past experiences of disruptive noise in shared spaces. We also dive into what we’ve been...

For the first time ever, we visit 1991 on  The Problematic Gaze  to focus on class comedy caper Keeping Up Appearances. Hyacinth’s number is mistaken for a Chinese takeaway, she prepares for a church concert, Richard fears early retirement, Rose considers becoming a nun, and the farce culminates with Hyacinth fainting after discovering Rose and the vicar in a cupboard. We place the sitco...

In this episode of  The Gazette , we banter about a new haircut and Vin Diesel’s twin brother before one of us shares a story about accidentally "having tea and scones" with both members of an identical twin pair—who, thanks to different hair and facial hair, didn’t look identical at all. We get into how Sweet Transvestite has become a full-blown earworm, and talk through gener...

In this episode, we return—after a battle with some truly on-brand technical “gremlins”—to tackle The Rocky Horror Picture Show, separating the film from its 1973 stage origins and digging into what makes it endure. We share our own very different relationships with  Rocky Horror , unpack its production history, and explore how it evolved into a midnight-movie phenomenon with a fiercely...

We’re back in the  Problematic Gazette saddle — no plan, no structure, just vibes (and mild chaos). This week, we kick off by comparing ailments like it’s an Olympic sport: one of us is fresh off a greatest hits run of gastroenteritis, a colitis flare,  and  recent COVID (thriving!), while the other is living vicariously through a husband who’s just attended a very hush-hush celebri...

As we are taking a break from our regular scheduling this week, we're giving Gazer new and old a treat from the past. This was the episode that won us Best History Podcast at the 2025 Independent Podcast Awards. Normal service will resume next week with The Rocky Horror Picture Show! Greetings from PG Towers! Join social historian Dr Lee Arnott and TV Producer Dave Moor for a lighthearted look at...

This week on The Gazette, we kick things off with a cozy chat about UK gardening and wildlife—blue tits nesting in the eaves, wasps causing chaos, and the latest updates from our bee hotel—before diving into listener emails about our  Tootsie  episode, reactions to  America’s Next Top Model , and some  Star Trek  recommendations. We talk about nearing the end of a full&nbs...

In this episode of The Problematic Gaze  podcast we dive into the 1982 cross dressing classic  Tootsie , and we're thrilled to be joined by our Down Under correspondent, TV historian, host of TV Gold Podcas t, and former TV VJ Andrew Mercado! Andrew joins us in “Culture Corner,” where we unpack what 1982 looked like in both the US and Australia. We cover key cultural moments and trends—f...