Hello and welcome to Queer as Fact, the podcast bringing you queer history from around the world

and throughout time. I'm Alice. I'm Irene. And I'm Jason. And today we're talking about the

blues performer Mar Rainey and the recent Netflix film Mar Rainey's Black Bottom.

We have some content warnings before we begin this episode. This episode will include

discussions of historical and present day racism and also discussions of murder. If any of that

sounds like something you don't want to listen to, feel free to skip this episode and check out any

of our other content. So this episode, as I mentioned, is going to be about both Maraney as a historical

individual and also the recent film which has just come out, Marany's Black Bottom. I haven't structured So this episode, as I mentioned, is going to be about both Mar Rainey as a historical individual

and also the recent film, which has just come out, Mar Rainey's Black Bottom.

I haven't structured this episode to be a biography and then a discussion of the movie.

We're just kind of going to talk about it as it comes up.

So with that in mind, I want to start off with a brief introduction to the film and its background.

So we have some background when we're talking about it. Mar Rainey's Black Bottom premiered last month, so November 2020, in some cinemas, and on

the 18th of December on Netflix.

The film stars Viola Davis as Mar Rainey, and it's also the last film made starring Black

Panther star Chadwick Boseman before he passed away earlier this year.

Mar Rainey's Black Bottom is directed by African American director George C. Wolf.

He has directed films in the past, but he's primarily best known as a theatre director.

So he's won a Tony in 1993 as the director of Angels in America, a queer play about AIDS,

if you don't know Angels in America.

So this background fits nicely with him as director of Marani's Black Bottom,

since the film is an adaptation of a play of the same name written by African American playwright August Wilson.

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